The latest from The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
- Kim Morgan: Number One Third Man
- 8 Troops Killed In Afghanistan; Remote Outposts Attacked
- Dodgers Beat Rockies, Clinch National League West
- Tesla: Mechanics Will Make House Calls
- Experts: Even With Reform, Health Care Insurers Will Likely Discriminate
- No Climate Change Bill This Year, Says Obama Adviser
- Book Review Round-Up
| Kim Morgan: Number One Third Man | Top |
| Today I was asked a question I can never answer -- "what's your favorite movie?" When pressed to choose, the same picture always rises to the surface -- "The Third Man." It haunts me. No matter how many films I have seen and will see in the future, I'm fairly certain "The Third Man" will remain my eternal, instinctual favorite. In 1948, British novelist Graham Greene wrote this bit of character description for a movie treatment on which he was working: "Don't picture Harry Lime as a smooth scoundrel. He wasn't that. The picture I have of him...is an excellent one: he is caught by a street photographer with his stocky legs apart, big shoulders a little hunched, a belly that has known too much good food for too long, on his face a look of cheerful rascality, a geniality, a recognition that his happiness will make the world's day." A year later, that rascal later turned out to be an oddly gorgeous Orson Welles, and the movie became The Third Man , a picture that in spirit matches the lilting recklessness of Greene's character. The Third Man is an exquisite work of discordant power crammed full of shifting moods. An expressionist film noir, it reveals a dark, unsettling pessimism in its ravaged night atmosphere. A jaunty, bittersweet comedy, it conveys a soulful playfulness among its likable characters. A stylistic achievement, it is a baroque composition of the absurd, a tilted wonder of visual anxiety. It is dreamlike and sensible, seamless and jagged, heartbreaking and hilarious and oddly, mockingly wistful, despite its sad ending. Greene's words that Lime's happiness "will make the world's day" are key. It isn't simply that Greene wrote a likable villain; he wrote a lovable story -- even though it revealed the paranoia and unease that would later characterize the Cold War. Directed by Carol Reed (who also directed Greene's masterful The Fallen Idol ), photographed by Robert Krasker and beautifully scored by Anton Karas, The Third Man is a rare work of art that tickles as much as it torments. The story takes place in Allied-occupied Vienna. During the film's opening moments, a narrator (voiced by director Reed) states it's "the classic period of the black market when the city is divided into four zones, each occupied by a power -- the American, the British, the Russian, and the French. But the center of the city--that's international, policed by an International Patrol. What a hope they had, all strangers to the place and none of them could speak the same language. Vienna doesn't really look any worse than a lot of other European cities, bombed about a bit." Enter an American into this rubble of sadness and crooked opportunity: American hack novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a jobless "poor chap, happy as a lark and without a cent," seeking out his old friend Harry Lime (Welles), who has promised him a job. Unfortunately, Holly learns that his school chum was run over by a truck, a death that seems increasingly unlikely to the American. A conspiracy emerges -- that of the mysterious "third man," who supposedly helped carry Harry's dead body out of view -- and the naive Holly is impassioned (or stupid) enough to become entrenched in it. In an odd, unconventional teaming, Holly develops a relationship with both Harry's lover, Anna (Alida Valli), to whom he's sexually drawn, and a British investigating officer named Calloway (Trevor Howard), who wishes the hayseed American would mind his own business. Holly also meets an assortment of exotic characters -- friends of Harry's -- and they aid in developing the film's humorous predicament of Western writer Holly attempting to work with such bizarre Kafkaesque visions. Crooked, gargoyle-like and most certainly not American, these multilingual characters further exemplify how ridiculous Holly's American optimism is. Externally and internally there is a cynicism presented to Holly, who, like the characters in his pulp novels, attempts to work on basic levels of good and evil. However, the complexities that Holly faces are neither black nor white. The movie makes sure to display both character and situation with a jaunty and jaundiced flavor. There is no such thing as simplicity in The Third Man , a concept that's continually underscored by the film's style. Visually, it is an off-kilter intersection of vertical and horizontal lines (some scenes feel framed by the tilt of a man's hat) and a textured variety of high-contrast, low-key lighting techniques. Characters emerge from and duck back into shadows, a visual device Reed uses metaphorically to represent moral complexity. Karas' score is also wonderfully unpredictable. Bouncy, beautiful, ugly and panicky, the music follows and responds to the action like an id let loose. The score also conveys the irresistible, crooked charm of Harry Lime -- a figure so prominent that you forget he is in just a half-hour of the film. But then Reed gave Orson Welles one of the