Election Night Guide: California-Hawaii

For the next week I will be focusing on predicting every single Governor, Senate, and House election for Tuesday's midterm elections.  If you've missed one of our articles, click one of these links: Alabama-Arkansas

Rep. Mimi Walters (R-CA)

California

Governor: With Jerry Brown term-limited (and probably quixotically still considering a 2020 bid for president), we have an easy handoff to LG Gavin Newsom, who lucked out by not having one of the Democrats in the jungle primary advance, but instead a Republican whom he can easily dispatch.

Senate: One could make a sincere argument that Sen. Dianne Feinstein is in trouble, on-paper.  Republicans hate her because she’s been a particularly vocal critic of President Trump, while she’s too moderate for some Democrats and many feel she botched the Kavanaugh hearings by waiting too long to bring Christine Blasey Ford into the national conversation.  As a result, State Sen. President Kevin de Leon should be taken seriously, but I don’t think he’ll win.  Feinstein’s an institution in the Golden State, and in a year that has seen women do disproportionately well in Democratic primaries, it’s hard to see her being the first incumbent Democratic woman to lose what is essentially a Democratic primary here.

House: While the Battle for the Senate is sexier, it’s the Battle of the House that is ultimately the more important question mark on Election Day.  If the Democrats can’t take the House, it’s impossible to imagine Trump won’t fire Robert Mueller by the end of the year because he knows there won’t be consequences for such an action.  If the Democrats want the House, they’re going to need to win a handful of races in California, where seven Republicans currently sit in seats that Hillary Clinton won in 2016.  I’ll start out with some of the easier to call races.  While CA-21 will be a tough sell for Republicans when Rep. David Valadao retires, there are no indications that he can’t win this seat in 2018 even with a blue wave against him. Democrats are running competitive races against Reps. Tom McClintock, Devin Nunes, and Duncan Hunter, but the hard-right swing of these seats makes a Democratic victory unlikely, even considering that the latter two have been involved with major ethical and, in Hunter’s case, criminal actions in recent months.  That leaves the six Hillary districts I think the Democrats have a shot winning.  CA-49 (Darrell Issa’s open seat) feels like the easiest take, and most pundits are writing this seat off as a lost cause for the GOP (including me).  The 45^th seems to be going the same direction, as Rep. Mimi Walters appears to have badly misjudged how purple her district has become, running a campaign like she’s still in safe GOP territory.  On the flip side, arguably the toughest pickup of the six seats is Steve Knight’s race in the 25^th against Katie Hill, where Democrats have struggled to gain a solid foothold against Knight (polling shows him in a good, though shaky, position).  Let’s split those with Knight winning & Walters losing, and you’re left with three more incumbents, and to win the House the Democrats should probably shoot for two of them: Reps. Jeff Denham (10^th), Rohrabacher (48^th), and the open 39^th.  In a neutral cycle I’d say all three go to the GOP, as Denham/Rohrabacher seem a relatively decent fit for their districts and the GOP got their best recruit of the cycle in State Rep. Young Kim.  But this isn’t a neutral cycle, and my gut tells me that the Democrats pull the trifecta here.  All three could surprise, but California is going to suffer a bloodbath this year with blowouts at the top of the ticket & Nancy Pelosi knowing how important the state is to her getting the gavel...if one pulls through it'll be Rohrabacher, but he's the most controversial of the three and the least likely to get crossover votes.  As a result I’ll go with D+5.

Colorado

Governor: Lost in a sea of major demographic milestones this year is the fact that Colorado is about to elect the first openly gay male governor in American history, Rep. Jared Polis.  Colorado is a swing state, but not when there’s a blue wave nationally so he feels a safe bet to replace term-limited John Hickenlooper (yet another name who might be part of the 2020 conversation).

House: Every two years, pundits proclaim that Rep. Mike Coffman will finally be vulnerable to lose the suburban 6^th district, which continues to become more and more progressive in recent years, particularly with the growth of Hispanic voters in the area.  This year, I think the buzz is finally justified.  Democrat Jason Crow isn’t the best candidate who has taken on Coffman, but he seems to be the luckiest, as polling has shown Coffman in a rough range and while his personal popularity may be strong, he has likely hit the “Connie Morella Point” in this district where his party label is too much of a liability even if he’s well-liked by the voters personally.  If the wave is large enough, Democratic State Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush might also be a threat for an election night shocker (the 3^rd also has a high Hispanic population), but I think Scott Tipton is safe there.  Coffman, though, appears to be a goner. D+1

Jahana Hayes (D-CT)

Connecticut

Governor: New England is littered with Republican governors despite being a blue bastion, but it is actually Connecticut, with its Democratic governor, that looked the most vulnerable early in the cycle.  Gov. Dan Malloy is wildly unpopular, but it doesn’t appear to be affecting Ned Lamont (who famously beat Joe Lieberman in the 2006 primary just to lose the general when Lieberman turned third party), who seems to finally have found redemption and will be the Nutmeg State’s next governor.

House: In a more neutral cycle we’d be talking about the open 5^th district being a potential place for Republicans to score, but they have bigger fish to fry in the Battle for the House.  Jahana Hayes will hold this seat for the Democrats and become the first black woman to represent New England in Congress.

Delaware

Senate: After making it through a primary that looked rougher than expected (but he still won in a blowout), Sen. Tom Carper (D) will easily win what I suspect will be his final term in the US Senate.

Mayor Andrew Gillum (D-FL)

Florida

Governor: I’m not above admitting when I’m wrong, and man was I wrong about this race.  I was sure that Democrats were making a huge mistake when they chose Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum to be their nominee over Rep. Gwen Graham, but Gillum has proven to be a perfect foil to the Republican candidate Rep. Ron DeSantis (and President Donald Trump, who clearly detests Gillum), who was rightfully lambasted right out of the gate after the primaries for a racially-insensitive remark (Gillum would be the state’s first African-American governor).  Polling has shown a relatively close race, but Gillum has led in virtually every poll since the primary, and while Democrats have been close-but-no-cigar in the governor’s races before (look how close to 2010 and 2014 were), I think Gillum takes this seat and becomes an instant national figure for the Democratic Party. D+1

Senate: Here’s the thing though-it’s not just that Gillum seems like he’ll win a governor’s mansion for the Democrats, it’s probable he helps hold a Senate seat for them too.  Sen. Bill Nelson (D), a charisma-free Democrat who, despite 18 years in the Senate and me being a die-hard political junkie, I could tell you basically one thing about (he’s a former astronaut), was running a terrible campaign against incumbent Gov. Rick Scott (R).  However, Nelson seems to have paired nicely with Gillum on the ticket, and thanks to Gillum exciting Millennials and African-Americans, Nelson has rebounded in the polls after Scott led for most of the summer.  It’s probable that Gillum will win with enthusiastic Democrats behind him, who will also check Nelson’s name while they’re in the booth (but might not have bothered to show up with Graham as the nominee).  And since no one cares why you voted for someone, just that you voted for them, Nelson could coast to lukewarm victory.  It’s foolish to count out Scott (he’s bested very strong Democrats before and has mountains of cash to deploy in the final days of the election), but Nelson appears to be in the driver’s seat, and if there’s any sort of blue wave on top of Gillum excitement, he’s getting a fourth term.

