ReTrailered: Footloose

Paramount decided to release a second trailer pretty quickly, selling the original movie with a new coat of paint instead of laying on the drama, as though it was some other movie they made. Next Up: The same trailer with the damned song… what people actually want from this remake.

And the REAL Footloose…

I have to say… the cutting of the music is terrible… not a very sophisticated trailer… but I would still go see that movie… more so than the new one…

Friday Estimates by AA (Apes Again) Klady

Apes hold is fine. The film is running marginally ahead of X-Men: First Class and 10% & change behind Thor and Captain America. No indication yet that adults are catching on to the perceived quality of the film. So that $150m – $160m domestic window seems to be the fit to expect. As with the others, the story of the bottom line will be written overseas.

The Help, estimated just $400k behind Apes, could rise up and take the weekend. Adult audiences could make up that difference on Sunday alone. So we’ll see. Aside from the ever silly #1/#2 race, the film is really the only drama from a major studio this summer, and even as a “feel good,” only Crazy, Stupid, Love and Midnight in Paris are remotely in the same adult-first territory. The real question on the movie is whether we’re looking at $75 million or $125 million domestic. And I don’t think we’ll really know until the mid-week numbers or maybe next weekend’s numbers.

Five-al Destination is going retro, recreating opening day from #3 instead of the higher grossing #4. Interestingly, some people seem to think this is the best of the series. Regardless, it’s a pretty specific audience and should settle into the traditional $50m – $60m range of the series.

30 Minutes or Less has got to be a little bit of a heartbreaker for Sony. I know it is for a lot of film lovers. We all became Ruben Fleisher fans after Zombieland, which was both fun and showed great promise that a new action/comedy voice had been launched. But sometimes, it’s all a little “inside the beltway” and we all forget that it’s the guy’s second major feature, that Jesse Eisenberg is not an opener at this point, the Aziz Ansari is everywhere but isn’t selling tickets, and that as beloved as he is, Danny McBride on your poster seems to lead to box office expectations being dashed. I enjoy the guy and he’s good in this film, but I think he scares a significant portion of the audience away from his films.

The opening, for a lot of not shocking reasons, is about half of Zombieland‘s. The price tag on the film likely keeps it from being a money loser… it could even turn a decent profit. Sophomore slump films are not unusual, but they sting, because everyone is rooting for the win, not just as business, but with real hope. Of course, WB has its hopes pinned on Fleisher to break into a new genre, the crime drama, with Gangster Squad. Fingers tightly crossed.

Only four concert films have ever opened to over $4 million. Glee 3D will be the fifth. But it won’t come close to the numbers of Cyrus/Bieber/Jackson/Jonas. Fox won’t lose money on the effort. And they could still bring in some strong dollars overseas, where TV show mania can make for some astounding theatrical grosses. I have no idea what Glee’s penetration is overseas, so I can’t really venture a real guess… and this concert may end up playing some countries next year or the year after. In the meanwhile, Fox will generate revenue by selling DVDs, probably more as an addendum to the series than as a regular concert video.

Crazy Stupid Love will pass Friends With Benefits today to become the #5 summer comedy. And that’s where it will likely end up when all the domestic numbers are counted up. (It’s still about $45m behind #4.)

The soft opening of The Change-Up didn’t keep it from a steep Friday-to-Friday drop. Thing is, assuming it gets to $28 million, it will still be Jason Bateman’s biggest grossing comedy as a lead and right there with every Ryan Reynolds comedy not starring Sandra Bullock.

Nice, if not overwhelming launch for Senna. Good movie. Go see it… if you are near one of its 2 screens.

30 MInutes Or BYOB

I wanted to like 30 Minutes or Less more. I laughed a bit. I wanted to laugh more. I was engaged by the idea. I wanted to be engaged more.

In some ways, it reminded me of Harold & Kumar Get A Bomb Strapped To Their Chest By Neil Patrick Harris & Have To Rob A Bank. But the mania didn’t quite hit that speed. It was missing Woody Harrelson’s manic energy and/or the threat of sex, embodied by the women of Zombieland.

