An Open Letter to Ted Cruz

[This is an actual email I've sent to Senator Ted Cruz.]

Dear Ted Cruz:

My name is Eric Fuchs, and I am a voter.  You do not represent me, as I do not live in the state of Texas, but as a United States Senator, and an officer of the federal government, you ultimately are accountable to every citizen.  You may think you represent only the right-wing spectrum of this country, and you may consider all those who do not attend your rallies to be enemies, but for better or for worse, you are in my government.  And you have taken responsibility for the welfare of not only myself but hundreds of millions of other Americans, most of whom - if given the chance - would vote you very swiftly out of office.  But that is not the system we live in.

The government shutdown was not solely your responsibility, and frankly, more blame belongs on the shoulders of the House of Representatives than yourself personally.  But nobody in this country has benefited as greatly as you have from this government shut down.  It was your grandstanding in the Senate in a confusing twenty-one hour pseudo-filibuster that really galvanized your party to shut down the government in an ultimately failed attempted to defund the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).  And at no point have you ever stated that you are not responsible for the government shut down, or have you stated regret for that government shut down, or have you done or said anything that has allayed this crisis.  You've gone out in front and owned this crisis.  Though I'm sure you can find plenty of blame to go around in your party, so don't panic when you read the next paragraph.

Standard & Poor's has estimated that the cost of this government shut down for the sixteen days it has lasted has cost the entire American economy some $24 billion dollars.  We, the American voters, did not want to spend $24 billion on a government shut down, we grew tired of these endless idiotic Washington battles back in 2011.  But you did it anyway, without our consent.  We are helpless before non-functional government, which you are all too proud to stand up in front of and celebrate.  In a parliamentary system you would be looking for a new job now.  Either way, the latest estimates for the population of the United States is some 313.9 million people.  $24 billion divided up amongst 313.9 million adds up to about $76.45, rounding down to the nearest cent.  This means that thanks to the government shut down, which has made you a household name now, you personally owe me and the rest of the American people seventy-six dollars and forty six cents.

I can accept cash or check.

Thank you, Eric Fuchs

Gravity

One of the points that are rarely made about modern filmmaking is that thanks to advanced computer technology, Hollywood finally has the opportunities to create movies unlike anything we've ever seen before.  In today's world the real landmarks of major special effects films seem to have mostly passed.  Something as dull as forgettable as "Elysium" or even that crappy remake of "Total Recall" would have blown the minds of the entire world if it were made just in 1999, let alone 1989 or in the silent era.  Special effects have spoiled us, to the point that a major CG blockbuster is as exhausted as a romantic comedy or a crime thriller.  We've seen the superheros kick ass before in ridiculous stunts, we've seen the landmarks explode, we've seen the massive space battles.  The tools are there to make simply incredible stuff, and yet most directors are perfectly fine releasing "Transformers".  So you forget between the mediocrity of one failed summer adventure after another that CG effects really are the tools of wonder.  And if used smartly to make something new, they can make movies that really do suck you right in.

One problem I have lately is after four years of doing this blog* I don't really watch the same way as everybody else does.  Once upon a time when I saw a movie it was just a movie, I let myself go, I could simply let the director and actors tell me a story.  Now my movie watching experience is more of a dialog.  When I'm seeing a movie, my brain is already mapping out things that worked and things that didn't work, and often talking right back to the director.  "Really, we're gonna open with a killer doll, James Wan?"  "Oh, the doll lets the evil come into the ghost hunters' house, not bad, James Wan, nicely developed."  And if the movie is really really bad and very boring, like "Elysium", I'm already writing the review I'm going to post here while watching the movie.  However, "Gravity" was not a dialog.  I was as silent and non-judgmental as I've been for a movie in years.

"Gravity" is - in a word - fantastic.  There is no doubt in my mind that this was one of the best movies of the entire year, or any year.  This is a simple, yet brilliant movie.  Director Alfonso Cuaron has, for the very first time in filmmaking history, really recreated the freakish environment of outer space and ironically for the film's title, zero gravity.  With that he's gone and made a survival disaster movie with lost astronauts jumping from station to station trying to get back home - in what is truly the most isolated and dangerous location human beings have ever experienced.  And he does with this a clever touch, not merely making a thrill ride but also a quiet contemplative poem about the sublimity of outer space and mankind's own connection to our planet.  This is as good as movie making gets.

Pokemon: the Origin

"Pokemon X and Y" is coming out in just a few days, so I guess its time to a Pokemon post, or PokePost, if you will.

The Pokemon anime has been airing now since 1997, which is pretty much a decade and a half, and over 800 episodes.  Which is funny because the anime is - and always has been - absolute junk.  I suppose out of 800 episodes, some of the crap will eventually stick to the wall and you'll get a few emotional episodes, so its not all terrible.  Sabrina was creepy, I think every kid on Earth was upset when Ash let Butterfree go, and I think Misty and Ash's budding infatuation was the first romance I ever actually enjoyed.  But in a decade and a half of existence, "Pokemon" has done nothing but recycle plots, shoot exactly at kid-friendly non-threatening mediocrity, and callously abandon characters and Pokemon creatures just to fill up game-related fanservice.  So anybody who watched Pokemon after, say, the Johto seasons, has said to themselves "I do not care about the quality of my entertainment, I want nothing more than a repeating cycle every two or three years where nothing is lost, nothing is accomplished, and nothing changes."*  Which is fine, the consumer wants it and anime studio is willing to make money off of it, but maybe we could shoot for something a little more substantial?

