Category Archives: On Politics

Ambition’s debt is paid: The Ides of March **1/2

August 2, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 8, 2011)

In the decidedly theatrical opener of George Clooney’s latest directorial effort, The Ides of March, a well-attired young man with a lean and hungry look emerges from backstage shadows, steps up to a podium and begins to address an empty hall. After muttering some standard-issue mike check gibberish, he begins to recite snippets of what sounds like some tried-and-true, audience-rousing political campaign rhetoric.

His tone becomes so assured and impassioned, you find yourself wondering if he is the one running for office. He’s not, actually. But he is playing to win. He’s a hotshot campaign advisor named Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), a Ninja spin doctor (or, “Spinja” if you like) who also possesses something relatively rare in the cynical and duplicitous profession he has chosen to work in. He actually believes in the candidate he is working to put into office.

That candidate is Governor Mike Morris (Clooney), making a first-time bid for the presidency. The charismatic and straight-talking Morris is in a fierce fight to win the Ohio primary, which should cinch him as the Dem’s nominee. Stephen isn’t the only weapon in his arsenal; his campaign manager is Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) a seasoned veteran with an impressive track record. In the pecking order, Stephen answers to Paul. The one thing that Paul values above all is loyalty, and he makes no bones about it.

That is why Stephen is torn when approached by Paul’s competition, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) who manages the rival campaign. After the obligatory “You should be working for the winning team, kid” pitch, Tom gives Stephen a “hot tip” that his camp has been assured a key endorsement from a senator (Jeffrey Wright) which will give Tom’s guy the win. Why is he telling Stephen this? Is it a trick? Then again, it’s nice to be wooed. In the meantime, Stephen does some wooing of his own, with an intern (Evan Rachael Wood). You would think that this sharp young man would know the pitfalls of office romance. This leads a huge pitfall…one that could sink the campaign.

I suppose that is the message of this film (politics is all awash in the wooing). The art of seduction and the art of politicking are one and the same; not exactly a new revelation (a narrative that goes back at least as far as, I don’t know, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar). The politician is seduced by power. However, the politician first must seduce the voter. A pleasing narrative is spun and polished, promises are made, sweet nothings whispered in the ear, and the voter caves.

But once your candidate is ensconced in their shiny new office, well…about that diamond ring? It turns out to be cubic zirconium. Then it’s all about the complacency, the lying, the psychodramas, and the traumas. While a lot of folks do end up getting ‘screwed’, it is not necessarily in the most desirable and fun way. But I digress.

If you would indulge me my prurient analogy a wee bit more, Clooney’s film, while competently made and well-acted, could have used a little Viagra (or something). The TV ad campaign spins it as a political thriller, but while it involves politics, and does feature some intrigue, it’s not really that thrilling. I would classify as more of a political potboiler, simmering on medium high all of the way through.

The screenplay is by-the-numbers (Clooney co-adapted from Beau Willimon’s play, Farragut North with Willimon and Grant Heslov). Clooney is believable as presidential material (duh), Gosling continues to impress with his chameleon skills, and there are fine moments with Marisa Tomei (as well as Hoffman and Giamatti), but if you assemble this much potentially explosive talent, don’t just give ‘em caps and a hammer to play with. That’s free campaign advice.

60's Counterculture, Conspiracy a-go-go, Documentary, On Politics

Swede sweetback’s baadassss song: The Black Power Mixtape ***

August 2, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 1, 2011)

Diana: Hi, I’m Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles.

Laureen: I’m Laureen Hobbs, a badass commie n****r.

Diana: Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship.

–from Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky

The slyly subversive sociopolitical subtext of that memorable exchange between Faye Dunaway and Marlene Warfield in Sidney Lumet’s classic 1976 satire could be lost on anyone not old enough to recall the radical politics and revolutionary rhetoric of the era, but for those of us who are (and who do), the character of “Laureen Hobbs” was clearly inspired by Angela Davis, the UCLA professor-turned activist whose name became synonymous with the Black Power movement of the late 60s to mid 70s.

Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky’s distillation of the two characters into winking cultural stereotypes, while wryly satirical, was not far off the mark as to how the MSM spun the image of Davis and other prominent figures like Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seale. As I recall, the media tended to focus on the more extreme, sensationalist facets. Police shootouts with Black Panthers, prison riots and U.S. athletes giving the Black Power salute at the Olympic Games made for good copy, but didn’t paint the entire picture of the Black Experience in America.

With the alternative press (and most likely the FBI) excepted, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of investigative parsing going on at the time to unearth the root cause and/or ideology behind the images of violence and civil unrest that the MSM played on a continuous loop. After all, this was, at its core, a legitimate and historically significant American political movement (if not a revolution), and no one seemed to be taking the pains to document it. At least, no one in this country. Sweden, on the other hand? They had it covered.

