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Obama’s “terrorist pal” and a favorite movie
I’m inclined to step aside from discussions of the latest controversial-person-du-jour in the final turbo-charged mud-slinging weeks of the presidential campaign, but leave it to a Hollywood blog, the Los Angeles Times’ The Big Picture, to find movie connections with Bill Ayers, the presumed “terrorist pal” of Barack Obama in Sarah Palin’s latest attack.
Ayers, a former ’60s Weather Underground terrorist/activist/maverick (your pick of spin here), is the guy whose circle intersected with that of Barack Obama during their years in Chicago. Turns out that Ayers was one of those whose story inspired Sidney Lumet’s 1988 film Running On Empty, an underappreciated gem of a movie.
The movie concerns two ’60s radicals (Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti) who live with their family always on the run from the law due to their involvement in a fatal anti-war bombing. Their children grow up rootless except for their immediate family, never meeting family relations and always ready to leave their schools at a moment’s notice. Their oldest son has an aptitude for the piano, however, and the parents must eventually decide whether to continue their underground existence or set their son free to pursue his gift - and life. It’s a great, little drama.
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By Carl Hoover
October 7, 2008 3:18 PM | Link to this
The LA Times blog has added a new post on Oliver Stone’s W. at the same link. The film has an Oct. 17 release date, but no word yet whether it will hit Waco theaters on that day.