House: Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey are the treasure troves for House Democrats.  They’re basically guaranteed pickups in each state, and the question for the House majority is can they get enough of them.  But in Florida, something different seems to be brewing-it is arguably the state where I cannot say with confidence “the Democrats will pickup a seat,” but also where the Democrats could pick up 3-4 seats and I wouldn’t be stunned.  We’ll get Florida’s 7^th out of the way, the only theoretically vulnerable Democratic seat (since Stephanie Murphy is a first-termer who won a tight race two years ago), but this seems an easy hold until a more Republican year, and Murphy will continue on her likely march to take on Marco Rubio in 2022.  The Republicans have two vulnerable incumbents that seem like they’ll win unless it’s a very, very good night for the Democrats: Vern Buchanan (16^th) and Mario Diaz-Balart (25^th); chalk those two seats up as Republican victories that would probably be tossups if either man had retired.  The five remaining seats, though, are vulnerable.  In the 6^thand 15^th, Nancy Soderberg and Kristen Carlson, respectively, are running good races as Democrats in more conservative territory, thanks to retiring incumbents.  I wouldn’t be stunned if one of them ended up victorious, but it’s hard to tell which has the better odds (probably Carlson), and the only polling in the races has been partisan.  Therefore, I’m sticking with the status quo but will be watching these races closely if the tide is a tad bluer than I expect, as both would fall in that circumstance.  In the 18^th, the Democrats have a strong candidate in Lauren Baer, and polling has shown this race as being particularly close.  This is a Republican district, but Baer is a strong candidate, Rep. Brian Mast’s had some missteps, and this is the sort of district that the Democrats would win with even the slightest of breezes…I’m genuinely still undecided as CW says Mast, but Baer feels like the sort of candidate who randomly wins in a wave.  Let’s go Mast for now, but I’m thinking about changing at the last minute.  The final two seats that are options for the Democrats are FL-26 and FL-27.  These are two of Hillary Clinton’s best districts that went for Republicans in the House (she won the 26^th by 16-points and the 27^th by 20-points), and if straight-ticket voting was truly as potent as so many claim, they’d be slam dunks for the Democrats.  However, Cuban-Americans (a big population of these districts) have frequently sided with Republicans for Congress, and the Republicans nominated strong candidates here.  The 27^th, in particular, seems to have been a major screw-up for the Democrats, as the Republicans chose moderate and popular TV anchor Maria Elvira Salazar, very much in the mold of popular-incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (who is retiring), while the D’s chose 77-year-old former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, a moderate who doesn’t speak Spanish.  Shalala’s only chance here is to win by tying Salazar to Trump, a tougher thing to do than you’d think.  The Democrat in the 26^th, Debbie Mucarsel Powell, is much better but Rep. Carlos Curbelo is a proven incumbent who is well-liked here.  Polls have shown Mucarsel-Powell rebounding after having a rougher summer, and this could be a case where Curbelo can’t stem the national tides.  Considering the dynamics at play here (popular Republicans vs. an unpopular Republican president), I think that the races go together, and while the Democrats screwed up royally here (expect Shalala to get a primary challenge in 2020), I still think they land D+2.

State Rep. Stacey Abrams (D-GA)

Georgia

Governor: Arguably the nastiest race for governor right now (give or take Kansas) with Brian Kemp literally purging black voters from being able to vote in order to gain an upper-hand and him literally pointing a gun at a teenage boy because he thought it would win him the primary (spoiler alert: it did), the contest between State Rep. Stacey Abrams and SoS Brian Kemp is the only race that I will not be making a prediction in, not because I’m cheating but because it won’t be decided on Election Day.  This is because in the state of Georgia if you don’t get 50% of the vote on Election Day it goes to a runoff, and with a tight race & Libertarian Ted Metz on the ballot, it seems probable that neither Kemp nor Abrams win initially. Runoffs are too difficult to predict without seeing the initial numbers.  After all, if, say, Kemp or Abrams is at 49.5% while the opponent is 4-5 points behind, they’ll probably win in a runoff, or it’s possible that in a depressed turnout one of the candidates gains an advantage they didn’t have in November (say, black voter turnout surges as it did in Louisiana in 2002 or it plummets like it did in Georgia in 2008…either of these two outcomes would make-or-break this election).  As a result, this probably won’t matter in November, at least not for this race…

House: …but it could matter in the House.  There are a few races whose dynamics I’ve been very curious about in recent weeks, especially if the Democrats are having a good night.  One of those districts is GA-7, where Rep. Rob Woodall (R) seems passingly vulnerable to Democratic congressional aide Carolyn Bourdeaux.  Bourdeaux’s district is less than 50% white and entirely made up of the Atlanta suburbs, a combination that could be vulnerable to the 2018 environment, particularly if (as is evidenced so far in early voting) Abrams drives up support from minority voters.  Similar to FL-18, if Democrats are doing well on Election Day, check this race out as it might be a surprise pickup for the D’s.  GA-6 is whiter, but also a suburban district that saw a big jump toward the Democrats comparing 2012 to 2016.  However, it also already had a special election last year (a high-profile one), and special elections don’t usually change results on their next general election ballot, so if Georgia is helping Nancy Pelosi’s cause in November, it’ll probably be in the 7^th.  I will never stop laughing, though, if Lucy McBath pulls off the 6th in an under-the-radar victory after both sides spent $55 million trying to win this thing last year.

Hawaii

Governor: Gov. David Ige (D) might not be super popular, but his handling of recent hurricane relief efforts have put to rest his mishandling of the recent missile warning fiasco in Hawaii.  After besting Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, the governor is assured a reelection victory.

Senate: Mazie Hirono has become something of a celebrity in progressive circles for her no-nonsense approach during the Kavanaugh hearings.  She’ll continue taking on Trump’s judicial nominees in the next Congress after an easy reelection.

Election Night Guide: Alabama-Arkansas

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)...could she be a senator come January?

I have written this gigantic Election Night write-up every year since 2004, and each time it feels like holding my breath for eighteen pages.  I always like to get this out of the way at first, but I think it’s unrealistic to assume that political pundits/prognosticators don’t have political opinions, in the same way that I think it’s unrealistic to assume that journalists probably don’t have political opinions.  I do, obviously-politics isn’t a hobby that sprouts unless you care about who wins.  However, I do feel that I do a strong enough job of distancing myself from what I think should happen from what I think will happen.  In the past, I have done quite well with my predictions as a whole, and when I do favor one party, it isn’t always the party for which I’m cheering.  So you can read this with that grain of salt that I’m not going to be over or under estimating based on my own partisan leanings.

