Say Hello to the New World Order, Same as the Old World Order

I watched Network yesterday as well as read the script as part of my winter scriptwriting initiative. The movie is impressively prescient on so many levels- from shock jocks to reality TV and beyond- but a particular speech I found particularly meaningful to our present. (I've quoted the script below, skip to the bottom to see it in glorious video).

Arthur Jensen:

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have merely stopped a business deal -- that is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and A T and T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably deter- mined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

Here it is in video:

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

Black Friday Blues

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I had a most excellent time. But that was yesterday. Today, I am at work while most of America is a churning mass of sweat, flesh, mangled adverts, clawing, sweaty palms, being bilked by false advertising, supply shortfalls, and smarmy, rude salespeople- wait, what am I missing again?

My sister and I drove up to visit our mother's sister (whom we only met a month ago) and her husband (who we hadn't met at all) in Schenectady, NY.

Highlight #1: Seeing a DVD of Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo on the rack of the news shop at a random rest-stop on the New York Thruway:

Highlight #2: Learning that Robert, my mother's sister's husband (he doesn't feel like an uncle), is good friends with Kevin Grevioux who wrote (and had a small role in) Underworld. He also writes for Marvel Comics. How cool is that?

That segways rather imperfectly into this slightly old news. Last weekend was the second challenge in round one of NYC Midnight's 2008 Screenwriting Championship. My first challenge screenplay placed second in my group. I felt better prepared for challenge #2. If you're interested in giving it a read, here it is.

Nobody Likes a Rat

Somebody tell it to him:

I'll stand over here.

Raiments of Rocky Eminence

The toddlers of Tribeca deserve a better class of high priced clothing boutique, or at least a high priced clothing boutique that can spell.

Z'baby needs zome help with ze zpelling.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am aware that "scarry" is a word. According to the Free Dictionary:

Scar'ry
a. 1. Bearing scars or marks of wounds.
1. 1. Like a scar, or rocky eminence; containing scars.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.

I am assuming that Z'baby meant to advertise a scary sale and not a sale like or resembling scars and wounds. I could be wrong. Maybe wearing wounds is the latest crazy, right up there with pogoing. You be the judge.

Maybe They Should Have Called Him Istanbulman?

As Yakov Smirnoff likes to say, 'What a country!" In this case, the country is Turkey in which the major of a town named Batman, (yes, Batman) is suing just about everyone involved with the celluloid caped crusader. From E Online (via Yahoo):

The mayor of Batman, a small oil-producing town in Turkey, has filed suit against The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros., the studio behind the record-shattering blockbuster, looking for a cut in the film's royalties in exchange for using the city's name without permission.

...In addition to the name share, [Batman's Major] claims the emotional distress that apparently comes from having one of the most indelible superheroes share a moniker with your town has led to several unsolved murders and a high suicide rate.

Source: "Batman's Latest Archenemy: Batman" by Gina Serpe

Let's hope the major of Joker, Texas, is less litigious.

Random Detritus: Going Negative Edition

I watched the second half of Frontline last night, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. Thanks to the wonder of DVR technology, I'll watch the front half tonight. Lee Atwater's life is a modern Faust morality play. As a political king-maker, he rose from obscurity to national prominence by doing anything and everything to ensure his side won. And it worked. Really, really well. From the top of the world, things came down hard and fast. After fainting during a speech, doctors discovered a tumor in his brain. In a matter of months, he lost his vitality, his strength, and then his life. Atwater died mostly alone, regretful, vilified by his detractors and never truly embraced by the kings he had made. It's a powerful story.

In other news, Sarah Palin called out bloggers as "kids in pajamas sitting in the basement of their parents' homes" being all mean-like. Oh, really? I for one do not favor PJs. I blog in the raw (a lovely image, I know). Way to make the Republicans seem even more curmudgeonly and out-of-touch, Ms. Palin! You're a pajama-wearing parents's-basement-living bloggers dream!

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And now for something completely different: a girl on a pogo stick!

I didn't even know someone still made pogos but nobody told this girl who was happily pogoing down Greenwich Street during my lunch hour yesterday. Out with the new, in with the old! The pogo stick is the new Segway. You heard it hear first.

Stop the Punishment

Marvel Comics must think they can do no wrong. Clearly they must if they're planning yet another Punisher film. From the looks of the poster, they're neither going back to Tom Jane or the venerable Dolf Lundgren (who probably could use the work). I have no idea who this guy is. I'm not sure I care.

