Longest Cameo

So I finished The Longest Day tonight. At least, I don't guess I was supposed to flip over the DVD for the rest of the movie. It didn't really have an ending; it just sort of stopped. Eddie Albert got put out of his misery (I liked the actor, but he did *not* belong in a war movie. I kept waiting for that Gabor sister to pop up and make him fasten the chin strap on his helmet), Robert Mitchum took Omaha Beach, and suddenly the movie credits were rolling. I liked a lot about the movie---glimpses into archetypical D-day scenes, rather than what one might call realism. More like D-day as remembered years later by someone marginaly involved. A great PBS documentary about the Oregon trail I saw a while back had a bit about a big picnic/reunion of people who had actually been on the trail. It was held 15 or 20 years after everyone was finally well settled and comfy in a homestead. People were all nostalgic with memories until one woman started bringing up the incredible misery the trip had involved. Nobody wanted to hear it. "Let's just talk about the good stuff," she was told. I get that feeling about this movie. The war had been over less than 20 years when it was made and I think the pain was still too fresh. They made a movie about all the good stuff. It's basically a series of cameos featuring every male actor with an agent in Hollywood in 1961. But having short parts meant the actors didn't have too many lines to remember and they could get in more rehearsing ahead of time. So lots of the little vignettes are really pretty good. The down side is that each episode promises something that never gets delivered. It was as if the opening scenes of 8 or 10 potentially excellent war movies were strung together, each with a major star---John Wayne, Robert Wagner, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Rod Steiger, Henry Fonda, and more. But you never get to see how any of them end. Imagine, for example, if this review just

Lies and Fear

Most people, except for extreme pacifists, support military action in defense of the country. That's why I think the current spate of "anti-war" demonstrations in this country actually represent anti-Bush sentiments. Some of demonstrators, especially the leaders and organizers, are also demonstrably anti-American, but the majority of ordinary rank-and-file peaceniks, among my friends and acquaintances, at least, do not consider America to be the source of the problem, but Bush. They don't trust him, because they have let themselves be sold the Democrat propaganda that he "stole" the presidency from Gore. They revile him and his administration, and refuse to believe he is telling the truth about Iraq and Sadaam; rather, the coming war must be about oil and greedy Republican big business interests. This must be what they truly believe. Because if you really believed all the evidence Bush and Powell have provided about Hussein, how could you possibly oppose disarming him? Who could possibly be in favor of allowing a murderous madman who hates America and has direct connections to terrorists develop nuclear and biological weapons after the events of 911? It's scary. I'm not a Republican, but I think the Democrats are doing a major, major disservice to this country with the extended hissy fit they've been engaged in since starting to lose power. By opposing and vilifying Bush at every opportunity, telling self-serving lies even on issues of national security, and answering peoples' fear with demagoguery, they have placed their own petty personal careers above the interests of their country. It's despicable.

Poossy Wheeeped

This is one more kick at French men. Is it true? I don't know, but I have seen a similar trend among certain elements of American males.

A Real Woman

Wow. Asparagirl is on fire.

Longest Night

I began another old movie last night. As it opens, nearly 250,000 soldiers, most of them Americans, wait restlessly for conditions to be right to start the invasion of a country that is under the thumb of a megalomaniac dictator who hates jews and aspires to dominate the world. I remember when The Longest Day came out. It was something of a big event in the small midwestern town I grew up in. One of the local residents had been a paratrooper on D-day, and an idealized version of his adventures is in the movie, with Red Buttons playing his part. He's the guy who has to feign death as he hangs for hours by parachute lines snared on a steeple. I was 11 or 12 years old and the hero in question was the uncle of one of my class mates. I envied the kid then, but years later I came to realize my own father had been, in his own way, at least as much of a hero in that war. He flew missions under fire over Italy and Germany as a Gunnery Sergent on the bombers known as "Widow Makers." We had a plastic model of a B-26 similiar to what he flew in hanging from a string in our hallway for years. I think I assumed everyone had models of the war planes they had flown hanging around their houses, but I know now he was a member of a relatively small group of specialized warriors. He was reluctant to talk about his experiences, though, even to me, so, as a kid I was largely unaware of the significance of that model plane. He did relate being knocked unconscious by the concussion from flak on one flight, and he remembered slowly coming to awareness lying on the bomber's vibrating floor and hearing someone ask, "Is he dead?" Yes, you're right; I've drifted far off topic, but this is my web page, so go suck an egg. I'll talk about the movie more when I've watched more of it. It's very good. However, the French are, thus far in the film, all noble freedom fighters, so I think the movie may idealize a lot more than just the adventures of my friend's uncle. But that's just what I'm in the mood for after the incessant squawk of anti-American cant of the last few months.

