A Gilded Planet

Chicken with Plums 2011.  93 minutes. France.  Directed by  Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi . Watchdate: 4/30/2012. Chicken with Plums is an entirely pleasant and mild movie that borders on being insufferably middle of the road. The absurdly cartoonish elements aren't particularly funny and the maudlin romantic moments aren't particularly moving, but there are a few scenes worthy of attention, particularly a long sequence that ends with some amusing opium-related comic business. I haven't seen Persepolis so I can't compare it to the filmmaker's previous work, though I don't feel like I'm in more of rush to see Persepolis  based on the style exhibited in this movie. Sometimes I want to excoriate these middling kinds of movies, but it seems ornery and ideological to do so. What's the point of generating hatred where none existed before?

California Forward, a non-partisan front group for sanctimonious centrists who think problems can be solved by anodyne nonsense and half-measures, has polluted the ballot in our state with a truly moronic proposition that would give large businesses the ability to elude environmental regulations by playing county governments against each other. While it purports to move power and authority down to the local level, it would have the effect of giving private business entities the power to rewrite California's laws as long as they can convince already beleaguered local governments to go along with them. I am a strong supporter of the principle of local control of decision-making. Every day, city governments all over the country enact great policies that federal and state governments are too sluggish and cowardly to touch. But often "bringing power back to local government" is code for "corporate privatization of laws and regulations", in the same sense that ...

Woodrow Eastwick, The Prophet of Peoria Hector Wentworth, The Wizard of Wichita Ray Pinchot, The Shaman of Shreveport Earl Norris, The Diviner of Duluth Spiro Fallon, The Telepath of Topeka Hamish Perlmutter, The Clairvoyant of Cleveland Hoover Framingham, The Nostradamus of Nashville Jeremiah Hubbard, The Buddha of Bloomington Neve Linklater, The Sage of Salt Lake City Thomas Mogenson, The Enchanter of Evansville Isaac Fairbanks, The Sorcerer of Springfield Adam Tertius, The Guru of Grand Rapids Victor Kerosene, The Mage of Missoula

At 9:01am, Barleycorn's is a church, a temple, a place of worship with mass three times per day, prayer in the direction of the Black Monolith five times per day, and a reading of the Sacred Scrolls of Wisdom by Rabbi Michael Lerner at least once per week. Barleycorn's is located with building that has a steeple, a bell tower, and two minarets, along with stalactites, stalagmites, and many other pseudo-natural wonders. At around 8pm (or just after sunset, whichever comes first), Barleycorn's closes down, the last prayer said, the last mass read. At 9:01pm, Barleycorn's reopens as an all-night diner. It serves hot pastrami, corned beef, roast beef au jus, meatloaf, chicken salad, tuna salad, potato salad, bacon, lettuce and tomato, meatball sub, macaroni and cheese, fried mozzarella sticks, grilled cheese, chicken soup for the soul, chicken parmesan, chicken cacciatore, chicken kiev, chicken fried steak, chinese chicken salad, bbq pork bun, cobb salad, taco salad, bre...

Lake of Fire 2006.  152 minutes. USA. Directed by Tony Kaye. Watchdate: 1/21/2012. On the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, I watched this frightening but insightful documentary about abortion that actually gives a fair consideration of the morality of the issue without resorting to the false equivalence of "evenhandedness" when examining the political aspects of the same. The pro-life movement is based on patriarchal authoritarianism and the radical parts of it are totally nuts and at times, extremely dangerous. The movie doesn't pull any punches about that reality. That being said, it does take seriously the philosophical questions that ask about what constitutes life, and the movie shows just enough footage of actual abortions to allow for a real discussion without becoming exploitative. Shot in stark black and white photography, there are a few shots that really stood out to me. It's definitely a thought provoking and worthwhile documentary. ...

...is not the United States presidential election. There, I said it. It's not that I don't think it's very important who wins the presidential election. It's very important who wins. For example, if Mitt Romney wins, it's likely his administration will eviscerate both Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, depriving tens of millions of the Americans of health care. That would be tragic. But the most important political story of 2012 is the growing wave of strike actions at Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the entire world. Wal-Mart is virulently anti-union and entirely non-unionized, meaning these actions are taking place largely outside the federal government's legal framework of labor conflict resolution governed by Wagner Act. This is huge. Wildcat strikes at the world's largest employers mean that labor organizing in the United States is far from dead, despite the many obituaries written for it by both conservatives and liberals. And if yo...

