The Many Pleasures of Vacationing Alone

I recently took a trip by myself to Boston and the greater New England area.  This came as a shock to pretty much everyone in my life when I first said I was going.  I live in a world of couples, and all of them had the same reaction to me going alone: "what?" and "really?"  Typically, as a single man, when I go on vacation I usually bring along a relative of some sort (most commonly a parent), who can help to split the hotel costs and who can keep me honest about how many museums I'm going to, and because most of my relatives wouldn't care to venture to NYC (my most common vacation hotspot) without a seasoned guide so it's something of a quid pro quo.  However, I figured I'd go through four of my favorite things about vacationing alone, and the one that really sticks out as being terrible about doing it.

1. You Can Easily Disconnect

As a proper introvert, one who had very few close friends growing up, I am pretty easily sustained by my own invention and natural curiosity.  As a result, I'm already relatively disconnected from the world around me, and go at my own pace.  Still, there's something about going on a vacation, one that's truly a vacation and not accompanied by a laptop from work or a series of familial visiting obligations, that shows some perspective for how much we live our lives for other people.  I realized this less than one day into my vacation.  After being up since 2 AM and braving through the ridiculousness of Boston's speed limits (mild rant I have to put into the universe: the New England speed limit laws are ridiculous; I don't mind people speeding, but why would you have a 55 MPH speed limit on an 8-lane highway where no one is going under 80?  I get that I'm an outsider on this front, but come on-at least move the speed limit up to 70 so that the law isn't being obnoxiously overrun), I cozied into a giant, freshly made king-size bed and just relaxed in my underwear while watching bad TV.  No one is putting pressure on me to pick out what we're having for dinner (I'm always the one who picks every activity on vacations, particularly every food-related one, and considering I have to do that regularly in my real-life, I hate having the pressure of doing it for two people while on vacation), and I just sat in bed, drinking a bunch of ice water and having some local pizza.  It was divine, and weirdly one of my favorite moments of my vacation because I didn't have to think about pleasing anyone, and just got to live in the moment.  That's rare, and nearly impossible, if you're with another person and it's hard to do when you're at home and you can see the laundry or novel you're supposed to read or know there's three hours of work you have due by Monday morning all staring you in the face.  Vacationing alone is about the only way you can actually hit the snooze button on your life and live for the moment.

2. People Don't Actually Stare at You

I think the horror from people around me when I say I go to a restaurant or vacation spot by myself is that other people will notice you or be judging you for sitting in a restaurant by yourself.  The reality is, though, that no one ever notices you sitting by yourself unless you want them to do so.  I went for a drink at a bar, sat at several breakfast cafes, and the only people who noticed me were the servers, and in one case a cute bartender I was hoping would notice me.  By-and-large, people don't do so many things they have every means to do and wish they could do because of fear of how others around them will judge them for going at it alone.  But when you're in a restaurant, you only notice the people at your table or someone acting obnoxious.  Anyone quietly reading, nursing a nice glass of wine or reading through the latest from Joyce Carol Oates in a snug booth goes undetected.  If you need acknowledgement from strangers (which some people do...though no one actually is willing to fess up to having such a tendency), then this is probably going to be an issue, but if you genuinely can handle being alone with a plate of good food or walking on a nature hike by yourself, you'll be fine, and get exactly what you're hoping for out of the situation.

3. Vacationing is On Your Own Terms

I am not a night person-haven't really been since I started a full-time job.  I am a morning person who occasionally enjoys a night out, but not of drinking (instead, likely at a jazz club or staring at the stars or, most likely, in the comfortable warmth of a movie theater).  So on vacation, I can bounce out of bed at six o'clock, slap on some clothes, and be out on the road in a matter of twenty minutes.  And then I can go exactly where I want to go, without debate of worry of whether it's worth it to drive for an hour to walk a wintery beach in New Hampshire or whether Walden Pond will actually warrant the $10 on parking.  Admittedly, it's fun to be with loved ones in certain places to share the awe of seeing Paul Revere's house (and marvel at how cramped the surroundings were...not to mention how the man could possibly have produced sixteen children), but I'm not here to make apologies or excuses for something people accept as normal.  I'm saying that there are times when enjoying something you've wanted to see alone can be more fun than doing it with other people.  This is particularly true on vacation when you're being super tourist-y: you can push onwards to that last destination, even if you're a bit tired and haven't eaten in a while, or you can check out for the day at 3 PM, cozy up in your hotel room with a bunch of potato chips from Target, and watch free HBO until dawn.  The world is your oyster in this regard.

4. You Can Genuflect on Your Life Without Worry

One of the things that vacationing does that brings focus into your life is it shows you what you've been missing, and what things you wish you could insert more into your regular routine.  I was able to find, in my time away, that I don't spend enough time emotionally recharging with nature (I love hiking, but never take the time when I live in a suburban universe), or that I need to be more planful about travel, and saving up for it, because it gives me such a boost of confidence in the world.  These things are possible with other people, but as a general rule you don't get to it that much because there's a pressure to have conversation with another person for days, rather than just quietly staying in your own thoughts and world.  I spend most of my time alone, so in a way this one does feel somewhat redundant, but a change of perspective brings about different thoughts than you get when you're alone in your typical environment.  It's easier to think about the world when you're wandering across a hundreds-year-old bridge and looking at a river that has provided life force for tens of thousands of years.  It puts things into a different vantage point, but you oftentimes don't get the chance to just sit and thoughtfully ponder the universe when you have someone next to you, hoping to get to the next spot (and frequently you're also interrupting or not identifying their moments of peace).

5. The Return Home Can Be a Bit Jarring

The reality is, then, that there are lots of things that lend themselves well to traveling solo, but I won't say it's all lovely.  You can do math (presumably) so you can see the expenses that are slashed by sharing a hotel room or splitting groceries/gas money, but I'm talking more about the return back and the days preceding.  You frequently have people subtly (or not so subtly) casting digs on you vacationing on your own, as if it's something to be shameful of doing.  I frequently found a lot of "well, I could never do that, so good for you's" which is basically the same thing as saying "you're brave for being able to wear something like that"-it's a complete dig at you.  You get judged on your choices after the fact, particularly when they aren't coinciding what another person would have done.  You have cover with a companion (you can, whether truthfully or not, state that person didn't want to see X or didn't think eating Y was important), but when it's just you it's hard to say that "Walden Pond" was better than hitting a specific seafood restaurant that everyone else is gaga over, or whether you should have gone out clubbing even when you hate clubbing.  Additionally, when your actual favorite parts of the trip were the quiet moments with yourself, it feels weird to say that to a stranger because societally we are sort of verboden to speak in such a way.  All-in-all, though, considering how quickly people stop caring about your vacation (it's fast), it's worth it for the hours of leisure you gave yourself, even if you broke the taboo of enjoying time alone.

OVP: Brother Bear (2003)

Film: Brother Bear (2003)
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Suarez, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Jason Raize
Director: Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

It's hard to remember this right now, but in the mid-Aughts the Disney brand was suffering pretty severely.  Competition in the animated sector, after a gigantic monopoly of quality entertainment in the 1990's, was fierce.  Dreamworks had the Shrek franchise blasting through record-after-record, and Disney's kid sister Pixar had officially usurped it as the coolest kid on the block.  In fact, from 2004-2007, Disney had three consecutive films fail to land in the Animated Feature Oscar race, the only time since the category's inception that that has happened.  The film directly preceding this drought, Brother Bear, I remember thinking only made it at the time due to a complete dearth of competitors-2003 was arguably the thinnest year for animated contenders I've seen since the Oscars created a category for this sub-genre.  That being said, a nomination is a nomination, and we have an OVP to consider, so during my recent vacation, I set about finally seeing the flick.

(Spoilers Ahead) The thing to remember about Disney in this era is that they were slowly moving out of the animated films that had made them so much money (mimicking Dreamworks and Pixar), but hadn't entirely abandoned it.  So there are songs a-few in this film, perhaps trying to gun for an Oscar nomination in the aural categories as well (they failed there, even with Tina Turner and Phil Collins providing vocals to original ditties), but that isn't the central focus.  Here the central focus is on Kenai (Phoenix, and I will admit fully I had no idea he was providing the vocal track until I read it earlier this morning), a young Inuit man who is upset about his totem (he gets the bear of love), and then goes off and needlessly attacks and kills a bear.  In the process of killing the bear, however, his eldest brother dies and Kenai is transformed into a bear (because, you know, Disney), and has to learn to walk in the shoes of another before the spell can be broken.

