Profanity in Rightwing Film Halts Screening at Anti-Michael Moore Film Fest

Despite this rather glowing report from the local paper, the organizers of the Freedom FilmFest – an event that was hastily organized to protest the Traverse City Film Festival and its founder, Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore – found themselves in hot water yesterday.

At least one “values voter” reportedy walked out of the Freedom Filmfest’s screening of “Michael Moore Hates America” in protest over the film’s excessive use of profanity. Apparently, Red-staters who are interviewed in the documentary-style film repeatedly describe Michael Moore as a “fucker” and a “motherfucker.”

Because of the outcry, festival organizers shut the screening down before the film was over.

While larger venues at TCFF screenings have consistently been sold out, reports say the rightwing event has been sparsely attended – one screening had 50 people, another had only 15.

A person on the scene commented, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?”

Among prizes awarded at the festival, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” won “scariest film.”

Thanks to ArtSavant.

Spacing Out About the Shuttle

There are a number of things I wouldn’t trade about living in Florida, and the ability to pull over to the side of the road and join the great unwashed, and their dogs, watch the space shuttle take off is surely one of them. Why does this site bring a lump to my throat? Why does the crowd assembled at the boat ramp, some in uniform but most in shorts and fishing motif t-shirts, break into applause as the first booster drops off? Why is the white trail (only one this time but you never forget) that lingers and lingers and turns wavy with the wind so damn cool?

Happy Bestiality Follow-up

Lucky got lucky. The Florida guide dog whose owner was arrested for sexually abusing it (see previous post) has been adopted.

The yellow Lab was being held at the Tallahassee-Leon Community Animal Service Center since being voluntarily relinquished by its previous execrable owner.

Tallahassee Democrat:

“He seemed so sad, but as soon as he got on a leash he was excited and bouncy and ready to get out of there,” [Lucky’s new owner, Stacy Cintron] said.

She adopted him that day.

“He’s fine,” said Cintron, who will study clinical exercise physiology and sports administration. “He is very playful; he’s 9 years old, but he seems like a puppy.”

The court date for Alan Yoder, Lucky’s abuser, is Aug. 2. I hope area animal activists turn out in droves to let him know how they really feel about him.

Traverse City Film Festival Announces Panel Discussions

Includes Session Led by Michael Moore on Art And Politics in Film

Topics for panel discussions at the Traverse City Film Festival later this month have been announced. The discussions, which are free and open to the public, will present the views of Hollywood movers and shakers including the festival’s founder, Oscar-winning documentarian Michael Moore.

According to the Traverse City Record-Eagle, the panels will include:

Moore will lead the July 28 session titled, “Is it Art? Or Is it Politics? Traverse City Wants to Know.”

He said the idea for the session was hatched even before he went to the Traverse City Commission to seek permission to show nightly free films outdoors at Traverse City’s Open Space as part of the festival.

“There’s an interesting discussion of whether this film festival is political,” he said. “You have to recognize that if you are going to be a filmmaker, you have to do the filmmaking first – not the politics. Because you’ll lose people on the politics.”

“Is Fiction Dead? The Rise of Documentary Films” is the title of the July 29 panel. Those participating include Marilyn Agrelo, director of “Mad, Hot Ballroom,” and Alex Gibney, director of “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” both of which are showing during the festival; Ethan Canin, author of “Emperor of the Air”; and mystery writer Robert Sloan.

“They’ll be discussing why it is that Hollywood movies are getting worse and worse – the fiction movies … and why it is that the one type of film where the attendance is up are documentaries,” Moore said.

July 30 brings “Hollywood Confidential: Stories We Will Only Tell in Traverse City.” Rob Tappert, producer of both recent “Spiderman” movies, will be joined by producer Rebecca Reynolds, who lives in Leelanau County and whose latest project is a pilot for HBO; screenwriter Larry Brand (“Halloween: Resurrection”), whose first job was as personal assistant to Orson Welles; screenwriter Chuck Pfarrer (“The Jackal” and “Navy Seals”); and Ari Emanuel, cofounder of the Endeavor Agency and after whom the lead character of an agent by the same name is modeled in HBO’s “Entourage.”

On July 31, the topic is “How to Make a Great Movie for $30,000.” Andrew Wagner, director of “The Talent Given Us,” one of the films showcased during the festival, will be featured. Jonathan Caouette, director of another festival film, “Tarnation,” is also expected. Jeff Gibbs, co-producer on Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9-11” and “Bowling for Columbine,” will moderate.

“This one’s especially for students and young people interested in filmmaking,” Moore said. “You don’t have to wait until you have the multimillion dollar Hollywood deal to make your own movie.”

