Between who you are and who you could be;
Between how it is and how it should be.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Here we are again: My 'Best of 2009' Lists
The Best Music, Movies, TV, & Books of 2009 in my little world.
MUSIC:
Fun. - Aim & Ignite
Brandi Carlile - Give Up the Ghost - {"I laid this suitcase on my chest so I could feel somebody's weight."}
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Jars of Clay - The Long Fall Back to Earth
Avett Brothers - I and Love and You
Derek Webb - Stockholm Syndrome -{"...we affix all their scars to our walls so there’s heartbreak for everyone"}
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Sufjan Stevens - The BQE
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Switchfoot - Hello Hurricane - {"If it doesn't break your heart, it isn't love."}
Thad Cockrell - To Be Loved
The Mountain Goats - Life of the World to Come
Monsters of Folk - s/t
Wilco - s/t
St. Vincent - Actor
Gregory Alan Isakov - This Empty Northern Hemisphere
Sara Groves - Fireflies & Songs
Regina Spektor - Far
M. Ward - Hold Time
Yet to Hear from 2009: Mew, Passion Pit, Dirty Projectors, Girls
MOVIES:
Inglorious Basterds - dir. Quentin Tarantino
A Serious Man - Joel & Ethan Coen - {"Just look at that parking lot."}
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson
Antichrist - Lars von Trier
Where the Wild Things Are - Spike Jonze
Anvil - Sacha Gervasi
Nine - Rob Marshall -{"You're just an appetite..."}
Humpday - Lynn Shelton
District 9 - Neill Blomkamp
Avatar - James Cameron
Observe & Report - Jody Hill
Up in the Air - Jason Reitman
The Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow
Watchmen - Zack Snyder
Coraline - Henry Selick
Up - P. Docter & B. Peterson
Baader Meinhoff Complex - Uli Edel
Sin Nombre - Cary Fukunaga
Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince - David Yates
(500) Days of Summer - Marc Webb
Yet to See: A Single Man, Moon, Invictus, Precious, Sugar, The Limits of Control, In the Loop, Che & Summer Hours
DOCUMENTARIES:
Anvil - dir. Sasha Gervasi
The National Parks: America’s Best Idea - Ken Burns - {"Man can only mar it."}
The Cove - Louie Psihoyos
Food Inc. - Robert Kenner
This is It - Kenny Ortega
Yet to See: The Yes Men Fix the World, & My Neighbor My Killer
On the TEEVEEs:
Glee - {"We're not naming our baby Drizzle."}
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Daily Show / Colbert Report
South Park
30 Rock
Yet to (really) See: Mad Men (come on Hulu!)
BOOKS:
Strength in What Remains - Tracy Kidder - {"...don't wait for people to feel like their lives are not worth living. Once they feel that way, how are they going to feel about another person's life?"}
Animal Dialogues - Craig Childs - {"...people tell me at times they wish to get in touch with the animal spirit. I will tell you this about the animal spirit: it will tear you in two as quickly as it will bring you wholeness. It is not a thing of value or judgment. It is a thing of purity, and it will not take issue with either death or ecstasy."}
Sacredness of Questioning Everything - David Dark
Production Diary from the Heart of Darkness - Werner Herzog
Million Miles in a Thousand Years - Donald Miller
Yet to Read: The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism), & How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read (though, clearly, I should just say I've read it)
So here was my LIST. Below is what the Academy came up with along with my picks out of their choices. Despite some obvious beef, I have to say, the Academy more often than not recognizes quality over numbers unlike their musical counterpart which remains a de facto marketing arm of the labels.
Best Picture (My Pick: Technical nods (AKA 'the guilded ghetto') aside, "The Dark Knight" was snubbed. Period. They'll regret it later and make up for it by nominating years later some categorically similar flick that's half as good and no longer timely as they've done time and time again. "Frost/Nixon" deserves to be in contention for Best Actor for Frank Langella but not Best Picture. From their list though, I have to go with "The Reader" (which was NOT an "obligatory Holocaust entry" as some have called it) but if not "Slumdog" they'll probably pick "Milk" to make up for letting overly mediocre "Crash" beat out "Brokeback Mountain" and "Capote" in 2005.
* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button * Frost/Nixon * Milk * The Reader (My Pick) * Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director (My Pick: Again, I would have gone with Nolan for "Dark Knight" but I'll say Daldry for "The Reader")
* Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire * Stephen Daldry – The Reader (My Pick) * David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button * Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon * Gus Van Sant – Milk
Best Actor (My Pick: DiCaprio actually deserved to be nominated this time for "Revolutionary Road" but I'm going to go with Rourke since "Rev" didn't get much love.)
* Richard Jenkins – The Visitor * Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon * Sean Penn – Milk * Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button * Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler (My Pick)
Best Actress(My Pick: This is Winslet's year b/t "Reader" and "Revolutionary" she deserves it. Although the irony is not lost after her role on "Extras")
* Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married * Angelina Jolie – Changeling * Melissa Leo – Frozen River * Meryl Streep – Doubt * Kate Winslet – The Reader (My Pick)
Best Supporting Actor (My Pick: Hoffman any other day of the week but there is no denying Ledger. Do so and be damned. Also, Hirsch over Downey please. )
* Josh Brolin – Milk * Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder * Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt * Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight (posthumous) (My Pick) * Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road
Best Supporting Actress (My Pick: I love Adams but in her short time Davis stole the show.)
* Amy Adams – Doubt * Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona * Viola Davis – Doubt (My Pick) * Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button * Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
Best Original Screenplay (My Pick: "In Bruges" was all around underrated. Just hope someone else noticed.)
* WALL-E - Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter * Happy-Go-Lucky - Mike Leigh * Frozen River - Courtney Hunt * In Bruges - Martin McDonagh (My Pick) * Milk - Dustin Lance Black
Best Adapted Screenplay (My Pick: It's an art to make a great play also a great film, so I'm going with "Doubt" but I bet they choose "Millionaire")
* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Eric Roth and Robin Swicord * Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan * The Reader - David Hare * Slumdog Millionaire - Simon Beaufoy * Doubt - John Patrick Shanley (My Pick)
Best Animated Feature (My Pick: Seriously?)
* Bolt – Chris Williams and Byron Howard * Kung Fu Panda – Mark Osborne and John Stevenson * WALL-E – Andrew Stanton (My Pick)
Best Foreign Language Film (My Pick: They missed a lot of the best foreign films in their list in my opinion, but I didn't see 3 of their choices, so it's hard to say.)
* Revanche (Austria) in German * The Class (France) in French * The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany) in German * Departures (Japan) in Japanese * Waltz with Bashir (Israel) in Hebrew (My Pick)
Best Documentary Feature (My Pick: This is a tough choice between "Encounters" & "Wire", but I have to go with Herzog.)
* Nerakhoon * Encounters at the End of the World (My Pick) * The Garden * Man on Wire * Trouble the Water
I'm not doing a music list this year for two reasons: 1. I didn't digest enough & 2. I didn't find enough compelling. In other words if I did a Top 20 like usual, it wouldn't be the "top" but rather the only 20 records of which I actually really listened. Sorry.
Movies on the other hand didn't disappoint, or maybe I was just a visual learner this year. It was a good year for film with the best movies telling stories of complex and unique characters not wholly good or bad, new worlds and mood strong landscapes (even an animated film unafraid of silence). Though there was a desert season mid-year, with Oscar season near Christmas was full of a gluttony of gifts. This was the year of the director auteur. "And. here. we. go..."
