Monthly Archives: December 2019

Leaving the Media Unforgiven

Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Richard Jewell, opened this weekend to $5 million, a thumbs-up from more than 70% of the nation’s critics and with Oscar whispers circling the Warner Bros. flick. I gave it four out of five stars for my outlet.

I would have given it five stars, but there was a ginormous caveat in the way: Clint took an unwarranted shot at an old colleague of mine. Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs and I worked the police beat at the AJC, though I had moved to another paper by the time of the Centennial bombing during the 1996 Olympic Games. Image

Scruggs, who died in 2001, was the primary reporter in the AJC‘s bomb coverage. She also broke the story that the FBI was looking at Jewell as the primary suspect. And when Eric Rudolph, an anti-abortion extremist and member of the Army of God sect, confessed to the bombing, Scruggs took it on the chin from competing outlets for her aggressive, over-eager zeal to get a scoop. Which was true. Kathy had the bite force of a rabid pit bull when she got hold of a story.

But, to hear Eastwood tell it (on film), Scruggs took it on the chin, literally. The film accuses Scruggs of sleeping with an FBI agent to get the story. The AJC has protested its portrayal, which is irony perhaps at its purest. And Warner Bros did what the AJC did 2 1/2 decades ago: It told the protesters to go pound salt.

But the paper was right. Eastwood screwed this up.

I say that with all the hesitancy I can muster. In truth, I have spoken to Eastwood more often than I talked to Scruggs, and consider myself a fully biased fan of his work. But Eastwood must have had an acutely unpleasant run-in with the press of late, because he took a hatchet to media the way Jack Torrance opened doors. Image result for jack torrance axe door

Eastwood got virtually everything wrong about reporters in Jewell, which is odd, since we really were the antagonists in this story. We did swarm. We did leap. We did jump the gun.

But for some reason, the 89-year-old director needed a villain incarnate, and created one with Scruggs. He directed Wilde to play the reporter as if she were Cruella de Vil with a notepad. In the film, Scruggs flips off fellow reporters, weeps at press conferences and basks in the standing ovation she receives for initially breaking the Jewell story.Image result for cruella de vil

Bullshit bullshit bullshit. The woman portrayed in Jewell is not Kathy Scruggs.

I can’t speak to the specific allegation Eastwood made. But I can say with no degree of uncertainty that his notion of a newsroom is antiquated and, worse, waaaay off. Reporters don’t give standing ovations. We can barely tuck in our shirts. We don’t even applaud when colleagues win a Pulitzer Prize. And no reporter screams in delight when a story runs above the fold in banner font. We hold our breaths and pray we don’t need to run a correction.

The inaccuracy is a jarring failure on Eastwood’s part. He won a best director Oscar on the back of  historical research by screenwriter David Peeples for the Western Unforgiven. Peeples was also nominated for an Academy Award, though he didn’t win.Image result for unforgiven

Maybe it was studio pressure. Maybe it was Eastwood’s well-publicized conservative political leanings that prompted him to take a shot at the media. Maybe he clashed with one of us on a red carpet (where we are at the zenith of our assholeness).

But to take a shot at a dead woman? Come on, Clint. That’s like shooting the guy in the black hat in the back.

More puzzling was that the filmmaker already had a believable villain in us. Throughout Jewell, reporters camp out in front of the suspect’s home, follow him wherever he drives and badger even Jewell’s mother in the feeding frenzy. When we amass, bad shit happens.

Alas, that wasn’t sufficient for Jewell.

I still remain a fan of the work of both Scruggs and Eastwood. One of the highlights of my career was to have an interview included in a collection of stories about the director.Image result for interviews: clint eastwood

So I will bid an RIP to Kathy and a best-wishes to Clint come Oscar season. I hope the movie does well. I will do my best to forgive it.

Michael Bloomberg’s Attempted Trump Card

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Stop me if you’ve heard this before…

A billionaire with no heartfelt party alliance and no experience in federal government runs for president, seemingly on a whim, leaving pundits muttering and late night comedians laughing all the way to the bank. Give up (you know, in case you didn’t read the headline or look at the picture)?

Meet Michael Bloomberg. We’re going on the record: Keep an eye on Michael Bloomberg.

