AFI Picks for Best in Film and TV 2009

'Jingle Bell Rock' from My Friends at ABC Daytime

Andrew Sullivan Leaving the 'Right'!

"IN HIS OWN WORDS"

I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.
I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.
I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.
I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.
I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.
I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.
I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.
I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.
I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.
I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.
I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.
I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.
I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.
I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.
I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.
I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.
Does this make me a "radical leftist" as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.
To paraphrase Reagan, I didn't leave the conservative movement. It left me.
And increasingly, I'm not alone.

'National Board of Review' Is First Out of the Gate: Let the Awards Begin

Awards for 2009:

Best Film
UP IN THE AIR

Top Ten Films
(In alphabetical order) AN EDUCATION, (500) DAYS OF SUMMER*, THE HURT LOCKER, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, INVICTUS, THE MESSENGER, A SERIOUS MAN, STAR TREK, UP, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

Best Foreign Language Film
A PROPHET

Top Five Foreign Films
(In alphabetical order) THE MAID, REVANCHE, SONG OF SPARROWS, THREE MONKEYS, THE WHITE RIBBON

Best Documentary
THE COVE

Top Five Documentaries
(In alphabetical order) BURMA VJ: REPORTING FROM A CLOSED COUNTRY, CRUDE, FOOD, INC., GOOD HAIR, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS

Top Independent Films
(In alphabetical order) AMREEKA, DISTRICT 9, GOODBYE SOLO, HUMPDAY, IN THE LOOP, JULIA, ME AND ORSON WELLES, MOON, SUGAR, TWO LOVERS

Best Actor
GEORGE CLOONEY, Up In The Air; MORGAN FREEMAN, Invictus

Best Actress
CAREY MULLIGAN, An Education

Best Supporting Actor
WOODY HARRELSON, The Messenger

Best Supporting Actress
ANNA KENDRICK, Up In The Air

Best Ensemble Cast
IT'S COMPLICATED

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor
JEREMY RENNER, The Hurt Locker

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress
GABOUREY SIDIBE, Precious

Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut
DUNCAN JONES, Moon; OREN MOVERMAN, The Messenger; MARC WEBB, (500) Days of Summer

Best Director
CLINT EASTWOOD, Invictus

Best Adapted Screenplay
JASON REITMAN and SHELDON TURNER, Up In The Air

Best Original Screenplay
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN, A Serious Man

Best Animated Feature
UP

*my pick in this grouping

'Nine': Trailer 3

'Nine' Soudtrack

The complete track list for the Nine CD is:

1. Overture Delle Donne (Female Ensemble)
2. Guido's Song (Daniel Day-Lewis/Guido Contini)
3. A Call From The Vatican (Penelope Cruz/Carla)
4. Folies Bergere (Judi Dench/Lillie)
5. Be Italian (Fergie/Saraghina)
6. My Husband Makes Movies (Marion Cotillard/Luisa Contini)
7. Cinema Italiano (Kate Hudson/Stephanie)
8. Guarda La Luna (Sophia Loren/Mamma)
9. Unusual Way (Nicole Kidman/Claudia)
10. Take It All (Marion Cotillard/Luisa Contini)
11. I Can't Make This Movie (Daniel Day Lewis/Guido Contini)
12. Finale
13. Quando Quando Quando (performed by Fergie)
14. Io Baci, Tu Baci (performed by The Noisettes)
15. Cinema Italiano (the Ron Fair Remix performed by Kate Hudson)
16. Unusual Way (performed by Griffith Frank)

Among the missing numbers from the film are 'Be on Your Own', 'The Bells of Saint Sebastian' and the brilliant 'The Grand Canal' which summarized the whole story on the stage. But this is Hollywood.Too bad but we'll wait and see. There is no other choice now is there?.

'Nine': Trailer 2 and 'Cinema Italiano'

Judi Dench on 'Nine'

2012: A Glimpse Of Horrifying Future

Keira Nabs Starring Role in "My Fair Lady" Remake

Actress Keira Knightley will portray Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle in the forthcoming film remake of the classic 1956 Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady.

The Telegraph reports that "Pride and Prejudice" director Joe Wright will reunite with Knightley for the movie musical. Academy Award-winning actress Emma Thompson is penning the screenplay that includes additional material from Shaw's Pygmalion.