Best Overall Films of 2008: 1. The Dark Knight - dir. Nolan 2. The Reader - Daldry 3. Revolutionary Road - Mendes 4. Doubt - Shanley 5. Milk - Van Sant 6. Wall-E - Stanton 7. In Bruges - McDonagh 8. Synecdoche, New York - Kaufman 9. Slumdog Millionaire - Boyle 10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Fincher
Honorable Mentions: Frost/Nixon - Howard Gran Torino - Eastwood Paranoid Park - Van Sant Burn After Reading - Coen Bros. Australia - Luhrmann
Best Documentaries: Man on Wire - Marsh Encounters at the End of the World - Herzog American Teen - Burstein Flow - Salina Standard Operating Procedure - Morris
Best Foreign Films: Waltz with Bashir - Folman (Israel) TimeCrimes - Vigalondo (Spain) Let the Right One In - Alfredson (Sweden) Son of Rambow - Jennings (UK) A Christmas Tale (France)
Best Action Movies: The Dark Knight - Nolan Iron Man - Favreau Quantum of Solace - Forster Hellboy II: The Golden Army - del Toro
Best Comedies: Be Kind Rewind - Gondry Burn After Reading - Cohen Bros. Son of Rambow - Jennings Hamlet 2 - Fleming Pineapple Express - Apatow
Most Disappointing that should/could have been good: W - Stone Changeling - Eastwood Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Spielberg
Movies I wanted to see but didn't (yet): Rachel Getting Married - Demme Firaaq - Das (India) Ballast - Hammer The Wrestler - Aronofsky
Brooks calls Palin "Fatal Cancer to Republicans," Decries culture of willful ignorance
Conservative columnist/writer, David Brooks, (with whom I have a long standing love/hate, or more appropriately the other way around, relationship) spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."
In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:
[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.
Brooks praised Palin's natural political talent, but said she is "absolutely not" ready to be president or vice president. He explained, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."
The New York Times columnist also said that the "great virtue" of Palin's counterpart, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, is that he is anything but a "yes man."
"[Biden] can't not say what he thinks," Brooks remarked. "There's no internal monitor, and for Barack Obama, that's tremendously important to have a vice president who will be that way. Our current president doesn't have anybody like that."
Brooks also spent time praising Obama's intellect and skills in social perception, telling two stories of his interactions with Obama that left him "dazzled":
Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.
And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.
Brooks predicted an Obama victory by nine points, and said that although he found Obama to be "a very mediocre senator," he was is surrounded by what Brooks called "by far the most impressive people in the Democratic party."
"He's phenomenally good at surrounding himself with a team," Brooks said. "I disagree with them on most issues, but I am given a lot of comfort by the fact that the people he's chosen are exactly the people I think most of us would want to choose if we were in his shoes. So again, I have doubts about him just because he was such a mediocre senator, but his capacity to pick staff is impressive."
original article from HuffPo | author: Danny Shea | October 8, 2008 02:09 PM
"Stupidity sets out to determine whether our culture is hooked on deliberate ignorance as a strategy for success. From Adam Sandler to George W. Bush, from the IQ test to TV programming, to the origins of the word moron, Stupidity examines the "dumbing down" of contemporary culture. Stupidity embarks on an exhaustive search into its meaning, and the implications of a culture that is obsessed and saturated with stupefying culture."
The Iraq war is now going better than expected, for a change. Most critics of the war, myself included, blew it: we didn’t anticipate the improvements in security that are partly the result of last year’s “surge.”
The improvement is real but fragile and limited. Here’s what it amounts to: We’ve cut our casualty rates to the unacceptable levels that plagued us back in 2005, and we still don’t have any exit plan for years to come — all for a bill that is accumulating at the rate of almost $5,000 every second!
More important, while casualties in Baghdad are down, we’re beginning to take losses in Florida and California. The United States seems to have slipped into recession; Americans are losing their homes, jobs and health insurance; banks are struggling — and the Iraq war appears to have aggravated all these domestic woes.
“The present economic mess is very much related to the Iraq war,” says Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. “It was at least partially responsible for soaring oil prices. ...Moreover, money spent on Iraq did not stimulate the economy as much as the same dollars spent at home would have done. To cover up these weaknesses in the American economy, the Fed let forth a flood of liquidity; that, together with lax regulations, led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom.”
