Month: June 2004 (Page 3 of 4)

I was telling my good friend Mike the other night, the thing that scares me most about American society is this: Since 9/11 I don’t think there’s a line that we wouldn’t be willing to cross, given even the tiniest push. For example, which of the following do you really think is impossible in America today?

-Locking up Muslims in WWII-style internment camps.
-Dropping a nuclear bomb on a Middle Eastern capital.
-Declaring martial law after a terrorist attack.
-Canceling a national election after a terrorist attack.
-Starting a multi-front invasion in the Middle East.
-Officially designating anti-war speech as treason.
-Reversing Roe v. Wade.
-Passing a constitutional amendment banning both marriage for gay people and benefits for gay couples.
-Routinely charging American citizens as “enemy combatants” and holding them without charge or representation indefinitely.
-Reinstituting the draft.
-Declaring English the national language, and ordering all other languages removed from federal buildings and publications.

I would say that not only are these things possible, they are pretty likely in today’s climate. And this list is just what I could think of at the spur of the moment. We’re headed off a cliff. Remember Thelma and Louise? And we’ve got one chance – ONE – to put on the brakes.

I hope to god we do.

Watching the previews for this movie, I was expecting something much broader and more satirical – “Heathers” set in a Christian high school.

Instead, it was a surprisingly thought-provoking story about the challenges of faith, and I enjoyed it much more than I expected.

Wait. That last sentence makes it sound like some sort of dry-as-dust History Channel program on the Life of Jesus. That’s not it at all. It’s an engaging story with lots of great sly lines and fine performances. The leads, Jena Malone and Mandy Moore, are quite good, but even better are supporting players Eva Amurri (Susan Sarandon’s daughter) and Macaulay Culkin as the token Jewish girl and the handicapped boy she takes a shine to. Also great in a quiet way is Patrick Fugit as the pastor/principal’s son.

I was waiting for the cheap shots to come fast and furious, and when they didn’t, I was taken by the ambiguity of all the characters – villians and heroes are much more interesting when they have more than a passing acquaintance with the other side.

When was the last time a movie not only wasn’t what you expected, but also turned out much better than you thought it would be? That’s this movie.

Recommended.

Thank god for Alfonso Cuarón, who has breathed new life into the Harry Potter franchise with “Azkaban.” My movie companions called it “too realistic,” and said the first two movies were better.

I couldn’t disagree more. Finally we saw on the screen a little of the real magic of Rowling’s stories. And I loved the “realism” of this one – it had an emotional heft that the cookie-cutter Chris Columbus movies sorely lacked. For me, these stories are about a kid growing up; the magic is just a vehicle, a way in. And Cuarón gets that.

The new tone, combined with sly production design (there’s always something interesting going on in the frame’s margins) and wonderful casting (I just wish Emma Thompson had more screen time) come together to make this the best Harry Potter yet. I want to highlight David Thewlis especially as Professor Lupin – his scenes with Harry are the movie’s best.

It’s not perfect; it’s still too long, and cramming everything in, even with Cuarón’s streamlining, means the pace can get a little choppy. But that’s the fault of trying to make each jam-packed book into one movie. Personally, I’m willing to sacrifice a few rabid fanboy details for some real magic.

Recommended.

I have a great anti-spam system, SpamNet, installed in Outlook. It gets rid of most of the literally thousands of spam e-mails I get each month.

It also makes me sad.

I tend to leave my Outlook window up during the day, and leave the shortcut bar uncovered by other windows so I can see if I have any new mail. When new mail comes in, Spamnet flags spam and moves it to a separate folder.

So several times a day, I get to see something like this:

Inbox (6)

And then like a vacuum cleaner, quickly

Inbox (5)
Inbox (4)
Inbox (3)
Inbox (2)
Inbox

And then I have no mail.

After reading Dean Esmay’s contention that Ronald Reagan’s reputation of ignoring AIDS was a “lie” (his favorite word), I came upon this jaw-dropping story about 80s press conferences, where Reagan’s spokesman repeatedly joked about AIDS.

Since I’m banned on his site, I sent him the link, thinking that there must be some behavior by conservatives so outrageous, so beyond the pale that even Dean Esmay would repudiate it.

Nope. Wrong again.

“You may not be old enough to remember this, but prior to the late 1980s, pretty much everybody–Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, etc., still considered homosexuality something of a joke and an embarassment. Just bringing it up in casual conversation was like that.”

-Dean in an e-mail to me

My “stabbing a small child in the neck” hypothesis seems more and more plausible by the day.

“President Reagan is dead and if people need to dance and spit on his grave because his press secretary made some gay jokes before most people understood how bad AIDS was and he wasn’t proactive enough in their view, fine, whatever. It all kind of makes me sick inside.”

