Fitz!

ZERO!

ratz ; )

“Fight Club” – pure and simple.

Crush the establishment, cut through the bullshit.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
A TALE FOR OUR TIMES

http://www.gadflyonline.com/11…..chers.html

====Look! You fools! You’re in danger! Can’t you see? They’re after you! They’re after all of us! Our wives…our children…they’re here already! You’re next!—Dr. Miles Bennell

In Body Snatchers, the pod people, who, like McCarthy and the other red-baiters, look like typical, fine upstanding Americans, search out rebels like Miles who refuse to conform to what has been newly defined as the “American Way”—just as McCarthy and HUAC destroyed the lives of those who refused to knuckle under to their directives. The mob hysteria, the sense of paranoia, the fascist police, the witch hunt atmosphere of the picture certainly mirrors the ills of McCarthy’s America.===

hmmm. . . the YouTube link is not working. . . Jane, help!!!

1984: the political overtones are quite subtle, but they’re present to the discerning eye.

Or, more seriously, Warlock.

EPU’d a thread back and OfT:
Mary,can you imagine the fun when the civil filings begin?

wrt the pardon-limits question, I’d wondered about the legality of a pardon issued by a president who has become the subject of a House jc inquiry versus a pardon issued prior to a president becoming the subject, etc.

Curious minds wonder, is all.
ralphinlex

To be clear, I mean this Warlock.

Good Sci-Fi author that was way ahead of his times with lots of social commentary: John Brunner.

Wrote “The Jagged Orbit”, “Stand On Zanzibar”, “The Sheep Look Up”, “The Shockware Rider” and more.

Was a favorite of mine in the late 60s/early 70s, and his work still stands the test of time!

Citizen Ruth, Alexander Paynes’ first movie (he did Election…also a good flick). Anyhow, Citizen Ruth is a satiric look at abortion….really. And it is bitingly funny. Laura Dern was fabulous, as were Swoozie Kurtz and, I’m not kidding, Burt Reynolds is a really edgy role. It is one of my favorite movies. Rent it. You will not be disappointed.

I dropped the YouTube link that wasn’t working. Maybe Jane can add it later if she’s around. Put the picture up instead. Oh well.

Good discussion already going, though!

I’m gonna break yr rule and restrict myself to science fiction:
Heinlein’s politics are usually odious, but The Moon is a Harsh Mistress — about a revolt in a former penal colony on the moon — has some good stuff about anarchism and the necessity of freedom.
Vonnegut.
Harlan Ellison.
Robert Silverberg’s Dying Inside.
LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.
Octavia Butler (RIP).

Three cheers to Markos and Jerome! Markos in particular is really becoming quite good on TV.

Sorry all, I had the repeat time for Kos on Tim Russert an hour early. The second repeat is coming up on CNBC in a couple of hours, check your local listing ; )

JAWS:

Kids, if you are going to go fishing, make sure your boat is big enough.

“Audition” – Subtle Japanese gender equality flick

There aren’t “overtones” so much as overt political elements, but Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’ Ex Machina is a currently ongoing comic series that’s really excellent.

Also “Blade Runner”. Corporate controlled society at its inevitable conclusion.

The 1979 “Body Snatchers” (set in pre-AIDS San Francisco with a bathhouse scene and pop culture psychology) You survived and avoid detection by not showing any emotion in public which is a twist on the theme of the original cold war era movie.

The “Dirty Harry” series which attacked the liberal establishment but grew in later films to include a woman partner and made villains of law-and-order vigilantism.

“They Live” — John Carpender’s alien invasion — the news media is complicit in the take over.

Everyone should rent “John Carpenter’s They Live.” Sure it’s a cheesy sci-fi flick, but it was also one of the most political movies of the 80s – and it’s even more relevant now.

The plot for those of you who haven’t seen it: when a homeless man puts on an unusual pair of sunglasses, he discovers that aliens live among us – and the rich and powerful have sold us (and our planet) out to them while putting the masses to sleep with subliminal messages.

It touches on everything from the media being bought and paid for to the rich sacrificing our environment for a profit.

AND it stars “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. You can’t beat that.

– If you wanna add comix, I’d vote for Moore and Campbell’s From Hell — tho the movie version wasn’t fantastic.

Frank Herbert’s incomparable “Dune” series has it all – politics, religion, war, empire.

If you wanna add comix, I’d vote for Moore and Campbell’s From Hell %u2014 tho the movie version wasn’t fantastic.

Anything Moore is worth reading! :-)

the only thing I read is historical fiction, so there’s nothing without a political component.

rcauthen, you’re brave, pissing on Jane’s movie in her own house, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5b_awYyLYs

Pach- try this link.

I like Zelazny. John Varley writes some interesting stuff about gender politics, though movie versions of his stuff have been ghastly.

So, I’ve been on an internet-less island for three weeks. Have I missed anything? Has Bush been impeached yet? Does he have approval ratings in the teens?

Of course, Blade Runner — for the “You are paid to hunt THEM, but you might be one of THEM yourself” theme, driven home when the last of the replicants saves Deckert from falling to his death after pausing to remark to him, “An interesting feeling, isn’t it, living in fear? That’s what it’s like to be a slave.” And then the replicant’s death, when he tries so hard to tell Deckart something to prove that life has meant something to him after all…. “I’ve seen things you people could never imagine….” and all he has to offer is a few empty images of battlefields.

Time to die, indeed.

“The Candidate” with Robert Redford was my first realization that politics might be different than civics class implied.

Herbert’s “Dune” — okay, David Lynch’s too — shows what an interstellar resource war might look like. Heavy-handed, but still a terrific reminder how empires can be quickly brought low.

I will admit to still getting chills when I see Charlton Heston’s final scene in “Planet of the Apes,” on the beach with… well, you know.

“Boys in the Band” was an eye-opener. And I think there’s a lot of credit not given to “Making Love,” as a film that moved the culture. Now, of course, a great pre-AIDS period piece. Then, bold and scary. Plus, Harry Hamlin!

VG:

Thanks. I have the link. It’s just wacky to get it to embed in WordPress. Jane knows how to do it but it involves tech wonkery. Our code writer created a utility in the posting software but it’s not working for me.

The pic will do for now. Thanks anyway!

Dersu Uzala –

Temroc –

The Immortal Story –

Jules and Jim –

Dumbo! Poor creature was born different. How his mother tried to protect him! But no, she was locked up for being so militant. To make matters worse, the young elephant was then assigned to a troop of malicious clowns and he had to wear makeup, of all things! Poor Dumbo. And yet, there was hope in the form of one of the tiniest of creatures, a mouse who gave him the confidence to soar.

Pach — You should be seeing it now. I put it in but you took it out when you edited it — you can’t edit it any more or it will eat it (glitch we haven’t figured out yet).

Invasion of the Body Snatchers – feels like we’re living it every time we watch a filibuster collapse.

Omega Man.

The Matrix trilogy. (with emphasis on the first in the series; if I could pick an avatar for my life, it would be Trinity.)

The X-Files (”Trust No One” and “The Truth Is Out There.”)

The Fifth Element. (Love and faith will conquer evil and greed.)

Alien. (the first one – definitely; the crew screwed over by corporate and nationalistic greed.)

Hero. (”Qin: Our Land” — a statement about the ultimate sacrifices for an ideal of a unified people.)

Robots. (Yes, even a subversive anti-corporatist cartoon for the kids, delightful fun.)

Just for starters…I haven’t even dug back into the 80’s and earlier.

Thanks, Jane. No more edits, I swear!

Does South Park count?

(the episode trying to get Tom Cruise out of the closet was a truly a hoot)

And yes, I believe I have now made it into the record books as having the world’s most prolonged adolescence.

Valerie’s letter in V for Vendetta, which I understand made it into the movie more or less intact.

“A Clockwork Orange”, especially the book by Anthony Burgess (although the movie was amazing).

op99 #26 – Really? Oops. Well, I didn’t say it was bad.
I’ll assume Jane’s creative decisions were to cast Ian Holm and the guy who played Depp’s deputy, and that she had nothing whatsoever to do with the casting of Heather Graham.
And just bought this this evening — tho it’s not really “pop” — The Poem That Changed America: “Howl” Fifty Years Later

Star Trek and M*A*S*H are the two biggest TV shows with a progressive message.

Could you imagine the conservative corporate media doing a M*A*S*H today in prime time?

I should also include “Fahrenheit 451″ by Ray Bradbury…again, the book over the movie.

Highly OT, but timely…is it just me, or is this the most conciliatory interview anyone has seen Timmeh the Punkinhead give any progressives or Dems, EVER??

I must say it’s so conciliatory that it smelled like a damned set-up, made me feel towards the end like yelling, RUN, MARKOS!! RUN, JEROME!! BEFORE THE POD EATS YOUR BRAINS, RUN!!!

omg, Rob (if that is your name!) I completely spaced on Trek. Well, of course.

Funny you should show Clint Eastwood’s pic. One of my favorite movies, ever, was directed by Sondra Locke. Clint’s ex long time live-in girlfriend who he later throughly trashed and pretty much had blacklisted in Hollywood as I understand it.

The movie is called “Impulse”, starring Theresa Russell ; )

Shit!…is it too late for me to add Aldous Huxley’s classic “Brave New World”?

Maybe I should just wait and list them all at once.

Nah…what’s the fun in that?

Rayne, that particular Russert show has the “Larry King” format where guests are allowed to sell their stories without much challenge.

Kos and Jerome did great! It repeats again at 1 AM ET where I live.

The new Battlestar Galactica. Great performances, characterization, writing, meditations on war and terror. Avoids so many sci-fi errors and cliches, maybe because the writer did 10 years on various Star Trek franchises.

From EPU land:

Watching Jerome and Markos tonight, I was struck not only by how polite their host, Russert, was for a change, but how “nice” they all were. What a nice conversation they all had, about politics and political movements and building political parties.

Then I come here and see that over several threads you’ve all struggled with a horrible war, shameful war profitteering, shameful attacks on the constitution, shameful failures of the press, shameful failures of the Rubberstamp Republicans and shameful failures of leadership by the Dems, and on and on. The dominant emotion here is anger — indeed, barely suppressed outrage. And Pach’s theme: anger as pop culture, and then as political commentary.

I’m watching some book fair on C-SPAN 2 with two liberals and two “conservatives,” and the audience applauds only when they can express their agreement with the anger of both sides railing equally against the war and other outrages of the present administration. Here’s Buchanan wondering why Congress isn’t holding hearings on all this stuff, and Arianna venting about the fearful Dems, and Frank Rich doing his thing on Bush, and Andrew Sullivan expressing dismay at how “they” stole “conservatism” to subvert the Constitution and notions of limited government and separation of church/state.

So the problem with all the press articles we’ve been talking about, and the problem with all of the tv show line-ups tomorrow is that the overwhelming anger and outrage that are engulfing the country are not showing up in the news stories and the Sunday news shows. This is the most fundamental disconnect in perceptions of what’s important that I’ve seen in my lifetime, and I cannot account for it nor guess how it can be reconciled. But this is so unstable a condition that I cannot imagine how it cannot blow up, sooner or later.

rcauthen — the graphic novel of From Hell is absolutely brilliant. The movie is absolutely…um…not. And that’s all I’ll say on the subject.

And let’s not forget the eclectic William Gibson; author of Neuromancer, Count Zero, Johnny Mnemonic , Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light, Idoru and more.

And we all thought corporations were evil today. Compared with William Gibson’s visions, they’re closer to mom and pop shops!

“Then there are populist entertainments with fascist undertones, like Rambo”

A slight disagreement. I don’t see the “fascist undertones”…and, the movie IN NO WAY accurately depicted US Army Special Forces Soldiers….but that’s a side issue.
To return to your theme….I’ll mention the movie Rollerball. A fascinating look at corporate take-over of many things of everyday life.
On books….perhaps many of the (now deceased) Robert Ludlum books. Oh….yes, they’re all action packed…but they also usually feature an villain which is some all-powerful international conglomerate.
Thanks for ther article.
Ghostman

lord of the rings

Ron Zuber (49) — so does Russert set the hook by inviting them to come on Sunday morning and twist some of the content from this interview against them? That’s what worries me.

Punkinhead came close towards the end of interview when questioning the God-guns-gays bit, wasn’t accepting Kos’ point that these issues are less vital on a daily basis to voters than personal economics. I suspect this is the rub the right will challenge.

Movies: Strangelove, All the President’s Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Network, Citizen Ruth, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Kubrick.

A reference was made to Blade Runner. Best to refer to Phillip K Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.

That movie was a pale imitation of the story. Sorta like the filming of We Can Remember it For You Wholesale which became Total Recall in the theatre.

But for this crowd, the book to read is Bug Jack Baron by Norman Spinrad or Interface by Neal Stephenson and his uncle writing as Stephen Bury. Those books are about the manipulation of the electorate.

Rayne #45-
Timmy knows Jerome and Markos would cut his peas off if he even tried to get huffy with them. It was purely self preservation on his part. He was out classed and knew it.

Any Tom Robbins novel!!

Don’t dismiss Heinlein too quickly. “Citizen of the Galaxy” deals with slavery, bigotry and plutocracy, “Stranger in a Strange Land” with religion and personal liberation and even “Podkayne of Mars” while mostly juvenile had a quite forward looking and subversive attitude, for the time, towards women’s roles in society. Most precient “If this goes on” is about the “second American revolution” in which secular forces overthow a benighted theocracy.

Can’t forget Metropolis (1927 silent film)

I hope someone will post a video link at some point for the Jerome-Markos-Timmeh show.

Jane -
OK. I did like Natural Born Killers a lot.

