Just fuck.

In no way, shape or form can this be good. Unless the tail starts wagging the dog.

P.S. Fuck.

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Steyn dissects Hollywood's drive to destroy itself, with special attention to Brokeback Mountain, Munich, and the fact that, four and a half years after 9/11, we have yet to see a major motion picture that envisions Middle Eastern Islamists as actual enemies.

Dreamworks has just been sold to Paramount. As The Daily Telegraph in London reported:

“Dreamworks, founded in 1994, has had a series of costly flops this year despite its early successes with blockbusters such as American Beauty and Saving Private Ryan.”

Hmm. Steven SpielbergÂ’s studio is going out in style, with Munich—a film about the PLOÂ’s murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. As the great director sees it, the problem is “intransigence” on both sides, which has led to a tragic “cycle of violence”. “A response to a response doesnÂ’t really solve anything,” he says. “ThereÂ’s been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end?”

Bye, bye, Steven. That’s why we have “culture wars”: Those who fancy themselves of an artistic bent recoil almost reflexively from the “simplistic”, and so they take refuge in a sophistry that is itself laughably simplistic. The average joe rightly recognizes this as a crock. In my experience Americans aren’t particularly pre-disposed toward Jews, but at a basic level they get the difference between the two sides – as Leon Wieseltier puts it, “the death of innocents was an Israeli mistake but a Palestinian objective”. So all the artful symmetries Spielberg and his screenwriter Tony Kushner find between the men who killed the athletes and the men who killed the athlete-killers ring false to most of the potential audience. After all, even as the film was opening, the President of Arafatistan, Abu Mazen, was signing off on a new law that rewards suicide bombers by providing a lifelong welfare check to their relicts. That’s the difference.

Likewise, there are millions of Americans who reckon Islamism is a psychotic death cult with nothing to commend it, least of all if you happen to be a woman or a gay or an “artist”, none of which liberal-approved groups prospered under Taliban rule.

If youÂ’re making ten straight cowboy movies, a gay oneÂ’s neither here nor there. Similarly, if youÂ’ve made ten movies in which Jake Gyllenhaal or Heath Ledger kick terrorist butt from here to Peshawar, thereÂ’s plenty of room for a contrarian take in which it turns out to be the stewardesses who pulled off 9/11. But, in a conflict thatÂ’s already lasted longer than AmericaÂ’s participation in World War Two, Hollywood still canÂ’t bring itself to make a film in which AmericaÂ’s heroes whump AmericaÂ’s enemies. ThatÂ’s just lousy business sense.

Which is one reason why Dreamworks flopped. Dreams may work, but hallucinations don’t. And so Spielberg’s no longer a mogul and his company is a subsidiary of Paramount – the non-brokeback mountain. Yet.

Read the whole thing (link here; it's the third article down).

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We finally got around to watching it tonight, and I'll just set down a few impressions before I'm tempted to peek at the reviews that came out when it was released. (I try to avoid movie buzz whenever possible before I see the films in question. Sometimes that means holding out for an extended period, as in this case, because I'm cheap cheap cheap and often prefer to see 'em on DVD. So sue me.)

1) I have the advantage of being a sort of space alien myself. At least, the previous versions of War of the Worlds all fall into one of the little lacunae in my pop culture knowledge, so I was able to go in fairly innocent: I mean, I know the premise, and I'm aware of the events surrounding the first radio broadcast. But I didn't have many details.

2) I knew I'd dig the special effects. No disappointments there. My inner 17-year-old boy was pleased. Thank you, Industrial Light and Magic. Don't ever leave me; it's a cold, cruel world.

3) I had several quarrels with the plot. One is obvious, and probably unavoidable: the original story has the aliens running afoul of Earth's native micro-organisms, rather than being overcome by our protagonist. As I understand it, that was in Wells' original, and so it probably needed to remain. But I certainly experienced a consquent letdown at the end of the movie. The screenwriters at least give us Tom Cruise besting one of the metallic monsters, so the damage to the narrative arc is limited. But it's there: an intrinsic weakness.

I als saw some apparently inexplicable actions, such as Dakota Fanning running outside just in time to be captured by space aliens, after sitting tight in the basement through many tense encounters.

(Attila the Hub: asn't it a bit odd to watch her scream as the tripod comes for her, and yet stay in one place?

Joy: At least it's a child acting in this fashion. If it were the 1960s, we'd be watching full-grown women behaving just as inteptly for no other reason than the screenwriter needed 'em to.)

It would have been nice for her to have a compelling reason to flee at this specific time. I didn't buy the one I was offered. Fact is, something prosaic like a snake in the corner of the basement might have worked better than yet more alien-related effects.

I also would have appreciated it if we'd been given a cursory explanation of how Justin Chatwin's character—the son—survives his hours offstage. Or how, despite his apparant devotion to his young sister, he has the impulse to abandon her to a biological father he doesn't really quite trust.

