The Chris Moeller Archives

The patriot threat

Silly public officials, don't you know that only Muslims can be terrorists?

Congressman Peter King (NY) held public hearings earlier this month regarding the terrorist threat of Muslim Americans, claiming in his opening statements March 10th that "not one terror-related case in the United States in the last two years involved neo-Nazis." Only one day earlier, Kevin William Harphan had been arrested for trying to throw a bomb into the middle of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade in Spokane, Washington in January. The Southern Law Poverty Center and the U.S. Justice Department both say that white supremacists are being dangerously discounted as violent threats by FBI counter-terrorism efforts.

If you love your news sprinkled with irony, you'll enjoy this: Pottawattamie County and Treynor School District in western Iowa scheduled an emergency drill for Saturday based on a fictional scenario in which young male white supremacists open fire in the public school. According to county officials, the emergency training was a requirement to qualify for federal funds under the Department of Homeland Security. It was canceled today because of threats received by emergency organizers-- supposed intimidation and profanity-laced phone calls.

Robert Ussery, from a group that calls itself the Iowa Minutemen, denied the existence of the threats: "Most of the people who break the law and are involved in school shootings don't quote the Constitution or love their country." Since when is that exactly? Funny that Ussery would be so offended on behalf of white supremacists when he's not one. Perhaps he should spend some time in self-reflection instead trying to determine why America's anti-immigration movement is so attractive to white supremacists.

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Most of her obituaries do not do Elizabeth Taylor justice. She was a "star" certainly, a designation of celebrity that has lost all currency, and she was indeed breathtakingly gorgeous. But why should we care? Ask writer Kim Morgan about Taylor's most important film role:

Though Bonnie and Clyde helped kick-start the emerging '70s cinema, (Taylor's) Virginia Woolf was a formidable front runner and, in a few ways, more disturbingly violent. In it, words and deeds are doled out with a ferocious vitriol that remains unmatched -- at least in terms of eloquence. Nothing so nasty has ever been so sickly beautiful. It certainly helps when Liz is slinging the sadism. That this still beautiful, still young woman would dress herself down to mean-mouthed, muffin-topped middle age was brave enough -- but her words and actions -- funny, terrible, sad and at times, strangely sweet, showed that Taylor truly understood this woman.

Alas, but no surprise, there is currently a "long wait" for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in our Netflix queues.

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The TV comedy series "Community" is so brilliant. Cast and crew topped themselves last night with their episode that was a double homage to "My Dinner With Andre" and "Pulp Fiction." It's one thing to obsess on pop culture in the jokes. It's something else entirely for a situation comedy to have the ambition to so fully examine that cultural obsession, and to deliver a final product of an examination that doesn't sacrifice character or emotion. A Salon critic called Thursday night's episode "a totally unexpected yet spot-on observation that Quentin Tarantino and Louis Malle, who are about as different as two (film) directors could be, are united by their belief that talk isn't a substitute for action, but a form of action." Score another one for the scripted word in the age of reality TV bullshit.

It takes real guts to base an entire episode so pointedly on Malle's "My Dinner With Andre," a movie that is now 30 years old and had only art house appeal then. Dan Harmon, the creative mind behind "Community," seems to have developed his own little obsession with the exploration of why it is that we even watch television. Last night, one of his featured players, the scary-talented Danny Pudi, added extraordinary new dimensions to his borderline-Asperger's character, Abed, portraying at least one other character (named Chad), while also offering up a great Andre Gregory impression just when you thought you would never in your life see somebody do an Andre Gregory impression.

"Pulp Fiction" and "My Dinner With Andre" are two of my favorite films. How can I not love a television show that seems to be so aggressively courting me? And that forces me to examine my own pop-culture-obsessed life? Yet I'm surprised also to read the online comments tonight from "Community" viewers who weren't familiar with one or both of the films and still had their minds blown.

posted by CM @ 9:05 PM