SPOILER

It’s a better movie if he has sex with the sister on the roof and then comes back to his friend with the scent on his body. It’s not that the beat would be that special, in and of itself. But the emotional violence against her brother throttles up a notch, which is the kind of nasty energy the film lacks. It’s also why the Pena and Ward characters work the best… because they are playing at that level of intensity.

END SPOILER

Have a nice weekend.

FD5 Spoiler Thread

No, this is not a remake of A Clockwork Orange.

At the request of Mr. Leydon, a spoiler thread for commenters who want to discuss Final Destination 5. Woe is blog.

DP/30: Senna, director Asif Kapadia

Press Release Of The Day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HYDROPLEX MEDICAL MARIJUANA INDEX

STOCK MARKET CRASH CAUSES MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE TO SKY ROCKET DUE TO NERVES AND STRESS

Tom Leto President of nation’s leading medical marijuana growing unit ”Hydroplex Spinner” has seen sales double in one week from clients in the financial industry after this weeks crash on Wall Street. Hydroplex is sold to growers across the country. The company has sold over 200 units this week which will produces about 400 pounds of medical marijuana. This is a industry record. Doctors prescribe medical marijuana to those with high stress and nerve conditions that have been on the rise across the nation’s as stocks plunged. The company is based in Newport Beach California. Fifteen states in the United States as well as Washington D.C. have legalized medical marijuana. There are eight states that have legalization on the ballot this year.

Trailer: The One 3D Movie You Might Want To See In 2011

Every Film Is Racist!

Anthony Kaufman continued the theme I cited yesterday, citing my blog post and noting:
Poland doesn’t seem to read Morris’s point—and mine, as well—that the film’s faults are integrally mixed with its premise. To make a film that purports to be about the struggles of black servitude that is actually just another tale about a white person’s empowerment is grossly irresponsible, from a political perspective, and kind of lame, from a narrative perspective.

Oy.

This is the quagmire. Because I respect the right of Anthony, Wesley, and others to react to this kind of content and I don’t want to mock them for feeling something. But somehow, falling down the PC rabbit hole is okay when an issue touches on something that is, indeed, still a national weakness, but is not when it is perceived as a strength.

Anthony writes: “Forty-six years later, it seems, the American white establishment still can’t seem to understand that they are responsible for racial discrimination and subjugation, and not, as “The Help” would have it, responsible for breaking down those walls. “

Apparently, only the “good” white people have any value in this film, in his eyes. All the racists, who range from overt to rather subtle, do not count towards any self-awareness by white filmmakers and audiences at all. Good job of painting the film into a corner it can never escape.

Just yesterday, I was called out for being a closet racist for pointing out that George Lopez, whose ratings only plummeted after he was pushed an hour later so Conan O’Brien could have his slot (Conan’s ratings have also plummeted), yet there is no hew and cry about Lopez losing his job to some white guy’s failure, whereas there was endless and wild Conan vs Jay fire-breathing, even though Conan got $45 million to leave. Lopez, at the end of a contract, gets a Laurel & Hardy handshake. But if that’s okay, why the anger over Conan getting paid a fortune as a pay out after his failure in the slot?

My point isn’t to readjudicate Coco vs Leno, but to note that I was noting that race worked against Lopez, especially in the public response to his exit (Lopez was much more aggressive on the issue of his skin color than I in his monologue last night). And as a mostly-white guy (haven’t been jew-baited in a while… but not a long while) I was the racist for pointing in that direction. Admittedly, I did it in a smart-ass way… but I set off the alarm with language, not my core idea. And it may have been my fault, but the sensitivity is always a little shocking, given how race pervades every day of our lives in America without notice.

