WCBE 90.5 FM: It's Movie Time - "Another Year at the Movies: The Culture Wars of 2004" (SEGMENT ONE-FINAL)

WCBE’s “It’s Movie Time”
"Another Year at the Movies:
The Culture Wars of 2004"

SEGMENT ONE-FINAL (WITH MUSIC)

IT'S MOVIE TIME: with John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antzcak, WCBE
"Another Year at the Movies: The Culture Wars of 2004
Air Date: February 2005
Taping Times:
4:00 pm, Wednesday, November 10, 2004 (Segment One)
4:00 pm, Wednesday, November 17, 2004 (Segment Two)
3:00 pm, Thursday, January 27 (Segment Three)

The Script:

SEGMENT ONE

MUSIC #1 (ONLINE TO MINI DISC)
HEADLINE MUSIC:
FOUR SONGS GEORGE M. COHAN
FROM (HTTP://WWW.USAFBAND.COM/RECORDING.CFM?START=31),THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay

It was show time in America last year, from Hollywood to Baghdad to Washington the culture wars were quite the rage . . .

John

Anti-war protesters stood in line to see Robert MacNamara confess his sins in "The Fog of War" . . .

Clay

Super Bowl fans were shocked during half-time when Janet Jackson showed more than her dimples . . .

John

Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill 2" was a brilliant exposure to the ugliness of revenge . . .

Clay

And busloads of movie goers learned from Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" that the misuse of power was nothing new under the sun . .

MUSIC #2 (CD)
“TEAM AMERICA”
(CUT 11 “TEAM AMERICA)
THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle:

WCBE presents "Another Year at the Movies: The Culture Wars of 2004" with your hosts John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC DOWN AND UNDER JOHN AND CLAY

John

I'm John DeSando.

Clay

And I'm Clay Lowe.

MUSIC UP, THEN HIT/OR CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #3 (CD)
"THE FOG OF WAR"
(CUT 1: “100,000 PEOPLE”)
ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR JOHN AND CLAY:

Clay

John, the cultural warriors battled it out for the soul of America last year. To the Republicans, America was witnessing the dawning of a new age. To the Democrats, America was witnessing the end of the American dream. And to the independents, America was dazed and confused and they were caught in-between.

John

Liberal vs. conservative, freedom freaks vs. control freaks, the bipolar
ideologies were as apparent on screen as off whether in Troy or Baghdad.

Clay

And nowhere did they become more apparent than in Errol Morris's Oscar winning "The Fog of War" . . .

MUSIC UP, BRIEFLY, THEN UNDER FOR:

DeSando ("The Fog of War")

Clay, in 2004 the liberal Morris brought us "Fog of War," maybe the best documentary to fuse a controversial historical figure (McNamara) with his grandest moment (the Vietnam War).

Clay

My. My.

John (Continues)

McNamara's ambivalence about the event and his responsibility gave the film an authenticity and humanity that last year was shared only with "Capturing the Friedmans."

Although McNamara wanted to seem liberal in his veiled opposition to escalation, he could be the progenitor of Donald Rumsfeld and his take-no-prisoner conservatism.

Applications to human nature and current events abound. The cool necessary to operate under murderous circumstances is reflected in this wonk's slick hair, rimless glasses, and self-serving dialogue. The parallel to the war in Iraq is painful. He warns in his first "lesson" we must learn from our mistakes. If Vietnam was a grand mistake, why are we forgetting it again?

Clay

Got me.

John (Continues)

Could the liberals themselves have turned conservative?

Clay ("The Fog of War")

Could be, John, but more than a few compared the war in Iraq to Vietnam last year, as did Morris when he accepted his Oscar for “The Fog of War”: "Forty years ago," he said, "this country went down a rabbit hole in Vietnam and millions died. I fear we're going down a rabbit hole once again -- "

In Morris’s "The Fog of War" we saw former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, admit he'd been wrong about Vietnam. Just as in Peter Davis’s “Hearts and Minds,” way back in 1975, we had seen McNamara’s successor, Clark Clifford make the same confession.

John

I remember him.

Clay (Continues)

When questioned about his support for the war, Secretary of State Clifford had also replied: "I couldn't have been more wrong."


MUSIC UP, THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT/OR SEGUE TO
MUSIC #4 (CD)
"THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST"
(CUT: 4 "PETER DENIES JESUS - JOHN DABNEY)
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay ("The Passion of the Christ")

But, you know folks, the occupying army of the Romans had gotten it all wrong too. And all of those busloads of middle America who flocked to see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” knew more than most, that the Roman’s get-tough-floogin and final crucifixion of Jesus, only radicalized Christians for generations to come.

How blind we sometimes are to history.

MUSIC UP, HOLD, THEN UNDER AGAIN FOR JOHN

John ("The Passion of the Christ")

If you push a Biblically conservative agenda, then meanness and violence overshadow the humanity of the Sermon on the Mount.

Clay

Is that possible?

John (Continues)

This much-heralded Mel Gibson version of Christ's suffering is a testimony to the fact that the meek won't inherit the earth. Be flamboyant about your film's controversies; watch the silver coins come in from the evangelical fervor over the film's realism.

Clay

Bloody realism.

John (Continues)

What's good about the film? The inspiration from Caravaggio's paintings gives the film a darkly elegiac visual tone. Also, the relationship between Mother Mary and Christ has possibilities. But Gibson doesn't expand this possibility because of his obsession with the purgative province of violence. The selection of conservative conflict over liberal love mirrors the global choices of 2004.

I do hope there is a heaven, so I finally can ask to see a life of Christ
worthy of its subject.

MUSIC UP BRIEFLY, THEN UNDER

Clay ("The Passion of the Christ")

John, I hope there's a heaven too because I'd worry about you in hell. But yes, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" goes way overboard in its depiction of seemingly unmotivated violence that the Romans and the Jewish religious establishment inflicted on the man from the city of Nazareth.

Driven by the stoicism of Jesus in the face of unexplained hatred and violence, the rest of the movie’s cast, unfortunately, were reduced to card board cut-outs. There were the bad guys, there was a good guy, there were weak-kneed disciples, and there were the passively suffering women, who stood helplessly by.

Only a miracle could have saved him, but that miracle was denied.

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #5 (CD)
"MIRACLE"
(CUT 5: "DON'T FEAR THE REAPER" - BLUE OYSTER CULT)
ESTABLISH THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay ("Miracle")

But John, we did have a miracle when Hollywood when Hollywood replayed those Cold War days when the U.S. celebrated its off-the-battlefield victory over the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AGAIN FOR:

John ("Miracle")

Clay, The film "Miracle" is what American filmmakers do best: a rousing true tale of an underdog overcoming insurmountable odds to win the prize.

Clay

Oh, do we love a winner.

John (Continues)

It is even more exuberant than "Seabiscuit" because the team represented the renewal of American spirit for times gloomy in the recounting.

MUSIC UP BRIEFLY THEN BACK UNDER (IF IT WORKS)

John (Continues)

"Miracle" is about veteran hockey coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell), a
remarkable man whose vision was that only the most grueling practice will prepare them for the best team in the world. Americans prevailed in a victory the director makes immediate and visceral with Steadicam, close up, and swelling music. The spirit is still decidedly conservative. Victory at any cost, USA uber alles.

Clay

Oh, be careful, John

John (Continues)

Darrell Royal, commenting on football coaches, gives an insight into Herb Brooks' success: "A head coach is guided by this main objective: dig, claw, wheedle, coax that fanatical effort out of players."

MUSIC UP BRIEFLY, THEN BACK UNDER AGAIN

Clay ("Miracle")

"Seabiscuit," DeSando? How about "Hoosiers" on ice? Change the names and the scripts are the same.

John

Yeah.

Clay (Continues)

Two unsung coaches. Two unsteady young teams destined to go up against two seemingly invincible rivals. Real-life hockey coach Herb Brooks and real-life basketball coach Norman Dale were Hollywood-made-to-order. Infused with the respective personas of the doggedly-determined Kurt Russell and the ever-lovin' charms of Gene Hackman, there was nothing in heaven nor hell that could have prevented these two films from becoming two big box-office bonanzas.

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #6 (DVD TO MINI DISC)
"SPARTAN" (FIRST CUT FROM CLOSING CREDITS)
ESTABLISH THEN UNDER CLAY

Clay (Transition to "Spartan")

Not quite the boxoffice bonanza of “Miracle,” however, David Mamet’s “Spartan” unknowingly prepared us for the questions raised when the abusive photographs of U.S. prisoners at Abu Ghraib first appeared.

Ironically, it was Hollywood that has taught us to make heroes out of tough guys. Think John Wayne in “The Sands of Iwo Jima,” Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry,” and Val Kilmer in “Spartan” and you’ll get the picture.

John ("Spartan")

Maybe "Spartan," the best spy movie ever made by a practicing playwright/director. Director and frequent screen writer Mamet has crafted a thriller peppered with his stylized, epigrammatic dialogue that takes on the presidency and world corruption.

Clay

Either or, John?

John (Continues)

Mamet lets us see that this plot is much more than a potboiler about lascivious, ruthless president's lost daughter, for it comments on the hidden forces behind the electoral process. I must remind myself to have students write essays about appearance and reality in Mamet's films or about conservative Florida's ballot of victory in 2000.

Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus once said, "Those who are trained and disciplined in the proper discipline can determine what will best serve the occasion." Mamet best serves this occasion with a superior thriller about a man of discipline serving his country in spite of itself.

Clay ("Spartan")

John, a man of discipline indeed. Kilmer's Special Forces officer plays his part as though he were interviewing for a position at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Slamming bodies against walls, breaking the arms of those who resisted him, threatening to cut out the eye of an uncooperative detainee, and even slapping around a rather fragile old woman. Val Kilmer's character is Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, and Clint Eastwood all rolled into one. No wonder audiences loved him.

No doubt audiences were caught up in the movie's fast moving plot, outrageous twists, and deliberate deceptions. But it’s hard to believe that the Bush supporters watching the movie would be able to accept the movie’s preposterous premise. Which was, that a president of the United States would willfully have people killed in order to carry out his political purposes.

John

That’s not possible.

Clay

Dream on, John

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #7 (CD)
"ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND"
(CUT 1: THEME)
THEN UNDER

Clay ("50 First Dates"/"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind")

Equally preposterous to romantics like you, John, would be for you to imagine that a lover would be capable of trying to wipe out her memories of you.

John

That’s not possible either.

Clay

Hope you’re not wed to that idea, because that’s exactly what happened in two of the year’s most romantic comedies: “50 First Dates,” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

In the light-weight "50 First Dates," Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler’s characters fall in love in the first scene in the film, but because Barrymore is suffering from short term memory loss, Sandler discovers he has to begin each day courting her all over again.

