#this is some mccarthy era ass bullshit

[papasbaseball]

Whatever that porn film they pulled the song Ulterior Motives from apparently the youth are clamoring for someone to release a cut without the sex scenes because they're "not a gooner"

Congratulations you're not the audience.

People can talk about media literacy until their blue in the face, but we really are in a dark age where people don't know when a piece of media is not for them.

If you don't like horror, don't watch horror

If you don't like romance, don't watch romance

If you don't like porn, don't watch porn

You're not the audience and you don't get to butcher (supposedly there is important storytelling during the sex scenes) a piece of media just because you're a whiny pussy ass bitch. Go join the Christians who took all of the magic out of Harry Potter to make it Christian friendly.

[darklingichor]

Junior Bender books 2-4 by Timothy Hallinan

I read the first book, Crashed, the year I started this blog. I remember liking it, I remember liking the twist on the classic PI story having Junior being a world class burglar, and also being a kind of detective for the underbelly of LA.

I never got around to reading the next ones. Right now though, the weather is making my sinuses do timpani solos and I am having a heck of a time reading words on the page books, outside of dark mode on my kindle app, which doesn’t have anything that sounds good to me right now. Thank goodness for audible. The first 6 books are included in my membership.

Book 2 – Little Elvises – Junior is blackmailed into helping a cop get his mobbed up uncle out of the suspect pool for  a recently murdered tabloid journalist. Blackmail is also how he ended up doing his PI thing in the first book.

The cop threatens to get him arrested for a robbery where one of the residence of the house was pistol whipped. Junior has never been caught, and its not his style to go into a house armed. But the cop has the frame all ready so, Junior takes the job.

The cop’s uncle, was a two-bit record producer in the 1960’s. His specialty was making “Little Elvises” kids with a look and, if he was lucky, some talent, who could ride on The King’s coattails. The producer was talking openly about killing the tabloid guy, and then he ends up dead.

So, Junior has to figure out who killed the guy.

There’s a side case in this one. Junior has been living month to month in different motels since his divorce, his current land lady’s daughter is missing. Essentially Junior is a good guy so he takes this job too.

I like the plot of this a lot. I’m a classic rock geek, and I am somewhat fascinated by how things were done back then.  Like, there was this big stink about the Monkees not playing their own instruments on their albums. The thing is, a fair number of artists in that era used studio musicians. The guys *could* play their instruments (though Micky Dolenz was a guitar player before the show), and they *could* sing. It was just in the contracts that they would use studio musicians.

And Barry Gordie’s Motown , and Phil Specters Wall of sound this stuff was like the Mob only they made their own soundtracks.

The characters are good too. Junior’s ex-wife, and  thirteen year old daughter are interesting, especially because both know everything about Junior’s career. His friend Louie the Lost, is funny and good for some interesting trivia. The players in the cases are sufficiently cloudy to keep you second guessing your conviction of who did it.

Book 3 – The Fame Thief – In the last book, Junior crossed paths with Erwin Dressler, a 90 – something mix between a mob boss and a shady business man. Erwin had a vested interest in the producer guy that was suspected of murder. He then took an interest in Junior, I think because Junior brooked no bullshit, followed through with what he said he was going to do, and is a huge smart ass.

Erwin wants Junior to figure out who ruined the career of a would have been star, in the 50’s/60’s.

Dolly La Mar was a beautiful up and coming actress, but associations with mob guys and thugs got her swept up in a sort of McCarthy hearing without the communism. This completely shut her out of movies. Now, she’s an old woman living in a high end apartment looking back with a shrug at her glory days. She’s putting up with the investigation because Erwin wants to do this for her and they have been friends for decades.

So Junior has to go digging into Hollywood during the studio contract era and find out who ratted out Dolly.

Course its never as simple as all that and various people end up dead.

I’m also a geek for old Hollywood, not so much the movies, but the stories behind the movies and all the players, so I enjoyed the plot for this one too.

The characters are still good, Rina (The daughter) is a great little computer detective and Ronnie, the woman Junior started dating in Little Elvises is a perfect match for him.

