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