At least you got my gist. Written late at night; I'll fix.

On the ugliness of D-Crash: Well, I didn't want to come out and say it. Shane West does a credible job of impersonating Darby, but he's WAY too pretty for the part. I think the other stuff I mentioned, like the movie's lack of a convincing social context or (here I go with the pretentious BS) philosophical/artistic vision, is more of a problem. But I guess you could say they're connected.

I didn't want to drag the review down my own memory hole, but I agree that there were other, arguably more *musically* interesting bands from that period and that marginal little scene. You guys have mentioned several. I'm from SF, not LA, so I was more familiar with the Avengers and (a couple years later) Flipper. I was briefly roommates with a dude from the Zeroes! And obviously there was X, a great band that rapidly transcended anything connected to punk or "hardcore" (a word not much in use until the early 80s, I think).

I never saw the Germs (not too many other people did either), and I wouldn't call myself a fan. The L.A. punk scene was scarier than shit; I saw Fear and Black Flag and I think the Circle Jerks and other bands I'm not sure about, and was always grateful to go home with all my teeth and only minor bruising. Still, you see Darby in the Spheeris film and you get why he & that band were "important." Like I say above, he epitomized the ultimate fuck-everybody nihilism of that LA scene more perfectly than anyone else. There was a debased purity about him, a certain terrible, self-destructive romance. He was like the Rimbaud or the Alfred Jarry of white-trash, smack-shooting California.

So I think he's a great subject for a movie, and I don't want to be too mean about this one. Glad it exists, impressive they made it, etc. Even if it's kinda too much of a love letter.

I think I've made it pretty clear that I'm agnostic as to whether the many problems with the 2004 election rise to the level of widespread theft and fraud. I say clearly that it remains possible but seems improbable, and that the election will always appear tainted as a result.

Nowhere do I conclude that the election was clearly "fair and valid" or refuse to consider other scenarios. A few letter-writers either never read my review or skimmed it, which is par for the course.

What I specifically object to in "Stealing America" is a total refusal to engage with any contrary or contradictory evidence. Dorothy Fadiman includes charges that have been fully investigated and debunked (e.g., the "secret" count in Warren County, Ohio -- which in fact occurred with four officials present, two from each party) and some essentially bogus issues (the discrepancy between the Census Bureau's report on who voted and the actual number of votes recorded) alongside some genuinely troublesome and unresolved issues (the exit-poll discrepancy and the anecdotal evidence of electronic vote-switching) and those that are far less controversial (like the long lines and the general incompetence, inadequacy and racial-demographic bias of the system).

She never at any point allows anyone who does not believe that the election was probably or possibly fixed to respond to any of these charges, leaving the viewer with the impression that there are no legitimate statisticians, computer experts, political scientists or pollsters who hold other views. That isn't journalism or documentary filmmaking; it's advocacy and pretty shoddy advocacy at that. If some right-winger made a film about the Iraq war that only featured its supporters and behaved as if other views didn't exist, (s)he'd be rightfully pilloried. (I know, that was the entire media up to mid-2004, but let's move on.)

Furthermore, this reflects a small but consistent current on the left that has adopted a dogmatic belief about that ugly and murky election (and about many other things too). I suppose it's reassuring to reject out of hand the possibility that a majority of voters actually convinced themselves to vote for Bush, given the questions that raises about our country, its two-party system and perhaps the nature of democracy. It may also be comforting to shove away the only certainty about that election: That it was a bad business, and we'll never really know how bad.

... but what's the point of snide and superior neocon sniping if the details are all wrong?

I know our conservative brethren have issues with understanding complicated facts, but >>Chick Vampire Television made into movie, something about George Bush and a gay Egyptian<< isn't even close. It's a Chick Vampire novel (or series of novels) made into a movie. And Youssef Chahine wasn't gay. He was married but widely understood to be bisexual, perhaps a concept difficult for the Manichaean brain to comprehend.

FWIW, readers, I don't fully endorse Michael Atkinson's take on TDK, or at least his larger take on superhero movies. I just thought it was funny: I used to be Mike's editor at Spin, and I know his tastes. As soon as I saw that he'd finally gotten around to that movie, I knew it'd be juicy. I think his description of TDK as a chaotic, semi-plotless pileup of incidents is correct, and I do see value in trying to decode why certain kinds of escapist entertainment predominate in different periods. But I have no huge problem with superhero movies, per se. I liked Tim Burton's Batman, and the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man was decent. Oh, and the first X-Men was cool, of course. Still haven't seen Iron Man or Hellboy 2 (too busy with those homosexual Croatian films!) but looking forward to both. I've always enjoyed the failed, just-above-B superhero movies that don't quite click; I can (sort of) defend the Ang Lee Hulk movie, and I remember liking Daredevil, though I don't remember why.