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greensparty · 1 year

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BEST DOCUMENTARIES OF 2022

Documentary as a genre can encompass any medium: feature film, TV mini-series, or even podcasts. Here are my picks for the best Docs of the year:

Honorable Mentions:

Meet Me in the Bathroom Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern

Nothing Compares Kathryn Ferguson

Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 Jamie Crawford

George Carlin’s American Dream Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio

The Beatles and India Ajoy Bose and Peter Compton

Freedom Uncut David Austin and George Michael

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, A Song Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine

Sidney Reginald Hudlin

10. Back to the Drive-In April Wright

9. Like a Rolling Stone: The Life & Times of Ben Fong-Torres Suzanne Joe Kai

8. Is That Black Enough for You?!? Elvis Mitchell

7. Claydream Marq Evans

6. If These Walls Could Sing Mary McCartney

5. Stutz Jonah Hill

Jonah Hill sits down with his therapist for a doc about the therapist and his approach, that is insightful and thought-provoking.

4. The Pez Outlaw Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel

This profile of a man who smuggled rare Pez dispensers into America in the 90s and made millions is so crazy and outlandish you need to see it to believe it!

3. Moonage Daydream Brett Morgen

Morgen’s doc about David Bowie was made with the Bowie Estate and had some rare footage of the rock legend, but it was really the sci-fi approach to the subject that made this electric!

2. Good Night Oppy Ryan White

The inspirational story of Opportunity, the Mars rover that was expected to live 90 days and explored Mars for 15 years, was the big screen Event Movie of documentaries in 2022!

1. Last Flight Home Ondi Timoner

Ondi turned the camera onto her father Eli Timoner towards the end of his life with a cinema vérité account of the family confronting death. This went beyond a movie or a documentary and was truly an emotional life experience that was captured on film by one of the people experiencing it. Nothing but respect and admiration for Ondi and her brave filmmaking at such a time.

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yemme · 1 year

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This is not just a documentary but comedic gold. The stories are killing me... Steve Glew you are the man. Hilarious. Pez Community, Collectors in general, Respect. (x)

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Steve said it’s on...

#The Pez Outlaw #Steve Glew #pez dispenser #Collectors #'... to be a collector you must suffer from some disease'#Netflix #a time capsule #Comedy #Hilarious #Collector #This shit is funny as hell...#A different time... a different era #I don't know why but I like Gunther... he suspect.#The 90's I tell yah... hilarious...#WATCH IT #pez outlaw

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oldfilmsflicker · 1 year

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new-to-me #829 - The Pez Outlaw

#2022 in Films #The Pez Outlaw #Amy Bandlien Storkel #Bryan Storkel #52 Films By Women #Directed By Women

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duckseamail · 1 year

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I just watched the documentary The Pez Outlaw (2022) on Netflix and it was entertaining and sweet and interesting and the ending was just very warm hearted? And i teared up a little? I didn’t realize there was so much going on with Pez.

#the pez outlaw

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moorheadthanyoucanhandle · 2 years

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GIVE PEZ A CHANCE

Opening on VOD this weekend and at the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre in Sedona on Friday, October 28...

The PEZ Outlaw--The title character of this international thriller is a man named Steve Glew. A Gandalf-bearded former machine-shop rat from Michigan who shares a small horse farm with his soft-spoken wife Kathy, Glew was also a bit of an OCD eccentric who collected oddball cereal boxes. Bored silly with his job, he got interested in PEZ in the '80s and '90s when he was clued in, at a collector's show, that there were a great many of the candy-pushing dispensers that weren't distributed in the USA.

Beard dyed dark, Glew plays his younger self in flashback re-enactments, as he and his son travel, first, to Slovenia, and come back with duffel bags crammed with contraband PEZ and, owing to a hiccup in PEZ USA's standing with U.S. Customs, is able to import them. Soon he's making regular trips to Europe, from Hungary to PEZ headquarters in Austria, and PEZ peddling is his full-time job.

