vxbush 5/16/2022 5:57:03 AM

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Good morning. I'm probably behind the times, but I saw the news this weekend that everyone knew there was going to be a formula inventory issue in February, but only now it's becoming an actual thing; meanwhile, WIC recipients can have as much formula as they want, and everyone else, well, too bad. Not to mention the illegals who were getting as much as they wanted. 

And still, the federal government is in reaction mode only. 

JCM 5/16/2022 7:43:48 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

Apparently the Administration has more urgent matters to work on, The Climate Crisis.

Notice it's now a "crisis", they can't peddle COVID anymore, so on to the next Crisis.

vxbush 5/16/2022 7:49:15 AM

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Congress is taking care of the really serious issues: 

Your Member of Congress Can Now Order ‘Drinks on Demand’ at the Capitol.

Occasional Reader 5/16/2022 8:00:38 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 3:

The outcomes from that can hardly be any worse than they already are; and there's a certain honesty to it.

Kosh's Shadow 5/16/2022 8:09:36 AM

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In #3 vxbush said: Your Member of Congress Can Now Order ‘Drinks on Demand’ at the Capitol.

Ted Kennedy is wishing he was still alive/

Occasional Reader 5/16/2022 8:19:39 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 3:

" Beer prices range from $25 for a 24-pack of Keystone Light to $60 for a case of Dog Fish 90 Minute IPA."

I am ready to volunteer for whatever PAC is seeking to run out of office those legislators who are choosing Keystone Light over Dogfish 90.

JCM 5/16/2022 8:47:44 AM

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The Laguna woods church shooter, they did go straight to fight. Radio report, the attack him with a chair and tackled him.

The media take on the Buffalo shooter, "white supremacist" ignore his self proclaimed leftism.

lucius septimius 5/16/2022 9:07:36 AM

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You know the old saying, if it's too good to be true then it's probably ...

Yeah, my first day of looking at houses was like that. The "best" looking one in pictures was actually the worst, and all the ones in my favored price range might as well have been in Juarez. 

vxbush 5/16/2022 9:09:47 AM

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In #6 Occasional Reader said: I am ready to volunteer for whatever PAC is seeking to run out of office those legislators who are choosing Keystone Light over Dogfish 90.

Ah, such sacrifice. 

buzzsawmonkey 5/16/2022 9:23:57 AM

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I dragged myself through half---half---of "Mr. Jones."  I will watch the other half tonight, just to complete the journey; I've always believed that you can learn a great deal from bad films, that will make you appreciate good ones.

I so very much wanted to like this film, which made the visceral revulsion it excited in me so much more sad.  Exposition between lousy and nonexistent, so half the time you don't know what you're seeing until a half-assed explanation semi-surfaces fifteen minutes later; miserable, ill-lit cinematography; semi-audible mumbling dialogue; character development lurching drunkenly between lousy and unconvincing;  grossly obvious presaging of action to come (the minute one sees a red apple glowing brightly amidst the murky chiaroscuro of the vilely-lit Moscow set, one knows it is going to be the center of another scene); and, worst of all, if you will pardon me, blatant and unnecessary anachronisms.  This film is supposed to be taking place in 1933---yet when hapless boob Jones miraculously manages (after a day's acquaintance) to persuade Duranty's allegedly-loyal aide to both care for and assist him in his quest for information, she masks her words by playing a song written in 1937 to cover her voice.  I'm sorry, but that is not forgivable in a film of this nature.

lucius septimius 5/16/2022 9:50:28 AM

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In #10 buzzsawmonkey said: playing a song written in 1937 to cover her voice

What was the song?

buzzsawmonkey 5/16/2022 9:57:18 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 11:

Bei Mir Bist Du Schon.

lucius septimius 5/16/2022 10:08:27 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 12:

I take it was the Andrews Sisters recording she was playing?  That's the one most people know.

The original Yiddish song was written for a show in 1932 I gather. So it's possible though I haven't been able to find (in an admittedly brief search) any recordings of the original. Lot's of recent covers, interestingly enough.

