Sometimes it's just fun to watch someone go on a well-deserved rant and leave the others around them speechless. This is from yesterday on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Usually, it's Joe Scarborough who goes on the rants, and Mika Brzezinski is the more fact-based analyst. But after playing video of Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defending Trump's racist remarks, Brzezinski had enough. But the joy is not only watching Scarborough's bemused reaction to his normally low-key co-host, but also how she keeps saying she's finished, but can't contain her anger. If you've already seen the Press Secretary's comments and can't bear sitting through them again, just jump to the 1:11 mark.
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A month or so ago, I posted some videos of a popular South Korean actor/singer Jo Sung-Woo, including him singing "The Impossible Dream" in Korean. That was a concert version, though he'd played the role on stage. As it happens, I was able to find a little video of that, six minutes of Jo Sung-Woo in the Korean version of Man of La Mancha. This is the "Impossible Dream" scene, but it's not just the song, you get the full sequence between Don Quixote and Aldonza. Alas, I can't tell you the actress's name, my Korean being a bit rusty. The video starts out in the dark for 15-seconds. I find it fun to watch the dialogue, but if you want to jump directly to the song, it starts three minutes in. Yesterday, the White released photos of the walkway that they proudly announced had been personally decorated for Christmas by Melania Trump. The reaction was pronounced, and deservedly so. If you haven't seen the photos, my response was writing, "Nothing says Christmas like black-and-white Gothic horror." Someone asked what earthly tradition this was supposed to be observing, and I said the German Krampus -- that country's terrifying Christmas monster -- in honor of the Trump family Drumpf heritage. It's the sort of thing that makes the opening song line, "You'd better watch out..." not a joyous anticipation of Santa Claus, but rather a warning of utter terror. Today, I saw pictures of the same area comparing the Obama White House to this year's design from Melania Trump. As truly awful as the standalone photos were, if a picture is worth a thousand words, this explains the two administrations in a 12-volume collection. To be fair -- and we do like to be there -- this image of the Trump Christmas is not how it looks in all conditions. To be clear, it was not photoshopped, it came from from what is clearly now a terribly lit, poor angle photo sent out by Melania Trump's spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham. Other images (and an official video) look far nicer and brighter, albeit a bit sterile. But not like a horror movie. However -- in case anyone insists to the contrary, no, that wasn't photoshopped.
After writing that suggestion earlier that I figured they decided on a limited release for The Post in hopes of getting Oscar nominations, it turns out that they're on the right track. The National Board of Review just announced its awards today, the first to do so.
The Post won Best Picture. As I say here, we tries nots to steers ya wrong. It's very good. And timely. I suspect that helped, as well. But mainly, it's very good. By the way, the "timely" part is far more critical to this than even meets the eye. At the Writers Guild screening on Sunday, the two screenwriters -- Liz Hannah, who wrote the original draft, and Josh Singer, who came in to work on it -- said that from the time Hannah finished her script to getting Spielberg involved, hiring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, reworking the script, doing pre-production, all the wardrobe and set designs, shooting the movie and editing it to having it ready now...was only NINE MONTHS! That's just near-unheard of. And most especially for a filmmaker like Spielberg who is meticulous and detailed in his preparation. Not to mention having Streep and Hanks available. Actually, it's even more remarkable -- because Spielberg was working on another movie at the time (in post-production) and put it aside to work on The Post. He has told the press that because of the news, he felt that the movie had to be today today. This is a good article here in Vanity Fair that deals with the swiftness of it all. After writing my Capsule Review of The Post yesterday and then linking to it online, I noticed how many people commented with great pleasure but even more suprise that they'd never even heard of such a notable movie, despite it having such high-profile actors like Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks and a high-profile director as Steven Spielberg.
