The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
- Tom Gregory: Gay America's Afternoon in The White House
- Laura Carlsen: Honduran Coup Turns Violent, Sanctions Imposed
- Rob Cohen: I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Final Week Recap: Redemption
- Francesca Biller-Safran: Jackson's Death means We're All Older Now and Need to Sober Up
- Paul Rieckhoff: Marine Finds Unlikely Reinforcements Online: Nerds
- William Bradley: Transformative: Le Cinema de Michael Bay
- Donnie Fowler: Sanford Takes Me to Sunday School Back Home
| Tom Gregory: Gay America's Afternoon in The White House | Top |
| Even with its bulletproof glass, handsomely clad guards, vibrant colors, master paintings, and lavish food and drink, my visit to The White House Monday left me dissatisfied. The Obama Administration assembled a group of two hundred or more of America's well-heeled leaders for equality, but like little doggies most were wide-eyed at his feet. Politicians work for us. If they do their job with good intention, they demand our respect. They deserve fervent applause when they are heroic. Today I expected to hear the explanations of a champion knocked off his path by a country in financial distress, but instead I heard platitudes, cracked promises, and disappointments- still the crowd cheered for more. President Obama would be well served to offer an emotional response to the discrimination and bigotry suffered by gay Americans. At Monday's address, the President renewed thin promises while asking for patience. There was no message indicating that homophobia is the problem, not homosexuals. Without an outward push from our President, the evangelical undertow will continue to pull America's common sense into the darkness. Church and state must stop sharing the same bed. I support President Obama in a race towards that end, surely then equal rights will follow. Today's address left me wanting. The pain experienced by homosexuals is deadly tragic. Annually, thousands of American children kill themselves due to the bigotry pervasive across America. In today's speech President Obama said gay America would be happy by the time his administration is over, if he doesn't stop offering excuses and empty promises, they will be. More on Barack Obama | |
| Laura Carlsen: Honduran Coup Turns Violent, Sanctions Imposed | Top |
| Thousands of Hondurans are now in the streets to protest the coup d'etat in their country. They have been met with tear gas, anti-riot rubber bullets, tanks firing water mixed with chemicals, and clubs. Police have moved in to break down barricades and soldiers used violence to push back protesters at the presidential residence, leaving an unknown number wounded. If the coup leaders were desperate when they decided to forcibly depose the elected president, they are even more desperate now. Stripped of its pretense of legality by universal repudiation and faced with a popular uprising, the coup has turned to more violent means. The scoreboard in the battle for Honduras shows the coup losing badly. It has not gained a single point in the international diplomatic arena, it has no serious legal points, and the Honduran people are mobilizing against it. As the military and coup leaders resort to brute force, they rack up even more points against them in human rights and common decency. Only one factor brought the coup to power and only one factor has enabled it to hold on for these few days--control of the armed forces. Now even that seems to be eroding. Cracks in Army Loyalty to the Coup? Reports are coming in that several battalions--specifically the Fourth and Tenth--have rebelled against coup leadership. Both Zelaya and his supporters have been very conscious that within the armed forces there are fractures. Instead of insulting the army, outside the heavily guarded presidential residence many protesters chant, "Soldiers, you are part of the people." Pres. Zelaya has been remarkably respectful in calling on the army to "correct its actions" It is likely the coup will continue to lose its grip on the army as intensifying mobilizations force it to confront its own people. International Community Imposes Sanctions In the diplomatic arena, it's not that the coup is losing its grip--it never even got a foothold. The meeting of the Central American Integration System in Managua Monday became a forum for pronouncements from one after another of the major diplomatic groups in the region. Latin America is a region where diplomatic recombinations have proliferated in recent years, so the alphabet soup of solidarity statements just keeps on growing. The Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA) issued a resolution , announcing the withdrawal of its ambassadors while continuing the member countries' international cooperation programs in Honduras. The group urged other nations to do the same--a growing list including Brazil and Mexico has already followed suit. The ALBA group cited the Honduran constitution, which states in Art. 3: "No-one owes obedience to a government that has usurped power or to those who assume functions or public posts by the force of arms or using means or procedures that rupture or deny what the Constitution and the laws establish. The verified acts by such authorities are null. The people have the right to recur to insurrection in defense of the constitutional order." Putting teeth behind the words has already begun. The Central American countries agreed to close off their land borders to all commerce with Honduras for the next 48 hours. The