I know…Sweden. Go figure. At any rate, a treasure trove of vintage 16mm footage, representing nearly a decade of candid interviews with movement leaders and meticulous documentation of Black Panther Party activities and African-American inner city life was recently discovered tucked away in the basement of Swedish Television. Director Goran Olsson has cherry-picked fascinating clips and assembled them in a chronological historical order for his documentary, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

Olsson leaves the contextualization to present-day retrospection from surviving participants (Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Kathleen Cleaver and Harry Belafonte), as well as reflections by contemporary African-American academics, writers, poets and musicians. The director restricts modern commentators to voice-over, thereby devoting maximum screen time to the pristine archive footage. And if you’re expecting bandolier-wearing, pistol-waving bad-ass commie, uh, interviewees spouting fiery Marxist-tinged rhetoric, dispense with that hoary stereotype now.

What you will see is a relaxed and soft-spoken Stokely Carmichael, surprising his interviewers by borrowing the mike to ask his own mother questions about her life experience as an African-American woman in America. There are interviews with a jailed Angela Davis, an exiled Eldridge Cleaver (in Algiers), Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton and others; and what really comes through is the humanity behind the rhetoric. Whether one agrees or disagrees with all the means and methods they utilized to get their views across to the powers-that-be, the underlying message is self-empowerment, and a forward-thinking commitment to changing the world for the better.

Speaking of the “powers-that-be”, there are interesting segments on the state response to the movement at the time (infiltration and entrapment, turning a blind eye to civil liberties, etc.) that beg comparisons to our post 9-11 environment (plus ca change…). In fact, the subject of Olsson’s film feels trapped by its 100 minute time constraint; there’s more than enough angles to this largely neglected part of 20th-century American history to provide ample material for a Ken Burns-length miniseries. Olsson weaves social context into the mix by using clips from a 1973 Swedish TV cinema-verite documentary called Harlem: Voices, Faces, a time capsule that lends a sense of poetry to an otherwise straightforward collage

The film is not without flaws; some of the contemporary commentators don’t necessarily lend new insight. Also, Olssons’s commitment to offering viewers a “mix, not a remix” feels unfocused at times (“subjective” doesn’t have to mean “dry”). Still, a film like this is important, because the time is ripe to re-examine the story of the Black Power movement, which despite its failures and flaws, still emerges as one of the last truly progressive grass roots political awakenings that we’ve had in this country (no, the Tea Party shares no parallels, by any stretch of the imagination).

Watching the film made me a little sad. Where is the real passion (and social compassion) in American politics anymore? It’s become all about petty partisanship and myopic self-interest and next to nothing about empowering citizens and maintaining a truly free and equal society. However (to end on an up note), I came across this rousing speech, recently delivered on the 40^th anniversary of the Attica prison riot. It gave me hope that the legacy is alive:

Amen, brother.

Conspiracy a-go-go, Eco-doc, On Politics, The Environment

A (not so) clear-cut case: If a Tree Falls ***

August 1, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on July 23, 2011)

In the mid-90s, I worked at a Honeybaked Ham store in the Seattle area (don’t ask). Normally, I wouldn’t bring that up, but…funny story. Well, not “ha-ha” funny, but it does tie in with this week’s review.

Because you see, that was when I had my personal brush with “eco-terrorism”. I came to work one day, and espied a couple of Redmond’s finest standing outside the store, talking to the manager. Then I noticed interesting new artwork adorning the windows, writ large in dried ketchup and barbecue sauce: MEAT IS MURDER! It was signed “E.L.F.”. Apparently, several other restaurants down the street had also been hit (McDonald’s had had their locks glued shut).

So, as I was scrubbing to remove the graffiti, I wondered “Who is this ‘ELF’ …a disgruntled Keebler employee?” I had never heard of the Earth Liberation Front. I remember the manager saying “How much you want to bet this guy fled the scene in leather Nikes?” “Yeah,” I snickered, whilst contemplating the dried globs of Heinz 57 on my sponge “these suburban anarchists aren’t exactly the Baader-Meinhof Gang, are they?” (I can’t say that I felt “terrorized”).

Flash forward to 2001. I turned on the local news one night, and saw the UW Center for Urban Horticulture engulfed in flames ($7 million in damage). The arson was attributed to the E.L.F. “Hmm,” I pondered, “maybe they are sort of like the Baader-Meinhof Gang, ”

Or are they? According to the FBI, “Eco-terrorism” is defined as:

The use (or threatened use) of violence of a criminal nature against people or property by an environmentally oriented, sub-national group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.

That certainly covers a lot of ground. One could argue that Johnny Appleseed was an Eco-terrorist. Sure, he’s a legendary conservationist and agrarian icon. However, he was against grafting, which resulted in a fruit more suitable for hard cider than for eating. Hence, the “environmentally-oriented” Appleseed was “responsible” for introducing alcohol to the frontier. And it’s inarguable that much “violence of a criminal nature against people or property” is committed under the influence. OK, that’s a stretch .

