I saw ” Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close .” I went yesterday afternoon. I was intrigued by this film from the moment I saw the preview, just days before Christmas. It came out in limited release in order to qualify for the Academy Awards. It opened Christmas Day. Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock star, and of course that had something to do with my interest. Tom Hanks is probably my favorite actor, and I say probably because I don’t really rate actors all that much. Hanks is on the left of the spectrum politically, but he’s not progressive in the sense of the mainstream Democrat Party establishment today. Hanks is what a “liberal” used to be — someone patriotic who believes in the positive role of America in the world in the defense of freedom. I imagine Hanks is also “liberal” in the old sense of believing that governmental institutions can leaven markets and help solve collective action problems (while not specifically attempting to destroy capitalism). And of course, Hanks’ advocacy for the memory of the World War II generation is a major contribution to contemporary American life. So it was no surprise to me that he’d be playing a lead role in a film which takes the September 11 attacks as the foundation of the story. I went into the movie with only the vaguest details of the story, since I frankly just skimmed the reviews in the most obligatory manner at the time. I knew I wanted to see it for the reasons stated above. Now that I have I confess to being more profoundly moved than I thought I’d be, and I say that with the confession that I did expect to be moved a little bit. I’m a hopelessly emotional sap when it comes to stuff like this. I think I’ve mentioned it before but the movies are the only place where I’ll really cry. I don’t get that emotional most other times. But the movies sometimes open me up and I wish I’d brought a box of tissue. This movie doesn’t really have that one emotionally devastating scene where you can’t hold it in any longer. The gushy scenes kind of ratchet up until the film’s crescendo toward the conclusion. I was wiping my eyes a little by that time, but it wasn’t a gusher or anything. Mostly I was just amazed at how well the story was all tied together. The main character is Oskar, the 11-year-old boy who loses his dad (Thomas, played by Hanks) on 9/11. Thomas was in one of the towers, caught above the impact zone 100 stories or so near the top of the skyscraper. Thomas calls home and leaves messages on the answer machine. Oskar’s school is closed because of the emergency and he comes home to hear the his father’s voice. It’s hard early in the movie to figure out how significant those taped messages are, but it’s a powerful scene when we learn what happened. Oskar is beyond precocious. He and his dad play together like best friends and Thomas designs games and adventures to challenge his son and help build his character. It’s a love story between a boy and his father. There’s some craziness in the pacing of the movie. The flashbacks between the present and the past are hard to separate temporally since the flashbacks only flash back a year to two before the present. And parts of the movie seem improbable: Oskar finds a key that belonged to his dad and he’s convinced the key holds some magical significance. No doubt it’s closure, but most 11-year-olds probably wouldn’t be able to walk across all of New York City to track down the people, hundreds of people, who might have an answer to the mystery. (What does that key open?) But movies sometimes require a willing suspension of disbelief, and this one is so realistic in other respects — and we love and trust the actors so much already — that it’s not hard to do. It’s a great film. It’s nominated for best picture, although I can’t say it’s the best of 2011, having only seen one or two others that were nominated. However, it’s a much more powerful movie than “War Horse” (which I saw a couple of weeks back and meant to write something about but procrastinated). There’s an emotional closeness to “Extremely Loud” that’s at once both endearing and devastating. “War Horse” was much less intense in that regard, although it’s a great movie that deserves a nomination. So with that, I was a bit caught off guard (although not surprised, actually) at progressive hate-blogger Scott Lemieux’s attack on the movie, at the communist Lawyers, Guns and Money , ” Extremely Loud and Incredibly Shitty? “: This was truly a banner year for terrible movies…. But I was interested to see several critics in the New York survey mentioned Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close . About 15 seconds into the first time I saw the preview it was clear that it was going to be a major threat to be the Academy’s middlebrow doorstop of choice. And that was before I knew it had been directed by Stephen Daldry, the homeless man’s Lasse Hallström and the most obvious choice to produce the kind of kitschy “serious” films that simulate content without having any. It’s based on a prominent bad novel using one horrible historical event as a backdrop, and also invokes two other horrible historical events while telling you nothing you didn’t already know about any of them or about anything else. It has an annoying precocious kid, who encounters Noble African-Americans. It has Tom Hanks. I mean talk about your Oscar bait. So did it get