Can I complain about the summer films?
I really did not feel like this was a summer. I remember great summers with great movies. This past summer, not so much.
Book Club was good. I liked it. I
didn’t like the other comedies. Overboard needs Goldie Hawn, sorry.
Life of the Party was too much a tale of empowerment and too little a
comedy. I liked it but I didn’t love it. (I haven’t loved
a Melissa McCarthy movie since Spy. And she may be approaching too
many films that were only okay to be a box office draw anymore.) I Feel Pretty stunk and shouldn’t have been released.
Avengers Age Of Stupidity – that’s
what it should have been called. Awful. Hideous. Don’t do another
‘team’ film if you can’t feature women. I’m sick of the rank sexism.
I’m sick of the boys club. Marvel has still not done a film
starring a female in this decade. I’m sick of it. And I’m sick of
someone like Scarlet Witch – with enough powers to beat Thor or Hulk in
the comic books – being a little nothing in the movies. This is
nonsense.
Red Sparrow? I have mixed feelings on
it – more positive than negative and I think it’s a film that’s going
to age really well. I’d give it a low A but note that it is haunting
and it may end up being one of the best of its years as we
have more time to appreciate it.
For me, only four films came out this summer that I’d watch again: Book Club, Red Sparrow, Superfly and Sorry to Bother You.
The last one, Sorry to Bother You,
proves you can make a film with a political point of view that actually
works as a film – Jodie Foster and Matt Damon, take note. I would love
to see Lakeith Stanfield nominated for Best Actor at the
Oscars. I’d also love to see Arme Hammer nominated for Best Supporting
Actor. Arme was robbed of a nomination when that troll got nominated
instead for Call Me By Your Name. The kid was a cypher and people
projected onto him. Arme gave a real performance
in Call Me By Your Name and does again in Sorry To Bother You. But,
sorry Lakeith and Arme, I’d gladly give up both those deserved
nominations if Boots Riley could be nominated for Best Director. And if
he could win even better. I don’t want the consolation
prize of Best Screenplay. That’s what Quentin got for Pulp Fiction.
He should have gotten Best Director. And that’s the award Boots Riley
deserves. He’s made a real movie that makes you think and makes you
feel. It also entertains.
Superfly? It’s just a fun popcorn
movie and there’s nothing wrong with that. People try to make – or used
to – fun popcorn movies in the summer. But this summer, as you
watched, the fun tended to disappear. Superfly holds up. A really
strong film. Why didn’t it do better at the box office? Maybe Black Panther overkill. People wouldn’t shut up when they needed to. The
film was a huge hit, great. Didn’t like it, but great. But to keep
pushing that line over and over even after the film
was out of the top 20? My cousin refused to see Pacific Rim II because
he said it was trying to rip off Black Panther (because it had an
African-American lead). No. But that’s what happened some in the Black
community. What happened in the White community?
Ask someone else because I don’t know. But Superfly is a visual
delight and a wonderful summer movie.
But that’s it. Four movies I enjoyed. And I’m someone who goes to the movies constantly. A lousy summer.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, August 29, 2018.
Four days later and John McCain is still dead. The homophobic racist responsible for the deaths of so many is also still being celebrated in the corporate press as someone worthy of admiration. Betty demonstrates this in "US media embraces racism."
Four days later and John McCain is still dead. The homophobic racist responsible for the deaths of so many is also still being celebrated in the corporate press as someone worthy of admiration. Betty demonstrates this in "US media embraces racism."
WTF? UNPARALLED EXAMPLE OF HUMAN DECENCY? Ask the people in Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc. who have suffered from his warmaking. Even President Jimmy Carter called him a warmonger.
"He's dead and that's good. Good riddance," activist Dhoruba Bin Wahad declared yesterday on HARD KNOCK RADIO. "I don't see why we should grieve or have any sadness or melancholy over his passing. It's good riddance."
John McCain championed the wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Bosnia, Kosovo, Ukraine and many more. Millions of innocents have been killed, maimed and displaced.
But let’s just keep pretending he was all about “human rights” and “decency”.
Ann Garrison (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) observes:
I’ll be glad if I never hear John
McCain’s name again, but his death made me look back and try once more
to understand the US War with the Vietnamese People’s Army, whose
anti-aircraft gunners shot him out of the sky during his 23 bombing
raids over North Vietnam. On the “KPFA Radio "Sunday Sho w ,”
Kevin Alexander Gray said, “The national mourning for John McCain is
almost a referendum or a recasting of the Vietnam War, where every
soldier is a hero even though they were fighting in wars they had no
business fighting in. Everybody’s a hero.”
I don’t think “everybody’s a
hero,” least of all the son of Admiral John S. McCain, Sr., but I hugely
admire the soldiers who ended the Vietnam War by refusing to fight and
even fragging—shooting or throwing grenades at the commanders urging
them on. The antiwar movement at home supported those heroes, but they
were the ones who made it impossible to continue the war. They told
their story in the documentary film Sir, No Sir .
