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Shared Darkness

A Communal Life in Film, Examined

Monthly Archives: September 2009

Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do?

Do notions of right and wrong, good and evil, fall from heaven, or do we make them here on Earth? Timed to release on DVD to coincide with the public television
broadcast of a similarly themed special and the debut of Professor
Michael Sandel’s book of the same title, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? challenges perceptions of morality through the Socratic recreation of a compelling lecture series at Harvard University. The result, for those who like to look outside of themselves, is a one-of-a-kind take on what we perceive, both individually and on a societal level, as ethical, and our views toward humanity and moral reasoning.

More than 14,000 students at Harvard have taken the “Justice” course, making it one of the college’s most popular classes. And now, in collaboration with WGBH Boston, Harvard opens up Professor Sandel’s classroom to the world. The course aims to help viewers become more critically-minded thinkers about the moral decisions we all face in our everyday lives. The two dozen featured lectures here read like a cross-section of high
school debate topics — affirmative action, abortion, the death
penalty, euthanasia, sex education, privacy protection, elder care, same-sex
marriage and public health legislation — but the level of discourse is of course higher than the chirpy, easily digestible facts and specious reasoning parroted back in Mrs. Osborne’s 11th grade class. Sandel presents students with ethical dilemmas on modern-day issues, and then conducts lively, engaging and remarkably intimate debates that challenge students’ moral reasoning.

By title, the topic list includes: “The Moral Side of Murder,” “Putting a Price Tag on Life,” “How to Measure Pleasure,” “Free To Choose,” “Who Owns Me?,” “This Land is My Land,” “Consenting Adults,” “Hired Guns?,” “For Sale: Motherhood,” “Mind Your Motive,” “The Supreme Principle of Morality,” “A Lesson in Lying,” “A Deal Is A Deal,” “What’s a Fair Start?,” “What Do We Deserve?,” “Arguing Affirmative Action,” “What’s the Purpose?,” “The Good Citizen,” “Freedom vs. Fit,” “The Claims of Community,” “Where Our Loyalty Lies,” “Debating Same-Sex Marriage,” “The Good Life” and, yes, “The Case for Cannibalism.” While there’s an understandable societal hesitancy to tackle the big challenges and problems confronting our notion — change is, after all, a scary thing — this DVD lays the groundwork for reasoning, reflection, soul-searching and (gasp!) empathy, and ultimately makes the point that all, rightly, influence and shape our opinions and problem-solving skill sets.

Running around 12 hours and spread out over three DVDs, with a snap-in, dual-sided tray housing the first two discs, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? is presented in full screen. Special features include an excerpt from Sandel’s same-named book, as well as a printable series viewing guide. To order the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS or merely click here. A- (Show) C (Disc)

Year One

The big, blustery physical comedy of Jack Black makes for a mostly amusing fit with Michael Cera’s quiet comedy of self-negation in Year One, a ramshackle banished-buddy picture which connects more on the strength of its scene-to-scene joke writing than any startlingly grand execution of its premise. Pushing far away from one’s brain any recollections of of historical or religious antiquity is of paramount importance given the historic license this movie’s story takes. Once that is accomplished, though, there’s airy delight in the mixing of slightly contemporized but socially inept consciousnesses with a primitive setting. It’s not fall-down great, but Year One works slightly more than not, making for a decent enough rental.



When oafish hunter Zed (Black) eats from the forbidden tree of knowledge and later accidentally sets fire to his village, he’s banished. Reluctantly accompanying Zed out into the wilderness is his reserved gatherer pal Oh (Cera, sporting a generally ridiculous wig that undergoes an unexplained metamorphosis three-quarters of the way through the movie); left behind are their respective crushes, Maya (June Diane Raphael) and Eema (Juno Temple). Discovering that the story of the world’s edge is false, the wandering pair comes across hothead Cain (David Cross), and bear witness to his murder of his brother Abel (Paul Rudd).

Again fleeing, Zed and Oh come across Abraham (Hank Azaria) , who warns them of the sins of the nearby city of Sodom. This sounds like a great place to Zed, however, so off they go, to partake of its pleasures. Once there, they again cross paths with Cain, as well as Maya and Eema, who have been sold into slavery. While Zed tries to devise a plot to free the ladies, Oh fends off the advances of the king’s creepy, flamboyant high priest (Oliver Platt). Olivia Wilde also lends her prodigious, come-hither eyebrows to the proceedings.

Though somewhat similar in some of its targets to Monty Python’s Life of Brian or Mel Brooks’ sprawling History of the World: Part One, Year One is more assertively a comedic hodgepodge of different eras, in this case commingling polytheism alongside Judeo-Christian Biblical stories separated by hundreds of years. Trying to hold onto and make any sense of the manner in which this intersects chronologically factual human history or cognitive development is akin to swimming upstream into a headstrong current. It doesn’t help, either, that the movie can’t seem to decide whether Zed and Oh are accidental masters of their fate (upon arriving in Sodom, they briefly become royal guards), or habitual victims of circumstances and their surroundings. The sooner one relinquishes the notion that this is more than anything than just an unfettered spit-balling of widely generalized life in a dusty, bygone era, the more simply they’re able to appreciate the movie’s otherwise generally solid joke-writing and characterizations.

The lead performances certainly don’t differ wildly from the personas that the two actors have cultivated; Black plays a libidinal, instinctive chatterbox, while Cera trades in wallflower asides and nervous, awkward silences. In their juxtaposition and interplay, though, there’s something approaching a sincere freshness. This owes to basic differences in age and demeanor, yes, but also size — something that director Harold Ramis (who also takes a writing credit, along with The Office‘s Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg) isn’t afraid to exploit through both written material and physical gags large and small. One wishes that the story exhibited a bit more discipline, instead of leaning on supporting characters that often seem like tacky appendages; that would help this movie really take flight. Still, especially for fans of its principals, Year One offers up enough fun to qualify as a diverting weeknight rental.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Year One comes to DVD presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, with matching English and French language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio tracks and optional subtitles. Anchoring the supplemental material, a feature-length audio commentary track with Ramis, Black and Cera quite obviously predates the movie’s tough-luck box office reception (a mere $43 million domestic haul, under its production budget), with Ramis providing production anecdotes and the guys by and large complimenting each other’s choices. There’s also a 18-minute making-of featurette, a seven-minute blooper and gag reel, five-plus-minutes of line reading improvisations, and an additional 14 minutes of excised scenes, a couple of which expand upon Bill Hader’s bit role as a tribal shaman. To purchase the regular theatrical version DVD via Amazon, click here; to purchase the unrated DVD (which runs 11 minutes longer) via Amazon, click here. C+ (Movie) B (Disc)

Original G.I. Joe Series Gets 17-Disc Deluxe DVD Treatment

Good news G.I. Joe fans. For the first time ever, you can shortly own every episode of the original animated television show that was a pop-culture phenomenon for a generation of kids in the 1980s.