"Pokemon: the Origin" is a two hour (four episode) animated special aired in Japan just last week, as part of the hype build-up for "Pokemon X and Y".  If this were just ten years ago, "Pokemon: the Origin" would have been a complete mystery to everybody in this hemisphere until Cartoon Network finally released it maybe three or four years ago.  But thanks to the modern marvel known as the Internet, this show was immediately streamed and just as quickly fansubbed over in English for the entire planet to enjoy.  Now you can find all four of these episodes on probably fifty different websites with just two clicks on Google.  The future rules, doesn't it?  Anyway, "Pokemon: the Origin" is a direct adaptation of the events of the original games, "Pokemon Red and Green" (later updated for export as "Pokemon Red and Blue"), starring not Ash Ketchum, but Red, a young Pallet Town trainer who actually goes out to be the very best that no one ever was.  Not with a Pikachu, but with a Charmander.

And let me say right now:  "Pokemon: the Origin" rocks.  This is the kind of anime we should have had years ago, frankly.  This is what an animated Pokemon show was meant to be.

Rush

Not one single Rush song in the entire movie!  False advertising!

"Rush" is the new film by Ron Howard detailing the Formula 1 racing rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt, the two best racers of the mid-1970s.  Its a classic sports battle:  the goof-off natural talent facing the straight-lace serious tech junkie.  Brains vs. Brawn.  Jocks vs. Nerds.  Plucky British hotspur vs. strict Germanic perfection.  You can see an entire universe of world-views on the stake, even down to this being a battle between McLaren and Farrari for the racing championship.  This is extremely interesting to me because my part of the world is basically entirely blocked out of the world Formula 1 sport* thanks to the absolute domination of NASCAR.  I've never heard of any of these racers before, and thus unlike pretty much the rest of Western Civilization, didn't know where the story was going.

If anything, "Rush" might have ignited some interest in Formula 1 racing.  Car racing in America is a huge desert, dominated by turning left 2,000 times in endless repetitive boredom.  I think all NASCAR fans secretly just want to see all of the racers die horribly, because there simply cannot be a better reason for the fascination in something so criminally boring.  If you've ever gotten bored at the fifth inning of a Mets game, try enduring a NASCAR race. Ron Howard, however, makes the racing look exciting and interesting, with actual stakes and right turns.  I'm going to have to burn this movie out of my brain before I decide I'm James Hunt the Second and kill myself by weaving through the lanes on the Garden State Parkway.

But I must regrettably point out that "Rush" is far from a great movie.  Ron Howard builds a fairly paint-by-number biopic here, basically glossing his way through the story.with barely enough focus on anything.  This is essentially the biography of two people, even if focused on just the most exciting years of their lives, but there's still a lot of ground to cover and I feel like "Rush" goes over it too quickly.  The women in these riders' lives are major figures in the story, but minor figures in the film, which is a pandemic problem with every person in this movie who isn't Hunt or Lauda.  The director here knows how to make a competent movie that will please any crowd, but I really think we fell short of the ultimate mark.

Hang Congress

Just imagine it.  Capitol Hill decorated with a forest of gallows, with an entire crop of swinging legislative fruit dancing in the breeze.  Hundreds of incompetent politicians, all rotting in the sun.  The price for their political grandstanding, putting the entire nation's economy at risk, being a simple severe and resounding punishment.  It would be a sight that history would not quickly forget.  Every congress from here on out will remember their example.  The future Senator who thinks he can be the next Ted Cruz, making a grandstand argument for no comprehensible reason when the clock is ticking for major decisions, with remember the current Ted Cruz.  He will hang from the highest gallow, finally getting the attention that he so desperately wanted.  Maybe his corpse can cameo on "Duck Dynasty", he loved that show.

Okay, we don't need to be quite so dramatic to solve the current government shut down problems.  Perhaps we don't need to storm Washington D.C. and tear down our dysfunctional system in a violent people's putsch, things aren't that bad.  But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the American political system has been working lately.  This shutdown is bad, its embarrassing, and a lot of people are going to lose quite a bit of money over it, but its not devastating, not yet.  Everybody is exhausted from these pathetic political battles that seem to crop every six months, but at worst its a pesky annoyance.  However, at a symbolic level, the sight of national parks closing, the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument sealing their doors, its a goddamn disgrace.  500 people cannot do their jobs, and even then the problem comes from a faction of one of the parties, and America closes.  How exactly is this is a system that is working?

In the short term, there's an easy solution that grows out of this:  the Republicans lose.  They turned their budget concerns over into yet another battle over the Affordable Care Act - a battle they've lost on every level already, and will not win again - and its obviously who to blame over this.  You can say "oh, the Democrats aren't compromising" but compromising on what?  To not implement a law that was passed three years ago?  That the Supreme Court upheld?  That the Republicans got their asses kicked over in the last election?*  Eventually they'll have to give up on this fight, or else further build the hatred of the entire nation.  The end game has already been seen, a surrender now will only help.  But once this show has ended, do we have to go through it again?  Can we fix it so this kind of bullshit doesn't occur in the future?