nominated? Oh, yes, and I can’t imagaine anyone thinks this is surprising. Has anyone seen it? Could anything be as bad as it looks? All that and Lemieux hadn’t even watched the film. And the “several critics” mentioned are those cited at a New York article on the year’s worst movies. Reading those, along with Lemieux’s response, it’s not hard to figure out that these people simply can’t stand that September 11th is used as an historical anchor to a movie about family, grief, and recovery. Progressives think the U.S. deserved 9/11 and they hate the institution of the family. Why on earth would they give a fuck about a film that features these things as the subject matter? Perhaps read the LGM comments there as well, at least to get a feeling of what radical leftists think about cinema and annual Oscar pageant overall. These losers aren’t representative — not of regular Americans, of course, but not of people in the movie industry either. “Extremely Loud” got great reviews, or at least great reviews in respectable sources. Here’s Betsy Sharkey, at the Los Angeles Times , for example: “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is a handsomely polished, thoughtfully wrapped Hollywood production about the national tragedy of 9/11 that seems to have forever redefined words like unthinkable, unforgivable, catastrophic. It has also redefined our expectations of filmmakers who try to examine the still aching wound — and perhaps explains why most films about 9/11 haven’t resonated with audiences. Mindful of that, director Stephen Daldry has taken great care in looking at it through the eyes of a precocious New York City boy in a film filled with both sentiment and substance. Finding the right balance was critical to making any adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s provocative novel work. But this is a filmmaker who’s equally sensitive and bold in handling films with heavy emotional and political content as he has in “Billy Elliot,” “The Hours” and “The Reader,” all of which earned him Oscar nominations. He’s up to the task again with “Extremely Loud,” which opens Sunday. Like the novel that inspired the film, screenwriter Eric Roth (“Munich”) has brought things back to ground zero through the story of one family torn asunder by the World Trade Center attacks. So it seems a smart choice to put two quintessentially heartland stars in Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock at its center. It makes acceptance easier, offense harder. Keep reading . Manohla Dargis is more critical in her review at the New York Times , ” A Youngster With a Key, a Word and a Quest .” She writes: In truth, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” isn’t about Sept. 11. It’s about the impulse to drain that day of its specificity and turn it into yet another wellspring of generic emotions: sadness, loneliness, happiness. This is how kitsch works. It exploits familiar images, be they puppies or babies — or, as in the case of this movie, the twin towers — and tries to make us feel good, even virtuous, simply about feeling. And, yes, you may cry, but when tears are milked as they are here, the truer response should be rage. Okay. Right. We should have rage. Personally, it’s enraging that we’ve had so few films of this caliber dealing 9/11 that we should bemoan kitsch and demand rage. That’s progress. In any case, Mandelyn Kilroy has an approving review at Philly Buzz , where she notes, it’s “a must-see movie, just make sure to pack the tissues.” That’s good advice.
Continued here:
‘Extremely Loud’
The following revelation will likely cause an uproar among Mitt Romney supporters and bring significant heat on his detractors. The integrity of the “King of Bain” — a political movie which claims to tell the story of the former Massachusetts Governor’s time at Bain Capital – is being called into question after two men interviewed for the film claim that, not only were they unaware the film was about Romney or Bain Capital, their interview clips were taken grossly out of content. So egregious was the alleged spin, according to UniMac workers Tommy Jones and Mike Baxley, that both men claim the clips in which they are seen talking about personal hardships were in fact references to incidents that came long after their time at Bain Capital. According to the interview subjects, the hardships they speak of in the film refer to a time when they decided to strike it out on their own by starting an independent business. Fox News Insider adds: In part of the film, Jones was featured talking about the fear of losing insurance, and he added, “We weren’t even talking about Bain or Mitt Romney.” In fact, once Bain Capital took over UniMac, Jones said he had no issues because everyone at the company received raises. He also received two promotions while they were in charge. Baxley agreed and went on to say that he made it clear to the filmmaker that he was not saying anything about Bain during his interview and said, “I just think they did not want to use it as we were stating it, and decided to turn it around towards Bain.” Watch the latest video at video.insider.foxnews.com Jones and Baxley wanted to set the record straight, saying they were told this was a documentary about big corporations taking over small businesses. According to reports, the movie was paid for by a Newt Gingrich Super PAC and paints Romney as a greedy, corporate raider.
