THE CLINTON-OBAMA DEBATE

Dear Senator Clinton:   

Before I go off on you – again – I’d like to tell you I understand how tough it can be for a woman politician.  If she cries, she’s weak.  If she stands up for herself, she’s a bitch.  

 If a man cries, it’s seen as a sign of great compassion, even great strength, because he’s confident enough in all his manly glory that he can afford to show a softer side.  And if he’s so tough to be an out and out bastard, that’s okay, too, because, as Americans, we kind of like being the world’s Dirty Harry. 

Nonetheless, Senator Clinton, if you really harbor any hopes of pulling out the nomination, stop being so unlikeable.  You could start by not complaining about being the one to get all the first questions at the debates because, woman, you’re trying to be President of the United States.  I’d say “answering questions first” wouldn’t be the hardest part of that job.  And it’s not like they were giving you a pop quiz on calculus.  Those were questions about your very own views.  You should know the answers and it shouldn’t matter when they call on you. 

Also, you’re being nasty to one of the most charismatic politicians to emerge since your husband.  It’s a bit reminiscent of an article I just read about an Australian python who swallowed a family’s beloved Chihuahua.  I hate to break it to you, but the python’s not the hero of that story.   

Likeability usually has little bearing on how someone performs their job, with the possible exception of Miss Congeniality.  Woody Allen is a great director, but really creepy as a person.  Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush all seemed like pretty nice men, but were terrible Presidents.  And some people are like our current President, who really doesn’t do well in either category.

 I’m not saying you can’t do the job of being President, while annoying us more than cancer.  I’m saying you can’t get the job, if you don’t make us like you at least some of the time.   Stop whining.  Stop going after Obama.  And, if it comes to this, go away with class. 

You’re right when you say you’re blazing a trail.  Do not ruin it for the next woman who comes this way.  

Sincerely,

Pretty Much Everyone 

A McCAIN-HUCKABEE DEBATE

Mike Huckabee has formally asked John McCain for a debate, saying it’s time to meet in a public forum in the tradition of Lincoln-Douglas.   But the thing is, McCain-Huckabee wouldn’t be Lincoln-Douglas.  It wouldn’t even be Kennedy-Nixon.  If anything, it’d be more like Galileo and the Pope.  Or Mr. Drysdale and Jethro. 

I’m not sure there’s ever been less of a need for a debate than McCain-Huckabee.  As a voter, you’re either a believer in science or you’re just not.  You either think Genesis is a lovely allegory – with nudity, even – or you think it’s some sort of transcript. 

The debate would change no one’s mind.  It’s not like anyone’s going to say “John McCain’s views on the tax code bother me, so I’m going with the guy who thinks humans co-existed with the dinosaurs, and not that long ago.”  And if, for some reason, the evolution/creation issue doesn’t bother you, I don’t want you voting. 

For me, believing in evolution isn’t an anti-religion thing.  But believing in creationism is an anti-thinking doctrine.  I take a lot on faith that can’t really be explained, and personally, I believe God set off the Big Bang, although I’ll be the first to admit a substantial portion of the world probably thinks I’m crazy for that..  But I don’t deny the science part of it, probably because I went to a school that wasn’t in my living room.  I don’t trust anyone who ignores the evidence.  And I especially don’t want that person running the country.  

The writers’ strike is over and American Idol is back.  There truly is no need for a McCain-Huckabee debate.       

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

JUNO:   I believe I’ve made my feelings about this film known. But just in case, here are analogies to break it down: 

The story is “Scrubs” (good, but not great), the dialogue is anything on CBS’s Monday night line-up (no elucidation needed). 

The story is the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA finals.  The dialogue is the WNBA championship game. 

The story is American Gangster, the dialogue is fucking Juno. 

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL:  This certainly puts the “original” in original screenplay, but bears absolutely no resemblance to life in small town America as I remember from growing up in Montana.  If any of the town loners (we had a few in Helena) had taken to carting around a blow-up doll, he would’ve met with fewer sweet smiles and receptive hugs and much more open laughter and “fucking nutjob.”  My small-town America is the David Lynch (also from Montana) variety with almost no Frank Capra thrown in.  But if you believe there’s a Bedford Falls out there, then “Lars and the Real Girl” is the movie for you. 

MICHAEL CLAYTON:  My clear choice for a winner.  My only quibble is why these meticulous killers, with the shoe covers and the hairnets when they’re dispatching Tom Wilkinson, decide to take a somewhat blunter approach when trying to take out George Clooney with a car bomb.  But, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, I loved the overall feel of this movie — very ‘70s.   

