Movie Reviews C

Boiler Room (IMDB Wikipedia)

It falls short of indicting Wall Street, but it’s about a rogue investment firm. At the beginning the main character compares selling stock with selling crack. The stock brokers are violent, homophobic and use drugs.

I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Bowfinger (IMDB Wikipedia)

A non-political but very funny comedy.

I give it 5 stars out of 5.

Boycott (IMDB Wikipedia)

An amazing movie about the Montgomery bus boycott during the Civil Rights campaign in the American South. I don’t know how historically accurate it is, but it’s very inspirational. It includes as a character Bayard Rustin. The thing is Rustin was gay and told Dr. King that. I don’t know how homophobic King was, but in this movie he gets along with Rustin.

I give it 4 stars out of 5.

But I’m a Cheerleader (IMDB Wikipedia)

This is a COMEDY about the idea that gay people can convert to straight through therapy. It’s sort of serious (it’s a serious issue and the other movie I’ve seen about it (Boy Erased) is much more serious) but also pretty funny. It does a great job of illustrating how ridiculous the idea of gay conversion therapy is. It isn’t explicit, but it’s kind of implied that a lot of gay teens end up homeless because their families reject them.

I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Come See The Paradise (IMDB Wikipedia)

This is about the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during World War II. I’m not sure if it’s based on a true story or how historically accurate it is, but it seems pretty accurate and about 1/5 of my BA is Asian-American Studies. The male main character is an Irish immigrant and a labor activist.

I give it 5 stars of 5.

When Can We Return to Normal? (COVID-19 (Coronavirus))

After I read an article on Politico, I left a comment. Most of what's below is that comment.

The only reason he is including business people on the council is so that they can vote to re-open the country. They're not epidemiologists, they have no idea when the country can reopen. It's great that he'll include some governors and doctors, but I have a bad feeling that the business people will out-vote the others and recommend opening the country. And Trump saying he'll close it back down if there's a resurgence of COVID-19 is stupid. That means he'll wait until AFTER a bunch more people will have gotten an often deadly disease and THEN close the country again.

What we need is for him to use the Defense Production Act to dramatically ramp up the production of masks and whatever is needed to test for COVID-19, and maybe AFTER we have enough masks and everyone is getting tested frequently, then we can reopen the country.

The thing is, the decrease in cases, when it comes, is because of social-distancing. COVID-19 isn't becoming less communicable. We need masks and testing before it's even sort of safe to return to normal. And even then, restaurants and such will have to stay closed (you can't take your mask off) but a lot of non-essential businesses can open again, including many that can't do stuff on-line.

What we really need a is an effective treatment- not the ones that Trump recommends. And from what I've heard, a lot of health-care people think his obsession with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine is requiring effort that could be better spent on other stuff. If you think that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are treatments, you should read this, this, and this.

You should also read the other post I did about COVID-19.

UPDATE 4/14/20 Trump's real reason for not encouraging people to wear masks and and ramping up production of them is that he thought it would look bad if there were a bunch of people wearing masks and it would be bad election-year optics.

Obama, Wall Street, Auto-Workers, and the far-right

(As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)

I might start participating in some on-line forums now, probably the comments sections of newspapers and blogs. In some cases I might tie this blog into that, as I'm going to now.

I read an interesting column by Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. He's pretty solidly liberal and even did one column expressing a lot of support for Single-Payer (canadian style) health-care. His column is here, you'll probably have to register.

Below is the comment I just posted. I wonder if I am exaggerating some things (how much the far-right associates Jews with bankers, how much damage will be done), but I have decided to offer any suggestions I can for stopping the spread of hatred. UPDATE4/3/09: The Southern Poverty Law Center has frequently talked about how Obama's presidency combined with the economy could fuel racism, their is a stereotype about bankers and Jews, there is a glaring gap in Obama's approach, and a mostly white workforce will probably be hurt. Anyway, here's my comment:

"I haven't followed American current events much lately, so almost all of my info about this comes from Robinson's column (can't imagine a much better source, roughly as good as Krugman, Meyerson, etc.); and I'm not much on economics or finance, but there are a few things about this I understand. First, the double standard is amazing, the banks should be getting it as least as much as the auto-makers, since they ARE responsible for starting it. Also, in general, this won't be good for auto-workers, although I'm open-minded about how avoidable that is considering that the economy IS a mess and Obama is not going to take some kind of socialist approach.

But recently I've become very interested in the spread of hatred, primarily the sort we associate with the right. It seems to me that a black President connected to destroying the lives of auto-workers (probably mostly/overwhlemingly white) and going easy on the bankers (I have no freaking idea how many of them are Jews, they could all be Hindus for all I care, but there's a semi-popular image of the banker) will fuel the racist right, especially considering Obama's support from Jews (once again, I don't care, my blog is chock full of stuff against anti-semitism). It just seems like, besides being unbalanced and bad for working people and the tax-payer, it will also fuel the far-right.

I say this mostly because unless I've got an exaggerated sense of the damage that can be done, it's one more reason for Obama to change his mind and get tough on the banks."