If the McGuffin being smuggled here was drugs or guns or microfilm, the story wouldn't be that different from any globetrotting caper thriller. But it's PEZ, so it's freaking hilarious. Directors Amy Storkel and Brian Storkel cut between Glew and other, uhm, talking heads as they narrate the re-enactments, which are overtly facetious in tone; several scenes are done noir-style, and the plant in Slovenia is presented like Willy Wonka's factory inside. This is funny, but it's possible that a more deadpan, Errol Morris-like approach might have given the film a sharper edge.

Even so, it's wonderful, because of the visual charm of PEZ and the oddity of the collecting fanatics and the implausibility of the story, which is what makes it believable. But above all The PEZ Outlaw is wonderful because Glew seems like a fully, fearlessly self-revealed character onscreen, exasperating and lovable; when the movie takes a poignant turn in its final quarter, the emotion comes naturally.

#pez #the pez outlaw #amy storkel #brian storkel steve glew

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shagrathmovies · 8 months

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The Pez Outlaw - 2022 - Amy Bandlien Storkel, Bryan Storkel

#The Pez Outlaw #2022 #Youtube

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stenka-razin · 4 months

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in 2023 I watched some movies

I was gonna catch up on all those best picture nominees from the last 5 years, but watched crap like Caligula 2 instead

The 1989 World Tour - Live (2015, dir. Jonas Åkerlund) Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022, dir. Rian Johnson) Flight 666 (2008, dir. Scot McFayden and Sam Dunn) Dracula (1931, dir. Todd Browning) Moonraker (1979, dir. Lewis Gilbert) The Pez Outlaw (2022, dir. Bryan Storkel and Amy Bandlien Storkel) Encino Man (1992, dir. Les Mayfield) Star Trek: Insurrection (1998, dir. Jonathan Frakes) Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood (2019, dir. Quentin Tarantino) Cleopatra (1963, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz) The Alligator People (1959, dir. Roy Del Ruth) The Silence of the Lambs (1991, dir. Thomas Demme) Godzilla vs. Megalon (“ゴジラ対メガロ” 1973, dir. Jun Fukuda) Invasion of Astro-Monster (“怪獣大戦争” 1965, dir. Ishirō Honda) Breaking a Monster (2015, dir. Luke Meyer) Terror at Orgy Castle (1971, dir. Zoltan G. Spencer) Wake in Fright ("Outback" 1971, dir. Ted Kotcheff) m.A.A.d. (2014, dir. Khalil Joseph) Reservoir Dogs (1992, dir. Quentin Tarantino) Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002, dir. Steve Oedekerk) House (1977, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, dir. Steven Spielberg) Dunkirk (2017, dir. Christopher Nolan) Final Destination (2000, dir. James Wong) Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia (2023, dir. Salima Koroma) Basic Instinct (1992, dir. Paul Verhoeven) Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985, dir. Tim Burton) Caligula 2: The Untold Story (“Caligola: La storia mai raccontata” 1982, dir. Joe D’Amato) La noche del terror ciego (1972, dir. Amando de Ossorio) Rocky IV (1985, dir. Sylvester Stallone) Saw IV (2007, dir. Darren Lynn Bousman) House of Wax (1953, dir. Andre DeToth) Thir13en Ghosts (2001, dir. Steve Beck) Kashchey the Immortal (“Кащей Бессмертный” 1944, dir. Aleksandr Rou) Ghost Ship (2002, dir. Steve Beck) The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971, dir. Piers Haggard) The Face of Fu Manchu (1965, dir. Don Sharp) The Brides of Fu Manchu (1966, dir. Don Sharp) The Vengeance of Fu Manchu (1967, dir. Jeremy Summers) The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968, dir. Jesús Franco) April Fool's Day (1986, dir. Fred Walton) It's Pat 1994, dir. Adam Bernstein) The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969, dir. Jesús Franco) Adam and Eve Meet the Cannibals ("Adam ed Eve, la prima storia d'amore" 1983, dir. Enzo Doria & Luigi Rosso) The Mountain of the Cannibal God (“La montagna del dio cannibale” 1978, dir. Sergio Martino) When Harry Met Sally… (1989, dir. Rob Reiner) Beetlejuice (1988, dir. Tim Burton) Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001, dir. Peter Jackson, Long as Shit Version) The Hobbit (1977, dir. Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, dir. Robert Wiene) The Wicker Man (1973, dir. Robin Hardy) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, dir. Tobe Hooper) House of 1000 Corpses (2003, dir. Rob Zombie) Chopping Mall (1986, dir. Jim Wynorski) Basket Case (1982, dir. Frank Henenlotter) Cube (1997, dir. Vincenzo Natali) Cube 2: Hypercube (2002, dir. Andrzej Sekula) Practical Magic (1998, dir. Griffin Dunne) Tropic Thunder (2008, dir. Ben Stiller) Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015, dir. J.J. Abrams) Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, dir. Rian Johnson) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019, dir. J.J. Abrams) Eyes Wide Shut (1999, dir. Stanley Kubrick) Superbad (2007, dir. Greg Mottola) Bruce Almighty (2003, dir. Tom Shadyac) House of Flying Daggers (“十面埋伏” 2004, dir. Zhang Yimou) Saltburn (2023, dir. Emerald Fennell) Grandma’s Boy (2006, dir. Nicholaus Goossen) Five Nights at Freddy's (2023, dir. Emma Tammi) Caligula and Messalina (“Caligula et Messaline” 1981, dir. Bruno Mattei) The Wizard of Oz (1939, dir. Victor Fleming, King Vidor, George Cukor, and Norman Taurog) A Christmas Prince (2017, dir. Alex Zamm) A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018, dir. John Schulz) The Knight Before Christmas (2019, dir. Monika Mitchell) Goldfinger (1964, dir. Guy Hamilton) Total Recall (1990, dir. Paul Verhoeven)

