David Mamet: Why I Rejected "Brain Dead Liberalism" and Am Now a Conservative Something So Horrible I Dare Not Give It a Name
He doesn't say conservative -- at least I don't think he does. But the Village Voice piece he penned is apparently being slammed by everyone -- smells like a movement Drudge-o-lanch -- and it's damned hard to get from one page to the other.
The best bet at the moment is Hot Air's excerpts. I'll put up my own when the damned site is accessible.
I've long been a fan of Mamet's; I even thought he was worth interviewing back when he was a stone-cold liberal. Well, I didn't interview him really, but I would have liked to have.
His output is uneven and he veers from brilliant (Glengarry Glen Ross, The Spanish Prisoner) to compelling (Oleanna, The Winslow Boy) to strangely engaging though badly, badly flawed (Spartan) to disposable and derivative of his earlier works (Heist, playing an awful lot like House of Games.)
On the plus side, even when his movies or plays aren't very good, they're not very good in an interesting way.
Anyway, obviously, I'm a fan. If we had done a celebrity political draft I would have tried to get him by the the fifth or sixth round (of course I would have to grab more famous, prettier spokesmen first), so this is pretty cool.
I'm reading his piece and I'm amused at how obvious and naive his epiphany is... but that's sort of the same for any fledgling conservative. It's still cute to see him take those first tentative baby steps we once took ourselves.
His big thing is the liberal belief in intrinsic human perfection, coupled with their paranoid/demented belief that "everything is awful." Which is, of course, a perfect contradiction and a childlike conceit -- it's the stance of the disappointed utopian who, emotionally upset that not everything is perfect, begins claiming that everyhing is terrible.
Harlan Ellison, who's a bit of jackass, did make the now-so-obvious point that while 50's utopian science fiction was hopelessly naive, 60's and 70's dystopian science fiction was no less naive. In fact, they were both animated by the same childish conceit in human perfectibility. But whereas utopian science fiction boats of human perfectibility, the angry, paranoiac strand of dystopian fiction is simply the petulant overreaction of a teenager to disappointment and veering wildly in the opposite direction -- but impelled by the exact same jejune motivation. If humans aren't perfect or at least perfectible, well than damn it, they must be total shit.
Conservatives, who embrace the "tragic" view as Mamet terms it (I would call it the "realistic" view myself, but then, I'm not a dramatist), are less childish in their starting conceits. We believe that people are selfish, self-serving, self-interested, self-obsessed, and only vaguely self-aware. It is the nature of all of us. And we do mean us; when we speak of human failings, we are really not, as the liberals are, speaking of other people only. We say "we are all selfish and flawed' and we do in fact mean we.
So for conservatives, the question isn't "Why is the world so awful and cruel?" The question is really "How do humans, especially those in the west and particularly those in America, manage to get so very, very much right so much of the time?"
A different set of starting assumptions creates wildly differing expectations and thus wildly different judgments.
Again, this is so obvious to most of you as to be beneath mention. For me, who once took the trip from liberal to conservative myself (in college, I subscribed to The Nation, yo), it's a nostalgic. Oh yeah, right: I remember first realizing that too, etc.
And I also remember the days when, while I would no longer call myself liberal, I also fiercely resisted the label "conservative." Mamet still seems to be resisting that hateful label himself, imaging a third way in between goof-joke liberalism and the faith-based hatred of conservatism, but... he'll get there.
Most of us do.
You have no idea of the power of the Dark Side.
Some Quotes: Again, this stuff may strike you as somwhere between "duh" and "fucking a-dehrrr."
I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."
This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.
But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.
And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.
I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.
More at the link, of course. Fair use can only be pushed so far.
PS: In that old post of mine I took a shot at him for always casting his wife Rebecca Pigeon in his movies. I had to. He does that more than Brian DePalma used to cast Nancy Allen.
It's not that she's a bad actress -- she's great in The Wislow Boy and amazing as the sexually-forward socially-awkward Nancy Drew good girl/bad girl in The Spanish Prisoner. (I kind of fell in love with her there and for a while was fond of quoting her oddball catchphrases, like "Well dog my cat" and "Just shows to go ya.")
It's just that she's always in there, so that it becomes sort of a drinking game prompt.
Plus, well... while she's great when she's good, he often puts her into roles she's just not well-suited for. I didn't buy her for a second as the flinty-tough jaded semi-whore in Heist, for example. She wouldn't have passed a screen test for that, not because she's untalented, just because actors have a type and Mamet tends to cast her both in-type and quite a ways out-of-type. Meg Ryan wouldn't have worked in Basic Instinct, after all.
