Rarely do films wind up more appreciated as the years go by, and even more rarely do especially sleazy B movies suddenly take on the reputation of "art." Wild Things is the exception that shows why, rarely, all the forces can turn potentially cheesy noir into a classic.
In retrospect, it's obvious that the film's stars were major talents at the top of their respective games. At the time, the film seemed like an unassuming little bit of nonsense dropped into theaters in the relatively dead month of March in 1998 that quickly achieved the level of "cult classic."
The film tells the tale of Sam Lombardo, an apparently straight arrow of a guidance counselor at a coastal Florida high school, who gets ensnared by a racy student (Denise Richards) who accuses him of rape after a student car wash. When a second teen (Neve Campbell, pre-Scream) comes forward with a similar charge, it seems like Sam's career is toast. but a last minute courtroom revelation turns the tables and Sam is apparently innocent... or is he?
Wild Things benefits both from strong writing - the scripts various twists are genuinely unexpected - and a string of solid performances, starting with Richards and Campbell, but also Matt Dillon's Sam and Kevin Bacon as the police detective investigating the girls claims (along with his partner, played expertly by Daphne Rubin-Vega). But the cast also includes Theresa Russell, Carrie Snodgrass, Bill Murray, and Robert Wagner, finally getting to play the grown up part in some version of Flamingo Road or Peyton Place, and swearing like a sailor to prove it.
A twisty, tasty plot is part of the film's charm, but what sells it is the sleaziness of the business at hand. Almost nothing this racy has been made for movie screens in years, and while some tv shows offer hints of debauchery, this film spares almost nothing. Renowned for Richards' nude scene, and full rear - and frontals - of Kevin Bacon, Wild Things shares with Cruel Intentions (1999) that sense of Hollywood smashing the last vestiges of innocence at the end of the century. Nothing is off limits, and everything is up for grabs.
In retrospect, Wild Things is simply a B movie noir flick that somehow got made with solid direction (John McNaughton) and a top flight cast, a reminder of what can happen when great talent really lets loose on good material, even the dark, smutty storytelling at play here. Dillon's slinky smoothness has rarely been used as effectively. Richards made a career out of this, and Campbell added this to a string of successes (The Craft, Scream) that established her as the smart star of dark films. And Bacon, well, aside from producing it, turns in one of his most solid performances, where the darkness only gets visible by degrees.
But mostly, Wild Things holds up as a great, crazy ride through a naughty funhouse of sex, deceit and murder. And really, how many films offer that, even now?
Let's just get this out of the way up front: I think Cynthia Nixon is immensely talented. She has had an amazing career. I'm sorry I missed her and Laura Linney - who I also admire - trading roles in The Little Foxes. Hers is the most wondrous role of Sex and the City, from the very first minutes of the pilot, to the brilliant Models and Mortals, and on and on - even if she couldn't salvage the misbegotten sequel feature film.
None of that, nor her moves into political activism I'm afraid, makes her a necessarily great choice to be the next Governor of New York.
Just how formidable an opponent she might or might not be to Andrew Cuomo isn't entirely clear, and likely never will be. Since she announced her intention to run, backed by the array of allies who backed Zephyr Teachout's more left field challenge to Cuomo that unleashed a torrent of bad feeling for our current Governor, Cuomo has responded with the kind of machine gun to kill a mouse approach that seems to suggest that he's at least looking to not repeat the last debacle. What's less clear is whether Nixon really poses a threat even on par with Teachout, never mind beyond that.
Cuomo's side started early and hard, with Christine Quinn coming out before Nixon even officially entered the race to term Nixon an "unqualified lesbian" who'd been especially unhelpful in Quinn's run for Mayor (as the "qualified lesbian"). Quinn's score settling was so heavy handed that she had to back away from the implications that she was knocking Nixon's later life coming out for fear of ruining her political ties to gay activism (God knows, she's never going to run again in New York for anything, ever). But that episode wasn't helped by a slow-footed response from Nixon and her team that spoke to her challenges as a campaign neophyte... underlining the very things Quinn raised.
New York politics - especially in the city, but really, across the state - is not a nice or pleasant business. Set aside the sense of general sleaze in Albany - which animates the dissatisfaction with Cuomo - and there's still the everyday unpleasantness of a statewide web of political clubs and organizations who use arcane rules and complex procedure to handicap all but the most dogged of political ambitions. It is not for the faint of heart, the delicate of sensibilities or the naive. And Nixon isn't the first, or last, New Yorker with a name to get tossed into a maelstrom of political storms based on a well meaning attempt to ride fame and recognition to glory.
And so it was that Nixon found herself this week managing to get the endorsement of the Working Families Party - a key endorsement for lefties unhappy with traditional Democratic Party machine politics - in a battle that may well have undone the whole party's existence. Before dropping out of the contest entirely, Cuomo used his weight as their chief negotiator to...well, who can say, exactly, but let's try "encourage" WFP's main union backers - SEIU and the downstate local of the CWA - to walk away from their support. Thus Nixon now has a party endorsement from a party that, without it's basic coalition of activists and union groups, doesn't quite have a reason to exist at all.
The existence of the WFP, and a number of similar small parties not familiar to many outside the state, is just one of our interesting wrinkles. It's why, for instance, the well meaning insurgents on Team Sanders found themselves blindsided by not gearing up early or actively enough in 2016, when the state's arcane rules left them without lines on the small party ballots and voters who hadn't known early enough to switch their party allegiances had no way to vote in the state's primary (that 10 month window - which has passed this year as well - will also hurt Nixon). "Reformers" talk a good game of attacking the interconnected web of New York rules (don't get me started on petitioning, our time honored extra hurdle), but the fact is, the people who benefit from those rules are the ones who'd have to vote to change them. And that, as we say, ain't happening.
There's no reason to fault Nixon for not knowing what many newcomers don't know... but that doesn't excuse a savvy operator like Teachout, who is Nixon's treasurer, from having some insight into the potential messes long before now (like the way, for instance, Cuomo started a "Women's Party" to help stall her chances, and headed it up with... Christine Quinn). And it is a point that Nixon's fame and name recognition is also her Achilles heel - because she's more visible, her name likely to attract readers to New York's splashy but struggling tabloids, every shudder and misstep plays out very publicly. That's the problem of a celebrity neophyte - and a New Yorker doesn't need to look much farther than Donald Trump to see how bad that can be. Sure Trump, more or less steamrolled his way into office... but his campaign was marked, repeatedly, by dumb, unforced errors played out in splashy fashion because of his name recognition (and just as splashily, are stlll likely to get him remove from office sooner rather than later).
Worse still is the fact that Andrew Cuomo's lumpish, disliked presence as Governor is ripe for a strong, thoughtful challenge; it beggars belief that Teachout herself, coming off a surprisingly strong finish against him last time, didn't just re-up herself, even with her more painful loss in an upstate Congressional race in 2016. Teachout's laserlike focus on a platform of combined governmental reform and pledge to focus on the needs of everyday New Yorkers played especially well. Nixon, by contrast, has embraced a set of proposals that seem tailored to both the narrow swath of Sanders stye lefties and a city specific audience happy to hear about lowering apartment rents and tackling the MTA. Missing from that is the basic core of Democratic party success - threading the needs of economically challenged upstate communities with the appeal to minority interests needed to prevail across the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. So far, Nixon is shaping up to be Teachout lite: an amiable protest vote that will never pose much threat to Cuomo, and that he can easily co-opt by adapting her more attractive proposals to his placating whims. Which is exactly what he did to her this week on recreational marijuana.
