I honestly don’t know what got my blood pressure running higher, the aforementioned Nazi profile or this Susan Sarandon interview:
Still, I think while there was vast political error on both sides, the inability of Sarandon and her ilk to embrace the lesser of two evils permitted the greater of the two evils to rise. And yet I like Sarandon. It takes real courage to go against the mob. Her inconsistencies are a little wild, but in the age of social-media enforced conformity, I have never met anyone so uninterested in toeing the line.
Did she really say that Hillary was more dangerous than Trump?
“Not exactly, but I don’t mind that quote,” she says. “I did think she was very, very dangerous. We would still be fracking, we would be at war [if she was president]. It wouldn’t be much smoother. Look what happened under Obama that we didn’t notice.”
It’s been a year since the Trump election, and even having seen the daily parade of horrors brought on us by the malignant orange narcissist in the WH, this fucking dolt still is proud to think Clinton would have been worse.
After some thought- Nazis are gonna Nazi. This idiot pisses me off more.
Trentrunner II - Pie Is Squared
Sarandon is a privileged-bubble narcissistic ass.
But I still think Nazis are worse.
zhena gogolia
She makes me crazy. I can’t even look at her films any more, although I used to be a fan.
Schlemazel
It is a good thing Hitlery didn’t win or we would be at war today, probably in the Middle East or maybe Central Asia with an untold number of forces deployed on some vague mission to root out something or other.
eclare
@zhena gogolia: Same here, can’t separate her acting from the dangerous and willful idiocy.
Nicole
She was once my absolute favorite actress. She and Tim Robbins broke me in 2000 with the Nader love.
Teddys Person
At some point, Sarandon is going to have to give up the “lesser of two evils” excuse and just admit that she likes Trump’s brand of evil.
debbie
WTF does this mean?
dmsilev
She’s white and she’s rich. Trump and everything he represents aren’t really a threat to her, so she doesn’t feel much cost in indulging her purity ponyism.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
I will always be a fan of her best work.
I have no patience, none, for example, who dismiss Sean Penn because of his politics. He is one of the greatest actors this country has ever produced.
That said, that Sarandon sticks to her clearly stupid views is just pathetic.
Emma
@dmsilev: Bingo. This is white privilege at its finest.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Teddys Person: you beat me to it. God, I hate that phrase, that I’ve been hearing preening liberals use since 2000, when Gore was “the lesser of two evils” because his mom owned stock in Occidental Petroleum, which was how we knew he was a big phony about the environment because he flies in planes and owns a big house.
@Nicole: then they campaigned for Edwards in ’04. I liked Edwards’ rhetoric on poverty, too, but even before we knew what a shitheel he was, he was always more than a bit blue-doggy.
Teddys Person
@debbie: Drones? She impresses me as a Greenwald libertarian these days.
Tazj
“We would be at war.” We are at war, and under Trump there has been a tremendous increase in civilian casualties. I guess because there’s no “new war” that doesn’t matter to her.
Fracking didn’t end in the U. S., what is she talking about?
Trump wants to gut healthcare and is talking about welfare reform. He wanted to ban transgendered people from service in the military. But Hillary’s inauthentic, got it.
Manyakitty
She’s a low-rent rabble-rouser at her core. Anyone heard from Him Robbins since they split?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: fracking and Drrrrrronzzzzzzzze!
Manyakitty
@Brachiator: So you’re also/still a huge Woody Allen fan? What about Roman Polanski? Steven Seagal? Just seeing if there’s a line.
schrodingers_cat
@Trentrunner II – Pie Is Squared: Its the r that is squared not pi.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
I don’t think that this is entirely true. I don’t know what Trump is capable of if fully unleashed, and i think that a lot of people labor under the delusion that income and white privilege confers total immunity to the upcoming conservative onslaught.
hitchhiker
What’s gross is that she gets credit for having “real courage” in her indifference to “the mob.”
FFS, she’s protected and pampered in every way. Some randos on twitter are not a mob. It doesn’t take real courage to not read the comments.
UGH.
Major Major Major Major
Neither got my blood pressure up much because I didn’t read them. Pro tip!
As for this:
What horseshit, just stop using twitter or grow a spine or learn to ignore people.
And this is why I don’t read the guardian either. Another pro tip for blood pressure!
Brachiator
@Manyakitty:
What crimes did Sarandon or Sean Penn commit? Just seeing if you apply any standard of critical thinking.
Amaranthine RBG
@debbie:
Maybe referring to the US killing brown people around the globe? Maybe referring to one prosecution following the largest series of financial crimes in history? Maybe the ongoing illegal surveillance?
Are you really unaware of these imperfections?
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
I feel exactly the same way. I will never watch her in anything ever again. She’s in the Tom Cruise category for me, dead and never to be seen again in my lifetime.
germy
wank
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Love the Guardian. I think it essential reading for understanding the world.
But you have to ignore certain writers and pundits there, just as with any other publication or news site.
WaterGirl
She disgusts me. Privileged and arrogant and holier-than-thou. Ugh.
JPL
@germy: This might not be the appropriate thing to say, but I think Susan is jealous cuz she wants to s..k on Putin’s d.ick.
also want John said.. stfu Sarandon.
Brachiator
@geg6:
Wow. What did Tom Cruise ever do to you?
WaterGirl
Just catching up on threads after the holiday, and there were many references to CFPB. Is Cordray already gone? I see references to two different people being appointed interim head? And something about Barney Frank and Richard Cordray laughing about what’s coming? What did I miss?
trollhattan
She’s now achieved Sara Palin status, without the unintentional humor. I wonder how Tim Robbins feels about playing Tawd?
oatler.
