Author: Mike

The No-Politics Friday ™ continues into 2007 while looking back on 2006. Starting a little over a year ago, I moved above a second-run dollar theater whose manager was also my landlord. So for a period I saw nothing but bad second-runs movies while getting free popcorn. Halfway through I moved to Champaign, Il, where my access to quality cinema was practically nonexistent (though I do thank the local art theater for trying its best). However, my roommate just got a television that could only be described as bitchin (and, god bless us everyone, it was an open-box special at Circuit City), which makes it a perfect time to catch up on movies via DVD.

So, as I've seen virtually no good new movies this past year, and am in a perfect position technologically and emotionally to watch a lot of high-definition dvds in my living room, the question goes to you: What were the best movies of 2006? Please answer in the comments, my netflix queue is hungry and wants to be fed.

Now of course I lied; I have seen some good movies in 2006 and would like to share them with you.

Half-Nelson

I'm glad to see Ryan Gosling break big as an actor, something I've been waiting for since he first made waves in the excellent "The Believer" (1999). Watching several talented actors face the brutality of inner-city poverty, addiction and the drug trade makes for a rough movie-going experience. The emotional impact is overwhelming; days later you may still be torn between whether to think "[Gosling is] charismatic, multifaceted, and sincere, and we can't really dismiss him without dismissing some part of ourselves" or "[Half-Nelson is part of] a series of new, grotesquely condescending movies..trumpet whites' hidden resentment about blacks' troubling, irremediable social status…hipster masochism."

Our Brand is Crisis

The best feature about Iraq I saw in 2006 was about the 2002 Bolivian election. In this documentary, the dark twin of The War Room (1993), camera crews follow the consulting team of "Greenberg, Carville, Shrum" as they attempt to win the Bolivian election for their client with the aid of modern political consulting equipment.

I knew of the movie before I saw it, and I was surprised by how drawn I was to Jeremy Rosner, the consultant who forms the center story. There's no bad faith or shameless profiteering on his part; he believes that what he is doing will ultimately aid democracy in South America. It is not hard to see in Bolivia echoes of the current political fallout in Iraq – where exporting democracy seems to be a series of color-coordination, negative aids from crafted third-parties, chi-squared evaluation of a candidate's honesty appeal, focus-group vetted slogans and controlling the terms of the debate, and how none of these things seem to be a match for deep-seated grievances on poverty, joblessness and cultural differences. You can hear in Rosner's post-election interview what we are already hearing from the neocons who thought democracy would triumph by default in Iraq.

Dave Chappelle Block Party

In a year where everything seemed to be falling apart, and where many of the best movies involved the worst of times (see above), seeing great musicians playing a street concert, doing what they love, with everyone having a great time, is a perfect antidote. One of the best concert films I've seen – the dvd has full performances of many of the songs, and they can be worked into a full-length viewing of the movie. Highly recommended.

So that's me. Your suggestions?

Trading at 460; could this be Mr. Horton's 21st century backroom?

A New York Times style article about Google's expanding New York office and the Silicon Valley 'campus' culture:

You could be forgiven for not knowing that a satellite Google campus is growing in downtown Manhattan. There is no Google sign on the building, and it's hard to catch a glimpse of a Googler, as employees call themselves, on the street because the company gives them every reason to stay within its candy-colored walls.

From lava lamps to abacuses to cork coffee tables, the offices may as well be a Montessori school conceived to cater to the needs of future science-project winners…Google has free food, and plenty of it, including a sushi bar and espresso stations. There are private phone booths for personal calls and showers and lockers for anyone running or biking to work.

The campuslike workspace is antithetical to the office culture of most New York businesses. It is a vision of a workplace utopia as conceived by rich, young, single engineers in Silicon Valley, transplanted to Manhattan…

All the free food has created a problem familiar to college freshmen. "Everyone gains 10 or 15 pounds when they start working here," said James Tipon, a member of the sales team, who actively contributes to the four pounds of M&Ms consumed by New York Googlers daily.

Two quick notes. (1) I know it's not the mid-90s anymore, but I hope everyone has read their Microserfs (errors reprinted, 310-311):

At 21, you make this Faustian pact with yourself that your company is allowed to soak up 7 to 10 years of your life but then at 30 you have to abandon the company, or else there's something WRONG with you.