So… here is the absurdist look at this summer… absurdist, but not inaccurate if you want to roll this way. Please note, for the record, I could argue (and most likely would argue) that few of these choices were racially or sexually or ethnically motivated… but for the sake of speaking to this absurdity…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – The only Black that mattered in the whole series was Sirius Black. A few token black characters. Was there a single hispanic/latino? How bad was it? They had to double down on a “little” actor to fill two roles, one professor and the other a powerful goblin. And don’t even get me started on making the height-challenged extend their stereotype as goblins!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon – An entire planet of humans and 12 robots are the only ones that can save billions of us humans. That’s hateful! Ironically, the human team is made up of an ethnic cornucopia, led by a skinny jewish kid, a brit model, a studly white male model, a studly black male model, an italian-american, a minnesotan, and an eastern-european who embodies every euro-trash cliche in this film short of a thong. But at least they didn’t have the racist robots back this time.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – They added a hispanic to the central cast… but pushed her boobs up into her neck and made a joke out of her underage deflowering by Captain Jack. No blacks in leadership positions, except when it comes to voodoo.

The Hangover Part II – Comes by its racism proudly. According to this film, Asian men have tiny penises, Thailand is loaded with drug dealers, pimps, whores, and really bad driving.

Cars 2 – The whole movie is built around the white-trash stereotype, as well as placing the burden on the British to be supercool.

Thor – Blonde dude is the hero, even though no one else in his family is blonde. He comes to earth and instead of falling for the girl whose pecs are more like his, falls for the smart, skinny jewish girl. Loki gives a bad name to all ethnics with a vowel at the end of their name.

Captain America: The First Avenger – German-bashing, anyone? Isn’t it time that we put Hitler behind us and stop finding it amusing to kill Nazis as though they were props in an action movie? And what kind of message are we giving to the less physically gifted? Get into fights until you lose blood and then some mad jew will inject you with a serum that will make you a 6′ 2″ aryan god who can kick nazi ass? And while The Girl is charmed by the little guy before the shots, would she be kissing him if he didn’t have to wear a shirt two sizes too big for his big thick neck to accommodate his pecs? I think not!

X-Men: First Class- Great series for alienated youth… unless you want the hot chick! Whether she’s made of glass or has blue skin and thorns, she’s going to go along with the bad guys and deliver super sex to them. Why must beautiful women always be seen making the wrong choices in American Cinema?

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Humans suck. I get it.

Green Lantern – Three people of color in this entire cast. Angela Bassett is slumming it as a doctor. The other two are some other alien color. And how are purple children going to feel about Sinestro? Also, the film makes people with jaundice seem perfectly evil.

Kung Fu Panda 2 – Didn’t see it. But a classic fat white guy teaches the asians how to be a karate hero premise, no?

Cowboys & Aliens – Well, this one gets a pass because there were no black people in the old west. BZZT! Wrong! And the one guy of color with lines is Adam Beach… who’s on the bad side. Boo.

The Smurfs – Children all over the world will hate their skin tone after this movie. Thanks, Neil Patrick Harris!

Super 8 – Again, white kids didn’t know any black kids in the 70s, so no need to make excuses there. Two black people in the film. One is mauled in the opening sequence. The other is, as I recall, one of the bad guys.

Bad Teacher – Avoided the stereotype of the funny black woman by not having any black people being funny in this film. There were some cute black kids. And there is a character of color… Armando the Homeless Guy.

Horrible Bosses – Hey man, there was a black cop! There were a few black cops! And a co-worker. And Jamie Foxx, one of the biggest black stars in the world… as a con artist/hitman.

Bridesmaids – The stereotypes of women are SHOCKING in this film. One is a bitch, one is desperate, one is a desperate bitch, one is a child-hating mother, and Maya Rudolph is pretty much perfect… the stereotype of the magic negro! Couldn’t hey have made Rudolph’s character more complex instead of being just another light-skinned black woman passing in a white world of angry, desperate bitches?

Zookeeper – After finally breaking through in Unstoppable as a naturalistic, powerful person who just happened to be female and of color, Rosario Dawson is put back in her place as an object of white male fat guy lust. Horrors! And why weren’t black men allowed to play the monkey or the gorilla? Afraid of being called out as racist?! Instead, you deny black men the lead animal voice parts?