Originally posted here:
Men Interviewed for Anti-Romney Bain Movie Tell Megyn Kelly They Were Taken Grossly Out of Context
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The black-and-white silent film “The Artist” led the Golden Globes with three wins Sunday at a show that spread Hollywood’s love around among a broad range of films, including best drama recipient “The Descendants” and its star, George Clooney. Wins for “The Artist” included best musical or comedy and best actor in a musical or comedy for Jean Dujardin. The dual best-picture prizes at the Globes could set up a showdown between “The Artist” and “The Descendants” for the top honor at next month’s Academy Awards. Other acting winners were Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, and Octavia Spencer, while Martin Scorsese earned the directing honor. “I gotta thank everybody in England that let me come and trample over their history,” said Streep, earning her eighth Globe, this time as dramatic actress for playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Williams won for actress in a musical or comedy as Marilyn Monroe in “My Week With Marilyn,” 52 years after Monroe’s win for the same prize at the Globes for “Some Like It Hot.” The supporting-acting Globes went to Plummer as an elderly widower who comes out as gay in the father-son drama “Beginners” and Spencer as a brassy housekeeper joining other black maids to share stories about life with their white employers in the 1960s Deep South tale “The Help.” “With regard to domestics in this country, now and then, I think Dr. King said it best: ‘All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance.’ And I thank you for recognizing that with our film,” Spencer said. Scorsese won for the Paris adventure “Hugo.” It was the third directing Globe in the last 10 years for Scorsese, who previously won for “Gangs of New York” and “The Departed” and received the show’s Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement two years ago. He won over a field of contenders that included Michel Hazanavicius, who had been considered by many in Hollywood as a favorite for his black-and-white silent film “The Artist.” Williams offered thanks for giving her the same award Monroe once won and joked that her young daughter put up with bedtime stories for six months spoken in Monroe’s voice. “I consider myself a mother first and an actress second, so the person I most want to thank is my daughter, my little girl, whose bravery and exuberance is the example I take with me in my work and my life,” Williams said. Dujardin became the first star in a silent film to earn a major Hollywood prize since the early days of film. He won as a silent-era star whose career unravels amid the rise of talking pictures in the late 1920s. It’s a breakout role in Hollywood for Dujardin, a star back home in France but little known to U.S. audiences previously. His French credits include “The Artist” creator Hazanavicius’ spy spoofs “OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies” and “OSS 117: Lost in Rio.” While the musical or comedy categories at the Globes offer recognition for lighter films amid Hollywood’s sober-minded awards season, the winners usually are not serious contenders for the Oscars. The last time the winner for best musical or comedy at the Globes went on to claim best-picture at the Oscars was nine years ago with “Chicago.” This time, though, “The Artist” and Dujardin have enough critical mass to compete at the Oscars with dramatic counterparts such as “The Descendants” and Clooney. Both films have a good mix of laughs and tears. “The Artist” could be called a comedy with strong doses of melodrama, while “The Descendants” might be described as a drama tinged with gently comic moments. Directed by Alexander Payne (“Sideways”), “The Descendants” provided a more down-to-earth role for Clooney, who’s often known for slick, high-rolling characters such as those in his “Ocean’s Eleven” heist capers and or the legal saga “Michael Clayton.” Adapted from Kaui Hart Hemmings’ novel, “The Descendants” casts Clooney as Matt King, the scion of an aristocratic Hawaiian clan and a neglectful dad suddenly forced to hold together his two spirited daughters after his wife falls into a coma from a boating accident. Along the way, Matt uncovers a staggering secret about his marriage and comes to reevaluate the principles under which he’s lived his life. Charming audiences since it premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival, “The Artist” tells the story of George Valentin (Dujardin), a big-screen superstar known for adventurous comic capers alongside his adorable dog, who’s always at his side on screen and in real life. As talking pictures take over and the Depression hits, George loses everything — his career, his marriage, his fortune and his home. Through it all, he