Lana Wilson isn't much of a filmmaker -- that's probably the least controversial comment we're going to make today. Interest isn't her problem, she can find worthy topics, she just lacks insight and information which makes for trite films. Some people mistake their agreement with a point made in one of Lana's projects for an actual good film. No.
Take PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS -- the two-part 'documentary' airing on HULU about the former model and child-actor. We know Brooke and we were hoping to avoid commenting but the same thing destroying this 'documentary' is also destroying the country. PRETTY BABY is just a starting point. HULU's bad -- really bad -- TV documentary starts out lousy and never gets better.
In the 1970s, Brooke Shields shot to fame as a group of young girls. In addition to Brooke, there was Mariel Hemingway, Tatum O'Neal (who won an Academy Award -- and was the youngest performer to ever do so, even all these years later) and Jodie Foster. Of the four, Tatum was the least sexualized by the media. This was due in part to her 'tomboy' image at the start of her career (PAPER MOON -- where her character took to wearing a hair bow so people wouldn't thinks she was a little boy -- and BAD NEWS BEARS). 1980's LITTLE DARLINGS could have pulled her into the sewer but (a) she gave a fine performance, (b) Kimi Peck and Darlene Young's screenplay demonstrated you could explore sexual awakenings without being prurient and (c) the film had a very strong cast which also included Kristy McNichol, Armand Assante and Matt Dillon.
If you don't get how disgusting LITTLE DARLINGS could have turned out, you obviously have never watched LIPSTICK or TAXI DRIVER. To that, we say, "Good for you." For the rest of us who've suffered, LIPSTICK had 14-year-old Mariel dealing with her sister getting raped only to herself be raped -- by the same man. TAXI DRIVER was its own kind of smutty -- and, yes, we think it's smutty. We think it can also be called art with no question and we like and know its director Martin Scorcese but it is smutty with Jodie Foster playing a 12-year-old prostitute. None of this is addressed or dealt with. It's not even acknowledged in the documentary.
Instead, PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS just basically plops you into 1978 when 12-year-old Brooke is promoting Louis Malle's film PRETTY BABY in which she plays a 12-year-old prostitute. Unlike Jodie when she played a 12-year-old prostitute two years prior, Brooke is nude in the film.
This is not a story in isolation and a real filmmaker would have grasped that.
Lana Wilson keeps going to Drew Barrymore who doesn't know a damn thing about this era. Drew made no films in the seventies. She wasn't part of it. She was too young. At five, she makes her screen debut in 1980's ALTERED STATES. 12 years later, at the age of 17 -- and an emancipated minor -- she makes POISON IVY and moves towards an image onscreen that plays off her 'wild child' image offscreen.
Stop pretending that Drew knows a damn thing about being sexualized in the seventies. Lana didn't have the brains to put Tatum, Mariel or Jodie in front of the camera and that's only one of the many shortcomings of the 'documentary.'
Brooke, Mariel, Tatum and Jodie had to navigate this terrain. And it harmed their careers which is part of the Brooke story that goes untold in this so-called documentary. They are not allowed, by the media, to be girls. They have to be young women -- at the age of 12, no less -- and then, as they become adults, they're ridiculed for having 'transgressed.' In other words, the same society that spent years (plural) sexualizing them as children, now feels guilt over this sexualization and projects it onto these young females.
They've not only been exploited but now they're being treated as though they -- as children -- exploited themselves.
Instead of getting details like that, we get uninformed women, stupid, idiotic women, blathering away on camera. How stupid? "Ahva"? One of us is named Ava and, yeah, it really grates when some stupid woman is presented on camera as an 'expert' and decides to bring up "Ahva" Gardner. It's beyond pretentious and just one more example of how idiots get to pass as experts when you don't have a real filmmaker behind the camera.
It also doesn't help if the filmmaker is exploitive of Brooke. TILT? KING OF THE GYPSIES? WANDA NEVADA? JUST YOU AND ME KID?