Central American Bank for Economic Integration has cut off all lending until the president is restored to power. It also called for sanctions in multilateral organizations: "We propose that exemplary sanctions be applied in all multilateral organizations and integration groups, to contribute to bringing about the immediate restitution of the constitutional order in Honduras, and to make good on the principle of action that Jose Marti taught us when he said: "If each one does his duty, no-one can overome us." The Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean nations also met in Managua and issued a statement condemning the coup and supporting Zelaya. Organization of American States Sec. General Jose Insulza was there too. President Zelaya received a standing ovation following his closing speech. The U.S. government has been unambiguous in its condemnation of the coup and support of President Zelaya. President Obama stated today, "We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there," He added,"It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections." After years of the Bush administration, when the commitment to democracy abroad was decided more on the basis of ideological affinities than democratic practice, some sectors have trouble accepting that the U.S. government is condemning the overthrow of a president who espouses left-wing causes. Note the obstinacy of reporters at today's State Department press conference : "QUESTION: So Ian, I'm sorry, just to confirm - so you're not calling it a coup, is that correct? Legally, you're not considering it a coup? MR. KELLY: Well, I think you all saw the OAS statement last night, which called it a coup d'état, and you heard what the Secretary just said..." (Clinton explicitly called it a coup). This discussion and another drawn-out discussion in which reporters attempted to open up a window of doubt over support for reinstatement of Zelaya went on quite a while. Ian Kelly, the Dept. spokesperson, held fast as reporters tried to equate supposed violations of law by Zelaya with a military coup in an fantasy 'everyone's-at-fault' scenario. Kelly reiterated that the coup is indeed an illegal coup and the only solution is return of the elected president. The "coup question" is more than semantics and has implications beyond conservative media's political agenda to justify the coup leaders. When a legal definition of coup is established, most U.S. aid to Honduras must be cut off. Here's the relevant part of the foreign operations bill: Sec. 7008. None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to titles III through VI of this Act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree. So far, the Obama administration has focused on diplomatic efforts and is waiting to see how long the Honduran stand-off will last before looking to specific sanctions. The probability that the coup's days are numbered make that a reasonable strategy for the time being. Attack on Freedom of Expression The military coup has also launched an all-out attack on freedom of expression in the country. Venezuela's Telesur reports that its team was detained and military personnel threatened to confiscate its video equipment if it continued to broadcast. The ALBA declaration notes the use of censorship as a tool of the coup, "This silence was meant to impose the dictatorship by closing the government channel and cutting off electricity, seeking to hide and justify the coup before the people and the international community, and demonstrating an attitude that recalls the worst era of dictatorships that we've suffered in the twentieth century in our continent." Grassroots organizations that support President Zelaya have faced an uphill battle against the media, which alternates between scaring people about the risk to keep them out of the streets and denying the existence of those who do go out. A message from Via Campesina Honduras warns people that information is controlled by the coup to hide opposition, cut off communications on many channels and only allowed information that favors them. They have now organized to open up contact with reporters throughout the world. An increasingly organized opposition, and independent media on the scene and on the net are breaking through the information blockade. A third source is Twitter . A major player in the Iranian uprising, Twitter has become the pulse of, if not the body politic, at least some bodies of that politic. All this means that the information black-out designed by the coup is riddled with points of light. It's still hard to get statistical information like crowd numbers or figures of killed and wounded, but Honduras is certainly not the isolated and insignificant "banana republic" it once was. The Return of the President Zelaya now leaves for New York City where he will speak before the General Assembly of the United Nations to further outpourings of support. In Managua, he announced that from there he will return, accompanied by Insulza, to Honduras. In an interview with CNN a coup leader said that Zelaya "can return to Honduras--as long as he leaves his presidency behind." The Honduran ambassador the the UN, Jorge Reina, said that although the coup leaders have asked to address the UN, "the UN does not recognize them... They have made a serious mistake, those who think that countries can be led through coups." "That history has past. | |
| Rob Cohen: I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Final Week Recap: Redemption | Top |