On November 10, the complete series streets in a tricked-out collector’s set, pitting the G.I. Joe team against the venomous COBRA organization, who’s bidding to rule the world. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero‘s limited edition collector’s set, released by Shout! Factory in collaboration with Hasbro, is spread out over 17 discs and loaded with over 36 hours of content. All 95 episodes — some never before available on DVD until now — are complemented with brand new bonus features celebrating G.I. Joe‘s rich history, including a special collectible book, an exclusive 1-GB “Dog Tag” Flash Drive (USB 2.0) with G.I. Joe silent comics, and special Arashikage and Cobra rub-on tattoos. A specially designed deluxe footlocker case stores everything, and even includes a special DVD placeholder for the G.I. Joe original animated movie when it becomes available next year. It’s a bit pricey, at a suggested retail price of just under $180, but now you know to start saving up. And knowing is half the battle, I’ve been told.

Mitch Fatel Is Magical

Looking at comedian Mitch Fatel before listening to his act, one might have a different impression of his set, and areas of focus. If, however, they know the titles of his previous concert CDs, Miniskirts and Muffins and Super Retardo they’d have a better idea of what awaits them, no matter his unassuming physical demeanor and dweeby delivery. Yes, Mitch Fatel Is Magical, the comedian’s first full-length Comedy Central special, is filthy and sex-saturated.

That’s not the problem. In fact, a good bit of Fatel’s act is actually pretty solid, digging as it does into the specific preoccupations of the male psyche, and his own canted views on the female body (“Small breasts have more personality!”), sexual proclivities and what drove Thomas Edison to invent the light bulb (he wanted to see what was going on when he was receiving blowjobs, the comedian posits). What undercuts Fatel’s comedy is his overly affected execution; with his beaming, squinty-eyed, angelic smile and garbled-sweet voice, he comes across as a Forrest Gump-type simpleton. That this doesn’t match the lewdness of the material is only the most immediate surface problem. More grating is how frequently this works against the very nature of the material, leading to awkward pauses and hiccups in pacing when Fatel should be hammering home a point or scoring building mini-laughs off of a single themed punchline.

These strikes of delivery against this hour-long stand-up special notwithstanding, Mitch Fatel Is Magical does hold some genuine laughs, especially for guys who are willing to be honest about their base carnal desires, and the women who are willing to enjoy (but not judge!) such peeks behind the gender curtain. Herein, Fatel laments the declining popularity of one of his favorite sexual pastimes, the handjob (“They’re like a very slow movie that gets good at the end…”), and also waxes poetic about his love for certain female body parts. Naturally, he also devotes a huge portion of his show toward a dissection of blowjobs, from the points-of-view of both genders. From the male perspective, Fatel says, “Whenever we buy one of those romantic cards that talks about [the power of] our eyes meeting… that’s what we picture.” From the female perspective, he jokes about women enjoying kissing a man’s stomach for 15 minutes before heading further south, “because it makes them feel like a lady.”

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Mitch Fatel Is Magical comes to DVD as an extended and uncensored version of the same-named concert special broadcast recently on Comedy Central. Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound, the title’s bonus material consists of chopped-up concert outtakes, material from Fatel’s DVD cover photo shoot, special animation and a clutch of interviews with longtime fans. No opinion on his act from his mother, though. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here; to purchase it via Comedy Central, click here. B (Concert) B (Disc)

New York, I Love You

Following on the heels of 2007’s delightful anthology Paris, Je T’aime comes this second entry in a series of cinematic valentines to culturally influential cities, conceived by producer Emmanuel Benbihy. (Rio, Shanghai, Jerusalem and Mumbai also await the loving treatment.) An eclectic group of filmmakers oversee the dozen short films, populated with familiar faces, collected here — Mira Nair, Allen Hughes, Brett Ratner, Shekhar Kapur, Fatih Akin, Joshua Marston, Chinese actor Jiang Wen and even Natalie Portman. The shorts are mostly discrete tales about love, broadly defined, but with a few loosely interwoven characters to underline the theme. Naturally, it’s a somewhat mixed bag, and doesn’t hold together as well as one might hope, or expect from a feature. But the good news is that there’s something here for everyone.

The lighthearted, ironic and flirty entries (including, surprisingly, a wryly funny prom date tale cooked up by Ratner and co-scripter Jeff Nathanson) are mostly the best. A notable exception to this rule, though, is a sidewalk encounter between Robin Wright Penn and Chris Cooper — one of two superlative, chatty, can-I-bum-a-smoke? submissions from Yvan Attal, and a beautifully melancholic segment that would have provided the perfect closer for the movie if it had been ordered properly. The worst entry? Working from a script by the late Anthony Minghella, Kapur misfires with a dewy, dreadfully sentimental tale starring Julie Christie as an aging singer and (no joke) Shia LaBeouf as a hunchback hotel bellhop. The target is poignance, but the movie grinds to a halt here, courtesy of LaBeouf’s ridiculous accent and some equally affected filmmaking.

Like the city it honors, New York, I Love You is a jumbled, chaotic affair, full of seduction, brio, contradiction and a pinch of pretentiousness. It’s not perfect, not by a stretch, but in lump sum it does intriguingly showcase moments when regret and/or romantic constipation are finally swallowed, and surging feelings of possibility return. And that’s worth celebrating, now and always. (Vivendi Entertainment, 110 minutes, R)

Radha Mitchell on Surrogates, and Why She Loves Her iPhone

Radha Mitchell’s mid-afternoon plans have been waylaid, but you wouldn’t know it from her sunny disposition, and a laugh that can split the air. Traffic hampered our respective arrivals at the coastal hotel that serves as our meeting spot, and now — because this is Los Angeles, after all — there’s a deejayed potable water benefit raging at the pool. “I had this whole plan where we’d chat outdoors, and afterward I’d go sit in a patch of sun, read the rest of this thing,” she says, indicating a script in her bag, “and then take a swim.”