“No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle!”
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
You mean the “ongoing illegal surveillance” that Russian asset Ed Snowden alerted us all to?
It’s so adorable that you still think that Russian asset Ed Snowden was actually telling the truth.
debbie
@Amaranthine RBG:
Which you think would be magically eliminated if BS was in the WH?
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Robbins is long gone — they broke up about 10 years ago.
Nicole
@Brachiator: I dismiss Sean Penn because I saw “Mystic River.”
Doug R
@Trentrunner II – Pie Is Squared: Every time I read one of her half-wit quotes, I remember all those years lived in Vancouver, BC. Not quite GG level, but still a safe place to be holier than thou. (Full disclosure, I live in BC as well.)
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Yes. First Cordray announced he would leave at the end of the year. Then on Friday, he said he was resigning immediately and appointed his deputy as interim director. Trump then appointed his budget director, Mulvaney, as interim director. There will be an argument on Monday over whose appointee is in fact the legitimate appointee.
Brachiator
I never understood why Sarandon and her ilk were so certain that Clinton would be a warmonger.
What was this based on? Clinton’s Iraq vote?
I don’t recall the Bill Clinton administration as being on based on permanent war.
And as far as I can see, Jill Stein is still a Russian agent.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
IIUC Cordray stepped down. His second in command was to be the de facto interim head but Trump is instead appointing Mulvaney, triggering a forthcoming fight. I’ll speculate Mulvaney will be exactly as effective as the FCC head in protecting our interests as citizens.
rk
Yes, real courage to be a privileged, comfortable old established actress and be opinionated. The word isn’t courage, it’s stupidity! The stupid, racist and ignorant voted for Trump. The indifferent and privileged voted for Johnson/Stein.But let us spend the next 4 years interviewing the morons and asking for their opinions because they made such great choices. The only articles I’d read will be if someone does a brain autopsy on Susan or a Trump supporter to see if stupid has a physical manifestation.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
To add, Cordray bases his right to appoint an interim director on language in Dodd-Frank. Trump apparently is going from some law in 1998. Sorry I can’t remember the name of it.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
See what happens when the dentist stops subscribing to “People”?
Amir Khalid
@zhena gogolia:
@eclare:
I try to keep in mind that the actor is not the character. I lost respect for Viggo Mortensen in much the same way when I learned he was a Jill Stein voter; I’d thought a person of his varied life experience would be able to see through her bullshit. But would I be unable to watch another movie with Mortensen in it? I think not. I agree that Susan Sarandon’s politics is stupid, and if I had to argue about it with her I too might lose my patience. But for me that doesn’t take anything away from her stature as an artist.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
I will easily defend “Mystic River” as a great film, one of what I call the Massachusetts Quartet.
And Penn deserves immortality just for “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I just finished reading a biography that had a narrative of the French Revolution from the royal family’s point of view. There does seem to be some solid evidence that their cousin “Philippe Egalite,” the Duc d’Orleans, spent a lot of time and money propagandizing against Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette so he could depose them and take their place on the throne.
Unfortunately for him, he discovered too late that you can’t control the crazy once it’s been unleashed, and he went to the guillotine only a few months after Louis did.
germy
Everyone has the right to their own opinion, and there’s certainly a wide variety of opinions out there. Some just plain stupid.
But when did the opinions of celebrities become so influential? Actors, actresses, rock musicians?
I can see giving deep thought to the opinions of someone who has studied and written about government and politicians, but actors?
Actors recite the lines of screenwriters. If the screenplay sucks, then we view the actor as “stupid.” If the screenwriter is talented, then we think the actor is “brilliant.”
Some of the stuff that comes unscripted out of the mouths of actors, actresses, and musicians is downright embarrassing. They have the right to express their opinions, but when did they start getting taken so… seriously?
In the 19th century, a traveling actor, someone who rolled into town to play Hamlet, did audiences give a crap what he thought about presidential elections? Weren’t most actors seen as charlatans anyway?
Actors spend their formative years in front of their mirrors. They are not the parts they play. Many of them are just plain silly. Musicians spend their formative years obsessively mastering their guitars or horns or pianos. I’ve spent time around musicians and many (not all of course) are boring as hell about anything not involving music.
Did anyone see Ben Affleck on “Finding Your Roots”? He ain’t Batman. He’s a silly man who tries to control his image. And who is that actress who pushes all those dubious health remedies? Not Jenny McCarthy, the other one with her own company marketing dangerous woo?
Did anyone care what Clark Gable thought about politics in the 1940s? Or Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1950s?
Did the change happen in the ’60s, when Rolling Stone journalists got all serious in their interviews with drummers?
trollhattan
@rk:
Heh. It’s the same perpetual-motion machine that keeps Trump going: spew ridiculous things to attract cameras, decide you love attracting cameras, spew more ridiculous things, reaffirm your love for cameras….
debbie
@germy:
Gwenyth Paltrow, aka the Goop chick?
Doug R
@Amaranthine RBG: Because killing a couple of a$$holes actively plotting to kill people is EXACTLY THE SAME as invading a country and killing 500,000 people.
Because prosecuting people that did shit before you were in power is much more important than getting financial restitution for current fraud and making sure it doesn’t happen again. Making an example of someone is not justice, as MLK and Mandela used to say: “We are all cut from the same cloth”.
mike in dc
If the next Republican nominee ran on a platform of “exterminating third party voters”, Sarandon would be arguing that heightening the contradictions THIS TIME would for sure lead to third party victory next time…y’know, after the purge. When she could return from exile.
