While I was watching O Brother, Where Art Thou? for the umpteenth time (what can I say, it’s a great movie), I couldn’t help but notice some resemblance between the campaigns of the movie and the campaigns of the 2008 Democratic primaries. In the movie, we have incumbent Governor Menelaus ‘Pappy’ O’Daniel (Charles Durning) against Gubernatorial Candidate Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall), with Pappy being the hardline conservative and Stokes being the “sweep the state clean” progressive liberal.

In addition, we’ve got the three main characters, Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Pete (John Turturro), and Delmar O’Donnel (Tim Blake Nelson) as prison escapees, con artists, and adventurers, trying to outrun the devil, make some money, and seek a non-existent treasure.

In the midst of all this, we have some mighty fine quotes, which I’d like to place here, except I’ll be striking out names and placing modern political names instead to show you the similarities.

Ulysses Everett McGill Barack Obama: “Well, all right. If we take off through that bayou…”
Pete Hillary Clinton: “Wait a minute. Who elected you leader of this outfit?”
Everett Barack Obama: “Well, Pete Hillary, I figured it should be the one with the capacity for abstract thought. But if that ain’t the concensus view, then hell, let’s put it to a vote.”
Pete Hillary Clinton: “Suits me! I’m votin’ for yours truly.”
Everett Barack Obama: “Well, I’m votin’ for yours truly, too.”
Delmar John Edwards: “Okay, I’m with you fellas.”

Lawman Wolf Blitzer: “All right, boys.”
Everett John Edwards: “Uhh, how’s my hair?”

Pete Mitt Romney: “Well I’ll be a sonofabitch. Delmar’s Huckabee’s been saved.”
Delmar Mike Huckabee: “Well that’s it, boys. I’ve been redeemed. The preacher’s done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward.”
Everett John McCain: “Delmar, what are you talking about? We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
Delmar Mike Huckabee: “The preacher said all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo felon’s sentence I commuted for donations.”
Everett John McCain: “I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?”
Delmar Mike Huckabee: “Well I was lyin’. And the preacher said that that sin’s been warshed away too. Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.”

Junior O’Daniel (Del Pentecost) Bill Clinton: “Well, ain’t you gonna press the flesh, Pappy Hillary? Do a little politickin’?”
Pappy O’Daniel Hillary Clinton: “I’ll press your flesh, you dimwhitted sumbitch. You don’t tell your pappy wife how to court the electorate. We ain’t one-at-a-timin’ here. We’re mass communicatin’!”

Delmar Howard Wolfson: “I just don’t think it’s right keeping him under wraps like we was ashamed of him.”
Everett Hillary Clinton: “Well, if it is Pete, I am ashamed of him. The way I see it, he got what he deserved. Fornicating with some whore of Babylon. These things don,t happen for no reason, Delmar Howard. It’s obviously some kind of judgement on Pete’s Bill’s character.”
Delmar Howard Wolfson: “Well, the two of us was fixin’ to fornicate.”

Pappy O”Daniel Hillary Clinton: “We need a shot in the arm. You hear me boys? In the Goddamn arm! Election held tomorrow, that son of bitch Stokes Obama would win it in a walk!”
Junior O’Daniel Bill Clinton: “Well’ he’s the reform candidate, Daddy honey.”
Pappy O”Daniel Hillary Clinton: “Yeah.”
Junior O’Daniel Bill Clinton: “A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some.”
Pappy O”Daniel Hillary Clinton: “I’ll reform you, you soft-headed son of a bitch. How we gonna run reform when we’re the damn incumbent? Is that the best idea you boys can come up with? Reform?! Weepin’ jesus on the cross. That’s it! You may as well start drafting my concession speach right now.”
Pappy’s Staff Howard Wolfson: “Okay, Pappy Hillary.”
Pappy O”Daniel Hillary Clinton: “I’m just making a point you stupid son of a bitch. Give me back that hat! Hurry up!”
Pappy’s Staff Howard Wolfson: “Pappy’s Hillary’s just makin’ a point.”
Pappy O”Daniel Hillary Clinton: “Shut up!”

Homer Stokes Barack Obama: “The great state of Mississippi USA can not afford four more years of Pappy O’Daniel Hillary Clinton. Four more years of cronyism! Nepotism! Rascalism! Of service to the interests!”