Then again, there are a number of “environmentally-oriented” types doing a “a stretch” in the federal pen right now for non-lethal actions that the government considers terrorism, and that others consider heroic. This is not a black and white issue; a point not lost on the directors of If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front.

So what type of circumstance can change a nature lover into a freedom fighter? Anyone can make a statement by holding up a sign or throwing on a “Save the Rainforest” t-shirt, but what motivates someone who decides to take it to the next level-throwing on a Ninja outfit and torching a lumber mill in the middle of the night? And what would they hope to achieve? Wouldn’t that just encourage corporations to cut down even more trees to replace lost inventory?

In order to convey a sense of the humanity behind the mug shots, co-directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman focus primarily on Earth Liberation Front member Daniel McGowan, who at the time of filming was facing a possible life sentence for his direct involvement in several high-profile “actions” (including the arson of an Oregon lumber mill) that resulted in millions of dollars in property damage. Holed up in his sister’s NYC apartment (and sporting a house arrest anklet for the first third of the film), McGowan candidly opens up about his life and what led him to change his own M.O. for making a statement from “environmental activism” to “domestic terrorism”.

The filmmakers parallel the timeline and details of McGowan’s personal journey with a study about the development of the E.L.F., adding present day interviews with his cohorts and archival footage of some of the group’s early “actions” (which were more in the realm of civil disobedience and passive resistance-like sitting in the path of bulldozers and camping out in old-growth trees marked for cutting). McGowan initially became involved with the environmental movement through “mainstream” activities, like “writing hundreds of letters” of protest and participating in peaceful demonstrations.

McGowan became frustrated with what he perceived to be the ineffectiveness of such actions. He sums it up with a rhetorical question: “When you’re screaming at the top of your lungs, and nobody hears you, what are you supposed to do?”

The tipping point for McGowan came in 1999, when he participated in the WTO protests in Seattle. There, through some of the more radicalized E.L.F. members, he became embedded with the relatively small band of black-clad “anarchists” who were disproportionately responsible for most of the property damage that occurred during the demonstrations (the majority of participants made a point after the fact to disassociate themselves from the anarchists).

From there, it was a relatively small jump to the more extreme acts that would lead to his eventual arrest and prosecution (he agreed to a “non-cooperation” plea deal that saved him from life in prison but still saddled him with 7 years and a “terrorism enhancement”).

The filmmakers give equal screen time to some of the law enforcement officials and prosecutors who made the case against McGowan and his associates. Although no one was ever injured or killed as a result of E.L.F. activity (astounding considering that there were approximately 1,200 “actions” perpetrated by the group during their heyday), there are still victims; and some of them appear on camera as well to offer their perspective.

Were these people “terrorists”? You almost have to get back to defining “what is a terrorist?” Or in this case, who are the real terrorists? One interviewee offers this: “95% of the native American forests have been cut down. Trying to save the remaining 5% is ‘radical’?” That’s a valid question. McGowan himself seems to be arguing (in so many words) that in a post 9-11 world, people have a tendency to make a “rush to judgment” without considering the alternate point of view (he suggests that the word “terrorist” has supplanted “Communist” as the demagogue’s dog whistle of choice).

I wonder if the filmmakers intend McGowan’s story to be a litmus test for the viewer (how far out on the limb would you be willing to go for your personal convictions?) If so, that’s a tough one. Part of me identifies with Daniel McGowan the environmentally-conscious idealist; but I don’t think I can quite get behind Daniel McGowan the criminal arsonist. For now, I’m just content to keep recycling and doing my part to think “glocal”. And in case you’re wondering…I haven’t stepped foot inside a Honeybaked Ham store since I quit working there 14 years ago. Those murderous bastards.

Armageddon, Drama, On Politics, Thriller

Ah-CHOO! Oh, crap: Contagion ***1/2

July 30, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on September 17, 2011)

So you say you don’t have enough nightmarish fodder for those racing thoughts that keep you tossing and turning on sweat-soaked sheets every night…what with the economy, the Teabaggers, the pending demise of entitlement programs, the Teabaggers, the rising costs of healthcare, and the Teabaggers? Are you prone to health anxiety? Do you spend hours on wrongdiagnosis.com in a dogged search to confirm your worst fears that your hangnail is surely a symptom of some horrible wasting disease? And there’s no way in hell I can convince you the glass is half-full, not half-empty?

Bubbeleh, have I got a movie for you.

Steven Soderbergh has taken the network narrative formula that drove Traffic, his 2000 Oscar winner about the ‘war’ on drugs, and used it to similar effect in Contagion, a cautionary tale envisioning socio-political upheaval in the wake of a killer pandemic (which epidemiological experts concur is not a matter of “if”, but of “when”).