Where are those films? In this supposed documentary about Brooke, she goes from PRETTY BABY to BLUE LAGOON. It ignores the four films she starred in between the two -- and she was paid $250,000 for making JUST YOU AND ME KID. (She also did a cameo in AN ALMOST PERFECT AFFAIR.) Ignoring these films? Doesn't that mean that the 'documentary' is sexualizing Brooke?
It matters. There were other roles. An 'expert' insists, "If you're a famous girl you get one shot. You come on the scene and whoever you are and however you are, that's who you are."
That expert is an uninformed liar.
Brooke had other opportunities. Tatum had them, Mariel had them, Jodie had them.
You have to take responsibility for the choices you make in life.
Which really did become a theme last week.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was exposed by PROPUBLIC last week for the millions he's taken over the years from a man he met after he got on the Court -- taken and refused to disclose.
In late June 2019, right after the U.S. Supreme Court released its final opinion of the term, Justice Clarence Thomas boarded a large private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were going on vacation: nine days of island-hopping in a volcanic archipelago on a superyacht staffed by a coterie of attendants and a private chef.
If Thomas had chartered the
plane and the 162-foot yacht himself, the total cost of the trip could
have exceeded $500,000. Fortunately for him, that wasn’t necessary: He
was on vacation with real estate magnate and Republican megadonor Harlan
Crow, who owned the jet — and the yacht, too.
For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.
The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.
He's paid nearly $300,000 a year by US tax payers. If that's not enough for him to live on, he should have found another job. But while he is a public servant, he's required not just to avoid being unethical but also -- pay attention, idiot Jonathan Turley -- to avoid even the appearance of being unethical. There is a higher standard at play when you are a public official -- and when you are on the Supreme Court, that standard is higher than what anyone else will be held to. You have a lifetime appointment to a role where you are deciding the rights of Americans. There is a higher ethical standard that you must meet.
College professor Jonathan Turley took time out from promoting transphobia long enough to Tweet the following:
A real filmmaker might want to take a look into Turley's obsession with AOC and how frightening women (and people of color) are to him.
At any rate, it's about appearances, Jonathan, and they matter. It is an illegitimate Supreme Court at present. And now we've got Clarence taking money from a sugar daddy who also appears to have been the source of a salary for Clarence's wife -- that's what the sugar daddy donating $500,000 to her Liberty Central did -- guaranteed her a six-figure yearly payday. And, to be clear, no spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice should be allowed to have a political lobbying firm. You want to be on the Court, curb your spouse. We don't need these complications. This lobbying effort carried out by Ginni Thomas is unseemly -- but then her calling for unnamed Democrats to be tortured at "Gitmo" is unseemly as well.
It's past time Clarence was removed from the Court.
He never should been put on the Court to begin with. He assaulted Anita Hill, he assaulted worker protections while at the EEOC. He is a nightmare and he's an idiot. Too scared to ask questions from the bench in public? Then you're not fit for the bench.
In his DOBBS opinion, he all but begged to be removed from the Court. He does not believe in stare decisis which not only goes against what he told the Senate at his confirmation hearing but it also against American law. Without stare decisis, there is no settled law. Without star decisis, precedent is tossed aside and each case is a whole new world where the law may have said X in the past but can now say anything.
That's not how the law works. If you're not getting it, think of precedent as the foundation for a house. You can build a house on a proper foundation and you may have to make some repairs as the years go by. But try building a house -- brick or wood -- without a foundation and living in that house and see just how that works out for you. The house is going to collapse -- even The Three Little Pigs could grasp that.
He needs to be removed from the Court. And President Joe Biden would be doing the right thing to lead that effort since it's thanks to him that Thomas is on the Court to begin with. As Joe damn well knows, Anita wasn't the only one Clarence harassed and she wasn't the only woman willing to testify. It was Joe, as head of the Committee, who prevented the other women from testifying.