Knightly, who will star in the West End revival of The Misanthrope in December, was among the first names bandied about when the remake was announced in 2008. A Steady Rain's Daniel Craig has been mentioned as a candidate for Professor Henry Higgins.

"My Fair Lady" is produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Duncan Kenworthy. As previously reported, the creative team intends to film on location in London to give the film an authentic feel. According to a previous statement, producers hope to "dramatize as believably as possible for present-day audiences the emotional highs and lows of Eliza Doolittle as she undergoes the ultimate makeover, transforming under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins from a Cockney flower girl to a lady."

Knightley has appeared on screen in "Atonement," "The Duchess," "The Edge of Love," "Pride and Prejudice," "Bend It Like Beckham," "Domino" and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series.



My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and features a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The original Broadway production opened on March 15, 1956, ran for over six years and won nine Tony Awards, including one for Best Musical. The score contains such Broadway classics as "I Could Have Danced All Night," "On the Street Where You Live," "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" and "Get Me to the Church on Time."
The musical was adapted for the screen in 1963, directed by George Cukor, and cast Audrey Hepburn as Eliza and Rex Harrison as Higgins. The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

Coming Nov 13th: '2010'

Maher v Palin

Josh's Jukebox: Reparata and the Delrons

Josh's Jukebox: the Shangri-Las

What I'm Watching Tonight

What I'm Watching Tonight

A Look Back at 'Brokeback Mountain'

What I'm Watching Tonight

My Friend John Barrowman: ''Company"

Kelly Ellis: 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

is there nothing this woman can't sing?

'If I Had a Hammer'

an early black and white video of peter, paul and mary

Lara Fabian: 'Piece of Sky'

Supremes: 'Stoned Love'

Mary Travers

i'm waxing nostalgic today. As the years fly by and the birthdays mount up and the mirror becomes my 'enemy' it is a moment like mary's passing that i truly realize my youth is forever gone. Yet it also reinforces the joy i have in the man i've become. a man who sees social injustice and wants to change it. and who has always fought to do so. a man who sees that all men and women are equal. a man who hates racism and war. all war. all racism. guess this is why i hate republicans also.

peter, paul and the beautiful and charming mary travers helped form me and my beliefs through their music and the truth they showed in the songs they chose to sing. they, along with the amazing joan baez, introduced me to bob dylan. hell that would have been enough. they also taught me the natural wonder and beauty of harmony. harmony in music and the harmony in mankind that might exist if we only cared enough and tried a bit harder.

one summer night in forest hills stadium...everything was perfect. the weather, the star shine and the moonlight. the music, the singers and my open heart. i was transfixed and transformed as i watched and listened to peter, paul and mary live. for the first time.


''leaving on a jet plane'' was mary's chance to fly solo and shine.




''puff the magic dragon'': the ode to marijuana for those of us who wanted it to be that.




"where have all the flowers gone" :an anti war song that sounded gently but protested loudly.



"blowing in the wind" asked the questions our hearts and minds had to answer. unfortunately most people answered wrong.



''the times they are a changing'' is the one song my parents wish i had never heard. i took up it's battle cry and there was no turning back. everything changed for me. no society, religion or mass think tank would ever own me again. i started to become a free thinker...a happy intellectual. i became an adult. i have no regrets.
5

''day is done'': a lullaby for children and adults alike. and damn if we still don't know when each and every day is still done.



''the great mandela'': the lyric spoke to what many dads and sons go through. different generations when values of war and peace collide. it caused difficulty in my family and yet we all came out the better for it as the years went flying by.



rest in peace mary. you and your friends peter and paul helped influence a generation...well those of us who listened.

