Does Barack Obama owe the City of Detroit a bailout? One city councilwoman seems to think so. Via MyFoxDetroit : The city of Detroit faces a major financial crisis and one member of city council thinks President Barack Obama should step in and help. City Council member JoAnn Watson said Tuesday the citizens support of Obama in last month’s election was enough reason for the president to bailout the struggling the city. “Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that,” said Watson. “Of course, not just that, but why not?” Nearly 75 percent of Wayne County voters pulled the lever for Obama in November. “After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, D.C. He came home with some bacon,” said Watson. “That’s what you do.” Young served as Detroit’s mayor for 20 years and served as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1977 to 1981. The White House has expressed no plans to bailout the cash-crunched city that some experts say could run out of money by the end of the year. The federal government has bailed out cities in the past, however. In 1975, President Gerald Ford extended more than $2 billion in credit to New York City to help it avoid a financial collapse. What do you think President Obama should do? If he bails out Detroit, where does it end?
Killing Them Softly is set in Boston, maybe. Someone mentions living in Somerville, a scattering of the characters have the accent, and they talk about going down to Florida. But the film was shot in New Orleans, often in the industrial edges still ragged from Hurricane Katrina, and the only people who seem to inhabit its universe are gangsters — high level ones with pretentions of civility and hardscrabble losers struggling to get a few dollars together by way of hazardous schemes. What ties this abstract, violent place to the real world is the 2008 presidential election, which provides a backdrop for its tale of an ill-advised robbery and the guy brought in to clean up after it. There’s George W. Bush talking about the bailout on a TV in the corner as two guys knock over a card game; there’s Barack Obama promising change on a billboard over a neighborhood filled with empty lots and abandoned houses. It’s a neat idea, matching the brisk kill-or-be-killed business of unforgiving criminal life to an America staggering from the economic crisis. But as in his last feature, the gorgeous and stiltedly self-conscious The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik shows a tendency to lean too hard on his symbolism rather than letting it exist as part of the whole. In Jesse James it was the tying in of the last days of the outlaw to a meditation on celebrity. Here, it’s the capitalism-as-a-disease parallels on a national and narrative scale that start to feel on the nose long before a character barks “America’s not a country, it’s a business — now fucking pay me!” and Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” plays over the closing credits. But when Dominik , working off his own screenplay adaptation of a novel by George V. Higgins, is less focused on trying to make an important movie, he turns out an indisputably fun one, a stylish and flamboyantly macho affair that cribs pleasantly from Mamet, Blue Velvet , Tarantino and Scorsese . The film starts with Frankie (Scoot McNairy), a ferrety guy recently out of prison and eager to convince his Australian pal Russell ( Ben Mendelsohn , memorably scary in Animal Kingdom ) to get in with him on a job. Russell’s working his own scheme involving kidnapping purebred dogs and using the money to buy an ounce of heroin and become a dealer, but Frankie’s pal Johnny (Vincent Curatola) has what he claims is a foolproof gig. They’ll rob a poker game run by a guy named Markie ( Ray Liotta ), who arranged to hold up his own game once in the past and got away with it. The games are protected, but if his gets robbed again everyone will assume he’s the one behind it. Killing Them Softly starts off with its main heist, if it can be called that, and then turns to the fallout, letting things rattle along for a considerable amount of time before introducing Jackie ( Brad Pitt ), a guy who can’t really be described as a hero or antihero. Jackie’s a fixer and a hitman who’s filling in for the last go-to guy, Dillon (Sam Shepard, glimpsed only in flashbacks), and he’s a competent, no nonsense figure in a world full of fuck-ups. Dominik’s film is interesting in that the crimes themselves, whether stick-ups or killings, are rarely difficult — it’s the aftermath that gets people in trouble, when they can’t keep their mouths shut about what they just pulled off or don’t know when to cut their losses and get out of town. Dominik shows an open appreciation for his actors and for the way tough guys, aspiring and genuine, talk to each other — and Killing Them Softly is as much centered around talking as it is action. Pitt, playing a practical know-it-all who falls somewhere between Rusty Ryan and Tyler Durden, is terribly entertaining shooting the shit with Driver (Richard Jenkins), the representative of the unspecified group who hired him, the two complaining about the new “total corporate mentality” like disgruntled office workers on a smoke break. Later, he brings in Mickey (James Gandolfini) from New York to help out, and watches him with worried calculation as he turns out to be in rough shape. If gangsterism is just capitalism in a more raw form, then Jackie is the creature best suited for this world. He knows the rules and enforces them without prejudice, because it’s just business and this is just a job. Killing Them Softly doesn’t give that idea its intended sting. The film wants to be angry and scathing, but, to its credit, enjoys its characters and its mechanics too much to have a sharp edge. Whether it’s showing someone’s death in a luxurious slow motion spray of bullets and glass or lingering as someone drunkenly reminisces about a girl he sometimes sleeps with but has no hold on, the film is too fond of its rich details to allow them to become damning symbols of the system in which they can be found. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Andrew Dominik does not look like a guy who could teach this country a lesson. With his floppy hair, fashionable glasses and ever-present cigarette, he resembles the kind of international hipster you’d find brandishing his American Express black card in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on a Thursday night. But don’t be fooled by appearances. With the help of Brad Pitt and an impressive ensemble of actors that includes James Gandolfini , the exquisite Ben Mendelsohn and a breakthrough performance by Scoot McNairy , Dominik has made a acrid — and memorably violent — cinematic statement about the state of the American Dream that should resonate with anyone whose job has become a kill-or-be-killed battlefield in the wake of the 2008 crash. Although Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade , Dominik, who wrote and directed the movie, set the picture in the middle of this country’s 2008 economic meltdown and presidential election. (News coverage of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama figures in the background.) Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer sent to a grim-looking New Orleans to investigate a poker-game heist, but the lowlife characters in this movie could be Wall Street bankers, film producers or overworked bloggers running and gunning to survive one more day in the rat race. There’s nothing like an outsider to point out the chinks in America’s armor, and the New Zealand-born, Australian-bred Dominik bludgeons a number of this country’s sacred cows and concepts, from Thomas Jefferson, who’s dismissed as a hypocritical “wine snob,” to “E Pluribus Unum” to the hopeful (but possibly empty) rhetoric of Barack Obama . “America’s not a country, it’s just a business,” Pitt’s character says at a key moment in the film, and given the actor’s reputation as a righteous liberal dude, it’s a brave performance. I don’t think that even Dominik would admit this, but beneath the noirish storyline, Killing Them Softly echoes the lyrics of the Who’s classic song. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.” In a frank and fairly amusing interview, Dominik, whose credits also include the excellent Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford , shared his views on the reelection of President Obama, the “masculine confusion” that is prevalent in Killing Them Softly, his next planned picture, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, and whether Brad Pitt can remember what it was like to be normal. Movieline: After seeing Killing Them Softly , I’ve got to know if you were rooting for anyone in the presidential election. Dominik: Obama. Yeah. I ask because the message of your movie seems to be that it doesn’t matter who’s running America from the Oval office. Well I think, obviously, that the president’s powers can be fairly limited. But Obama was a better option than the other guy. That seemed to be the rationale of a lot of voters this year. I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn’t even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing. He even made the same joke about the dog. Your film is distributed by The Weinstein Company, which is co-chaired by Harvey Weinstein , an avid supporter of President Obama. Was there any discomfort with the political aspects of your film? How tight is Harvey really with Obama? He says he’s talked with Obama. I’m sure Harvey feels tighter with Obama than Obama feels with Harvey. You know what I mean? But, yeah, he was uncomfortable about that stuff. And I think Brad was, too. But I don’t know that the movie’s really pointing its finger at Obama, specifically. It’s pointing its finger at the lie with which American was constructed — this idea that we’re all equal. Which clearly nobody believes. It takes an outsider to tell us that. What made you decide to take a 1974 George V. Higgins novel and set it in 2008 at the time of the 2008 economic crash and the presidential election? I guess it was everything going on at once. I found the book, and I needed money. And everyone around me needed money. All they were talking about was the economy. I realized that the movie was the story of an economic crisis, and I started to see parallels between this little story and the bigger story. I’ve always suspected that crime movies are really about capitalism. I didn’t watch The Sopranos and think Tony Soprano was a sociopath. He just looks like a normal guy with normal problems to me. So I felt like maybe here’s an opportunity to make a self-conscious crime film. Fiction is how we organize reality — but what are we trying to organize when we watch crime movies? I guess it’s the reality of existing in a dollar-driven society. You mentioned The Sopranos . At its core, that series was a epic parable about the George W. Bush era, and, in some respects Killing Them Softly felt like an extension or a kindred spirit of that show. Were you inspired at all by the universe that David Chase created? I love The Sopranos . It’s a fucking great, great show. But not directly as far as the movie was concerned. There are actors from the series in the movie, but I guess when you’re looking for goombah-type guys, David Chase found them all. So there’s really no getting away from it.
