Happy Panic Productions

An Open Letter to Christopher Hitchens

This is my hastily-written response to Mr. Hitchens' increasingly famous Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore.. Slate provides no means to reply except on a bulletin board that requires registration. I've posted my reply there, but I will also post it here. (I have some ideas for refinements, so this document will change in the next 24 hours or so.)

Dear Mr. Hitchens,

A few words on your review of Fahrenheit 9/11:

The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.

I don't recall the film ever making the argument that we should not have sent troops into Afghanistan. You also go on to say that Fahrenheit makes the following point:

The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly 'antiwar' film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)

You might as well divine it from bird entrails. Does Moore in his film mention lives lost in Afghanistan? I cannot recall it. Be honest here, you're putting words in the film's mouth.

The argument the film makes, that you fail to acknowledge in your review, is that Bush's motivations (and consequently his actions) do not line up with his public claims of policy. Moore isn't saying, in the film, that we should or shouldn't have sent troops into Afghanistan; the question he asks (and fails to elaborate on) is this: if Bush's goal was to "smoke them out of their holes", why did he send in so many troops and do such a poor job?

You may rightly criticize that his argument (the reason: Bush cared more about a pipeline) is half-baked and needn't have been included at all. But you needn't mischaracterize the arguments the film does make by suggesting arguments that it does not attempt to make, your on-stage debates notwithstanding.

Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not.

I should think that a man of your intelligence would be embarrassed to employ binary logic. Why do you suggest that Moore should? You are famously intimate with the details of Henry Kissinger; why, then, do you choose to seem ignorant of the concept of realpolitik? Can Moore not claim that the Saudis have a large, but not absolute, influence on our government?

Paragraph 8 of your article begins thusly: "A film that bases itself on a big lie and a big misrepresentation can only sustain itself...." I was forced to re-read the first 7 paragraphs. What is this "big lie"? You're referring to a thesis which you have not proposed. (Reading on, I gather you are referring to Saudi Arabia's alleged authoring of White House policy.)

On the subject of lies, why are you so unconcerned with, to my mind, the film's major thesis: that Bush has willfully misled and continues to mislead the American public in order to carry out his agenda? It's a valid argument, regardless of whether you agree with that agenda. And that agenda is not to obey Saudi masters, but to accumulate wealth. (Likewise, Saudi Arabia's goal is not to accumulate American influence but American wealth; the former is merely a means to secure the latter. Of course our exploits in Iraq don't sit too well with Saudi Arabia; it makes our elite that much less dependent on their money!) Moore isn't portraying Bush as a puppet on a Saudi string ( or payroll, even); Bush is calling the shots and seeking to profit by whatever means he can.

Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American.

Actually, he didn't say "American" but "America", which I took to mean American soil. But I'm splitting hairs.

Finally, Moore complains that there isn't enough intrusion and confiscation at airports and says that it is appalling that every air traveler is not forcibly relieved of all matches and lighters.

As I recall, this was only half of a logical argument pointing out the inconsistencies in home security policy: how can breast milk be dangerous when 4 butane lighters are okay? How are 4 butane lighters safe when 5 are not? If I say, "For this law to make sense, you would have to cut off my head," I am not advocating the cutting off of my head. Moore might actually advocate the confiscation of all flame-making devices (and I don't see where he would be contradicting himself if he did), but I didn't think that was the point he was making.

Otherwise, I think you make some valid criticisms. You are certainly never a boring read! Thank you for taking the time to read my reply.

Respectfully yours,
[me]

It's Gr-r-r-r-r-ross!

I bought a box of Frosted Flakes. It came with a toy: a Spider-signal. The toy is in a little plastic pouch that contains this note: "Product contains mercury. Please dispose of properly." Then it has an icon of a garbage can with a slash through it.

So not only do they package mercury in my food, they give me something which I don't want and can't throw away! Kellogg, I am outraged!

Excerpt from an email

I emailed this to a friend re: the SCTV DVD set:

I watched the first two [episodes]. I was surprised by how few actual jokes there are in a 90 minute episode. They seem more preoccupied with spoofing contemporary media trends then actually writing jokes. Like the British film fest -- it's just riffing on one observation of a trend in British cinema, and it's not even a funny trend. So that's weird. But I love the rhythm of it -- how sketches almost never end with a bang (or a big laugh) but a long slow fade, sometimes with an eerie, not-suitable-for-broadcast silence, or with two characters blabbering apparently-improvised lines that I can't even make out. It's definitely made for late-night TV. And it seems like it's designed to be watched by accident, to lure in unsuspecting channel-switchers. (If only they'd gotten rid of the horrible laugh track.)