No worries. Repairing to a quieter spot indoors for drinks, we swap stories about the somewhat abstruse, themed billboards that have just gone up all over the city for her new film, a couple of which look an awful lot like Angelina Jolie and David Beckham. “That’s [popular] according to Disney marketing, which must be based on some reliable statistics,” she says. A chattering, water-supporting socialite wanders by, and conversation amiably turns to social networking, text-messaging and Mitchell’s iPhone, only the latter of which she loves. “I do love accessing the web on the phone,” she says. “It’s changed conversation. There are no questions. And it’s not really about the facts anymore, it’s about how you use the facts spontaneously. You don’t have to know anything, which I love.”

She’s kidding, of course. Mitchell must know plenty, because in her decade-plus in Los Angeles, the Australian native has effortlessly straddled the fence between art and commerce, deftly juggling popular studio fare (Man on Fire, Silent Hill, Pitch Black) with equally well received independent films (Melinda and Melinda, Finding Neverland, Henry Poole Is Here). Even her two forthcoming projects perfectly illustrate this split.

The Waiting City, which details a young couple’s journey to India to collect their new adopted baby, has just had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival announced. Then there’s Jonathan Mostow’s brawny Surrogates, in which Mitchell plays an FBI agent alongside Bruce Willis, investigating the mysterious murder of a college student linked to the man who helped create a phenomenally popular technology that allows people to purchase robotic versions of themselves — fit, good-looking, remotely controlled machines that enable users to experience life vicariously from the comfort of their homes.

“It’s a comment on the state of culture now, and not that far from the way a lot of people live their lives, I guess,” says Mitchell of Surrogates. “It’s a pristine, manicured reality where you get to feel everything, because the sensory stimulation goes into your body, but it filters the pain out, and can modulate your experiences, if there are smells you don’t like or whatever.”

“At times my character is operated by other people, though I can’t tell you who, or why,” Mitchell continues. “You meet her as a real person briefly, which is interesting. It’s funny, because all the real people in this movie are fat, I guess because they’re sitting in their chairs. So I’ve got this really fat bum. I don’t know if it’s featured in the movie, but it took a while to make. And I have fake teeth. It’s quite a good look. There’s a different look with the surrogate — she had a padded bra and long hair. But what I discovered is that if there’s no other preference, the fat ass was a bit more comfortable.”

Sagging asses give way to talk about mortality, and before long we’ve tripped headlong into a heady discussion of the possibility of virtually freezing time. At what point would one want to stop aging, though? “In the 30s,” Mitchell says, point-blank, then pauses. “But then I think there’s something interesting about being in your 60s or 70s. I’m sure it’s not great, going through that process of decay. But it must be interesting, and there’s something quite important about that cycle of taking care of your parents and then being taken care of — the reversal of that situation.” When I point out Americans typically aren’t as hands on in elder-care as other cultures, Mitchell has a one-word rejoinder prepped: “Florida.”

The Blue Tooth Virgin

In college, where self-indulgence and pretentiousness are practically
their own electives, especially in the creative arts, a theater
acquaintance who dabbled in his own brand of snarky, self-referential,
low-fi music, wrote a song (for another friend’s original stageplay,
it’s worth noting) in which he wearyingly noted it was “time to go put
on the ‘Good work!’ facade.” The Blue Tooth Virgin intriguingly
transposes this notion of necessarily glad-handing feedback to
Hollywood and the independent film realm, and chronicles the hurt and
petty jealousy — common to almost any creative individual, as well as
anyone who’s felt the sting of a loved one or family member’s shrug —
that comes bubbling to the surface when niceties fall away and shared
opinions aren’t all rosy.

The film centers around two Los Angeles wordsmiths, Sam (Austin Peck, above left), an aspiring screenwriter with a cult success, short-lived TV credit to his name, and David (Bryce Johnson, of Sleeping Dogs Lie), a successful magazine editor at a locally based laddie publication. The duo have been friends for years, but when David doesn’t appreciate Sam’s latest script it opens a fissure in their friendship that spreads through the rest of their lives. Ultimately, both guys must reevaluate their motivations for writing, their need for outside praise and validation, and what it means to see yourself as you actually are.

Written and helmed by Russell Brown, a still-young multi-hyphenate with the benefit of both previous directorial know-how as well as different industry experience and the perspective which that provides, The Blue Tooth Virgin is named after the achingly arty screenplay Sam passes off to David for feedback. A noirish character study (because Sam is really all about character, as he frequently intones) full of transsexuals, private investigators, time-traveling and mystery, the narrative within the movie seems like a cheeky nod of homage to Tom DiCillo, who’s aped the well-traveled grooves of independent cinema in movies like Living In Oblivion and The Real Blonde. It’s the perfect leaping-off point for a discussion of what film could and should mostly be — a challenge to audiences, or a salve?

The nice, conversational rapport between Peck and Johnson — a sort of budget lookalike for Paul Walker — is the film’s strongest selling point, and Brown imbues his work with real, lived-in dialogue that captures the ways we frequently muddy our feelings in trying to dance around directness. There’s the danger of the movie becoming too insular, an inside-the-Beltway-type circle jerk of specifically artistic competitiveness and grievance. Brown mitigates this somewhat with an argument between Sam and his white-collar wife, Rebecca (Lauren Stamile), that, while solid in theory, needs to be anchored a bit more in tongue-loosened drunkeness than how it plays.