Erwin and Dolly are lovely and sad in equal measure, I enjoyed their stories. We are also introduced to the nebulous world of contract killers

I really enjoyed the narritive shift about halfway through where we go back to the 40's when Dolly was a teenager heading west for Hollywood stardom, it sort of reminded me of the section in A Study in Scarlet where you learn the why's behind the crime and are suddenly dropped into a Zane Gray novel.

Book 4 - Herbie's Game

In this one, Junior is dropped into a Labyrinthine plot involving his crime mentor Herbie.

This is hard to describe as spoiler worthy stuff happen within the first couple of chapters. So, I'll say that Junior has to deal with a lot of pissed of people with access to that world of contract killers mentioned in the last book, he also has to face the fact that Herbie, a man Junior thinks of as his father, after his biological father took a powder, isn't the man he thought he was.

I liked this one less. It felt long for reasons I'll get to shortly. It also has too many things happening. Honestly, too many people are pissed off at Junior, or are being paid by the pissed off people to kill Junior. It makes it hard to keep track. Did Junior or Herbie wrong this one, or were they just hired to fuck with them? Or, are they just caught up in the plot somehow?

It wasn't bad, just not as strong as the others.

Now, here's the thing about the series so far as whole.

The characters are cool, the writing is good when it stays focused - but when it doesn't...

The books are told first person by Junior and there are times that both prose and dioluge feel like a Noir sprinkler stuck on blast.

It is so saturated in metaphor and simile that there are times that it feels like the actual story is drowned out by description.

Case in point, in Herbie's Game, when an emotionally drained Junior must walk away from a gruesome scene there is an extended metaphor involving a rope just getting him across the lawn to his car. I didn’t see the actual written page, but it had to be at least a paragraph, but felt like half a page. I get conveying g the emotion of the scene, but this happenens throughout the books. Landscape, houses, and objects are anthropomorphized and described from head to toe, in an oddly sparse, yet by sheer volume, also flowery way. People are also decirbed in detail. Here's the weird part: everything that gets this treatment is almost always described negatively, almost like Junior is prepared to hate everyone and everything on sight and is prepared to give them a bullet list as to why. People he likes? They are described matter of factly and over time. His daughter, his girl friend, his ex-wife, we get bits and pieces, letting their personality inform how the reader perceives them, rather than front loading the reader with descriptions to make damn sure that we know what kind of character this is.

The description of LA and the surrounding areas really makes it feel like Junior hates it with a passion. I mean the only place that I have lived that I would have described in this sort of tone, I didn't live there long.

Because the books are told from Junior’s point of view, the writing feels less like the author is showing off (like Gregory Mcguire) and more like Junior is deeply insecure. He details in Crashed how he is mostly self educated, that college wasn't for him and he reads and learns all the time. All of the quick, snappy quips and the slightly superior sounding descriptions of everyone and everything feel, to me, like a character that is reassuring themselves that they are smart, that they are more than smart, they are wise because of the path they took, that they see what others don't. But deep down they don't believe it.

And this makes me both annoyed with the character and sad for him.

Annoyed because I found myself rolling my eyes more than once, thinking: "I get it, LA is hot and smog filled in August, get to the point!" Or imagining that while Junior takes a page and a half to describe the person he is talking to, he is just staring at them while the person is waiting for him to speak.

Sad because, I know people like this. People who think that because they didn't do the traditional education thing, to be taken seriously and to be seen as smart they have to be cynical and reject anything that isn't a classic. "I wouldn't know of this sci-fi of which you speak, I only read Tolstoy." Type stuff.

It's sad because you don't have to have degrees to be smart and you don't have to be cynical to be wise. And you also don't have to decribe everything in minute detail as though you are looking at it through a lens covered in vomit.

So that part really annoyed me. I think I may continue with the series, because without the purplish writing, they are fun reads.

I may go back to words on the page for the rest, though, because while I liked the narration, there were some odd choices made. Like the voice used for Junior’s daughter's boyfriend ( who is at most 15), sounds like a 45 year old smoker. It makes the relationship feel weird.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

The Kitchen

Oh guys. Ohhhhh you guys. It’s been awhile, you know? It’s been awhile since I’ve knowingly seen a film with less than, say, 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, but sometimes I can be convinced! Gimme a great cast and as long as the movie’s not trying to be a comedy I’m willing to give it the good ol’ college try because at least I can usually find something to laugh at. So I went into The Kitchen fully expecting a less-than-stellar but no doubt perfectly adequate time at the cinema. You’ve got Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy, prestige TV darling Elizabeth Moss, and breakout charisma machine Tiffany Haddish as three women taking charge of their husbands’ mob empire in 70s Hell’s Kitchen? What could go wrong??? Well...

