I am a much bigger movie buff than I am sports fan. But today I'm much more excited/intrigued/interested in the Mitchell report than the Golden Globe noms. Maybe its awards fatigue or maybe it's that 7 best drama noms makes the organization seem a little, well, indecisive. (Also - why the hell isn't THE WIRE nominated for best drama TV show!?). Nonetheless, with news about Clemens and Pettitte already slipping out, the baseball scandal that resulted in the sports late nineties resurgence makes for much better cocktail chatter and water cooler talk.

Has anyone else noticed that in the ads for the new show Dirty Sexy Money that paper both LA and New York, Samaire Armstrong is done up to eerily resemble Hillary Clinton? I can't find a good photo online, but check out the ad next time you're in the subway or driving down Sunset Blvd. Vast right wing conspiracy anyone?

So Rupert Murdoch now owns Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal. I've been following the story to some degree, although I have to admit that I'm not 100% on all in the ins and outs of the deal. The big concern is that the Journal will now become part of the Newscorp, right wing propaganda machine (see Fox News). Of course, it bears worth mentioning that the Wall Street Journal IS a right wing propaganda machine through its Opinion Journal.

But lets ignore that. The Journal's journalism is some of the best (arguably the best) journalism in the nation. We don't want to lose that and steps have been taken to buffer against that very thing: namely a five-person committee to safeguard journalistic standards. However, I'm not so sure that the Murdoch is going to try to change the Journal that much. He's buying the brand and if you're spending that much on a brand, do you want to change the brand? Or do you want to use that brand to augment your other endeavors? I say the latter. Also, you have to remember that Murdoch is above all else a businessman and at that he is genius. For example take the Fox family of networks: while Fox News rants against the destruction of the family and values, Fox TV puts on some of the most offensive, anti-family programming out there, giving Fox News more to rant about. Who wins in the end? Fox, Newscorp, Murdoch. It's not all about politics. Sometimes it's just about Money.

If you're heading out to AFM (or what I like to call the reason I got into film) it's not too late to register for an absentee ballot for Nov. 7th. New Yorkers can do it here: http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/absentee.html

Today the filibuster battle begins, and as The Note says:

"all the most immediate and high-impact questions revolve the looming showdown in the Senate — which won't clothe a single child, feed a single infant, extend health care to a single poor person, protect a single defenseless child, cut a single tax, or remove a single burdensome regulation."

And although I've been growing more and more disillusioned with reporting there (I think the writers, in all their breezy banter and wittiness, frame things in terms of political stereotypes thereby re-enforcing those same stereotypes, which were and are unfairly created by the Conservative echo chamber), it's a good point. Too bad Bill Frist, the White House and the Republican establishment thought making a rule breaking power grab was more important than actually legislating for the good of their constituents.

Of course the real question on my mind is: With all the star wars/politics analogies linking the Emperor with the President, when will the counter spin begin, who will be the first pundit to call Bush/Frist a Jedi Knight and will there be any light sabers involved?

A moment of silence please for the sexy cheerleader. I don't know if this law actually means anything or if it's just a waste of time, legislative showboating maneuver ala this (a reminder for all those Cannes-bound). But I think it's in no-way coincidental that this move comes against a phenomena that gave us one of the classic porn movies at a time when porn has become mainstream. Now I am no connoisseur of pornography (When I first heard of Behind Deep Throat I thought it had to do with Nixon and Watergate), nor particularly knowledgeable about it, but I have been told that the triumvirate of classic porn (the films that gave birth to the world as we now know it) are Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, and Debbie Does Dallas. And of those, it is the last that has spawned countless sequels, spin-offs and remakes, one off-Broadway show, and who knows what else, which all led to and are the indirect targets of the aforementioned law. I’m not someone who needs Jenna Jameson staring down at me every time I walk through Times Square, and I can understand why some parents might not want their children peering up the short skirts of 18 year-old cheerleaders, but legislating against sexiness ignores the root issues of the percieved problem and serves no purpose other than destroy possibilities of real debate.

Rather than write about the exquisite experience of hours of free sushi at nobu (and yes it was exquisite) or the extreme exhaustion I feel after criss crossing the country in one day while in the middle of a hectic film festival (did I say I extreme? I meant mind numbing), i am going to throw my two cents in about the republican dubbed "nuclear option" (if only strom thurmond had won in '48).

If you ask me the republicans have got it all backwards. The filibuster ought to go, but not the filibuster of judicial nominees. Throughout its history it has been used as a tool by conservatives, reactionaries and other regressive beliefs to impede change (most notably in the case of civil rights). A means for tyranny of the minority. Luckily, that favorite saying of mine "change or die" tends to kick in and, well, most people are reluctant to die, so they change. Without the filibuster we would have probably had real civil rights laws in ’47 or earlier, rather than ‘57, ‘64 and ’66. But when it comes to nominees (judicial or not), the filibuster becomes a means to stop the tyranny of the majority. The senate is not and should never be a rubber stamp for presidential appointees – the filibuster insures this by requiring larger consent than the slimmest of majority for positions that are supposed to be apolitical.

Why can’t we go back to the time when the judgeships were just gifts for friends and a convenient place to put political rivals?