most famous entrances in movie history: A cat walks down the street, spies a man's shoes in a darkened doorway, curls up at his feet and meows loudly enough for Holly to notice from across a street. A window opens, and light flickers on Lime, and the camera holds a mysterious, mischievous and disarmingly smiling face. Welles (as Lime) looks back at Holly with eyes that silently return the two men back to childhood. Seductive, playful and enigmatic, this moment is suspended with an overwhelming sense of rapture (I get chills, and sometimes tear up every time I watch it) and makes you understand what Anna later says about Lime: "Harry never grew up. The world grew up around him." You forget about the terrible things he's done. You just want to follow him, anywhere, no matter what the repercussions. These complicated emotions might cause anxiety and hardship, but they may result in delight, which is what makes The Third Man so unique among movies. The film is about expressing the inexpressible feelings that are gnarled in our psyches as fantasies or nightmares. It gets to the heart of that "obscure object of desire" without ever delineating just what it is we yearn for. A timeless masterpiece, The Third Man both restores your hope and breaks your heart. "Harry never grew up. The world grew up around him." Read more Kim Morgan at Sunset Gun . | |
| 8 Troops Killed In Afghanistan; Remote Outposts Attacked | Top |
| KABUL — Militant fighters streaming from a village and a mosque attacked a pair of remote outposts near the Pakistan border, killing eight American soldiers and as many as seven Afghan forces in one of the fiercest attacks of the troubled eight-year war. The Taliban claimed responsibility. The raid began around dawn Saturday morning and lasted several hours, said Jamaludin Badar, governor of Nuristan province. Badar said the two outposts were on a hill – one on top and one at the foot of the slope – flanked by the village on one side and the mosque on the other. The U.S. military statement said the Americans and Afghans repelled the attack by tribal fighters and "inflicted heavy enemy casualties." "This was a complex attack in a difficult area," Col. Randy George, the area commander, said in the U.S. statement. "Both the U.S. and Afghan soldiers fought bravely together." Nuristan, bordering Pakistan, was where a militant raid on an outpost in July 2008 claimed the lives of nine American soldiers and led to allegations of negligence by their senior commanders. Army Gen. David Petraeus last week ordered a new investigation into that firefight, in which some 200 militants armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars pushed their way into the base. Badar said he had sought more security forces for Kamdesh, the district where Saturday's attack took place, and said Taliban fighters had fled to Nuristan and neighboring Kunar after Pakistani forces drove many extremists from the the Swat Valley earlier this year. "When there are few security forces, this is what happens," he said. He also complained about a lack of coordination between international forces and Afghans. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility and said 35 Afghan police are in Taliban custody, including the district chief, and that a council would decide their fates. Badar said no Afghan police were missing. The U.S. statement said the attack would not change previously announced plans to leave the area. ___ Associated Press writers Noor Khan and Rahim Faiez contributed to this report. More on Afghanistan | |
| Dodgers Beat Rockies, Clinch National League West | Top |
| LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers' magic number for clinching the NL West is down to zero – finally. After a season-worst five-game losing streak, they came through with one game left in the regular season and beat the stubborn Colorado Rockies 5-0 on Saturday night with a five-run seventh triggered by an RBI single from pinch-hitters Ronnie Belliard and an RBI double by Mark Loretta and six scoreless innings by 21-year-old lefty Clayton Kershaw. Los Angeles' second straight division title wasn't as easy to secure as it appeared to be last weekend, when it held a six-game lead with seven games remaining. The Rockies, who were 15 1/2 games behind the Dodgers on June 3, entered this three-game series having to sweep to win their first division title in the franchise's 17-year history. "We were some of those people who didn't think it came soon enough," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. "We were on the brink last Sunday against Pittsburgh." The Rockies took the opener 4-3 for their fifth straight win and ninth in 12 games, but will have to settle for their second wild-card berth in three years and a matchup with the defending World Series champion Phillies. And they may have to start the division series without Jorge De La Rosa, who left the game in the fourth inning because of tightness in his right groin. The Dodgers can now concentrate on next Wednesday's division series opener at Chavez Ravine against the Central Division champion St. Louis Cardinals. It will be a rematch of their 2004 NLDS showdown, when the Cards won and the teams shook hands after the final game. The Dodgers' manager then was Jim Tracy, who now calls the shots for the Rockies. Casey Blake led off the seventh against Franklin Morales (3-2) with a