Speaking of United States Presidents...

No Comments

• Grant L says:

  November 7, 2012 at 10:54 am

  Great review, with only one cor­rec­tion: should­n’t “It’s his prudent coun­cil..” be “coun­sel”? Or am I just ignor­ant of that usage of “coun­cil”?

• Glenn Kenny says:

  November 7, 2012 at 11:13 am

  No, “coun­cil” is used prop­erly, as in “advice” but I guess by writ­ing “It’s his prudent coun­cil” I could be seen as refer­ring to Seward in rela­tion to Lincoln, but what I’m say­ing is that Seward’s seem­ingly prudent advice is that Lincoln wait things out.

• Josh Z says:

  November 7, 2012 at 2:06 pm

  I believe that Grant is still cor­rect. “Counsel” is advice or the act of giv­ing advice. “Council” is a group of people who act in an advis­ory or legis­lat­ive capacity.

• Glenn Kenny says:

  November 7, 2012 at 2:34 pm

  Thanks. I don’t know what else to say. This has been a busy over­heated time with a lot of per­son­al con­cerns that I haven’t dis­cussed because I just con­sider it unseemly. I sup­pose I have been even more mis­take prone than usu­al. I’m going to leave it at that.

• Tom Block says:

  November 7, 2012 at 4:09 pm

  Isn’t “a busy over­heated time” redundant?

• Brian Dauth says:

  November 7, 2012 at 5:03 pm

  What if one is run­ning around in a snowstorm wear­ing only a t‑shirt and gym shorts?

• James says:

  November 7, 2012 at 6:42 pm

  A what? A peri­od piece?

• Tom Carson says:

  November 7, 2012 at 7:38 pm

  Wot, not one men­tion of Jackie Earle Haley? For those of us geek enough to know this or that about Confederate Vice Presidents (mean­ing one), that scene is killah.

• David Ehrenstein says:

  November 8, 2012 at 9:03 am

  I saw it last night and can­not agree with you in any respect. It’s “Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln: The Movie.” And I daresay the auto­maton at Disneyland that rep­lic­ates Lincoln is a lot live­li­er than Daniel Day Lewis.
  It’s all about how slavery was repealed – with African-Americans occa­sion­ally allowed to slide into the dark-mottled-with-patches-of-light com­pos­i­tions (pre­ten­tious and tire­some in the extreme – as if it were a crime to fully light a shot) Slavery may be over along with Jim Crow but clearly Speilberg got these play­ers from “Rent-a-Negro” as they are noth­ing more than cardboard.
  Sally Field is fine as alwayst, but it was exceed­ingly hard to res­ist the temptaton to take a nap dur­ing this thing – cerain to bore high school stu­dents draged their by teir his­tory teach­ers in per­petu­ity. “White Elephant” Art” pre­cisely as Manny Farber described it – in all it’s puffed-up pseudo-glory.

• billythrilly says:

  November 8, 2012 at 10:11 am

  Does any­one else get the feel­ing David Ehrenstein’s posts have so many spelling mis­takes because he’s always chok­ing on his own rage as he types them?

• David Ehrenstein says:

  November 8, 2012 at 10:15 am

  It’s 7:14 and I need anoth­er cup of coffee.
  As for my “rage” go shove it up Dinesh D’Sousa’s flac­cid ass.

• David Ehrenstein says:

  November 8, 2012 at 12:16 pm

  My Two Cents
  http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2012/11/08/abraham-lincoln-oscar-hunter/

• Nikki@jamaicansayings says:

  November 8, 2012 at 5:25 pm

  So many movies have come out recently on Abe Lincoln. I wanted to see one that was actu­ally a sci fi film.
  The only thing that interests me about the cur­rent film, when com­pared to the oth­ers, is that Johnny Quino actu­ally seems to have got­ten a decent role this time. I’m tired of see­ing him made to play a stereotype.

• MDL says:

  November 9, 2012 at 12:26 pm

  What do you know, David Ehrenstein and Rex Reed are in agree­ment on this movie. Ha. I jest. Most of the crit­ics seem to like the film. Looking for­ward to it – fake beards and all.

• Oliver_C says:

  November 10, 2012 at 8:51 am

  I’d say Dinesh D’Souza’s ass is sore enough already (meta­phor­ic­ally speaking).

• J. Priest says:

  November 10, 2012 at 3:26 pm

  “It’s all about how slavery was repealed – with African-Americans occa­sion­ally allowed to slide into the dark-mottled-with-patches-of-light com­pos­i­tions (pre­ten­tious and tire­some in the extreme – as if it were a crime to fully light a shot) Slavery may be over along with Jim Crow but clearly Speilberg got these play­ers from “Rent-a-Negro” as they are noth­ing more than cardboard.”
  I still liked the film, but I think Ehrenstein brought up a val­id point. The African-Americans in “Lincoln” are not much more than con­text, and they cer­tainly don’t feel as real­ized as oth­er sup­port­ing fig­ures in the pic­ture. You can­’t single out “Lincoln” – this is a com­mon prob­lem with a lot of his­tor­ic­al depic­tions of this nature. Spielberg’s oth­er films have been sub­ject to sim­il­ar com­plaints, but you see this all the time else­where, even in documentaries.

• kdringg says:

  November 12, 2012 at 3:26 pm

  Ehrenstein offers very little film cri­ti­cism here oth­er than stat­ing the African-American char­ac­ters are card­board. He then uses a HIGHLY RACIST com­ment about where the Berg got them from.
  Weak.
  Out-smarting the film by list­ing artist­ic choices you clearly would not have made(e.g. light­ing) is not quite accept­able film cri­ti­cism now is it?
  I clicked on your review hop­ing for some film cri­ti­cism but what did I find? A bunch of YouTube clips from oth­er Lincoln films sprinkled with a few sentences.
  Seriously?
  Don’t you have to crit­ic­ally asses WHAT IS ON THE SCREEN and not what YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE MOVIE?

• J. Priest says:

  November 13, 2012 at 11:34 pm

  Re: the use of African-American char­ac­ters, the NY Times just pub­lished an op-ed that delves more into the issue:
  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/opinion/in-spielbergs-lincoln-passive-black-characters.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&hp&pagewanted=all

• David Ehrenstein says:

  November 15, 2012 at 5:32 pm

  I’m just an ANGRY NEGRO kdringg
  And that ain’t the half of it – now that Tony Kushner has weighed in
  http://fablog.ehrensteinland.com/2012/11/15/abraham-lincoln-shirt-lifter/

• Thomas Prieto says:

  November 16, 2012 at 5:38 am

  Did any­one else think that the light­ing, com­pos­i­tion, col­or palette, etc. were remin­is­cent of 19^th cen­tury American paint­ings? Specifically, I was think­ing along the lines of Thomas Eakins and Emanuel Leutze. My know­ledge of 19^th cen­tury American paint­ing is rather slim, so please feel free to cor­rect me. Thanks!