In an opening montage (entitled “Day 2”), the camera tails the person we assume to be Patient Zero, an American businesswoman (Gwyneth Paltrow) returning from an overseas trip, as she kills time at a Chicago airport lounge. She appears to be developing a slight cold. Soderbergh’s camera begins to focus on benign items. A dish of peanuts. A door knob. Paltrow’s hand as she pays her tab. A creeping sense of dread arises. The scenario becomes more troubling when Soderbergh ominously cuts to a succession of individuals in Hong Kong, Tokyo and London who have all suddenly taken extremely ill.

Whatever they have, it works fast. By the time Paltrow is reunited with her kids and her husband (Matt Damon, as the Everyman of the piece), we’ve watched several of the overseas victims collapse and die horribly; in the meantime her sniffles and sore throat escalates to fever, weakness and ultimately a grand mal seizure. Within moments of her arrival at the ER, it’s Mystery Virus 1, Doctors 0. It’s only the beginning of the nightmare. An exponential increase in deaths quickly catches the attention of the authorities, which in turn saddles us with a bevy of new characters to keep track of.

There are the CDC investigators in the U.S. (Kate Winslet is in the field, while her boss Laurence Fishburne holds meddlesome politicos at bay) and Marion Cotillard as a doctor enlisted by the W.H.O. to look into Hong Kong as possible ground zero. There are the front line researchers doing the lab work to isolate the virus and develop a vaccine (Jennifer Ehle, Demetri Martin and Elliott Gould).

Even Homeland Security gets into the act; Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston is a liaison who suggests possible terrorist scenarios (could this be a “weaponized” virus?). Jude Law portrays a popular activist blogger who claims there is an existing vaccine that works, but that the CDC is withholding distribution for nefarious reasons (something to do with Big Pharma; certainly feasible). Law is also the recipient of a zinger print journalists will be falling over each other to quote : “A blog isn’t writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.”

There are many threads to keep track of; fortunately, Soderbergh brings all the ingredients to a gently rolling boil by the film’s denouement without overcooking the ham, as it were. By reining in his powerhouse cast, and working from a screenplay (by Scott Z. Burns) that eschews melodrama, Soderbergh keeps it real (if a tad clinical), resulting in an effective and thought-provoking ensemble piece (by contrast, Wolfgang Peterson’s star-studded, similarly-themed 1995 thriller Outbreak plays more like a live action cartoon).

In fact, I can’t help but wonder how many of the folks who flocked to theaters last weekend (and helped make Contagion #1 at the box office ) were disappointed by Soderbergh’s unadorned approach . Historically, Soderbergh tends to deliver either sure-fire populist ‘product’ (Out of Sight, Erin Brokovich, Oceans 11 and its sequels), or obscure experiments aimed squarely at the art house hipster crowd (Schizopolis, Full Frontal, Bubble). On occasion, he finds the sweet spot (Sex, Lies and Videotape, The Limey, Traffic, and now…Contagion).

Conceptually, Contagion is actually a closer cousin to The War Game, the 1965 film from director Peter Watkins that depicted, in a very stark and realistic manner, what might happen in a ‘typical’ medium-sized British city immediately following a nuclear strike. While the root cause of the respective civic crises in the two films differs, the resulting impact on the everyday populace is quite similar, and serves as a grim reminder that no matter how “civilized” we fancy ourselves to be, we are but one such catastrophic event away from complete societal breakdown.

Soderbergh’s film raises interesting questions, like, are we prepared for an event like this? If the virus is a new strain, how long would it take to develop a vaccine? How much longer to manufacture 300 million doses? Surely, not in time to save millions of lives. And speaking of piles of corpses, how do you dispose of them, with one eye on public safety? Who’s first in line to receive the first batch of vaccine? Who decides? And, outside of Soderbergh’s narrative), the CDC isn’t one of those government agencies currently targeted for budget cuts by our Republican and Teabagger buds in Congress…is it? I wish I could reassure fellow hypochondriacs with “It’s only a movie.” But the best I can do for now is: A gezunt Dir in Pupik!

Conspiracy a-go-go, On Politics, War(s) on Terror

Let them eat yellow cake: Fair Game ***

July 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 6, 2010)

I would like to invite you along for a little stroll down memory lane…to a time, not so long ago, when we had this man in the White House who, well…went a little ‘funny’ in the head after a terrorist group attacked America. You know, funny, and what he did was, you see, he sort of…girded his loins to invade a Middle Eastern country that actually had very little to do with the specific group of terrorists who attacked America.

Naturally, he first had to come up with a viable reason . And what he did was, he convinced the Congress that the country in question was not only chockablock with evildoers, but evildoers who had weapons of mass destruction that surely would be wielded against America in the near future.

Now, he couldn’t actually produce any photos of these Doomsday Machines, but they did discover some suspicious aluminum tubes. Oh-and they heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another that they had been messin’ around with a substance called “yellow cake” which can be used in the manufacture of WMDs. Again, no real evidence, but nobody in the Congress wanted to be labeled as unpatriotic or anything like that, so they all went “Booyah! Shock and awe!” and opened those bomb bay doors wide.

