Day: September 22, 2010

LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein Attacks Libertas Over Prince of Persia Review

By Jason Apuzzo. The LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein apparently wasn’t very pleased with Govindini’s DVD review of Prince of Persia from this past weekend. Patrick attacked the premise of Govindini’s piece yesterday, dismissing suggestions that the film has an anti-Iraq War subtext as “far fetched,” and rather ungraciously calling the review a “screed” in a piece over at the LA Times’ site.

Govindini herself will be responding to Patrick later, but I wanted to throw in my own thoughts on the matter.

• First of all, let me begin by saying that we don’t write “screeds” here at Libertas. Patrick really should know better than that – he must be confusing us with another site. Govindini’s piece is actually rather drily written – in fact, our readers were surprised that she invested so much care and analysis into an otherwise trite film – and her argument is well-referenced with respect to details within the film. I’m at a loss to understand how anyone who isn’t ideologically-driven could possibly read the piece, or what’s on this site regularly, and refer to it as a “screed.” The only “screed” here actually is the film – not our pointing out what’s in it.

• What’s extraordinary is that Patrick’s own piece neither refutes nor even addresses any of the specific details the review made about the film. He simply passes Govindini’s entire thesis off as “far fetched,” without actually engaging any of its details. Suffice it to say that if what she’s saying is so “far fetched,” why did he feel compelled to write the article then?

• Patrick’s entire ‘refutation’ of Govindini’s thesis amounts to this: that the film’s producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, is a Republican –  and therefore the film simply couldn’t have an anti-Iraq War subtext. In other words, Bruckheimer’s party affiliation alone is supposed to make the actual content of the film irrelevant.

If that’s the case – i.e., if a filmmaker’s political affiliations are entirely determinative of the content of their films – then here are a few cases I’d like Patrick to address:

  • How it is that ‘Republican’ Rupert Murdoch’s Fox funded and released Avatar, which more or less everyone on planet Earth (save Patrick?) agrees was as ideologically left-wing as any film Michael Moore or Oliver Stone has ever made?
  • How is it that ‘Republican’ Sylvester Stallone could make The Expendables, featuring a waterboarding former CIA operative as a villain?
  • How is it that ‘Hollywood liberals’ Steven Spielberg and George Lucas could make Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, featuring murderous Soviet spies bent on mind-control as villains?
  • How is it that ‘Hollywood liberal’ Angelina Jolie could make Salt, featuring rogue ex-communist agents as villains?
  • How is it that the first major Hollywood film made about Nelson Mandela (Invictus) was made by ‘right wing Republican’ Clint Eastwood? I would’ve thought good ‘Hollywood liberals’ would’ve beaten Clint to the mark on that one.

I could go on but you get the point. [I could spend an hour writing about all the left-wing content that eventually appeared in the ‘right wing’ show 24, for example.] None of these cases really make sense, if what Patrick says is true. Because actually, I dare say that it’s Patrick who is viewing things here in a somewhat simplistic manner, if he thinks that something as complicated as a film can have its meaning neatly and easily grasped by looking at the party affiliation of the producer writing the checks. I’m surprised I even have to say that to someone as otherwise savvy as Patrick is.

What we try to focus on here at Libertas – and the Stallone/Expendables controversy really demonstrated this – is the content of entertainment, rather than what ‘team’ entertainers are supposedly on.

For example, just recently we reported here at Libertas how Mad Men’s Jon Hamm made disparaging remarks about the Tea Party. It was disappointing to report that, because we like Hamm’s show here – and we suspect that a lot of people who attend Tea Parties do, as well. Interestingly, however, we haven’t stopped reviewing Hamm’s show – i.e., we haven’t junked it – just because one actor made a few injudicious remarks. Hamm’s private opinions are ultimately his own, and aren’t dispositive of the meaning of the show. It would actually be silly to think they were.

The interesting thing is that earlier this summer, in a different context, Patrick seemed very much in agreement with us here about the political subtext of both present and past science fiction cinema. Patrick himself was floating some pretty wild ideas about the recent wave of alien invasion projects, even going so far as to suggest that these new movies are a reaction to “the collapse of the economy.” Now that’s really far fetched, Patrick – unless you associate alien invaders with T.A.R.P.

Let me conclude, though, with the real whopper line in Patrick’s article from yesterday.

There are tons of liberals in showbiz, but when it comes to big-budget studio films, all those liberals check their politics at the door. They’re trying to sell movie tickets, not make converts.