Not everyone agrees that the connection between Iraq and our economic hardships is so strong. Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International and author of a book on how America pays for wars, argues that the Iraq war is a negative for the economy but still only a minor factor in the present crisis.
“Is it a significant cause of the present downturn?” Mr. Hormats asked. “I’d say no, but could the money have been better utilized to strengthen our economy? The answer is yes.”
For all the disagreement, there appears to be at least a modest connection between spending in Iraq and the economic difficulties at home. So as we debate whether to bring our troops home, one central question should be whether Iraq is really the best place to invest $411 million every day in present spending alone.
I’ve argued that staying in Iraq indefinitely undermines our national security by empowering jihadis — just as we now know that our military presence in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s was, in fact, counterproductive by empowering Al Qaeda in its early days. On the other hand, supporters of the war argue that a withdrawal from Iraq would signal weakness and leave a vacuum that extremists would fill, and those are legitimate concerns.
But if you believe that staying in Iraq does more good than harm, you must answer the next question: Is that presence so valuable that it is worth undermining our economy?
Granted, the cost estimates are squishy and controversial, partly because the $12.5 billion a month that we’re now paying for Iraq is only a down payment. We’ll still be making disability payments to Iraq war veterans 50 years from now.
Professor Stiglitz calculates in a new book, written with Linda Bilmes of Harvard University, that the total costs, including the long-term bills we’re incurring, amount to about $25 billion a month. That’s $330 a month for a family of four.
A Congressional study by the Joint Economic Committee found that the sums spent on the Iraq war each day could enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start or give Pell Grants to 153,000 students to attend college. Or if we’re sure we want to invest in security, then a day’s Iraq spending would finance another 11,000 border patrol agents or 9,000 police officers.
Imagine the possibilities. We could hire more police and border patrol agents, expand Head Start and rehabilitate America’s image in the world by underwriting a global drive to slash maternal mortality, eradicate malaria and deworm every child in Africa.
All that would consume less than one month’s spending on the Iraq war.
Moreover, the Bush administration has financed this war in a way that undermines our national security — by borrowing. Forty percent of the increased debt will be held by China and other foreign countries.
“This is the first major war in American history where all the additional cost was paid for by borrowing,” Mr. Hormats notes. If the war backers believe that the Iraq war is so essential, then they should be willing to pay for it partly with taxes rather than charging it.
One way or another, now or later, we’ll have to pay the bill. Professor Stiglitz calc
ulates that the eventual total cost of the war will be about $3 trillion. For a family of five like mine, that amounts to a bill of almost $50,000.
I don’t feel that I’m getting my money’s worth.
-------------------------------------------------------- Excellent film documenting Iraq war management and timeline:
This post is going to be a collection of this month's stories of gross persecution of homosexuals. This all started this week with Sally Kern and her statements this week. Regardless of your stance on homosexuality, these positions & actions in the following media items are unacceptable and terrifying. The following stories are the end result of legislators like Kern that would move us to a fundamentalist-fascist theocracy. You see it with Ultra Orthodox Jews, with Islamo-fascist Muslims, and many theocrats in America would move us in this direction. I can't get over how disgusting this type of religious bastardization is. We're sadly almost desensitized to statements like Kern's when coming from fundamentalist pastors like Falwell, Swaggert, Dobson, or Hagee but that has to stop and it must be taken seriously because real life people are listening to them and it is bleeding into real life action. Thanks to Kern we can hear what some of the people we've elected to be our voice actually believe. Oklahoma and the rest of America regardless of your stance should send a message to Kern and others like her and remove her from office. This is unacceptable. In your government:
[please forgive the cheesy photo slideshow attached to the video and just listen to the audio]
In a private address to supporters, Oklahoma State Representative, Sally Kern talks about how 'The Gays' are indoctrinating our children at age two, and are "the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam." Oh and also gayness is a cancer that spreads just like life-threatening toe cancer.
