Ernest Goes to Impreachment

I awoke today to the above headline from U.S. News & World Report, which asserted that Donald Trump had assembled a legal impeachment team that resembled “Made-For-TV” entertainment, including Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, the feckless prosecutor who considered a blowjob high crimes and misdemeanors two decades ago.

At first, the team surprised me. Didn’t Trump spend, literally, months eviscerating Starr publicly for being as incompetent as, well, Trump (just without using the name)?Image result for ken starr clown

Then I punched myself in the nose for being surprised. I should be lobotomized for expecting a modicum of consistency from Trump. Perhaps I have been. Maybe that’s why Trump sniffles so much; he’s trying to breathe in the fumes from the evaporated brains of those who hear him speak.

As is often the case with a slackwit like the president, I often find myself questioning whether there is intent hidden within the idiocy. And while Trump himself likely doesn’t know how a hat works, his GOP overlords may have subtly shifted political tactics on the American populace — particularly the under-educated and over-churched.

After all, does it not seem reasonable that the vanguards of the Republican Party (McConnell, Graham, Murdoch, the Koch Bros., etc.) would take a political pathway that’s been effective for decades, the “Southern Strategy,” and morph it into an easily digested Flintstones chewable for an American sub-strata that still holds to those principles — namely, Trumptards and Evangelicals?Image result for koch brothers mcconnell

Of course, it isn’t politically expedient to brazenly play on race-baiting. So this isn’t The Southern Strategy. Say hello to the GOP’s Simpleton Strategy. It’s like the Southern Strategy, only with way more better.

Consider, for a moment, GOP presidential tickets going back four decades. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won consecutive terms decisively, despite popular ridicule of our president co-starring with a chimp in Bedtime for Bonzo. The notion of that as a deal-breaker now seems quaint.Image result for reagan bonzo

Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, took the Simpleton Strategy a step further, with dimwit Dannie Quayle as vice-president. Remember when Quayle tried to spell potato on a chalkboard? Again, in the context of today, with a president who spells “smoke” “smock,” the error seems cute. Back then, though, we must have demanded some level of intelligence, because Bush-Quayle lasted one term.Image result for dan quayle potato

It was in 1996 that the GOP made its last attempt to scaffold a respectably intelligent ticket: Bob Dole and Jack Kemp. Dole was a Senator, Kemp the former Secretary of Housing. Easily the highest combined IQ on the GOP ticket in decades. They were trounced by Clinton-Gore, winning just 159 Electoral votes, the lowest since Goldwater in 1964.Image result for dole kemp

And with that went the last double-sanity ticket.

Since then, the GOP has seamlessly blended the Southern Strategy of the 50’s and 60’s into the Simpleton Strategy we see today. After the Dole-Kemp fiasco, we got Mensa shoo-in George W. Bush — twice. (“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”)Image result for bush fool me once

That was followed by John McCain and Sarah Palin, a VP pick McCain later admitted regretting in an HBO documentary shortly before his death. You remember Sarah. The everywoman,  a workaday mom who just liked to hunt wolves from helicopters after soccer practice.Image result for sarah palin helicopter hunting

Then there was old Mitt Romney. Here’s what the GOP offered: A president who, among other things, believes that God lives near a planet called “Kolob,” that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, that we should baptize dead people, that drinking caffeine is a sin, and that it is sacrilege to wear underwear created by anyone other than Mormons. And Republicans were stunned he and Paul Ryan lost to a black man.Image result for mitt romney religion

So they have returned with their Simpletonest Strategy yet: Prop up a game show host and Evangelical afraid of women to the nation’s highest pulpit, and have them sing “Witch Hunt” in acapella.

And it may work in 2020. Simple is easier than smart. Keep in mind, as the 24/7s lament unenlightened districts, as the House asks voters to look up facts, as Democratic contenders bathe in a miasma of name-calling and Wokeness, this simple math question: Which is more likely to turn out voters — Playing to the lowest-common denominator, or praying for the highest?