Crazy, Stupid, Love. – Come on… just give me one person of color! Wait… there’s a cop, a bartender, and a secretary in the film. Great.

Friends with Benefits – I guess Mila Kunis could be considered “of color.” And there she is, being manipulated by the white devil.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins – Half-black characters never had so much fun as when they were owned by a rubbery-faced white man!

Jumping the Broom – Now this is a movie loaded with virtually every stereotype you can imagine. Don’t they invite white people to these events?

Priest – A metaphor for the colonization of the world by a blonde man with a cross.

Something Borrowed – The only colorful name I see on the entire cast list is Gina Hernandez as Drunk Outside Bar.

The Change-Up – Even the projectile excrement in this film refused to be black. Couldn’t there have been a fetish involving a proud woman of color here?

Larry Crowne – Hot young ethnic girl falls for the middle-aged white guy with bad hair and no prospects. Typical!

Winnie the Pooh – It’s The Man, keeping the Eyore down!

Monte Carlo – Two white girls and little hispanic chick who thinks she’s white go to the whitest nation on the planet where the hispanic girl passes for Cordelia Winthrop Scott.

Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer – No idea. Leaving it alone. It had enough trouble at the box office.

Midnight in Paris – A blonde guy goes back in time to a world where there are no black people with lines.

Again… this list is not a statement of my personal or professional opinion of these films (or anyone else’s at Movie City News that I know of) or their mindset about race or the mindset of the filmmakers or execs involved… but if you want to see racism, there are a lot of opportunities.

Maybe the list is funny and maybe it is not. But most of the arguments I lay out – pretending to be of another mind – are not too wide of the raw facts. The question isn’t whether Hollywood’s output mirrors the real world. The question is whether it should be expected to do so, in any regard, ethnicity included.

Yet when does it seem to become an issue? When some film deals with racism, but isn’t edgy enough for certain critics.

If you’re so worried about it, folks, maybe you really should note how few people of color are in wide releases every single weekend. Personally, I think that’s backward thinking too. I got into fights last year accusing some of pushing a hype agenda by coloring the Oscar race as not being ethnic enough even before it was all sorted out. And indeed, in the end, only one person of color, Javier Bardem, was nominated in the top 8 categories.

But I wonder… were the people complaining about that, the same people who were angry that The Blind Side was nominated the year before? You remember, the year there were 7 personal nominations and 2 BP nods in the top 8 categories with 2 wins out of the 7. it was, according to some, the wrong kind of race movie, while Precious was the right kind?

And how do we deal with the hero of a movie that deals with race being white when the villain is white too? Was Monique’s character in Precious a big win for the image of black women?

Like I wrote before, I don’t think these questions are easily answered. And I don’t expect clear consensus on much. Anthony Kaufman and others seem openly proud to hate the movie based on what it is… a story about race that is centered on white characters. So what is supposed to happen? No more black maids in media? Or do we have a quota system, one movie with a black female lead for every one with a black woman playing a maid? What would you guys like?

Finally, I like to think that we’ll see better roles for actresses of color in Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, Winterbottom’s Trishna, Meirelles 360, Luc Besson’s The Lady, from Viola Davis herself in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and hopefully others. Dare I mention Tyler Perry? No. I dare not.

Will we see as popular a set of performances by actresses of color as we do in The Help this year? Probably not. But this is a trap. Popular and Good are not the same… nor are they opposites.

But Viola Davis is in five or six wide release films this year. And a TV series. And she plays a maid in only one of those shows. I know, paying the CIA director or a Doctor or Julia Roberts’ friend is just tokenism, right? So there is no win. Only Denzel wins. And he won the Oscar playing a bad guy.

And may I point out, those of you who are slapping at The Help because it is “a film that purports to be about the struggles of black servitude” may want to consider how it purports anything. Did I miss ads about black servitude? Or were the ones I saw, always featuring the white girls and some moments of joy and sadness from the black maids, the ones that purported to be a different movie than we saw. Cause I can’t think of a movie this summer whose marketing was closer to the reality of what I saw on the screen.