The film is pretty indicative of where Disney went wrong post about Mulan.  The films of this era couldn't find the right balance between classic and modernizing, a blend I'm still not 100% certain they've really achieved (note that we don't have Rapunzel or The White Queen, but instead Tangled and Frozen), but they've definitely come closer to accomplishing.  The film has darker moments, the ones that sort of catapulted Disney to high-brow, but they feel much less mindful than the sacrifices of Mufasa or Bambi's mother in the past, as Kenai's older brother is basically alive as a spirit for most of the movie, becoming more of a Grandmother Willow situation than anything else.  The film has a strong message, and it shouldn't be completely discarded, but the movie itself has too many side characters that just seem strange and have comedy that relies on accents and not really on actual jokes (Moranis and Thomas, both quintessentially Canadian comedians, voice moose that take on the bulk of comic relief).  There's clearly a racial metaphor at work here as well, but it feels too obvious at times, and there's not enough actual character focus on Kenai (what does he do other than be a cocky blowhard prior to becoming a bear?).  All in all, it's a pretty blasé entry from Disney, and even if it looks like the sort of film that made the studio successful, it never remotely hits the level of great that we'd come to expect during that era.

Those are my thoughts on a long-forgotten entry in the Disney canon-how about yours?  Am I underestimating this film, or do you agree that this got nominated sheerly out of a lack of obvious contenders?  Are any of the subsequent Disney films (Home on the Range, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons) worth looking into or should I just leave these where they lay?  The comments are below for you to let me know!

Emmy Predictions: The Comedies

We continue on from yesterday with a look at this year's Emmy Awards.  Tuesday we went through all of the Drama predictions (spoiler alert: Game of Thrones does well), but today it's all about making us laugh, and honestly, I'm a little bit wondering if we might see the ends of some streaks, as even the Emmy Awards have their limits on how often you can win a trophy.  Let's head right into the categories, shall we?

Best Comedy Series

Black-ish
Master of None
Modern Family
Silicon Valley
Transparent
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Veep

The Lowdown: Last year, after five consecutive victories for Modern Family, Veep finally found a way into the conversation, thus stopping MF from making Emmy history.  With there finally being a show to focus on in a battle between the two series, I suspect that win repeats; part of why Modern Family kept winning (my theory, at least) is it was with a plurality, but no other show really screamed "Best Series!" in a way that felt obvious so it won with probably 35-40% of the vote.  Even new nominees Black-ish and Master of None seem like they're more here because there's not a lot of standout comedy on television these days rather than out of "we must honor this!"  As a result, expect Veep to win a second term (I'm sorry, I had to do it at least once).

Best Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Aziz Ansari, Master of None
Will Forte, The Last Man on Earth
William H. Macy, Shameless
Thomas Middleditch, Silicon Valley
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

The Lowdown: Yikes.  Anyone else think this looks pretty weak?  I honestly hadn't really thought about the sorry state of comedy on television (mostly because I tend to think TV has hit a bit of a nadir compared to the previous decade in general), but man if you take drama out of the equation this becomes even more problematic.  I think that Tambor is probably going to win a second trophy since that feels like the right answer, but I wouldn't be stunned if Anderson or even William H. Macy (whose never won for this role) managed a mild surprise.  Still, with the Best Series citation it's likely going to be Tambor.

Best Actress in a Comedy Series

Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Laurie Metcalf, Getting On
Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish
Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie

The Lowdown: Not remembering who the nominees were, I kind of thought I'd go for an upset here and dethrone Julia Louis-Dreyfus.  I mean, after all, she's won five Emmys in this category, including the last four for Veep, but looking at these nominees it seems hard to imagine anyone getting it over an Emmy titan like JLD.  None of the returning nominees seem to have had the same impact this season, and the new nominees all got in based on a weak field.  I might buy an argument for Tomlin or Metcalf, both of whom are big enough Emmy favorites that they could rival Louis-Dreyfus on that front, but not for such underseen shows.  Props once again go to Selina Meyer.

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series

Louise Anderson, Baskets
Andre Braugher, Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Tony Hale, Veep
Keegan-Michael Key, Key and Peele
Matt Walsh, Veep

The Lowdown: Honestly, this may be the first Emmy race we've encountered where I genuinely have no idea.  Let's walk it back: Key, Walsh, and Braugher all seem to be here mostly out of love of show or name, but aren't actually a threat.  Part of me wonders in a seven-wide field, where the bar will be lower, if Ty Burrell is still an option, but I'm going to count him out as well.  That leaves Hale, who has won this twice, against the newcomers Burgess and Anderson.  I know the smart money is on Anderson, a longtime stalwart who got nominated somewhat out of nowhere, but will the Emmy voters go for a show that most hadn't even heard of prior to the nominations announcement?  My guess is no, and so I'm going with another trophy for Hale, who has a fantastic submission episode (if those still matter, he'll win).

Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series

Anna Chlumsky, Veep
Gaby Hoffmann, Transparent
Allison Janney, Mom
Judith Light, Transparent
Kate McKinnon, Saturday Night Live
Niecy Nash, Getting On

The Lowdown: Part of me wonders if McKinnon might do what no other SNL cast member seems capable of lately-winning in this category, if only for the Television Academy to get tacitly political (you just know she'd get out an "I hope I get to keep playing this part after November" to thunderous applause).  Part of me wonders if the Academy will realize that Judith Light hasn't won since her days as Karen Wolek on One Life to Live, and give her another trophy.  And part of me wonders if Anna Chlumsky is just doomed to be nominated again and again without ever taking that trophy.  But most of me wonders whether it will be Hale, Louis-Dreyfus, Tambor, or Allison Janney that makes the "let's mix it up a little" joke in the press room after winning yet another statue.

And there we go-we'll head into Miniseries tomorrow, but I have to say I'm a little disappointed.  I anticipated being adventurous (and still feel like Hale is vulnerable), but went with a full repeat of last year's winners.  Do you think there's any upset potential?  Anyone in particular you're hoping will take it?  Share in the comments below!

Emmy Predictions: The Dramas

Egads!  The Emmys are this weekend, and we're actually already done with a bunch of the categories already (well done, Game of Thrones, and kudos to Amy Poehler even though I'm a little concerned about the precedence you set by co-winning for no apparent reason with Tina Fey).  Though I don't talk about television quite as much on this blog as I do film and politics, I do partake quite a bit, and wanted to be on the record over who I think is taking home the golden lady this Sunday.  Let's start with the dramas, shall we?

Best Drama Series

The Americans
Better Call Saul
Downton Abbey
Game of Thrones
Homeland
House of Cards
Mr. Robot

The Lowdown: First off, as I just mentioned, I don't watch as much TV as I do movies, so I am a little surprised (in a genuine, and not sarcastic) way that Homeland is still on the air-I thought that it had already ended.  As I have enough confidence in my predicting abilities to think that I would have heard of the winning show, I'll desist in predicting that series.

Honestly, this feels like a battle between last year's victor Game of Thrones and one of the uncrowned in the form of The Americans and I, Robot.  Both shows have been critically hosanna'd and it's nice to see them in the race, but Game of Thrones already took a bushel of Creative Arts Emmys, and won last year at an awards ceremony that loves to see shows repeat and repeat and repeat.  Expect the most popular drama of this bunch to take the throne once more.

Best Actor in a Drama Series

Kyle Chandler, Bloodline
Rami Malek, Mr. Robot
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

The Lowdown: While some of these men have won Emmy Awards previously, they have never been successful for these shows, as the last couple of years have produced actors who are on now cancelled programs (Jeff Daniels, Bryan Cranston, Jon Hamm).  Part of me thinks that they will simply go with Kevin Spacey, who has to have been in the running previously and probably would have won at the House of Cards heyday had Bryan Cranston not been consistently cleaning up, but that show is so played out at this point and they're not wild about giving someone a trophy toward the end of their run even if they have long-nominated you (just ask Jane Kaczmarek and Steve Carell).  As a result, I'm going with the new kid on the block Rami Malek, being the representative from I, Robot who gets onstage.

Best Actress in a Drama Series

Claire Danes, Homeland
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder
Taraji P. Henson, Empire
Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black
Keri Russell, The Americans
Robin Wright, House of Cards

The Lowdown: First off, congratulations to Keri Russell, the only woman in this bunch who isn't a rerun of the 2015 nominees (considering her long television career, this feels like a great addition to the "Emmy-nominated" club).  Here we do have the previous year's victor in the form of Viola Davis, and because the Emmys are oftentimes renewing contenders, I wonder if she might just do it again (and it would be a nice nod to the broadcast networks, who still foot the bill for the show and probably want to be honored somewhere).  Plus, the ceremony's on ABC this year.  I think her biggest competition is Robin Wright, who like Spacey has never won and apparently had a big season this year.  I'm going to guess that Wright just pulls it off because they'll want to mix it up a little bit (HTGAWM having just an okay second season), but if Davis wins again I wouldn't be remotely surprised.

