Day: November 7, 2020

Red Beverly Hills

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I never suspected that a majority of homes in the Beverly Hills “flats” (north of Santa Monica Blvd. up to Sunset Blvd.) are owned by rightwing Trump supporters. I always thought the Southern California loonies mainly lived down in Orange County. But according to data compiled by the Los Angeles Times, Beverly Hills is indeed a red stronghold.

Posted yesterday (11.6) by LAmag‘s Brittany Martin in a piece titled “Which L.A. Neighborhoods Voted for Trump?“:

“The largest concentration of Trump support in central Los Angeles is located in the affluent residential areas of Beverly Hills and Trousdale Estates.

“Beverly Hills precincts that voted for Trump start directly across Santa Monica Boulevard from the Rodeo Drive shopping district, which has been the site of frequent pro-Trump demonstrations in recent months. Many businesses in that district had closed and boarded up in advance of Election Day as a precaution against potential unrest.”

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L’enfant Terrible

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Deranged and self-deluding as Trump has always been, you’d think that with the election called and the odds of a miracle turnaround virtually nil that a dignity impulse would kick in. That would mean summoning at least an attempt to behave in a classy manner. He wouldn’t have to mean it, and he could always revert to his natural default self after he leaves Washington for New York and Mar a Lago in late January. He must realize deep down that he’ll never pull off a reversal of fortune. And yet he continues to fret and whine and accuse the deep state of manipulating the vote, etc.

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Order and Discipline

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We all understand how quaint the idea of physical media has become. I’m nonetheless indebted to Tatiana for having insisted last night that I alphabetize my 450 Blurays. A paltry-sized library by some standards, I realize, but I’ve been slowing down on purchases over the last three or four years. I’ve been buying Blurays since ’06, but until last night I hadn’t alphabetized. Strange as it sounds, I enjoyed searching for five or ten minutes in order to find a given title.

We now have a special row of Region 2 Blurays, two rows of Criterion, and sections devoted to Kubrick, Polanski, Hitchcock, etc.

Did you know, incidentally, that American movie fanatics aren’t allowed to even stream Polanski’s latest film, the utterly brilliant J’Accuse (aka An Officer and a Spy), because of some reprehensible personal behavior on Polanski’s part that happened 40-plus years ago? I’ve suggested that his personal history shouldn’t be confused with his artistic accomplishments, that they exist on separate planes. J’Accuse is indisputably one of the finest films of 2020 (not exaggerating) but that don’t cut no ice with a certain segment.

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Your Strings Are Being Pulled

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I haven’t paid the slightest attention to Jeff Orlowski‘s The Social Dilemma since it premiered on Netlix about two months ago. I didn’t even watch the trailer until this morning.

I was inspired to do so, however, by last night’s appearance of Tristan Harris on Real Time with Bill Maher. A prominent talking head in Orlowski’s doc, Harris is a former “design ethicist” at Google and currently president of the Center for Humane Technology. And his message is basically that we’re all being fucked and fiddled with by social media technology.

“The compelling feature about The Social Dilemma is helplessness, like a man on a beach watching the wave of a tsunami approach and realizes immediately that there is nowhere to run, nowhere to go, and nothing to do, as his fate is already sealed, that in point of fact he is actually lucky as he has been given the time — a moment really, simply by looking up — to consider his approaching demise.

“So it is that The Social Dilemma paints a clear picture of capitalism taken to its nth degree…of a soulless artificial intelligence, a Frankenstein automaton designed to simply give us what we want, [and] that puts us on the road to an impersonal doom. But it doesn’t matter anymore what we want as the wave of the tsunami is already breaking.” — Rotten Tomatoes super-reviewer “Kevin M.W.”

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Damnation

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This Big Country gun duel scene is about courage and character, or the lack of. I’m not saying Joe Biden is 100% analogous to Gregory Peck‘s character in terms of behaving in a sane, sensible and steadfast way, but he’s close enough. It’s also fair to say that right now Donald Trump‘s behavior is at least somewhat similar to that of Chuck Connors, as the no-good scurvy varmint son of Burl Ives.

What well-known, present-tense figure is somewhat similar to the stern and disdainful Ives? I’d say Ives represents the attitude of nearly everyone right now…everyone except for hardcore Trump friendos, the ranks of which are slightly thinning as we speak.

Big Media Calls It For Biden

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In a coordinated, all-together-now announcement at the same exact time (11:30 am eastern), CNN, AP, The NY Times, NBC, Politico and PBS announced that Biden-Harris are the victors, due to their Pennsylvania plurality. And Indiewire also! Indiewire hands it to Biden-Harris!