Category: The Dish

by Peter Suderman      

As I predicted in my review, it looks like a number of high-profile critics weren’t too kind to Be Kind Rewind (if only Reihan had reviewed it!).  David Edelstein seems sort of amused by it, but says it could have used "a little slickness." Jonathan Rosenbaum wants to like it, but writes that "it’s hard not to gag on the cuteness," and Anthony Lane is even harsher: "Every minute of Gondry’s film is irrefutable proof that charm is not enough."

Maybe not enough for Lane, but it’s certainly enough for me. Each of Gondry’s previous three films has been a paean to artistic melancholy.  He’s got a penchant for moping, innocent, childlike protagonists with a creative bent—Jim Carrey’s melancholy cartoonist in Eternal Sunshine, Gael García Bernal’s Stephane in The Science of Sleep. And to some degree, he romanticizes these free-spirited child-men, but also doesn’t force them into hero modes that might be more commercial but aren’t supported by the characters.  Instead, he allows them to experience failure, gently and with dignity, and then lightly suggests that maybe, just maybe, sometimes failure is okay. Yes, it’s an uncommercial creative’s fantasy, a universe not driven by markets or popular opinion, but it’s a refreshingly different view of the world than the manic success-driven ethos that fuels most Hollywood productions. 

The gimmick of "Rewind," by the way, is that big-budget movies get remade on the cheap free with a sort of ramshackle, reckless amateurism. For reasons that are impossible to explain, these remakes come to known as "Sweded" versions. (To give you an idea, you can see a "Sweded" version of the actual movie trailer here.) I think it may be appropriate to think of this week’s guest-posting here at the Dish this week—or at least mine anyway—as Andrew Sullivan: Sweded!

[Peter Suderman] Over at the American Spectator, J.P. Freire has what I think is the smartest take on the McCain brouhaha I’ve seen so far. The real revelation here, he says, is that even a politician as seemingly devoted to principle as John McCain can’t live up to the ethics standards he’s promoted (and run into trouble with conservatives for doing so):

The NRA and the ACLU both can’t buy ad time in the days before an election because doing so, by virtue of the ethical senator’s own philosophy, is manipulating the people and hurting democracy. But when McCain hops a flight with a campaign contributor, it ought to be obvious that he’s maintaining his integrity. Why is it that associations comprised of every day citizens are suspect, but a powerful politician is not? 

Sure, it’s a bait and switch. But it’s a very good one because it demonstrates the very problem presented by the John McCain School of Ethics. This is not a story about what happened. It’s a story about what could have happened. What was feared to have happened. What, it must be assumed in good faith, did not happen. Campaign advisers were afraid that "the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity."

[Patrick Appel]

It’s getting closer. The basis for each candidate’s support:

In Texas, Clinton’s being kept competitive by support from Hispanics; she needs them to turn out in more-than-usual numbers, as they did in California, which she won Feb. 5. In Ohio she’s benefiting from a greater number of Democratic Party regulars than in Texas, fewer college-educated or higher-income voters, and support from union households. In both states, senior citizens are crucial to Clinton’s side; independents and younger voters, to Obama’s. And he’s taken a lead over Clinton on electability, a point he may try to drive home, along with his mantle of “change,” in the days ahead.

Bellingham, Washington, 2.15 pm.

[Patrick Appel]

Marc makes an interesting point:

This was the night where we all learned that Hillary Clinton understands the moment in history we are in, and that she is smart enough and gracious enough to realize that her party is more important than personal vanity, that there are things she just cannot say about Obama because it would hurt him in the fall, and that more likely than not, she will not win the nomination.

[Patrick Appel]

To my eyes, there wasn’t much new tonight. They debated health care mandates for the nth time, there was a more detailed discussion of immigration, and there was some talk about current affairs.

Clinton getting booed for saying, “that’s change we can Xerox,” trying to zing Obama on the alleged plagiarism charge, shows just how little that line of attack resonates with voters. She was good tonight. He was better. Her response to the final question was the most emotional I have seen her give in a debate (it was a good moment for her), but I didn’t see anything sufficient to stop Obama’s momentum. We’ll see what the voters of Texas in Ohio thought soon enough.

[Patrick Appel]

They’re being civil. Color me surprised. I guess Mandy Grunwald won her argument with Mark Penn.

They have been fairly candid about immigration (at least compared to the drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants flap). My bet is they know McCain can’t come after them on immigration since he supported immigration reform himself (not to mention the points they can score on this issue in a place like Texas).

[Jim Manzi]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) has introduced a bill to provide government prizes to anyone who can demonstrate practical technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  I have written extensively in support of such a program as one component of a research-based policy to address the risk of global warming, and obviously think it’s a great idea.  Here’s why, in a nutshell:

I have written a lot about the fact that if (and it’s a big if) our climate and economics models are correct, then rapid, aggressive measures to reduce carbon emissions are not a good idea.  The big question, of course, is what would happen if our models turn out to underestimate the impacts of emissions by a huge margin.

Consider such a case in which we learn 40 years from now that our predictions were wrong – and not just by a little, but so wrong that they are outside the probability distribution of model forecasts in a so-called “black swan” event.  Suppose further that we had implemented the often-proposed ideal policy of a perfectly-implemented, globally-harmonized carbon tax on February 21, 2008 that ramps up over time to reflect the estimated external costs of carbon.  Under a typical implementation of this policy the optimal tax burden would be relatively low for the next several decades and then ramp up over time. In everyday terms, the gasoline tax, for example, would be about 9 cents per gallon through 2010, and would then ramp up to about 25 cents per gallon by 2050. To put this in perspective, the typical US state already has about a 40 – 50 cent per gallon gas tax, and a typical Western European country has gas taxes of several dollars per gallon. We are not going to transform our economy with such a tax; major changes really start in the latter half of the upcoming century.

In the disaster scenario I have described, which would you rather have: the lowered emissions and associated technological change created by a 10 – 20 cent per gallon increase in fuel prices, or decades of directed research to build technological options?  Investing in technology is lower-cost, and actually provides greater protection in a disaster than emissions reductions.

[Patrick Appel] The Office’s Rainn Wilson auditions for the part of Paulie Bleeker in Juno:

[Peter Suderman] Here’s James Pethokoukis on the general shape of Obamanomics:

What is the economic philosophy of Democratic front-runner Barack Obama? I will elaborate on this later, but for now, think of it this way: He’s Robert Rubin on trade (pretty much keep it open but help workers), Warren Buffett on taxes (higher rates really don’t affect what rich folks do, so crank ’em up! ), and Robert Reich on spending (balance the budget later, "invest" now in education and science).

I’ve noticed a minor trend of Obama-support amongst libertarians (Dan Koffler, for one, and there appear to be several Facebook groups as well), and if you’re looking primarily at foreign policy, as Tyler Cowen advises, that’s certainly reasonable. On the other hand, as far as domestic policy goes, I think anyone with small-government instincts ought to take a moment to consider the above.