DNC 08.

"So what, exactly, will be the role of celebrity during the week of the Democratic National Convention?" asks Ted Johnson for Variety. "The easy answer: Causes. In fact, outside the convention hall itself, it will be a veritable ComicCon of causes, as dozens upon dozens of events are slated throughout the week promoting everything from African poverty relief to the plight of war veterans to the world trade imbalance." Ted also blogs at Wilshire & Washington, the "intersection of entertainment and politics." Yesterday's question: "The industry is lining up behind Barack Obama, but one question seldom gets asked: Will he be 'good' for Hollywood?"

5280? The Denver magazine takes its name from the number of feet its city rises above sea level. And it'll be all over the Convention.

Updated through 8/31.

Michael Guillén previews the Impact Film Festival, running for three days starting today in Denver and then moving on to the Twin Cities for the Republican National Convention and running there September 1 through 4. Michael: "Discussions will include the national debt, fair trade, Hurricane Katrina, stem-cell research, homelessness, and global water politics. Films screening include Accidental Advocate, Battle in Seattle, The Black List, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, Flow, Freeheld, I.O.U.S.A., Kicking It, Robert Kennedy Remembered, Trouble the Water and 14 Women."

David Carr, aka the Carpetbagger, that is, the New York Times' Oscar blogger, will be poking around both parties' conventions, but first: "Denver is large and still growing and clearly wants the convention to be a hit, but people are not interested in knocking the metaphorical manure off their boots. Yes, there are abundant business, culinary and artistic amenities, but Denver is still cow-town proud."

David Leonhardt on "Obamanomics" in the NYT Magazine: "Depending on how you look at it, he is both more left-wing and more right-wing than many people realize."

In These Times senior editor David Moberg is struggling with that.

"Even after his breakout into national prominence, Obama has remained a largely unknown politician whose air of destiny can make him seem distant and opaque. Yet, by listening closely to his language, I think we can learn something about who he really is." In the New Republic, literary critic Andrew Delbanco reads Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

More DNC special coverage: The American Prospect (blogs), the Nation and the Guardian. And the Washington Post.

Online viewing tip. "The biographical film has become a key component of political conventions. It may be crucial for Barack Obama." Jim Rutenberg for the NYT. The film by Davis Guggenheim (Inconvenient Truth) debuts tonight Thursday night.

Online viewing tips. Lots and lots at Cinemocracy.

Updates: For the New Republic, Nicole Allan and Bess Kalb poll "12 of the nation's most influential political journalists" to determine the best coverage of the primary season in six categories.

"After traveling across the country to glean perspectives from artists and activists on the state of democracy, Creative Time's year-long program Democracy in America: The National Campaign will culminate in the "Convergence Center": a major exhibition in the historic rooms of New York City's landmark Park Avenue Armor with speeches on democracy by artists, political thinkers, community leaders, and activists throughout its run."

Online viewing tip. Michael Hogan's got one that makes everyone involved look very, very silly.

Updates, 8/26: IndieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez reports from the Impact Film Festival.

Speeches: Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama.

Andrew Sullivan gathers reactions to Michelle Obama's speech here (that one's an online viewing tip), here, here, here and here.

Online viewing tip. "John Harwood of the New York Times and CNBC looks back at Democratic conventions in the modern era." Great stuff.

Slate indexes its coverage.

"A short film salute to veterans produced by Steven Spielberg will be shown on Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention," reports Ted Johnson. "Spielberg endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primaries, but is now supporting Obama. He and his partners in DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, may throw a fund-raiser for the candidate in September."

Updates, 8/27: Hillary Clinton's speech. Reactions: Ryan Wu; and again, Andrew Sullivan gathers more.

Karina Longworth is in Denver, watching docs for the SpoutBlog.

Online viewing tip. Slate: "Fox vs MSNBC: Michelle's Speech."

Stefan Forbes's Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, "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," writes Karina Longworth in the SpoutBlog. "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's 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."

