Month: April 2019

The Great Buster

The Great Buster (2018) is an excellent documentary directed by Peter Bogdanovich that was released on Blu-ray and DVD on April 2,2019. It covers his life and work through film clips and interviews by artists that were influenced by him. The film clips are very comprehensive and cover not just his well-known shorts and features from the 1920s. There are numerous clips from later works even including commercials. The best part is the last section which focuses on his ten independently produced features.

The bonus features are the trailer and a poorly recorded appearance by Bogdanovich after a screening of the film.

My first experience with Keaton films was a great series run by the Carnegie Institute Film Section in Pittsburgh in 1972. For several weeks, they ran his features and shorts with live piano accompaniment.

Most of his independent films have been released on disc (some several times with upgrades by Kino Lorber. It sounds like the Cohen Media Group will upgrade and re-release the films again.

Where to start?

The General is his most highly regarded film and I would begin there. Of his other features, my favorites are Steamboat Bill, Jr. and Our Hospitality.

The General is set during the Civil War. Our Hospitality is based on the Hatfield-McCoy feud which seems like an unlikely basis for a comedy but Keaton finds humor there. Steamboat Bill, Jr. is one of Keaton’s funniest films and features amazing scenes in a hurricane.

For the short films, try Cops and One Week.

Cops is simple – mostly chase sequences of Buster being chased by the police. One Week is based on Buster building a house from a kit but his romantic rival has renumbered the boxes to sabotage him. The house turns out to be a wreck.

There are versions of many of his films on YouTube.

Trump lies about wind power

This is 200% right. The media must do more to ask why Trump lies.

More on Trump’s lies

Cillizza’s column on Trump’s lies is good as far as it goes.

However, it leaves out a lot. Most of the media was slow to call Trump’s false statements lies. Some people say you can’t call his statements lies because you don’t know his motivation. Maybe it’s just an error. If he repeats something after the media has pointed out the truth, it’s a lie. He says the same lies over and over again. He lies so often, he knows the media can’t spend as much time as needed correcting his lies. If they don’t call a lie a lie, Trump wins.

Trump takes advantage of the fact that the media would be considered biased against him if they confronted him on his lies. They should ask him questions like this but never will:

“Why did you say your father was born in Germany when he was born in New York?”

“Why did you say your campaign had no contacts with Russia when 16 people had approximately 100 contacts?” (I’m not sure of the exact numbers- I know it’s around these.)

“Why did you compose a false statement about the meeting your son had with a Russian in Trump Tower?”

I think the media should stop televising his lies. Put them online with the facts next to them. Someone should talk to a child psychologist about how they get kids to stop lying. I am sure putting the lies on national TV is not part of the correct answer.

Trump’s spokespeople have to lie to support his lies. I wouldn’t have Kellyanne Conway or Sarah Sanders on TV as long as they tell lies. I understand that anchors like Chris Cuomo want to show both sides but it doesn’t work if one side lies.

and now for more Trump lies….

These aren’t wild claims, they are lies!

The Trump administration doesn’t treat Puerto Rico like part of the US

They lie about their treatment of Puerto Rico, too.

Democrats should imitate the Republican strategy on judges

A very conservative group called the Federalist Society has prepared a list of candidates that Trump is using to pick judges. This ensures that they will get extreme conservatives – no more picks like Souter who turned out to be more moderate. Since the 1990s, Republicans have emphasized picking young judges which ensures they will serve a long time.

The Democrats should copy this strategy. They should develop an organization to identify liberal judicial candidates. That will make it easier for the next Democratic president. Of course, another key is getting Democratic control of the Senate. I don’t know if a Republican Senate would ever approve a Democratic Supreme Court pick. The Republican strategy of not voting on Garland and picking extreme conservatives (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh) should push the Democrats to create a mirror image for judicial picks – they will pick extremely liberal judges to balance out the Trump picks. Down the road, judges might as well wear red robes or blue robes. There will be no moderates and most decisions will be made along party lines. The Republican strategy has politicized the courts.

Border fence plaque lie

  1. This project is not part of the border wall.
  2. Whatever it is, it isn’t Trump’s border wall. It belongs to all of us. They politicize everything.

Trump wants to get rid of judges

Judges have blocked some of his illegal actions so his response is to propose getting rid of them. This is dangerous!

White House overrules concerns and gives security clearances

What a lack of concern for national security. I don’t want to hear any more from them about Hillary Clinton’s emails when they are doing crap like this.

This is not a good answer – any very serious security issue is a problem!