Captain C
@Trentrunner II – Pie Is Squared: Nazis are worse, much worse in an absolute sense.
But I can see where a person like Sarandon might get someone’s bile up more.
Temporarily Max McGee (you just keep me hanging on)
Martyrdom is easy when you know you won’t be the person being crucified for the cause.
Doug R
@Brachiator: The Guardian is much better since they dumped GG.
Uncle Cosmo
@schrodingers_cat: To quote that eminent scholar from Hee-Haw, Junior Sample:
WaterGirl
@debbie: Ah. I assume the laughter by Cordray and Barney Frank is because Cordray’s appointee will be the one with legal standing? Or is that just wishful thinking?
edit: @trollhattan: @debbie: Ah, that explains it.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: there are places to get the same news that don’t have an editorial bent that bugs the shit out of me. That said, I don’t boycott it, I just don’t ever go to the front page to see what they have.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Brachiator: http://gawker.com/did-sean-penn-beat-up-madonna-an-archaeology-of-hollyw-1748746261
Brachiator
@Doug R:
Everything is better without GG.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Such as?
Also, I would probably disagree since I think some of the Guardian original reporting is first rate.
Yutsano
@WaterGirl: There is also language in OPM rules on how actings are appointed during a vacancy. Dolt45 can’t just shoehorn in an acting like that plus Mulvaney would have to resign from OMB as he can’t head two agencies, Shit just got really interesting.
eclare
@Amir Khalid: Shoot, he was so dreamy in A Walk on the Moon. But I haven’t seen him on multiple talk shows bashing Hillary….
trollhattan
@germy:
Teddy Roosevelt cleverly labeled the presidency as a “bully pulpit.” In this century that’s typically misinterpreted as meaning a great job to have in order to bully others to get what you want, but bully at the time meant “great.” Being a pop star or star athlete is likewise a bully pulpit–garnering press and today, social media followers. Some percentage of folks with these resources are going to take advantage and not simply intone, “I credit all our guys for my success today.”
If Beyonce told my kid to vote Republican….
bluefish
Shorter Sarandon: I’m up for Russian Roulette!
germy
@debbie:
Yep, that’s her.
She goes on a talk show, and the interview wants to know her philosophy of life.
I remember years ago, seeing an actress on a talk show, and she was going on and on about how money isn’t important, money is meaningless in the end. Fine sentiments, but the ring on her finger was worth more than my parents’ house.
Some actors are smart enough to push back against being taken so seriously. I remember seeing Patrick Warburton on a talk show. The interviewer was trying to get him to give advice about life, based on the sitcom he was currently starring in. Trying to make it a super deep conversation about the important lessons Patrick was trying to teach through the themes of this sitcom. Warburton just laughed and said he was just an actor; he had nothing to do with the scripts. He just delivered his lines.
Most actors, though, their egos won’t allow them to reply in such a way. Instead, they’re flattered by the interviewer and start talking like they’re Buddha. And the interviewer is proud because he landed such a “great” interview.
HAL
I think Sarandon was one of those voters who was convinced Trump was going to lose and saw an opportunity to be able to say I told you so for the next 4 to 8 years under Hillary Clinton. I think that self righteousness mattered more to her than anything else.
debbie
@Yutsano:
Thanks for that info. It will definitely get interesting.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: They are leftier-than-thou, always have been that way. They were huge boosters of BS during the primaries and they are always bleating about neo-liberal this and capitalist that.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Spiegel, BBC, NYT, Economist, various bloggers. I do end up reading a number of guardian articles but I don’t seek them out.
stinger
Ouch. A rather unpleasant blog post title for a reader/occasional commenter whose actual first name is the same as Ms. Sarandon’s. However, I shall power through and read the whole thing anyway.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator:
Scientology. Buying the rights to the Jack Reacher books and playing him himself despite being a foot shorter than the character whose entire persona is derived from his giant size. Abandoning his daughter.
Brachiator
@germy:
Actors and actresses are like other people. And in America we don’t have a permanent, rigidly defined intellectual class who we depend on to serve as our oracles.
Jimmy Cagney supported some causes seen as radical back in the day. Same is true of Bette Davis. And much can be said for those who stood up against the Commie hunters in the 50s.
Some actors are dumb. Others, not so much.
Aleta
‘in the age of social-media enforced conformity, I have never met anyone so uninterested in toeing the line’
No, she is utterly invested in toeing her line.
She is uniquely ‘uninterested’ ‘in social-media enforced conformity?’ Good grief, she conforms to a primitive view of HRC that social media manipulated, amplified, embellished and directed at her group of conformists.
A non-conformist reexamines the effects of her actions.
aimai
@hitchhiker: This. So brave. Such courage.
Steve in the ATL
@Major Major Major Major:
The Susan Sarandon of newspapers.
The WSJ of magazines.
Brachiator
@Steve in the ATL: Ah. I didn’t realize that Cruise had forced you into Scientology. My sympathies.
debbie
@germy:
The only things I know about Goop are the jokes I hear Stephen Colbert making. But this Guardian article is certainly informative.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator: you don’t see the harm that Scientology does to society at large, aided and abetted by his fame, fortune, and recruiting, or are you just being a contrarian jackass?
martian
What “mob” did Sarandon go up against? Contrarianism is not an intrinsically good thing, I don’t get the admiration or positioning of it as “brave.” Sometimes everybody’s yelling at you because you’re about to step into the path of a speeding train, dumbass.
But Sarandon is a “heightening the contradictions will bring on the revolution” asshole, anyway, so she can just fuck off. Little people like me and mine would be cannon fodder in her “revolution”, and we don’t have time for her bullshit.