Careful you don’t pass out holding your breath in solemn reflection.

The Hail Mary Quarterback Sneak

Aaron Hernandez

The strange case of Aaron Hernandez — the pro football player convicted of murder before dying by suicide — may be the least eye-opening illumination of a slaying ever committed to film.

On a police-procedural level, the events of the past decade explain how the NFL star brazenly walked the edge of murderous madness, making him perhaps pro football’s first serial killer (O.J. was nothing more than a jealous ex).

What remains as mysterious as pi’s square root is why. Hernandez never confessed to all the murders, and hanged himself shortly after the conviction for one. Still, he’s such a mystery that he’ll be the subject of two mini-series this month: Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez and Aaron Hernandez: An ID Murder Mystery premiere Jan. 15 and Jan. 20, respectively, on Netflix and Investigation Discovery. As non-fiction films, both are hindered by the sport’s cavalier attitude toward violence — a rein that prevents both series from galloping.

What both unwittingly uncover, however, is how football does more than shrug at violence. It holds an inherit machismo obsession that creates the very cauldron of violence from which criminals emerge (Simpson, Jim Brown, Michael Vick, anyone? The list is frighteningly long.)

Neither, however, clearly answers the singular question at hand: What prompted a young man with seemingly boundless opportunities to throw his life away?
Instead of an answer, what viewers get are plenty of salacious but conflicting details, which don’t bring us much closer to understanding why.
Netflix’s Killer Inside makes a more valiant effort to find the truth, at least in terms of probing causes of his behavior. Investigation Discovery follows with Murder Mystery, a more dutiful tick-tock of the criminal trial (its primary sources are journalists who followed the case), complete with the usual cheesy reenactments — a tactic that Killer Inside also employs, just a bit more judiciously.
A star athlete in Bristol, Connecticut, Hernandez grew up with a stern father who also played football, becoming a standout in high school and at Florida before being signed by the New England Patriots.
Small wonder that widespread shock greeted the news in 2013 when Hernandez was charged, and later convicted, in the murder of Odin Lloyd, the 27-year-old boyfriend of his fiancee’s sister, and subsequently accused of a separate double homicide.
With a $40 million NFL contract and an outwardly enviable existence, as a friend says, “None of it made sense.”
Both programs try, mostly in vain, to make sense of it, contemplating a host of potential contributing factors, the most serious being CTE, the brain injury caused by repetitive contact that has plagued many football players.
As Killer Inside (and what’s with the unimaginative title? Why not Killer in the Huddle?) makes clear, the league’s emphasis is on protecting its multibillion-dollar product, as opposed to promoting the health and safety of players. Those conflicting goals prevent a full-throated discussion of the dangers.
Other motivations, however, are raised, in some respects undermining — or distracting from — that central thesis. They include the assertion that Hernandez was conflicted about his sexuality, particularly with a high school friend and teammate, Dennis SanSoucie.
Hernandez’s brother, Jonathan, also later spoke about abuse by their father, who died when Aaron was just 16, which resulted in a rift between Aaron and his mother.
In terms of the presentation, the most illuminating wrinkle in Killer Inside involves having access to audio of phone calls Hernandez made from prison, providing modest insight about his post-arrest state of mind and relationships with those closest to him.
For all that, these overlapping documentaries yield an inconclusive portrait. While there’s a tendency to indict football, at every level, for exploiting young talent, there are so many variables baked into Hernandez’s particular tale as to muddy that message.
The Aaron Hernandez story thus remains a tragedy that has defied, and continues to, simple explanation. While documentaries frequently connect their subjects to larger truths, Aaron Hernandez and Killer Inside ultimately feel at least as preoccupied, to varying degrees, with wading through its smaller tabloid trappings.
Both of the films’ ultimate failures are captured in one of Hernandez’s phone calls, taped by prison officials. In it, Hernandez refuses to say goodbye to his daughter, only “talk to you later.” He then discontinues the call, marked by an automated operator that says “The calls  hung up.”
Somehow, it feels like we were cut off, too.