Woody Allen’s “Sleeper.” Funny, yes. Silly, yes. But it’s also every bit as valid a depiction of dystopia as, oh, “Fahrenheit 451″ if not “Brave New World.” And there is one line of dialogue that puts it there. Diane Keaton’s character says as one point, “Why would anyone want to rebel, anyway? We have the orb and the orgasmatron.” (Quote from memory, BTW.) And that, friends, is as neat a summation of how societies go wrong as you could ask for.

But that’s just me…

here’s two votes for one piece of work:
“being there”, the novella by jerzy kosinski: very funny and wise political fable set in washington, dc.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ…..oding=UTF8

and “being there”, the film adaptation starring the genius of comic understatement, peter sellers. http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ…..&n=130

Damn, forgot Bob Roberts.

Just want to add (because I’m a dorky English professor) that since Pach mentioned the themes/politics in James Whale’s Frankenstein, I’d like to plug the actual book, written by an 18-year-old Mary Shelley, published in 1818, which has an even richer amount of political and social commentary in it than the movie. It was published before the idea of “pop culture,” was pretty well-regarded in its day, and has never been out of print–ever. And my students generally really enjoy reading it, even though (maybe because??) it makes them think. So, I call that pop culture.

Sorry for the geek explosion, but this is my area of expertise, literature and popular culture…

Catch-22.
The River Why and The Brothers K.

I really like the old Spencer Tracy flick,
Bad Day at Black Rock It’s about white supremacy.
I think John Ford’s “The Searchers” however is better and much better known.
On the Waterfront is ofcourse a towering achievement, even without Brando’s, and Rod Steiger’s really terrific performances. Elie Kazan, however, is responding to his critics in “Waterfront,” who said he caved into Joe McCarthy. Kazan’s ex-friend, Arthur Miller, who didn’t give McCarthy shit any information, responded with the THE CRUCIBLE. As I understand it, CRUCIBLE doesn’t get written without Marilyn Monroe’s money.
Casablanca is all about the Vichy French during WWII, so it deserves mention imo.
I’m glad you mentioned Frankenstein. When Mary Shelley wrote it, her title was “Frankenstein’s Monster.” Dr. Frankenstein, not the monster, was the villian. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, imo also has some strong political themes about those who would suck the life out of us.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Count of Monte Christo (V for Vendetta prequel), Don Quioxte, all have the liberal anti-monarchy , aka separation of powers, theme that the neocons and the WH have forgotten about.
All Quiet on the Western Front is the classic anti-war movie from the German, WWI, perspective.

Rayne,

It seemed to me Russert was trying to play the per usual political name game, i.e. conservative, liberal, gods, guns, and gays etc. Kos wasn’t playing that. Russert looked frustrated but at the same time impressed I think.

lou ziegler 66, good one, I forgot about that. If only our current Chance the Gardener was as sweet and benign as the original.

One of my oldest favorites is A Tale of Two Cities, with Ronald Colman and Edna May Oliver: each upholding human decency against political extremism, each in their own very different ways.

Another favorite was The Day the Earth Stood Still – a noble message of nuclear restraint, carried by a noble messenger (who was of course hunted down and killed). And a cracking good sci-fi film besides.

Argh! I thought I closed the italics in my last, but apparently not…sorry.

scarecrow (51) — didn’t Kos and Jerome look like just another couple of pot-smoking tie-dye-wearing latte-sipping Volvo-driving Bush-bashing gay-loving God-hating angry-liberal freaks, though?

I think they were very effective making the case that they are anything but that — and by extension, that we are anything but that. They calmly made the case that we are very angry with do-nothings and entrenched beltway types in our own party (HRC getting 2% in a DKos poll — jeebus!!), let alone how we felt post-2000/post-2004.

The anger the country is feeling is not going to survive translation to the corporate media easily; I think the media is not only complicit, but suffering from a form of cognitive dissonance. They simply cannot see it, the utter disgust and frustration out here, hence even the quizzical attitudes about the economy (Geez, the economy is going gang-busters? Why aren’t voters happy??)

It might not break through until some reporters get caught up in a stampede of angry marchers.

Wag the Dog.

I think The Da Vinci Code, which I loved for its theological/political overtones, was dissed by the conventional critics not because it was a “bad movie” — it’s a fine movie, IMO — but because it goes directly at the dominant political foundations of our culture. This is the movie critics’ counterpart of the MSM, and they’re doing the same thing and for the same reasons.

A movie that suggests that the right’s religious founder was mortal, and that a woman should be accorded a prominent place in the foundations of the Christian movement strikes at the heart of the religious right, whether they are fundamentalist-evangelicans or fundamentalist Catholics. And to have someone as quintessentially American as Tom Hanks play a hero in the unmasking of this religious “mystery” must scare the hell out of every god-spouting politician in the country.

Go see it, just for the political fun of it, and pay no attention to the critics.

Jane.

Bad people arrested in Canada today. Citizens. Making bombs.

The poor and downtrodden. Big News.

kind regards

Dave

Science fiction is a standin for political commentary. 1950s scifi movies were often allegories of the Cold War. The aliens were the evil Commies. Interestingly, The Day the Earth Stood Still was produced just before this trend. In it, the aliens are the good guys and we are the violent jerks.

Another movie I liked although it’s a little stiff is Inherit the Wind (Scopes trial). I loved Gene Kelly’s small role in it as the cynical newspaperman. And that, of course, reminds of His Girl Friday and all of the Frontpage remakes.

I don’t know if The Third Man qualifies or not but the scene with Orson Welles on the carousel looking at all the small people below and blowing them off is brilliant. I remember I liked Gandhi when it came out. I wonder if I would like it as much now? And the Godfather I & II are great metaphors for how government act internally and among themselves. It is chock full of good quotes almost all of them political and topical.

op99 – Wag the Dog! Great satire! Good one.

Watership Down

BTW, a lot of these aren’t undertones at all, unless “All the President’s Men” was just really bad at subtlety (was it really a romantic comedy or something?)

Seconding Mad Dog @ 53: William Gibson looks around, thinks a bit, and then writes stories that extrapolate current cultural-political-economic trends just that wee bit further, so that everyone who’s currently soaking in them (us) gets a chilly little glance at where it looks like we’re headed. Pattern Recognition would strike a few familiar notes for anyone who spends time in online communities, for example.

His stories are about art and money, people and power, the commons and the corporations; they’re exciting and plotty and also pointed and observant. His characters are always human, his stories likewise.

So…how’d Kos and Jerome get on Russert’s program?? Did somebody tip off Russert about the Roots Project with the delivery of all the CtG copies to Dem members of Congress?

Pach? you heard anything about this?

I also note no mention of YKos, either; I think that’s a good thing, should be off their radar.

The film Fahrenheit 451, The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, and SouthPark.

Don’t dismiss Heinlein too quickly.

If it weren’t for the incest obsession……

Featured in all three of the stories you cite.

George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara”. It’s basically a retelling of the story of Job but majorly twisted with a women in the Job role and a biting comentary on society. Originally a play, the film version is excellent with Robert Morely as the (capitalist) devil.

Iron Giant came to mind — great animated flick with anti-war themes.

You can say William Gibson, but I think Bruce
Sterling has a subtler take.

The first thing that comes to mind is a little film by a guy called George Lucas. No, not *that* little film, but ‘THX-1138,’ which was recently released on DVD as one of Lucas’ computer-age remixes.

And another vote for John Carpenter’s ‘They Live,’ which is one of those movies that knows it’s a movie, and knows it’s an allegory, and is thus free to be as much fun as possible. It has the longest fight scene in movie history.

If you go back to the ’70s, you find all these ultra-cynical movies like ‘Omega Man’ and ‘Planet of the Apes,’ both of which feature Charlton Heston. But there are a lot of corporate paranoia movies, like ‘The Parallax View,’ and ‘The Billion Dollar Brain.’ ‘Brain’ by the way, features a sequence of Texas oil billionaire weirdness that is unequalled in moviedom.

And, of course, my favorite movie evar, depending on how many beers I’ve had, is the cold war spoof ‘The President’s Analyst,’ starring James Coburn as a psychiatrist hired to analyze the President. It’s a brilliant farce.

And yes: Tom Robbins r00lz. ‘Skinny Legs And All’ is his most political.

scarecrow, I thought about Da Vinci Code too. I like Angels and Demons too – in this case the religious/scientific clashes and interesting twists on conventional logic.

I find myself avoiding “popular” movies like the plague, but could put together a great list of documentaries I’ve seen and loved.
What the Bleep is Going On.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John.
Born into Brothels.

I second Hugh #78 on “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

Rayne: I have no scoop on that booking process.

BTW, my partner says I’m full of shit on the Rambo thing. He also wants to add to the discussion Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles, and the movie Brazil.

The rat bastahd at 69 says: The Brothers K.

Yeah, I’m with you on Dostoyevsky! Turned on to him by a highschool English professor.

It has been said that he’s right up there with Shakespeare. Loved reading his works like The Brothers Karamazov, The Possessed, The Idiot and of course, Crime and Punishment.

Got me interested in things Russian…enough so that I majored in Russian Studies!

The only thing about Dostoyevsky however, is that he doesn’t quite fit into Pach’s popular entertainment LOL!

Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man. Whew!

jane_jericho (81) — yes, exactly, spot on with Pattern Recognition. I realized after found myself headlong into becoming a market researcher specializing in competitive intelligence that I was doing the Colin Laney character, watching for nodal points of market intersection.

As Gibson himself said, “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.”

Yeah. Ain’t that the truth.

OT: Re: The Canadian Terror bust. . .

Today, Canada rolled up an alleged terrorist ring. The AP reports the
arrests came from information gleaned from the arrests by the FBI of two
suspects in Georgia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..nad…

“Canadian reports said the raids were the consequence of the arrests by the
FBI of two Georgia men in April. At the time, the FBI announced the two men
had met with others in Toronto to plan attacks.”

Press reports of the Georgia arrests claim they were the result of
court-approved surveillance:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04…..index.html

“Court documents reveal the investigation included court-authorized
wiretapping, recounting a conversation between Ahmed and Sadequee’s sister.”

Tell me again why we need illegal wiretaps?

By the same token, that wording “included court-authorized wiretapping”
sounds fishy. What else led to those arrests? Were the wiretaps sought
based on illegal information which then led the government to seek court
approved surveillance? I imagine that will be litigated or looked into by
defense counsel. Does anyone know more about this case?

Pach #90: I’d agree especially on “The Martian Chronicles” but much of Bradbury’s stuff was fairly subversive if you read beneath the surface.

With all the child labor and forced labor that produces the goods we buy since NAFTA, I didn’t want to forget the Charles Dickens’ classic: “Oliver.”

Hooray for Markos and Jerome! They sure made “us” look good, didn’t they?

Here’s hoping LOTS of people saw it – and that dem spokespeople like the two of them get many similar opportunities in the future.

Seems like a good topic to tackle at Ykos – how to (regularly) get that kind of platform with dems like those two…

Softail: I’ll see if I can get him to join the conversation; he’s a real movie buff. But he seems pleased to let me be his stenographer, and I’m done with that. Heh.

Mad Dog, I was referring to David James Duncan’s novel by the name of The Brothers K (he also wrote The River Why).

It ain’t no big thing…

Rayne (56) he likes to be called Rob. But everybody here calls him Ron.

How about Boston Legal? They seem to have a trial showcasing a progressive position every week. Yay Alan Shore!

An addendum to my comment above. Sci-fi frequently tends to have, if not a political undertone, a tendency to be more about the present than the future. That said, a surprisingly prescient book that doesn’t usually make lists like this is “The Running Man” by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman.) It’s much darker and very much more subversive than the crappy Schwarzenegger movie. Don’t run right out and buy it, but if you find it in the library give it a read. It’ll take you an evening.

Here’s a movie with a surprising political undertone: “The Passion of the Christ.” This is a film about an insurgent who is tortured and executed by soldiers of an occupying superpower — a thinly-veiled allegory for our invasion of Iraq…

No, not *that* little film…

The three Star Wars prequel movies show how an evil dictatorial force can undermine a Democracy from the inside: “So this is how liberty dies – with thunderous applause.”

Being booked on Russert is huge, imo; it opens up a lot of other teevee opportunities for corporate media exposure.

Someone mentioned All Quiet on the Western Front as a great anti war film. And Dr. Strangelove. Another as good for this group I think is Paths of Glory, best thing Kirk Douglas ever did. One that I haven’t seen and would like to is the Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin. And there is Duck Soup by the Marx Brothers.

Rayne — yes, I thought Markos/Jerome were just as reasonable/calm/modest/polite/civilized as they could be — so if the point was to dispel the misconception of the left/blogs as consisting solely of these unwashed, foul-mouthed flamethrowers (no offense, friends!)– mission accomplished. So is that how we’re all supposed to behave in public, now?

At the same time, we rant continually when the Dems don’t scream loud enough about the outrages. We want them to get angry and say “enough is enough.” Shut the Senate down, Harry! I wan’t so much for Bob Schiefer to get angry last week, after his collegues were killed/wounded, and tell the Faux news people to S**U.

I’m just saying there’s a disconnect here, and maybe it affect all of us when “we” get in front of the camera. Frankly, I like Gore now, because when I saw his speech on the Constitution, and last night, his movie, what I saw was controlled anger — still rationale, still appealing to our better angels, still speaking to our intellect, but the anger and passion were there — and that’s what I’m looking for now in political leadership at this point in our history.

