Jan. 21st, 2013

Lincoln

Jan. 21st, 2013 12:12 am
ericadawn16: (Nostalgic2012)
Lincoln was about how I pictured it to be. It was similar to War Horse; historical and quiet. By quiet, I mean that it was well done, everything was perfect but it just didn't have that WOW factor like other Spielberg films. Either he's getting old or I'm getting old or it's both of us getting old.

It was basically The West Wing with frock coats which I totally support but then, maybe that was part of the problem...it wasn't cinematic enough. It also made me wonder whether a lot of the Barletts was based on the Lincolns.

However, it did have a LOT of parallels to today except that Republicans were the sensible ones in favor of progress while everyone else tried to stall them. It really made me think about what I would do in that situation. Obviously, we don't have to worry about legalized slavery in the US but there are plenty of other controversial topics and would I do like Thaddeus Stevens? Could I have done what Thaddeus Stevens did? He lies about his beliefs in order to attain the greater good. He knows he's not going to get exactly what he wants but it's better than nothing.

I'm not sure I could do that. It would be like settling for domestic partnership when everyone should be able to legally marry.

My mom was sad that all the Indiana representatives voted against the amendment. I was proud of Hawkins but he would be a distant cousin paternally which wouldn't help her.

I totally thought Tad was played by Richie from The New Adventures of Old Christine but apparently, it's a totally different boy who looks exactly the same.

Daniel Day-Lewis is as totally amazing as everyone says. It is like actually watching Lincoln.I also liked Sally Field a lot more than I thought I would considering what happened with The Amazing Spider-Man.

Yay, Gloria Reuben! I kept thinking she was familiar and about halfway through, it suddenly dawned on me that it was Gloria Reuben aka Jeanie Boulet from ER.She's also in the new Tina Fey movie. I never recognized James Spader. David Oyelowo had a very tiny part but I love how I got to see him on the big screen three times in two months.

Someday, I won't immediately distrust a David Strathairn character because they're being played by David Strathairn but this was not that day...

I tried not to giggle whenever they referred to Bilbo. I had no good reason to expect Dominic Cooper as a vampire to show up at the end.
ericadawn16: (Thoughtful)
"It is with such activity that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, 'Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.' Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin , we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see than an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, 'This is not just.' It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, 'This is not just.' The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood."

-Martin Luther King, Jr
April 4, 1967

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_beyond_vietnam/

Apart from Kennedy reference, I wish it didn't sound like something that could have been said yesterday...
ericadawn16: (Amused)
"But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.


This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience. A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun. America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.


For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.


We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time. We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher. But while the means will change, our purpose endures: a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American. That is what this moment requires. That is what will give real meaning to our creed.


We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity. We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn. We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.


We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.


We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war. Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage. Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty. The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.


We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law. We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully – not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear. America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe; and we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. We will support democracy from Asia to Africa; from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.


We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."

Barack Obama January 21, 2013

I loved it. Everything was perfect especially Michelle Obama's hair...she looks so much younger. The speech was beautiful. I hope we can make at least some of it come to pass. I ended up watching on Fox News because it had the least commercials and annoyingness. Mom thought it was weird but they were very professional...until it ended. I expected them to rip apart everything with regards to Obama but they even felt the need to mention how John McCain lost to him in 2008...

Yeah, that was four years ago, shouldn't he have at least one day without the media reminding him of that? He didn't have to attend.

Then, we saw Lincoln with my brother who hadn't seen it. In back of us were two ladies who narrated the film for us. Luckily, we'd seen it before so it wasn't too annoying.

(Molly removes her corset.)

Old Lady: Wow, I want something like THAT!

(Guys snorts some snuffing tobacco.)

Old Lady: Ooh, he's doing cocaine!

(Lincoln makes deals.)

Old Lady: He's manipulating them.

(Guy says no to the amendment.)

Old Lady: WEENIE!

I was a bit saddened when Stevens kissed his housekeeper and some people make noises of disapproval. Sometimes, I make the mistake of thinking my area is getting better...
Then again, it was mainly old people.

Still, we live in a world where we can watch this film on the same day that a man born, in a state that our nation didn't even own in 1865, to a white mother and African father officially started his second term as president.

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