"I know picking words that don't sound terrible isn't Mitt Romney's strong suit, but..." - Erin Gloria Ryan During yesterday's presidential debate, Mitt Romney responded to a question about pay equity for women with an answer so tin-earred, it took my breath away: Thank you. And — important topic and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the — the chance to pull together a Cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, how come all the people for these jobs are — are all men? They said, well, these are the people that have the qualifications. And I said, well, gosh, can’t we — can’t we find some — some women that are also qualified?  And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can ...

If I held public office right now, this is the speech I would make over and over again. I would stand on every soapbox that would have me delivering this message. And I would probably be ignored or marginalized. "The official unemployment rate is nearly double what used to be considered normal just a few short years ago. And that official rate does not even include millions of underemployed and long term unemployed Americans. Years after the financial crisis, employment in this country is still deeply depressed. Not only does this mean untold hardship for millions of unemployed Americans and their families, but it is also causing permanent damage to our economy since long term unemployment damages the skills and earning power of workers forever. Given this stark reality, it is unconscionable that the leadership of this country is not doing everything in its power to end this jobs crisis now. "The saying goes that those who don't know their history are doomed to r...

The Dark Knight Rises 2012. 164 minutes. USA. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Watchdate: 7/20/2012. If The Dark Knight was The Godfather Part II of comic book movies, this movie is thankfully not The Godfather Part III of comic book movies (that dubious honor belongs to X3: X-Men United ). That may not be the kindest way to begin discussing this movie, but it feels honest to me. Leaving aside the tragic events that occurred in Colorado when the movie opened, I see a lot to like about The Dark Knight Rises but it is also clear to me that all of The Dark Knight's weaknesses are present with interest in this sequel - the hurried editing, the narrative overambition, the underdeveloped characters. However, the biggest problem is that these weaknesses are not excused by strengths nearly as formidable as those of its predecessor. Still, I will give the movie a considerable amount of credit for two of its overarching aspects. First, its sly determination to bring a dizzying co...

A few days ago on the way to work, I had a more visceral reaction to literature than I have ever had before. I am currently reading 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. The reaction was caused by a scene in which the scholars Pelletier and Espinoza (a twentieth century Bouvard and Pécuchet to be sure) attack a Pakistani cab driver in London over an insult. The cabbie had called the two of them pimps and their mutual ex-girlfriend a whore. As best as I can tell, this is actually a quite realistic depiction about how much senseless violence gets started in this world. How crude and how ridiculous. Before the attack happens at the very end of the scene, I had identified quite deeply with the jealousy that Pelletier and Espinoza felt due to the unraveling of their relationship with Liz Norton due to recent events in my own life. I identified even more with Pelletier and Espinoza's self-mockery of their own jealousy. But when the sequence took a turn for the bizarre with the cabbie's untowa...

Do the Right Thing 1989. 120 minutes. USA. Directed by Spike Lee. Watchdate: 8/26/2012. Like La Dolce Vita and In A Lonely Place , Do the Right Thing is one of the those movies that works well enough for most of its running time but then in the final thirty minutes or so launches stratospherically into being one of the most affecting, astonishingly brilliant movies ever. It may be worth praising the standout performances of Ossie Davis, Danny Aiello, and John Turturro, but this is a case where praising any one part of the movie won't suffice because the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. It's not about what the movie is, it's about how the movies grows to be. She's Gotta Have It and Mo Betta Blues went along way to convincing me that Spike Lee shares a lot of filmmaking vocabulary in common with Woody Allen. This movie began by confirming that assumption and ended by completely, utterly upsetting it. Lastly, the more erudite cineast...

The truth is not just inconvenient anymore. It's obvious. Whether it's extended droughts, historic heat waves, wildfires that burn hotter and longer than ever, or more frequent and intense hurricanes and tornadoes, you don't have to go to the Arctic in the summer (where a third of the sea ice is gone) to get that global warming is already having a dramatic affect on climatological conditions all over the world. As these photos from NASA's Extreme Weather Event Photo Contest demonstrate, global warming is going to be awesome. Photo Credit: Grant Petty Photo Credit: Jason Weingart Not in the "The Black Keys played an awesome show at the Warfield last night" way, but rather the "The shockwave sent out by the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and altered Earth forever must have been an awesome sight" way. Photo Credit: Meggan Wood Photo Credit: Brian Allen Keep in mind, the federal government currently has the ability to borrow ...