Kern also has advocated as a Rep in the past for an advisory board to ban books in school libraries that teach other faiths, are positive towards homosexuality, or teach evolution and the scientific method. Nice. Crazy-Ass Kern is Texas university-educated and married to a Baptist minister in OK City. Go figure. Terrorism is alive and well in Oklahoma and this time it's not in the form of an explosion at a government building but in the rhetoric of one of its own governors.
"Every thinking citizen of this country should write to Rep. Chris Benge, Speaker of the House for the Oklahoma House of Representatives asking for censure of this terrorist. Free speech is not a license to incite hate and violence, and sadly that is what this ugly oration is all about. Today, in regions all over this country where ignorant people actually accept these stupid lies as having some basis in fact, school-aged boys and girls who may appear a little more feminine or masculine than Sally thinks is appropriate are going to be terrorized by peers who listen to this crap because their parents listen to this crap. And that's just for starters. This type of terrorism is the genesis of all hate crimes from name calling to murder.
George Bush may have had one thing right. The war on terror begins at home. But instead of profiling innocent Americans simply because of their ethnic background, maybe we should start profiling elected officials who make speeches without any academic or factual merit as a means to exploit and manipulate their uneducated constituents. If Oklahoma is where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, perhaps a big gust will sweep Sally Kern out of office and to a place where she can no longer promote hate, violence and bigotry." -kirk snyder
An 19-year old Iranian who dared identify as gay nervously awaits a court ruling that he says could lead to his execution. “Mehdi” was studying English in Britain, when he says he learned his boyfriend back in Tehran had been arrested, charged with sodomy and hanged in 2006. But before the boyfriend was killed, Mehdi says, authorities forced his partner to name past lovers. Days later, Mehdi’s family claims, Iranian police showed up at their Tehran family home with an arrest warrant. In an asylum claim submitted to Britain’s Home Office, Medhi said if he returns to Iran, he too would be executed.
Britain’s Home Office didn’t buy it. It turned him down – then Mehdi fled for Canada before British officials could deport him to Tehran. But he was stopped by border police in Germany and sent to the Netherlands.
He now sits in a Dutch detention center, where he waits for a judge to decide whether to grant him asylum, or carry out a British extradition request to send him to the U.K.
The British Home Office says it does not believe that homosexuals in Iran are routinely persecuted purely because of their sexuality.
Human rights groups say otherwise, citing that Iran's record is particularly shocking, having executed possibly thousands of gay men since the Islamic revolution. And in these cases Iranian controlled media reports fabricate official charges to reduce any public sympathy for the accused or to mask the killings.
In your backyard:
Nathan Feldman, 30, said Slavic protesters have shoved him and spit on him at gay-pride events. Feldman said he lost his job at a jewelry store after a Ukrainian co-worker discovered he was gay and lied to get him fired. That wasn't all. A vandal scrawled graffiti on a trash dumpster outside his apartment: "Nathan Feldman, Die for AIDS."
Satender Singh, 26, One punch was all it took. One punch to forever divide. One punch to kill a young man.
On a hot summer afternoon along a placid lakefront in the Sacramento suburbs, Satender Singh had come with a group of fellow Fijians to celebrate his promotion at an AT&T call center. Three married couples and Singh, a lighthearted 26-year-old, drank and hooted and danced a crazy conga line to East Indian music.
An innocent outing? Not in the eyes of the Russian family a few picnic tables away.
Andrey Vusik, 29, fresh from morning church services with his young children in tow, stared with disgust as Singh danced and hugged the other men while their wives giggled. To the Russian, Singh seemed rude and inappropriate, a gay man putting on an outrageous public display.
Angry stares led to an afternoon of traded insults. As the long day slid toward dusk, the tall Russian immigrant approached with a friend to demand an apology. Singh refused. Vusik threw a single punch.
Singh's head smacked into a concrete walkway. The joyful young man with the musical laugh died four days later of brain injuries.