The events will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday through Sunday, July 28-31, at the Traverse City Opera House, free of charge.

More info: Traverse City Film Festival

Parents Need Camp Too…

The ABC network debuted its latest contribution to the world of reality tv this week. “Brat Camp” examines the reasons why nine kids, boys and girls between the ages of 14 and 17, are shipped off to the wildnerness at the pleas of desperate parents. These chosen youngsters have serious problems ranging from compulsive lying and anger issues to drug addiction and stealing.

How has this happened? How does an entire population of adolescents become so self-absorbed? I blame it on parents. That’s right. I said it. Parents aren’t doing their jobs.

Hmmmm….brat camp. Love the concept. As a sixth grade teacher of English, reading, and world history, I can think of quite a few of my students who could benefit from 40 days in the wilderness. Forty days without their handheld video games, portable cd players, cell phones, and skateboard/dirt bike/hip-hop magazines. In addition to their poor reading and writing skills, today’s “tween” generation lacks serious social skills. These kids have no respect for authority, be it in parent or teacher form. They have obvious apathy for everything that does not pertain to them.

How has this happened? How does an entire population of adolescents become so self-absorbed? I blame it on parents. That’s right. I said it. Parents aren’t doing their jobs. With that in mind, I believe that while their children are off dealing with their various issues, the parents should be also be engaged. I envision crash courses in parenting. They could learn to communicate with their children in a way that involves actual dialogue. They could learn to put down THEIR cell phones, PDAs, and remote controls long enough to listen to their kids. Parents that claim their little angels slowly became monsters over the years have to learn to intervene. You cannot be your daughter’s or son’s best friend. Put your foot down!! When your 11-year old is caught smoking pot or drinking, you deal with it right then and there. Kids have to know that there are boundaries, some bigger than others, that they cannot cross. Allowing the behavior to continue only allows it to fester into worse habits or mindsets. Be a parent and PARENT! And in the meantime, check out “Brat Camp” on ABC, Wednesday nights at 9 p.m.

Bestiality A-OK in Florida

Florida, which has laws against gays adopting children, oral sex between adults of either gender, and erections that show through a man’s clothing, has no law whatsoever against people having sex with animals.

The recent arrest of a blind Tallahassee man accused of forcing sex on his guide dog highlights this egregious shortcoming.

Tallahassee Democrat:

…Alan Yoder, 29, originally was charged with felony animal cruelty, but court records show that charge was dropped last Friday and replaced with a misdemeanor – disorderly conduct.

Yoder now is charged with a “breach of the peace, by engaging in sexual activity with a guide dog,” according to a court document.

Wouldn’t you think, with all this attention to non-reproduction inspired sex, on people who have non-reproduction inspired sex, and on never, ever seeing evidence of one of the two components needed for reproduction inspired sex, that someone would have thought to outlaw frickin’ bestiality? Not in Florida.

The article doesn’t give the kind of details you’re looking for but it does tell how the asswipe got arrested.

…Yoder, who lives in a local apartment complex, last month asked a female acquaintance to join him in a sex act with the dog, a male yellow Labrador named “Lucky.”

She demurred, but later told a friend about it. That person called a social worker, who called police.

Investigators spoke to Yoder on June 16, who admitted performing certain sex acts with the dog, even going into detail with them, but denied doing others. He was arrested and booked June 22, charged with animal cruelty.

It’s not like this has never come up before. Florida’s had plenty of time to get its act together.

Last year, an Ocala man pleaded no contest to felony animal cruelty after being charged with having sex with his then-fiancee’s female Rottweiler, according to the Pet-Abuse.com Web site.

A judge withheld adjudication and ordered five years of probation and a psychological evaluation. He also prohibited the 27-year-old man from “owning pets of any kind while on probation and from having unsupervised contact with other people’s pets,” the site said.

I can’t begin to think what would make any man (in both cases) do this to any animal but how horrible is it in the Tallahassee case to do to a service dog — a dog that has been trained to do nothing but help, be loyal and trusted, and keep its lousy, rotten, disgusting owner out of harm’s way, even at its own peril?

In Florida, a 19-year-old who has sex with a 17-year-old has to wear a GPS unit for life, be pictured in the paper with every relocation, and not live within however many feet of a school, park, etc. But we do absolutely nothing to protect animals from deviants who are beyond the pale. I’m pissed.

Huggies and Wings Crook Gets Odd Sentence

The woman convicted of putting the Huggies and Wings on the Clinton administration’s tab was sentenced today, and it’s a bizarre sentence at that.