The tech system feeds on bright, asocial kids from dive backgrounds who had pro-education parents. We ARE in a new industry; there aren't really many older poe in it. We are on the vanguard of adoldescence pro…

But just think about the way high tech cultures puropose protract out the adolescence of their employees well into their late 20s, if not their early 30s,. I mean, all those NERF TOUYS and FREE BEVERAGES! And the way tech firms won't even call work "The office:, but instead, "the campus"

2) Do you remember all those social awareness episodes of 80s television shows where the kid's best friend would get molested? I think the classic one was when the bike shop owner Mr. Horton got the better of Dudley from Different Strokes. (why oh why isn't this episode on youtube?)

Remember how in all those episodes the guy would lure in the children with cool toys, neat electronics and lots of candy? Am I the only one who feels a creepy connection between that and the same lures for high-tech programmers? I've been in a few of the new-not-at-all-like-the-old office "campuses" and I've gotten the same vibe you get from seeing Mr. Horton's backroom. It's the sense of "Gee, thanks for all the free nerf stuff and M&Ms, but at what point are you going to try to take pictures of me in the bathtub?"

I don't know what it says about an industry and its employees when the incentives to hire and retain the best and the brightest are indistinguishable from the techniques used to lure in children and sexually assault them.

Remember that article about the Republicans mocking Democrats for living in the "reality-based community" (where they "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality")? I always thought that may have been a bit unfair, since the quote was from an unnamed aide to the President.

But then I see this interview NPR did with Karl "Fixing up my resume" Rove right before the election (transcript here):

SIEGEL: We are in the home stretch though and many would consider you on the optimistic end of realism about…
ROVE: Not that you would exhibit a bias, you just making a comment.
SIEGEL: I'm looking at all the same polls that you are looking at.
ROVE: No, you are not. I'm looking at 68 polls a week for candidates for the US House and US Senate, and Governor and you may be looking at 4-5 public polls a week that talk attitudes nationally.
SIEGEL: I don't want to have you to call races…

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ROVE: I'm looking at all of these Robert and adding them up.

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I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math but you are entitled to your math and I'm entitled to THE math.
SIEGEL: I don't know if we're entitled to a different math but your…

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ROVE: I said THE math.

Evidently Rove's faith-based mathematics, based on internal secret polls that I'm sure were in no way biased towards those who were paying for it, lost out to the reality-based ones.

Here are our positions. Please, please, please do not do any gambling ever, and especially on our information. That is our disclaimer. Spend your money in wiser places, like in index funds or bars featuring dollar-beer nights.

More accurately: "the material here have no regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation, or particular needs of any visitor. These sites are published solely for informational purposes and are not to be construed as a solicitation or an offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments. References made to third parties are based on information obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed as being accurate. Visitors should not regard it as a substitute for the exercise of their own judgment. Any opinions expressed in this site are subject to change without notice."

Ahem. The "Price" is what percent it is likely that said event takes place. If we clarify "SOLD", we'd like to see the value go to zero, otherwise we'd like it to get to 100. Note that the times are Irish times, ahem.

First up, we believe we'll have a net gain of 23-25 seats for the Democrats, so we are bullish on Democrats taking over 20 seats, slightly less bullish on them taking over 25, and we sold (them out) on Democrats gaining 30 seats.

-This position has changed. We are stronger at 20, stronger at 25, and we aren't selling the Democrats out until 35.

DEMOCRATS 20 SEATS

DEMOCRATS 25 SEATS

DEMOCRATS 35 SEATS – SOLD

We very quickly realized that our patriotic duty could be purchased by making 2 dollars on our investment in the Democrats taking the senate. We are now invested in the Democrats taking only the house and the GOP holding onto the senate.

DEMOCRATS GAIN HOUSE, REPUBLICANS KEEP SENATE

RHODE ISLAND (technically the same graph, but we're now selling shares of Whitehouse)

MARYLAND

UNCHANGED-

NJ SENATE RACE – SOLD

TENNESSEE

VIRGINIA

JOEY LAWRENCE

Slate on Thursday had a special summer camp issue, with several articles on the camping experience. Two things of note:

1) Their excellent cultural editor, Meghan O'Rouke, writes about going to (her phrase) "nerd camp", a camp for only the top 3% of academic students in the country:

But the fundamental enterprise remained a shared one, and the weekly dances were, as a friend recently put it, wondrous displays of group awkwardness. In our day, each concluded with either "Sympathy for the Devil," "Ana Ng," or "American Pie,"

If the thought of a group of honors-honors kids dancing around to They Might Be Giants at a forced social doesn't make your secret (or not so secret) inner 13 year old nerd happy, I don't know what will. (re-watch the video for Ana Ng if you've forgotten how much fun tmbg are at times – the desk pounding and the weird hop walk at 2m18s are so wonderful).

