Mild Blogging
Weeds, well, it's just a sad, self-indulgent mess. It's like a clown that stopped being funny, so he put on more and more makeup to try to get the laughs back, but instead of laughing we're just sitting at home thinking, "That clown looks ridiculous. Remember when he used to be funny?
"[Oprah] made this huge speech at the ball praising Lady Gaga and about how she [Lady Gaga] is helping Americans to be the best of themselves. There's millions of other Americans who represent that for me. Is [it] about numbers? About how much you're selling? Is it truly about the journey? Because [Lady Gaga's] journey isn't that difficult: to go from the fucking Upper East Side to a fucking performing arts school and on to a stage at the museum of fucking wherever. That journey's about four miles." — M.I.A. [N.Y. Magazine]
There's another side to that equation, though, beginning with the much-publicized fact that Kurt Wimmer's screenplay was written with a male star in mind, very likely Tom Cruise. (Indeed, "Salt" is conceptually pretty close to Cruise's underperforming summer release, "Knight and Day.") Very little of the script was rewritten when Jolie was cast - an intriguing move toward Hollywood gender equality, blah blah blah. But that also means Jolie is stuck in a Tom Cruise role, playing a character who seems borderline nuts, who exhibits no sexuality and hardly any psychological life, and whose personal history consists of plot points with no emotional impact.
Classiq stuff!
Just discovered this doc...Still believe in these quotes I gathered about 2 years ago...Am I stagnating?
Conor Friedersdorf defends the grassroots on the right:
Unlike some in the media, I don’t regard the grassroots on the right as uniquely insane. I’ve done enough reporting at that level to know that most Americans on the right and left are reasonable people acting in good faith. The right’s fringe problem at this moment in time is one that elites have created as much as any crazy fringe righty. Outfits like Fox News, people like Glenn Beck, talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh — these outfits deliberately play on the worst impulses of the conservative base, stoking their paranoia and misleading them about reality, all for the sake of bigger audiences and greater revenues. That ought to outrage anyone who actually respects the grassroots, and has their best interests at heart.
