Retail Resistance

March of the Eco-Terrorists

Title WeekendGross TotalGross Budget* Week#

Happy Feet - $37,945,000 - $100,126,000 - $100 - 2

Casino Royale - $31,000,000 - $94,223,000 - $150 - 2

Those poor commentators at FOX must be furious. Not only are the minds of the America's adolescents being warped by environmentalist propaganda, but people are paying to the tune of 100 million to be brainwashed. And what's worse, it's not a FOX movie. (I'm curious to know if these same fairly imbalanced people attacked "Borat" - a Fox film - for Borat's smart bomb attacks on unsuspecting Rednecks.)

XOF NEDDIH GNINAEM

I guess I can't get enough of FOX anchors. They're such deep thinkers. Their newest uncovery is that if you watch "Happy Feet" and think backwards you'll hear subliminal eco-terror messages.

Evidently the smear memo went out at FOX News, and in order for the culture warriors to stay on doctrinal message they are to refer to the movie as the "animated Inconvenient Truth." One time film critic Michael Medved went so far as to call it the "darkest, most disturbing feature length animated film ever offered by a major studio."

"Cars" on the other hand, with it's NASCAR tie-in, that's a movie I bet they can ideologically get behind.

More 70's Now

Putting together my 70's section I've begun to notice similarities worth taking note of. First there's the war. Another is the governmental corruption. (And who knows, possible impeachment?) But what I find so interesting is these kinds of similarities are being manifested cinematically by movies themselves similar to the movies of the 70's.

According to some, like Alex Cox, the 70's were responsible for killing the Western genre (at least commercially), because of the genre defying Anti-Westerns of people like Peckinpah and the Spaghetti Westerns with overpowering anti-heroes like Clint Eastwood or the Django series.

Along with this genre subversion of the Western you had the rise of a new genre, the Midnight Movies. The Midnight Movies were a subversion of the social acceptability of movies projected during the traditional operating hours of movie theaters. This trajectory of filmmaking is credited to filmmakers like Alejandro Jodorowsky, who set out to transgress the social and cinematic norms, by making explicit things on screen what before filmmakers at best only implied.

Well these same figures, and many more besides, are starting to reemerge with projects bringing to mind the very same cinematic developments of the 70's. Alejandro Jodorowsky is back in production with a "meta-physical spaghetti western" set to star Marilyn Manson and Nick Nolte. And today comes news that Takashi Miike starts shooting on an English-language spaghetti western. Quentin Tarantino - who's next movie will be titled "Grind House", another 70's genre creation, much like his entire oeuvre- is set to appear in Sukiyaki Western: Django, which is cult director Takashi Miike's first English-language film.

It will be interesting to see these movies. But perhaps more interesting will be to see how history repeating itself in a mere thirty year span will manifest socially and cinematically, with the dialectic of the now and the then moving us towards something hopefully better than the 80's.

If...

At the moment I'm putting together my new "70's American Cinema" section at the video store. One of the things that's killing me is that I've made myself unable to to put a lot of other 70's films I love into this section, primary among these being Lindsey Anderson's "If...". As it would happen along comes Malcolm McDowell to fill in the gaps regarding the director of this great movie and a similarly great period in British film.

CNN is FOXy

For the second day running I've read a news story about how ignorant the on-air "talent" is at CNN. It's like no one can get a job on these channels if REACTIONARY isn't listed as a job skill on their resume. Just listen to these fools.

First is a CNN anchor, speaking yesterday in that channel's Situation Room about the adbuction of independent contractors in Iraq:

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Well on the point that Michael Ware was making. That the people who are fomenting this kind of activity over there aren't stupid. They understand with the results of the U.S. midterm elections that there are a lot of unanswered questions in this country about what happens next. And they are going to use that opportunity to make hay while the sun shines if you pardon a kind of poor play on words. But our uncertainty and lack of direction at this moment simply creates another opportunity for the bad guys and they are taking full advantage of it.

Next is this offensive pseudo-question of Keith Ellision - our newly elected Congressional representative from Minneapolis, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress - by Glenn Beck on his November 14 edition of CNN Headline News:

BECK: OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. I've been to mosques. I really don't believe that Islam is a religion of evil. I -- you know, I think it's being hijacked, quite frankly.

With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, "Let's cut and run." And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

I say I don't know how these people get jobs, but clearly the people hiring them are no better.