Z –

Battle of Algiers –

Battle of San Pietro –

Dead Birds –

Intolerance –

The Valley (Obscured by Clouds) –

Pach (90) — thanks for the feedback. Keep your ears peeled, maybe there’s an opportunity for future Roots work…

And ditto your significant other’s vote for Brazil. I want to cry every time I watch that last few minutes, really sad to think the hero, Sam, “escaped” as he did. De Niro always makes me laugh, seems like such an odd character for him to pick, but a delight the way he fills the role.

And Buttle/Tuttle: I wonder how many people in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib suffered for the same stupidity…

The Godfather.

I used to think of it as a metaphor for business (as do many MBAs apparently). But now I see the Republicans as the Mob.

Goodfellas is another case in point. Remember what they did to that guy’s restaurant? They made it impossible for him to remain in business, so he asked Sorvino (godfather) in as partner. Then the fun began. They dismantled his restaurant, skimmed and bled it dry, then torched it. Restaurant=liberal government.

The first three season’s of Babylon 5 show a prescient view of a democratic society slowly being taken over from within by a fascist dictatorship. Watching it now, after a number of years of Bushco, you wonder where J. Michael Straczynski got the time machine (the series was made in the mid 90’s).

One of the most memorable moments of my life was a (fleeting) encounter with Robert Heinlein at an L-5 convention (which promoted the idea of a permanent orbiting space station/colony).

Regardless of any other political stance, I do know that Heinlein would have a good idea of what should be done with honorless men like George W Bush.

What better film than Brazil? The omnipresent government, meaningless & banal lives, and the ever-present “terrorists.” The scene where the secretary is transcribing the screams from a torture session will forever haunt me. She does it without a hint of concern – it’s just a job to her.

I haven’t seen Natural Born Killers but my soul mate has. Ahh, she liked it and it sounds like I would too. Part of an email about Rita Cosby last October…

“I noticed she’d gone over to MSNBC. What were they thinking? She reminds me of the female version of the Robert Downey character in “Natural Born Killers.” A true media whore if there ever was one.”

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the new Battlestar Gallactica. Not that I’ve ever seen it, but apparently, people talk about it a lot in this kind of context, or so I gather.

John #96: OK if we’re getting into the 19th century, I never really understood (emotionally) where communism came from until I read Zola’s “Germinal”. It’s not that I didn’t understand it abstractly but I didn’t fully internalize the horrible conditions of working people in those times.

Also Frank Noriss “Octopus” about the railroads and the wheat farmers in California at the end of the century is an eye opener.

#1. “Brazil”: Brilliant satire on the fascist state in a time of terrorism with deniro in a cameo.

#2. “The Wild Bunch”: Peckenpah at his best.

#3. “The Tin Drum”: An amazing realization of the Gunther Grass novel

TeddySF, 100, isn’t that weird? We need to run an experiment on that mass optical illusion. Hopefully Ron is a “just don’t call me late to dinner” type.

Teddy (100) — oops, sorry, wrong finger, should have hit ‘n’ with the right instead of ‘b’ with the left!! Apologies, Ron Zuber!

Think that’s a sign it’s time for me to hit the hay. Been a busy day, a busier tomorrow.

One more before I go…
The Jungle (and anything else by Sinclair Lewis).

rat bastahd at 100: Mad Dog, I was referring to David James Duncan’s novel by the name of The Brothers K

LOL! I didn’t know there was another “The Brothers K”. Dostoyevsky is gonna be pissed *g*!

I’ll have to check it out on the Net and see if it interests me.

Geez – how fun. And thanks everyone for reminding me of the cultural artifacts mentioned so far.

A Prayer for Owen Meany – The damn thing made me laugh out loud and cry once or twice.

Fear – the punk band. Once read a review saying their biggest problem in the genre they were in was that they suffered an excess of talent.

The early installation work of Borofsky Scary dionysian stuff.

Frasier because not only did I know those people, I am those people.

Nirvana – for ridding us of Michael Jackson, if nothing else… Actually, really great music.

The Tripod Series – I don’t remember much of the books, but I suspect it set me on the path of distaste for totalitarian mind-controlling societies. Christi, we need something updated for the horrors to come.

Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar and Phantom – Like the music in both. The second because I’m a sentimental sap.

The Chronology by Malcolm Byrne – An incredible work from the Iran-Contra days that now is being done occasionally on the web for current events.

Sopranos – How many of us think the final episode is going to tie back to the first two? Don’t forget that promotional voice over “there are a lot worse men than my husband” (or some such). Could be interesting since I’ve seen them take a couple of shots at wingnuts this season.

Oh man… could go on and on. But these are a few of my favorite things (jump in here punaise).

I’ll third John Caspar and Hugh re: All Quiet on the Western Front, except that the book is even better. As a former grunt – or to use the contemporary expression, “infantry puke” – it gets into perceptions that the movie can only try to convey visually.

From Here to Eternity features both a pacifist message and social consciousness. And the movie version had a dynamite cast and IIRC a very good musical score.

Catch-22 got me through infantry AIT, which really rates for me.

Rayne: Your job description and my c.v. are uncomfortably close. Are you sure we haven’t met somewhere? :-)

More than half a dozen people here have typed “Ron” instead of “Rob”, including Christy and Jane. Weird. Ron is my brother, who doesn’t post here.

Regarding Kos, I hope more cable networks bring him on as the progressive pundit.

Rayne @ 94: Colin Laney is an amazing Cassandra character, isn’t he? I think of Cayce Pollard as another, happier take on something like the same theme. Even closer to marketing research, in fact, since she’s a coolhunter.

Genre films and TV have always been used to take on timely political themes, partly because the genre elements are bluntly entertaining (i.e., guaranteed audience-grabbers) and at the same time act as fantastical or historical masks, thereby softening the blow. Recent faves: V for Vendetta – radical, energizing stuff; a second to Greg’s (#50) choice, the retooled Battlestar Galactica – it never takes the easy way with any position; and of all things, HBO’s Deadwood – framed as a western, it’s a subversive commentary on the birth of America, in all its crudity, corruption, heart, and sadness. Amazing stuff.

On the Beach, The Matrix, Planet of the Apes, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Blade Runner, Dr. Zhivago, The Pianist, All the President’s Men, Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, Lilies of the Field, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and Judgement at Nuremberg.

Pachacutec, I mentioned BSG at #50. Really, it’s better than one would think.

al-Scooter (120) – heh. Maybe our paths have crossed…do you cover technology?

Rayne — I replied to you earlier, but it went *poof* for some reason. You’re right, though. They clean up real nice. But then why do we get upset when the Dem leaders don’t express outrage at the outrages? Are we schizo? What would a partriot do?

There’s a charming little old movie called “The Dark Horse” (1932) that doesn’t have a progressive message, but it does have a cute story about a political consultant trying to get a really really really dumb guy into the Governor’s office. Made me think of a certain someone.

Well done, rat bastahd.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

In the Heat of the Night, Philadelphia, Minority Report and Enemy of the State.

jackaroyd @ 87: I’ve not read much Sterling; I know he and Gibson collaborated some back in the day. Recommendations?

For books, I always thought Caesar’s Gallic Commentaries were a simple, brutal how to do book on power politics at their most basic. Tacitus for political sarcasm but I don’t know how this translates into English. Machiavelli’s the Prince of course. Camus’s the Plague and the Stranger. Leonardo Sciascia who wrote detective novels which were incidentally great literature detailing the incestuous web of corruption between the mafia and the Italian elite.

Greg – sorry, I missed that.

Comments coming in fast tonight!

Rayne, I do biomedical, so unless we crossed paths at a SCIP meeting somewhere, prolly not.

Hope you’re having as much fun as I’ve had!

The movie Serenity, but do yourself a favor and check out the Firefly series first.
Take my love, take my land,
take me where I cannot stand.
I don’t care I’m still free,
you can’t take the sky from me.
~~ from the Firefly theme song

Lots of VietNam era anti-war stuff. Apocalypse Now, Coming Home, Platoon, and my favority, The Deer Hunter. I remember seeing that way back when and thinking that was the first movie that caught that feeling we had coming back from Nam and knowing there was no way we cold talk about it with our families. So we didn’t.

angie, thanks, GRAPES of WRATH is one of my all time favorites.
To Kill a Mockingbird is another. I think that’s the only book Harper Lee ever wrote. Robert Duvall as Boo Radley, wow.

Gerry Anderson’s TV series UFO really bit into me hard. It was about fighting against aliens who were attacking the Earth, but also had interracial struggles amongst the humans. A very dark effort from the guy who gave us Thunderbirds.

More recently the series Dark Skies was quite good, going deep into government conspiracy.

and CTBob– perhaps most apt to our situation is a A Clockwork Orange — I had to watch it 3 times to watch it all the way through, rather than clench my eyes shut and tell my professor to sod off.

A bit of the old ultraviolence.

Oh, and since you and I occupy similar space professionally, I thought Planes, Trains and Automobiles not only was the ultimate business travel yarn, but it got the differences between marketing and sales mentalities just right.

And I loved the end of the film, showing the central role of the two men’s wives in their respective lives – a worthy goal for all the struggle.

Bambi.

People with guns killed Bambi’s mom… and I grew up to advocate gun control.

A forest fire started by those same hunters destroyed Bambi’s habitant, and I grew up caring about environmental issues.

FWIW Harper Lee Biography

al-Scooter (132) — oooh, biomed sounds like fun! I’m in software right now; it has its days. What gets particularly frustrating is that I can “see” the future, can see a nodal point rushing towards a client and they don’t understand, can’t grok it, even thought it’s their business.

I feel like Cassandra a lot, doomed to warn and not be heard. At least I have some work from these west coast folks; there’s virtually nothing in my neck of the woods in the way of employment.

My partner is going on and on with ideas to add to the thread, but won’t sit down to comment. And now he’s scolding me for telling you all that.

Um. the stuff he’s saying now I won’t write. Heh.

Softtail #114,

“Germinal” was made into an amazing movie with Gerard Depardieu. The movie is absolutely bleak and demoralizing. I anxiously await it on DVD, and am determined to get Zola’s novel.

Nothing better than to curl up on a rainy afternoon and watch either of those movies with a big old pot of tea and the freedom to emote with those very special movies and books, John Casper. They still sing to me about truth and justice and how we have to do better.

Love Robert Duvall, and Gregory Peck? omg. RIP.

Rayne @ 94: earlier reply went vapor. Colin Laney is a fabulous Cassandra-character, isn’t he? (I trust you’ll avoid his fate!) I think of Cayce Pollard as sort of related.

Your work sounds fascinating. Avoid mysterious medical experiments and blandly named research outfits with obscure sponsors! ;)

Oh, how about Seven Samurai?

“Soap” and “Mary Hartman Mary Hartman”

Hud –

From an Amazon review:

Welcome to the last Western. HUD is a chronicle of what killed the western ethos – it was done in by a man with a “barbed wire soul” driving a pink cadillac. Before HUD men raised cattle or plowed the earth, after HUD men ceded the land to the oil drillers. …

Rayne #141:

Unfortunately, what you’re describing very much comes with our territory. You need to find some brighter lights who’ll believe in you.

al-Scooter (137) — ah, we were posting at the same time. Yes, Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a classic, have to watch it every Thanksgiving! I don’t travel much, my work is mostly virtual (a la Colin Laney), but my spouse does — and he’s got the road trip horror stories for it. Still remember the horrible trip he had, got re-routed twice and ended up 12-plus hours late getting home. Poor thing.

You know, I tend to think of PTandA as a seasonal movie; the other favorite seasonal movie is Home for the Holidays with Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr.; family drives you crazy, but they are our roots, our reason for being. Not particularly subversive, just a nice example of common human values.

99 comments i read, and no one mentions rod sterling and the twilight zone? gosh. also canada’s very own david cronenberg. and by extension j.g. ballard the author behind ‘crash’, though the book is far, far more intense. ballard is reputed to have had the entire hardcover run of ‘the atrocity exhibition’ destroyed by the american publisher. legend has it that a tour of stockholders was viewing the latest press as ballard’s book was running. ‘atrocity exhibition’ is very non-linear and surgically twisted. one of the storie/chapters, is called ‘why i want to fuck ronald reagan’.

the ceo leading the tour, picked up a copy, flipped to the table of contents, then really flipped. he had the entire run destroyed, except for the author’s contractual copies, six or eight. any way, ballard apparently wrote a note and mailed a copy to then governor reagan, saying, just thought you’d like to see what they’re printing about you. ballard is a behemoth. he is also the author of the biographical, ‘empire of the sun’. brilliant, political and very cool author. for a glimpse into the future of social decay, he makes william gibson look like an optomist.

cheers, great thread.

I think my last comment disappeared so in brief
Caesar: if you want to know where power politics really began
Tacitus: at least in Latin, bitter politcal sarcasm
Machiavelli: go figure
Kafka: the Trial
Camus: the Plague and the Stranger
Leonardo Sciascia: mafia and corruption in Italy
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Hundred Years of Solitude

How about The Verdict? A redemption flick about justice and the rights of working people taken advatage of by a corrupt social structure, including the church?

Black Narcissus (1947)

http://university.imdb.com/tit…..ents-index

When I watched Capote, I had known the story of the murders and his fame as a reporter, but I was fascinated learning of his friendship with Harper Lee and the fact that she fashioned Dill after him. I never knew that and it made the movie that much more interesting to me, John Casper.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

As a child, Lee was a tomboy and a precocious reader, and enjoyed the friendship of her schoolmate and neighbor, the young Truman Capote, who provided the basis of the character of Dill in her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.

http://www.gradesaver.com/clas…..r_lee.html

Oh, while we’re on comedy, I’ll nominate History of the World, Part II. The scene on the Inquisition always breaks me up. I can sing the whole damn song, or at least, I used to be able to.

lazlo pink @ 151: ITA, Ballard is a wonder. And I do think Gibson is an optimist, which is why I can bear to read his work.

jane_j 131 — Try Islands in the Net and Distraction. Also, if you haven’t read Rudy Rucker — Software, Wetware, Freeware — that’s definitely worth picking up.