has a guardian angel in Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo, a supporting-actress Globe nominee and Hazanavicius’ real-life romantic partner). A rising talkies star, Peppy got her career going with help from George, and she now aims to repay the favor. The only time silent films have won best-picture or acting Oscars was in the awards first year, for 1927-28, 16 years before the Golden Globes even started. At that first Oscar ceremony, when the transition to the sound era was just under way, the silent winners included the war story “Wings” as outstanding picture and the marital betrayal tale “Sunrise” as most unique and artistic picture, the only time that category was used. Janet Gaynor won as best actress for “Sunrise” and two other silent films, while Emil Jannings was picked as best actor for the silent films “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Other than some short silent films and one silent foreign-language nominee in 1983, it’s been all talkies among contenders for top honors during Hollywood’s awards season in the 83 years since the first Oscars. “The Artist,” which led the Globes with six nominations, also won the musical-score prize for composer Ludovic Bource. Among its losses was for screenplay, a prize that went to Woody Allen for his romantic fantasy “Midnight in Paris,” the filmmaker’s biggest hit in decades. Never a fan of movie awards, Allen was a no-show at the Globes. Steven Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin” won for best animated film, while the Iranian tale “A Separation” was named the foreign-language winner. Ricky Gervais, who has ruffled feathers at past shows with sharp wisecracks aimed at Hollywood’s elite and the Globes show itself, returned as host for the third-straight year. He started with some slams at the Globes as Hollywood’s second-biggest film ceremony, after the Oscars. Gervais joked that the Globes “are just like the Oscars, but without all that esteem. The Globes are to the Oscars what Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton. A bit louder, a bit trashier, a bit drunker and more easily bought. Allegedly. Nothing’s been proved.” He also needled early winners, saying the show was running long and stars needed to keep their speeches short. “You don’t need to thank everyone you’ve ever met or members of your family, who have done nothing,” Gervais said. “Just the main two. Your agent and God.” ___ Online: http://www.goldenglobes.org
View post:
‘The Artist’: Black-and-White Silent Film Leads Winners at Golden Globes
After days of criticism, it appears that Newt Gingrich is finally backing off of his attack on Mitt Romney’s tenure as chief of investment firm Bain Capital. After Gingrich connected SuperPAC Winning Our Future released the 29 minute long King of Bain , a film meant to transform Romney’s free market executive experience from the cornerstone of his candidacy to a millstone around his neck, it might be too little too late. The film is filled with the sort of “tugging at the heart strings” that is meant to appeal to your emotions rather than your brain, and is normally a style that we associate with progressive filmmakers and not GOP presidential candidates. This alone is enough to condemn King of Bain . However, the film’s emotional appeal is not its most disturbing aspect. What is arguably more disturbing is that King of Bain depends on the ignorance of its viewer in order for to be effective (Side note: this should tell you something about what Newt Gingrich thinks about his potential voters). It’s this ignorance that makes the viewer vulnerable to the emotional plea and, for this reason, it is important that we understand why companies like Bain Capital are important and how they provide a valuable service to the economy. King of Bain chronicles the effects on individuals who at one time were employed by companies that have been broken up and liquidated by Bain Capital while Romney was at its helm. It gives the impression that the individuals interviewed had been victimized by Bain Capital’s greedy corporate raiders for no reason other than to line the pockets of fat cats who have no regard to the human effects. The fact that Bain’s sole purpose is to make profit for its investors is repeated ad nauseam throughout the film. It also happens to be one of the few aspects of the film that is 100% accurate. This fact also happens to be true for every single successful business that operates within a free market, so we can dismiss this outright as a legitimate source of criticism. Furthermore, firms like Bain generally don’t break up companies that can be saved. The reason for this is as obvious as it is simple: they have no financial incentive to do so. If a company can be saved it becomes a long-term source of profit rather than the short term source that a fire-sale creates. Turning