Andrew Dominik does not look like a guy who could teach this country a lesson. With his floppy hair, fashionable glasses and ever-present cigarette, he resembles the kind of international hipster you’d find brandishing his American Express black card in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on a Thursday night. But don’t be fooled by appearances. With the help of Brad Pitt and an impressive ensemble of actors that includes James Gandolfini , the exquisite Ben Mendelsohn and a breakthrough performance by Scoot McNairy , Dominik has made a acrid — and memorably violent — cinematic statement about the state of the American Dream that should resonate with anyone whose job has become a kill-or-be-killed battlefield in the wake of the 2008 crash. Although Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade , Dominik, who wrote and directed the movie, set the picture in the middle of this country’s 2008 economic meltdown and presidential election. (News coverage of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama figures in the background.) Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer sent to a grim-looking New Orleans to investigate a poker-game heist, but the lowlife characters in this movie could be Wall Street bankers, film producers or overworked bloggers running and gunning to survive one more day in the rat race. There’s nothing like an outsider to point out the chinks in America’s armor, and the New Zealand-born, Australian-bred Dominik bludgeons a number of this country’s sacred cows and concepts, from Thomas Jefferson, who’s dismissed as a hypocritical “wine snob,” to “E Pluribus Unum” to the hopeful (but possibly empty) rhetoric of Barack Obama . “America’s not a country, it’s just a business,” Pitt’s character says at a key moment in the film, and given the actor’s reputation as a righteous liberal dude, it’s a brave performance. I don’t think that even Dominik would admit this, but beneath the noirish storyline, Killing Them Softly echoes the lyrics of the Who’s classic song. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.” In a frank and fairly amusing interview, Dominik, whose credits also include the excellent Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford , shared his views on the reelection of President Obama, the “masculine confusion” that is prevalent in Killing Them Softly, his next planned picture, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, and whether Brad Pitt can remember what it was like to be normal. Movieline: After seeing Killing Them Softly , I’ve got to know if you were rooting for anyone in the presidential election. Dominik: Obama. Yeah. I ask because the message of your movie seems to be that it doesn’t matter who’s running America from the Oval office. Well I think, obviously, that the president’s powers can be fairly limited. But Obama was a better option than the other guy. That seemed to be the rationale of a lot of voters this year. I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn’t even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing. He even made the same joke about the dog. Your film is distributed by The Weinstein Company, which is co-chaired by Harvey Weinstein , an avid supporter of President Obama. Was there any discomfort with the political aspects of your film? How tight is Harvey really with Obama? He says he’s talked with Obama. I’m sure Harvey feels tighter with Obama than Obama feels with Harvey. You know what I mean? But, yeah, he was uncomfortable about that stuff. And I think Brad was, too. But I don’t know that the movie’s really pointing its finger at Obama, specifically. It’s pointing its finger at the lie with which American was constructed — this idea that we’re all equal. Which clearly nobody believes. It takes an outsider to tell us that. What made you decide to take a 1974 George V. Higgins novel and set it in 2008 at the time of the 2008 economic crash and the presidential election? I guess it was everything going on at once. I found the book, and I needed money. And everyone around me needed money. All they were talking about was the economy. I realized that the movie was the story of an economic crisis, and I started to see parallels between this little story and the bigger story. I’ve always suspected that crime movies are really about capitalism. I didn’t watch The Sopranos and think Tony Soprano was a sociopath. He just looks like a normal guy with normal problems to me. So I felt like maybe here’s an opportunity to make a self-conscious crime film. Fiction is how we organize reality — but what are we trying to organize when we watch crime movies? I guess it’s the reality of existing in a dollar-driven society. You mentioned The Sopranos . At its core, that series was a epic parable about the George W. Bush era, and, in some respects Killing Them Softly felt like an extension or a kindred spirit of that show. Were you inspired at all by the universe that David Chase created? I love The Sopranos . It’s a fucking great, great show. But not directly as far as the movie was concerned. There are actors from the series in the movie, but I guess when you’re looking for goombah-type guys, David Chase found them all. So there’s really no getting away from it.
