Trying to Watch "Fair Game" with an Open Mind

[This is a long post.  Most of you won't read it all.  It's long though, because it shows step-by-step how a rightwing website neutralizes truth, in this case how they make bogus claims against the movie Fair Game - the name is so apt - to neutralize some of the most shocking known behavior of the Bush Administration.  This is probably longer than it need be, but finding the truth, despite what people say, doesn't come in bumper-sticker brevity.]


We saw the movie Fair Game last week. It tells a story* about the active undercover CIA Agent Valerie Plame who was outed by the White House in July 2003.  Her husband, former US Ambassador Joe Wilson, had been hired to determine if Niger had really supplied yellow-cake uranium to the Iraqi government to be delivered in those now infamous aluminum tubes.  (*I think we have to stop using "the" story for anything, because even without the ideological split in the US, it is ever clearer that different people relate different stories about the same events)

Contributing to my state of mind, was the fact I had just heard an NPR story called the The Great Textbook Wars that afternoon.  From NPR:

In 1974, Kanawha County, West Virginia was the first battleground in the American culture wars. Controversy erupted over newly-adopted school textbooks. School buildings were hit by dynamite and Molotov cocktails, buses were riddled with... [The full article is at WNYC]

This piece had interviews with the people who began the boycott against the new textbooks which included a more modern and diverse group of authors and ideas than the previous texts had.  A couple of people cited their 1974 protest as the beginning of the Tea Party movement.  From the piece I gathered that the protesters were generally not well educated, their world view was dominated by religion, and they were not happy about the changes in their lives being brought about by integration - which was reflected in the textbook changes.  We also heard from teachers who said they needed a curriculum which better reflected their students, that discussed more than just dead white males in literature and history and science.  BUT, it was also clear that the catalyst for the protesters was a feeling of being disrespected.  They felt these changes were being forced on them without any input from them and they weren't going to take it any more.  Perhaps they couldn't stop the national civil rights legislation of the 60s, but they could stop their local schools from imposing new texts which raised questions they didn't want their kids exposed to.

Yikes, I'm trying to explain the link between textbook wars and Fair Game without making this too lengthy.  Much of this has been sitting for a week as I let the ideas naturally rise.  I don't think I used enough yeast.  But I need to get this done.  Let's just say the textbook wars reminded me once again that people do things for reasons and when people get pushed too far, emotion blocks out any chance for reason to triumph.

Even without the textbook story in my head, my tendency is to play the devil's advocate and think about other interpretations of the story.  I can't watch anything - even something I agree with - without thinking about how someone with a different perspective would react.  

As I watched Fair Game, with the radio show fresh in my mind, I could hear the Tea Party supporters of Joe Miller shouting out "Lies, Lies!" throughout the movie.  I did wonder what they would have said about a Joe Wilson talk to college students where he warned about government becoming a tyranny and how it would get worse if they didn't pay attention and stand up and protest.

We're in a period of American history - one that is not unique in this respect - where 'truth' is limited to facts that don't challenge 'my' world view.  This affects those on all points of the political spectrum, though some are more prone to be ruled by raw emotion rather than hard facts and logic.  The key is to find a path which blends both the passion that stirs us to do things with the rationality that gets us to do them effectively.  We can't let emotion blind us to the 'truth.'

In Fair Game's portrayal of the Valerie Plame case, even recognizing that Hollywood leaves out much of the story and enhances it for dramatic effect (so do politicians and all of us, of course), a few facts can't be disputed.

1. President George W Bush used evidence - the aluminum tubes and the non-existent yellow-cake uranium - to justify going to war with Iraq, even though the CIA was telling them couldn't be true.  In one scene Scooter Libby badgers a CIA analyst - Are you 100% sure?  99% sure?  96% sure?  If you aren't 95% sure, are you willing to risk our security?  
   
   Even if we accept the notion that the White House was convinced this was true - and not simply a plausible ploy for getting the American public to go along - it turns out later that they were, in fact, wrong.  There were no weapons of mass destruction.  .
   
   
2. The White House exposed the identity of an active undercover CIA agent with open projects - and informants in different parts of the world whose lives were jeopardized and possibly lost because of the outing.  Besides being a federal crime, this also forced the resignation of an experienced agent with active, needed knowledge, and endangered CIA contacts around the world.  While the White House ran a misinformation campaign that suggested Plame was a third rate agent who didn't do anything, they do the same sort of campaign with anyone who is in their way - ie the Swift Boat campaign against Kerry.
    
3. Scooter Libby was tried and convicted.  And his sentence was commuted by the White House
   

These 'truths' are all on the record.  You can quibble about different details of the movie - it had 90 minutes or so to present its narrative - these three things are indisputable..


Or so I thought.  While prepping this, I ran across the blog Newsbusters - a right wing blog set up to debunk liberal lies - which reviewed the movie Fair Game


Here's what Newsbusters tells us about NewsBusters.org

Welcome to NewsBusters, a project of the Media Research Center (MRC), the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.
In August of 2005, with the assistance of Matthew Sheffield of Dialog New Media, the MRC launched the NewsBusters blog to provide immediate exposure of liberal media bias, insightful analysis, constructive criticism and timely corrections to news media reporting. [emphasis added.]

You can read the Wikipedia post on NewsBusters which emphasizes the ideological stance (and was itself attacked by Newsbusters.)   Even if you read NewsBusters itself, it is clear  that this is a site set up to promote conservative Republican causes first, and not to expose the truth.

The trend I see is this:

1. Attack the opponent - lying is totally within the rules
2. If your opponent fights back you have a couple of choices
1.  Attack again
2.  Change the subject
3.  Say that nobody can be trusted - raise questions about the honest folks so the dishonest folks look equal.  This is what they mean by 'neutralizing'.

