We find ourselves entering the Best Picture race in a dark time when the strength of liberalism has been cut off at the knees by forces that can best be described as diabolical.
You might have had to live through one of these transitions to know know how it will go. I grew up when McGovern lost to Nixon. I lived through the honorable but tepid failings of Jimmy Carter’s term. I lived most of my formative years under Ronald Reagan’s America. Believe me, by the time Bill Clinton came along, we Democrats had become so demoralized from losing one election after another that we were ready to do anything, forgive anything to grab even a tiny bit of power.
But that didn’t last. Bush took over, took us into endless war, crashed the economy over the cliff of greed. That debacle gave rise, at least, at last, to the greatest president in my lifetime so far, Barack Obama. But that triumph wouldn’t last. President Obama’s mere existence in the Oval Office — the reality that a black man could lead this country — so freaked out the crackers and the billionaires who control them that Republican (and Russian) fear-mongers were able to sell socialism as the country’s greatest threat. That helped the GOP take tight control Congress, where they’ve systematically dismantled two centuries of safeguards, standards and norms. Their merciless power grab gave rise to the extremist right wing coup that we’re all now living through.
It’s possible that the extreme partisanship now splitting the country in half has quite a lot to do with the recent ratings drop for the Oscar broadcast. Trump has turned everything into “you’re with me or you’re against me.” Actors and writers, Broadway and the Oscars, he declared, were part of that cultural battle. Hollywood, because it has roundly rejected him — and worse for his fragile ego, ridiculed him — is part of the imagined enemy he targets. Movies were once a place where people of any political persuasion could sit together for a few hours in the dark, to laugh together or dream together without worry of getting mowed down by a gun nut. Nowadays, liberals are glad we can still turn to gracious artists who give eloquent voice to our concerns.
On the other hand, for Trump supporters to watch the Oscars would be a betrayal of their lowbrow cult leader. We can’t expect dimwits who burn their Nikes and sledgehammer their Keurigs to set aside one night a year when they tune in to watch film artists celebrate the best of their film artistry — especially for films that Republican voters have been brainwashed into believing are chock full of librul propaganda. No, until conservatives ever figure out how to make movies that are worth a good goddamn, we can probably kiss the homophobe NRA build-the-wall evangelical Oscar-watchers goodbye. And you know what? Good riddance.
Meanwhile, this shift fits neatly with the way Hollywood itself has pulled sharply to the left. Maybe too neatly for much of middle America to swallow. Have we become too much of an insular oasis? Will we waste time attacking our own allies, policing every iffy thing that is said by anyone ever, in movies, on Twitter, with humor — that hyper-vigilant stance has thus far amounted to nothing more than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Hollywood, and the Oscars, must for now exist somewhat stranded in that oasis, with anger coming from both directions — the plunderers of the planet on right and the utopia-seeking purists on the left, a strident daily flogging that each side hopes will at last deliver us as born again in the image of opposing extremist leaders. The films that dominate this year’s race will fall into two categories: they will either lift us up as heroes, or else they won’t. How voters respond to these two angles will naturally determine how they vote. Are they feeling angry and full of despair? Or are they reaching for hope and holding onto what makes them feel redeemed?
There is noticeable hesitancy around the Oscar race the past few years, because the end goal isn’t the sum total of enthusiasm and gathering momentum like it used to be. Rather, because of the Academy’s preferential balloting system for Best Picture, the winner winds up being the film with the least amount of baggage, the one people hate the least and like, even love the best. Preferential balloting prevents a wave of last minute enthusiasm — thus far at least, since they implemented it in 2009.
The question will be: will personal stories be enough? Will there need to be bigger themes that unify and unite our oasis film community which has been banished as an outcast from its own government?
In an ordinary year, the harsher aspects of Spike Lee’s BlackKklansman might have felt overblown. The plus-sized racist woman, for instance, might have seemed over the top. But now? Does it still feel exaggerated? Take a look at any Trump rally in so-called “real America” and see if such stereotypes are in fact simply verifiable types. Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, still one of the year’s standouts, captures the panic so many of us are feeling about who now has the power to decide what, if anything, will be done to protect us from rising sea levels, melting ice sheets. What then must we do?
Dropping like an atom bomb into the season is Adam McKay’s Vice, which arrives just in time to bring the kind of relief only art can when there are no other means of expression besides violent protests. Maybe to those on the right it will look like yet more leftist propaganda. But to us, in our oasis, it scratches an itch we can’t reach.