Pappy’s Staff 1 Howard Wolfson: “It’s a problem of…”
Pappy’s Staff 2 Mark Penn: “Perception.”
Pappy’s Staff 1 Howard Wolfson: “That’s right.”
Pappy’s Staff 2 Mark Penn: “The reason he’s pullin’ our pants down.”
Pappy’s Staff 1 Howard Wolfson: “Gonna paddle a little behind.”
Pappy’s Staff 2 Mark Penn: “Ain’t gonna paddle it. Gonna kick it, real hard.”
Pappy’s Staff 1 Howard Wolfson: “No, I believe he’s gonna paddle it.”
Pappy’s Staff 2 Mark Penn: “I don’t believe that’s a proper description.”
Pappy’s Staff 1 Howard Wolfson: “Well, that’s how I’d characterize it.”
Pappy’s Staff 2 Mark Penn: “I believe it’s more of a kickin’ situation.”

Vernon T. Waldrip David Axelrod: “I can’t switch sides in the middle of a campaign. Especially to work for a man woman who lacks moral fiber.”
Pappy O’Daniel Hillary Clinton: “Moral fiber? Why, you little pasty-face sumbitch. I invented moral fiber! Pappy O’Daniel Hillary Clinton was displaying rectitude and high-mindedness when that egghead you work for was still messing his drawers!”

Pappy O’Daniel Hillary Clinton: “Yeah, well, you’ll be laughing out the other side of your face come November.”
Pappy’s Staff 2 Howard Wolfson: “Pappy O’Daniel Hillary Clinton will be laughing then.”
Pappy’s Staff 1 Mark Penn: “Not out the other side of his her face, though.”
Pappy’s Staff 2 Howard Wolfson: “Oh, no, no, no. Just the regular side.”

Please note, of course, that none of the above quotes are truly attributed to any real life personages; they are simply a parody on quotes from O Brother Where Art Thou and the perceived actions of people on the campaign trail. In a nutshell, it’s satire.

The Other Boleyn Girl is an adaptation of the infamous story of Henry VIII (I am, I am), his betrayal of Catherine of Eragon, and love affairs with Mary and Anne Boleyn. Unfortunately the plot itself is the best part of this movie and that is history, not screenwriting.

Natalie Portman plays Anne Boleyn, an ambitious, catty, and conniving daughter of a desperate man. Her sister Mary is played by Scarlett Johansson, a more innocent, better looking, and simple woman who unfortunately catches the King’s (Eric Bana) interest first. Her highly ambitious family, particularly her father played by Mark Rylance and the Duke of Norfolk played by David Morrissey (quite well actually), decides that she must become mistress to the King and bear him a son in order to lift their family into the good graces of the court. Unfortunately, Anne Boleyn is not happy about this, is exiled to France, and comes back with loads of knowledge regarding the art of backstabbing. She finds her sister nearly ready to give birth to Henry’s heir, and seduces him before the baby arrives.

That’s about a quarter to halfway through the movie. The rest of the movie is spent showing Anne Boleyn trying to get pregnant, a family scheming the sexual use of their daughters in such a way that would make the Womynist froth at the mouth, and a King who can’t decide who to get it on with next. Culminating, of course, in Anne asking her brother to have sex with her after losing the King’s child and their subsequent beheadings.

In the end I thought that Anne Boleyn got what was coming to her. I felt bad for Mary Boleyn due to the betrayals of both the King and her sister. And I felt bad for her brother George (played by Jim Sturgess from Across the Universe), who stood with his sisters the whole time, was asked to do something unthinkable, did not do it, and still lost his head. But then, I knew I would feel this way about them because again, this is history. Somewhat.

I’ll just say it like it is: the movie dragged on. To me it was more like a soap opera than a movie, and seemed to go from scene to scene without resolving or doing much. Each scene felt very predictable, and the passage of time was shown rather badly; years go by between some scenes, yet the characters do not develop at all. Intuition of course tells us that a baby takes months to be born, not minutes, yet the movie makes us feel like it was a one day affair instead of depicting the transition properly.

As a soap opera it was outstanding. As an epic it falls short tremendously. As far as historical movies go it was fair, but mostly because the plotline is a no-brainer: sex, lies, beheadings. How can one go wrong?

