What It Is

“Game Change” is an HBO film about Sarah Palin that was based on a book that was written by the dude that called President Obama a dick on national television:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/449FGJwDQRY

According to the interviews I’ve seen, the book is actually about both the Democrat and Republican races in 2008, but since they had to condense it to a 2-hour movie, they elected to focus on the Palin angle.

Also according to video footage I’ve seen, both Palin and John McCain have denounced the film, even though neither had seen it at the time of their interviews, but that makes sense if they weren’t personally consulted about the script and the potential authenticity (or not) of the book it was based on.

Why I Watched It

I don’t give a flying **** about politics. The only reason I’ve been paying attention to the 2012 Presidential race, and blogging about it, is because I was entirely amazed that the Republicans (in my non-politics-following estimation) threw up a “Hail Mary” and forfeited the 2008 Presidential campaign by selecting Sarah Palin to run as Vice President with John McCain.

As soon as Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America, my quest in life became to figure out WHY the Republicans made that choice. That’s why I’ve been closely monitoring the 2012 nomination process, and I’ve been learning, but “Game Change”, fictional or not, gives me the insight I’ve been craving, as to how this could possibly have happened.

Initially, I felt like the 2008 election was going to be fascinating, yet typical. I thought the best thing that could possibly happen is that the Democrats were going to run Hillary Clinton and lose decisively in the general election, merely on the male vs. female President issue.

I had never in my life heard of Barack Obama as of February 09, 2007, when I posted the video “WHEN Hillary Is President” => http://billcammack.com/2007/02/09/reelsolidtv-episode-39-when-hillary-is-president/

YouTube Link => youtu.be/EZBf472OsnM

Eventually, I heard (probably because I walked by a television that was running somewhere, because I don’t watch the news) that a black guy was running, and he was actually a viable candidate this time, not just a symbolic “Non-whites can be President, too! :O” social token.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_candidates_for_President_of_the_United_States

In 1888 Frederick Douglass was invited to speak at the Republican National Convention. Afterward during the roll call vote, he received one vote, so was nominally a candidate for the presidency. In those years, the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency were chosen by state representatives voting at the nominating convention. Many decisions were made by negotiations of state and party leaders “behind closed doors.” Douglass was not a serious candidate in contemporary terms.

In 1972, Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American major party candidate for president. She was a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination and participated in the Democratic primaries in numerous states.[1] She campaigned in 12 states and won 28 delegates.[2] In 1984 and 1988, Jesse Jackson was the first major party black candidate to run nationwide primary campaigns. He also ran as a Democratic Party candidate.[3]

In 1992 Alan Keyes was the first African-American candidate to run in the Republican presidential primaries.[citation needed] Keyes ran again, unsuccessfully, in 1996, 2000, and 2008. In 2004, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton ran as unsuccessful candidates in the Democratic primaries. “Tea Party” Republican Herman Cain has announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2012, though he has since suspended his campaign.

So I was fascinated by this concept and wanted to know how the American people were going to respond to a real candidate, as opposed to one of these “Run, Jesse, Run! :D” situations that was immensely historically significant while simultaneously logically ridiculous => en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Jackson#1984_presidential_campaign.

I was totally like “It’s possible… It’s possible…. It’s possible…..” until I heard the Republicans selected Palin, at which point I immediately said to myself “Barack Obama is going to be President! :D” HAHAHAHA I mean, I had no doubt in my mind that the race was over when I heard about Palin.

President Palin

The reason I knew it was over was because the Republicans shifted the focus from disinterest in McCain to VIRULENT opposition to “President Palin”.

I see, from “Game Change”, why they selected her, and it may have been the best thing they could have done to try to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but to someone like myself, who doesn’t care about politics at all, this became the entire focus:

“This dude McCain doesn’t look all that healthy. If he croaks in office, we will have unwittingly elected Sarah Palin President of the United States of America.”

That concept, Palin being the actual President, was enough to get *ANYBODY* off their asses and to the polls to prevent that.