Now, half a year after that angry Sunday afternoon at Lake Natoma, 15 miles east of the state Capitol, the case remains anything but resolved.
State Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said in a newspaper opinion piece that "radical fundamentalists" have pinned a bull's-eye on the gay community. "Tragically now, the threat of violence has become reality, as manifested in this murder."
A recent Southern Poverty Law Center report said many of the region's most vocal Slavic activists are followers of an international anti-gay group called Watchmen on the Walls. Formed just a few years ago, the group has established a potent presence among Slavic evangelicals in the U.S. and abroad.
Using battle-tinged rhetoric, the Watchmen have called for evangelicals to step aggressively into the political realm to fight what they see as a gay agenda threatening the traditional family.
Larry (Lawrence King), 15, had said publicly that he was gay, classmates said, enduring harassment from a group of schoolmates, including the 14-year-old boy, Brandon, charged in his death. Larry asked Brandon to be his valentine and the following day the 14-yr-old came to school and shot Larry in the head.
“God knit Larry together and made him wonderfully complex,” the Rev. Dan Birchfield of Westminster Presbyterian Church told the crowd as he stood in front of a large photograph of the victim. “Larry was a masterpiece.”
'Why we can't wait'
Your vote this year has the power to save lives and will affect millions of homosexual people in this country. This is why the Matthew Shepard Act matters, and why a position against it as a Christian is not just debatable but unconscionable...
Hate crimes differ from conventional crime because they are not directed simply at an individual, but are meant to cause fear and intimidation in an entire group or class of people. All violent crimes are reprehensible, but hate crimes require additional emphasis in the justice system because they target a whole group and not just the individual victim. A violent hate crime is intended to "send a message" that an individual and "their kind" will not be tolerated, many times leaving the victim and others in their group feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected. Our justice system should then be able to "send a message" right back that there are not "less than human" unprotected members of society.
The Supreme Court ruled that, "bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest." And stated that, "When the core of a person's identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Society then, in turn, can suffer from the disempowerment of a group of people."
If that all seems too heady, here's the more practical component. Hate crime legislation gives federal authorities greater ability to engage in crime investigations that local authorities choose not to pursue, and allow courts to consider and present motive in cases in which it previously went unheard. It supports appeals from cases dismissed due to local bias or foul-play. There are countless cases of crimes against individuals dismissed or lessened due to bias. Take the Jena 6 story right now. Without hate crime legislation, it is often harder for victims to have recourse when justice isn't served. This is not only sensible but completely necessary and it should undoubtedly apply to sexual orientation considering that 20% of hate crimes apply to it.
The church is moving forward in many of the arenas in which it has exercised poor judgment. The Catholic church recently unveiled its list of "social" sins declaring that the individual not only sins against him/herself but also systemically against portions of society in a globalized world. Even the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention recently stated that on Global Warming that if it didn't change its stance that it would be disregarded as "uncaring, reckless, and ill-informed johnny-come-lately's just as it had during segregation and slavery and that the poor would be the first to suffer. But despite all of this understanding of implication, nearly everyone, even progressive Christian ethics groups like Sojourners are steering clear of "the gay issue" in America. Why? Why can Christian America love anyone except for their gay neighbor (or mexican one for that matter). Why do Christians in America so hate gays? Christians have to step up on this even if they don't agree with homosexuals. The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, demands care for the "other," and declares the ramifications for those who don't. Regardless of an individual's views on the issues, the church has to be out front on human rights abuses. Are murder, violence and abuse ever acceptable toward anyone? Even more fundamental: Is Love Conditional? These shouldn't be a question the church is allowing to go unanswered. You can't play neutral on this one and come out clean.
"I join the oppressors of those I choose to ignore, and that's not just murder, it's suicide."
The Academy released their list today so it must be that time...
Time for LISTS!