Imagine watching a montage of every 70s era mob movie you can think of. Got it? Got it firmly in your head? You have now had the experience of watching this movie. It’s like it’s 1993 again and you’re fighting with your sister over the remote and one of you hits the fast forward button while the smell of Bagel Bites drifts through the rec room and as you’re struggling to get the remote back, the movie is unspooling in front of you, incoherent images and sudden jerky movements, and your mom yells at you to stop fighting or she was gonna take the movie back to Blockbuster and NO ONE was gonna get to watch it. It’s like that, but unfortunately someone DID watch the movie, and that someone was me. 

Some thoughts:

So first of all, I’d like to say that I enjoy Tiffany Haddish as a person. She seems like a real delight, and I think she’s working her ass off to get hers in Hollywood, which is fantastic and I wish her all the success in the comedy world. That being said. There’s uh...there’s a lot of eyebrow acting going on here. Just. So many eyebrows doing so many things. And a lot of nodding. People don’t nod this much in real life. She’s acting in scenes across from Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy and usually that would tend to elevate a performance but for some reason, it’s all nods and eyebrows and I just think maybe gritty dramatic acting is not going to be her next successful career move. 

It’s not just her though. All the bit parts and character actors they hired to fill out the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood feel like they’re rejects from the first 10 minutes of a Law & Order episode. At one point, an old married woman says “Ain’t that right, Sal?” to her husband and he shushes her by swatting the air in front of him and grumbling “AAAAH.” THIS HAPPENS TWICE IN THE SCENE. I’ve seen termites that chew through scenery less. 

The overacting? Forgivable. The weak script? I could handle it. But the pacing of this movie is so relentlessly awful that it almost feels like performance art. There are - I counted - 3 scenes that last longer than approximately 90 seconds. Just imagine it. You’re watching a movie. You like the actors. The story’s ok. But something seems off. You don’t know what. The costumes are good. The performances are ok. The music is great. But something is wrong. It’s definitely wrong. Do you feel it? Is it bothering you? Have you had enough yet? Are you yearning for a descriptive sentence, an appositive phrase, anything with even one fucking comma in it to indicate a complex thought? Congratulations, now you know what it’s like to watch a 102-minute film that feels like it took 3 hours. 

Let it never be said that I can’t find the silver lining amongst this pile of dreck! Domnhall Gleeson is a goddamn delight as a slightly unhinged, sleepy eyed mob assassin who came back to Brooklyn cause he heard Elizabeth Moss’s husband was in jail. In between making googly eyes at her, there is what is by far the funniest, weirdest scene in the movie in which he methodically explains how to dismember the dead body of an attempted rapist currently residing in Elizabeth Moss’s bathtub. This scene may be my favorite black comedy short film of the year. 

Related: it’s fucked up but Gleeson is upsettingly attractive in this movie. These feelings are made even more complicated, because when he first shows up, I thought he was Elizabeth Moss’s estranged brother. But then they started making out and for a second I was having some VERY confusing feelings.

One thing the movie has in its favor - the soundtrack, while obvious, is banging. It’s 1978, if you don’t have a killer soundtrack it’s like you’re not even making an effort.

There are a few other shining spots. Melissa McCarthy does a fine job with the material she’s given. Elizabeth Moss at least seems to be having fun. It’s really not the actors’ fault that first-time director Andrea Berloff simply had no idea what to do with them. 

On a related tangent, I would just like to point out that a criticism that is always levied towards works of art created by women and POC and queer folks and any other minority is that people only think it’s good just because the person belongs to that particular group. Well, I’m going to point to this film every single time someone tries to pull that bullshit ever again - I’m sure Andrea Berloff was trying her best, and there may have been unseen drama going on with the studio or during the production that led to this frenetic pile of polyester, but the end result is not at all better just because she’s a woman. I wanted to like this, I really did, but a poorly made film is a poorly made film no matter who’s behind the camera.