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series

Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones
Kit Harington, Game of Thrones
Michael Kelly, House of Cards
Ben Mendelsohn, Bloodline
Jon Voight, Ray Donovan

The Lowdown: I will admit that of all of the acting categories at the Emmy Awards each year (much like the Oscars), the category I find least interesting is Supporting Actor.  It's usually just a roster of the same men, every single year, and the same set of shows, and that's a repeat again this year as all but one of this year's nominees (Kit Harington) is present for the first time.  Last year's victor Peter Dinklage could show up again in what looks to be a predictable bunch, but I think it's a battle between Jonathan Banks and newcomer Harington, who had an impressive story arch for a guy who started the season dead.  Last year I got burned for going with Banks, so I'm switching it up this year and guessing Harington will be part of a major Game of Thrones award stampede.

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series

Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones
Lena Headey, Game of Thrones
Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey
Maura Tierney, The Affair
Maisie Williams, Game of Thrones
Constance Zimmer, UnReal

The Lowdown: First off-congrats to the new names on this list (Williams and Zimmer being particularly surprising), as that's always tough for Emmy to pull off; they didn't even go with last year's victorious Uzo Aduba, meaning that we're guaranteed to have a newcomer...well, at least not a repeat as Maggie Smith has been a winner here before and sentiment could demand she take it again. However, as Smith is very unlikely to show up (she hasn't been to an American awards show since she was up for Gosford Park fourteen years ago), I think this is Headey's.  She's had a commanding story arch for a few years now (many figured she'd win last year), she's the most "actorly" choice on Game of Thrones (give or take Dinklage), and Emmy will probably want to have crowned her at least once.  Smith's my backup, but I'm thinking Cersei takes it.

Those are my guesses-we'll get into Comedy tomorrow, but in the meantime share your guesses (and hopes) in the drama categories for Sunday!

Complete Unknown (2016)

Film: Complete Unknown (2016)
Stars: Rachel Weisz, Michael Shannon, Kathy Bates, Danny Glover
Director: Joshua Marston
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I've probably mentioned this a few times before, but Rachel Weisz has slowly become one of my favorite actresses at the movies (currently).  This is a weird evolution for me, as I have always liked her (I enjoyed her work even as early as The Mummy), but when she transitioned into the role of mainstream "serious" actress in 2005's The Constant Gardener, it caught me by surprise.  I felt a kind of pride for being a fan early on even if it felt like a one-time thing, but in the years since Weisz used her Oscar trophy less for franchise paycheck work like so many supporting players thrust into the spotlight (give or take Oz: The Great and Powerful), and instead used her newfound crossover fame to make a series of complicated, occasionally successful, movies where she mines the inner-workings of a deeply damaged woman, the best being The Deep Blue Sea, which in my opinion should have won her a second Oscar.  Looking at human beings and the elasticity of their emotions, along with the deep damage brought on by loneliness, is one of my favorite ideas at the movies, and as a result seeing Complete Unknown was a no-brainer for me: favorite actress combined with a topic I was interested in, even with almost no press it felt like the right decision.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film itself is a unique and brilliant idea, in my opinion.  The film follows Alice (Weisz), known by a number of different names in the film but we'll stick with Alice for now, as she encounters a man from her past named Tom (Shannon), who knew her back during her "first life."  She eventually, through a series of deep depressions or whatever would make a person do such a thing, gives up on her current identity and adopts an entirely new one, one where she is a completely different person she creates largely from thin air.  The film is fascinating in the way this unfolds, first getting initial reaction from Tom's friends, who are not interested in her for this reason, and then from Tom, who remembers the girl he fell in love with, perhaps the great love of his life, and as his birthday proceeds, we get a very interesting look at what it takes for Alice to essentially abandon all meaningful human interactions with people and forego lasting relationships in order to completely immerse herself in the different identities she keeps creating for herself.

The film is not a success, it's worth noting, if we're looking at the mile-high vantage.  The final third of the film doesn't really know how to end this story, with Marston stuck between wanting Tom to continue on with Alice, who has been so deeply shaken by her past for so many years and may want to quit but doesn't know how, and him returning to the humdrum of his regular life.  It hurts the film that we never really feel invested in any aspect of Tom other than his relationship with Alice.  His strange gender politicking with his wife, his stalling career, and the crises of middle age and realizing you've hit a "point of no return" on select dreams are all there, but they don't really come across because the side characters are underwritten and because we don't get enough background on Tom to really care, particularly with Alice in the picture.  In that way, the film fails.

But the acting is too good and the story too fascinating not to hold your complete attention.  Alice is really interesting, especially the way that Weisz draws her, and you're left wanting more and more, which may be the point; Alice cannot handle the pressures that society has thrown at her, and cannot deal with the fact that she dropped out so she abandons all of the pleasures of long-standing relationships in favor of a life where she doesn't have to deal with disappointment or hurt again, at least not in a traditional way.  Her going to Tom, the last person who "really knew her" is stunning because it's certainly her last chance at a normal life, and she has to throw it away by the end of the film because she's gone too far, and is too deep into this series of double lives to ever really be able to escape.  Weisz is so good at this type of role, and it works, and even if the film isn't very strong it's one of those rare cases where I'm so compelled by the plotting and the acting that it's kind of hard to care. It's the sort of movie I'd recommend to only the most cerebral and film-involved of my friends, but it's one that I would have to recommend even though I'm not convinced it's actually a good movie, so we'll go with three stars.

Those are my thoughts-this movie made very little money (I saw it on opening night in my theater and it was practically empty), so my gut says very few people actually caught it.  If you did, please discuss as I am dying to get a second opinion or a conversation going here as I found it a conundrum. Share below!

Ranting On...the DFL's Foolish Play Against Trump/Pence

I am mad.  About a lot of things after the past weekend  And we'll be focusing on a couple of those things in the next few days (and we already tackled one of them, which became even more ludicrous this weekend).  But right now I need to get something off of my chest about my own team: the MN DFL, who is doing something ridiculously stupid that's 100% guaranteed to be a waste of time and receive an appropriate backlash.

For those who don't know, the MN DFL and Chairman Ken Martin has moved to remove Trump/Pence from the ballot in the upcoming presidential race.  You heard me right-they want to take the Republican ticket off of the ballot, claiming that the Secretary of State violated state election law by allowing Trump/Pence on the ticket since they chose their electors via executive committee rather than via a state convention.  That's it-the only reason that we are going to war over something like this is a matter of essentially semantics, as the executive committee had to correct a mistake made by the MN GOP by not following the minutia of the law.

I have several problems with this, but before I get there, I want to insulate myself a little bit here by proclaiming loud-and-proud that I am a strong backer of the MN DFL at the ballot box.  I've never voted for a Republican in a partisan election, and that streak will continue into this November.  So I don't want to hear any "DINO" or "secret Republican" sorts of attacks.  I've door-knocked, phone-rang, and pamphlet-dropped all over this state for a variety of candidates, and will probably doing the same in the next couple of weeks.  What makes me mad here is because this is bad politics, and because it's also taking away resources from us actually winning races.

Because that's what this is-bad politics-and I don't buy for one second that the state chair "had" to do this to make the process fairer.  The reality is that the MN Supreme Court, regardless of whether Trump and the MN GOP didn't fulfill their requirements under the law (it seems pretty obvious that that's the case), should be given a spot on the ballot at the risk of disenfranchising thousands and thousands of people.  In 2012, 45% of the state's ballots were cast for the Republican ticket; in 2008 it was 44% and in 2004 it was 48%.  While never a majority (no Republican has won the state of Minnesota since 1972 on a presidential level), a significant amount of the electorate has wanted to vote for the Republican ticket in the Gopher State as long as the party has been a major party.  That's how it should continue to be.

Now, Martin could have challenged the electors, stating that they were not legally selected and that they need to be decided at a state convention that was to be convened on the GOP's dime.  That would have met the idea of "try to take down your opponent" a bit, but to go to the top of the hill, trying to disenfranchise over a million people, is both stupid and wrong.  The courts aren't going to side with the DFL here.  They'll go with the idea that the Republicans, one of the two major parties in the country, are required to have their candidate on the ballot by virtue of getting 45% in the previous election.  They might chastise Trump/Pence a bit, but at the end of the day they aren't going to alienate so many voters, nor should they.  As Democrats, we should not be supporting a policy that makes it harder for people to vote, even if that means that they are voting for a Republican.  This is where principles come into play.  If we are to win, we should do so by convincing the Republicans to come to our side or by convincing people who wouldn't have voted to get out and vote for our team.  It's not by taking away the Republicans' spot on the ballot.

So it's a court case that we are destined to win, and one that most people will see as a purely partisan grab and may want to send a message to the DFL that it's wrong to play politics in such a way.  Minnesotans, especially the rural and swing voters we need to keep holds on majorities, don't like this sort of blatant political grab, and may be turned off by the DFL.  So we aren't gaining any tactical advantage over the GOP and we look petty in the process.