'Bones' Returns Tonight and the Summer TV Doldrums Are Past

R.I.P. Mary Travers

(a full tribute is being prepared)

They're Back...Thank Heaven

R.I.P. Patrick

Pearl Bailey

Congratulations Tina on Your Emmy Win

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Liz Calloway: 'Losing My Mind'

Madonna: 'American Pie'

'New Rules'

Emily Litella on Puerto Rico

John Barrowman" 'All I Ask of You'

Top Ten Joe Wilson Excuses

Keith's Special Comment on 'Old Yeller'

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Roseanne Rosannadanna on Smoking

Amber: 'Sexual'

Lara Fabian: 'Papa Can You Hear Me' & 'A Piece of Sky'

Liz and Ann Calloway: 'Sibling Revelry"

John Barrowman in Concert

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Celebrating Deborah Kerr

a josh production

september 6th. a most appropriate day to salute and celebrate deborah. today would have been my godmother's birthday. without her i might not have known deborah early in my life or appreciated her grace, beauty and talent early on. thanks aunt tessie and i hope you and deborah are resting peacefully.

John Barrowman: 'Being Alive'

Dave Goes After The Great White Pig. AGAIN!!! Bravo Dave!

Audra and Patti

I Think I'm in Love with Levi!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Madonna: 'Celebration'

Today Is My Birthday. Indulge Me.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Trisha Yearwood: 'There Goes My Baby'

(500) Days of Summer: The Music Video

(500) Days of Mark Sanford

Celebrating Bette Davis

President Delivers the Eulogy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

President Obama's Eulogy For Ted Kennedy

Eulogy for Edward Kennedy



Mrs. Kennedy, Kara, Edward, Patrick, Curran, Caroline, members of the Kennedy family, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Today we say goodbye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy. The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic Party; and the lion of the U.S. Senate - a man whose name graces nearly one thousand laws, and who penned more than three hundred himself.

But those of us who loved him, and ache with his passing, know Ted Kennedy by the other titles he held: Father. Brother. Husband. Uncle Teddy, or as he was often known to his younger nieces and nephews, "The Grand Fromage," or "The Big Cheese." I, like so many others in the city where he worked for nearly half a century, knew him as a colleague, a mentor, and above all, a friend.

Ted Kennedy was the baby of the family who became its patriarch; the restless dreamer who became its rock. He was the sunny, joyful child, who bore the brunt of his brothers' teasing, but learned quickly how to brush it off. When they tossed him off a boat because he didn't know what a jib was, six-year-old Teddy got back in and learned to sail. When a photographer asked the newly-elected Bobby to step back at a press conference because he was casting a shadow on his younger brother, Teddy quipped, "It'll be the same in Washington."

This spirit of resilience and good humor would see Ted Kennedy through more pain and tragedy than most of us will ever know. He lost two siblings by the age of sixteen. He saw two more taken violently from the country that loved them. He said goodbye to his beloved sister, Eunice, in the final days of his own life. He narrowly survived a plane crash, watched two children struggle with cancer, buried three nephews, and experienced personal failings and setbacks in the most public way possible.

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It is a string of events that would have broken a lesser man. And it would have been easy for Teddy to let himself become bitter and hardened; to surrender to self-pity and regret; to retreat from public life and live out his years in peaceful quiet. No one would have blamed him for that.

But that was not Ted Kennedy. As he told us, "...[I]ndividual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in - and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves." Indeed, Ted was the "Happy Warrior" that the poet William Wordsworth spoke of when he wrote:

As tempted more; more able to endure,

As more exposed to suffering and distress;

Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.

Through his own suffering, Ted Kennedy became more alive to the plight and suffering of others - the sick child who could not see a doctor; the young soldier sent to battle without armor; the citizen denied her rights because of what she looks like or who she loves or where she comes from. The landmark laws that he championed -- the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, immigration reform, children's health care, the Family and Medical Leave Act -all have a running thread. Ted Kennedy's life's work was not to champion those with wealth or power or special connections. It was to give a voice to those who were not heard; to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity; to make real the dream of our founding. He was given the gift of time that his brothers were not, and he used that gift to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow.

We can still hear his voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium, a veritable force of nature, in support of health care or workers' rights or civil rights. And yet, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning rod, that is not the prism through which Ted Kennedy saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw him. He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect - a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots.

