It was the day after somebody shot Cindy Ryder’s dog with a crossbow and most of the people in town had heard about it. The dog wasn’t a particularly well-loved animal, but the shooting of any pet tends to heighten anxieties in such a small community. A group of animal lovers had gathered early in the morning before business hours outside the Landsburg General…
Paul Simon wrote “A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission)” during a period of time when he was frequently traveling between the US and the UK. The lyrics are a parody or homage to the style of folk song then exemplified and popularized by Bob Dylan. Recorded versions of the song even feature a bridge where Simon echoes a…
Ronald Reagan died and went to hell. He was just as surprised about it as you are. He wasn’t expecting a standing ovation but he got one. Many souls enduring torment appreciate a rousing speech. It gets tiresome, all that weeping and gnashing of teeth. The tedium of torture begs variety and change in its hellish routine. Reagan demurred but the damned insisted. Always…
Wag the Dog is a brilliantly conceived and executed satire of the relationship between media and politics. The film skewers the “politics as spectacle” that has come to dominate national politics. Conrad Brean doesn’t simply manipulate the truth – he manipulates reality itself. Though he does not create an actual war in Albania, it is easy to see that his skills could be used…
The opening sequence of Primary Colors telegraphs the central theme and concern of the film: character. Democratic Presidential candidate Jack Stanton moves slowly through a crowd, shaking hands with the people. In a medium shot that isolates his body and keeps his head and shoulders out of frame, Stanton goes through a variety of handshakes as he stops to meet each individual. One of…
Lurking in the shadows throughout America are citizens who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. I’m one of those people, proud to have voted for Nader (with the rationalization that I lived in a “safe state” – Washington – where Al Gore won by a substantial margin).[1] Many other Nader sympathizers resist answering the question, relying on that hoary old American notion that your…