| It's finally over. After a final week of ridiculousness, Lou Diamond Philips was crowned king of the jungle. I'll admit, I was surprised it wasn't Sanjaya, but Lou really deserved it. I even logged on and went through NBC's laborious voting process to cast my ballot for him. I only voted once, instead of the maximum ten times, but still, I impressed (or, when I look back on this in the future, disappointed) myself by voting at all. The last few episodes had a ton to talk about, like Janice's crazy pleas to be allowed to come back into camp, Holly's re-inclusion and almost immediate departure, within the same episode, Stephen Baldwin quitting for absolutely no reason ("You should only be here if you want to be here?" WHAT?), Holly and Sanjaya's impotent love affair, The Biggest Loser cross-promotion, incessant product placement of Skype and (surprisingly) Colgate, and the meaningless jungle awards, but after four weeks, I don't have the energy to discuss any of it further. I'll just sum it up by saying that all the things I listed above had one thing in common: they were stupid. I think that's putting it about as simply as I can. The only thing that both excited and pleased me was the announcement of the winner. But what does it really mean that Lou won? It must mean that people were actually watching the show. It must mean that people actually cared about what they were watching. It must mean that people actually based their votes on what they saw. It must mean that, for all it's failings (dare I say it), the show actually worked. If people are invested in what's going on, thinking rationally about the players, and actively engaging themselves with the game by voting, isn't that the mark of a successful reality show? Not necessarily. If buzz doesn't translate to ratings, it's tough for a reality show to stick around, and I'm A Celebrity typically performed in third or fourth place among broadcast networks, often just barely beating out reruns of shows like House . I guess you can't ask for much during the summer months.. and perhaps asking us to watch four nights a week was too much. But would it really have performed better if it only aired once a week? Or did the nightly tradition actually hook people? I can't say I'm holding my breath for the answers. I'll be interested to see whether or not the ratings of this season warrant another season, but I can't say I'll be interested in actually watching the next season, because even though ratings are everything, if we must look critically at the show, I can't say I approve of their techniques. It had to be the most exploitative show I've seen on television, and often to no effect. Sometimes I wonder whether or not I would have continued watching if I hadn't been blogging... I don't have to wonder for very long. The only truly positive thing that happened on the show was the crowning of Lou Diamond Philips as king of the jungle. It was a moment of ever-so-slight redemption, one that may cause me to fondly remember those numerous absurd moments as merely "entertaining." And even that is probably (once again) giving the show too much credit. More on NBC | |
| Francesca Biller-Safran: Jackson's Death means We're All Older Now and Need to Sober Up | Top |
| The passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett has hit us near-baby boomers and full-on baby boomers with a rock and roll punch to the gut we weren't ready for. We were the generation who was going to live forever, immortalized with youthful hip-ness, and mastered knowing how to be laid back while simultaneously running corporations. We also coined the phrase "Never trust anyone over age thirty" while we will now do anything to look as young as 30. But what do we do know? Farrah Fawcett's death was hard enough to take. The wide-smiled blonde icon of the 1970's graced the walls of every adolescent boy's room in the Western hemisphere, making us all feel sexy, and that youth and beauty was ours for the taking . . . forever. But she passed away from cancer, was 62, and we were prepared, as much as we could be; although memories of her summery California looks and roles that ranged from a Charlie's bubbly angel to a beaten wife in the cult TV docudrama "The Burning Bed" are haunting me still. A couple hours later, CNN sent another breaking news email. I had thought another plane may have crashed, a tsunami killed thousands in some third-world country, or another suicide bombing had left hundreds dead. Sadly, what else may be new? But the one-line email reported that pop star Michael Jackson had been rushed to a hospital with cardiac arrest. A stream of weird and panicked emotions flooded my body as I first reacted by manically calling friends, my father and some who didn't care. Most of my thoughts then turned to how old he was--how could Michael Jackson die? How could the singer of "ABC" , "I'll Be There" and "Thriller" die? After all, I brought down the house at my own prom and parties with dance moves to his songs, with "Rock with You" the first disco song I accepted, and again . . . wasn't he really, really young? I tuned on the television and was hyped up and broken down at the same time. We all knew he had been in trouble for a long time. We knew he had a lot of mental and emotional issues, and watched him like some sort of sideshow freak as the news had portrayed him as 'Wacko Jacko' over the last few years. But I didn't see him this way. The tabloids always take the worst and make up the most vile of stories out of untruths, in order, they think, to help us feel our own lives are somehow better