In recent years, the preferential ballot has not shown much tolerance for nominating darker materials. Probably the darkest has been Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, and maybe Get Out. But now it feels as though there may be a shift in that regard. As we become accustomed to living in the midst of continual catastrophe, perhaps more and more voters will prefer — or could be open to considering — darker films that don’t wrap up neatly with a clear uplift.
Still, there are those films that will be more about uplift than sorrow. I guess you can put A Star in Born in that category, even if ultimately the trajectory of its converging and spiraling arcs are just as depressing as the rest of the prominent films. You know how it is going to end and so all you’re doing is watching that shit go down. But there is something uplifting in Lady Gaga’s performance that is hard to deny. Some will of course try to make it about the #metoo movement, the rise of women and the decline of men. But I’ll give you a tip. We live in a patriarchy. One that has survived for hundreds and hundreds of years. We can pay lip service that this is going to change, but it won’t really change, folks. Not in any of our lifetimes. Besides, pretty hard to say A Star is Born intends to twist its tale to fit 2018 sensibilities when the formula of its plot has been exactly the same three previous times in the past 80 years.
Green Book is the one film this year that does try to offer some kind of healing, to bridge the gap between the two Americans that is widening as we speak. Some will no doubt find fault with that, just as they did last year with Three Billboards. And believe me, taking down a Hollywood movie is a lot easier than taking down, say, a Supreme Court justice or a presidential candidate. First Man surely is more optimistic, reminding us an America of the past that was still racially divided, in the throes of war, but it was an era that reached for the moon at the same time, and envisioned a brighter future for humanity.
Somehow, the one sprouting sunflower that is Eighth Grade arrives from left field — its bright sunny petals shaming the despair that envelopes us every day now in America. One insignificant young woman trying to make her way in the world, awkward body and all. That, along with The Hate U Give, offers up a little optimism for a different kind of future.
The Favourite is as dark as our current moment deserves. Subversive, rotten women doing whatever they have to do in hopes of grabbing onto power. There are a few other films in play that feature subversive women, like Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me, about writer who turned to fraud and forgery to help pay for treatment for her sick cat. Nicole Kidman in Destroyer, plays a cop who does one wrong thing, then spends the film taking pitiless vengeance upon the bad guys. Widows is about the wives of bank robbers who must rise up to finish the heist that their husbands left undone, or else suffer lethal consequences. The Wife is about the true genius being a woman behind the writer, not the writer the world thinks it knows. Even movies like On the Basis of Sex and Mary Queen of Scots are about subversive female power. And of course, Alfonso Cuaron’s gorgeous Roma is about the unheralded matriarchs who run the world by running the families that nurture boys into men.
The last years of the Bush administration produced a great slew of dark Best Picture contenders, The Departed in 2006, No Country for Old Men in 2007, The Hurt Locker in 2009. Maybe now we’re heading into another one of those eras, like the 1970s, when art could tell a truth you could not find anywhere else.
Now that America is in the clutches of corruption, authoritarianism and run by a minority of angry white men funded by remorseless billionaires, deep down this last vestige of male predators must know their time is coming to an end. The clock is ticking down on what used to be. They know it is only a matter of time before the majority rises and takes back power. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
I didn’t expect moronic Brexit voters like Leighton Bate to show up on this site. I am hugely embarrassed. Mortified, even. I saw this site as a safe refuge from the Brexit quagmire in my country’s daily poilitics, but I was wrong.
In answer to the questions below:
How’s Brexit going? The truthful answer is that nobody knows, not even the Prime Minister. She’s too busy fending off the growing revolt from her right flank to have the ability to negotiate a good treaty with the European Union. We’re still hoping that Parliament will have a majority to vote down whatever weak deal she makes in March (with a combination of Labour, moderate Tory + minor party MPs), then will insist on a second Brexit referendum where sane people will finally be in the majority, keeping us in the EU and taking us out of this sorry Brexit mess for good. It’s a dream. Leighton Bate and his friends will probably not allow it to become reality.
We know there was a sizeable overlap between the Brexit referendum in the summer of 2016 and the US election a few months later. In fact, Trump may have taken some inspiration from the Brexit campaign. By coincidence, he happened to be in his golf course in Scotland on the day of the result, and he praised the people of Scotland for making such a wise decision “to take their country back”. (He was too clueless to notice that Scotland had voted heavily to remain in the EU, as had Northern Ireland, Greater London and educated pockets in England such as the university towns.) We also know about the Cambridge Analytica data collection and about the Russian influence. Back in 2016, I tried to persuade people who were undecided and confused by the economic arguments to think about what Putin would want. Obviously, he would want Britain to leave the EU, because he would want the Western alliance to fracture. I am happy to say that I did manage to sway a few people with this line of reasoning.