Not exactly “pop” culture, but there was lots of politics and subversion in opera in the old days, which had to be finagled past the royal censors. For example, Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) in 1858 was historical, based on the assassination of King Gustavus III of Sweden. The censors wouldn’t let an opera about regicide see the light of day, so that’s how we ended up with a Verdi opera set in the far away city of Boston, about a governor named Riccardo and his assassin Renato. So can anyone guess what the “op” in op99 stands for?

The original Stepford Wives – no longer a pop-science fiction horror story but a modern-day religious right wet dream.

op99 72

“If only our current Chance the Gardener was as sweet and benign as the original.”

The difference is, Chance made things grow. Our guy just cuts brush.

rcauthen, noted, thank you! And I’ve always been curious about Rucker but never tried his work. Will do.

jane_jericho (144) — I have a suspicion I’m going to end up doing a lot more work consulting as a grassroots activist for local campaigns; that will definitely help me avoid Laney’s fate. But who knows, may in 10-15 years a new generation of Kos-type folks will be writing cutting critiques of my work as a consultant. Heh.

al-Scooter (137) — if you only knew…for the lack of at least a few more visionaries, this company has lost BIG money in valuation. Without the visionaries, I’ve got nowhere to go. At least when the future arrives (and it has), I can point to my past reports and say, Hmm, what a coincidence, with a bit of satisfied schadenfreude. And then I send my invoice. Heh.

Thank you angie, I never knew any of that.

The original X-Men series with the Sentinels were great. A right-wing senator with a secret(his son is a mutant)funds a group of super of robots to hunt and destroy mutants. At the same time he sponsors legislation to outlaw mutants and require them to undergo retraining. Neil Adams and Denny Miller(?) put our some awesome comics with the X-Men as well as Batman, Green Arrow and Green Lantern. All of them were politically progressive and dramatically advanced for comics in the late 60’s early 70’s.

Even though James Ellroy’s degenerated into some kind of wingnut, there’s pleanty to work with in L.A. Confidential. Which reminds me that there was even more in Raymond Chandler’s depression-era short stories. Christy’s prolly sound asleep, so she won’t bust my chops for his Phillip Marlowe quote, “Law is where you buy it.”

Hugh @ 152 -

If you are going to go all pre-medieval on our asses, don’t forget Aristophanes. Ribbet.

There are lots of great submissions already…and subtlety or “undertones” as Pach refers to them were never my strong suit…so here’s some blatantly political pop culture that caught me at a susceptible age:

Easy Rider
Wild in the Streets (featuring the GOTV anthem “Fourteen or Fight”)
Doctor Strangelove
A Clockwork Orange
Costa-Garvas’ Z
Neville Shute’s On The Beach

and from television…The Prisoner

The “Dark Angel” TV series with Jessica Alba was awesome. I used to watch it with my daughter when she was about 12 years old. Besides it’s obvious sex equality aspect it has many strong liberal themes– her best friend was a lesbian. In the second season there were mutants with unusual abilities, and the rednecks hated them. The theme was tolerance, and the rednecks were demonized. There was also the evil government agency that spied on people with flying drones.

You can get it on DVD. It’s awesome– watch it with your kids.

Germinal is the only thing I ever read of Zola in French. He did one of those vast interconnected sagas the Rougon-Macquart of which it is part. Zola reminds me of Dickens and Dostoevsky. All three were stylistically flawed writers who wrote brilliant novels. Still Germinal was enough for me. Of course, I only got through the first one of A la recherche du temps perdu as well. The funny thing about Proust (other than lining his apartment with cork to stave off consumption) was that he too was criticized for being a poor stylist although nowadays people go apeshit over him. If I want long involved sentences, I’ll take Faulkner any day.

Hugh (15) — you forgot Plato’s The Republic.

Oh, and Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Quintessential, absolutely necessary for strategic planning.

Being There
makes me wish for a President with as much presence
oh… lou@66 beat me to it

of course Iraq is probably closer to The Painted Bird (argued as Kozinski’s only other original work)

Grass by Sherri Tepper. Gets into the idea of original sin in a highly original way.

And why has no one recommended the tv series Firefly followed by the movie spin off, Serenity? I feel a lot like those characters these days…..

Anything by Sean Stewart, Neal Stephenson, George RR Martin, or Tim Powers as far as sci fi goes.

And of course Dorothy Dunnett is absolutely the very best writer of historical fiction. Ever.

The Boy with Green Hair, Duck Soup, The Wizard of Oz, It Can Happen Here, Lifeboat, The Magnificent Ambersons

Oh, I still pop Farenheit 9/11 in my DVD player to remind me… of the utter failure and ineptitude of so and so.

Ghandi is a great movie ;( and so is The House of Sand and Fog and Hotel Rwanda.

Rayne #163:

I hope you’re subtly working your track record into your promotional materials or conversations with prospective clients, assuming that they’re interested in future reality.

And isn’t it funny how the WHIG’s dysfunction looks just like so many doomed projects we’ve had the misfortune to have been stuck on?

Really late to this post. Gotta check in more often.
South Park – whether it be overtly stated or subtle, always some type of social/political comment
Kalifornia – Brad Pitt’s least recognized, but next to 12 Monkeys, best performance
Natural Born Killers – “Whata ya say mate?”
“I say go for it.”
Arrested Development – off the air. What a shame!

Agh, I have to go to bed, put it off too long watching a replay of Kos & Jerome, now have Timmeh-overload.

Pach, great idea with this thread. Tell your sweetie to jump in, the water’s fine here; maybe he’s got a suggestion for another art/literary thread?

Niters, FireDoggers.

Ditto on Bradbury and Heinlein. My partner gave me an autographed copy of “Fahrenheit 451″ last year, which is SO much better than any of the crappy gifts I’ve gotten for him.

I’ll throw in Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy (and the two-part play, which hasn’t made it to the US), which makes “The Da Vinci Code” look like a pro-Catholic love letter. New Line Cinema is supposedly trying to make the books into movies, which is going to require one hell of a re-write.

CODE 46

hauntingly sad. terrificly intelligent. tim robbins AND samantha morton — what else is there to say?

Cousin moe at 171, amen to Dorothy Dunnett, the House of Nicolo series is my all-time favorite. See you at the 99 family reunion this summer. ;)

tryggth

Yeah, I did forget Aristophanes. Lysistrata is great. In his personal life, he was an arch conservative and backed the death of Socrates.

Rayne: he fell asleep. And I’m off to bed any second. G’nite, yerself!

The Blues Brothers-just for the dialogue:

Elwood: Illinois Nazis.
Jake: I hate Illinois Nazis.

-GSD

No poetry? NO POETRY!

Some T.S. Eliot
Tennyson’s Ulysses
.
.
.

rat bastahd 118, John Casper 129:

The Jungle, definitely. Talk about watching sausage being made…

“Twin Peaks” (the television series)

“Shampoo” (with the repubican convention in the background)

“The Life of Brian” (Who else but Monty Python could make a satire on religion and politics in the Middle East?)

“Lord of the Flies”

“Repo Man” (”We know who you are and we know where you live!”)

Though I’m mostly a “book” person, one of my movie favorites (for snark addicts only *g*) is “The Man Who Came to Dinner” with Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside.

At times I swear that Jane must be related to him *g*!

Becket plays. (The wife hates them, so I’ll probably be going alone…)

Sarte plays.

Genet plays.

————————————–

All That Jazz, especially the airline number.

Well since we’re doing writers, I don’t think anyone has mentioned Hunter S. Thompson. He succeeded in writing about politics in an entertaining and surreal manner and was one of the most original stylists of the recent past.
“Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail” being the classic of it’s kind.

the first movie that ever moved my socio polirical spirit was failsafe, 1964

I was 9

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058083/

BOSTON LEGAL

how they get their scripts past the editors i will never know but I an greatful that they do.

Jeff Noon Novels…

Failsafe was great!

I don’t have times to read all the posts above but today Star Wars III just came out on HBO. I think the entire series highlights and eternal struggle between good and evil. Fear and Courage.

The fight for a civilization and universe based on Justice and Reason

vs…

A dark side based on fear and control.

What bigger or better lesson does one need?

Any Tom Robbins novel!!

Woohoo to rat bastahd at #60! Another Tom Robbins fan. My favorite author after Vonnegut.

Relative to current events I’d narrow it down more to “Skinny Legs and All,” and “Invalids Home from Hot Climates.”

My own addition to the thread would be the Deep Space Nine series of Star Trek. Geez, I’ve seen episodes of that wherein with a few name substitutions and you’d have a running dialogue on the current state of affairs and those shows are 10 years old now.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned 2001 A Space Odyssey. Never monkey around with monoliths. . . or computers. I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Dave. Listen, Hal. I’m sorry, Dave. . .

Two songs from the movie Chicago:

We Both Reached for the Gun – Is Team Libby at this stage yet?

Razzle Dazzle – Hey, is that Iran out that there window?

I meant to mention the TV series Space: Above and Beyond. Sort of along the lines of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (the book, not the movie), it not only had the total-war government and the ripping apart of families by the military deployments, but also had social disturbances.

paul l.– Bambi absolutely put me off hunting or ever killing and made me sob thinking about how bereft that orphaned little one was, and I may still cry uncontrollably if I think about it too much! All our wildfires, too. aargh!

oh wait, I think about that stuff every day…

over there.

(Skinny Legs and All is my personal favorite, too and that is saying something for a brilliant writer!
Can o’ Beans, Dirty Sock, Spoon, Painted Stick and Conch Shell– very few do it better!)

Mad Dogs #191:

I thought I was the last of the Monty Wooley fans!

You’re obviously a commenter of discernment. Whereas I’m merely old enough to remember.

Rob Zuber… Your comment and quote above was so good I thought it deserved repeating.

“So this is how liberty dies – with thunderous applause.

Where are the Jedi when we need them? Or perhaps there’s a little ‘Yoda’ in all of us. :-)

Here’s another interesting way to discuss movies:

I define truthiness as something you believe ought to be true because it worked that way in a movie. The question:

What are George Bush’s favorite movies?

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis got Sheila Kuehel through law school. Does that count?

And Documentaries:

Koyaanisqatsi: dated but still the cinematographer had a wonderful eye. You see it almost every frame.

The Civil War: That’s Ken not Tim Burton

Bowling for Coumbine: Michael Moore’s stuff is notoriously uneven but when he catches a moment he nails it.

Fahrenheit 911

Still must see An Inconvenient Truth

Liberal politics in comic strips can be overt (e.g. “Doonesbury”) or subtle (”Bizarro” and “Get Fuzzy” are two of my favorites). Lately, more and more strips seem to be dropping little bomblets against the Current Regime.

How about Bullworth with Warren Beatty – peed my pants at that one.

Jr.’s favorite movie at one point was reputed to be “Field of Dreams”. Not sure I believe it…

For sheer over-the-top satire, it would have to be “Dr. Strangelove.” But for some of the most politically subtle film ever, I’d have to go with “Les Enfants du Paradis.”

One of my favorites touches on the intersection of technology, class distinctions, unionism is “The Man in the White Suit.” Classic Ealing Studios/Guinness stuff, but with the moral that nothing is a simple as it seems at first glance.

Oddly, I like “On the Beach.” There’s just so much understated despair in the scene when, thinking they’ve found someone alive, it’s just a windowshade and Coke bottle attached to a telegraph keyset. Nevertheless, for sheer dystopian scene-setting, the second version of “1984″ is probably without parallel.

As for political books with subtle underlying messages, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is still one of the best, and I’m very fond of Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum. I think most of Jorge Amado’s work is political, but he manages to make many of his political statements through interpersonal relationships; the political isn’t so obvious, but it’s there.

Science fiction has often seemed to me, when there’s a political message, to be a bit heavy-handed, although Doris Lessing, when she tried her hand at it, did very well.

Then, there’s Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which is good roll-up of religious dystopia and sexual politics.

And, lately, I’ve been wondering about Harlan Ellison’s A Boy and His Dog. His underground society looks a lot like what James Dobson wants for us today. :)

Hugh:
You ever conclude your quest for answers on the oil industry?
Books:
Da Vinci Code
Animal Farm
Frankenstein

Libby– W. likes Bruce Almighty and Liar, Liar, Dumb and Dumber, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Home Alone 1 & 2 , but he loses interest after the funny parts and falls asleep on his pretzels– now that Lump o’ Stepford Boyfriend Killer is sleeping at the Mayflower…or in the Lincoln bedroom.

V for Vendetta is a fine example, also works as diverse as Night Of The Living Dead and They Live. My own novel, Vampire Lover, has a subtext exploring ageism, looksism, and homophobia. Horror fiction and Sci-Fi have a long tradition of promoting subconscious exploration of political and social themes. There is also a lot of right wing palaver in Sci-Fi. Let’s not forget where L.Ron Hubbard started.

Three very good future extrapolations of unchecked corporatism:
Snowcrash – Neal Stephenson – and for 1991 he really painted a great vision of the Internet.
Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood

Two from Spinrad:
The Iron Dream – SF novel by Adolf Hitler, unsuccesful emigre artist to the US.
The Men in the Jungle nasty and brutish – Dick Cheney would fit right in.

The Greenlanders – Jane Smiley By my lights one of the great novels of the last 25 years. Beautifully written evocation of rigid Norse society struggling to cope in Greenland in 14th C. A great companion piece to Diamond’s “Collapse” (which covers the Norse in Greenland.) Religion, politics, aggression, environmental change, gender roles.