In the more emotionally and intellectually demanding "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," Kate Winslet plays "Clementine," a feisty young lady who has had so many bad moments with her lover (as played by a rather morose Jim Carrey), that she goes to a brain doctor who erases her memory of him. Watching the devastating effect of her memory loss upon her former lover is what the movie is all about.

A worthy theme in a time, once again, that we seem to be forgetting the lessons of history.

MUSIC UP, HOLD, THEN SLOWLY CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #8 (CD)
"25 GREATEST CLASSICS"
(CUT 16: FUR ELISE - BEETHOVEN)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ("Elephant")

Well, Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" is Oscar worthy but won't be an Oscar contender.

Director Van Sant fictionalizes an average high school at which a Columbine-like massacre takes place. Interestingly, he makes no attempt to relay the underlying causes for the young men's decision to slaughter; in fact, he seems to try hard not to supply any reasons except for a brief segment with a boy watching a show on Nazis and a faceless mother serving pancakes.

It's just that the viewer must give in to the director's vision of teenage life as essentially devoid of humor, excitement, and rationale. As one of the murderers tells the other at the beginning of the rampage, "Have fun."

Similar to the current debate about foresight and intention in the Iraq war, the neocons barely explain their wars, and the liberals deplore without alternatives. In other words, crime and its criminals are inscrutable.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT/OR CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #9 (CD)
"KILL BILL 2"
(CUT 14: "MALEGUENA SALEROSA" -CHINGON)
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay ("Kill Bill 2")

Well, John, "Kill Bill: 2" takes as its setting the inscrutable plains and
desolate barrens of Mexico.

Much slower moving than Vol. 1, "Kill Bill 2" has a pressure cooker beginning, that commences when Bill (David Carradine) makes a surprise entrance and goes face to face with the Bride (Uma) just before her wedding.

No flashy yellow jumpsuit for Uma in "Kill Bill 2," but lots of screen time for her to talk out HER feelings and her determination to revenge the death of her unborn baby.

You'll see her hunting down Bill, you'll witness the bloody battle between her and Elle (as played Daryl Hannah), and be breathless with disbelief when you see the Bride being buried alive.

Hardly a man of peace, Tarantino's "Kill Bill," should take home some of the Oscar gold this year. But the real life events of 2004 will take home the gold for being the bloodiest year we’ve known since the late 1970s.

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #10 (CD)
"MY ARCHITECT: A SON'S JOURNEY"
(CUT 1: “ADAGIO” OPENING TITLES)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ("My Architect: A Son's Journey")

Clay, the man of peace in my life was my dad. I remember him through the countless hours I spent quietly riding with him as he made his house calls. He was a traveling buddy, not a physician.

Nathaniel Kahn's documentary about this father, Louis Kahn, called "My Architect: A Son's Journey," stands in line this year with fiction films like "Big Fish" and "Barbarian Invasions" as sons search for their fathers, always finding them and themselves at the same time. In "Architect," however, son Nathaniel is different because he loves his roguish father from the start.

The film is Hollywood liberalism that exalts the humanistic search for self through parents and allows art to surpass the confines of ordinary
existence.

It is one of the best documentaries this Oscar year and an unforgettable journey.

MUSIC UP, CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #11 (CD)
“YOUNG AMERICANS”
(CUT 1: “YOUNG AMERICANS” - DAVID BOWIE VOCALS)
THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay (Lead into Break One)

Unforgettable journey, John. You want an unforgettable journey?

Imagine, when we come back, that our cars break down and we find ourselves having to spend the night in places like “Dogville,” “The Village,” or, the horror of it all, Crawford, Texas.

John

The horror, the horror.

Clay

Stay tuned, folks, there’s more fun and adventure yet ahead.

MUSIC UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT, OR PLAY THROUGH THE BREAK (PRODUCER’S CHOICE)

Break One

WCBE: It's Movie Time - "Another Year at the Movies: The Culture Wars of 2004" (SEGMENT TWO)

WCBE’s “It’s Movie Time”
"Another Year at the Movies:
The Culture Wars of 2004"

SEGMENT TWO-FINAL (WITH MUSIC)

The Script:

SEGMENT TWO

MUSIC #12 (CD)
HEADLINE MUSIC”
“THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE”
(CUT 3: “JOHN BIRCH LURCH”)
THEN TAKE WAY UNDER FOR:

John

All hell broke loose in Spring last year, when CBS broadcast the photographs of prison abuse at Abu Grhaib . . .

Clay

And thousands more watched on in horror when the Internet carried the video tape of a U.S. contractor being beheaded in Iraq . . .

John

But, on the upbeat side, the United States declared, in June, that Iraq was a fully sovereign nation, which caused President Bush to proudly proclaim, “Let freedom reign” . . .

Clay

In July, the Democratic Convention declared John F. Kerry was their favorite wartime hero, but there was no bounce for Kerry in the post-convention polls . . .

John

In August, the Republican Convention declared George W. Bush was their favorite wartime president and his ratings went up 11 per cent.

Go figure.

MUSIC UP FULL THEN CROSS FADE TO:
MUSIC #13 (DVD TO MINI DISC),
“VAN HELSING”
(CUT 1: CLOSING CREDITS)
THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay (“Van Helsing”)

In Hollywood’s world of good versus evil, Hugh Jackman, in the movie “Van Helsing,” was just as hell bent on destroying evil doers, as was our President Bush. The evil empire Van Helsing challenged, however, was ruled by Count Dracula, werwolves, and, of course, the most evil demon of them all, Dr. Frankenstein’s blasphemous monster.

Terrorizing the farmers and villagers of Transylvania, the Prince of Darkness, wrecked havoc and fear in the hearts of the people. But even worse than the fears they had for their lives, were the fears they had for their souls. For if men could create life, why would they ever again need God?

So there you have it, folks, a Grade “B” CGI monster movie becomes one of the year’s first films to raise the question that would divide America last year, in the modern world of today, what is the role of faith and what is the role of reason?

HIT MUSIC #14 (CD).
“THE VILLAGE”
(CUT 9: “RACE TO RESTING ROCK”)
THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay (Intros “Dogville”)

Equally caught up in the aftereffects of change were the people of “Dogville.” Set in 1930s America, Dogville was buried in the mountains of Colorado and sheletered a populace that had been defeated by circumstance and greed. Abandoned by the mine owners, after the mines had gone dry, Lars von Trier’s “Dogville” is the story of those people who had been left behind with only their passions, pride and fears to sustain them. Fertile ground, indeed, for paranoia.

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AGAIN FOR

John ("Dogville")

Clay, the paranoia from "9/11" evidenced in creating the Homeland Security agency and accelerated defense projects has influenced recent films in controversial ways. The tepid critical responses to "The Village" and "Dogville" are unfortunate: The two films have been viewed as period pieces tied to the eccentric spirit of Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" and Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" rather than as modern allegories underpinned by classic staging and dialogue.

We have been fascinated with the idea of conservatively isolating ourselves into perfect societies to escape malign outside forces, only to find such withdrawal unrealistic.

"Dogville" shows the influence of the change-agent. The 19th century village of "The Village," isolated by putative forest monsters, crosses over the woods to get medicine for a mortally wounded young man. The concession to travel is part of a larger liberal theme of the need for exploration that offers discovery of love and life itself. For "The Village" and "Dogville" the enemy has always been within anyway.

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #15 (CD)
"HARRY POTTER”
(CUT 5: DOUBLE TROUBLE”)
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay (""Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban") (June)

John, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” is also a text book lesson about learning how to face up to the fears we see in a mirror. Using the magic of words, we are able to watch as the young students at HogWart.... are taught to subdue their fears by using the language of reason.

The movie's impressive visual settings also remain faithful to what it is that makes fantasy, fantasy. A surreal landscape of twisted trees, towering castles, and dark groves that sequester fearsome werewolves, all combine to help us escape into a world far different from our own.

Solid once-upon-a-time storytelling, believable characters, and clever plot twists, that excite rather than confuse, turned the most recent "Harry Potter" movie into a superior entertainment that was capable of charming both young and old.

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #16 (CD).
"TROY"
(CUT 3: "ACHILLES LEADS THE MYRMIDONS" - BEGIN CUT AT 04:35 IN)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ("Troy")

You might have been charmed by "Troy" with popular actor hero Brad Pitt playing classical warrior Achilles well enough that it will henceforth be shown by classics departments as the definitive tale of The Trojan War. When Pitt as Achilles says he did not engage Hector in the first meeting because it's “too early to kill princes,” I was won over by the humanity and superiority of the hero AND the actor.

Homer would be happy with this version: The spirit is for the ages,
thousands of years later, when conservative men still go to war for reasons other than love, occupy other countries at great peril, and die inexplicably happy to have their names emblazoned on memorials while families cope with profound loss.

"Troy" was a blockbuster to complement a summer of the neocons’ real war and a conflicted citizenry.

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP, THEN UNDER AGAIN FOR

Clay ("Troy")

"Troy" was no Baghdad, folks, but its desert setting was strikingly similar, as were the movie’s central themes: the ruling gods will have their way, and mere mortals are the ones who have end up fighting their battles.

Aging Priam (Peter O'Toole) with his watery blue eyes, the bearded and angry Agamemnon (Brian Cox), and the bulked-up Brad Pitt, plays Achilles as a surfer dude that has an attitude that just won't die.

Honor, pride, arrogance and greed, John, you've got to love the honesty of those self-reflecting Greeks. And you've got to love "Troy," because underneath all of its Hollywood pizaaz, its message is solid, moving, compassionate, and wise.

Not bad for a movie about a hero with an Achilles heel.

MUSIC UP, THEN CROSS FADE TO
MUSIC #17 (CD)
"DELOVELY"
(CUT 4: “LET’S MISBEHAVE”-ELVIS COSTELLO) ESTABLISH, THEN TAKE UNDER AFTER HE SINGS PHRASE: “LET’S MISBEHAVE” (AT 00:37 IN)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ("Delovely")

Clay, I am pleased to report the biopic with pizaaz, as you said, remains whole, ascending to a new level with Irwin Winkler's "De-Lovely," the life in song about Cole Porter and his wife, Linda.

I say "In song" because barely a moment is not accompanied by Porter's music so recognizable I can cite "Night and Day," "In the Still of the Night," "Anything Goes," "Let's Misbehave," and "True Love" without research help or the least provocation. Talented Kevin Kline plays Porter with 1920's tuxedoed charm embracing the true love of his life, Linda (Ashley Judd), and the many men who helped him fulfill his need to love everything.