Nice little display of how a fatherless girl can end up looking up to her big brother. I think I'd have been happier to see him bully her just once, though. Because in real life, boys do that. They abuse this power. You can trust me on this. No complaints, but human nature—you know—rarely changes.

4) I'm aware that young Miss Fanning is getting most of the press attention, and she did a fine job, here. But the Justin Chatwin was amazing, and IMHO underappreciated. Those youngsters can both act. (Yes. A twenty-three-year-old is a "youngster." Cruise should have had himself arrested after wrestling with the kid.)

5) Is there any discernable difference between this movie and Signs? It isn't just Attila the Hub's complaint that this movie all took place in Tim Robbins' basement, just as Signs was unduly limited to Mel Gibson's farmhouse. There was the overall claustrophobic feel to it, and the neurotic little girl at its center. (Not that I have problems with nuerotic little girls: some claim I am one myself.)

As with Signs, it would have been nice to get a sense of the invasion's scope.

And I'd like to know why the casting director decided to have Tim Robbins reprise his Mystic River role here? Is there a shortage of actors? Do we need to recycle them? Can we get more of 'em from Alaska?

It was a nice little piece of eye candy. But I yearned for it to be more, and I felt like it could have really been something special with only a bit of tweaking.

But they never listen to me, do they? And now it's tragically too late.

Thanks for the visual callbacks, however, that the framing of pictures through broken glass. Joy likes. And the tripod creatures reflected by their tripod technology.

Steven, call me before the next movie. I'm a smart girl, and I can help you. It doesn't have to be this way.

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Ed Driscoll interviews Breitbart, and presents his thoughts on why non-leftist filmmakers might save Hollywood from itself. But it sounds like he regards it as a bittersweet propsition that might "Balkanize" the flim industry.

He may not realize just how much of a scarlet letter openly conservative filmmakers are wearing. And even those who are not "out" still have to avoid discussing politics with their colleagues, who at the very least begin to regard them as "odd," and become less enthusiastic about working with them. Naturally, the taboo about libertarian/conservative viewpoints increases the degree to which actors are insulated from any viewpoint that might smack of a "redstate" perspective.

In L.A. there is often very little desire to find out what different intellectual angles might be on political topics. And this is killing the legacy media, film, and television. Other than that, of course, it's all working out fine.

(h/t: Glenn.)

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1 Yes, we don't want the industry becoming "Rush Limbaugh" films vs "Air America" films....So let's keep just making "Air America" films! Makes sense! Sounds fair. Let's just "bomb" Hollywood back to the stone age...one "bomb at a time! What if they made "Syriana" and no one saw it?

Posted by: Darrell at December 07, 2005 11:36 AM (y1mG+)

2 You think someone might watch that?

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 07, 2005 12:58 PM (zZMVu)

3 Not me! What is the price of oil? One crappy movie after another!

Posted by: Darrell at December 07, 2005 03:23 PM (z29ab)

4 The market will take care of things.

Posted by: beautifulatrocities at December 07, 2005 04:43 PM (+k8oU)

5 That, and ever-cheaper movie technology.

Posted by: Attila Girl at December 07, 2005 04:45 PM (zZMVu)

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As you've no doubt heard, Bruce Willis has been following Michael Yon's accounts of the fighting in Iraq—most especially the work of Deuce Four. He even attended an event in their honor recently in Seattle. And Willis would like to make a . . . um. That is, he'd like to make a commercial movie that would premiere in actual theatres, and . . .

Let's start again, shall we? The movie would be about the war in Iraq. And—

Who's reading this, by the way? Are you my friend? Do you know the secret handshake?

The movie will be pro-war. I mean, it will support the troops as in, supporting the troops, rather than supporting the troops by undercutting their mission "for their own good." (The "bring them home and fuck the Iraqis" option.)

Bloggers and blog-commenters are abuzz with the possibilities. There's some concern that the traditional studio system may be reluctant to finance a movie that is pro-war (other than the "kosher" ones such as the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WWII). This, of course, leads to speculation that Willis may have to find his own financing, like Mel Gibson did. (Some think Mel might go in with Willis on this venture, but I'm not sure as devout a Catholic as Mel is going to want to take part in a project that could be seen as advocating violence. At least, now that the Lethal Weapon series is over and he never has to make one of those again.)

Apparently when Willis went to the Deuce Four homecoming ball he took Stephen Eads with him; Eads did some work with him on Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, and other movies. If they're smart they'll talk to Lionel Chetwynd, who has plenty of experience going against Hollywood's grain.

And suddenly, of course, Chris Muir has something to say about all this.

Hat tips: Malkin, Dave Price of Dean's World, and the blog of the Liberty Film Festival (right here in the heart of L.A.), Libertas. Also: Insty refers us back to PJM, where there are links galore (including Roger L. Simon's take, natch).