The conversation doesn’t get any easier. I just ask that it be a conversation, not a declaration.

PS. The only real Oscar contender with much color is The Help… so get those stories going now or someone else will beat you to it! (It won’t be me.)

BYOB Or Less

Review-ish: The Help

The Help is an old-fashioned bit of long-simmering movie stew where everyone is colored by their life experience, but good is pretty much good and bad is pretty much bad with enough character archetypes that there is someone for almost everyone (who’s not male) to identify with.

I liked it well enough. It got me choked up a half-dozen times for a half-dozen different reasons (who knew that a woman slapping a small child off camera would make me so pained?) and rarely surprised me in any real way. But this tiny slice of the south, where the civil rights war is close enough to smell, but permanent enough to make people lazy about their life inside of it, works as a summer diversion that works out what used to be worked out by reading a good paperback.

The highs and the lows of the film are represented by mediocre direction from a first timer (aside from a direct-to-video title that has a 3-screen, $7000 run) whose work is not disastrous, but adds little (though it is impossible to know how much credit to give him for the performances) and a cast that is truly, luxuriously, surprisingly remarkable.

Long-time readers have gone through my ranting about Emma Stone and Viola Davis alike. (You’ll be reading me touting the genius of Jean Dujardin for the next 6 months.) But neither is The Story here. Emma is really The Mary here. She gives a solid performance as the center of the universe of characters, spending a lot of frames reacting to the other characters. And Viola, who is like Green Lantern with a massive walloping fist coming out of what seems like nowhere to crush you emotionally, is The Rock on the other side. It’s a beautiful performance, but it’s almost all nuance and people don’t hold that in the kind of esteem they hold something showy.

Bryce Dallas Howard gives the best performance of her career… as a bitter, bitter bitch. Some will call her character a caricature, but I thought she played it beautifully, with tears and real pain always lingering behind her confident eyes. And Octavia Spencer, who has that unforgettable face, is the discovery on this film, walking the line between a very real, pained woman and the caricature of a southern mammy… when walking that line IS the character. My favorite parts of her performance are when she talks about doing something that everyone is laughing about, but which she truly considers an unchristian action on her part. She doesn’t overplay it. She knows why everyone else is laughing. But she carries it as a burden. Beautiful subtlety.

But for me, The Story of The Help is Jessica Chastain, who not only steals every scene she gets near with seemingly no effort at all, but set off a big light bulb for me… because it took me a while to figure out it was her. The last time I had one of these moments was with Rachel McAdams, whose performances in Wedding Crashers, The Notebook, Mean Girls, and The Hot Chick convinced me that she was The Next Great Actress… since all four performances were so strong… and none of them could really be connected to the actress in any of the other ones. She was (and is) both a striking movie beauty and a chameleon. And you don’t see that too often.

Chastain, in The Help, is a more connected version of Marilyn Monroe. She gets the moments here than Monroe never got… real pain… real desire… all while embodying a goofy white-trash bombshell whose entry in a simple dress turns every head in a room. In The Tree of Life, she is a young Sissy Spacek, perhaps a bit more patrician, a beautiful, loving, woman in a world she doesn’t control, but which she survives with a simple warmth and emotion. In Take Shelter, she dances with Michael Shannon, a reflection of where his character’s mind is going as the story progresses. And in The Debt, as a younger version of the Helen Mirren character, she minds her senior, but also creates a young woman who is both as fragile and as fierce as she must be to do what her character does. You might be able to connect the 3 redheads visually, but it is almost as though her face is different in each of the films. She lets us into the soul of her characters, as though each had a different set of eyes. And there is still Coriolanus due (after premiering at Berlin) at TIFF next month.

Chastain and Spencer and Davis and Howard can all be pushed hard for Oscar nominations for this film and two of them could get nominations. People will push back at mention of this film as an Oscar candidate. And indeed, with the new voting system and an early slot, Best Picture seems a long way from likely. But the performances are not only excellent, they are sticky. I’m not sure how a studio manages 4 runs in the same category on the same movie. I guess we’re about to find out.

