I always figured that Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had to be off kilter. Why else would one marry a self-hating African-American who, according to reports, has no questions in court, and basically has made up his mind on ideological grounds without even weighing the merits of the case. Thomas is Antonin Scalia without drawing as much attention to himself.
But Virginia, who heads an extremely conservative version of the Tea Party has really gone off her nut. At 7:30 AM last Saturday, Mrs. Thomas called Anita Hill, whose accusations of sexual harassment almost derailed her husband’s Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ high court nomination almost 20 years ago for an apology.
For those who don’t remember, Ms. Hill testified that Thomas made inappropriate sexual comments to her and other people who worked for his as a lower court judge. (It should also be stated that at least one other woman wanted to come forward with charges about Thomas’ behavior but her testimony was not given.)
Ms. Hill, now a law professor at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, said that she has no plans to apologize for the charges she made nearly two decades ago. Mrs. Thomas acknowledged her phone call and has stood by her comments.
What is this woman thinking (if she’s thinking at all)? Is this what victims are supposed to do now; apologize for being victimized? It’s like a woman apologizing to her rapist if he wasn’t convicted. Maybe the families of murdered people should apologize to their murderers. Maybe Mrs. Thomas thinks that the remaining family of Saddam Hussein should apologize to George W. Bush for “making him” fabricate a reason for war to oust him from power and kill him?
Some people may think that I’m attacking Mrs. Thomas for being in a mixed-race marriage, but I’m in one myself. No, I’m talking about this woman because she is an idiot. What did she think she would get? And why did she call someone she doesn’t know at 7:30 AM on a Saturday morning? I’m glad Ms. Hill was unavailable so that we have her voice mail to authenticate the call, otherwise she would probably deny it ever happened if Ms. Hill had answered then come to the press.
It’s bad enough that her husband, Clarence Thomas has made a mockery of 50 years of progress for African-Americans by trying to bring down many of the victories minorities have won in the courts, including trying to eliminate affirmative action programs that Thomas himself used and refuses to acknowledge that he used them.
It’s bad enough that this woman has hid her GOP power-grabbing behind the idiocy of the Tea Party. But I think that even with one Tea Party candidate dabbling in witchcraft; another finding nothing wrong in dressing up in Nazi costumes; and yet another who changed his name to “Lipton” after the tea, this is perhaps the crassest stunt of all

I have to admit that in today’s sports world, I came to some conclusions before I even finished reading about former NFL linebacker Junior Seau yesterday. Seau was arrested on a domestic violence charge in Oceanside, California, shortly after midnight Monday. Police were called to Seau’s residence to investigate a report of an assault late Sunday night. The alleged victim is Seau’s 25-year-old live-in girlfriend, who had minor injuries that didn’t require medical treatment. She told police that Seau assaulted her during a verbal argument. The former San Diego standout wasn’t home when the police arrived, but he later agreed to return home after he called his girlfriend and spoke to officers on the scene. Seau returned home and was arrested on the charge of spousal assault with injury and was released on bail.
Now, at this point, I thought “’roid rage,” the byproduct of taking performance enhancing drugs (not that Seau was ever under scrutiny). According to wisegeek.com, “Roid rage is a term given to people who act in very aggressive or hostile manner after taking large doses, usually on a regular basis, of anabolic steroids, sometimes nicknamed as roids. In recent times, several prominent murders and brutal attacks have been linked to roid rage.”
Seau is retired from the NFL now, and would have no reason to use these drugs anymore (if he ever did), but now, in my mind and in the minds of many in the sporting public, any incident with an athlete of this type brings with it the spectre of drugs.
After being released, Seau drove his white SUV off a cliff and landed on the beach at Carlsbad. The linebacker was conscious and talking to paramedics when he was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment.
When I first read about Junior Seau’s very bad day, I wondered if Seau had tried to commit suicide, or if the argument had been like the one that Tiger Woods took outside of his former house after a fight with his now ex-wife. Now it turns out that police have ruled out drugs or alcohol and do not intend to charge Seau with a crime. The accident is being attributed to Seau falling asleep at the wheel of his car.
I felt a tad ashamed at my initial reaction to both incidents, but it’s a shame that it has come to this. And let me say that overrated announcer Brent Musburger’s statement last week that pro athletes should be allowed to use steroids under the guidance of a doctor is the same kind of ignorant comment that has been the hallmark of Musburger’s entire career.