That said, in my experience I do tend to over-favor one party or the other in terms of annual predictions in the roughly 5-10% of the races that I’ll predict below that I’ll get wrong.  In 2018, that boils down to a quartet of key questions, and how I answer them is how we’ll see the toughest races on the map, and how they’ll eventually turn out.  They are: 1.    What sort of affect will Brett Kavanaugh still have on the polls four weeks after his confirmation?  While Kavanaugh polled poorly nationally, he polled well in several key, red states who saw his confirmation hearing as an attack on Donald Trump and the Republican Party as a whole.  As a result, Democrats like Beto O’Rourke, Phil Bredesen, Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester, and Heidi Heitkamp have seen a tightening of their poll numbers post the Kavanaugh hearings.  If Kavanaugh is still a ballot issue by Election Day, the Senate is surely out-of-reach for the Democrats.  But as a reminder, four weeks before the 2016 election, the only thing anyone in the political landscape was talking about was the Access Hollywood video-four weeks, especially in the age of Donald Trump, is a poltical eternity, and it’s hard to know if any persuadable voters will care about Kavanaugh on Election Day.2.    Will Democrats turn out Latino voters and get them to vote straight-ticket?  This is a big one.  While voter engagement seems to be disproportionately strong for a midterm high amongst college-educated white voters, African-Americans, and Miillennials (all three key voting demographics for Democrats), Latino voters have not seen the same sort of rise in turnout based on primary and early voting numbers. This could pose a crucial problem for Democrats, who need Latino voters to win key Senate races in Texas, Nevada, and Florida, as well as a number of House races in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and California.  A depression of Latino voters (particularly ones who will vote straight-ticket, as we’ll see not converting Latino voters is going to play a big part in a number of races below), would be toxic for the Democrats, and put their chances at taking a majority in either House of Congress in jeopardy.3.    Is the “Blue Wave” real, and how big is it? This is, obviously, the biggest question mark on the map, and the one that I’ll try to suss through as I do this write-up.  For all of the mockery of a “Blue Wave” from Republicans, midterms are generally an indictment on the president, and Donald Trump is not popular (and in the wake of attacks in Pittsburgh and on Democratic party leaders, his approval ratings are sliding at a pretty inopportune time for the GOP).  While gerrymandering and geography-in-general (Democrats tend to live in dense urban neighborhoods that make them prone for lopsided districts) will hinder the Democrats’ chances (the Democrats could win the national House vote by 8-9% and still lose the House), it’s very possible that an increase of straight-ticket blue voters either turning out in a midterm (when they usually wouldn’t) or wanting a check on Donald Trump could produce some odd results.  There are a number of safe, longtime Republican incumbents in suburban districts that feel particularly vulnerable this year, and we could be underestimating this if the right combination of voters come out in under-polled districts (think of something like GA-7, which is a suburban district that went for Donald Trump by 7-points but has a large minority population).  In actual waves, districts you didn’t know were vulnerable falter because the dynamics of the race aren’t understood until Election Day. If Democrats are doing particularly well on Election Day, a seat like GA-7 might be more vulnerable than you’d think, but if the GOP is still doing fine, it’s a race you wouldn’t even notice across the bottom of your TV on Election Day.4.    Will white women still back President Trump? President Trump likes to trot out that “a majority of women voted for him in 2016,” a statement that is categorically false, something that pretty much anyone could put together (if Trump won men, and lost the popular vote, it goes without saying that he had to have lost with women).  Indeed, Trump only got 41% of women’s votes, but where this fact likely originates for him is that he won 52% of white women (he overwhelmingly lost with Latina, Asian, and African-American women, hence the 41% stat).  It’s probable that the Democrats need white women to go for the Democrats by a majority in 2018 for them to win the House, and certainly the Senate, so the question is-will that gender gap remain?  General election polling shows that the gender gap is huge right now, and it’s difficult to see a race where women favor the Democrats by 20-points or so and still lose.  But will it be that big when women vote in the actual election, particularly considering it won’t actually be Donald Trump’s name on the ballot? While there are a number of questions towering over this year’s election, those are the four that will likely decide who wins the close Governors, Senate, and House races.  I’m going to now dive into each individual state and its races.  I will add a couple of notes before I go into the race.  First, while there are a number of important races on the ballot this year, I will only focus on Governors, Senate, and House races.  I am only one man, and don’t have the time to research, say, who is going to win, the State Treasurer’s race in Colorado (though, for my money, it’s Dave Young), and as a result I’ll be skipping constitutional offices, state legislatures, mayor’s races, and ballot initiatives.  Secondly, I will only be talking about competitive House races (I’ll do every Senate/Governors race on the ballot even if it’s a blowout)-if I don’t list a House race, I don’t consider it remotely competitive and assume that the incumbent party will easily take the seat. And finally, I will make a prediction in every single race.  I don’t believe that you can call yourself a predictor of elections if you head into Election Day saying “It’s a tossup” because tossups don’t win elections-even close races are won by someone.  So my numbers will surely be lower than, say, a Charlie Cook who has forty tossups going into Election Night.  With that said, let’s head to Alabama (one of the only states that doesn’t have an official State Nickname) to kick things off alphabetically: Alabama Governor: Doug Jones may have given Democrats a road map, but not every Democrat is going to luck out and get Roy Moore as their opponent.  Despite succeeding a scandal-plagued incumbent, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) should easily dispatch Tuscalooga Mayor Walt Maddox.

State Sen. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK)

Alaska Governor: There were be a multitude of races on this list where I’ll bemoan a lack of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), as independents will surely cost either party at least a seat or two because thanks to more than two choices, you can win without a majority.  Perhaps no race could RCV matter more, though, than in Alaska.  Despite the decision by Gov. Bill Walker (I) to abandon the race and endorse Sen. Mark Begich (D) at the last minute, he's still on the ballot and probably going to cost Begich enough votes to lead to State Sen. Mike Dunleavy (R) winning this seat, one of the few (R +1) moments of the night (a good night for the Republicans is going to be a solid defense, not a particularly robust offense).  In a RCV state, Begich would probably take this as Dunleavy is out-of-the-mainstream for Alaska Republicans and Begich is well-liked, but since he doesn't need 50% to win, it should be an easy path to 45%.
House: Like death and taxes, every two years the Democrats look at controversial Rep. Don Young and say “maybe.” In every wave election, there’s a longtime incumbent whom everyone is stunned to see lose, and perhaps that could be Young this year, but I doubt that activist Elyse Galvin can pull off that miracle even if polling shows her gaining in the final days of the election. Expect Young to continue his hold on this seat.

Arizona

 Governor: This race at one point looked quite competitive.  Gov. Doug Ducey (R) seemed to be vulnerable to splintering factions in the party (there is a war of sorts going on between moderate and conservative members of the GOP in Arizona), and Professor David Garcia (D) was poised to gain from such a splinter, particularly with a Libertarian in the race. However, Ducey has rebounded in the polls, and seems a probable winner (and a likely candidate for the Arizona special election in 2020 for John McCain’s old seat).Senate: Here we go-if you’re an elections nerd, you may have just skipped straight down to Arizona, which is hosting one of the most important Senate races in the country, and one that is fast-unfolding as I write this (I’m flagging this one as a seat I might change my mind in going forward).  Arizona has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since Dennis DeConcini’s reelection in 1988, and while there have been close calls (particularly the 2012 Senate race between Jeff Flake and Richard Carmona), this seat (Flake’s) appears to be their best shot at the Grand Canyon State’s Senate seat since Reagan was president.  Reps. Kyrsten Sinema (D) and Martha McSally (R) have had a brutal election season, with McSally getting shots from both ends (she had a tough primary against two conservative firebrands), and Sinema getting some of the meanest attack ads levied against her I’ve seen this cycle (particularly going after her patriotism). It’s hard to tell how unearthed Sinema quotes will impact the race (even if they’re taken out of context, they do feel like they’re feeding into the anti-military narrative that McSally is going for), but polling has shown Sinema with a consistent lead all year, and while it’s within the margin of error, I just can’t quite break the idea that she’s going to win as part of the national mood.  A lot has to go right for Sinema to take this, and right now Democrats may be wishing they had a different candidate without such a long list of past comments to defend, but I still think she wins this in one of the tightest races on Election Night (D+1).
House: Rep. Tom O’Halleran is going to be quite vulnerable the next time the Democrats have a rough cycle considering the dynamics of this district (it went for Trump in 2016), but he should be able to stave off his Republican challenger in 2018 considering the national mood (you’re not going to see a lot of Democratic incumbents lose in 2018 in this article under the assumption that if they survived 2016, they should have no issues in 2018, a better year for them historically and in the polls).  Arizona’s 6^thdistrict is one of those races where Democrats may be kicking themselves on November 7^th (it’s a suburban district with a relatively high minority population), but I don’t see any reason to believe that Rep. Dave Schweikert (R) should worry based on lack of interest in the race now. Finally, McSally’s seat seems a slam-dunk for the Democrats (it’s probable that even as the incumbent she would have lost here and may well lose it in her Senate battle).  The Democrats got their best candidate in former Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, and she’s been cruising to a solid victory in most polls.  As a result, we get our first D+1 in a House race. Arkansas Governor: Despite having a 1-in-3 record for statewide contests in Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) should have no trouble winning reelection this year.House: In a different decade a Democrat like State Rep. Clarke Tucker (D) might have a shot of being a Blue Dog Democrat who swoops in and wins in the heavily Trump 2^nd district, but party-line voting has become too potent in this century, and as a result I don’t see Rep. French Hill falling.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Film: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Stars: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe
Director: Rupert Julian
Oscar History: Predated the Oscars
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

This morning we go to the very beginning of our marathon, to Universal's original horror master: Lon Chaney, Sr.  Considered "the man of a thousand faces," Chaney was Universal's first real, bankable star and made some of the biggest horror film hits of the Silent Era.  Noted for his incredible ability with makeup (basically making himself unrecognizable from one role to the next), Chaney had a short (he died at the age of 47 from throat cancer) but incredibly memorable stint as a matinee idol (Joan Crawford once said she learned more about acting from Chaney than from anyone else in her career).  While I don't think we'll have time for both of his biggest films (I've got a lot of ground to cover in the next few days before we finish up this marathon this week, as I have a vision of how I want to end it, and there's at least two more major horror stars we haven't checked in on), I would be remiss if I didn't view to at least one, and so I decided to go with The Phantom of the Opera, one of the quintessential Universal horror movie monsters and Chaney's most famous role.