I Didn't Know This

I wish I had known it back in the 70's when I used to shout in anti-war marches. From a NY Post article:

Uncle Joe Stalin "...was the father of the first "peace movement," which for years served as an instrument of the Kremlin's global policy. Stalin's "peace movement" was launched in 1946 at a time when he had not yet developed a nuclear arsenal and was thus vulnerable to a U.S. nuclear attack. "...

Pablo Picasso, a "fellow traveler" with the French Communist Party, designed the famous dove of peace as the emblem of the movement. French poet Paul Eluard, another fellow traveler, composed an ode inspired by Stalin.

Ahh, the innocence of the young. As a college student/radical, I thought the peace movement concept had started in the U.S. when Viet Nam became a problem. We used to laugh when accused of being stooges for the communist party. Now I know who was actually having a good laugh.

Yep

From an article in the Times Union:

Saddam Hussein's mouthpiece, the newspaper Babel, which is run by his son, Uday, has praised the demonstrators for inflicting "humiliating international isolation" on Britain and the United States and for ushering in "a new chapter in the global balance of power." Seeing that his enemies are divided, Saddam has continued to not fully cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. In his defiant interview with Dan Rather, he even sneered at the United Nations' demand that he destroy his Al Samoud 2 missiles.

The demonstrations are thereby making war more -- not less -- likely.

The article goes on to review the not so glorious history of peace protests and their consequences. Worth a read.

Net Worth

Just heard on the radio that Sadaam Hussein is worth $7 Billion. They got that wrong. Fact is he's not worth the camel shit on the bottom of his $500 shoes.

Russian Ark

At a local artsy theater (read run-down, but cool) tonight, where I smuggled in a few beers and some almonds in my big, black leather coat, I saw what was essentially a tour of a museum, an ancient Russian palace, the Hermitage, filled with maybe five hundred years worth of art treasures; however, the movie, Russian Ark, is unlike any other official tour guide you've ever seen or any other movie you've seen of any kind, for that matter, because it follows a pair of somewhat confused but personable men, one of whom you never actually see and both of whom, you finally realize, must be ghosts, as they wander through the immense structure, which housed Russian Romanov nobility for centuries, and either interact with or avoid other characters who may be ghosts themselves or may be real people, you can't always tell, because time shifts as doors are opened, and our ghosts drift past fabulously dressed ladies and uniformed soldiers from various epochs as they go from lavishly decorated room to golden staircase to art-rich gallery to private hallway to dancer-filled ballroom, and witness Catherine the II one moment or Peter the Great the next or the ambassador from Persia the next, and flirt with a mysterious blind woman or dance with feather-bedecked beauties glittering with jewels or get shushed away by finicky servants from buffet tables loaded with rare delicacies on silver settings and priceless porcelains, and you get the sense of all the lives that have been lived and the history made here, and you want to visit Russia just to see this palace (though it is, after all, simply another museum) because the film makes it and the unbroken and fantastic history it embodies breath with life and magic, and does it with thousands of enthusiastic, costumed extras having a ball (literally) and with a single, long, uncut, unedited, amazing and wonderful, ninety minute (but the time breezes by) shot.

It's a strange movie. I liked it. Check it out.