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The second segment of the evening focused on Ron Silver's incredible Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60. (For more info on the film, check out the Citizens United site.) It was a hard movie to watch, as it tells story after story of genocides the U.N. failed to prevent (probably because it was too busy Jew-baiting).

And then the lovely Tammy Bruce spoke to us, suggesting that she felt "reforming" the U.N. might be like trying to "reform" Nazi Germany.

And, of course, when Maloney and On the Fence were there for the first segment, they didn't simply showcase excerpts from the upcoming (and hilarious) feature-length Indoctrinate U, but also presented their indictment of Canada's "single payer" health care system in Dead Meat.

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Friday night really had three stars: Even Coyne Maloney, the genius behind Brain Terminal and On the Fence Films; David Horowitz, the force of nature who started Front Page Magazine and the Study for Popular Culture; and Horowitz's hecklers, who stormed the stage the moment he began speaking, and had to be forcibly removed from the stage—and then the room.

Where, BTW, did Jason Apuzzo learn to tackle like that? These hecklers—one man and one woman—were enormous, like two big slabs of left-wing beef. And Horowitz is a small man; I'm glad Apuzzo and a few other volunteers from the audience (law enforcement? barflies?) kept them from getting near Horowitz as they continued to shout "you have no right to speak!"

I guess they aren't too happy with Horowitz' stance on the Bill of Academic Rights. Once we all knew these left-droids were being taken care of, most of us simply started laughing at them. Maloney started changing "Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye" as the hecklers were "escorted" (forced, kicking and screaming) out of the room.

Horowitz just smiled. Clearly, he's used to this sort of thing. I felt that the Liberty Film Festival had just been validated in a big way (remember: these super-sized kids bought tickets for the event, just to position themselves where they could charge the stage and yell out a few silly phrases).

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the incredible Liberty Film Festival. As with last year, Attila the Hub and I got all-event passes. If possible, this year is loaded with even more good stuff. We started with a cute spoof of Fahrenheit 9/11 by Rick Nyholm entitled Fellowship 9/11. Needless to say, it takes a few gentle jabs at the Lord of the Rings movies—while savaging Moore. What's not to like?

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. . . they'd pick someone of Indian extraction. Or a black man.

As a little girl I was mystified by the appeal of Sean Connery: he looked to me like Richard Nixon, with that prominent nose. I just didn't get it.

Years later, I understood that it was the accent, and the way he carries himself.

But when I was seven years old, I had trouble seeing how he could be considered good-looking.

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. . . weigh in on Pierce's Brosnan's retirement from the James Bond franchise.

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. . . he used to share his two rules for survival if I suddenly found myself in a horror movie:

1) Do not shower or bathe;

2) Do not have sex.

Here are a few more.

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Attila the Hub and I went to see The Revenge of the Sith today, and it was reasonably good. I was unable to figure out what they would have called it if they had stayed with The Revenge of the Jedi in the first trilogy. Would this then have to be entitled The Return of the Sith? You should be glad you aren't me, and don't have to think these thoughts.

It's impossible not to feel a bit wistful, wondering what it would be like to see one of the prequels—this one especially—without knowing ahead of time how they come out. Why, oh why didn't Lucas tell the story the right way around? Well, you know. He just didn't.

And there's a certain annoyance factor in listening to Wookies make that noise they make, and being asked to watch sword fights between Yoda and regular-size people. Well, well, well. At least some of us got over being short, and it's too bad George Lucas isn't one of them. Talk about your wish fulfillment scenes.

But that all goes with the territory: it is Star Wars, after all. I've been watching these movies most of my life. It's bound to wear a person down.

And then there is the political subtext injected into this part of the story with a big on-the-nose needle: "only a Sith would think in black and white." The lefty lines were obvious, and didn't go too well with the rest of the story.

Jason Apuzzo writes in Libertas, the excellent blog by the Liberty Film Festival people:

So what is Episode III? The film is the story of young Anakin Skywalker’s temptation to the Dark Side, and his transformation into the monstrous Darth Vader - the villain who loomed so darkly over the original Star Wars trilogy. Yes, there are other aspects to the film, as have been widely publicized. Yes, there is a kind of muddled liberalism that occasionally escapes the mouths of characters - particularly in important moments, such as the final confrontation between Vader and his one-time friend and mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yes, Vader mouths lines in that moment that are clearly intended to echo President Bush’s “for us or against us” speech before Congress. But over the course of a 2hr. 20min. film - a film that still somehow feels rushed - these are annoying distractions rather than central components of the story. And I could not help but think as I watched them that these lines were planted precisely to provoke the faux-controversy that now engulfs the film - just another of Lucas’ marketing schemes, to go along with the Pez dispensers and inflatable chairs. [Buy this Wookie coffee mug and win a free on-line subscription to MoveOn.org!]