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
Some people are so deeply invested in their need to be contrarians that they can’t re-adjust their thinking even if it becomes necessary. Sarandon prefers Russian propaganda that speaks to her belief that America is hopelessly corrupt to the actual truth, because the truth makes her into one of those boring, everyday people she can’t stand.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
Will Rogers was pretty popular too.
@Steve in the ATL: whatever, enjoy your insufferably lefty Sarandon-boosting rag.
eclare
@debbie: His takedowns of Goop have been hilarious!
CaseyL
Some actors do walk the walk, and in big ways. Angelina Jolie comes immediately to mind; also Robert Redford and the late, great Paul Newman. They use their wealth and fame to advance worthy causes, and put in real work for those worthy causes. But those are few and far between.
Amaranthine RBG
@debbie:
That’s not what I was saying. I was just pointing out that Obama’s tenure was not without significant flaws.
Cacti
Still heightening the contradictions from her 10 million dollar mansion, I see.
Steve in the ATL
@Major Major Major Major: NYT and WSJ have many talented reporters and do some great reporting. I am not willing, however, to sort through the dross for that stuff, nor am I willing to overlook the active harm that both papers do.
I am a former Economist reader. Lots of great information, but everything with a CNBC-type pro-MNC, anti-regulation bias.
SFAW
@Brachiator:
Had the gall to think a five-foot-three narcissist could play a six-foot-five ex-MP, for one. Although Cruise’s ego would certainly dwarf an actual-size Jack Reacher.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
See Spiegel? They have an English language version.
I read the others and often have problems with them. But I would agree that they are generally good.
I know very few bloggers who do original reporting, and would like to know of any. Good commentary is a different thing.
BTW, the Economist is putting some of their content on social media, places like Snapchat.
matt
There will always be people this stupid to worry about – this is America.
Major Major Major Major
@Steve in the ATL: yeah, with any source you have to sift and unskew. I find that easy to do for the Economist, and it’s by far the best source for getting the view from there too IMO.
I find the guardian too insufferable to bother sifting through.
Barbara
The point is, they don’t affect her personally. Therefore, she overlooks them. I won’t watch anything she is even remotely connected with.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: With a side of condescension.
Emerald
@germy:
Yeah, people cared what Clark Gable thought in the 1940s. He and Carol Lombard did their best to sell war bonds. In fact, Lombard was killed in a plane crash while she was on a tour selling war bonds.
So yeah, the famous had real influence in those days as well.
Brachiator
@SFAW:
Never read a Jack Reacher novel. I don’t see what the big deal. A hero who is a giant warrior and immediately has an advantage over everyone else is kinda boring.
Hmm. I’ve also never seen a Jack Reacher movie, so I guess I double don’t care about this.
Nor does it take away from the other good work that Cruise has done.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
They’re generally how I end up linked to the guardian. Again, I don’t boycott it, I just don’t seek it out.
martian
@CaseyL:
Brad Pitt has been building housing in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans for years now, and it’s been a really interesting project as it’s developed and evolved to suit the residents’ needs and preferences. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/28/what-happened-when-brad-pitt-and-his-architects-came-to-rebuild-new-orleans/?utm_term=.ee16a0087816
matt
@germy: Percent to get matching funds – it’s all about the third party money grub.
p.a.
OT but anyone out there besides me ever have the fortune of having a field mouse die directly beneath your refrigerator fan? “ugh” doesn’t do it justice. It’s been an active year for ‘em: 5 in traps, and this sorry but vengeful bastard. And I’m not putting out more birdseed than usual.
germy
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes, but he was a topical comedian. Even in vaudeville, between rope tricks, he’d hold a newspaper and discuss current events. He was a 1920s Mort Sahl. And in the 1930s he was writing a syndicated newspaper column.
Amir Khalid
@germy:
The opinion of most artists has no more (and no less) value than that of any other person. But I’d value the opinion of, say, a Harry Belafonte or an Ossie Davis or a Bruce Springsteen. The first two were significant artists who lived through the injustices they fought as serious activists, and a great deal of the latter’s work has been about the lives of ordinary Americans.
Doug R
@Brachiator:
Not always. The Guardian’s two star Review of Wonder Woman: glass ceiling still intact as Gal Gadot reduced to weaponised Smurfette
and the Observer four star review they posted later, after presumed howls of outrage: a gloriously badass breath of fresh air
eclare
@p.a.: Ick….no….
Major Major Major Major
@germy: I enjoyed his book Ambassador Without Portfolio.
Citizen Alan
@debbie:
Obama refused to destroy capitalism when he had the chance. Therefore, he was as bad as Hitler.
2017 was the first year in the last decade in which I boycotted the local charity showing of Rocky Horror on Halloween night. I just couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that sanctimonious twit blown up on a big screen.
Another Scott
@germy: Celebrity has been a big thing for Americans for a long time. J.W. Booth was a celebrity and got a lot of support for his conspiracy, at least in part, because of it.
NewYorker:
AFAIK, Lindberg being a brave pilot, and decent navigator, and someone skilled at getting backing for an attempt at a prize to fly across the Atlantic, didn’t mean he that had any sense about politics or that he somehow represented what was best about America. He was a racist and a RWNJ.
Sarandon donates to a lot of the same charities I do. She’s got some whacky political views, but she’s also been on the right side on important issues, too. I’m inclined to cut her some slack and mostly ignore her politics, myself.
Trump and the Teabaggers are the enemy – not misguided liberals and leftists. The misguided left only speaks to a small minority. If we do the work of turning out our voters and making sure that their votes aren’t suppressed, then Sarandon and Stein and all the rest will just be a footnote.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Grr. FYWP strikes again.
