Cleaning the attic this week, I came upon this trove of photographs of the original cast of Loose Lips, taken during rehearsal, probably in June or July of 1994. The pictures were almost certainly taken by my co-writer Lisa Birnbach. Above, Jimmy Biberi, Sarah Pratter, Ingrid Rockefeller, Keith Primi, Luke Toma and Scott Bryant. Below, Biberi and Toma, probably rehearsing the mob sketch; Ingrid, Keith, Luke and Scott; narrator Mark Smaltz; Smaltz, with Sarah and Keith behind, perhaps setting up the Camilla and Chuck bit; Scott and Sarah, and Scott and Mark. At bottom, the Loose Lips Action Figures that Daniel Carter worked up. I wish we had thought to photograph the packaging.

A wholly personal and entirely idiosyncratic ranking of the what were the very best elements of what, apart from these and a few other gems, was a beast of year:

1.) London. A full week living the life of a roving journalist, enjoying posh circumsances, a limitless credit line, and the company of smart, thoughtful people.
2.) In the Loop, Armando Iannucci’s scathing political satire
3.) Wolf Hall, Hillary Mantei’s impressively realized reimagining of Henry VIII’s divorce crisis, and the role of the worldy, modern Thomas Cromwell
4.) Johnny Damon’s ninth inning of Game Four of the World Series, in which he singled after a nine-pitch at bat, stole two bases on one play, scored the go-ahead run, and effectively expunged hope from Phillie hearts
5.) An Education, Lone Schefrig’s tart, gimlet-eyed coming-of-age story set in London just before the sixties began swinging, with an excellent cast featuring Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Olivia Williams, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Emma Thompson, and, in a career-establishing performance, Carey Mulligan
6.) Jon Stewart’s astonishing smackdown of Jim Cramer and CNBC’s slobbering market boosterism
7.) Liaquat Ahamed’s majesterial Lords of Finance
8.) The audacity of hope: the Inauguration of Barack Obama
9.) James Harrison’s amazing, huffing puffing 100 yard interception return as time expired before halftime in the Super Bowl, nearly thwarted by Larry Fitzgerald’s tackle after a desperate field-long pursuit
10.) Chesley Sullenberger lands his plane in the Hudson, a feat brilliantly captioned by a New York cop: “What’s there to say? A bird–a plane–super man.”

Honorable mention, in no particular order: Too Big to Fail, by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Go Like Hell, by A.J. Baime; Rachel Getting Married, Jonathan Demme’s poignant, gallant family drama, with really wonderful work by Anne Hathaway, Rosemary DeWitt and Debra Winger; Quentin Tarantino’s rollicking, unhistorical Inglorious Basterds, with a whole raft of thrilling, scenery-chewing performances; Joseph “You Lie!” Wilson; Glover’s Mistake, by Nick Laird; Battlestar Galactica; Mad Men; Closing Time, by Joe Queenan; teaching Cara to drive; “You and I and Love”, by the Avnet Brothers; and “Sometime Around Midnight,” by The Airborne Toxic Event

On thenation.com, we wonder: how well do you remember the year to come?

1. 2010’s highest-rated TV program was:
A. The Apprentice Gets a Shot at Love, in which the member of a talk show’s production staff vie to be selected as the host’s mistress.
B. American Death Panel, in which judges Simon Cowell, Michelle Bachmann, and Dr. Conrad Murray audition ailing contestants competing for the right to extend their treatment.
C. The Balloonies, a television show in which families who have been on television compete to come up with stunts that will get covered on television in hopes of getting them back on television.

2. The highest-grossing touring attraction of 2010 was:
A. Paint the Ice Rouge: The Sarah Palin Skating Experience.
B. Tango Appalachia, the Tony-winning musical about a lonesome governor and his romance with a woman hot from Buenos Aires.
C. The Budweiser Rockin’ Beer Summit Concert Series, featuring Weezer, Daughtry, Pat Buchanan and Cornel West.

3. The year’s most-talked about news from the Supreme Court was:
A.The landmark free speech decision that allows Kanye West to shout loudly in a crowded theater.
B. When the Commerce Clause ruled to uphold the right of the Google to do, quote, “whatever”.
C. Sonia Sotomayor’s resignation. An anonymous source quoted her as saying, “If I’d wanted to sit in a room with conservative white men all day, I’d just go back to Princeton. Or Yale.”

4. The year’s top-selling National Enquirer cover was headlined:
A. Miley: Billy Ray Made Me Sell My Soul to Disney (Exclusive Contract Photos Inside!)
B. Ashton: Demi Left Me For Patrick’s Ghost!
C. Finally, an American: Brad and Angelina to Adopt Jen!