Once I found out about that, I was like “people are going to vote like crazy *AGAINST* the Republican ticket, even if they weren’t already going to vote *FOR* the Democrats”.

This all happened immediately for me. There was no doubt in my mind AT ALL that the Republicans were extremely desperate and the race was over as soon as they announced Palin… This was *BEFORE* we found out all the extra stuff about her in the upcoming weeks.

It’s like when you’re going to select a team for sports. First, you want to pick a good quarterback. If you can’t throw the ball and you can’t scramble, you’re probably going to lose. SECOND.. You have to pick a good wide receiver. If the WR can’t get open, there’s nobody for the QB to throw to, and you still lose.

When Obama picked Biden, that was the 1-2 punch. I was like “McCain is going to have to pick a GOOD Vice President in order to..” then they announced Palin, and I was like “It’s over! :D”

I think one of the major miscalculations the Republicans made was thinking that all females are similar. They aren’t.

Just because lots of people were ready to support Hillary Clinton, that doesn’t mean you can pick any woman out of a hat and run her one 72-year-old’s heartbeat away from being President.

Anyway.. I wanted to give my personal background for watching “Game Change”.. In fact, if I had known they were making this movie, I could have saved myself the last six months of misery, watching the Republican nomination tomfoolery, trying to get a clue about how a Palin selection was even possible, *AND* whether the Republicans had any better selections, four years later…

Game Change

This film wasn’t created by asking Palin or McCain what actually happened, but the filmmakers claim that they researched the situations with a lot of people that were there and witnessed it, such as Nicolle Wallace, one of Sarah Palin’s top advisers, who was featured prominently in the film, and who said that “Game Change” was true enough to make her squirm.

That doesn’t make the movie authentic, but it’s different from just speculating about what someone was thinking. You have people that stood there and listened to her say what she said and watched her do what she did.

I wanted to say that up front, because this is a theatrical presentation, which shouldn’t be taken as “word is bond”, but more like an approximation of what probably happened behind the scenes.

YouTube Link => youtu.be/IPhh7mch5zo

I think the first important point is that they selected Ed Harris to play John McCain.

Ed Harris is a *BRILLIANT* actor. He plays people that you’re supposed to hate, but you root for them anyway, such as the super-evil badguy expert sniper in “Enemy At The Gates”. He picks somebody off, and you’re like “OOH!.. NICE SHOT! :D” instead of “DAMN HIM!!! :(”

Also, Ed Harris is currently in good shape. In 2008, John McCain was not. One thing that was missing from the film was the horrific concept that I mentioned above, which was “What if McCain keels over?”.. Pretty much, you feel in the movie that if McCain would have won, Palin would never have become PotUS (which history shows us at this point is true, because John McCain is currently still alive). That’s one of the feelings that I missed from the presentation. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the film, but I noticed that it felt different while I was rooting for Ed Harris to become President, even though I already knew the ending to the story.

Julianne Moore was *FANTASTIC* as Palin. Seriously. Excellent job, from the look to the facial expressions to the speech patterns to the accent. Great! :D

The only thing that broke my immersion of “Moore = Palin” is that they have slightly different body types, with Palin having more bounce to the ounce.

I’m not going to be able to explain to the ladies reading this what difference that makes, but it definitely makes a “That’s not actually Palin” difference. >:D

The other thing that broke my immersion (although I’m sure this was a deliberate scripting and acting decision and not a deficiency), is that when I’m listening to Palin speak, the real one, I can tell that she’s deliberately stacking up comments that bolster the point she’s trying to make, or the opinion she wants people listening to her to have, whether her statements are true or not.

I didn’t get that from Moore’s performance. She didn’t deliver that “I drank Jim Jones’ Flavor Aid” look that you can see ‘behind’ people’s eyes when they’re not honestly interacting with you, but they’re deliberately trying to influence you and they know it.

For the ladies out there, that’s the look you see when you already drove by your man’s car at the strip joint parking lot and then, when he gets home, he tries to sell you that he was working late tonight. It’s a look that’s derived from thinking in the background while you serve your agenda to people. It’s like they’re not really there, but following a script.