And it certainly is something surprising with the film having that pedigree. What subsequently occurred to me is that -- my guess -- is the movie will not be having its Big Wide Release in December, but instead just a very limited one in only a few theaters to qualify for Oscar nominations. I'm sure it will get a Best Picture nomination, for starters. Streep likely will, too, and maybe Spielberg. I don't know about Hanks -- not that he isn't very good, he is, but the category seems very crowded this year (Within just the past couple of weeks alone, I've seen three performances that struck me as possible strong nominees. Denzel Washington is my own leading contender for Roman J. Israel, Esq; Woody Harrelson was terrific in LBJ, and Gary Oldman gives a superb performance as Churchill in Darkest Hour, for starters. And only a few weeks before that, James Franco chewed-up the scenery wonderfully in The Disaster Artist. I'm not saying they'll all get nominated, but just showing how crowded the field is). As high-powered as the names are who are involved with the movie, it's still not a film that inherently would leap out to the public as a national whizbang Must See National Blockbuster. ("Hey, do you want to go to that movie about the newspaper and something to do with the Pentagon?") My assumption is that the studio most-likely wants to build on this as a Prestige Film that could get Oscar nominations as a very helpful selling point before its wide release, sort of a shorthand way of saying, "No, honest, this is really good." As a result, they probably aren't promoting it anywhere...yet. In fact, after just writing this, I went and did some researching. Indeed, the movie is not opening wide next month. Its general release will come on January 22, 2018. Nominations are announced on January 22. After reading Trump's boneheaded tweet over the weekend (Thanksgiving weekend, no less) about his fantasy competition for a "Fake News" Trophy, which the King of Flim-flammery then followed the next few days by yet more tweets about supposed "Fake News", I was mid-gnashing my teeth when a calming realization occurred to me.
It's one thing to call something "fake" and create controversy and uncertainty. But it's something else entirely when you call things "Fake News" regularly, unceasingly for an entire year -- because during that long period the public has the chance to put your unending charges up against reality. And Real Life over the past year has shown that pretty much all the news stories Trump has called "Fake" have turned out to be completely true. Not everything. The news media of course sometimes get facts, details and quotes flat-out wrong -- but not often, because it's quite easy to grasp that if a reporter get the foundation of a story demonstrably wrong too often (and "too often" is herewith defined as more than once every 5-10 years), you'll be out of a job -- though on those rare occasions when a story is just out-right factually inaccurate, professional press issue corrections. But that's a general observation. The specifics with Donald Trump are another matter entirely. And that's because the fullness of time has shown that news reporters have gotten most everything spot-on correct that Trump has called "Fake news" for the past year. Day after day, week after week, month after month. All the time. For a year. I suspect that in his previous, three-ring circus business life Trump could call things "Fake" with impunity because the entire world (almost literally) was not focused on him, and he only made the news every once in a while, so he could get away with it like a criminal hit-and-run driver. By the time you fact-checked something, everything had long-since moved on and earlier lies were likely even forgotten. But when you're president, all that changes. Everyone is watching, not not paying attention but paying meticulously close attention. Everything is on the record. And people keep records. In fact, it's the law to keep records of everything the president writes. And the reality of it all builds up until you get to the point where you become the foolish Boy Who Cried Wolf, and every time you cry "Fake News" up against the year-long record of you being demonstrably wrong, it only serves to shred any sense of credibility that those in the undecided middle might have had for you. And your words become meaningless and disbelieved and dance on the edge of irrelevant. I'm sure that Trump thinks all his repetition about "Fake News" has a cumulative impact on tearing down trust in the press. And I'm equally sure that it has had an impact among his base, though they came to unthinkingly believe him on this long ago, so repeating it endlessly hasn't made them believe it more. It only reinforces what is long-since solidly locked into their unquestioning minds. But there is a far-larger reality that it seems Trump has profoundly overlooked. And it's that as much as he maniacally craves world attention, people are now actually paying that full attention And your empty lies and your cries of "Fake news" for stories that repeatedly turn out to be completely true add up. Being cumulatively wrong for a year compounds itself. And you ultimately become discredited and a laughingstock to the world. Albeit a dangerous one with nukes. And that's the sinkhole where Trump sits now. Yes, his base believes his cries of "Fake news." But his base is 20%, and if you have a foundation that low, you are sunk. And more to the point, to most everyone else, every whine of "Fake news" has become one more nail that has pounded him towards oblivion. Nothing more than mere "white noise." Which, this being Trump, is the perfect description of the man. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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