And any movie that gets George Clooney out of safe Danny Ocean mode is very good, indeed.  It’s not that I don’t love Clooney in the Ocean movies (I just hate the writing in 12 and 13), and it’s not that I don’t recognize that Clooney playing suave is a lot harder than it looks.   But Clooney has real depth as an actor, which gets brought out best when he picks great scripts.  He doesn’t need to go all Method, Daniel Day-Lewis, to prove it.  Clooney in “Three Kings” with so many emotions playing across that beautiful face, should’ve brought him his first Oscar.  And Clooney in “Michael Clayton” is even better.  The actor and the script bring out the best in each other.   

RATATOUILLE:  I’m not really an animation fan, but Pixar movies seem to start with great writing, then build out from there.  I loved this movie, like I loved “The Incredibles,” like I loved “Iron Giant.”  However much Brad Bird is getting paid, it’s still not enough.

THE SAVAGES:  Despite a nearly unbeatable combination of Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I could not watch this movie.  I think it has something to do with actually having an aging parent and not wanting to watch on the big screen, what could be unfolding close to home.  But I’ll give it a big thumbs up, because while it’s not the case that neither of these actors ever chooses bad scripts (Man of the Year, Patch Adams – the moral?  Stay far from Robin Williams), they’re both great and deserve more awards.  So, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt by guessing this movie was wonderful!  

WHAT SHOULD’VE BEEN ON THE LIST: 

ENCHANTED:  Everyone has a reason to hate Disney.  For me, one of the reasons is because of what they’re doing to a generation of girls with all that Princess bullshit.   Because until the day Disney gives us the real story of how Belle doesn’t actually live happily ever after because the Beast, even after the transformation, was still a Beast; and Ariel and Mulan didn’t just like each other as friends, and Pocahontas’s life turned to shit because of all the casino gambling – until all that happens, Disney is really just getting these girls’ hopes up until they get shot down like Bambi’s mother.

But, Disney is somewhat redeemed by the fact they do tend to make things much better than they have to.  And “Enchanted” is definitely one of those movies.  The vast majority of the credit goes to Bill Kelly’s terrific script, but this was also one of the best uses of special effects ever (the worst: “I Am Legend.”  Shudder.)

I’m rooting for “Michael Clayton” or “Ratatouille,” and I will throw something at my TV if “Juno” wins.

Which it will. 

SAY IT AIN’T SO, ADAM

Normally, I would never read an article about “Dancing with the Stars” because I like to pretend it doesn’t really exist, but the headline was “Oscar Winner Joins Dancing,” so I absolutely had to find out who should join the long line of people (Cuba Gooding, Jr. and George Clooney if he makes even one more of those Ocean movies) who should have to give their Oscars back. 

It turns out that Marlee Matlin has not only joined the Oscar repo line, she’s following in the footstep of Heather Mills, showing America that people with disabilities can dance just as poorly as everyone else.  But here’s the deal: I, for one, already know They are just like Us.  And it’s a little creepy that the show feels compelled to pretend they’re making that point, when they’re almost certainly doing it to get people tuned in for the curiosity effect.  It is only a matter of a season or two until they lure Daniel Day-Lewis to the show as Christy Brown. 

But that’s not what has me appalled.  It’s the inclusion of one of my very favorite entertainers in the world.  What, in God’s name, is Adam Carolla doing on one of the worst shows to ever climb out of the realty ooze? 

I was a writer on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in the earliest days of the show.  Every day for two very long hours, I was the only woman at the writers’ table as we pitched Jimmy.  Jimmy sat at one end, Adam (who was a co-EP) was at the other, and I sat next to Adam.  I’ve never met anyone more effortlessly funny and more decent.  He’s a blessedly normal, kind, no bullshit guy (who’s also, almost deceptively, whip-smart). 

I don’t listen to his radio show, because the one thing I don’t want in the morning – besides morning – is to listen to talk radio.  But if I did, I’m sure I’d spend most of my time laughing and thinking “Adam Carolla, what a guy.” 

But now, I’m thinking more along the lines of “Adam, Carolla, what the fuck are you thinking?”  I know “DWTS” is ridiculously, inexplicably popular.  But, Adam, you are better than this.  I know you’re a regular guy, a man of the people.  But can’t you show that by doing something much less objectionable, like going to a cockfight? 

It’s Marie Osmond faux fainting and the sequins and the audience you know is being paid to clap.  It’s those ridiculous judges that show all the gradations of scores from the perfect 10s to the dreaded 9.8s.  It’s verbal exclamation points and cheesy musical arrangements and really bad dancing.  It is all flash, no substance (unlike the far superior “So You Think You Can Dance”) and every time it airs, the continent gets that much dumber. 

Adam, please rethink the madness.  I’ll even start listening to your show (occasionally) if you back out.  Because the worst of this, if you truly go through with it, is I’ll be forced to watch because it’s the closest I’ll ever come again to sitting next to you at the end of a very long table.   

Damn you, Adam Carolla, damn you.     