Anyway, I didn’t get that from Moore’s performance, which caused the Palin character to be way more endearing. “Game Change” was more of a “fish out of water” story than a “deliberate manipulation of the uneducated masses” story.

Woody Harrelson was really good as well. Really good. :) The only thing that broke my immersion with his performance is that I’ve seen that guy Steve Schmidt that he was playing on television a bunch of times, and Woody would have had to put on a BUNCH more pounds to physically resemble that guy, other than the baldie haircut, which was accurate.

Out of the three main actors, the one that skewed the story for me the most was Ed Harris, because he didn’t look anywhere near 72 years old, and he didn’t look like he was about to keel over any second.

Part of the whole problem in the actual 2008 campaign was that nobody was sure that McCain was going to live through his entire term, meaning that a vote for him was an inadvertent vote for Palin as President, which would have meant that *SHE* could have been the one in charge of our current foreign affairs situation.

YouTube Link => youtu.be/28z5aTiN4UI

So, in “Game Change”, I wasn’t concerned about Harris’ health, so I was able to relax and not feel paranoid about what could have happened if the Republicans had won. That was decidedly *NOT* the case during the real election.

Also, the way Moore portrayed her character, she made Palin seem like way less of a loose cannon than she appeared to be during the incessant “liberal media” coverage of her statements, decisions, and actions during the real election.

This combination allowed me to actually root for McCain and Palin to be elected while I was watching the film. :)

I knew the entire time that Jude Law was going to vanquish Ed Harris in “Enemy At The Gates”, but I was still rooting for Ed when Jude had already gotten the drop on him. There’s an integrity that Harris beings to his characters, where regardless of what you think about them as people, you still have to respect them.

 
Continued in “Game Change” Review [Part 02 of 02]
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So they finally released the movie “Twilight” on cable, so I was able to check it out and see what all the hubbub was about.

Vampire shows have been all the rage recently. HBO has a series called True Blood that’s really popular and pretty much anything dealing with vampires is going to get run these days.

I’ve been wondering for quite a while why chicks have been falling all over themselves over “Twilight”. I figured a vampire movie is a vampire movie is a vampire movie. *yawn*

Having watched it now, I get it completely. The screenplay was very well written to fit the brainwashing of American females if not females all over the world.

I’m not saying the movie was interesting or good or unpredictable, haha.. I’m just saying that I understand why it’s a phenomenon because it hits the points that girls are trained to look for when they fantasize about being involved in a romantic relationship with a guy.

*** SPOILER ALERT *** If you still haven’t seen this movie, which was released over a year ago or you happen to be Keith Bevans, do not read the rest of this post! :D

Bella

Bella is the main character. The movie’s seen through her eyes. This is automatically going to be of interest to females, because most films are seen through guys’ eyes.

She doesn’t live in a big city. She transfers to a new school, which means she starts off with ZERO props. She has no friends. She’s a loner.

She’s cute enough for the sticks, but she’d be nothing to write home about in New York City. This is also endearing to females, because most of them fit into this category.

You don’t want your protagonist to be “too attractive” or else the audience will disconnect. Of course Brad Pitt dumped Jennifer Anniston for Angelina Jolie. That’s what’s supposed to happen, because Angelina > Jennifer. You want the audience to feel like they’re immersed in a story that could actually happen to THEM in THEIR lives.

So Bella’s set up as a character that’s worthy of love but just doesn’t have any. Her parents are separated. Her father lives alone. Her mother has a new man and enjoys traveling with him. Basically, Bella has nothing at all in her life, emotionally.

Edward

Edward is seen as a “catch” in the town Bella moves to. He’s one of the elite, although the movie doesn’t establish WHY he’s considered elite. I can only assume it’s because they imply that he’s physically attractive and mentally a renegade.

I grew up with “elite” people in my elementary school. I understand the draw, even though “Twilight” skipped over the character development explaining these people.

