Stormy

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Tony Perkins of the retrograde and poorly named Family Research Council exposed the fraudulence of his project in a conversation with Politico recently by calling a "mulligan" on Trump's behavior for having gotten caught paying off the sex professional known as Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign to buy her silence concerning Trump's availing himself of her sexual consent after the birth of his youngest child with his third and current wife, Melania in 2006.  With the transaction, Trump was no doubt proactively seeking to prevent compounded gratuitous revelations of sleaze piling up on the Trump brand as the election drew to a close, regardless of the outcome.  While the stench of hypocrisy looms about Perkins' explications, he makes plain the motivations: Trump is delivering on Perkins' pet projects with a remarkably (for Trump) consistent agenda of anti-immigrant, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ themes.  The clumsy illegality of much of it means that it's happening not without pushback and in many cases ultimately without a lot of success, but in the eyes of Perkins (and of the present day scions of the historically puritan moralist clans of Graham and Falwell) Trump is blameless, uniquely without sin as modern presidents go in the advance of the cause.

What's fraudulent is not Perkin's forgiveness of Trump's immorality and illegality.  Nothing could be more honest.  If anything, Perkins' lack of judgment about a fellow traveler's behavior is a refreshing change from his usual modus operandi.  It's actually the rest of his stuff that's fraudulent-- family, research, evangelism, religion, morality.  This is a front for what by his actions and words he admits is his true project, namely the subjugation and suppression of women, the abnegation of the rights of LGBTQ oriented people, and the oppression of non-Protestant non-Europeans and those outside of his class and sect via political clampdown. His brother in arms Franklin Graham calls this "protecting Christian values", as if the ones needing protection in this country are the Franklin Grahams and Tony Perkinses.  On the other hand, he may have a point that those who make a habit of asking for it by punching down to their fellow Americans may not just be paranoid that they might someday actually get it back.

And by the way, I don't play golf but a mulligan-- which is illegal in standard play-- is not properly a patent looking away from poor playing and cheating.  A mulligan is a generous agreement that fortunes were not with one's opponent on a play.  In what universe can Trump's actions be reasonably explained away as an incidence of bad luck?  Furthermore, the mulligan is given at a disadvantage to the grantor in the short term (in the hopes and understanding that an opponent may grant a similar favor in the future should fortunes reverse).  In this instance, Perkins is seeking a mulligan for himself, in effect assuming forgiveness of  himself for overlooking flagrant immorality in his benefactor to his own advantage.  It's facilely understandable, but it's not forgivable and it's not forgettable. And I don't think it means what he think it means.

(While writing this I discovered that Amanda Marcotte has made much the same points and much more eloquently at that at Salon.  Updated 3/26 to reflect Daniel's account of the act that inspired the threats against her and the bought silence on the part of actors on Trump's behalf.  Recent details from multiple women reveal a pattern of sex by whatever means necessary followed by heavy handed threats of violence and or "catch and kill" tactics or nondisclosure payments on the part of Team Trump for ... for what?  Nothing about recent revelations should come as any shock to those who are onto the sleaze of the creep-in-chief and no revelation seems tawdry enough to move the meter on his supporter's high esteem of their fantasy fuehrer.  The sloppiness with which stories are 'killed' as if almost to ensure their being spread is almost enough to make one wonder if the cacophony of revelations isn't the point.)

Fascinating Algorithm

Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture, taken from my actual Google News feed?:

Your challenge is to come up with an explanation for how this is coverage that is related to this.  Is it just a randomizer gone amok?  Or is "river" somehow being metaphorically considered a "shape of water"?   Is the missing Oscar nomination for visual effects for del Toro's film being conflated with the missing wife?  From experience, and given that an algorithm is The Rationalization for how a computer program behaves, I believe there is a reason for the relation, however tortured from a human perspective.  Little flaws like this stand in pretty stark contrast to the bulk of article relations on Google News which in my experience tend to be pretty spot on.  In case it's not obvious, I have not seen the movie, but if its plot is echoed in the story of the missing woman and Google News has drawn an inference about the articles' connectivity based on that, color me impressed.

Too Smart for The Room?

I've seen worse movies than The Room.  Few qualitatively challenged movies are as watchable.  I understand the tribal impulse to have a mass smart-alecky conversation at it while it's playing in a theater, but I prefer to experience it at home, giving it the full command of my attention with no comments from the peanut gallery.

Several elements redeem it:

1. Casting and acting - Unconventional, universally fascinating actors.  A cast you can't adjust to since important new characters are continually added with no explanation and even the main characters behave in contradictory ways with unfathomable motivations.  The performers to a person run with it, partaking in and contributing to the singular world of the movie with equal flair.

2. Writing - For a spare story it has an impressive density of jaw dropping good chunks.  Randomly introduced and just as rapidly dropped plot points; head scratching motifs such as sporadic intermissions for tossing of footballs; stream of consciousness dialogue that turns on a dime from badinage to chaos and back and is alternately somewhat reminiscent of the way actual adults communicate and random and repetitive to a Beckett (or first grade reader) like degree.  The result is a hypnotic and attention holding rhythm that keeps you bemused and off guard.

3. Score - Actually pretty good throughout; not least, the songs that accompany the sexy 
bits.  All of it original music written for the movie.

4. Camera movement - The film was shot in 35 mm and HD video interchangeably, with no apparent rhyme or reason; however it moves quite a bit for a low budget movie and despite an occasional slightly out of focus moment or two, it works.  From the opening travelogue shots of San Francisco under the titles to the emotionally fraught ending there is a good variety of pans, crane shots, helicopter shots, closeups, medium and long shots and effective visual techniques such as dissolves and fades.

5. Editing and pacing - The editing is brisk -- e.g, 202 cuts in the first 21 minutes up to and including the full infamous flower shop scene by my count (until I discovered someone had counted for me).  That said, it's not out of control.  If anything, moments that are on the surface weird and anomalous are redeemed by the way they're put together.  Not a great deal happens in the span of its 99 minutes, and what does occur sometimes has an almost spastic quality to it, but from sex scenes to philosophical dialogue to bursts of discord and threatened violence, things are held together in a compelling way.

To me the most appealing thing about The Room is how little, given its lack of artifice, it resembles harsh, ugly reality.  It emulates a kind of plastic and pretty California culture with a seamy underbelly but the resemblance is more superficial than an Entertainment Tonight interview.   In spite of its aspiration to worldly themes, there's an innocence that animates the spirit of the movie, permeating the proceedings and giving an extra kick all its own to the darker edges of its plot.  While it doesn't pack the wallop of a Mulholland Drive or even a Basic Instinct, there is a gooey center to it that sticks with you as well as on you.  Most importantly, it permits an escape from care and logic that is complete while maintaining an internal logic worth caring about on its own terms.

What more can you ask from a couple of hours in the dark?

Zdob şi Zdub: Bat Man

I hear they're coming to North America in a matter of days.  We could use the heat.