That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "First Family Material?" and now this is from CBS NEWS:
In an interview with Empire magazine, Scorsese made it clear he's no fan of Marvel superhero movies. "I don't see them. I tried, you know? But that's not cinema," he said. "Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn't the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being."
The Oscar winner's comments immediately sparked outrage among Marvel fans and those who work within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Samuel L. Jackson was asked about it during the grand opening of Tyler Perry's new production studio. "I mean that's like saying Bugs Bunny ain't funny. Films are films. Everybody doesn't like his stuff either," Jackson told Variety on the red carpet.
Not really sure that someone attending the premiere of a Tyler Perry movie is in a position to discuss film.
Movies maybe, but film?
I believe it was Jackson Browne, in the early 80s, who was talking about art to MUSICIAN magazine and he explained the difference between Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg -- Martin believes. Martin's an artist.
Martin's always been an artist. That's why he'll be remembered when the momentary hits are forgotten. And they always are. They don't stand up. June Allyson? She was a huge star. And no one would sit through her crappy movies today. Debbie Reynolds? Same thing. There's SINGING IN THE RAIN and that's really it for her despite having so many hits at the box office.
In the 50s, TITANIC was a huge movie. Today? No one watches it.
That happens over and over.
And that could happen to so many of the superhero films because they are of so little value. Ant-Man's two solo films stand the best chance of being remembered because they were unique and funny. After that? CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER has the stuff needed to be a classic. Possibly CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR as well. SPIDER-MAN? The new actor is inoffensive and, honestly, forgettable. If Tobey Maguire isn't the star, no one's going to take another look at these films in 50 years. And we should note that Tobey's films are directed by the great Sam Raimi.
Over on the DC side? BATMAN and BATMAN RETURNS are films that will be remembered and are remembered. Tim Burton directed them and there are real performances by actors like Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer.
But, yes, the bulk are forgettable. That is especially true of THE AVENGERS -- those films have no relatable villains. They ignore humanity and serve up faceless, characterless villains.
Scorsese's an artist.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, October 7, 2019. It's a snapshot that mentions Carly Simon,
Aretha Franklin, Gore Vidal, Iraqi protesters, Hunter Biden and the
supreme idiot Alyssa Milano.
Let's start with the race in the US for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. And let's start with one of the country's biggest losers, Alyssa Milano.
She was a child actress, she was not a child star. No studio came rushing to her saying, "Let's build a film around you!!!" Not even a movie about a child who ends up in an adult body. Drew Barrymore was a child star. Movies were built around her. As a young adult, both Drew and Alyssa starred in films about Amy Fisher. Drew did a wonderful job portraying Amy and Alyssa played Alyssa before the cameras but they called her "Amy Fisher."
As an adult, Alyssa got by on her boobs. That's all she had to offer. She never took to the time to study acting and she still gives the sort of 'performance' you'd expect from a child actress. She can recite lines very well, she just can't create a character.
She's latched on to #MeToo -- though she didn't create it. Rose McGowen has rightly called her out as fake ass. We have called her that too. Yes, Ileana Douglas is a friend of mine and, yes, Martin Scorsese had told me years ago about what Leslie Moonves did to Ileana. So, yes, I had a reason to defend her (and I noted all of that when I noted it here). What's Alyssa's reason for not standing with Ileana? Oh, that's right, she wanted Leslie to greenlight a TV show for her.
The whore stayed silent -- while preening and posing as brave and pretending to lead on MeToo -- because she wanted a TV show.
So the whore needs to shut up. She won't though.
She has no career and that's all the more pathetic when you grasp that she's married to a William Morris agent who uses the agency to get her jobs. So these pathetic jobs she's had in the last few years? From using the agency. Clients who aren't working and aren't married to a William Morris agent should register that she's getting jobs while they aren't.
She can't act. She thinks doing what she did as a child qualifies as acting. She's a stupid hick who's gotten by on her breasts back when she was young and now depends on hubby to get her jobs.
She can't act.
She's tried to play 'activist.'
One of those attempts include her pushing "PatriotNotPartisan" and she hectors Republicans whom she finds lacking.
But if she truly believed in patriotism over party, she wouldn't reTweet crap like this.
Let's start with the race in the US for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. And let's start with one of the country's biggest losers, Alyssa Milano.
She was a child actress, she was not a child star. No studio came rushing to her saying, "Let's build a film around you!!!" Not even a movie about a child who ends up in an adult body. Drew Barrymore was a child star. Movies were built around her. As a young adult, both Drew and Alyssa starred in films about Amy Fisher. Drew did a wonderful job portraying Amy and Alyssa played Alyssa before the cameras but they called her "Amy Fisher."