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dufrau · 10 months

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Okay, so I am watching the documentary "The Pez Outlaw" while drawing, and the older man the movie was about is talking out his wife. Totally triggered ronance tlou au thoughts. He says:

"[wife name] was one of the flower children, uh, the beautiful people. I was just a guy. Not worth a hill of beans. And yet, she sees the guy that's-- that's there."

Reading that, who's "just the guy" between ronance in your fics?

Also, how might older Robin and Nancy describe each other's first meeting and the moment they fell in love with others?

I think Robin would say this, half joking, sort of in reference to Nancy's "fame", but she'd also mean it.

Nancy would never say this, because Nancy doesn't say much of anything. But she feels it all the way down to her toes. Robin is the first person to really see Nancy in basically her entire life. Also Nancy knows the value of a hill of beans.

Nancy is "just the guy" for sure.

As to part 2 of this question, it's sort of the same. We saw Robin sort of jokingly describe the way they met to Joyce and Hopper in the story, but the joke was entirely for Nancy's benefit. And we saw her straight up refuse to tell Hopper what she loved about Nancy. I think if Nancy had been there for that scene in the robin POV, Robin might have made some kind of wisecrack about it, but again, her jokes are really for Nancy. It's all for Nancy. She doesn't need anybody else to know what it feels like to be in love with Nancy Wheeler.

And Nancy? She would never tell anybody anything. She spent decades not being believed by anybody, she doesn't talk much anymore.

The age at which they meet, and the circumstances and what theyve each been through, I think they're kind of over the fairy tale romance of things by then even if it really is miraculous that they found each other. I think their love is very grounded in trust that theyve each earned with each other, and neither one of them wants to break that even a little for something as silly as sentimentality.

I don't think there's a moment they fell in love. I think they made a silent deal right out of the gate to be real with each other, and the love grew out of each of their consistent commitment to that. It was very clear, to both of them, very quickly, that this was somebody that they could count on. In any world that's a wonderful thing but in a world like this one that tests that so hard and so often it's everything.