an investment into a long-term source of profit is always a preferable scenario for an investment firm and Bain has numerous examples of having successfully done this. Sometimes, however, companies cannot be saved, in which case they need to be “creatively destroyed” as economist Joseph Schumpeter might describe it. In these cases, investment firms will acquire ailing companies and squeeze every dollar of value that they can out of what is left of them. As cynical as this might sound, it serves a purpose beyond the amassing of profit for the firm’s investors. First, the assets that are sold are usually purchased by companies that can make better use of them than the one that failed. Machinery, raw materials, and other forms of physical capital are put to better use than they had been. Second, the revenue from the assets sold is redirected by the investment firm into new companies, allowing new ventures to take root and prosper. In other words, the death of one failing business can support the growth of two, three, or more startups, just as dead vegetation will fertilize the soil and facilitate the growth of new vegetation. The sort of redirection of capital that investment and asset management firms facilitate isn’t just a feature of the free market, it is its lifeblood. It is precisely what makes it superior to a centrally planned economy where failing companies continue to sap resources through public subsidies. We cannot deny that this sort of business that investment firms engage in has an effect on real people and, in the end, will often cost real people their jobs. It’s an extremely unpleasant fact to acknowledge but it is a feature of the free market, not a bug. On the flip side of this unpleasant fact, and what the King of Bain filmmakers are hoping that you don’t understand, is that the redirection of capital into more productive areas of the economy creates jobs as well. Those jobs are, unfortunately, unseen and difficult to quantify. So here’s to Bain capital and other investment firms like it. The truth is that without them we would be more dependent on investment banks like Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs. Our other option is having the government centrally manage the growth of our modern economy, something that may appeal to progressives and those who have distributed this film, but certainly shouldn’t appeal to conservatives. Nick Rizzuto is a producer for GBTV. Follow him on Twitter @Nick_Rizzuto .
See original here:
Why firms like Bain Capital are important to the free market
Three former factory workers featured in a film about layoffs at companies bought by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital say they weren’t laid off by Bain, as the film implied, but got promotions and raises instead.
Continued here:
Workers Call Bain Film Inaccurate
Sigh. Let me say that again: Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. If you were unfortunate enough to watch Saturday night’s GOP debate in New Hampshire, you saw a pageant of feckless non-Romneys fail to step up to the plate and forcefully challenge Mitt Romney’s presumptive claim to the GOP presidential nomination. Newt Gingrich, who has spent the last week whining about the liberal media, hid behind the liberal media when asked about attacks of Romney’s private-sector record at Bain Capital: NEWT GINGRICH (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I — I haven’t seen the film, but it does reflect “The New York Times” story two days ago about one particular company. And I think people should look at the film and decide. If it’s factually accurate, it raises questions. I’m very much for free enterprise. I’m very much for exactly what the Governor just described, create a business, grow jobs, provide leadership. I’m not nearly as enamored of a Wall Street model where you can flip companies, you can go in and have leveraged buyouts, you can basically take out all the money, leaving behind the workers. And I think most… STEPHANOPOULOS: Is that the Bain model? GINGRICH: Well, I — I think you have to look at the film. You have to look at “The New York Times” coverage of one particular company. And you have to ask yourself some questions. The Governor has every right to defend that. And I think — but I think it’s a legitimate part of the debate to say, OK, on balance, were people better off or were people worse off by this particular style of investment? STEPHANOPOULOS: Back in December, you said that Governor Romney made money at Bain by, quote, “bankrupting companies and laying off employees.” GINGRICH: That was, I think, “The New York Times” story two days ago. They took one specific company. They walked through in detail. They showed what they bought it for, how much they took out of it and the 1,700 people they left unemployed. Now that’s — check “The New York Times” story, but that’s