Case in point - my favorite scenes in the movie have nothing to do with the main characters, but instead focus on a group of rival mobsters in Brooklyn, led by an oily and perfect Bill Camp. His tete a tete with our main ladies is one of the three scenes allowed to be long enough to be, you know, interesting. Plus, he has an entourage of other Brooklyn mobsters with him, including the Jersey Shore-lite guy that Ann Perkins makes out with during the Harvest Festival in Parks and Rec, who has my favorite line in the whole movie. When he’s explaining to Melissa McCarthy that there’s a hit out on her and the gals, he explains how he knew - “I was in a bar......lookin at some titties...when he asked me.” “Asked you what?” “To kill you.” It’s his wide-eyed good cheer and sheepishly boyish grin that really sells it. I’ve been laughing about it for days. 

Margo Martindale might be one of this generation’s finest character actresses, but she can’t do a New York Irish mob accent for shit.

Did I Cry? Oh god no. I should have - there’s major character death all OVER the place. But nah. I was still laughing about the titties. 

I hate that I know how good this could have been. These women deserved better, and there are tiny seeds of interesting ideas going on, but ultimately everything falls flat. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #131 - High Noon

Spoilers below.

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: No.

Format: Blu-ray

1) This film has traditionally been labelled the Western for people who don’t like Westerns, and that is largely because of its uniqueness among the Western genre. It is a not so subtle metaphor for Hollywood’s unwillingness to stand up against Joseph McCarthy and his House of Un-American Activities Council (HUAC). Because of that the screenwriter was blacklisted after working on this film, it didn’t win Best Picture (The Greatest Show on Earth did, as it was McCarthy’s favorite film and the director was a big supporter of black listing), and even John Wayne called it un-american up until his death. That hasn’t stopped it from being considered one of the greatest films ever made of any genre.

2) The theme song for this film - “High Noon (Do Not Foresake Me)” - sung by Tex Ritter was revolutionary for movie music. It was the first time a film advertised a song of its own as a single, it was the first song to win the Oscar for best original song that wasn’t in a movie musical, and it was the first time a theme song had a recurring motif throughout the film. The reason I first saw this film is because I took a music in film class my junior year of high school and this was on the curriculum. Tex Ritter’s tune is both classic western but notably somber, with perfect lyrical representation of main character Will Kane’s conflict. It is a great song and you should give it a listen if you have the chance.

3) Hey, that’s Lee Van Cleef!

4) Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly.

Cooper was 51 at the time of the film’s release. Kelly was 27. I’m trying not to be weirded out by that age difference but I am. The pair even had an affair which lasted the duration of filming. They have a nice chemistry between them. Not a heated one but a steady one, a trusting one. There’s a tenderness between the two and - later - a somber stoic-ness to their relationship. You get that they really love each other without them tearing each other’s clothes apart.

5) Gary Cooper as Will Kane.

Will Kane is an incredibly noble character. Modern movie audiences may find a worthy comparison in Captain America from Captain America: Civil War. Will is someone where if he can do the right thing, he HAS to do the right thing. Even when literally no one supports him, when no one stands with him, he - as a human being - cannot let bad things happen when he can work to stop them.

Kane [to his wife Amy]: “I’m not trying to be a hero. If you think I like this you’re crazy.”

Cooper won an Oscar for his work in the film, and it is clear why. Cooper is not John Wayne. He does not present Kane as this legendary hero. He is very much a human being. An honest, down to earth, and pretty sad human being who audiences immediately relate with. I’d venture to say it’s the best performance of his career if I’d seen enough of his other films.

6) Lloyd Bridges as Harvey, Kane’s (sort of former) deputy.

Harvey is...honestly, Harvey’s a jackass. He’s arrogant, rash, and does not do his actual job in helping Kane out. Instead he tries to extort him for position in return for doing his job. His is condescending to his girlfriend Helen Ramirez, he tries to run Kane out of town, and even though he has some moral conflicts throughout the film that’s not enough for him to actually get off his ass and do anything about it. Screw Harvey (although Lloyd Bridges is good in the part).