The appeal of sport is watching people do incredible things in competition naturally, not out of a bottle or syringe. If this is the case, give everybody steroids, and then no one has an edge. You might as well go back to playing naturally, which is the point. On top of that, if the pros have steroids, the college players and high school players will do anything possible to get their hands on them too, and we’ve seen too many young athletes suffer physical and psychological problems from using PEDs.
I don’t know Junior Seau; I always respected his playing ability and, I believe, a Hall of Fame career. I hope he played clean, but maybe he didn’t. And while he may be clean, if was ever “dirty” we don’t know how long these substances stay in the body and what permanent unexpected and unwanted changes they make to the body. Maybe it was just one really bad day. But can we believe it?

I have to admit being horrified at the comment of Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Bowl linebacker James Harrison. After last Sunday’s game against the Browns in which he sidelined Browns wide receivers Joshua Cribbs and Mohamed Massaquoi with concussion-causing hits. “I don’t want to injure anybody,” Harrison said. “There’s a big difference between being hurt and being injured. You get hurt, you shake it off and come back the next series or the next game. I try to hurt people.”
Harrison’s already had a reputation of being one of the NFL’s nastiest players but due to the comment and perhaps the fact that (astoundingly) neither hit was penalized, this may be the weekend that spurs the NFL to action. Reports abound that the league could soon start suspending players for dangerous helmet-to-helmet hits. The NFL is emphasizing a reduction in football concussions, which can lead to dementia and brain disease.
Now I am a huge fans of hard nosed football. I grew up idolizing Dick Butkus, and loved the play of Bear safety Doug Plank. I believe that wide receivers and tight ends running routes across the middle should pay. I admit that what little organized football I played made me want to hit quarterbacks hard, especially when they run with the ball. It is not out of character for me to yell at Northwestern games that my only problem with a defensive stop is that the QB (usually), or the running back wasn’t hit hard enough. Maybe I’m wrong (but I can’t see myself changing soon).
Maybe my point is that Harrison should have kept his mouth shut. If he really is that dirty, players have a way of getting them back, and it’s to personally target that player for a little revenge. Right or wrong, that is what is really behind the fights in that sport. Referees miss a penalty on a hit against one of my guys? Well, we’re not going to get mad, we’re going to get even. (The NFL has ruled that one of Harrison’s hits was legal, but they are reviewing the other hit to see if punishment is warranted. The referees should certainly be reprimanded.)
Maybe James Harrison is like so many athletes – believing in their own invincibility. But eventually, some lineman is going to get a free shot at Harrison and then we’ll see what Harrison thinks.

A federal judge in Florida rejected a motion by the Federal Government to dismiss some counts of a multistate challenge to the sweeping health care reform bill signed into law by President Barack Obama earlier this year.
The ruling by Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson means the lawsuit filed by attorneys general from Florida and 19 other states can proceed on questions of whether the health care law is constitutional in requiring citizens to obtain health care coverage or face financial penalties, as well as forcing states to expand Medicaid.
Vinson threw out four other counts of the lawsuit.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, who filed the constitutional challenge, and officials from some of the other states that joined him applauded the judge’s decision. “It is the first step to having the individual mandate declared unconstitutional and upholding state sovereignty in our federal system,” McCollum said in a statement.
Other states joining Florida in the lawsuit are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington.
I’ve had it. While the health care bill doesn’t go far enough in my opinion to providing healthcare to all Americans, it is a vital first step. And to show you what the health insurance industry is doing since they couldn’t kill the bill altogether – raising prices to gouge the consumers before the bill takes full effect in 2014.
But this bill is, like the Tea Party, scary. If this challenge is granted by the Supreme Court (and I can see Scalia and Alito chomping at the bit to get to this one), then states can pick and choose which Federal laws they will comply with, which is what the dimwits within the Tea Party want. So, if Mississippi wants to disregard the 13th, 14th and 15 Amendments, businesses can, like that douche bag Rand Paul advocates, discriminate against blacks and Hispanics with impunity. The companies just won’t make money off those minorities and that’s their “poor business decision” not to tae their money.
When GWB won in 2004, I saw a map that split the country between the “blue” United States and the red colored “Jesus States of America.” Palin, Beck, Limbaugh and their followers actually would like that, I think. So, if the 20 states suing against the healthcare bill win, I think we allow them and any other states to secede. No more federal government for them. And I believe we should let them go with it. No Medicare. Let these states build their own armies and handle their own defense. No more standards on food safety; no legal fairness doctrines; let them take up the years in building their own set of laws; pay for their own crumbling infrastructures. Let corporations take care of you – they won’t sell you cars with defects; or slip poison into your kids’ toys. They won’t do that.
