“World's Greatest Dad' - Kansas City Star” plus 4 more |
- World's Greatest Dad' - Kansas City Star
- Plot left out in the cold - Pueblo Chieftain
- Court skeptical of limits on businesses, unions - Daily Herald
- Gary native's movie premieres tonight at Portage theater - Post-Tribune
- Warped Tour shown on movie screens - Courier News
| World's Greatest Dad' - Kansas City Star Posted: 11 Sep 2009 01:00 AM PDT The ironically titled "World's Greatest Dad" is one sick movie. That's a compliment. The latest writing/directing effort from standup comic and all-around bizarre character Bobcat Goldthwait is a deadpan black comedy, though one can safely predict that unsuspecting moviegoers who stumble onto it may storm out proclaiming it's not funny at all. In one of his best performances, Robin Williams stars as Lance Clayton, a high-school English teacher whose life is one big letdown. More than anything Lance wants to be a published author, but all he has to show for years of writing is a closet full of rejection letters. His personal life is a bit better, thanks to his secret affair with a cute art teacher (Alexie Gilmore) who's half his age. She almost makes up for Lance's reprobate son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara, all grown up after those "Spy Kids" movies). Kyle is a willfully ignorant, insulting, contrary, gay-baiting teenage jerk who devotes his waking hours to tormenting everyone he encounters, especially Lance. Without giving away too much, midway through someone dies, and "Dad" turns into a satire that's savage, sarcastic and insanely brave. After all, making fun of the grief counseling and weepy herd instinct we've seen in the wake of real tragedies is going to rub lots of people the wrong way. But Goldthwait pulls it off. In fact, "World's Greatest Dad" is one of those rare movies that starts slow and builds in intensity (and discomfort). Stick with it and it'll send you home feeling practically elated. WORLD'S GREATEST DAD 3 stars Cast: Robin Williams, Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara Director: Bobcat Goldthwait Rated: R for language, crude and sexual content, some drug use and disturbing images Running time: 1:39  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Plot left out in the cold - Pueblo Chieftain Posted: 10 Sep 2009 11:13 PM PDT
 This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Court skeptical of limits on businesses, unions - Daily Herald Posted: 10 Sep 2009 04:08 AM PDT WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored candidates in time for next year's elections. Such a step could roll back a century of attempts to restrain the power of corporate treasuries in American politics. The justices cut short their summer recess for a lively special argument that indicated the court's conservative skeptics of campaign finance laws have the upper hand over its liberals, including new Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the high court's swing vote, but a firm opponent of many campaign restrictions, at one point told the government's lawyer, "Corporations have lots of knowledge about environment, transportation issues, and you are silencing them during the election." Sotomayor jumped into the fray at her first argument -- with questions that strongly hinted she would keep campaign spending limits in place. "Wouldn't we be doing some more harm than good by a broad ruling?" she asked. The court heard arguments for the second time in a case that began as a dispute over whether a conservative group's 90-minute movie that harshly criticized Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign should be regulated as a campaign ad. The court's request for a new argument on broader questions turned the case into a test of whether two earlier high court decisions should be reversed. One is a 19-year-old ruling that buttresses federal and 24 state laws that bar corporations, and in some cases unions, from dipping into their general funds to call directly for the election or defeat of a candidate. Regulation of such independent expenditures -- made separately and without being coordinated by any candidate's campaign committee -- is distinct from other limits on contributions to candidates themselves and political parties, which are unaffected by the case. The case also does not affect political action committees, which mushroomed after post-Watergate laws set the first limits on contributions by individuals to candidates. Corporations, unions and others may create PACs to directly contribute to candidates, but they must be funded with voluntary contributions from employees, members and other individuals, not by corporate or union treasuries. The justices also are weighing whether to jettison part of their 2003 decision upholding the McCain-Feingold law and its limits on when businesses and labor may pay for ads that mention candidates but don't tell people how to vote. Congress included limits on these so-called issue ads in the belief that they were campaign ads in disguise. The prime sponsors of the law, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis., were in the courtroom Wednesday, along with their chief congressional opponent, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate's top Republican. At times, it seemed as though the two sides were arguing different cases. "Robust debate about candidates for elective office is the most fundamental value protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech," argued Theodore Olson, the attorney representing Citizens United, the group that made the movie. Citizens United wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign. But federal courts said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one. The movie was advertised on the Internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theaters. Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theaters or the Internet. Olson said Citizen United's status as a not-for-profit corporation should have no bearing on its freedom to speak because the court has repeatedly held that corporations are like people when it comes to the First Amendment. Lawyer Floyd Abrams, a longtime First Amendment advocate, argued on behalf of McConnell. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, making her first high court argument, and a former Solicitor General, Seth Waxman, representing McCain and Feingold, stressed the long history of federal laws that sought to rein in corporate and later union influence on elections, beginning with President Theodore Roosevelt's trust-busting push early in the 20th century. "For over 100 years Congress has made a judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections and this Court has never questioned that judgment," Kagan said. The major issue, at least in terms of counting votes, is whether two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, are willing to overrule the earlier decisions. Both justices spoke at length in their Senate confirmation hearings about the importance of abiding by precedents -- even if they would have voted the other way had they been involved in an earlier decision. But on Wednesday neither displayed any reluctance to join the other three conservatives, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Kennedy, who are on record opposing the restrictions on corporate and union spending. Alito pointed out that more than half the states, including California, allow corporations to campaign for and against candidates. "Have they all been overwhelmed by corruption?" he asked. Roberts, explaining why the court and not the Federal Election Commission should determine whether a federal campaign law is valid, said, "We don't put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats." Justice John Paul Stevens, the wily leader of the court's liberals, appeared to be searching for a narrow way out of the case that would preserve most limits on corporations and unions. But no one on the conservative side seemed interested. Kagan, too, acknowledged that the government was unlikely to win the case outright and that the best it could do was hope for a ruling that might apply only to ideological groups like Citizens United. "If you are asking me, Mr. Chief Justice, as to whether the government has a preference as to the way in which it loses, if it has to lose, the answer is yes," she said.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Gary native's movie premieres tonight at Portage theater - Post-Tribune Posted: 11 Sep 2009 02:05 AM PDT GARY -- Deon Taylor came home to Northwest Indiana with a red carpet movie premiere and all the trimmings. A Gary native, Taylor's thriller, "Dead Tone," will play at the Portage IMAX Theater Friday and Saturday. Lauren Renschler, Taylor's publicist, described the movie as a "Scream"-like suspense thriller with dashes of comedy. Taylor called it another way to come back to Gary, where 90 percent of his family still lives. Taylor's father, Francis Wilson, lives in Gary, and his mother, Valerie Taylor, is an actress who can be seen in Tyler Perry's "Madea Goes to Jail." He also said half of his next movie, "Terminated," a $7 million film due to go into production in 2010, will be shot between Chicago and Gary. "This is a market that can definitely use a kiss on the cheek," said the 35-year-old who attended West Side High School before moving to San Diego, Calif. "I'd like to be able to spend some money here and give some of the kids here a role to play in it," he said. Taylor said he also just completed his next movie, "Chain Letter," starring Nikki Reed, the star of the hugely popular "Twilight" movies. Starring Rutger Hauer, ("Blade Runner"), Jud Taylor ("That 70s Show" and "Charlie Wilson's War") and Antwon Tanner ("One Tree Hill"), "Dead Tone" already premiered in Los Angeles with a 700-person guest list, but screening it to Northwest Indiana meant bringing some of Taylor's celebrity and opportunities home, he said. "I've hit an age in my life where I want to open the door for other people," Taylor said. "But, when I was getting started, I had to kick those doors down." Along with making movies, Taylor said he has been busy writing, directing and producing "Nite Tales," a weekly show that airs on WGN Channel 9 on Friday nights. Former hip hop and current reality TV star Flavor Flav hosts the program, but it ranks Taylor as only the second black writer, director and producer to have a regular television program currently running. Perry is the other producer working on his own regular show, Taylor said.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Warped Tour shown on movie screens - Courier News Posted: 11 Sep 2009 01:51 AM PDT |
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