So, the invasion was going swimmingly for a spell, and even those Americans who may have been scratching their heads over the aluminum tubes and yellow cake and such were keeping mum, because they didn’t want to be labeled as unpatriotic, either.Besides, all the journalists on the TV were supporting the troops, too!

But then, as the war began to drag on, and no stockpiles of WMDs seemed to be turning up, sleeper cells of not-so-patriotic grumblers could be detected all around America. However, as they turned out to be mostly aging, drug-addled old left-leaning hippie panhandlers and radical progressive pundits, the White House didn’t pay much mind to such gibberish-that is, until the summer of 2003.

That is when a former Foreign Service officer and ambassador named Joe Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times called “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”. Wilson had been sent on a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002 at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney, to investigate a report that Iraq had purchased some of the aforementioned yellow cake back in the late 1990s.

The gist of the piece was that there seemed to be a credibility gap between what the guy in the White House (you know, the one who went, sort of ’funny’ in the head) was claiming regarding the alleged stockpiling of yellow cake in Iraq, and what Wilson had actually discovered. ‘Someone’ obviously lied.

And it wasn’t Mr. Wilson.

That’s why ‘someone’ involved with the White House became very cross with Wilson. As a result, ‘someone’ accidentally-on-purpose allowed some confidential information about Wilson’s wife to get leaked.

In fact, it was only 8 days after Wilson’s op-ed appeared that conservative journalist Robert Novak published an article in which he identified Valerie Plame Wilson as an “agency operative” (as in CIA). The Wilson’s life became hell, and the question of whether or not ‘someone’ in the Bush administration was guilty of a criminal act (by outing a CIA operative) became a widely debated issue.

Eventually, following a Department of Justice investigation, a member of the administration, Lewis “Scooter” Libby (former chief of staff for VP Cheney) ended up taking the fall in 2007, when he received a 30-month sentence for perjury and obstruction The President (apparently still feeling a little ‘funny’) commuted Libby’s sentence, 4 months after the conviction.

You’ll note that I said Libby “took the fall”. I don’t want to name names, or put on a tin foil hat and suggest that there was a powerful cabal behind the smear, but in 2007, the Wilsons did file a civil suit against Messrs. Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Richard Armitage (it didn’t take). Ah-(*sigh*) those were the days.

Indeed, many “Kodak moments” from the BushCo era came flashing back as I watched Fair Game, Doug Liman’s slightly uneven dramatization of the “Plame affair”. Jez and John-Henry Butterworth based their screenplay on two memoirs, The Politics of Truth by Joe Wilson, and Fair Game by Valerie Plame.

Sean Penn and Naomi Watts bring their star power to the table as the Wilsons, portraying them as a loving couple who were living relatively low key lives (she more as a necessity of her profession) until they got pushed into a boiling cauldron of nasty political intrigue that falls somewhere in between All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor.

Viewers unfamiliar with the back story could be misled by the opening scenes, which give the impression you may be in for a Bourne-style action thriller. The conundrum is that the part of the story concerning Valerie Plame’s CIA exploits can at best be speculative in nature. Due to the sensitivity of those matters, Plame has only gone on record concerning that part of her life in vague, generalized terms, so what you end up with is something along the lines of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

However, the most important part of the couple’s story was the political fallout that transpired once Valerie was “outed” by Novak. Although Valerie (the more guarded of the two) is initially reticent to go on the counteroffensive, Joe is able to convince her that there is much more at stake than merely salvaging their pride by pushing back.

Liman wisely shifts the focus to depicting how Wilson and Plame weathered this storm together, and ultimately stood up to the Bush-Cheney juggernaut of “alternative facts” that helped sell the American public on Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The CIA, of course was no help; they dropped Plame like a hot potato once her cover was blown (essentially throwing her under the bus while wishing her best of luck).

In light of this past Tuesday’s depressing results, the timing of this film’s release could be seen as serendipity. We know from experience how ugly it’s going to get, and also learned that a bully is a bully until you push back. So why not take a bit of inspiration away from this political David and Goliath tale from our not-so-distant past? We’d best get in shape now. So…drop and give me 20!

Big Money, Documentary, On Politics, Up the Workers

The (toxic) loan arranger rides again: Inside Job ***1/2

July 16, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 6, 2010)

Rising up to break this thing

From family trees the dukes do swing

Just one blow to scratch the itch

The law’s made for and by the rich

–Paul Weller

I have good news and bad news about the documentary, Inside Job, Charles Ferguson’s incisive parsing of what led to the crash of the global financial system in 2008. The good news is that I believe I finally grok what “derivatives” and “toxic loans” are. The bad news is…that doesn’t make me feel any better about how fucked we are.

