The Case for the End of The Modern Zoo -- NYMag

"It is hard to avoid the conclusion that in some way the animals understand that the world around them is an artificial one, that these phobias and psychotic episodes represent reactions to that artifice, or subversions of it. Which means that the central illusion of the zoo is no longer holding. The animals know."

The Pope and the Pederasts by Garry Wills | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

"3. Patriarchy. The Vatican is not only the West’s oldest monarchy, but its most entrenched patriarchy. For long its official teaching was Thomas Aquinas’s assertion (taken from Aristotle) that “the female is a defective male.” Though the Vatican has tried in recent years to back off from that position, as late as 1976 Paul VI’s Curia said that there can be no women priests because women do not look like Jesus: they lack “this ‘natural resemblance’ which must exist between Christ and his minister.” Pope John Paul II said in 1994 that if Jesus had wanted to ordain women, he would have begun with the best of them, his mother. He ignores the fact that Jesus in the Gospels ordained no priests, male or female. The investigation of American nuns for daring to have opinions of their own shows how far Vatican officials are from understanding women. (How could they understand them?)"

Bud Cort: 'Harold and Maude was a blessing and a curse' | Film | The Guardian

"Bud Cort has just come back from Ringo Starr's birthday breakfast. He has known Ringo for a while he says. 'He's a dear friend and he's my dog's godfather.'"

Rapid Price Increases for Some Generic Drugs Catch Users by Surprise - NYTimes.com

"Insurers can sometimes react to high drug prices by bargaining with manufacturers for better rates. But, Dr. Kesselheim said, those negotiations tend to focus on very expensive new products, like infused drugs to treat arthritis and some cancer treatments, where a good discount could save tens of millions a year.

"With cheaper drugs, insurers use simpler tools to discourage use and prod doctors to think about other options: They require physicians to fill out forms — like the one that landed on Dr. Lindenberg’s desk — and move the drug to a category that requires larger patient co-pays.

"If markets function, the current high price of digoxin might induce some more drug companies to begin selling it, which should in turn bring prices back down. But a few years of higher bills could be a strain for older patients, most of them on Medicare, who must contribute to prescription drug costs."

Yet another example, as if we needed another, as to why ESSENTIAL things like food, water, basic medicines, basic energies really shouldn't be left completely to "the market".

Independence Day (1996) *

10 year olds might be ok with it, but this is a very bad movie.

Is there such a thing as the self?

"What LSD is no good for is 'mind control,' as the CIA, to its disappointment, discovered during the Cold War when it set up a string of brothels in San Francisco where prostitutes would slip their johns a tab of acid so agents could observe its effects through two-way mirrors."

The Turning Point (1977) **

Classy soap opera involving the ballet world and long simmering rivalries/regrets. Way too many ballet excerpts pad the running time and make the film seem longer than it is.

Three Days of the Condor (1975) ***

Good leads highlight this 70's exercise in paranoia. Nowadays the implication that power + secrecy leads to bad things is taken for granted but in 1975 this was still, at least for the majority of Americans, a "shocker". Very strange and almost comical "love scene" really dates the picture.

Gambit (2012) **

Like a previous attempt at remaking an Ealing-esque film, this one's also a failure but the cast makes it watchable and even intermittently entertaining.

Island of Lost Souls (1932) ***

Charles Laughton is great in a Lecter-ish sort of way, in a nifty adaptation of the H. G. Wells tale of Dr. Moreau and his experiments in his "House of Pain". Pulls no punches and packs more menace and interesting ideas into 70 minutes than most modern films twice as long.

The Monuments Men (2014) *

Clooney tries to be Spielberg with bad consequences. Supremely arrogant and condescending propaganda.

The Human Stain (2003) **

Watchable but unbelievable due to poor casting. Some fine actors, just really not right for their roles.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) ***

Jim Jarmusch's offbeat take on the vampire genre is chock full of gorgeous images and intriguing ideas.

Interview: Jim Jarmusch Talks The Vampiric Charms Of ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ & Proposing To Muse Tilda Swinton|The Playlist

"That’s interesting that you say that because to me what was most inspiring for me to make this film was the last book by Mark Twain, 'The Diaries of Adam and Eve.' That’s why I named them Adam and Eve, not the direct Biblical thing, but via Mark Twain. That book is very funny, beautiful and kind of slight. It’s just diary entries of Adam and Eve’s vastly different perceptions of the world, via the fact that she’s female and he’s male. It’s a hilarious book and it really inspired me to want to make a film with two characters named Adam and Eve that sort of represented on some level the sun and the moon, but certainly very different perceptions of things."

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) ****

Brilliant on all counts.

Gattaca (1997) **

Cold and uninvolving with a great supporting cast, nice production values and a very weak lead.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) **

The film is beautifully shot but feels wildly overdone and the slight story cannot bear the burden.

Stress Test: The Indictment of Timothy Geithner | Op-Eds & Columns

"The reality is that we had a completely preventable economic disaster hit the country. The result was millions of people losing their homes and/or their jobs, in many cases seeing their lives and the lives of their children ruined. With almost no exceptions the policy makers responsible for the disaster and the bankers who profited from it are doing just fine. And Timothy Geithner can’t understand why everybody isn’t happy."

Jane Eyre (1943) **

This is the version with Orson Welles as Rochester. The acting is very uneven with a wonderful 11 year old Peggy Ann Gardner stealing the picture. The first half is very good, as most Jane Eyre adaptations are, but once Joan Fontaine gets involved things go down hill quickly. It seems the TV versions of this crazy story have been the most successful. This one is very good but if forced to choose, I'm partial to this.

Damsels in Distress (2011) **

Whit Stillman's films are worlds unto themselves and this one is no exception. An appealing cast, literate script, excellently shot, but overall it fails to gel into something more than a Stillman lark.