The emergence this year of conservative fundamentalists who cringe at the mere thought of “gay” makes this biopic timely as it emphasizes Porter’s genius and loving heart. It’s hard to vote any amendment that would restrict the spirit of such a genius.

MUSIC UP FOR ABOUT TEN OR SO SECONDS, THEN CROSS FADE TO:
MUSIC #18 (ONLINE TO MINI DISC).
"AMERICA'S HEART & SOUL"
(“THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND”)
http://www.usafband.com/recording.cfm?start=30
Or without lyrics:
http://www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/thislandisyourland.html
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay (Lead into: "America's Heart & Soul")

Well John, if you were looking for a movie that unknowingly paid tribute to non-conformist outsiders, then Walt Disney's "America's Heart & Soul" was the film for you. Full of stock images of breath-taking landscapes (minus scenes of freeways, massive malls, and urban clutter), “America’s Heart & Soul” also featured a steady stream of interviews with the common folk of America. Common folk, who we can see are free, because they like Janis Joplin have nothing left to lose.

Do you think the producers knew that was what they were saying?

John

Karl Rove would approve of your interpretation, but probably not publicly. “America’s Heart and Soul” caught me in its heart warmth about American freedom but mostly about eccentric Americans, of whom you are a distinguished member.

Clay

I consider us both among that number.

MUSIC UP AND CROSS FADE TO:
MUSIC #19 (CD)
“FAHRENHEIT 911”
(CUT 9: “FORTUNATE SON” - JOHN FOGERTY VOCALS)
THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay (“Fahrenheit 911”)

If American eccentricity and sheer determination have become your inspiration then you're going to love Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" which was a nasty, give-em-back-tit-for-tat attack on George W. Bush and those rowdy boys over at the Pentagon.

Ironic juxtapositions ruled the day. When America goes under attack, Moore cut his camera to that now famous shot of President Bush stunned into dumbness. When Donald Rumsfeld told us our weapons were humane and precise, Moore cut to gruesome shots of the mangled bodies of those who had just been destroyed by them.

Nothing, and no one, this past year riled up Bill Riley, and his colleagues at Fox TV more than the mere mention of the name of Michael Moore.

But the real theme of “Fahrenheit 991”, however, was lost in the fogs of the cultural wars, because its real conclusion was that it's the rich and the powerful who send us off to war, but it's the sons and daughters of the working class and poor, who more often than not, are the ones who come home in a coffin.

MUSIC UP/CROSSFADE TO:
MUSIC #20 (CD).
“THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE”
(CUT 9: “FORTUNATE SON” - Wyclef Jean)
THEN UNDER FOR:

John ("The Manchurian Candidate")

Here’s a scary picture for real.

If this year’s movies broadcast the fears of liberals and conservatives over each other’s dirty deeds, then Jonathan Demme's "The Manchurian Candidate" (Remade from the 1962 version) is one of the reasons. First is the story itself of some soldiers around the time of Desert Storm brainwashed to perform deeds that ultimately aim at the president of the U.S.

The film also addresses the hypnotic rhetoric of war that makes a nation of slaves to their parties' political agendas and to corporate corruption symbolized by Manchurian Global, a copy of the politically tied Halliburton.

This version of “Manchurian Candidate” needs no comparison with its ancestor to be one of the best American films this year to reveal the paranoia that divides the country even after a decisive election.

MUSIC UP/CROSSFADE AT TO:
MUSIC #21 (CD)
“THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD”
(CUT: 12 “SAD MUSIC CONTEST MONTAGE” - HIT CD AT ABOUT 01:19 IN AFTER THE SOUND OF THE BUZZER), ESTABLISH THEN UNDER FOR

John ("The Saddest Music in the World")

Clay, I am uncertain how “The Saddest Music in the World” fits our culture wars theme, so you can help me.

Clay

Let me just say for now, if you were a Canadian, you’d understand. But I’ll get back to you on this.

John

Canadian writer/director Guy Maddin has created a film like no other this year except possibly "Triplets of Belleville." "The Saddest Music in the World" is set in 1933 Winnipeg, where Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) is holding a contest to award $25,000 to the performer of the saddest music.

What happens in the film can be categorized as surrealism of the wackiest sort: For instance, Indian singers in short-skirted Eskimo costumes dance to ''California Here I Come'' with sitars and banjos commemorating a 19th-century kayaking accident.

I know I'm not making much sense here-Trust me, this film is bizarre enough to satisfy the geekiest cultist in our audience. For the rest of us, just trying to appreciate all the signposts Maddin constructs to further his absurd and funny vision is exhausting.

MUSIC UP, HOLD, THEN UNDER WHEN THE THEME ESTABLISHES ITSELF AGAIN

Clay ("The Saddest Music in the World")

Folks, Guy Maddin's "The Saddest Music in the World" was as surreal as "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," as brooding as "Citizen Kane," and as wickedly clever as David Lynch's "Blue Velvet."

And the questions it raised were equally complex. How do people who live on the fringes of a dominate culture, in this case, Canadians, learn how to survive? Do they have to give in to the cultural values of their American neighbors, or can they learn how to play the middle against both sides?

Brilliantly told, “The Saddest Music in the World” is the story of a drunken Canadian father, who has lost his self respect; a stay-at-home-son, who had been warped into weirdness by his own insecurities; and a go-away-son, who returns home, a smashing success, because he’s learned to out brash the Americans.

Such brashness, such a hero, and such a movie.

MUSIC UP/CROSS FADE TO:
MUSIC #22 (CD)
HERO (CUT 9: “SPIRIT FIGHT”)
THEN UNDER FOR:

John ("Hero")

Clay, Now and then it's good for both Eastern and Western cultures to redefine the concept of "hero." Brad Pitt's recent success as Achilles reconfirmed the heroic warrior's physical excellence and foolhardy courage as a hallmark of Hollywood's version. From the East, in the time before China's first emperor, Jet Li's "Nameless" in "Hero" takes a different turn: Although physical like Pitt's Achilles, he is even more the cunning Ulysses, the liberal hero with brains and a heart with an insightful vision of his country's future and a humble realization about his place.

Conservatives like Achilles’ single-minded devotion to supremacy; liberals like Nameless’s thoughtful humanism.

The definition of hero changes depending on the culture and the times. The dynamic heroes of "Hero" do not fit Emerson's prediction that "every hero becomes a bore at last." Perhaps in the sequel.

Clay ("Hero")

John, there's nothing boring about the movie's sullen young "Hero," who according to his version of the story, masterfully disposed of the three assassins who had set out to murder the king.

Our hero lunged like a tiger, soared like an eagle, and was able to leap tall mountains in a single bound, but was he really the best swordsman? In these days of digital enhancement only his visual designer knew for sure.

But the movie’s best line, "The ideal of a true warrior is to lay down his sword," was the ideal that was to haunt the election of 2004. Why would a true warrior, who had known the evils of war, ever again pick up a sword? And that was the question John Kerry raised when he returned home, a reluctant hero, from the Vietnam war.

CROSSFADE TO:
MUSIC #23 (CD)
“VANITY FAIR”
(CUT 3: “BECKY AND AMELIA LEAVE SCHOOL”)

John (Tease Segment Three)

Clay, we have seen evil doers destroyed by conservative warriors both ancient and modern and by fog-inducing rhethoric.

But we also saw the other side of the house make gay music, live free with nothing to lose, fight our wars obediently, and offer heroes of the most human kind.

Stay with us as we explore the old culture wars between the classes in
"Vanity Fair" and the modern clashes between warlike neocons and peacenik liberals in "Team America," and so much more.

MUSIC UP THEN DOWN AND OUT OR PLAY THROUGH BREAK (PRODUCER’S CHOICE)

BREAK TWO

WCBE 90.5 FM: "It's Movie Time" - "Another Year at the Movies: The Culture Wars of 2004" (SEGMENT THREE: A & B)

2/17/05 Revised

SEGMENT THREE (A)

MUSIC #24 (CD)
HEADLINES & INTRO TO SEGMENT THREE
ALEXANDER (CUT 3: TITANS - START ABOUT 00;30 IN)
TAKE MUSIC UNDER THROUGHOUT THE FIGHT SCENE

Clay

John, the presidential election of 2004 was so bitter last year that by the time the leaves began to fall the candidates Bush, Chaney, Kerry, and Edwards were beginning to resemble gladiators who were being groomed for the arena and boxers who were being prepared for the ring. Who were the good guys and who were the bad?

The media played it as though it were an upcoming struggle between Red America and Blue. The campaign committees played it as though it was going to be a battle between evil and good. But here's how those great debates might have sounded if they had been written by Norman Mailer and broadcast by Howard Cosell.

HIT MUSIC #25 (ONLINE TO MINI DISC) SOUND EFFECTS: SINGLE BOXING BELL RINGS AT:
http://www.wavsource.com/sfx/sfx.htm (KEEP MUSIC UNDER
NARRATIVE AND BELL SOUNDS)

John

Round 1: The geo-political boxers finally enter the ring. Bush looks wired; Kerry looks wooden.

SINGLE BELL RINGS

Clay

Round 2: VP tag team Cheney and Edwards climb through the ropes. The Sunshine Boy from South Carolina outshines the Grump, but the ref is indifferent.

SINGLE BELL RINGS

John

Round 3: Bush and Kerry return to the ring for more battle; Kerry throws a wild punch that takes him on a one-way trip to Lesbos.

SINGLE BELL RINGS

Clay

Round 4: The entire Swit Boat Gang climbs through the ropes delivering to Kerry a series of savage broadsides that make his knees wobble so badly his cutter sends for more gauze.

SINGLE BELL RINGS

John

Round 5: Bush jumps back into the ring whacking Kerry with lead gloves of lethal "values.?" A shaken Kerry struggles to hold onto the ropes.

SINGLE BELL RINGS

Clay

Round 6: Bush, confident now that he?'ll win, turns on the charm for the crowd and turns to Kerry stopping him with a huge uppercut to his considerable chin. Kerry falls to the canvas with a thump.

BOXING BELL RINGS SEVERAL TIMES SIGNIFYING THE END OF THE FIGHT

John

The Ohio referee stops the fight to declare George W. Bush the winner by a knockout.

Clay

Many in the crowd boo and hiss, but Bush supporters declare it a moral victory, and Bush calls it a mandate.

SWELL MUSIC UP, HOLD THREE OR FOUR SECONDS, THEN VERY SLOWLY SNEAK DOWN AND OUT

John (Intro to Segment Three)

Clay, The moral values that won the 2004 election, often based on fears and prejudices, seemed to energize the artful left, creating works of art that bled with humanity and humor. To leftist and centrist filmmakers, the opportunity to explore social issues was an inspiration; to us fair and balanced critics, it was a chance to enjoy daring and dynamic films.