So I dont think they really tell people how they met or how they fell in love. Maybe coming out from under the morphine Nancy lets some of her buried sentimentality out and its silly and sweet but also heartbreaking how much she holds in all the time. And maybe Eddie shows up to sell them bacon and offers a little weed on the side and Robin gets a little high and tells him that tbh she wouldn't even have second guessed it if Nancy HAD shot him that time and he's like "wtf bro" and she's like "sorry but have you seen her? she could shoot ME and id forgive her."

But mostly i dont think they say much at all, and what they do say they say to each other. They have years and years, and by the end they have said everything that needs to be said.

#asks #sweepystringvibes #ronance tlou bill & frank au #ronance

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mortalfollies · 10 months

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15 questions

:D Cheers for the tag @ginevralinton

1. Are you named after anyone?

Nope.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Hmm. Watching a documentary last week, can’t for the life of me remember what it was about though. The Pez Outlaw also had me tearing up a bit - man they love each other so much, what a marriage!!

3. Do you have kids?

I want to have 2 kids, but not until I’m in my thirties.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Almost never.

5. What sports do you play/have played?

I did ballet and karate when I was 4-7 years old and quit both. I’m a quitter!

6. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Face and hair.

7. What's your eye colour?

Dark brown.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Both.

9. Any special talents?

Uhhhhh nope.

10. Where were you born?

Victoria, Australia.

11. What are your hobbies?

Draw, write, laze about, read, play sudoku, play on dolldivine.

12. Do you have any pets?

None, not an animal person.

13. How tall are you?

5’7 (exactly! I had a growth spurt)

14. Favourite subject in school?

English.

15. Dream job?

I’m going to be an English & History teacher! I would also love to teach Drama or Art or Media as well. Not all at once, obviously, that would be insane.

@cactus-bag @sleeeepy-demon @ any of my other mutuals if they want to. mwah.

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curio-queries · 6 months

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Jimin's Production Diary: a rambling review

A few notes before we get into this:

I have not seen either Hobi's or Suga's documentaries, yet.

My friends and family hate watching shows and movies with me as I'm very critical. I honestly gave up watching most fictional storytelling content about five years ago because it frustrates me how much I'm frustrated with it. (Unless I'm on a plane, it's the only time that tend to watch any movies/shows. In Sept, I watched The Pez Outlaw - fascinating traditional-style documentary!)

Despite what I'm about to detail, I did enjoy watching all of the content surrounding Jimin's Production Diary and am very happy we got what we did.

THE INTRO: Set the Stage.... or Don't...?

The first two minutes of the Jimin's Production Diary (hereafter referred to as JPD) are clips of the very film that we're about to see, mixed with some that we don't see at all...so basically a Trailer. Now I know I'm in the minority when it comes to opinions on if Previews and Trailers just spoil things but two minutes?? At the beginning of the film we've paid to see? That seem excessive! I'm sure this is a trend on streaming platforms to convince audiences to not click away but I gotta say, I hate it. Jimin himself was confused by it during his live watchthrough.

We switch to an extremely brief meeting between Jimin and the team (hereafter referred to as SGMB), clearly gathering together to talk about the past events. They lead in by bringing up the timeline...And that's all we really get as far as what lead to the start of the documentary. I mean, credit to the editors, it was a perfect line about how Jimin would mess around on the keyboard, cut to the scene where he comes up with a melody they try for the Face-Off intro. It establishes the flow of how the rest if the film will progress - we'll be going through the clips of Jimin's contributions to the album, broken up by song but unless I'm mistaken, we don't see any more footage from this meeting for the rest of the film. I believe we hear a few more lines of it as voiceover but it's not clear. I don't know, it just sets me on a weird tone with this film. We establish the typical interview footage scene with the entire SGMB, so it gives us the impression that what is about to unfold will cover a wider perspective than just Jimin's but we never see any more of it. We go straight to the timeline and old footage.