Most of us don't get a second chance to rectify a horrible mistake we make. Joe's being given that chance and needs to take it.
This latest scandal for Clarence Thomas should be the last scandal that America has to endure from him. He needs to resign or he needs to be impeached.
Anything else says that corruption is okay in the system.
We hope that, before you read what we wrote, you were already outraged about Thomas. We have to hope that because our brave YOUTUBERS couldn't find the story.
Right-winger Glenn Greenwald was silent. And if he could be that all the time, we'd be thrilled. Glenn likes to say he hasn't changed. If we looked in the mirror and saw what he sees, we'd probably lie too.
There's nothing sadder than a grown, middle-aged man with money trying to save a few pennies by using box-dye to color his hair. It did take out the grey, it also made him a flaming carrot top. The brows are also not being professionally cared for which gives him more of a lop-sided appearance. But, worst of all, he's got that middle-aged woman look. You know when a woman goes her entire life without moisturizing and then, around 57 or 58, she notices that time has beat her up and she rushes into that first affair with moisturizer without learning any basics? So she slobbers it under her eyes, thinking that'll turn back the clock, but all it does is draw attention to how many wrinkles are there. All Glenn's desperate slap-dabbing is doing is accentuating the creases.
Some will be surprised that a gay man could know so little about beauty but remember that Glenn was an unhappy, single gay in the United States for decades because he couldn't be who he really was -- a persnickety bottom. He had to go to Brazil, far away from his family and friends, to come out of the bottom closet. And even now, he's just out among close friends. So when most gay men -- top, bottom, versatile -- were learning the basics of hygiene, Glenn was too busy hiding, scared that his straight 'friends' might find out what a femme he truly was.
Oh, Glenneth, you've sacrificed your looks to save your 'butch' image. It was your own personal SOPHIE'S CHOICE.
And how sad it must be that time marches on -- heavy footed across your face -- when you're with a man 20 years younger than you are.
Conservatives are so damn cheap. Glenneth proves it. He wants to be on video with 'reporting' and he's too damn cheap to hire wardrobe and makeup -- ensuring that each episode is hate-watched by many who ridicule him for his laughable fashion choices, outrageous hair color and crypt-keeper like face. Doesn't he deserve anything for privatizing the bulk of Ed Snowden's revelations and keeping them away from the American people?
It's called karma and, like Glenneth Greenwald, it's one ugly bitch.
Glenneth couldn't be bothered with Clarence Thomas -- he was too busy preaching more transphobia and other things. In fact, we're sure busy is why he barely defended Matt Taibbi. It certainly wouldn't be that he was so circumspect on Twitter because Matt means far less to him than sucking up to Elon Musk, right?
What did Matt do last week?
This is why we're having to write about Brooke Shields. It's not just her 'documentary.' It's not just Clarence Thomas. It's so many people struggling with the concept of accountability.
Matt Taibbi is the main author of The Twitter Files. He embarrassed himself last week. On MSNBC. And he has no one to blame but himself.
A number of people took to responding. Some defended Matt. Some just enjoyed the s**t show. But there was another group who felt the need to lie.
It's the usual group of liars -- Sabby, RBN, Jimmy Dore, et al -- the ones we've come to count on to disappoint and deflect.
They wanted to claim that Matt really showed Mahdi!!!! He put Mahdi in his place!!!!
No, he didn't. And you have to be a damn liar to make that claim and a damn fool to think you could get away with that claim.
Matt kept returning, in his responses, to MSNBC's coverage of Hunter Biden or Russia-gate. Matt is correct that MSNBC's coverage is embarrassing. But Mehdi Hasan was not part of that coverage. He was correct when he said he wasn't with MSNBC at that time.
Mehdi pointed out some errors in Matt's Tweeting about The Twitter Files and Matt attempted to counter with Hunter Biden and Russia-gate, etc.
That never addressed the issues.
It was a very embarrassing performance by Matt.