I know, I know. He’s garnered little more than asterisk-level coverage in his campaign for president. CNN and MSNBC — when they can wrench themselves from impeachment proceedings — prefer to focus on his abysmal poll numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire (one story had him polling in the negative digits, if that’s even possible). Late night hosts have been particularly “woke” about his candidacy, making profitable hay out of a tired lament: “Do we really need another rich dude running for president?” (Side note to the jokesters: They’re all rich.)

And this is in NO way an endorsement for him as president, nor even the Democratic candidate for high office. We gave up forecasting in 2016.

In truth, I don’t think President Fuckface von Shitstick will turn over the keys to the White House, even if he loses the popular and electoral vote in double landslides. The guy denies the legitimacy of the 2016 election — which he won. Can anyone envision a scenario where Trump does not claim the election fraudulent? The real question America may have to answer, however difficult the question, is this: What do we do when the Commander-in-Chief tells one portion of the government to ignore another? What happens when Trump orders the military to act against The Department of Justice? Keep an eye on that, too.

But this piece is meant more as a reminder about those who forget history. And political pundits are doing an awfully good imitation lately of Sammy Jankis, the murderer with short-term amnesia in Memento. Image result for remember sammy jankis

Maybe they haven’t seen the movie, but, spoiler alert, bad things happen when something slips Sammy’s mind.

Bad things (namely, looking inept before national audiences) may await observers who scoff at Bloomberg’s run. Forget polls. Let’s consider a few realities of the race and the political landscape that hosts it:

  • We laughed at Donald Trump’s candidacy, too. Enough said.
  • We have put the White House up for sale. Contemporary politics have always been modulated by bank balances, but 2016 became the year when celebrity and wealth were the only predicate requirements for president. And Bloomberg is buying up airtime like Monopoly houses. Bloomberg has outspent on television ads more than all the top-polling Democrats combined– a figure that has eclipsed $120 million, already a record for a presidential race. This week, he announced plans to donate $10 million to help shore up vulnerable House Democrats being targeted by allies of  Trump because of the ongoing impeachment inquiry. Think they’ll turn on him?
  • Bloomberg remembers the flyover states. Friends from Michigan to Arkansas have reported seeing Bloomberg ads — but not one from any Democratic opponents, who are apparently focused on the state on the day calendar. Hillary Clinton also forgot Michigan.Image result for hillary clinton michigan
  • Trump is scared of Bloomberg. You can measure Trump’s jealousy with a pretty simple metric: He does something. He’s being impeached because his fear of Biden sent him bribing. Last month, his administration banned Bloomberg News from attending official events because Bloomberg announced he will not run journalism hit pieces on Democratic opponents. You can argue the merits of the policy, but it’s hard to argue that Trump isn’t noticing.

The 24/7’s have spent what little time they dedicate to Bloomberg questioning why he’s running in an already saturated race. My question is: Why wouldn’t he?

Imagine, for a moment, you have $51 in your savings account and run a business. And a political strategist comes to you and says: “For $1, you can run for president. You’ll become a bigger celebrity than you are now. You will hold rallies in front of throngs of people who love you. Your business will inherit more publicity than you could get through prime time ad buys. And you get to get Donald Trump alone in a ring. Oh, and you’d be the most powerful person on Earth.” Would you decline?

That’s essentially the offer made to Bloomberg, whose $51 billion net worth will barely feel the list of  a presidential run (much of which will be funded by donors anyway). Next time you see a Bloomberg ad or listen to a spokesman, see if a through-line doesn’t emerge: The ads and strategy clearly come from a businessman who considers Trump an economic idiot and a shitstain on the reputation of billionaires.

But do his motives even matter? The truth is, the Left would support Anthony Weiner’s ball sac if it out-polled the president. Image result for anthony weiner photos with kid

And think of the theater if Bloomberg won the nomination! Debates would be like simulcast UFC bouts. Unlike the other candidates, Bloomberg is someone Trump envies. We can make a pretty safe bet Trump doesn’t envy homosexuals. Bernie’s too blue collar. And you can bet money Trump would rather pimp out Ivanka than be a minority or female.

Bloomberg, however, is the only candidate who actually is a billionaire. And while Trump was spouting debunked conspiracy theories on the Howard Stern Show during the post 9/11 maelstrom, Bloomberg was leading the city through three terms and becoming a hero in the president’s birth state. Plus, Mikey would have the ultimate debate-clincher if he makes his taxes public. Were he somehow cornered by Trump in a debate, all he need do is produce a photocopy of his W-2 and say: “This is what a billionaire’s tax return looks like. What does yours look like, bitch?”