The point is to totally sully the water so that any sort of authentic discussion is impossible.  Then the loudest and most persistent wins.

This works to the advantage of the conservatives because their reserve of funding is deeper.  Sure, liberals can raise a lot of money too, but in part that's because the money people want everyone - people who agree with them and those who don't - to be indebted to them.  They bet on all the horses - the only sure way to win no matter who's in office.  The Republicans have also just done a much better job of spreading their message.

I go through all this because I'm pretty sure that Fair Game is reasonably accurate on the basics if not every cinematic detail.  Newsbusters attacks Fair Game's validity by making bogus claims on minor issues and distracting the reader from the really serious issues the movie raised.  Neutralizing them as Newsbusters says its goal is.   Few people will check their out-of-context quotes..  This stirs up their partisans and sows seeds of doubt among those who don't know the background and who assume that no one could lie so shamelessly.  In the end, the casual reader goes away thinking, "another biased movie.  You can't believe anyone these days." Neutralization accomplished.  But what if they are telling the truth?  Then the truth has been neutralized and lies are equal to truth.

Look at  Newsbusters' damning conclusions about Fair Game:

1. Liman [the movie's director] is being dishonest in order to push a left-wing agenda.
2. Liman is being dishonest because the factual story is far less interesting than the fictional account released Friday.
3. Liman is completely ignorant of the facts, and too lazy to do even a little research.

The message is:  it's all lies, there's nothing there, they're stupid and lazy.

How did they reach these conclusions?  They made them up.  They took several ideas from the movie and declared them to be false with the help of out-of-context quotes from the Robb-Silbermann Report on WMD's. 

The Daily Caller's Jamie Weinstein did the legwork in demonstrating just how far from the truth some of the film's central claims are. Chief among them, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, and other White House officials exerted political pressure on intelligence officials to cherrypick intelligence favorable to claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, not only did Libby do no such thing, but according to the Robb-Silbermann Commission, which investigated the intelligence behind the Iraq war, "The analysts who worked Iraqi weapons issues universally agreed that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments."

What??!!  First, there is no contradiction.  The Robb-Silbermann Report quote does NOT say there was no pressure exerted.  It clearly says that the intelligence officials didn't "skew or alter any of their analytical judgments" because of political pressure that did exist.  

They damn Liman because he didn't read the report:

Weinstein asked "Fair Game" director Doug Liman if he had read the Robb-Silbermann report. He had not.

Liman was the director.  It was his job to take the script (not write the script) and make a movie from it.  The report is 601 pages.  Why should Liman read it?  But I'm sure the author of the book  the movie was based on read the report.  Why do am I sure?  Because the book was written by Valerie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson assisted her.  They had a huge stake in knowing every detail of this report and Wilson testified before the commission and is cited in the report. And probably the script-writer read a lot more of it than did anyone associated directly with the Newsbusters article.


Then Newsbusters proceeds with more obfuscation.

But other blatant falsehoods pervade the film that could be disproven with a simple Google search. For instance, it is near-common knowledge by now - except among politically interested Bush-bashers - that neither Libby nor then-White House advisor Karl Rove leaked Wilson's wife's name to the press. In fact, State Department official Richard Armitage dropped the name to the late columnist Robert Novak, setting off a political firestorm.
But according to Weinstein,

You wouldn’t know this by watching Liman’s “Fair Game,” since Armitage is nowhere to be found — except in script at the very end. The narrative that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff Scooter Libby were nefarious behind-the-scenes players intent on destroying innocent reputations while pushing the nation into war on false pretenses fits too nicely into Liman and Hollywood’s leftwing vision. You can’t, after all, let facts spoil a cinematic anti-Bush diatribe.

OK,  neither Rove nor Libby contacted the media and directly told them. And the movie doesn't say they did. But it is also 'near-common knowledge' that Armitage worked closely with them both and would never have leaked the information exposing the identity of an active undercover CIA agent on his own, without their assent.   Newsbusters conveniently fails to mention that Libby was convicted and President Bush commuted his sentence because of his actions portrayed in this movie.  Here's what Fox News wrote (yes, that Fox News) about the conviction:

I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby Guilty on Four of Five Counts in CIA Leak Trial

Libby was accused of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to FBI agents and the grand jury about how he learned about Valerie Plame's identity and whom he told. Plame is the CIA employee whose husband. Amb. Joe Wilson, was sent to Niger by the agency to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium.

The Newsbusters article continues with more twisted truth:

According to Weinstein, the fictional Wilson "suggests his report to the CIA definitively debunked the Iraq-Niger claim." In fact, Bush's statement was accurate: British intelligence had discovered just that. A bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee found in 2004 that Wilson's report "did not refute the possibility that Iraq had approached Niger to purchase uranium” and "did not change any analysts’ assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal."

Wait, wait, wait.  The movie didn't dispute that the British reported this.  But the movie said that the British report was wrong.  Which it was. 

Here's the paragraph from the  Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq the first quote is lifted from:

When the former ambassador [Joe Wilson] spoke to Committee staff, his description of his findings differed from the DO intelligence report and his account of information provided to him by the CIA differed from the CIA officials' accounts in some respects. First, the former ambassador described his findings to Committee staff as more directly related to Iraq and, specifically, as refuting both the possibility that Niger could have sold uranium to Iraq and that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium. The intelligence report described how the structure of Niger's uranium mines would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Niger to sell uranium to rouge [sic] nations, and noted that Nigerien officials denied knowledge of any deals to sell uranium to any rogue states, but did not refute the possibility that Iraq had approached Niger to purchase uranium. 