As the year came to conclusion, films seemed fully engaged in political and social discourse through the lens of art.

Clay

Fair and balanced? You jest, of course. Just as Rupert Murdock jests when he calls Fox News the same. But good enough, the left had its heroes and the right had theirs. Roger Red America loved heroes who lived in a world of black and white. Billy Blue American loved heroes who lived in worlds more nuanced.

John

That's a French word isn't it?

Clay

Oh, you're so Right.

Anyway, that's why Bush's handlers re-shaped George W's persona into the image of one of those old-time Hollywood heroes who wore a white hat, shot from the hip, and rode off into the sunset before anyone could ask any embarrassing questions.

And that's why they re-shaped the persona of John Kerry into the image of one of those new kinds of Hollywood heroes who can't be counted upon to get tough and stay tough. Think Spiderman 2 and the new Clint Eastwood.

Many Americans, however, liberal or conservative, weren't very happy with these choices and were more apt to declare as did Thackery in his Vanity Fair, that we now live in a world without heroes.

HIT MUSIC #26 (CD) VANITY FAIR
(CUT 3: BECKY AND AMELIA LEAVE SCHOOL).
ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR:

Clay ("Vanity Fair")

The most recent movie version of "Vanity Fair" was a lushly drawn portrait of what life was like in the drawing rooms of Regency England. The social intrigues, the boorish behavior, and the snobbery were all exquisitely captured on film by Mira Nair.

Working class America, if they'd watched this movie at all, might have argued that Vanity Fair did, indeed have a hero. For Reese Witherspoon's Becky Sharp started at the bottom of the ladder and climbed her way to the top by using every dangerous weapon that plucky young women seem to have been born with.

No wonder Margaret Mitchell used Becky Sharp as the model for Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind.

CROSS FADE MUSIC #27 (CD)
Life is Just a Bowl of cherries (Mills Brothers)
or Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Alison Jiear)
THEN UNDER FOR

John (Being Julia)

Annette Bening’s middle-aged Julia Lambert in Being Julia is an early twentieth-century London stage star who can act well enough but dangerously carries her acting into her personal life.

Listen to a ghost of Julia’s past, Jimmy Langton (Michael Gambon), coach her to winning performances on stage and in the bedroom. Jimmy tells her, "Your only reality is the theater," and about bedding a young man half her age, "If that doesn't improve your performance, then nothing will."

Julia's getting revenge by using her craft as the ultimate act of stage terrorism and a coda not to be missed are reasons enough to rank the film as one of the best of 2004. Just like her rival for the Oscar, Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby, Bening's Julia is a new kind of liberal heroine, feisty and cunning, dangerous and attractive, and not ready to cave to the men who think they can ignore a modern woman.

CROSS FADE MUSIC #28 (DVD TO MINI DISC)
MARIA FULL OF GRACE
(MINI DISC: FIRST CUTS FROM CLOSING CREDITS)

John ("Maria Full of Grace")

Clay,

In Catholic school we prayed the "Hail Mary, Full of Grace," ending with "Pray for us sinners, now and forever. Amen." In "Maria Full of Grace" for those young women "Hail Mary" seems not enough to help. Although they live in a conservatively Catholic Colombia, in one of the only Catholic iconographic moments, Maria ingests small bags of cocaine as if they were communion. She will deliver these to the US.

Director Marston's detailed eye is not so much interested in religious motifs as he is in fully detailing the characters' lives in impoverished Colombia, the claustrophobic flight with other mules, and Maria's deadly gymnastics in the rest room. The plight of the poor in South America juxtaposed with the fat cats in the U.S. who benefit from their risk is disturbing. Never were the spoils of the culture wars so depressing.

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AGAIN
Clay (Vera Drake)

John, Vera Drake was but one of a score of cinematic and literary characters who became victims of their own good intentions. Her simple crime? She broke the law. Her reason? She was responding to a higher law within, a law that compelled her to make response to immediate human need her primary mode of action.

No political nor ideological tract, however, is this film. Au contrair, it is a character driven drama that explores the depths of what it means to be human in the everyday world.

Vera Drake joins the main characters in Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside, who were all forced to decide whether or not they should obey laws they felt unfair, or whether they would be willing to break them and pay the price.

MUSIC #29 (CD)
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
(CUT 11: LIMA)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ("The Motorcycle Diaries")

How about a blue hero in the making? A cocktail of motorcycle, youth, idealism, and the open road is inevitably spirit altering. But put that "drink" in the hands of 24-year-old Ernesto "Che" Guevara and 30-year-old Alberto Granado and transformation is inevitable.

Most notably, in "Motorcycle Diaries," a new film based on his recollections, the introverted Che gradually sees in the 7500-mile trek from Argentina to Venezuela the injustices suffered by the underprivileged, the culture wars up close between the haves and have nots. This is, after all, the boy who would be rebel. No one should be surprised to see Robert Redford's name as executive producer-there's another name of someone who cares.

Wordsworth, an inveterate wanderer himself, knew the conjunction of wisdom, humility, and humanism: "Give unto me, made lowly wise/ The spirit of self-sacrifice."

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #30 (CD)
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
(CUT 13: MANTA SQUADRON)
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay ("Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow")

John, many critics last year didn’t agree that Jude Law’s Sky Captain? was worthy of a nomination for hero of the year, but "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" took me back to those wonderful days of yesteryear when Saturday matinees cost a dime, plus two pennies, and a big bag of popcorn would set you back a nickel.

It was also a time of unbridled optimism, despite the fact that the armies of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito were savaging Europe and ravaging the south Pacific. Were we fearful? Well, maybe a little, but our brave president then, told us we had nothing to fear, but fear itself.

My, my how the times have changed.

What was refreshing about "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" was that it re-ignited our heroic passions. It inspired us to believe that one man, Sky Captain, with a feisty reporter at his side, Polly Perkins, could make a difference. And it also led us to conclude that moral courage, not might, makes things right.

Of course, we were proven wrong again in November.

CROSS FADE TO MUSIC #31 (CD)
TEAM AMERICA (AND CONTINUE UNDER OUTFOXED}
(CUT 9: MONTAGE)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ("Team America")

The creators of "South Park" have fashioned the best political satire of this political season, "Team America: World Police," done with puppets, strings and all. The filmmakers satirize hordes of Hollywood liberals such as Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon (They all belong to the Film Actor's Guild, whose acronym is F.A.G.). "Team's" not always funny, but it is one of the "fair and balanced" satires out there today.

Clay ("Team America")

Fair and balanced, John? "Team America: World Police" is as about as fair and balanced as Fox TV news. But you're absolutely right the movie is clever, witty, and as funny as can be. "Team America" had all of red America rolling in the aisles when Hollywood's anti-war puppets got sliced up, diced up, and blasted into bloody oblivion.

Most of all, "Team America" proved, once and for all, that America's number one, and will BE number one, even when there's no one else left behind.

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AGAIN

Clay ("Outfoxed")

America's blue state take on it all was the documentary "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism." Outfoxed was "gottcha" journalism at its very best. Sounds and shadows, smoke and mirrors, rapid cutting, ironic juxtapositions, they are all a part of every filmmaker's big bag of tricks.

But what we learned from Greenwald's documentary was that even though all news sources are subject to bias, some news sources are more biased than others.

What we also learned from Outfoxed was that Fox TV's news directors take their orders straight down from the top.

"Fair and Balanced"? It's all a part of the packaging.

CROSSFADE TO: MUSIC #32 (CD)
THE INCREDIBLES
(CUT 19: THE INCREDITS)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ("The Incredibles")

Behind some reflected smoke is the fire of truth, in this case of true family values. "The Incredibles" is a superior Pixar Studios adventure about a family of superheroes that stays together by doing what they do best, making life miserable for bad guys. Writer/director Brad Bird has wittily woven "The Incredibles," with attacks on modernist notions about socializing children into underachieving to reach a silly equilibrium. Along the way is the torment of a middle-aged, overweight Mr. Incredible/Bob Parr endangering his marriage by moonlighting his heroics after the family had agreed to retire from the business, and Mrs. Parr (formerly, "Plastigirl,") sighing at her ample derriere.

Clay

I'm not surprised you noticed.

John

Andre Maurois in "The Art of Living" expressed well the
"Incredibles '-like subtext about uniformity: "The leveling influence of
mediocrity and the denial of the supreme importance of the mind,'s
development account for many revolts against family life.,"

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #33 (CD)
ALEXANDER
(CUT 3: THE TITANS )
THEN UNDER FOR

John (Alexander)

If a dude has been called “great” for over 2000 years, would you dare to film his life? Oliver Stone tries with “Alexander” but ends up giving a sketch of a red state hero with the wit of a warrior and the charisma of a crowned prince morphed into king of the world.

The film Alexander is probably a variation of the current debate about war, specifically the “patriotic” invasion of Iraq. Alexander’s pushing his troops to the ends of the world as known at that time and the troops? swing toward mutiny echo the frustration of the US Army pushed to its limits by a president’s challenging vision..

Stone fails to create a believably “great” Alexander: There is little said to establish his genius beyond his famous “Conquer your fear, and I promise you’ll conquer death.” But a red state hero he is, fighting lustily without a clue as to why.

Clay (Alexander)

Folks, Alexander is all Oliver Stone, with a little help from the Greek historians and Sigmund Freud. Driven to succeed by his power-loving mother. Living in fear that he'd would fail, as did his father. Alexander marched from Babylon to India, and back again, just to prove to his mom (according to Stone) that he was a man.

Just think of what he might have done if his Mom had been Karl Rove.

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #34 (CD)
AVIATOR
(CUT 7: HAPPY FEET)
THEN UNDER FOR

John (Aviator)

Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator shows how Hughes piloted his heroic life through stunning achievements in aviation and filmmaking to wooing Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner among many others. He is impetuous, intuitive, and self-reliant, a veritable blue state Democrat.

The aerial scenes of making his famous Hell's Angels are stunning; when Hughes is flying with the planes and filming them in dogfight splendor, the excitement of all his life is encapsulated in those sequences.

The Aviator will be remembered as DiCaprio’s major role of a lifetime, Scorsese’s comeback film, and Hughes’s validation as one of the true heroes of the last century.

The Aviator will be remembered as DiCaprio’s major role of a lifetime, Scorsese’s comeback film, and Hughes’s validation as one of the leading figures of the last century.

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #35 (CD)
FINDING NEVERLAND
(CUT 22: ANOTHER BEAR)
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay (Finding Neverland)

Folks, clenching your jaws and faking a flat Texas accent for over two hours does not a great performance make. And speaking sotto voce for another two hours, even if you're Johnny Depp, does not make you worthy of an Oscar nomination. Nor will it make you a hero in the world where "a man's a man for a that."