A little dungeon help, please? Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Steve in the ATL:
It’s the holidays. I will respond to rousing conversation, but not dumb snark. I don’t give a shit about being contrarian, and you don’t know me well enough to insult me.
ETA. I live in Southern California and some of my fondest memories of my yoot was fucking with Scientologists at their Hollywood office.
Isn’t John Travolta also a Scientologist? He was great in Pulp Fiction.
Bex
Sarandon referred to “Hillary’s record of corruption.” Have I been missing something all these years?
Aleta
@germy: good stuff.
Maybe it’s akin to a hypnosis? When did we start listening to photos of pillows on couches and gorgeous wall colors when we look at our own living rooms?
As for politicians, the Kennedys did the star thing, and color spreads in Life Magazine, pearls and fashion and manly boats and football, parties with Hollywood actor-esses. They were using charisma for influence, as Reagan did.
Emerald
@CaseyL:
Some do worthy causes without publicity. I’m friends with a longtime TV star who, entirely unheralded, spends his time with cancer-stricken kids. He befriends them. He goes to their homes and plays videogames with them for hours.
And I won’t tell you who he is because he doesn’t want publicity for it. It’s just how he was raised: to do what you can.
Major Major Major Major
@Bex: cattle futures and murder, of course.
Trentrunner II - Pie Is Squared
@HAL: This is correct.
rikyrah
They need to apologize for their part in bringing about Dolt45.
SgrAstar
@schrodingers_cat:
And that’s bad? I love the Guardian too. Like all papers, they have some op-ed writers who grate. But that’s not a reason to ignore their terrific original reporting.
Major Major Major Major
@Trentrunner II – Pie Is Squared: did you seriously rename yourself because people were ignoring you?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Emerald:
How famous is your friend?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m hoping it’s the original Trentrunner, ie SC’s theory
schrodingers_cat
@SgrAstar: Yes being purity pony leftier than thou is what gets Rs elected because no D passes the muster as pure enough.
CaseyL
@Emerald: Then they definitely walk the walk. I didn’t mean to exclude stars who do so quietly, though obviously (because they do it quietly) I wouldn’t be able to name them.
Citizen Alan
@Amaranthine RBG:
Name a presidential Administration without “significant flaws.”
Brachiator
@Doug R:
I used to enjoy their discontinued film podcast, but rarely agreed with their critics. The Guardian review of Moonlight was a thing of beauty. Love their episode guides to Game of Thrones and Doctor Who.
I would not have discovered the Peter Capaldi political satire In the Cut without the Guardian.
Also some great book reviews and retrospectives.
And yeah, their dismissive review of Wonder Woman was dumbass. They weren’t the only one.
HinTN
@schrodingers_cat:
One of my EE profs said that about three times per semester.
lowtechcyclist
So it’s turned out that Sarandon was the one with the five-cent head.
germy
@Major Major Major Major:
He literally was in front of a typewriter, writing a column when his plane went down.
Certainly quite a few actors and actresses and musicians were busy in the war effort. Chaplin exhorted crowds to buy war bonds during the first world war.
But the average entertainer being held up as a source of advice on how to live or how to vote. Isn’t this a more recent thing? When interviewers started competing with each other to see how deep they could get celebrities to go? “I really got [Celebrity A] to open up!”
John Lennon gave a rambling interview to Jann Wenner. I remember Lennon saying he didn’t believe in evolution; asking why we didn’t see monkeys turning into men nowadays.
Something about hearing their music everywhere, or seeing their faces in movies written by clever screenwriters, makes us thing they really ARE larger than life.
If someone hears the name “Susan Sarandon” and they think “feminist icon” and have warm memories of watching Thelma and Louise… can they name off the top of their head the person who wrote the screenplay? The person who actually wrote the story we associate her with?
Bex
@Major Major Major Major: If Sarandon believes that crap, I’ve lost all interest in whatever she says or does.
Brachiator
@Bex:
Yeah, I wonder about that, too.
It’s like these people have a pro forma reason for hating Clinton that lacks any real content.
Emerald
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
You’d recognize him immediately. Mostly TV, though.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@germy:
Probably not. Every televised awards show known to humanity is almost always dedicated to the actors. Any non-actor involved in a production the average person might be familiar with would be the director at most.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: Did people care what Elvis said?
Barbara
@Bex: You’ve been missing Sarandon’s Queen Bee persona. It’s not too harsh to say Sarandon exhibits a kind of misogyny dressed up as progressivism.
germy
@Major Major Major Major: Good question. In the 50s I don’t think journalists asked those sort of questions. But by the 70s they were.
Of course Elvis wrote a letter offering his services to fight the hippies. So I’m not sure how he answered the deeper questions.
PIGL
@schrodingers_cat: A really big side of condescension. I stopped reading them after seeing the word “fret” once too often. To hell with the smug City glibertarian oxbrige ….. raawwwwwr! (the sound of them being fed to tigers)
Brachiator
@germy:
They probably could not name either the screenwriter or the director.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Brachiator:
Some directors have become household names, like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Screenwriters? No way. At least none I know of.
geg6
@Brachiator:
Yeah, all that good work Scientology does. Abusing children, breaking up families and terrorizing anyone who criticizes them. His work helps pay for David Miscavage to commit crimes against humanity. Fuck that shit and fuck Tom Cruise.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@geg6:
Burn.
Amaranthine RBG
@Doug R:
No question that Bush killed more but also no question that Obama killed innocent civilians as well.
1) You don’t have to choose between prosecution and resitution.
2) The restitution was a tiny fraction of the profits earned from fraud.
