Month: July 2013

Garance previews the upcoming Wikileaks movie, The Fifth Estate:

Based on Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World’s Most Dangerous Website and David Leigh and Luke Harding’s WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, the film covers the heady early days of the site and appears from the trailer, which was just released, to cast Assange as a heroic visionary who takes things too far. “You can’t change change the world without crashing the system,” the movie trailer says. It would seem an apt tagline for Snowden’s activities, too — and a reminder that it’s only a matter of time before he also becomes the ripped from the headlines personality at the center of a major film.

David Haglund considers Julian Assange’s own response to the film’s script:

More Dish on leaking on the big screen here.

Wesley Morris was impressed by Pacific Rim‘s scale:

Del Toro is a dreamer. He’s a visionary. If you give him a pile of money to make enormous robots fight enormous monsters at the end of civilization, he will work to make Pacific Rim a movie that makes you feel all the enormousness. He will put you at the feet of the monsters and inside the bellies of the beasts. He will do what a movie about big reptiles and big machines is supposed to do: make you look up, make you feel as if the screen is grossly inadequate to contain what’s on it, even though, if you’re charmed — or strategic — you’re already watching the movie on the biggest screen you possibly can.

Tasha Robinson ponders the meaning of the massive monsters in the movie:

[Del Toro’s] discussions of the film suggest its overriding message is “Japanese monster movies were totally badass.” He seems more interested in enthusiastically paying homage to entertainment he loves—rubber-suit monsters and anime from Voltron to Neon Genesis Evangelion—than in tapping into current cultural or societal anxieties. Certainly returning to the nuclear panic of the 1960s, the heart of the kaiju boom, would feel dated at this point.

If you need a metaphor, though, I think you can dig one up: Pacific Rim’s kaiju are a devastating worldwide threat that can hit anywhere at any time, and dealing with them is expressly beyond the resources of any one country.

As del Toro said in his interview with Slashfilm, he wanted them to feel like “a charging force of nature.” So if there’s a metaphor at work, I’d say it’s global climate change, and the fear that it’s producing increasingly deadly events like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2011 Japanese Pacific-coast tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, not to mention disasters like Hurricane Katrina. The kaiju could well be symbols of these huge, unpredictable events, and the need for a unified global response.

Jeff Yang relates the monsters to Japanese culture:

In Shinto belief, all objects have spirits, and all spirits have the ability to become gods — or demons. “Japanese monsters, or yokai, were originally called ‘bakemono’ — literally, ‘transformed thing,’” says [Matt Alt]. In Japan, “robots are an anthropomophization of the power of technology, [and] the organic kaiju are an anthropomorphization of the power of nature, or of the effects of human technology on it.”

As a result, the titanic clashes of the kaiju and mecha genres aren’t just sequences of gleeful destruction for destruction’s sake — they’re metaphysical conflicts; wars of ideas as much as anything else.

Matt Singer focuses on another aspect of the film. He couldn’t stop wincing while listening to Pacific Rim star Charlie Hunnam, who is British, try to pull off an American accent:

[W]e keep getting these uncomfortable performances from hunky international heroes like Hunnam, Worthington, and Butler, who look great but sound terrible. Maybe that’s another manifestation of the rise of international box office as a driving force in Hollywood. Massive special effects travel; regional cultural nuances do not. Movies made for a global audience put spectacle at a premium over everything else. In most foreign markets, the dialogue is going to be subtitled or dubbed anyway, so the spoken word moves even lower on the film’s list of priorities. People come to see Charlie Hunnam fight the monsters, not talk them to death.

Forrest Wickman, on the other hand, thinks the increasing importance of foreign markets isn’t all bad. He notes that they “offer the incentive to make use of more diverse casts, and to tell more stories whose heroes aren’t exclusively American.”