As we are accustomed to with our beloved JM, he doesn't like telling us the reason why he does most things. There could be many reasons for this, the one that I like the most is that it doesn't predispose the audience to any specific conclusion beyond what meaning we get from the content itself. In my opinion, this is great for art...less so when you're trying to recount history (...but that's a whole debate into politics that we won't go into today!). Either way, the audience of JPD either needs to already know the circumstances, output, and conclusions of the event surrounding this album or they just need to be fine with missing context. (If you're interested in some tiny tidbits regarding the initial direction and overall vision of FACE, be sure to watch the last few minutes of the JPD commentary.) Which brings me to:

CRITICAL POINT # 1 : HYBE does not produce content to inform, they produce content to entertain.

Audiences should set their expectations as such and remember that even though we may feel like we're 'getting the scoop', we are only being given just enough to entertain us. (Sidenote: this is one of the keypoints I evaluate in my Run BTS watchthroughs BECAUSE I got frustrated very early on with how poor of a job their content does when it needs to be informative).

Some points that could have been covered in JPD to give better context:

Jimin deciding to make an album at all.

Jimin deciding to use the specific timeline and subjects in his album. We know it covers what he went through during the pandemic according to interviews he gave during promotions. Clips of those interviews would have been easy footage to insert.

Were these decisions made before he started talking to the team?

The little bit of behind the the scenes for the BE album showed BTS having a themes and keyword discussion extremely early in the project where they were outlining some rough ideas for the album regarding song quantity, general feeling and potential units. Did a similar process occur with FACE?

At what point where the other guys in the team brought in? Jimin only mentions PDOGG at the beginning.

How far did they progress before they decided to start filming for the documentary? From what we can see, most of the footage was self-captured and they even joked about the team being camera-minders during the Quiz Show so it was definitely by design that we got as much footage as we did; that doesn't just happen by accident.

(More on helpful context later)

What's the problem with this? Not much actually, provided the viewer isn't under the impression that they are being educated. We've come a long way from the general public only associating documentaries with National Geographic films about lions stalking prey but there is still the perception of factual evidence being revealed when watching one. And while I wouldn't classify anything in JPD as a lie, there's absolutely a bias at play here more than just selecting a favorite band member. I actually love that the title is Diary rather than Documentary, it's far more accurate. This film is a log of Jimin's highlights during this portion of the album process. The problem comes when people conclude that because that's all we see, that's all that happened. We see very little of the work that the rest of the SGMB did unless it's hyping up one of Jimin's contributions. In fact, we're never really introduced the the team and what their contributions and responsibilities are.

During the Live watchthrough, Jimin referred to himself several times as the 'Idea Bank'. And yes, we absolutely have seen that in him over the years. I love that about him! He is very willing to contribute ideas (which honestly is a skill in its own and shouldn't be downplayed) but the other important parts of any creative process are implementation and editing (something I obviously didn't do here, this post is looong). Once an idea occurs, there may need to be some discussion on how to implement it and also edit out the items that don't serve the whole purpose. The rest of the SGMB demonstrated over and over the ability to take in Jimin's ideas, translate them into a workable format and edit it down. Jimin said it himself during the commentary, 'your discernment is amazing'.

Which brings me to one of the main wars I've seen waged in the JPD discussions: Namjoon's involvement. We see one tiny portion of a conversation with no context before or after. Jimin gave us a little more context during his watchthrough. This specific conversation happened after the team thought they were ready to finalize the lyrics but Namjoon sent them back to the drawing board. (I have vivid memories of English teachers giving me similar advice - usually in poetry units. 'Yes, you rhymed but it doesn't actually mean anything'). There is absolutely more to RMs contribution to be listed in the credits than this one conversation. What we saw here was him giving the team instruction to focus more on the overall direction and intent first to give better support to the labor of lyrics. The irony here is I see the same issue with the structure of JPD.