The Brothers Miramax

Weinsteins sign groundbreaking exclusive US deal with Blockbuster
Rivals like Netflix blocked from handling TWC product until at least 2010

This was the headline of headlines in today's Screen Daily. I generally hate these kinds of "output" deals the studios make with Blockbuster or Hollywood or Netflix. However, I do on occasion like to see the big boys go to the mattresses like this. I'm hoping the Weinsteins don't count Box Office Video among Blockbuster's rivals making their TWC product, aka. movies, unavailable to us as well. We'll have to wait and see if we get caught in the corporate crossfire.

Bills Are for Paying, Not For Rights

This is from our President's post-election radio address.

One freedom that defines our way of life is the freedom to choose our leaders at the ballot box. We saw that freedom earlier this week, when millions of Americans went to the polls to cast their votes for a new Congress. Whatever your opinion of the outcome, all Americans can take pride in the example our democracy sets for the world by holding elections even in a time of war.

Maybe when the Republican's are done amending the Constitution to prevent flag burning and gay marriage they can start working on all the occasions we don't deserve democratic elections. At this point, would anyone be surprised to hear Bush et al. saying of the blue states what Kissinger said of red countries after Chile's democratic election of Salvador Allende, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."

On second thought, ending elections during times of war should probably be the Republican's first priority. Next should come perpetual war - declared not by Congress, but via media address. After that, the thousand year Reich.

I don't see why dismantling democracy shouldn't be the best possible example our democracy could set for the world.

Rummy

Poor poor Donald Rumsfeld. No "heckuva job Brownie," just a swift kick in the boat and a don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Then the uppity Dixie Chicks forget their place all over again by throwing a couple kidney punches during a concert in Canada, saying, "Either the beer is free or you're happy that Donald Rumsfeld resigned today."

Now comes news in Time magazine of a lawsuit in Germany that will seek a criminal "war crimes" prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other top U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. Time writes:

U.S. officials have long feared that legal proceedings against "war criminals" could be used to settle political scores. In 1998, for example, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet — whose military coup was supported by the Nixon administration — was arrested in the U.K. and held for 16 months in an extradition battle led by a Spanish magistrate seeking to charge him with war crimes. He was ultimately released and returned to Chile. More recently, a Belgian court tried to bring charges against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for alleged crimes against Palestinians.

For its part, the Bush Administration has rejected adherence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on grounds that it could be used to unjustly prosecute U.S. officials. The ICC is the first permanent tribunal established to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.

Maybe this will help reopen the case outlined by Christopher Hitchens against Henry Kissinger, later made into an incredible documentary by Eugene Jarecki called The Trials of Henry Kissinger. This is the same filmmaker who made Why We Fight; another documentary that should be seen by anyone who cares about democracy in the United States.

Grin Without a Cat

This story made me think immediately of Chris Marker's many metaphorical usages of ceramic cats. Despite Marker having said, "A cat is never on the side of power," I doubt that even he in all his creativity could have conceived of using a cat statue to physically strike a blow for democracy's greater good. Although, I would like to think he would endorse the actions of Michael Young.

Police gave no motive, but a source said Young, a registered Independent, believed Republicans had conspired to win the election by using electronic ballots. This is the first time electronic machines are being widely used in a Pennsylvania general election.

"He smashed it with the cat's ears," said volunteer Jim Govostis, who watched the incident unfold at Raker Center, a nursing home owned by Good Shepherd, around 12:30 p.m.

Volunteer Shirley Rossetti said Young never spoke as he smashed the screen. "He did a job on it, didn't he?" she said. "It's frightening, because in this day and age, you just never know."

Never know? Sounds to me like Young knew exactly what's been going on. It's good to see that our country's traditions of direct action and civil disobedience haven't been killed off completely - despite the best attempts of the Patriot Act-ors

My New Girl's a Libertine

Dateline, November 7th...
it seems ideal timing to show you a picture I hope will inspire you to vote for the party best suited to expanding freedom and democracy. (Well, okay, maybe not best suited, but I don't have the time to debate third party politics and instant run-off voting right now). If you think I'm talking about the democracy spreading policies of the current administration - the House of Saud of course excepted - I suggest you look up the word "liberal" in the dictionary.

Here's a little known fact, the Democrats became so known, because the Republican's used the word to mock the people who most identified with and believed in the ideals and aspirations of the French Revolution - people like Jefferson. Democrat being the term used by the French revolutionaries to address their fellow comrades-in-arms.

So here I am with the sexiest French lady, save perhaps Virginie Ledoyen, to cross the Atlantic. This was taken last week at Nina's Coffee Cafe, my neighborhood coffee shop. The photographer is an old high school English teacher of mine. She does a photoblog called visualstpaul where she posted this.