than the kings and queens of celebrity-hood, and to make money above all. When I thought of Jackson, I thought of the early 1980s when I was still a kid. I thought of his manic, genius, flawless dancing and moonwalk across the stage during award shows, and moves that even propelled the legendary Fred Astaire to compliment him on his grace, perfection and unique artistry. I thought of my own youth, when I was energetic beyond words, rowdy, excited and without a care in the world except having fun and being careless because I could. When Jackson was finally pronounced dead and the sound bites on cable news programs morphed into a long parade of surreal words and images that sobered me up, I knew it had to be drugs. I was too young to remember the deaths of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley. My god, Presley was only 42 when he died. I was too young to understand the significance of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. But I'm not too young to understand the tragic death of Jackson, and this means were not merely all getting older, but more jaded as well. My parents don't understand. They have been losing icons for twenty years. But Ed McMahon was 86, it was his time. As I reflect back on my adolescence and childhood which now escapes me like some sort of weird, untouchable narrative, I am truly grieving. This does not just mean my generation is truly feeling the ravages of age, loss and hard times that has even killed a young celebrity; it makes us feel we "somehow" have to close the door once and for all on the fantasy that we will are immortal and put our own childhoods, at least in most respects, laid to rest as well. The later eighties and nineties went by in a flash, with most of us building careers and families, buying homes, cars and keeping up with the Joneses. We are a generation that worked hard at being financially fulfilled at all costs, spent "quality time" with our own kids, something a lot of us didn't get with our own parents, and tried to keep that sweet adolescence of the 70's close to the hearth, as for some of us, these were the best time of our lives. As millions of boomers have now traded in their daily joints for prescription drugs, we also feel for Michael, as no one has been untouched by drug addiction, either street drugs or prescription medication, either personally or by family members and friends. We will all have our own way of grieving and celebrating. As a child of the seventies who remembers The Partridge Family, corduroy bell bottoms, Camero's, Fat Albert, Soul Train and American Bandstand on Saturday mornings, and now the death of 50-year-old Jackson, I have made a conscious choice to celebrate how grateful I am to grow up during that era, rather than only mourn its loss. But we must all seriously and honestly deal with this new epidemic of prescription drug abuse that has most likely contributed to Jackson's death, and has resulted in addictions and deaths in many forms and astronomical terms yet unforeseen for our generation and others. According to recent statistics, from 2001 to 2005, more than 32,000 people died because of prescription drug overdoses, more than heroin and cocaine combined, with numbers for the past few years expected much higher, and with addiction growing highest among teens and baby boomers. If there is anything to be gained, it is the hard lesson that we are all in danger of self medicating ourselves and self-destructing, and having that legacy be the one our children may remember most about us. And that is a bitter pill none of should be willing to swallow. More on Michael Jackson | |
| Paul Rieckhoff: Marine Finds Unlikely Reinforcements Online: Nerds | Top |
| John Hodgman was right. It’s the revenge of the nerds in America right now. These past few years we’ve seen self-proclaimed, highly-influential nerds using the power of online technology to play a huge role in driving public policy, political campaigns and organizing grassroots engagement. In the 2008 presidential campaign both McCain and Obama harnessed the power of new media to address voters, raise millions and rally their supporters. And just in the last two weeks, Twitter is revolutionizing the way protests are coordinated and communicated in Iran. But social networking isn’t just for electoral battles. It’s transforming the way communities organize for the public good. And now, nerds -- and I say that with the utmost respect -- are changing the lives of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. Case in point, Rey Leal , an Iraq veteran, found his community online and began his journey home from war: Rey served in Fallujah during some of the heaviest fighting, earning a Bronze Star with valor as a Private First Class, an almost unheard of accomplishment for a Marine of his rank. When he was discharged in February 2008, Rey looked forward to returning to Texas to begin a new chapter with his wife and infant son. Unfortunately, Rey’s transition home from combat was far from easy. He struggled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and spent months trying to deal with his symptoms, including severe depression and insomnia. His marriage at a breaking point, Rey sought treatment. Yet, instead of having resources at his fingertips, his closest VA hospital was over five hours away. And at his nearest outpatient clinic, there was just one psychologist, taking appointments only two days a week. It wasn’t until Rey saw IAVA’s “Alone” Public Service Announcement on TV that his transitional journey began. He