5. The most disappointing celebrity memoir was:
A. Wait, I’m Supposed to Be More Famous By Now, by Carrie Prejean
B. Second Wind: Making the Most Out of Retirement, by Brett Favre
C. “You Lie!”, And Other Great Stuff I’m Known For, by Joe Wilson

6. The year’s most embarrassing scandal was:
A. Captain Chesley Sullenberger tweets photos of himself rescuing a baby panda from drowning, later admits they were Photoshopped.
B. Wired editor Chris Andersen, author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, caught at Borders removing “Sale” sticker from his own books.
C. Birther investigation reveals Lou Dobbs originally born in Guatemala.

7. The top sports story of 2010:
A. Soccer roughneck Elizabeth Lambert leaves University of New Mexico, becomes headliner in the WWE.
B. Hoping to capture some of the Kate Hudson magic, the Mets sign Tara Reid to a three year deal to serve as the team’s utility good luck charm.
C. Tiger Woods returns to golf and wins The Masters, but grows surly when faced with reporters’ questions about “playing all 72 holes” and “maintaining his stroke on the back nine.”

8. The summer movie box office champion was
A. Prime Crime, the horror/thriller about a once popular late night talk show host who gets shunted into prime time and wreaks his vengeance by killing the entire network.
B. Twitterformers, Michael Bay’s 144-character masterpiece that lasted three-hours and took $225 million to make.
C. The Gate Crashers, the comedy about a ditsy blonde and her bumbling escort who crash a state dinner but end up joining the cabinet after brokering a deal to get the president’s healthcare reform bill passed.

9. The most popular iPhone app was:
A. Humidity Report, which tells you the dew point, barometric pressure, and when Glenn Beck is about to cry.
B. Goldslice, which tells you how much of any transaction would end up as part of a Goldman Sachs’ banker’s bonus.
C. Google Hookup, the new service that tracks who has ever slept with whom.

10. The public’s favorite new Federal initiative is:
A. Cash for Freeloaders, in which no-longer productive family members can be traded-in for hard-working, appreciative, apparently legal immigrants
B. The deficit-conscious second phases of the Stimulus/Healthcare Reform Programs, in which every American received a tube of lip balm and three free iTune downloads
C. Sin-o-mite! Bilingual translation of street signs, government forms and financial documents into Chinese eased America’s return to colonial status.

TMZ has posted this photo purportedly showing JFK on a boat full of naked women. The article details how TMZ received verification from photo experts who conformed that the print was made on paper consistent with the late fifties, that the damage to the print was consistent with processes of the day, that there are no signs of fabrication; and that the likeness of Kennedy, such as it is, is quite consistent with known images. I am not an expert, but I simply don’t believe it. It’s too perfect. No signs of blur in the girl jumping overboard? Kennedy in a swimsuit, while all the girls are nude? It’s just too perfect.

Beth Lomax Hawes, folklorist, member of the great Lomax family of musical anthropologists, member of the Almanac Singers with Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, among others (that would be Beth in the photo below tucked into the upper right hand corner, above Pete, with Woody to her right), and most memorably, co-author of amusing song “M.T.A.”, died November 27 at the age of 88. In 1949, borrowing the tunes from two old folk songs, “The Ship That Never Returned” and “Wreck of the Old 97,”Hawes and Jacqueline Steiner wrote the song to back the mayoral campaign of the Progressive Party candidate, Walter A. O’Brien Jr. A decade later, The Kingston Trio had a major hit with the merry song, although to avoid charges that they were “glorifying a communist” (that would be Walter), they fictionalized the name of the candidate to George O’Brien. An early example turning leftism into a viable commercial brand. A couple of years ago, Boston named its commuter transit card The Charlie Card. Hawes received the National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton in 1993. My sister was a big fan of The Kingston Trio and other folk singers when she was in collegge, and although I was in grade school, I absorbed a lot of the sensibility through Rose’s interest, and “M.T.A.” was one of catchiest, funniest songs. Thanks, Beth, for your droll, amusing contribution to pop culture.