their story. Leaning on the Fishwrap of Record as a crutch instead of owning up? This isn’t just cartoon-ish behavior. It’s poltroon-ish behavior. With his incessant bashing of how the private equity industry works in the real world, Newt ( along with Rick Perry ) is morphing into an Occupy Wall Street zealot. Or a David Axelrod: His rivals have sought to turn his Bain tenure against him. Rick Perry has run an ad saying Mr. Romney “made millions buying companies and laying off workers.” Newt Gingrich has said Mr. Romney should “give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain.” Mr. Gingrich laced into Mr. Romney at this weekend’s debates, and a group associated with the former House Speaker plans to release a 28-minute documentary blistering Mr. Romney’s Bain tenure. Meanwhile, on ABC on Sunday, Obama strategist David Axelrod criticized Mr. Romney as “a corporate raider.” Mr. Romney describes job losses and bankruptcies as an inevitable byproduct of the capitalist system, and has said that in some cases, eliminating some jobs may save the rest of the company. In response to Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Romney said: “Doesn’t he understand how the economy works? In the real economy, some businesses succeed and some fail.” Asked in an interview about Bain’s bankruptcy and failure rate, Mr. Romney said that in buyout deals, “our orientation was by and large to acquire businesses that were out of favor and in some cases in trouble.” He added that Bain wasn’t the type of firm that stripped companies and fired workers, but instead, “our approach was to try to build a business. We were not always successful.” FYI, the Wall Street Journal analysis of Bain’s mixed record during Romney’s tenure is here. Takeaway: The Wall Street Journal, aiming for a comprehensive assessment, examined 77 businesses Bain invested in while Mr. Romney led the firm from its 1984 start until early 1999, to see how they fared during Bain’s involvement and shortly afterward. Among the findings: 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost. Another finding was that Bain produced stellar returns for its investors—yet the bulk of these came from just a small number of its investments. Ten deals produced more than 70% of the dollar gains. …The Journal analysis shows that in total, Bain produced about $2.5 billion in gains for its investors in the 77 deals, on about $1.1 billion invested. Overall, Bain recorded roughly 50% to 80% annual gains in this period, which experts said was among the best track records for buyout firms in that era. All of that will get lost as the Occupy rhetoric seeps into attack ads by Republicans that will send tingles down the legs of anti-capitalists everywhere from Gingrich’s new favorite newspaper, the New York Times, on down. Click on that link to read about the $5 million boost to a pro-Gingrich super PAC (yes, super PACs — those evil entities that Gingrich was whining about last week after his Iowa drubbing) that will saturate South Carolina with Occupy-style demagoguery. With Newt’s explicit approval and endorsement. The latest evolution of anti-capitalism bashing by pathetic GOP candidates? Distorting Romney’s remarks about the private-sector ability to fire people who aren’t doing their job: CBS News reports via Twitter: Huntsman tells reporters in Concord: “ Governor Romney enjoys firing people; I enjoy creating jobs .” It’s a reference to this : Mitt Romney, who’s under attack for his business record, said Monday that he likes to have the option of firing people. “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me,” he told business executives from the Nashua Greater Chamber of Commerce, adding if he isn’t getting a “good service, I want to say, I’m going to get someone else.” The point will get lost down the demagogic rabbit hole: He added: “You know, if someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I want to say, ‘You know, I’m going to get someone else to provide that service to me .’” Mitt Romney’s chronic flip-flopping political career is teeming with reasons to oppose his nomination — from his support for racial preferences, to government funding of abortion, liberal judges, global warming enviro-nitwittery, TARP, auto bailouts, the Obama stimulus, gun control, and of course, individual health insurance mandates that presaged Obamacare. Instead of focusing on his long political record of expedience, incompetent non-Romneys have morphed into Michael Moore propagandists — throwing not just Bain Capital under the bus, but wealth creators of all kinds who take risks in the private marketplace. We’re screwed. *** More… Lori Ziganto advises: “Fight like a girl or lose, candidates!” Kurt Schlichter nails the depressing conundrum: “Romney ought to turn Bain to his advantage. It should be a plus. But then, he’s handicapped by being Romney.” My