To their credit, writers Chad Beck and Adam Bolt don’t stoop to hyperbole (pandering to those steadily depressing, low down mind-messing, workin’ at the car wash blues that we’re already feeling as a result of this economic nightmare) but step back to give some actual historical perspective. The filmmakers start at the very beginning-all the way back to where the seeds were sown-during the spate of rampant financial deregulation during the Reagan administration (aka, “morning in America”-remember that?).

No POTUS (including Obama) who has led the country post-Reagan is let off the hook, either. The film illustrates, point by painful point, how every subsequent administration, Democratic and Republican alike, did their “part” in enabling the current crisis-mostly through political cronyism and legislative manipulation. The result of this decades long circle jerk involving Wall Street, the mortgage industry, Congress, the White House and lobbyists (with Ivy League professors as pivot men) is what we are now living with today.

The film is very slickly produced; it’s well-paced, nicely edited and Matt Damon’s even-toned narration helps to keep the somewhat byzantine threads of the story accessible. Ferguson was able to assemble a fascinating cross-section of talking heads, including financial insiders, economists, politicians, academics…and even a Wall Street madam (who comes off, relative to the kinds of people she provides services for, as one of the more virtuous and forthright interviewees).

In fact, the overall impression I came away with was that the entire financial system, taken along with its associative ties to lobbyists, legislators, economics professors and corporate-backed MSM lackeys, is nothing less than a glorified prostitution ring-funded by America’s working poor and middle class taxpayers.

This brings me to the film’s one flaw. Ferguson is very good at getting us riled up (there’s plenty here to get pissed about)-but doesn’t necessarily offer solutions (maybe some suggestions on how to fire up grassroots activism?). But I suspect that you already figured that out (that it’s up to “us”). Me? I’m kind of slow on this stuff-that’s probably why I just do movie reviews around these parts.

Biopic, Historical drama, On Politics, Religion

Monkey gone to heaven: Creation ***1/2

July 15, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on February 27, 2010)

The story so far:

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

-Douglas Adams

I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars.

-Charles Darwin

I cannot persuade myself that it has been 50 years since anyone has bothered to make a film in which naturalist Charles Darwin’s seminal treatise on the theory of evolution, On the Origin of the Species, plays a significant role; but five long decades have elapsed between Stanley Kramer’s intelligently designed (no pun intended) 1960 courtroom drama, Inherit the Wind (based on the 1925 Scopes “monkey trial”) and the new Darwin biopic, Creation. Perhaps this indicates that Hollywood itself has not evolved much, nu?

Perhaps I judge too harshly. After all, “Hollywood” has little to do with this particular film, as it was developed by BBC Films and the UK Film Council. The problem stems from U.S. distributors, none of whom initially appeared willing to touch the movie with a 10-foot pole following its debut at the Toronto International Festival last year. Maybe it had something (everything?) to do with that peculiarly ‘murcan mindset that trucks with reviews like one recently posted on Movieguide.org., which states (among other things):

Manure, nicely wrapped with a bow, is still manure. A lie that there is no God and that somehow we have randomly shown up here on Earth as an accident is still a lie, even if it’s well written and acted.

Minds like steel traps. Okay, I do realize they are a staunchly Christian-oriented website, and are certainly entitled to their own opinions. At any rate…thank Ardi that someone eventually picked it up, because the film has now found limited release here in the states.

Although Jon Amiel’s film (written by John Colee and Randal Keynes) leans more toward drawing-room costume melodrama, focusing on Darwin’s family life-as opposed to, say, an adventure of discovery recounting the five-year mission of the HMS Beagle to boldly go where no God-fearing Christian had gone before in the interest of advancing earth and animal science, those who appreciate (to paraphrase my brethren over at Movieguide.org) thoughtful writing and fine acting…should not be disappointed.

Real-life married couple Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly play husband Charles and wife Emma Darwin. The story covers Darwin’s mid-life; from several years after his voyage on the Beagle and culminating on the eve of the publication of his most famous book.

Darwin is not in a healthy state when we are introduced to him; he suffers from a variety of stress-related maladies. Aside from the pressure he is under from peers like botanist/explorer Joseph Hooker (Benedict Cumberbatch) to organize 20 years worth of scientific notes and journals into his soon to be legendary tome (especially after Alfred Russell Wallace beats him to the punch with his brief 1858 essay on natural selection), he is literally sick with grief over the death of his beloved daughter Anna, who died at age 10 from illness.

He is tortured with guilt over her death; he suspects Anna’s weak immune system to be the result of inbreeding (his wife was also his first cousin). Indeed, this was a tragic and ironic epiphany for the man whose name would become synonymous with groundbreaking theories on evolution and natural selection.

Darwin also wrestles with a two-pronged crisis of faith. On the one hand, his inconsolable grief over the cosmic cruelty of a ten year old dying of complications from what should only have been a simple summer chill has distanced him even further from the idea of a benevolent creator (a confirmation in his heart of what the cool logic of his scientific mind has already been telling him).

