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The Democratic Leadership Council--the pro-corporate, pro-war wing of the Democrats that helped bring us Bill Clinton, has been busy lately trying to disassociate itself from Michael Moore and the rest of us who oppose Bush's wars. Of course the antiwar position is the sane position and the idea of US Empire Forever basically nuts, but for the sake of argument let's say we and Moore are extremists. The Republicans won in 2004 by embracing their extremist elements (and cheating): the corporate hotel porno-pushers cynically worked hand in hand with religious fundamentalists. The Democratic corporatists repeatedly fail because they can't do that. This is probably because the Moore wing's critique of the overall corporate program is more devastatingly effective than the fundies', who don't have such a critique because they haven't figured out who their real enemies are--they think gays and abortion are the problem.
And for trolls who think we're endorsing Stalin here, "corporate" or "corporatists" refers to crony capitalists, missile mongers, and sundry multinationals gaming the system against the greater interests of the larger number of US citizens, as well as exploiting labor at home and abroad. And not everything about the DLC is bad--check out this anti-Bush statement by its policy director Ed Kilgore.
Pixar's latest The Incredibles is incredibly derivative but exhilirating. Here's just a few borrowings: society outlaws and shuns masked adventurers (Alan Moore's Watchmen); second-rate series sidekick grows up to be demonic villain (Alan Moore's Miracleman); villain has private tropical island fortress (Bond films); high speed chase through the trees (Return of the Jedi)--etc. etc. I thought I'd given up on rubbery skinned Pixar universe after Nemo but the helming of Iron Giant director Brad Bird brought me back; he's a terrific visual storyteller even when you know every...single...thing...that's...going...to...happen. And I realize the filmgoing demographic demands "family values" but the working Dad, childraising Mom, 2.5 kids in a 50s suburban tract home is an impossible (or undesirable) ideal for so many people today it's irritating that Disney keeps pounding it in as a "norm." Where's grandma, or stepdad? Not to be too much of a grouch, though, because it's genuinely uplifting watching the beat-down kids getting to finally use their "powers," no matter how well adjusted and normal (i.e. privileged) they are.
Banks Violette at Team, 2004
Michael Phelan at Andrew Kreps, 1997
The point here being not that there's plagiarism but two emotional workings of a very similar Minimalist theme. Both artists use polyurethane-coated planks of foam, skeletal piping and fluorescents--Phelan to evoke a Valley-boy world of swimming pools and tanning booths and Violette the drums, Stygian caverns, and concert stages of black metal (or black metal by way of Berlin?). Institutions have no memory so I appointed myself.
UPDATE: I need a new screen and/or computer. Just noticed on someone else's machine that the Phelan detail had spots all over it. (Mostly) fixed now.