2) Summer camp stories, especially about nerd camps, give me an opportunity to dust off my favorite thing I've done for this page, from back in 2000, the time I encouraged the kids in my Computer Summer Camp section to write essays I promised would not get censored or reviewed by parents.

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Here's what they wrote. They certainly had their finger on the pulse of the immigration debate.

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I'm sure you all have reasons for supporting the Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage. Here is one you probably haven't thought of: The recent fighting in the Middle East. Quote Rep. Gingrey:

The Democrats accused Republicans of raising the issue even as they ignored what the Democrats said were more pressing problems, including the war in Iraq, an expanding conflict in the Middle East, high gasoline prices and North Korean missile tests.

But Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, said the marriage issue was “just as important and a top-tier issue as any of those.

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”

Another Georgia Republican, Representative Phil Gingrey, said support for traditional marriage “is perhaps the best message we can give to the Middle East and all the trouble they’re having over there right now.”

I also think that repealing the Death Tax and opening up ANWR for drilling will help with the situation in Darfur personally. It's the second best message we could send.

I'll leave it for you to judge: Is this too horrible to turn away from?

Too endearing not to be moved by?

Too interesting to not stop reading?

My Death Space, a complete directory of people who have died on myspace and now have memorial webpages (you can see the list of recent updates too).

I've been told by avid watchers that you can try and predict deaths over time – following the 4th holiday there's been a death due to firework injuries. Evidently a lot of teenagers are dying from auto accidents, and people who commit suicide (or die from suicidal-ish drug overdoses) have extensive web presences.

Hmm…please help reset my moral compass to Absolute North by leaving a comment as to whether or not this is awful and ghoulish.

Hi all. I'm in graduate school all of a sudden, and up to my neck with statistical curves. I've meant to post this for a while, and since I have little to say that isn't going to be on a midterm next week, I feel better about just posting someone else's writings.

Earlier this year the New Yorker did a profile of Bill O'Reilly, which was one of the funnier and snarkier things I've read this year (certainly from them). They refer to The Factor as being in a baroque period, and drop this one-liner: "Once, when Howard Stern was asked to explain his success, he said that he owed it to lesbians. O’Reilly owes his to child molesters."

They explain a bit about O'Reilly's lesser known fiction from the late 90s. This was written right around the time that a lot of conservative's bizarre paperback fiction was coming to light, most notably Scooter Libby's novel that featured this line: "At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls…"

Unlike some conservative talk-show hosts, O’Reilly hasn’t had a career in politics or government; he has never been based in Washington. Long Island notwithstanding, he really comes from a place called television news. After college, he taught high school in Florida, then got a degree in broadcast journalism and worked his way around the country’s media markets, starting as a consumer reporter in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In the early eighties, he landed at CBS News, as a correspondent for the “Evening News.” It should have been his big break, but it didn’t work out. Although he had a happier time at another network, ABC, before joining the syndicated show “Inside Edition,” in 1989, and then Fox, the CBS episode has stayed with him. It hurt—it still hurts. No matter how big a star he becomes, he’s eternally the guy who was banished from the charmed circle.

O’Reilly’s account of what went wrong at CBS has him, as always, pissing off powerful people because he won’t play their phony games. The key moment seems to have come when, during the Falkland Islands War, O’Reilly and his crew got some exclusive footage of a riot in the streets of Buenos Aires and it wound up being incorporated into a report from the veteran correspondent Bob Schieffer, which failed to mention O’Reilly’s contribution. O’Reilly was furious, and after that, by his account, he was in career Siberia at CBS. During this period of forced inaction, he later wrote, “on a visit to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I stumbled upon an amazing story. The tiny fishing village of Provincetown had become a gay mecca!” O’Reilly took a cameraman there and did a piece on the dangers this posed to local kids, but the network wouldn’t air it. Not long after that, he left.

In 1998, after the launch of “The O’Reilly Factor,” but before superstardom, he published a thriller called “Those Who Trespass,” which is his most ambitious and deeply felt piece of writing.

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“Those Who Trespass” is a revenge fantasy, and it displays extraordinarily violent impulses. A tall, b.s.-intolerant television journalist named Shannon Michaels, the “product of two Celtic parents,” is pushed out by Global News Network after an incident during the Falkland Islands War, and then by a local station, and he systematically murders the people who ruined his career. He starts with Ron Costello, the veteran correspondent who stole his Falkland story:

"The assailant’s right hand, now holding the oval base of the spoon, rocketed upward, jamming the stainless stem through the roof of Ron Costello’s mouth. The soft tissue gave way quickly and the steel penetrated the correspondent’s brain stem. Ron Costello was clinically dead in four seconds. "

Michaels stalks the woman who forced his resignation from the network and throws her off a balcony. He next murders a television research consultant who had advised the local station to dismiss him: he buries the guy in beach sand up to his neck and lets him slowly drown. Finally, during a break in the Radio and Television News Directors Association convention, he slits the throat of the station manager. O’Reilly describes each of these killings—the careful planning, the suffering of the victim, the act itself—in loving detail.