Revenge of the Sith lives or dies - and I believe lives - according to one central relationship in the story. Much as Return of the Jedi hinged on the fraught relationship between Luke Skywalker and his father, Sith revolves around the complex relationship between Anakin Skywalker and his mentor-cum-Mephistophelean tempter, Chancellor Palpatine. The best moments in the film - and by far the best moments in the entire prequel trilogy - come in the quiet, private moments between these two characters, as Palpatine weaves a complex web to ensnare his young charge. Critics have been right to praise Ian McDiarmid for his performance - Lucas and Hayden Christensen should also be praised for what they bring to this aspect of the drama. Much like Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, Anakin suffers from premonitions of harm to others. In Empire Luke fears for the lives of Leia and Han, tortured by Luke’s father in Cloud City. Luke’s fears lead him into a trap. In Sith, Anakin has nightmarish premonitions of his wife Padme’s death in childbirth. He shares these fears with Palpatine, who then tempts Anakin with promises of power over life and death - if only Anakin will succumb to the Dark Side, where such “unnatural” powers can be explored. Palpatine’s seduction is pure Garden of Eden stuff - tempting the young innocent with the ‘knowledge’ of good and evil.

I also found that central relationship interesting. It attempts to answer the question we've been asking since the first Star Wars trilogy: how does a good man turn to evil? And what else does it change about him? How, essentially, does this transformation occur? Some people find it impossible to believe that an impulse as good as wanting to save the life of a loved one could lead to a process of corruption so total, it drives a man mad with power. The film isn't without its flaws, but I do buy that central thesis: we can be corrupted by the decisions we make. I keep remembering a line from one of the Agatha Christie mysteries wherein Hercule Poirot proclaims, "we all know the effect of a murder on the victim. What interests me is the effect on the murderer." And all the best crime writers discuss this issue of moral decay: How a person could get there from here.

That's it. Our choices shape the world around us, but they also shape us. Perhaps not so quickly and dramatically as when Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, but in other ways. And in real life it usually takes longer. I kept remembering, as I watched this story, about the corruption of Benedict Arnold: his marriage to a loyalist woman, his participation in loyalist society. Life's real seductions take months and years, unlike the speedier ones of a sexual nature. But it does appear to go quickly: next thing you know, you're asking George Washington for command of West Point with the intent of turning it over to the British.

Episode III accomplishes what it needs to. As my husband points out, watching it in the abstract would be rather like seeing The Two Towers on its own: vaguely unsatisfactory. As it is, we're seeing the last piece of a puzzle fall into place.

I kept expecting Obi-Wan to die, and remembering that of course he does not: he needs to stay alive, so he can become the Alec Guinness of my adolescence. The whole telling-a-story-inside-out approach is profoundly odd.

But the movie is visually compelling, and Jar-Jar Binks doesn't utter a word. So I'd call it a worthwhile way to spend the afternoon.

Someday I'd like to see them all, chronologically, within the same weekend—and really get a sense of how well the entire story fits together. Then I'd never have to watch any of them ever again: I'd be done.

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1 Everyone I know always says right after the movie, "anakin went to the dark side so quickly." Then, the next day, they all say, "Oh, now I get it." Everything leads up to that one point. All the fear, all the way back to Phantom when he is talking about being scared to leave his mother. I loved it. Was awesome. I disagree with all those who thought it wasn't darker. It is a movie about tragedy, and, were Lucas to really make it that deep and dark, people would have been rather upset and dissatisfied, I believe. And, yes, I am a total Star Wars geek. Even have a Sith bacground on my phone and PDA

Posted by: William Teach at May 28, 2005 11:44 AM (TFSHk)

2 It all starts with, "I could do so much more good in the world, IF ONLY I HAD MORE POWER!" Then along comes the tempter-dude, with the power...

Posted by: Ciggy at May 28, 2005 09:03 PM (F0SRJ)

3 Next thing you know, you're making seven figures and living in L.A. Being seen in all the right places, with the right people. And it's all downhill from there.

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 28, 2005 11:15 PM (8e5bN)

4 The politics? George Lucas, like any rich-self-righteous liberal, just had to pee in the water and mess things up for everyone. Thinking now a heavy he is, he had to inject his brand of politics into an otherwise harmless entertainment series. For another take on it, you might read the blog, Revenge Of The Silliest. It is at: http://paxety.com/Archive/20050523ROTSMahone.html

Posted by: Mahone Dunbar at May 31, 2005 05:38 AM (/AsfG)