decided to check out the website, CommunityofVeterans.org —a social network exclusively for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. The first of its kind, the website is the linchpin of a new national outreach campaign to ease the transition for vets returning home from combat. Immediately, Rey found a community on CommunityofVeterans.org . Thousands of other veterans were inside. For the first time since returning home, Rey started to feel like he wasn’t operating in a silo with unique issues, but could share them with his peers, many of whom were all tackling the same issues he was. According to Rey, "“I honestly didn’t find help until I learned of IAVA and Community of Veterans. This made me realize that I wasn’t alone in my struggle. I felt I could talk to these strangers about my problems on COV and for some reason they wouldn’t judge me. I knew they understood.”" Rey told his story to other veterans through IAVA’s social networking tools and yesterday, I shared his journey with a much wider audience -- again with a little help from technology. I was at the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF) in New York City to present IAVA’s groundbreaking new social networking site with Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark and Ning CEO Gina Bianchini . For those of you who don’t know, the PdF is the world's largest conference on technology and politics. Everyone from Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Ana Marie Cox have come together to explore how technology is transforming politics, democracy and society. But Communityofveterans.org isn’t just a tech phenomenon—it’s a movement that is literally saving lives. And for that, we have online technology (and countless nerds) to thank. Crossposted at IAVA.org More on Afghanistan | |
| William Bradley: Transformative: Le Cinema de Michael Bay | Top |
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen , one of the most critically reviled major films in recent memory, nearly caught The Dark Knight for the biggest five-day opening in history. I love the films of Michael Bay. In fact, they are so dramatic and compelling that ... Gotcha! I actually do not love the films of Michael Bay. I don't hate them, either. And there are a couple that I like. But the fact that it is considered preposterous for a writer -- a writer who writes about anything, even wallpaper -- to not dismiss Bay's work in the most vehement of terms points up a dramatic disconnect between the critical community and the movie-going audience. Bay's new flick, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen , just took in an astounding $200.1 million at the domestic box office in its first five days of release. That's less than $4 million under the five-day opening record set last year by The Dark Knight . Considering that Transformers 2 , I won't call it T2 , is one of the worst-reviewed films in recent memory while Dark Knight is one of the best, it's a remarkable situation. I saw the new Transformers over the weekend and, well, didn't think much of it. Not that I'm in the target demographic. After all, I have cowboy boots that are older than the two ostensible leads, young everyman-in-every-movie Shia LaBeouf and the preposterously sexy Megan Fox. But I generally like action movies and science fiction, and thought I might enjoy this movie more than the first Transformers picture, which I found moderately entertaining. Though there are lots more giant robots from outer space able to ingeniously disguise themselves as General Motors vehicles, and they all fight a lot, it didn't do much for me. But then, it seems I'm not into movies based on a globally-popular line of toys. It turns out that a huge number of people, many much older than you think, since these toys have been around for a quarter-century, are into just that. Transformers , based on a long-running line of toys, was a huge hit in 2007. I actually liked the first Transformers better than the new one, because it focused more on the human characters. But that was one of the main criticisms of it from fans, who wanted a lot more in the way of noble and evil transforming alien robots emoting, wisecracking, and fighting with one another. And so what was in the first movie a nice and quite predictable -- except for the transforming alien robots part -- movie about a smart, dweeby young guy getting both his first car and the girl of his dreams is now a movie about this nice young guy turning out to be the most important person in the universe, or what have you, a central figure in this eons-long, complicated mythology battle between good and bad robots after not one but two, I think, McGuffins. Aside from the Amos 'n Andy-like transformers, comic relief a la Jar Jar Binks of Star Wars prequel infamy, and the objectification of Megan Fox -- who doesn't do much besides languorous posing and some energetic running around in tight outfits (not exactly new in Hollywood) -- it doesn't seem like a huge threat to the republic. It is what it is. So, what is it? I've never met Michael Bay, but knew this movie was likely to be a phenomenon. So in the spring, I bought the DVD of the first Transformers -- which I've only seen one other time, in a theater -- and watched it with Bay's director's commentary track playing over the action. To see what I might have missed. It was quite interesting, almost as much for what he didn't talk about as what he did. The commentary was all about the military and the technology, a little on casting, nothing about writing, and