As a matter of fact, everything that happens in "Finding Neverland" is too controlled, too gentle, and too precious for my taste.

And as for "Neverland's" Peter Pan who bragged "No one is going to catch me and make me a man," he better watch out. Just think what the censors of SpongeBob and SquarePants might have to say about him.

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #36 (CD)
KINSEY
(FROM “KISS ME KATE”: CUT 12: “IT’S TOO DARN HOT,” HIT VOCALS AT 00:33 IN, HOLD FULL TILL 01:03 IN},
THEN UNDER - OR SOONER IF I WORKS

John (Kinsey)

Director Bill Condon's masterful "Kinsey" presents the joy of sex discovered and disclosed by the titular scientist and the censure by those who found the truth too painful. Kinsey is a flawed hero, clumsy on his wedding night and obtuse about human emotion.

Clay

He probably didn't understand women either.

John

Maybe we should just try to forget the whole sex business that Dr. Kinsey fomented. We should listen to Nabokov in his String of Opinions: Sex as an institution, sex as a general notion, sex as a problem, sex as a platitude?all this is something I find too tedious for words. Let’s skip sex.?

Publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) may have shortened Kinsey’s life with its bold disclosures to a still Puritanical society. The film, like Kinsey's blue state heroic work, may save countless spiritual lives.

Clay (Kinsey)

Well, John, I've lived in Indiana and I'd hardly call it blue, but Kinsey, as portrayed by Liam Neeson, is a refreshingly naive man who believes in the objectivity of science.

Not one to judge others, the ever cool Kinsey, does on occasion, find his own behavior sometimes surprising and shocking. Conservative audiences will certainly have problems when some of those moments arrive.

A brilliantly designed movie: the settings, the costumes, and Bill Condon's perfectly controlled direction of the actors has produced another minor masterpiece that has deservedly put the Oscar spotlight on Laura Linney, but undeservedly, has failed to put the spotlight on Neeson.

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #37 (CD)
I HEART HUCKABEES
(CUT 9: LATER MONDAY)
THEN UNDER FOR

John (I Heart Huckabees)

Clay, Taking an epistemological tour of reality by way of liberal existential philosophy is "I Heart Huckabees." It admits its own "fractured philosophy" and concentrates on the interconnectedness of all people. New Age, not New Conservative.

Clay (I Heart Huckabees)

You've dated too many philosophy majors, John. Might I rather suggest to you that "I Heart Huckabees" is "The Graduate" post-911. But instead of being seduced by Mrs. Robinson, our young hero finds himself mucking it up in the mud with Isabelle Huppert, who seems to be thoroughly at ease in the role of an ever-so-nasty French therapist.

If you have a low tolerance for sexual activity, foul language, and eco-activisits, then you will probably want to walk out of "I Heart Huckabees," or at least try to shut down the projectors.

But if tolerance is your thing, then you're going to enjoy this movie's delightfully eccentric cast as they attempt to discover whether or not life is connected, and everyone should all do good; or whether or not it's meaningless and everyone should do as they please.

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #38 (CD) RAY
(CUT 9: GEORGIA ON MY MIND)
THEN UNDER FOR

John

"De-Lovely" was de lovely biopic of the year for me until I saw “Ray.?" Much as I love Cole Porter?'s tunes, the genial crossover melodies of Ray Charles could not have been better integrated into a biography than Director Taylor Hackford does along with Charles' collaboration.

“Ray's" scenes in recording studios and nightclubs help satisfy my yearning to learn how artists create their works.

Clay

That's a driving need of yours.

John

The flashback scenes to a childhood tragedy, an attempt to explain his drug addiction, are irritating and, gratuitous, if you think about how the film could have cut down from its formidable 153 minutes. Jamie Foxx will be nominated for his role as Ray Charles. Most actors could imitate Charles' ticks and jerks, but Foxx breathes Charles' dreams and demons and projects them, his addiction to womanizing represented as well as heroin.

A hero Ray is if the liberals' define one as a gifted artist who gives all to his art while suffering from a surfeit of longing for the forbidden fruit of life.

MUSIC UP BRIEFLY, THEN UNDER AGAIN

Clay

Well, folks, according to the film "Ray," Ray Charles was a compulsive sampler of forbidden fruit, and he didn't always act in his own best interests. But that he was a musical genius was never in doubt.

Whether or not evangelicals can ever forgive him for blending gospel music into Rhythm 'N Blues. And whether or not they can forgive him his sins of the flesh is a measure of their tolerance and forgiveness. But even the most tolerant of liberals who go to see this film, will have trouble coming to terms with the heartless way he seemed to have treated the women who loved him.

CROSS FADE TO MUSIC #39 (CD)
SIDEWAYS
(CUT 4: PICNIC)
THEN UNDER FOR

John (Sideways)

Paul Giamatti as Miles in Sideways is the essence of everyman with too many miles already logged on his middle age. Miles is lost in his wine, for which he has an impressive palette. His sensibility is the kind John Kerry was mocked for: too much France, not enough Texas. Perhaps it's his penchant for reflection or his difficulty in letting go of love that makes Miles an endearing but vulnerable character in a culture war where action is operative and sensitivity is banned.

Miles' explanation of his interest in pinot noir reveals director Alexander Payne's carefully figurative parallel to Miles' delicate character. Miles says, "It's a hard grape to grow. It's thin-skinned, temperamental. It's not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere, and thrive even when neglected.”

“Pinot needs constant care and attention." Sounds like the nattering neocons versus the values- challenged. Here?'s looking at you, Kid,?" "In vino veritas," and all that.

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #40 (CD)
CLOSER
(COSI FAN TUTTE: SIDE ONE, CUT 18: SOAVE SIA IL VENTO)
THEN UNDER FOR

John ( Closer)

Hello, Stranger is the opening salvo in a modern war of the sexes pitting four adults against each other like red state assassins. Set in chilly London, Mike Nichols’s Closer shoots artistic arrows at a bull’s eye once again, as Nichols did with the trenchant social satires Carnal Knowledge, The Graduate, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

That first line shows the four to be strangers to themselves and us, as moderns tend to be in an increasingly surface, electronic age.

To feel the cold of London, the warmest city otherwise in the world for me, is to feel the cold of these adulterers, who ply their love with a conservative efficiency to make any person truly afraid of what the next amorous stranger will bring.

Clay

I worry about that.

John

The bard as always hits the modern application without knowing it. From King Henry VIII?: “I am sorry I must never trust thee more/ But count the world a stranger for thy sake.”

CROSSFADE TO MUSIC #41 (CD)
LIFE AQUATIC
CUT 2: LOQUASTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay (The Life Aquatic)

In Wes Anderson's, "The Life Aquatic," Bill Murray once again appeared on screen as a lost soul in search of his feminine spirit. This time around he was posing as the commander of a floating sea-going vessel that housed a laboratory full of oceanic delights, A witty and clever actor, Murray unfortunately has a tendency to slip into funky dark moods.

Fortunately, Anderson surrounded him with a cast of wonderfully talented actors who relentlessly attempted to lighten up the somber moods of their lost-at-sea captain.

Owen Wilson was right on target as Murray's abandoned son. Cate Blanchett was marvelous as the gum chewing magazine writer on assignment. And Anjelica Huston (one more time), played to perfection the role of an estranged wife, who in Wes Anderson films always reigns supreme as the real power behind the family's throne.

MUSIC BRIEFLY UP, THEN UNDER FOR

John

Clay, while Anjelica is reigning supreme and Bill Murray's still trying to figure out why he's been snubbed once again at the Oscar, we better take this break to rest our weary old voice.

Clay

Stay tuned folks because you won't want to miss our final witty and perceptive takes on Phantoms, Fighters, and Families called Focker.

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND OUT OR HOLD UNDER BREAK

Break Three

SEGMENT THREE: B

FADE IN MUSIC #42 (CD)
PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
(CUT 1: OVERTURE),
ESTABLISH,
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay (Phantom of the Opera)

From the opening swell of organ music in Phantom of the Opera, to the stunning visual montage that followed, we watched in amazement as the Old Paris Opera House was transformed from a pile of rubble back into its original state of grandeur.

The hallmarks of the film, however, was Joel Schumacher's brilliant use of montage. Especially his intercuting of shots of actors, dancers, and the audience, with shots of the lurking-in-the-shadows, Phantom. Unfortunately his disfigured but handsome Phantom was no match for Emmy Rossum?s beautiful Christine.? But then, who could be?

And, unfortunately, the film did not bring into focus the struggle between the good and evil. Nor did it deal with the equally provocative theme of beauty versus the beast. Schumacher, instead, got so caught up in creating the movie's spectacular visuals, that he also ended up creating a movie that had nothing to say.

FADE UP MUSIC TO #43 (DVD TO MINI DISC)
HOTEL RWANDA
(MINI DISC: FIRST CUT OF CLOSING CREDITS)

John ("Hotel Rwanda")

Clay, in a 100-day bloodbath in 1994 Rwanda, ruling Hutus exterminated one million of their enemy, the Tutsis. In the film Hotel Rwanda, Director Terry George meticulously establishes his angle of vision that the world abandoned the suffering Africans. A camera man says, "If people see this footage, they'll go, 'Oh my God! That's horrible!,' then go on eating their dinner."

Clay

And did we.

John

The success of the film is in concentrating on the Schindler-like liberal heroics of a real hotel manager, played by Don Cheadle, who risks himself and his family for the deliverance of 1200 Africans. Joseph Conrad in his turn-of-the-20th century "Heart of Darkness," described the "senseless," shelling of gunboats into the blank jungle, the detachment of clerks from atrocities, and the only words now capable of describing the genocide depicted by Hotel Rwanda: "The horror! The horror!"

MUSIC #44 (CD)
MEET THE FOCKERS
(CUT 9: GOING UP THE COUNTRY)
THEN UNDER FOR

John (Meet the Fockers)

Maybe the best film to showcase the culture wars theme of our annual show is Meet the Fockers, a contemporary satire of the battle between liberal and conservative parents for the souls of their soon-to-be wed children, played with amazing restraint by Ben Stiller and Teri Polo.

The Focker parents, Dustin Hoffman and Babs Streisand, are new age hippies, comfortable with her sex therapy business and his former-lawyer-now-Mr. Mom role. The Byrnes, with Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner, are polar opposites: he a rigid former CIA agent trusting no one in his circle of trust and she a pretty lady waiting for him to step down from his fortressed mobile home into her heart and bed again.

For our purposes, the neocon Byrnes family is savaged for worshiping decorum and technology, representing the red state repression of individuality and free choice. The blue-state Fockers run the risk of fomenting anarchy through personal choice, a catalyst for happiness but a danger to the smooth working of an ordered society.