A couple of weeks ago in London, at a fundraiser for a prisoners’ rights organization Reprieve, the British writer Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy (better known in the US as The Golden Compass) unveiled an alternative Bible passage that suggested a different fate for Jesus. According to a report in The Telegraph, Pullman, an outspoken atheist, imagined what would have happened if Jesus had had a fair trial. Which is all well and good, but my question is, If you’re going to start mucking about with one of the world’s best known stories, why limit yourself?
*
Slowly Jesus opened his eyes, Where am I, he wondered. He listened; from the other room, he could hear the sound of water running.
Confused, Jesus stepped into the hallway and pushed open the bathroom door. He was shocked to see a man inside the shower. “Good morning!’’ the man beamed.
“Bobby?’’ the mystified Jesus responded. “Bobby Ewing?’’
“What’s the matter. Jesus? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!’’
“Oh Bobby, it was awful! I had a nightmare! When I woke up, I thought you were dead!’’
“Go back to sleep, Jesus,’’ said Bobby gently. “It was only a dream.’’
*
Jesus looked deep into Ilsa’s eyes. “If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not on it, you’ll regret it,’’ he said. “Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life.’’
Ilsa’s eyes brimmed with tears. “But what about us?’’ she asked.
“We’ll always have Cana.’’
The couple turned towards Pilate. The urbane Roman consul shrugged. “Round up the usual suspects!’’ he barked.
*
Sprawled on the ground, bleeding from his wounds, the Scorpio Killer stared in the face of Jesus. His gun sat about three feet away. He knew it, and he knew Jesus knew it.
“I know what you’re thinking, punk,’’ Jesus said. “You’re thinking, `Did he recite all eight of the Beatitudes, or only seven?’ Now to tell you the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and will blow you head clean off, you’ve gotta ask yourself a question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do ya, punk?’’
The killer lunged for the revolver, and Jesus fired.
“You forgot,’’ he said quietly to himself. “ Blessed are the peacemakers.’’
*
“I’m going back to Charleston,’’ Jesus said wearily, “where I belong.’’
Scarlett threw herself at him. “Please take me!’’ she begged.
“No, I’m through. I want peace. I want to see if somewhere there isn’t something left in life of charm and grace.’’
“Jesus, where shall I go? What shall I do?’’
“Frankly, my dear,’’ said Jesus, “I don’t give a damn.’’
“Then—who will?’’ Scarlett demanded. “You and your father—you’re the big damners. ‘’
For a moment, Jesus was dumbstruck. He had never thought of it that way. “Maybe you’re right,’’ he said tentatively. “Things would sure be different if there was less damning.’’
“More patience,’’ says Scarlett. “More encouragement.’’
“I could be a kind of a Live and Let Live Jesus.’’
“It’s worth a try, don’t you think?’’
“Well come on, then,’’ said Jesus, holding out his hand. “You going to have to help me explain it to Pop.’’
*
“Sit down, Judas,’’ said Jesus. “You have to answer for your actions. You fingered me for the high priests and the Pharisees. That little farce you played out in Gethsemane–did Caiaphis make you think that would fool the Son of God’’
“Don’t do this to me, ‘’ pleaded Judas. “I swear I’m innocent.’’
“Caiaphis is dead,’’ said Jesus quietly. “So is Pilate. So are the Sanhedrin. Barzini. Philip Tattaglia. Moe Greene. Tonight I’m settling all the family accounts. But don’t worry—I’m not going to make my sister a widow. Just don’t insult my intelligence.’’
“It was Caiaphis,’’ said Judas, weeping.
“Good. Now I’m putting you in a car to take you to the airport.’’
In the car, Judas sighed with relief. His shirt was soaked with sweat. He turned his head to see if he knew the man who was in the back seat. It was John, the Beloved Disciple, who at that very moment slipped his garrote around Judas’s throat.
*
They sped away in Osgood’s roadster. Everything had worked out. Joe and Sugar had found one another, and all of them had escaped the gangsters. But still Jesus didn’t feel right. Osgood was a decent man, and Jesus was ashamed that he had disguised himself and played on Osgood’s feelings.
“Osgood, I’m gonna level with you,’’ Jesus said. “We can’t get married at all. ‘’Why not?’’
“Well,’’ Jesus prevaricated, “in the first place, I’m not a natural blonde.’’
“Doesn’t matter.’’
“And I have a terrible past. For three years now, I’ve been living with a saxophone player.’’
“I forgive you,’’ said Osgood.
“And I can never have children! ‘’
“We can adopt some,’’ Osgood said calmly.
“But you don’t understand, Osgood! ‘’ Jesus finally exclaimed. “I am the Resurrection and the Life!”
“Well,’’ Osgood shrugged, “nobody’s perfect!