Go and wait for the end of the world and for Jesus to come back, smug in your own ignorance. Leave the rest of us – Darwin believing, thinking people alone. If you’re right and the Rapture comes and we go to hell, smile in the afterlife. Until then, go away.

As much as I hate to disagree with my old “The Sportswriters on TV” buddy and Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander, I must disagree with him about the recent allegations against quarterback Brett Favre. In case you hadn’t heard, Favre has been accused of “sexting” pictures of himself from his cell phone to a New York female sports reporter back when he was playing for the Jets.
Telander wrote that this incident will be the scandal that people will ultimately remember Favre for; ruining his legacy in the court of public opinion much like what has happened to Tiger Woods. Personally, I think that Favre’s legacy was tarnished far more by the continuing retirements/returns and the constant “indecision” on whether to play again. And the way he “retired” from the Jets so that he could sign with the Vikings was ridiculous.
I knew for a fact that Favre was going to play again after last year’s phenomenal season and big letdown in throwing the interception that led to the Vikings’ loss to the Saints in the NFC Championship Game last January. Injuries or no injuries, there was no way that Brett Favre was going to retire after that. If they had won the Super Bowl, retirement was more likely, but to go out like that. It wasn’t happening.
But to demean Vikings head coach Brad Childress and several players by having them fly down to Kiln, Mississippi to “convince” (see “beg and plead”) for “the Great Favre” to return – it was embarrassing.
But this incident with Favre, embarrassing and completely wrong, won’t be much remembered when it’s over. He’s not running for Congress (yet); he’s a “good ‘ole boy” quarterback from Mississippi. Women throw themselves at professional athletes all the time, and ultimately, the fidelity issue is only important to the player and his wife/significant other.
Yes, the infidelity issue has hurt Tiger Woods, but I think mostly due to the sheer volume of the women he was boffing. And trust me, if Woods starts winning golf tournaments again, people will once again watch; sponsors will once again throw money at him; and while the scandal won’t be forgotten, it will be less of an issue to most people. By the same token, have people stopped idolizing Joe Namath for drunkenly propositioning sideline reporter Suzy Kolber a few years ago? Or do people still want to talk about the Jets’ Super Bowl win?
Again, if true, there’s no excuse for Brett Favre’s actions, but ultimately, it is between him and his wife and family. Maybe in actuality he’s as big a ho as Michael Jordan, or Wilt Chamberlain, but did that hurt their images or just add to their legend?

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, this past trip was my 10th TIFF (in 12 years – I didn’t go in 2000 or 2001). It’s all The Indignant Wife’s fault, our first year together, she had me come up to the festival, a ritual that she and her friends had enjoyed for years before I came along.
I’ll never forget my first film: “The General,” directed by John Boorman starring Brendan Gleeson (Harry Potter films, “In Bruges”). It was a film about an Irish criminal who had ended up getting assassinated by the IRA. I didn’t know what to expect – I thought they would just start the film, but instead of starting, the lights dimmed and a small woman from the festival went to the front of the theater, said a few words then introduced Mr. Boorman. As a fan of “Deliverance,” this was WAY cool to me. Mr. Boorman spoke, then introduced Mr. Gleeson, who came up and said a few words. Wow; what an experience! Later that first festival, we saw the recut Orson Welles masterpiece “Touch of Evil,” and who spoke? One of the stars of that movie and of film, Janet Leigh. Incredible!
Over the years since, I’ve seen over 100 films at TIFF (I don’t remember exactly how many; I don’t remember I saw the first couple of years. But I’ve been at screenings with Val Kilmer, Kate Beckinsale, Viggo Mortensen, Charlese Theron, Robert Duvall, Bill Maher, and so many other stars.
I’ve had the great fortune of meeting several notable actors like Martin Sheen, Stellan Skarsgaard, Gerald McSorley, Zak Efron. and Timothy Spall, and directors like Brian DePalma anonymously having a cigarette outside of the theater, and Shekar Kapur, who directed both “Elizabeth” and “Elizabeth, The Golden Age” starring Cate Blanchett.
So, when I was hanging around with my friends Rich (who has graciously let me stay with him almost every year) and Stacey, they brought up the idea of what were our favorites of our years at TIFF (thanks guys). Since people in general seem to love round numbers, as this was my 10th festival, I decided to take on the challenge. I am going to list my 10 favorite films of my times in Toronto, but I’m going to cheat and do a second list that will cover the best documentaries I’ve seen. And, since an exercise of this type would be lacking without one, I will also cover the stinkers; the worst movies I’ve had to endure during the Festival.