The movie didn't deny the possibility that Iraq might have approached Niger for uranium, only that if they did, Niger never sold or gave them any.  And even if this allegation about the movie were true, it's a relatively minor point compared to the ones I listed above. It's like disputing that the man had dirty fingernails and skipping the fact that he murdered someone. 

The second quote is also shown to NOT support Newsbusters contention:

(                )                                                              PARAGRAPH DELETED                                                             
(                )                                                              PARAGRAPH DELETED                                                             
(                )                                                              PARAGRAPH DELETED                                                             

(U) Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.

The three paragraphs before this conclusion are deleted, so we have to go from the little that is there.  But it is clear if you read this, that analysts' assessments weren't changed because they already believed there was no uranium deal between Niger and Iraq.  His report "lent more credibility to the original" CIA reports.  The only way that could be true is if those reports said the deal didn't take place.  And the quote clearly says the INR didn't think Niger would sell the uranium to Iraq.

So everything in these two quotes is consistent with what was in the movie.  But not too many Newsbusters readers are likely to go to the original source to check on a narrative they already want to believe.

This attack on the Fair Game, in my mind, is the same as claiming Obama is a Kenyan citizen and a Muslim.  The point is to raise questions about clear, factual events that you don't want people to believe.  To destroy the good name and character of people who oppose you.  To raise questions about their message.  What don't the Newsbusters folks want people to believe?

1.  People close to Karl Rove and VP Cheney, people who would not have acted without Rove's and probably VP Cheney's approval (of course it would be given with plausible deniability) exposed an active CIA agent, a serious violation of the law and breach of US Security.  An action that the conservatives would have lynched a Democratic White House had it done the same thing. 

2.  That there was clear evidence that there was no uranium deal between Niger and Iraq and the aluminum tubes were not for rockets to launch nuclear weapons, yet President GW Bush used this as a key justification for going to war against Iraq.  In fact, Secretary of State Colin Powell knew it was false and did not mention the Niger uranium in his speech to the United Nations. (See the Robb-Silbermann report, footnote 210 on page 213 - and no, I didn't read the whole report either, I just know how to use 'search.')

3.  The attack on Valerie Plame clearly came from the White House, most probably Rove and Cheney were involved, and was in retaliation for Plame's husband publicly refuting the lies the White House was using to justify going to war against Iraq.

4.  Scooter Libby was convicted - presumably as the fall guy to protect Rove and probably Cheney - and then his sentence was commuted by President Bush.

The point of this post is NOT to have a pissing match over facts with people who don't care about seeking out truth.  You can't win a game like that against people who have unlimited resources and no shame.  The point is to illustrate where we are in the US today - nearing a dark age when truth is suppressed ruthlessly and the common good is trashed for private gain. Over and over again.  In every sector from religion to oil to banking, and yes, even in academia. 

The attack on the movie attempts to make readers think the movie is total fiction, but it doesn't acknowledge or refute these facts I've outlined that the movie clearly presents. Facts that should raise a hue and cry from anyone who believes our leaders should obey the law, be fiscally responsible, and that human life is sacred and should not be sacrificed needlessly. (The war in Iraq has killed about 100,000 Iraqi civilians.)

But we shouldn't  be surprised they would attack the movie.  If  Rove and Cheney's people were willing to expose an active undercover CIA agent in retaliation for her husband telling the truth, there's probably little they wouldn't do to defeat their perceived enemies.  Newsbusters behavior here isn't that different from what the movie is about - attack the messenger to suppress the truth. 

Their tactics to replace 'truth' with their own version of reality is working.  People who oppose them are attacked and have to 'prove' their innocence (a traditional American value, right?) and so much mud is thrown that most people throw up their hands and say, "They're all corrupt."  And that's a victory for the corrupt.  Because their corruption isn't as problematic if the voters think that the honest folks are corrupt too.

And lots of writers think twice before posting on something like this out of fear they will be attacked.  This blog is off-the-radar enough I don't think I have to worry.   I'm not pointing out the inconsistencies because I think anyone will change their mind.  I'm doing it to illustrate how public discourse has been horribly polluted so that truth becomes totally indistinguishable - for many - from fiction. 

Yes, Valerie Plame was declared by Karl Rove to be "Fair Game" for this sort of nasty, democracy destroying attack.  But Plame, thanks to her husband, didn't fold.  She did what President Obama needs to do.  They fought back.  So, put Fair Game on your movie list.

Blog Adjustments During Film Festival

You have to keep moving or you die, right?  So, I've adjusted the orange header box on top, to reflect that I'm focusing on the Anchorage International Film Festival for the next two weeks.  (I bet you didn't notice until you read it here.)  I'm also experimenting with a new feature on blogger (ok, fairly new) that allows me to make 'pages' that are not posts.  More like pages on a website.  You get to them from a tab on top!  (Actually I could have  used a box on the side as well, but that's already cluttered up.)

If you look below the orange header you can see two tabs - Home and Anchorage International Film Festival 2010.

Home gets you to the blog.
Anchorage International Film Festival 2010 gets you to a 'page' where I'm keeping a linked index to festival posts so it's easier to find specific films, film makers, tips, etc.

For you other blogspot-bloggers, you can have up to ten pages.  So, you could actually make a website using blogger.  Ah... the more things change the more they stay the same.  

This should be a useful addition from blogger.  Now, I'd like them to give us sub-labels.  I could put sub-labels for Eagle and Swan under the label for Birds. Then I could do more labels, but have just the major labels listed in that messy right hand column.  (Blogger calls them labels; others call them tags.)