The Best Films of 2007 (out of what my eyes saw):
1. Into the Wild- The road movie is the greatest genre ever made. Christopher McCandless was polarizing in life and death, so it was fitting that the film would garner the same kind of reviews. However the nerve it touches is testament to the power of this story. Told beautifully and personally, Into the Wild, brings us as close as we probably ever can come to the complexities of someone's heart and soul in a bio-film. Painful and hopeful, realistic and idealistic, seductive and devastating, this film is a gripping masterpiece of contradictions. And Eddie Vedder's gorgeous soundtrack is a close second.
2. There Will Be Blood 3. Margot at the Wedding 4. No Country for Old Men 5. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters 6. Once 7. Atonement 8. Juno 9. No End in Sight 10. The Darjeeling Limited 11. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead 12. Michael Clayton 13. Sweeney Todd 14. For the Bible Tells Me So 15. Eastern Promises 16. Zodiac 17. 3:10 to Yuma 18. Hot Fuzz 19. The Orphanage 20. Knocked Up HM: The Devil Came on Horseback, Superbad & The Host
Worst Movie: Smokin' Aces - The only good thing about this movie is that Ben Affleck dies in the first 20 minutes.
UPDATE: Now having seen Persepolis, a '07 entry that just made it to town, I have to sing its praise and call it a top 5 pick for sure. It's up for the Academy Award for best animated film and it sure as hell better win. Phenomenal.
The Best Albums of 2007 (out of what my ears heard): 1. Radiohead - In Rainbows- In Rainbows is a sort-of "acceptance" record; a letting go if you will; their own sort of gorgeous meditation on an Ecclesiastical view of relationships. The anxious-about-the-apocalypse band is comfortable in their own skin. Easily the most important band making music today.
2. Steven Delopoulos - Straightjacket 3. Bright Eyes - Cassadega 4. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible 5. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? 6. Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild 7. Derek Webb - The Ringing Bell 8. The National - Boxer 9. Patty Griffin - Children Running Through 10. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank 11. Wilco - Sky Blue Sky 12. Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter 13. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga 14. Feist - The Reminder 15. The White Stripes - Icky Thump 16. Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger 17. Björk - Volta 18. Iron & Wine - The Shepard's Dog 19. Over the Rhine - The Trumpet Child 20. Menomena - Friend or Foe HM: Sara Groves - Tell Me What You Know & Andrew Bird - Airmchair Apocrypha
Worst Record: 2007, take your pick. It would be easy to say Nickleback, but I'm gonna go with Daughtry.
1. Junebug 2. Lord of the Rings 3. Good Will Hunting 4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 5. Breaking the Waves 6. I Heart Huckabees 7. Manderlay 8. The Motorcycle Diaries 9. The Hours 10. Punch Drunk Love 11. The New World 12. The Constant Gardener 13. Magnolia 14. The Best of Youth 15. The Squid & The Whale 16. Capote 17. Almost Famous 18. Before Sunset 19. Fight Club 20. You Me & Everyone We Know 21. Lost in Translation 22. Brokeback Mountain 23. Fargo 24. About Schmidt 25. Sophie Scholl 26. Rushmore 27. Paradise Now 28. Little Miss Sunshine 29. Contact 30. Good Night & Good Luck honorable mentions: The Matrix & The Truman Show
Although my number of years of conscious movie viewing is short, I've decided to make a list of my favorites anyway, mostly for my own sake. I wish I could include more. This is not a list of the greatest films. How would I know?I haven't seen enough.These are just the ones that make and matter to me.Hope you enjoy.
My Top Films:
1. Junebug - dir. Phil Morrison
A revelation, quietly brilliant, and as close to honest as you're ever going to get in a film.It humbles other films about family and relational distance as it captures and wrestles with the ambiguous and sometimes invisible pains and joys attached to life in its every detail. Tremendously acted and unexpectedly fascinating, Junebug resonates with the intrinsic mysteries of all relationships.Movies like this are rarely ever made.
"Why would God let this happen? Why would he? I just wanted something good to come out of all this. I mean it... I really mean it."