an awful lot on the staging of gigantic set-pieces. Bay frequently comes off as cocky or defensive, mostly about his reputation, and sometimes both. At one point in the action, he says, a little sheepishly: "You know, when you watch this movie ... right here. You're actually rooting for a truck! Isn't that silly? But it works!" That may sum up his view of these movies. At another point, he says: "Sound is 50% of a movie." I'd say that what Bay has done is take the conventions of action moviemaking, not all of which are in every action movie -- fast pace, violent action, fascination with tech, car chases, humor, elevated macho factor, elevated babe factor, and the conceit of the ordinary -- pare them down to bare essentials, pour it into a petri dish, and then inject the concoction with steroids. The transformers-as-cool-vehicles is key to Bay's approach. Bay is very proud of his close association with the US military on his pictures, such as The Rock , Armageddon , Pearl Harbor , Transformers . He gets huge cooperation, in terms of hardware, personnel, and set design. Why? Because he makes them look good. He gets so much cooperation that he actually showed some still functioning Navy ships in Pearl Harbor . The first showings of the Osprey and the F-22 stealth fighter, both highly controversial aircraft, as it happens, came in Transformers. Bay works a lot of military motifs into his movies, with heavy Pentagon assistance. Bay talked a lot about the transformers toys, and learning the lore of the toys, and the comics and animated show that grew up around them, and traveling around the world to promote the movie and all its tie-ins. He also talked a lot about learning to sell things hard and fast in commercials. Most of his references are to other directors, producers, studio heads, technical people, and stunt men. A little on the actors. On casting LaBeouf, who was good in last year's Indiana Jones picture, as the sympathetic teenage protagonist and the inexperienced Fox as as the uber-babe and providing them with motivation, by daring LaBeouf and angering the shy Fox. (Neither a shocking technique.) But no mention of the writers until the very end of the commentary, then only in passing. Which is ironic, in that he's worked with the same writers -- Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who wrote the very well-reviewed Star Trek reboot -- on his last three movies. Not that they have much to complain about, as they and another writer reportedly made $8 million on the script for the new Transformers picture. In his commentary on the first movie, Bay delved not at all into the mythology of Transformers . His concept for the new movie, now exploding on screens? More robots, more fighting robots, bigger robots, more detail on robot faces. The second transformers picture has a big back story grafted on to his usual formula of fighting robots, explosions, hot babes, inspirational montages, and a stalwart, propulsive, simplistic musical score. If he's not into the mythology, why bother? Perhaps to make the movie seem bigger and more consequential to its audience. In fact, most of his movies are quite long. Which otherwise makes little sense, as he's pared down the other elements to such an extent. Let's take a look at those movies. Now, if you're only into art house movies or domestic dramas, you won't like anything the guy's ever done. You also won't like any of the movies I write about, which tend to be things that have some impact in the popular culture. 1995's action comedy hit Bad Boys was the first film Bay directed. 1995's action-comedy Bad Boys was the first feature film directed by Bay, a veteran commercials and music video director. Starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two wise-cracking Miami cops protecting a witness feistily played by Tea Leoni, the future Mrs. Fox Mulder and surely one of the most attractive women on the planet named after a beverage, it was good smartass fun and action. It set Bay up to direct some of the biggest movies of the next few years. The Rock starred Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage in 1996 and made Bay a top action movie director. In 1996, Bay directed The Rock , which I think of as his Bond picture. Sean Connery plays Bond. Bond, that is, with a slightly different name, who absconds with some of America's darkest secrets and is clandestinely imprisoned for 30 years after breaking out of Alcatraz, the famed old prison in the middle of San Francisco Bay known as "The Rock." Only to be brought out of supermax confinement when a disgruntled Marine general and his men steal nerve gas and rockets, take over Alcatraz Island, and threaten to kill everybody in San Francisco if the White House doesn't apologize for covering up the deaths of Americans on secret missions. Connery is brought out of the depths of the prison system to help a quirkily brilliant FBI chemist played by quirky Nicolas Cage and an ill-fatedly macho Navy Seal team to break into Alcatraz and stop the threat. It's clever, it's fun, it's preposterous but actually quite good. (I told you I like action movies.) There are a lot of character moments, clever dialogue (including Connery pricking the picture's balloon a bit by quoting Oscar Wilde's line that "Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious), and thundering if frequently over-wrought action. This is when Bay started getting military cooperation on his movies. A superior popcorn picture, though the babe factor is lower than his other movies, as women are relegated