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Oscars are coming up and here’s what I think of the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay: 

ATONEMENT:  There’s a lot going for this movie.  I’ve had somewhat of a girl crush on Keira Knightley since “Pride & Prejudice,” James McAvoy was delicious, Saoirse Ronan was amazing (Romola Garai?  Not so much).  The score was wonderful, the cinematography terrific.  The costumes were to die for.  That Dunkirk tracking shot was incredible.   

But this is a writing category.  I figured out what was going on about a third of the way through the movie and I never figure anything out.  (I am only now beginning to have my suspicions about Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense.”)  I got what they were going for, but the whole thing seemed to be so much less than the sum of its parts.  But it sure was pretty. 

AWAY FROM HER:  This is one those “Hotel Rwanda”-type things where I know it’s good because everyone says it is, but I absolutely cannot bring myself to watch it (and many of those people probably lied about seeing it, like the way I told everyone I saw “Million Dollar Baby” because someone told me the end, and all you really needed to say to fake it was “My God, the tongue.”).  I have good intentions, but instead, I go back to my Tivo’d “Pride & Prejudice.”  It comes down to Julie Christie with Alzheimer’s v. Matthew MacFadyen as Mr. Darcy.  And simply no one can beat Mr. Darcy.  Except maybe a Mr. Darcy sandwich, with Colin Firth.  Now that would be an excellent movie, but likely not a best screenplay candidate.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY:  I’ll be watching this the moment I’m done with “Away from Her.”  Then I’ll shoot myself. 

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN:  It’s the best movie of the year.  I’m not usually one for ambiguous endings, David Chase, but this script was terrific.  It’s one of the greatest movies of the past couple decades and I’m not one to lavish praise on any film that doesn’t have at least one scene set at a lovely 19^th Century English country home.   

THERE WILL BE BLOOD:  I want to see that Upton Sinclair book.  Then I want to hit P.T. Anderson over the head with it.  In a bowling alley in my home.  

 WHAT SHOULD BE ON THE LIST:  

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM:  Tony Gilroy’s my new hero for this and “Michael Clayton.”  “Bourne” was a great action movie with a real story.  There aren’t enough of them. 

CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR:  Good God, Aaron Sorkin must’ve had an aneurysm for not going all “Isaac and Ishmael” on us.  This was a terrific, thought-provoking, smart, funny movie.  It’s criminal that more people didn’t see it. 

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX:  I’m a huge Harry Potter nerd because the books are so great.  But this was, perhaps, my favorite movie of the series and the adaptation of the 870-page novel was done very well, indeed.   

And, for the record, the book would also make an excellent P.T. Anderson bludgeoning device.  Which makes it deserving of an award just for that.   

SO TRASHIC, PT. 4

Trashic = trash + tragic.  Bad things earn you points on the Trashic Scale.  Good things earn you negative points.   

This morning Meredith Viera…

(1, because she will never escape the taint of The View) 

…interviewed Vagina Monologues playwright Eve Ensler…

(1 for Ensler’s perpetually bad hair, 1 billion points for unleashing the insufferable Vagina Monologues, plus NBC gets 10 points for the chyron proclaiming Ensler a “playwrite”) 

…and Jane Fonda…

(-10 for surfacing during the presidential campaign, when she knows this will generate at least 200 news articles where the words “Hanoi” and “Jane” will be used in close proximity) 

…regarding the 10^th Anniversary of the Vagina Monologues…   

 (another billion points) 

…in which Jane refers to her monologue “Cunt” and completely doesn’t euphemize it…

(-25, because I’ve never heard that word on Today before, which means this is as close to newsworthy as the show will ever get.) 

And ten minutes later Meredith Viera…           

(1, still because of The View) 

…lifts her skirts (figuratively) and goes all Nixon-and-the-Checkers speech-meets-Janet-Jackson’s-nipple with a big apology for, well, Jane Fonda’s cunt.           

(1000 to NBC for either not having or not using a 3-second delay, 100 to Meredith Viera for being rude to a guest, and then I get 100 for calling it Jane Fonda’s cunt.  Twice.)

TRASHIC TOTAL: 

Eve Ensler 2,000,000,001

NBC 1010

Meredith Viera 102

Me 100

Hanoi Jane -35 (which makes her the least trashic of anyone in the short history of this list) 

JUNO II

Jason Reitman has emphatically ruled out a “Juno” sequel, which is…noble (?)…but did anyone ask for one? 

“Juno” was that rare movie that got better as it went along, which it almost had to since those first ten minutes with the home skillet and the Sunny D and the undiddled were some of the most excruciating in movie history (except for all of “Crash”).  Do you know what it made me yearn for?  “There Will Be Blood’s” ten-minute opening of silence.  And an abortion clinic. 