Ogilvy & Mather advertisng agency executive Shona Seifert was found guilty of overbilling the Clinton Administration’s White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) by shifting billing time from other accounts to the government. Handwritten notes to her assistant that said, “Put Huggies and Wings time on ONDCP” sealed the deal.

Ad Age Online:

A federal judge today sentenced Shona Seifert to 18 months in prison and ordered her to pay a $125,000 fine for her role in the Ogilvy & Mather scheme to overbill the goverment on its national anti-drug ad account. The judge also ordered her to develop a written code of conduct for the advertising industry.

Is it me, or is this kind of like asking Ken Lay to draft up a code of conduct for shareholder reporting?

The code of conduct is due to Judge Berman by Oct. 15, but it’s unclear what will he will do it.

Put it in the trash would be my advice.

Wingnuts’ Panties in a Wad Over Film Festival Founded by Michael Moore

Conservative filmmaking is like conservative stand up comedy: It sucks. Conservative filmmakers put their idealogy up front, which makes their films read like what they are: wooden, unimaginative propaganda.

Conservatives rarely produce fictional works, but when they do the films are often quite violent – “Passion of the Christ,” is a prime example. Rather, they gravitate toward psuedo-documentaries that are either “answer” films – “Michael Moore Hates America,” for example – or barely concealed propaganda pieces such as “Confronting Iraq” and “WMD” that seek to shore up the fading “rally ’round the flag” effect among the rightwing base about President Bush’s quagmire in Mesopotamia.

So why would a group of rightwingers want to inflict a festival of their bad films on the citizens of Traverse City, Michigan?

They are in a dither because film fans have gotten together to found the Traverse City Film Festival. The festival is avowedly nonpartisan – and it sounds like fun:

Among the 31 films are four classics that will be shown free of charge on a 40-foot-high, inflatable screen in a park beside Grand Traverse Bay: “Jaws,” “The Princess Bride,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Casablanca.”

At the paid, indoor screenings, festivalgoers can choose from the very latest Indie and foreign film fare – titles like Sundance and Cannes winner “Me and You and Everyone We Know,” “Mad Hot Ballroom,” a documentary about 11-year-olds who ballroom dancing competitors, which will open the festival, “Broken Flowers,” the latest from independent film pioneer Jim Jarmusch and the hardhitting documentary, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.”

These are films that only smart people can enjoy – so is that what has these un-smart Americans all riled up?

No. They don’t like that it that founder-in-chief of the festival is Michael Moore, the rightwing’s leftwing icon. The Oscar-winning documentarian is a Michigan native who lives in New York and has a home near Traverse City.

[…]

Must-Have Christmas Gift: Fetal Attractions Troop Ornament

Protect our troops – from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?

Plastic replica of an 11-12 week old fetus, 3″ long, holding a firearm in its precious little hand, with an assortment of other military paraphernalia, encased in a translucent plastic ornament, with a patriotic yellow ribbon on top. Includes a metal ornament hanger. If only a womb were this safe, attractive and reasonably priced!

Show that you support the “culture of life” by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans.

Also available in a “Brown” model

Note to the confused:This is a real product, from a real site. The product is a satire, but it is also a real product – FOR SALE. This is a real store.

To Purchase: MissPopppy.com

(Thanks for the tip, D!)

‘Freedom Tower’ Design for WTC Site Unveiled

Curbed:

With one eye on monolithism and the other on monotheism, the powers that be will unveil the new Freedom Tower design later this morning. Gone is Daniel Libeskind’s dream, replaced with David Childs’ new favored son, an 82-story tower that sorta vaguely kinda echoes the old Twin Tower design. More fun facts about the newcomer:

1) Sits on an “almost impermeable and impregnable” 200-foot concrete and steel pedestal, clad in “ornamental metalwork”
2) Above that, 69 office floors topped with a restaurant, and two observation decks
3) Antenna brings height to—wait for it—1,776 feet!

More to come throughout the day on this, uh, towering story. Before that, more images after the jump.

New York Daily News:

Ground zero’s Freedom Tower, redesigned to address security concerns, will be set back farther from the street, rising from a base clad in shimmering metals chosen for both beauty and blast-resistance…The strengthened structure, which will exceed city fire code requirements, will include extra fireproofing, as well as biological and chemical filters in its air supply system, according to an online statement issued by the Lower Manhattan Development Committee…

While the original plan called for a parallelogram base, in the new design eight triangles rise out of a cubic base connected to an octagon in the newly reinforced middle of the tower, which supports a glass parapet. The tower will be capped with a mast incorporating an antenna, meant to suggest the torch of the Statue of Liberty.