3) Not only did he not “make sure it doesn’t happen again”, it never stopped happening.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: I know it was directed by Ridley Scott because it’s one of my Fun Facts.
trollhattan
@Major Major Major Major:
Some seemed to.
Amaranthine RBG
@Citizen Alan:
None. That’s the point.
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen Alan: Hypothetical administration run by the sage of Vermont.
germy
@Brachiator: It sort of goes both ways. People like Sarandon take the credit for saying the words of a great screenwriter or following the advice of a talented director. Actors are the face of the film.
But there are actors who are held in contempt because they appeared in shitty movies with bad scripts. They are perceived as being dumb because of the dumb lines they were paid to recite on camera. They take the blame.
I always find it interesting when a talented director with a great script decides to “resurrect” an actor who has appeared in a string of bad films. And then critics and moviegoers are all “Wow! We didn’t know he/she was so smart and talented!”
Also, when someone with absolutely no acting experience gets nominated for an academy award because they were hired by a genius writing/directing team.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: I hear Keanu Reeves is really nice.
ThresherK
@p.a.: A field mouse died just in the end of a hot air vent in our bathroom once. An interested cat led us to the live mouse (unattainable thru the grate) and I didntvknow it was stuck there til it died. Needed a razor blade to separate the painted-over seam to extract the thing.
We saw another mouse underneath our fridge and it looked like it was in a wind tunnel. It was scooped up easily when it came out.
germy
@Major Major Major Major: He did the voice of the cat in Key & Peele’s “Keanu” film. Oscar worthy, for the thirty seconds or so he was heard.
germy
@ThresherK: A mouse fooled us one night. Found it laying on its back. Our cat crouched and stared intently at it. Neither one of them moved. I picked the mouse up by the tail and dropped it outside. It shivered suddenly and ran off.
Academy Award should have gone to that mouse for playing dead in front of our cat. If it had twitched a single muscle she would have pounced. (at least that’s what she told us later)
Wilson Heath
“The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.”
-Annie Savoy, Bull Durham
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
I remember a film criticism referring to him as “Keanu Reeves, full of grace.” He has a reputation for quietly doing good and thoughtful deeds.
trollhattan
@geg6:
$cientology strategically recruits celebrities to use as their public face in order to distract from who and what they actually are. They have imprisoned people and are forbidden to practice medicine after killing a member. They oppose modern medicine and especially, psychiatry. What they do to their recruits (and their bank accounts) is well documented and their celebrity spokespeople actively assist them in bringing in more.
I’ll sub this out to Leah Remini.
Villago Delenda Est
“Uninterested in toeing the line” when the line is “do the least damage to the fewest, especially the most vulnerable who do not have royalties and investments to protect them from the worst” is not “courageous”. It’s cowardly in the extreme.
trollhattan
@germy:
Mousie play possum!
I’ve encountered parent birds doing this (or feigning injury) convincingly to lead away from their nests/fledglings.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: Imo, contrarians can be conformist or nonconformist. We all conform to things. Nonconformity is self-awareness, open enough to (in her case) be honest about direction. What’s so hard about “I deeply believe certain things, and I believed prejudiced information and polls. I decided to use my power in public to influence. That helped the side that’s bringing this nightmare.”
It makes me angry to see her remarks framed as ‘not toeing the line’ when they are rigid group think, same as what is coming from many directions.
Yeah you’re right; her kind of contrariness reminds me of a compulsion. Have a relative with the same compulsion; it just flows down a different gully, libertarian. Must fit all incoming facts to what she already believes.
Doug R
@Aleta: Rebellion in a conformist sort of way.
ThresherK
@germy: I think of it more like “how many actors not on a roll can be cast in a prestige movie before it’s not a prestige movie any more?
At some point in willing to forgive actors taking iffy roles as the pull to turn roles down, while still having a rep as “not trouble” and “boffo”, is hard. Performers gotta eat. Never know how long they’ll be hirable.
geg6
@trollhattan:
Yup. I won’t be using my money to prop up this crime syndicate and that’s what you do when you patronize anything with Tom Cruise in it.
Elmo
@schrodingers_cat: Pie are not squared. Pie are round. Cornbread are square.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
I can name both, but I’m a two-film-degree-holding freak.
Brachiator
@germy:
I think this is needlessly reductive. But I take your point.
As for directors “rescuing” actors, I recently listened to a wonderful interview with Robert Forster. He had not retired from acting and was respected, but went through a long spell where he lost roles to hotter actors. Tarantino went to where Forster regularly ate lunch or breakfast and gave him the script for Jackie Brown. Forster loved it, but asked what if the studio wanted someone else. Tarantino told him that he wrote it with him in mind and that he currently was so powerful that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with his film. In return, Forster gave a great performance.
Major Major Major Major
@Aleta: yup, it’s exactly the same impulse that leads to libertarianism.
Chip Daniels
@Bex:
That vinyl LP must be in a vault next to the Whitey Tape, on cassette of course.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
Probably my favorite Tarantino film and Forster and Pam Grier are why. Letter perfect.
Doug R
@Brachiator: Don’t you see? Hillary is PRE-CORRUPT. This is how she was investigated and almost arrested for not following rules that changed after she left SOS. This is how she is responsible for ¡Benghazi!©. This is why Trey Gowdy had impeachment hearings lined up for her.
(Of course, she did go back in time and beat Vince Foster to death with the hard drive containing her missing emails, but now there’s no proof, I hope no one looks in the basement of that pizzeria).