Max Winter, poet and poetry editor for Fence, at the House Next Door:

When asked if there was room for cynicism at this election, [Bill Maher] managed to stump both Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews by replying, "Yes." He's not wrong about the Americans, really, and he's not really wrong about our right to look askance at events like this one. Poets William Butler Yeats and Delmore Schwartz tell us, "in dreams begin responsibilities," and this election year, we have quite a few dreams - with no lasting guarantee that the responsibilities will be carried out. It's all very well for the Democrats to congratulate themselves - what else is a convention for? But after the convention, what lies beyond that sort of self-congratulation?

Gabriel Shanks is rattled by a CNN moment: "It shocked me beyond anything I've ever experienced in politics, and I've been thinking about it all day. I can't shake it."

Online viewing tip. Three and a half minutes with New York Times staff photographer Damon Winter.

Updates, 8/28: "Alongside the thousands of journalists reporting on the Democratic National Convention here in Denver, teams of filmmakers have been fanning out across the city to tell stories that might otherwise be overlooked," reports indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez. "AJ Schnack (Kurt Cobain About a Son) has tapped a cadre of acclaimed indie filmmakers to shoot a feature doc about the convention. Meanwhile, George Hickenlooper (The Mayor of Sunset Strip, Hearts of Darkness) is tracking his cousin, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, while directors Amy Rice and Alicia Sams continue making their insider documentary about Democratic nominee Barack Obama. Today, indieWIRE visited Schnack and other indie filmmakers 'on set' at the convention, while also catching up with other DNC-related docs."

Speeches: Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and John Kerry. Chris Suellentrop (NYT) gathers reactions; more from Walter Shapiro in Salon.

The Guardian's Xan Brooks issues a casting call: Who should play Hillary, Bill or Joe?

"The film related-events surrounding the 2008 Democratic Convention reached their zenith on Wednesday with a pair of sessions devoted to The People Speak, Project Greenlight/Good Will Hunting producer Chris Moore's theatrical documentary inspired by the writings of Howard Zinn, which has its official premiere next week at the Toronto International Film Festival." Karina Longworth reports at the SpoutBlog.

Updates, 8/29: First and foremost, of course, Barack Obama. Reactions to the speech: John Dickerson (Slate), Charles Mudede (Stranger) and the New York Times.

Jon Taplin has Davis Guggenheim's ten-minute biographical introduction to the speech.

And Jeffrey Wells has another online viewing tip, noting that "MSNBC's Keith Olbermann compared aspects of [the speech] to Michael Douglas's speech (written by Aaron Sorkin) at the end of The American President. I just re-watched this finale; Olbermann isn't wrong."

The AP reports that more than 38 million people watched the speech on TV, more than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, the American Idol finale or - and this is hardly a surprise - the Academy Awards.

Al Gore spoke, too.

A New York Times roundup: "Recollections from past Democratic conventions, from former presidential nominees, running mates, candidates and strategists."

The Stranger: "Slogging Toward 2008."

Claire Messud for Newsweek:

When I told people I'd be following the Obama campaign for a week, their envy was palpable, their curiosity intense - this in spite of, or perhaps because of, all the hype. Even my friend whose disappointment over Hillary is such that she has said she will not vote at all - even she got excited. McCain's campaign can mock Obama's celebrity - can make it, indeed, their principal complaint - precisely because he has become a celebrity, in a way simply impossible for John McCain.

[...]

For anyone to offer Americans a practicable alternative to the long, dark years of fear and shame that we have latterly endured ought to be enough to swing the election. If, for Obama, it still hangs in the balance, it's because his appeal is precisely, in Weber's terms, charismatic. That charisma creates his authority, an authority that does not exist without him; and authority is what he needs to win votes, rather than just attention. The trouble is, in our celebrity-obsessed culture, the charisma is what we focus on.

Jennifer Kabat traces the history of campaign buttons for Frieze.

Update, 8/31: Online viewing tip. Ok, this is funny. From Matt Dentler.

Posted by dwhudson at August 25, 2008 5:43 AM