"New Europe" speaks

Anyone who continues to think the U.S. is alone (i.e. "unilateral") in its position on Iraq, or that France speaks for Europe, would be well-advised to read this catalog of quotes from eastern European newspapers. My favorite, from Latvia:

All right, Monsieur Chirac. Perhaps we are poor. Perhaps we were not raised properly. We do not know about fine wine and the various directions of avant-garde art. But we do not repay those who have helped us and who continue to help us with ingratitude.

These quotes are, of course, in response to Chirac's shameful tirade on Monday, where he called the eastern Europeans "infantile" and "not well-brought up" for supporting America against Iraq, and threatened the countries that their entrance into the EU would be compromised, possibly crushing their economic hopes.

And it's America and Bush that are supposed to be the arrogant ones here? Riiiiiiiight.

Chirac was responding to about ten eastern European countries issuing a statement backing the United States against Iraq. How dare they!

posted by Michael 4:26:57 PM

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How about this leaflet?

You know how we distribute propaganda leaflets over Afghanistan and Iraq? Well, the British tabloid The Sun is handing out the above in Paris today. The headline translates as "CHIRAC IS A WORM"; the full translation of the text can be found here. Priceless.

An interesting Washington Post article about dueling leaflets (ours and the al Qaeda/Taliban ones) in Afghanistan can be found here.

And more vintage pictures (these from 1976) of Saddam and Chirac together (yes, yes, I know Americans have met with him, too - but we're not the ones making excuses for him), can be found here.

posted by Michael 1:26:53 PM

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Too busy today to do my Chicago review (coming later this week, I promise). In the meantime...



With A Little Help From My Friends

Pictured above, no joke, are Saddam Hussein and Jacques Chirac (far right), touring a French nuclear reactor together in 1975.

This comes from a great, detailed Flash presentation about Israel's destruction of Iraq's (French-backed) nuclear reactor in 1981, with a lot of information about Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut who died on Columbia two weeks ago, and had been a key particpant in the daring Israeli raid more than twenty years before. You should definitely check it out if you have a few minutes.

[Link found at Little Green Footballs.]

posted by Michael 6:22:38 PM

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Go, George Clooney, Go!

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a good movie that could have been better in the hands of a more experienced director - but not much. In his directorial debut, George Clooney tells a story that is at once funny and quirky, yet quite sad. But it is a unique story, and is told with interesting story techniques and themes. While Clooney himself admits that he may have "overdirected", at the end we are left with a thoughtful, memorable, and interesting film.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is essentially a biography of game show creator Chuck Barris. But the film informs us that at the same time he was overseeing The Newlywed Game and The Gong Show, Barris was also a CIA hitman. Now, whether this is true or not is anyone's guess (I would rate it has highly unlikely), but the film itself is so stylized that nothing in it is really meant to be taken in a straightforward fashion. Watching the film, the audience is more concerned with what the killings represent for the Barris character, rather than whether they actually happened. This is clearly how Clooney and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation.) intend it, and it works very well.

The film is anchored by Sam Rockwell in a very good and convincing performance. Rockwell has basically been a character actor up to this point, but if you have ever seen him in anything, he is particularly memorable. I saw him in the surprisingly funny GalaxyQuest a few years back, and he definitely stood out (I would say he "stole scenes", but in that film, Tony Shalhoub(!) did all of the scene-stealing.) In Confessions he strikes a nice balance between mimicking a real person and creating a memorable character appropriate to the film.

The film portrays Barris as a loser who wants to make it in television, but more importantly wants to make a contribution to culture and society (although the character never explicitly says this.) Although he spends his time chasing one-night-stands and lives in rundown apartments, Barris quotes Shakespeare and Carlyle. So when he's creating The Dating Game, for example, and becoming personally successful, he realizes he is engaged in least-common-denominator material and basically agrees with critics who say he is dragging down society (this is obviously even more resonant when today's television is so focused on the descendants of Barris's creations - apparently last night's Joe Millionaire finale had ratings on par with Super Bowls and Oscar telecasts.)

Barris's "double life" as a CIA assassin, then, is a reflection of his day job. He's just killing individual people instead of the culture. Barris's CIA control (played by Clooney himself) actually appeals to Barris's desire to accomplish something when recruiting him; Clooney asks how old Barris is (around 30 at that point) and says, "Jesus Christ was dead and back again by the time he was 32. You better get crackin'."

The film uses interesting cinematography to separate the two worlds, and eventually confuse the two. But the choice of styles is particularly interesting because Barris's reality (the television productions and relationship with his girlfriend played by Drew Barrymore) is shot in a gauzy, dreamlike fashion, while his CIA missions (and romance with fellow-spy Julia Roberts) is shot in a realistic style. The film also takes full advantage of its odd milieu, as when a love montage is set to a rendition of "Can't Help Falling in Love With You", as sung by a (Samoan? Hispanic?) Elvis impersonator on the Gong Show. The film also has a lot of straightforward humor, too, as when Barris bids farewell to fellow CIA recruits "Lee" and "Jack" (get it?), or the cameo casting of Bachelors Number One and Two on a Dating Game episode where the Bachelorette picks an ugly, overweight Bachelor Number Three.

There are points where the film drags a bit, and as I mentioned early on, there are scenes when the camera direction seems a bit too mobile or tricky with no apparent purpose. Kaufman's script is very good, but I doubt an experienced director could have brought much more out of it. Under a more sure hand, the film could have been ***1/2, but as it is, it's a very respectable, solid ***. If you like quirky and edgy (albeit with mainstream subject matter) filmmaking, you will not be disappointed by Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. If George Clooney decides to continue his career behind the camera, we may have some very interesting films ahead of us.

posted by Michael 4:11:56 PM

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