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Ishtar
(May, 1987)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (OOP)
(Ross, 1976)
The Devils
(Russell, 1974)
The Pirates of Penzance
(Papp/Leach, 1983)
The Fortune
(Nichols, 1975)
-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
(Jones, 1983)
Play It As It Lays
(Perry, 1972)
The Outfit
(Flynn, 1973)
Alex in Wonderland
(Mazursky, 1969)
The Legend of Lylah Clare
(Aldrich, 1968)
In The Cool of the Day
(Stevens, 1963)
That Cold Day in the Park
(Altman, 1969)
Thumb Trippin'
(Masters, 1972)
Midas Run
(Kjellin, 1969)
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1973)
Brewster McCloud
(Altman, 1972)
Outcast of the Islands
(Reed, 1951)

Reader Submissions
1930's-1950's
The Moon's Our Home
(Seiter, 1936)
Sh! The Octopus
(McGann, 1937)
The Mating Season
(Leisen, 1951)
Bad for Each Other
(Rapper, 1953)
The Phenix City Story
(Karlson, 1955)
Run of the Arrow
(Fuller, 1956)
House of Secrets
(Green, 1956)
Saint Joan
(Preminger, 1957)
Macabre
(Castle, 1958)
The Fiend Who Walked the West
(G. Douglas, 1958
Five Gates to Hell
(Clavell, 1959)
1960's
Key Witness
(Karlson, 1960)
Summer and Smoke
(Glenville, 1961)
The Chapman Report
(Cukor,1962)
Bachelor Flat
(Tashlin, 1962) [on Hulu]
The L Shaped Room
(Forbes, 1963)
The Chalk Garden
(Neame, 1964)
A Thousand Clowns
(Coe, 1965)
You're a Big Boy Now
(Coppola, 1966)
The Whisperers
(Forbes, 1967)
Dark of the Sun
(Cardiff, 1968)
Skidoo
(Preminger, 1968)
Last Summer
(Perry, 1969)
The Comic
(C. Reiner, 1969)
1970-1974
The Revolutionary
(Williams, 1970)
The Landlord
(Ashby, 1970)
Diary of a Mad Housewife
(Perry, 1970)
Tropic of Cancer
(Strick, 1970)
I Never Sang for My Father
(Cates, 1970)
Sometimes a Great Notion
(Newman, 1971)
Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
(Turman, 1971)
The Music Lovers
(Russell, 1971)
Drive, He Said
(Nicholson, 1971)
The Steagle
(Sylbert, 1971)
The Last Movie
(Hopper, 1971)
Made For Each Other
(Bean, 1971)
The Day the Clown Cried
(Lewis, 1972)
Hickey & Boggs (OOP)
(Culp, 1972)
The Carey Treatment
(Edwards, 1972)
Pete 'n' Tillie
(Ritt, 1972)
Slither
(Zieff, 1973)
Man on a Swing
(Perry, 1974)
Open Season
(Collinson, 1974)
The Tamarind Seed
(Edwards, 1974)
Law and Disorder
(Passer, 1974)
Homebodies
(Yust, 1974)
Stardust
(Apted, 1974)
Celine and Julie Go Boating
(Rivette, 1974)
1975-1979
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
(Richards, 1975
At Long Last Love
(Bogdanovich, 1975)
Hearts of the West
(Zieff, 1975)
Welcome to L.A.
(Rudolph, 1976)
W.C. Fields and Me
(Hiller, 1976)
Citizens Band
(Demme, 1977)
Twilight's Last Gleaming
(Aldrich, 1977)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
(Brooks, 1977)
Girlfriends
(Weill, 1978)
Movie Movie
(Donen, 1978)
The Medusa Touch
(Gold, 1978)
American Hot Wax
(Mutrux, 1978)
Hot Stuff
(DeLuise, 1979)
Scavenger Hunt
(Schultz , 1979)
Players
(Harvey, 1979)
Rich Kids
(Young, 1979)
Nightwing
(Hiller, 1979)
Screams of a Winter's Night
(Wilson, 1979
When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
(Katselas, 1979
1980's
Resurrection
(Petrie, 1980)
The Awakening
(Newell, 1980)
Simon
(Brickman, 1980)
God's Angry Man
(Herzog, 1980)
Fast-Walking
(Harris, 1982)
Twice Upon a Time
(Korty & Swenson, 1983)
Trouble in Mind
(Rudolph, 1985)
When the Wind Blows
(Murikami, 1986)
Housekeeping
(Forsyth, 1987)
The Glass Menagerie
(Newman, 1987)
Patty Hearst
(Schrader, 1988)
Drowning by Numbers
(Greenaway, 1988)
Haunted Summer
(Passer, 1988)
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
(Spheeris, 1988)
1990's
Old Times
(Curtis, 1991)
Prospero's Books
(Greenaway, 1991)
City of Hope
(Sayles, 1991)
The Baby of Macon
(Greenaway, 1993)
King of the Hill
(Soderbergh, 1993)
Dadetown
(Hexter, 1995)
SubUrbia
(Linklater, 1997)

Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

Too Dumb To Breathe

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"I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country," Bill Maher said during last Friday's New Rules rant, "yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.

"Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.

"Not here. Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman. And among Republican governors, only 30% got their wife's name right on the first try.

"Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. No, they're not stupid. They're interplanetary mavericks. A third of Republicans believe Barack Obama is not a citizen, and a third of Democrats believe that George Bush had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, which is an absurd sentence because it contains the words 'Bush' and 'knowledge.'"

There's a letter describing the American yahoo brigade on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. Here's a portion:

"They have always been with us, the people who believed in manifest destiny, who delighted in the slaughter of this land's original inhabitants, who cheered a nation into a civil war to support an economic system of slavery that didn't even benefit them. They are the people who bashed the unions and cheered on the anti-sedition laws, who joined the Pinkertons and the No Nothing Party, who beat up Catholic immigrants and occasionally torched the black part of town. They rode through the Southern pine forests at night, they banned non-European immigration, they burned John Rockefeller Jr. in effigy for proposing the Grand Tetons National Park.

"These are the folks who drove Teddy Roosevelt out of the Republican Party and called his cousin Franklin a communist, shut their town's borders to the Okies and played the protectionist card right up until Pearl Harbor, when they suddenly had a new foreign enemy to hate. They are with us, the John Birchers, the anti-flouride and black helicopter nuts, the squirrly commie-hating hysterics who always loved the loyalty oath, the forced confession, the auto-de-fe. Those who await with baited breath the race war, the nuclear holocaust, the cultural jihad, the second coming. They make up much more of America then you would care to think."

Snappy<< previous | next >>Eloi

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 9, 2009 at 12:11 PM

comment #1

Phatang! says ...

There's a difference between "stupid" and "uninformed" or "uneducated." People don't know basic things not because they can't grasp them, but because they never learned them. "Stupid" carries with it a judgment that is alienating.

Posted by Phatang! at August 9, 2009 12:27 PM

comment #2

Edward says ...

Ain't Public Education great!

Posted by Edward at August 9, 2009 12:31 PM

comment #3

Cadavra says ...

I think it's more correct to say that "stupid" implies a learning disability, whereas "ignorant" means capable of being knowledgeable, but not, whether willfully or otherwise.

Posted by Cadavra at August 9, 2009 12:37 PM

comment #4

zumpano says ...

I see that you guys don't agree with this part. I do:

"Some of this stuff you should be able to pick up simply by being alive. You know, like the way the Slumdog kid knew about cricket.

Posted by zumpano at August 9, 2009 12:39 PM

comment #5

Josh Massey says ...

The dumbest of us believe the dumb of us are on one side of the political spectrum.

Posted by Josh Massey at August 9, 2009 12:52 PM

comment #6

Travis Crabtree says ...

There certainly is a difference between stupid and ignorant. I had a girlfriend in college who couldn't name the vice-president, the governor of our state or a single city in Italy. (!!!!!) (she thought Rome was a country)
Yet she got straight A's in Engineering! She was Rain Man. She knew advanced-level calculus and chemistry. But when class or study time was over it's like she just turned her brain off.
Peter Jennings could be on television telling us that Soviet missiles were headed our way and she'd say "what's up with that weird tie he's wearing? It doesn't even match."