7) Grace Kelly as Amy.

This film does a pretty admirable job with writing it’s female characters for being released in 1951, although Amy is not its best example of that (more on that later). Amy is an interesting, conflicted, well rounded character. Her conflict with Will is clear: she does not believe in guns or violence. But she still loves him. Kelly is able to show these in a somber but compelling way, and able to balance out Amy’s more naive treats with her conviction to those beliefs. It’s a damn good part and Kelly does a fine job in the role.

8) I am sure that some attitudes of characters throughout the film are meant to be parallels of certain Hollywood attitudes towards McCarthyism, but I don’t know enough of how people reacted to McCarthyism to be for sure on all of them. Like when Harv tries to extort Will, when he says he’ll help out ONLY if Will does something for him, I imagine that is reflective of some sort of attitude from the era. An excuse not to go and do the right thing.

9) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Helen Ramirez.

Helen Ramirez is not only a well written female character for 1951, she is a well written female character period. And she is INCREDIBLY well written. As soon as we meet her we learn that she is a strong, capable, and independent woman. She owns a small business in town and is respected in her community, despite her background as a Mexican woman (people in the Old West were really racist, if you haven’t noticed). But that didn’t stop her. No one talks down to her in the film and the writers never treat her as less than what she is. And she and Will have an incredible understanding of each other based not only on this concept but also their past relationship as lovers.

Helen [after Will tells her Frank Miller is coming back to town]: “I’m not afraid of him.”

Will: “I know you’re not.”

This does not mean she is not without fear or vulnerability though. All the best characters in this film are. But those things only round her out, give her more layers. She is someone who presents herself as strong but we know exactly what frightens her. We know what she loves, what she can’t stand, what she will fight for, and what she will run from. There is a great conflict to Helen, a great dose of some X factor this film needed. And Katy Jurado plays her perfectly. You know how Hollywood will still cast white people to play non-white characters these days? Well in 1951 they were actually able to find a Mexican actress to play a Mexican character. How radical (he said with sarcasm)! Jurado does great justice to the writing of Helen, while also adding to her strength and humanity. Honestly, Helen Ramirez is one of my favorite film characters of all time.

10) I noted how there are obvious parallels in this film between attitudes towards McCarthyism and attitudes towards Frank Miller. Well if you consider how some residents of the town think Frank Miller is good for them (in the film, that he’ll bring in business) you can clearly see that. There were people that thought McCarthy was good for the country. That his punishment of people not for breaking any laws but just for the way they thought and their difference of opinions was good for America. I freaking hate Joseph McCarthy.

11) It was at this point in the film I noted John Wayne’s distaste for it again, and to elaborate on that I think I’ll share with you this tidbit from IMDb:

John Wayne strongly disliked this movie because he knew it was an allegory for blacklisting, which he and his friend Ward Bond had strongly and actively supported. Twenty years later he was still criticizing it in his controversial May 1971 interview with Playboy magazine. Inventing a scene that was never in the movie, he claimed Gary Cooper had thrown his marshal's badge to the ground and stepped on it. He also stated he would never regret having driven blacklisted screenwriter Carl Foreman out of Hollywood.

12) One of the nice things about Kane is that he is flawed. He is not above giving into his human emotions, he’s not this perfect lawman. But he tries to be.

Bartender [after Kane punches him out for making bets on how soon he’ll die]: “You carry a badge and a gun marshall. You had no call to do that.”

Kane: “You’re right.” [He offers to help him up.]

13) There are two more examples back to back of attitudes towards helping Will Kane out which probably reflect the attitudes towards speaking out against McCarthy.

The cowardly man hiding in his home from Kane instead of facing Frank Miller being reflective of how most people just wanted to keep their heads down and not incur the wrath of McCarthy.

The rare person who wants to help Kane wants to do so out of revenge. I don’t know exactly if that relates to why some people wanted to fight McCarthy, but I imagine it does.

14) If I had to pick one reason that I love Helen Ramirez above all others, it would be because of this:

Ramirez [after Harvey grabs her]: “And as for you: I don’t like anybody to put his hands on me unless I want him to. And I don’t like you to. Anymore.” [She slaps him hard across the face.]