To his credit, Matt may be one of the last grown ups in the room -- Friday, on his program AMERICA THIS WEEK, he admitted he did not do a good job.
Apparently, the conversation started before it went live. That's a trick that many journalists use, they try to throw you off your game before the interview. If Mehdi did that, sorry. But Matt should have been prepared. He's not 21-year-old journalism student, he's a seasoned veteran. That said, there's a chance it could have happened to anyone, even if they were prepared.
Aaron Mate took to Twitter because what else do you do apparently?
We'd say you do a segment on USEFUL IDIOTS or Aaron's other YOUTUBE outlet. We'd say even stronger that you write about it -- not Tweet.
That is Matt's biggest problem and why Mehdi was able to win the debate.
Matt hasn't written about it. If he'd written about it, he might have caught some long ago Tweet with an error in it. (Mehdi identified two or three Tweets out of the thousands that make up The Twitter Files as being imprecise or false.)
That's why you write an actual report and not Tweet endlessly. No one's going to remember every Tweet out of a thousand or so they posted. But if you wrote a report, you would remember the substance of it and you would be able to say, "You know that fact might be wrong, if so, my error, but read my larger report and you'll see . . ."
Matt can't do that because there is no larger report.
There are other Tweets. There's no report.
What's emerging is part of the deal that Matt made to get access to the information on Twitter. Elon Musk had purchased Twitter and he needed money. So he released the files to Matt (and others -- but Matt was -- and remains -- the star reporter on this topic). And, in agreement, Matt apparently promised that he would keep it on Twitter. This would have the effect of getting Twitter in the news which is what Elon needed to make bank payments on his loans.
We still don't know what the entire deal was -- and we should. That's basic journalism. If you accept information from a source and report on it, if you also have a deal with the source about what you can and cannot do as a result, you need to be honest and disclose that deal.
Matt was wrong not to. Matt was wrong to agree to keep this on Twitter. If he'd written a report, again, he'd be able to point to that and tell Mehdi, "Look, if you're right, it's a factual error. But I wrote an entire article about this and this error doesn't impact the larger issue I am addressing."
But if all you did was Tweet, then every Tweet has the same weight, the same value.
We warned about this and we said the topic needed reporting. That's where he needs to go now. He and Musk have had a break -- Musk is not allowing Tweets to include links to SUBSTACK and, per Matt, they are now in "a business dispute" -- so it's the perfect time, after he's done visiting Disney Land and Hawaii, for him to write an actual report.
That's what he needs to work on. Unlike too many others last week, he doesn't need to work on accountability. He's taken it for two or three errors that Mehdi pounced upon and he's taken it for his performance on MSNBC.
Too many others can't/won't own their mistakes.
That's true of Clarence Thomas for damn sure. Caught concealing 'gifts' from the public, he responded:
Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable
Let's pretend someone was stupid enough to tell Clarence that -- possible, he seems like someone who hangs out with a lot of dumb folk -- does everyone not get how shifty his comment is?
He is a grown man, one who sits on the Supreme Court, and, confronted with his unethical behavior, he doesn't say, "I'm sorry." No, he blames it on others.
He's supposed to be one of the top nine legal minds in the country and he didn't disclose millions in gifts because someone told him he didn't have to?
Need another example? Valerie Bertinelli. If you missed it, THE FOOD NETWORK cancelled VALERIE'S HOME COOKING. They did so last summer. And it only got announced in the last few days. Valerie announced it online last week and that she was hoping THE FOOD NETWORK would change its mind. In what world does that happen, Valerie? A network cancels a show and then, close to a year later, changes its mind?
She also shared that she was confused as to why the show got the axe.
Because of her. Take some damn accountability. Her whole life has been about being likable. Eddie Van Halen dies -- married to another woman -- and she tries to play the widow. This causes problems in her then-current marriage. It ends poorly with a separation and then a divorce and the whole time Valerie's trashing him online.