Leighton Bate does not represent what the UK thinks about Presidents Obama or Trump:
http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/06/29/as-obama-years-draw-to-close-president-and-u-s-seen-favorably-in-europe-and-asia/
https://www.itv.com/news/2018-07-12/77-of-british-public-have-an-unfavourable-view-of-donald-trump-ahead-of-his-visit-to-the-uk/
79% of the UK has a favourable view of President Obama, which is much higher than his rating in the US. By contrast, 77% of the UK has an unfavourable view of President Trump, which is much worse than his standing in the US. The British people expressed their collective opinion of Trump with an infamous snarling baby balloon which Americans may possibly have seen on the news.
And then there is Susan Sarandon…happy that Trump is president over what Hillary might have done.
Trump is human garbage . Trump is a monster . Trump is a mad dog. His supporters are maggots and cockroaches . I didn’t use to be this way but I am now . Oh and by the way does anyone remember that Susan Collins thought Al Franken should step down because of his bad behavior . As for movies it’s getting hard to care about film when we are drowning in the sewer of excrement that Trump’s America swims in .
America is a strange, beautiful, complicated and confusing country. The best of people and the worst of people. Articles like this help. Love your site, have been reading for a few years now, big fan.
I’m like Judge Judy I don’t answer your questions.
I still don’t get how Jimmy Carter isn’t the best President. But whatevs, I hate politics. It’s a shame so many people who probably consider themselves entertainers spend so much time antagonizing their fans with that crapola. There’s a time and a place and I still don’t think moviegoing should be about that crap. It’s supposed to be the Calgon that takes us away. There are actors who were favorites of mine that I’m done with because they could not stop belittling their fans, or other entertainers even.
‘Venom’ really was kinda bad but I’m going to go to look at Tom Hardy some more. Tuesday, probably. Someone really needs to explain to me why 3D is fuzzy. Don’t worry I had my glasses on, but still. Every time I go to a 3D movie I need to watch it in regular to see it properly. I chose to see it first because I wanted the free comic book so I put ‘A Star is Born’ on the back burner. I just hope I can shift my mind enough to not see a racoon in the place of Bradley Cooper, which has become a problem for me. IDK. I’m supposed to be going tomorrow.
Some of you are too invested in politics. Just Take step back and enjoy your lives.
See, this guy get’s it. He gets …. nothing. I mean, where do I start with this one. Oh, please hold me back. I am getting so mad at that dumb comment.
You think people got the things they got if they hadn’t invested in politics? You keep enjoying yourself while other doing everything to make sure you enjoy your life. Jeez!
I am in the UK and some of us over here like Trump,he seems from the reports we get in UK but my first words were gobbledygook to my mother so maybe I never grasped speaking properly, Trump does have some less than nice qualities and some things he does and says but he also has done some good,if you can’t see it then your deifintley not willing to see both sides,to some he’s not just love or loath to some he is a change and a willingness to address real concerns,I don’t think any1 should lecture on spelling etc if you understand what”s being said.
I thought Obama was a poor President,some people agree some don’t,we’re entitled to say whom we like and who we don’t,Some people like Tom Cruise some don’t.It’s all Horses for Courses.
You don’t need me to teach you how to spell and I don’t need you to teach me about American politics. So let’s call off this debate.
You’re glad about Trump and I’m glad you don’t get to vote here. So we’re even.
How’s Brexit going? Which way did you vote on that debacle, if you don’t mind my asking.
Are you aware of the fact that Russian disinfo trolls and Cambridge Analytica fucked the UK Brexit referendum in June 2016 the same way they fucked the US election in November 2016?
Or does that not bother you.
Lastly, what the hell do you think you know about President Obama?
Here’s the mic. The floor is yours. Tell us what you don’t like about Barack Obama.
He likes Trump so it’s save, very save to assume he voted for Brexit.
Clueless. This isn’t even worth responding to even though Ryan has done a Herculean job of trying to do just that.