5 Actually I wondered how many other subplots Lucas stuffed into the third episode, such as: - Palpatine's story to Anakin about Darth Plaegis who discovered how to stop death but couldn't save himself from his own apprentice - was the apprentice Palpatine? - If that story holds true, then it makes a lot more sense how Anakin could finally betray the Emperor in Return of the Jedi - it's the circle come fully around I do think Lucas overplayed his hand on "saving Padme", although you can see in the end how Anakin himself was betrayed by the Emperor. It would have been really interesting to know that Palpatine was planting those premonitions in Anakin's head from the get-go. What was more interesting were the political machinations leading up to the destruction of the Jedi order - in a longer movie this would have been a better build-up to Anakin going to the dark side. I doubt Lucas did anything like the Lord of the Rings movies where there was extra material he packed into an extended edition. If you want to fill in the cracks on the story, I guess you can either read the plethora of books out there that cover things in more detail. My kids also have the X-box game "Return of the Sith" which shows more about how Anakin does in the Jedi Temple, etc. It has a couple of alternative endings that are pretty cool, such as Anakin killing Obi-Wan and then whacking the Emperor...

Posted by: DC at May 31, 2005 07:53 AM (d3SmT)

6 I'm not so sure the with me/against me is just a swipe at Bush: Luke 11:23 "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters." In some ways the series parallels Christianity, where the Force is like the deep magic in the Chronicles of Narnia, and in other ways, as in the above, it stands in opposition to it. I suspect Lucas is exploring those ideas and does have a firm stand himself.

Posted by: Jon Cohen at May 31, 2005 09:33 AM (Gr6ja)

7 I do think that most of the sith/Bush stuff is overblown. For the most part, Sith was filmed in the summer of 2003. Yes, enough time to get the Loon style stuff going, but, really, it all goes back to 1977.

Posted by: William Teach at May 31, 2005 09:46 AM (IRsCk)

8 Actually, the storyline reminds me of lefty do-gooder types. They start with a perfectionist idea of how things should be. Then, when it doesn't work, they blame recalcitrant humans and start killing the ones in the way. This requires more and more power until you have Stalin or Pol Pot. Sith could well be about the seduction of the moral by the use of power to make a "perfect world." Seems to me that most perfectionist ideas have the seeds of such a conversion.

Posted by: JorgXMcKie at June 01, 2005 08:51 AM (nMT31)

9 I don't see why you have to read the "political" content as pro-liberal. The moral relativists (only the jedi are absolute, there is more than one way to look at good, etc) are the EVIL ones, after all.

Posted by: raf at June 01, 2005 11:56 AM (kbHJ6)

10 Oh, I'd say some of the comments were contemporary leftist in nature. Remember Padme saying they should just stop the fighting and let diplomacy work? Diplomacy is the magic word? Just be prepared to listen to the enemy and maybe they will stop wanting to kill you. Then again, with the sith lord running both sides, who is supposed to be listening to whom?

Posted by: Steve Lassey at June 01, 2005 07:22 PM (vMq1z)

11 The prequels are essentially a muddled mess: *The Jedi tolerate and do not suppress slavery on Tatooine. *The Jedi make no effort whatsoever to liberate one slave they know about personally (Anakin's mother). *The Jedi reject family ties or emotions. *The Sith operate on the principal of continual betrayal without much loyalty. *The "Force" is essentially an inherited talent, forming a natural aristocracy and therefore anti-democratic. *The old Republic has nothing between Clone mercenaries set up for evil deeds and a thin set of superheroes (Jedi). Citizen Soldiers are not in evidence. *Slave labor is a marked dependency for everyone, whether it's droids or people. It's only in the original movies that we see the formula for victory: ordinary people fighting for their freedom against tyrannies and a thin set of superheroes providing the critical difference. As commentary on the human condition, Lucas is just all over the place.

Posted by: Jim Rockford at June 02, 2005 07:39 PM (4878o)

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. . . outside a dinner honoring Steven Spielberg. That was the first time I realized how truly hellish fame would be. The paparazzi were yelling his name, and the names of anyone else they recognized who walked through the doors. The constant yelling of names had become a very loud whirring of helicopter blades. There was something intensely ugly about it, and Lucas is about my height—that is to say, very short for a man. He almost looked scared, though I'm sure he had become acclimated to these events.

Mira Sorvino was near me on my other side. Her star was just starting to rise, and she was almost in tears from the crush of photographers, and the constant yelling of her name.

Holy fucking shit, I thought. How many people in this country think they want to live this way? No privacy. No boundaries. People in your face day and night. You'd live in a fishbowl. Hell.

Lucas was at a party once in the 90s where a friend of mine had wandered by. She had just started doing some writing for Spielberg, and she got introduced to Lucas, who really seemed to embody the classic engineer sensibility: he wanted to talk to her endlessly. I'm not so sure he was interested in her, exactly. It's just that his lack of social skills made him want to play it safe. Why look for another conversation when you already have one?

She found herself using the word "boyfriend" as much as she could, and plotting about how to exit the conversation without hurting his feelings. And she laughed at the irony of it all: most actresses in this town would have killed to have Lucas pinning them down in conversation at a party.