Interestingly, and decidedly for the better, The Blue Tooth Virgin also trades in long-form scenes that serve as call-and-response mirror images of one another. (Quotations on the turmoil of the artistic process help serve as chapter divides within the film.) Though this tack could be sacrificed and tweaked a bit up front for more energy and surface appeal, it helps him more or less get to the meat of his conceit, and pays dividends later in the movie, in a pair of engaging scenes in which Sam and David crawl inside their own heads (the former with a New Age-y creative consultant, the latter with a more conventional therapist) and try to root out what their writing means to them. Captured in simple, point-and-shoot, low-fi strokes, The Blue Tooth Virgin doesn’t aim for grand-gesture profundity; it’s nervous and ambivalent about “correct” notions of modern cinematic storytelling, as reflected in the gulf of opinion between its characters. But it entertainingly captures the ever-present tension between art and commerce, and again sets on a tee the age-old question: is it an audience that makes a work a legitimate piece of art? (Regent, R, 79 minutes)

How Deeply Do Cell Phones Confound Hollywood?

Rich Juzwiak has gone and done the hard work and heavy lifting for me, putting together a five-minute clip of wonky, non-receptive cell phone calls that spans 66 films over the past… what, seven or eight years? It’s a particularly modern problem — isolating characters in a technological era in which isolation is all but obsolete — that screenwriters have labored over and had a lot of difficulty reasonably cracking, but the clip-fest really runs the gamut, from those movies that play it smooth and loose (The Ruins, Turistas) to those that overstate their case (The Hills Have Eyes). The trophy for Most Amusing Write-Around, incidentally, probably goes to Hatchet, for its exclamatory “No bars… I hate the South!” This sidestepping of technology bugs the crap out of me when it’s handled badly, sure, but most studio films are only concerned with eliminating cell phones from thriller/horror storylines, and then moving on as quickly as possible. And empty coffee cups are still my number one target.

The Boys Are Back

Possibly no actor working in movies today looks better in rumpled cotton than Clive Owen. George Clooney gives him a run for his money, but from Closer, Derailed and his series of BMW shorts all the way through to Children of Men, The International and Duplicity, the sheer volume of screen material featuring Owen looking fashionably weary and rundown helps make this slice of cut-rate domestic fatigue seem a bore by comparison. Owen’s trademark tousled charm carries stretches of The Boys Are Back, a too-loose widower’s tale, but otherwise overly familiar dramatic plotting elicits lukewarm positive feelings at best.

Owen plays sportswriter Joe Warr, who, in the wake of his wife’s tragic death, finds himself suddenly thrust into single parenthood. Baffled and overwhelmed, Joe embraces instinctual exuberance, trying to chase down some sort of a return to normalcy by simply saying yes to everything. This works for a while with six year-old Artie (Nicholas McAnulty). But when Joe invites Harry (George MacKay), his teenage son from a previous marriage, to fly in from England and stay with them, the household’s unabashed lack of rules prove problematic for all involved, including a young single mother (Emma Booth, sort of an Aussie Gretchen Mol) whom Joe is circling, seemingly as much for free childcare as romance.

Australian director Scott Hicks, who burst onto the scene with 1996’s Oscar-winning Shine, returns to film his homeland for the first time since that movie, but can’t achieve satisfying emotional liftoff. It’s both a bit of a surprise and somehow not shocking at all to learn that the film is based on a 2001 memoir by Simon Carr, since The Boys Are Back feels rigidly constructed to hit every potential beat of conflict, from general emotional withdrawal and friction with the in-laws to a poor decision to leave the kids home alone.

The story meanders to and fro, and could have used much more connective tissue between the two boys, which would have made the come-stay-with-us connection that the movie eventually sells as Joe’s younger son feeling for Harry that much more believable. The stunning South Australian countryside, as captured by Hicks and cinematographer Greig Fraser, gives The Boys Are Back an achingly convincing sense of place, and the acting is OK, certainly. But the small moments of heartbreak arrive with such infrequency as to leave one daydreaming of a Vegemite sandwich. (Miramax, 100 minutes, PG-13)

Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana

Climb on board for some tween-targeted fun on the high seas with this mash-up/crossover special of three favorite Disney Channel shows. In Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana, the S.S. Tipton embarks on a triple-length comedy crossover event when Justin (David Henrie) wins a cruise to Hawaii and a chance to meet London (Brenda Song). Both Justin and Max (Jake T. Austin) do their best to win the heiress’ affection, while Cody (Cole Sprouse) tries to win concert tickets for Bailey (Debby Ryan), and Alex (Selena Gomez) accuses Zack (Dylan Sprouse) of being a prankster. Between the kids’ various jokey stunts (who turned Justin blue?) and all manner of other crazy schemes (Alex sneaks a girl on board to take her make-up science class), enterprising kids will perhaps learn a new trick or two to pull on a younger sibling.

What about Miley Cyrus… err, Hannah Montana, though? Well, the excitement goes overboard when the international pop superstar (a demonstrative Cyrus) checks in on her way to a sold-out concert in Hawaii. But when Miley Stewart (Cyrus again… displaying wily range?) loses both her lucky charm anklet and her Hannah wig, are her days as the world’s biggest pop star over forever? Well… probably not, if the flush-with-cash executives at Disney have anything to say about it. None of this, naturally, is as radically inventive and subversive a mash-up of different forms of entertainment as the Moesha spec script a friend and I once co-wrote based on a cast photo, without benefit of ever having watched the show, not the least of which is because all the ingredients here are so vanilla. Still, fans of each individual series will delight at the colorful gum-bumping and kids being pushed into pools, so if there’s a tween girl if your life with a birthday looming on the horizon, this is certainly a good title to flag.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, the 68-minute Wizards on Deck comes to DVD presented in a 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio. Bonus features consist of a brief video essay spotlighting the honing of power-writing skills, the sort of which won Justin and his siblings a spot on the S.S. Tipton Teen Cruise. There’s also a five-minute collection of bloopers and backstage interviews with the stars, and a brief clip in which the Sprouse twins tout the technological advances of Blu-ray in a manner that kids will likely parrot back to their parents. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)

Bitch Slap Trailer Delivers Cleavage, Nudges… and Bitch Slaps

Sure, America Olivo’s breasts were on display to a much greater degree in the recent Friday the 13th remake, but Bitch Slap, in which she stars with Julia Voth and the high-foreheaded Erin Cummings, appears to provide them with another ample showcase. Old as dirt is the red-band trailer for the movie, which comes across like a budget version mash-up of The Spirit, The Devil’s Rejects, something straight-to-video starring Tiffani Amber Thiessen and a Girls Gone Wild project directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor. But it’s new to me, don’tcha know, so there you go. I don’t expect any sort of commercial punch-through for this movie, but it’ll be interesting to see if it’s winky-winky “smart” enough, a la the Crank flicks, to attract a cult audience on DVD. Despite the “Fall 2009” tag on its web site, I have it on solid authority that Bitch Slap is now pegged for release January 8, 2010 through Freestyle Releasing.