Kosh's Shadow 5/16/2022 10:12:13 AM

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buzzsawmonkey 5/16/2022 10:12:37 AM

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In #13 lucius septimius said: I take it was the Andrews Sisters recording she was playing?  That's the one most people know.

Actually, no---it wasn't the Andrews Sisters' recording.  I suppose it is possible that she dug up a 1932 American Yiddish theatre recording, but I'd consider such a thing highly unlikely, at best, to be found in 1933 Moscow under Stalin.  My "Variety Music Cavalcade," the reference which lists top American popular songs from 1650 to 1969 (when the author compiling the book and its updates died) lists the song as 1937.    

lucius septimius 5/16/2022 10:15:08 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 15:

Wikipedia entry on the original. As I said, possible, but as you say, unlikely.

Occasional Reader 5/16/2022 10:16:21 AM

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In #10 buzzsawmonkey said: by playing a song written in 1937

See, you notice that kind of thing.  Me, I notice the scene in Patton in which Moroccan soldiers on parade in 1943 are carrying submachineguns that didn't enter service until 1949. 

But anyway, overall, I thought Mr. Jones was quite good.  Different strokes. 

buzzsawmonkey 5/16/2022 10:20:50 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 16:

In addition, the vocal was in English, not Yiddish, which makes the use of the song more unlikely.

buzzsawmonkey 5/16/2022 10:38:38 AM

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In #17 Occasional Reader said: But anyway, overall, I thought Mr. Jones was quite good.  Different strokes. 

I find Jones' utter haplessness to be wholly unengaging---and it makes the willingness of other people, like Duranty's aide, to help him on short acquaintance, to be utterly unconvincing.  

BTW, the interjection of an as-yet-unidentified Orwell at the beginning and at other moments of the film seem stupid and, to some extent, offensive.  Orwell didn't need Gareth Jones to tell him about the evils of the Soviet system, especially when he was writing "Animal Farm" post-WWII; Orwell had had to flee from Spain to save his life when the anarchist militia he fought for was suppressed by the Soviet-influenced Loyalists.  That, too, is ahistorical---as anyone who has read "Homage to Catalonia" or Orwell's essay "Looking Back on the Spanish War" knows.  

I think it's important that people know about the horrors of what Stalin did to the Ukraine, and the nature of the Soviet system---I just think that this deeply dishonest film is not the vehicle with which to do it.

buzzsawmonkey 5/16/2022 11:53:42 AM

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Let me make it plain, if I have not already, that I am not here discussing the actual events.  I am referring to the grossly maladroit and unengaging portrayal of those events by a filmmaker whose reputation has been clearly vastly overrated because of her choice of subject matter. 

This film reminded me, repeatedly, of the talentless would-be nightclub chanteuses who invariably intone, breathlessly..."and this...ladies and gentlemen...is a song made great by the great...Billie Holliday! (cue unmerited applause for invocation of the Famous Name)." 

Holland is similarly breathlessly intoning/invoking the Holodomor, the horrors of Stalin, and their precursor to the Holocaust, in order to spackle over her vast shortcomings as a filmmaker.

Kosh's Shadow 5/16/2022 11:57:42 AM

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In #12 buzzsawmonkey said: Bei Mir Bist Du Schon.

Then there is the parody about "beer goggles":

Bei Bier Bist Du Schon

Occasional Reader 5/16/2022 12:17:17 PM

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In #20 buzzsawmonkey said: Let me make it plain, if I have not already, that I am not here discussing the actual events. 

So, you're saying that you're a devoted Stalinist, who denies the Holodomor ever happened.

/CathyNewmanVoice

buzzsawmonkey 5/16/2022 12:22:51 PM

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Never trust a man with hair so badly dyed that his half-bald scalp is darker than it was in his youth.

In this instance, I refer to the spokesmegaphone of the "Copyright Alliance," one Keith Kupferschmidt, whose near-nekkid scalp is a ridiculous dead charcoal brown.

Kosh's Shadow 5/16/2022 3:24:26 PM

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