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major: Yep. Ridley Scott was director. Callie Khouri wrote the screenplay, her first. She also won the film’s only Oscar, for Best Original Screenplay.
trollhattan
@Chip Daniels:
I read that as the Whitney Tape: “And I, will always hate youuuuu-oooo-oooo-oooo!”
Brachiator
@Doug R:
Hah! Exactly. As for Vince Foster, I heard that Hillary shot a man in D.C., just to watch him die.
Emerald
@Brachiator:
RE Keannu Reeves, I’ve heard the same thing. Gives part of his salary to the low-paid folks on the set. Does lots of other things too. Nice guy, apparently.
Really, most of the established actors aren’t assholes. True assholes rarely last that long in the biz.
Brachiator
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Depends on the household, but I take your point. I worship at the shrine of Billy Wilder, but he is a director who wrote, or co-wrote great screenplays.
Playwright Neil Simon is probably one of the few writing names associated with films and tv shows.
germy
@Brachiator: And I’d be more interested in a Guardian interview with Callie Khouri than an interview with Susan. Does anyone know or care what she thinks?
I find writers and directors more interesting than performing artists.
B.B.A.
There’s a wingnut argument I’ve seen lately that Hillary’s greatest crime was invading Libya. Not only did this create the current refugee crisis, it ensured that we have no credibility in anti-nuclear talks. Qaddafi played nice and disarmed, and the Americans overthrew him anyway, so why should Iran or NK trust us? Plus, BENGHAZI!!!1!
There are a few major flaws in this argument, not least of which is that Hillary didn’t actually order the Libya invasion.
(I freely admit, Cole was right and everyone else was wrong about Libya. It’s what drove me to my current isolationist/pacifist stance.)
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
He has had some tragic things happen to him. I have a soft spot for him since one of my kids looks just like him.
Brachiator
@B.B.A.:
Just absurd. But one of the more despicable right-wing slurs behind this is that somehow Hillary was really the acting president, and Obama simply did what she wanted him to do.
Right-wing racism and sexism covers all the bases.
trnc
@debbie:
If you mean, to what specifically is she referring, probably drones, maybe some drilling. But if you’re wondering how she could know something that couldn’t be noticed, join the club.
burnspbesq
@debbie:
There is a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel at DOJ, dated yesterday, that supports Trump’s power to appoint Mulvaney. Drum linked to it. It’s crap.
david
So, Nancy Pelosi is out there lauding John Conyers as an “icon”.
Where have I seen and heard this before… oh, yeah, Trent Lott honoring Strom Thurmond years ago.
Looks like exclusivity to one particular party is dead on this one, too. Funny how that continually happens.
Kathleen
@germy: Callie was creator of Nashville, one of my favorite shows a few years back. I loved episodes she wrote (which I think were most of them the first year or so). That was a great show, though I can’t bring myself to watch it since Rana died. It’s just not Nashville without Connie Britton.
So OT but I also meant to drop this here – link to Soledad O’Brien’s twitter Home Page. She’s been all over this NYT story and there have been several threads today. She is pulling no punches in her criticism, but she’s doing it very professionally. You can see her tweets and threads if you’re not Twitter user.
https://twitter.com/soledadobrien
burnspbesq
Oh, yay! Once again, we are treated to Amaranthine’s cover versions of David Dayen’s Greatest Hits, which were neither to begin with and don’t impoprove with repetition.
Tiresome.
Kathleen
@MomSense: I really like him on screen. He can play many different characters. Nice to hear he’s a decent human being as well.
J R in WV
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Actually, a ton of famous authors wrote for Hollywood, frequently under an alias. Some were blacklisted for being commies and wrote anyway. John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, William Goldman, Cormak McCarthey, Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury, William Faulkner (?WTF?), Aldous Huxley, James Agee, Joan Didion to list a few. F Scott Fitzgerald also, but mostly uncredited.
Lots of these guys got paid a lot, but no credit on the screen. And lots of them were famous on TV as themselves, too, especially Capote, who seemed unappealing to me, but could do the stories and match wits with the best of them.
Kathleen
@J R in WV: Dalton Trumbo was another one. Did you by chance see Brian Cranston in Trumbo? That movie was fascinating. He never stopped working because he’d take any assignment and of course not put his name on it.
SgrAstar
@schrodingers_cat: oh. Didn’t mean to endorse purity-ponyism, just weighing in for the Guardian. I’ve never thought that the G was full of purity ponies, or even “leftier than thou”, however.
burnspbesq
@Kathleen:
I gave up on Nashville after season three. How did they kill off Rayna?
Connie Britton can act. She was the best thing about Friday Night Lights, which was impossibly good.
FlipYrWhig
Sarandon does voiceovers for Tylenol. In other words, she is LITERALLY on the payroll of Big Phárma. If she is willing to take dirty corporate money because she thinks she can turn it to good, why does she draw lines around politicians’ efforts to do the same?
WaterGirl
@Kathleen: @burnspbesq: I have the last episode of Nashville on my Tivo, and Rayne/Connie Britton was alive through the end of the final episode.
edit: I just googled, and it looks like CMT picked up Nashville after ABC ended it after season 4. I had no idea.
Mnemosyne
@david:
Strom Thurmond ran for president on a platform of white supremacy and keeping America segregated. Trent Lott lauded Thurmond for his white supremacist efforts and stances.
But, sure, what Conyers is accused of doing is exactly the same as working to preserve Jim Crow and racial inequality forever.