As soon as any1 says anything about Anti Trumpers,it’s a straight attack on a person,sinking to the lowest form of wit,it was a spelling error something I think even Trump might make,we can’t all sail on the same boat,everyone has a differeing opinion on him mine differs from yours,I don’t agree with you but am willing to take it on board.
Anyone remember the British actor Dave Legeno ? I knew him ; he died a strange and ironic death in ”Death Valley ” Ca about 5 yrs ago … I had a eerily prophetic and ironic friendship with him
Hmmm Sasha’s a very political movie critic , much more so than the average voter ..for instance I well remember 2013 for Best Documentary Feature ; there was a grave and sobering Doc called ”The Act of Killing” about the Right Wing Indonesian ”Death Squads” who terrorised the country in the 1970s …it was educational cinema at it’s finest , and yet, the voters went for the light and entertaining ” Twenty feet from Stardom” instead .
You see ?, the voters prefer ”Fame and the Frivolous ”over something dark and important ; they did something similar by rejecting the masterful Lincoln for the accessible Argo …. why they went for ”The Artist ‘over the more historically important ”The Help ”.and that’s yet another reason why they”l go for ”Star is Born” instead of Roma , Green book or First man
Sasha is kind of like a political cheer leader who tries wake up the voters to point them in the right direction ;unfortunately, they simply aint that political ..they prefer movies about the entertainment industry , about themselves and are easily seduced by ”fame”
”A Star is Born ” will win Best Picture 2019 sight/unseen
You seem to be ignoring the times they went for the highly topical The Hurt Locker over Avatar or the time they went with the socially relevant Moonlight over the glitzy La La Land or time they went for the historically hard hitting 12 Years a Slave over the contemporary adventure film Gravity. Some years they go hard some years they go light, there are no hard and fast rules.
Oh i didn’t realise that Avatar , LLL and Gravity were movies about the entertainment industry ..the point I’m making is that , generally speaking, they tend to like movies about themselves that they can identify with …Star is clearly that type of movie
LLL is about the entertainment industry…
LLL would have won if Trump had not won the election ; the voters were angry and looking for a more liberal movie to send out a message to Trump World
The Hurt Locker had a female Director and Moonlight winning over the politically neutral LLL had something to do with the Liberal outrage over the election of Trump ….the voters were angry and looking to make a political statement of sorts ..12 YRS Slave was always going to beat Gravity
And what makes you so sure that the Academy won’t find themselves having to make some sort of political statement at ASIB’s expense this year?
It’s not a Presidential election year and folks are used to the smell of Trump by now ; it’s no longer the shock to the system that it was when he first won the WH
I didn’t realise half of America were NitWits Sasha,I am sure they were forced to vote Trump,there free thinking mind didn’t gel with Libiterians so they must all be under some mass delusion.
Might be adviseable to read up on the difference between liberals and libertarians before trying to challenge an American on a complex political climate that you seem to know next to nothing about.
Libertarians are a whole ‘nother societal and environmental nightmare.
Libiterians is not even a word.
While you’ve got your dictionary open, recalibrate your own freethinking mind to fine tune the difference between there and their.
I’m just curious how it came to be that in America, liberal basically means leftwing. That’s really different from the original meaning of liberalism (which is I guess closer to libertarianism).
Complicated recent shifts, Aroncido, but the historical origins are easy to explain.
When Louis XVI was fighting with his legislators about how much power he should maintain over the people of France, he divided the factions of the legislature according to their support for the monarchy.
On the right side of the assembly hall he sat all the lawmaking advisers who supported his absolute powers of monarchy.
On the left side of the room he sat all the legislative advisers who were in favor of a people’s democracy in France.
That pattern of division — and clash of political standpoint — soon spread to other countries all over the world over the next two hundred years.
The French Revolution and American Revolution were all about that clash between people power and authoritarian power, right?
So the very loose division that dates back to 1790s France still holds true around the world today:
Left wing politics favors regular people and the power of the citizenry to benefit the working class with progressive ideas open to change. This is liberal because it promotes a liberal openness to progress and change.
Right wing politics favors strict authoritarian power of the leaders of the government to preserve protections for the ruling class. This is conservative because it seeks to conserve old traditions and resists change.
Same as the left side of the room vs the right side of the room in the 19th century when Louis XVI was trying to prop up his monarchy and resist democracy.
Hey Ryan; this is completely off topic. I’ve come to “know” you over the years and just wanted your opinion on whom you think will win Best Actress this year. I see it as clearly Gaga vs Close. I think it’ll be tight, as both have great narratives but am hoping, in the end, that 7 time’s the charm and that Close pulls it off. Thoughts??
hiya Paul
I haven’t seen either of the movies yet!