Another great movie with social depth was Beckett starring Peter O’Toole.

His “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” line fitz right in with Junior and his Plame bully-boys Darth, Scoots and Karl the Weasel trying to avoid their due.

First, a confession: I’m a USC film school alum, majored in Critical Studies. It’s the egghead side of film, how it relates to and reflects culture, language, etc.

Not sci-fi, but High Noon is a great discussion of McCarthyism. And The Matrix is a movie that reflects it’s time as well as any sci-fi movie in the last 50 years.

One interesting trend has been the resurgence of the horror film. Historically you think of the Mummy and Frankenstein and The Wolfman, and you see it as a sort of a feral precursor to the more cerebral portrayal of the culture at large that sci-fi represented in the 50s and 60s.

Horror revolves around fear of the other among us, near us, or in us. Back in the day, communism served as the cultural touchpoint, made so through significant reinforcement by our government. The resurgence of horror today seems to me to be a cultural absorption of BushCo’s campaign of fear, yet subversively it also reflects back Abu Ghraib-like elements of torture. Think Saw.

If the next few years follow historical trends in film, we’ll see more sci-fi and I would guess a return of the anti-hero that we saw in the 70s, especially as a backlash against things like the NSA’s spying on Americans takes hold.

montag #214
I will concur on Dr. Strangelove. Kubric got inspiration for one of the characters (can’t remember which right now) from Herman Kahn who worked for RAND. Great book on him: The World According to Herman Kahn.
I’ve watched that movie 3-4 times over the last few yrs. and every time I envision The Decider riding it. Crazy Scary.

Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, result of a monotheocratic US–nightmare.

Probably the best “regular” film with a powerful political subtext of all time is Chinatown: power, corruption, race, sex, all wrapped tightly around the very true story of how Los Angeles became what it is today. Probably the smartest and subtlest examination of how power works — and corrupts — put to film.

And a bangup noir thriller with one of the finest casts ever, to boot!

Runners-up: High Noon.

Brazil (though more properly, this is a political satire dressed up as a popular entertainment).

The Wages of Fear.

The Third Man.

Koyaanisqatsi.

Hugh #169: I’ve read quite a bit of the Rougon-Macquart series although only in translation. “Nana” is another one very worth reading about the life of a Parisian courtesan. I’ve read a lot but not all of “recherche…” also in translation, can’t really comment on “style”.

Balzac’s “Lost Illusions” and “A Harlot High and Low” and others from his La Comedie humaine, are interesting examinations of 19th century France. I’d add Stendhal is also a great read and critique of society and especially the church and aristocracy earlier in the century.

mod99 #172: Agreed about Grass and Neil Stephenson especially “Diamond Age”

Frank Probst #176: Also agreed about “His Dark Materials”. Especially liked the god is dead and it wasn’t pretty part.

tryggth #186: I’ve only read “Antigone” but I’d certainly agree about that. Genet’s novels were certainly an eye opener to me as a gay man.

Haven’t seen any mention yet of Kurt Vonnegut who certainly should be on this list.

MOVIES:
“The Crying Game” – where would I begin to say why?
“The Fisher King” – Shock Jock radio asshole is redeemed; great performances and stunning imagery
“The Princess Bride” – Good vs Evil
“Blade Runner” – what does it mean to be human?
“The Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe” (French, late 1970s’; later remade in US starring Tom Hanks with a different title) – French farce in which the spies are idiots listening in on the wrong guy, and the unwitting hero is an unassuming, daft violinist. Hilarious sexual escapades.
“The Closet” (French, starring Depardieu) – late 1990s’; French farce; a straight man who works for a French condom company claims to be gay in order to keep his job. Romantic complications abound.
“The Motorcycle Diaries” – a look at the cultural and historical context that spawned a revolutionary; great music.
“Romero” – about the life of Archbishop Romero of the Liberation Movement in Central America (who was murdered while saying mass)
“Passion of the Christ” – I agree with #103. It’s revolutionary in many respects.

BOOKS:
“Trostky’s Run” (circa 1982) political thriller about a US Presidential race.
“A River Runs Through It” – about the American West, and mastering the rhythms of the land and the cycles of nature.
“Who Moved My Cheese?” – life in late 20th c. America
“Waiting for the Barbarians”, Coetzee (mid-1980s) about the effects of oppression (and torture) on both perpetrator and victim
“Ilium”, Dan Simmons (?2004?) – ingenious, creative sci-fi retelling of Homer’s Iliad
“Silent Spring,” and “The Sea Around Us” — best sellers in the 1960s by Rachel Carson; poetic, brilliant writing.

Google Earth, part of a changing conciousness about ‘where I live’ that is phenomenally popular, although it’s not ‘literature’ in the traditional sense.

G’night, firedogs. This was a fun thread; reminds me why I come here when I see the reservoir of curiosity, experience, eclecticism, and sensibility in our little community.

Has anyone mentioned All the King’s Men? Not political undertones, but politics with moral undertones. The movie is good, the novel is a classic.

I know W. liked Flight 93, cause he hosted it at the WH– probly won’t see An Inconvenient Truth, cause it is un-com-for-ta-ble and sci-en-ti-fic.

Plus, the narrator has a reel sothern akcent and is a mucho pain in the butt.

angie at 227: Plus, the narrator has a reel sothern akcent and is a mucho pain in the butt.

LOL! Goodnight Ellen…er…Angie!

Movies – I commented the other day that I thought “Serenity” was the best recent sureptitiously “liberal” film Although it did well at the box office, I don’t think people came out of the theater thinking “wow, that was a liberal film.”

Ralph Ellison – The book is INVISIBLE MAN, not THE INVISIBLE MAN. There is no definitive article in the title. The Invisible Man is a work of science fiction. Plus, if you do read it you should also read SHADOW AND ACT, which is a book of literary critique that Ellison wrote. It may make you think about the book differently.

Frankenstein – Wasn’t about fear of the “other” is was about fear of technology.

TV – MASH and STAR TREK are the two most “liberal” television shows? Perhaps not. How about ALL IN THE FAMILY, MAUDE, GOOD TIMES, or anything else by Norman Lear. Not that STAR TREK wasn’t liberal, but the most liberal? And MASH? If we look at the MOVIE and BOOK, their big political claim to fame, was their anti-religious theme, first time religion had been mocked in mass popular culture/entertainment, which may or may not be “liberal”; I think that depends on your point of view.

Many and various – Barbara Kingsolver, most everything but especially The Bean Trees. John Varley’s trilogy – Titan, Demon and Wizard.

Check out kids’ cartoons. Sometimes subversion sneaks in. Stephanie Miller’s Jim Ward does voiceover on Fairly Odd Parents (is he Chet Youbetcha?)and they give us parents the occasional political snark (W and Rover in the back of a limo whispering together. As soon as they see the “camera” they pull apart with guilty glances and put up their hands to ward us off).

V for Vendetta. An Inconvenient Truth.

Octavia Butler, may she rest in peace. She died the day before she was to read parts of her latest novel to the city of Pasadena, which had chosen it for One City, One Book.

Much by Ray Bradbury.

Herman Hesse

Max Headroom.

Bush’s favorite movie is Bambi Meets Godzilla. Bambi is the Latte-drinkin’, Volvo-drivin’, Flag-burnin’, Gay-marryin’ liberals. He’s Godzilla. In his dreams.

readerofTeaLeaves:

thanks for reminding me of The Fisher King, The Crying Game and

The Princess Bride: Hello, my name is Indigo Montoya…….

#231
LOL!!!

Softail, I have Nana and Proust in a box someplace and read six of eight of Balzac. Stendahl is excellent and I don’t know why I haven’t read more of his stuff than the Red and the Black. I sort of did my time reading many of the classics of French literature. Nowadays by tastes are more lowbrow. The last really good novel I read in French was Claude Simon’s Route des Flandres. I thought it was beautifully written even if there isn’t much of a story.

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” made a cartoon out of the destruction of mass transit in post-WWII LA. Whodathunkit?

The Stunt Man – a fun movie about paranoia. But can we enjoy that now?

In TV science fiction, Babylon 5 is my choice, too. I think the new Battlestar Galactica will be in another couple of years. Someone called BSG “The West Wing in space”, and I think that’s a good description.

But as I’ve mentioned before, if you’ve seen Babylon 5 the last five years will seem eerily familiar.

The print SF that I think has the most to say about politics is Micheal Flynn’s Firestar series. It’s a bit wonky and libertarian at times, but the story moves along and there are lots of priceless little observations about how our government does and does not work.

A year after 9/11, J. Micheal Strazcynski said that he learned his morality from comic books.

“Which also leads to the point of comics, for me. As profoundly stupid as this may sound, I learned my sense of right and wrong, my sense of morality, from comics. When I was at Chicago ComicCon, and helped tackle a shoplifter in the dealer’s room and bring him to the ground, somebody asked why I did it, since I could’ve been hurt. I pointed to the booth where I was standing when it happened, and a six-foot cutout of Superman. ‘How could I stand here, in front of The Guy, and do nothing?’ Comics have the potential not just to entertain, but also to ennoble, and enlighten, and elevate; to ask questions in need of asking. That has not changed post-9/11. It has only made that function more necessary than ever. Because comics are about heroes, and they remind us that it is important that we *be* heroes, not just in the shadow of tragedy, but every day.

“The man or woman coming hungry to the neighborhood homeless shelter or food bank trembles no less than someone who survived the Twin Towers. It is easy to give to the latter, but we must remember the former as well. I donated my entire salary from issue 36 to the Twin Towers Fund, but I also tithe a portion of my salary to a number of charities, local and national. Because that’s what I learned in comics: that we are stewards of one another. That we must be heroes to one another.

Of course, anyone who’s seen Jeremiah will find those words familiar.

I think I’ve learned my morality from science fiction, also. Much of the science fiction you see on TV is really a morality play. JMS sometimes said that Babylon 5 was all about the choices we make and the consequences of those actions. Battlestar Galactica has a similar theme. You couldn’t help but notice how many times you’re hit in the face with morality while watching any of the Star Trek series. No other genre allows so much latitude to explore questions of morality than science fiction, because it can take a real situation and change the names or turn the reality on its head and look at it from a new angle. It can ask “what would you do if …” and then show you the possibilities.

What would Jesus do? Who cares? What would Kirk do?

The 60s TV show, The Defenders, made me want to grow up to be a criminal defense attorney. (Perry Mason otoh never did much for me). Does anybody remember whether The Defenders was actually a good show? I was a little young to be able to tell.

OfT:

According to the Cokie Roberts Rule, the Laura-living-at-the-Mayflower story is “out there” now. Can we expect to see the Sunday talkfests cover this in the a.m.?

Y’know, I bet it’s true. Think about those stories in the NYT and WaPo today about how wonderful Condi is, how she led the Preznit to flip-flop on Iran over lunch. I bet there’s a reason for those stories….

Rayne says:
June 3rd, 2006 at 8:49 pm
…
I also note no mention of YKos, either; I think that’s a good thing, should be off their radar.

Rayne, I think Rush made a veiled reference to it the other day when Jack, sitting in for Mike of callingallwingnuts, called him and got him all rattled. He said something like, “so you gonna be in Vegas next week, huh, is that it?”If he’s aware, they all are.

Hugh @ 10:06 pm (#202) – The thing I like about 2001, beside the look of the thing, is the fact that you can use it for background music. There’s maybe fifteen minutes of dialog in the film. Most of the rest of it has either musical score or classical music.

It looks just as good today as it did in 1967. You sure can’t say that about many science fiction movies of that time.

re YKos, siun said on a post yesterday that they are aware, and some of them are coming to Vegas….

TeddySanFran #238:
WTF? Laura -Mayflower? What’s the scoop?

re Laura living at the Mayflower
(scroll down below the yellow box….)

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

ccobb #219

So much of `50s sci-fi was tied up with communism that it’s hard to find any of it that didn’t allude to a soulless evil presence assaulting Americans from without (The Day the Earth Stood Still being a notable exception). Think of the lurid reds in William Cameron Menzies’ sets for “Invaders From Mars.” Even the star of “The Blob” was a squamously bloody, cancerous red.

It’s not until the `60s that sci-fi film starts to develop a conscience about the Cold War (”Fail Safe” and “On the Beach”), and not until the `70s that we finally get some good-natured awe and whimsy for alien invasions minus allusions to communism (”Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “ET”).

Once McCarthy was gone, the stories got a bit more interesting and a little less ideological. :)

I’m 100% with moe99:
“And of course Dorothy Dunnett is absolutely the very best writer of historical fiction. Ever.”

Am currently listening to audioCD of Orson Scott Card’s latest, Shadow of the Giant, the latest follow-up to his classic Ender’s Game. Set a couple hundred years ahead of present time, it presents a world all too familiar and deadly. Pretty much the same forces are in play as now, and the political commentary is spot on.

And let me put in a word for The West Wing, which gave us some hope in the possibility of an honorable administration while never ducking the tough issues.

“the Laura-living-at-the-Mayflower story is ‘out there’ now.”

Who knows, Laura Bush may decide to run for president someday, although she has never said so publicly. Just look at her approval ratings! Since that is a possibility, her marriage is “fair game.” After all, didn’t she once threaten to leave George if he didn’t stop drinking? And the tabloids say he’s back hitting the bottle. Can the NYT be far behind?

Was there a topic? :-)

Whereas Malkin tries to make hay over an insignificant publishing mistake (no link, you just have to go look yourself at her explosive indignation over the London Time’s use of an incorrect picture), at least the Times corrected the content of the article they published (disclaimer at the top of the Times article now).