friend Jeff Emanuel makes a point that Bain is a general weakness for Romney in a jobs/class warfare general election race with Obama — and several other Twitter friends point out that it is useful for Romney to be forced to answer Bain-bashing attacks now rather than later — but Jeff also acknowledges that “pro-market Republicans aren’t the ones who should be beating” the anti-capitalism drum. Jim Pethokoukis : Romney has nothing to apologize for in his Bain career… Of course, Romney and Bain weren’t in the game to create jobs. They were in it to make money for their investors and themselves. Then again, the same would go for Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Warren Buffett, and just about every other successful entrepreneur and investor you could name. But that is the miracle of free-market capitalism. The pursuit of profits by creating value benefits the rest of society through higher incomes, more jobs, and better products and services. This isn’t “destructive creation”—like, say, crippling U.S. fossil fuel production before “clean energy” sources are viable—but “creative destruction” where innovation and efficiency sweep away the old and replace it with a more productive and wealthier society. Update: Good for Rick Santorum … Leaving the frozen event, Santorum also declined to take a shot at Romney over a remark earlier from the front-runner that he “likes to fire” workers who are not doing a good job. “We try to hire good people, we try to keep them employed. If someone if obviously not performing their duty and their mission, obviously a business has a responsibility for the greater good of the business and the other employees to make sure that everybody there is pulling their weight,” Santorum said. Asked whether Romney’s corporate takeover experience at Bain Capital would be a liability, Santorum said: “I’m not making it a liability. I believe in the private sector.” Via The Right Scoop, Rush Limbaugh takes Newt to task. Heckuva job, non-Romneys… National Journal headline via Allahpundit: Capitalism Comes Under Fire in Republican Primary Campaign *** Via The Right Scoop on MRC, here’s a Fox News video montage of the Occupy Republicans:
A new independent film depicts young, “baby-faced” teens and pre-teens roaming the streets of Harlem, guns in tow, while leaving a bloody trail of bodies in their wake. According to the NY Daily News , shoot-outs, drugs and sex are front-and-center in “Toddlers” — made in Harlem using local kids reportedly as young as 12-years old.
Russia’s Phobos-Grunt Mars probe is expected to fall back to Earth mid-January from its failed mission . Around the same time a new film is released at space centers worldwide to raise awareness about the dangers of the more than 6,000 tons of debris orbiting Earth. Space.com has more on the IMAX 3D film “Space Junk 3D” : Blending scientific information with state-of-the-art, 3D visualizations, “Space Junk 3D” takes the viewer from the depths of Meteor Crater in Arizona to the growing spread of Earth-orbiting debris — a troubling legacy of more than five decades of multiple nations lofting space hardware. “After half a century of space exploration we’re now suddenly faced with what has long been a staple of science fiction … an orbiting junkyard of cast-off space debris,” notes popular British character actor Tom Wilkinson, who narrates the film. Here’s the film’s trailer: Watch behind the scenes footage from the movie: Among the items that fell to Earth, presumably from space, in 2011 were a 13-pound metal ball and NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite . Don Kessler, former head of NASA’s Orbital Debris Office and the “Father of Space Junk,” says it “isn’t a coincidence that media headlines of falling debris are growing just as we launch this film. As we started researching this story we found that most scientists agree we’ve reached this tipping point where orbital debris will continue to grow exponentially if we don’t address the problem.”
Originally posted here:
3D Film Will Shoot Space Junk in Your Face
Last week, BBC’s Frozen Planet, narrated by famed zoologist David Attenborough, came under fire when it was revealed that a scene of a polar bear and her two newborn cubs was staged in a zoo. In the following days the Daily Mail reported other scenes that were not filmed with the animals in their natural environment, including one of a caterpillar crawling around in a wintry scene that really took place in a box. More recently, The Sunday Telegraph conducted an investigation and found several more faked scenes in various BBC productions.
Footage in staged zoo cave depicting a polar bear and her two cubs in the wild. (Photo via Daily Mail)
Filmmakers beginning to set up the cave scene in the zoo. (Photo via Daily Mail)
Read the rest here:
Faking Wildlife Scenes Not Uncommon in BBC Documentaries