Lymelife

Another self-satisfied, allegorical tale of the gritty dark side of Northeastern suburban paradise and its attendant loss of innocence, Lymelife is a bunch of discrete, thematically similar scenes in search of a cogent narrative punch. The directorial debut of Derick Martini, the movie is sort of a facile, surface-polished lesser entry in the canon of thematically like-minded films like The Ice Storm, The Chumscrubber and American Beauty, in which sensible and in some regards overly mature kids grapple with their place in the world amidst philandering and emotionally stunted adults.

Centering on two deeply troubled, dysfunctional families during the dog days of the 1970s, Martini’s film revolves around an awkward, sensitive 15-year-old boy, Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin, above left), whose family life is ostensibly turned upside down after an outbreak of Lyme disease hits his community, spreading illness and paranoia. Scott’s parents –workaholic father Mickey (Alec Baldwin) and overprotective mother Brenda (Jill Hennessy) — are unhappy in swallowed ways bubbling just underneath the surface,and his older brother Jim (Kieran Culkin) is back on brief loan from the Army, and about to ship off for war. Complicating matters, Scott has fallen in love with his neighbor and longtime friend, Adrianna Bragg (Emma Roberts, above right). Troubled in different ways, Adrianna’s less affluent family consists of her uptight mother, Melissa (Cynthia Nixon), who’s carrying on a not-so-clandestine love affair, and her father, Charlie (Timothy Hutton), whose sanity seems to be slowly unraveling from the effects of Lyme disease.

Derick Martini and his brother Steven, the writer-actors behind the winning, low-budget 1999 indie Smiling Fish & Goat on Fire, collaborated on Lymelife‘s script based on their own experiences growing up on suburban Long Island, but the movie feels too cute by about half, and overly groomed for indie flick preciousness in certain scenes. Lymelife premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, and truth be told it’s the warm bosom of a welcoming throng of international filmgoers that’s the best home for this decently acted but otherwise entirely marginal domestic ensemble.

There’s something of a charismatic star spark from the young Roberts, particularly in the manner in which she captures how teenage females drive the bus of sexual experience, and set the tone for the vast majority of adolescent amorous encounters. But overall her performance is a hot-and-cold thing, a lot of which is admittedly dictated from a scattershot characterization that finds Adrianna admonishing and/or patronizing Scott one moment (“I can call your mom, she can bring you an icepack or a Yoo Hoo or something,” she says in an awkward,meant-to-be-serious moment, after a bully thumps Scott), and then flashing him her red bra in confessional booth the next. Yes, lust can bloom quickly, especially for adolescents, but Adrianna’s actions feel more a product of narrative manipulation than anything else.

The Martinis have a nice touch with some end-around, unexpected moments of interpersonal friction or personal introspection — there’s a great bar scene between Mickey and Charlie that ranks among the best scenes of screen-captured passive-aggressiveness I can recall– but the Lyme disease-as-metaphor stuff doesn’t play, and the Martinis absolutely overreach when they aim for more overt emotional manipulation. These hamfisted instincts most reveal themselves in thunderously stupid and unrealistic behavior by cheating adults — bits crammed in to advance scenes, and feed revelation amongst minors — and reach their apex in a woefully misguided finale that feels like a straight-up gangsta rip-off of American Beauty, only without the balls of actual catharsis through bloodletting.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover with raised cover text, Lymelife comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks and optional Spanish subtitles. Bonus features consist of an audio commentary track with writer-director Martini and the younger Culkin, eight minutes of deleted scenes with optional audio commentary, and an alternate ending that basically re-frames the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. No cast interviews here, though, somewhat strangely. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)

Love Happens

Its title conjures up images of frothy romantic comedy banter, or at least swooning courtship, but the leaden Love Happens, starring Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston, is a virtually spark-free romance, and devoid of laughs to boot. An attractively shot yet thoroughly inert “tweener,” the movie isn’t dramatically persuasive enough to qualify as a tearjerker, and neither does it move past flitting, light human moments of recognition into substantive comedy. Left to qualify on personality alone, then, Love Happens just happens to sink. For the full original review, from Screen International, click here. (Universal, PG-13, 109 minutes)

Important Things with Demetri Martin: Season One

Important Things with Demetri Martin is a stream-of-consciousness
Comedy Central sketch and variety show from multi-hyphenate Demetri Martin. Each episode focuses on a single topic
as filtered through the prism of Martin’s unique point-of-view,
encompassing quick-hit sketches, sketchboard-assisted written jokes,
low-fi animation and dryly delivered stand-up. “Timing,” for instance
includes sketches about a man who uses time travel to meet women as
well as an actor with terrible timing, while “Games” includes a bit
about an “emotional escape artist” who finds the tables turned on him
when he attempts to end a relationship.

Martin, who dropped out of law school to pursue comedy, swinging to a position as a staff writer on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, has the look of a most affable Jewish Muppet, and a top-shelf touch with absurdist deadpan humor to boot. His “Trendspotting” has been an occasional featured segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart since late 2005, and he’s lined up acting and screenwriting jobs that undeniably mark him as an emerging multiple-threat talent. The promos for Important Things, though, won me over with their delicious embrace of offbeat simplicity; pointing to a hand-drawn picture of a windowless van, Martin said, “When vans first arrived, I bet creeps were like, ‘Yeah! OK…'” That sort of canted humor gets a solid workout in this engaging and amusing series, which cycles through jokes at a just-right pace that doesn’t wear out its premise or conceit. H. Jon Benjamin provides frequent sketch support, and David Cross, Amanda Peet and John Oliver also pop up in cameos.

