I think the Buckaroo Banzai guys oughtta sue, and don't miss the best movie review ever [for Crank 2] by Paul Constant at The Stranger. One of the more mild passages:
"It's like if Michael Bay and John Waters had breakup sex and made a little ADD baby who hated humanity. Awesome!"
h/t Sparkle Pony. Open thread below...
Richard Dreyfuss, appearing on MSNBC to discuss the new documentary he narrates, America Betrayed, on Hurricane Katrina, the worst man-made disaster in American history, seized the opportunity in front of a cheering crowd of onlookers to blast George W. Bush and the Republican party for all the damage they have inflicted upon this country over the last 8 years.
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Dreyfuss: I don't think the Europeans have any confidence in our government. I think that the last eight years has destroyed two hundred years of respect and dedication. And I think we have been the point of meaning and admiration in the world for very specific reasons, and George Bush trashed it.
O’Donnell: So, you don't think that John McCain would be able to manage this government well, would have a different response than George Bush to a Hurricane Katrina?
Dreyfuss: I think the Republican party is corrupt through and through. And even the republicans like Buckley before he died said 'we should lose this election, go into the wilderness, and get cleansed', and I believe that's true. I think that they have been in office too long. I think that they are too adept at thievery, at moving the Constitution into places it never meant to go. I think that they have an extraordinary ability to divide rather than unite. And I think that I'm tired of being called a traitor, because I like my flag and I support the troops.
In what I must say seems to echo a theme similar to that of Naomi Kline's must-read book, Shock Doctrine, America Betrayed promises to go beyond Katrina and delve into the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks, the war in Iraq, and offer "a long, hard look at how this country handles disaster, which ones they indirectly cause and how corporate America and their friends in the White House profit from those disasters in the long run."
Can't wait to see this one.
It's stories like this that really are incredible. I know it's been around for a while, but I never saw it before. A couple raised a lion cub in the UK and eventually he got too big to handle so they brought Christian back to Africa. A year later they visited him even though there was a great chance that he would have---forgotten them---and not been very kind since he lived in the wild and all, but surprisingly he remembered them. The affection he showed was pretty remarkable. Here's more on the story. "Christian, the lion who lived in my London living room"
"Christian stared at us in a very intense way," says Rendall. "I knew his expressions and I could see he was interested. We called him and he stood up and started to walk towards us very slowly.
"Then, as if he had become convinced it was us, he ran towards us, threw himself on to us, knocked us over, knocked George over and hugged us, like he used to, with his paws on our shoulders."Everyone was crying. We were crying, George was crying, even the lion was nearly crying."...read on
I had a chance to power cycle through the first season of the TNT's "The Closer" over the last few days and I really enjoyed it. It's not over the top fun like The Shield, but filled with intricate plots and a sizzling cast led by the great Kyra Sedgwick, who has down the Alex Baldwin ABC's of interrogation. Nobody gets confessions like she does. It's a series that might not make it on network TV, but since it's on cable---there's no ratings pressure to make it anything other then what it is: an excellent police drama that touches on all of LA's cultural intricacies intertwined with current events. The new season starts July 14th, so If you have a little time ---check it out.
I admit that I'm too cheap and too disinterested in TV in general to have HBO, so I missed Recount (although I'm sure I'll catch up on it when it comes on DVD), but Digby gives her impression of that nervewracking time that inspired the movie. There's one particular passage at the end that all Democrats must heed:
It's pretty to think that this is all ancient history and we can move on. Maybe we can. But just this week, Tim Griffin was hired to run the RNCs Obama opposition research team. And the voter fraud apparatus that Rove and others before him have built, which includes Republican lawyers like Carvin and Griffin, is still up and running. Maybe they are spent and useless now. I hope so.
For those interested in discussing election fraud further, we will be hosting author Mark Crispin Miller on Friday, May 30th for a live chat on his new book, Loser Take All: Election Fraud and The Subversion of Democracy, 2000 - 2008, starting at 11:00 am Pacific/2:00 pm Eastern. It should be an interesting discussion.
From what I'm hearing the screenings of "War Inc." are doing very well so far this weekend. If you're in the area, check it out.
This clever new movie takes the next logical step in the evolution of the Bush Doctrine. Instead of sending the US Armed Forces to conquer oil rich Middle Eastern countries, we now have the Tamerlane Corporation leading the charge to fulfill a Dick Cheney-like CEO's wet dream. John Cusack plays a hit man hired by the corporation to make sure their bottom line is met at all costs. His conscience has had about enough of the carnage left in his wake in this sobering, yet funny look at war profiteers. Blackwater's got nothing on Tamerlane Corporation.
Here's John Cusack with Bill Maher talking about his new picture.
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And John on Democracy Now talking to Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill.
(h/t Heather)
Oliver Stone's latest project is "W" all about the the life and presidency of George W. Bush.
We have some of the preliminary casting choices and it looks like Stone is being very, very kind to the Bushies.
Josh Brolin as Dubya Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush
So naturally, it begs the question, if you were Stone's casting director, who would you choose to play the various characters?
I've been posting about John Cusack's new film (War Inc.) including a very cool live chat over the last few weeks because I loved it and think it deserves a much wider audience. It's the story of a disillusioned hit-man that works for a Blackwater-type corporation on steroids that attacks a country, sets up a profit-based green zone and gives away complimentary gift bags to every journalist they meet.