Yes, you are thinking. But they have nice toys.

No number of toys would be worth living on the front lines in the entertainment industry. Not a car. Not a house. Nothing.

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A complete list of Oscar winners is available here.

It was annoying to have that whitewash of Che Guevara shoved down my throat, and heartbreaking to see Carlos Santana participate in it by watching him sing a song from The Motorcycle Diaries. But I was gratified that an Academy full of people who are still (let's face it) a bit disgruntled at Bush's re-election decided not to punish Eastwood for his Republican leanings.

It's especially lovely to see Eastwood get this kind of recognition. I remember watching some prick journalist interview him before the awards show in 1992, and asking him "how many Oscars have you won?"

Clint, even and forthright: "Zero."

He's been written off a whole bunch of times, most of them before his three masterpieces, The Unforgiven, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby. And he's made a whole lot of crappy movies. (My favorite? Pink Cadillac.)

But he is still brilliant, and an American treasure.

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Govindini Murty has an interesting post up about the paucity of good roles for women in the current incarnation of Hollywood. For those who don't know, Murty and her husband, Jason Apuzzo, are the movers and shakers behind the Liberty Film Festival, last October's celebration of conservative and libertarian cinema. The event was an enormous success, and Murty/Apuzzo have now started a blog that will discuss film and "the industry" from a conservative point of view.

This issue of roles for female actors is one that Murty discussed at the flim festival itself, and I remember having mixed emotions about her central thesis: that there is something intrinsically degrading about a woman taking her clothes off, or having to utter four-letter words—probably due to the fact that I take my clothes off and utter four-letter words every day. Of course, Murty is a real conservative, and I'm a libertarian warblogger. (And in the wake of Bush's electoral victory and the elections in Iraq, we will see debate heat up between the two wings of the GOP that we represent; this is as it should be. No problem, as long as we are all respectful.)

The larger point, of course, is dead-on: good roles for women are becoming rare, particularly for an actress who doesn't care to engage in gratuitous sexual scenes. And the "interesting" roles are very often only so because they run completely perpendicular to the traditional values of this country: certainly there's a huge market out there for stories about women that are life-affirming, and that reflect the variety of human experience.

Would I call the current situation "misogynistic"? Probably not. But there's a huge market segment that's being underserved: it's possible to make stories about strong women that do not have to be ghetto-ized into "chick flick" status. To take an extreme example, Alien and Aliens were very successful in showing a strong woman character without fundamentally denying Ripley's femininity: in Aliens, her entire motivation for needing to destroy the mother-alien reflects her role as a surrogate mother to the child Newt and a desire to protect the families in the colony. She fights fiercely precisely because she is a woman.

No one wants to take women back to the June Cleaver model, but there is a wide world out there between the stereotypical notions we have of traditional women's passivity and the types of images we are getting now (outside of some very creative movies for children that we should be thankful for). There are stories to be told that a lot of people would like to see: some of them even live on the coasts!

Time to explore, boys and girls: there's money to be made.

Posted by: Attila at 09:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Why did Sony cast a Will Smith in a movie about a white British writer? Is this the new color-blind casting I keep hearing about, or just an oversight?

Posted by: Attila at 01:05 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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In the 80s we had to wear leotards as blouses. They were inconvenient for four reasons:

1) One couldn't wear a bra with a thing like that, because the straps would show; one was at the mercy of the lycra to squish things a bit and keep them under control.

2) Leotards had a tendancy to creep up one's ass. This wasn't fun.

3) The act of going to the bathroom became a process of many steps, especially because we usually had those stupid Danskin wraparound skirts over the leotards. This meant that one had to untie the skirt, hang it in the stall, and then pull the entire leotard—bodice included—down to one's thighs in order to pee. (Once in a while we could get by with simply pulling the crotch of the leotard aside, but this was impossible if we happened to be wearing tights to complete that "I accidentally look like a rather round dancer" look.)

4) At any given point, there was the very real risk that one might encounter a breeze, or walk through a cold room. This would suddanly make one's nipples stand out. But the stretchy fabric also had a habit of squishing one's boobs in different directions, depending on which half of the bodice got pulled on first; one nip would be up high, and the other, pointing down like it was going to communicate with the bettly button using tiny semaphore flags. So before going out one had to pinch one's nipples erect and examine them in the mirror, readjusting all that mammary tissue until the two points lined up. (No, you pervs: I didn't make a video. My then-boyfriend would walk in, though, and ask me if I needed a level.)

Halle Berry's bodice tonight at the Golden Globe awards appeared to be a monumnet to those who went out in the 80s wihout arranging their boobs, as it gave a sort of lopsided effect, with one mammary squished up, and the other one, down.

Either that, or her designer was on acid. I'm not sure which it is. But I'm done being catty, and I have to go now. Berry's a beautiful woman in a dress that makes her lovely jugs look weird and asymmetrical.