I guess an overfondness for and excessive belief in one's wife isn't the worst flaw in the world.
And, I guess, it should be said he almost always has Ricky Jay and/or Joe Mantegna and/or William Macy in his movies, too, suggesting that at least they gave him a couple of handjobs at some point.
Ed "Al Bundy" O'Neill, too. What's up with that?
Since We're All Quoting It... Here's the Alec Baldwin scene from GGR.
Fun fact. At least I think it's a fact. This wasn't in the original stage play. I think he added this for the movie either just to extend the running time or else because he thought he had to juice up the desperation/intensity thing.
How the hell could the play exist without this scene? It seems impossible to me.
Mack, in his piece, Mamet calls NPR the National Palestine Radio. Draw your own conclusion.
Read the whole thing. Mamet has a scatterbrain style of writing, and you need patience to wrest comprehension form his jumble of words, but he is good.
Welcome to the club, pal.
Posted by: Tushar D at March 12, 2008 11:12 AM (IlgNp)
I hope this was to impress some hot female moonbat.
There's no other excuse.
Posted by: someone at March 12, 2008 11:17 AM (2z2WN)
8
Well, his tough-guy dialog was always a bad mix with pussified liberal politics.
One of my favorite bits of Mamet writing was his LA Times op-ed immediately after the 2004 election, when he basically called out John Kerry as a pussy. This, after giving Kerry's daughter small roles in two of his movies. Heh.
Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 12, 2008 11:21 AM (Ds4I5)
13
The irony is- when Hillary is crowned Queen Cunt by the "superduperdellyicious delegates", she truly and genuinely will be "selected not elected" just like the bumperstickerlibs are always farting on about Bush.
Posted by: TMF at March 12, 2008 11:27 AM (KTgUG)
14
Forget the 'dark side' what about the power of Rampaging Italics?
Posted by: someone at March 12, 2008 11:27 AM (2z2WN)
Cool- someone quotes Edmund Burke in the comments section.
One of the great prose meisters of western civilization. Why is it conservatives are always better writers? I mean, read WFB, Mencken, or Burke, and then read Chomsky or Marx.
Its no contest.
You hear me you fucking faggots?
Posted by: TMF at March 12, 2008 11:31 AM (KTgUG)
18
>>>Alec Baldwin was perfectly cast as the ballbusting prick giving the "come to Jesus" talk.
In the mid-nineties there was a copy of his speech going around in which the wags had printed all the Alec Baldwin lines in red letters, as if it were the Bible quoting Jesus.
In the mid-nineties there was a copy of his speech going around in which the wags had printed all the Alec Baldwin lines in red letters, as if it were the Bible quoting Jesus.
You've got to admit, if you were some low-level employee hearing that kind of talk from your boss, you'd be trying to find out how to shit solid gold turds by the end of the day.
Posted by: EC at March 12, 2008 11:36 AM (mAhn3)
25
Maybe I'm just a jaded asshole, but The Spanish Prisoner was like a erudite Scooby-Doo.
Posted by: tachyonsnuggy at March 12, 2008 11:36 AM (IVUjc)
26
Not conservative, but libertarian, he's not socially conservative.
I must be a jaded a-hole too... Spanish Prisoner was interesting the first time I saw it but the second time I tore it apart. There are a shit load of far fetched scenes and plot devices in the movie. For the plot to work everything must fall "just so" in to the bad guys plan to dupe the inventor of a secret process no one outside the company contracting him to develop knows anything about. "Just so" like some shitty episode of CSI or Scooby -Doo, what's the difference other than a hot cougar like Marg H.
Glengarry was the shit though. House of Games was pretty good.
Posted by: turtle at March 12, 2008 11:45 AM (gyNYk)
29
House of Games is one of my all-time favorite movies.
A simple no-frills movie that still effectively gets it's point across.
Posted by: Bart at March 12, 2008 11:45 AM (mlgd7)
Yeah, similar realizations on my part, and it took a while to cop to the label "conservative". For a while I went with "libertarian", but then I realized the juvenile shit they go for, that I went all the way to the ultra-dark side. I'm more conservative than Ronald Reagan was
.
.
(Hmmm, that's like a "more popular than Jesus" remark... hope I don't get into trouble)
Posted by: meep at March 12, 2008 11:52 AM (5j3FI)
Posted by: ergastularius at March 12, 2008 11:52 AM (B9+3n)
38
I like how pacinos character acts like hes above the fray, sort of a zen real estate salesman, but in the end he totally fucks over the guy he closed.