I felt for the wounded foot
soldiers writhing in agony in the final moments of Emile de Antonio’s
brilliant Vietnam War documentary In the Year of the Pig,and I felt angry at the politicians and anti-communist ruling class who sent them off to suffer and die. I hadn’t watched In the Year of the Pigfor
nearly 20 years, but it’s one of the most profound films I’ve seen
about the USA’s Vietnam War, so I watched it again, and I recommend it
to anyone reading this. Emile de Antonio doesn’t narrate the film; it’s
simply his composition of documentary footage. It’s also one of the few
documentaries made while the war was still going on.
In the Year of the Pigwas
released in 1968, though the 20thCentury “Years of the Pig” in the
Zodiac Calendar were 1935, 1959, 1971, 1983, and 1995, so there’s no
doubt that the pig in the film is the US in Vietnam.
Most of the footage exposes the
presidents, military officers and congressmen—and they were all men—who
championed the war until the foot soldiers refused to fight. Its other
subjects are the Vietnamese they knew next to nothing about.
If only the lust for empire could be buried with John McCain. Instead it continues though, from time to time, it does suffer setbacks.
Despite US 
@brett_mcgurk's push to delay #Iraq's 
#Kurdistan elections & after a meeting w various #Kurdish parties, PM Nechirvan Barzani @PMBarzani just announced that it will happen on time & as planned
@brett_mcgurk's push to delay #Iraq's #Kurdistan elections & after a meeting w various #Kurdish parties, PM Nechirvan Barzani @PMBarzani just announced that it will happen on time & as planned
Brett McGurk has been defeated for now. The desert rat first carried out the orders of Bully Boy Bush, then Barack Obama and today Donald Trump. Most Iraqis learned not to trust him before Bully Boy Bush left the White House.
He helped start the Iraq War and it continues to this day. ALJAZEERA reports, "At least eight people have been killed and 12 wounded in a suicide car bombing at a checkpoint near the Iraq-Syria border."
The war is not ending. Americans have been allowed to turn away in part due to a corrupt media that ignores the war and in part due to the apathy that can set in when something -- even an injustice -- continues for years and years.
The costs of the Bush-Obama wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now estimated to run as high as $4.4 trillion - a major victory for Osama bin Laden, whose announced goal was to bankrupt America by drawing it into a... facebook.com/NoamChomskyF/p…
The corrupt media distracts and covers for the exploitation of the American people, for the robbery carried out by the US government. The huge debt will be passed on to the future generations. Their future has been sold.
What did the US government buy with all this money? Grains of shifting sand. They keep trying to set up a puppet government and the Iraqi people keep rejecting it. To ensure that the puppet government in the Green Zone is propped up, US troops remain in Iraq. It's why John McCain was willing to allow them to be stationed there for 100 years or more -- to take control of Iraq with the puppet government and keep control out of the Iraqi people's hands.
A new spin on foreign interference in Iraq: There is a desperate attempt to help @HaiderAlAbadi stay in office. Those aiding him are attributing outrage against Abadi’s failures to Iranian influence on Iraqi public. #FAKENEWS Iraqis want BOTH Iran and Abadi out of Iraqi politics.
Whenever the Green Zone is in trouble, the US government panics. It's the seat of the puppet government, usually walled off from the rest of Iraq, filled with various puppets and corrupt officials.
This go round, the US government is still stomping its feet. May 12th, the winner was supposed to be Hayder al-Abadi. He did not win. He came in third. First place when to the group headed by Shi'ite cleric and movement leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Second place went to the militias. Third place went to Hayder.
Third place. For the sitting prime minister. The term for that is "rebuke."
The rebuke continues with the protests that have been going on since the start of July.
These protests are already intense but, Friday, they will get a lot more intense.
Iraqi election winner & influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr @Mu_AlSadr calls for a “peaceful protest” in what he described as “a call to build a new #Iraq ” in a million-man mass prayer in Al-Kufa Mosque in Najaf, this coming Friday.
facebook.com/salihMAliraqii…
” in a million-man mass prayer in Al-Kufa Mosque in Najaf, this coming Friday.
facebook.com/salihMAliraqii…
In Basra, where the protests kicked off, the people are without so much. They do, however, have water -- contaminated water, possibly deadly water.
CC: @IraqiGovt, A man from #Basra has a message for you. He stated that many have warned against water pollution in Basra for years, describing those who ignored the warnings as “murderers.” He added, while politicians fight over power, people are dying.#IraqProtests #البصرة_تباد
CC: @HaiderAlAbadi; @AdelaAlaboudi, These people standing in front of Al-Joumhouri Hospital in #Basra stated that there are more than 15 thousand poison cases caused by toxic water, describing the situation as “genocide.” #IraqProtests #انقذوا_البصرة #البصرة_تستغيث #البصرة_تموت
Confirmed chemical analysis from #Basra shows the water of ShatalArab is contaminated with cyanide compounds. Cyanide concentration is 0.03 mg/l which exceeds the recommended level.After preliminary treatment, this water is pumped to the locals for daily consumption.#Save_Basra
The following community sites -- plus DISSIDENT VOICE and PACIFICA EVENING NEWS -- updated:
Carly and Mick
6 hours ago
Aaron Mate
6 hours ago
That disgusting Rachel Maddow
8 hours ago
Ridiculous Carl Bernstein and CNN
8 hours ago
It was worse than Watergate
10 hours ago
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