The Kingdom begins with a history lesson, a visual timeline which starts in 1933, and takes us through to the present. It takes up only a couple of minutes at the beginning of the movie and merely scratches the surface of the history of Saudi-US relations, but Peter Berg is still to be commended for providing some context for the premise of this film. It’s no Syriana, but in some ways that’s a good thing. Syriana was brilliant, and complex, an absolute must-see, but a wee bit confusing. The Kingdom manages to both entertain and educate, slipping information about radical Islam and Saudi princes in between car chases and gunfights.

I’ve had a mad crush on Berg since he appeared as Dr. Billy Cronk, the smart, sexy, passionate doctor on the series “Chicago Hope” in the mid-90s. He went on to direct the film Friday Night Lights, which has since become a television series (he also directed the pilot), and has just wrapped Hancock, starring Will Smith, Jason Bateman, and Charlize Theron, which will be out this summer. He’s always struck me as a smart actor and director, willing to delve below the surface of his subject matter, and The Kingdom, for the most part, doesn’t disappoint in this regard. It does suffer from some clunky exposition for the benefit of the audience. “How many princes are there in Saudi Arabia? And do they each have a palace?” don’t seem like questions these agents would have to ask, for example. It’s also hard to believe that forensics expert Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner) would be unaware of the fact that it is against Islamic law for her to touch a dead Muslim.

In spite of all that, The Kingdom manages to deliver a fast-paced, suspenseful action movie with snippets of some pretty well-written dialog, and some sharp acting. Jason Bateman provides comic relief as Leavitt, the wisecracking, Pixies t-shirt wearing (he’s an FBI agent AND a hipster!) who arrives in Saudi Arabia with a passport marked with three Israeli stamps (“My grandma lives there, is that okay?” he tells the uneasy Saudi guard). Chris Cooper (who coincidentally also appears in Syriana as well as Jarhead) steals all of his scenes as FBI Bomb Tech Grant Sykes, a slow-talking, quick-witted Southerner, and Saudi Colonel Faris Al Ghazi, who ends up helping the FBI team in their investigation, is brilliantly played by Ashraf Barhom. Leading the team is Jamie Foxx as Ronald Fleury, a fiercely determined agent out to discover the perpetrator of a bomb attack on an American compound in Riyadh which has killed not only a hundred or so Americans, but one of their own, an agent on the scene. This is what fuels the whole team’s determination and provides the emotional hook for the story, but this is not a revenge movie in any sense, and this is also what saves it. In spite of the forced nature of some of the scenes, Berg’s message here is ultimately that the Saudis and we have much in common – love of family, pride in our culture, and a sometimes manic resolve to preserve and protect what is ours, no matter the sacrifice.

The fantasy film Labyrinth, made in 1986, continues to be one of my all time favorite movies.

Labyrinth stars David Bowie as the Goblin King who kidnaps the brother of costar of Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly). Fairies, psychedelic dreams, crystal balls, and mystical creatures makes this rank high on the hippie list.

There are some great characters in this movie, very diverse, and very Jim Hensen.

• Ludo, a tall, big, and furry brute with horns on his head that talks cuter than he looks. He can yell for rocks to come to his help when he needs them.
• Hoggle, a cowardly little mix between a dwarf and a troll with the personality of Oscar the Grouch. Mostly harmless except for an inhumane prejudice against fairies
• Sir Didymus, a small fox-terrier knight that rides on the back of his faithful steed, another dog named Ambrosius. He lives in the Bog of Eternal Stench, a place with flatulence geysers, mud, and the nastiest scents in the Labyrinth. It is a place vaguely reminiscent of an occupied public bathroom stall, complete with the fact that touching anything makes you smell forever.

As far as David Bowie goes, he plays the ultimate antagonist that is easy to fall for. With wild hair, diabolic schemes, and toxic apples, he has the ability to capture his audience’s heart as the watcher realizes he has fallen in love with Jennifer Connelly’s character. Except for the overly excessive bulge, he’s a pretty stylish character.

This is a great movie for all ages. Only mild cussing, no sexual content, and very little violence (except for the Fun Gang trying to rip off Sarah’s head) makes this movie a wonderful choice for the whole family. And if you like Labyrinth, I’d also recommend The Dark Crystal, another Jim Hensen favorite with a bit more dark side and a lot less Bowie.