If you haven't done so already, go try the tab.

AIFF 2010: UFAQs - Unasked Frequently Asked Questions about the Festival

I'm not sure its cricket to have FAQs if no one has asked any questions so these are UFAQs - Unasked Frequently Asked Questions. This is information people might be or should be asking for. Below are links to posts with general information about the Anchorage International Film Festival.

Where's the official AIFF site?

Who won in each category?
2011  Winners -  My 2011 winners (none) - Official AIFF 2011 Winners Page
2010 Winners -  My 2010 winners post -  Official AIFF 2010 Winners Page
2009 Winners -  My 2009 winners post -  Official AIFF 2009 Winners Page
2008 Winners - My 2008 winners post  -  Official AIFF 2008 Winners Page
[Note:  'My winners' tend to be films I picked.  Sometimes I've only discussed one category, sometimes more than one.  Sometimes my comments are buried in posts even I can't find.]


What do all the categories mean? ("official selection;" "films in competition," etc. ) This is a post from 2008, but still gets the basic information across.  It also covers the process for how films get selected for the Festival and how the winners get chosen. 


What  films are the best films this year (2010)?
Films in Competition are the ones chosen  to compete for the Golden Oosiker awards.  Here are guides to each category - something about each film and when and where they will play.  [For the film categories I have up for 2012, you can find the films in competition posts listed at the AIFF2012 page.  They are marked with a check on the Official AIFF website.]

Films in Competition  - Features 2010
Films in Competition -  Documentaries [2009 at link, until I get the 2010 done] 
Films in Competition -  Shorts  [2009 at link, until I get the 2010 done]
Films in Competition -  Animation [2009 at link, until I get the 2010 done]
Films in Competition -  Short Documentaries [Coming Soon maybe- never got this one last year]

Short films are grouped together into 'programs.'  How do I find which short films are playing together and the same of program?
Easiest place is the printed program. It's much easier to get in this year online than last.
Animation Programs  [The link takes you to the Animation Program in Festival Genius.  Once there also look for short and super short animation programs.]
Snowdance Programs (films made in Alaska or by Alaskans)
Short Films
Super Shorts
(The links only go to week one.  You can change it to week two.  See the red rectangle in the screen shot below.)

I'm not interested in the festival, but if there are any films on my favorite place, food, sport, etc.,  I'd go.  Are there any?

The new website software for 2010 allows you to look at a list of countries and then see what films are being shown from that country.  Click on the blue (where the red arrow points below) and it will open a list of countries.  Then pick a country, and wait until it loads the films from that country.

Also note the red box in the lower left.  The film festival spans three calendar weeks and so you have to check for each week.  Just click on the week and it changes.  I got to the page above from the link below:

 http://anchorage.bside.com/2010/schedule/week/type/film

To find out about films of special topics, you need to look through the films themselves.  The Anchorage Daily News did a post on films about the Alaska Outdoors.  I'll try to add some information as I become aware of it. 


How do I find your blog posts on specific films or film makers?  I'll put links for specific films here as I post them  (check the video posts below too) 

Nov 23 -  Feature Films in Competition
Nov 24 - The Wild Hunt
Nov 27 - The Temptation of St. Tony
Nov 30 - Son Istasyon (Last Station)

 [A lot of these posts went to the videos - see that list below.]

Do you have videos of the Festival? - I'll add the video posts as they happen.



Where will the films be shown?
Locations:   Bear Tooth, is the main venue.  

1230 West 27th Avenue (West of Spenard Road) - 907.276.4200

Out North is the second venue.  
3800 DeBarr Road, (two blocks SW of Debarr and Bragraw)  907.279.8099


Marston Theater (Loussac Library) will have the Family Programming on Saturday Dec.

There are special events at other venues.  You can check all the venues next to window where you check the countries (see screenshot above). 

What workshops are there?
There are six workshops with film makers.

What are your criteria for a good movie? When I made my picks for the 2008 best films, at the end of the post I outlined my criteria. The link takes you to that post, scroll down to second part.


Should I buy a pass or just buy tickets as I go?  

Tickets are $8 per film. All films passes are $90. So, if you go to eleven films, the pass is cheaper. But there are other benefits to the pass. You do have to get a ticket (free) for each film and only a certain number of seats are held for passholders, but you do get priority seating with your pass.
And if you have a pass, you'll go see more films because you'll think "I've paid for them. I should go and get my money's worth."
All Films and Events passes are $115. This gets you into Workshops, a few extra events, like the opening night film (which is actually $30 a ticket) and the awards. These extra events also have food.

[Update:  another option is to volunteer and get a pass to a movie.]

You can buy tickets at the venues.  You can also get advanced tickets at the venues.
You can buy tickets for Out North online.  The option is next to the films. 


What about family films? 
Saturday, December 11 at Loussac Library - in the Marston Auditorium.
Here are the AIFF links for family events.



Who Are You Anyways? - who's paying you to do this? does your brother have a film in competition? What is your connection to the festival? From an earlier post here's my  
Disclosure:

Well I blogged the  2007 festival  and the AIFF people liked what I did and asked if I would be the official blogger in 2008. They promised me I could say what I wanted, but I decided it was better to blog on my own and then if I write something that upsets one of the film makers, the Festival isn't responsible.  They had a link to the blog last year.  They also threw in a free pass for me in 2008, 2009, and this year.