(Spoilers Ahead) Arguably the most loyal version of the Gaston Leroux's novel (though still with a different ending), the story is probably familiar to anyone who has hummed along to a Broadway cast recording.  The film is about Christine (Philbin), who is in love with the handsome Raoul (Kerry), but is drawn to a mysterious stranger in the night who is teaching her how to sing and is trying to make her the opera's diva, rather than the "less beautiful" Carlotta (side note from someone who has had the Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtrack memorized since he was ten-Carlotta really gets screwed during every iteration of this story as none of this is her fault except that she's not pretty enough for the Phantom to be obsessed with her).  However, mysterious things are happening in the opera house, including a series of stranglings of stage hands as people keep dying from a "phantom" (Chaney) behind the scenes of the opera.  Initially we are to suspect the fez-sporting Ledoux (Carewe), a shifty-eyed man who turns out to be a good-guy-detective, trying to uncover the Phantom, and we learn the Phantom is a grotesquely-faced man, hideous and obsessed with the lovely Christine, whom he wants to make his bride.  The film's back half features several chase scenes between the four main characters, as well as an angry mob out for blood against the Phantom after a kindly stage hand is killed by him once again.  The movie ends with the Phantom reluctantly saving Ledoux and Raoul from peril, and then getting beaten-and-drowned in the Seine by the angry mob.

The movie is really fun.  The movie is slower than it needs to be in the first half, as we all know what's coming from the Phantom (and Christine is not the most exhilarating of romantic heroines), but the chase sequences in the back half and Chaney's performance make this entirely worth two hours of your time.  The set pieces are extraordinary, as they march through the catacombs and sewers of Paris (it's always impressive to me to see how elaborate Silent Era sets were considering the cost at the time to construct such things), and there's even a sequence in Technicolor where the Phantom appears as Red Death, with a stunning cloak to match.  I loved the back half if you can throw out the gender politics (something you kind of have to do in general to enjoy any of this era's horror movies).

Chaney is terrific as the Phantom.  While none of the other actors are giving this kind of work (I thought for a minute Carewe might bring something special to Ledoux, but that's a bit of a letdown once we know he isn't actually one of Chaney's many creations), Chaney is fantastic, acting from every angle and truly letting his hideous makeup do the talking for him on the big screen.  I was struck by the differences in screen presence between he and his son, who has become our classroom dunce for this marathon, because the elder Chaney has so much of the screen charisma that his son lacks.  His Phantom is genuinely hideous and horrifying in a way even modern makeup artists would struggle to recreate.  The scene where he, atop the Paris Opera House, stands on a chariot moaning like a vampire, is thrilling and probably something every horror actor that succeeded him looked on with awe and while taking notes.  While the rest of the film pales in comparison, Chaney is a beast and a monster for the ages here, and there's a reason he got to be considered a legend that started the entire Universal Studios machine running nearly a century ago.

This Month We Are Seeing As Many Classic Horror Movies from the Pre-1970 Era as Possible.  If you want to check out some of our past reviews, here they are:

Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, Mad Love, Son of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, Freaks, The Ghost of Frankenstein, It Came from Outer Space, The House of Frankenstein

The House of Frankenstein (1944)

Film: The House of Frankenstein (1944)
Stars: Boris Karloff, J. Carrol Naish, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Carradine, Glenn Strange, Elena Verdugo
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

While we may still have one more dance with Frankenstein, this is our last dramatic entry with the monster who has in many ways defined our Classic Horror Movie month.  I have had such a good time watching these films, and there are so many left for me to see that we won't get to this month (including two more Frankenstein pictures-Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and House of Dracula), that I think I'll probably do a sequel to this next October (it wouldn't be a monster movie without a sequel), but for now let's get into our last (dramatic) moment with the monster, this time played by Glenn Strange.

(Spoilers Ahead) After nearly a decade of monster movies, Universal Studios was trying to find a way to spice up the monster movie franchise, and like most series that are toward the end of their run hoping to boost ratings, they relied upon gimmicks and "special events."  As a result, we get the first film in the series to feature Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein's Monster, albeit in abbreviated storylines.  The film focuses on Dr. Niemann (Karloff), a mad scientist who escapes from prison with his hunchbacked sidekick Daniel (Naish), and together they set off to both seek revenge against those who imprisoned Niemann as well as to recreate the work of Niemann's hero, Dr. Frankenstein.  Initially they meet a man who has Dracula's bones trapped in his cart of curiosities, and after killing him, Niemann brings Dracula (Carradine) back to life, only to quickly have Dracula die (after he has time to seduce a young woman, of course), when he is caught in the sun.  Then we go to Dr. Niemann's lab, where he unfreezes the monster and the Wolf Man (Chaney), and tries to do some more brain-swapping to bring the monster back to life, but in the process his hubris causes his downfall.  The Wolf Man is killed by the gypsy Ilonka (Verdugo, who sadly died just last year) with a silver bullet after she falls in love with his human form, and Daniel, angered at the doctor for not giving him a new body so he can impress Ilonka, causes a chain reaction that kills himself, Dr. Niemann, and the monster...until of course the monster will return in a sequel.

The movie is short despite the heavy lift of plot that I just name-checked there, and that's a large part of the problem.  The movie has too many plots, and largely skates by the entire Dracula story, not really involving him in much of the rest of the film (Carradine, arguably the most prolific Hollywood actor of all time, played Dracula again in a sequel so someday I'll see if they make more of his work as the Count, as I found him somewhat dashing in the role).  The movie reminds me in a way of modern-day comic book movies, where there are too many headliners, and as a result no one is particularly compelling.  Certainly the best of the bunch is Karloff (and while I've ragged on him a lot, this is one of the better performances I've seen from Lon Chaney, Jr.), but this has more to do with Karloff's strong acting ability in general than anything interesting to do with Niemann.  Overall this is a pretty forgettable chapter other than finally getting all three of these monsters onscreen together.  It's titillating when they unveil each monster, but what follows is a bit blasé.

Since we've been learning a bit about horror movie classics throughout this month, I can't leave without the anecdote about why Bela Lugosi isn't in this film.  Originally, Lugosi was supposed to reprise his role as Count Dracula, which would have been the first time since the original 1931 hit that he played the part.  However, Boris Karloff was doing a theatrical run of Arsenic and Old Lace, and the studio wanted to get Karloff to play Dr. Niemann in this film, so they waited and by the time he was available, Lugosi had a prior engagement...in a theatrical run of Arsenic and Old Lace.  This was Karloff's final appearance in any of the classic-run Universal horror films, and so we never got to see Lugosi's Dracula meet Karloff on the big screen.  Lugosi would finally be able to reprise his role as Dracula a few years later in the smash hit Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which (Netflix-willing) may be our final movie of this marathon...though they've been a little bit unpredictable in what they're sending me so I make no promises (just hopes).

This Month We Are Seeing As Many Classic Horror Movies from the Pre-1970 Era as Possible.  If you want to check out some of our past reviews, here they are:

Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, Mad Love, Son of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, Freaks, The Ghost of Frankenstein, It Came from Outer Space

It Came from Outer Space (1953)

Film: It Came From Outer Space (1953)
Stars: Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer, Russell Johnson
Director: Jack Arnold
Oscar History: Weirdly enough, while it didn't win any Oscar nominations, the film did score Barbara Rush a Golden Globe for Best Newcomer.  Rush would become more well-known to audiences for her TV work in soaps like Peyton Place and All My Children, and we discussed her cinematic work more extensively here.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

If you're hearing this title and thinking "where do I know that from?" I will not keep you in suspense. I have loved doing this marathon even if I didn't have time to get to as many pictures as I had hoped (we still have a few more before it closes down on Thursday, though), and have been brainstorming ideas for a future, similar series, and think perhaps seeing every movie referenced in the opening number of The Rocky Horror Picture Show's "Science Fiction Double Feature" might be a cool idea to try at some point (I have always meant to go to a midnight screening of that movie, and this would give me a perfect way to do it since it's at the end of each month in my area).  Cause "then at a deadly pace, it came from outer space" is of course one of the key lyrics in that song, and this is the film that originated the lyrics.  This was also Universal's first foray into the brief 3-D fad that stormed cinema houses in the mid-1950's, and is our first look at not a classic horror monster or motif, but instead at creatures from another world storming our shores.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around a small desert town in Arizona where we meet amateur astronomer John (Carlson), who is romancing the beautiful local schoolteacher Ellen (Rush).  They see what they assume to be a meteor land in the middle of the desert, but when they go investigate with a friend, John sees that it is in fact an alien ship that has crashed.  An avalanche covers the crater it's created, leaving him without proof.  However, several of the aliens have escaped, and have the ability to mimic the townspeople in appearance, though not in vocal cadence.  As the town becomes restless, turning into an angry mob, John tries to understand the aliens, who it turns out landed on Earth by accident, and were instead headed to a different planet.  John tries to stop a battle between the two, and largely does, with the aliens eventually leaving for that distant planet, and John proclaiming to Ellen in classic 1950's mansplaining "they'll be back."