Liz Cheney is running for Senate:

Larison wonders what her candidacy is trying to accomplish:

It goes without saying that there is nothing wrong with challenging incumbents, and launching intra-party challenges can be an important means to hold politicians accountable when they ignore their constituents or cease to be effective advocates for the people that put them in office. The obvious flaw in Cheney’s challenge is that Enzi has done nothing to anger voters in Wyoming or conservatives nationally. Other than trying to re-establish the Cheney family in Wyoming politics, her candidacy serves no purpose.

Friedersdorf reviews her record:

Liz Cheney hasn’t just embraced the objectionable actions and positions of neoconservative Republicans. She has also earned an independent reputation as someone who participates in weak, laughable, and even scurrilous attacks on ideological opponents that can only cast doubt on her judgment and moral character. The weak, laughable attacks are often aimed at President Obama, of whom I am often critical. But even people who hold Obama in low esteem can’t help but feel embarrassed on behalf of commentators who discredit themselves by making absurd claims like, “He’s unwilling to go after the terrorists that are threatening the nation.” To deny Obama’s willingness to go after terrorists is to be deeply ignorant, ideologically blinkered, or a liar. None of those qualities is desirable in an aspiring U.S. Senator.

A TPM reader expects her to lose:

I think Liz Cheney just made a fatal career move. Having lived in WY for 35 years, I do not believe that Liz can beat Enzi. I think this is going to cause all kinds of hard feelings in Wyoming because this kind of disrespect to a man who has done nothing to deserve being disrespected in this way will simply not sit well. It’s a very east coast kind of move (think Cory Booker) and will only serve to remind people that Liz Cheney has absolutely no real history in Wyoming.

She also seems to have forgotten a very basic element of the WY electoral process, i.e., we have same day voter registration and Democrats routinely turn into Republicans when they walk into the polling place for the primary and then switch back to Democrat on their way out. Personally, I’ve done this at least 4 or 5 times and I will surely do it again next year. Democrats often do this simply to meddle in the Republican primary, often to vote for the most conservative crazy in the field. But this time, I am sure a lot of Dems will happily switch just for the joy of voting against Liz Cheney.

What a joy it would be to see this pro-torture talk radio pugilist soundly defeated. But she’ll have neocon money. And her Daddy’s rolodex.

This [NYT] is great news – especially for Dish Publishing LLC – and bad news for those conservatives who loathe the market-friendly insurance exchanges solely because president Obama included them in the ACA:

Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the federal health care law take effect, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday. State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower.

Again, it’s worth noting that these efficiencies are gained by competition, an idea that was once pioneered by the Heritage Foundation. Now, their hatred of Obama has made them hate their own policies. Jonathan Cohn goes into more detail on how Obamacare is spurring competition:

New York … seems to be reaping the benefits of a more competitive market. Based on the filings, it appears that some insurers are pricing very aggressively, trying to underbid competitors. Some will price too low, and end up losing money, while others may be saving in ways consumers won’t like—say, by offering very limited networks of doctors and hospitals. But the insurers will find a price that works for them. Meanwhile, people can pick and choose the plan they want, which is something many simply can’t do now because they can’t really compare benefits and prices, or because they lack the money to pay for insurance in the first place. As New York officials pointed out today, per capita health care costs in the state are among the highest in the country. But these new premium rates are actually slightly lower than what the Congressional Budget Office had projected for a nationwide average. That’s an encouraging sign.

Sarah Kliff explains why New York is nonetheless an outlier:

A headline about the health care law driving down premiums, by this level of magnitude, is a rarity. But it shouldn’t be shocking: New York has, for two decades now, had the highest individual market premiums in the country.

A lot of it seems to trace back to a law passed in 1993, which required insurance plans to accept all applicants, regardless of how sick or healthy they were. That law did not, however, require everyone to sign up, as the Affordable Care Act does.

New York has, for 20 years now, been a long-running experiment in what happens to universal coverage without an individual mandate. It’s the type of law the country would have if House Republicans succeeded in delaying the individual mandate, as they will vote to do this afternoon. The result: a small insurance market with very high insurance premiums.