I probably won't say anything terrible about a film, but I did rant about one film two years that I thought was exploiting its subject as well as boorishly demeaning a whole country. I mentioned in an earlier post that if I sound a little promotional at times, it's only because I like films and I like the kinds of quirky films that show up at festivals, so I want as many people to know about the festival as possible so the festival will continue. Will I fudge on what I write to get people out? No way. There are plenty of people in Anchorage who like films. They're my main target - to get them out of the house in the dark December chill when inertia tugs heavily if they even think about leaving the house. But if others who normally don't go out to films hear about a movie on a topic they're into, that's good too.

I did a post this year for Film Festival Skeptics who might be sitting on the fence and need to be given reasons to go and strategies to make it work.  

How do I Keep Track of What's Happening at the Festival?
  I'll be blogging the film festival every day.  The link below will be my festival posts only, starting with the most recent.

Anchorage International Film Festival (AIFF 2010)


Are there other Alaskan Film Festivals? 
There are some events called 'festival' that I know of in Anchorage, but they aren't major film events like this one.  There is another organization,  that puts Alaska in it's name and rents a postal box in Alaska, but has no other connection that we can find to Alaska.  You can read about that at  Comparing the ANCHORAGE and ALASKA International Film Festivals - Real Festival? Scam?

Anyone who knows of other legitimate film festivals in Alaska, let me know.  I've heard stuff about Sitka in 2008.  And there's also an Indigenous Film Festival Feb. 2011.

Salute to People Who Do Their Jobs Well - Lynda, My Travel Agent

Someone gave me Lynda's phone number back in late 1991 or early 1992 when I was planning a class on Chinese Civil Service Reform and wanted to take the students to Hong Kong and Beijing as part of the class.  Even then, air fare and ten days of hotels plus a day tour in both cities for about $800 was a bargain.  I'd really expected to work out local housing with people I knew, but when she came back with those prices I surrendered.

She's been my travel agent ever since, and I've posted about her before - Why Travel Agents are Worth the Fee and  The Academy Award for Best Travel Agent Goes To.

She's great because:

1.  She tells me things like, "Steve, just do it online yourself, you don't want to pay my fee."
2.  She's always ready and willing to check things out even if she knows she's probably  not make any money off it.
3.  She's made my life much easier when flights got canceled or changed for a variety of reasons.
4.  She's funny.  And she laughs, and it sounds genuine, at my bad jokes.
5.  She's smart and knows how to make things work.
6.  I know she'll do whatever it takes to make sure my trip goes well.

She also knows that sometimes I'll find a fare I like and then send it to her to make the reservation.  I'm willing to pay the fee knowing if anything, and I mean anything, goes wrong, she'll be working hard to help straighten it out.  I'm more likely to do that on more complicated trips.  She's called an airline for me and made a huge fuss which led to someone in the airline president's office calling me to offer apologies and reparations. He also said, you've got helluva travel agent working for you. 

We did business together for years by phone and email and she'd send tickets by courier.  One day I was someplace, I can't remember where, and I heard this woman talk.  I looked at her and said, "Lynda?"  and she looked at me and said, "Steve?"   Her voice is pretty distinctive, I didn't realize mine was too.   

In this day and age of online reservations, who needs a travel agent?  Sometimes you just get exhausted.  Sometimes the options you want aren't available online.  Sometimes you need someone who knows people at an airline, in a system, in a part of the world.  And if things go wrong, it's nice to have a travel agent call for you.  They have direct phone numbers that reach real people.  (Except the Prinz Hotel.)

We had lunch today with Lynda and she let me take the picture above to post here.  The company she first worked for when we met got bought out half a dozen times since then (picture a big fish swallowing the next fish swallowing the next fish and on and on) and I can't ever remember the latest name.  She used to specialize in business travelers and still has old customers who feel the same way I do about her.  She does a lot of cruises these days and some package tours, but says Alaskans tend to be more independent travelers.    She does a lot of vacation travel - putting a whole package together.  She's good at Mexico, Caribbean, Italy, Asia (she loves Bali), and Hawaii. 

So, if you need someone who's been a gem for me, you can call her at

One, eight hundred, Three Three Three 6 Three 8 Three.

Or email her at lmcmahon AT cwtvacations.com

And remember, be as nice to her as you want her to be to you.

And remember all the professionals in your life who are good at what they do, totally trustworthy, and believe in giving their clients the best possible service.  Let them know how you feel.

[Regular readers know I don't take money or other favors to say good things about businesses or products, and that I've posted about companies that solicit bloggers to push businesses.  Know your blogger before you take their recommendations.]

AIFF 2010: Tips for Film Festival Skeptics [Updated for 2013]

OK, you've heard that the Anchorage International Film Festival is coming soon, but there are so many movies you never heard of that you really don't know how to pick a good one.

And why are tickets at the Bear Tooth going to be $8 for the film festival instead of their regular (newly raised) price of $3.50?  Besides movies at Film Festivals are experimental and weird and just film groupies go, right? 


Maia Nolan at Alaska Dispatch was doing a story on the film festival and buttered me up into sending her some tips for

"someone who'd never been [to a film festival and] was on the  

fence about checking it out, what would you tell them?"

[UPDATE:  Maia's post is up now.]

I've been trying to do an update of last year's Film Festival UFAQ's (Unasked Frequently Asked Questions)[I have updated and posted a new version for 2013] but it's not done yet.  Some of it is still relevant, a lot not. So, here are my  

Tips for Film Festival Skeptics.  

1.  See a film the film maker will attend and discuss.  This is one of the great parts of a film festival.  Don't be nervous about talking to the film maker.  Most film makers are more nervous than you are.  The baby they've been working on for years is now getting judged.  You get to ask how they picked that music, or why they wrote that story, etc.  You can see a list of film showings that include the film maker at:

It's not easy to figure this out.  For now you have to scroll through all the films and some show that the film maker is expected to be there.  I'll try to get a list of all the showings with film makers scheduled for Q&A afterward.  I know of at least film maker who is planning to be in Anchorage, but he's not listed.  So I'm sure it's not complete.