CRITICAL POINT # 2 : Jimin's Production Diary has little to no direction.

Not every documentary film will flow like a three act play with a classic 'hero's journey' type of storyline but it's very clear that this film was put together by an editing team aftrr the fact and not a director. There was no real narrative structure, journey, or storyline. It was just a portion of the process a very engaging individual went through with a handful of guys to create the music for an album. Something that could have helped would have been having an outsider interview the team, someone with training in putting together a narrative for film to help lead the stories and memories to a conclusion.

Again I go back to questioning the intent and goals discussed when it was decided to capture footage. This must have been a beast for the team to edit, not just due to quantity of footage like Jimin joked about during his Live watchthrough but with sheer lack of direction.

The main emotional journey I experienced as a viewer was when we'd start to hear the melodies and lyrics that would make it into the final version. But that requires the audience to come into this film not only knowing the output but being familiar with it to recognize it amongst other sounds being presented. That's a big ask for any subject matter, let alone in a process we don't regularly see or experience.

WANT TO HAVE A DRINK: The lost song. I don't expect to pick up everything in any film on first watchthrough, especially if it's not in my native language. But it was only after Jimin's Live watchthrough did I realize there was a whole section for this scrapped song. This would have been a great point to highlight jn the developmental arc but it's basically disregarded.

One final tangent before I wrap this up:

SIDE POINT: Original development lyrics are not some hidden treasure trove of true meaning.

It's interesting to see where the thought processes wandered through until the conclusion that is the released version but those lyrics should not be used as weapons against others to determine the one-true-meaning. The artist changed them for a reason. And different versions will absolutely carry different weight amongst individuals but please remember that the development process is lengthy and artists are usually just trying whatever they can think of to get to the point they'd like their work to be, with many steps along the way.

CONCLUSION (I thought this post would last forever)

JPD contains very insightful footage of Jimin's journey in stepping into parts of the music development process that he may not have been so involved in prior. I'm very intrigued to see if it's something he's interested in further developing, both as part of BTS and in any future solo efforts. Like I said at the beginning, I'm very grateful to have seen it but I am not encouraged by any future 'documentaries' the company will be releasing.

Finally! it's done. I feel in a much better place to wrap up the analysis post I started in April comparing Like Crazy to the movie but it's been so long, I need to watch it again. We'll see how long that takes me!

If anyone actually read any portion of this, let alone the whole thing, you are amazing and deserve all the blessings of blonde-Jimin in your life! 💜

#park jimin #jimin #jimin's production diary #ijustwatchedjiminsproductiondiaryandiwanttoreviewit #i used the tag jimin requested lol

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jacquesthepigeon · 1 year

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Tom Cheng… kinda ugly

Looks like someone who would sell illegally imported pez out of the back of his van (no offense to the pez outlaw)

#ml

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moorheadthanyoucanhandle · 2 years

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HEADS OF HEADS OF STATE

As far back as Your Humble Narrator can remember, I've loved PEZ. What's not to love, after all? It's a delicious candy--you may recall that Vern, in Stand By Me, had no doubt that he could subsist on nothing but cherry flavored PEZ for the rest of his life--and it's a toy. It's a toy that gives you candy.

Invented in Austria in the 1920s and originally marketed to adults as a substitute for tobacco, PEZ--the word is a compression of the German pfefferminz, or peppermint--began to sell dispensers with character heads for children in the 1950s and became an international brand. Of the many PEZ dispensers I had as a kid, I particularly prized the Halloweeny skulls and ogres, so I was delighted when The Wife found these Halloween mini-dispensers...

...to hand out for trick-or-treat this year.

As an adult, the first item I ever bid on and won on eBay was an old-school PEZ Easter Bunny with a curiously grave and sober expression; I've always referred to him as "Frowny Bunny," and he still lives on my desk...