The simpler fact is that Nixon, for many, doesn't cross the threshold to be Governor; this is a state of active, thoughtful voters (especially in primaries) with a high bar and serious criteria. Nothing in Nixon's fine resume as a performer suggests the skills needed in a Governor, and nothing in the early days of her run suggests the kind of nerve and political savvy needed in a state as complex and diverse as New York. If she'd started small, if she'd started earlier... who can say? But sadly - and cynically - her run seems to be exactly, well, what it seems: plucking a name brand celebrity with some lefty cred and throwing her out there in the hopes that she can thrown Cuomo off balance enough to pose a real threat. Sure it's deeply unfair to voters to play them like that... but ultimately I'm a little more sad for Nixon herself - she didn't, and doesn't, deserve this.
And so, we'll get what we'll always get: more time with a connected guy from a political family who long ago ceded his integrity for power and some limited prestige. Cuomo is so badly damaged - if nothing else, he's an ethical disaster - that he has no chance on the national stage, yet he commands the levers of a well oiled political machine so skillfully that no ordinary opponent can stop him in state. Zephyr Teachout was the kind of wild card that threw a wrench into that machine. Nixon, quite simply, isn't. And knowing that now, with so much yet to unfurl, is the real trial we all face, here in the Empire State.
In America's mix of egalitarian and elitism, it's not hard to find oneself living or socializing in close proximity to great wealth. It's one of the oldest staples of Hollywood - the good (or bad) kid from a modest upbringing getting exposed to the ways of the upper class. The scholarship kid at boarding school. The everyday worker who marries the boss' daughter. That time you went to dinner in a fancy New York restaurant, surrounded by the obvious displays of people with far more money, if not taste, than yourself.
In some ways, I feel bad for Tom Price. It's not easy to be in close proximity to extravagance, natural, even, to feel somehow you should get to do and have the same things. I was a scholarship kid at a fairly elite private college where other kids drove the spare family BMW, amongst other luxuries large and small. I lived in Manhattan. I've had the privilege of a private showing of the Chanel Couture collection. As much as you think you know about wealth, there's always a level more.
Sadly, the lesson of the last few days is that these are the moments that really do show one's moral compass, and in that, Tom Price failed. Excessive use of private jets on the government dime is a ridiculous, petty excess that flies in the face of claims to cost consciousness and an interest in cutting the size of government. And it's not as though Price's fall was recent. His history of questionable stock deals in health companies while Chairing the House Committee overseeing their affairs was, it's clear, just an indication of Price's sense that he wanted in on the gravy train rolling nearby.
It's gotta sting when you're so very close to it, and reminded constantly of just how far away that life actually is.
Donald Trump may not be as wealthy as he claims, but he is, of course, the very essence of the eighties era "Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" that he came to embody, and take as his "brand." (Trump, in fact, doesn't have the usual Gulfstream size PJ as his main plane - he has a 737 gaudily painted with his logo that hangs out, visibly, near the runways at LaGuardia.) And he has, naturally, stacked his Administration with like minded, and similarly well-heeled, millionaires and billionaires. In the midst of revelations this week involving a number of Trump officials... there sits Betsy DeVos, who doesn't spend government money on a jet, because she owns one.
Of course, as the adage goes, money can't buy taste, and the kind of wealth Trump and his friends bring to DC is a kind of ostentatious, showy display of wealth that rubs many, rich or not, the wrong way. Trump's gilded, golden everything decor in his homes and Country Clubs is designed to impress the easily awed, not demonstrate classic, sublime taste associated with older, quieter money (even DeVos, in that regard, seems more understated and private). Trump's is the conspicuous, elaborate consumption of someone who cares more about showing off, and the appearance of class than anything actually classy. Even Trump's much lampooned language about "the best" and "big league" in regards to what he owns betrays that endless need to show off, to preen and self aggrandize. What's sad, ultimately, about Price isn't just the small, petty nature of his fall - it's the way he let Trump's especially tasteless approach to extravagance further warp his own sense of entitlement. Surely, there are better ways to aspire to being upper class.
Trump's extravagant obviousness, too, is why losing Price is neither the end of this story, nor even likely it's worst example (and we do, after all, still have the oblivious displays of Steve Mnuchin and his recent bride, who may be hiding for now, but seem likely to reappear at any moment). The ridiculous trips, the family with no sense of propriety, combined with dozens of hangers-on, some rich and wasteful, some poor and aspiring... the stories can, and will, write themselves (the world waits, Scott Pruitt - don't stop now). And then of course, there's the even more familiar territory of say, Ryan Zinke, and the casual selling of favors to vested interests, like the oil and gas industry.
Still, at the heart of this Dynasty-like resurgence (I, for one, am not so sure that the CW's revival/reboot isn't a stroke of genius) is that sad, small tale of Tom Price. Covetousness and greed are embarrassing; it's almost painful to watch anyone's flaws laid out in such public, shaming display. American culture markets conspicuous consumption like it's, literally, going out of style. You will never have enough. You will never be rich enough, or thin enough, well dressed enough, or live luxuriously enough. The penthouse apartment, the private jet, the furs, the cars... the list is, truly, endless. And yet, how we punish those who succumb most to the siren's call. It is vengeful, bordering on cruel.
The trick of course, is to learn what it means to have enough. To see luxuries as just that - the occasional extra, a little bit more, a nice perk. When I get to fly in the front of the plane, dine in the 5 star restaurant, buy the Tom Ford fragrance at Saks... I try to remember to be grateful. And to enjoy it without asking for more. At the very least, it gives one the luxury of giving Tom Price something worse than scorn... and that's pity.
Even his name - "Milo Yiannopolous" - is something of an alternative fact: he changed it from "Hanrahan" which was the name of his father, who left when he was six.Yiannopoplous comes from his maternal grandmother, who raised him.
There was never much reason to pay attention to Milo, a bratty British schoolboy eager to spread his opinions, calling it "journalism," in that way conservatives do, repeating twice told tales to justify their negative views of others. Being British, and snide, was about all that differentiated Yiannopolous from the other far right voices - slap a dress and a blonde wig on it and you've got Ann Coulter. Or Monica Crowley. Or Kellyanne Conway. Or...
He'd made himself something of an internet star, mouthing off about "Gamergate" - which boils down to teenage boys trying to put a "No girls allowed" sign on video game playing, with just the sort of especially ugly, hateful results one would expect. For no particular reason, he decided to turn his negative energy - and that of his teenboy fans - on Leslie Jones, resulting in that much more negative attention and a lifetime ban on Twitter.