That last addendum is just a visceral add. But the notion of taking Bloomberg seriously is not. There will be oodles of time to debate policy. But for now, let’s forget about tax reform, healthcare overhauls and economic and foreign strategies. Let’s start with some baby steps toward reason, whoever leads us.

In our last presidential election, we decided to lick the frozen telephone pole and see what it would be like to choose the evil of two lessers. Our first order of business should be to go cold turkey on that disastrous practice.

 

The Soft-Spoken Jewel of Richard

 

Richard Jewell

As he’s morphed from movie star to star movie maker, Clint Eastwood’s late career has tended to two categories, as distinct as cowboys in black and white hats. There’s the deeper philosophical glimpses into human frailty (The 15:27 to Paris, Sully,  J. Edgar);  then there’s the hands-off-bystander director who shoots simpler stories (Gran Torino, The Mule, Unforgiven).  Thankfully, Richard Jewell belongs in the latter camp of complicated  heroes seeking simplicity.Image result for The 15:27 to Paris

The 89-year-old director brings his no-fuss persona to Jewell, and it proves an apt fit for Jewell’s story, allowing the brimming tension of Billy Ray’s script and a handful of strong performances to stand out. While the muted drama is familiar and likely won’t win Eastwood any new fans as a filmmaker, it won’t mar his reputation, either. The low-key approach feels at once timely and old-fashioned — a character study from another era designed to comment on our own, particularly along the media landscape.

Jewell explores the eponymous odyssey of its real-life character, in a cautionary tale of heroism gone awry on a very public stage: In 1996, the security guard happened upon a bomb at Centennial Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The blast ultimately killed one person and injured more than 100, but could’ve been worse if it weren’t for Jewell successfully identifying the makeshift explosive tucked in a backpack under a bench just before detonation. But without a promising suspect, the FBI made Jewell its primary suspect, and mass hysteria ensued as the FBI combed through Jewell’s life to build a believable case.Image result for centennial park richard jewell

While Captain Phillips writer Ray adapts Marie Brenner’s Vanity Fair article into a sturdy scaffolding to retell those events, Eastwood’s veteran hand provides the tension: The harrowing explosion at Centennial Park — with bodies, limbs, and blood sprayed across the park — can’t help but think of the Boston Marathon and Vegas mass shootings. It may be set in the 1990’s, but Jewell‘s release timing was no accident. While the film is set in the mid-1990s, Eastwood chose to tell this story now for a reason.

At the cross hairs of a mayhem is Paul Walter Hauser’s Richard Jewell. A newcomer to leading roles, Hauser previously starred as one of the white-trash thugs in I, Tonya. Yet he delivers was one of most potent, retrained turns of 2019. Forget his dead-ringer likeness of the real man; despite Jewell‘s  macabre material, Hauser gives his character a cringe-worthy sincerity — you want to scream at the screen for him to tell the FBI off. But neither he nor the film are interested in Hollywood little-guy convention. Image result for paul walter hauser richard jewell

Even as Hauser’s performance lends the film a darkly comic edge, Eastwood’s solemn filmmaking never mocks his protagonist (Jewell died at 44 in 2007). The director even acknowledges those who still believe in Jewell’s involvement, and the movie manages to sidestep becoming a political screed about the inevitable injustices of power.

The stark exception would the role of Olivia Wilde, who plays real-life Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy Scruggs. Eastwood holds back little fury at the press, which he accuses of sleeping with investigators to sell papers (the AJC has demanded a credit-roll-correction in the film, which Warner Bros. has not recognized). The media frenzy took on such a loathsome life of its own in the scandal, it seems odd to attack an individual journalist, and the side rant slows Jewell.

But not enough to undo it. Kathy Bates turns in her best performance in years as Jewell’s mother, Bobbi. And Sam Rockwell’s performance as Jewell’s attorney Watson Bryant gives Jewell its terrific moments of comeuppance.

Like predecessors Spotlight and Nightcrawler, Jewell is a story of what happens when what is reported as fact obscures the truth. It may have taken 13 years to tell the step-back story of Richard Jewell. But Eastwood makes a strong case that hearing all sides is worth the wait.