There is a reason this film has broken holiday records: It is genuinely funny and about as fair and balanced a satire as Hollywood could offer in a year where liberal films have gone nose to nose with conservative values. Granted, the liberals win this round, but then they lost the election and Michael Moore is as vilified as he is revered. The wars go on.

CROSS FADE TO MUSIC #45 (DVD TO MINI DISC)
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
(MINI DISC: FIRST CUT FROM CLOSING CREDITS)

Clay (Million Dollar Baby)

As does the suffering and violence all around us.

But how do you also make sense out of a SPORT whose main intent is to beat into submission the face of your opponent?

Broken noses, twisted necks, fractured skulls. If it takes a worried man to sing a worried song, then in the case of "Million Dollar Baby," that song was being sung by a powerless young woman, like Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp, who wanted to fight her way to the top.

In Million Dollar Baby, Maggie (Hillary Swank) plays a blue collar girl from trailer park America, who starts hanging around a gym in the hopes that crusty old Frankie (Clint Eastwood) will teach her all she needs to know about what it takes to become a champ.

"I'm tough," she brags. "Girly tough ain't enough," replies Eastwood who has learned his lessons well.

"Million Dollar Baby" is as romantic as "Rocky," and as savage as "Raging Bull," but it has still attracted the scorn from those who can't forgive Swank for playing a gay lover in "Boys Don't Cry." Nor can they forgive Eastwood, their once and remorseless hero, who went all soft and soggy when he crossed over those bridges in Madison County.

CROSS FADE TO MUSIC #46 (CD) ALEXANDER
(CUT 17: ETERNAL ALEXANDER)
THEN UNDER FOR

Clay

Folks, my take on last yea's elections is that red state America won the culture wars because the Bush re-election team was able to offer up to the voters the image of a hero who was so steady and so sure that even the cinematic skills of Michael Moore were unable to shake or destroy their confidence in him. As a matter of fact it was Moore, as well as Kerry who ended up looking like losers.

John

Clay, It,'s pretty clear that many media types, we included, lean toward the girlie-men, cult of sensibility romanticism that lost the 2004 election. The clutch of films which fought mightily to fairly balance the heft of conservatism was among the best, both fiction and documentary, ever made. So filmmakers and those of us who serve as their high priests may need conflict and suffering in order to create and promote enduring works of art.

Romanticism with its suffering artist emerged this year under the heaviest opposition from the utilitarian right in the last 100 years. I congratulate the culture war combatants, winners and losers, for their great works of art, and while I do not wish for more strife, it is from that roaring ring we may see even greater film art. The 19th century esthete Walter Pater urged us to "burn with a hard, gemlike flame." I for one will not burn out.

Thanks for the memories. I'm outta here.

Clay

Well, burn on, dear buddy burn on, and I'll take my closing quotes from Robert Frost, who was sometimes liberal and sometimes conservative, depending upon the time of the year:

Frost once damningly wrote:

"A LIBERAL is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."

Then, in the year I was born he wrote:

"I never dared to be radical when young, for fear it would make me conservative when old."

Go figure.

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

MUSIC UP THEN CROSS FADE TO Music #47 (CD) TEAM AMERICA
CUT 11: TEAM AMERICA MARCH

Richelle:

WCBE's Another Year at the Movies: The Culture Wars of 2004 was created by Clay Lowe, written by John DeSando and Clay Lowe, and produced and directed by yours truly, Richelle Antczak. The executive producer was Dan Mushalko.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2005 John DeSando and Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Aviator," "The Phantom of the Opera"

WCBE #197-FINAL (MUSIC)
“Aviator,” “The Phantom of the Opera”
Taped: 4:00 pm, December 20, 2004
Repeat On Air: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, December 24, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org.

Script:

John
"Aviator" flies higher than most films this year. . .

Clay
“The Phantom of the Opera” is a gothic musical mystery that looks better than it sounds . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
“It's Movie Time” in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe.

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

DeSando
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John (“Aviator”)
Clay, The third best male performance of the year goes to talented Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator.

Hughes piloted his life through stunning achievements in aviation and filmmaking to wooing Katherine Hepburn and Ava Gardner among many others. DiCaprio plays Hughes the genius as he might have been: impetuous, intuitive, and self reliant without playing obnoxious. DCaprio as Hughes evolves gently but inexorably into the madness of germ phobia and plain old dementia.

Clay (Interrupts)
I've forgotten what that means.

John (Continues)
DiCaprio’s repartee with the estimable Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn shows the young actor has matured to the point of equality with a gifted actress, a young Cate with a perfect rendition of the iconic Kate.

The Aviator will be remembered as DiCaprio’s major role of a lifetime, Scorsese’s comeback film, and Hughes’s validation as one of the leading figures of the last century.

Clay (“Aviator”)
John, clenching your jaws and faking a flat Texas accent for over two hours does not a great performance make. Help me out, what is it about caricatured heroes that Scorsese and DeSando find so inexplicably compelling? [Might it have something to do with your mutual love for New York pizza, Tuscan wine, and anything that comes from north of Brindisi? Oh! Mama Mia.]

But despite my grumblings “Aviator” IS a holiday-worthy movie that’s chock full of wonderful moments from both the history of aviation and the history of cinema. And you’ll never see a more Freudian scene on screen than when Leonardo grabs the joy stick in the cockpit of his high speed plane and sets a world record. Nor will you ever see a more loving tribute to Kate Hepburn than when Kate Blanchett flies sky high in the role of her namesake’s persona.

“Aviator” is not a great movie, but it is great fun.

HIT CD: “THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA” (CUT:1 “OVERTURE”), ESTABLISH THEN UNDER FOR JOHN AND CLAY’S REVIEWS

John (“The Phantom of the Opera”)
Clay, The excessively overwrought lovers and villains of the “The Phantom of the Opera” film meet and sometimes exceed the formula that requires swelling music, mundane lyrics, and over-the-top struggles between good and evil. Enjoyable and diverting it is; delicate art it is not.

Weber and director Joel Schumacher succeeds in illuminating through allegory the sacrifices an artist must make to be successful, including giving in to the profession, represented by the Phantom, and giving up her normal life. The two most memorable songs, “Music of the Night” and “That’s all I ask of you,” reinforce the narcotic nature of art and the sacrifices it requires.

Except for the questionable choice of actor for Phantom, this film is an enjoyable musical diversion like a Christmas dinner with abundant comfort food gently leading to a most pleasant nap. Guilty pleasures are always in season.

Clay (“The Phantom of the Opera”)
Well, John, this IS the season for ruffles and flourishes and over-extended pleasures. But who cares, because naptimes ARE great in front of a roaring fire. However, if going out into the chilly night is also one of your secret pleasures, then a visit to see “The Phantom of the Opera” will fully reward your efforts.

From the opening swell of the organ music, to the stunning visual montage that follows, you’ll watch in amazement as the Old Paris Opera House is transformed from a pile of rubble back into its original state of grandeur.

The hallmarks of this film, however, are its brilliant montages [that intercut shots of actors, dancers, and the audience, with each other, as well as with shots of the ever-lurking-in-the-shadows, Phantom.] Unfortunately this Phantom is no match onstage for Emmy Rossum’s “Christine,” but who could be? [She’ll steal away your heart with the sounds of her crystalline voice and the looks of her iridescent beauty.]

But enough of moist lips and heaving breasts, John, because it’s grading time.

SEGUE TO DRUMS OR HIT DIRECTLY (YOUR CHOICE)

John
Hooray!

"Aviator" earns an "A" for ALL-AROUND Holiday AMUSEMENT. . .

Clay
“Aviator” gets a “B” because, like “Gangs of New York,” it could-have-BEEN a great cinematic classic . . .

John
"The Phantom of the Opera" earns a "B" because the titular lead should have been BETTER . . .

Clay
“The Phantom of the Opera” gets a “B” because titular leads should not sing if they wear tight corsets . . .

John
Clay, If I flew a plane or wore a mask, I could have been a great man, but I had to be stuck being your co-host. I'm outta here.

Clay
John, in one of your best roles, I hear you wore a mask and nothing else but your socks. Thankfully, I WASN’T your co-host back in those good old days.

I’m outta here too.

[*CLOSING MUSIC MIGHT ALSO WORK BEGINNING HERE - ONCE AGAIN, YOUR CHOICE]

See you at the movies, folks, and Have A Very Happy Holiday!

*HIT CD: “THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA” (CUT: 14 “LEARN TO BE LOVELY” (START ABOUT :04 IN WHEN STRINGED INSTRUMENT BEGINS), THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events," Kinsey"

WCBE #196-FINAL
IT'S MOVIE TIME with John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE

Reviews: “Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events,” “Kinsey”
Taped: 4:30 pm, December 15, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, December 17, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

Clay
“Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” is everything a holiday movie should be, and much more . . .

John
Hear, hear, all you Catholics: The sex in Kinsey is GUILTLESS . . . . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .
MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events")
Clay, “Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events” features three wealthy orphans shunted from relative to relative while their evil uncle Count Olaf connives to gain their fortune by becoming their guardian.  Daniel Handler’s immensely popular books (think the Harry Potter series without sweetness) have been successfully adapted with stunning set design and most importantly the genius of Jim Carrey as the villainous count.

When he cozy’s up to the daft Aunt Josephine, played by an obviously enjoying-her-own excesses Meryl Streep, the price of admission has been duly rewarded.

Because “Lemony Snicket’s” is about the dark side of survival in a corrupt adult world, the challenge for young moviegoers is to enjoy the irony and sarcasm, or even to recognize it.  Moreover, young children may not understand the Panglossian optimism.  It’s the educated, irony- feeding adults who are the winners in this audience.

Clay ("Lemony Snicket")
Well, John, while you revel in your own eternal Panglossian optimism, I continue to be haunted by the Manichaen demons of my evangelical childhood. Is the goodhearted, Jim Carey, who has embedded himself in the myriad disguises of the evil Count Olaf, really as bad as he seems?Or has he been victimized by his own uncontrollable greed?

Shadowy dark, and deliciously wicked, Jim Carey’s serpen-tí-genous Count Olaf plays one of the handiest, dandiest, and most deceitful villains ever to be seen on screen. Taking a page from the shadow dramas of Indonesia and Malaysia, director Brad Silberling, fills the screen with shadows of darkness and shafts of light, [as we are invited to watch the movie’s three innocent children fight off, all alone, the minions of darkness.]

Brilliant sets, imaginative costuming, and very clever, play-it-to-the-last-row-in-the-balcony acting makes “Lemony Snicket” one of this year’s very best over-the-top holiday treats.