The film is very different than the other films that we've seen.  While some of our monsters (like Frankenstein) are clearly more victim than actual monster, they're all violent and to be feared even if they aren't at fault.  Here, though, the aliens (strange, squid-like creatures in their natural form that surely would have been fun to see in actual 3-D), are genuinely nonviolent.  In fact, while two aliens perish in this movie, no human being actually dies, and barely any are even hurt other than one or two concussions.  It should be noted that the film's story was written by Sci-Fi master Ray Bradbury, who likely drove home the film's clear xenophobia metaphor, as was his wont.

Because while It Came from Outer Space is ridiculous to modern audiences, there are parts of it that are really good, mirroring in many ways a solid episode of The Twilight Zone.  Made at the height of the Cold War, these outsiders coming to America with their weapons and strange ways are not, in fact, dangerous at all but just being misunderstood.  This was a pretty profound concept to be spouting in the era of Joe McCarthy, and a lot more nuanced than you'd see in even mainstream cinema from the era much less a B-Movie.  The film is hokey, but it's genuinely thrilling in some parts.  It also has arguably the most hilariously over-the-top sequence with Kathleen Hughes as a buxom blonde who is dating Russell Johnson's George (who knew the Professor from Gilligan's Island was once such a BAE?), but throws herself at Carlson's John with Rush's Ellen just looking on aghast...and then we never hear from her again.  Seriously-she's even in the promotion for the film, and yet she never has anything else to do with the movie.  But that hokeyness aside, this is a good movie-not a particularly noteworthy one, but a fun one to watch late at night if you want a scary movie but don't want to actually be scared.  I give it 3-stars, but know that it's more 3.5 than 3, for the record.

This Month We Are Seeing As Many Classic Horror Movies from the Pre-1970 Era as Possible.  If you want to check out some of our past reviews, here they are:

Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, Mad Love, Son of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, Freaks, The Ghost of Frankenstein

Ranting On...The End of FilmStruck

The past month of my life has been, to put it bluntly, horrible.  I have had an extraordinarily tough time at work, with it being more stressful than I've remembered it being in years.  On Thursday, the guy I had been seeing ended things with me.  Many of my heroes were attacked this week, and the president (and many people in my real-life) brushed it off as almost nothing.  The election has made me nervous, particularly knowing that the Republicans seem to have gained too much momentum in the Senate (likely defeating my two favorite senators in the process), and that election rigging tactics in Georgia, Indiana, North Dakota, and Kansas will make it even harder for us to beat them in governor and House races.  My health and eating habits have been abysmal, and I'm too busy/depressed to hit the gym.  And now, to cap off an already aggressively bad week, greedy corporations have decided to steal from film fans one of the only new refuges that we have been gifted in the past few years: FilmStruck.

For those who are unfamiliar, and sadly that was clearly a lot of people, FilmStruck is a streaming service that is connected to both Turner Classic Movies and Criterion, which specializes in art house, classic, and foreign cinema.  Unlike Netflix or Hulu, it doesn't focus on original fictional content, instead prioritizing simply the movies and making short, fascinating complimentary content to go with the films.  Seriously-in a world where you're lucky to get even a DVD commentary to go with a recently-released movie, FilmStruck created catered lists of other similar films (truly similar, not "you liked Rashomon so you must love House of Cards" sort of details like Netflix has), recently shot documentaries from contemporary filmmakers and hours of like content.  In honor of the new A Star is Born, they brought all three previous iterations of the film to the big screen and then filmed a new documentary with the fourth film's director Bradley Cooper.  It's the sort of place that a film fan can just dive right in and spend days finding new angles and avenues to love movies.

That it is shut down, that WarnerMedia doesn't see a home devoted to people who truly love its movies, is heartbreaking and proof that corporate greed and sheer stupidity have infiltrated the heart of the movie business, and those who predict its eventual downfall to the world of television feel right.  This is a place that introduced your fans to your back catalog, to wanting to know more about films that don't star someone flying in a cape, but more than that, it gave people a love of cinema that is not nourished in a streaming era.  Do you really think that people will constantly love movies if you keep rehashing, remaking, and recreating the same boring crap?  You need new ideas and to introduce people to why successful filmmakers of today (the Tarantinos, the Nolans, the DuVernays) fell in love with movies in the first place.  Without that, eventually no one will give a crap about who the next Batman is-you can only go to that well so many times before people just stop showing up to the theaters.  A world where Warner doesn't understand the merit of FilmStruck is a world where they don't understand the value of movies themselves.  I don't care what the bottom line was-it's too new for them to given up on it at this point, and this decision smacks of greed and not caring about your most loyal fans.

But from a more distant vantage, it also shows that the streaming era doesn't give a crap about your favorite movies.  For the reality is that FilmStruck is one of the only places, frequently the only place, on a streaming platform that you can see the movies of someone like Alfred Hitchcock or Ingmar Bergman (and sometimes, it even housed movies that have never been released on home video, something theoretically streaming should easily be able to do but has so far ignored).  With it gone, most of the films that it has will not belong to any readily-available streaming platform, and unless you shell out the money for a Blu-Ray or DVD (at $20 a pop, not a feasible solution for most) or chance upon a movie on TCM or at your public library, this is just not an option for you to watch.  Netflix and Hulu have largely killed any cinema made before 1990, as they don't host such films, and with people purging their physical collections, DVD/Blu-Ray may not always be an option.  Even recent movies like last year's 1945 are impossible to find on a physical copy in the United States, and most Netflix movies don't get physical copies.  Netflix disappears, and all of those movies are gone forever.  Even the DVD's that are released are frequently only after begging (witness Wonderstruck) or are cheap prints of the shows rather than something that might be worth celebrating (Jane the Virgin and Bob's Burgers are both hit shows that have cheap DVD's without commentary and making-of documentaries...and you can't tell me that the cast-and-crew of those shows wouldn't love to invest in making something lasting from their decade of work, but greed gets in the way).

You might not care.  I speak to people who want to get rid of their DVD collections and books.  They'll just rely on streaming and Kindle.  And maybe their entertainment tastes are so limited they don't care.  But I'd like to say in a world where Citizen Kane or Casablanca can disappear, you don't think Friends can?  Game of Thrones can?  Stranger Things can?  Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians and Titanic and Mean Girls and The Dark Knight can?  Without sites that steward to film and television preservation, these shows and movies can just as easily get lost.  I have amped up in recent years my physical media collection in part because I don't trust places like Warner anymore, and their elimination of FilmStruck is a good reason.  The only copy I trust to exist is on my shelf, and while there are tons of problems with owning physical media instead (it can be damaged, technology updates don't always agree with it, the environmental impact isn't as clean as streaming), it's still a better insurance policy than relying upon a world where FilmStruck can be snatched up without any notice.  Today was a sad day not only because we lost the best streaming service on the market, but also because it's clear that the studios themselves don't see the value in replacing it.  Film fans of the world mourn because the movie studios themselves want to make it harder for us to love their products.  They worry about making the quickest of dollars, not realizing that there may come a day where we also just give up, not willing to continually be beaten down by an industry that takes us for granted.

