HAPPINESS

Well, the house we've been living in for 42 months sold last night. We'll be out by February 1st. A little daunting, a little liberating. I'll definitely miss it.

"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness." - Robertson Davies

We're all big babies. “My grandfather was born in 1888 and he didn’t have a lifestyle. He didn’t need one: he had a life.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/10/22/svbabies22.xml&site=6&page=0

Conrad Black’s problems, his self-destructiveness, can be traced back – to what? The loveless childhood? The academic failure?...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-525-2415315-525,00.html

Iraq has seen the collapse of the authority of the state, says Martin Amis, and the collapse of the value of human life.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-2412302,00.html


ON BORAT:

As Borat Sagdiyev, a visitor from Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron Cohen is a balls-out comic revolutionary, right up there with Lenny Bruce, Andy Kaufman, Dr. Strangelove, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Cartman at exposing the ignorant, racist, misogynist, gay-bashing, Jew-hating, gun-loving, warmongering heart of America. Borat will make you laugh till it hurts, and you'll still beg for more.

Borat, subtitled Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, sneaks up on you. Or it will if you're not part of the cult spawned when HBO premiered Cohen's Da Ali G Show in 2003, and Americans first encountered the inspired British comic who hid behind a series of alter egos. His gangsta journalist Ali G tricked politicians (Newt Gingrich, Boutros Boutros-Ghali) and pundits (Gore Vidal, Andy Rooney) into embarrassing and revealing interviews. His Bruno, a gay fashion commentator with a Nazi fetish, claimed to be the voice of Austrian youth. And then there's Borat, the smiling, shamelessly offensive TV reporter from Kazakhstan who takes pride that his sister is "the number-four prostitute in all of country" where a ritual -- "the running of the Jew" -- is celebrated every year ("There you go, kids, crush that Jew egg before it hatches"). Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country in the world, but Cohen is counting on the fact that most Americans know squat about it or him. For the record, Cohen, 35, is nothing like Borat, Bruno, Ali G or Jean Girard, the gay French Formula Un driver who kissed Will Ferrell full on the lips in Talladega Nights. Cohen is a Cambridge scholar from a middle-class and devout Jewish family. Their son, the second of three, wrote his history thesis on the role of Jews in the American civil-rights movement. Not since Little Red Riding Hood have the unsuspecting been duped so hilariously by a big, bad wolf in sheep's clothing.

Borat is such a mind-blowing comedy classic in the making (seeing it once is just not enough) that Cohen's cover will surely be blown after the movie opens. But during the time it took Cohen to put Borat's journey on film with director Larry Charles (he debuted with Bob Dylan's Masked and Anonymous, a title that would also fit snugly here), people lined up, signed releases and bought the scam: that Borat, with his pubic patch of a mustache, his unwashed gray suit, his butchered English and his blatant bigotry, really was a roving Kazakh citizen doing a documentary on American culture.

OK, not everyone bought it. The government of Kazakhstan was appalled at seeing its country depicted as a place where men treat women as slaves, screw their sisters and swill wine made from horse piss. No wonder the Kazakh scenes were shot in Romania. "Not too much rape -- and humans only," Borat helpfully tells a friend as he leaves his village for America, carrying "a vial of gypsy tears to prevent AIDS." Cohen makes primo slapstick out of all the silliness, but it's his merciless knack for Swiftian satire that gives Borat its remarkable staying power. There's something cathartic about laughs that stick in your throat.

Don't be fooled by how this demonically devious mockumentary looks (as wonderfully tacky as an $18 million budget will allow) or how it's organized (clever masked as haphazard), the film doesn't waste one of its eighty-nine minutes. The script that Cohen wrote with Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham and Dan Mazer tells us that Borat has a hidden agenda for coming to America. He's seen Baywatch and wants to take the "virgin" Pamela Anderson as his bride. When Borat catches his fat producer Azamat (Ken Davitian) jerking off to photos of Pam, he engages the hairy beast in a naked ass-to-mouth wrestling match that could set back screen nudity for decades. If you don't upchuck, the scene is uproarious and kicks off Borat's journey across America in an ice-cream truck (don't ask) to find his muse.

Will Borat get his "sexytime" with Pam and have his hoped-for "romantic explosion" on her stomach? I'll never tell. And I don't have to, because the core of this movie -- its raison d'etre -- is who and what Borat encounters along the way. No aspect of prejudice, hypocrisy, arrogance and stupidity is overlooked.

At a rodeo in Virginia, Borat is greeted with cheers when he tells the crowd, "We support your war of terror," and then hypes them up more by longing for the day that "Premier George W. Bush will drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq."