John ("Kinsey")
Steve McQueen's Boon Hogganbeck in The Reivers says to his young companion about a bordello's sexy painting of a reclining nude, "It's a mystery."

Before Alfred Kinsey most of the American population thought the same about sex.  Nothing was the same after him. Director Bill Condon's masterful "Kinsey" presents the joy of sex discovered and disclosed by a curious scientist and the censure of those who found the truth too painful.

Kinsey is a flawed hero, clumsy on his wedding night and obtuse about human emotion, especially when it comes to understanding the conjugation of love and sexuality.

But the hero also has glorious moments, such as when he guides his staff through the art of interviewing.  This anatomy of a genius goes even beyond  Ray in revealing the influences and inspirations for a culture-changing icon.

Clay ("Kinsey")
Folks, “Kinsey,” as portrayed by Liam Neeson, is a refreshingly naive man who believes in science, but who also believes that human beings are capable of engaging themselves in an endless variety of human experience. Not one to judge others, the ever cool Kinsey, does on occasion, find his own behavior sometimes surprising and shocking. [Audiences themselves may have problems with some of those moments. ]

In contrast to the showy performance of Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles, Neeson’s portrayal of Kinsey is subdued and evenly measured, though I might add, it is also sometimes quite witty. Laura Linney, as his ever supporting wife, is equally up to the task of matching her wits against those of her genius husband. [Giving him no ground, she may often stoically smile, but in the scene where she discovers he has betrayed her, she cleverly gives him back, tit for tat.]

A brilliantly designed movie: the settings, the costumes, and the film’s flawless directing combined with the perfectly controlled directing of the actors has resulted in another minor masterpiece that matches that of Condon’s early “Gods and Monsters.”

But enough of gods, monsters, and spooky shadows on the wall, because it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"Lemony Snicket's"  earns an A because kids learn life  AINT  ALWAYS sweet. . .

Clay
"Lemony Snicket” gets an “A” because it’s ADVENTUROUS, ABSORBING, and fully AQUAINTED with our need for ACQUISITIVE behaviour . . .

John
"Kinsey"  is an A because sex isn't just for ANALLY compulsive scientists--It's for ALL of us . . .

Clay
"Kinsey” gets an “A” from me because not ALL bio pics need to be boring, and this one sure AINT . . .

John
Clay, I'm going to field test Kinsey's results in Russia.  St. "Peters"berg sounds right. I'm outta here 

I'm outta here.

Clay
Well, John, while you’re exploring the mysteries of sex in Saint Pete, I’ll be at home enjoying the abstemious holidays of Saint Nick . . .

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe

The Dogs of War - 2004

washingtonpost.com
Two Days in August Haunt Charlie Company
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 14, 2004; Page A01

BAGHDAD -- "Members of the U.S. Army's 41st Regiment uncovered an AK-47 during a routine search in the dangerous Baghdad slum of Sadr City on Aug. 31. Finding a weapon was not unusual, but Sgt. Michael P. Williams, 25, said he felt danger when he saw a smirking Iraqi man in the house where the gun was found, according to the testimony of fellow soldiers.

"I feel threatened," Williams declared, the soldiers recalled. The "Iraqi went for his weapon."

Moments later, Williams shot the Iraqi man with two bullets to his head and chest, according to testimony last Friday at a military hearing, known as an Article 32 proceeding, intended to decide whether Williams would face court-martial in the killing. Other members of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 41st Regiment, said the Iraqi did not have a weapon.

Williams's hearing, in a crowded meeting room on a military base in Baghdad, focused on one of a number of murder cases involving U.S. forces. Such hearings shed light on the conduct and leadership of American troops, as well as the rules of engagement they are supposed to abide by in Iraq, where armed conflict has gone on longer and in more treacherous settings than Pentagon planners initially anticipated.

On Friday, one member of Williams's unit, Staff Sgt. Johnny M. Horne Jr., sat weeping in an improvised courtroom not far from the Williams hearing. He pleaded guilty and later was sentenced to three years in prison for shooting a gravely wounded teenager on Aug. 18."

Complete article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62102-2004Dec13.html?sub=AR

WCBE 90.5 FM "Ocean's Twelve," "The Machinist"

WCBE #195-FINAL
IT'S MOVIE TIME with John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE

Reviews: "Oceans Twelve," "The Machinist"
Taped: 4:30 pm, December 8, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, December 10, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

Clay
"Ocean’s Twelve” is a tale of three cities . . .

John
"The Machinist” is a thin thriller stamped from better movies . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak

"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("Ocean’s Twelve")
Clay, The heist film lives on every time a slick gang of bad boys and girls gather to take something that doesn’t belong to them.  Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven in 2001 was a caper film with the hippest actors such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon. The film Heist was a better character study that year; Ocean’s was more fun.

Ocean’s Twelve brings back the same thieves plus one in a more complicated project. Europe looks as inviting as ever, but the actors seem jet-lagged and the plot weary from trying to be ingenious and new while it is really tired and old.

I want to go back to Amsterdam but not with aging operatives.  Give me the very young you , Dr., with your naughty night ladies and savory space cake.

Clay ("Ocean’s Twelve")
John, we two old men may have gone bananas in Amsterdam, but in “Ocean’s Twelve” the bad boys were all business in that naughty city of trade and commerce. And even the marvelous city of Paris was not able to distract the ever intense Clooney, Pitt, and Damon from their death defying mission. But, in the end, all the roads finally lead to Rome where Bruce Willis gets to surprise Julia Roberts (a great scene), and the movie gets to lay a great big egg . . . Fabergé, no less.

“Ocean’s Twelve” is a mildly entertaining amusement, but it you want a real heist movie thriller, check out Ben Kingley’s “Sexy Beast,” because nobody ever did heist any better.

John ("The Machinist")
Mix Memento and Insomnia with The Tenant and The American Friend and you will have some notion of the dark brew of a film called The Machinist: It has more calories than nutrition with payoff not half a good as the promise the premise makes.

Trevor (Christian Bale) is a very gaunt machinist whose life is unraveling faster than ever after his inadvertent responsibility for an industrial accident.  Because he hasn’t slept in a year and his refrigerator oozes blood, it’s fairly certain his mind is on its own trip.  

As the story progresses he becomes more disoriented while the film slips from extreme psychodrama to middling thriller and then relatively nothing in the end.

"If you were any thinner," Jennifer Jason Leigh’s hooker tells him, "you wouldn't exist." If the story were any thinner , it would die of literary starvation.

Clay ("The Machinist")
Folks, “The Machinist” is a hit and miss, hit and run film. Shot on color stock that’s been bled, mostly black and white except for, ironically, the color of red. Now, pay attention here, John, watch for red stop lights, red cars, and, of course, red blood.

0And disregard the fact that the gaunt man at the beginning of the film is reading Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot,” because this movie is more Kafka-esque than Russian. So, is this beginning to sound like a thesis film? Well, only an old film professor would know for sure.

But there are some dead giveaways: assembly line shots that are reminders of shots from Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times,” subterranean shots that are reminiscent of the settings in Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” and the casting of John Sharian, as Ivan, the disappearing machinist, looks horribly like Marlon Brando’s ‘Kurtz’ from “Apocalypse Now.” Oh, where would movies be without the movies.

But stop the presses and watch your fingers, John, because it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"Ocean's Twelve"  earns a "C" because even CLOONEY"S CHARM CAN'T save it. . .

Clay
"Ocean’s Twelve” gets a “C” because flashy CASTS do not a flashy movie make . . .

John
"The Machinist" earns a "B"  for being BOLDLY BORING . .

Clay
"The Machinist” gets a “B,” I hate to agree, because BOLD isn’t good enough if it leaves you snoring . . .

John
Clay, when WE visited Amsterdam, WE stole only young girls' hearts.  You Clooney, me Pitt.

I'm outta here.

Clay
John, you’ve got “Ocean’s Twelve” confused with “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe

WCBE 90.5 FM: "It's Movie Time" Archives #1 - #80 (Titles Only)