15) If you wanted a clearer example of how the attitudes among the town reflect the attitudes among Hollywood at the time in regards to McCarthyism, look no further than the church scene. Will comes in, BEGGING for help pretty much, and there are a bunch of people who immediately jump up to do the right thing. But then it gets dogged down. It gets dogged down by politics and people talking themselves out of it because they’re afraid. The mayor even says they shouldn’t do anything because it’ll be bad for their reputation (as many Hollywood people did at the time in regards to McCarthy). Its just bullshitting and bellyaching and complacency all born out of fear and it just strikes really close to the heart o this film. It is a great scene, not only because of its politic double meaning but because it conveys these messages without being preachy. It is all in support of its story.

16) Lon Chaney Jr. is in this movie as Will’s predecessor.

He doesn’t have much screen time, but the screen time he does have shows a lot of heartache on his part. He is disillusioned with the job of a marshal, with doing the right thing, because it never seems to work out. Chaney performs the scene with an incredible amount of sincerity, vulnerability, and sadness, making it one of the most memorable character moments in the film.

17) This film BARELY passes the Bechdel Test when Helen Ramirez and Amy Kane talk briefly about how they feel they don’t belong in this town, but most of their conversations (and there is quite a chunk of scree time devoted to them talking to each other) are about Will. BUT this is a perfect example as to why the Sexy Lamp Text beats out the Bechdel Test.

NO ONE IN THIS MOVIE TALKS ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN A MALE CHARACTER AT ANY TIME, MAN OR WOMAN.

Will talks about Frank Miller, everyone else talks about both of them. That’s the whole conflict about the film, and it takes place in such a short amount of time they don’t have TIME to talk about anything else. So Helen and Amy talking about that with each other means they are equal to their men in the film, and both pass the Sexy Lamp Test. Amy’s actions and words have an effect on all around her, and Helen (towards the end of the film) actually saves Will’s life. I really like that.

18) Amy’s little monologue here is incredibly illuminating about her character and her conflict.

Helen: “What kind of woman are you? How can you leave him like this? Does the sound of guns frighten you that much?”

Amy: “I've heard guns. My father and my brother were killed by guns. They were on the right side but that didn't help them any when the shooting started. My brother was nineteen. I watched him die. That's when I became a Quaker. I don't care who's right or who's wrong.”

19) Another example of the attitudes in this film about Frank Miller parallel certain attitudes in Hollywood/America about Joseph McCarthy can be seen in how one of the few people wanting to fight is a sixteen year old boy. The young are always ready to fight for what they believe in, even if they don’t know the best way to fight for it. We’re itching for a rebellion, always.

20) This film is almost in real time. According to IMDb:

Although the picture takes place between 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m.. slightly longer than the 84-minute running time, this was due to the re-editing ordered by Stanley Kramer and Fred Zinnemann, both of whom were unhappy over the first assemblage. Editor Elmo Williams experimented by using the final portion of the material shot and condensed it to exactly 60 minutes of footage timed to real-time in the film. Thus the film we see is Williams' experimental version, which met with both Kramer's and Zinnemann's approval.

21) The black smoke billowing from the train is a sign that the brakes were failing, and the train actually knocked the camera over and busted it. The film survived though, and it is disputed if that is the film which is in the movie or not.

22) The entire final shootout works VERY well from an action standpoint. It is incredibly tense, featuring very little dialogue for the most of it, and always keeps you on your toes. Through its choreography and character writing you never quite now what will happen next. That and the use of environment paints a plausible and interesting way of Will beating the odds and living through the final shootout almost totally alone, although Amy comes at the end and resolves her conflict by shooting out one of Miller’s goons. It is a truly worthy climax to the film.

23) Will discarding his tin star is such a fitting ending. Who exactly was he fighting for? A bunch of people who didn’t want to be saved? And if so...why? These are questions we ask ourselves as we see him discard his badge, riding off into retirement with the only person who actually stood by his side.

High Noon is a fine film I think everyone should see at least once. Even if you don’t like Westerns there are good odds you’ll like High Noon. Its metaphor for McCarthyism creates a unique and compelling narrative, the actors are exquisite, and the writing - ESPECIALLY the character writing - is just spectacular. I think it’s one of the best films ever made and quite possibly the best Western ever made.