As Andrew Sullivan noted, the kind of bratty conservatism espoused by Milo (and Sullivan, from much the same background) thrives and grows on the negative response. It's political theory as reaction formation, why I've been clear on what Coulter and Malkin et al actually are since college - what was "Dartmouth Review" but the "politically incorrect" screed of kids eager to express opposition to feel good slogans of liberal activism? And 30 years on that's what conservatives have to offer: not ideas, but something outrageous, designed to oppose perfectly reasonable proposals meant to help others. It's not what you're for, but what they're against.
Since the Jones imbroglio, Milo enjoyed a rapid rise to that curious kind of American stardom that only happens in the fevered circles of the angry right - he got a book deal, and speaking gigs... and last week, he popped up on Real Time with Bill Maher, and got announced for a speaker role at CPAC, where the show always needs the fresh ziz of the latest hateful thing.
If I'm surprised by the fall Milo has had in only 4 days, it's only that I figured he'd at least get to give that CPAC speech. As it was, the only thing that could embarrass CPAC (and it's leader, the smooth talking Trump supporter and Fox "contributor" Matt Schlapp) was new exposure to old interviews Milo had done, applying his bratty British humor to gay sexuality and the priest sex scandal. That was enough(!) to lose Milo the book deal, the speaking gigs, and his job as Associate Editor at Breitbart.com. Because, naturally, where else would Milo be working, but Breitbart?
It's easy to get hung up on Milo's outrageous comments around sex - and it's not as if that particular element hadn't been swirling around him all along. Part of Milo's shtick was wearing his status as a young gay man on his sleeve, touting his (reductive, racially insensitive) love of black men and hinting at his own sexual prowess. (It's especially amusing, given CPAC's checkered past with gay conservatives, that they blustered into booking Milo anyway.) And it was, in fact, the cavalier way Yiannopolous described his own experiences of priest sex abuse that drove much of his downfall, given that, as even he admitted in his Tuesday press conference, that abuse goes a long way to explaining his bratty public persona since.
But let's not get too lost in focusing hard on Milo: the real lesson here is about conservatives, their role in propping up and pushing hateful rhetoric like Milo's, and the endless need to find fresh flavors of the month expressing all that hate. Let's remember CPAC played that role in launching Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin, and numerous others (hey, Ben Carson!) as well. Let's point out, as well, that this flameout illuminated yet more clearly all of what's wrong with "news outlets" like Breitbart, which never called Yiannopolous to account for many outlandish things he wrote and said - and indeed, never raised a peep about those sex comments at the time they were made, nor in context of his overall persona. One can only marvel out how dysfunctional a work environment could be that a "half dozen" staffers at Breitbart threatened to quit this week if Milo were allowed to stay on. This week!
Conservatives would like, of course, to isolate Milo now, now that the cat's out of the bag, that he's "gone too far" despite the reality that "too far" was an interview he gave last year, and ignores years (and years) of examples of Milo's excessive, hateful words and actions. It was too much for Twitter... but conservatives still clung to him (and arguably, too, Twitter's actions were years past due as well). Simon and Schuster lost authors over holding onto Milo's book... but still they held on. Until this week. Conservatism didn't become "like this" yesterday. And Milo is a symptom, not the disease. Removing him addresses neither cause, nor cure.
So CPAC will offer up "President Trump" and plenty of other familiar lines of conservative anger and hate... and pretend Milo was a bad dream that maybe never even happened. That's what they do, over and over, as these once hot flavors "go too far" or the lies catch up to them. And suddenly, there's no speaking space for Ann Coulter. Or Sarah Palin. What a shame Milo couldn't hold it together long enough to provide another Outrage Du Jour...
Because, of course, what passes for conservatism these days is so utterly bankrupt and bereft of intellectual heft and interesting ideas that it is simply beyond embarrassing. Literally. Everything about Milo's rise, his career, his galloping leaps toward greater fame... all of it was an embarrassment, a waste, a pointless exercise in watching a bratty child act out for others' amusement. Watching Milo's smirky, childish appearance on Maher - what little I could take - I figured it was a matter of time before something would wipe that smirk off his face. Two days later, no smirk. And a month from now, or a year... it's just another chance for another flavor of the month to rise.
If any good can come of this, I'd like to hope it comes from Milo reckoning with his own demons, working out his issues, finding some measure of personal grace. I wouldn't even necessarily mind the "I was a bratty jerk, but now I've changed" book he'll be pushing in a year, or two, or five... if he comes about it honestly, and expressively. That would at least show that someone is capable of growth and change. Because Lord knows, growth and change isn't going to come to the Conservative movement. Just another naughty bad boy, or girl, looking for attention. And getting it.
My habit, after each election, is to think about those categories of "winners and losers" - it goes along with thinking post mortem thoughts about what my side did good and bad, and the other side, too.
And then, this... thing... happened.
So, I'm a little late to the winner and loser phase. And still, it feels a little soon for the post mortems. Democrats are already off on a wave of self flagellation, wishful reimagining of the election, and the early phases of a circular firing squad. Republicans , naturally, now believe they've solved at least 10 years of painful implosion with a lucky break. None of that seems especially necessary or true. And so, as I shake off the sadness, regain a sense of humor, and let my rage reignite my instincts to put words on paper... let's at least start with my own quixotic view of how this all went down.
And, since this year is topsy turvy, let's go bottoms up:
LOSERS:
Donald Trump - You can see it in his eyes - that sudden, overwhelmed look that "this is serious" and "get your sh*t together" of someone who himself never entirely believed this would really work. We know what he wanted - a loss that he could ride to new financial success, reinventing his brand, and selling himself as the ultimate sore loser to an audience of sore losers. And then... oops. He's not ready for this, he's not up for it, he hates to be criticized and he needs mass love. This job will wreck him. Warren Harding had higher morals and Richard Nixon wore villainy better than he ever will. This disaster has only begun to reveal itself.
Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi - at some point, people will notice that the leadership of the Democratic Party is stale, static and itself resistant to even the most mild energy for change. Then they might ask why 70 year olds with 20 to 30 plus years of their lives spent in government really represent the kind of fresh notions people want to see. When "blame the Clintons" fades as an easy excuse, Democrats will have to answer why a party that wants to sell the idea of "change" has party leaders who never do. And that might have something to with why, lately, they don't seem to win that much, either.
The Others - there's no nice way to put how damaging this election will be for some of the country's most vulnerable populations - Muslims, Hispanic immigrants, LGB but especially T, even many women, certainly poor women with families to raise and healthcare needs of their own. Lets not sugar coat it. Let's not pretend this will somehow be okay. And then let's get angry enough to stand up and start doing something about it.
Joe Arpaio, Kelly Ayotte and Pat McCrory - Lest Republicans crow gleefully about a wholesale endorsement of their hateful ways, this election had at least a few bright spot examples of the reality that this electorate was not on a wholesale endorsement of the right. Arpaio finally paid the price of years of immigrant bashing and harassment; McCrory went down for at least that horrendous "bathroom bill" attack on transgender people, though a litany of scandals related to his past life as a power company executive and that company's role in polluting NC's rivers surely added fuel. Ayotte was in many ways the ultimate get - a hard talking foreign policy chickenhawk who flailed embarrassingly as the Trump debacle unfolded. These are the races to study to understand how hate and fear can be beaten.