Posted by: TMF at March 12, 2008 11:52 AM (KTgUG)
39"Ed "Al Bundy" O'Neill, too. What's up with that?"
Well duh: unprotected anal sex. Explains everything.
Posted by: someone at March 12, 2008 11:53 AM (2z2WN)
Posted by: Moss at March 12, 2008 11:59 AM (SXBHu)
44The question is really "How do humans, especially those in the west and particularly those in America, manage to get so very, very much right so much of the time?"
Property rights. Everything else follows from that.
(I liked Spartan. A lot more than Spanish Prisoner.)
Posted by: Phinn at March 12, 2008 12:05 PM (NLtoU)
Ran across the article from Drudge, it really has to be a sobering awakening for an adult to realize they've been naive this long.
Posted by: darury at March 12, 2008 12:10 PM (bITsg)
46
Another gritty/simple movie that deserves props (that has nothing to do with Mamet) is Rounders.
It's kinda mamet-esque, though.
Posted by: Bart at March 12, 2008 12:11 PM (mlgd7)
47 It's just that she's always in there, so that it becomes sort of a drinking game prompt.
One of my rules of bad movies is that when the lead actress is shtupping the director, avoid the film. Mamet/Pigeon comes close to being the exception. But not quite. He even used her for his one directing gig on "The Shield". There's something a little creepy and Pygmalionesque about their relationship.
Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 12, 2008 12:13 PM (Ds4I5)
48
You can't imagine Meg Ryan in Basic Instinct? I can. And it's hawt. Really hawt.
Posted by: Erik The Red at March 12, 2008 12:18 PM (4Tslg)
One thing that always strikes me when a former liberal turns conservative is how lefties accuse him of selling out. It's very ironic. The guys who are so enamored of their openmindedness can't possibly conceive of the fact that someone else can honestly form a different opinion.
It's like they think Halliburton hands out checks when you register Republican. "Oh, you voted in the Republican primary? Here's your free Lexus."
Posted by: Matt at March 12, 2008 12:44 PM (ecpMe)
53
>>>It's like they think Halliburton hands out checks when you register
Republican. "Oh, you voted in the Republican primary? Here's your
free Lexus."
It's absurd. We have to make a $500 copayment. It's not "free."
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2008 12:47 PM (SXBHu)
54
You stupid fucking cunt. You, Williamson, I'm talking to you,
shithead. You just cost me $6,000. Six thousand dollars and a
Cadillac. That's right...now, what are you gonna do about it. What are
you gonna do about it, asshole? You fucking shit! Where did you learn
your trade, you stupid fucking cunt? You Idiot! Who ever told you you
could work with men?
Oh, I'm gonna have your job, asshole. I'm going downtown and talk to
Mitch and Murray. I'm going to Lempkin. 'Cause I don't care who you
know, whose nephew you are, whose dick you're sucking on--you're going
out! I swear to you, you're going out!
Anyone in this office lives on his wits. (To Cop: I'm gonna be with
you in a second.) What you're hired for is to help us. Does that seem
clear to you? To help us, not to Fuck Us Up! To help men, who are
going out there to try to earn a living, you fairy. You company man.
*I'll tell you another thing, I hope you're the one who ripped the joint off, 'cause I can tell our little friend here a little something that might help him to catch you.* You
want to know the first rule you'd know, if you ever spent a day in your
life? You never open your mouth until you know what the shot is. You
fucking child!
Mostly from memory:
I butchered the final paragraph and got help. Couldn't remember the phrasing.
I always wanted to recite it at some point to some dickwad boss (a
variation on the theme, of course). I'm surprised most of it stayed
with me.
I've always enjoyed Mamet. Spanish Prisoner, GGR, and Homicide are excellent.
Posted by: Roma Poet at March 12, 2008 12:48 PM (HGRfF)
55
Homicide is a great movie, and even more instructive as part of a 'compare and contrast' with the gawdawful A Stranger Among Us, as two films merging cop drama and an examination of Jewish faith.
Posted by: Ken Begg at March 12, 2008 12:51 PM (VVf4R)
56
By the way, this whole subject is exactly why Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anoited is *the* key book on how and why conservatives and liberals think the ways they do.
Posted by: Ken Begg at March 12, 2008 12:55 PM (VVf4R)
Posted by: Dave in Texas at March 12, 2008 12:59 PM (eiOZw)
58
I'd go with "A Conflict of Visions" over "Vision." It doesn't surprise me that Mamet likes Thomas Sowell. They have similar styles.
