Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Trump-ified A Man in Full on Netflix comes up empty

Posted: May 12, 2024 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

If you only have a minute and you want to know, in a nutshell, what the Netflix adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s novel from 1998, A Man in Full, is all about, here it is: The lead character, Atlanta businessman Charlie Croker, is Donald Trump–orange hair and all. Then throw in elements of the George Floyd and Rodney King stories and add an even more shocking ending than the one in Boogie Nights.

Earlier this month, Netflix started streaming the six-episode series, which stars Jeff Daniels and Diane Lane. 

Wolfe, who is my favorite writer, after a two-decade career in journalism, made a smooth transition into fiction with his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities. It encapsulates the boom years of 1980s–along with the mayhem of pre-Rudy Giuliani New York City. Three years later, the film version was released. It is godawful, starting with the miscasting of Tom Hanks in the lead role as “the Master of the Universe,” Sylvester McCoy. After I suffered through the movie, I said to myself, Vanities is a mini-series not a two-hour movie.

I had hopes, misguided ones it turns out, that A Man in Full would be better, because it is a mini-series. Adding to my anticipation was Netflix streaming last year the insightful documentary, Radical Wolfe.

As A Man in Full begins, Charlie Croker (Daniels) is celebrating his 60th birthday at a party with Shania Twain entertaining his friends, family, and business associates. Two of those guests are executives from PlannersBanc, his principal lender, Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey) and Harry Zale (Bill Camp). While it appears that Croker is an Atlanta version of a Master of the Universe, he’s broke–Charlie owes PlannersBanc $600 million. He’s overextended with other lenders too. Peepgrass and Zale want to carve up Croker’s empire, starting with his quail hunting plantation and his corporate jet. A rescue is offered by the mayor of Atlanta, Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper), who is campaigning for reelection, and Croker’s attorney, Roger White (Aml Ameen). But to save his neck, Croker will have to betray his former Georgia Tech football teammate, Norman Bagovitch (John Lacy), who is running against Jordan.

Bagovitch–wait for it–decries the status of the white male in his campaign. Jordan is Black.

David E. Kelley wrote the script, and he should be ashamed. No serious candidate for public office would campaign on such bigoted idiocy. And in Atlanta?!? Why does Kelley insult his audience?  

Oh yeah, he wants to demonize Trump. Orange Croker Bad. Oops, I mean Orange Man Bad.

Joyce Newman (Lucy Liu) is an alleged victim of a sexual assault from Bagovitch. In the book, well, let’s just say there is fear of a race riot because of the racial angle of that alleged rape.

Wolfe, brilliantly in my opinion, centered much of his plot on racial contrast and conflict, but also on Croker being an anachronism. The series is set in 2024, but events in the book take place a quarter of a century earlier. Croker, nicknamed the 60 Minute Man because he starred on offense and defense for Georgia Tech, played a lead role for a national championship Yellowjackets team, at a time when major college sports teams in the South were not integrated. Croker came of age just as the civil rights protests were picking up steam, and when Jim Crow laws were still in force in Georgia and other southern states. The world changed, but Croker, not so much. Sure, of course Croker in the novel knew blacks had equal rights, but they still belonged– and I’m not endorsing his sentiment–“in their place.”

Kelley, and the directors, eliminates that angle by turning Croker into Trump. He even does away with Charlie’s redemption in Wolfe’s novel.

There’s even a climate change dig included in the series. I mean, why not?

As Croker, Daniels, who is usually very good, is an embarrassment, beginning with his overwrought Foghorn Leghorn southern accent and his Trump-sized abdominal paunch. On the other hand, Diane Lane, as Charlie’s first wife, shines. I had the pleasure of seeing her at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre in Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth a decade ago.

Wolfe’s novel is over 700 pages long, so it’s understandable that some storylines are condensed. 