to the roles of Cage's worried fiancee and Connery's daughter-he-never-knew-he-had. From when he escaped from Alcatraz and met a girl at a Grateful Dead concert, or whatever ... Armageddon was a huge hit in 1998, but fed the critical backlash against Bay. Things went off the rails with 1998's Armageddon , in which a team of oil drillers led by Bruce Willis has to save the planet from a giant meteor, while Liv Tyler brings the babe factor as Willis's daughter engaged to his colleague Ben Affleck. Beyond the picture's ludicrous premise, the movie is so filled with scientific inaccuracies that it's been shown in NASA management classes to see if trainees can pick out all the errors. I think this is the movie that sunk Bay with the critics. The action is heavily telegraphed and overly iconic, the music overwrought in its tear-jerking and flag-waving. And this is the movie that devalues smart people who know stuff in favor of a guy who hits golf balls against a Greenpeace ship. Bay gets huge military cooperation on the movie. Pearl Harbor , a huge hit in 2001 that would have been bigger had in occurred after 9/11, accentuated the military involvement in Bay's films. 2001 brought Pearl Harbor , about, naturally, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into World War II. By this point, Bay was becoming a whipping boy for critics. Armageddon was a big hit, and I was entertained when not annoyed, but it left a a bad taste with the obviousness of its manipulation. I think also that, had Pearl Harbor come out several months after 9/11 rather than several months before it, it would have been better received and an even bigger hit. Bay was dinged for plenty of inaccuracies with Pearl Harbor , but they were basically minor and in service of the flow of entertainment rather than any serious distortion of history. (Though the relative soft-pedaling of Japanese imperialism may have come with an eye on Japanese box office.) The babe factor is high, with Brit Kate Beckinsale leading a bevy of Navy nurses and actually being an authority figure in her own right as an officer. But the most serious attempt at a romance in a Bay picture falls short. The chemisty of the love triangle between Beckinsale's nurse and Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett as childhood friends-turned-pilots doesn't get much beyond lukewarm. Ironically, a pre- Alias fame Jennifer Garner, who later married Affleck, also in the movie as one of Beckinsale's Navy nurses, might have altered that equation had the casting gone differently. Still, I like the movie. Perhaps because I'm fascinated by the lost paradise of Hawaii before the attack and the endless complications for America after that. And perhaps because it's a rousing movie filled with characters who have their hearts in the right place. Needless to say, Bay got enormous | |
| Donnie Fowler: Sanford Takes Me to Sunday School Back Home | Top |
| South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford announced two great epiphanies today ... why he should not resign (gosh, we thought he was going to) and why his fellow South Carolina Republicans would not cooperate with him the last few years (no, it's not why you think). In a message posted on his website and put up on Facebook, Governor Mark Sanford, Chief Carolina Moralist (Retired) had these enlightened things to say: 1. God wants Sanford to remain governor: "Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign -- as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword ... [but] for God to really work in my life I shouldn't be getting off so lightly." 2. That woman is the reason Sanford's own Republicans turned against him over the last several years (not weeks): "I may well have held the right position on limited government, spending or taxes -- but that if my spirit wasn't right in the presentation of those ideas to people in the General Assembly, or elsewhere, I could elicit the response that I had at many times indeed gotten from other state leaders." So let's get this right ... Sanford blames his inability to convince his fellow South Carolina Republicans , who control the state legislature, on his tainted spirit? That Argentinian Eve offered him the apple and derailed him and his true conservative agenda against the Palmetto State's governing GOP majority? I guess he thinks some warped version of a tax-cutting, country club Jesus would have gotten Sanford's agenda through the stubborn South Carolina GOP legislature. We all know that Sanford's Christian agenda -- pulling away a helping hand to the poor, rejecting support for those out of work, gutting universal public education in favor of private education only for a few, supporting pre-emptive war, and excusing "enhanced interrogation" -- was right out of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Problem is, I just don't know which one. Must have missed that day in Sunday school in Columbia, SC, where I grew up. You know, where the governor still governs 'cause he got his spirit back. When I'm back home this weekend I'm gonna ask my preacher where the darkness came from. More on GOP | |
CREATE MORE ALERTS:
Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted
Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope
Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more
News - Only the news you want, delivered!
Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more
Weather - Get today's weather conditions
| You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089. |
No comments:
Post a Comment