2.  See 'films in competition.'  These have been selected by the initial screeners as the best in their category.  That doesn't mean the others aren't good and it doesn't guarantee you'll like the film.  It increases the odds though.

http://www.anchoragefilmfestival.org/2013/the-festival/festival-selections/

will get you to a list of all the films by category (feature, documentary, short, animation, etc.) and the ones in competition have a ✓ at the end.



3.  Go to a free event.  The Family and Youth Media Program (Saturday morning, December 10, at Loussac  from 11:30 to 5) is free.  For more information go to
here for the Marston Theatre events.

4.  Go see an animated program.  These are shown in groups or programs because most are pretty short. If you don't like one, it will be over soon and you're almost guaranteed to see at least one that will make it all worthwhile.  Some of the most exciting film is animated and you won't see these other places.  There are programs for families and for mature audiences only. You can find the animated programs

There is just one program of animated shorts this year.  There's the animation program and the last film in the Horror program is also an animated film.


Like all websites with LOTS of information, the Festival Site is complicated and takes a bit of time to figure out. Pick up a copy of the print version (in the current Anchorage Press). I also have a post with some tips on negotiating the Festival Website.
The post is a year old, and the images are from last year's festival, but the information is still basically good.  EXCEPT:  There is only one pass this year ($100 - $90 online before Thanksgiving.)

AIFF 2010: Features in Competition - Son Istasyon (Last Station)

Here's what's up already on the Features in Competition:

• The overview of all the Features in Competition, and
  
• The Wild Hunt
• The Temptation of St. Tony

This one could be good. It only plays once and the film maker is scheduled to be there. At the very least it will give a glimpse into life in Turkey.

From Son Istasyon website

There's not much online about this film. Here's a google translation from a Turkish site Sinemaloji (the IMBD summary is similar, but this has more charm.)

SUBJECT: A railway officer, played by famous comedian Levent Kirca movie passes between trains. Warm and engaging story of remarkable production for a long time erased memories of the last station striking scenes and surprises the audience may be film-quality shows of the year.  Three children, played by Levent Kirca Ruhi railway officer and his family installed in telling the story of sadness and humor, drawing a realistic panorama of Turkey.

Ruhi is a small station in the country a memurdur counting his retirement days.  Retired roof of a house not flow away in a peaceful way to spend your life in the most recent  big dream.  But the daughter and youngest son of Esra Önder like to live better understood, and there is an innocent wishes. Their dreams of the innocent, the whole family at a time leads to Istanbul. Ruhi coming to Istanbul with his mother, his wife and is no longer anyone's control of events is no longer growing.

When you go to the  Son Istasyon website you hear a snippet of their theme music.  I had it on while I was checking up on the various Features in Competition and even though it looped after a minute or two, I really got into it.  They also have the trailer on the website - they've disabled the embed code, so I can't add it here.

AIFF 2010: Guide to Using Their New Website and Festival Genius

This year the Anchorage International Film Festival bought Festival Genius, a program for film festival websites.  Rand at the Bear Tooth was making the website by hand a couple of years ago and now they have an off-the-shelf product.  Well, it's not quite that simple.

There are actually two websites - the AIFF's website which is what you see on the right.

The tabs didn't come out too clearly in the screen shot - they're in the burnt orange bar above 'Advance Tickets." (If you double click on the images you can see them better.)

This is the Home.  If you click any of the others tabs you stay in this AIFF website.  However, if you click the Film Selection Tab and THEN click on one of the two drop down selections (2010 Schedule or 2010 Screenings), then you go to the Festival Genius AIFF site.   It looks like this:

From here you can check out all the films and when they show.  The four drop down windows

• Category
• Country
• Venue
• Trailer

give you lots of ways to sort the films that weren't available in the past.

REGISTRATION ON FESTIVAL GENIUS
If you register (on the FG pages) you can also click to put films you like onto a schedule.  I haven't done this because I didn't like the terms of the agreement (probably not a problem for most people, but it was for this blogger who might want to take screenshots) or the privacy conditions so I didn't register.

You can also make comments about the films - they encourage reviews.  (Someone suggested I post copies of my reviews there, but the agreement says FG owns whatever you post.)

You can also make reservations.  That doesn't mean buying the tickets.  However, for films at Out North, you CAN BUY TICKETS online (but not for the Bear Tooth.)  You DO NOT HAVE TO REGISTER to buy the tickets for Out North showings.

So there is a lot available on the Festival Genius part of the website.  All the Festival Genius pages say Festival Genius on the right left side just under the header (see the FG screenshot above.)

Also, on the URL bar before the http:// it has fg.  The AIFF regular pages have the snowflake symbol there.

HOW TO GET BACK TO AIFF ORIGINAL SITE FROM FG

Problem:   There is no link that's marked to take you back from Festival Genius pages to the original AIFF pages.  But you can go back by clicking on the header (the part that says "10 Anchorage International Film Festival" with the burnt orange and dark green/blue on top.)  It's easy to get to FG from the original AIFF, but you need to take the secret passage in the header to go back.

TICKETS and PRICES

All the information about prices and tickets are on the original AIFF HOME page, so if you slip into Festival Genius and want to know about prices, you have to click on the header to get back there.

Individual films are $8.
Workshops are $8.
Special events - opening night gala, awards ceremony, etc.  vary in price.

When you do switch back to the original AIFF pages from the FG pages, you probably won't get the header picture with the people in the audience (above.)  I've gotten these two.

