As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit addicted to MSNBC, mostly because it’s where loose-canon conservatives go to fade away. So I’ve been watching it, like, a lot. And I know they’re working live without a script, but is that really an excuse for the whole team to fall back on the Chris Matthews gold standard of dragging metaphors out of movies? In the past 12 hours, I’ve heard Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell and Joe Scarborough all compare Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech to The American President, the Rob Reiner/Aaron Sorkin political romantic dramedy starring Michael Douglas and Annette Benning.

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At a panel on progressive media (and specifically Chris Moore’s film based on Howard Zinn’s A Peoples History of the United States, Josh Brolin commented on his arrest earlier this summer at a bar near the set of W, in which he plays the title role.

“I was arrested, and it was basically because I was standing up for someone, speaking out on something I thought was wrong. And what happens when you speak out? You go to jail.”

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“Lee Atwater destroyed the business of politics by going negative,” said Terry MacAuliffe yesterday, introducing an Impact Film Festival screening of Stefan Forbes’ Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. “Democrats don’t fight hard enough. They play tougher on the other side. The bottom line is that these guys will do anything to win.”

Forbes’ film, which caused such a ruckus at its premiere in June at the Los Angeles Film Festival, essentially functions as an ideological ink blot––people see what they want in it. It’s possible (and, based on the director’s comments after the film, probably preferred) to see Boogie Man as a vicious indictment of the political operative who mentored Karl Rove and George W. Bush whilst helping the latter’s father overcome the Iran Contra scandal to win the presidency, destroying Michael Dukakis’ political career in the process. But Forbes, to his credit, also clearly explicates Atwater’s appeal. You might need to put blinders on a bit, but it would be possible to walk away from this film cheering McCain to turn Obama into the new Dukakis

In fact, after the screening, Forbes acknowledged that there are lessons the left could learn from the enemy. “When a fight gets dirty, do you have to join? If you just play defense, you end up looking guilty. You have to turn the attacks into a referendum on the other party.”

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Driving past Inesco Field again today, I noticed that there are actually TWO billboards for Oliver Stone’s W across the street from where Barack Obama will give his big speech this week. One facing traffic from each direction.

I’ll upload some more photos to flickr later, including documentation of Gloria Alred, caught in a mob of Hillary supporters chanting references to the Dixie Chicks. But now, off to a screening of the Lee Atwater doc that infanously premiered at LAFF a couple of months back…

So far all of my fears about this trip to Denver– that my flight would never make it out of JFK, that I’d get stuck in a traffic jam trying to get into downtown Denver, that the Secret service would decide I had insufficient credentials and throw me in a secret DNC prison–have been proven to be totally unfounded. 90 minutes after my plane landed (early!), I was sitting in the Starz Green Room, eating brie, awaiting my first Impact Film Festival screening. Maybe the Democrats can run the world after all.

The photo above? That’s in front of the security checkpoint outside the Denver Film Center. At some point I’ll try to get a pic of the billboard for Oliver Stone’s W, which sits right on the highway opposite the football stadium where Obama will speak on Thursday. The Starz! employee who drove me to the Film Center sighed as we passed by, “I never thought I’d see Brand from Goonies playing the President of the United States.” Did you?

• Tropic Thunder held up much better than expected in its second week, declining just 38% to take in $16.1 million. Its $16.1 was just enough to overcome The House Bunny’s $15.1. Meanwhile, The Rocker, The Longshots and Death Race basically bombed, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona proved that implied threesomes sell in the Midwest.
• Ted Johnson has a long roundup of various celebrity-oriented events at the Democratic National Convention, to which I am en route as you read this. From the sound of things, the stars are outnumbered by journalists cranky about long lines, credential complications, and Port-a-Potties.
• Despite the steady growth of outlets offering rentals or downloads of feature films, Scott Kirsner notes that many classic films (like Citizen Kane) and recent major blockbusters (like the Shrek films) are only available online illegally.

On Monday, I’m flying to Denver to spend a couple of days hanging around the Democratic National Convention before heading up to Telluride on Thursday. If I was reading that sentence unawares, two questions would inevitably come to mind. First: “Why, Karina, are you going to a political event when you have a movie blog to write?”

Answer: there actually are two major film events happening over the three days that I’ll be in town. The first, the Denver Film Society production Cinemocracy (previously mentioned here), will screen ten finalists in a short film competition that’s been winnowing down submissions online for months. You can watch the films and vote for your favorites here.

The second event is the Impact Film Festival. Founded this year by Jody Arlington, Jamie Shor and Kimball Stroud, IFF will screen “socially-themed documentary and dramatic films” every day at both the DNC and RNC. Films on the program include Battle in Seattle, I.O.U.S.A., and Flow. Check out the Bside page for info on the full lineup.

The second question is a bit trickier.

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• Oscilloscope, the fledgling distribution label spearheaded by the Beastie Boy formerly known as MCA, has picked up Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, which premiered at Cannes to raves from some but measured praise from me. It’ll open at Film Forum on December 10. If his boys don’t try to push Michelle Williams for an Oscar nod the same year her baby daddy has a posthumous nomination all but locked down, Adam Yauch needs to check his head.
• People are still spending money they don’t have on a movie they don’t need. Also: Christian Bale says he didn’t hit his sister and mom, and London police released him yesterday after questioning. Does that mean he’ll show up at Comic-Con to promote his new Terminator movie?!!?? You’re a horrible person for even suggesting such a thing.
• Ted Johnson has details on the many film oriented events happening at the Democratic National Convention next month––or, as he calls it, “the Sundance of politics.” I think I might go and cover them. Would you like that?
• Sophia from Golden Girls, ie Estelle Getty, has died.
• Blah blah blah the guy who made Hancock, blah blah blah something about Hercules…?