Housed in a regular, white plastic Amaray case, the seven first season episodes of Important Things with Demetri Martin comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with a Dolby digital stereo audio track. Included in the packaging are a mini-poster and sticker for the series. Its special features consist of four audio commentaries with Martin and his co-creators on the show, pegged to the episodes “Timing,” “Power,” “Coolness” and “Games.” In the chats, Martin and company talk in fairly laconic fashion about the series moving away from concrete point-of-emphasis topics (“Chairs” being the show’s pilot) and more into the conceptual realm.

Hand-sketched production graphs and sketch line-ups are curios, nothing more. More substantively, there is also a clutch of deleted sketches, 10 in all, with additional audio commentary. This material runs the gamut, from goofy outtakes from a “Parking Wars” bit and the musically rooted “Killing Someone with Kindness” (sample advice: “Beat them with a mix tape,” or, “Help them move… into a haunted house”) to the thumbnail sketch “A Yellow Belt Breaks an Awkward Silence,” which is exactly what it sounds like, but nonetheless quite amusing. A long, three-minute version of “Cult Leader in Love” (used heavily in the show’s promotion on Comedy Central) is included, which Martin correctly identifies and breaks down as problematic. Other bits, especially a mock safety instruction using a CPR dummy, come off as flat as well. Overall, this material is more miss than hit, but hey, that’s why it was excised to begin with, and Martin and company are upfront about owning up to why they feel the material doesn’t work. That’s somewhat refreshing, and maybe even important. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B+ (Show) B (Disc)

Explicit Ills

Detailing four interconnected stories revolving around love, drugs,
poverty and modern ennui, Explicit Ills unfolds chiefly amidst a bunch
of rundown tenements in a boarded-up, bombed-out area of
Philadelphia. So drab and depressing is its setting that it seems like
the movie, the feature writing and directing debut of young actor Mark
Webber, could be alternately titled American Shantytown. Lyrical,
earnest and well photographed, Explicit Ills is ultimately more
intriguing than good; its narrative is so meandering and its grip so
loose that one loses interest a bit less than halfway through its
90-minute running time.

The intertwined stories? Seven-year-old asthmatic Babo (Francisco Burgos) lives with his mother (Rosario Dawson) in the badlands of North Philly. His slightly older teen neighbor Demetri (Martin Cepeda), who makes moves on a girl by approaching her and asking if she wants to kiss him tomorrow, methodically a more bookish persona in order to try get the girl. Michelle (Frankie Shaw), a well-off art student, falls into a drug induced love affair with her dealer Jacob (Lou Taylor Pucci, above). The marriage of Kaleef (Tariq Trotter, of The Roots) and Jill (Naomie Harris) suffers tension as they pursue their dreams of bringing “produce to the people,” while their lanky teenage son Heslin (Ross Kim-McManus) improbably focuses on heading to Jamaica to compete in the World’s Strongest Man competition. Around the periphery, meanwhile, floats would-be actor Rocco (There Will Be Blood‘s Paul Dano).

Webber draws upon his personal relationships to help round out the cast (several of the actors are past costars), and his obviously collaborative approach yields some quiet, sensitive work. What’s most interesting about Explicit Ills is the manner in which individual scenes subtly undercut one’s expectation about where they’re headed. Also somewhat engagingly, Webber proves himself the rare first-time filmmaker who doesn’t overwrite; he’s much more interested in crafting mood (additional props to cinematographer Patrice Lucien Cochet’s inquisitive camerawork, and Michael Hersey’s art direction) than pushing forward a specific narrative agenda, either collectively or individually. In this regard, his movie variously recalls works like George Washington, Raising Victor Vargas and/or Jim McKay’s underrated Our Song.

Unfortunately, Explicit Ills suffers in comparison to all of these films, and its putative multicultural macro lesson — in which disparate individuals stumble toward connection with one another as they try to circumvent the isolating influences of homogeny and drug use, and draw together as a community — is tied together awkwardly in the third act, and doesn’t connect in a strong enough, emotionally resonant manner to really hold one’s attention. Notwithstanding some wholly invested performances and, again, an impressively atypical artistic instinct for a filmmaker of Webber’s age, Explicit Ills slots as more of an interesting misfire than a must-rent for one’s Netflix list.

Presented in 2.35.1 widescreen, which preserves the original aspect ratio of its March theatrical exhibition, Explicit Ills comes to DVD in a regular plastic Amaray case. A clutch of deleted scenes were touted in the original home video announcement for the movie, but the disc’s only bonus features are the theatrical trailer and some text-screen information on social activism issues raised in the movie. The film is also available on Blu-ray in 2.35:1 widescreen in 1080p. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) D (Disc)

Capitalism Hits Los Angeles

I caught the Los Angeles premiere of Capitalism: A Love Story last night — documentarian Michael Moore‘s latest foray into the heart of American hypocrisy, greed and the thorny political considerations that protect the status quo.

More thoughts on the film will follow, but it will be interesting to see how this movie plays in the rural flat-lands. Will it somewhat tap into something similar to the type of righteous anger that helped propel Fahrenheit 9/11 to a record-smashing $119 million domestic gross, or will aggressive pre-release push-back from invested powers-that-be consign it to something along the lines of the relatively paltry $24 million gross that greeted 2007’s Sicko, Moore’s documentary on the American health care system? One of the interesting things about the movie, to me, is that it seems to stand a good chance of being fundamentally misread by the sort of angry, undereducated masses (“Birthers,” Tea Partiers and the like) who, after eight years of profligate spending, have suddenly embraced fiscal conservatism — or, in more knee-jerk fashion, a freeze on federal spending and action of almost any sort — as their wave-the-flag cause. In Capitalism, Moore underscores income disparity and advocates the infusion of more democratic principles and ideals into the workplace, but folks like Joe the Plumber will stand a good chance of looking at the movie — if they see it at all — seeing in the Wall Street bailouts a massive giveaway, turning red with rage, and then saying, “Yeah, no money for health care! Screw that entitlement!” Ironic, no?

Like I said, more thoughts soon. The event itself, meanwhile, was lovely. Overture Films CEO Chris McGurk, above left, provided a pre-screening introduction; Moore gave brief speeches before and after the film, introducing various crew and the family of Jonas Salk, who were special guests in attendance; and Bill Maher, Olivia Wilde, Larry King and others mingled with the plebians at a deliciously catered post-screening event in the lobby of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences building.