[ramrodd]

Why do the intelligentsia denigrate President Reagan although he ended the Cold War and triggered the dissolution of the USSR?

The difference between Reagan and Trump is one of degree and not of kind. Reagan set loose the first pebbles of Deplorables that have become the Trump Deplorable avalanche

COMMENTARY:

Personally, I voted for him knowing that he believed body and soul in Supply Economics because it was so kind to the members of his country club. On that basis, he was a totally useful idiot for the Deplorables in California politics whose careers profited considerably by Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn and the Black Lists. My dad was working for Ridgeway during the Army-McCarthy hearings and I have no fond memories of Joe McCarthy or Roy Cohn or the people like William F. Buckley, Jr., who admired McCarthy and considered him a National Hero and True Patriot. I define “Deplorables” by those metrics and we now know how the world works when the Deplorables are in charge: No Wall, No Christmas.

Well, these people have been in the Republican party since before I started voting and they have been nothing but ugly my entire life. You ought to be able to connect the dot’s between Tucker Carlson and Richard Spencer directly. I mean, come on. Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham just called off Christmas in DC because they are the cool kids, the Bret Kavanaugh crowd of 1955, Pat Buchanan and George Lincoln Rockwell and 1972. Pat Buchanan and Nixon and 1992, “Pitch Fork Pat” Buchanan and Grover Norquist. These people have been actively sabotaging Nixon’s Affirmative Action agenda since Reagan came to town. These are the people who have been fight the war to save Christmas longer than Birtherism and now, they pull the plug.

But, as they say, Politics makes for strange bedfellows. I voted for Nixon before I went to Vietnam and I voted for him after I got back and, as a veteran in dubious battle, he, Nixon, over-delivered on my expectations. Nixon is why there is no Soviet Union, today, and China is a player in Marx’s version of Capitalism, and mine, for that matter, but, for the orthodox Marxists, it’s engaged in heresy that Nixon planted while I was in Vietnam.

So, I voted Republican on general principles. I’m a hard-wired, born, bred and weaned an Eisenhower Republican, and, as a Hoosier, a Will Rogers FDR Republican, like Dick Lugar. Progressive, eyes on the horizon and distinct from the Dan Burton Copperhead Republicans that are the Hoosier tribe of Deplorables. In Indiana, Dick Lugar Republicans and Lee Hamilton Democrats got the roads built and the schools providing quality education tied into the land grant colleges and universities that sound very Socialist to day and the Dan Burton Republicans stood, like William F. Buckley, athwart the wave of history, shouting “Stop!” That’s why I call Buckley the Patriarch of the modern Deplorable.

So, I was voting Deplorable because I’m not a Democrat and I don’t understand their thinking. I live in DC, where everything that works at all works because the Democrats in Congress and the District are able to keep it running in spite of the Deplorables in Congress and, to a far lesser degree, in the District, dedicated to fucking up anything that requires the white Deplorables in town from paying for the services they receive, so I am a registered Democrat so I can vote in the primaries. Virtually every problem Mayor Bowser faces is a direct result of the obstructionism of Deplorables like Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, the people who can’t figure out some way to make it clear to the Deplorable who convinced Trump to pull the plug on Christmas that Trump’s promise for the Wall is total bullshit at virtually any level of human self-organization and inquiry. It’s Newt Gingrich’s “Leadership by Tantrum” politcs as national policy.

These are very stupid people. I mean, it goes way beyond “stuck on stupid”. I mean, going back to Phyllis Schlafley’s obstruction of the ERA, these people have been pulling the plug on Christmas in the name of saving Christmas since Joe McCarthy inspired William F. Buckley to create a farm system for aspiring Deplorables that has produced Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Rich Lowry and Tucker Carlson so they could grab Trump by the balls and force him to pull the plug on Christmas.

Now, is that collusion or conspiracy or what? I don’t know, but that’s the shit Reagan brought to town with him and gave Pat Buchanan and Roger Stone a second bite at the apple and they haven’t missed a meal, since.