For instance, Conrad Hensley in the book is the child of worthless white hippies who, in spite of them, still manages to develop a strong moral compass. He works for Croker Foods in the East Bay area of California Hensley’s life, like Charlie’s, collapses. He ends up on the wrong side of the law after he violently tries to retrieve his towed car. By the way, anyone who has had his car towed and is forced to pay usurious fees to retrieve it, will sympathize with Hensley. In the series Hensley (Jan Michael Hill) is Black, and well, I already mentioned Rodney King and George Floyd. 

The subplot with Peepgrass and Martha Croker remains, with the Boogie Nights twist added. If you crave more details on that, click on this Daily Mail link.

Oh, the Crokers’ son, Wally (Evan Roe), sure looks a lot like Barron Trump in the series. 

Astonishingly, Trump-hating Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis doesn’t appear here. Maybe she was on a cruise with Nathan Wade during filming.

I guess I needed to suffer for some forgotten sins, because I endured all six episodes of A Man in Full. Of the other Netflix series that I punished myself with, in full, only The Pentaverate and Vikings: Valhalla were worse.

On the flipside, the cinematography for A Man in Full is sharp–Atlanta never looked so good. The soundtrack, compiled by Craig DeLeon, is spectacular, it’s as splendid as the best work of T-Bone Burnett. Keep an eye on DeLeon.

Wolfe, who died in 2018, didn’t like The Bonfire of the Vanities film. I don’t think he’d care for the series based on A Man in Full either.

I hated it.

A Man in Full is currently streaming on Netflix. It is rated TV-MA for violence, foul language, sex, and nudity.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

The Eurovision Protestors Unfair to Israel’s Entry and Unfair to all the other entries.

Posted: May 12, 2024 by datechguy in culture, Israel, middle east
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The Eurovision song contest is the latest front of the war on Israel.

It’s seem a tad odd that I’m writing about the Eurovision Song Contest at all. All I really know about it comes from the Monty Python World Forum skit and the Doctor Who Episode that parodies the contest as the Intergalactic song contest in Bang a Bang Boom and frankly I’m a tad confused that Israel, a country not in Europe has an entry in it but be that as it may.

The “death to Israel” crowd has been rather vocal in protesting the Israeli entry to the contest to the point where massive security is needed to protect her from a loud and unruly mob both of Islamists and those who wish to curry favor with Islamists (the ‘kill me last caucus’ as I call them) among leftists in general and even among governments and broadcasters who lean left.

This is horribly unfair for two reasons.

The first be obvious in that it puts a young woman at risk for the ‘crime’ of “singing while Jewish” in the same way that the anti-Semite mobs at US colleges put students in danger for the crime of “learning while Jewish” The height of idiocy came from a reporter in a press conference actually asked if by her presence he was putting other contestants in danger:

The irony of course is that this has caused a backlash to the point where she has not only easily moved toward the finals…

But it had made her the odds on favorite to win the public vote

And that leads to the 2nd bit of unfairness of all of this.

You see the Islamic mobs and their enablers have been spending the last decade making a lot of European places unsafe for Europeans and it has become VERBOTEN in the woke world to call them out for it. It’s been bad. How bad? Well the best example I know of actually comes from Canada which is going down the same path as these guys:

Because the pubic can vote on this a lot of Europeans who don’t dare speak out publicly are able to take revenge on the Islamic mob by voting for Israel in this contest because they can do so without fear of retaliation. It’s a great way to stick it to the woke establishment in the same way that declining to buy Bud Light was a way to stick it to Anheuser-Busch when they insulted their customer base.

And while that might be satisfying it does defeat the purpose of a song contest which should be about one thing:

The best performance of a song.

These protesters are not just being anti-Semite bastards and putting people at risk they are also screwing other contestants in this contest who worked hard to get there and may, thanks to these ignorant bastards, not be judged by their performances. In other words they will be robbed of their chance to win.

Now I didn’t watch Eurovision as I have no interest in it And it may be that the final result (Israel 6th overall and 2nd in the public vote) might be what it deserved but the question is: if there wasn’t a mob trying to intimidate the 20 year old Israeli singer. Would we have seen a different result?

We will never know.

BTW Ukraine won the public vote, I wonder how much of that was sympathy as well?