2. My Own Private Idaho - dir. Gus Van Sant
Conceptually a work of postmodern genius, but it's greatest strength is found in it'sheartbreakingly accurate story about the elusiveness of home, evoking perfectly that state of drifting need in a fallen world.
"I'm a connoisseur of roads. I've been tasting roads my whole life. This road will never end. It probably goes all around the world."
3.The Lord of the Rings Trilogy* - dir. Peter Jackson
By bringing Tolkien's masterpiece to physical actualization, the trilogy is the crowning achievement of cinema today. *(By the way, since they were all filmed at the same time as if one movie, I don't consider it cheating to list all three as one. I mean no one asks questions when you call Jesus, God, so stop judging me!)
"It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why."
4. Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - dir. Stanley Kubrick
Bordering on the edge of sanity like all great Kubrick films, Dr. Strangelove is both cleverly funny and shatteringly devastating; and surely the greatest political satire ever made.
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room."
5. Good Will Hunting - dir. Gus van Sant
It's a picture of hurt, our regressive nature that bends toward self-destruction and the need for community to be agents of undeserved love, hope, and redemption in bringing us back to be who we were created to be.What other stories should we tell?
"Yeah, well, I think that's a super philosophy, Sean. I mean that way you could actually go through the rest of your life without ever really knowing anybody."
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - dir. Michel Gondry
An amazingly complex and yet strikingly affecting look at love, life and memory that gives us one of the greatest movie love stories ever told.One that understands that loving someone means knowing them in all their brokeness, bearing devastation and working for redemption through mercy. Most Hollywood films tell us we have everything we need within ourselves. Eternal Sunshine indicates that we need each other, even in those times when togetherness disrupts happiness. Visually and conceptually stunning it aims for the head, heart and eyes.
"I wish I had stayed to. I swear to God I wish I had stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish... I wish I had stayed."
7. Breaking the Waves - dir. Lars von Trier
Asking the question, "Can faith and love give the power to triumph over death and evil?" this bold, angry, and defiant, emotionally and spiritually challenging film hammers at conventional morality with the belief that God not only sees all, but understands a great deal more than we give Him credit for. Incomparable director Lars Von Trier finds the straight pure line through the heart of a story.
"God gives everyone something to be good at. I've always been stupid, but I'm good at this."
8. Chinatown - dir. Roman Polanski
Penultimate Film Noir thriller with career defining performances and mind-blowing storytelling bold enough to deal with the consequences of real life.
"'Course I'm respectable. I'm old. Politicians, public buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough."
9. Schindler's List - dir. Steven Spielberg
An uncompromising vision of one of the world's greatest modern tragedies proving the power of filmmaking. Also the definitive Spielberg film where he finally realizes restraint can be a virtue.
"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."
10. I Heart Huckabees - dir. David O. Russell
A knife to the heart of disconnect. Playful, intelligent, daring, absolutely hilarious and unabashedly hopeful.
"There's no such thing as nothing."
(11.) Manderlay* - dir. Lars von Trier
*I listed Manderlay because I have unfortunately only seen it once. Otherwise, I suspect it might have been listed higher.
The movie that understood everything that Crash didn't.A "fable for adults" that makes you see the world and yourself differently. As overwhelmingly complex, challenging, provocative, and heartbreaking as the subject matter it describes, this ultimately isn't a movie simply about history made and being made but about humanity itself.It will leave you breathless.
"Grace insisted, 'We have a moral obligation.'"
"A film should be like a rock in the shoe." - Lars von Trier
"I didn't want you to enjoy the film, I wanted you to look closely at your own soul." - Sam Peckinpah
Brandi Carlile - Give Up the Ghost - {"I laid this suitcase on my chest so I could feel somebody's weight."}
& My Neighbor My Killer
Strength in What Remains - Tracy Kidder - {"...don't wait for people to feel like their lives are not worth living. Once they feel that way, how are they going to feel about another person's life?"}