Lights! Camera! Play Button!

Image result for oscar nominations

Well, that changed everything.

In 2019, Netflix scored its first Oscar nomination for best picture. A year later, the streaming service is leading the field in total nominations.

Movies released by Netflix earned 24 nominations this year, nearly doubling its all-time total. Leading the way for the company this year are The Irishman and Marriage Story, which earned 10 and 6 nominations, respectively—including best picture nods for both. As Netflix’s impact on the world of cinema becomes increasingly undeniable, the younger and more diverse film academy is no longer shunning the streaming service as the old Hollywood guard tried to do.

In addition to its two best picture nominations, the haul from Netflix, which released its first feature in 2015, reached virtually every category, from acting (where it received seven nominations) to writing to visual effects.

Netflix’s 24 nominations were two more than Disney’s total, even when combining all of the nominations earned by Disney’s various studios into a single number. (Disney’s empire now includes 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight.)

http://childpsychiatryassociates.com/molly-bruening-lisw Netflix
24 nominations
La Línea de la Concepción Disney
22
Sony
20
Universal
13
Warner Bros.
12

 

Counting its two best picture nominations, the haul from Netflix, which released its first feature in 2015, reached virtually every category, from acting (where it received seven nominations) to writing to visual effects.

Netflix’s 24 nominations were two more than Disney’s total, even when combining all of the nominations earned by Disney’s various studios into a single number. (Disney’s empire now includes 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight.)

Threatened by the implications of Netflix’s arrival on the film scene, the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences—the industry professionals who vote on the Oscars—had resisted awarding the streaming service with nominations. Hollywood has not been pleased with Netflix’s decision to release most of its films to subscribers online the same day that they’re put in theaters, which challenges the century-old relationship between distributors and theater owners. Nor are they happy with the small number of theaters that Netflix does allow its movies to be screened in.

But now voters are clearly warming to the idea of internet flicks, and we are entering the third age of television; streaming.
Though film viewers might not be in movie theaters, more people are seeing these films than if they were given a traditional theatrical release. Director Martin Scorsese—as Hollywood as Hollywood gets—said that he wouldn’t have been able to make The Irishman with a traditional studio. The major studios were unwilling to take on the financial risk of the three-hour mob drama, the director said. The deep-pocketed Netflix, however, was more than game, since it didn’t have box office receipts to worry about.

Netflix has used those deep pockets to launch historically expensive Oscar campaigns, hoping to woo voters the old-school way, with lavish parties and elaborate advertisements. The result has been an annual increase in Oscar nominations for the streaming service:

Helping Netflix’s case is a voting pool that has grown more diverse in recent years, in reaction to controversies like #OscarsSoWhite. In 2016, after the second consecutive year of an all-white slate of acting nominees, the academy made a much-publicized effort to invite more women and minority members. These new members, many of whom hail from outside the United States, are probably Netflix users themselves and can understand the appeal of releasing a film to everyone in the world at the same time.

While it may have helped Netflix ingratiate itself among the Hollywood elite, the change in membership hasn’t adequately addressed the actual problem it was meant to correct. The acting nominations this year were still blatantly homogeneous. Nineteen of the 20 nominees were white. The only black nominee, Cynthia Erivo, was nominated for portraying the former slave and abolitionist, Harriet Tubman. As usual, all five directing nominees were men.

That’s another area where Netflix can help the industry improve. The service has championed Oscar-worthy films directed by diverse filmmakers or ones featuring diverse casts, like 2017’s Mudbound and this year’s dramedy, Dolemite Is My Name, starring Eddie Murphy. Dolemite Is My Name was not nominated for any Oscars, even though its costume designer, Ruth E. Carter, became the first black designer to win an Oscar in history last year.

Netflix’s record nominations total is only going to convince even more talented filmmakers that the streaming service is a smart place to take their films. A world in which a majority of nominated films are distributed by Netflix and other streaming services may not be so far off.