HSM3 Trailer!
Posted on October 16, 2008 at 8:00 am
When Television Changed Politics: Stevenson/Eisenhower
Posted on October 15, 2008 at 11:15 pm
NPR has a great series about political firsts, including the first woman candidate for President (Victoria Woodhull, who ran in 1872, 48 years before women got the vote) and the impact of television on political campaigns in 1952, when Adlai Stevenson ran an old-school race based on speeches and Eisenhower ran television ads designed by the man who created M&M commercials. Listen for my dad, Newton Minow, recalling his experiences in the Stevenson campaign.
Talking to Children about Poverty
Posted on October 15, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Families may find that their children have picked up some of the concerns about the economy from the news or overheard adult conversations. They will need to be reassured that even if their families have suffered some financial setbacks, they have all of the love and courage they need to keep them safe. And they will also need to be reassured that there is something they can do to help those who are less fortunate.
This summer’s American Girls movie, Kit Kittredge, is a very good way to begin a conversation with children about the current economic problems and their consequences. I particularly appreciate the way that it makes clear that the homeless characters are less fortunate but no less filled with dignity, decency, and humanity. The range of responses to poverty depicted in the film gives families a lot to talk about. So does the way that even the poorest find ways to help others in need.
Slate has a superb discussion of children’s books that discuss poverty by Erica S. Perl. From classics like Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
And Perl includes that most irrepressibly sunny survivor of hard times, Annie 
McCain and Obama for Children
Posted on October 15, 2008 at 8:00 am
There are very fine illustrated biographies of both candidates for children, a good way to begin a conversation about how we select our leaders and the importance of being able to disagree in a respectful and honorable manner.
Smoking in Movies
Posted on October 14, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Roger Ebert hates smoking — except in movies. And he really objects to the kind of revisionism that has produced one of Bette Davis’ iconic images from “All About Eve” for a new postage stamp but left out her ever-present cigarette.
Ebert’s parents died from smoking-related diseases. He does not permit smoking in his home. But he cannot resist the romanticism of cigarette smoking in movies, especially classic movies.
Two of the most wonderful props in film noir were cigarettes and hats. They added interest to a close up or a two-shot. “Casablanca” without cigarettes would seem to be standing around looking for something to do. These days men don’t smoke and don’t wear hats. When they lower their heads, their eyes aren’t shaded. Cinematographers have lost invaluable compositional tools. The coil of smoke rising around the face of a beautiful women added allure and mystery. Remember Marlene Dietrich. She was smoking when she said, “It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.”
Everybody smoked cigarettes in the movies. Even Katharine Hepburn. Even Loretta Young. Ronald Reagan posed for Chesterfield ads. On the radio, it wasn’t “The Jack Benny Program,” it was “The Lucky Strike Program with Jack Benny,” although in that PBS documentary you only see him smoking cigars. Robert Mitchum smoked so much, he told me, that when the camera was rolling on “Out of the Past,” Kirk Douglas offered him a pack and asked, “Cigarette?” And Mitchum, realizing he’d carried a cigarette into the scene, held up his fingers and replied, “Smoking.” His improvisation saved the take. They kept it in the movie.
My favorite smoking scene is Lauren Bacall’s first on-screen moment in “To Have and Have Not” — she was an instant star with her first line: “Anybody got a match?”
Ebert acknowledges that in today’s world it almost seems absurd to have a character smoking anywhere but standing outside a building on a brief break. Even James Bond no longer smokes. And we no longer need the lighting of a cigarette and the softly rising smoke to demonstrate gallantry and symbolize romance and seduction. in this era of overshares and TMI, perhaps it isn’t the cigarettes we miss so much as the metaphors.