Remember the AIFF original stuff has a dark background and the FG pages have white background.

When you get to the film pages on FG, if you put your cursor on a  particular film (in the image below on a grouping of shorts)  you'll get a window that shows more information. You don't have to click on everything and go to a new window and then return.  Very nice.

A




Another big improvement is that you can see the groupings for the shorts online.  In the past it was really hard to figure out when and where a particular short film was shown because you had to figure out what group it was in first.

Unfortunately, it still doesn't tell you the name of the grouping, but it does tell you what other films it screens with.  You have to click on 'more' and go to the next link to see the name of the grouping (ie Films for All Ages or Hot Animation for Mature Adults.)

However, if you go to the last 5 categories (not Snowdance though) you get the groupings (this image above) and it shows all the films in the grouping and the time and venue.

So go have fun looking around the website.  I found using the Countries tab interesting.

ALSO, DON'T FORGET there is a hard copy guide as well.  There's something nice about something you can mark up and take with you without having to plug in or log on.   It was in this week's Anchorage Press and you can get them at the Bear Tooth, Out North, and probably other places I don't know about.

AND there's an AIFF Facebook page and a Twitter account.

AND FINALLY, don't forget the festival passes.

For $90 you get an all film and all workshop pass.  At $8 for each event, if you go to 12 or more you come out ahead with the pass.
For $115 you get an all events pass - which gets you into all the films and workshops plus all the extra events (with food) like  the Opening Night Gala ($30 otherwise) and the awards night.  15 films or more and you break even, and fewer if you include a  special event or two.  And this is NOT a snooty festival.  I've always found people really friendly at these events.  And you get to chat with the film makers and actors as well.

And with the passes, you get into the theaters first without waiting in line (though you did need to stop at the ticket booth and show your pass and get a ticket so they can keep track.)

Here's what the 2008 AIFF Website looked like.

I managed to catch some of the Festival organizers doing some organizing Friday afternoon.

Rand (AIFF President) is at the end of the table, Tony (AIFF founder) is front right.  Dawnell (AIFF General Manager) is in the blue top to the right of Rand.  Teresa (AIFF Programming Coordinator and Liaison) is to the left of Rand.  I don't remember everyone else's names.  Sorry. 

Clutter Wars - Low Tide

The clutter wars continue.  J announced last week that she wants to paint one of the downstairs rooms and needs to get things out of there.  The room that is my project was totally strewn with boxes and stuff.  There was no room there to put the painting refugees from the other room.  So I vowed to get the floor cleared enough that it could become a storage room for the room being painted.

The picture shows the morning high tide and the afternoon low tide.

This room has been full and bare several times over the last few years.  I'd like to think that we get rid of stuff in the process.  And that like things get closer to being in the same boxes so they can be more easily sorted later.



In any case, I did get the floor clear by my arbitrary Friday deadline.  There does seem to be more room in the closet, and I remember filling the recycle bin with stuff.  Now I have to take pictures off the walls and books off the shelves and other odds and ends that are out in the open and move them into my now cleared floor.

AIFF 2010: Features in Competition - The Temptation of St. Tony (Püha Tõna Kiusamine)

[For 2013 AIFF selected films go here.]
At the rate I'm going, I'll get these Feature in Competition previews up by April.  I'm going to have to be a bit more efficient.  In the meantime  here's what's up already are

• The overview of all the Features in Competition, and
  
• The Wild Hunt
• The Last Station (Son Istasyon)

Here are some excerpts and links to explore for The Temptation of St. Tony, which I have high hopes for.  It would appear to be in the more 'esoteric' 'art' film category which is why it is a perfect festival film. The film makers are scheduled to attend the showings.

The St. Tony's website is spare. 

From Fandango

New York Times

A Take on Faith and Capitalism

By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: September 16, 2010

Bizarre and beautiful, disturbing and droll, “The Temptation of St. Tony” wonders what it means to be a good man. Kicking off with a quotation from Dante’s “Inferno,” this delirious sophomore feature from the Estonian filmmaker Veiko Ounpuu observes Tony (Taavi Eelmaa), a triumphantly depressed middle manager. Dissatisfied with his adulterous wife and a boss who orders him to sack all his factory workers, Tony descends into a midlife crisis that manifests itself as a series of increasingly hilarious, horrific visions.

Or are they? [the review continues]

UK site Hey Guys writes:

A possessed priest walking up the side of a rundown church, a phantasmic lady floating in the woods, a dead dog that is black and wolf like returning from the dead are among the many strange sequences that help to create the uncomfortable and weird tone of The Temptation of St Tony (2010). There are many film references in the film which suggests director Veiko Õunpuu's need to showcase his immense knowledge of criterion collection films by making references that presumably are intended to entertain the film aficionados among us. Õunpuu's acknowledges this directly in the film when Tony's wife's lover teases Tony for being an angel who is hopelessly oblivious. His cruel teasing fetches his girlfriend's disdain. Should it invite our disdain? It depends not on whether you can take a joke but rather on whether you are willing to look past the offense to enjoy the bizarre and absurdist display.

Jafarkas at Mixtapes gives us some background of the history of St. Anthony:

Dali's St. Anthony from Metal on Metal

In early Christian lore, the Egyptian monk Anthony traveled to the Saharan desert in search of St. Paul, but instead encountered a host of demons who tormented him physically in order to test his enduring faith. For reasons known only to 4th century masochists, this piece of arcana is commonly referred to as “The Temptation of St. Anthony.” Because of the graphic demon battles and underlying implications of lust and desire, surrealist painters from Hieronymus Bosch to Salvador Dalí have felt compelled to depict this story in painting. Georges Méliès, the magician of early cinema and a pioneer of fantasy filmmaking, also made St. Anthony's dilemma the subject of one of his early shorts.