Next time, Halle, trust me. And only me. I'll steer you right.

Posted by: Attila at 10:38 PM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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1 I didn't know any of that. Sondra says sleeping in a thong risks asphyxiation. As for Halle: MEOW!

Posted by: jeff at January 17, 2005 02:28 AM (GGAM3)

2 If only I'd been there, I could have adjusted her before she went on. I could've even brought a level.

Posted by: McGehee at January 17, 2005 06:15 AM (S504z)

3 It might have taken a while, but she would have been perfectl lined up by the time I was done. Sometime next Thursday.

Posted by: McGehee at January 17, 2005 06:16 AM (S504z)

4 It was the gown that did it--no amount of human intervention would have solved the problem. Though your civic-mindedness is admirable, McGehee. Jeff, I've never tried sleeping in a thong; I scarcely ever wear them (only with those tight pants that show panty lines, and even then I usually rationalize the panty lines away). They are just uncomfortable as all get-out. I was born in 1962, and I've been wearing bikini panties all my life. I've become convinced that bikini panties are what God wants us to wear.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 17, 2005 10:25 AM (RjyQ5)

5 While I have no direct experience wearing either panties or thongs, I can sympathize because I feel the same way about boxers vs briefs. Boxers, IMO, are uncomfortable and it's like you are just all "out there." In fact its like not wearing underwear at all.

Posted by: HomericPundit at January 17, 2005 01:15 PM (S24bh)

6 AG One fashion invention of the 70's helped solve the 'must get completely undressed to pee' leotard situation ... the bodyshirt as long as the snaps held ;-) bikinis! definitely. I hate to say in mixed company (seeing men clap their hands over their ears and shriek is not encouraging) what wearing a thong reminds me of ... (hint ..ever since they started making IT with adhesive, the belts that we had to wear IT with went away)

Posted by: Darleen at January 17, 2005 04:30 PM (FgfaV)

7 Well, that was part of the insanity of the time: the invention existed to help us with that problem, but we couldn't wear bodyshirts, because they weren't in style. It had to be REAL DANCEWEAR, made by Capezio or Danskin, in just the right shades of shimmery stretch fabric. If someone had marketed counterfeit dancewear that featured the snaps, he/she would have made a fortune.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 17, 2005 05:55 PM (RjyQ5)

8 ::sigh:: Well since I spent the 80's with small children underfoot shimmery was kinda limited to "what the hell did they spill on the floor NOW?"

Posted by: Darleen at January 17, 2005 07:29 PM (FgfaV)

9 I can't do boxers for the same reason HomericPundit notes. But a compromise that is comfortable is the newer boxers made of brief material. They stretch and conform and actually hold you in place pretty well. On the topic, what is it about boxers that women seem to find so attractive (vs. briefs)?

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 17, 2005 11:26 PM (c8BHE)

10 I love those new hybrid boxer/brief clingy things! I can only give one woman's opinion, but my objection is to tighty whiteys. They aren't form-fitting enough to really show the maie form, yet they don't have that classic masculine quasi-shorts look that boxers bring. (And this I cannot explain, any more than a man can explain why he sometimes wants the lower hemline or the one-piece swimsuit, so that just a bit more is left to the imagination. It's just how it is.) Also, tighty whiteys are kind of see-through, but not in a good way--in a yucky way. I love men's bikinis, but a lot of men just aren't comfortable in them--they feel unmasculine, or like something out of Zoolander or whatever. So the good compromises are the stretch-fabric boxers (the hybrids) we've discussed, or briefs that have the classic tighty-whitey cut, but are not white. (They come in blue, gray, black.) Travel Smith sells some nice ones that are supposed to be really comfortable, since they come in a "wicking" fabric a la Coolmax. And the fabric doesn't stretch out and get gross, like tighty whiteys do. And, in case I haven't been clear, I don't like tighty whiteys.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 18, 2005 12:01 AM (RjyQ5)

11 Look at this response! That proves it. You need to write about boobs more often. (And include pictures!) You could start with Bush...

Posted by: littlemrmahatma at January 18, 2005 07:49 AM (BZ0tI)

12 I have to admit that it's amazing. I want to ask, "what about all my great essays?" But links and comments are links and comments. I hope people who come over here for boob-bloggage stay for the of the other things I write.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 18, 2005 08:48 AM (RjyQ5)

13 Well, I just found this site through Beautiful Atrocities via Rightwingsparkle where I usually post. As for the new boxer/brief hybrids, I've tried those and yes they are better than boxers. I wear them when I feel there is a likelihood of them being seen, if you get my drift. Other times I stick with the ultimate in support, what you refer to as tighty whiteys. The gals do seem to prefer the hybrids..