single and continued to second when center fielder Carlos Gonzalez misplayed it for only his second error of the season. James Loney sacrificed Blake to third and Belliard, batting for Orlando Hudson, followed with a sharp grounder off the glove of first baseman Todd Helton. After a walk to Russell Martin, Loretta had an RBI double and Juan Pierre had an RBI single. Matt Kemp added a sacrifice fly and Manny Ramirez capped the rally with an RBI single. Morales was charged with all five runs. Hong-Chih Kuo pitched a perfect seventh for the victory. George Sherrill did likewise in the eighth and Jonathan Broxton got the last three outs. The Dodgers' closer retired Garrett Atkins on a fly to right fielder Andre Ethier and sent the sellout crowd of 54,531 into a frenzy as Broxton's teammates rushed the mound in celebration of the Dodgers' first back-to-back division titles since 1977-78. "It never gets old," Torre said. "You do it with different people all the time. Just to see these men turn into little boys." Kershaw started strong, striking out his first five batters and retiring his first 11 in a row. Things got testy in the third inning, when Dodgers bench coach Bob Schaefer was ejected by plate umpire Doug Eddings for griping from the dugout about a called strike with Kershaw at the plate. Once he got back on the mound, Kershaw kept throwing strikes. He had nine strikeouts through the first 3 2-3 innings, which got his pitch count up to 56. De La Rosa retired his first nine batters before injuring himself on his 40th pitch. The left-hander was relieved by Jose Contreras with a 2-0 count on Rafael Furcal, who singled and advanced to third on a pair of groundouts. But Ramirez lined out to right field. Kershaw allowed three hits, struck out 10 and walked three. He was 0-3 in his final 11 starts despite a 2.60 ERA during that stretch. For the season, Kershaw was 8-8 with a 2.78 ERA in 30 starts and had 185 strikeouts in 171 innings. Saturday was an ugly anniversary for the Dodgers on several counts. In 1951, Ralph Branca gave up a three-run homer by Bobby Thomson in the bottom of the ninth inning at New York's Polo Grounds as the New York Giants won the NL pennant with a stunning 5-4 win in the deciding game of a three-game playoff. In 1962, the Dodgers lost the third and deciding game of another three-game playoff with the Giants, who rallied with four runs in the ninth to win 6-4 at Los Angeles and advanced to the World Series. NOTE: Among those in attendance was the oldest living major league player, former Brooklyn Dodger INF Tony Malinosky, who turns 100 years old on Monday. ... Pierre was presented with the team's fourth annual Roy Campanella Award by Campy's daughter, Joni Roan, in a pregame ceremony. (This version CORRECTS Dodgers 5, Rockies 0; corrects to double for Loretta in 2nd, 9th grafs.) | |
| Tesla: Mechanics Will Make House Calls | Top |
| NEW YORK - Taking a cue from house-call services like Best Buy's Geek Squad, electric carmaker Tesla Motors is launching a maintenance plan where mechanics travel to owners' homes or offices to perform repairs and tuneups. Tesla, which makes the $109,000 Roadster electric car, said the plan is convenient for customers who won't have to bring their vehicle to a showroom, while cutting costs by making a large network of Tesla service locations unnecessary. "You know how there's a Chevy dealer on every block or strip mall? We don't intend to have a footprint like this," spokeswoman Rachel Konrad said. But the service won't be cheap. The carmaker will charge vehicle owners $1 for every roundtrip mile its technicians travel, from showroom to garage, with a minimum charge of $100 per trip. For the Tesla driver in Manhattan, where the company opened a store over the summer, the cost won't be much. But for Roadster devotees in Honolulu, that's a charge of about $4,800 per trip -- not including the cost of repair. Still, Konrad said the maintenance cost will still be low because electric cars have fewer moving parts and require less "care and feeding" than vehicles powered by internal combustion. The company said it got the idea for the plan after it issued a recall of hundreds of Roadsters in May to address a steering problem. Rather than ask owners to bring the vehicle to a showroom -- there are only four currently in the U.S. -- it sent technicians to repair the cars at their homes and offices. The response was overwhelmingly positive, Konrad said. The San Carlos, Calif.-based startup has so far sold about 700 Roadsters, its only vehicle on the market now. The company in June was approved for $465 million in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to help it build next-generation electric cars. It has plans to introduce an electric sedan, the Model S, which it hopes to price under $50,000 after government rebates when it goes on sale in 2011. The new service plan will be standard for all new Tesla vehicles and current owners will have their warranties updated so they are covered by the new plan, Konrad said. ___ On the Web: http://www.teslamotors.com More on Cars | |
| Experts: Even With Reform, Health Care Insurers Will Likely Discriminate | Top |
| Any health-care overhaul that Congress and President Obama enact is likely to have as its centerpiece a fundamental reform: Insurers would not be allowed to reject individuals or charge them higher premiums based on their medical history. But simply banning medical discrimination would not necessarily remove it from the equation, economists and health-care analysts say. More on Max Baucus | |