Beutler agrees:

The news out of New York vindicates the consensus view that the mandate-subsidize-regulate policy only works if it includes a mandate, subsidies, and regulations. This vindication couldn’t be better-timed, as the House of Representative gears up to vote on legislation to delay the mandate for a year.

Yglesias adds:

The haters are out in force already on Twitter to observe that this is happening due to special state-specific features of New York that won’t impact people elsewhere. That’s true, but this is a big deal anyway.

The first reason is that New York is a really big state. Its almost 20 million residents account for over 6 percent of the American population. In terms of the number of people impacted, a huge improvement in the health insurance market in New York is a bigger deal than a huge improvement in New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, D.C., Vermont, and Wyoming combined. So it’s true that if you live outside New York state this is not good news for you, personally. But if you’re capable of some human empathy, then it’s good news for an awful lot of people and you might care about that.

A reader writes:

I feel weird telling you this, but your blog and its ongoing coverage of circumcision culminated around the fourth or fifth month of my wife’s pregnancy with our first child. She and I decided to not have him circumcised. Your blog had much to do with this decision.

What struck me about it in the hospital is how ingrained the process is across other aspects of post-natal care. Many nurses told us not to worry about the pain of the blood samples because it’s “so much less painful than circumcision”. The same goes for the surgery my son had on his frenulum to aid in breastfeeding. Everyone has a standard response: “The pain might be severe, but it’s nothing compared to his circumcision”. I don’t know if that means anything or not, but we corrected them when they gave that assurance, and I could tell that it was the first time they had stopped to think about it in a while.

Another dissents:

Even if you believe that circumcision should be ended – something I’m by no means convinced of – I question whether this documentary is the proper vehicle towards that dubious end. For one, I question the applicability of the title “documentary” to what is clearly an advocacy piece.

Though we’ve become accustomed to biased documentaries, from “Obama 2016” to “Capturing the Friedmans” and “Farenheit 9/11,” it’s long-past time to make a distinction between a nonfiction film that informs and tells a story, like “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” and a nonfiction film that argues and selectively presents facts, like any of the above.

“American Secret” falls clearly into the advocacy category, and though coasting on the “documentary” label, it makes damn sure you know it. The Kickstarter’s tagline – “One Nation Under the Knife” – is off-puttingly alarmist. Based on the film’s web presence, it also intends to use outdated, 19th century justifications for circumcision to argue against the modern practice, a rhetorical fallacy you see more often in anti-abortion extremists and creationists.

The film’s website also seems to imply that doctors continue routine circumcision because of the profit involved. That converts an argument that could be about education – doctors just don’t know that circumcision is bad, so they should be taught – into the serious accusation that doctors knowingly mangle children for money. There’s no easier way to alienate the middle, and kill a growing movement, than to impugn the intentions of those you’re trying to convince.

Beyond that, the film also charges that doctors could (and should) face civil litigation for circumcising a newborn child without the child’s consent. I have found no authority for this “wrongful circumcision” claim. Though there is litigation over botched circumcision, and doctors have faced discipline for circumcising over the parents’ direct objection, those are very different matters.

Though I don’t believe now that circumcision should be ended, I would be willing to be shown otherwise. I bet much of the public feels similarly. A film that lectures the audience, and histrionically converts a public-education cause into a fight against some massive conspiracy, with your family doctor as the principal villain, is not the vehicle to perform that task.

The presentation of difficult issues is what the Dish does best. So, I urge you to take a second look at this issue.

I think it’s a little unfair to judge a documentary that hasn’t been made yet, although I sure hope, for the sake of the argument, that they don’t go in the histrionic MSNBC/FNC direction my reader suspects. The one point I’d make against my reader’s worries is that noting the financial incentives for circumcision for doctors and hospitals need not degenerate into name-calling. It’s just one small part of the fee-for-service bloat the ACA is trying to reduce. The producers would be better served by simply laying out the facts and arguments as clearly as possible. Like the case for marriage equality, why add lots of heat when you will win by simply adding light?