Common Decency - these are unpleasant times, made worse by an ugly campaign season in which nothing was off limits, no words were left unsaid, and fear and hatred ruled. "Let's come together for unity" cooed the most naive of Trump's supporters in the days since the election, as if 18 months of brutal incitement meant nothing, as if hard feelings are something only for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to gin up every afternoon on the air. That's not how this works - people are angry, sad, and in no mood to make nice. And we will all be a little less as a result.
WINNERS
Hillary Clinton - She won the popular vote. She handled herself from start to finish with grace and class and the kind of strength you'd expect in... well, a President. She is free to follow her commitment to a life of service and helping others and showing everyone who doubted it that she was, simply, what her supporters said she was. Apparently, actual ability to do a good job was never going to be enough.
The Trump Handlers - History is told by the winners, and however grudgingly, the folks who put Trump over on the American public can't be denied. Unpack a basket of hatefulness, stoke a traditional batch of familiar resentments, feign surprise at the appeal of your message to extremists, turn up the heat and stir. Even I can't deny that the recipe will keep Kellyanne Conway employed as long as she wants to stay in the game. Though I like to think Steve Bannon will never enjoy this level of import ever again.
Tammy Duckworth (and Maggie Hassan and Kamala Harris) - Yet more evidence that Republicans down ballot couldn't really ride the wave of Trump class resentment to success, Duckworth proved an able campaigner, slowly eroding all of Mark Kirk's perceived advantages until he made one of the worst live debate miscalculations of any candidate this cycle (easy second: Kelly Ayotte). More candidates as strong as Duckworth, Hassan, and California's Harris and this might have been a different election. And that's the only hypothetical I'll begin to entertain.
Barack Hussein Obama - Nothing will ennoble our first black President like the man who follows him into office. However much reasonable criticism his presidency deserves - the kind of realistic assessment that might have helped liberals realize that not everyone loved his eight years in office more than they like to admit before the election was lost - he will look like a calm oasis next to the deserts that preceded and followed him. And he wears greatness so well on that cool, detached looking face of his.
White Rage - Let's take a moment and acknowledge the obvious overriding message of this election: a rage against change, against the triumph of urbanism, modernity and diversity, a rage that couldn't be reasoned with or argued against or stopped. Let's not pretend that a fantasy candidate (old white men like Sanders or Biden, promulgated by, mostly, other white liberal men) could have solved this - that way lies the wreckage of John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, Walter Mondale, and probably most of all, McGovern. Let's be honest enough to face that "economic populism" and "xenphobic jingoism" are simply ways to try and put racism and prejudice into a shiny new dress. Let's admit that fear is a powerful motivator, and it leads people, often, into poor choices. The rage is real. And this year, the rage won. And if Democrats want to change that, they need to work a lot harder to understand it, face it, and respect its power. Denying it, running from it, and wishing it away won't work. Surely we ought to admit we've at least learned that.
This election just past reminds me of the faith I have in America; less so the faith I have in fellow Americans. It’s an amazing thing, this experiment in participatory democracy. It’s also amazing how we survive some pretty incredible mess ups and mistakes.
America is a nation whose greatest accomplishments are often happy (or unhappy) accidents. We praise ourselves for our wonderful qualities, while often trying to ignore the wreckage in our wake. We’re the nation that came together after a Civil War (try not to think about the senseless death and destruction), ended slavery (pay no attention to that area at the back of the lovely plantation where the people they owned were housed in shacks), and gave women the vote (but will not enshrine gender equality in an amendment to the Constitution). When we’re good, we’re admirable, and when we’re not… it’s a really complex problem that’s probably too difficult for society to fix.
Already the media and our success oriented mindset is rewriting the history of the election. After a bruising, brutal campaign by Donald Trump, who came down an escalator on day one and said Mexico was sending “rapists and murderers… and some, I assume, are good people;” spent the primaries humiliating one opponent after another; and held rallies week after week marked by derisive jeers, random violence, and calls for things like a ban on the entry of Muslims into the US…. after all that, we can now be told that the election was about “economic populism and a desire to clean up Washington.
“Drain the Swamp” became Trump’s rallying cry in the final weeks, a popular rallying call of the right before he locked onto it, though beyond the slogan it’s always been hard to say just what this drainage project is meant to accomplish. It seems primarily aimed at assuming corruption and unchecked illegality are the sole products of Democrats, hence complaints about misuse of union funds for political purposes, lobbying by liberal groups, the political activism of teachers. Questions about corporate money, lobbying by conservative favored groups, the influence of major right wing billionaire donors, the misbehavior of Republican lawmakers… that’s a little less of a problem.Trump did suggest, admirably, that he wouldn’t be “beholden to special interests” because he was “self funding” his campaign. He said this less after raising millions of dollars from traditional GOP sources, and he seems oblivious to the fact that “self funding” does not mean “paying your own corporate entities from your campaign’s coffers.” But hey, drain that swamp!
Time will tell just what “Drain the Swamp” amounts to; like pretty much all of the Donald’s campaign rhetoric, his line was a slogan in search of policy detail, a big “TK” where the specifics will eventually be. The same is generally true of the economic populism - there’s some vague plans to rewrite tax law, maybe take a stab at infrastructure spending, some theoretical talk of upending US trade policies… but Trump’s plans were thin and vague throughout the campaign, a cloud of shouts and bluster mainly aimed at telling people everything they wanted to hear. Maybe “he told us everything we wanted to hear” could be the real reason he won?
Oh, and he says he’ll “repeal and replace” Obamacare. Let’s come back to that later.
In the end, Trump’s victory can, I suppose be explained away as that mix of economic populism and swamp drainage. That is the upbeat side. The downbeat side is all that stuff Trump said about law and order and cleaning up the terror filled inner cities, the lines about Muslims and Hispanic immigrants, and black people, and various comments about women and their bodies and those who wound up in his sights for criticizing him in one way or another. That’s the hate that drove his campaign, that created the sea of white faces at his rallies, encouraged white supremacists and the “Alt Right” online, and led to those rowdy cries, jeers, and scattered violence. Is that all his voters saw? Did they see it at all? Or is that just what the horrified people who opposed him saw?
Our history is littered with moments of backlash, the moments when the white, native majority resoundingly restated their majority rule over the rest of us. It’s the string of events that led to the Civil War, it’s the way Reconstruction went from a hopeful reconciliation to a reemergence of of the worst ways of the South, it’s the way hopeful signs of integration early in the twentieth century led to Jim Crow… and how the progress of the sixties led to the right’s Southern Strategy, Nixon and ultimately Ronald Reagan. Since the Civil Rights Act, the most racist parts of the nativist white crowd have hidden themselves in the corners of the right wing, every so often reminding us that they can’t win it alone, but they can help win it. It’s easier when you’ve got a Donald Trump, who ran with the “Obama birth certificate” nonsense to gain a political foothold, and felt little compunction to steer clear of appeals to the worst impulses of working class white voters. Blame the other. Blame the brown people. Blame the immigrants, and the Muslims (and less loudly, blame the Jews). Blame the gays. Blame those uppity women.