DoD isn’t so quick:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0603.html

Dr. Bob @ 10:50 pm (#242) – There was an article in one of the weekly tabloids saying that W. and Laura were on the rocks, and now there’s some story that she’s moved out of the White House and is staying at the Mayflower.

I neither know nor care if any of it’s true, but that’s what’s going on, except that some folks with a sense of irony wonder if this is going to get the play that the Bill and Hillary story has been getting.

CatelynK @ 10:53 pm (#245) – The West Wing seems more like science fiction every day …

It Can’t Happen Here Sinclair Lewis
White Lotus – John Hersey – China wins WWIII and takes a band of survivors from the Arizona, the new west coast. They become slaves and this is their story until they figure a way to use their captors’ rich symbolic history to shame them into letting them go. Americans as slaves… poetic justice.

My favorite genre is military SF. War and politics after all are two faces of the same coin. I would recommend Armour by Robert Sheckly(sp?), just about anything by David Drake and A Short Victorious War by David Weber. The last is part of a series, all of which are available free and legal online. Links upon request.

TeddySF 240, reprinted in it’s entirety from earlier thread:

104 op99 says:

June 3rd, 2006 at 6:11 pm

Re: Georgy and Condi sittin’ in a tree: As if we needed any more evidence of Republican media bias, but imagine if there was unsubstantiated gossip hitting the tabloids about say, a Dem horndog prez’s infidelities. Even before they had anything concrete, they would splash it all over the airwaves, speculating on the political effect of the rumors, and speculating whether it was responsible for those trashy rags to cover rumors. “We can’t ignore it, it’s ‘out there’.” Mark my words, there won’t be a breath of this in the commercial media unless there is evidence, and they won’t even look.

We’ll see.

A big honkin’ post I did seems to have disappeared. Does that mean it’s in moderation?

The Razor’s Edge, Somerset Maugham
and the movie wasn’t bad w/ young Bill Murray.

W. and Condi… now there is a one-act play pregnant with possibilities. Cluster’s Last One-night Stand.

Cujo359
I lost a comment earlier. If you can’t see it, it’s probably gone.

I knew there would be other Tom Robbins fans here!

Came back to mention Lord of the Flies, but fahrender beat me to it.

Anyone mention Norman Mailer? Deer Hunter, Why Are We in Vietnam?

Not really political, but I love all the Christopher Guest movies. Best in Show is my fave.

Daughter on a sleepover, my wife and I just watched a movie, The Whale and the Squid that examined the divorce of two self-indulgent adults and the effects on their sons. Painful, but very well done.

neurophius #227–I would have, but I’ve never considered ATKM subtly political. Both the book and the movie are excellent.

The Seduction of Mimi, one of Wertmuller’s best–lays out the process by which working-class Dems get ’seduced’ into darker, self-serving modes–in Italy–but a parable for our times. Goodnight and Good Luck.

TeddySanFran & Cujo359:
Thanks:)
Interesting. But…as ruthless as Rove is, it could be a ruse to get the media to beat up on the decider. Public turns against the press, deciders polls go up just in time for Nov. Or he could come out and say it’s true, ask forgiveness, look like a contrite man and regain his strength w/the base. Press rallies around him and says, “Look. He can admit mistakes. All is forgiven.”
Or is that too much of a stretch?

Dr Bob – Are you insane? Yeah, it’s too much of a streeeeeetch.

I can’t believe I haven’t seen a single mention of 1984. Pretty good movie, great book, unfortunately prescient.

Well if Laura’s at the Mayflower and George is either at Camp David or in OUR house at 1600 Penn., where are those lovely twins? To whom and where do they turn?

Enquiring minds want to know. heh.

Yes, Dr. Bob, he could pull a Jimmy Swaggart PDQ, just after endorsing his anti-gay Constitutional amendment and please his base.

Like to think outside the box.
Nver been a “yes man”.

BURN! film by Gillo Pontecorvo w/Brando

STATE OF SEIGE film by Costa Gravas

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE novel by Richard Condon, film by John Frankenheimer w/Sinatra

AMERICAN TABLOID novel by James Ellroy

BLUE VELVET film by David Lynch

LITTLE BIG MAN film by Arthur Penn

NAKED LUNCH novel by William S. Burroughs, film by David Cronenberg

MANUFACTURING CONSENT documentary by Noam chomsky

SPARTACUS film by Stanley Kubrick

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS album by The Sex Pistols

THE CLASH first album by The Clash

Dylan goes electric Newport Folk Festival ‘65.

Zapruder film shown for 1st time on Geraldo’s “Goodnight America” in March of 1975.

Ramones release “Bonzo Goes To Bitburg”, 1985.

GUMMO film by Harmony Korrine

“That Was The Week That Was” short lived topical-satire TV show, 1964

TOUCH OF EVIL film by Orson Welles

BLUE THUNDER film by John Badham

TEAM AMERICA film by Trey Parker & Matt Stone

THE CONVERSATION film by Francis Coppola

THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT “new journalism” of Norman Mailer

WEEKEND film by Jean-Luc Godard

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, gonzo journalism of Hunter S. Thompson, film by Terry Gilliam

THE MAGIC LANTERN CYCLE films by Kenneth Anger and on that note I’m outta here!

CasperX – 1984 was mentioned. And in that vein, why not Logan’s Run, or Soylent Green, or even TRX1138.

Don’t forget the W boning Condi story comes via Wayne Madsden, who hasn’t been a paragon of accuracy in the past.

Angie – They do what any alienated 20 somethings do – turn to their dealer.

Hugh @ 11:01 pm (#257) Well, frack that. I’m not typing that again.

Here’s the short version:

Babylon 5 – like the last five years, only in space, and the aliens aren’t swimming across the Rio Grande.

Battlestar Galactica (the new one) Nothing like the old one, “The West Wing in space”.

Firestar series (novels) by Micheal Flynn – best description of American politics I’ve ever seen outside The West Wing.

Morality from comic books for JMS, science fiction for me.

Last time I type that much in one comment.

EPU– KKKarl of the Kool Aid?

montag

“I’ve never considered ATKM subtly political.”

I don’t consider it subtly political either. Just political. That’s why I said, “Not political undertones, but politics with moral undertones.”

No – Really, their DEALER. Have you ever read Gawker about the twins?

The Man Who Would Be King. Haven’t seen that yet.

Have to say I liked the first season of Babylon 5 the best when Michael O’Hare had the main role. It was one of those series that for some inexplicable reason came on late night around here and finding it was a pleasant and unexpected surprise.

No, but I will now, EPU.

Perhaps the funniest aspect of a potential Bush sex scandal is that Joementum would have to go on the floor of the Senate and denounce his good buddy Bush for his immorality.

How can you talk about Babylon 5 and not talk about Stargate – False gods being killed, the yokes of totalitarianism being destroyed, AND, the the US working bilaterally with the rest of the world. Now that’s political science fiction.

neurophius 237

…or is it only Democratic presidents he does that to?

Indulging in the off-topic thread. Even if Bush were to be diddling Kindasleezza, it would still strike me as a sort of wealthy Yankee cum Texan patrician adroit du seigneur, just screwing the darkie household help because they’re handy and won’t complain much.

Now, a real story would be that of Bush fooling around with his former Secretary of State. That would have staying power in the press. :)

Harlan Ellison and Dangerous Visions I & II

neurophius 278, that’s funny.

The Man Who Would Be King: The George Bush story, starring Bonzo as a chimp from Texas with bananas to burn, Chuckles the Clown as his trusty VP, and the Keystone Kops in a guest appearance as the Cabinet. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry but mostly you’ll groan.

Hugh @ 11:15 pm (#274) – I liked Sheridan better, though I really don’t know why at this point. The whole series is on DVD now, of course, so you can rent it if you want to see it. I recommend watching it in order, particularly from the beginning of season 2 through the end of season 4. The executive producer wrote nearly every episode during that stretch, and for that reason alone it’s remarkable. You’ll find that things that occur in season 1 aren’t fully explained until the end of season 4, and it will be obvious, I think, that there was a plan for the episodes that ran for nearly the entire series, plus at least two of the movies.

OK, one more about W/Condi…

So can we expect Laura to break with the administration next week and declare that the greatest threat to marriage is

.
.
.

gap-toothed, boney-legged leather-loving strumpets who have no idea what a what proper hemline is?

neurophius 269 should have read:

neurophius 267

%u2026or is it only Democratic presidents he does that to?

Nobody’s mentioned Dalton Trumbo’s book “Johnny Got His Gun?” Turned into a movie in 1971, directed by Trumbo, too.

One of the best anti-war books ever written; I haven’t seen the film. Man wakes up in a hospital bed after WW One, slowly learns he’s lost all his limbs and is blind as well. (Plot synopsis may be a little off; it’s been a while.)

I miss that flip thing with Condi’s hair. It was an engineering marvel.

Evil Parallel Universe @ 11:17 pm (#277) – I loved the first three seasons of Stargate SG-1, and still like the series a lot. Atlantis isn’t bad, either. It’s just not quite on the scale as B5 or BSG, which I think are epics by any measure.

What I liked about SG-1 initially was that feeling of our heros being over their heads. There’s something irresistable about seeing folks like us having to deal with other people in their environment, particularly since some were both advanced and hostile. As they gradually accumulated allies and all the gizmos it just didn’t feel the same, plus the writing started to go downhill a bit.

It’s still an excellent show.

Condosleeza is doing a triple play on talking heads tomorrow.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

Think anybody will ask her about the Mayflower rumors?

“a-me-rica, f**k yeah”
(best line in theme song of TEAM AMERICA)

H20 -a two part mini series by HallMark.I believe from Canada.a wonderful story that shows how with deviation,lies and fears a nation can be taken over by a delusional person with the help of his personal aides.Very close to ‘home’.

jarotra @ 113 -

RAH would be weeping and then picking up his own pitchfork and torch. Spider Robinson pointed me back to an essay RAH wrote that was included in EXPANDED UNIVERSE – forgive me for not citing directly, all my books are packed up for a big move. In it RAH wrote that he thought our democracy would thrive unless certain things happened, and indeed, those certain things have been happening since, oh, at least 1981.

The thing to remember reading RAH now is that he was, essentially a man of the early 20th C., from the midwest. Looking back, it’s surprising how far he developed an open mind that lasted until his 2nd (some say 3rd) marriage and the Cold War changed him.

But as a young girl desperate for female characters in those mid-to-late 50’s and 60’s, Dr. Mrs. Stone, Podkayne and all the rest of his ‘girl’ characters were a welcome experience, as were the women in Andre Norton’s stories.

These days, James Tiptree Jr., Sherri Tepper, Samuel R Delany’s early work, Storm Constantine and Octavia Butler are just a few of the writers I can read again and again when considering gender etc., issues. ‘Grass’ is a book I give to snobs who think SF is nothing but Flash Gordon, “Lord of Light” (Roger Zelazny), oh hell, any Zelazny collection, is what I give people who enjoy a great story with elegant writing. I save my Terry Pratchett for ‘in case of emergency, read this’ situations, when I need to find a few laughs, a few weary sighs about the state of the multiverse.

The stories/films/music that I love and cherish are too many to list, some have already been mentioned tonight.

If I had to choose one book for the desert island, I’d take “Lord of the Rings”, but only because George R R Martin has yet to finish his epic ‘A Song of Ice & Fire’, and an omnibus edition of the first 4 volumes would be too damn heavy to lift. But if he manages to payoff the big plot lines he’s constructed in the next 3 books, I’ll risk the back pain.

neurophius #291:
HELL NO! All to spineless to ask the repug’s a tough question.

Evil Parallel Universe @ 11:17 pm (#277) – I mentioned this before, but I’ll repeat. One of my favorite lines from SG-1 is delivered by William Devane as the President:

I’m here because the people of this country elected me to run their country for them …

Ironic, to say the least, that a show filmed in Canada and written by a couple of Canadians would understand how our country’s government is supposed to work better than most of the journalists in Washington.

Speaking of Canadian shows. Try and catch Da Vinci Inquest. It’s the best, adult show on TV,

Kewalo @ 11:37 pm (#295) – It’s a good show, although I wonder how much of an episode gets cut out of the version we see here in the USA. Every one of those moments there’s a cut where Joel, Crow, and Servo to jump back and say “HUH!” if it was on MST3K.

A tidbit from Wayne Masden:

“In another bit of GOP hypocrisy, on Monday, President Bush will hold a VIP ceremony at the White House to back a bill enshrining a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The name of the legislation: The Sanctity of Marriage Act. WMR hopes the mainstream TV media will focus on Laura Bush’s facial reaction when Mr. Bush proclaims his support for The Sanctity of Marriage Act, i.e., if Mrs. Bush is even present for the event.”

LOL, the source notwithstanding.

Ruby Tuesday @ 11:34 pm (#292) – Speaking of Robinsons, I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Kim Stanley Robinson. For my money, he’s the best SF writer today. He seems to have an amazing capacity to do research – his works have a dense background of science and technology. Like Micheal Crichton except that he gets the science right more often than wrong, and his characters are really the most interesting things in the books.

I don’t think of him as a political writer, although some of his futuristic novels have a definite political strain.

He’s another author you can give to your friends who don’t like Buck Rogers.

Dang Cujo (298) I never thought about it being cut. But I don’t care, it’s some of the best TV around.

CUJO!!!! just popped in from working away and saw you mentioned by favorite ever author – Kim Stanley Robinson. I reread the Mars trilogy yearly (and most years more often)to keep inspired and dreaming of the world we could make. KSR combines the best political thinking I know of with solid science and peoples his books with good friends.