Nixon ended the Cold War in Vietnam: Reagan was there to facilitate Gorbachen pulling the plug on the Soviet Union and joining out side. Reagan should have shared a Nobel Prize with Gorbachev but he was betrayed by Donald T. Regan, who exploited the Alzheimer’s that was far more advanced than anyone could imagine. Edmund Morris captured it by inference with his fictionalization of blank spots in Reagan’s oral history. The assassination probably accelerated the process, but I suspect no one noticed because he was a martini a day man and the effects of the gin over time resembles late stage Alzheimers. The Juniper berries so something visually that becomes progressively introverted. As a bartender, I used to watch it happen in gin drinkers: they’s sit and stare towards the end on the night and you had to sort of wake them up so they could return to the present. That’s what it sounded like was going on between Reagan and Morris. Regan noticed this same phenomena and exploited it to run his own agenda out of the Oval Office, until Nancy saw it for herself and fired his ass just like Melania fired the Recardel women. Recardel is part of the Deplorable elements in the GOP Deep State. Her agenda is an element of Regan’s agenda now associated with the friends of the Russian enemies of Putin in the Deplorable leadershp of the GOP Deep State.

The thing Charley Sykes doesn’t seem to understand is that he’s a career Deplorable: Trump is a clone of Reagan, politically, only not nearly so intellectual. Reagan’s “New Federalism” was actually a useful reform based on his experience as a Governor: it was never financed. I may have coined the phrase “unfunded mandate” as the reality of Reaganomics began to emerge in the economy and that, at a very fundmental level, Reagan didn’t fully understand his own program. As a capitalist nation, it was easy to fix and implement, but, as capitalism is defined by the Deplorables, any public investment that didn’t directly benefit the members of Mar-a-Lago is a non-starter. And that’s besides the fact Reagan had everything he needed to put a permanent colony on the moon by 2001, just like the movie, but immediately began dismantling the federal apparatus he needed to implement his New Federalism and return to the Moon. The Soviets stayed in space and we have benefited from that, but people like Charley Sykes and the editorial board of the National Review and Weekly Standard have been pulling the plug on space in the name of growing up Deplorable.

So, I had been around Deplorables during the 60s as a fraternity member. The argument can be made that I am a Deplorable, because. like Rush Limbaugh, I’m as big a bigot as Woodrow Wilson. Unlike Limpdick, who considers white supremacy as a divine right, while I am ashamed of it and do what I can to mitigate my moral rot.

But, until they got here, it was impossible to anticpate the pure emotional density of their collective racism. In the 70’s, DC was the most racially mellow city in America, for a bunch of reasons. The only bigots of any consequence in DC was the Nixon Plumbers, good old Pat Buchanan, a native white bigot who misses the good old days before Martin Luther King and a whte boy could get a little rowdy in a Bret Kavanaugh kind of way and leave the cops to deal with the Democrats.

As an Eisenhower Republican, Deplorables fall into the catagory of“strange bedfellows” . I quit voting Republican in 1988 when it clear that the Deplorables were determined to pack the courts with Fascists, beginning with Scalia and running through Kavanaugh.

But, when I voted for Reagan, the Democrats were out of ideas, but all they had to do was to continue to implement the Nixon-Moynihan-Carter “Affirmative Action” agenda and we would now have a permanent United Nations colony on the moon and not be fucking around with some asshole alt-right wet dream of a Berlin Wall south of El Paso to go with their Prison-Industrial Complex that’s a big money maker for Jeff Session’s patrons. The Wall is a typical Deplorable piece of shit idea to go along with the War on Drugs, the invasion of Iraq, Trumpcare and the 2017 Tax Reform bill that has begun to snuff out the Bull Market. All Reagan had to do was to double down on Affirmative Action. The introduction of electronic trading and the explosion of the internet would have created a Reagan Economic Miracle 4 to five times greater, globally, than the parasitic mechanisms of Supply Side Economics ever contemplated, much less totally undelivered.

I would say that the intelligensia got it about right regarding Reagan: Trump is just a logical progression of who and what Reagan represented, going in. All in all, Reagan ended up being better than going in, but, if either Carter or Bush the Elder had been reelected, a moon colony would be yesterday’s news. Reagan had absolutely no vision for a horizon that included space: he was lost doing color commentary by telegraph.