The reality is that every second and dime we waste on this endeavor is money that we should be spending on getting Hillary Clinton votes across the state, ensuring she wins our ten electoral ballots.  It should be spent on helping Rick Nolan, Angie Craig, and Terri Bonoff win their House elections.  It should be spent on taking back the State House and holding the State Senate, so that the final two years of Gov. Dayton's tenure can be as productive as possible.  Just because Hillary Clinton looks likely to win the state doesn't mean it's a guarantee, and certainly doesn't mean there aren't races in the state that will be decided by 1-2 percentage points, races where this lawsuit money could be better spent.  Martin should be focusing all of his attentions on November 8th, and how to take down Trump and the GOP through good old-fashioned voters, not by a quixotic quest in the courts.

OVP: Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Film: Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Stars: Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, John Benjamin Hickey, Paul Walker, John Slattery, Barry Pepper, Jamie Bell
Director: Clint Eastwood
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Sound Mixing, Sound Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I've been thinking this weekend a lot about Clint Eastwood.  Later this week we'll be doing a post as a tribute to him and his latest accomplishment (Sully, which I'm still on the fence about seeing but will probably succumb to later this week if I'm on vacation and I feel like I need to get out and catch a movie).  That being said, today the thinking about Eastwood is, because of this vacation and wanting a fresh batch of Netflix discs to bring with me on the plane, quite present to something I'm actually experiencing as I am attempting to see in the same day Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima as I move steadily through the remaining 2006 Oscar Viewing Project titles (wait-you're curious where the writeups for 2007 and 2014 are when I've got 2006 nearly wrapped up?  I'm getting there-and also you're mean).  Anyway, let's dive into this as it ain't gonna be pretty as you can clearly see from the ranking.

(Spoilers Ahead) I'm not entirely sure what it was in 2006 that kept me from seeing this film.  I know for Letters I actually relented because I was going to be doing my film reviews for the Oscars (I was a writer on my school paper at the time), but the projector at the movie theater burned out and so I somehow managed to miss seeing the most recent Best Picture I have yet to see.  But Flags, I'm not sure.  I was in the heat of seeing at least one movie a week, and on-paper it had a lot of things that appealed to me: prestige topic, cute guys, Oscar buzz.  But I'm guessing that was around the time that my eye-rolling toward Clint Eastwood's pictures hit its zenith which kept me on-the-fence about spending my very limited resources on such a film.

In the years preceding and in a couple of years since, I've had some about-faces on Eastwood's works, even some that I disliked at the time, but I am not what you'd call an obvious fan.  I like Eastwood just fine as an actor and I'm pretty much over what some of his political standings are (I think with entertainers you largely have to dismiss those that you disagree with and be lucky when there's ones you actually share political beliefs with, as it gets too arduous to always find those who vote the same way you do), but his directorial style always feels a bit hackneyed.  I've been scared for years to revisit something like Unforgiven, which I still think is his only unqualified masterpiece for fear that the years of under-edited biopics will have dulled my love of it, but while there are moments in his other films that have been strong (and I have high hopes for Letters), that western opus is his only truly great picture.

Flags indulges the things that I hate most about Eastwood's movies.  The camerawork, even in scenes of broad daylight, are coated in a rough darkness that is hard to watch and practically makes you squint (I shouldn't have to put on my glasses if your film doesn't have subtitles).  The characters are drawn in such broad strokes that morality can never really be a factor-who can cheer against even the worst of these men?  The battle scenes are compelling, but nothing we haven't seen in hundreds of other movies and quite frankly nothing here approaches what Spielberg was able to accomplish in Saving Private Ryan.  The film is at least twenty minutes too long, and doesn't establish any of the side characters enough, which is a pity considering he went to the point of hiring people who can, you know, actually act like Melanie Lynskey, Benjamin Walker, and Jamie Bell.

It's also a pity because what is usually the saving grace of an Eastwood picture, his role as a true actor's director, isn't found here as the acting is miserably bad.  While others in his films have had his directorial indulgences, they've been saved by world-class talent like Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, and even Eastwood himself coming in and finding the humanity that he's attempting to achieve.  Here, though, the three male leads are all abysmal.  Jesse Bradford probably comes across the best since he  can find some charm in his character.  Ryan Phillippe, then still a relatively hot commodity, looks pretty but has nothing else but vacant emoting to contribute to the conversation (and what was with all of the guys getting half-naked and wrestling at the end of the film, as if Eastwood thought a nod to the hotness of his cast was going to save him from lusty critics).  Worst of all is Adam Beach, giving some of the worst acting I've seen in a major motion picture in a while.  Beach overplays every scene, badly, finding nothing but a hollowness in what is clearly the most interesting character in the film on-paper.  Beach has always had trouble with finding subtleties in his character (I know this from seeing pretty much every SVU he's ever starred in), but this is horrendously bad.  If there was any hope of saving this movie through acting, Eastwood cast the wrong guys in the lead.

All-iin-all, then, it was just an abysmal movie.  It scored two gimme nominations for the Oscars (the two sound categories), and while that is an understandable nomination, it isn't really necessary.  Even here the sounds aren't as clean as you'd expect from a war film (especially in the crowd scenes not on the battlefield), the music carries you in-and-out with too much regularity, and there's nothing special to warrant Oscar attention other than the Oscar-winner whose name is on the director's chair.  A pow is a pow is a pow, as it were.  I get it, but since the Academy was already headed toward Letters, was there really a need to go here too?  Well I'll find out in about twenty minutes when I start that picture.  In the meantime, share your thoughts-what did you think of Flags of Our Fathers?

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

Film: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
Stars: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, JK Simmons, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan, Kate Hudson
Director: Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I actually reread a couple of old reviews of mine before deciding to tackle this installment of the Dreamworks' series Kung Fu Panda just to get a sense of the previous films.  Dreamworks (foolishly, in my opinion), decided to go with a Pixar-level tactic of waiting five years to come out with a new installment to one of their quintessential film franchises, hoping that overall devotion to the series could carry that long.  Considering the gross for the film was down over $100 million from the previous installment, this was probably a foolish decision (Dreamworks Animation has made several of those in the past decade), but I was also curious to read reviews because of my memory of the first two films.  I am not a fan of this animation house-despite 32 feature films, most of which I've seen, I have only really liked three of the movies they've produced, two of which of are in this series (the other being the first How to Train Your Dragon).  Revisiting what may well be the final film in the trilogy (at least I'm hoping that's the case considering how it closes) felt like a weird rush for a trio of films I initially wrote off before actually watching them and being impressed.

(Spoilers Ahead) I think there's a few reasons to really enjoy the Kung Fu Panda pictures, but one of the chief ones is that they're genuinely funny.  Jack Black is an actor of somewhat limited means, but he's a compelling onscreen presence and when he finds a role that suits him, like Po, he nails it against the wall.  Po is hilarious, albeit a character whose eventual journey to being the Dragon Master is a bit hard to follow if you hadn't immediately seen the two previous films.  I never quite know what the rules are for sequels in rehashing "scenes from the previous episode," but I will say that I felt a little lost for the first fifteen minutes or so trying to remember what had happened in the previous episode, and specifically if JK Simmons' Kai (an evil yak, because of course), was a new villain or a villain from a previous installment that I'd just misplaced in my memory.  He was, in fact, new, though here I feel like the franchise dropped the ball a bit, as no one was going to live up to Gary Oldman's evil peacock from the second installment of the series (that was a joyous creation).

The film does succeed in a number of great visual gags, though.  The fights here are some of the best I've seen in the series, and truly marvelous to behold.  The film also does a good job of balancing Po's increasing seriousness with his natural comic persona (this is, after all, still a children's movie and never had the gravitas to be able to pull off what Pixar did during it's 2007-10 Golden Age)-the scene where Po must decide whether to return to the mortal realm or not is one where the adults get what he's deciding, but for the kids it still has the playfulness where it's a panda talking to a turtle.

All-in-all, no new ground is broken here and I maintain that the second film is still the best part of the series, but there's a lot to love in this installment.  I genuinely liked most of the scenes, and felt like the movies continued to find a cultivated and strong supporting cast of players (something Dreamworks does well), except in one very obvious case: Kate Hudson's Mei Mei.  I know the story behind this part, clearly intended to be a love interest for Po that got lost in storyboarding, and originally Rebel Wilson, whose comic skills match Black's, was scheduled to play the part and then (due to scheduling conflicts) had to drop out and Hudson filled in at the last minute.  This ends up being a disaster, as her first scene feels strange (is she just a woman who is blinded by her lack of talent or is she just seducing Po-it's very hard to say?), and then she has almost no interactions onscreen with Po, but gets a ridiculously over-the-top line reading at a critically-emotional scene later on in the film where she said she was a "nunchuck chick" and yet we haven't hearkened back to her at all since her first blustery scene.  It's a badly edited choice by the directors, one where they probably should have cut her storyline entirely from the film but didn't know how to (and probably were trying to set up a potential sequel for the studio's sake), but Hudson is badly underwritten and miscast, and it wears on those scenes of the movie in a jarring way (it's the first thing I thought of wanting to write about prior to this review...never a good sign for a film I actually liked).

