The Absurdity of The Deal

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Suddenly, this all makes sense.

Donnie Dullard left reporters flabbergasted today when he announced that he was cancelling his trip to Denmark after that nation not take his offer to buy Greenland seriously.

“Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” Trump fat-pecked from his iPhone Tuesday night. He must have used the transcription function on the phone, or had an aide type it. No way Littlefinger could have managed to tweet that on his own, as he spelled Frederiksen’s name correctly.Image result for mette frederiksen

But he couldn’t help but play the fool in the news conference that followed. He called the PM’s rejection rude and undiplomatic. He took particular offense that she apparently remarked the offer was “absurd.” “She wasn’t calling me absurd,” the Simpleton-in-Chief bellowed. “She was calling the United States absurd.”

Come again? For one thing, we are absurd. We put you behind the nation’s steering wheel, dumbass. Secondly, in an interview with a Danish newspaper, Frederiksen explained why she turned down Mr. Blubber. “Greenland is not Danish,” she clarified. “Greenland belongs to Greenland. I strongly hope that this is not meant seriously.”

We say the same thing to ourselves every day, Mette. Sadly, it was meant seriously, as Trumptards take everything their president says (see El Paso for reference). The New York Times ran a headline today noting the “Bewilderment and Anger” among Danes and diplomats alike over Trump’s spurned advances. The anger is understandable. But the bewilderment can be settled quickly, with an Associated Press story that ran earlier this week, and a Trump maneuver run earlier this year.

This week, the AP ran a story explaining that “Greenland is where Earth’s refrigerator door is left open, where glaciers dwindle and seas begin to rise.” The story went on to explain that New York University’s air and ocean scientists have tracked Greenland as the spot to best calculate global warming and climate change. And their findings are horrifying.

“It is so warm at Helheim Glacier, just inside the Arctic Circle, that on an August day, coats are left on the ground and (scientists) work on the watery melting ice without gloves,” the article said. “In one of the closest towns, Kulusuk, the morning temperature reached a shirtsleeve 52 degrees.  The ice they are standing on is thousands of years old. It will be gone within a year or two, adding yet more water to rising seas worldwide.

“Summer this year is hitting Greenland hard with record-shattering heat and extreme melt,” it continued. “By the end of the summer, about 400 billion metric tons of ice — maybe more — will have melted or calved off Greenland’s giant ice sheet, scientists estimate. That is enough water to flood Greece a third of a meter deep.”

That’s pretty irrefutable evidence, though Donnie is doing his darnedest to refute it. Remember, in March, he appointed the twit William Happer as head of a “presidential advisory committee” on global warming. Image result for william happer's bad teeth

Trump tried to name it “The Federal Committee on Climate Security”– until he learned that, under law, federal committees must include “open meetings, chartering, public involvement, and reporting.” And that doesn’t jibe with Trump’s assertion that global warming is a Chinese hoax.

It does, however, jibe with the president’s desire to squelch scientific data. Turning Greenland into a massive real estate purchase would allow him more control over who is allowed onto the oil-rich Arctic plot. Why permit pesky scientists there when you can replace them with GOP-friendly fossil fuel interests?

Sorry, Donald. Greenland ain’t on the market. America does, however, have a bridge in Brooklyn we can sell you. Feel free to take a flying leap off it.

‘Hot Air’ Quickly Runs Out of Steam

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In 2013, Steve Coogan starred in a gem of a movie, Alan Partridge, about a self-centered disc jockey struggling with age, sagging ratings and the looming reality that a new generation had left him behind. While he played an egomaniac, the film deftly offset Partridge’s boorishness with sincere British charm — along with perhaps the best driving-and-singing scene ever captured on screen.Image result for alan partridge driving

In Hot Air, Coogan plays a similar character, just without the charm and the one-man carpool karaoke. And the loss is a crippling one.

Less a comedy than a broad swipe at America’s talk radio landscape and its right-wing followers, Air takes aim at everything from hypocritical Evangelicals to homophobic xenophobes to gun-toting proponents of a border wall. More troubling, it seems to call for the eradication of talk shows that echo those sentiments with an odd catch phrase: “Talk isn’t cheap. It’s toxic.” The result is 100  minutes of, well, hot air.

Coogan plays Lionel Macomb, a Limbaugh-esque radio personality whose world is capsized when his mixed-race niece Tess (Taylor Russell) unexpectedly enters his life. On top of his personal life’s upheaval, Lionel’s protege, Gareth Whitely (Skylar Astin),  is gaining on him in the ratings with a soft, fuzzy and bland brand of conservatism, threatening Lionel’s 20-year reign at the top of the radio heap.

Directed by Frank Coraci, who helmed Adam Sandler’s hits The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer, Air seems determined to take Coogan out of his affable screen persona and turn him into a modern-day Howard Beale, the darkly funny news anchor played by Peter Finch in 1976’s Network. But instead of earning followers with his anthemic “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Macomb comes off as simply mad as hell. Air may see itself styled after Network, but its cliched dialogue plays more like a Network trailer.Image result for network howard beale

“You’ve done well for yourself telling other people how to think,” a character tells Macomb, a thinly-veiled shot at at Limbaugh’s “ditto heads,” fans accused of having no thoughts of their own until given conservative marching orders.