I know what you mean, Dean. I know what you mean.

To hear conservative pundits, media and webloggers tell it, they are the most put-upon group of people on Earth. “Nasty traitors keep criticizing our war plans!” “Why can’t people just get over that prisoner abuse?” “Tom Brokaw made me feel bad about myself!”

Oh boo hoo.

Listen, conservatives, reactionaries and assorted crapweasels: let’s look at the scorecard. You’ve got both houses of Congress and the Presidency. You’re waging war in Iraq, and eagerly awaiting which country is doodled on Wolfowitz’s desk blotter. You got your giant tax cut, so you can finally afford to put that GPS system in the Lexus. Reagan’s death has finally afforded him the godhood he so richly deserves. You’ve got a Supreme Court that installed your guy, and with just a little push would be more than happy to outlaw abortion for you. You have a large portion of the population thinking enshrining discrimination in the Constitution is not only a good thing, but necessary for the survival of the society. Coulter, Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity and other nutbag rightie pundits are more popular than ever. The Bush administration can clearly withstand 8-10 more Watergate-level scandals without feeling a pinch. You own the electronic voting machines, for god’s sake!

Hell, a couple more months like this and the difference between American society and “The Handmaid’s Tale” will be undetectable. Bravo!

So listen: SHUT UP. You don’t make convincing victims. Just turn up the volume on Rush and leave the rest of us alone, OK?

Internet Explorer, my constant companion, my muse, my friend, has decided to turn on me. Suddenly I was getting tons of pop-ups, where the Google toolbar pop-up blocker had been serving me well in the past. And certain words started getting highlighted and underlined, much like Microsoft’s evil Smart Tags technology. And graphics on web sites were being replaced with ads. As if that weren’t enough, my Google searches were being intercepted, and the first page replaced with ads.

This all happened seemingly at once, as gremlins set up camp in my computer and on my brain. I downloaded and paid for a spyware/adware cleaner, which helped somewhat but not completely.

And then I decided to try Firefox.

There are some weirdnesses, and I’m having to learn some new habits. But overall, I’m loving it. It’s fast, the interface is clean and simple, and it has tabbed browsing and industrial-strength pop-up blocking.

This is a good thing.

Top 10 Names for Gwyneth Paltrow’s Next Baby

10. Spoon
9. Kiwi
8. Blanche
7. Twill
6. Pocket
5. Ibuprofen
4. Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious
3. Mambo
2. Seven

And the Number 1 name for Gwyneth Paltrow’s next baby:

1. Gucci

Ben Affleck dodged a bullet: J.Lo married singer Marc Anthony on Saturday.

The first thing that occurred to me when I heard this news was, maybe there should be a Pop Diva Marriage Bureau, so Britney or J.Lo or whoever couldn’t get another quickie marriage without some sort of approval process.

But then I thought, why stop there? All those crapweasels trying desperately to stem the tide of gay people getting married should instead focus their energies on the real threats to their version of marriage.

So I propose creating the Bureau of Marriage and Family Certification (BMFC). The regulations would have to be hammered out, of course, but here are some good starts:

1. No marriage allowed where the woman is older than child-bearing age (medical certification required).

2. All engaged couples must sign a Procreation Pledge, agreeing to attempt to conceive for at least the first five years of the marriage.

3. Both marriage partners must be heterosexual, to avoid conflict with Rule #2. Heterosexuality will be authenticated by the BMFC, using investigative techniques, or in difficult cases, medical arousal testing.

4. All new marriages will be monitored by the BMFC for no less than one (1) year, to make sure the union is legitimate and not undertaken for financial or other non-approved reasons, especially including theft of company or government benefits.

5. Divorce will be strictly regulated. All civil divorces will have to be approved by the BMFC, after a 3-5 year evaluation process.

These are just the bare-bones ideas I came up with off the top of my head. But won’t we all sleep better at night when we know the BMFC is looking out for us, slowing if not stopping our still-probably-inevitable slide into the abyss.

“Fahrenheit 9/11” is coming on June 25! Wow. I was worried it might not open at all, and now it’s just two weeks away. I am *so excited* about this movie. I obsessively hit the online trailer site for more than a day until the understandably-hammered server allowed me to actually see the trailer. Excited excited excited.

I would urge everyone to make an effort to get as many people as possible to see this movie. Organize mass viewing parties, whatever. Go see it multiple times (I know I will). Because although the box office will certainly be larger than “Bowling,” it has to be *huge* to counteract the “Well of course they love him in France” bullshit from the right.

See. This. Movie.