Those are my thoughts on (what I'm hoping, in terms of story structure) is the final Kung Fu Panda film, and by-and-large it was a successful trilogy in my opinion.  How about you?  Which is your favorite (as I mentioned above, mine's the second) and where does this rank on your Dreamworks' animation list?  Do you also feel like Rebel Wilson could have saved Mei Mei or was this simply a character without redemption?  Share your thoughts below!

Southside with You (2016)

Film: Southside with You (2016)
Stars: Tika Sumpter, Parker Sawyers
Director: Richard Tanne
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

It's not often you go to a movie that you know by heart and still kind of like it, but that was the case for me recently with Southside with You.  I cannot remember when I first heard the details of the Obama's first date, but for some reason it stuck with me as I recalled most of the moments that happened leading up to the lovely ending of Southside with You.  A film that I never would have anticipated, and which almost worked just as well as a trailer (I recalled thinking during the initial buildup up to "what's his name?" that it felt like it was a fictionalized version of the Obamas life, until the "Barack Obama" moment came up and I said, "huh-who would have thought so soon?"), it's actually pretty solid as a date movie.  There's no new molds being broken here, but I don't think you always need that with a late August movie-Southside with You uses charm and familiarity in the best ways possible.

(Spoilers Ahead) For those who can't tell, Southside with You is a very recent story, that of Michelle Robinson (Sumpter) and Barack Obama's (Sawyers) first date.  The film, told over the course of a single day as the two go from being colleagues (Barack wanting something more, Michelle wanting to remain just friends) to paramours, go shopping for music, eating a picnic, visiting a community event, and even seeing Spike Lee's masterpiece Do the Right Thing.  In between, they don't necessarily fall in love, but you can tell there's something there.  It feels in many ways like some of the best dates you've ever been on, if you've been so lucky to have dates that romantic.

The film offers few surprises.  We know these two end up together because they've been a constant presence in our lives for the past eight years.  If you've heard the story before, there are no surprises even in the way that they go through the date (I'm familiar enough with this story to even know the name of the movie).  But if you have chemistry and charm, you can get a long way in a movie, and Sumpter and Sawyers are really strong together.  Neither of them can be confused with an award-winning performance, but they do have that special magic here that you want out of a romance movie.  They play strongly off of each other, and Sumpter doesn't frequently belabor the point that yes, we all know she decides to spend her life with this handsome man with the dumbo ears and the soaring rhetoric.  There is less effort meant to imitate the eventual incarnations we know from inspiring us (or, in some cases, us loathing them, but in that case I doubt you saw this movie), and more just on finding two people who are falling in love before our lives.

It's not a perfect movie.  It's weirdly simple, and probably suffers from some of the issues that Sully is going to in a few weeks in that it feels like a pretty light idea for a picture.  There are moments in the script that feel lull, particularly the second time that Michelle (it feels so weird to call them by their first names), backs off the idea of the two of them dating, and I rolled my eyes when they saw the partner from their firm while on their date coming out of Do the Right Thing so the film could have a clunky (albeit, probably true-to-life) conversation about the film's racial politics.  What are the odds that guy shows up in that theater on that night in the city of Chicago?  Relatively slim, in my opinion.  But by-and-large it's a really lovely way to spend ninety minutes, and you leave wanting more, which is the sign of a romantic movie done well.  I'm glad these two people found a different way into our lives some twenty years later.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  This film has largely migrated out of theaters, but hopefully some of you caught it.  If so, what'd you think?  And what other famous couples do you wish they'd make first date movies about?  Share below!

OVP: Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)

Film: Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
Stars: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson, Nina Arianda
Director: Stephen Frears
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Actress-Meryl Streep, Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Meryl Streep is a joy to watch, always, but I will admit that in the past ten years or so, I haven't been in love with her present incarnation like I was with a past version.  I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but with the exception of Julie & Julia, she hasn't really floored me since The Devil Wears Prada.  Don't get me wrong-she's had some fine work in that time.  There are moments in pictures like The Iron Lady, August Osage County, and Hope Springs where she finds something special, that Meryl Streep mastery that we all loved.  But it does feel like, on occasion, she's using her reputation as one of the greatest actors of her generation a little bit to her advantage.  I do wish that while watching something like Florence Foster Jenkins, another entry in Meryl's "very good, but the movie isn't great" type films, that we'd get one more truly "WOW!" performance out of Streep ala Silkwood or Kramer vs. Kramer.  But that's a diatribe for a different day.  First, let's investigate Florence.

(Spoilers Ahead) I was largely unfamiliar with the story of Florence Foster Jenkins (Streep), a wealthy heiress who had dreams of becoming a great opera singer even though she was, unfortunately, a horrendously bad singer.  The film follows her in the twilight of her life, when she decides she wants to play Carnegie Hall and doesn't let a lack of talent get in her way.  The film also follows her caddish husband St. Clair Bayfield (Grant), who is deeply devoted to her but also frequently in the arms of his lover Kathleen (Ferguson), as he bribes everyone in town to keep up the delusion that Florence is talented.  Joined by an aspiring pianist Cosmo (Helberg), Florence eventually overcomes the odds and develops a group of wildly devoted (though ironic) fans.

The film had a weird effect on me.  I was having a particularly awful day that day, so I don't know how much this had to do with that, but the emotional climax (the scene where Florence finally gets her moment in Carnegie Hall), is riveting and may be playing you for a cheaper emotional payoff, but it works.  I was balling hysterically throughout the entire number, particularly when people decided it was time this woman, after giving so much back to the world with them frequently stealing away from her generosity, got to have her moment in the sun.  Streep, who is still a master technician as an actress, knows how to play this scene to perfection, and is once again the highlight of the film.

I guess my problem here is that the film feels so done.  The trailers give away the bulk of the film, and while it is occasionally lovely (there's nothing wrong with the movie as a whole), it feels like the sorts of films that Helen Mirren knocks out of the park already.  I didn't think this was a very special endeavor.  Perhaps this is because feel-good biopics aren't my cup-of-tea regardless of whom you put in the lead, but I wanted something more.  Meryl Streep joining with Stephen Frears, the first time she's been joined by a truly accomplished director since Robert Altman in 2006, felt like I might get something more sensational.  Instead, we got some of Frears' fluffy fare, and none of the payoff that came with Helen Mirren finally getting an Oscar herself.

The film also has some problems in terms of the side characters.  I wasn't smitten with Hugh Grant, again playing a rake, as it's deeply hard to figure out his motives and considering we see him in too many quiet moments to really leave with no sense of his character, that's the fault of the actor and writer.  Throughout, I could tell he loved Florence but couldn't tell if he only stayed for the money, or quite frankly why he had loved Florence.  Was it the case of a gold-digger who actually fell for his paramour, even if it wasn't romantic?  It's hard to say, but I should know after 100 or so minutes.

The same has to be said for Simon Helberg's Cosmo, another case of a character who felt "gay-washed" in his own picture.  Cosmo is clearly assumed to be homosexual-he eye-lusts after a man at a party and frequently works out, but we don't actually get anything more from that, which made me a little angry-why put it in if you aren't going to try and show a little something more in that scene?  It felt tagged on just to give a wink, but not enough to actually feel progressive.  It'd be nothing if this wasn't the case for dozens of movies with similar problems, so I feel like I have to call it out.

All-in-all, then, I liked, but didn't remotely love Florence Foster Jenkins, and left it growing impatient for Streep to wow us once again.  She still has a platform and can stack up the nominations-what's it going to take for her to bring another Karen Silkwood or Miranda Priestley into the world?

The State of the Senate

Katie McGinty (D-PA), one of the main reasons the Democrats
will likely have the Senate majority in January

It has been almost two months since we did our last "State of the Senate" article, and I initially thought a lot hadn't changed, but then I looked at the article and it turns out we've had a few moves that helped both sides since then, so I figured it was time to investigate.

The reality is that this is now crunch time for the battle for the Senate, and we're seeing that right now with campaign committees on both sides of the aisle buying up air time (and in some cases cancelling ad buys), as well as a plethora of new polling.  Democrats are hoping that Hillary Clinton's clear lead in most swing state polls also manages to bring them along for the ride, while Republicans are praying that Donald Trump's unpopularity isn't reflective of unpopularity for the entire GOP.  Whichever one ends up being right is hard to say at this point, though we'll probably find out in the next month-very few Senate elections break much later than Columbus Day, so the next month in terms of campaigning and getting out their message will be crucial.  With that caveat, let's begin the list.