Let’s Go!

Since I am a collector, it was easy to come up with the list of the best films I’ve seen at the festival, I just looked at my DVD list and sorted it by the films I’ve seen in Toronto. For the most part, I’ve seen many more good films than bad at TIFF, but for this list, it was somewhat easier in that I just picked the movies that stayed with me the most. These are the movies that still resonate with me.
10. House of Flying Daggers (2004) – long time readers know that I have an affinity for Asian action films (helped by the fact I have an Asian wife who shares the same appreciation for this genre. In light of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Indignant Wife and I picked this movie early in our films we wanted to attend. Ziyi Zhang, annoying beyond words in Tiger, was a little better here, playing a woman loved by two men in ancient China. Like Tiger, some of the kung fu was preposterous and beyond belief, but it was beautifully shot and choreographed. The only negative was that Ms. Zhang’s character is mortally wounded about 20 minutes before the end, and she just wouldn’t die. She would pop up every 5 minutes or so, still alive, and then apparently have her “death.” It became comical; but not enough to knock the film off my list.
9. The Host (2006) – some people would look down on a “monster/horror” movie as not being worth a best of list. But that is one of the nice things about TIFF: there are the “Midnight Madness” movies that are wacky and fun, and honestly, since most of the festival is comprised of serious films on serious topics, it is often nice to see something that isn’t as emotionally intense. This is a Korean monster movie with the most dysfunctional family in movie history. A dim-witted father works at his father’s hotdog stand near the main river in Seoul. Pollutants in the river (put there by the government on the recommendation of a U.S. military man in the opening) have mutated a creature that starts attacking people by the river. In one attack, the father’s daughter is captured, leaving the two men, along with the father’s sister, an archer, and brother, a ne’er-do-well, to try and find the girl.
Watching this family’s misadventures interspersed with the government’s attempts to ignore/cover-up the monster’s existence, and with the daughter’s success in not being monster food and saving a younger boy who was also captured by the monster made for a horror movie with enough scares to satisfy a horror buff; with laughs at the family; with concern for the kids. Unfortunately, like so many Asian films, there isn’t a completely happy ending (not that there has to be like American films, but every once in awhile, having a happy ending would be a nice surprise), but it was memorable.
8. The Ninth Day (2004) – almost every year it seems, there is a movie about the Nazis or World War II. I don’t know why that is, but it seems like every year, there is a very serious movie about the war (it’s funny, 2010 was an exception on my part – no movies on Nazis). In 2004, there were 2 excellent films about the Nazis: both German productions; and both starring Ulrich Matthes (and both on this list). This film, by director Volker Schlondorff, told the story of a Catholic Priest (Matthes) from Luxembourg who had been held in a concentration camp. Near the end of the war, he was given a nine day release to return to his home to try and convince the bishop there to cooperate with the Nazis.
The priest has family remaining, so if he tries to escape, they will be executed. But the discussions he had with the bishop and the local Nazi head, who happened to have trained to be a priest before becoming a Nazi, were very interesting. To this character’s mind, the Nazi’s were the world’s version of Judas and that from Nazi evil came something good. Add the priest’s crisis of whether or not to return to the camp or try to sneak away with his family made for very effective and though-provoking movie-making.
7. Lost in Translation (2003) – The Indignant Wife and I saw this film and I don’t remember why we picked it. We like Bill Murray, but we don’t like current comedies much. I honestly don’t remember, but we were the second audience to see the film, which was an excellent depiction of a man alone on a business trip to Japan, who meets a young woman (Scarlett Johannsen) who is left alone by her husband who is working. The characters worked just right, and the fact that director Sophia Coppola didn’t try to force a romantic relationship between the two made this a funny, touching movie that surprised us. That the film and Mr. Murray were nominated for Academy Awards was no surprise to us.
6. Omagh (2004) – I love Paul Greenglass films. “Bloody Sunday” was a tremendous look at the police riot perpetrated on the Northern Irish by the British Army back in the 1970s. While Greenglass didn’t direct Omagh, he was executive producer for director Pete Travers’ tale of the other side of the conflict.
As a peace agreement between the IRA and the British government neared, radical factions of the IRA weren’t at all happy, so a group of them left a car bomb in the center of Omagh, a small town in Northern Ireland. Gerald McSorley, an excellent character actor in many British and American films (including the bad guy in “Veronica Guerin”) plays a man whose son is killed in the blast. He ends up prodding the police, the government, and the politicians to bring the men to justice, but no one wants to upset the peace process.