Posted by: Joe Marier at March 12, 2008 01:04 PM (dr1s2)
59
Go you huskies! I have a love/hate relationship with Mamet's work but State and Main is one of my favorite movies.
I'm not really surprised by this because some of the interesting tension in his work is between what he seems to truly believe, that people are inherently assholes, versus what he's putting out there, that people are inherently good. Actually, you can see this in State and Main where everyone is on the take, except the noble screenwriter, of course, and everyone is out for themselves. So I wouldn't say this is a conversion piece so much as a realizing he's believed this all along piece.
Posted by: alexthechick at March 12, 2008 01:06 PM (jWNHD)
<quote>So for conservatives, the question isn't "Why is the world so awful and cruel?" The question is really "How do humans, especially those in the west and particularly those in America, manage to get so very, very much right so much of the time?"</quote>
How do we explain those of us who have been conservatives from the start?
Sure, I rebelled a bit against my father's conservatism, but I never strayed far and soon realized how right he was/is.
Posted by: iamnot at March 12, 2008 01:06 PM (onj4J)
Harlan Ellison, who's a bit of jackass, did make the now-so-obvious point that while 50's utopian science fiction was hopelessly naive, 60's and 70's dystopian science fiction was no less naive. In fact, they were both animated by the same childish conceit in human perfectibility. But whereas utopian science fiction boats of human perfectibility, the angry, paranoiac strand of dystopian fiction is simply the petulant overreaction of a teenager to disappointment and veering wildly in the opposite direction -- but impelled by the exact same jejune motivation. If humans aren't perfect or at least perfectible, well than damn it, they must be total shit.
Hmm. I've heard that before and not thought much about it - it seems intuitive, it's certainly quite possible.
But reading it this time, I'm curious what science fiction you're referring to? Any examples come to mind?
I ask because I'm not so sure I see that in what I think of as archetypical dsytopian science fiction - Orwell, Huxley, and Bradburry.
If anything, all three of these were libertine types warning where excessive attempts at forcing 'perfection' would lead us, and what the final product of Utopia might actually look like once it's been shoehorned into the real world.
Those authors and novels however aren't so much your average as your pinnacle. What goes for those 3 probably doesn't go for others. I'm just curious who you may be thinking of when you say that.
Does Orwell fit into that mold?
Posted by: Entropy at March 12, 2008 01:08 PM (m6c4H)
I read the comments until I bumped into some lefty saying Bush couldn't hold JFK's jock strap--whatever the hell that means.
So, I have a question for some of the older/wiser posters here: What the hell was so goddamn great about JFK? It seems to be generally accepted wisdom that he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Besides the Cuban missile crisis?
Posted by: Secundus at March 12, 2008 01:14 PM (PE6Y6)
The thing about JFK is that he would fit pretty nicely into the center/moderate liberal Republican category today. Sort of a Joe Lieberman type. With libido issues, to be sure, but still.
Shows you how far the Democrats have swerved hard left.
Posted by: Fred at March 12, 2008 01:21 PM (ivbbD)
"Sure, I rebelled a bit against my father's conservatism, but I never strayed far and soon realized how right he was/is."
I'm on the same boat. I wanted to be a liberal in high school because all my fellow punk kids were, despite the fact I didn't know shit about politics. Then in college, my friend took me to see Bob Dole speak. We went as a goof, but I found myself agreeing with mostly everything he said. Shocker.
Posted by: Joanie at March 12, 2008 01:23 PM (Qbv3S)
I have no idea what he was referring to exactly but not orwell, as I think he was referencing the 60s/70s. Bradburry never struck me as dystopian, yeah, Fahrenheit 411 and all but mostly just dark. Then again, I don't read him.
I really am not a sci-fi maven so I don't know. I'm more interested in the general psychological observation than the sci-fi angle. I'm guessing he means stuff like Logan's Run and Soylent Green and etc... I assume those were written works first.
Posted by: ace at March 12, 2008 01:25 PM (SXBHu)
68
BTW, did erg say something particularly egregious or are we just effing with him now on general principles? Sometimes, its fun to watch you morons bat him around like a cat's toy.
Posted by: Fred at March 12, 2008 01:27 PM (ivbbD)
69
To be fair, Mamet is still laboring under a breathtaking number of Moonbat talking points. In the essay he still contends that:
- Bush stole the election in 2000; - Bush outed a CIA agent; and - Bush lied about his military service.