In the novel, O’Reilly splits his alter ego in two, by creating a second tall, b.s.-intolerant Irish-American, a New York City homicide detective named Tommy O’Malley. O’Malley is charged with solving the murders that Michaels has committed, while competing with Michaels for the heart of Ashley Van Buren, a blond, busty aristocrat turned b.s.-intolerant crime columnist. Michaels, a possibly once good man driven mad by broadcast journalism, tells Ashley, “Journalism, as you know, is a profession that requires its participants to be aggressive, skeptical, and persistent in pursuit of the truth. Yet, the moment you enter your own newsroom, you’ve got to drop all that. The managers want total conformity. They want you to play the game, to do what you’re told to do.

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” And, later, “It’s a self-obsessed business.
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‘How are things going to impact on me? Is this person my friend or my enemy?
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I’ll get him before he gets me.’ That kind of thing. It’s a brutal way to live.” Again and again, O’Reilly’s characters remind us that on-air broadcasters are among the most powerful and glamorous people in America, and so the stakes in television newsroom politics could not be higher.

Tommy O’Malley, too, has a lot of ambition and rage, but he channels it into bringing bad guys (not just Michaels but a collection of urban ethnic street punks out of the old “Dirty Harry” or “Death Wish” movies) to justice. Michaels, though rejected by the suits, the swells, and the phonies, is not entirely immune to their values. He lives in a mansion, eats filet mignon, dresses stylishly, and can’t dismiss the A-listers from his consciousness. He is drawn to places like Malibu, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Upper West Side, partly to carry out his murders and partly because a kind of psychological undertow pulls him there. O’Malley seems not to know that they exist; he is broke and not stylish. He is morally redeemed by the police mission, just as Michaels is morally damned by television.

1) The last time Bryan Singer directed Kevin Spacey as a criminal mastermind, the movie was The Usual Suspects.

I've often asked myself (as I'm sure you have as well) "What it would it be like if Keyser Soze had access to Kryptonite?
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" I'll be finding out tonight…

Go Lex go!

2) I'm seeing Superman Returns just a few weeks after seeing the quite awful X3. I glanced at my watch an hour into the movie, and told my party "we've only been here one hour" – a statement nobody believed. They all felt that the movie was approaching the third hour.

I would recommend seeing X3 only to see the trailers that came on beforehand.

Regardless of X3's worth, the trailers for the movie were the largest gathering of bad trailers I've never seen. Remember the Awesomo episode of South Park where Cartman keeps making up Adam Sandler movies? That's all I can think of when I see the trailers for Click. There was Little Man and Fast and the Furious Part 3: Tokyo Drift. But the movie that takes the cake was Ghost Rider.

Nicholas Cage plays a stunt motorcycle driver who is possessed by a demon. Or something. At night his head and the wheels of the motorcycle burst into flames and he fights evil. He has a shotgun that shoots fireballs as well. It's something to behold. I really like the idea that somewhere, the producer pulled aside the director and they had this exchange:

Producer: "Listen, if only Ghost Rider's front wheel is on fire, and we leave the back wheel flameless, we can save about 100 grand and get the movie out early."
Director: "I will not compromise the artistic integrity of this project. Ghost Rider's motorcycle is on fire, or I walk from the project.
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"

Huh? I understand that the baby boomers have a weird set of emotional and parental issues that cause them to weep at the very thought of their parents' "Greatest Generation" age cohort. On the scale of things I don't like about the boomers (mortgaging my generation out with the federal debt, outsourcing my generation's career tracks to fatten themselves, obsessive nostalgia and their feeling American culture stopped in '78, etc.) this rates rather low.

But is this book cover necessary?

Yes, yes. Heroism in WWII and all that (I'll keep the snark low about it really being the Soviet's victory). But Homer? I though the real horror of the World Wars was exactly how mass-produced, and not heroic, it was – it involves firebombings and suicide planes and factory production and nuclear warfare and mass conscription. There's no beauty of Achilles' shield being crafted by the gods, but someone handing you a rifle as you get off a boat.

I can only assume there's a Odyssey cover on its way of the current Iraq conflict, with a group of solider wandering around a hostile land just trying not to get killed and get the fuck home.

God I hate Greatest Generation nostalgia. And the boomers.