It’s all a cloud now, a haze, a blur. And some Trump voters express, as self aware Republicans often do, amazement that now, suddenly, accusations of racism, misogyny and bigotry fly. A year and a half of a hate-filled, name-calling campaign… and no, it was all about economic populism. Drain the Swamp. We’re not racists. How could you think that? Why is Trump’s victory based, pretty much entirely, on the votes of rural, less educated whites, mostly older white men? How did less educated white women move from consideration of electing the first woman president to resounding support for a billionaire? Could it be, even remotely, that appealing to base racial prejudices and class resentments can be excused by a few swipes at sky high promises of economic rebirth?
The point isn’t that white voters, these voters, are racist; the point is, really, that this story is not new. Faced, often, with the hard economic challenges of rapid change, America’s native population has often moved to rein in the others - immigrants, Indians, blacks… whatever “other” is convenient. It’s not that “economic populism” didn’t drive this election… it’s that “economic populism” is cover for the very appeal of those race and class based resentments. We don’t like to think we’re bad actors. In our American history, most of us think we’re the good guys. And often, we’re nobody’s heroes, except our own. It’s actually a thing I love about our nation - our good intentions and our faith in ultimately getting it right. Hope is our birthright, greatness is our mantle. We’d be so good, if we could just stop being so very very bad.
So here’s to draining the swamp. Who knows what we’ll find? Maybe a business man with terrible personal and business ethics is just the man for this job. We’ll see. Maybe the swamp we need to drain isn’t in DC - maybe it’s the swamp of resentments, hatreds and anger we foist on each other. Just something to consider, while we rewrite our history yet again and find a convenient spot to put a happy ending on this thing, the story of our greatness so far.
The idea of a "traditional" TV season is all but dead, thanks to time shifting and online sources, never mind the crush of DVD compilations. And really, TV has been divided down into quarters, as 13 week storytelling (even 6 or 9 week stories) have come over from Europe as a valid "season" of a show.
So is old style, 22-24 episode seasonal storytelling outdated? Too much? I can't say - there are shows I wouldn't dream of dropping everything to watch each week, and stories not worth telling long form... but having spent another year glued to Supernatural, I can't say the form has no uses left, either. What I can say is that episodic television is enjoying a renaissance unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime - the variety of quality, smart, interesting options to watch has never been more varied; the creativity on display rarely more inventive; and the ability of storytelling to move audiences rarely so accomplished.
This is a highly selective, personal list. I'm not big on conventional choices or top ten faves. And I certainly have a fondness these days for comic books fantasy and sci-fi, as do many of us (yet somehow, no love for Game of Thrones). So here, just to put it out there, a few things I've watched and loved from Fall into Spring:
Supernatural (Season 10, on DVD; Season 11, the CW). Nothing else like it has ever lasted this long on TV. And who else could tell a story from the point of view of the car ("Baby," this season's fan fave) and pull it off? After confronting heaven, hell and everything in between, it's been hard to know how the chroniclers of Sam and Dean Winchester could find fresh ground - yet here they were, going back to the beginning of time to revive The Darkness, a malevolent force bent on erasing all of creation (and, as luck would have it, God's sister). If things got a little off kilter at times - a little airless, a little too meta by half - the various gems along the way were a reminder that in many ways the show still has much to discover. Then, too, the quality of the performances from the leads to the passing guests - ensembles should always age this well. And "God is Chuck" is a piece of legend and lore worthy of the mythology of the show.
Lucifer (Season 1, Fox). Supernatural was so impressed, they threw it in as a toss-off: "maybe I'll move to LA and become a detective." But Fox's midseason mystery fantasy entry had, unsurprisingly, a lot of charm and sexiness, not to mention some better than to be expected writing and acting as well. (And not nearly as surprising is Lucifer himself, Tom Ellis, who had already done a lovely, similar turn as a junkie doctor on Rush in a one season USA stint). Preposterous? Sure, and at times, the mundane plotting wasn't up to the lurid, daring intensity of the premise... but it worked a lot better than it had any right to, and just enough to leave people panting for more.
The Flash (Season 1, DVD; Season 2, the CW). Of comics on TV, The Flash has raced past all of its neighbors (the CW: comics and ghouls! And a couple of wacky ladies!) to establish itself as the genre's star. Much of that appeal is on the back of Grant Gustin, seemingly from nowhere (actually from Glee, where he honestly put the star back into musical comedy), as an utterly sincere, guileless young man suddenly able to save the world. Extrapolating on Season One's jumble of gobbledygook science, time travel and parallel universes, The Flash could easily fly off the rails at any moment (and, in its own trip to heaven/nirvana, nearly did), but the show's upbeat approach and willingness to believe (and relative consistency) covers sins other shows wouldn't necessarily survive. Three flashes, two bad flashes, and many multiple roles later, the cast looks game, the mythology holds, and the race is on.
RuPaul's Drag Race (Season 8, Logo). A short, tight run for the crown this year was helped immensely by an even more jaw dropping array of talent and beauty on display than before: by the time the season had weeded its way down to stunning Naomi Smalls, sassy Bob the Drag Queen, and the breathtaking looks of online star Kim Chi, it was clear that drag, and Ru Paul's faith in her chosen art form, needed no defense. That battle had been won, years ago, as demonstrated both by the opener's "100 drag queens" premise, to the finale's opening shot of RuPaul and her Superstars. Eight years later, the possibilities seem endless for a man in a dress. Any one of this year's three could have been - and will be - a superstar, but Bob's selection was a reminder that the goal here is TP - the Total Package. And Bob's Taraji by way of Viola Davis skewering of an Empire diva was, in itself, off the charts. And only the beginning.
Rosewood (Season 1, Fox). Police procedurals ebb and flow, but never really go away - just ask SVU. And somehow, simply by insisting on diversity casting, Fox has managed to breathe fresh life into a premise as old as Quincy - the crusading medical examiner, this time as a black man. Morris Chestnut surely has one of the best roles on television, and he's playing the heck out of it... not to mention seducing the camera with his eyes. If it's not quite all it could be, it's a lot more than we're getting anywhere else.
The Americans (Seasons 1-3, Amazon Prime; Season 4, FX). I am very late to the ball on this one, having heard good things over the years, but never diving fully into the "Russians living here as ordinary Americans, spying on us" in the Reagan eighties. As it turns out, the whole thing is wildly riveting. Big ideas about identity, and loyalty and who can you trust bouncing against the intimate dramas of family and coming of age and life in a changing time. Add in a top flight cast, and stir. There's no better explanation of the power of binge watching than finding a gem like this, in the middle of the game.
The Man in the High Castle (Season 1, Amazon Prime). Phillip K. Dick's writing has ascended into the pantheon of Hollywood's go-to sci-fi fantasy projects, but I'm not sure his work has ever (even Blade Runner) been as well represented as this "what if the Axis won the war" fantasia. Envisioning an America divided up between Germany and Japan - with the Rockies as a rough terrain no-man's land - The Man in the High Castle's depiction of alternative history is masterful, subtle, and feels true, no mean feat when it's all made up. Political thriller, time tampering mystery and much more, The Man in the High Castle promised much in its pilot, and delivered in 13 episodes dropped, as online series do, into the mix all at once. And so well received, we we even get more.