“Provided that a character is smart enough and manipulative enough,” reads a post on tvtropes.org, “they can get the people around them to do just about anything. Sometimes this can be accomplished by the power of charisma, but other times it needs to be perpetrated through an elaborate scheme. This scheme takes into account everything that The Chessmaster (as well as the viewer) knows about the characters being manipulated, and uses it against them. The patsies in this scheme only act and respond as their own predictability dictates and all the pieces fall into place. This is the essence of the Batman Gambit, which is a storytelling device that can be used by any unusually intelligent character, be they good or evil, to achieve what they want by using their own intelligence to make sure that the most probable outcome that is beneficial to them arises.

“This trope relies heavily on Flaw Exploitation manipulating, although the term `flaw’ is used very loosely here. Sometimes the flaw is that the villains are so predictable that they’ll take the first chance they have to do something mean and underhanded. Other times, the flaw is that the heroes are so heroic that they’ll act for the greater good without even thinking about it. A particularly Genre Savvy person will recognize the fact that heroes always win — and design a plan based on the assumption that they will succeed. . . .The key to making a Batman Gambit work is by carefully guiding and manipulating the motivations of those involved, so that the `obvious’ course of action to them is to do what will make the gambit work and it never occurs to them to do things that would ruin the gambit. Because of the presence of this obvious failure mode, anyone who tries to pull off a Batman Gambit and fails often just ends up looking like a fool. In short, if you can say `but what if he does this?’ and that will mess up everything, then it’s a Batman Gambit.”

Our author goes on to cite characters from various genres who have used the Batman Gambit. In anime, Vegito in Dragon Ball Z, Akiyama Shinichi in Liar Game, and both Marik and Dark Bakura in Yu-Gi-Oh!; in television, The Mission: Impossible team and Doctor Who; in comics, Wolverine in Wolverine: Origins, Victor Von Doom and Lex Luthor pretty much all the time, Batman of course, Captain America in Earth X, Nick Fury in Ultimate Marvel Universe, and both Ava and Senator Roark in Sin City; in films, Palpatine/Sidious in the Star Wars Saga, General Koskov in the Bond film The Living Daylights, Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, Neal McCauley in Heat, Mary Poppins, Jason Bourne, Billy Flynn in Chicago, and Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs; and in literature, Hari Seldon in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, GK Chesterton’s Father Brown in “The Sins of Prince Saradine”, Sherlock Holmes, Milady de Winter in Alexandre Dumas‘ The Three Musketeers, Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo, Artemis Fowl, Bene Gesserit in Frank Herbert’s Dune, Voldemort in both Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, both Gandalf and Sauron in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves, and (Ta-DAA) Godwin Pope in The Coup, in which “a US Vice-President engineers one of the most brilliant government ousters this troper has ever seen. He plays everybody like cards in a deck and does it with such panache that you find yourself cheering for the Magnificent Bastard.”

If you’re not flattered to among such company, check your pulse, because you must be dead. Thank you, oh anonymous wikidian!

Congratulations to Hank Rosenfeld, my friend and former colleague from Spy, who collaborated on The Wicked Wit of the West, which is a memoir-cum-biography of the great Hollywood screenwriter Irving Brecher, the author of two Marx Brothers movies (At the Circus and Go West), Meet Me in St. Louis, and Bye Bye Birdie!, and who invented The Life of Riley, among other accomplishments. The book is full of behind-the-scenes stories and hilarious anecdotes featuring Groucho Marx, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, George Burns, Jackie Gleason, Carole Lombard and other show biz greats; one especially funny sequence involves a fishing trip that Brecher, Groucho and two other buddies took to rustic Yellowstone Park in the late forties–talk about fish out of water. The book has its element of sadness, too, as Brecher discusses how in his mid-fifties, with a tremendous career behind him and a lot of opportunity ahead, he lost his creativity when confronted with the difficulties of dealing with his schizophrenic son. I also enjoyed being able to bear witness to the deepening relationship between Irv and Hank (right), who clearly became so much more than collaborators as Brecher declined and eventually died in this 95th year. In addition, the the cover, by the peerless Drew Friedman, is a joy. Great job, Hank!

This is high season for sexual censoriousness. Facts are in short supply, but conclusions are abundant. We do know that David Letterman has allegedly been the victim of a crime involving affairs with members of his staff. We don’t know whether Letterman was married at the time of any of these events (as if it was any of our business), or if they may have involved acts of sexual harassment. Still, on Morning Joe today, Mika Brzezinski, the Red Queen of public affairs commentary (“Sentence first–verdict afterwards”) did not let a lack of facts keep her from condemning Letterman for “hypocrisy,” as he put it, for joking about Bill Clinton and other public figures whose sex lives became public fodder. Thus she ended the week with same tone of indignation that she began it when she, along with many others, declared Roman Polanski “guilty of rape” and “being a pedophile,” as well as lesser charges of being artistic, being foreign, being European, living in France, and having friends in Hollywood. Polanski may very well indeed be guilty of rape, but that’s something that a jury gets to decide after a fair trial in a court of law. It’s as though the word “allegedly” no longer existed, as though “innocent until proven guilty” was one of those niceties advised to children that adults feel free to ignore.