Of course the main problem I have with this is it comes from Maher. I really used to like the guy back during the ABC days.
It's also interesting how certain people only complain about the "dumbness" of our country when the people don't think or vote the way they do.

Posted by Travis Crabtree at August 9, 2009 12:56 PM

comment #7

corey3rd says ...

Stupid is me having to listen to a relative rant about why Obama had to give a Supreme Court seat to a foreigner. Seriously, this relative refused to admit that Sotomayer was really born in the Bronx - which is a part of America. The Birthers are no longer restricting their attention to Obama. anyone they hate isn't born in America

Posted by corey3rd at August 9, 2009 12:56 PM

comment #8

Phatang! says ...

Corey: Making inane and offensive arguments (with certainty) is definitely one form of stupidity.

Me not being able to figure out how to put air in my tires is probably another.

But I don't think not being able to name a branch of government qualifies.

Posted by Phatang! at August 9, 2009 1:58 PM

comment #9

Ray says ...

@phatang! - Of course that qualifies. Maher's point that Americans are too stupid to be involved in their country absolutely has to do with the fact that they know nothing about its workings.

It reminds me of that great scene in Remains Of The Day when the elite embarass Hopkins' character for his relatively uninformed opinion.

Posted by Ray at August 9, 2009 2:12 PM

comment #10

Manitoba says ...

I'm a smiling Bill Maher fan sitting here in my room with a copy of The United States: The History OF A Republic right beside my two copies of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and one of Screenwriting For Dummies. I said to myself',you know what the U.S. Bill of Rights Is, don't you, it's part of the constitution, right? Then I began to wonder if I did in fact know. To the book and I quote:"James Madison arose in the first Congress to introduce the proposals for the first ten amendments, which finally became the Constitution's Bill of Rights."

Posted by Manitoba at August 9, 2009 2:35 PM

comment #11

BurmaShave says ...

It's amazing how much more effective Maher is to read, when he doesn't make his cokehead smirk after every punchline and wait for applause.

Posted by BurmaShave at August 9, 2009 2:43 PM

comment #12

reedyb says ...

The problem isn't ignorance or stupidity this time around as it's the way that cable news and the internet have created an environment where everyone can have their own set of facts tailored toward their predetermined inclinations.

The folks angry at the town hall meetings are actually angry about the state of the country. Hell, we all were angry after the last 8 years. The issue is that Fox News and conservative blogs have been able to channel that anger with false information, conspiracy theories and scare tactics that lead rational beings to irrational conclusions.

The anger is real. We all feel that the country we knew and loved is changing. To quote the great philosopher Garth, "I fear change!"

People sense a change is coming. They fear it. The facts they read and see confirm their worst fears (really, can Sarah Palin actually say that Obama is proposing a "death board" and get away with it?).

Somethings gotta give.

That scares me.

Posted by reedyb at August 9, 2009 2:51 PM

comment #13

sumo-pop says ...

It ain't nothin' but the truth. Deal with it. And Crabtree? The public did vote the way Maher had hoped, and he still thinks they're stupid. So he's completely consistent.

Posted by sumo-pop at August 9, 2009 3:46 PM

comment #14

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

Sure, Americans are stupid, but so are other people. For instance, my parents have told me that quite a few people in India thought (and still some think to this day) that Indira Gandhi (the first female PM of India) was the daughter or Mahatma Gandhi. Nope. They were NOT related in any way whatsoever.

Stupidity is a disease everywhere, but I concur with the 1st comment. There's a difference between being stupid and being un-informed (or ignorant).

Posted by DeafBrownTrashPunk at August 9, 2009 5:59 PM

comment #15

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

*daughter of Mahatma, excuse the typo.

Posted by DeafBrownTrashPunk at August 9, 2009 6:01 PM

comment #16

austin111 says ...

The fear I feel is that we are losing control of our country and that we are being controlled in the process by corporations and wealthy men who control the news and what we see on the news. That we no longer have a stake in the process and that there are fearful, selfish, and frightening people in our midst willing to do the violent bidding of anyone who seemingly confirms the worst for them (O'Reilley, Palin, et. al.), like sheep. That people are armed to the teeth with more guns and ammunition than anyone can recall says it all. In this atmosphere, any horrible thing can happen.