The Road Warriors and AM Joy (MSNBC) Political coverage is a nightmare this year, both reflecting the mess on display, and of course, helping to create it. There's not a lot of good - and I'd hate to overlook the bright spots of competent panels on CNN, the Chris Matthews interview of Trump, the occasions of pithy insight from Maddow... but there's a lot of bad - the general meltdown of Fox, the Trump cheerleading of Morning Joe, the horror that is Wolf Blitzer. And in the midst of all of it, MSNBC decided to do a wholesale makeover of its whole schedule, from bringing back Brian Williams (eh), to losing Melissa Harris-Perry in a storm of angst and academic drang. While the finished product is still touch and go, it's hard not to appreciate some of the effort to think out of the box - from reviving Joy Reid into MHP's spot on weekends, every bit as insightful and yet less didactic; to a weekday roundtable of the top women reporters covering campaigns, including Kasie Hunt, Katy Tur, Hallie Jackson and Kristen Welker, all doing great work, along with Steve Kornacki (cute, though the "white guy with the data crunching" thing is both hackneyed and a little insulting). While CNN flails and Fox retreats into the old angry demographic, MSNBC may well be figuring out how to do 24 hour news and analysis that isn't a complete head shaking mess.
Masterpiece Mystery (PBS). No, I'm not going to give a self congratulatory pat on the back to Downton, basking in its easy tropes about wealth and class and British manners - sudsy soap operas will always have an appeal, especially using the hoariest of cheap gimmicks and plot twists to keep the audience coming back for more. No, let's celebrate what Downton has wrought, such as it is - a reliable engine for well produced British television to find a classy home on Sunday evenings. Sure Mystery used to stand on its own, but folded into Masterpiece isn't so bad either, and as much as anything is helping to give the enterprise legs beyond the chase for another blockbuster ("Wolfe Hall" is hardly cutting it, nor "Poldark" nor a half dozen more). Sure Grantchester (riding the well worn trick of casting Robson Green) and Endeavour (riding the well worn afterglow of Inspector Morse) aren't exactly plowing fresh ground, but classic detective work is rare these days, and while Kenneth Branagh is a bit of a dud as Wallander, the respect for source material these days is especially strong. A bit less Call The Midwife, a lot less Mr. Selfridge... and no more Darlene Shiley (Masterpiece's main donor, buying herself a vanity spot in the network's plea for donation cattle call)... and we're all good.
SNL (Season 46, NBC)... Or as we used to call it, Saturday Night Live. Rarely has it been funnier. Rarely has the cast been this deep, and never more diverse. If it's still hit-or-miss on the sketch humor - and still too much miss - the good has rarely been this great: Kate McKinnon's "maybe this time" version of Hillary Clinton, those sparkling videos and song parodies ("First Got Horny 2 U", or "Hello" as Thanksgiving uniter), and even the sly understated (at best) humor flying between Colin Jost and Michael Che on Weekend Update. And Leslie Jones is fierce!
Honorable Mentions: Modern Family (only cause I'm not really watching it consistently; but in reruns my goodness is it funny), Schitt's Creek, Happy Endings (The best 40 episodes of random comedy cruelly left behind) The Real O'Neals, Telenovela, Shameless, Archer, Legends of Tomorrow, Limitless, Madam Secretary, Penny Dreadful, Billions, Empire, Grandfathered... and anything that's on up against judges scoring singers or dancers.
I started writing film reviews on this blog with The Prime of MIss Jean Brodie; a still-odd choice for me, because I tend to be a more modernist film critic, and less about the past... and because that film is really, really dark. And I at least try to cover up my love of really dark, really messed up entertainment. Not necessarily successfully.
So it's probably appropriate to attempt a return to form with Gone Girl, last year's easy winner in the messed up (or, for the less refined, f*cked-up) film category. Nobody's idea of a date movie, Gone GIrl arrived as the adaptation of a monster bestseller, hinged on the selling point that you, dear reader, had no idea of the astonishing twist the narrative would take.
On that selling point alone, I bought the book ...and promptly failed to read it. For years. The book would taunt me. I'd see others reading it; I would ask and to a person they said it was amazing, and the twist was unexpected... and it couldn't be shared. So naturally, I waited for the film adaptation.
The film version does not disappoint, either. Director David Fincher has brilliantly realized Gone Girl both as a tasty, chilling thriller, but also as a deeply subversive, equally chilly dismissal of current pop culture, of true crime "journalism," celebrity obsession, and the way we reward the showy, the glib, and the insincere. This is not the film to tell you that things get better, or to simply root for the good guy and truth will prevail in the end. If you want a light, upbeat tale of true love... this film is not for you.
The film starts quietly, simply: Nick Dunne is a nice guy on the day of his 5th wedding anniversary to Amy, when she disappears under mysterious circumstances. As we unpack the mystery, we learn more about Nick, Amy, and what seems to be a beautiful relationship put under stress by the economy, and the tensions of two people maybe growing apart.
Things get more complicated as a series of revelations suggest that Nick is not the simple, concerned spouse he seems - there's an affair, some curious financial doings, and more. Also Amy has layers of complexity hinted at from the beginning - there's her complicated relationship with her parents, author of a series of books whose child heroine, "Amazing Amy," is an idealized version of the real woman. Amy's diary seems to suggest an uncertainty about her life and her marriage that only adds more questions. And still, no one seems to quite know what happened or where she is.
That's where the twist comes in, and it's a doozy, a moment, rare in fiction these days, where all that's come before is simply turned on its head. It's here that Gone Girl becomes more than a simple whodunnit, to a dark examination of roles and expectations for men and women, and how easy it is for us to simply believe what we see, what we are told. Gillian Flynn, who wrote the book, also handles the adaptation to film, and she has a real sense for the old adage about "show, don't tell" - there's a lovely economy of actual dialogue, a trust that we will see for ourselves what is actually unfolding.
Davids Fincher's been on this kind of kick for years, but I think Gone Girl may be his best effort yet at adapting a novel to film, while still preserving his own icy, subversive worldview. He's not afraid to explore darkness and true madness (as with, say Se7en, or the Girl with The Dragon Tattoo), buit there's a quality to Gone Girl that seems lighter, playful; Fincher seems better able to deploy sarcasm that sees the sarcastic humor of it all.
And of course, he's helped immensely by a superb cast. Ben Affleck has labored for years against that certain lunky presence he brings to film, and Gone Girl, well, wallows in just that. As he shambles, as he gets caught in a carefully spun web, you can see the mix of decency and loutishness, the guy who wants to be good... ish.
Then there's Rosamund Pike as Amy, beautiful, tightly coiled, as enigmatic as the greatest screen beauties (Gene Tierney's Laura comes most obviously to mind... but so many others as well) and every bit as dangerous. Pike does a remarkable job of making a highly improbable character real, complex, and fascinating. And even dangerously amusing.
The rest of the cast is similarly focused and effective - perhaps none so much as Neil Patrick Harris, as Amy's most dangerous ex; but one has to shout out Tyler Perry as an over the top cross of Johnny Cochran and... well, Tyler Perry, as a well known, wily lawyer. Who's probably the closest thing the film has to a purely good guy.