It amounts to a wasted opportunity to take a darkly comic look and the incendiary, polarized landscape of American politics. And it doesn’t help that Coraci overloads the film with unnecessary plot strands, including Macomb’s strained romantic relationship with  Valerie (Neve Campbell), a publicist who is trying to save her boss’ career while opening his heart.

Campbell and Russell do a serviceable job in the limited space they’re granted in an anemic script by first-time screenwriter Will Reichel, and Astin aptly plays a double-talker who uses the Bible for ratings, not redemption. But it’s undeniably Coogan’s movie, and he gets some laughs when he gets behind the microphone. Too bad he’s undercut by an American accent that slips in and out of his natural British cadence.

Earlier this year, Coogan faced a real-life scare: The comedian, known for being a lead foot behind the wheel, faced a six-month driving suspension for speeding through a British thoroughfare in his Porsche. After Coogan explained that driving was integral to his upcoming Alan Partridge travelogue TV series, the judge lessened the suspension to two months and told the actor to lay off the gas pedal. He probably should have suggested Coogan lay off the politics, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ

Oh the Humanity!

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Stop the presses, hold the phone, and crank up the AC. Hell hath frozen over: Donald Trump was correct about something.

Not the broken-clock kind of correct. God knows Donnie Dimwit couldn’t keep up the blistering pace of being right twice a day. He’s lucky if he’s right twice a month.

But last week, in classic Trump style,  he managed to say something accurate. It was in defense of the (correct) claim that he’s a racist. Just as he did in claiming Bill Clinton had something to do with Jeffrey Epstein’s death, he pointed at someone else as the culprit of an undeniable truth about racism in America. “Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate!” he sausage-fingered from his safe haven aboard Air Force One. “They like to call themselves ‘Elite,’ but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite.”

Well I’ll be damned. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by his assertion about show biz. After all, it birthed his very presidency.

Still, as usual, the Molester-in-Chief got it only partly right. In truth, Hollywood isn’t liberal, though he and his base would scream to the contrary. But statistical research bears out what he said — and what we all know instinctively to be true. After all, this is an industry that glorifies gun ownership and vilifies environmentalism. How many times have our cinematic heroes solved their problems by being armed to the teeth? Ever seen an electric car in a Fast & Furious installment?

Delve a little deeper, and you’ll see that Hollywood mirrors corporate America in its white male ownership, and not only at the studio-head level. Here are just a few numbers to illustrate:

Women make up 52% of the U.S. population. But on the silver screen, here’s their representation, according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. Women make up:

  • 4% of directors
  • 15% of writers
  • 3% of cinematographers
  • 18% of producers
  • 18% of executive producers
  • 14% of editors
  • 6% of composers

When it comes to minorities, the numbers are just as bleak. According to a 2019 UCLA study of minorities in film, people of color make up 40% of the nation’s population. But in the movies, they comprise:

  • 19.8% of leading actors
  • 12.6% of directors
  • 7.8% of writers

In television, minorities make up:

  • 21.5% of characters on scripted shows on the networks
  • 21.3% of characters on scripted shows on cable
  • 28.4% of characters on reality shows on networks
  • 22.4% of characters on reality shows on cable

They’re dismal figures, but would we expect anything else from America’s largest exporter? In 2020, the entertainment and media market in the United States is expected to be worth over $720.38 billion, according to the economic research firm Statisa.

Not that we need statistics to prove all this. Remember the outrage when Idris Elba was being considered to be the next 007 in the James Bond series? Image result for idris elba bond

Or when the Star Wars franchise dared incorporate a black stormtrooper? Image result for star wars black stormtrooper

The difference between Hollywood and the rest of America, of course, is that at least showbiz is attempting to appear like they’re doing something about the problem. What was the hottest film of last year? Black Panther. Image result for black pantherWhat was the biggest movie of this year? Avengers: Endgame, with a superhero cast as diverse in race and gender as Up With People.Image result for up with people

Marvel has taken further steps, announcing 10 films to follow Endgame, which include two more Black Panther installments, Natalie Portman and Cate Blanchett anchoring the next Thor movie, and Scarlett Johansson getting her own Black Widow film.Image result for natalie portman thor

Trump’s attack on Hollywood puzzled many, but it’s likely due to him gaining wind of a movie scheduled for release this fall called The Hunt. It was indefinitely shelved because of the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, but the premise must have enraged Trump nonetheless. The film, which stars Hilary Swank, Betty Gilpin, and Emma Roberts, does not mention political ideology or Trump in its advertising. But a draft of the script (originally titled Red State Vs. Blue State) centered on hunting human game and featured such lines as “Did anyone see what our ratfucker-in-chief just did” and “nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables,” as well as descriptions of its hunted characters having shared racist or pro-life views. Image result for the hunt movie

Maybe Donnie was just pissed that he hasn’t been asked to star in any films lately. And that’s not likely to change soon. After all, the camera adds 10 pounds. And the way he’s scarfing Big Macs and KFC, he’d likely only be considered to play the titular role in a drama about the Hindenburg.

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