Welcome to reality, David, really, but you're still laboring under some pretty big delusions.
Posted by: Kensington at March 12, 2008 01:28 PM (u9bdf)
70
As for what was so great about JFK, the answer, of course, is nothing. He was Barak Obama in 1960, that's all, and liberals were as gullible and shallow back then as they still are now.
Posted by: Kensington at March 12, 2008 01:31 PM (u9bdf)
Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 12, 2008 01:33 PM (Ds4I5)
73
erg has been banned repeatedly but it's hard to ban the public library homeless computers he's apparently on. Sock-puppeting him and deleting or editing his comments is always allowed, as he posts here in direct defiance of my (and everyone else's) wishes.
He is a cocksucker troll and he should die in a fire.
The main thing about JFK is that his was the first real TV presidency. By that time most everybody had a TV. And he had the whole moronic "Hey, I know this guy. He's in my house every night." thing going for him.
Entropy,
Ellison's probably referring to novels like John Brunner's(?) "Stand on Zanzibar" and "The Sheep look Up". Maybe "Canticle for Liebowitz". That kind of thing.
Posted by: rinseandspit at March 12, 2008 01:39 PM (aBMz2)
He is a cocksucker troll and he should die in a fire.
Ah. That explains it. Thanks!
Posted by: Fred at March 12, 2008 02:19 PM (ivbbD)
83
"Maybe Canticle for Liebowitz"
No, that's one that does not fit the category. Author Walter M. Miller was a devout Catholic, and the dominant theme of the novel is the Christian view of humanity: Flawed and doomed to err because of Original Sin, but always capable of rejecting sin and embracing goodness.
But yes, there were lots of SF stories that fit Ace's description ("petulant overreaction of a teenager to disappointment"), some hysterical because the air and water were not pristine, some because there are poor people, and so on ad nauseum.
Posted by: pst314 at March 12, 2008 02:37 PM (OA547)
Harlan Ellison was talking about the huge mass of dystopian futures which infested science fiction from about 1965 onward. You don't know any of them because they were all forgettable. It all tracked the liberal anxieties of the moment, so in the late 1960s we had tedious Vietnam allegories. Then in the 1970s we had dire warnings about pollution and overpopulation. Then it was nuclear war. By 1980 future Fundamentalist theocracies were all the rage.
They were just as formulaic and simplistic as the space operas they were a reaction against.
You can see some examples in the "Dangerous Visions" anthologies, edited by one H. Ellison.
Posted by: Trimegistus at March 12, 2008 02:41 PM (qV5pI)
85
Yes, Nancy Allen was a cutie, all the way up past Robocop she was an little bundle of cuteness.
Dave in Texas made the point, but I'll repeat it. What made JFK so great? Five words:
Lee Harvey Oswald. Sirhan Sirhan.
People expected Eisenhower to die (the guy did have two heart attacks, after all), so if Death had nailed him up the squeakhole in, say, 1958, there would have been sorrow and respect, but none of the instant caterwauling that JFKs assasination engendered. And the killing of Nixon, had he had the balls to contest 1960, would have meant nothing to the left - he'd have been seen as a proto-GWB (thief!) and also as Ike's third term. But the spectacle of a young, charismatic and genuinely funny man cut down in his prime by "right-winger" Oswald bullied his naysayers into silence and allowed his partisans to quickly glide over the more unsavory aspects of his presidency. And RFKs murder sealed the "tragic Camelot" story in aspic. Teddy probably wishes he'd been blown away, too, rather than devolve into the stumblebum bloviating drunk he is.
Think about it - what would JFK have done in a second term that LBJ didn't? I suspect he would have continued the military buildup in Vietnam, which gives us the whole Mario Savio-SDS-Kent State-Weathermen foofawraw. Without the stimulus of "the martyred president," the Apollo program might have taken a lot longer to gain ground. I suspect Kennedy wouldn't have indulged in Johnson's idiotic Great Society, but he still would have had Johnson's civil rights problems to deal with, and JFKs record wouldn't indicate that he'd be particularly forward-thinking on that score.
Anyway, just my 2 pesos.
Posted by: Christopher at March 12, 2008 02:51 PM (zF6Iw)
87
"So, I have a question for some of the older/wiser posters here: What the hell was so goddamn great about JFK? It seems to be generally accepted wisdom that he's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Besides the Cuban missile crisis?"
Damn Straight! I had more women by accident than he did on purpose!