I’ll hopefully get to see The Wife tonight.
You’re right. It’s going to be tight. It’s too soon to say. I’m glad about that. I sort of hate it when we start to nail down who’s winning in October, 5 months before the big night.
Right now, on our Awards Daily Oscar Squad chart I have these actresses penciled in — and I’m just guessing:
Actress
Glenn Close, The Wife
Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me
Viola Davis, Widows
Nicole Kidman Destroyer
Those names and rankings will change for me, for sure, but that’s what I’m feeling this week.
Who are the top five you have in mind?
I actually agree with your Top 5 completely. My main concern where Close is concerned is an enivitable loss of momentum. I wish the movie had been released, say Nov 1. It’s starting to feel like Gaga is gonna take this. She was great, but my heart really is pulling for Close. She should have won for FA and then for DL, I thought. Some people are saying they don’t even think Close will be nominated. I’m almost certain she will. I just hope she can finally pull it off, but Gaga sure does seem to have the momentum right now. Thanks for responding!
I kinda understand your point, but it does not really address the original question: why is “left wing” called liberal? Promoting an openness to progress and change is something I would call progressive. But liberalism (as the name suggests) should be about individual liberties and freedom. I understand that, coming from the era of absolute monarchies, advocating for the the working class involved supporting the idea of freedom, and thus left-wing policy was mostly liberal. But in the era of democracy, supporting the working class and supporting individual freedom do not necessarily align. If you look at liberal parties in Europe, they are often centre-right parties. This is why the name liberal for left-wing and often strongly left-wing politics in America is peculiar for me.
aroncido,
In America, since we only have two viable major parties, the line between right wing and left wing is fairly easy to discern. The vast majority of us are red voters or blue voters.
Purple independents in the middle rarely have a candidate that can ever win. “Independents” in America basically means “I haven’t made up mind yet between Dems or GOP” — but on election day they have to pick a side.
We don’t have prominent subdivisions of our liberals and conservatives — and whenever we do, it’s always always bad news for whichever end of the spectrum is being divided.
I’m sure no authority on European governmental structures, but it seems to me that parliamentary legislatures in Europe function alright with nuanced coalitions — subset groups with various degrees of liberal and conservative mindsets.
Not so much in America. We do have far left progressives and green party voters but they never have enough voters to elect leaders with any real power — so all they do is drain votes away from the major liberal party — the Democrats.
The Republicans love when that happens. They can only beat liberals for control of the White House and Congress when far-left voters break apart our unity to vote for wasted-vote candidates like Jill Stein.
(Likewise Democrats can benefit in elections when the Republican voters are fractured by Libertarian or wingnut fringe candidates. Like Ross Perot in 1992)
The way we unify liberal votes in America is to try to bring everyone who is left of center into the fold — no matter whether we might think some are too far left and others not far left enough.
Ideally, all liberals vote Blue when there’s a crisis. That failed to happen in 2016. That’s why we’re fucked for the foreseeable future.
Your description of a party that has an attitude of laissez-faire “leave me and my freedoms alone!” — that sounds like American Libertarians.
But they never do anything for the working class in America.
When Libertarians. squeal “laissez-faire! get your nose out of my business!” — that almost always means literally: “stop trying to regulate my business” — which translates very plainly into “Stop telling us we can’t pollute or sell shitty dangerous products, and stop trying to help our employees form unions so they can be paid decent wages.”
I never know where I truly land; which is frustrating. I refer to myself as a Democrat. I voted for Obama and Hilary (the latter, at least partly, because I think Trump is horrible and don’t agree with him on nearly any level). I’m all for Gay rights. I’m all for saving the environment. I’m all for women’s right to choose. My father used and liked Obamacare (if it worked for him, it works for me). I align with many, many ideals and topics that are considered Democratic. That said, I am vehemently against illegal immigration. And there are sub-topics that can fall out from that that are considered Republican. It’s probably the only “Republican” ideal that I subscribe to, but it’s a biggee. Help. Who am I? lol
You can’t get your party. It doesn’t help when you only have to two to choose from. Anyway, how politics works is which policies are most important to you. Is illegal immigration, which is not really a Republican since it was under Obama that it actually dropped, than other issues you mentioned? Republicans especially go big on it but that’s only to win vote and create racial division. Their records tell a different story. Trump was using illegal immigrants while railing against them. At the moment, it’s basically a choice between a sane if not perfect party or the bat shit crazy party. That’s choice, really.