Bonchie Nails It. Let them Reap

Posted: May 5, 2024 by datechguy in culture, education

You know the more I read this tweet the more I agree with it:

For decades blue states and even bluer universities have decided to enable and encourage this stuff. They have done so of their own free will and when given the choice of doing so nor not have made the choice to do so.

Maybe for status, maybe for Arab dollars, maybe because they hate their political foes or those who practice the Judeo-Christians faiths in earnest so much that they’d rather suffer if it gives them the slightest hurt.

But for whatever reason they have decided that this is how they want their states, cities and universities run and have rejected chances to change direction.

Part of freedom is the freedom to be stupid and self destructive. So be it:

  • Let these states hemorrhage the productive and the faithful.
  • Let these cities lose their tax base
  • Let these universities lose their reputations and their graduates become unemployable

Let it continue until the pain is so great that they cry out and do something about it, because they will not learn otherwise.

And we must accept the fact that they may never learn at all, so be it.

Closing thought: This reminds me of an exorcist who described the encounter with a demon during exorcism. The demon under noted that at the time of their rebellion they understood what would happen when they rebelled and the suffering of Hell that would be upon them and did it anyways. When asked by the priest doing the exorcism if he would do it again if given a second chance the demon answered with a quick and unequivocal “Yes!” It reminds one of an important point.

Every single person who is in hell is there by their own choice. As so many people choose hell in death, why should we be surprised that they make such choices in life?

The Fram Oil Filter Civil War Choice: Prosecute them Now or Kill them Later

Posted: May 3, 2024 by datechguy in culture, education, politics, the courts
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Clemenza gets it

Michael: How bad do you think it’s gonna be?

Clemenza: Pretty goddam bad. Probably all the other Families will line up against us. That’s all right. These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one. You know, you gotta stop them at the beginning. Like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich, they should never let him get away with that, they was just asking for trouble.

The Godfather 1972

One of the best commercials that I ever saw comes from my youth. It was for the Fram Oil Filters. In it a mechanic is doing expensive engine work on a car that didn’t have the oil changed regularly. The message was very simple and direct. Spend the money for an oil change and filter now or pay me later for engine work.

That’s what instantly comes to mind when I saw this story

Bragg, who is currently prosecuting the case against former President Donald Trump, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation asking whether pro-Palestinian protestors arrested on Tuesday would be charged.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) arrested 119 protestors at Columbia on Tuesday night, along with 173 protestors at the separate City University of New York (CUNY) protest, where students occupied an administration building.

“Given his track record and the political nature of the events, I would be surprised if the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecuted the charges in a serious manner,” Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson told the DCNF. “The charges are likely to be dropped against most perpetrators, and drastically reduced for others under an agreement that would see the charges eventually expunged.”

“In New York City, unfortunately, this type of weak prosecution agenda encourages more crime,” Jacobson continued.

Alas as Professor Jacobson own blog can attest to. These actions are not confined to Columbia & New York City, Northwestern, U Chicago, Rutgers, UCLA, Brown, U Wisconsin (where students chanted “Heil Hitler” at Jewish Students are among the colleges that these mobs have occupied. At Portland State police found “improvised weapons” and Drone footage shows the mob at UCLA being trained in hand to hand combat.

As James Woods notes, these were not “spontaneous protests”

Brings to mind the pallets of bricks that oddly found themselves delivered in the path of BLM riots years ago. Robert Spencer elabortates:

Not only is it not spontaneous, it’s clearly orchestrated from outside the colleges and universities where the encampments have sprung up. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has acknowledged that “professionals” were involved in the Columbia University encampment. Another sign that this isn’t exactly a grass-roots movement is the fact that a large number of the pro-Hamas protesters have identical tents. Which well-heeled leftist bought them? We don’t know and may never know, but someone certainly appears to have done some buying in bulk. 

Still, the movement needed foot soldiers. The cadres had to be recruited and indoctrinated. That has been the work of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the professional organization of Middle East Studies professors at colleges and universities nationwide.