| No Climate Change Bill This Year, Says Obama Adviser | Top |
| WASHINGTON (AP)- President Barack Obama's top energy adviser says there is no way Congress will be able to pass a bill on climate change this year. "That's not going to happen," the adviser, Carol Browner, said Friday. Browner made the statement at a conference organized by The Atlantic magazine, just days after Senate Democrats introduced a major bill on climate change. In a video posted on the magazine's Web site, Browner was asked about the prospects of enacting climate legislation by the time negotiations on a global climate treaty begin in December in Copenhagen. "Obviously, we'd like to be through the process, but that's not going to happen," Browner said. "I think we would all agree the likelihood you would have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we go early in December is not likely." Senate Democrats unveiled a bill Wednesday that aims to cut greenhouse gasses by 20 percent by 2020. The House passed a bill in June that calls for a 17 percent emission cut by 2020. The Senate bill includes an economy-wide cap-and-trade system that would require power plants, industrial facilities and refineries to cut carbon dioxide and other climate-changing pollution. While there would be an overall emission cap, polluters would be able to purchase emission allowances to limit reductions. The bill, however, does not lay out how emission allowances would be distributed, a contentious issue left for resolving later. Climate change is competing with several other big issues for the attention of lawmakers. Among the issues: overhauling the nation's health care system and imposing new financial regulations on Wall Street. Browner said the U.S. could still take a leading role at the Copenhagen talks, even without a new climate law. "We will go to Copenhagen and manage with whatever we have," she said. More on Climate Change | |
| Book Review Round-Up | Top |
| Conventional and obscure, mixed platform and high literature, there was an interesting mix of books being reviewed around the web this weekend: Twisted Tree, by Kent Meyers The Washington Post This is a somber novel, its characters much visited by sorrows and regrets and the demands of harsh work, but Meyers tells their stories affectingly, warmly, with a keen eye for finely observed detail. Blame , by Michelle Huneven Milford Daily News Blame is noteworthy for its sharply drawn characters, most of whom are neither good nor bad but struggling in between. But its true power is in the questions it raises about blame, responsibility and consequence. Implicitly, it asks the reader, what would you do in Patsy's place and could you accept the consequences? Baked In , by Alex Bogusky and John Winsor PSFK This book is a timely reminder that brands are built through great, innovative products at a time where fear and financial pressure gets marketers to settle too often too soon for incremental improvements vs. real innovation. Juliet, Naked , by Nick Hornby AVclub Juliet, Naked plays with the notion that the collector's true terrain is the might-have-been, but for all its clever asides, it demonstrates Hornby's assured steps toward confronting on the page what his audience cannot avoid: growing up at last. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War , by Neil Sheehan The New York Times [ A Fiery Peace in a Cold War ] reminds us that, as the founders warned, the survival of the United States depends on our ability not only to choose wise presidents, but also to maintain a federal government that attracts extraordinary talent at all levels. As Sheehan shows us almost cinematically, this was particularly true in the 1950s, when American leaders had to decide whether to keep resisting Soviet power mostly with strategic bombers, or to build an awe-inspiring force of nuclear-tipped missiles. Nocturnes , by Kazuo Ishiguro The New York Times ...[T]hese five too-easy pieces are neither absorbingly serious nor engagingly frivolous: a real problem with a musical set, and a disaster, if only in a minor key, when it's a question of prose. The Clinton Tapes , by Taylor Branch The Los Angeles Times Welcome to The Clinton Tapes , a weird memoir in which the 42nd president emerges as a self-absorbed political genius and a dazzling player with cunning pragmatism and spot-on observations. Branch -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. -- secretly met with Clinton 79 times between 1992 and 2001. Together they conducted a massive oral history aimed at posterity. A New Literary History of America , by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors The Los Angeles Times One high point is Los Angeles novelist Steve Erickson's essay on July 4, 1826, the day Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died, and Stephen Foster was born. It's insightful, imagistic and unpredictable. The same is true of other efforts: Paglia's on Tennessee Williams, Joan Shelley Rubin on the Book of the Month Club, L.A. journalist RJ Smith on Pentecostalism and Farah Jasmine Griffin on the ascent of Toni Morrison. Some choices, though, are predictable or academically stodgy. | |
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