Classical liberalism was the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers. It permeates the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and many other documents produced by the people who created the American system of government. Many emancipationists who opposed slavery were essentially classical liberals, as were the suffragettes, who fought for equal rights for women.
The 19th century was the century of classical liberalism. Partly for that reason it was also the century of ever-increasing economic and political liberty, relative international peace, relative price stability and unprecedented economic growth. By contrast, the 20th century was the century that rejected classical liberalism. Partly for that reason, it was the century of dictatorship, depression and war. Nearly 265 million people were killed by their own governments (in addition to all the deaths from wars!) in the 20th century – more than in any previous century and possibly more than in all previous centuries combined.
Classical Liberalism has mutated into ”Progressism” and Big Government , but
originally Classical Liberalism promoted small Government and individual freedom
What does big government really mean? It seems to me your interpretation is conservative interpretation. It might sound simple, but I usually think of liberalism as the opposite of conservatism. The weird thing is that you can find both on the right and the left. There are lots of people on the right who refer themselves as liberals. In America, they call themselves libertarians. I find most of them to be absolutely bonkers.
I didn’t expect a contributor of this site to (try to) humiliate a reader (potentially a foreigner working and living in this country) for their misspelling. Ignoring those voices (I don’t really see much of an argument in your answer beyond those insulting comments about their grammar), regardless of the weakness of their opinions is what has brought us here in the first place.
Alberto,
You should expect to see me defend our writers and readers against ill-informed attempts to attack what our contributors believe.
It’s crude for anyone to imply that Sasha thinks Republicans were “forced to vote for Trump.”
How can such a weird interpretation be argued with?
Leighton Bates is an Anglo name. Leighton spells realise with an s instead of the American realize, so I believe he lives in the UK. He can tell us if I’m wrong.
The phrasing of his comment seems to indicate that he is speaking about America as an amused detached outside observer and not a resident. He can tell us if I’m wrong.
I believe he writes like English is his first language, the language that he has spoken from birth. If I’m wrong, he can tell us otherwise.
I think Leighton lives in the UK and has no idea what’s going on in American politics.
He asks the question: Are there really that many Americans who are so ill-informed, gullible, and poorly educated that they fall for Trumps constant stream of hateful racist bullshit?
My answer is yes, sadly there are.
When Sasha says “half” she means roughly half the voters who showed up to vote in November 2016
But the number of truly thickheaded gullible hardcore Trump cultist is probably less than a third of adult Americans.
Are they all nitwits and gullible dimwits? No, just most of them.
I’m here to defend what the site writers write. I’m also always here to defend our readers from dumb sideswipe attacks.
If Leighton wants to debate American politics then he or she should learn what he or she is talking about.
It’s not hard to spell liberals, it’s a heckuva lot easier than typing nonsense like libiterians.
Alberto, almost every day on this site for the past 11 years I come along and quietly correct typos in the comments.
I have deepest respect and downright awe for all of our readers from other countries whose English language skills are better than my own.
I’m not trying to humiliate anyone.
I’m pointing out bluntly that anyone American or British who comes here to defend Trump cult nitwits — and then proves his clueless or careless lack of education — should try harder to get his facts and spelling sorted.
American politics is becoming more polarised between Right and Left , not too dissimilar to the Weimar Republic in Germany 1918 to 33 ..a candle burning from both ends !
The Movie and Music Industry are both a reflection and a guide to that salient fact ; the Academy are becoming less male, less white , younger and more Left ..the changing new membership will damage the chances of traditional movies like First Man , but not Star is Born
“we Democrats had become so demoralized from losing one election after another that we were ready to do anything, forgive anything to grab even a tiny bit of power.”
I agree with you there, Sasha. The Democrats are so desperate for power that they are ready to do literally anything in order to get the power they so desperately crave. The problem is what they’ll do with it if they had it?!
There is no question what Trump would do, is doing, has done and will continue to do…
He doesn’t sit and waste time and he makes every day count. You can’t deny him that.
Good luck on the midterms. I suspect that darker days lie still ahead for the Democrats. Trump is not tired of winning yet. Once he tastes it, he can’t let go of it. It’s only natural…
Lindsey Graham? Is that you?