File Under “Friends of the Program…”

The estimable Brad Schreiber takes a gander at Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County for the Huffington Post, while over at The 213 Telly Davidson explains circumstances that helped set the scene for The Jay Leno Show. Meanwhile, for East Coasters and those with private jets and/or the means, the award-winning Viral returns for a slate of curtain call performances at the SoHo Playhouse on Sunday, September 20 at 1 p.m.; Thursday, September 24, at 7 p.m.; and Saturday, September 26, at 2 and 6 p.m.; for tickets, click here.

Patton Oswalt Talks Big Fan, Shoots Down My Theory on Guys

Diminutive, but powered by fitful spasms of energy and a seemingly boundless wit, Patton Oswalt has slowly made a name for himself in comedy circles, courtesy of his writing work (four seasons on MadTV), small screen supporting performances (The King of Queens), zonked-out cameo appearances and various stand-up specials. Then, a couple years back, he won over kids and adults alike as the voice of Remy in Ratatouille. None of this prepares one for Oswalt’s starring, sad-sack turn in Robert Siegel’s Big Fan, however. Of a certain piece with The Wrestler, also written by Siegel, the film — which centers on an obsessive New York Giants fan who has a brush with one of his idols, and through a radio show develops a seemingly irrational relationship with a nemesis he’s never met — could also play alongside One Hour Photo in a double-feature at the New Beverly or Varsity Grande. Is Oswalt on the verge of crossing over into meatier and/or more heartrending dramatic fare? I caught up with the affable multi-hyphenate recently at a Los Angeles hotel, and he talked about his work on Big Fan, honing his comedic instincts, and why my theory about guys may be misguided. The conversation is excerpted below:

Brent Simon: Since it seems on a certain level an unlikely fit with you, how did Big Fan first come your way?

Patton Oswalt: Robert approached me and gave me the script to read, and I liked it. And the fact that he had the confidence in me to do it gave me the confidence to do it. But I was also very excited because it’s the kind of movie that I love, and the kind that used to get made a lot more often in the early 1970s. I love those kinds of movies — like Fat City and The King of Marvin Gardens — so to get to do something like this was a big deal for me.

BS: Is there a truth to the whole “tears-behind-the-clown” tag comedians get saddled with?

PO: Somewhat, but I think that comedians are also just like anyone else — we’re sad, we’re happy, we’re angry, we’re content. “The reason he succeeded in law is because he’s sad?” Well, no. We contain multitudes.

BS: George Will once wrote about sports being a cultural unifier. Are you a sports fan in general, or is there one that sticks out for you?

PO: Never followed sports, sorry.

BS: Really? I have this theory about guys: they can not drink at all, or they can not follow sports, but they can’t do both, or other guys on a certain level distrust him.

PO: I don’t know about that. I enjoy drinking, but I know friends who don’t follow sports or drink, and they’re perfectly fine. So I’ve never thought of it that way. I think that’s way too sweaty a generalization, sorry.

BS: My theory crumbles down around me, then. Maybe that only applies to less enlightened folks. What about Robert, then — did he talk about what fandom meant to him?

PO: I think it’s based on his imagination about these people that call into these shows. You get this two-minute glimpse into people’s lives, and he must have thought how empty and desperate it is, or does it just seem that way to other people? Are they actually content and happy? I actually think this guy’s fandom is pretty extreme, just not to him. He doesn’t judge it, or see anything wrong with it, so the only time he gets irritated is when people try to compare him to life, but he’s rejected life, so why are they comparing him? That’s what frustrates him a little bit.

BS: Were you familiar at all with this whole AM subculture out there?

PO: The only research I did was to hang out in Staten Island a lot and look at parallels to that kind of obsession in my life, or the lives of my friends — like with politics or movies. I was more interested in the fuel that drives it. Same spark, different fuel, you know? I was more interested in trying to be in tune with the general of it than the specifics, so I never listened to any sports radio or anything.

BS: You’ve missed out, I tell you, because it’s fascinating. …Most especially after losses, the Dodgers and Lakers post-game radio shows have their own entertainment value. So you wrote for MadTV for many years; doing more performing, is that muscle something you still exercise regularly, or only when the urge strikes?

PO: I still write. I like to do all three — write, do stand-up and act. They all interest me, so I’ve stoppped thinking of it in terms of career phases, like, “Well, that’s over, now I’m acting.” What it really comes down to is I want the money and the anecdotes, so it’s got to be something interesting to me and it has to pay. Stories and memories are currency to me.

BS: You did some writing for the stand-up material in Funny People, and Judd Apatow was effusive in his praise of you.

PO: Really? I’m so excited about that guy’s career, just as a film buff. …As exotic as the subject matter may seem to some people, he always ties it back to how it effects people, he makes it so universal. I haven’t seen that in a filmmaker in a while. There seems to be this new crop of guys, like David Gordon Green and the guy who made Man Push Cart and Chop Shop (Ramin Bahrani), and then Kathryn Bigelow always — we’ve been in such a rut of special effects and blood ballets that now we’re getting back to the idea of, “Hey, what happens when you shoot a human face when something is happening to it?” There’s something so beautiful about that.

BS: What was it like crafting material for fictionalized characters, essentially slipping on other voices?

PO: Well, it was funny, because depending on where the character was in the movie — someone like Seth Rogen’s character, who early in the movie was a very inept comedian — you could kind of go with the first joke that came to mind, which is what beginning comedians do, they don’t dig deep. And then as the movie progressed I could flex those muscles more. But it was kind of nostalgic for me to go, “Oh yeah, when I was starting out I would go with the very first joke that popped into your head and that was the routine.”

BS: How long, then, when you write for stand-up, does it take for a new routine to take shape?

PO: It’s different, man, because I don’t write before I go on stage. I just go on stage over and over again until I hone the thing down. It changes every time. Sometimes I get it pretty early on, sometimes it takes a few times. Sometimes I do something that doesn’t work, I put it away and bring it back later, and it goes off like a rocket. So my technique is to just go on stage over and over again until I get it where I want it. That’s my only technique.

BS: So is it built, at least very loosely, around certain themes or ideas?

PO: I don’t have set themes or ideas, it’s just based on whatever is affecting me. And I don’t know what that’s going to be anymo
re. They’re coming in fast and furious. Everything in your life is going to change your comedic point-of-view — living your life, getting older. So I just accept everything, without being judgmental about what’s coming in, and looking at it from new angles.

BS: Was a comedic outlook on life something that formed early, and/or came naturally for you?

PO: Yeah, I had a really good childhood. My parents were great and we saw a lot of humor in things, and that became a much better way to accept life for me than pessimism or fear. The people around me that had a sense of humor seemed to be getting more out of life than the people who took things so seriously. And I wanted more out of life so I went with the comedic route.

BS: There you go. Back to Big Fan, what was Robert like as a director, because I don’t know that, unless people were told, they would maybe put together that this was also the guy who wrote The Wrestler and also used to edit The Onion.

PO: Well, he had so many other things on his mind, like the money and locations, that he was a great director because he didn’t have time to talk to me, so we were all allowed to breathe and develop our characters. But I think that he wanted that anyway, that he doesn’t want to bother you with (affecting a whiny voice), “This is what I think.” So he let everyone figure out their own thing, and he trusted everyone. He cast exactly who he wanted, and he got what he wanted.

BS: There’s such a great specificity of place to the film.

PO: That was him and (cinematographer) Michael Simmonds really looking around Staten Island and shooting the hell out of it. The bleakness was beautiful, and they really captured that.

BS: Back to the touring life of a comedian — what were the salad years like?

PO: Oh, I would do almost 200 shows a year at one point, not just on the road but also in town — you’d just go up every night. I don’t have a chance to go up as much, but when I do I have the same circle of friends that I think are all funnier than me, that I aspire to — which is good, because it keeps me working hard, rather than thinking that I’m the funniest guy in the room. Maybe I just subconsciously didn’t let certain aspects of the salad days end, so they’re still with me, which is good.

BS: You seem like a pretty film savvy guy. What kind of movies do you most enjoy watching?

PO: Anything good. I’ve moved beyond genres. So to me a documentary like The September Issue or Not Quite Hollywood is just as valid to me as The Hurt Locker or Crank 2 or The Hangover or In the Loop. As long as it’s good, that’s what I like. Fuck, is [In the Loop] great! I was like a starving man when that came out… then I saw it, (and was) so happy.

Just a Heads Up…

Probably going dark for a few days… on the road, panning for gold. Don’t take any wooden nickels.

Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Rocket’s Blastoff

Debuting in 2005 as a television series specifically for preschoolers, Disney Little Einsteins was created in conjunction with both child development experts and musicians, which helps make it colorful but also slyly educational. The lovable and diverse cast of the show — Leo, June, Quincy, Annie and Rocket — each bring a special talent to the group of spirited adventurers. Leo is six years old, loves music, and is the conductor of the group. Annie is four years old and Leo’s sister. She loves to sing, and can make up a song on the spot. She’s also the only one who can fly Rocket all by herself. Five-year-old jokester Quincy is a musical virtuoso who plays any instrument he gets his hands on, and especially likes the trumpet and violin. June is six years old and loves dancing; her leaps, spins and twirls help change the direction of each mission. The magical Rocket, meanwhile, is the best friend of all four children; he has lots of gadgets, and can transform himself into anything imaginable.

Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Rocket’s Blastoff collects four episodes of the series, in which the Little Einsteins set out on rescue missions that take place in all corners of the world. In the never-before-seen title episode, Rocket transforms into a hybrid fire truck rocket, and the Einsteins rush to rescue an adorable monkey from an erupting volcano on the tropical island of Java. The second episode is “Melody the Music Pet,” which features the Little Einsteins in France, watching animals board the special train that takes pets to their new homes. When Melody can’t find her ticket for the train, Leo and company promise to help Melody find it; an adventure ensues that takes them over Monet’s famous painting of lily pads, through the French countryside and all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower. In “Carmine’s Big Race,” meanwhile, the Little Einsteins head to the Grand Prix in Monaco to cheer for Quincy’s friend Carmine, a musical car. The final episode is “Mr. Penguin’s Ice Cream Adventure,” in which the team explores the Patagonia region of South America.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Rocket’s Blastoff comes to DVD presented in a 1.33:1 full screen aspect ratio, rated TV-Y in the United States and G in Canada. Audio tracks are available in English, Spanish and French, and the DVD also features a “Magic Mission Viewing Mode,” which let little viewers use the remote
control to answer fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes. The title has micro appeal, to be sure — kids older than six years old will become bored quickly, and squirm away from the set — but for younger viewers there’s a lot to like here, especially since the aforementioned interactive options split into two levels, meaning four- to six-year-olds don’t have to cycle through the same super-easy-to-answer questions as pre-verbal toddlers. To purchase the title via Amazon, click here. B (Show) B- (Disc)

An Email to Congressman Joe Wilson

A simple thing, really, my email to South Carolina Congressman and heckler extraordinaire Joe Wilson, and from the heart:

I was very disheartened to hear about and then see your display this past evening during the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress. How old are you, sir? It’s empty shenanigans like this — lame, self-centered theatrics, and hamfisted attempts at nominal political point-scoring instead of actually working constructively, like an adult, to solve our nation’s problems — that turn off so many people to the political process. Maybe that’s your motivation, and aim. I certainly hope not. Or maybe for you politics is just a cool, cushy job that has a lot of nice perks and a solid retirement package. But in debasing public debate on such a pivotal issue, on playing cheaply to ungrounded fears, you do a disservice to your constituents and all Americans.

I doubt you’ll find reason to take my words to heart, and give them a deeper consideration amidst the torrent of… oh, less reasoned vitriol you’ll no doubt be receiving in the coming days. But you have embarrassed yourself, your party and the state of South Carolina, Mr. Wilson. That is the truth of the matter. I understand that you have apologized, and that’s a good thing, honestly. But to me your behavior is symptomatic of a deeper ill, and for that reason I can only say that I hope you find yourself looking for a new job in the latter part of 2010.

And you can leave him a message too, don’t you know, via Twitter, or his endless-campaign web site.

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