Then, there is the matter of the philosophical chasm between his science-based understanding of all creatures great and small, and the religious views held by his wife (whom he loves dearly). He continues his work, but hovers on the verge of a nervous breakdown, which distances him further from Emma and his surviving children (the Darwins eventually had ten, although only five are depicted in the film).

He rejects counseling from long time family minister and friend Reverend Innes (Jeremy Northam), alienating him as well. Darwin’s subsequent journey to recovering his well-being and finding the balance between commitment to his scientific life’s work and loving devotion to his wife and children is very movingly told.

Bettany had a “warm-up” for this role in 2003, when he played ship surgeon and naturalist Dr. Stephen Maturin, in Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. He delivers a strong performance, and if you look at the Daguerreotype portraits of Darwin, even bears a striking physical resemblance.

Connelly is in essence reprising her character in A Beautiful Mindl; intelligent, strong-willed, compassionate, and sensitive. Toby Jones is memorable as Thomas Huxley (who once famously exalted “You’ve killed God, sir!” to Darwin in reaction to his breakthrough paper). Young Martha West steals all her scenes as Anna (her dad is actor Dominic West). There are nice directorial flourishes; as in a “bug-cam” cruise through the wondrous microcosmic universe in the Darwin’s back yard.

Despite what knee-jerk reactions from the wingnut blogosphere might infer about what I’m sure they consider as godless blasphemy permeating every frame of the movie, I thought the film makers were even-handed on the Science vs. Dogma angle. This is ultimately a portrait of Darwin the human being, not Darwin the bible-burning God-killer (or however the “intelligent” designers prefer to view him). Genius that he was, he is shown to be just as flawed and full of contradictions as any of us. After all, we bipedal mammals with opposable thumbs are an ongoing “design in progress”, aren’t we?

Big Money, Corporate Intrigue, Family Issues, On Politics

This band of Lehman Brothers-Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps **1/2

July 4, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on October 1, 2010)

Don’t evah take sides against the family again. Evah.

Has it really been 23 years since writer-director Oliver Stone and co-scripter Stanley Weiser first “released the Gekko” in Wall Street? Michael Douglas’ indelible portrayal of a ruthless, soulless corporate raider transformed the character of “Gordon Gekko” into the pop culture figurehead for the Decade of Excess. Gekko’s immortal credo-“Greed, for lack of a better word…is good”-became a mantra for self-absorbed yuppies and anathema to anti-corporate activists.

Of course, with Oliver Stone being the lib’rul, anti-‘Murcan, Chavez-lovin’ DFH filmmaker that he is, he wasn’t about to let Gekko get off scot-free for his veritable laundry list of highly profitable capitalist crimes. When we last saw him at the end of the 1987 film he was getting hauled away by the Feds, after being betrayed by his protégé (who learned from the best). It looked like the man who once admitted that “I create nothing…I own” was about to learn a new creative skill-how to make license plates.

The real world has since not only merged with Stone’s hellish vision of a financial system driven by the avarice and bemused gamesmanship of a handful of self-serving weasels who “create” nothing but bigger piles of personal treasure, but surpassed it. The real life Gekkos of the 80s, like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky (who also ended up in handcuffs) have since been eclipsed by financial super villains like Bernie Madoff. And so it goes.

In view of current events (I assume) Stone and co-writers Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff have seen fit to resurrect Gordon Gekko, in the new film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. In the prelude we catch up with Gekko in 2001, as he is being released from prison. Stone has a little fun with this sequence, especially as Gekko’s personal effects are summarily returned to him. “One gold money clip…no money,” says the poker-faced clerk. The biggest audience laugh in the film is prompted by a cameo of Gekko’s elephantine DynaTAC mobile phone, an amusing techno-relic from our not-so-distant past.

Fast-forward to 2008, on the eve of the Lehman Brothers collapse. Gekko is making a comfortable living (if not up to the standards to which he had been accustomed) on the lecture circuit, where he is plugging that inevitable memoir that every white collar crook publishes after getting out of prison. In the meantime, we are introduced to an up and coming young Wall Streeter named Jake (Shia LaBeouf) and his girlfriend Winnie (Carey Mulligan)-a liberal blogger who happens to be Gekko’s daughter. Winnie has disowned her father for years, blaming him for a family tragedy.

Unlike the recklessly ambitious young stockbroker played by Charlie Sheen in the previous film, Jake brings a certain amount of idealism to his work; he is trying to steer his employers (a group of investment bankers) toward putting capital into “green” projects (talk about lost causes). The only sympathetic ear belongs to his long-time mentor, Louis (Frank Langella) who is the managing director of the company. Louis is also a Wall Street rarity-a thoughtful man who actually seems to possess a heart and soul; you can glean why Jake looks up to him.

All bets are off, however, when the financial collapse of 2008 intervenes, and Jake’s employers feel themselves beginning to circle the drain. When Louis attempts to finagle a government bailout, he finds himself “Gekkoed” by an old rival, Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who buys out the company at pennies on the dollar.