“Colette” should really be in the thick of the awards conversation. Not only does Knightley gives a force of a performance but Wash Westmoreland also made what could have been a boring period costume drama to something contemporary in tone and current in tackling themes that have been suppressed in the industry for such a long time.
This is a great article, Sasha.
**Obviously, in my post below, I meant Michael Moore denounced, not announced.
(Strangely, I couldn’t reply to my own post either. I’m probably getting the procedure wrong. Never mind.)
Reply to “Not Gramski” below (for some technical reason I couldn’t reply directly to the post):
* Leo DiCaprio hasn’t told middle class Americans not to use vehicles. He wants governments to change their policies.
* Absolutely everybody is against child rapists, except child rapists. Trying to associate your political opponents with child rapists is a low blow, unless it is genuinely warranted, as in the Alabama Senate race recently.
* Who “revealed” Michael Moore to be as greedy as the people he announces? I am quite sure he is not even close. Sources matter. I bet they are connected to the people he denounced.
* Conservatives “can be just as bad”? Conservative Americans are atrocious in every way.
Finally, you don’t get to call for “mutual respect as a starting point” when you started out by trashing people and calling them hypocrites. It sounds like hypocrisy.
Please see Colette!!! It’s wonderful and very timely as well, about a woman who claims herself and LGBT people who lived in another time.
“And you know what? Good riddance.”
This article is so good, and that paragraph talking about the Oscar viewers who don’t belong is pure gold.
What many Americans resent about Hollywood is the hypocrisy of so many stars. Yes, there is hypocrisy throughout the country, but rarely are the leading figures as glamorized for the wrong reasons. Whether you’re on the right, the left, or somewhere in-between, you don’t like seeing one standard for wealthy, famous people and another one for you. Leo Dicaprio flies on private jets and rides on private yachts, then lectures middle class Americans about climate change. Meryl Streep gives child rapist Roman Polanski a standing ovation, while Whoopi Goldberg claims that what Polanski did wasn’t really rape. Michael Moore has been revealed to be just as greedy as the people he denounces. Conservatives can be just as bad, but it’s rare to see them invited to present at awards shows, and people like Patricia Heaton usually don’t get political during their acceptance speeches. You don’t have to muzzle or censor attendees, just encourage greater focus on actual artistic achievement and mutual respect as a starting point.
Ah yes, If only Leo would carpool more then his jet would stop causing global warming.
Here’s hypocrisy for you. The same little whiners who gasp at DiCaprio’s private jet trip to address the UN about renewable energy seem to have no problem at all with Trump taking a gigantic 747 to carry his fat ass to Mar-a-Lago twice a month so he can putz around on the golf course.
Can you show me the DiCaprio “lectures” where he nags individual citizens to change their lifestyles and start riding bikes on cross-country business trips? or take their annual family vacations within walking distance in their backyards?
No you cannot. Because DiCaprio does not lecture individuals to buy more efficient light bulbs or drive less.
He knows that the biggest problems can only be fixed with large-scale national initiatives to move the world’s population toward renewables like solar and windpower. He wants governments to move away from electrical grids that churn massive megatons of coal and gas pollution into the atmosphere.
Private jets create a miniscule sliver of the problem.
Jet travel is an essential part of modern global affairs, and until we have solar-powered air travel there are a multitude of other more urgent and much worse causes of the climate crisis to be concerned about — along with incredibly promising and effective action that can be taken without making average citizens sit in the dark after the sun goes down.
Meanwhile, DiCaprio wants a carbon tax, and of course he’ll pay his above-average share of that tax. Not only that, he last year donated $20 million to combat climate change.
$20 million would almost pay for the $22 million extra that the Coast Guard spent in a single year guzzling tanker-loads of diesel marine fuel to police the shore at Mar-a-Lago to protect Trump’s fat wasteful ass.
But the hypocritical Americans who “resent” DiCaprio for his jet trips have no problem with Trump farting cubic tons of Air Force One fumes so he can prance around every damn week at his red state Nazi rallies.
I’m flying to a dry wedding tomorrow, however if Kavanugh does get confirmed, I WILL still find a way to get blackout drunk by midnight. There is only so much shit one can take sober.
Speaking of a dry wedding — and an equally dry honeymoon night.
“I take you, Ashley, to be my wife from this day FFFFFForward…”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5fba1e2cf01d60ccb061a9a88691c4de8621531427ed29b1fe3074cb5005ccdf.jpg
Touche. Side note : He did get confirmed so I’m off to drinking, wake me in November.