Screening Liberally Blog

Sometimes defeat is victory.

That will be the story when California's vile Proposition 8 gets defeated, leaving marriage equality in place in that state.

The folks on No On 8 are working hard to promote awareness of why Prop 8 is such a bad idea. But a political campaign isn't the only way to tell a story.

Films like Freeheld -- which tells the story of a police officer dying of cancer and her partner being denied benefits because they are the same sex -- help. It won the Academy Award, and now screenings around the country are calling attention to discriminatory laws and how they affect people in real ways.

San Francisco's Screening Liberally hosted a showing of Freeheld this weekend. Check out the trailer.

Discussing this film is one more way to remind people to vote No On 8.

Screening Liberally Big Picture
by Katie Halper

(Disclaimer: Katie's interview subject, director Matt O'Neill, is also a co-founder of Living Liberally.)

Most Americans have never heard of Section 60, let alone visited it. But tonight, thanks to filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matt O’Neill, you can get a glimpse of the area in Arlington National Cemetery where the men and women who have died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are buried. Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery is the third of a trilogy of collaborations between the filmmakers and HBO that capture the costs of the current wars. Section 60, in fact, picks up where Baghdad ER left off. The tragic death from shrapnel wounds of 21-year-old Lance Cpl. Robert T. Mininger comes at the unforgettable end of Baghdad ER. Their latest documentary opens with a mother visiting the grave of her son “Bobby.” Unlike like the action-packed Baghdad ER or the stylized Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq, Section 60 offers an almost unmediated view into the lives of the men and women, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, who, week after week, day after day, find solace, community, and a place to grieve visiting their lost loved ones in Section 60.

The Emmy Award-winning directors are based in NY out of DCTV. Yesterday they were in Washington D.C. to attend a special TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) screening of their film at the Navy Memorial. I caught up with Alpert and O’Neill over the phone as they got ready for the screening and talked to me about why Section 60 matters now, how making this film affected them in a way no other documentary has, and what it’s like feeling “trapped in Section 60.”

Check out Section 60 on HBO at the screening times linked here.

Exciting news -- next Tuesday, October 14th, Screening Liberally invites you to the NY premiere of W. - the Oliver Stone flick about the man who brought so many of us into politics.

We promise it won't be a lame night as we roast this lame duck. Come and join us.

You will need a pass -- and to get it, you've got to come to us.

Get your complimentary pass for two by coming to:
- Drinking Liberally - Thursday Oct 9th - 7:30 onward at Rudy's on 9th between 44th & 45th
- Laughing Liberally - Monday Oct 13th - 8pm at The Grisley Pear on MacDougal between Bleecker and West 3rd.

We'll be giving out 50 passes at each event. And passes don't guarantee admission -- you'll still need to get there a little early. While we can't yet tell you where it will be, we can say it will be at a midtown Manhattan theater at 7:30pm.

We will have a happy hour post-film TBA.

More about "W.":

Whether you love him or hate him, there is no question that George W. Bush is one of the most controversial public figures in recent memory. In an unprecedented undertaking, acclaimed director Oliver Stone is bringing the life of our 43rd President to the big screen as only he can. W. takes viewers through Bush's eventful life -- his struggles and triumphs, how he found both his wife and his faith, and of course the critical days leading up to his decision to invade Iraq.

Screening Liberally Big Picture
by Josh Bolotsky

If you went to a public high school, then you've met this kid before. It's that simple.

You know the one - trying so hard to sell himself as the pervy class clown with a secret heart of gold. The routine is simple enough: he makes a few unsavory wisecracks cracks about gonorrhea during health class, but, when lunchtime rolls around, he can be found sitting alone at the table towards the back of the cafeteria, writing feverishly in a mead composition journal, trying so hard to look pained and, well, sensitive, earnest, quietly perceptive and bittersweetly melancholic without seeming too lugubrious.

In other words, hoping against hope that someone will ask him what, exactly, he's writing, so he can half-smile, blush as he looks at the floor and stage-mutters, "just some poem, it's not, I mean, it's nothing special." Hoping against hope that the inquisitor will let out a wide-eyed and wide-grinned non-ironic "Really...?" and beg to read it. And when, after much further faux-protestation, he gives in and does read a verse, the whole school, nay, the whole town will see what a vibrant, insightful heart he really has, will see that he's not just this joker in an 80s metal t-shirt - it just takes one poem read out loud in a cafeteria and they'll all overlook his awful remarks about his female classmates' bodies, all the gym class "joking" that really constituted a minor reign of terror, and just, somehow, write all of it off as a self-defense mechanism, will just know that he means well and is so inconceivably lonely.

We're unabashed huge fans of Particpant Media - and not just because the Director of Screening Liberally, Wendy Cohen, has found a wonderful home there promoting progressive media (though that certainly doesn't hurt.) It's just that, between An Inconvenient Truth on the climate crisis, The Visitor on post-9/11 xenophobia and Standard Operating Procedure on Abu Ghraib and the mindset that allowed it, they're doing such a great job fulfilling their mission statement as a production company with a conscience, spreading a progressive message with a spoonful of sugar when necessary.

Which is why we were so overjoyed to read this:

Los Angeles-based entertainment company Participant Media has partnered with imagenation abu dhabi to create a $250 million fund that will finance 15 - 18 narrative features over five years, Jim Berk, CEO of Participant and Edward Brogerding, CEO of Abu Dhabi Comany and imagenation announced Wednesday.

Tonight at the Liberal Lounge, we'll be watching Palin's speech, enjoying complimentary drinks and food, lounging in the garden, and generally treating ourselves the way lobbyists and power-brokers are often treated...but we'll be doing it our way.

That means it's a party for citizen journalists (bloggers), citizen delegates (activists), and citizen lobbyists -- all of us.

Participant Media is encouraging all of us to become Citizen Lobbyists -- with a new site tied to their upcoming film "Casino Jack."

Check it out -- and we'll be checking out clips from Participant tonight at the Lounge. We'll be watching scenes from Chicago Ten -- check it out below:

Why are we all so excited about Rachel Maddow? News of her being tapped for own MSNBC program has excited the progressive grassroots/netroots, leading Living Liberally's blog to be "All Maddow, All the Time" today in her honor.

So what's the big deal?

Well, first of all, Maddow demonstrations that someone can graduate from the world of "progressive media" into a role in the "mainstream" media. People across the country know Maddow -- if not from her stints on Air America, then from her confrontations with Pat Buchanan and take-down Joe Scarborough. She has become a brand, a recognizable name and face, and -- according to that ultimate arbiter, the bottom-line of business-driven MSNBC -- a bankable commodity.

This is a great success for progressive media, and the components of it that had promoted Maddow at different parts in her career. And it's a signal to other smart, funny, liberal personalities that there is an avenue to advance their careers and their ideas.

Second, Maddow is a team player. She respects and engages the progressive movement. We, at Living Liberally, experienced that friendship when she wrote a guest post for Screening Liberally on her recommended weekend video rentals, and when she joined us for our 5th Anniversary party in May.

When we've asked her to participate, she's participated. That's a great quality.

And finally, it a strong, left-leaning voice will reach the homes of many more Americans. Yes, there are satiric news programs that do a great job challenging right-wing dominance, and some broadcasters like Keith Olbermann who challenge the administration, but we're still short on proud progressive personalities in the spotlight. The right has them. Now we have one more too.

Part of building a progressive movement is ensuring there are structures that recognize and promote talent: whether candidates, organizers or commentators. Maddow's next move shows that some of these structures are in place...we need to keep making them work.

And we need to tune in to MSNBC on Monday, September 8th at 9pm to help keep Maddow on the air.

Congratulations.