When I was 13 years old, I knew other 13-year-olds that got $150 a week in “allowance” (The money your parents give you to live and have fun on for no particular reason). At the time, my allowance was $20/week and a lot of my friends (who had JOBS by the time they were 13 or just stayed broke) considered me rich because of that.

I knew 13-year-old “elites” that would throw wild parties and raid their parents’ liquor cabinets and be the talk of the school, come Monday. I also knew 16-year-old elite females that dropped out of school to have kids, most likely due to some of those same parties.

So I understand the concept of “the table of cool kids” and how fascinating they are, just because they’re living lives that the rest of us aren’t living. One thing the movie never addresses is that Edward doesn’t age past 17, even though he became a vampire in ~1918, and nobody seems to notice.

So Edward seems to be rich, cool, has his own car, his parents pull him out of school whenever it’s a really nice day and the faculty never complains (= his family has juice), so it would appear that he could choose whatever female(s) he wants and they’d be glad to get down with the program.

Perfect Dynamic

This sets up the perfect dynamic between Edward & Bella that she’s not supposed to be able to pull a guy as good as him and he’s not supposed to settle for a girl as mediocre as she is.

This is the format for the American female dream. Self-Validation through being selected by an elite male for her unique qualities. Without the male being elite, it’s not worth anything because “who cares?”. If the female had been stunning and all guys were chasing her, it wouldn’t have been worth anything because the average American female wouldn’t feel like the film was about *her*. This is a modern reenactment of John Hughes movies about the mechanic chick getting the guy that’s chasing beauty queens, except instead of it happening within the last five seconds of the movie before the credits, it happens towards the beginning of the film.

The basis, as usual, is the concept of “Love”. The way Love is sold to women is that it’s some supernatural occurrence that has no realistic explanation. The more of an explanation there is for it, the less valid it is. This is why you don’t get any credit for telling a gal she has a nice ass. She attributes your statement to LUST, which is low-rated when compared to LOVE, which is something you’re supposed to feel….. um… because you feel it and you can’t explain it. Lusting after her doesn’t make her feel unique, because you like a lot of chicks’ asses. If you’re “In love with her”, that means that she’s the only one that inspires you to feel a certain way and then it’s Game On!

Unfortunately for my ‘discovery’ of this film, I was aware ahead of time that Edward was a vampire and Bella was Human. As an editor, I’m going to be aware of this fact the entire time, because I would have been in charge of being aware of character development & continuity if I had edited this film myself. For this reason, when Bella walks into the class and passes in front of the fan and Edward covers his nose, I immediately considered that he was avoiding her because he considered her a tasty morsel, not because he was repulsed by her, as Bella assumed.

Natually, this gimmick was revisited during the baseball game scene when Edward tells Bella to put her hair down and then the breeze blows through it, sending her Human scent to James, the hunter vampire. This was another plot flaw, BTW, because the vampire female on Edward’s team had said she could smell Bella from across the field, yet James was standing right in front of her and didn’t detect her as Human until the wind blew past her in his direction.

American Dream

I realized how well this screenplay was written and why the phenomenon has become so huge during the car scene after Edward rescues Bella from a pending gangbang and is driving her away from the scene. Bella and Edward reach for the radio at the same time, and Bella goes “Your hand is so cold! :O”. This was my “AHA!” moment because this scene occurred maybe halfway through the entire movie. Edward had already saved her life from getting crushed by a van, hung out with her lots of times and now arrived out of nowhere to save her from four guys that were planning to tag up, and she had NEVER. TOUCHED. HIS. SKIN. BEFORE!!! O_o

This, my friends, is the American female dream… Something For Nothing. This guy was hanging out with her, courting her and protecting her and he had never even held her hand before. Never kissed her before. Never ****** her before. Nothing. There’s no explanation why he’s compelled to do things for her, which validates her as an unique female… a CUAO. From then on, I watched the physical interaction (or lack thereof) between Edward & Bella and realized how masterfully the sexual tension was built into this book which was adapted into a screenplay.