Honorable Mention: I'm including three states here on the honorable mention list because it's hard to tell exactly what's going on in these races.  Missouri, Georgia, and Iowa all have races that the Republicans should be winning easily, and in some cases they are-select polls have shown the Republicans in relatively sturdy positions, but the candidates aren't outrunning Trump by as much as other candidates (like Rob Portman) are around the country, and all of these states are in-play on a presidential level, albeit at different levels (Iowa is far more likely to go for Hillary Clinton than Missouri, for example).  I suspect that one of these could break into at least being competitive and getting national money, but the question is which.  Missouri has arguably the best candidate for the Democrats in Jason Koster, but is also the least likely of the three to break for Clinton.  Patty Judge in Iowa has made her race against Chuck Grassley competitive, but not enough to make me think that she'll actually win, just that she'll do respectably; still, she's in the state that Clinton is most likely to emerge victorious, and while I think there will be more split-ticket voting this year, I think the amount of it is being widely overestimated (I'm still not convinced that faced with the prospect of voting for Clinton or Trump, a lot of less political Republicans won't just stay home, depressing down-ballot turnout).  And Georgia is a strange bird with a candidate most national Democrats couldn't even name a couple of weeks ago, but Jim Barksdale has kept pretty close to Clinton's numbers in a tight race-if she wins, it's not that farfetched to guess he does, though Barksdale has to worry about hitting 50% or heading into a runoff election he's near certain to lose (a worry the Clinton camp doesn't have to contend with).  All-in-all, I still say it's worth watching these races, but I can't make a clean argument that these are actually going to flip; the GOP should be cautious, but confident.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)

10. Ohio

I nearly bumped Ohio, which was in our Top 5 a few months ago, into the honorable mentions this week, which is likely the biggest reason that I decided it was time for another "State of the Senate" article, but man has Ted Strickland royally screwed up this race.  Rob Portman, the best campaigner of the incumbent Republicans running in Obama states, has done an outstanding job of getting support from unlikely places (like labor unions), and lambasting Strickland for his unpopular tenure as governor (it doesn't help Strickland to have been in charge during 2008 and followed by the wildly popular John Kasich).  Strickland may be the best example of the Democrats inappropriately clearing the field for a candidate-they probably would have been better off with a young upstart like PG Sittenfeld than Strickland, but hindsight is 20/20 on that count.  Strickland's anemic fundraising, his shoddy poll numbers, and the lack of interest from the DSCC and Super PAC's in this race has moved what was once a tossup into decidedly favorable territory for the Republicans.  It's Ohio, a state Clinton is currently projected to win, so I am not totally writing off Strickland (Elizabeth Warren and Heidi Heitkamp were losing in polling by numbers similar to Strickland in 2012 and still managed to win), but anyone betting on the former governor is either deluded or a member of his immediate family. (Previous Ranking: 5)

9. Arizona

Another state where it's make-or-break time is Arizona.  Here is a rosier picture for the Democrats, because assistance is on its way.  Hillary Clinton has started to fully invest in the Grand Canyon State, and that should help enormously downballot with Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who has seen a slip in the polls against longtime Sen. John McCain, who also successfully made it through his primary with nary a scratch on him.  Kirkpatrick's best (and only) chance in this race was Hillary Clinton winning the state and McCain's ridiculously labored endorsements of Donald Trump would allow Kirkpatrick to swing in on her coattails.  Kirkpatrick has that opportunity, but she has almost no room for error, and McCain seems to be attracting enough Clinton/McCain supporters to be able to win, albeit by a tight margin.  Kirkpatrick still has some room to play, of course: she has strong support amongst Native Americans that should help turnout in this crucial portion of the state, and the more Latino voters that Hillary Clinton registers the more likely Kirkpatrick is to get assistance down-ballot.  But I'm no longer as bullish about this race as I was earlier in the year. (Previous Ranking: 6)

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV)

8. Nevada

The only potential pickup in the cycle for the Republicans, Nevada is a conundrum for me.  After all, the Republicans have clearly nominated the better candidate (Rep. Joe Heck has run a stronger campaign than AG Catherine Cortez Masto, I must proclaim in a spirit of nonpartisanship) and the polls for both the Senate seat and the presidential election have shown this neck-and-neck, with the lead exchanging on occasion, and Heck even leads in the RCP average (barely).  If this were any other state I'd have this in the Top 5.  But I can't quite swing the fact that Nevada is notoriously hard to poll, and in most cases the Democrats underperform in polling.  At the end of the day, this is a state that, thanks to a large number of Latino voters, as well as Mormon voters that may go to Clinton or Gary Johnson, I don't see Trump winning.  And while Heck is running the better campaign, he's not an incumbent-there's very little reason to believe there will be any tangible number of Clinton/Heck voters.  Those who point to Shelley Berkley in 2012 have a point, but Heller was the incumbent, and Cortez Masto is a better candidate than Berkley, who had considerable baggage in the state.  If the polls don't start breaking in the next couple of weeks, I'll reconsider, but the dynamics at this point narrowly favorite Cortez Masto.  I think this is the race that Democrats, if they wanted to put away a seat before the home stretch to potentially take advantage of a late break somewhere like Iowa or Ohio, should really focus on in the next four weeks to turn Cortez Masto into someone like Katie McGinty (close, but definitely leading).  However, my gut says they are in the lead by a slim margin anyway (Previous Ranking: 8)

7. North Carolina

I debated flipping 6/7 on this list, as I think both are in roughly the same boat.  You have an incumbent Republican, someone who is a known quantity but isn't exactly loved by the populace, running against a flawed Democrat in a race that Hillary Clinton is gaining ground on at the national level and could be winning, though the contest remains close.  What makes me put the Tarheel Race in seventh is both because national investment isn't at the level I'd expect from a true tossup and because I still think Clinton is more likely to retain Florida than flip North Carolina.  However, Sen. Richard Burr has to know that he could soon be sharing the same fate as his former colleague Kay Hagan.  Both were not expected to have particularly tough races, but a young upstart from the state legislature swooped in and managed to find the sweet spot of now very purple North Carolina.  Unlike Hagan, though, Burr is more to blame for his current predicament than she was.  Hagan was saddled with a national environment that was destroying her chances, and while Burr has to deal with both Donald Trump and unpopular Gov. Pat McCrory (who looks more and more likely to lose his reelection with each passing poll), he has been largely absent from the campaign trail and the airwaves, while Ross has made a full court press, turning this into a real race.  I'd like to see either Ross leading a couple more polls or the DSCC/Senate Majority PAC make a major ad buy here before I start proclaiming this a true tossup (side note: while I loved his recruiting success, I'm hating the caution that Jon Tester is displaying in terms of ad buys for the Senate-let's run up the score, not just shoot for 51!), but she's definitely in a position to be the surprise of the cycle (Previous Ranking: 10)

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

6. Florida

Florida is a conundrum.  When Marco Rubio initially came into the race I wasn't sure if his poor presidential run and his lackluster interest in the Senate would hurt him, but he's managed to maintain a slight lead over Rep. Patrick Murphy, who has made a number of blunders on the campaign trail (every single time I read about one, I wonder why the hell we didn't try to get Gwen Graham into this race instead-we'd probably be winning by now).  However, Florida is still a state with a lot of potential for the Democrats, particularly if they do well with Latino voters, and Murphy is down but only by a couple of points in most polls.  If any sort of national momentum builds behind Clinton (and after last night's NBC News forum, it's hard to imagine that Trump wins the debates, and his best hope is that the media is so obsessed with a horse race that they proclaim he and Clinton both losers, so this is not out of the question), Murphy would probably benefit the most from her coattails as it's difficult to see too many Clinton/Rubio voters considering his high profile.  I think Rubio is ever-so-slightly ahead, but I see this as the Democrats' best shot to flip a race in which they are currently behind. (Previous Ranking: 9)

5. Pennsylvania

If Ohio was the big loser for the Democrats the past two months, the race that they clearly gained the most in was the Keystone State.  Every year, if there's any sort of national headwind whatsoever (which the Democrats clearly have, albeit less so than 2006 or 2008), there's always one early tossup race that turns into a leans-against-the-incumbent situation, and Pennsylvania appears to be it, much to my surprise.  After all, Katie McGinty hasn't been a particularly good candidate.  She needed a seven-digit ad buy to make it through her primary, her opponent has run a better campaign than her, and she's made some fumbles on the campaign trail that could have been a big hit to her operation.  However, McGinty is turning out to be lucky enough to overcome these obstacles, as she's leading in nearly every poll, in part because Pat Toomey is the GOP incumbent that couldn't get around Trump's negative coattails.  It helps that Clinton made crucial early investments in Pennsylvania (knowing that Trump couldn't win the White House without either this state or Virginia in his column), and is continuing to make a huge full-court press to take the state, which will only help McGinty.  McGinty wasn't the Democrats' first (or even second) choice, and she could be vulnerable in six years if she doesn't work on her retail politicking skills, but a win is a win is a win, and at this point Katie McGinty sure looks like a winner. (Previous Ranking: 7)

Gov. Maggie Hassan (D-NH)