As Trina's pointed out many times in the last 12 months, Valerie's the one who invited the man into America's homes. If he's as evil as she's now saying, why'd she invite him in? More to the point, he has children and she really shouldn't be trashing him publicly. It's made her look like a petty and bitter bitch. That's not a good look for a young person, let alone a sixty-plus person.
The audience of THE FOOD NETWORK turned on her. They complained about her and stopped watching. There was no future for the show because Valerie's brand was relatable and turns out she's just a fake ass. What did she think people were going to think as she trashed the man she spent 13 seasons bragging about, 13 seasons bringing on her program, 13 seasons shoving down the American people's throats?
She could have stopped being a bitch and saved her career. She instead chose to trash him over and over for over a year now. If this was the real Valerie, then who was the woman on camera who couldn't shut up about Tom and how great he was?
Instead of her very public pity party, she should have pulled on her big girl panties and moved on with her life. If she'd done that, she might still have a TV show. But the marriage was over and it was more important to her to trash Tom and blame Tom. It backfired on her.
It's doubtful she'll learn from it when she can't even cop to it and take accountability.
And this -- all the above -- is how we end up with garbage like PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS.
The 'documentary is garbage for many reasons -- scope, lack of experts, lack of knowledge -- but fundamentally it falls apart because its working thesis is that Brooke was a child so she can't be accountable.
Now we could try seeing that point with regards to PRETTY BABY (the 1978 film). But when we're getting into her adult life, when she's getting married and cleans out the offices she shared with her mother without telling her mother (she removed some of Teri Shields' property when she cleaned out that building) and when this no-fault-of-Brooke's gets extended all the way out to her putting Teri into a nursing home ("I didn't know what to say," Brooke offers)?
No.
You made some bad movies as a child -- and after -- that's not a pass for the rest of your life.
Brooke needs to take ownership.
Mother Teri is blamed for everything, then it's blame Andre Agassi (first husband) for everything. When is it Brooke's fault? It's so bad that the 'documentary' even blames Michael Jackson.
He claimed he and Brooke were dating!!!!
Yeah and so did she.
The 'documentary' shows photos of Brooke and Michael -- at the American Music Awards. They don't show photos from the Grammys.
Maybe Brooke didn't want to talk about that?
We will.
Brooke's career was in the toilet and she was a professional joke. SAHARA, her most recent film, had bombed at the box office. How badly? Brooke was paid more for starring in the film than the movie made in ticket sales. Her Calvin Klein commercials were over and her Well Balsam commercials had further turned her into a joke. The American Music Awards with Michael Jackson? A huge amount of publicity that she sorely needed.
And if she'd left it at that, we wouldn't be commenting. But ask any Jackson sister and they'll tell you, she didn't leave it at that. She demanded Michael take her to the Grammys. She hounded on the phone, she showed up at his home. He didn't want to take her. She insisted. And the sole reason -- she points out now that they were never in love or even dating -- was for publicity.
Now we don't see, in the 'documentary,' the Grammys. We don't see that because it blew up in Brooke's face. She was humiliated. As she told Michael when they arrived -- with Emanuel Lewis, "They're laughing at us!" Yes, they were. And Brooke wanted to leave immediately.
But there she is whining -- and, yes, "whining" is the only term for it -- that she turns on the TV and there's Michael saying that they're dating. She tells us, in the 'documentary,' that she picked up the phone and told him to stop saying that because she was dating someone.
Okay. Well, she didn't feel that way when she could get mileage out of him. If the Grammys had gone the way the American Music Awards had, she might even still be pretending they dated.
Does that seem harsh? Because it's about to get worse.
Brooke whines about Barbara Walters. After she's dead. We didn't like Barbara Walters and we called her out here while she was alive (such as here). One of the reasons we didn't like her -- there were many -- was that after Gilda Radner died, Barbara began complaining about her to the press. After she died. While Gilda was alive, Barbara insisted that she thought Gilda's parodies of her on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE were funny. Then Gilda's dead and Barbara wants to trash her. Sort of like what Brooke's doing now.