This coming Friday, October 21, a documentary called The PEZ Outlaw, chronicling a particularly strange episode in the history of PEZ collecting, debuts on VOD; it's also slated to play at the Alice Gill-Sheldon Theatre in Sedona starting on October 28.

More on that remarkable film in a later post, but with all this PEZ-iness on my mind, the time has come to discuss my monument.

That's right, my monument.

A few years ago, in the depths of the previous Presidential administration, I hit upon an inspiration one day for a piece of public art. Not little piece, a big piece. An epic piece. A monument, carved into the side of a mountain. I'm not saying it would have needed to be on the scale of South Dakota's Mount Rushmore, but maybe one third the size, or one fifth. Maybe poor North Dakota could find a hillside somewhere, and offer an alternative to tourists.

Then one day, haunting a junkshop, I found something that made me revise my grandiose plans. Why allow a modern-day Gutzon Borglum to vandalize another perfectly lovely natural rockface, after all, and spend millions of public dollars and many years, when I could realize my idea on my own, for a few lousy bucks worth of PEZ?

What I had come across, you see, were a few random PEZ dispensers that I didn't know existed, depicting the Presidents of the United States. They were from a "PEZ Education Series" launched about a decade ago, issued in sets of five POTUS Dispensers at a time, starting with Washington and culminating with Obama (Obama's successor, mercifully, has not been officially PEZzed at this writing). So between that original haul and a bit of eBaying, over a few months I was able to obtain:

Franklin Pierce (served 1853-1857); who opposed the Abolitionist movement, signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, enforced the Fugitive Slave Act, made a failed attempt to annex Cuba; the first and to date the only elected incumbent President not re-nominated by his own party...

James Buchanan (1857-1861); who continued Pierce's bungling and opposition to Abolition (despite claiming he was personally opposed to slavery), leading to the Secession of the southern states and making the Civil War inevitable...

Warren Gamaliel Harding (1921-1923); who filled his administration with crooked cronies that were implicated in multiple scandals, most famously the Teapot Dome oil lease affair which resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall...

...and our own era's George W. Bush (2001-2009); who ignored security warnings about terrorist attacks before 9/11 and lied us into interminable wasteful wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in that tragedy's wake...

My fellow Americans, I give you...

MOUNT RUSHMORE COMPARED TO 45!

Dismal as they were, any of these four men, and any number of other Presidential hacks and bums and paranoids, would have been preferable to President 45. Decidedly preferable. Harding's offenses, most of them possibly unwitting on his part and only revealed after his untimely death in office, seem particularly quaint by 45's standards.

Thus my MRCT45 Monument stands tall--albeit only about 5 inches tall, and only on my desk--in symbolic tribute to all those who, though they may be inept clowns or moral cowards or shady creeps, still have some consideration, some tiny modicum of regard, some vague sense of responsibility, for their country, for the world, or for any human being other than themselves. It's a (dimly) shining memorial to the barest minimum in human decency.

Just so there's no misunderstanding, I should hasten to note that when I say these guys would be preferable, I mean that they would be preferable, as men. I'm not remotely suggesting, of course, that the social conditions and norms of the times in which they served would be preferable to the social conditions and norms of our times.

The toughest of these dispensers to find, by the way, was W. Bush; perhaps because he was part of the same set as Obama, and I wasn't willing to pay the upwards of $100 that this set goes for online. Finally I hunted him up, along with the other two non-Obama members of that set, presumably from a split-up set on eBay (the fifth dispenser in that box is of the Presidential Seal).

While scrounging to complete my grand vision, I did also accumulate a good bench of other Presidential mediocrities and rascals. I'd still like a Nixon, in case anybody wants to know what to get me for Christmas. But I have scored William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Herbert Hoover (a close also-ran for Harding's spot), Bill Clinton and W. Bush's Dad H. W. Bush...

Compared to 45, I need hardly say, they all seem monument-worthy...

#barack obama #george w bush #pez #the pez outlaw #franklin pierce #james buchanan #warren harding

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