I don’t even know where to begin here. Patrick, are you kidding me? Please convey all this to James Cameron, or Oliver Stone, or Roland Emmerich – because I suspect those particular Hollywood liberals and makers of ‘big-budget studio films’ would passionately disagree with you. Your argument is as much with them as it is with us here. I don’t know how you missed the memo on this, but Hollywood has cheerfully branded itself as liberal – even if not 100% of the time – and nobody feels any compunctions any more about jamming politics into big-budget fare if they feel like it. That Rubicon was crossed long ago.

Posted on September 22nd, 2010 at 1:02pm.

Mad Men Season Four: Episode 8, “The Summer Man,” and Episode 9, “The Beautiful Girls”

By Jennifer Baldwin. I’ve always felt we do our resolutions at the wrong time of the year. New Year’s Day, in the midst of bleak winter, feels too dark, too endless for making resolutions and changing our lives. In winter, we’re just trying to survive. A change in lifestyle, a plan for improvement is too much to ask when we’re barely hanging on.

But Summer – ah, summer! Summer is the time for resolutions. It’s the time for rebirth, for changing our lives. It’s the time to finally start writing that novel, the time to finally lose those last ten pounds, the time to be reborn. It’s too bountiful and warm to be anything but a rebirth. The “Summer Man” is the man who lives fully, who faces the world with confidence and verve, who changes his life for the better because he’s sick of the dark, pallid face of life’s winter.

Don regains control.

Last week I identified with Peggy, but this week I’m with Don. It’s a writer thing. Whenever we scribes feel down or adrift, whenever life is careening out of control, we turn to the one thing that always feels right:  we write. Don’s got his notebook open, his thoughts spilling out in an epic free-write of soul-baring confessionals and existential poetry. It is through this act of writing that Don regains control of his life. It’s not just a diary or a journal for writing, “Here’s what I did today …” – it’s a way to say, “Here’s what I thought today, here’s what I fear today, here’s what I want today, and everyday, and always.” It’s a way that we writers give our lives meaning. By journaling, by solidifying our thoughts and feelings in written words, we can find a path out of the darkness. In “The Summer Man,” it seems Don is beginning to find his way out of that darkness.

He swims, he cuts back on the drinking, he gets his mojo back with the ladies. My prediction from a few weeks ago came true (sorta): Don and Faye hooked up (sorta). They had a date, the romantic sparks were flying, but unfortunately for my prognostications, they didn’t actually sleep together because Mad Men – even when it’s predictable – is never predictable. It was Don who put the kibosh on having sex with Faye. Color me surprised, but this is the new Don, the journal writing Don, the summer man Don. The Don who wants to be there for his youngest son’s birthday party. Little baby Gene shares a lot in common with Don. They were both conceived “in desperation,” their homes broken by infidelity and upheaval. But for much of last season and the beginning of this season, it seemed like Gene was more Betty’s child than Don’s. He seemed an afterthought to Don.

Things seem to change with this episode, though. Now Don yearns for his son. He seems ready to be there for baby Gene in a way that his own father was not for him. He risks the wrath of Betty to be there at the birthday party. And to Betty’s credit, she’s perfectly civil.

Don gets his mojo back.

It’s interesting that this episode is called “The Summer Man,” when so much time is spent with the ladies of Mad Men. I could write a billion things about modern feminism and the behavior of both Joan and Peggy in reaction to Joey The Freelancer’s disgusting bullying. Suffice to say, this episode just goes to show how subtle, even-handed, and ultimately un-PC Mad Men really is when it comes to cultural politics. Peggy is the “new woman,” a trailblazer for modern feminism (even if she doesn’t know it yet). She asserts herself like a man, fires Joey, and in the biting words of Joan, confirms to the men in the office that she’s “a humorless bitch.” I’ll admit it; I fist-pumped when Peggy fired Joey. He was an ass.

But Joan is older than Peggy, and her approach is not that of the new feminism. Joan’s approach is the “old school” method of using feminine wiles to get ahead in a man’s world. Joan would have gotten the same result (no more Joey), but she would have done it in the subtler way of the female – using persuasion, discretion, and yeah, okay, a little bit of sex appeal. The show doesn’t say one approach is better than the other, but give it credit for taking the wind out of Peggy’s sails and showing that women were being assertive and getting what they wanted (through uniquely feminine means) long before the “humorless bitch” brigade of modern radical feminism came on the scene. Continue reading Mad Men Season Four: Episode 8, “The Summer Man,” and Episode 9, “The Beautiful Girls”