And my advice on the film, which I have written elsewhere… if you find yourself wanting to go, based on the book or ads or the trailer, go. You will likely be happy you did. If you are turned off by any of that, don’t go. You will likely find more of what was bugging you. I have to respect a movie that knows what it is and delivers that to the people who want it, without trying to be more or to convince anyone of the value of the effort. I do wish David Gordon Green had directed. But that’s water under the bridge.

(Edited: To reflect Tate Taylor’s first film… at Don Murphy’s request.)

Why Can’t Critics Just Get Along?

Why is it that so many of our brightest film critics wander into the practice of reviewing the existence of a movie and not its elements?

The Help, of all summer movies, has become a flashpoint. And there is plenty to criticize in the film. However… most of the negative reviews I have read are not really about the qualities of the film, but about whether a movie with 1960s southern racism as a theme should be allowed to be anything but gritty and bloody and full of rage.

The funniest thing, to me, about this attitude is that films from other countries that subtextualize oppression because the national politics of those countries don’t allow open public discussion of the issues are praised to high heavens by the same critics as the most important films of the years virtually every year.

Obviously, you can discuss race in America cinema. But not unlike political oppression, our nation’s arts suffer from popularity oppression. In other words, if you want to make a serious movie about race, great… but don’t expect too many people to see it.

I argued, back then, that Precious inspired an unintentionally racist reaction in some white audiences, who felt the movie was plumbing the depth of the “real” black experience. “Oh… those black people have it so hard. You know, that’s how they live.” Is that a better form of racial cinema than The Help‘s simple and yes, simplistic morality tale?

More importantly, should my feeling about how that film was engaged with by white seniors (see: The Academy) discount the emotional experience that many people who never realized that some people (a small percentage of a small percentage of a small percentage) actually do live in that kind of pain and squalor?

And should a critic ripping into The Help today because we “should be past this kind of light view of racial history” discount the millions of people who are going to enjoy the morality tale of this film and think, at least a little, about our own views of race in the process?

When asked about Precious, however I felt about it, I suggested that people see it for themselves. I might offer up some concerns. But still, make up your own mind. The Help is less of a challenge, but still I would tell anyone, “If the ads or the trailer or the book make you interested in seeing it… you should see it. And if you think it shouldn’t have been made, don’t go.”

There is a legitimate discussion to be had about how portrayals of serious issues in films can be seen. But I am quite sure that there are no “answers.”

It is not really a stretch to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon as a film that lingers in the subtext of race, WWII-inspired action-dramas, and especially the films where a small band of scary men come together to protect a “native” village from some other form of greater organized terror. But many critics simply refuse to see that film as anything more than cynical money-grabbing ugly clanging metal not worth actually thinking about.

The stories of heroes and villains are as simple and a complex as drawings on the sides of caves and $300 million Jim Cameron movies.

I have quoted it so many times that I have forgotten what director said it, but ‘Give me my fucking premise” is, it seems to me, a basic responsibility of professional film criticism. But far too often, critics seem like they are playing whack-a-mole instead of being film critics. Or conversely, becoming publicists. Films must either be destroyed and don’t deserve to be seen or audiences should overlook all the flaws and go because it’s good for them and good for Movie City if these kinds of films are embraced commercially.

Personally, if every person who saw The Help was handed a free copy of The Interrupters – a movie steeped in race that really isn’t about race – and watched it, the world would be a better place. One is a bon bon and one is a five-course meal.

But I am supposed to be embarrassed because I am okay with The Help, appreciate some of the performances, and think it will be a really happy experience for a large swath of the moviegoing audience? Ridiculous. It’s not the melodramatic fluff that is Steel Magnolias. But is is Fried Green Tomatoes. Kathy Bates intentionally smashing into some obnoxious girl’s car because she “has better insurance,” this driving away relieved to have made a stand… that’s what you’ll get in The Help.

