When funding fell through for Lars Von Trier’s sophomore feature film, instead of completely scrapping the project, he transformed it into something new. The least seen of his major works, Epidemic (1987) is a very self-referential piece for the director, a film about the making of itself, real life eventually contaminated by fiction....
Without doubt, it's meant to be. The first entry on this list of reasons to pull off the highway is Louie's Lunch, which is one of my favorite places in the world to get a hamburger. As the story goes, in 1900 a man requested that the luncheonette’s owner make him something to eat on the go—the result was a broiled beef patty in between two slices of bread. Voilà! America’s first hamburger. Louis’ still serves them the same way, and don’t even think about ketchup—condiments are forbidden....
I stumbled across this article after reading a WSJ diatribe on Michael Kinsley. It seems lab researchers let rhesus monkeys take over an entire island in the Florida Keys. Lois Key and nearby Racoon Key are owned by Charles River Laboratories, the world's biggest producer of lab animals. For decades, the company raised rhesus monkeys on the islands and allowed them to range free on Lois Key. "They ate the trees, they ate the coastal mangroves and actually killed the trees," said Ed Davidson of the Florida Audubon Society. "The shoreline eroded, and the monkey droppings wash out into the public waters. This is really a mess." Special prize for the first update on Lois Key....
It's Been a While Since I Linked to The Morning News
(Hell, it's been a while since I've linked to anything.) Pasha Malla and Mike Baker over at TMN script movie trailers for everyday life. Very funny. Here's a sample: In a time when nothing seemed to matter. In a place where fantasy knew no bounds. Specifically, yesterday. Behind the ice rink. Cigarettes. Became a passport to popularity. For yet another teenager....
Television programmer Max Renn (James Woods) is looking for something new, "something tough" to really pull in an audience that, as he sees it, has grown tired of the same old same old. Softcore Japanese porn isn't going to do it; faux-Greco-Roman period softcore really isn't going to do it. One day, Max thinks he has found his solution in a pirate televison signal his technogeek Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) picks up in his lab....
Here is an absolutely fantastic online exhibit of political campaign commercials past and present. See the little girl picking daisies while an atom bomb explodes! See Willie Horton! And a whole bunch of other doozies. Sit back and witness the unholy alliance of politics and mass media....
U.S. troops are using loudspeakers to lure out Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, where the former terrorist regime has a stronghold. (This is a great account, and deserves to be read in full) The loudspeakers atop the Humvee crackled to life: "The Taliban are women! They're bitches! If they were real men, they'd stop hiding under their burkas and they'd come out and fight!" It was high noon in the remote and stony heart of Taliban country, and 34 cavalry scouts from the U.S. Army were looking to pick a fight. Three hours later, they had all the fight they could handle. The Taliban were driven from power nearly three years ago, but they've staged a ruthless comeback throughout southern Afghanistan. They're recruiting fighters, slitting the throats of local officials and terrorizing rural villagers who have dared to register to vote in Afghanistan's first presidential election....
This sounds straight out of the John Waters movie "Cecil B. Demented." Police in Paris have discovered true underground cinema in the centuries-old skull-lined catacombs under the city. After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access. Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said. Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs". There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said....
A Viking burial ground, which has held bodies undisturbed for 1,000 years with all the trappings of the Sagas including swords, jewellery and firemaking materials, has been uncovered in Cumbria, after a chance find by a metal detector. The site - thought to contain the first formal burial of bodies discovered in England - is believed to date from the 10th century, when the Vikings had been Christianised, but were evidently still hedging their bets....
Our President has taken another courageous stand: U.S. President George W. Bush offered an unexpected reason on Monday for cracking down on frivolous medical lawsuits: "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."...
So he's a flashback to a pre-Voting Rights Act southern Democratic party. Anyone who would challenge Chris Matthews to a duel has earned my respect. Watch the shouting match and see an old man fight back, regardless of the facts. This, my friends, is dignity....
I kind of feel sorry for the Republicans. They get the media in a frenzy about a Democrat -- A DEMOCRAT -- giving their keynote speech. After trying to portray themselves as the inclusive party of bipartisanship, zany Zig Zag Zell Miller comes out and froths at the mouth like a regular Pat Buchanan. The GOP convention, which began so perfectly pitched, has developed a "Sybil" problem -- and no denunciations of fellow countrymen as traitors is going to fix that. So what about it -- did John Kerry really vote against all those weapons systems? Quick answer: No. Smart-ass answer: But Dick Cheney wanted me to! Here's then-Secretary of Defense Cheney in 1992 talking about the very weapons systems Miller accuses Kerry of cutting: Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements . . . You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s — all great systems . . . but we have enough of them. Factcheck.org has a more expanded view of the...
The GOP convention has been very generous to special interest groups this week, but certain New York City businesses have suffered from the Republican love machine. For many of the businesses near the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden, this week has been far from a party. Yury Vinogradov estimates business is off 80 percent at his store, It's Another Hit, which sells baseball cards and comic books on West 33rd Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues. "Exceptionally bad," said Vinogradov, 47, when an employee of a nearby tuxedo shop stopped by and asked, "How's it going?" Vinogradov's store is on a street blocked by barricades; pedestrians must show identification to proceed or name a specific store or address where they are going. But it's not just businesses that have been hurting. Hotel concierges, are complaining too: They say Republicans are the certainly the party of fiscal restraint — at least with their own money. "I wouldn't call them bad tippers — I'd call them non-tippers!" said Thomas Potesak, a concierge at the Sheraton Manhattan, where the Alaska, Iowa, South Dakota and Virgin Islands delegates are bunking....
William Saletan hits the nail on the head when he talks about Schwarzenegger's speech to the GOP faithful last night: There's a curious gap in Schwarzenegger's speech as he segues from his litany of Republican principles to the case for Bush. Essentially, the principles vanish. He stops talking about accountability and starts talking about faith. He asks for "faith in the resourcefulness of the American people, and faith in the U.S. economy. To those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don't be economic girlie men!" The audience roars—it's the loudest moment of the convention—but the descent from logic into grade-school humiliation is unpersuasive and revealing. The American economy is performing far below par. Bush got the tax cuts he wanted when he came into office. He said they would fix the economy. They didn't. He will be the first president in Schwarzenegger's lifetime to preside over a net loss of jobs. Accountability means that a president who gets his economic program and delivers results this bad gets fired....