C&L--along with New Crime Productions--is offering a free ticket giveaway for an advance screenings in NY and LA on Monday---May 19, at 7:30 PM. It's important that we have those theaters filled to the max so the film will get distributed to a much wider audience.
<correction> The Opening of the film is May 23rd
NY Screening: *** Air America's Rachel Maddow will be doing a Q&A with writers Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser. after the film so stick around.
7:30pm
New York Film Academy
100 E. 17th Street
New York, NY 10003
LA Screening: 7:30pm
Laemmle Music Hall 3
9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Please email your name to: newcrime@aol.com and we'll randomly select the winners for this night of fun.
After being wowed by John Cusack's incredible new film, War, Inc, John Amato and I persuaded John Cusack to come over to C&L for a live chat a little closer to the official release date. And today's the day. This week the film will start rolling out in the Toronto area and then in New York City. So at 3pm (PT) John is bringing two of his co-writers with him, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser, and they'll be talking about the movie and answering questions for an hour or so. I spoke with John about it and he gave me some insights into why he made the movie. He also recited this inspiring piece by Arundhati Roy to me:
Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness-- and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they're selling-- their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Please join John Amato and myself with our special guests in the comment section.
As with other live chats, we ask that you limit your comments to the topic and stay respectful to our guests.
If anyone is in the LA area and wants to see John Cusack's excellent new film called "War Inc."about a corporation literally going to war with a country. (There's a nifty little green zone and everything.) I have about 15 free passes for the show.
It's showing:
Mon, April 14th at 7pm
Wadsworth Theater
11301 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90073
email your name to xxxxx and they will set it up.
I saw it the film and loved it.
Update: All the tickets have been given away. I hope everyone has a really good time tonight.
Nicole showed some of this some weeks ago as it was going through the film festival circuit, but it's opening wide this weekend. Morgan Spurlock, the genius who brought you "Super Size Me," now brings us "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?", a side-splitting quest to hunt down the world's number one most-wanted man.
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John Cusack appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher to promote his new film, War, Inc. which satirizes the military-industrial complex. While Cusack clearly had the cozy relationship between the Bush/Cheney White House and subcontractors like Halliburton and Blackwater in mind (as well as Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine), host Bill Maher thinks that the blame should be spread around evenly: the White House for perpetrating it in the first place, the Democrats for enabling it and the American public for being complacent about it.
MAHER: I mean, if people really cared, they would care to find out.
CUSACK: Well, but I think they’re getting more and more information about it. And I think, you know, some of these truths are so horrible that you don’t really want to think about that. I mean, I don’t…but I mean, it’s just…I mean, the gig’s up. I mean, if guys who are statesmen on CNN and are also sitting on the boards and are, you know, shareholders in some of the most profitable defense contractors in the world and they publicly make the case to go to war, and then they go to war, right? And they create a new market with their war, they bar their competitors from the aftermath; then they come back and speak evangelically about free markets that aren’t even free, when it’s a vast protectionist racket. These aren’t particularly subtle facts, their stop…stock prices jump 145%, their companies are awarded $2.3billion dollar contracts. I mean, after a while, you have to just expose and shame and indict and hopefully, convict the participants in this illegal, immoral ideology. So yeah, are Americans complacent? But I’m not…I’m not ready to give up or cede the Constitution of the United States to this bunch of hoodlums.
Howie Klein got the chance to see a sneak preview of War, Inc. last week and wrote a glowing review.
It looks like we're going to have John Cusack and his writing partner come on C&L next week to do a live chat about his new movie called "War Inc." Here's the My Space page. You may remember this wonderful post he wrote back in '05
Bush 2. How depressing, corrupt, unlawful and tragically absurd the administration's world view actually is...how low the moral bar has been lowered...and (though I know I'm capable of intellectually lazy notions of collective guilt) how complicit our silence as citizens is...Nixon, a true fiend, looks like a paragon of virtue next to the criminally incompetent robber barons now raiding the present and future. But where are the Dems? American foreign policy is in chaos. We are now left in the surreal position of having to condemn American-sponsored torture as official policy while a deranged President Bush orders his staff to attend ethics briefings -- a "refresher course" -- from the White House counsel.read on
When we set the date, I'll let you all know...
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Maybe the reason that right wingers hate Hollywood so much can be explained by the Academy Awards Best Documentary Feature category at last night's Academy Awards. No amount of Jack Bauer-ticking clock scenarios or heartwarming whitewashed happy endings can negate the truths brought forward by documentary filmmakers like Alex Gibney or his fellow nominees Charles Ferguson, Michael Moore, Richard Robbins and Andrea Nix Fine, who are all--separately and collectively--leaps and bounds in front of the pathetic news media in informing the general public of what's happening in our world. Bringing forward those facts--and we all know that facts have a liberal bias--that may be painful to watch, but necessary to know must be an anathema to those who confuse jingoism for really caring about this country.
So congratulations to Alex Gibney (and a big round of applause to fellow blogger and Taxi to the Dark Side Executive Producer Sidney Blumenthal) for making sure we know what is really happening in our names that cuts through media spin.
[The Oscar Streaker from 1974] With Jon Stewart hosting during an election year, and an audience full of Communist-sympathizer Hollywood types, there's bound to be lots of political content as ever. Batocchio has the Oscars drinking game posted (and it's not necessarily alcohol especially if you're covering the event for some blog, heh). Let us know what you see that's worthy.