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

Film: The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
Stars: Lon Chaney, Jr., Cedric Hardwicke, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Evelyn Ankers
Director: Eric C. Kenton
Oscar History: No Nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

We continue on our month of classic horror frights with yet another trip to Frankenstein's castle, our fourth this month (in many ways this has more become the month of Frankenstein, as we will definitely be visiting the castle at least once more before Halloween on Wednesday).  This installment is unique compared to our other three visits, though, as we for the first time are going without Boris Karloff.  Karloff, fearing that there was nothing left to say about the creature, decided to quit playing the character, and wouldn't revise the role until the 1960's in an episode of Route 66.  As a result, while we have the return of Bela Lugosi's Igor, we are instead treated to our first visit from Lon Chaney, Jr., another major star of the Universal Horror films, albeit one that I'm less thrilled about than Karloff or Lugosi.  Because while Ghost of Frankenstein has its moments (and arguably the most famous call sheet we've seen on one of these movies), it's by-far the least of the movies in the series thus far and doesn't bode well for House of Frankenstein, our next visit in this series with the monster.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film starts, once again, with a group of angry villagers complaining about Frankenstein's monster (Chaney) cursing their land and causing them hardships.  Despite being, well, dead, they claim that Igor (Lugosi) is still at the castle, and as long as the castle stands, they will continue to endure troubles.  The village elders (several of whom died in the last film, perhaps the picture's most notable continuity error), eventually give in to the mob, and they storm the castle, tearing it apart brick by brick.  Igor is there to fortify it, but once he sees the monster come alive from the rubble, he flees the castle with him in tow, trying to track down Dr. Frankenstein's other son (the one that isn't Basil Rathbone's Wolf, and has conveniently never been mentioned until now), played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke, who is at first reluctant to try to help the monster but haunted by his father's memory, he sets about trying to correct the monster, making him be a decent human being through a brain transplant of one of his recently-deceased colleagues.  Eventually Igor manipulates himself into getting the brain transplant for himself, becoming the monster but then going blind because he isn't the right blood type, eventually burning down the house with Ludwig and the Ygor-Monster inside.  There's also, like most of these films, a subplot involving a beautiful woman (Ludwig's daughter, played by Ankers), and a local lug (Ralph Bellamy once again coming to the rescue), but even by horror movie standards this feels a bit tacked-on and unnecessary.

The Universal horror movies always lived-or-died based off of the charisma of the actors playing the monsters and the cheap thrills that they're able to elicit.  This film is an odd juxtaposition in that regard, since Lugosi's Igor is such a sturdy creation, a more impressive achievement, in my opinion, than his Dracula (it stands out in a stronger way).  The plot lines revolving around Igor are ridiculous-that he's able to continually manipulate everyone around him as if he's simply a normal human being, rather than a scheming man and murderer rubbing his hands together offscreen while mumbling his plan, is beyond absurd, but beneath the makeup you can tell that Lugosi was a strong stage actor as he hams it up wonderfully for the camera.  Honestly-Igor is a more terrifying creation than the monster ever could be, since he walks among us and seems to always be hatching a plan to create more violence and chaos.

But Chaney's creature is an enormous step down from Karloff's monster.  Karloff was an accomplished film star, one who never would have taken off were it not for his work in the Universal horror films, but was an actor with skill who always brought something to his performances.  Lon Chaney, Jr., well, had a very famous father.  Chaney's monster has none of Karloff's soul or tenderness, making him appear a sympathetic-but-complicated figure, and instead has him lumbering like a giant doll the whole film, with his arms outstretched (I believe this is the first time we see this now iconic image of the monster with his arms out-stretched, his wrists limp, marching forward).  Chaney's performance is, well, terrible, not just because it pales in comparison to Karloff's because it's not that good on its own.  Thankfully Universal didn't start with him in this role, because it wouldn't have had such strong franchise films up until this point in the series if they had.  Lugosi's Igor makes this film worth checking out, but it's not very good, and despite real actors in the supporting roles (Hardwicke was a knight, for crying out loud!), Lugosi is the only reason this film should exist.

This Month We Are Seeing As Many Classic Horror Movies from the Pre-1970 Era as Possible.  If you want to check out some of our past reviews, here they are:

Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, Mad Love, Son of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, Freaks

Trump Deserves the Blame

Wednesday was one of the darkest days in American history.  I'm still, quite frankly, in shock.  Not that this happened, because I think it was sadly something we have been warning about for so long with Donald Trump as president that this was becoming inevitable, but because there is a difference between warning about something happened, saying "this violent rhetoric will eventually lead to something truly, unchangeably, terrible" and seeing it actually happen.

We have become so desensitized to such hateful, terrible things in the Trump presidency that perhaps some people weren't shocked yesterday, their cynicism or need-to-be-brave so close to an election makes them numb or flippant to such things, but I'll be honest-I was shook to my core and genuinely curled up into a ball Wednesday night, not wanting to do anything but stay indoors, glued to the news, in a way I can only remember being at a few tragedies in American history.

This week, a terrorist attacked leaders of the party opposed to the President of the United States, people the president has literally described as his "enemy."  Pipe bombs were sent through the mail to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, John Brennan (the package was sent to CNN headquarters), Eric Holder, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxine Waters, Joe Biden, Robert de Niro, and George Soros.  These people are not arbitrary politicians or public figures.  They are two former presidents, a former vice president (who is also the leading Democratic contender for the White House in 2020), a former secretary of state, a former first lady, two sitting congresswomen (one being a former DNC Chair), a former attorney general, a former CIA Director, a major Democratic fundraiser, and a prominent liberal actor.  They are all Democrats or a key member of a Democratic administration, prominent Trump critics, and people that Trump regularly demeans and attacks with vitriolic hate in his stump speeches and on Twitter.

That Trump's hateful, violent speeches have led to actual violence may be inevitable, but it's worth noting that Trump and Republicans like him deserve the blame for what happened this week, and the media needs to lay it at their feet.  Trump, just days ago, praised Rep. Greg Gianforte in a rally in Missoula, MT, calling him "my guy" in reference to Gianforte's assault of a journalist during his campaign last year.  Ted Cruz, just days ago, was talking about how his opponent (Rep. Beto O'Rourke) could share a cell with Hillary Clinton, one of the victims of yesterday's attacks.  And even after Monday's attack, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (the frontrunner to be the next Republican leader in the House after the elections), still had a pinned tweet attacking Mr. Soros on his verified Twitter page even after Soros has received a pipe bomb.

Trump's rhetoric against the media and the protesters has been violent, hateful, and frequently filled with lies, so the fact that CNN was one of those targeted is petrifying considering it is not only an attack on our leaders, but on the first amendment itself that was perpetrated Wednesday.  And yet just days before our nation exercises its most sacred right, that of choosing our leaders, Trump couldn't control his supporters and his mouth for even 24 hours.  After a scripted statement where he called for unity, Trump couldn't admit that his rhetoric is the clearest culprit here.  No, he didn't send those packages, but that all of the people who received them are people who have been outspoken critics of Trump AND are people he regularly lashes out at in speeches, oftentimes with violent language, is no accident.  Trump had the ability yesterday to say "I made a mistake, I need to work to change the discourse and shoulder some of this blame if we are actually going to unify," but he is incapable of doing so.  Trump's rally in Wisconsin Wednesday night proved that, with him blaming the media for the attacks rather than taking any sort of accountability on his own, going back to attacking reporters the same exact day that CNN got a pipe bomb in the mail.  Republican State Sen. Leah Vukmir, herself running for the US Senate in the state, grinned as the crowd chanted "lock her up" rather than trying to counter them on the same day Hillary Clinton (the "her" that they're referring to), was attacked.  That Republican leaders (cause that's what Trump and Vukmir are), can't even go 24 hours without going after Democrats who were violently attacked by a terrorist is unforgivable and frankly is the final alarm that needs to be rung-if you can't see that yesterday was one of America's darkest days, I don't know how to help you.  Think of it this way-if 11 people from the opposition party were attacked in Russia or China, we'd call it a banana republic or refer to that country as unstable.  That's exactly what happened here-don't just get your coffee like usual, pretending "this is just Trump's America", because if we have to normalize what happened this week, this isn't America at all.  We need to vote in 11 days, as if our civil liberties and lives depended on it, because they do.  Democracy cannot stand if our leaders only care about the people who support them, if protection and rights are only bestowed on those who support the president.  This week Donald Trump showed that he only cares about people who agree with him, and is incapable of feeling compassion for those who don't.  Hopefully in 11 days, he sees that those who don't are louder than those that do, because it's the only message that will get through to him.