President Obama Shares Old Pic Of The First Family Before they were American royalty who made history, the Obamas were the same fun-loving family of four from Chicago that many have come to love and relate to in more ways than one. The Obamas recently shared this throwback pic of their family, which featured an all-smiles Sasha and a snaggle-toothed Malia, complete with the caption: “From this family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.” Twitter
Kid Cudi claims he is no deadbeat day. Yesterday, it was reported that the G.O.O.D. Music rapper had given up the custody battle over his daughter, Vada Mescudi, with his baby mother citing a history of drug use and violence as some reasons why he was an unfit parent. However, Cudi’s lawyers have issued a statement refuting these claims…. Continue
Wonder if Papa’s ‘dip’ in sales had anything to do with this shady letter? Pay attention folks! According to The Huffington Post , this is what a half-azzed apology from a wealthy CEO looks like! Reading what has been written about statements I made on the effect of the Affordable Care Act on our franchisees reminds me of a quote from Lewis H. Lapham, former editor of Harper’s magazine: “People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.” Many in the media reported that I said Papa John’s is going to close stores and cut jobs because of Obamacare. I never said that. The fact is we are going to open over hundreds of stores this year and next and increase employment by over 5,000 jobs worldwide. And, we have no plans to cut team hours as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Clearly there was some misunderstanding somewhere. The remarks that generated the headlines were made during an entrepreneur class I was asked to speak to at a Florida college. I was asked to share my experience as an entrepreneur and to provide the students with real-life small business situations. Unbeknownst to me, until she identified herself, a reporter was there. Reporter: “My understanding is that if you’re a full time employee, which is 35 hours or over, you’d be covered. Or if you’re part time then you wouldn’t be. So wouldn’t some business owners just cut people down like 34 hours a week so they wouldn’t have to pay for health insurance?” Me: “It’s common sense. It’s what I call lose-lose.” Companies like Papa John’s are largely a collection of small independent businesses. The average Papa John’s franchisee owns three to four stores. Since our franchisees own the restaurants they operate, who they hire, how many hours they give each employee and what they pay each employee is up to them, not me or Papa John’s. Like any small business in these economic times, our franchisees are under a tremendous amount of pressure on costs. During that same interview, talking about Obamacare I said, though it wasn’t widely reported: “The good news is 100% of the population (full-time workers) is going to get health insurance. I’m cool with that.” “We’re all going to pay for it. There’s nothing for free.” “And this way I get to provide health insurance and I’m not at a competitive disadvantage … our competitors are going to have to do the same thing.” Papa John’s, like most businesses, is still researching what the Affordable Care Act means to our operations. Regardless of the conclusion of our analysis, we will honor this law, as we do all laws, and continue to offer 100% of Papa John’s corporate employees and workers in company-owned stores health insurance as we have since the company was founded in 1984. How the hell is this a ‘lose-lose situation’ when the dayum CEO isn’t losing a thing? Maybe because the worker’s losing out twice?? Fewer hours = not being eligible for insurance is going to start becoming the norm soon. All of this for .11 fawking cents per pizza. Images via tumblr
Bill O’Reilly (pictured) hasn’t handled the results of this year’s presidential election well. If you tuned in to FOX News’s unintentional comedic coverage that night,…
Reporter 1, Drunk Lady 0. That’s the score of this fun viral clip, in which an Austin, Tx., TV journalist brushed off a seriously awkward video bomb like it was no thing. While we fully support drunk photo and video bombs in general, you gotta make it count, people. It’s going to take more than a creepy, glazed-over look and some intoxicated wobbles to faze a veteran reporter like this. Come on. At least yell “Hook ’em Horns!” Drunk Lady Video Bombs Reporter