Moreover, these attacks on principle miss the point of The Help altogether. Those critics were too busy rolling their eyes over the bridge club scenes and the frilly dresses. It’s a story about individuals taking action, doing small things, being brave in the face of boogeymen, and moving forward because enough is enough. It’s not monks being slaughtered in the streets of Burma. It’s not even The March on Washington. it’s small voices choosing to speak out, wanting to change things, wanting the world to be better, one voice at a time.

And if anyone should understand that, it’s movie critics.

Or maybe they understand all too well.

Exhausted

Do we really need to chase Rebecca Brooks and her semi-severance package with pitchforks? Do we need to be a nation seeking to unmask unconvicted no-longer-legally-alleged murderer Casey Anthony’s wherever she goes? Do we need to watch the economy ebb and flow like it’s a highlight on ESPN when if you want to understand job creation, almost no one can offer a coherent, consistent answer?

We’ve become a nation of self-righteous ignoramuses. We’re all such f-ing experts about everything we see talked about on TV.

Right and wrong are minor issues next to what notions of factuality will fit our personal leanings.

No doubt, there are many who work the various beats of the world whose projections are much better educated than most. But the temptation to pretend to be in complete control of the facts can lead to even more brutal places than “civilian” mouthing off. We have never been in a more dangerous moment for the authoritative voice, not only because it’s being torn down by a show of tweeted hands, but because those who have that authority are getting sloppier, it seems, in wielding it. (I expect kettle/pot accusations to be hurled at me on this point… which is fine… but while I may be wrong at times – on facts… opinion is a different issue – I am not unconscious of a constant need to be circumspect.)

I have enormous respect for Politico, but the story today, “Obama plan: Destroy Romney,” which has now set off the chattering class a’chatterin’, is one of those stories where people were asked about a strategy on Romney, they were given pretty honest, but pretty limited answers. And the media outlet ramped it all up into a 2012 mission statement. WTF?

Chris Matthews wondered aloud, “Why are they rolling this out so early?” And the answer seems to be, “They weren’t.” Read the article. Clearly Team Obama has discussed Romney. But there is not an iota of info suggesting that they are out planting stories focusing on Romney being “weird” now. Obviously, they don’t even know if Romney will be the candidate they’ll be facing.

It doesn’t take a whole lot to spin this story into the headline grabber it is. They’ve taken a strategic discussion of how to take down Romney and spun it into a call to action. It’s like saying that we are going to invade Russia because the military run computer simulations about invading Russia. Even worse, it also suggests that studying an enemy’s tactics is somehow unacceptable… while the truth is, if you are a strategist and don’t study all of history, you are a moron. Understanding the German military’s best strategies under Hitler does not make you a Nazi.

The money quote that allows all this grandstanding is:
“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney,” said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.

In paragraph ten, David Axelrod, who is the actual authority figure in the story, speaks to Politico about Romney. There are 4 quotes in the piece.

“He was very, very good at making a profit for himself and his partners but not nearly as good [at] saving jobs for communities,” said David Axelrod, the president’s chief strategist. “His is very much the profile of what we’ve seen in the last decade on Wall Street. He was about making money. And that’s fine. But often times, he made it at the expense of jobs in communities.”

“If you were to write the history of his political career, it would be called ‘Extreme Makeover,’” Axelrod said of Romney.

“There’s a question of public character,” said Axelrod. “Are you principled, consistent — are you who you say you are? Can you be counted on?”

“Presidential campaigns are like MRIs of the soul,” said Axelrod. “When he makes jokes about being unemployed or a waitress pinching him on the butt, it does snap your head back, and you say, ‘What’s he talking about?’”

Okay… that’s interesting… it’s certainly negative and direct… but it has no hint of the drama of this piece.

Romney’s weird. Shocker. 4 years of jokes by comedians and this is breaking news?

Someone mentioned that GWBush was smart about pushing the idea of John Kerry as a dilettante from the start of their campaign, so now people are talking Swift Boat. But unless you believe the Swift Boat story to be true, there is ZERO suggestion of them wanting to “swift boat” Romney with false smears.