Now, into this raging storm of censoriousness arrives An Education, a movie that has already been touted as one of the year’s best. The film, which opens October 16th, is about a teenage girl’s romantic relationship with an older man, and—here’s what’s provocative—does not rush to condemn it.

Based on a memoir by the English journalist Lynn Barber, directed by Lone Scherfig, written by Nick Hornby, and featuring a brilliant, career-making performance by Carey Mulligan, An Education is set in the early sixties, in a suburb of London. Sixteen year-old Jenny, too intelligent for the confining middle-class life she is temporarily mired, dreaming of the day when she can join a smokier, jazzier, more francophonic world, one day meets David, a man nearly twice her age. The assured and sophisticated David (excellently played by a debonair Peter Sarsgaard) offers the most romantic gesture possible: he takes an interest in her, a genuine interest in who she is and what she wants. And while he woos Jenny by giving her access to art and music and eventually Paris, he also woos her parents, offering them a combination of a suitor’s respect and a peer’s recognition. And even though Jenny eventually sees that David supports his splendid lifestyle with a web of shady of not criminal enterprises, she turns her back on her the dull, earnest school teachers who have supported her efforts to get accepted into Oxford, and accepts David proposal of marriage.

What’s remarkable about the film—and what may leave it susceptible to condemnation by the Mika Brzezinskis of the world—is that David is never portrayed as exploiting Jenny. We may not end up trusting David very much, but we never really dislike him, and we never feel has mistreated Jenny. Instead, he is shown to be solicitous of desires and patient with her feelings. His sexual interest is part and parcel of the emotional and intellectual connection he feels with her. This is strikingly different from the way in which the movies, particularly Hollywood movies, portray adult male sexuality, as something dangerous, or destabilizing, or laughable, and which must usually be walled off in marriage or buried in widowhood if a protagonist is to be accepted. Very few male characters are allowed the latitude enjoyed by, say, Diane Lane in most of her films, or by the Sex and the City women. James Bond, once the exemplar of the predatory male, has been on a short leash since the dawn of the Timothy Dalton era. Indeed, one of the attractions of Mad Men is seeing what has become a piece of forbidden fruit: men at the height of their masculine power taking a sexual interest in women.

The complicated nature of Jenny and David’s relationship is summed up by the unspoken implication of the film’s title. Jenny received an education from David, a tutorial in things nice and not so nice, from which she profited. It’s an unsentimental view of the way romantic relationships often work, and the climate for its discussion has suddenly turned cold.

That fine old sixties exclamation “That was wild!” has never been particularly useful to me; I always found it vague. Well, never has it seemed more perfect than in describing Inglourious Basterds, the new film by Quentin Tarantino. It is wild! Funny, tense, violent, exciting–it’s really enormously entertaining. In some ways, it’s even more entertaining than the endlessly imaginative Pulp Fiction, although Pulp Fiction, set in the criminal demimonde of Tarantino’s imagination, doesn’t leave a creepy aftertaste which Inglourious Basterds, set in the entirely real and altogether painful event of the Second World War, does generate. Although I suppose the reality is that Inglourious Basterds isn’t set in World War II, but in World War II movies like The Dirty Dozen, the previous gold standard of combined over-the-top humor and violence. It can’t be overlooked that so much of the film revolves around the premiere of a film at a cinema, and the role of an actress, a film critic, the German Audie Murphy, Josef Goebbels as a film producer, the appearance of Emil Jannings, the mention of a couple Leni Riefenstahl films, the significance of silver nitrate are all significant. (I also noted more than a little influence from Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, Marvel’s great WW II comic book about a colorful behind-the-scenes unit (0ne of whom was Jewish) that help bring about an Allied victory. The film is full of brilliant set pieces: the opening scene in the French farmhouse, and the wonderfully exciting meeting in the tavern really stand out.The acting in the film is amazing: an unleashed Brad Pitt ecstatically chews the scenery, but Christoph Waltz as a velveteen Nazi is amazing. Diane Kruger, a beauty who never quite commanded a film (maybe it was the burden of playing Helen in Troy; I never could quite accept that hers was a face that launched a thousand ships), is pretty wonderful playing a Marlene Dietrich-like actress, and Melanie Laurent, a young French actress, is a revelation. I expect we’ll see a great deal more of more of her.