(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

I forgot to mention that a couple of weeks ago I saw Live Free or Die Hard and it's like the ultimate fetishization of Centrist American Politics. You have the tough, no-bullshit John MacLaine who is so Bruce Willis that you just know that he votes Republican (but in that "good old-fashioned" way, cf everyone who set up a meaningless binary between Reagan and the neocons), and you have his young geeky sidekick, hipster in a Seth Cohen sort of nerdy way, the target demographic of the NPR/Utne Reader/Alternet media conglomerette (he knows that the war on terror is all about the oil), who has some vague cyber-CrimethInc aspirations. Together they defeat America from seemingly-leftist-radicals-who-are-not-really-leftist-radicals but who serve to make the ideas of the anarchist hackers etc. seem ridiculous (also Fire Sale? Clever concept, Hollywood Writers, The Rev may need to appropriate it), and who are not Arabic Terrists, but rather rogue Homeland Security drones. What IS the message of this movie? The Enemy Lurks Within? DHS is fucking retarded? Anarchists are naive and misguided and easily exploited? Patriotism trumps politics? The two parties need to reach out across the aisle and work together?

Also those portable roll-up keyboards? Do they exist? If they do, I would like one. It seems like the sort of thing that would be sold on thinkgeek.com

Comments

[monkeypunk.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen the movie, but was it this?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yes! that is awesome! I want one! I don't know what for, but I want it.

[monkeypunk.livejournal.com]

To roll it up and jam it under something small of course.

And possibly to dump juice on.

[todfox.livejournal.com]

The best thing about that movie was the laughable computer technology (explosive viruses, mostly). the keyboards are real in on form or another.

You did a good job of echoing my thoughts on this one. That moment when the geek realizes how wrong he's been because Bruce waxes poetic about all the family's scared at home. Yay fear -- we need people like Bruce Willis to protect us from fear!