and I guess that I just don't know


Gerhard Richter, Station, 1985

* Top ten conservative idiots. excerpt:

"2. Roger Ailes

"Still think Fox News is legit? Last week the company's head, Roger Ailes, blasted the Democratic presidential candidates for their refusal to participate in a show trial, er, I mean, debate, on his so-called news channel.

"'The candidates that can't face Fox, can't face Al Qaeda,' he said.

"Fair point. After all:

"-- They're both run by ideological extremists

"--They both have a radical following

"--They're both bent on striking fear into the hearts of the American people

"--They're both well-versed in the art of propaganda

"--They both desperately want Republicans in power

"--They both desperately want the U.S. to stay in Iraq forever

"...you get the picture."

* Bad News Hughes' book is out! Get your copy today.

* Children of Marx and Coca-Cola on Werner Herzog. excerpt:

"I watched Little Dieter Needs to Fly in part as preparation for the upcoming release of Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, a dramatic reworking of Dieter’s tale that will star Christian Bale as the resilient German-American pilot. What I found in this film, beyond the elements of its structure ripe for adaptation, was a message as profound as that contained in another Herzog documentary:Grizzly Man – a film that borrows many of the same themes and styles of this one. But while many of Herzog’s protagonists, both fictional and real, represent different degrees of madness and isolation, Dieter for much of the film appears more as an unwitting victim of a world riddled with madness and isolation. Perched just outside the insanity, he desperately attempts to remain focused and resolute in his quest to escape from it.

"At least, for a while, that is. Typical Herzogian hero that he is, Dieter cannot truly escape the madness of the world as we find him now getting on in his years and living in a pleasant, secure house, but still stockpiling rations and hiding extra supplies in hollowed out sections of his floor. He tests the doors to his abode repeatedly, because, as he points out, in prison he had no doors and the mere task of being able to open and close these gives him great joy. It’s a touching, understandable sort of madness. Certainly not in line with the zealous lust for power embodied by Aguirre, or the deep obsessive love of Opera that drives Brian Fitzgerald in Fitzcarraldo or even that same naivety and slightly conceited obsession buried deep within Timothy Treadwell’s love of bears. It has an innocence uncharacteristic in Herzog films.

"Hearing Dieter recount the details of his capture – the gruesome torture inflicted upon him and his improbable escape from the clutches of death – I can see how such a narrative could work as a dramatic film. It has a definite structure to be exploited. That puts a terrible burden on Herzog and his decision to remake it in a different context, so let’s hope he practices some cautious reserve in how he frames his film and uses his insight to shape it as authentically as possible. It has the potential to be either the best film of the year, or one of the worst. I put my faith, as always, in Herzog’s ability to overcome quotidian convention. He’ll make something out of it."

* "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid" -- Werner Herzog on the bullet (from an air rifle) that grazed his arm during a 2006 interview.