Posted by: HomericPundit at January 18, 2005 07:24 PM (o93Nz)

14 I should start a terrorist campaign to stamp out tighty whiteys. If you ever hear of a Fruit of the Loom factory being bombed, you'll know what happened . . .

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 18, 2005 07:55 PM (RjyQ5)

15 when you start your campaign, please make sure from the outset what you mean by "tighty whiteys". Some people might take that to mean something different. And I don't like FOLs myself. Its Hanes all the way.

Posted by: HomericPundit at January 18, 2005 09:54 PM (wExG+)

16 I could call my group the JJ (Junk Jihadis)! Liberating infidels from their ugly underwear, as the Prophet suggested, peace be upon his name. Alla Akbar.

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 19, 2005 01:31 AM (RjyQ5)

17 Perhaps you've found a new niche... Seriously though, back when Outland was still publishing, Daisycat would choke with laughter whenever she saw those male critters wearing their "tighty whities".

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 19, 2005 08:33 AM (0DDAz)

18 Attila Girl, so Tom Cruise in Risky Business didn't do anything for you, right? Yeah I thought so...

Posted by: HomericPundit at January 21, 2005 09:42 PM (+gL7j)

19 I cannot either confirm or deny what would amount to a child-molestation urge. (BTW, tighty whiteys can be taken off. Since I hate them so, this is best done sooner rather than later.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at January 21, 2005 10:39 PM (RjyQ5)

20 maybe that's why we wear them...

Posted by: HomericPundit at January 22, 2005 05:46 PM (HgRcT)

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Has everyone heard this story now? I got it from Larry Elder, and then grabbed this account off the web.

Clint Eastwood was at the National Board of Review Awards dinner in New York on Tuesday, accepting an award for Million Dollar Baby. Michael Moore was also at the event, having received a "Freedom of Expression" award. So Clint pointed out that he and Moore actually had a lot in common. For instance, "we both value freedom of expression." Then he looked right at Moore and added, "but, Michael, if you ever show up on my doorstep with a camera, I'll kill you."

The audience laughed, and Eastwood added, "I'm serious."

News accounts don't tell us if his eyes still twinkled, so I'm not positive what the yin/yang balance was in that moment.

But if he did mean it in a hostile way, and I were Michael Moore, I'm afraid I'd be tempted to call his bluff on this one.

Maybe not, though: there is The Power of Clint. One has to consider Eastwood Exceptionalism.

What, exactly, would happen if the sheriffs in Carmel were called out to Clint's place and encountered the enormous carcass of Moore in front of the former mayor's home? If there were a camera in Moore's hands, it might well be written off as a suicide.

Just sayin'.

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Well, we went to see Team America today. I thought it was pretty funny, actually, although I don't usually go for really crude humor and I have never seen one episode of South Park.

The husband and I had at least one disagreement about the plot, wherein something I saw as noise looked like signal to him. But the noise-to-signal issue is fascinating, here, because a lot of the really broad humor was, in my opinion, a way of getting the film made in the first place. I think the puppet gimmick and some of the grosser moments were a device for Parker and Stone to hide behind when they needed to: "hey, it's a movie made with puppets, who have sex with each other. And it skewers the idea of American exceptionalism." Yeah. But not like it skewers terrorists and their enablers on the left.

What's amazing to me is that this film got made at all, because 1) it's fundamentally a pro-America, pro-testosterone piece that discusses the very real intentions of overseas terrorists to kill us (while grossly exaggerating this threat, cartoon-style); and 2) it savages the Hollywood left as thoughtless appeasers who are pro-peace until it's time to take up arms against those who want to stop the world from being blown up.

I don't agree with everything in it, and it isn't what you'd call a "think piece." Its comedy is (deliberately) over-the-top. But the tunes are catchy, and there aren't a lot of places you can go to see a Jeanine Garafalo puppet state that "I read the newspaper every day, and then I spout those opinions as my own." Or to hear a theme song whose chorus is "America—fuck, yeah!"

And there's no argument to be made about what an technical achievement this film is. My understanding is that there's little computer animation in the movie, and that most of the effects are achieved by using elaborate sets of international landmarks. The puppets are amazing to watch, yet Parker and Stone made a point of having the strings show at all times—just so we know they don't take themselves any more seriously than they do the Hollywood establishment (epitomized in the movie by the organization the Film Actors Guild; tasteful, the movie is not).

Frankly, I'd like to see this movie do well, because its point of view is underrepresented in my town. But I can't recommend it in good conscience to anyone who's sensitive about . . . anything. There's not a family value to be found in the film, so go in with your eyes open.

But any movie that threw Sean Penn off to this degree can't be all bad. And isn't. It's clever, it's fun, and it's full of bodily fluids, sex and explosions. Enjoy.

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The husband and I are going to see Team America as soon as possible; any movie that can make the LLL media critics shit their pants like this is a Good Thing.

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