What did Barbara do to Brooke that was so awful? In an interview, she asked what Brooke's body measurements were and she asked Brooke to stand next to her. Gee, what did she think Brooke was, a model?
Because Brooke was a model.
The whining never ends on PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS.
"They sexualized her!" is said in some form every few minutes.
They!
But it's Brooke. When Brooke's pregnant and choosing to pose nude? You can't blame Teri, you can't blame Barbara Walters, you can't blame anyone else. So the 'director' makes the choice to gloss over that without any comment.
Poor Brooke, we're told over and over.
Poor Brooke? Modeling and films gave her a life, paid her bills. Her mother, a struggling single-mom, protected her -- yes, Teri protected Brooke. Brooke wasn't raped while Teri was responsible for her. Teri watched out for her daughter. Teri -- not noted in the 'documentary' -- made sure Brooke had fun as well. Brooke talks about how Teri would ask her each day if she wanted to work and, if Brooke didn't, they'd go to the beach or something else. Brooke knows her mother did more than that. Brooke knows that Teri made sure it wasn't all work when it was time to promote a film. She, for example, destroyed the people responsible for BLUE LAGOON's NYC premiere because Brooke had no fun with that. She demanded -- and got -- better treatment and better schedules for the other openings.
Brooke's the one who chose to disclose that she was a virgin -- she did it to have a publicity hook for the book she had coming out. You know, the same way she waited until she needed to promote PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS to disclose that she was raped as a young adult.
Brooke's done that her entire life. So take some accountability.
It's frightening to watch that 'documentary' with a clear eye.
Take Brooke as a Mommy with her two daughters. As they tell her that PRETTY BABY (Brooke's film from the seventies) is creepy and disgusting, she visibly recoils. And all she can offer is that the film couldn't be made today.
We don't like TAXI DRIVER, but we can make the argument for it being art. You know who can make that argument -- and does -- better than us? Jodie Foster.
Jodie also had a stage-mom. Like Teri Shields, Brandy Foster loved films. And she loved art films and she made sure that her children grew up appreciating art. Jodie and her siblings can talk about art. Why can't Brooke?
She can't talk about much, can she?
Reality, she was the least talented of the big four in the 70s -- Jodie, Tatum, Mariel and Brooke. More than any other in that group, she needed to study acting. She also needed voice lessons because that Minnie Mouse voice might work as a child but was never going to carry her to an adult career. Instead of doing that, she wanted the world to know she was a virgin, she wanted to do publicity dates with Michael Jackson (and George Michael). She whines about her career but the reality is, Brooke was a celebrity who made films in the 70s. She was never an actress.
Tatum can point to many roles she played as a child and point with pride. The same with Jodie and Mariel. But Brooke? She and/or Teri might have gotten smart enough to grasp that she needed to start using a nude double for her film work but no one ever got her an acting double so her inexperience shows in one role after another.
She doesn't have to like the celebrity she got but she needs to grasp that celebrity was all that she had. She was never 'almost' nominated for an Academy Award for BLUE LAGOON or any other film. Her acting was never up to snuff. When she was fortunate enough to get a second chance in the 90s, she wasted it by refusing to study her craft.
She coasted through life on her looks. And, hate to be the ones to point it out, but those looks are fading. In fact, a friend needs to tell her that she can't wear turtle necks any more. Her chin's doing some weird things with age and she doesn't need a turtleneck drawing attention to the area of that flaw.
We wish we could say we found something worth being happy over in the 'documentary.' But we didn't. In fact, having watched, we fear for Chris Henchy. That's her husband and the father of her children. Should be a safe position to be in. But ten years from now, if she's still needing someone else to blame, we're guessing it's going to be him. That's the thing about refusing to take accountability -- you always need a fall guy.