Mr. McSorley (who I met at the festival) grew up in Omagh and so the film was very important to him. It was originally a television movie, but it was worth watching.
5. Love Actually (2003) – This is, with “When Harry Met Sally,” the best romantic comedy ever, and that’s saying a lot since I generally hate “rom coms” and avoid them like the plague. The Indignant Wife picked this one, an interweaving story of love in time for the Christmas hoilidays. Directed by Richard Curtis (his first as director, but n=known for writing the screenplays for films such as “Four Weddings and a Funeral”); it featured a who’s who of British actors: Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Keiry Knightly, and many others finding, losing, attracting love. Stelaing the film is Bill Nighy, playing a hilarious old rock and roller who finds “love” with his long suffering assistant. Not romantic love, but the platonic love of good friends and colleagues.
It is a very good romantic comedy in that all of the characters don’t end up happily: some don’t get together, for others, the final act is not yet written. It was a very good film and a Christmas staple at my house.
4. City of Life and Death (2009) – I saw this film last year, and it is probably the only movie that had me looking at my watch; not because I was bored, but trying to endure what was depicted. Director Chaun Lu uses a black and white, documentary style in telling the story of the Nanking massacre and mass rapes. But he does so with both evil and sympathetic Japanese characters, which was quite controversial in China.
The film shows the fall of the city; the massacre of the remaining Chinese army and then the atrocities committed against women and children.
Coming in, I knew very little about the subject – I had heard of it, but I didn’t know what had happened. One scene still gives me shivers: the army comes to take away some of the women and a little girl about 4-years-old holds on to her mother’s leg. Eventually, one of the soldiers grabs the child and walks off-screen toward a kitchen window. Not seen, but he dropped the child out of the window. Since the Indignant Oldest Daughter was 4 at the time (and the youngest was 1), it hit me between the eyes like a 2-by-4. And this is before we see the sacrifice of the women. Completely unforgettable.
3. Downfall (2004) – this was the only Gala I have ever attended. Oliver Hirschbiegel translated a book and a TIFF shown documentary (see next blog) on Traude Junge, one of Hitler’s private secretaries and a woman who was in the bunker with Hitler for the final weeks of his life. Bruno Gans, best known as the Angel in Wim Wenders’ “Wings of Desire,” plays Hitler as a pathetic little man, frantically issuing orders for nonexistent military units to defend Berlin and save the Third Reich. Alexandra Maria Lara played Ms. Junge who looked upon Hitler like a father and never thought about the horrors that Hitler had committed on the world.
Juliane Köhler gave a very interesting portrayal of Eva Braun, a flighty, party girl who tried not to think about the war on the one hand, and a doomed creature whose death looms. Ulrich Matthes from “The Ninth Day” (that I saw a couple of days before this film) gave a chilling portrayal of Dr. Josef Goebbels along with Corinna Harfouch who played Goebbels wife. Their refusal to surrender and their murder of their five children and suicide added another level of sadness to the film (and the real event).
2. Hotel Rwanda (2004) – I had already picked “Shake Hands with the Devil,” a documentary about Canadian General Romeo Dalliare who led the UN soldiers in Rwanda in 1994 as a documentary in the 2004 festival, but the wife chose this one which I saw the day after the documentary. This is a fictionalized presentation of the Rwandan genocide from the perspective of a hotel manager (Academy Award nominated Don Cheadle) and his wife Sophie Okonedo as his wife (also nominated). Manager used all of his skills in giving sanctuary to hundreds of people who would have been massacred otherwise.
At the time of the showing, this film did not have US distributorship, but (with our votes) won the People’s Choice Award that year, wide distribution, and numerous awards. For us, the highlight was having director Terry George there to introduce the film, but the greater honor was that it was the world premiere, and in attendance was the real life hero of the film Paul Rusesabagina and his wife, which brought another level of humanity to the viewing.
1. Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2002) – even though the Indignant Wife and I had already seen Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoko, we were unprepared for the spectacle of “Spirited Away,” the “Alice in Wonderland” type story of a little girl who, in the middle of her family’s move to the suburbs, wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and monsters; where humans are changed into animals. It was a magical story, and completely enveloped me. (It should be noted that we watched it in Japanese with subtitles, not with the star voices overdubbed on this and most of Miyazaki’s films released in the US.)
Next, part 2 – the Best Documentaries