As an adult, Alyssa got by on her boobs. That's all she had to offer. She never took to the time to study acting and she still gives the sort of 'performance' you'd expect from a child actress. She can recite lines very well, she just can't create a character.
She's latched on to #MeToo -- though she didn't create it. Rose McGowen has rightly called her out as fake ass. We have called her that too. Yes, Ileana Douglas is a friend of mine and, yes, Martin Scorsese had told me years ago about what Leslie Moonves did to Ileana. So, yes, I had a reason to defend her (and I noted all of that when I noted it here). What's Alyssa's reason for not standing with Ileana? Oh, that's right, she wanted Leslie to greenlight a TV show for her.
The whore stayed silent -- while preening and posing as brave and pretending to lead on MeToo -- because she wanted a TV show.
So the whore needs to shut up. She won't though.
She has no career and that's all the more pathetic when you grasp that she's married to a William Morris agent who uses the agency to get her jobs. So these pathetic jobs she's had in the last few years? From using the agency. Clients who aren't working and aren't married to a William Morris agent should register that she's getting jobs while they aren't.
She can't act. She thinks doing what she did as a child qualifies as acting. She's a stupid hick who's gotten by on her breasts back when she was young and now depends on hubby to get her jobs.
She can't act.
She's tried to play 'activist.'
One of those attempts include her pushing "PatriotNotPartisan" and she hectors Republicans whom she finds lacking.
But if she truly believed in patriotism over party, she wouldn't reTweet crap like this.
Alyssa Milano Retweeted
Dear sane people :
Any time the name Hunter Biden crosses a person’s lips, please inform them of this. twitter.com/doctucson/stat…
This Tweet is unavailable.
Here's the Tweet part that's unavailable now.
Alyssa Milano Retweeted
Dear sane people :
Any time the name Hunter Biden crosses a person’s lips, please inform them of this.
Any time the name Hunter Biden crosses a person’s lips, please inform them of this.
They note how you don't reTweet Neera if you're a feminist. They note Neera is a two-bit bitch who outed a woman who was being sexually harassed at work (Neera was the one who should have stopped the harassment, not covered it up, not outed the female who came forward), they noted that Neera, as revealed in her own e-mails, knew that Hillary shouldn't have used a private e-mail and what a scandal that was, they noted Neera herself has assaulted an employee and so much more.
A polite society doesn't reTweet Neera. And no feminist should ever do it.
But here's the point I'm making, Alyssa, don't say you put country above party when you reTweet that crap.
Hunter Biden is the portrait of corruption. That doesn't mean Trumps can't be as well. But on the left, we police our own or we are nothing but partisans.
I know this is hard for you because you're not just a hack, you're also an uneducated hick. You never went to a real school, you never went to college, you're just a really dumb person who spits out what people tell you. You lack the energy to educate yourself, you lack the skill to analyze. It's why you're so tired and pointless as an actress. It's why your idea of being 'political' is a bigger joke than you are.
Take your botched plastic surgery and your Democratic Party talking points that you try to pass off as insight and just sit down. Don't stand up again until your lazy ass has gone to college. And forget anyone voting you into public office. You're an uneducated idiot. No one in California will want you to represent them and I will back your opponent in the primary and get everyone I know to back them as well.
You are a menace to the public square. You try to use your fleeting fame to promote the ideas of party hacks, you offer nothing original, you only repeat and steal.
I don't have time for you and, frankly, the country doesn't either.
Let me note thanks to ____ for typing this dictation.
I am literally spitting blood. I had a tooth crack last night and had to have surgery and, apparently due to the diabetes, the bleeding hasn't stopped yet.
But I am taking the time to call out Alyssa because she is a danger to the public square. She has an audience of desperate shut-ins.
Alyssa's nonsense gives the appearance of celebrity but she's a faded actress who couldn't make it in the real world of adult acting. She was miserable on MELROSE PLACE because the stars of that show didn't like her (nor did the fans). She went to CHARMED and promptly began causing problems. She was a producer for the last half of the show's run -- a producer of a show set in San Francisco. So why didn't 'woke' Alyssa ever insist upon a gay or lesbian character? There were none -- apparently Phoebe lived in a special part of San Francisco inhabited by straights only. In addition, all the African-American characters (really just two) were created before Alyssa was a producer. "Woke," my ass. When people note her cultural appropriation these days or her racist portrayals of Native Americans, they should grasp her history. CHARMED ended 13 years ago. Her 'acting' since? Everyone hated her on the set of MY NAME IS EARL. Her sitcom ROMANTICALLY CHALLENGED resulted in the suit that championed the show getting fired and was so bad that ABC only aired four of the six filmed episodes and issued an edict that Alyssa wasn't to be cast in any ABC sitcoms. On MISTRESSES, she tried to pull the crap she pulled on CHARMED and get people fired but ABC backed KJ Steinberg and Tina Mimoun and told Alyssa she could leave. (Which Alyssa then pretended was her decision and was a result of the series moving to Canada. Did no one notice that "I can't leave my children" Alyssa now films in Georgia?) She was a witch on that set and all the actresses were thrilled when Alyssa was let go. Her current show? The actual stars of INSATIABLE are pretty damn tired of Alyssa billing herself as a star of the show. Not only is it a show about a teenage girl, but adult Alyssa isn't even in every episode. She is not a star of the show.
