Weasels of Mass Distraction. Dirt piggy Karl Rove made a statement in 2003, which reporter Chris Matthews relayed to Joe Wilson: “Wilson’s wife is fair game.” FAIR GAME is the movie that tells the low down dirty story that resulted from Dirt Piggy’s threat. Sean Penn plays U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson and Naomi Watts plays his undercover CIA wife Valerie … Read More
THE CLIMATE REALITY PROJECT
The Krypton Syndrome. As he did in AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006), Al Gore talks up a storm. About storms. And droughts. And melting ice caps, and raging fires; THE CLIMATE REALITY PROJECT outlines the global climate shift exacerbated by what 1960’s science fiction films might have called “Mankind tampering in God’s domain.” But something has changed in the, uh, “climate” … Read More
WAG THE DOG
Conflation Nation. “Of course there’s a war – I saw it on TV.” –Robert De Niro, WAG THE DOG. War is only real if you let them get away with it. As George Carlin used to say, “Why do the troops keep turning up?” But even if the troops didn’t turn up for active duty, WAG THE DOG is an … Read More
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
The Film That Stares Into Space. Your tax dollars at work. A few years ago, I read about the U.S. military exploring “paranormal combat techniques” in George W. Bush’s Fake War On Terror: using goats as test subjects, the Amerikan Military were trying to train soldiers to kill terrorists by staring at them to psychically stop their hearts. No, it’s … Read More
THE GHOST WRITER
Ghost in the Machine. Ewan McGregor is hired as a GHOST WRITER to liven up the memoirs of disgraced British ex-Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), an obvious analog for Tony Blair puling at the feet of the American administration then rewriting his legacy to make it sound like he wasn’t a lapdog. Spirited to a hideaway island, presented with … Read More
UNTHINKABLE
The punishing stupidity of punishing stupidity. Many ways to view the torture-driven thriller UNTHINKABLE (now remember we’re trying to be neutral thinkers, objectively assessing the twisted unsolvable issues of religion and politics, so no man-acclaimed institutions should be capitalized): To show they mean business, authorities torture a person threatening to murder thousands. A muslim plants three nuclear bombs in three … Read More
EDGE OF DARKNESS
Edge of Dorkness. What a stupid name for a movie! Did they think Steven Seagal was the lead? Notwithstanding yawnful “sinister” attempt at kickstarting Mouthy Mel’s comeback tour, EDGE OF DARKNESS might have been a powerful film, raising questions about unethical corporations and their impunity when backed by government, had it not copped out with a simplistic denouement, using bullets … Read More
GASLAND
Despicable Them. [Hydraulic fracturing] is an onshore version of offshore unregulated drilling… — Keith Olbermann, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” Like Big Pharm, like Big Oil, like Big Corp, in the indie exposé GASLAND, it is revealed that the American companies that drill for natural gas are as unequivocally criminal and truly as insidiously evil. Filmmaker Josh Fox starts his documentary … Read More
BROTHERS
Broham Interruptus. Don’t you just hate it when your brother goes off to war and he supposedly gets killed, and you start putting the moves on his wife, and then he comes back? Don’t you just hate that?! What separates Jim Sheridan‘s BROTHERS from Michael Bay’s PEARL HARBOR (same plot, different war) is that BROTHERS is watchable. Starring Tobey Maguire … Read More
CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
Too Big To Nail. Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win. — Bob Baer’s SYRIANA (2005). It’s not just about Too Big To Fail – it’s about betting on failing. … Read More
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
A Spielberg fantasy done horribly right. What if the United States Military actually possessed a shred of decency and humanity? Shyeh! What if. In SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, the people who type the “Sorry Your Son’s Dead” letters for the Warmongers Who Send Sons Off To Die notice that three letters are addressed to the Ryan family of Anytown USA. Seems … Read More
THREE KINGS
KELLY’S HEROES without the ragtag. War is not just Hell. In THREE KINGS, it is confusing as Hell. Four American soldiers behind enemy lines on a mission; they’re not here to fight a battle, they’re here to rob a bank. If the plot sounds familiar, it is KELLY’S HEROES for the morally ambiguous generation. THREE KINGS is a stunning, ferocious … Read More
WILL FERRELL: YOU’RE WELCOME AMERICA – A FINAL NIGHT WITH GEORGE W BUSH
Mission Unaccomplished. He’s mad, bad and dangerous to know, and the 43rd president of the United States is made to look even stupider than usual in Will Ferrell’s one man show, YOU’RE WELCOME AMERICA – A FINAL NIGHT WITH GEORGE W. BUSH. Will Ferrell has played W since his days on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (a high point being adding the … Read More
AVATAR
Electra Glide in Jungle Cat Blue. For the protection of the good, for destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age. — Lord Krishna, avatar of Vishnu, The Bhagavad-Gita. Forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those Who trespass against us… — Yeshua, avatar of Elohim, The Lord’s Prayer. Hubris. Conquest. … Read More
THE OX-BOW INCIDENT
Vengeance is Swine. Play with fire, you burn your fingers and / Lose a hold of the flame, oh It’s over, it’s done / The end is begun If you listen to fools… The Mob Rules! — Black Sabbath, “Mob Rules.” It’s Twelve Angry Cowboys! Long before Henry Fonda was sequestered in a jury room trying to convince a buncha … Read More
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
Fall of the Imperial Presidency. Watergate. Conspiracy. Burglary. Perjury. Courtesy of the 37th President of the United States. Over the years, I’ve called Richard Milhous Nixon a “hellspawn from Satan’s own vagina”… and I see no reason to stop. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN is a powerful recount of specifically one event in Satan’s Vagina’s presidency that would define not just … Read More
DONNIE DARKO
Darkness is as Darko does… And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad The dreams in which I’m dyin’ are the best I’ve ever had… — Tears For Fears, “Mad World.” The Tears For Fears song, Mad World, closes DONNIE DARKO. As it softly meanders under the closing montage of characters, everything in this movie clacks into … Read More
STATE OF PLAY
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN meets Blackwater. Politics, conspiracy, murder – is the STATE OF PLAY. And Rachel McAdams looking tastier than Christmas dinner. A murdered congressional aide is linked to Republican Congressman, Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck, playing it straighter than Tom Cruise’s public persona) in a sex scandal that leads to questions regarding his links to a no-bid, war-profiteering contractor, … Read More
BODY OF LIES
Pants on Fire! Little Boy Leo is now Big Bad DiCaprio. In BODY OF LIES, Leo has finished growing the beard he started in BLOOD DIAMOND and is neck deep in Syriana. He is undercover CIA operative Ferris, stationed in the Middle East, embroiled in an undercover plot to plant a Taliban newbie as a rising demagogue, in order to … Read More
THE HURT LOCKER
Heroic Movie about a Non-Heroic War. Baghdad, 2004. THE HURT LOCKER opens with a quote from journalist Chris Hedges: “…war is a drug.” Apparently, a drug not only to its combatants, but on the populace fooled by its “glamour” and on directors who fuel that glamour. Kathryn Bigelow directs this one-note movie – supposedly a horrifying closeup of a bomb … Read More