Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings
"In past economic crises, populist fervor has been for expanding the power of the national government to address America’s pressing needs. Pleas for making good the nation’s commitment to equality and welfare have been as loud as those for liberty.
“Now the many who are struggling have no progressive champion. The left have ceded the field to the Tea Party and, in doing so, allowed it to make history. It is building political power by selling the promise of a return to a mythic past.”
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149377/we%27re_headed_for_a_major_battle_with_the_tea_party_crowd_over_the_constitution_itself/
I don't look at moving into 2011 in the USA as a positive time for any but the rich and the politicians who serve them, which seems to be most of them based on the quote above. But I guess that's what happens when the pissing contest for collecting the most material goods becomes your country's meme.
Watch Bill Maher's Christmas message to Oprah video (The Huffington Post, 12-22-10 & You Tube) where he mocks Oprah's annual give-away show and basically says that if she wanted to use her influence for good, she would tell her audience that all this materialism is crap. Watch the shots of her audience and she unveils another give-away; their frenzy is akin to religious mania.
The world is absurd; but you do the best job you can.
Movie Monday: quick reviews
1. Percy Jackson and The Olympians - oh, soooooo painful to watch. The kids were horrible. The adults....... well, when Pierce Bronsan and Sean Bean (he was able to carry Boromir's long death scene) can't keep the picture from tanking, you know you are watching drek. But with the built-in audience from the book series, it will probably make zillions.
2. Dear John - Really only a re-make of Hollywood's golden age man-meets-girl, crisis arrives, man-loses-girl, crisis explained, man-gets-girl movie. This time with on-screen sex. But even though it's light, the movie shows the problems of men in the armed forces and the relationships they leave behind in the states. And sometimes a light touch works better than an in-your-face screed. Amanda Seyfried, who plays the girl, Savannah (who thinks up these names?), I consider a Jennifer Aniston type who can act. Channing Tatum, who plays John (and yes, he does get a Dear John letter) looks like a soldier because he doesn't look like the typical Hollywood pretty boy. He looks big, very, very slightly stupid, and puppy dog sweet. I guess that's my idea of the modern soldier.
3. The Bounty Hunter - and now we move to Jennifer Aniston. I never watched Friends, probably because all I watch on TV are non-commercial movies and CSPAN's weekend book and history programs. But I do know that TV acting is not movie acting. The best way to describe it is that TV acting is "smaller." Maybe that's why there have been so few critical successes in the movies for TV actors (Eastwood and Reynolds are commercial successes; there's a difference.) Aniston fits this bill. She has churned out a lot of movies since leaving Friends but they have been the same old, same old. Probably her two best (and that's not saying much) were: He's Just Not That Into You and Friends With Money; both of which had ensemble casts with multiple stories. Gerard Butler doesn't help a lousy script in this movie. How does a Hollywood script meeting go? Let's have a love angle and a car chase, and a break-up and a car chase, oh, and suspense and a car chase. Watching it and knitting didn't help. I doubt watching it and drinking would either.
4. The Father of my Children (French with subtitles. 2008) - A movie mogul with a very good track record is facing bankruptcy. We watch his descent into despair and a deus ex machina doesn't appear; shit happens. Watching this movie, I'm asking myself: Why is watching really just interesting paint dry (no car chases, one secret not resolved, only one death) so riveting? And then I realized: Because I don't know any of the actors. I'm just watching a good story. Hollywood insists on "names" to sell their ideas. (Director: I want to make the 23rd remake of The Nutty Professor. Hollywood Money: What stars do you have?) In this movie, although the plot revolves around movie production (something most of us will never be involved in) it's really just a mirror upon a family in crisis; how the crisis deepens and the damage it does and finally how those left must move on. Not flawlessly told, but worth a watch.
“Now the many who are struggling have no progressive champion. The left have ceded the field to the Tea Party and, in doing so, allowed it to make history. It is building political power by selling the promise of a return to a mythic past.”
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149377/we%27re_headed_for_a_major_battle_with_the_tea_party_crowd_over_the_constitution_itself/
I don't look at moving into 2011 in the USA as a positive time for any but the rich and the politicians who serve them, which seems to be most of them based on the quote above. But I guess that's what happens when the pissing contest for collecting the most material goods becomes your country's meme.
Watch Bill Maher's Christmas message to Oprah video (The Huffington Post, 12-22-10 & You Tube) where he mocks Oprah's annual give-away show and basically says that if she wanted to use her influence for good, she would tell her audience that all this materialism is crap. Watch the shots of her audience and she unveils another give-away; their frenzy is akin to religious mania.
The world is absurd; but you do the best job you can.
Movie Monday: quick reviews
1. Percy Jackson and The Olympians - oh, soooooo painful to watch. The kids were horrible. The adults....... well, when Pierce Bronsan and Sean Bean (he was able to carry Boromir's long death scene) can't keep the picture from tanking, you know you are watching drek. But with the built-in audience from the book series, it will probably make zillions.
2. Dear John - Really only a re-make of Hollywood's golden age man-meets-girl, crisis arrives, man-loses-girl, crisis explained, man-gets-girl movie. This time with on-screen sex. But even though it's light, the movie shows the problems of men in the armed forces and the relationships they leave behind in the states. And sometimes a light touch works better than an in-your-face screed. Amanda Seyfried, who plays the girl, Savannah (who thinks up these names?), I consider a Jennifer Aniston type who can act. Channing Tatum, who plays John (and yes, he does get a Dear John letter) looks like a soldier because he doesn't look like the typical Hollywood pretty boy. He looks big, very, very slightly stupid, and puppy dog sweet. I guess that's my idea of the modern soldier.
3. The Bounty Hunter - and now we move to Jennifer Aniston. I never watched Friends, probably because all I watch on TV are non-commercial movies and CSPAN's weekend book and history programs. But I do know that TV acting is not movie acting. The best way to describe it is that TV acting is "smaller." Maybe that's why there have been so few critical successes in the movies for TV actors (Eastwood and Reynolds are commercial successes; there's a difference.) Aniston fits this bill. She has churned out a lot of movies since leaving Friends but they have been the same old, same old. Probably her two best (and that's not saying much) were: He's Just Not That Into You and Friends With Money; both of which had ensemble casts with multiple stories. Gerard Butler doesn't help a lousy script in this movie. How does a Hollywood script meeting go? Let's have a love angle and a car chase, and a break-up and a car chase, oh, and suspense and a car chase. Watching it and knitting didn't help. I doubt watching it and drinking would either.
4. The Father of my Children (French with subtitles. 2008) - A movie mogul with a very good track record is facing bankruptcy. We watch his descent into despair and a deus ex machina doesn't appear; shit happens. Watching this movie, I'm asking myself: Why is watching really just interesting paint dry (no car chases, one secret not resolved, only one death) so riveting? And then I realized: Because I don't know any of the actors. I'm just watching a good story. Hollywood insists on "names" to sell their ideas. (Director: I want to make the 23rd remake of The Nutty Professor. Hollywood Money: What stars do you have?) In this movie, although the plot revolves around movie production (something most of us will never be involved in) it's really just a mirror upon a family in crisis; how the crisis deepens and the damage it does and finally how those left must move on. Not flawlessly told, but worth a watch.
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