At a gun store he asks the owner for the best gun for killing Jews and is told that a 9mm or a 45 will do just fine. He settles for a live bear. Terrified at having to sleep overnight at the home of a kindly Jewish couple, Borat believes that two cockroaches crawling under the door are the Jews transformed. To make them go away, he throws money at them. And so it goes, with Borat's antics extending to a frat-boy boozefest, a Pentecostal church rally, a classy dinner party down South in which he is taught the formal art of toilet training and a confab with feminists who seem startled by the well-known fact in Kazakhstan that the brain of a woman is the size of a squirrel's. On the debit side, the attempt to snatch Anderson at a book-signing feels staged, as if the movie had suffered a brush with Hollywood. But the brush is quick and far from fatal. Cohen's total immersion in his character is a wonder to behold. If Oscar voters have any sense, they recognize his performance for what it is: a tour de force that sets off comic and cosmic explosions in your head. You won't know what outrageous fun is until you see Borat. High-five!


THE PRESTIGE
There are nifty tricks galore up the sumptuous sleeve of this offbeat and wildly entertaining thriller. But I won't spoil them. You can safely know this: Hugh Jackman as personality-plus Robert Angier and Christian Bale as cool technician Alfred Borden are turn-of-the-twentieth-century magicians out to beat the other at his own devious game. In The Illusionist, Edward Norton had to work alone. Jackman and Bale make a mind-bending team. Special props to Bale, whose award-bait tour de force will spin your head around. At the helm is Memento director Christopher Nolan, who teamed up with his brother Jonathan to add fresh twists to the novel by Christopher Priest. These Nolans are not to be trusted, but they sure make it fun to be fooled. Scarlett Johansson plays a sexy assistant, first to Robert and then Alfred. Everyone is focused on an illusion (The Transported Man) cooked up by electricity whiz Nikola Tesla (yes, that is David Bowie, and he's mesmerizing). Michael Caine steals all his scenes as Cutter, the insider who drops teasing hints about how every trick has three acts: the Pledge that draws you in, the Turn that moves you out of the ordinary and the Prestige, where you can't believe your eyes. Nolan directs the film exactly like a great trick, so you want to see it again the second it's over. I'd call that wicked clever.

Oscars Create New Truman Capote Biopic Category
October 27, 2006
LOS ANGELES—The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences announced today the introduction of a new Oscar category honoring the Truman Capote–themed feature film genre. "We are now able to honor excellence in the emerging field of Capote-inspired filmmaking," said Academy president Sid Ganis, referring to the new film Infamous, as well as such upcoming features as 20th Century Fox's Truman, Paramount's Truman Capote, Universal's Truman Capote, Jr., DreamWorks' animated Truman And The Big Black And White Ball, and Columbia's road picture Harper & Tru. Warner Bros.' Goin' Capote, scheduled for a Thanksgiving release, stars Oscar hopeful Jimmy Fallon in what many are calling his most understated role yet

Kenny Rogers Denies Cheatin' During World Series

Country vocalist Kenny Rogers repeatedly and vehemently denied rumors that he engaged in cheatin' behavior during Game 2 of the World Series Sunday night, which he maintains he watched on TV at his friend Randy's house across town despite anonymous eyewitnesses placing him at the Lincoln Park Motor Inn with an unknown red-haired woman. "C'mon, honey, you have to believe in me, here," Rogers said from the front lawn of his estate while dodging clothing and personal possessions thrown at him from the second-floor windows of his house by Wanda Miller, his wife of nine years. "I had a few beers and, you know, decided to take my time getting home, is all. Honey?" Suspicion initially settled on Rogers when a visual inspection seemed to reveal a "tacky" stain on the multiple-Grammy-award winner's hands.

Sudan Passes Campaign-Finance Reform

KHARTOUM, SUDAN—In what is being hailed as a major step toward making presidential contests more fair and equal, the Sudanese legislature approved sweeping campaign-finance reform Monday, passing a bill limiting all candidates to 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition.

"It is not fair that certain individuals vying for the presidency should hold a large advantage over others," said Sen. Nyala Uwayi (L-Atbara), co-sponsor of the Khandaq-Uwayi Campaign Finance Act. "Why should I have a better shot at becoming president just because I have twice as many AK-47 Kalishnikov assault rifles as my opponent? In a fair system, everyone should have the same chance to seize power."

In addition to restricting ammunition, the Khandaq-Uwayi Campaign Finance Act sets strict caps on private contributions from desert warlords, limiting donations to three Light Anti-Tank Weapons or one Optical Wire-Guided Anti-Aircraft Missile per warlord. Under the new law, candidates who accept more than the allotted weaponry will be subject to fines and/or beheading.

The act also prohibits incumbents from courting influential lobbyists with special favors and gifts. This provision comes in response to last month's revelation that in 1996, president Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir accepted a T-72 Main Battle Tank from the powerful southern warlord Kafia al-Nahud in exchange for an overnight stay in the presidential harem. The tank would later play a key role in al-Bashir's successful defense against attacks from presidential challenger Talawdi Waw of the Sudanese People's Liberation Party.

"This sort of campaign-finance reform was long overdue here in the Sudan," Sen. Abache Bor (K-Nasir) said. "Obviously, it's important that a candidate be well-armed, but that shouldn't be the sole determining factor in a fight for public office. A presidential contest should be about more than who has the biggest war chest."