And that's how Ted Kennedy became the greatest legislator of our time. He did it by hewing to principle, but also by seeking compromise and common cause - not through deal-making and horse-trading alone, but through friendship, and kindness, and humor. There was the time he courted Orrin Hatch's support for the Children's Health Insurance Program by having his Chief of Staff serenade the Senator with a song Orrin had written himself; the time he delivered shamrock cookies on a china plate to sweeten up a crusty Republican colleague; and the famous story of how he won the support of a Texas Committee Chairman on an immigration bill. Teddy walked into a meeting with a plain manila envelope, and showed only the Chairman that it was filled with the Texan's favorite cigars. When the negotiations were going well, he would inch the envelope closer to the Chairman. When they weren't, he would pull it back. Before long, the deal was done.

It was only a few years ago, on St. Patrick's Day, when Teddy buttonholed me on the floor of the Senate for my support on a certain piece of legislation that was coming up for vote. I gave him my pledge, but expressed my skepticism that it would pass. But when the roll call was over, the bill garnered the votes it needed, and then some. I looked at Teddy with astonishment and asked how he had pulled it off. He just patted me on the back, and said "Luck of the Irish!"

Of course, luck had little to do with Ted Kennedy's legislative success, and he knew that. A few years ago, his father-in-law told him that he and Daniel Webster just might be the two greatest senators of all time. Without missing a beat, Teddy replied, "What did Webster do?"

But though it is Ted Kennedy's historic body of achievements we will remember, it is his giving heart that we will miss. It was the friend and colleague who was always the first to pick up the phone and say, "I'm sorry for your loss," or "I hope you feel better," or "What can I do to help?" It was the boss who was so adored by his staff that over five hundred spanning five decades showed up for his 75th birthday party. It was the man who sent birthday wishes and thank you notes and even his own paintings to so many who never imagined that a U.S. Senator would take the time to think about someone like them. I have one of those paintings in my private study - a Cape Cod seascape that was a gift to a freshman legislator who happened to admire it when Ted Kennedy welcomed him into his office the first week he arrived in Washington; by the way, that's my second favorite gift from Teddy and Vicki after our dog Bo. And it seems like everyone has one of those stories - the ones that often start with "You wouldn't believe who called me today."

Ted Kennedy was the father who looked after not only his own three children, but John's and Bobby's as well. He took them camping and taught them to sail. He laughed and danced with them at birthdays and weddings; cried and mourned with them through hardship and tragedy; and passed on that same sense of service and selflessness that his parents had instilled in him. Shortly after Ted walked Caroline down the aisle and gave her away at the altar, he received a note from Jackie that read, "On you the carefree youngest brother fell a burden a hero would have begged to be spared. We are all going to make it because you were always there with your love."

Not only did the Kennedy family make it because of Ted's love - he made it because of theirs; and especially because of the love and the life he found in Vicki. After so much loss and so much sorrow, it could not have been easy for Ted Kennedy to risk his heart again. That he did is a testament to how deeply he loved this remarkable woman from Louisiana. And she didn't just love him back. As Ted would often acknowledge, Vicki saved him. She gave him strength and purpose; joy and friendship; and stood by him always, especially in those last, hardest days.

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God's plan for us.

What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings.

This is how Ted Kennedy lived. This is his legacy. He once said of his brother Bobby that he need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, and I imagine he would say the same about himself. The greatest expectations were placed upon Ted Kennedy's shoulders because of who he was, but he surpassed them all because of who he became. We do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office. We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy - not for the sake of ambition or vanity; not for wealth or power; but only for the people and the country he loved.

In the days after September 11th, Teddy made it a point to personally call each one of the 177 families of this state who lost a loved one in the attack. But he didn't stop there. He kept calling and checking up on them. He fought through red tape to get them assistance and grief counseling. He invited them sailing, played with their children, and would write each family a letter whenever the anniversary of that terrible day came along. To one widow, he wrote the following:

"As you know so well, the passage of time never really heals the tragic memory of such a great loss, but we carry on, because we have to, because our loved one would want us to, and because there is still light to guide us in the world from the love they gave us."

We carry on.

Ted Kennedy has gone home now, guided by his faith and by the light of those he has loved and lost. At last he is with them once more, leaving those of us who grieve his passing with the memories he gave, the good he did, the dream he kept alive, and a single, enduring image - the image of a man on a boat; white mane tousled; smiling broadly as he sails into the wind, ready for what storms may come, carrying on toward some new and wondrous place just beyond the horizon. May God Bless Ted Kennedy, and may he rest in eternal peace.