But at the core of what makes me nuts about this story is that while it uses all the tools of quality reporting, it’s shitty analysis that is way way way ahead of reality. It’s a manipulation of what they were told. It takes fairly reasonable arguments being made by Axelrod, who no doubt was only offering them because he was asked, and surrounding him with a dozen mostly unattributed people speaking in hyperbole and changing the entire tense of the story from future to now. They throw stuff out there like “skinny jeans” as an issue, offering no context… and I believe someone mentioned them. But they’ve contextualized it into what sounds like an absurd personal smear that will allegedly be the cornerstone of a campaign – which may not happen – between Obama and Rommey.

Of course, the subtext of the whole piece is that Obama won’t be able to run on his record, so he’ll have to smear the opposing candidate to get reelected. And maybe he will. And maybe he won’t.

If the piece was titled, “If Things Don’t Improve, Obama May Be Forced To Go After Romney On A Personal Level,” and the writing fit that headline, the piece would be accurate… and not explosive. But that wasn’t what they wanted to do.

As it is, with this breathless attention grabber, I agree with Romney’s camp. Team Obama sounds scared and petty and desperate. Romney couldn’t ask for a better headline. It’s the first time in weeks that someone has made him seem like the leader of the Republican Party.

And it doesn’t even matter that there are people on the right who lie about Obama all day every day. Two wrongs do not make a right.

Problem is… this isn’t real. It’s strategic conversation. And like gossip from a movie set, the reporter really doesn’t know shit about what the real outcome will be. Great… the movie star screwed 14 women in the cast & crew in 8 week. Golly! But unless you are going to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against him, all the world really wants to know is, how is the f-ing movie? However, TMZ can’t run a business discussing whether movies are good or bad. They need human bullshit.

All Politico knows right now is that it sounds good right now and no one is denying anything… because no one on the record really said much of anything. You can’t deny this broad a hypothetical. “Uh, no… we don’t think Romney’s weird.” No. Another hypothetical molehill has been blown up into a media mountain.

It makes me so sad when a guy like Chris Matthews bites on bait like this and keeps building the mountain with nothing but a hypothetical foundation. And don’t expect the rest of the media to lodge a protest either. They know a “good story.” Even if it’s a grossly overstated story. It draws suckers into the tent.

And almost worst of all… it will be forgotten before Labor Day. So very important now. But no important enough to remember. This is the Michelle Bachmann Newsweek cover of this week… as thought Newsweek has any influence at all anymore.

It feels like walking in quicksand some days.

Woe Is The Loneliest Number

Indiewire blogs…

Feminist Quote of the Day: Brit Marling
When talking to the Salt Lake City News about the whole “it girl” thing:
“When women enter the scene, they’re a commodity, and when men enter the scene, they’re actors.”
She hit it right on the head. All her interviews have been so interesting.

It would be a great quote if it were true.

Men and women are commodified differently, but both are commodified.

And when actors are not measured in dollars and cents, they are all seen as actors who can’t open movies, male or female.

Yes, there are few Brooklyn Decker careers for men, mostly because women don’t tend to attend movies to see a man’s pecs. But the truth is – we’ve had this conversation before – men don’t really go to movies to see boobs either. When Gerard Butler is used as bait for women, taking of his shirt is not the pitch and Katherine Heigl being manipulated to an unwelcome orgasm by a 9-year-old is. But in that movie, for instance, the studio is trying to sell the movie to men and to women and both elements are part of that.

And, in fact, I think Marling has acquitted herself quite well, reaffirming that she is a filmmaker who happens to be beautiful and not a beauty who has been given a break by cynical men.

And three Oscar nominees are playing The Hulk, Hawkeye, and Iron Man in The Avengers. Or is Scarlett the only one being commodified because, like Hemsworth and Evans, her suit will emphasize her upper torso?

In my short time chatting with Ms Marling, I have to say, I thought she showed more intelligence than to simplify this issue or any issue down to a soundbite. But media tours can wear people down.

“Nobody Throws Crazy in The Corner!”

BYOB: Scary Monday 8811