October 7, 2008
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Glitter Girl Says: “A day without Pat Dollard is like a day without your weapon.”
9:00 A.M. PST
I’m back. In the saddle. Again. I’m back.
Site’s funky this morning as traffics extremely high, assload of outside linkage. We’re double checking the servers now. Fucking Bob Marley is the hold music at the server co. For three songs in a row now. Not in the mood….funny how calming music can enrage.
1:47 P.M.
Site’s been fucked all day due to our “success” with the exclusive presentation of the Soros-Scrubbed-From-Youtube SNL video you can find at the top of the main page. it’s been hard for people to log on, and for some reason, even harder for us to get to the internal pages where we update the site - hence the lack of updating. is it still called success when you have so many people coming to your site that no one can get to it? If a tree falls in…..
3:22 P.M.
We should soon be able to get new stuff up.
6:57 P,M.
New stuff is up, with plenty more coming, now that the massive mass of traffic from the SNL clip has mastly abated, slipping. We’ve got the biggest server available, without going into the realm of shit used by the likes of Amazon or Youtube. Be forewarned, problem could pick up again with the morning rush. We’re looking into some other possible server fixes, Chad said he already had something done just a little while ago, I’ll have to har from him exactly what that was.
So, uh, why are you reading this when there’s a debate on?
11:24 P.M.
W Review by Todd McCarthy of “Variety”. Todd helped make me a rich man with a review of “sex, lies and videotape” so good, Steven Soderbergh called it “a blow job”. Todd’s a Lefty.
Oliver Stone’s unusual and inescapably interesting “W.” feels like a rough draft of a film it might behoove him to remake in 10 or 15 years. The director’s third feature to hinge on a modern-era presidency, after “JFK” and “Nixon,” offers a clear and plausible take on the current chief executive’s psychological makeup and, considering Stone’s reputation and Bush’s vast unpopularity, a relatively even-handed, restrained treatment of recent politics. For a film that could have been either a scorching satire or an outright tragedy, “W.” is, if anything, overly conventional, especially stylistically. The picture possesses dramatic and entertainment value, but beyond serious filmgoers curious about how Stone deals with all this president’s men and women, it’s questionable how wide a public will pony up to immerse itself in a story that still lacks an ending.
As the film continues to bounce back and forth, between the Iraq-dominated presidency and George W.’s unlikely transformation from ne’er-do-well rich kid to born-again Christianity, sobriety, ambition and resolve, it occasionally delivers intimations of looming tragedy, or at least of history that didn’t have to unfold as it did. But the film is unable to achieve any aims higher than as a sort of engaging pop-history pageant and amateur, if not inapt, psychological evaluation, due to the unavoidable lack of perspective and a final act that has yet to be written. When the Texas flashbacks finally catch up with the Washington, D.C., framing device, the film suddenly becomes a half-documentary about the Iraq War, changing the tone as well as the up-close-and-personal feel.
The younger Bush is portrayed in lively fashion, much as one has always heard him described. First glimpsed in a metal tub being hazed for Yale frathouse membership, Dubya drinks hard, consorts with floozies, can’t hold a job, gets into Harvard Business School only thanks to Dadand loses a run for Congress in Texas, as he’s portrayed by his down-home opponent as “a carpetbagger from Connecticut”; afterward, in a memorable phrase, W. promises, “There’s no way I’ll ever be out-Texased or out-Christianed again.” He’s also fortunate early on to meet the right woman, Laura (Elizabeth Banks), a smart lady who readily recognizes his foibles but supports him step by step.
After years of aimlessness, the born-again moment arrives in the mid-’80s, when W. trades the bottle for Jesus. A few years later, when he sets his sights on the popular Ann Richards’ job, Ellen Burstyn, playing Barbara Bush, gets perhaps the film’s biggest laugh when, confronted with her son’s plans, she yelps, “Governor of Texas? You must be joking!” Dad tries to talk him into waiting four years, until 1998, so Jeb can lock up the Florida job first, but by now, W. is his own man, unwilling to follow his father’s orders or play second fiddle to his better-liked brother.
Stone and Weiser make no attempt to cover historical bases; Major episodes, including political campaigns, business alliances and elections, are completely omitted. Most scenes are devoted to illuminating particular aspects of George W. - examined in pithy interludes are his recklessness, people skills, insecurities, reliance upon Laura, impatience, belief that good will prevail and unwillingness to deviate once he’s made up his mind. Stone stands back as if to strenuously avoid the appearance of judging his subject even as he pigeonholes him psychologically.
3:37 A.M., the 8th, actually
Funny shit.
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