4. New Hampshire

I'm swapping 3 and 4 this time, partially out of polling and partially because I can't quite get a handle on Indiana, which is either going to be a tight race or a blowout.  New Hampshire, though, is a slight lean to the Democrats so I'll move it down one slot, but make no mistake, Sen. Kelly Ayotte is in trouble.  Gov. Maggie Hassan is arguably the best challenger of the cycle, and has run a pragmatic but flawless campaign.  It was said at the beginning of the year that this was the rare race with two popular candidates running against each other, and while that would normally push a tie to the incumbent, Ayotte has to deal with Donald Trump in 2016, and her tacit support of him has probably cost her in terms of an error she couldn't avoid.  Ayotte still has goodwill in the Granite State, but Hassan has led in almost every poll and Clinton seems to have locked up the state on a presidential level, and if recent years have been any indication, New Hampshire doesn't split tickets anymore (even if they do frequently switch parties).  As a result, I think Clinton should bring Hassan along with her (as well as, provided Frank Guinta wins the primary, Carol Shea-Porter and a House pickup).  (Previous Ranking: 3)

3. Indiana

Like I said above, Indiana is a conundrum.  It's the only race on this list that I'm very confident will go toward Donald Trump, and Rep. Todd Young appears to be a pretty strong challenger.  However, Sen. Evan Bayh has a mountain of cash and goodwill to rely upon, and his late entry into this race could surely spell a majority for the Democrats.  Little polling has come out in the race, but considering everyone expects Bayh to win, that's a bad sign for the Republicans, and even when he's giving a "gloom and doom" speech, Jon Tester singles out the Hoosier State as a probable pickup.  Bayh's shown some serious rustiness on the campaign trail (he should have been better prepared to explain his residency problems, especially after that brought down Dick Lugar four years ago), but he's won statewide five times in the state and knows how to get this done.  My guess is that Bayh wins here, albeit by maybe a 4-6 point margin rather than the double digits some polls would suggest, but the margin doesn't matter at the end of the day, and it'll still be a critical pickup for the Democrats (Previous Ranking: 4)

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI)

2. Wisconsin

Sen. Ron Johnson has to feel at least some solace that statewide polls show Wisconsin a little bit closer than they were a few weeks ago in Clinton/Trump, particularly considering that he's been much more vocal about his Trump support than some of the other Republicans on the list.  The problem here is that he's in a state where his opponent could outrun Hillary Clinton, making this a very rare case indeed.  Former Sen. Russ Feingold clearly wanted his seat back, as he would have had strong chances at the Senate in 2012 and the governor's mansion in 2014, and he's likely to get it.  He hasn't been behind in a poll in months, and national interest in this race has become nonexistent (even the rosiest of outlooks for the Senate have this as a Democratic pickup).  It's difficult to see many avenues right now for Johnson to become anything other than a footnote come January. (Previous Ranking: 2)

1. Illinois

Considering the intensely blue nature of Illinois, Sen. Mark Kirk (R) needed to run a perfect campaign and hope for a deeply flawed opponent to ever have a chance at a second term.  Neither of those two things took place, however.  Duckworth has been largely error-free on the campaign trail, and Kirk has consistently put his foot-in-his-mouth.  Plus, despite his protestations that he won't vote for him, Donald Trump's presence on the ticket should hurt Kirk if for no other reason than a theoretically depressed Republican turnout.  This was a borrowed-time seat when he won it in 2010 under the most advantageous of circumstances.  He won't have that kind of luck this year-get used to saying Sen. Tammy Duckworth. (Previous Ranking: 1)

Goosebumps (2015)

Film: Goosebumps (2015)
Stars: Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Amy Ryan, Ryan Lee, Jillian Bell
Director: Rob Letterman
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Nostalgia is a potent tool.  It's something that has, well, kept the motion picture industry in full bloom the past twenty years or so.  Movie subjects ranging from comic book heroes to reboots of popular franchises to sequels of movies long thought dormant (or sequels that are just incessant) have become a huge byproduct of the film industry.  In some cases this is good (remember Mad Max: Fury Road?), in some cases this is dreadful (anyone loving this year's DC films?), but by-and-large I've been able to be relatively picky about which ones become part of my day-to-day and which ones don't.  However, I recently chanced upon Goosebumps while visiting my parents, who wanted to see it and see what I could remember from reading the books religiously back when I was a child (there was always a quick hustle to the back of the B. Dalton at our local mall to see what RL Stine had in store for me that week).  The idea of going back into this universe sounded appealing, so I gave into nostalgia despite some initial trepidation (would these remotely age well in my memory?).

(Spoilers Ahead) Sadly, as you may be able to tell from my review score, nostalgia didn't really work for me here.  The dislike didn't stem from it not being occasionally fun to see some of the splashes of my youth on the screen (though the series was more inclined to later Goosebumps titles, I did catch Monster Blood and Night of the Living Dummy, as well as The Ghost Next Door early enough to get the twist ending).  It also wasn't due to the fact that Jack Black and the rest of the cast wasn't particularly good-I had no problems with the two-dimensional acting since it kind of suited the film, and Jack Black/Jillian Bell/Amy Ryan are all adept at comedy (not to mention Dylan Minnette reminds me of Lost, so that's always a good thing).

It's more along the lines of the fact that the film is too juvenile to really work for anyone other than the Nickelodeon set, and isn't a good enough film to translate.  I can appreciate kids movies that are actually for kids, but the nostalgic part of my brain, the part that wanted something genuinely creepy like what Stine brought to the pages of Goosebumps when I was ten or eleven instead became a comical farce.  There's no point in the entire movie that has a genuine fright for anyone above the age of six, and even the most odious of creatures from the original series (Slappy the Dummy, in particular), stand out in my mind as being far too comical and, well, slapstick for my taste.

Without the actual scare element and really with relatively limited callbacks to the original series, it was kind of a boring film for me on its sole merits.  Jack Black can sell his comedy here, but the love story, the resolution, and pretty much everything about the film is utterly predictable.  The central story of a teenager trying to fit in after his dad died felt pretty damn heavy for a movie of this nature, and there isn't enough time establishing side characters or conflict outside of that depressing catalyst to feel authentically high school, rather than middle school as its attitude seems to imply.  All-in-all, it's the sort of film that could get a huge number of seats in the theater based on name brand alone, but I left underwhelmed, and wishing that it had been Fear Street rather than Goosebumps that had been revived.

Those are my thoughts on this pretty basic picture.  What about yours?  Were there any Goosebumps fans that actually left impressed or happy with this iteration?  Or were you like me, either too blase or (perhaps) too old to get into such a film?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

5 Events That Led to Donald Trump

One of the most fascinating things about watching Donald Trump and the sudden implosion of a major political party (and regardless of his polling numbers, Donald Trump has caused irreparable damage to the Republican brand that is going to be part of its baggage for years to come) is seeing people talk about how Trump couldn't have been predicted.  That he is a moment-in-time, and not something that has been persisting in the electoral process for decades.

The reality is, though, that the ugliness of this election has been subsisting for decades, and both sides in some part (though I'm not taking 50/50 blame here-the Republicans are the ones who actually got around to nominating him, and so they should take the majority of the criticism even if Democrats are not without issue) are responsible for creating a political process that can result in such an odious, flagrantly racist man being the banner-carrier for one of the major parties.  Below I illustrate five incidents that in large part contributed to Trump eventually becoming the Republican nominee that aren't related to the past two years, but instead decades of political dirty maneuvers.

State Rep. Rick McIntyre (R-IN)

1. Indiana's Bloody Eighth (1984)

If there's one moment that truly feels like a catalyst in the fight between Republicans and Democrats over "dirty politics in the modern era" it's probably the deeply contentious battle between Rep. Frank McCloskey (D) and State Rep. Rick McIntyre (R) in Indiana's 8th district in 1984.  The election that year was a contrast to today, when split-ticket ballots aren't nearly as prevalent.  In the district, historically Democratic but a breed of conservative Democrat, President Reagan was winning huge margins, helping the Republicans, while McCloskey, despite having a relatively liberal voting record, was running up strong margins in Evansville.  The result was that at the end of the night, McCloskey was up by only 72 votes.  However, voting irregularities made it seem like McIntyre was up by 34 votes.  After a recount, McIntyre was up by 418 votes, but over 4800 ballots (a really high number for a congressional race) were deemed invalid due to technical reasons.

This was ultimately going to be one of those races where the victor would probably always be in question, but the way in which the result came about was what caused huge ire in the Republican Party against the Democratic majority.  A commission, led by two Democrats and one Republican, recommended throwing out the bulk of the technicality issues, overriding the Secretary of State and the House Republicans who complained about improper interference by the House Democrats.  In the end, McCloskey, despite losing the initial recount, was seated by a 4-vote majority largely along party  line votes, and resulted in a walkout by the House Republicans, who felt they had been robbed of a congressional seat by the House Democrats, who'd improperly inserted themselves into Indiana's election process.  So nasty was this election that it was nicknamed "the Bloody Eighth."  While McCloskey won the 1986 rematch (due to McIntyre making some foibles on the campaign trail and a lack of Reagan's coattails in a midtern), the damage was lasting.