Freaks (1932)

Film: Freaks (1932)
Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles, Henry Victor
Director: Tod Browning
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Few films in the horror movie pantheon illicit more hushed reverence than the film Freaks.  A flop when it first premiered in 1932 (it largely destroyed Browning's promising career after Dracula) the movie has been saved in recent years by critics and cult film fans alike, those who admire its daring and uniqueness in the world of movies.  I'll admit, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to be seeing about ten minutes into the (very short) movie, shocked at some of the nastiness of the film, its strange "this is just a day in the life" sorts of sequences, and then the final ten minutes, which nearly ninety years later are horrifying and genuinely creepy.  The film didn't hold me the way it did some critics, but it's easy to applaud the pictures daring and moxie-Freaks is a movie that distinguishes itself in a way few films before and after ever have.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about, essentially, the day in a life of a band of traveling "freaks," circus side show attractions such as little people (played by siblings Harry and Daisy Earles), as well as a pair of more "normal" figures (Henry Victor as Hercules the Strong Man and Olga Baclanova as Cleopatra the Tightrope Artist), who mock their troupe mates but are trying to use Harry Earles's Hans for his inheritance.  Cleopatra plans to marry Hans and then murder him to get his money, but the plan is eventually found out in a truly terrifying spectacle.  Cleopatra, after getting drunk, is uncomfortable with being associated with the freaks, who memorably chant "gooba gobble, one of us" repeatedly to invite a "normal" into their midst.

It's here where Freaks is at its best-cruelly looking and inverting audience's expectations of whom the hero is.  To modern audiences who have been conditioned on John Hughes films, we know that the most traditionally beautiful figures in the film aren't the good guys, and so our inclination is to assume the worst of the pretty girl humoring Hans, but at the time this wasn't the case, and it's still genuinely revolting to watch Cleopatra lash out at the "freaks," treating them like garbage.  Drunk and angry, she dismisses the people she shares a trailer next to every day as sub-human, reinforcing their worst fears about letting an outsider in, and as a result cloistering themselves further from the world.  The movie goes to great strides to show that they're just "normal" people who want to love, have children, and live their lives, so to have someone forty minutes into the picture dismiss them based solely on their appearance is relatively groundbreaking.

That said, the film earns its spot as a horror classic in the film's last twenty minutes.  After it's discovered that Hercules and Cleopatra were, indeed, trying to kill Hans, the troupe seek their revenge in a harrowing scene that shows them chasing both of the perpetrators into the night.  While we don't see the end result for Hercules (supposedly in now lost footage he was castrated), but we do see Cleopatra resorted to being a duck woman, with her legs cut off and her permanently tarred-and-feathered.  It's perhaps not the best message to the audience that the most horrifying thing a freak could do to another person is to make someone a "freak," and truly make them "one of us," but that doesn't mean it doesn't petrify the audience on a baser level.

The film has been mirrored and muted by decades of preaching tolerance at the movies, so that some of its initial message has been diluted for a modern audience, and the mundane aspects of their lives come across as boring even if they're building to prove a point.  As a result, the only truly thrilling aspects for me as an audience member were those last twenty minutes, but man is that a staggering way to end a movie, one that would rival a modern-day horror film for sheer fright.  For that, I have to tip my hat to Freaks, arguably the most genuinely scary film we've encountered so far in this marathon.

This Month We Are Seeing As Many Classic Horror Movies from the Pre-1970 Era as Possible.  If you want to check out some of our past reviews, here they are:

Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, Mad Love, Son of Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy

Battle for the Senate: The Tipping Point States

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)-will she be the senator that decides
the majority?

We are now two weeks away from the fall elections, and I suspect that most people should be focusing on the House (which looks likely to flip, but not guaranteed), but are more focused on the Senate (which looks unlikely to flip, but that's not guaranteed either).  The Senate is, because it's filled with 100 people who could be president (rather than the House, which is filled with 435 people who could be standing next to you in line to buy lottery tickets), the sexier and more glamorous conversation.  There are a limited number of close races (anywhere from 8-10 depending on whom you ask), and as a result even the least politically-aware person might know a name like Beto O'Rourke or Heidi Heitkamp at this point.  But the question I've had for a while is-is 2018 actually a close race or not?

The only way to know this is to look at not the overall voting percentage (Democrats thanks to the Feinstein vs. de Leon race in California alone, will have more actual votes for the Senate than Republicans at the end of the day), but at the tipping point state.  The tipping point state is essentially the race/state that decided who won the majority.  In the case of this article, it's either the seat that would've gotten the Republicans to 50 (if the Democrats take the majority) or would've gotten the Democrats to 51 (if the Republicans take the majority).  Though it's impossible to tell this early out which state it would be, there's a solid argument to be made that Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Nevada, Arizona, or North Dakota is the most likely culprit for this year (my money's on Missouri or Tennessee, for the record, as I think both races get decided by under 3-points).  Looking at the last nine contests for the Senate (all from this century in the post Bush/Gore era), you can see which races were genuinely close, and which ones were never in the cards for the party-out-of-power.  You can also see some clear lessons from both parties, particularly to not take pickups or embattled incumbents for granted, as they might be closer than you'd think.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)

9. 2008
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +8
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 10
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: No race illustrates for either party "you had no chance" better than 2008.  Mitch McConnell has an encyclopedic knowledge of Senate politics, and I bet he'd even struggle to name who Tom Harkin's opponent was in 2008.  And yet Christopher Reed, who lost by 25.4 points to the longtime Iowa senator, was the tipping point candidate that year.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: There's honestly no redeeming factor here-it isn't like Iowa was a big drop-off point or something.  In addition to having to take down Tom Harkin in the easiest election of his career (this was the only election where the Iowa senator ever had a clear reelection battle in his long Senate career), they would have had to best Tim Johnson, Frank Lautenberg, and Mark Udall (all of whom were winning by double digits), in addition to the single digit victories for Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Kay Hagen, Jeff Merkley, and Al Franken.  The Republicans surely could have done better this cycle, but the majority was never an option.

Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum (D-SC)

7. 2004 (tie)
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +4
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 6
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: There are few Senate cycles that haunt Democrats quite like 2004 (2014 is the one that I remember most fervently with depression, but 2004 is a close second).  The races were actually relatively close up until the tipping point, but South Carolina's loss for State Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum was really not that close (9.6 point loss for Tenenbaum).  It felt closer at the time, though, as Tenenbaum was relatively popular in ruby-red South Carolina and this was still an era where Democrats could win the state, so it came as a bitter disappointment to Democrats when she ultimately lost...by an admittedly large margin.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Like I said, the other contests were relatively close this cycle.  Alaska's Tony Knowles, Florida's Betty Castor, Kentucky's Dan Mongiardo, North Carolina's Ersinke Bowles, and South Dakota's Tom Daschle all lost by less than five points.  It's worth noting that Tenenbaum might not actually be the tipping point if you count Rep. Chris John of Louisiana here.  John lost in Louisiana by 24-points, but this was under the assumption at the time that Louisiana would go to a runoff.  Louisiana had never elected a Democrat to the Senate since the passage of the 17th Amendment, and many assumed John would continue that streak via a runoff, but Rep. David Vitter won 51%, making a runoff unnecessary.  If this counts (John lost by well more than Tenenbaum, but in a runoff it's probable he would have kept it closer than she did as Democrats in total only lost to Vitter by 3.35 points), the tipping point state becomes Erskine Bowles in North Carolina, and this year moves to fifth...justifying why Democrats had more hope than they probably should have on Election Day.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)

7. 2010 (tie)
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +6
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 4
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: 2010, on the other hand, is probably not quite the same in terms of 2004 for Republicans.  For starters, 2010 was obviously a fabulous year for Senate Republicans, netting six seats (most of which they still claim-they held all but Illinois of their 2010 pickups when 2016 rolled around).  However, it was always a lost cause to assume that the Republicans would gain another four seats, particularly California where Sen. Barbara Boxer bested Carly Fiorina by 9.6 points in one of three major fumbles Fiorina's political career has taken.  Boxer had had closer calls before, but still retired six years later, having had enough of politics.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: If Republicans have regrets about 2010, it surely would be how states like Colorado, Nevada, and Delaware slipped through their hands because of Tea Party challenges.  All three states went away from more palatable primary challengers (Jane Norton, Sue Lowden, & Mike Castle) for gadfly challengers (Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, & Christine O'Donnell), which allowed Dem incumbents to win (true to form for the GOP, the only one of these candidates to get a second act was the conservative male Ken Buck, who is now a congressman).  Still, Colorado (1.8) and Nevada (5.6) were two of their closer seats, along with Washington's Dino Rossi (4.8), who could finally end his profile losing streak in two weeks if he loses WA-8...or he could give the Democrats a fourth tight election victory.

