Well, that didn’t take long

I saw a commercial about the ACA being a tax increase today.  The entire commercial was nothing but lies.  Can’t say I’m surprised.  I’m disappointed that politics is like this, and concerned that people will believe this nonsense, but I’m not surprised.

A few things about the SCOTUS decision on the Affordable Care Act

I have to admit that I was surprised at the voting, but I shouldn’t have been.  I know that there was opposition to what was essentially a Republican idea just because a Democrat got it passed, so I understood why people were against it.  But this law supports private insurance companies over everything else so I expected it to be upheld because it matched the interests of corporate power.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised that the law was upheld or by some of the voting.

I think that Roberts’ opinion is a little convoluted but does match the intent of the law – which Congress was too chickenshit to explicitly spell out.  I also think that the minority opinion was ridiculous on at least two points.  For one thing, it stated that there were two key provisions that, had they been left out, the law never would have been passed so if they were struck down then the entire law must be struck down.  Great mind reading act there to begin with, but that’s like saying because I changed my shirt I have to take off all of my other clothes.

The other thing was to say that this law prevents Congress from attacking the health care issues the country faces in the future except in piecemeal fashion because this law gets in the way.  Politically that may have some truth to it – legally it’s just nonsense.  All the next law has to say is that it overturns all of this law.

This decision is mostly a good thing, even if the law itself didn’t go far enough.  It doesn’t foster socialism and never has.  The mandate doesn’t cost anyone anything unless they voluntarily comply because the law specifies that there will be no enforcement of the penalty.  And this law has already helped people, will continue to do so and will help more people in the future.

I still think we need to make this better.

Now, even though the law specifically says that the penalty can not be enforced, how long will it be before we see the campaign commercials about this being a new tax?

A little more on Snow White and the Huntsman

Since I haven’t seen any movies lately I thought I’d add two things about Snow White and the Huntsman.

I have read many comments about how the movie dealt with the issue of female power coming from beauty.  To be sure it is an element in the story, but no one commented on a couple of things that I saw.

For one thing, there were criticisms that in no way is Kristen Stewart more beautiful than Charlize Theron.  Putting aside whether or not that is true, the movie deals with it.  Snow White is not said to be more beautiful, she is called more fair and her beauty is explicitly stated to be of her heart and not her appearance.  So, yeah, not so much supporting the evil queen’s position that only physical beauty confers power.

Also, the idea that men use women and throw them away.  The king doesn’t do that, and neither do either of the two main male characters in the movie.  The childhood friend William, who becomes friends with Snow White when they are children, spends his life regretting not being able to save her even though he was a child.  There is nothing sexual about this bond.  When he learns that she is still alive he rides off to rescue her not because he wants her for sex (he may but that isn’t the stated motivation) or to be his bride but because he has a chance to finally redeem what he sees as the single greatest failing of his life: he let down a friend – and now he can help his friend.

Then there is the Huntsman.  When he is brought before the Queen there is a brief scene where he explains why he is a depressed drunk who doesn’t care whether he lives or dies – and who would welcome death though he isn’t the type to commit suicide.  He tells the Queen that he is miserable because he was unable to keep his wife safe after she had saved him from depression after the war.  He sees himself as unworthy of her and is devastated because she died when he was away.  His life is worthless because his wife is gone.  He is nothing without the woman he loves.

The Queen has what turned out to be a throwaway line where she is surprised that the Huntsman cares for his wife.  They didn’t do anything with that which I think is a shame, but it was in there.

Is this all very male-centric, yes, but only until Snow White gets her chance to show that she is not a damsel in distress and everyone around her sees that as well.  She doesn’t do much fighting, but she dons her Joan of Arc costume and helps lead the charge.  And of course she is the one who confronts the queen.

It’s not a perfect movie, but I am amazed at how much was missed by the people who reviewed it.

Just wondering

If the Supreme Court overturns all or part of the Affordable Care Act, will the people who usually complain about activist judges be upset by, you know, what they usually call activism?

Movies

For those of you keeping score at home, my wife and I have indeed seen 4 movies in 2012.  That at least matches and may set a record for movies seen in one year.

I don’t know what it is about this year.  Maybe we’ve just been feeling better when the movies are out and it only takes a few hours and it’s close to home.

And there are a ton more movies that we want to see.

Oh boy.

The Avengers

I’ve been hacking up mini-critiques of movies lately.  All I can say about The Avengers is that it is a great movie.  Go see it.

The action is good, the dialog is good, the script is good, the humor is good – people laughed out loud more for The Avengers than for MIB III, the character development is good, the acting and the direction are good.  Add it all up and it’s a great movie.

See this movie.  Be sure to stay until after the credits – not just the first part, stay until the very end.  There were only a half dozen other people in the theater with my wife and me by that point and we were all laughing out loud.

Snow White and the Huntsman

The trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman makes it look like a typical Hollywood fantasy action adventure movie.  It fits that genre, complete with the evil queen, the heroine she wants to kill and the kind of scruffy hero, but there is more to it than that.  The movie is also a fairy tale.  Well, it tries to be.

Before I go any further let me say that I liked the movie and I recommend it.

The story was good and that makes Snow White and the Huntsman a good movie, though it needed a better script.  I also thought that the pacing was a little off and it didn’t build the world as much as I would have liked, but that’s just a personal complaint.  They did seem to know what they wanted to do with the characters but they didn’t quite fit them all together well enough.

The blending of fantasy and the folklore elements was a little uneven but I’m impressed that they tried to do as much as they did.  To be a good fantasy adventure a movie needs more embellishment than a story built around elements of folklore and archetypes.  Fantasy requires more explanation that fairy tale archetypes need, and they did that (with the exception of my above complaint), but I don’t think they tied everything together well enough.  Still, what they did was impressive.

Don’t get me wrong, like I said, I enjoyed the movie and I say go see it.  My complaints aren’t enough to recommend against it.  Most of this is the kind of thing you only think about after the fact and I can always nit-pick.  This is a good film.  It is visually appealing, the settings and effects were good, and though the effects were used heavily in some places they weren’t distracting in their overabundance.  There are scenes suffused with CGI that are not overwhelmed by it.

I’ve read several negative reviews and I really don’t think the people who wrote them saw the same movie I saw.  Every one of them missed things and then complained that they weren’t there or they complained about things that weren’t in the movie.  Almost no one got the point of it being a fairy tale and all that that involves.  I have a feeling the reviewers were all expecting something and when they didn’t get it they criticized the movie for not being what they wanted it to be.

Everyone does seem to like Charlize Theron though, and with good reason.

The good definitely outweighs any weaknesses, which are probably not anything most people would care about anyway, so go see it.

Oh, if you are planning on taking young children be aware that there are dark parts to this film.  Actually, it is overall a dark – as in atmosphere and lighting – film.  Though the young girl next to us seemed to handle it all well.  The infant crying in the back of the theater had other reasons to do so – probably just a critic.