Teddys Person
@WaterGirl: The show got picked up by CMT after ABC cancelled the series.
debbie
https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/934888940988923904
bluefish
@Barbara: That’s right. Astute. For myself, never much carried for Thelma and Louise. Saw it in the theaters when it first came out and was less than thrilled by the suicide is freedom for defiant women thing Callie Khouri was working with. Then again, I was old enough to have read The Bell Jar as a young adult. But, yeah, there’s something disturbingly retro spun about Sarandon’s comments. Lots of sneering.
eemom
It’s interesting: I am normally of the “separate the art from the asshole artist” view, because I think the contrary is a ridiculous slippery slope that achieves nothing. Anyone going to stop reading Charles Dickens because he was a brutal, abusive monster to his wife and mother of his children? So I have no issue with films by/with Polanski, Woody Allen, Tom Cruise, etc.
But THIS twat is in a special category. I can’t bear to look at her fucking FACE.
I would, however, gladly watch the last scene of Thelma and Louise again, if she was really driving that car.
Kathleen
@burnspbesq: She was great and her character was so well written (as were all the characters). Possible spoiler alerts: Did you know she and Deacon finally got married? I don’t remember what season that was. She died as a result of an auto accident. She was riding in the back seat of SUV and got T-boned. I had stopped watching Nashville awhile back but my cousin told me about her death so I checked CMT On Demand and caught the episode. I sobbed like a baby.
Kathleen
@WaterGirl: Yes. CMT picked it up. Did you know she and Deacon got married?
J R in WV
I’m actually not much of a film buff, more into novels, which is where I come into knowing this, from reading about authors and stuff they write, besides the works they are famous for.
Some of those guys went to Hollywood because they were broke, their famous novels didn’t make them any money. Others, I don’t know how they got work, like Faulkner, who wrote novels with 3 page paragraphs!?!
PaulWartenberg
Because Sarandon is a Purist.
To her, a competent leader who is willing to compromise on Far Left ideals is worse than a pussy-grabbing racist bankrupt con artist neo-Nazi.
They are the ones who believe “Good Enough” is the enemy of “Utopian Perfection”.
J R in WV
@eemom:
Now that I know he was a “brutal, abusive monster” I have a second reason for not reading Dickens. Firstly, though, his work sucks because he was paid by the word, so he wrote long wordy nonsense that I cannot read for pleasure, ever.
But thanks for the additional info about him!
WaterGirl
@Kathleen: Something happened with my nym, so my reply to you didn’t show up properly. This was my comment:
I thought they already were married?
Kathleen
@WaterGirl: No problem! I realized after I posted that they got married when series was still on ABC so my question was moot. Now I hope I didn’t spoil anything for you in the event you want to catch up on CMT. Brain not working well today. Or yesterday for that matter.
eemom
@Temporarily Max McGee (you just keep me hanging on):
dunno if you’ll see this on a dead thread, but I am so glad to see you back here! How are you doing?
Temporarily Max McGee (you just keep me hanging on)
@eemom:
I’m alright. On a trial drug, a targeted therapy, that’s been working. Getting shrinkage of the big tumor. It fucks with my eyes, though, or at least the left eye, which has been subject to filamentary keratitis and some occasional abrasion/erosion of the cornea. I’ve been spending much more time with ophthalmologists (who came up with that fucking word? look at that phth run, just daring one to get it right, the smug bastard!) than oncologists. Lost my tastebuds, too, and my appetite, but Marinol has helped with the latter- and it’s given me the nicest side effect I’ve had from any of my meds, so I got that going for me.
This place is still here, so I guess that you and A.L. haven’t gotten into the Mother of All Brawls yet, huh?
WaterGirl
@Kathleen: It’s the conversation here about Nashville that let me know it’s still on, so I call that a win, even if it does seem that Rayna dies at some point. The blurb I googled says that the 2nd half of season 5 (first season on CMT) focuses on some of the younger artists, so maybe they had to kill her off so they could switch gears.
eemom
@Temporarily Max McGee (you just keep me hanging on):
Nah, I’ve been minding my manners. ?
So glad to hear you are doing better! You must be tough as nails. Do you have family/friends close by who are helpful?
Barry
@debbie: “Look what happened under Obama that we didn’t notice”
Fudge factor to make Dems look as bad as the GOP.
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator:
After Batman and Robin and the UK Avengers movie, I was certain Uma Thurman was washed up forever it Hollywood. And then Tarantino put her in the Kill Bill movies and everyone completely forgot about her prior bombs.
Wendy
@Schlemazel: Too subtle. I hope.
Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
She was also great in Pulp Fiction.
justawriter
Ronald Reagan was a B actor who was hired to voice records railing against social security and parlayed that into getting elected Governor of California. I heard he got another big job in the 80s.
Temporarily Max McGee (you just keep me hanging on)
@eemom:
I moved in with mom and stepdad as soon as I was diagnosed. They’ve been great!
Tough? I don’t know about that. I have a high threshold for pain, but I really haven’t had any pain. No nausea, either. Yeah, I’ve lost some hearing, I’ve got neuropathy in my hands and feet (just tingling, really) and this eye thang, but tough? Meh. I sleep a lot sometimes.
Although looking in the mirror ain’t easy. I’m a shade under 5’10”, and have weighed 145-155lbs for a couple of decades (I weighed 120lbs playing HS soccer back in the ’80s) and now I’m over 180lbs, which, for me, is a shocker some days.
chopper
@Amaranthine RBG:
wait, we didn’t notice those things? you high, son?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Yes. It takes real courage for someone with 7 homes, a private jet, and $50,000,000 dollars.
She must have cried all the way to her Goldman Sachs bank.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
The spartan, selfless life of Socializm (link)
LanceThruster
Clinton would be trying to ‘fix’ Syria like she did with Libya. Innocent brown people dying and not affecting you is the ultimate 1st world entitlement.