Then it was that goddam hamburger phone and the wacky putting the furniture on the lawn and the Sherlock Holmes pipe and the Maker’s Mark and just about everything that came out of Ellen Page’s mouth.  Which is unfortunate, because underneath all the fingernails (you know, the kind the fetuses have) -on-the-chalkboard dialogue, was a pretty good story, along with amazing performances. 

But do we need to see a sequel?  Sweet Jesus, we do not.  Nor do we need to see “Juno” get the screenwriting Oscar.  And we very especially do not need to see a whole slew of imitators bringing the “quirky” and the faux hipster slang.  But you can feel them coming, like the 17-year-cicadas.  And one of them will star Dane Cook and the sun will implode from the perfect storm of suckage. 

In his statement, Reitman said there’s no second movie because Juno wouldn’t get pregnant again. 

We can only hope that she does, indeed, stay undidled.

CITIZEN JOURNALISM

I was scrolling through the political news online when I came across the article “Meet America’s Hottest Governor,” coronating Alaska’s Sarah Palin with the title.  Palin competed in the Miss Alaska pageant in 1984, but didn’t win (and, honestly, how hot can you really be when you weren’t even the hottest woman in Alaska 24 years ago).   

The point isn’t whether or not the large male population of Alaska is voting with their hanging chads, it’s that not only did some idiot write the article, AOL decided to post it as part of their Political Machine section, alongside actual news.  Granted, it was classified under “Humor” and “LOLection” – while qualifying as neither – but why is this “news” at all? 

I suppose it’s a by-product of citizen journalism, a trend I rank right down there with citizen encyclopedias, where lots of people go to write about how they think  electricity really works.   But sometimes, I just want a professional to do the job.  If I need a root canal, I’m not heading over to my neighbor who heard about how the Mayans might have done it.  I want a slightly creepy doctor who spent years in training in order to spend the rest of his career putting his hands in other people’s mouths, while charging extortion-like prices. 

It is another goddam primary day, and AOL can’t find anything better than an article that demeans the Governor of Alaska?  You can’t tell me Bill Clinton didn’t piss somebody off or Huckabee didn’t do some more Jesus-humping. 

I’m asking for more “actual journalism” and less “League night at the bowling alley sure makes it harder to file a story.” 

Besides, Sarah Palin may be hottest, but my Governor has smoked the most pot, greased the most muscles and had the most group sex. 

And you can file that under Fact. 

HILLARY HATERS FOR McCAIN

Barack Obama did very well this weekend, but I’m still scared that Hillary could get the nomination.  If she does, I’ll be starting my very own Hillary Haters for McCain Club.  It won’t be much of a club, since I’m not what one would call a “people person,” so it’ll mostly be me, alone at home, hating Hillary Clinton and trying to justify how I’m going to vote for John McCain.  Which is pretty much how I spend most days, but with more time spent thinking about John McCain. 

I’m certainly not reassured by President Bush (the more evil one) this past Sunday declaring McCain a “true conservative.”  That’s a bit like getting 57% more Mad Cow disease in your beef.   

It’s not like I hate all conservatives, nor do I even dislike all Republicans.  Abraham Lincoln was one of our very best Presidents.  And then we fast forward 130 years or so to Congresswoman Connie Morella, from Maryland, who was fiscally conservative and socially liberal to like a crazy extent, and won her seat in the overwhelmingly Democratic suburbs of D.C. over and over again because she was just that good.  She finally lost in 2002 as a result of gerrymandering, because they needed to find fresh Democrats who didn’t already love her to defeat her.  And even then it was close.    

So, it’s Lincoln and Morella.  And now I’m trying to figure out if I could add John McCain to the list. 

It’s not like I don’t have moments of conservatism.  What good Democrat among us hasn’t looked at their paycheck and silently said “Jesus, I pay a lot in taxes,” knowing in our really big hearts that taxes won’t exactly be going down with a Democrat in office.  Also, while I’m adamantly pro-choice, I’m also not wild about multiple abortions, and even though no form of birth control is foolproof, I still think women and their partners might want to consider a combination of the pill, a condom and a Depo-Provera chaser after that second operation. 

But here’s where I have problems with Republicans.  I truly don’t think they have moments of doubt.  Most of them don’t lose sleep over poverty or racism or homophobia.  There’s no lying awake in the middle of the night, wondering about just how crazy Antonin Scalia is going to get (answer:  VERY).   

And all that certainty scares the hell out of me. 

I hope I don’t have to make a choice between McCain and Clinton.  I pray (but not in the scary God’s Army Huckabee way) that Obama pulls it out. 

And if that doesn’t happen, I hope John McCain knocks on Connie Morella’s door, begging her to be his Vice President.    

February 7, 2008

Mitt Romney has withdrawn from the presidential race, saying he “hates to lose.”  But it is, apparently, a hatred far outweighed by the number of people who’d hate to see him as President.  Massachusetts, stop trying to foist your governors off on the rest of the country.  We’re still not buying it.