Tales from Earthsea (2006)

A World Loses Balance, and an Allegory Appears
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: August 12, 2010

Stolid and humorless, larded with windy speeches about keeping Earth’s balance and other virtuous platitudes, “Tales From Earthsea,” a Japanese animated adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Earthsea” fantasy novels, feels a little like a science-fiction Sunday school pageant. If this starchy, nearly two-hour allegory about human hubris bluntly addresses a historical moment when global warming threatens the planet and pollution is fouling the seas, its chilly, formal tone keeps you at an emotional distance. More

Animal Kingdom -- NYT Critics' Pick

John Tsiavis/Sony Pictures Classics
Sullivan Stapleton, whose character deals cocaine, and Jacki Weaver, his mother, in “Animal Kingdom,” in what could be the Australian answer to “Goodfellas.”
A Matriarch in Melbourne and Her Band of Warped Partners in Crime
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: August 12, 2010

With a bleached-blond mane, a glittering blue-eyed stare and a ferocious smile, Smurf Cody (Jacki Weaver) is the mama lion to a criminal brood of armed robbers and drug dealers in the mostly terrific Australian gangster film “Animal Kingdom.” The opening images of the movie, the directorial and screenwriting debut of David Michôd, are statues and drawings of lions. Although the Codys live in bland-looking suburban Melbourne, it might as well be the jungle, for all they care about law and order. More

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2009) NYT Critics' Pick

Michael Cera in a scene from “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” adapted from a series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley.
This Girl Has a Lot of Baggage, and He Must Shoulder the Load
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: August 12, 2010

There are some movies about youth that just make you feel old, even if you aren’t. “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” based on a series of sprightly graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley, has the opposite effect. Its speedy, funny, happy-sad spirit is so infectious that the movie makes you feel at home in its world even if the landscape is, at first glance, unfamiliar. More

Krugman!

Paralysis at the Fed
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 12, 2010

Ten years ago, one of America’s leading economists delivered a stinging critique of the Bank of Japan, Japan’s equivalent of the Federal Reserve, titled “Japanese Monetary Policy: A Case of Self-Induced Paralysis?” With only a few changes in wording, the critique applies to the Fed today. More

But then, we've always emulated Japan sinking into the mud through this recent unpleasantness; never Sweden plowing like an ice-breaker with a razor sharp bow through the ruined banks.

'Tis better to have lied, than to have never planned at all

Kid Gloves
Paul Krugman
August 12, 2010

Oy. So the Times has a profile of Paul Ryan, sort of — you’ll notice that there is hardly any information about what’s actually in his plan. What we get is:

Paul Krugman, the New York Times Op-Ed columnist, recently derided Mr. Ryan as a “flimflam man,” arguing that the tax cuts in his plan would ultimately make the debt worse.
Is that remotely an adequate summary of what I said? I don’t think so. And notice, by the way, that the tax cut problem is implicitly presented as some kind of long-run issue, when the reality is that it turns the plan into a deficit-increasing venture from day one.

But what really bothered me was this:

Let’s leave aside for now the debate over the viability of the road map, which, as a practical matter, doesn’t stand a chance of being enacted as is, anyway. The more pertinent question is whether Mr. Ryan is the kind of guy who just wants to make a point — or whether his road map represents the starting point in what could be a serious negotiation about entitlements and spending.

That’s completely wrong-headed. My experience — very much based on Bush 2000 — is that a politician’s policy proposals offer the best clue to what “kind of guy” he is. Back then, all the professional political reporters were hanging out with W and reporting what a swell guy he was, while I was looking at the flimflam in his tax and Social Security plans, and reaching the conclusion that he was a scammer. Who was right? More