In February, I wrote a fantasy post in the form of a movie treatment about how a second Civil War might erupt. I was unaware until recently that HBO actually presented a movie with this title in 1997. I finally got around to watching it recently, and it's pretty bizarre, but interesting in the category of life imitating fiction and "people were thinking about this twelve years ago?!"
It stars Beau Bridges, Dennis Leary, Phil Hartman, James Coburn, James Earl Jones, and I don't quite know what to make of it. It's a farce, of course, but it's a bloody farce, and it's got everything in today's news from a Governor love-sick over a Latina reporter, to the right-wing, obsession of closing borders, to nuclear bombs going off in Pakistan, to the cynicism of the media which cares about nothing except a 20-share. It's not great movie making, but it's worth seeing, if only to reflect on how far we haven't come.
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