Nothing is simple in Gone Girl, and the remarkable thing, I think, is how this film found an audience of enough sophisticates to actually be a success. Dark, defiant, and deadly, Gone Girl doesn't celebrate America's greatness, or wallow in our culture's false sorrows. Instead, it says that behind the most glowing successes is a pretty dark, messed up interior. And I for one, thinks that notion captures us pretty damn well.
President Obama is getting a little (and not enough, I'd say) flack for saying to a heckler at this week's Pride celebration in the White House, "you're in my house." The sentiment, while understandable, belies the fact that dissent is enshrined in our American culture, and it will come through the doors of even the President's house. Eartha Kitt, famously, angered Lady Bird Johnson by speaking forcefully about deaths in Vietnam at an otherwise non-political luncheon. Laura Bush had to cancel her planned program celebrating poets when those poets made clear they didn't support the invasion of Iraq.
But more pointedly, being President doesn't make the White House yours.
The President has walked this line throughout his term in office; there's a tension between the "great man" pose he rode into the office and the sense that he's more than a bit diffident about the glad-handing, everyman aspects of taking lofty ideas into practical application, never mind the tension of disagreement and dissent. He seems aloof, even cold. He comes off as high handed at times - he's managed, more than once, to annoy congressional leaders because he seems to have no sustained relationships that he can leverage to achieve his own policy goals. He lectures, rather than attempting to persuade.
I don't think all of this makes the President terrible, just human, and flawed. He's a smart man. He's able to see the big picture. He'e clear-eyed about what need to happens to make progress. I think he's less thrilled with people who don't see what he sees. And he's not exactly patient about waiting for others to catch up. I'm also not entirely sure it gives him a real feel for the struggles of people, say, in poverty. Or the emotional pain of a man whose lover has to be deported (the point of the Pride protestor). Feelings, emotionality... these things get in the way of clear eyed assessments. It's hard to fake the caring side (just as it's also hard to pretend to be smart).
Oddly, that's why I think the Supreme Court had little choice today but to uphold the Obamacare subsidies. And that, really is where the President may be more accurately firm in saying "not in my house."
The Affordable Care Act made provisions for each state to operate a health insurance exchange, as a way to give individuals, the self employed, unemployed, or small business workers the opportunity to buy insurance as a group. The "individual market" had been one of the worst features of the insurance market for healthcare, where premiums were expensive and policies were often terrible, providing little coverage with high deductibles. While the exchanges have issues, and policies still have some fairly high deductibles, the exchanges combined with tax subsidies for low wage workers have enabled any more people to obtain insurance.
It was the subsidies that brought the case to the Court; a small group of (questionable) plaintiffs claimed the required purchase on the exchange was onerous, and that the subsidies were illegal because they should only apply to state exchanges and not the federal exchange, based on one clause in the mammoth law. For months, since the case was taken up by the Supreme Court, there was speculation that an adverse ruling would "destroy Obamacare." Doomsday scenarios were predicted. Panic in the streets. Dogs and cats living together. You get the picture.
Calmer heads - me included - have quietly pointed out the obvious: the lawsuit made no sense. If a state fails to operate an exchange - as many Republican led states chose - then the federal exchange operates as the state's exchange, and the subsidy is for the same purpose. That, in essence, is what John Roberts said today. And it's basically the same thing the President said, in his calm, definitive way when asked about it a month ago. He also said the Supreme Court should never have taken the case. That's accurate too, though, as always, he appeared somewhat high handed in saying it.
Conservative hatred of the President has everything to do with his calm sense of certainty. "Arrogant" is their first descriptive term about him, and it has, of course, everything to do with race, though that too just makes them angrier. "It's not because he's black" they fume, and at best we can't know. But it sure seems that having this black man be so smart and so right so often really annoys them.
The President came out today for a "victory lap" speech in the Rose Garden that again made his point: I was right, this thing is working, and opponents should just get used to it. It's my house. See that chair? I put it there. It may not be the "kinder, gentler" way of expressing it, but that is not the President we have. If anything, this is the notion of a Presidency that conservatives have favored more than the left: tough, no nonsense, certain of his mind and his actions. Which may explain why so much of the loathing the President gets from the right seems so, well, childish - it's the tantrums of overfed kids who can't get more dessert. Because daddy said so, that's why. Conservatives have replaced their strongest suit - a clear eyed, almost cold, assessment of human nature and the facts - with the appeal of emotions and feel good slogans. And liberals, God love us, have gone in the other weird direction - a party of clear eyed realists using data to support the feel good policies of helping the less fortunate. Because we love them, and everybody.
More than most lefties, conservatives need the kick in the head of taking in the view of the world that doesn't agree with their every whim: they've been blind sided by Mitt Romney's loss, by the unpopularity of endless war, and now by yet another decision that says more health care available to more people is better. And liberals, while embracing the President's forcefulness in standing up for his policies, might want to look around that house and ask, did we really need a chair? and does it really need to be just, well, there? It's our house, really. And it's ok to redecorate. No matter what daddy says.
Buzzfeed up-ended Oscar season this year with an absurd post (when is it not, with them) attempting to rank all 85 Best Picture winners from worst to best overall. It's a fool's exercise, made more foolish - and I say this from personal experience - because the writer was not well versed in all of the films. Don't get too far away from what you actually know, as a writer, especially as a critic. It shows.
The problem with the list, though, is deeper. It's not how good or bad the Best Picture winners are or can be seen to be. It's that, for pretty much all 85, there was at least one other film that a large swath of viewers and critics thought should get the top honor. For every Titanic, for every Forrest Gump, even for All About Eve or The Godfather... there's another nominee a lot of people really, really liked. (Okay, maybe not The Godfather. We'll see.)
The Buzzfeed list got me to thinking about this, and sketching out some options... but what really pushed me to pull out the pooter and start composing was this year's awards. Because this year's alternate is especially glaring, and it ought to be said. So that's where I'm going to begin.
Some caveats: I'm working backwards, because mass memory is about recent events, but don't ignore the classics from Oscar's early years - we are talking some great artifacts of film history, which deserve to be seen. Second, I haven't seen everything... but I will be up front about it where necessary. Third, this list is limited to Oscar nominees for Best Picture. If we get into a game of "what about that brilliant film that was shut out" we lose the plot all together, and really, the list of greatest films of all time isn't about Oscar. This is.
Finally, naturally, all of this is subjective. And yes, I'd love the feedback, and a healthy conversation. Don't be shy. And so, without further ado...
2013 - American Hustle. Talk about robbed - last year's smartest caper film woudn up completely shut out on all 8 of its nominations. And all of those were richly deserved. Since his brilliant dark comedy Flirting With Disaster, David O. Russell has made a string of smart, boundary chalenging films with great casts and intellgent scripts. And it's probably too much to ask that work this good get honored repeatedly, since Russell's Silver Linings Playbook was already a dominant winner. Still, Hustle's every bit as brilliant as The Sting, and even better in its attempt to recreate a period in costumes, sets, and songs. Were Hollywood less caught up in righting historical wrongs - including its own shabby history on race - 12 Years A Slave would probably sit in the perfectly acceptable position of having been a great adaptation of a dark, grim story of an horrific experience... but not Best. For my money, Hustle is what you reward for greatness, and timelessness.
