Trampin' Tramples Wisdom, But Van Lear Rose Triumphs
Just listened to the new Patti Smith album Trampin' , which is one of the best of her career -- a beautiful rock record of entrancing guitars and vocals that show her in peak condition. It whispers and it roars.
Before I go off on a tangent, I should mention that the softer songs on the record are the highlight... Read more
How Fair is Fahrenheit 911?
Even if one agrees with all of Moore's arguments, the film reduces decades of American foreign-policy failures to a black-and-white cartoon that lays the blame on one family. He ignores facts like the policy to arm and support Afghan rebels that began in the Carter administration. For that matter, the Clinton team never mounted a serious effort to go after al-Qaida even after the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa.
The Iraq violence is more gruesome than what normally appears on American TV. One particular sequence follows an American patrol on Christmas Eve, but Moore never identifies who shot the footage. Because Moore is very good at jumping in front of a camera when he is around, one can only assume he shot none of the Iraq footage. But his editing is designed to emphasize Iraqi suffering and U.S. military personnel indifference or even hostility.
The movie contains only one episode of Moore's patented "ambushes" of the famous. He collars congressmen leaving Capitol Hill and tries to persuade them to enlist their children to fight in Iraq. Not surprisingly, he has no takers.
When the movie devolves into problems of veteran benefits, harassment of peace groups or the grief of one family over a killed son, Moore simply loses his focus. These are worthy topics but have nothing to do with why the United States is in Iraq.
What Moore seems to be pioneering here is a reality film as an election-year device. The facts and arguments are no different than those one can glean from political commentary or recently published books on these subjects. Only the impact of film may prove greater than the printed word. So the real question is not how good a film is "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- it is undoubtedly Moore's weakest -- but will a film help to get a president fired?
10 Questions: The Terminal
1. Is it worth seeing?
Yes.
2. Why is it worth seeing?
Because it's Tom Hanks at his very best, with the most multi-dimensional and convincing character he's played in a long time. The movie set itself--an airport terminal constructed for the film--is a thing of beauty, and Janusz Kaminski films it in a spectacular array of kaleidoscopic light.
3. Is it as good as Catch Me If You Can?
"Charming and Dangerous"
My collegue-in-blogging Clint M. pointed me to this review of Sam Phillips's "A Boot and a Shoe," which includes this excellent description of Sam's work:Read more
Dodgeball: A true time-waster
Just came out of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story beaten senseless by the locker room humor. It's like someone said, "Let's do something like Zoolander, but with a lot more of the really really dumb parts, and then recycle a few of the funny parts."
I got tired of this kind of humor when I was a sophomore in high school.Read more
Wild day
My brother Jason, singer/songwriter/composer for the a capella group Rescue, is in the emergency room due to a very serious spider bite, and is getting heavily dosed with painkillers and antibiotics. Apparently he'll have to go through a series of treatments before the volcano on his arm goes away. I'm told his elbow swelled up to the the size of a tennis ball, to say nothing of what happened to the rest of his arm. Yikes. The scary thing is that he's never seen the spider, so he doesn't know where it is.
The even scarier thing... Read more