From Wikipedia

You can get more details on his life at Wikipedia and you can see the other two parts of  Hieronymus Bosch Triptych of Temptations of St. Anthony on at another Wikipedia site.

Metal on Metal has a whole post with 14 paintings from  depicting St. Anthony







This film was selected for Sundance and is the Estonian entry for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. (Wikipedia says the population of Estonia is 1.3 million) Markku Pätilä & Jaagup Roomet  have been nominated for best European Production Designer(s) at the 2010 European Film Awards for their work on Temptation of St. Tony.  Coincidentally, the awards will be announced in Tallinn, Estonia - the film maker's home - on December 4, the same day the film first shows in Anchorage.
[UPDATE Dec. 4: St. Tony lost to Roman Polansky's The Ghostwriter which swept six of the 18 awards.]

"He has comic timing tattooed on his genes" - Scott Schofield Performs at Out North

Scott in January

I first saw Scott Schofield last January when he introduced the Under 30 performances.  At the time I was surprised by his easy presence in front of the audience.  There was something special about him, though I didn't quite catch what he was doing here, something about being a visiting performer.  We missed his performance of Debutant Balls because we went to Juneau.

Scott after Wu Man

In July he introduced Wu Man and friends.  This time Scott was introduced as Out North's new artistic director.  Again, I was impressed.   Enough to write this as a side note to a long discussion of Wu Man and the evening's music:

His introduction Wednesday was a pleasure to listen to.  His words were good, his delivery fluent, and he effortlessly rotated to acknowledge the audience members sitting behind him on the stage. 

I'm giving all this background to just say, there was something special about this guy which I picked up from the time I first saw him.  Friday night I learned that he is an established performer who has performed all over which was brought home when in one of his pieces he mentioned that he'd 'just played to a packed house in Brussels."

So, my gut was right.  Out North has pulled a minor coup by snagging Scott as the artistic director.  He's closing in on his 30th birthday (this also came out - I think in the Q&A after the performance) and looks like he's approaching 20.  But he's been performing a long time and knows lots of people beyond Anchorage, a number of whom he's going to entice up here and introduce us to.

Friday night (and he does this again Saturday - tonight) he was on stage at Out North as a performer, though he confessed afterward that he couldn't completely get his administrator role out of his head  asking himself, as a performer and an administrator, "Is this show going to go well?  Is this going to help or hurt our future box offices?"

He didn't have to worry.  This guy is a natural story teller. He says raconteur, which I can't write unless the spell checker has it. (Phew! It did.) And his material is compelling.  The program says,

Two Truths and a Lie. . . is a collection of three autobiographical solo performances which have toured nationally to critical acclaim:  Underground Transit (2001), "Debutante Balls" (2004) and "Becoming a Man in 127 EASY Steps (2007).  

After Show Q&A

He gave the briefest of introductions - I'm not even sure what he told us.  Enough for us to know that he was born and raised as a girl and the title "Becoming a Man" meant just that, literally.  So, he had 127 steps.  Our job as the audience was to give him numbers and he'd find that particular step and perform it.  Or, as it turned out once or twice, show us the video.

I don't know a lot of people who have changed genders and the couple I can think of switched from male to female.  And it wasn't something we talked about.  I listened to Tafi's presentation focused on male Samoan children who are early identified as Fa 'afafine at UAA's Diverse Voices presentation.  I've read Middlesex.  My favorite documentary at the Anchorage International Film Festival last year was Prodigal Sons told by a woman returning to her rural home town for her 10th high school reunion who left for college after being the quarterback of his HS football team.  I'm sympathetic to the idea, but the male-female dichotomy is still one of the most rigid we have.  Homosexuality still causes many people grave distress.  The idea of being a woman and then a man or vice versa challenges our brains' flexibility.  We think it has to be either/or.

In the book - Two Truths and a Lie - Scott writes about coming up with this performance.

"Okay," my partner-in-crime S. Bear Bergman sighed as ze [sic] always does when calming me down on a late night, long distance phone call.  "So you have about 127 stories to tell and an hour in which to make sex change EASY, step-by-step."  I made notecards from memories, ruminated, and typed.  Then I found one of my old Choose Your Own Adventure books from elementary school.  Later, on tour in New York, T Cooper and Felicia Luna Lemus left Joe Meno's book The Boy Detective Fails by the couch they made up as a bed for me.  There I found the decoder ring.  With such random origins, how could I write any linear play?  The elements of chance that structured my process had to be reflected in the product.

Scott performs Two Truths and a Lie again tonight (Saturday) at 8pm at Out North.  Tickets at the door.  It will be a different performance from the one we saw because the audience isn't likely to choose the same numbers.

Now, as much as liked this, I think it could have been even better.  The lottery aspect of the audience choosing which scene he's going to play means there are a lot of missing parts and the actor doesn't know which scene is up next. 

Even with that caveat, Anchorage folks, what I'm saying here is WE'VE GOT THIS WORLD CLASS PERFORMER TELLING THIS MESMERIZING STORY AND NO ONE KNOWS IT.  So go now and see Scott.  In ten years when he's moved on and he's famous, don't kick yourself because you didn't see him 'way back when' in an intimate little theater in Anchorage before the world discovered him.

As Judith Jack Halberstam, Professor of English and Gender Studies at USC, wrote in the front of Scott's book,

Scott, it should be said up front and often, is simply a mesmerizing performer.  You could listen to his voice all night.  He has comic timing tattooed on his genes, and he can make the trip from irony to sincerity in 3 seconds flat.