Posted by austin111 at August 9, 2009 7:40 PM

comment #17

plastiqueelephant says ...

As on most issues, America contains the best and worst of the world. You guys have the top universities, research facilities, technological innovation, films and probably the best literature. And then another 230M odd people who are one step above retarded.

Posted by plastiqueelephant at August 9, 2009 7:52 PM

comment #18

Ulysses says ...

I am Canadian. I like most Americans.

Posted by Ulysses at August 9, 2009 8:02 PM

comment #19

lipranzer says ...

Maher's anger may be justified, but he's forgetting something that letter-writer pointed out; people have made those complaints, specifically or generally, about my generation, about his generation, and the ones before us. I just dug out my copy of "Legends, Lies and Cherished Myths of American History," which points out, among other things, schools suffered through bad conditions (overcrowding, high dropout rate, ignorance) as much then as they do today.

The main difference between then and now - and this is the scary part - is the ignorant are pandered to, and have a visible voice, and even have gained positions of power.

Posted by lipranzer at August 9, 2009 8:41 PM

comment #20

MilkMan says ...

75% of this country is dumber than 50% of the rest of the world. There are peasants in the outer most reaches of rural China who have a better general education than most Americans. We know how to shop, talk on the phone and stare at screens.

Posted by MilkMan at August 9, 2009 8:51 PM

comment #21

MilkMan says ...

I have no idea if what I said is true. Probably isn't. But it sounds good. To me.

Posted by MilkMan at August 9, 2009 8:55 PM

comment #22

Doug says ...

One of the reasons I wasn't much of a fan of "Slumdog" is that the kid seemed to only know what he'd happened across in his life. The one question that required the slightest bit of deductive reasoning he got wrong.

Posted by Doug at August 9, 2009 10:11 PM

comment #23

Doug says ...

I'll always remember a Jaywalking segment Leno did at a college graduation. He asked a girl who had just received her diploma how many moons the earth had and she said "Two."

Posted by Doug at August 9, 2009 10:12 PM

comment #24

nola says ...

It's also seems people revel in being stupid and/or ignorant. Look at Palin. She didn't grow up poor. She had opportunities many people in this country didn't. But she didn't take advantage of them. That someone that ignorant was on a major party's ticket for VP scares the shit of out me.

Posted by nola at August 9, 2009 10:43 PM

comment #25

Terry McCarty says ...

I hope next season that HBO reduces Maher's episode count and again allows him to take the summer off. Tired of hearing Marher repeatedly wax on the glories of snotty atheism, the Golden Age of Bill Clinton and the stupid masses who eat processed food.

Posted by Terry McCarty at August 9, 2009 10:53 PM

comment #26

Josh Massey says ...

"75% of this country is dumber than 50% of the rest of the world."

Wildly, wildly, wildly incorrect.

Posted by Josh Massey at August 10, 2009 4:15 AM

comment #27

Josh Massey says ...

Funny, though, America is so stupid - yet you guys want to hand health care over to the same crew that's handled education for the past century.

Posted by Josh Massey at August 10, 2009 4:17 AM

comment #28

Mr. Buckles says ...

JM, isn't the education crew at the state level while the health care is a question of federal coverage and administration? Not sure it makes much a difference in terms of your ultimate point, but at least a nuance I wanted to mention.

Posted by Mr. Buckles at August 10, 2009 5:09 AM

comment #29

GonePostal says ...

@ Zumpano, that cricket thing is pretty funny as that was the one he had no idea about. Did Maher not pay attention to that part of the movie? It's why they tortured the kid!

Posted by GonePostal at August 10, 2009 8:55 AM

comment #30

DeeZee says ...

Josh: Well, up until the last thirty years or so, our education was something to look up to around the world. [After all, we did make it on the moon once, unless you believe certain conspiracy theories that it was faked.] It just changed around the time "fiscal" conservatives thought it was a better idea to blow our budgets on nukes and prisons.

Posted by DeeZee at August 10, 2009 11:49 AM

comment #31