Kool-Aid

For some reason, Edward’s crew of vampires has sworn off eating people, although it’s natural to them. When Edward first smells Bella, he’s like “LUNCHTIME!!! :D” but he fights off his natural urges and disappears from school for a few days until he calms down. Meanwhile, Bella’s been experiencing some kind of inexplicable attraction to Edward which is of course attributed to “love”. Edward, then, for no apparent reason, saves Bella’s life, making her even more enthralled by the concept of being with him. When she finds out he’s a vampire, she declares that she doesn’t care and that she’s not afraid of him. Logically, she’s willing to risk her life to be with him being that she would have been dead already if he hadn’t saved her from being crushed, however, of course, this is utilized as another demonstration of how deep her LOVE is for Edward.

The real hook to this movie is the fact that Edward can’t physically interact with Bella for fear of losing control and killing her. He decides to make out with her one time and has to retreat from that situation. This is like Female Final Fantasy.. that a guy wants them so badly that it hurts, but at the same time, he’s not willing to pull the trigger. Brilliant! :D BRAVO!!! :D Excellent Writing! :D I wish I would have thought up “Vampires that restrain themselves from eating Humans” myself.

Edward fights for and protects Bella, declaring her his entire life, and he hasn’t even hit it yet. What girl isn’t gonna drop her drawers for *THAT*? :D He goes against his family, goes against the entire town, goes against regular vampires, faces off against wolves, *AND* even goes against his own natural urges to KILL BELLA because he’s in love with her.

On top of all that, he can read EVERYONE’S mind, except for hers. The new-girl outcast loner is SO unique and important! Of course chicks are gonna drink the Kool-Aid straight with no chaser, wipe their lips and ask you to pass them some more! :D

Be Edward

The obvious moral of this story for the fellaz is to BE EDWARD!!! :D

Some gals you can pull by telling them what you WILL do for them. Others, you can pull by telling them what you WON’T do. ;) Be the Alpha. Make her feel unique. Tell her what you want from her…….. and then tell her why you can’t or won’t pull the trigger. Sweetness! hehe Leave her wondering how it WOULD HAVE BEEN if she had hooked up with you.

A lot of chicks won’t give it up simply because they know you want it. It’s this weirdo mentality where they like to make themselves feel special or perhaps powerful by denying or defying you. I know you know what I’m talking about.. Everything’s going in the right direction, and all of a sudden, they’re backing away from you or they start playing games. The counter to this dumb way of being is to tell them what you’re NOT going to do so they attempt to defy you by making you do it.

You see this throughout the movie. Edward tells Bella he’s a killer, her response is that she’s not afraid of him. Edward seems to be repulsed by her when he has to sit next to her in class, she wants to confront him about that. Edward tells her he’s not going to tell her about himself, she insists. Edward tells her he’s not going to turn her into a vampire, she tells him she wants to live with him forever.

So.. If nothing in your usual repertoire’s working, flip the script. Be That Guy. Make her the star of your movie. Break out your “Something for Nothing” game. Let her know that you’re her American Dream.. just don’t give it to her… Just let the tension build and see what happens ;)

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Christian Payne aka “Documentally” is a photographer and blogger who was commissioned by the UNHCR to photograph the plight of Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

I edited Christian’s work into a video that we’ve recently completed, and he posted this video, thanking me as well as others for what we’ve done:

Bill & Dan in NYC

Liz Gannes, Bill Cammack & Dina Kaplan

Through social media, and also by meeting in person @ Adam Quirk‘s event named Vloggercue in Brooklyn, I developed an impression of Phil Campbell as a stand-up guy and a good judge of character. For Phil to bring up Christian’s project to me, I’m automatically *infinitely* more inclined to hear more about it. Yes, it helped A LOT that Christian already had a strong social media presence. Yes, it helped A LOT that the photos he shot for the project are rich and full of emotion, intimacy and meaning. However, the *main* thing is connection… passing it on. Social media offers us the opportunity to get to know each other, asynchronously… and then follow up to find out how the real person matches up to his or her online persona.

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Check it out, then leave a comment for us about the show! :D

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