Now in Red states folks like Ron DeSantis are enforcing the law, but in blue states the police didn’t start moving in until the visuals were polling bad for Democrats or when people started fighting back and leftists were getting beaten.

The administrators of many of the universities hosting these encampments have either been too fearful to act or actually sympathize with the pro-Hamas brownshirts. They allowed not just the tent occupation on a public university campus to fester, but even with evidence of brownshirts’ being trained …

… never called for any measures to clear this out until a group of Jews decided maybe “Never again” was now.

And, suddenly, Karen Bass noticed.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass vowed Wednesday to prosecute pro-Israel vigilantes who attacked the illegal “Palestine Solidarity Encampment” at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) overnight.

Beating a Jewish girl and sending her to the Hospital, No big deal. Fighting back against those who beat her when the authorities take no action? That’s beyond the pale.

What’s worse is the selective prosecutions:

And let’s be clear, too, that Governor Hairgel Newsom said nothing until yesterday, too, when so-called vigilantes decided to go where law enforcement refused to go.

This is how a high trust society is destroyed. There would have been no vigilante action if our Dear Democrat Betters like Bass, Newsom and UCLA brass had done their job. Let’s see who is really legally punished by Soros-puppet DA Gascon after the dust has settled. We saw lots of arrests after the 2020 fiery, but mostly peaceful riots but close to no convictions. Hamas brownshirts who blocked the Golden Gate bridge have had no charges filed.

The FBI is too busy with grandmas who spent ten minutes walking between velvet ropes on Jan 6 or keeping tabs on observant Catholics to be bothered when anti-Western Hamasholes shutdown taxpayer-funded university campuses.

The good folks at Citizen Free Press put it perfectly

The bottom line is selective enforcement of the law combined with allowing people to get away with violence while going after those who try to stop it will cause the former to become bolder and the latter eventually deciding going the full Popeye deciding:

The end result what happened in Israel. They took it and they took it and they took Hamas figured they could continue to strike until they finally figured they could get away with killing thousands and kidnapping hundreds without issue.

That’s when Israel finally decided: That’s all I can stands I can’t stands no more and full scale war in Gaza is the result.

That is what is coming here. As a nation we have a choice, we can enforce the laws and stop this nonsense now while the price is low, or we can allow these thugs to operate without consequences until people get killed and when that happens people are going to decide: “That’s all I can stands I can’t stands no more.”

And that’s when you discover what happens when a highly armed population reaches that point. That’s when these thugs discover what Glenn Reynolds has been saying for years, that Police exist to protect criminals from the rest of us. Or as John Wayne illustrated so well.

The biggest irony is these Jew Hating Nazi’s (because that’s what Hamas supporters are) in the same position that Hitler was when he was moved to occupy the Rhineland in 1936 and America’s Universities city and state governments are in the position of England and France who could have stopped Hitler cold if they had acted:

A German officer assigned to the Bendlerstrasse during the crisis told H. R. Knickerbocker during the Spanish Civil War: “… we knew that if the French marched, we were done. We had no fortifications, and no army to match the French. If the French had even mobilised, we should have been compelled to retire.” The general staff, the officer said, considered Hitler’s action suicidal.[62] General Heinz Guderian, a German general interviewed by French officers after the Second World War, claimed: “If you French had intervened in the Rhineland in 1936 we should have been sunk and Hitler would have fallen.”[63]

Right now if these thugs are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law with the same vigor as the Biden Administration went after the J6 folks who didn’t do a 1/10 of what these people did they can be stopped and a bloody 2nd American civil war or a modern version of the Lincoln County Wars can be avoided.

If not then one day people will write about our government and administration what William Shriver Author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich wrote about Britain and France’s inaction during the 1936 Rhineland crisis.

in March 1936 the two Western democracies, were given their last chance to halt, without the risk of a serious war, the rise of a militarized, aggressive, totalitarian Germany and, in fact – as we have seen Hitler admitting – bring the Nazi dictator and his regime tumbling down. They let the chance slip

So what will be be America will we prosecute & stop them with little risk now or we let them continue with no consequences till we have to kill them later in a horrible Civil War later?

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