His Pacific Coast is fun and inspiring – worth a search at Alibris or ABE to grab a copy (I love the fill Californias series – 3 books exploring 3 possible futures for a specific bit of CA – KSR’s beloved Davis and surroundings – one post apolcalyptic, one which is what happens if we stay the course, and one that we can dream of and build for.)

And his new series on global warming is solid – though it does not hit the highs of the amazing Mars!

For anyone daft enough to read the long version of my comment with the word “frack” in it (#271 at the moment at 11:11pm), just reload the page (don’t hit the “Refresh Comments”, actually reload using your browser’s reload button), and go to #238 (10:46pm).

This, BTW, is why I include both comment numbers and the times when I reference someone’s comment.

Hugh, if you do that you may find your big comment as well.

Frack me…

…the shock when I first picked up Zap Comix in the 60’s especially Robert Crumb’s stuff…the shock when I learned what guys really think about all the time (at least then anyway)…Mr. Natural and Plungo and HoneyBunch Cominsky and Flakey Foont and Wonder WartHog who was laughed at for having a teeny little pecker but said defiantly “I’ve still got my snout!”

And of course Peyton Place by Grace Matalious

Oppps..along with H20 from HallMark I forgot Enemy of the State with Gene Hackman.Show what Big brother and it’s agencys can do with it’s tech tools.

siun @ 11:59 pm (#302) – I loved the Three Californias. You’re right, The Gold Coast was the “stay the course” one, and in some ways the most frightening of the three. It sometimes seems we’re there already. It’s hard to get a good tech job these days if you’re not in the defense industry.

His new series is probably his most obviously political, and there’s something attractive about the idea of scientists and technologists being a bit more involved in the affairs of government. Seems like the lawyers and the MBAs need a little help.

There is also “The Day the Earth Stood Still” the ending scene of which (in glorious black and white) was so visually wonderful that Speilberg was trying to copy (but in a rather non-impressive over-the-top digital effect) in the extended cut of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The movie is also very thoughtfully political about the craven stupidity of men, and the alien is the good guy in this film. It is truly a great film.

…and please, let us pray and not forget High Times when it first arrived on the newsstands/headshops…

The Berkeley Barb

Poetry night at the Ribeltaad Vorden…does anyone out there remember the “Rib”?

Just surfing around a bit. Cannot recommend this link enough. You all probably know this comedian. But was delightful find for me.

http://video.google.com/videop…..2978336967

Geoffrey Swenson @ 12:08 am (#307) – I think WWII inspired a number of science fiction utopias, much as WWI inspired C.S. Lewis’ and Tolkien’s work. Gene Roddenberry was a veteran, and you can see the desire for peace and understanding in much of the work from the 50s and 60s.

There’s an old Twilight Zone episode about a scientist who fought in WWII who wanted to go back to the 1890s because it was so peaceful. He does this, thanks to a time machine, and discovers the same bigotry and nationalism that eventually caused two world wars. Now, it strikes one as a bit preachy, but as product of it’s time, it’s fascinating and a bit disconcerting.

One more that needs to be mentioned, because it’s a real oddball. “An Enemy of the People,” George Shafer’s version of Ibsen’s play, starring Steve McQueen and Bibi Andersson. Worth the watch if you can find it.

I like the characters on SG-1 and Atlantis a lot. But the science is sometimes even hokier than the often lamentably bad science in Star Trek and the whole Heinleinesque militarism of it is just plain wrongheaded. The totally evil & ruthless opponents in both series smack of old time war propaganda that dehumanized the Japanese and the Germans.

Galactica is better since some of the shows are about politics and the writers seem to actually care about an overall story arc to each episode as part of the series. The Cylons are so nicely multidimensional. They are certainly evil at times, but they have not been afraid to show another side to them as well. They have done terrible things, but out of ignorance and perhaps insanity.

However, the militarism thing in Galactica also gets a bit tiresome in some episodes. I would like to see what the highly creative writers in this series could do with science fiction that didn’t involve constant battles and war.

But is is soo much better than SG-1 and Atlantis that I can’t miss an episode and I stopped watchng SG-1 and Atlantis

I’m a cheap date – easy to please, cinematographically. Liked The da Vinci Code, both book (mediocre writing, great plot) and movie. Don’t do sci-fi, don’t do bandes dessinees.

cine: Brazil

music: Biko, by Peter Gabriel

Cine: Day of the Triffods, British, black & white

Geoffrey Swenson @ 12:27 am (#312) – Sad part is that the “science” on SG-1 is hokey now because it seems to have adopted all those tired Star Trek gizmos like shields, cloaks, etc. Seems like every year or two they adopt another one. In the early seasons, they paid a lot of attention to science. It was fun to see how much they got right.

I don’t mind BSG’s military nature at all. It’s a show about survival, and also it’s a story about the choice between fighting and finding another way. It’s the most real thing I’ve seen on science fiction TV in that regard, and maybe the most realistic thing I’ve seen anywhere. No one’s perfect here, and sometimes I wonder if maybe the Cylons and humans could work out something if both stopped being so afraid for a moment. But that’s just like real life, too, I think.

Still, I’d like to see a SF TV show that wasn’t about the military that lasted longer than a year. Firefly was the last one, and even that had characters who used to be in the military.

Gosh, but I’m late to the party. Just watched my neighbor’s car get smashed by a coked-up, gun-toting, hit-and-run scumbag.

Being There, Duck Soup (”upstart!”) and Network are favorites, but tonight They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? comes to mind. Depression- era desperados succumbing to all the cruelties mankind has to offer. Kind of like Lord of the Flies, but at a dance marathon. Jane Fonda was painful and brilliant as the self-loathing Gloria. And I believe Gig Young won an Oscar as the really sickening promoter/host.

Cujo – I like the new KSR weather series a lot and the scientists as world savers – esp when they hang out with tibetan monks! – and it would be a good intro for many people to his work … but … the Californias, Antartica and the Mars Trilogy all live for me in ways that are so very strong. When I read Red Mars I was intrigued and looked up at Mars in the sky a lot, by Green I was wishing I could travel there and when I hit Blue, it became my most desired life. Funny – I was at a family gathering and one of those recent trash mars sf movies had just come out so we were all watching the dvd – and I upset everyone by saying things like “oh, but it’s not like *that*!” and yelling because they did not do a Mars lope and all … after multiple Mars readings, I feel like I have been there and that’s either a very good argument for the book or for locking me up!

Drouse – if you are still about, have you read the Malazan Empire books by Steven Erickson? just coming out slowly in the States but you can order them cheaper and much further into the series from amazon.ca (I order a lot of sf from Canadian sources since they support a much broader selection of authors) – Malazan is very interesting dark and subversive military sf … I read the first and was not sure why I couldn’t wait for the second but I devoured the series and the newest volumes are just coming out.

and Mad Dogs – Brunner is so terrifyingly prescient … my son and I spend part of every phone call going … oooh, it’s getting just like Brunner.

Hi, first time posting here. I don’t think that anyone has mentioned “Soylent Green.”

A 60’s (?) Sci-fi movie starring Charlton Heston, and Edward G. Robinson in his last film. It deals with the issues of corporate curruption, enviornmental catastrophe (that includes heatwaves), and Euthanasia, amongst other things.
(i’m not going to give away the plot, for people who haven’t seen it).

Rayne – YKOS is not under the radar at all … in fact, I think we are a new trend and have the media list to prove it (as the lack of sleep and FDL time confirms)

I’m guessing … and very tentative about this … that we are seeing a shift in the msm attitude towards CtG and netroots, etc which would explain the Russert non-confrontation (and Markos was brilliant on it!) While a shift does not make the msm process any better, it is to our advantage and I hope we’re agile enough to use it to get our message to more people.

OT: If Gore wants the party nomination it is his for the asking and his progressions completely support this…question is whether he will want it…he has Neptune opposing his natal sun and this is the sign of the visionary in astrology…he is so comfortable showing us his visions for the future and laying out a path for us to follow…in fact he is a wizard at it… but he is not so comfortable running around telling people why they should vote for him because his picture of himself is hazy and unclear…how he sees himself is through the things he envisions…that is his gift…

Movies…

I’ve always liked The Truman Show as a brilliant piece of political and social allegory. Much of it is a broadside against Disney corp. and its flat-out ownership, control, and design of Celebration, Florida. Because the film uses the metaphor of an artificial bubble town, it is a totally apt allegory for much of the artificiality, disconnects, propaganda, and lies we see in today’s media and politics. Also, American iconography runs rampant throughout the film in often very sardonic ways. Truman has to conquer an artificially-instilled fear to break through the bubble into the world of truth. The guy stopping him is “Cristoff” (lots of name-play there, too) who calls himself “The Creator…of a television show….” Altogether an incredibly satisfying movie, IMHO

Spiderpaws I would like to look at your Web site, but when I click on your name in your comment, I get “this page cannot be displayed”–bad link?

Cujo – I have a comment in moderation which replies to yours on ksr … just sayin’

and I am going to get a little sleep …

g’nite gang!

siun – Looks like it won’t be until morning before your comment is out of jail. Will look for it then.

Goodnight all.

Neuro: I do not have a website but my SO does. He is a jazz guitarist in the SF Bay Area and has music videos and clips of the various bands he plays with…also there is a paint artist who shows her work at the site as well…if you are referring to astrology I am an amateur who studies still and mainly I read other master astrologers analysis for the serious stuff…not sure what you are using to get the bad link…

jayackroyd @ 58:

Ahh…Bug Jack Barron…That would make a movie that could blow Network out of the zeitgeist, if approached correctly.

Dr. Bob @ 221:

Really?

;>)

The Green Slime. Harlan Ellison. The Prisoner. Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn. The Parallax View. Quark. They Live. Robert Williams. The Rite Of Spring. Vanishing Point. The Cincinnati Kid. Brazil. Dark Star. Boorman’s Point Blank. The original Outer Limits series…Death Race 2000.

;>)

Cujo359 – I see I just missed you. Oh well, I’ll leave this for later.

Back when Babylon 5 was just a gleam in his eye, JMS hosted a program, “Mike Hodel’s Hour 25″, on Pacifica radio. This was before B5 was actually picked up. It was fascinating to hear him lay out his vision for the first 5 seasons, as he had each and every episode already planned, if not written. He held out for a deal giving him complete control over the storyline and eventually it went into actual production. The rest, as they say, is history.

A recent read which I enjoyed a lot was Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman. The Marvel comics characters (fantastic four, captain america, the hulk, spiderman etc. show up in Elizabethan England times) Written by Gaiman in the post 9/11 world it manages to touch on a lot of political themes which very relevant. Anyone who enjoys Graphic Novels (adult comic books) and wants political perspectives will probably find it worth a read. At least that was my take on it.

Metropolis (1927)
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Wizard of OZ (1939)
Birth of a Nation (1915)

The Brother from Another Planet and Matewan both written and directed by John Sayles.

Triumph of The Will (1935)

The Great Dictator (1940)

Went to bed early, so didn’t catch this thread until morning.
Many good titles already mentioned, but here are a few more that I didn’t see in any of the other posts:

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, one of the great indictments of political and economic oppression in the 19th century, and several of its movie incarnations

any song by Tom Lehrer, who skewers religion, politicians, and even romance

Native Son by Richard Wright

any movie or book by John Sayles, but especially , Matewan, City of Hope, Lone Star, Sunshine State, and the ever-fabulous Return of the Secaucus Seven

Lots of good stuff once you get down this far on the thread, that I won’t repeat. I knew the folks around here had class and smarts, and it shows from this thread.

Ruby Tuesday @ 295 mentioned my current favorite SF author, though she didn’t mention his own SF writing: Spider Robinson. With folks volleying puns around here led by punaise, it strikes me that a lot of us would be right at home at Callahan’s (and its successor in Key West). It’s a bar where people laugh, cry, and trade outrageous puns, all while saving the world. Repeatedly and with malice aforethought. (The regulars at Callahan’s aren’t too shabby when it comes to dealing with trolls around their place, either.) The Stardancer trilogy series of three novels is well worth picking up.

Spider’s not the gizmos-and-rocket ships kind of SF writer. He’s more of a “what if this one little piece of reality were different? How would society change?” For instance: suppose your sense of smell became as sharp as that of a wolf? Suppose someone came up with a way to not read minds, but give you the memories of someone else?

Lots of intriguing stuff to be found there.

Lots of great ideas on this thread. Isn’t Hollywood subversive?? Heh.

Boy oh boy, sure would be fun to see a stepford knucklehead slugfest between Pickles and Condi over their man, I mean boy-man. Maybe Barbara could get involved, too. George is looking really freaked out these days. I mean more than usual. He has his really big tricycle and the training wheels are all falling off at the same time and he fell down and he just keeps getting more and more stupid and doesn’t know what to do anymore. Bwahahhahaaaaaaa.

For everyday snark, there’s nothing like David Rees’ Get Your War On. If you read it from beginning to end – from Operation Enduring Freedom is in the Motherfucking House to now – well, it will just make you weep.

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/war.html

Spiderpaw – Thanks for the info. I never read anything about Gore’s Astrological chart. I do know that his favorite movie is the eco-comedy LOCAL HERO…interesting huh?

338 posts and only one mention so far of “Apolcalypse Now”? Make that two.

Whaleshaman’s mention of “Code 46″ was worth the price of admission–a Samantha Morton film I haven’t seen yet? Can’t wait to rent it. I’ve been lost to Morton ever since “Sweet and Lowdown.”

And I’ll second the praise heaped on “Deadwood.” I don’t have cable and so had to wait until this week to devour the entire second season, now on DVD, in one gulp. The situations and the language are Shakespearean.