Factoid of the day

Courtesy flushes consume 21.7 billion gallons of water every year.

I just now got the SCTV: Volume 1 Network 90 DVD set. As I glanced it over, I noticed the following detail on the back of the box:

Total Running Time: +/- 13 Hours

What a margin of error! I hope I got one with a positive running time. I hate to think that up to 13 hours of my DVD collection were cancelled out when I bought this.

Once More, With Stuffing

While we're on the subject of Steph, how many people do you know who've had a teddy bear made of them?

These bears were auctioned off for charity. Apparently, Steph's fetched $3200. Not bad!

The Tonys are Just Too Too!

Got to give a belated shout-out to college friend Stephanie D'Abruzzo for a fab night at the Tony Awards. She didn't win Best Lead Actress, alas, but her show Avenue Q won Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book. The score can hold its own, but I really didn't think the book was very good; it (and the whole show) was really elevated by some great performances. So I find it more than a little ironic that the performers weren't awarded but the book was. That prize, in my mind, is theirs.

Phew! Nephew News

My nephew Zack stayed with us this weekend. Do you have any idea how many kids are named Zack these days? Everywhere we went, there was someone screaming the name. But my Zack's a good kid and so no one was screaming at him.

Whenever Zack comes for a visit, I scheme to expose him to the cultural riches that Chicago has to offer, but there were only two things he wanted to do this trip: go see Shrek 2, and watch the Daddy Day Care DVD he had brought from home (and which he had already seen). Actually, he gave me a choice between Shrek 2 and the new Harry Potter, but I didn't see the second installment (and I didn't really like the first), and I liked the first Shrek, so that was fine by me. We took him to Shedd Aquarium Saturday morning, took a boat taxi to Navy Pier for a turn on the swings ride, Zack had some cotton candy, and then we headed to the movie.

If there's one thing you should know about Zack, it's that he is a popcorn-eating machine. Whenever he watches a movie at home, he gets a whole big bowl all to himself. So I get the largest size popcorn at the theatre (which didn't come with free refills -- I thought all the chain moviehouses gave free refills on the largest size popcorn these days? Not AMC apparently) and doggone if Zack doesn't deplete it by halfway through the movie. So he turns to me and says, "Can we get more?" I just looked at him and laughed. I suppose I didn't seriously think that a skinny 9 year old had any room left in him to put more. He got back into the movie for awhile, then just when the action was rising to the climax, he turned to Cath and said, "Can we get more popcorn?" There was actually a little left in the bag, so Cath offered this to him; he regarded it with contempt, and requested a new bag. Easily sensing that there was no more than 15 minutes remaining to the movie, she told him she'd get him some after the movie.

But as soon as we walked out of the auditorium, Zack's mind was elsewhere. "What time is it?!?" he asked with unnatural urgency. "Why on earth do you want to know?" I asked. "Do we have time to watch Daddy Day Care tonight?"

On the way home (he had forgotten all about the popcorn, but requested more for the second half of our double feature), I admitted to Zack that I was not looking forward to watching Daddy Day Care. When he asked why, I said, "It just doesn't look like a good movie to me. But I'll watch it with you, because you have to give something a chance before you can really know how good it is. You can't judge a book by its cover." There was a little maneuvering in there, on my part; I have been trying to get Zack to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark with me ever since Christmas. But he refuses to give a chance to the movie which captured my heart when I was not even his age. So I was trying to impart a little lesson in there.

Alas, Daddy Day Care is all too easily judged by its cover, and it's a virtual lock for Worst Old Movie of 2004. Since you can pretty much smell a movie this bad from a mile away, its only conceivable competition would be something else one of my nephews compels me to watch.

Shrek 2, on the other hand, is very entertaining, even laugh-out-loud funny at times. If you liked the first one, you'll certainly like the sequel.

The Big Movie Catchup

Although some prefer to spell it catsup. It's been awhile since I rapped at ya about the movies I've been seeing. No time to go in depth into all of them now, so I'll write 'em up real quick, Doug Benson style, except not as funny. Starting with the most recent:

New Movies:

• The Saddest Music In the World (2004) is great only as long as it has new ideas to throw at you. When it comes time for the story to resolve, it becomes clear how little story has been built. It would have been a masterpiece at half the length, but alas. How many great movies have been diminished because they had to stretch to feature length?


• Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) is not only a lot better than Volume 1, it manages to improve the first installment by association. Taken as a whole, it becomes clear how the strange and unsatisfying narrative arc of the first one is part of a very bold larger narrative arc. I'm very interested in seeing the two parts as one epic feature. I would not be interested in watching either volume on its own again.


• Starsky and Hutch (2004): if only every stupid movie were made this well, then I might always prefer stupid movies to smart ones. I was really hoping this would be a runaway blockbuster, so that this is what we'd be seeing watered-down versions of for the next 2 summers, rather than knock-offs of 50 First Dates. Oh well.

Movies on Video:

• The Best Man (1999): the title must be in reference to Terrence Howard. He's the only thing in the movie worth watching. Remember I'll Do Anything, the musical in which all the songs were edited out? This felt like a comedy with all the jokes edited out. It's not that it fails to be funny; it's that it never attempts to be funny, despite being a comedy.


• Fitzcarraldo (1982): contender for Best Old Movie of 2004. A strange movie that I didn't want to like but I watched it twice and I can't stop thinking about it. It's the first Werner Herzog or Klaus Kinsky movie I've seen, and I'm definitely curious to see more. Be forewarned! Although it's a German produciton, and although the DVD defaults to German language with English subtitles, the film was actually filmed in
  English! I can't tell you how pissed I was to find that out after watching it more than
  once in German. At least it explains why the dubbing was so shitty.


• Devdas (2002) was pretty good, and I'm really starting to get into Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan. He's such a good actor, he doesn't even rely on facial expressions. And I'm not making fun.


• The Wicker Man (1973): Christopher Lee has said this is the best movie
  he's ever been in. I hope he didn't continue to say that after Fellowship of the
  Ring; nevertheless, I liked this, most of all for its weird musical sequences. I
  wished the whole thing had been more of a full-blown musical. What this movie needs is a
  big-budget remake!


• Drunken Master (1978): I'd never seen Jackie Chan when he was young. I'm very glad I have now. Don't even bother with the audio track; just watch it with the
  hilariously geeky commentary track by Comic Book Guy's kung-fu fanatic little brother.


• Smothered: The Censorship Struggles Of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
  (2002): I used to think that the movie reviews in The Onion's A.V. Club were
  right on, uncannily aligned with my own tastes. But over time I gradually felt less sure about that shared sensibility, until this movie, and their review of same, demolished it. Onion vet Nathan Rabin called Smothered "lively, juicy, and engaging". Even if that were the only good thing they had said about it, it would have been a betrayal. Lifeless, dry, and insipid, the filmmakers neglected to include more than a smattering of clips of the Smother Brothers being funny (and I do find them quite funny), presumably to dedicate more screen time to talking heads who needed to remind us, over and over again, that the late '60s "were a time of political upheaval" when "the country was being torn apart", and that, lest we forget, the Vietnam War was occuring. I was genuinely embarrassed that I had invited friends over to watch this limp turd. Early favorite for Worst Old Move of 2004, for its squandered potential. (Side note: conspicuous by his near-absence was former Smothers Brothers staff writer Steve Martin; in his few moments onscreen, he seems rather uncomfortable to be present at a political conversation in which he doesn't take part. Does the man have a political bone in his body? Was L.A. Story as close as he'll ever get?)


• BASEketball (1998): This will sound familiar: I only rented this because I remembered being surprised by the fairly positive review it got in The Onion. Results similar to above, but with no potential to squander.


• Othello (1952): Orson Welles was one crazy-ass man. Somewhere in there is a brilliant film; too bad it's hiding behind this stilted-yet-earthy, dense-yet-papier mache contraption. And it has truly terrible sound (even after years of painstaking reconstruction; one shudders to imagine how bad it was before!).


• Salaam Bombay! (1988): Drugs and prostitution are bad, and it's not fun to watch children suffer, especially in Bombay. There, I've spared you any reason to see this dreadful thing.

Re-released movies:

• Stranger Than Paradise (1983): Something tells me I'll get in trouble with somebody if I say anything bad about this movie. So I'll just shut up.

Surely, I've seen more movies than that in the past few months? I guess I have been watching a lot of TV on DVD (The Office, Kids in the Hall. And very soon: SCTV!)

posted by Jeremy  # 4:06 PM 0 comments links to this post   

This made me laugh out loud:

Thanks to Lucas.