Alyssa and her shut-ins need to grasp that Alyssa's career ended some time ago and that's there's something deeply disturbing about a 46-year-old woman who delivers the same performance -- over and over -- that she did as a child.
Joe Biden?
From yesterday, that's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "First Family Material?" about Hunter Biden.
As Kate Aronoff has noted, "We need to talk about Hunter Biden." From her column at THE GUARDIAN:
The standard lines from Democrats
about Hunter Biden and his business dealings in China and Ukraine have
been consistent: Donald Trump has abused the office of the president by
asking foreign leaders to investigate Biden’s son, and there is
absolutely no proof that either Joe or Hunter Biden have done anything
to break the law. Any questionable dealings by Biden’s son also pale in
comparison to ethical breaches on the part of Ivanka, Eric or Donald Trump Jr,
who have routinely blurred the lines between the extended Trump
Organization – the family’s business empire –and their presence in the
White House.
This is all true, and arguably
these are the right lines vis-a-vis the long overdue impeachment
proceedings. What’s harder to shake is the fact that Hunter Biden’s
career is undeniably shady in the way that only the son of a longtime
Washington insider could muster, failing upwards into positions of
influence and power on the merits of his last name. And that should be
considered a huge liability to Joe Biden, for months now considered heir apparent for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination.
It's interesting when educated women speak and write -- Sarah Chayes, Kate Aronoff. They're not screaming, "Say Trump! Say Trump!" No, educated women -- pay attention, Alyssa -- realize this is a real issue and that is needs to be discussed.
If you believe that Donald Trump and his family have done corrupt things since he became president, great, call him out on it. But grasp, it's going to be hard to call him out in a general debate -- to call him out on corruption -- if Joe Biden is the nominee. That's why you need a strong nominee -- and, yes, strength does include (and always has) integrity.
Sing it, Aretha.
Behold the $50k/month international business genius:
“Hunter...asked a homeless man in Pershing Square where he could buy crack. Hunter said that the man took him to a nearby homeless encampment...He returned to buy more crack a few times that week.”
Integrity. Not to be found in Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden at least served in the military the great kids of Don have no experience, don’t know how the government operates and no degree related to government or defense. Throwing stones at glass houses can be quite dangerous.
Poor, dumb Debbie.
Beau Biden served in the military. Hunter? He was in the Reserves, yes, but they kicked him out for cocaine use.
Joe Biden's Son Hunter Kicked Out of Navy for Cocaine nbcnews.com/news/us-news/j… via @nbcnews
So that's really not a plus or something to brag about on the resume.
Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders had a heart attack. He continues to seek the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Bernie's speechwriter Tweeted:
A class act.
And Bernie himself has Tweeted today:
When we win the Democratic nomination and defeat Donald Trump, we will transform our political system by rejecting the influence of big corporate money.
Money is not speech.
Corporations are not people.
And you shouldn't have to beg the rich and powerful for money to run for office.
Today we are releasing our plan to get corporate money out of politics.
Passing Medicare for All and eliminating all past-due medical debt is not only our moral obligation. It is economically necessary.
Trump's vision of government is one that serves the rich and attacks the poor. We have a different idea. We are going to protect the programs that are life-and-death for millions of working people and make the wealthy pay their fair share.
Deeply stupid, so many of Joe's supporters are deeply stupid. And if you want four more years of Donald Trump, you hug on Joe tightly -- all the way down to the bottom because that ship will likely sink and give Trump four more years. Bernie would be an excellent nominee, Elizabeth Warren and Beto O'Rourke are two other strong nominees. Those three -- and others -- can stand on a stage and call Donald corrupt without looking like a hypocrite.
Joe is not the choice we need.
Gore Vidal used to talk about how then-Jackie Kennedy marveled over all the opposition research that was done against Nixon for the 1960 presidential race and how most of it was never used. In terms of today, you can't use opposition research on Donald Trump and corruption if Joe Biden is your nominee -- the actions of Joe's brother James and his son Hunter have ensured that. Also in terms of today, Carly Simon's second memoir is TOUCHED BY THE SUN: MY FRIENDSHIP WITH JACKIE. ("Touched By The Sun" is the song she wrote for Jacqueline Onassis). The book will be released October 22nd.