2012 - Silver Linings Playbook.... while we're at it. Though I will say this one of those years where I think the Academy got it right - Argo is a great film, even with the overwrought ending.
2011 - Midnight in Paris. No, The Help does not deserve it. And yes, I love The Artist. But Woody Allen's filmmaking, even on Blue Jasmine, has rarely been as finely honed as it was on this gentle, loving film about not getting too caught up in worshipping the past. Masterful recreations of previous eras, gleeful cameos of past masters (especially a charming Zelda Fitzgerald, a drunk Hemingway, and explaining The Discreet Charm of The Bourgoisie to a confused Bunuel), plus a slew of masterful performances (has Owen Wilson ever been better? I think not).... what more do you need? Nothing, that's what.
2010 - Winter's Bone. Having not seen The Social Network or Inception, I feel underqualified to make the case for either; though I think Inception probably has a strong one. I can easily make the case that The King's Speech was sentimental claptrap that could easily be overlooked in the overall history of film. I can also make a strong case that this ambitious independent film, which snuck into major consideration, is way better than it has any right to be, in large measure because Jennifer Lawrence really was that stunningly good right from the beginning. A small, dark film where a win would have shown the Academy's ability to look past the obvious. And they don't, often.
2009 - Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. In one of those harder than usual years (I could make my own compelling cases for The Blind Side and Up, just for starters), I'd say Lee Daniels was robbed; this film takes on nearly every American prejudice, and Hollywood's willful blindness to poverty, race, and size... and spins it into gold. Gabourey Sidibe's performance is undeniable. Mo'Nique will never be this glorious again. And just when you think you've heard or seen it all, the final ten minutes of the film will up-end everything you think you knew. Daniels will get there, eventually, but it will be because he already did.
2008 - Milk. Not a great year, not a great set of choices... but Lord, anything other than the ludicrous Slumdog Millionaire. It might as well be the engaging biopic of the gay community's greatest political hero, which hit the trifecta of a great script, inventive direction, and a bravura lead performance. Or we can give it to a magical fairy tale. Oh well.
2007 - Michael Clayton. An issue pic, a taut thriller, one of George Clooney's easy, masterful performances, the glorious Tilda Swinton. Is this a hard call? I think not. Instead... There Will Be Blood. It was a very dark year.
2006 - The Queen. Sentimental? Sure. Hogwash? A bit. I really wish the film had won rather than Helen Mirren. But I'd settle for both. The film, at the very least, offers a less varnished, less rosy view of the English royals than we normally get. And anything, to me, would be better than to reward Martin Scorsese for making a pale carbon copy of the vastly superior Infernal Affairs.
2005 - Brokeback Mountain. Obviously. Crash? Oh, where to begin. It's the decade's most inexplicable winner, one that made even its supporters wince as the reality sank in. And then there's Ang Lee's spare, brilliant, quiet paean to doomed love among the cowboys and the mountains. Easy call.
2004 - Sideways. Only because I think Ray was too conventional, too by the numbers in its depiction of a musician biopic. But certainly Charles is a compelling subject and the music soars. Still, Sideways is a charming, offbeat dramedy that stings in unexpected ways. Million Dollar Baby just never intrigued me.
2003 - Mystic River. In a year that's actually a hard choice - I adore Lost in Translation, and am just sentimental enough to love Seabiscuit - I'd reward Clint Eastwood for a mystery drama that captures the South Boston experience in all its conflicted glory. And I slogged through all 3 episodes of Lord of the Rings. Still, not even close.
2002 - The Pianist. There is a question, naturally, of how many ways we can slice World War 2 movies and Holocaust pictures, but Roman Polanski's take is every bit as masterful as you'd expect from him, an unexpected journey very well told. Yes, that's me overlooking The Hours. And I liked Chicago... but Best? Maybe not so much.
2001 - Gosford Park. Downton Abbey in its concise, feature film form, from the absolute master of overlapping plotlines. It's even got Maggie Smith. As the Dowager Countess. It also has every other british actor you could dream of, doing just the sort of British things you'd want to see them doing.
2000 - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Because The Academy waffled and gave it Best Foreign Film. Which is totally embarrassing.
1999 - The Insider. How times change. I didn't pick it at the time, and I didn't entirely love it... but time has not been kind to American Beauty, which winds up less than the sum of its parts. I am moderately torn by The Cider House Rules, but in the end, I think its defenders were right - The Insider holds up best.
1998 - Elizabeth. Two films featuring the Virgin Queen will enter. Only one can win. Oops. Yeah, we could have picked the brilliant bloody epic that verified Blanchett as a star... or we could pick Shaespeare in Love. Oh yeah... oops.
1997 - LA Confidential. I would write a long defense of why, but why bother? Titanic. They gave it to Titanic. Big mistake. Huge.
1996 - Fargo. I am not a Coen Brothers fan, and I loved The English Patient. But if a film was ever overlooked while being quietly brilliant, this mystery thriller remains a truy hidden gem.
1995 - Apollo 13. I'm not married to any of the choices; I'd take reading the phone book over Braveheart. I'm sure there's a good case, even, for Babe. But Tom Hanks really likes those astronaut pictures. And people tell me this one's good.
1994 - Quiz Show. Robert Redford's film has never been appreciated for what it is - a searing indictment of WASP privilege and the lies we tell ourselves, especially via television. Even something as simple as opening his credits with Mack the Knife and closing with the actual Moritat from Threepenny Opera makes his point with knifelike sharpness. I can't even begin to discuss the travesty of rewarding Forrest Gump instead.
1993 - In The Name Of The Father. But yes, this is the year of Schindler's List. So let's not push it.
1992 - A Few Good Men. In a sea of good but not great (Howard's End, The Crying Game, and the winning Unforgiven, to be sure; less so Scent of a Woman), it's mostly a toss-up. But Rob Reiner's adaptation of a fairly routine courtroom/court martial drama holds up extremely well, features Tom Cruise and Demi Moore in surprising career highs, and gives Jack Nicholson's best scene chewing room to breathe. You can't handle the truth. And that's not even the best line in that speech. Or in the film.
1991 - The Prince of Tides. Does it outdo Silence of the Lambs? Maybe not... but let's factor in, honestly, the severe anti-Streisand bias of the Academy. Then let's point out that this is Nick Nolte's best work by far, assisted by a slew of strong performances, including the diva herself. And Streisand did a marvelous of distilling a watchable movie out of a really bad, melodramatic book (seriously. It's atrocious). A sweeping cross-generational story, full of dark secrets and stunning revelations... we've given more awards to less. But you could tell me to pick Bugsy instead, and I'd hear you out. But don't start with me on JFK.
1990 - Goodfellas. The real moment when Martin Scorsese was robbed, his finest hour of storytelling on the story he was meant to tell, an amoral fable of gangsters from the height of their cultural importance to the sad dissolution into drugs, degradation and incarceration. Just the dazzling sequence at The Copa alone deserves Best Picture. And instead? We rewarded Dances With Wolves. Seriously? Seriously.
So endeth the first lesson. Up next, the epics of the eighties, and the sad story of seventies realism.
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