President George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore

2. Bush vs. Gore (2000)

If IN-8 was the appetizer in the meal of partisan distrust in the electoral system, Florida in 2000 was the main course.  You all know the story here, but for those under, say, sixteen who haven't gotten to this portion of their Civics class yet we'll do a paragraph refresher.  In 2000, after a very closely fought battle between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, most people assumed that we'd have an election of someone whom the country wasn't wild about (neither man was particularly popular).  Early on in the night, Gore appeared to have the election in the bag after taking Florida-the networks even called it for him.  However, later on in the night the networks "uncalled" Florida (a moment they still reference whenever they're being "cautious" on election night), and by the next morning it wasn't clear whether Bush or Gore had won the state, and that it was surely headed to a recount.  Within the space of that recount, accusations of needlessly complicated ballots and election-tampering were already being started, and the recount (and the rules thereof) was headed to the Supreme Court.

Again, like IN-8 in '84, this is probably one of those elections where no one will ever know exactly who won.  Florida in 2000 is one of those reasons why it was so popular in ensuing years to talk about a "paper-trail" for elections, and making ballots simpler because of the ridiculousness of the butterfly ballots potentially costing Al Gore enormously in certain counties.  The problem here was in the way a decision was ultimately reached.

For starters, Gore was denied a manual recount in several counties he was allowed to have a recount in under the law by Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State, who was an appointee of Jeb Bush, the brother of Gore's opponent, setting up an easy route for Democrats to criticize the process as unfair (this is one of those reasons that Secretaries of State should at the very least all be elected, and in a perfect world, probably hold non-partisan offices).  The Florida Supreme Court initially overruled Harris' decision, stating a statewide recount was in order, but the US Supreme Court intervened, resulting in Bush v. Gore, where, along partisan lines, the Supreme Court issued a ruling 5-4 that a statewide recount would not take place, thereby ensuring George W. Bush the state's 25 electoral votes and with that 271 electoral votes, and the White House.

As I mentioned above, it's probably impossible to figure out who actually won this election.  Post-election studies have been done ranging from Bush winning by as high as 1600 votes in a manual statewide recount to Gore winning by 332 votes, depending on how one handles "overvotes" and "chads" (anyone else having a flashback?).  But the fact that Gore's presidential prospects were stopped not by the actual voters in a recount, but instead by a conservative-leaning Supreme Court and a Bush appointee cast a pall on the election, particularly when you consider Gore won the national popular vote.  Suddenly Democrats tended to view the Supreme Court in a poorer light, talking about it as Republicans vs. Democrats, and not as impartial jurists.  Constant jokes and remarks were made in the years following that Gore had actually won the election, something Democrats still will talk about openly today despite, of course, Bush actually being president.  As a result, the Republican vs. Democrat mentality of the third branch of government carried over to this day (just look at Merrick Garland, who would have been unanimously confirmed twenty years ago), and millions of Democrats still feel that they were cheated out of the White House by Republicans not counting their ballots.

3. Judicial Filibusters (2003-05)

Following the 2002 midterms, where the Democrats did poorly and lost the Senate majority, the Republicans started to move forward with a number of Bush judicial appointments that had been stalled by the Democrats, who didn't want to create a more conservative federal bench, particularly in the shadow of Bush v. Gore just a couple of years earlier.  However, Democrats began to filibuster ten nominees to the federal judiciary that they felt were too conservative.  Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott threatened what was coined the "nuclear option:" saying that he would change it so that a simple majority of the Senate would be required to pass through a judicial nominee, as it was largely unprecedented to filibuster a judicial nominee at the time.

Despite losing a net of four seats in the Senate and the White House, the Democrats continued to filibuster these nominees in 2005, and a movement to set in the "nuclear option" to appoint a number of these nominees was set into motion, only to be stopped by the "Gang of 14," a group of moderate senators who found a solution whereby some of the nominees were pushed to a floor vote, and a couple were not allowed to the floor.

This moment proved a couple of things.  For starters, it created an unparalleled moment for the filibuster, essentially making it so that almost any legislation that can make it through the Senate requires sixty votes, a largely unattainable number considering the deeply partisan nature of a number of states (it's difficult to see sixty senators winning, or at the very least a party maintaining that number for very long).  The filibuster in ensuing years would be widely criticized, to the point that the nuclear option would eventually be pulled in 2013, allowing for a simple majority of senators to be able to move judicial nominees through the Senate.  It's likely that this moment will eventually put an end to the filibuster and the "gentlemanly" aspect of the Senate as a body that works together to get things done, as opposed to the more openly partisan House.  It also created a deep animosity between Democrats and Republicans, as Democrats felt that their rights in the minority were being trampled and the Republicans felt that their legitimacy (since they'd just won back-to-back elections) was being impugned since their party's presidential candidate had just won.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)

4. Swift-Boating (2004)

Up until this point I've pointed out institutional issues that led to distrust in the electoral process and loathing of the other party.  In my opinion this led to a race to the base of your party, which allowed for someone like Trump, so easily unacceptable decades earlier, to be the nominee by lambasting a party that the Republicans simply could not see any merit in; however, the final two are perhaps most responsible for the rhetoric of his campaign.

In 2004, Sen. John Kerry had put his military service front-and-center in the campaign for the White House.  He was, after all, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, and was competing against someone who had been eligible, but had not fought in the conflict.  It made sense, particularly in light of increasing criticism from the Democratic Party over the Iraq War and our reasons for entering the war, to highlight his military record against President Bush.  This was a tried tactic and presidential candidates from Grant to Eisenhower to Bush Sr. had used it in the past to great aplomb.

However, Kerry's military service was brought into question during the campaign by former military servicemen who had served with Kerry in Vietnam.  The criticisms levied at Kerry in many cases ran contrary to what these men had said about him decades earlier when he wasn't the presidential nominee.  The Swift Boat group that levied these attacks were widely criticized for being false, and were funded by major donors in the Texas Republican Party with strong ties to George W. Bush, even if the ads weren't coming from the official campaign.  As a result, Kerry's reputation was left tarnished, and thanks to campaign finance laws, Bush wasn't able to be directly linked to the attacks.  Coupled with similar attacks two years earlier against Sen. Max Cleland, the Democrats became increasingly irate at the Republican Party for campaign tactics they thought beneath the office of the president, but because Bush actually won the election, the tactics were tacitly rewarded and Kerry's reputation was forever tarnished.

President Barack Obama (D-IL)

5. Obama's Birth Certificate (2008-2011)

Perhaps more than any other controversy on this list, the Obama birth certificate issue has to be considered a direct contributor to Donald Trump's rise to power.  During the height of the 2008 campaign, after receiving criticism from the National Review, who stated Obama should release his birth certificate to squash rumors that he was in fact not born with his original birth name and that he was born in Kenya, the Obama campaign issued a certification of live birth providing evidence that he was indeed born in Honolulu to Ann Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr.  It was an ugly moment in the campaign, but one that largely would have been forgotten had it not been for a persistent group of conspiracy theorists in the Republican Party who rejected the birth certificate's authenticity, of whom Donald Trump became a public member of when he explored a presidential run in 2011.

The reality is, of course, that like the attacks against Kerry in 2004, these had no merit whatsoever.  Every piece of evidence here clearly indicated that the information in the short-form birth certificate was accurate.  However, like 2004, some Republicans were rewarded here by being quiet about the birth certificate or speaking out, because a vocal, active chapter of the party wanted to trumpet these claims, in part because of a deep hatred for President Obama.  In 2011, even after the president released his long-form birth certificate in hopes of quenching these attacks, the fervor continued to grow, with Donald Trump being rewarded with free press by continuing to be a conspiracy theorist about the president's country of birth.

The effects here were twofold-with Trump, embraced by Mitt Romney on the campaign trail (thus tacitly allowing Romney to gain credence with the birther movement, whom he needed to win), in the spotlight he had a core constituency for a 2016 campaign, and it was in the ugliest section of the Republican Party.  It also was hard to miss the fact that the Republican Party (first Romney, and later and more brazenly, Trump) gained points off of a racist charge with no bearing in fact.  No one had brought into issue, for example, Sen. John McCain's claim as a natural-born citizen, despite being born in the Panama Canal Zone.  The fact that the first African-American presidential candidate (and later president) of a major party was attacked in this way spoke to the ugliness of the campaigns against him.  The attacks levied against him in the birth certificate (not only that he wasn't American, but also that his father wasn't whom he proclaimed he was or that his middle name wasn't Hussein, but Muhammad) spoke to racial and religious prejudice that spilled into policy initiatives for the GOP in 2016 with Trump's campaigns against Muslims and Mexican immigrants on the campaign trail.

All of this is to say that the nastiness of our current political process is nothing new, but it is definitely getting worse.  Hopefully this election cycle we see, at the very least, a repudiation of some of it through a Trump loss, so that he doesn't become a sixth name on this list leading to whatever lower bar we have in store in the future.