Pinned Tweet
Dotting the i’s on another project. A book about my relationship with a most extraordinary and fascinating beautiful woman who I am proud was my friend.
Jackie Kennedy was special to me and while writing about our… instagram.com/p/B06eELmgQxF/…
Sweepstakes #4 is here! Preorder Carly's upcoming book Touched by the Sun and enter for a chance to win The Carly Simon Memoir Collection. All you have to do is upload your receipt at the link below. Best of luck! #touchedbythesun - carlysimon.com/sweepstakes
Listen to Sally's new podcast "The Kaleidoscope" where she interviews me, Ben, my grandson Bodhi and his dad Dean. I couldn't be more proud.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
Here come the priests, each one wailing and bemoaning
Lordy, they got their heads bowed down
Here come the madmen, they're too excited for atoning:
"Burn the mosque, " they're shouting, "Burn it down!"
Lordy, they got their heads bowed down
Here come the madmen, they're too excited for atoning:
"Burn the mosque, " they're shouting, "Burn it down!"
Save me a place, surround me with friendly faces
All of us have gathered here to share the end
To watch the world go up in flames
All of us have gathered here to share the end
To watch the world go up in flames
Please, Lord we're not ready
Give us a day
Give us an hour
Give us a day
Give us an hour
Here come the kings, Let's dispense with their apologizing
Just bring on the acrobats and clowns
Here comes the rumble, Hang on for universal dying
Please ignore the baying of the hounds
Just bring on the acrobats and clowns
Here comes the rumble, Hang on for universal dying
Please ignore the baying of the hounds
-- "Share The End," written by Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman, first appears on her ANTICIPATION album
Welcome to #Iraq 
The country that uses rocket launchers on unarmed protesters
The country that uses rocket launchers on unarmed protesters 
In Iraq, the protesters are under attack from their own government which has ordered the security forces to respond to protests by firing 'live ammunition' at them.
Over the weekend, Alissa J. Rubin (NEW YORK TIMES) reported:
When peaceful protesters poured
into the Iraqi streets this past week, demanding an end to widespread
government corruption, unemployment and a lack of basic services, the
government was caught off guard.
The Iraqi leadership shut down
the internet, imposed a curfew, deployed security forces and was largely
unapologetic when they opened fire on demonstrators.
Over the past week, the police killed at least 91 people, and had wounded more than 2,000 as of Saturday.
On Sunday, Bobby Allyn (NPR) counted 104 dead and 6,107 injured while noting:
Demanding better basic public services like electricity and water and renouncing corruption, a small group of protesters assembled seemingly spontaneously last week before being dispersed by security forces.
Then the protesters put out a call to re-converge on social media and the response took observers and government officials aback: Thousands of mostly young adults in their 20s, outraged over inadequate services and poor job prospects in the oil-rich country, came out to push for more opportunity and an end to corruption.
The Iraqi army and police have responded by firing live rounds, tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds. As protests spread to other parts of the country, the bloody clashes continued.
And John Davison and Ahmed Rasheed (REUTERS) reported:
Today, Davison and Rasheed note that, overnight in Sadr City, 15 more people died.
Joe Biden needs to speak to this. As he endlessly brags, Barack put him in charge of Iraq. Forget his Iraq War vote for a moment, his cheerleading of that war, his egging it on, in November 2008, Barack informed Joe that, come January 2009, he would be in charge of Iraq and Joe was in charge for both terms. He needs to speak. He can't stop claiming that credit in one debate after another. You want to claim the credit, than speak to the reality of Iraq right now, two years after you are no longer in charge.
Donald Trump needs to be speaking as well. We all know he loves to Tweet. So where's the Tweet about this. And, on Iraq, I'm not here to promote somebody's book (other than Carly's book, she's a friend) but a new book is out claiming Donald thinks the answer to immigration is a moat -- and a moat filled with alligators.
That has to be the dumbest idea for the US of the year. Some may remember former prime minister of Iraq and forever thug Nouri al-Maliki proposed a moat to save Baghdad -- well, to save the Green Zone. That was an insane idea as well.
Hopefully, this idiotic idea was shot down the minute Donald proposed it. If for no other reason than self-interest, it should have been shot down. If basic humanity flew out the window, liability would still apply -- meaning do you want to deal with the legal bills of the immigrant trying to enter the country who is wounded -- but not killed -- by an alligator? Even had the administration dismissed with humanity and common sense, I doubt any court that dealt with this would toss humanity and common sense out the window.