Although he knows his girlfriend (and now fiancée) would not be pleased, the suddenly rudderless Jake, curious about his future father-in-law, introduces himself after attending one of Gekko’s public appearances. The two begin a cautious relationship, based on “trades”. Gekko wants to re-bond with Winnie; Jake wants to exact Machiavellian revenge on Bretton James. Of course, this is Gordon Gekko-so maybe he has his own Machiavellian plan brewing here.

Curiously, Stone has not so much made “Wall Street 2” here, but remade Godfather III. Gekko is at a point in his life not unlike that of Michael Corleone in the aforementioned film. He is older, his empire has crumbled, and the pull of the abyss is now more palpable than the lure of acquisition. Both characters are taking inventory of their past; and each man, in his own self-deluding fashion, is making atonement for his sins.

And Stone’s emphasis, as was Coppola’s, is on the family melodrama, not the family “business”. It’s about trust and betrayal. It’s about the father-daughter relationship. I could go on with the parallels (and point out that weirdly, Eli Wallach has a supporting role in both films), but at this point, you’re likely wondering about the most important consideration: does Stone tell an interesting story? Well, that depends on what you seek.

If you seek the Oliver Stone of Salvador, Talk Radio, and JFK– i.e., the passionate, angry prophet of the American cinema, denouncing the hypocrisy of our times, you might want to look elsewhere. Considering the potential he had here to be “bullish” and deliver a scathing, spleen-venting indictment of our royally fucked-up financial system, Stone is leaning more on the “bearish” side.

On the other hand, if you’re up for a slightly better-than-average family soaper (with a beautifully captured NYC backdrop by DP Rodrigo Prieto), then go for it. Douglas steals the show as Gekko. Langella is excellent. Brolin is suitably slimy as the villain. Also, it was fun to see Austin Pendleton (!) back on the big screen.

Not all of the casting works; Susan Sarandon’s formidable talents are wasted. As for the leading man-this was only my second exposure to LaBeouf (my first was when he hosted Saturday Night Live a while back, when I said to myself- “Shia who?”) so I’m ambivalent about his performance; it’s not “bad”-but not particularly noteworthy either. I hope that Stone (and know I am a fan) still has more great films in him down the road. It would be a lesser, more complacent universe where people felt compelled to say “Oliver who?”

Behind the Music, Documentary, On Politics

SIFF 2010: The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls ***

June 27, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 29, 2010)

Sometimes, it’s kind of fun to just throw a dart at the SIFF schedule and see where it lands. I had no clue as to what to expect when the lights went down for the screening of Leanne Pooley’s documentary The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls. All I knew was that it was a film about yodeling lesbian twins. I didn’t even know if it was for real; it sounded like a mockumentary, to be honest. To my surprise, by the time the lights came up, my faith in humanity had almost returned.

Because you see, it’s hard to be depressed after spending 90 minutes with the film’s subjects. Jools and Linda Topp have to be two of the most charming, down-to-earth, warm-hearted and preternaturally gifted entertainers you’d ever want to meet in a screen profile. Hugely popular in their native New Zealand, the 52-year old Topps have been bringing audiences their unique blend of music and comedy (and yodeling) since the 1980s.

What most impressed me was their dedication to progressive activism (Billy Bragg describes them as “an anarchist variety act”). Over the years, they have campaigned for LGBT rights, participated in protests in support of civil rights for New Zealand’s indigenous Maoris, and worked in support of the anti-nuke movement (to name a few). What’s refreshing about their political work is that there is no grandstanding; you don’t doubt their sincerity for a second (“what you see is what you get” says one of their fans). Pooley’s film is as upbeat and straightforward as her subjects; imparting the joy of creating something that is at once entertaining and inspiring

Conspiracy a-go-go, Drama, Journalism, On Politics

DVD Reissue: Z ***1/2

June 26, 2015 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 28, 2009)

Z – Criterion Collection DVD

This 1969 film was a breakthrough for director Costa-Gavras, and a high-watermark for the “radical chic” cinema that flourished at the time. Yves Montand plays a leftist politician who is assassinated after giving a speech at a pro-Peace rally. What at first appears to be an open and shut case of a violent action by an isolated group of right wing extremists unfolds as a suspenseful conspiracy thriller.

The story (set in an unspecified Balkan nation, but based on the real-life assassination of a Greek political figure back in 1963) is told from the perspective of two characters-a photojournalist (a young Jacques Perrin, future director of Winged Migration) and an investigating magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant). The great Irene Papas is also on board as Montand’s wife.

The film is a bit of a stagey talk-fest for a political “thriller” but it is still essential viewing. It’s part Kafka, part Rashomon, but ultimately a cautionary tale about what happens when corrupt officialdom, unchecked police oppression and partisan-sanctioned extremism get into bed together. Criterion’s edition has a beautiful, restored print. Extras include a commentary track and interviews.