Posted by: lyndon johnson at March 12, 2008 02:55 PM (RzdWe)
88
Ace: agreed on Rebecca Pidgeon. I saw her in The Unit a few times and was surprised at how out of place she seemed. Of course, that show is like watching Rat Patrol while your wife constantly flips the channel over to the Oxygen Network*
*AKA: "The Only Network With Wings"
But, what is so badly, badly flawed about Spartan? I've watched it several times, and while not perfect, it just keeps getting better.
Posted by: mrobvious at March 12, 2008 03:00 PM (RzdWe)
But yes, there were lots of SF stories that fit Ace's description ("petulant overreaction of a teenager to disappointment"), some hysterical because the air and water were not pristine, some because there are poor people, and so on ad nauseum.
A classic movie of this genre is Silent Running with Bruce Dern. I remember seeing it on TV as a kid and it had a big effect on me ("Daddy, why is he killing the trees!").
I saw it again a few years ago and realized what a preachy, PoS it was. Joan Baez sang the theme songs, and yes they're horrible. The effects were good for the time, though.
Posted by: Maetenloch at March 12, 2008 03:01 PM (6TUX+)
90
Eh, I liked it. Got to read the thing before it was lanched.
EC: My understanding, based on hearsay and nonsense is that Baldwin's part in GGR was written explicitly for him.
On the other hand, Rebecca Pigeon was perfectly casted as the grandaughter of a murder victim in Mamet's Homicide. The scene where she chewed out Joe Mantegna, playing the role of a self-loathing jew, and his reaction to it was worth the price of admission.
Posted by: canuk at March 12, 2008 03:27 PM (dOOjm)
I liked Spartan too, but that may just be due to the subject matter and Val Kilmer's performance (I think he's a great actor when given good material). Kilmer's character was based on Eric Haney, one of the original members of Delta Force and co-creator of The Unit with Mamet.
I was always impressed with The Spanish Prisoner because of what an interesting villian Steve Martin turned out to be.
Posted by: UGAdawg at March 12, 2008 03:29 PM (d38jD)
95A classic movie of this genre is Silent Running with Bruce Dern. I remember seeing it on TV as a kid and it had a big effect on me ("Daddy, why is he killing the trees!").
I saw it again a few years ago and realized what a preachy, PoS it was. Joan Baez sang the theme songs, and yes they're horrible. The effects were good for the time, though.
Yeah I had the same reaction. It's crappy but nice effects, and it's solid sci fi in one sense, just really preachy and annoying. The morality is repugnant and the situation is just absurd.
Posted by: meep at March 12, 2008 07:07 PM (7uTCa)
97
Also, I read Ursula K. LeGuin when I was a liberal, and I saw that she was full of shit. Her books were nothing but "WHhhhhhyyyyy can't the world be the way I want it?"
That's how I read them. Left Hand of Darkness was bullshit. The Dispossessed doubly so.
Posted by: meep at March 12, 2008 07:12 PM (7uTCa)
3. Staring down the Russkies during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Posted by: Darth Randall at March 12, 2008 07:34 PM (oLULt)
99
Speaking of LeGuin and dystopian science fiction, what about Marion Zimmer Bradley and distaff fantasy? I tried three times to get through The Mists of Avalon, only to quit when I realized these women (Guinevere, Morgaine, etc.) NEVER shut up. I kept thinking something was about to happen, and kept turning the page waiting for it, but then more Yap Yap Yap.
From Wikipedia:
"Mists of Avalon is a generations-spanning retelling of the Arthurian legend."
And it felt like it. Now I find out there were sequels?! I've listened to stories about how my POSSLQ is smarter than everybody else at work, if only they would listen, which they never do (MEN!), etc. that were less painful.
Posted by: mrobvious at March 12, 2008 08:07 PM (RzdWe)
100
Next contestant: David Mamet. Specialist subject: The bleedin' obvious.
(For the benefit of the guy who didn't know much about JFK, the reference is from Fawlty Towers, an old BBC comedy starring John Cleese. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJSg2Y0kw48&feature=related – it's at around the 8 minute mark)
Doesn't it say something alarming about the stranglehold that left-wing academia and the media have on the political discourse in the US that intelligent, well-informed and well-travelled individuals like Mamet take so long to realise what's obvious to many people?
On the sci-fi thing – you ever notice how all the dystopian societies in movies are 'right-wing' in nature, while all the dystopian societies that have existed in real-life are leftist creations? Funny that.
Re Silent Running: I first saw it years ago, when I knew no better, and loved it. And those little robots are so cute I can forgive the movie its eco-blather even now. And the title song by Baez is nice – just ignore the words.
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