Michelle Nunn (D-GA)

6. 2014
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +9
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 4
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: Like 2004, this looks a lot more attainable in retrospect than it did at the time, as the Republicans clobbered on Election Night.  I think most Democrats assumed they'd get beaten, just not this badly.  Weirdly, it wasn't some of the longer-shot incumbents like Mark Pryor or Mary Landrieu who was the tipping point senator, but instead Georgia's Michelle Nunn, who lost by 7.7 points.  It's probable that in 2020, with Georgia looking increasingly friendlier to the Democrats, that Nunn will attempt a comeback, though those rarely work for the Senate (an article for another day).
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Interesting fact-I called every single race right for the Senate in 2014, one of my crowning achievements as a predictor (though little comfort as a Democrat).  I figured that North Carolina would be supremely close (Kay Hagen lost by 1.5), and while I didn't anticipate the close races for Virginia or New Hampshire (Warner & Shaheen losing could have made this night a true bloodbath for the Democrats, and that was definitely possible), I also didn't realize that Alaska & Colorado would be so close, with Mark Begich & Mark Udall losing by roughly two points.  As a result, while Nunn's loss shows the Democrats had little shot of holding the Senate, they came a lot closer to 51-49 than anyone could have guessed, and would have the majority now had they pulled three more races across the finish line.

Sen. George Allen (R-VA)

5. 2012
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +2
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 6
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: It feels weird to think of this race as close, as well, it really wasn't.  Though it was closer than the previous year with Nunn's tipping point state being a bigger gap, this has four contests that were won by over five points that the GOP would have to flip in order to take the majority.  The largest of these was Virginia (5.9), which Tim Kaine won in an ill-begotten rematch by George Allen, who for some reason doesn't get grouped with Ted Strickland & Evan Bayh as a former glory boy governor who returned to another round of defeat...but surely should have.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: While North Dakota's Heidi Heitkamp won by less than a point, and Montana's Jon Tester was losing in the RCP average right before the election (both very winnable races), the other four might have been closer than anyone anticipated, but not exactly close.  Open seats in Indiana, New Mexico, and Wisconsin, gave opportunity to Richard Mourdock, Heather Wilson, and Tommy Thompson, respectively, but all lost by more than five points.  Again, this can't be a "year that got away in Mitch McConnell's eyes."

SoS Jason Kander (D-MO)

4. 2016
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +2
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 3
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: The top four all have tipping point elections decided by less than four points, so here we're talking races that genuinely were close and a little more turnout probably would have tilted the scales to the losing party.  In 2016, Wisconsin's Russ Feingold led in virtually every poll right up until the last few weeks of the campaign, when a surge in the Midwest (that should have caused alarm for the soon to be losing Clinton campaign) gave wind to Ron Johnson.  Feingold lost by 3.4 points in a rematch that (in retrospect) the Democrats probably should have tried to recruit a fresher candidate to counter against Ron Johnson.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Democrats had their closest races in Pennsylvania (1.4 points) and Missouri (2.8 points), where Katie McGinty & Jason Kander nearly won.  Kander's margin is particularly heartbreaking as he overcame the drubbing that Clinton was taking at the top of the ticket and nearly bested Roy Blunt.  Considering the rightward shift of a state like Missouri, these sorts of pickup opportunities are rare and may come around only once every couple of decades (something for Democrats in Tennessee this year to keep in mind).

Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT)

3. 2000
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +4
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 1
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: In a year with a number of progressive challengers, the Democrats nearly won the Senate against almost all odds in 2000.  They netted four pickups, including picking off incumbents in Minnesota, Michigan, Washington, Missouri, and Delaware, and had they made in six in Montana, they would have had the majority going into the first year of George W. Bush's presidency.  That said, Brian Schweitzer, who lost here by 3.2 points, became governor four years later and in terms of regrets Democrats have about 2000, the Senate is a pretty distant silver to other contests on the ballot.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: They didn't need a single seat, as this would have gotten them to 51.  Weirdly, it's worth noting that Democrats still lost an incumbent in 2000, in the state of Virginia (Chuck Robb) by 4.6 points.  Had Robb pulled that victory off, it's possible that the Democrats' eventual transformation of Virginia may have looked a bit different (since it was kicked off by the surprise election in 2006 of Jim Webb).

Vice President Walter Mondale (D-MN)

2. 2002
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Democrats
Actual Net for the Cycle: Republicans +2 (technically +1, but Bob Smith is a story for a different day)
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 2
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: While the worst case scenario for Democrats in 2018 will be it looking suspiciously like 2004 (an election that looked close until people actually voted), it may be more regrettable if it ends up like 2002.  2002 was a year where they lost the majority, but almost certainly didn't have to do so if they'd turned two seats around, one of which was Minnesota.  It's probable that had Paul Wellstone not died just days before the election the Democrats would have won this seat, but a short and bumpy campaign by Walter Mondale wasn't enough to win this seat, and Minnesota elected Norm Coleman by 2.2 points, the last time (to date) the Democrats lost a Senate election in the Gopher State.
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: We've talked about this race a lot, but suffice it to say Sen. Jean Carnahan losing by just 1.1 points was a tough loss for the Democrats, particularly considering after-the-fact that Carnahan got closer than she was expected against Jim Talent (many assumed she'd lose at the time, including me).  Wellstone surviving and a little more TLC into St. Louis & Kansas City, and the Democrats control the Senate during the next two years of the Bush administration, staving off the judicial fights that Harry Reid would wage during this time, perhaps even creating a world where Merrick Garland would have gotten confirmed in 2016 thanks to a lack of a slippery slope.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)

1. 2006
Party Out of Power (Post-Election): Republicans
Actual Net for the Cycle: Democrats +6 (technically +5, but Joe Lieberman was the Democrats' Bob Smith in the earlier part of the century)
Number of Seats to Take Majority: 1
Tipping Point Seat/Percentage: While 2004 is the nightmare for the Democrats, and 2002 perhaps the more likely regret, 2006 is what every Democrat is hoping for and the Republicans' worst nightmare.  Headed into Election Night, the Democrats led in enough seats in the polls to actually win the Senate, but most people assumed it couldn't be done.  Polls showed tight races in Missouri & Maryland, and Conrad Burns was closing fast in Montana.  Worst of all for the Democrats was that the sting of George Allen's "Macaca" incident was wearing off, and the state's reddish hue was showing again.  Still, though, every Democrat kept water from flooding the ship long enough to win 51 seats on Election Night (though it wasn't called for them until Wednesday), and Republicans lost the Senate by just 0.4 points in Virginia, where Jim Webb won his sole term in the Senate (interesting fact-this means that Allen has twice been the tipping point senator).
Candidates Who Would (Also) Have to Win: Zero-the Democrats had almost no margin of error, and yet they still won.  It's likely had the election taken place even a week later, they would have lost it with strength in Montana & Virginia fading at the time, but they pulled it off.  If the Democrats win in two weeks, it'll likely be because of something like 2006-a freak occurrence that they caught all of the stars aligned at the same time.