Audition: Girl on the Bridge, Dancer in the Dark, Almost Famous

WCBE#1 You Can Count On Me, Two Family House
WCBE#2 Chocolat, Before Night Falls
WCBE#3 Pollock, The Mystery of Picasso, Breakfast at Tiffanys
WCBE#4 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; In the Mood for Love, Atlantic City
WCBE#5 Best Actress & Supporting Actress/Best Film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
WCBE#6 House of Mirth, The Widow of St. Pierre, Ben Hur
WCBE#7 DeSando, Starker
WCBE#8 Momento, Amores Perros, Bridget Jones's Diary
WCBE#9 Suzhou River, One Night at McKools, Stagecoach
WCBE#10 The Tailor of Panama, Boy's Life3
WCBE#11 Faithless, The Golden Bowl
WCBE#12 Girl on the Bridge, Dancer in the Dark, The Magnificent Seven
WCBE#13 Panic, All the Pretty Horses, Bus Stop
WCBE#14 Pearl Harbor, Moulin Rouge, The Misfits
WCBE#15 With a Friend Like Harry, Evolution, Shrek
WCBE#16 startup.Com; Swordfish; Gas, Food, Lodging
WCBE#17 Atlantis; The Pledge; O Brother, Where Art Thou?
WCBE#18 Artificial Intelligence, Anniversary Party
WCBE#19 Sexy Beast, Crazy/Beautiful, Shackelton's Antarctic Adventure
WCBE#20 Baby Boy, Wind in the Willows, Scary Movie 2, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Melissa Starker, Clay Lowe)
WCBE#21 Legally Blonde, The Score, Chunhyang, Spring Forward
WCBE#22 The Dish, Mad Lab Film Festival: Solve for X, America's Sweethearts, Jurassic Park, The Closet
WCBE#23 Planet of the Apes, Billy Liar, Made
WCBE#24 Rush Hour 2, Bride of the Wind
WCBE#25 Nico and Dani; The Luzhin Defence; Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of Jasmine
WCBE#26 Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Brother, The Deep End, The Road Home (Johnny DiLoretto, Clay Lowe)
WCBE#27 The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Ghost World, American Rhapsody
WCBE#28 John DeSando, Melissa Starker
WCBE#29 John DeSando, Johnny DiLoretto
WCBE#30 Je Rentre a la Maison, Hearts in Atlantis (Toronto Film Festival)
WCBE#31 Under the Sand, Songcatcher, Divided We Fall
WCBE#32 Big Eden, Apocalypse Now Redux, Training Day
WCBE#33 Mulholland Drive, Bread and Tulips, East of Eden
WCBE#34 Riding in Cars With Boys, My First Mister, From Hell, Shadow of a Doubt
WCBE#35 Monsters, Inc., Vertical Ray of the Sun, Domestic Disturbance, Bad Day at Black Rock
WCBE#36 Focus, Waking Life, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Bad and the Beautiful
WCBE#37 Novocaine, Heist, Amalie, Five Easy Pieces
WCBE#38 Harry Potter, Spy Games, Sidewalks of New York, LA Story
WCBE#39 Ocean's 11, Behind Enemy Lines, Himalaya, Get Shorty
WCBE#40 Together, Kate and Leopold, The Wide Blue Road, Lord of the Rings
WCBE#41 Ali, Vanilla Sky, The Majestic
WCBE#42 In the Bedroom, The Affair of the Necklace, A Beautiful Mind
WCBE#43 Wes Anderson: Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenebaums
WCBE#44 Gosford Park, Orange County, Black Hawk Down, The Blue Angel
WCBE#45 Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Hawks and the Sparrows, I Am Sam, The Shipping News
WCBE#46 Birthday Girl, Charlotte Gray, Henry & June, The Mothman Prophecies
WCBE#47 Innocence, Slackers, No Man's Land, Collateral Damage, Foreign Correspondent
WCBE#48 Monster's Ball, John Q, The Third Man, Donnie Darko, Guy Maddin at Wex
WCBE#49 Kandahar, Italian for Beginners, The Films of Ichikawa, Funny Face
WCBE#50 Storytelling, Iris, Las Tango in Paris
WCBE#51 We Were Soldiers, Lantana, Tempest
WCBE#52 Scotland, Pa., Harrison's Flower, The Asphalt Jungle, The The Turandot Project
WCBE#53 Diamond Men, The Business of Strangers, Clay & John's Oscar picks (2002)
WCBE#54 Panic Room, Monsoon Wedding, Kissing Jessica Stein
WCBE#55 Metropolis, The Son's Room, High Crimes
WCBE#56 Y tu mammá también, Frailty, Big Trouble, The Sweetest Thing
WCBE#57 Murder by Numbers, The Scorpion King, La Ciénaga, Proof
WCBE#58 The Cat's Meow, Crush, Changing Lanes, All the Vermeers in New York
WCBE#59 Hollywood Ending, What Time is it There?, Dark Blue World, Basquiat (Johnny DiLoretto, Clay Lowe)
WCBE#60 Spider-Man, Star Wars: Episode 2- Attack of the Clones, The Triumph of Love, Surviving Picasso, Unfaithful
WCBE#61 About a Boy, Time Out, African Film Festival (Wex), Islands in the Stream
WCBE#62 Happy Accidents, Insomnia, Camille Claudel
WCBE#63 The Sum of All Fears, The Importance of Being Earnest, Undercover Brother (With special guest: Michael Randolph)
WCBE#64 Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Bad Company, Enigma, Big Fat GreekWedding
WCBE#65 Windtalkers Bourne Identity, Scooby Doo (With special guest: Dan Mushalko)
WCBE#66 Minority Report, Lola (Wex), Bay of Angels
WCBE#67 Mr. Deeds, Band of Outsiders (Wex), The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
WCBE#68 Like Mike, Men in Black II, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, Cherish (With special guest: Dan Mushalko)
WCBE#69 Road to Perdition, Fat Girl, Reign of Fire
WCBE#70 K-19: The Widowmaker, The Emperor's New Clothes, Cherry Orchard
WCBE#71 Austin Powers in: Goldmember, Tron, Nine Queens, The Piano Teacher (Wex)
WCBE#72 Full Frontal, Signs, Lovely and Amazing
WCBE#73 Spy Kids 2, 13 Conversations About One Thing, Blood Work, Triple X
WCBE#74 Blue Crush, Tadpole, Songs From the Second Floor
WCBE#75 The Good Girl, Simone, Serving Sara
WCBE#76 The Fast Runner, Toronto Film Festival Tease: Antwone Fisher, Frida, Assassination Tango, City of Ghosts
WCBE#77 Mid-Year Stinkos (Melissa Starker: Ya-Ya, Johnny: Perdition, John DeSando: ?)
WCBE#78 Dan Mushalko, Michael A.J. Randolph
WCBE#79 The Kid Stays in the Picture, Four Feathers
WCBE#80 Rules of Attraction; The Tuxedo; Sweet Home, Alabama; Sunshine State

Thoughts From The Left - Mother Jones: "Think-Tank Roundup" by Bradford Plumer

MotherJones.com

Think-tank roundup
December 3, 2004 12:37 PM

"For those of you trying to satisfy your inner wonk (and hey, who isn't?), here are some of the best ideas and papers percolating through the liberal think tanks this week:

Brookings: The transcripts from a recent conference on what to expect from Bush's second term domestic agenda are up. A lot of smart people throwing out smart ideas and predictions. Interestingly, on health care, even conservative experts seem to agree that Bush's health savings accounts could unravel employer-based health care and won't solve our health insurance problems.

The Century Foundation: For domestic wonks, Why Social Security Is Not In a Crisis. For foreign policy buffs, Defeating the Jihadists, a Democratic alternative to the "war on terror," written by Richard Clarke and others.

Council on Foreign Relations: A primer on the Shia political strategy in Iraq. I would add that it looks like conservative, theocracy-friendly Shiites are in a very strong electoral position right now. It's also odd that the Kurds don't appear to mind that fact -- an indication, perhaps, that they're confident of using their large militias to get what they want no matter what. (And that's not a good sign.)

CSIS: Anthony Cordesman has a plan (PDF) for fixing Iraq. I talked to Cordesman when researching this article, and his ideas are all terrific. But thinking realistically, the current White House simply has no interest in any of these good options (discussing Iraq's future with Iran; dismantling our military bases), for various ideological reasons.

New America Foundation: Noah Feldman discusses how Sunnis could be brought into the political process. Seems dubious. At the moment, it's entirely rational for the Sunni insurgency to believe it can take over all of Iraq once the U.S. leaves. (Their force is bigger than the Iraqi military, after all.) But right now they have no hope at all of gaining power, as Moqtada al-Sadr has, by entering the democratic process as a small, unprotected minority.

Progressive Policy Institute: Fantastic two-part discussion on how America lost its edge in developing clean technologies, and what we can do to regain that edge."

- Bradford Plumer

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� 2004 The Foundation for National Progress

WCBE 90.5 FM "Closer," "Fade to Black," "Small Change"

WCBE #194-FINAL
IT'S MOVIE TIME with John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE

Reviews: "Closer," "Fade to Black," "Small Change"
Taped: 4:00 pm, December 1, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, December 3, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

Clay
"Closer" is the perfect date movie to see with a stranger . . .

John
"Fade to Black" does not make it E-Z to know Jay-Z . . .

Clay
"Small Change" kicks off the Columbus International Children's Film Festival this weekend at the Wex . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak
"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("Closer")
Clay, “Hello, Stranger” is the opening salvo in a modern war of the sexes pitting four adults against each other like romantic assassins. Set in chilly London, Mike Nichols’s “Closer” shoots artistic arrows at a bull’s eye once again, as Nichols did with the trenchant social satires “Carnal Knowledge,” “The Graduate,” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

That first line shows the four to be strangers to themselves and us, as moderns tend to be in an increasingly surface, electronic age.

To feel the cold of London, the warmest city otherwise in the world for me, is to feel the cold of these adulterers, who ply their love with an efficiency to make any person truly afraid of what the next amorous stranger will bring.

The bard as always hits the modern application without knowing it. From “King Henry VIII”: “I am sorry I must never trust thee more/ But count the world a stranger for thy sake.”

Clay ("Closer")
Folks, the passions do smoulder in "Closer" but the self-centered clash of egos in this film will send a chill through the hearts of those who might, in real life, be inclined to declare their romantic intentions. But what a cast this is that Nichols is able to painfully derive the very most from.

Natalie Portman's "Alice" is two persons, one who is a little girl to Daniel (Jude Law), when she's his lover. But another when she plays a sleazy show girl for Larry (Clive Owens) when he wants HER for his lover.

Jude Law's "Dan" is also two persons, one, who is a confident take-charge lover when he's with Natalie's "Alice," but another when he plays a spoiled little boy for Julia Roberts' "Anna" when he's her lover.

Are you beginning to get the picture? None of us are what we seem. All of us can play the role that's demanded of us to achieve our intentions. And in a world of elegant and priceless treasures, human beings are the most costly consumer commodities of them all.

How's that for a truly chilling thought, eh.

John ("Fade to Black")
“Fade to Black” is a faithful documentary about Jay-Z’s “farewell” performance in Madison Square Garden. With the likes of girl friend Beyonce joining Jay-Z, (her scantily-clad, lip-synching performance of “Crazy in Love” is worth the admission price), the film relays the energy and synergy of performers who speak to countless hip-hop fans.

Because so much of the documentary is dedicated to the performance, little is allowed for getting to know the rapper and how he creates. That he does not write down his machine-gun lyrics is a rare insight; that he cares about how his words effect his fans is sweet; what he does to shape the “tracks” into pop gold as he listens to them in the studio is never satisfactorily explained.

Like the opening and closing aerial shots of New York at night, we are too far away to get close to understanding the performer. Like the city, he dazzles and eludes.

Clay ("Small Change")
Well, folks, filmmaker François Truffaut nearly always dazzled his audiences and rarely could he be said to elude. Case in point, his joyous film "Small Change," which, if you're listening to us at 3, you'll have time to catch tonight at the Wex, but if you're listening at 8, you'll have to check it out on DVD. But believe me, it's worth it.

For just as no one has captured more fully the dangerous delights of childhood than the novelist Charles Dickens, so too has no filmmaker ever treated children on film with more honor and respect than François Truffaut. A vagabond, raggamuffin himself, he was rescued from off the streets of petty crime by a film critic, who like the school teacher in "Small Change" believed doggedly in the redemptive powers of education.

Truffaut also fully believed in the powers of film to both entertain and to enlighten, and none of his films reflect this belief more enjoyably than this film, "Small Change."

But enough of this cinematic huckstering, it's grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"Closer" is "CLOSER" to A than any other recent film. . .

Clay
"Closer" gets a "C" because it's too long CHARADE and too little on passion . . .

John
"Fade to Black" earns a "B" because rap still "BAFFLES" me . . .

Clay
"Small Change" gets an "A" because ALL boys ARE not called Patrick . . .

John
Clay, I never committed adultry on my wives, but I was not "Closer" to them despite that fidelity. Maybe I should have tried rapping with them.

I guess I'll just be happy to hip-hop down the lane of life without them.

I'm outta here.

Clay
John, your record of hi-fidelity sounds impressive, but credit IS due to those nuns who rapped home on your hands their very hard lessons. Hip-hop and away, I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus
and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

Copyright 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe