You Know Your Homeschooling Program Is Going Well....

...when your kid identifies John Dickinson on the HBO series "John Adams" strictly from his dialogue.

Damn. I'm not smarter than that fifth grader. (OK, seventh grader. But still.)

EDIT: On the other hand, when he's worried that George Washington is going to kill someone with a bat...

EDIT: On the third hand, it's a little spooky when he looks at the young Adams boy and says, "Oh, yeah, that's Charles Adams. He was a total loser. Dies an alcoholic. Costs Adams the 1800 election."

Kelly takes on John Adams

My pal Kelly has a nice entry on John Adams up, comparing the book and the movie, looking at historical accuracy, etc.

Check it out! I'm going over there now to comment myself.

Loaded Questions is what you call an "up and coming" blog. She's got a nice niche interviewing authors, and she'll turn it into a major hot spot in no time.

The Maelstrom, on the other hand, is more of a swamp blog. The only thing buoying it are the occasional pairs of pointy breasts.

John Adams echoes Freeman Hunt

Do you remember this post by Freeman Hunt called "He Is Not Coming"? I responded to that one twice, here and here.but I'm currently reading David McCullough's book John Adams. And I came across this interesting passage:

"I wander alone, and ponder. I muse, I mope, I ruminate," he wrote in the seclusion of his diary. "We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, education, in travel, fortune—in everything. I feel an unutterable anxiety."

It must be admitted that to some degree the times create the character of the people. The Greatest Generation is considered to be the greatest because of their handling of the Depression and World War II. And, frankly, I don't think they handled Great Depression that well since they left us a legacy of unsustainable social programs, to say nothing of a compromised Constitution. We won't even get started on their child-rearing abilities.

I think there's a real opportunity here for greatness and I think the American people are up to it. I guess what I'm saying is that he may not be coming but perhaps we are.

Today on "The Boy vs the HBO series 'John Adams'"...

"Actually, only six of the soldiers were acquitted. Adams got the other two off on a technicality."

Trouble With The Curve

It's not impossible that critics (and some amateur reviewers) were unswayed by Eastwood's speech to an empty chair at the RNC when reviewing Trouble With The Curve but I wouldn't put any money on it. The criticism, raised also by The Boy, is that it's "by the numbers". And it's true, there aren't a lot of surprises in this film.

The Flower loved it. Doubtless because she's an Eastwood fan (Gran Torino is the movie by which all others are measured) but also doubtless because it's not stale for her.

However, I also loved it, and I'll get to why after a quick capsule.

Trouble With The Curve is the story of a baseball scout (Eastwood) who's losing his vision and being threatened by an up-and-coming geeky number cruncher (Matthew Lillard of Scooby-Doo). His longtime bud and team manager (John Goodman, The Artist) goes to bat for him with the Big Boss (Robert Patrick, Autopsy), but then asks his daughter (Amy Adams, Sunshine Cleaning Company) to tag along with him to North Carolina, where a hot young slugger is coming up from the minors. On the road, they meet a charming young scout (Justin Timberlake, In Time).

The father/daughter relationship is the key thing here. Widowed when his daughter was only six, Eastwood's Gus dragged his daughter Mickey with him from state to state, and game to game, until deciding to send her to an aunt and uncle, then later to boarding school. Mickey's still wrestling with the feelings from this, having gotten a law degree and spent seven years with 6-day-a-week-workweeks trying to get a partnership in a Big Law Firm.

As I said, there's no real surprise here; it felt like an old school Hollywood film. Almost all the characters are likable and even the small parts are played by familiar faces like George Wyner and Chelcie Ross.

So, why did I like it so much? The relationship between Gus and Mickey is excellently done. First, big props to Amy Adams, who is by turns a tough lawyer, a vulnerable woman, a little girl, a sassy teen—she basically plays out a lifetime in this one role. Eastwood does a similar trick, by turns seeming like his old self (say, ca. 1980), imposing and sorta dangerous, but at other times frail and unbelievably old.

The brilliance of this movie is in the direction and camerawork that plays all these ages of Gus and Mickey against each other. Eastwood and Adams have a wonderful chemistry and, perhaps surprisingly for a Clint Eastwood movie, the film is a character study and an acting showcase, and it kept me captivated through the satisfyingly predictable story arc.

Timberlake is good, too. I feel like I have to mention that because every time I read a review of a movie with him in it, they say "Justin Timberlake is really talented, dammit!" (I guess the rancor is due to his early success as a teen heartthrob or his deflowering of Britney, but I think it's time to let that go. Dude can act and is unsurprisingly convincing as a charming suitor.)

This is the first time at the helm for frequent Eastwood assistant director, Robert Lorenz, and it reminds a bit of The Thing From Another World, in the sense that the '50s sci-fi horror flick had Howard Hawks' fingerprints all over it, just as this has many of Eastwood's trademarks.

Not a bad thing, in either case.

I can't say it's for everyone because some people couldn't care less about the character studies. But we all enjoyed it, even if the Boy felt it was slow in parts.

Manic Monday Apocalypso: The Star-Spangled Bunker

A crazed squad of mujaheddin infiltrate nuclear silos over the world and start a nuclear holocaust. The shattered remnants of the world's societies struggle for survival, still fending off squadrons of fanatical muslims trying to bring about the End Times and the 12th Imam, and look like they're going down for good.

America has a secret weapon, though: Operation Cheops. Hidden in an underground bunker and using ancient Egyptian technology, the Presidents of the United States have been preserved, only to be awoken in the event of America's collapse.

Thrill! As Generals Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower gather the greatest army of survivors, pure-blooded and mutant under the command of George Washingon!

Swoon! To the impassioned cries for liberty and unity from Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt!

Gasp! At the secret ops conducted under the aegis of Richard M. Nixon and William Howard Taft!

You'll be on the edge of your seat when John Adams resolves to put these Barbary Pirates down once and for all!

Or you would be if this were a real movie and I weren't just making it up as I typed.

Win Win

Thomas McCarthy is an odd duck. A moderately successful character actor—one of those guys you say "Hey, he was in Law and Order or something, wasn't he?"—he's also directed three very successful little indie films.

What's truly odd about it, though, is that if you had to describe his movies, you'd be inclined to use words like "benign", "good-hearted", and even "moral". His debut was the unique slice-of-life film The Station Agent, and his follow-up was the widely acclaimed The Visitor.

Now we have Win Win, the story of a struggling lawyer/wrestling coach whose life is changed when the teenage grandson of his ward wanders into his life.

When this movie was first promoted, I was saying "I wonder if Paul Giamatti will be John Adams cranky, Harvey Pekar cranky or Miles Raymond cranky?"

Probably the biggest shock of this movie is that Giamatti isn't cranky at all. He's genial. Amiable, even. He's a hugely decent New Jersey lawyer (!) named Mike Flaherty who specializes in helping old folks out. After regular hours, he coaches the local high school's awful wrestling club. And he's in some financial trouble.

Relief, of a sort, comes in the shape of Burt Young (who, at 70, looks healthier to me than he did in his 30s). Burt Young plays Leo Poplar, a rich old man whose early onset dementia requires a guardianship that can bring in a small amount of needed cash.

Mike is a really decent guy, so you're a bit taken aback—disappointed even—when he commits his sin. He maintains his decency in almost every regard (though he is forced to do some lying to cover it up, of course) and so you're almost inclined to give him a pass.

This feeling is reinforced when Kyle shows up. Kyle is the 16-year-old grandson of Leo, who's run away from home (sort of). His mother is in rehab and his mother's live-in boyfriend is an abusive jerk, so Kyle decided to come see his grandfather (whom he has never met).

Kyle ends up staying with Leo and his hard-bitten wife (Amy Ryan) and their two daughters, where he blossoms in a normal, healthy household environment. With Mike's sin sitting there in the background waiting to blow the whole thing to bits.

The first two thirds of the story has Kyle, who happens to have been an excellent wrestler back in Ohio, re-entering wrestling on Mike's team, and rediscovering his talents. Mike coaches the team with his law partner/office roommate (played by the inestimable Jeffrey Tambor) and brings on his rich high school pal (played by Bobby Cannavale, also of The Station Agent).

The wrestling stuff is both entertaining and inspirational, as the team gets better and better with Kyle's leadership.

Cannavale's character's Terry is an interesting counterpoint to the humble Leo. He's a wealthy guy; his wife has left him for a handyman, although not actually left so much as kicked him out of his massive house. He's got himself a condo which he's already fully stocked with furniture, a big TV and a Wii. But he's miserable. He was a terrible wrestler in high school, but comes to see coaching as the only way to take his mind off his troubles.

The contrast is wonderful, as both are completely oblivious. Mike's never even seen a Wii (the cheapest of gaming consoles). Yet you never get a sense of jealousy or bitterness from him. It never occurs to him to ask for help from Terry—the opposite, really, as Terry frequently finds himself envious of Mike.

The final piece of the puzzle emerges when Kyle's mother shows up. I found myself thinking, "Hey, this is the best acting I've ever seen Drew Barrymore do! But that's not Drew Barrymore." It was, in fact, Melanie Lynskey, an actress like Thomas McCarthy, in that you've seen her a lot but probably don't know her name.

Good acting all around, although I've seen some criticisms of young Alex Shaffer's performance as Kyle. I can only assume those criticisms come from people who have never known teenage boys, particularly those who have had traumatic backgrounds. I found his flat affect very recognizable.

The Boy and I both enjoyed this immensely. Interesting, deep characters involved in serious moral conflicts. Easy contender for best film of the year to date.

Riki Tiki Trumbo

For a brief shining moment in the '50s, anti-communist groups ran rough-shod over the Constitution and engaged in ineffective attempts to identify and rout out the massive Soviet infiltration of the government, education and entertainment industries.

This was a great moment for, well, the useful idiots that the USSR cultivated so carefully because they would forever point to it as vindication of all their beliefs. Other things, like the historical murderousness of their idols and the direct correlation of their ideals with the failures (indeed, destructions) of societies where they were employed, tend to garner less attention then the ten screenwriters who were blacklisted.

Also seldom mentioned is the fact that Hollywood, which routinely congratulates itself for its bravery and social advances, powered the blacklist, extending what might have been a relatively minor aberration. (The blacklist officially ended in the '90s! what a profile in courage!)

Caught in this collusion of stupidity was one of the great screenwriters, Dalton Trumbo. A truculent, principled man who refused to cooperate with the fumbling bullies of the House Un-American Activities Commitee, and who paid dearly for not playing ball.

That said, a movie that is part biography and part actors reading Trumbo's letters had a chance to be very, very bad indeed. I was a little concerned at first, since the first thing up is an absolutely horrible quote from Johnny Got His Gun. This may work better if you are more familiar with the story, but out of context, if you hear it it sort of sounds like, "Hey, yeah, that guy was a Commie!"

The rest of the movie is better, though, as Trumbo wasn't a simple person. Too smart to demonize his enemies, but not so sublimely serene that he was above ripping them a new one. The movie excels when it focuses on the personal, how he dealt with the oppression, letters he wrote to his family, and a high point when Paul Giammati relates two letters he wrote to the phone company.

Other readers include Joan Allen, Michael Douglas and Liam Neesom, while Kirk Douglas is interviewed, and a lot of archive footage is used, as you might imagine, since most of the principals are long dead. All things stemmed from the HUAC's abuse of power (and the shocking acquiescence of the Supreme Court), but with the exception of jail, the worst the family endured seem to come from what you might call freelance assholes: The movie studio blacklist, the publishers blacklist, the local school groups, realtors, etc.

The left tends to look at this and go "See!?!", to the point where they've basically done the same thing to the right for the past several decades (created a de facto blacklist of those who disagree with them).

You could almost excuse the abuse of power if it had been effective, but the government messed with all these people, and we're still awash in communism, in our schools, in our entertainment, and in our government. (Nationalization of oil companies, anyone?)

But instead, an ineffective government task force wasted tax money to destroy people they didn't like, while doing nothing to actually solve the problem. And they picked some bad targets to have as enemies, probably making the situation worse.

What was especially cool about Trumbo is that you get the idea that he was standing up for something worth standing up for, and that he wouldn't (and didn't) turn around to be a tool for some other political viewpoint.

The Boy liked it as well, though he added, "Not enough of that John Adams guy."

Tea For Two Million

We're feeling inadequate down here at the 'strom because we didn't attend a tea party today. (The ear infection is still kicking my ass--through my ear canal, which tells you something.) I'm of course wild-ass guessing on the above number, 500 protests with 4,000 average people per. The number of protests is probably higher, but the average is probably a lot lower. But that messes with the whole tea-for-two riff.

So, we'll enjoy vicariously through everyone else, and figure there are about 100 people like us who couldn't make it for every person who actually did make it. 200 million, then, objecting to the current amazing expansion of government and debt. Which, even with the exaggerated numbers is still 100 million short of what I'd want to see.

Anyway, here's Freeman Hunt with a video from Reason. Freem puts me to shame, since she's got a newborn and she's making the trek, and what do I have? A lousy ear infection.

Ann Althouse expounds a bit on why she hasn't talked about the tea parties. I pretty much feel the same way as AA, in that I don't really like politics, and I'm really not a joiner. I'm begining to feel like I don't have a choice, though. As John Adams famously said:

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

I hope the "war" part is just metaphorical.

That said, the reaction from the statists is tragic. I thought about fisking a guy who I saw tweeting "rebuttals" last night. Basically, anyone who goes to one of these tea parties is a tool of rich, greedy Republicans (Democrats who are rich of course have their hearts in the right place) and they're all phony anyway and besides, FOX NEWS! LIMBAUGH! HANNITY! BECK! O'REILLY! (Are these guys even that close politically?)

(UPDATE: Patterico responds to one of the essays I thought about fisking.)

Ultimately, I decided life was too short to try to engage people who have no intention of actually communicating. Back when Alpha Liberal first showed up at Althouse I followed all of his links, trying to talk to him. But the links seldom related to what he was saying, or they were assertions being made by other statists, or if there was some real data, it didn't really describe what he said it did.

But he never really addressed anything I wrote. You've seen this, I'm sure. They say, "A!" and you say, "Well, not quite A, more like A1." Then rather than try to figure out where between "A" and "A1" the truth is, they say, "Well, B!" And they have an inexhaustible source of these assertions because, quite frankly, they're made up.

It isn't just the left that does this, of course, but it seems to be primarily the left that considers it legitimate. If you have two points, "A" and "B", and "A" is completely, obviously not comparable to "B" in terms of scope or relevance, and may even be made up, while "B" is true, this crowd seems to consider the very availability of "A" to be sufficient rebuttal to "B". In fact, if you see them on TV, the game seems to be getting as many of these in as possible.

The relevance of this to the tea parties is that the media is largely pretending these protests didn't happen. The reality is "A", they're saying "B". It will be interesting to see if they have to upgrade that to "Well, they happened, but they weren't very big." Or "Well, they happened, but they're just haters and not important."

Like NBC featuring Chuck Todd, who has dismissed these gatherings. (Though in fairness to Todd, it's not really a Republican thing, so he's probably right that it hasn't "galvanized the party".) Ace of Spades didn't care for the CNN reporter who actually aggressively takes the opposing viewpoint. Another helpful CNN article uses Nazis to illustrate right-wing agitation.

Anyway, I saw pix of the various gatherings on Twitter. Tabitha Hale had some nice ones. InfidelsAreCool had pics from Santa Ana, complete with one of Andrew Breitbart. (God love 'em, but every time he comes on "Red Eye" it seems like he's getting less and less coherent. Preoccupied?) StillStacy linked a nice pic from Denver.

Michelle Malkin has a ton of pics up, and a huge post at her blog. On the other blogs, Ace has a protest babe up. Previous massive pic thread here. Lots of heh over at Instapundit. (UPDATE: Protein Wisdom has a link roundup.)

Here's a graphic that illustrates my main beef with taxes. It isn't just that the gov't takes half of your money directly, it's that they also double the cost of everything we buy. But those costs are usually hidden. So how are they not, in fact, taking most of the money there is? This is why I'm for a per capita tax as the only tax allowed.

I mean, think about it: If your income was doubled, and everything cost half as much? Tell me you wouldn't be willing to give up everything the government "gives you"! You could find some money in that for defense. Probably a few social programs, too.

And that's now. Wait till the bill comes due on the latest spending spree.

Which brings me to another reason I've been somewhat reticent about going to a protest. OK, let's say that there were two million people out there. And they're fed up. What does that translate into? When you're there, what are you doing? What do you hope to accomplish?

I mean, when the left does it, it's for PR. This way the papers can run stories about how people hate the war du jour or Israel or whatever it is they're hating. And I suppose there's that value, because even if the newspapers insist on saying "B!", there is the reality of "A" just sitting out there.

Ideally, these protests would translate into a repeal of all the legislation passed to date, from the Bear-Stearns bailout, insofar as that's possible. And a confirmation that such legislation was never to be passed again, or at least not quickly. At least, that's what I think. But what do the other two million think?

And wouldn't it have been better if the government just hadn't gotten itself involved in all this stuff 100 years ago?