The Scarlet Letter. Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, film starring Demi Moore and Gary Oldman.

A woman has an illicit affair with a new preacher in a Puritan fundamentalist village. She becomes pregnant and is forced to wear the red letter A stitched to her clothes, in shame, while the man who seduced her remains anonymous, still preaching fire and brimstone.

I thought of it just now, while reading AmericaBlog. All the hypocrites in the Republican Party, ready to preach to us about values and bash homosexuals, all the time raping their children.

meta 337: Funny you should mention GYWO. I was planning to bring it up in the thread on “How Would a Patriot Act?”

While liberal hawks are still just starting to wake up to what a dumb idea invading Iraq was, a lot of liberals and progressives are still subscribing to the myth that the war on Afghanistan, as conceived and executed in 2001-2002, was a brilliant stroke and that things only went sour afterward.

Rereading the early GYWOs is a good start toward disabusing oneself of that thinking. No doubt we had business in Afghanistan. But the myth that the only way to conduct that business required killing at least as many innocents as died on 9-11 needs to stood against the wall and shot.

new thread – old faces

The book Wicked:The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory McGuire(sp?)is awesome.Puts a whole new spin on what evil and good really mean.It’s very political,in fact,much of the book is about the politics of Oz and the surrounding lands.It’s quite good.

David Neiwert (223) — oh, agree most definitely, Koyaanisqatsi. Breathtaking.

mommybrain (241), siun (320) — by “off the radar” I’m not referring to the corporate media; they clearly know about it. But it has not saturated the public’s consciousness yet; the awareness of this event is being controlled tightly as evidenced by Rush’s “veiled” comment to which you alluded, mommybrain, and Russert’s avoidance (because we know he knows…). If YKos became very public, the attendance would be more readily infiltrated. But with limited public awareness we’ll know that infiltration will consiste of the corporate media and the highly motivated opposition operatives.

It*s a bit of a stretch from film and literature, but I see televised sports as a metaphor for the struggles of the common man, and a morality play for economic competition and labor-management relations.
OK if they*re brilliant like Gretzky, Jordan or Brazilian football, and I can get behind a pitcher flirting with a no-hitter, or an athlete approaching a noteworthy record. But it seems natural to me to root for the underdog, and sycophantic to support a team simply because it*s dominant, particularly because success usually results from lopsided resources or payroll. Often I*d like to pull for the USA, particularly in basketball or track, but I*m put off by the glorification of winning and the notion that it*s heart-warming to see Goliath beat David.

Great suggestions above and I won’t repeat my favorites but I will suggest a few that might not qualify as popular. Three by the vastly underrated Gillo Pontecorvo, Queimada (Burn), Battle of Algiers, and Wide Blue Road from the 60’s address the nature of globalization (or imperialism if you are as old as I am). On media (really nothing is new) see Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool and Network.

#319

Soylent Green.

-GSD

Is people.

-GSD

Wow. You guys sure have sophisticated taste in film. By which I mean you’re totally missing out on all the best shit.

Larry Cohen: Not much in the art department, but fun and relevant in equal measure. God Told Me To, The Stuff, Q, Uncle Sam.

And I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for George Romero’s absence from this thread. Ironically, the only Romero film that can’t be viewed retroactively as an indictment of the Bush administration is the one about the evil monkey.

And someone here dissed Verhoeven’s “Starship Troopers.” I know it’s got a bad rep, but I’m telling you, it is hands-down the most scathing satire of the War on Terror you could possibly imagine, and the fact that it was made in response to the arguably legitimate Gulf War makes its prescience downright eerie. The scene toward the end where Doogie Howser (as the psychic space-Nazi) mind-melds with the captured “Brain Bug” is, for my money, the most chilling indictment of American militarization ever committed to celluloid. “It’s afraid,” he quietly intones, and the crowd gives a rousing cheer.

Sex? No, I don’t have a whole lot of that. Why do you ask?

Don’t we all wish a really good film (Blade Runner excellent, but not really his plot, is it?) could finally be made from one of Philip K. Dick’s works.
Any novel by Dick fills the bill, but these stand out:

The Unteleported Man (Lies, Inc.)
The Man Who Japed
Time Out of Joint
The Simulacra

Mustn’t forget Mailer:

“Armies of the Night”

“The Naked and the Dead”

Kubrick: Paths of Glory. Not exactly pop art: Picasso’s Guernica. Punaise, when I read “Biko” in your 12:30 a.m. comment, my eyes stung; that song completely captured the awfulness of apartheid.

Why am I bothering? Day late & $ short again.

Hothouse by Ballard is a favourite of mine but for a closer extrapolation into our near future, Newton’s sleep, by Ursula K.LeGuin might be a little closer to the mark. Also just re-read, ‘ Dune’.

‘Those who can destroy a thing, they can also can control that thing ‘

Finally reading about the Royal society I found out Asimov got his idea for ‘ Foundation’ from Francis Bacon who wrote about one of the early utopia’s. Foundation for Bacon was a large continent on the other side of the planet. Asimov, Clark, LeGuin, Herbert, Heinlein…hell, I even like ,’ The stainless steel rat’. It’s all good – even the ‘ junk DNA’ like Star War’s and Galaxy Quest.

‘ Never retreat – never surrender!’

From the planet of the cheap special effects come’s, ‘ The China Syndrome’. Soon after it’s release comes Three mile island. Tacky.

Sci-fi and horror have a long tradition of implicit moral parable. They are, when you get down to it, merely the fairy tales and campfire stories of the modern world, and as such are just as infused with human meaning as the ones our ancestors told.
Star Trek had such prevalent and varied philosophical themes that I had a philosophy professor use particular episodes as focal points for discussion on different issues.
All the way from the original Frankenstein novel, with its message of human identity distinct from its origins (imagine that message in the still class-determined society of the time) to Shirly Jackson’s The Lottery to Star Trek to the latest batch of Star Wars films (disappointing, overall, but packed with relavent message to our time), this is what sci-fi, fantasy and horror do, at least the good ones.
Enjoy, Pachacutec

Going back to the dark ages, in glowin black and white, mainly:

Classic Alec Guinness: The Man in the White Suit: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044876/

More Classic Alec: Kind Hearts and Coronets:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041546/

Classic Peter Sellars: The Mouse that Roared
Unless I missed it, everyone focussed on Dr. Strangelove. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053084/

Classic Peter O’Toole (this one in glowing color): The Ruling Class
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruling_Class

Classic Robert Downey: Greaser’s Palace
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068659/

And last, Classic Herman Melville, classic Peter Ustinov, and classic just about everyone in the film: Billy Budd http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055796/

I post here just often enough to forget how to write links, but I see that the cut-and-pastes work, even if they look inelegant

All of these have political/moral messages. To my manner of thinking, every film worth watching does.

Why is there a big grey block covering comments 345-349? Is it only on my computer?

Brazil (previously cited by several posters) looks like a documentary today — as does Duck Soup (”Hail Freedonia!”)

I should also like to put in a word for It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) the last of the Comden-Green-Kelly-Donen MGM musicals. It deals with post-WWII American materialism in excoriating fashion, says that friendship fades, life sucks and we’re all going to die.

While singing and dancing!

Do you really consider “On the Waterfront” to be on the liberal side of the ledger? I see it as a justification by those who named names before congressional committees. Elia Kazan, its director, was no Terry Malloy.

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. Nightmarish, high-tech surveillance “state” plus vile politics of destruction: playing puppetmaster over a bunch of innocents, getting them to fight each other for the sake of power and resources. It has the entire GOP packaged up in a great read.

phillip k. dick was my first thought. And while no one could ever say these writers weren’t overtly political:

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (already covered), which I read at about 15 because I thought it was going to be sci fi, and instead grew up in a hurry.

and most of all, Camus’s The Plague. When I read it as a teenager, it was out of morbid fascination with infectious disease, and the tale works at that, too. But when I reread it about ten years ago, in my early 30s, I realized he wasn’t really talking about a physical disease, or not only about that. He was talking about what happens when a society becomes infected with an ideology – with something like fascism. Obviously, Vichy France must have been on his mind. Saramago does pretty much the same thing with Blindness, but The Plague is still my favorite. And guess what. Now we’re living it.

Tried to read whole thread- didn’t make it. I know someone mentioned the films of John Sayles. Here’s a partial list (although every film of his I’ve seen has a political/populace bent):

Return of the Secaucus 7
The Brother from Another Planet
Matewan
Eight Men Out
City of Hope
Limbo
Lone Star
Sunshine State
Silver City

jane_jericho

Re Bruce Sterling:

He’s a master of the short story. Globalhead and A Good Old Fashioned Future (featuring my favorite internet story, Maneki Neko) are good collections.

My favorite story of his is Green Days in Brunei, which apparently is in the Nebula Awards 18 anthology.

Kubrick: Paths of Glory.

The first in a series of subversive war movies. Not enough people have seen it.

Ahh…Bug Jack Barron…that would make a movie that could blow Network out of the zeitgeist, if approached correctly.

You’d have to change the punchline, though. It is one sign of progress that a black president is no longer unthinkable.

Thanks for the quiet spelling correction.

tim robbin’s film “Bob Roberts” summed up the reagan era

stuff people may not have mentioned….

Yoshiyuki Tomino’s “Mobile Suit Gundam”
anything written by Terry Pratchett, especially after “Eric”
(despite the fanservice) Vandread and Martian Successor Nadesico
the original Twilight Zone TV series had several episodes with exceptional commentary
the music of Ministry and Skinny Puppy

What about the godfather of rebel movies, Rebel Without a Cause? It has the first gay teenager in films and many people believe it foreshadowed the political movements of the 1960s.

Anyone watching Adult Swim on Cartoon Network? Two of the best political anime of all time have been running. You must see Full Metal Alchemist for its treatment of war and imperialism and Stand Alone Complex (both the 1st and 2nd series) for its treatment of politics and technology.

Hmm, lots of gaps here. Try Watchmen, Miracle Man, and The Authority for smart takes on superheroes and world politics; David Brin and Kim Stanley Robinson for politically-inflected science fiction; loads of feminist sci fi from Ursula K. LeGuin to Marge Piercy and Sheri Tepper…. The better question is what in pop culture does not have a political angle to it?

Oh yeah: It’s a Wonderful Life.

Very progressive subtext.

I like the social and political commentary of “Blackhawk Down.”

American soldiers = Republicans

They deserve to be dragged in the streets of the countries they illegally and immorally invade.

Robocop 1 and 2 (privatization of government) and Starship Troopers (neofascism, globalism, xenophobia) were pretty clear indicators of the GOP future, as was The Handmaid’s Tale (religious fanatics’ uterocentricity), counterpointed with Don Johnson in A Boy and His Dog (A woman is a woman but a boy LOVES his telepathic id-channeling dog). Oddly the adult feature New Wave Hookers is shown to have the same themes but you won’t find it at Netflix, apparently. GATTACA was epic and worth watching a couple of times to appreciate the mise en scene and the characterizations. 12 Monkeys was probably the best acting we’ll ever see out of the two male leads. B5 was brilliant but not worth the 400 dollars to own I think.
Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and Sinclair’s It Can’t Happen Here are big literary warnings. Of course the Russian literature of the Soviet period is critical because it shows the same kind of fatalistic acceptance of tightening strictures on personal freedoms to protect against the dangers of Freedom in actual practice. Corporations won the cold war and now own the state, unlike the Soviets, and with less ambiguity than the Germans had 1933-1945.
Laibach made me do it. One man! One State! One Dream! Geburt Einer Nation is the satyrical reinterpretation of a Queen song into a techno-Germanic pop anthem.

hi kids, sorry to be late to the party, and a party with a theme i love.

however, i’d take exception to the parameters of your question, simply because any literature, to be good, raises questions about our lives and our place in the world.

you kind of change your course in the middle of your post. you start out talking about films with social commentary, then ask for suggestions of films with a political over/undertone.

not that the two are mutually exclusive, but neither are they identical. as i said before, any good piece of literature talks about our place in the world, which can be examined as social commentary, which can be linked to political themes.

this truth of the basis of good literature is what makes people on drugs think that watching “wizard of oz” with the sound down while listening to “dark side of the moon” brings up syncronicity…it doesn’t really, but both pieces talk about identity and making one’s way in the world, with overtones of surrealism. they are, in the broadest of senses (as outlined in your post, or if you are smoking some good shit) two sides of the same themed literary coin. so of course it seems like they merge.

watch “the women” with the sound turned down while listening to the “jagged little pill” album after smoking some alcapulco gold, and you’ll be entertained and amazed.

to answer your question, tho, i simply cannot watch “network” on television. tho reality has surpassed chaevsky’s hyperbolic metaphors more than a dozen years ago, there is still bite and truth to the premise. even more so, when howard beale rants and raves, and urges everyone to turn off their television sets, it is so powerful a moment, and his points are so clear, that, indeed, i get up and turn off my television.

the first two thirds of wag the dog is pretty good. i will debate anyone that insists “duck soup” is satire. it’s just the marx bros. in war, as opposed to at the opera or at the races. no satire, just vaudeville.

BLADE RUNNER, not only the conscience of man, but of what we create

Robocop

Extremely underappreciated meditation on the dangers of unchecked corporate criminal oppression of the common man and his fight for justice and identity in a world saturated with guns, drugs and an absurdly rampant consumerism.
As prescient then as it is relevant today, with some of the best film lines, ever.

Throw in an amazing performance (one of many others in the film) by Kurtwood Bitches Leave! Smith as one of the screen’s greatest villains, Clarence Boddicker and you have a true cinematic gem.

5 Stars. (I’d buy it for more than a dollar…)
~