Dare I suggest that this film will be right up there (down there) with Elektra and Ghost Rider? Yes, I dare.

I think part of the problem with bringing the Punisher character to the screen is that he really doesn't translate well off the screen. He's too dark, too unrepentant, too stern and grim. He's a character that's just begging for Hollywood to reimagine, soften, and cuddli-fy. Of course, won't that destroy the character? Yes. Yes, they do.

If they really want to do justice to the Punisher, put him against a hero such as in a Spiderman film. So you have the hero, and the anti-hero, and the film can revolve around the question of justice, justification, etc. It could be powerful. It could be. Really.

Barring that, why can't we skip this one and go directly to a Powerman & Iron Fist movie. That's where it's at. Really.

Obama Wins, Brooklyn Celebrates

Congratulations to the new president, you've got a lot of work ahead of you and, goodness knows, it's not going to be easy.

Many observers and pundits wondered morbidly what might happen if Obama lost after having the comfortable lead in just about all the polls leading up to election night. Thankfully, we don't have to worry about that. What we will need to worry about is the poison of partisanship that is boiling in this country's life blood. It's endemic on both sides of the two-party fence and it has to stop.

In his speech, Obama inserted a plea to an end of partisanship in his speech but a glance at Politico.com or any other of the campaign-tracking websites will show that his campaign was as guilty as McCain's of playing dirty with spins, half-truths, and outright falsities. It remains to be seen if, having now won the office, he can put down the tools that helped get him there.

My fear has always been that Obama will prove to be an ordinary president, not much different than any other of recent history. However, one thing cannot be understated or forgotten: his election marks a sea change in what is demonstrably possible in the nation. And more, that the youth of this nation can be galvanized behind a cause that they believe in- that such a cause exists at all- and can, in ways that even eluded the promise of the generation of the 1960s, see that cause to conclusion.

My neighborhood has been pro-Obama almost from jump street. From my bedroom, I could here cheers and car horns reverberating from down the block. While I waited for Obama's speech, I snuck out to see what was up.

Costume Culling & Pancakery

Back in my trick-or-treating days, I don't remember ever throwing away the sacred vestments of Halloween. Each cloak, each cape, each plastic prop and mask was a transformative charm that could be endlessly repurposed and reused. Apparently, even in a struggling economy, such frugality is no longer in vogue.

Some aspiring wizard is missing his broom.

Not far from the dumped magical implement was this slightly used pumpkin. There's something menacing in the way it stares out from atop its throne of trash:

Why is this guy smiling?

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In an attempt to lower my spending a bit this winter, I forwent brunch yesterday to make myself breakfast. In the process, I discovered something completely mind-blowing and wholly evil: Aunt Jemima Complete Pancake Mix. When they say complete, they mean it. All it needs is water, some whisking, and a hot griddle. It was all too easy to make. Though the resulting pancakes were horribly misshapen, they tasted awesome and took no more than five minutes to make from start to finish. This is something I don't need. I have seen the devil and it is thick, golden batter. Oh, sweet, sweet devil.

Happy All Saints Day!

Samhain and his brood have come and gone, apparently taking the cold weather with them. I played it pretty close to the vest last night. I was tired from the week. I didn't get any trick-o-treaters either. The young ones were already prowling the neighborhood for sucrose when I was getting home from work.

My neighbor spent last night moving out. He and I actually worked for the same company though in different offices and got there by different routes. He had worked for a small company that was then bought out. The overlords decided to jettison most of the acquired crew from that purchase, including him. There's a lesson in this story for me that I'll probably ignore. Moving out of your apartment on Halloween Friday must have been loads of fun.

You won't like him when he's angry... well, angrier anyway.

I watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown last night. I always loved the Peanuts holiday specials but this one might be my favorite. Is there any doubt that this is the type of family holiday special that would never get made today? You've got war imagery in the Snoopy vs. Red Baron sequences, you've got the questioning of faith in the Linus and the Great Pumpkin sequences with Lucy's great commercialism-laden rant about the cost of his faith measured in her loss of candy. "I should sue!" she tells him, "I should sue!" I wonder when some righteous group from one end of the spectrum or the other will pull enough strings to get it off the air. Which reminds me, I ought to pick it up on DVD along with the rest of the Peanuts specials.