"Scarlett Johansson Nude Photo Hacker Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison."

10 years?!

Live-blogging Day 3 of the Democratic convention.

5:41 Central Time: I'm starting now, because it's Tammy Baldwin, my congressperson. She's running to take the seat Herb Kohl has been sitting in for oh, so long. She tells us of Wisconsin's motto, "Forward" (which Obama is using as his motto), and she finds a few opportunities to repeat "Forward." She's talking about "the Wisconsin I know" and "the America I love."

5:51: It's LBGT time. A video, with Obama saying we need to see a man with a man or a woman with a woman as equally worthy as a man and a woman. Then a young man named Zack Wahls — from Iowa — says he was raised by 2 moms, and: "I'm awesome at putting the seat down."

5:55: A really sweet and charming video about the woman who started the "Fired up/Ready to go" chant in Greenwood, South Carolina, some 4 years ago, Edith S. Childs. Ah, it's on line: here. Watch it. I liked that.

5:58: "They really got through the gay stuff quick," I observe.

6:01: Jim Messina, the Obama campaign manager is begging us for money. There's a sob in his voice. He sounds genuinely desperate.

6:28: Foo Fighters emote. [ADDED: Meade says: "This is kind of depressing music, and it goes along with the whole convention.]

6:32: The Foo Fighters are singing "I never wanna die" over and over. It's this song, "Walk":

I never wanna die
I'm on my knees
I never wanna die
I'm dancing on my grave
I'm running through the fire
Forever, whatever
I never wanna die
I never wanna leave

No, no... that's not an argument for a politician's reelection.

6:34: Now, there's this really gloomy video. Faces on a dark background. Woebegone people agonizing about how they "did everything right," and yet they are "one mistake away from losing the little that we have."

6: 47: An. act.tress. Kerry. Wash.ing.ton. I'd never heard of her before, but she's emoting big time, like she's talking to a bunch of idiots who never think about politics. But politics is thinking about us, she says ominously. Uh, we're the people watching the convention. We're not your Hollywood friends. "The other side" — "side," pronounced as a series of trembling, upscaling notes — "wants. to. take. our. voi.ces. a.way. and render us. invisible" — big wagging finger — "but we" — "we," rendered in the trembling, upward 4-syllables for a 1-syllable word, like she's really trying to scare us — "are not. invisible." Her doe eyes scan the crowd. Did they understand? Did they com.pre.hend? Did they fath.om the depths of. my. words? [ADDED FROM THE COMMENTS: Fiftyville said: "I loved Kerry Washington's statement... 'You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.' If you have to steal, Dems, why steal from Yakov Smirnoff?"]

6:57: Scarlett Johansson. So the beautiful actresses are all getting dumped in an early hour. Unlike Kerry Washington, the actress Johansson is able to act like a normal person. "We are the generation who feel our voices haven't been heard," she says, repeating something Chelsea Clinton said earlier in the convention. Johansson enthuses about voting. It's a speech that seems more appropriate to a bunch of young kids. And, sorry, I don't understand the basis for this whole generation believing that their "voices haven't been heard." You get to vote. Like everyone else. Why do you feel there's more of an entitlement than that? If you have something to say, say it. You kids have the whole internet. Twitter. YouTube. My generation didn't have that. What's this "no voice" business?

7:04: Debbie Wasserman Schultz aids a woman who is struggling to walk onto the stage. With great effort, she struggles to blurt out the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. My God, it's Gabby Giffords. Many tears run down many faces.

7:09: "As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously," says Caroline Kennedy, reading the script robotically. She complains about states putting restrictions on "access to reproductive health care."

7:13: Jennifer Granholm, "from the great state of Michigan, where the trees are just the right height." (She lifts Mitt Romney's gentle joke about home, and Meade and I disagree about whether she's showing some affection for her fellow Michigander.)

7:17: Granholm has a good (if unfair) line — referencing Romney's supposed lack of concern for auto-industry workers — "The cars get the elevator, and the workers get the shaft." You have to know that Romney had a car elevator installed in one of his homes.

7:21: It's "actress Eva Longoria." Not sure why Caroline Kennedy and Jennifer Granholm broke up the parade of actresses. Longoria sounds like an intelligent person who actually has followed politics in the normal way that people who like politics follow politics.

7:43: John Kerry. American exceptionalism demands an exceptional President, and that President is Barack Obama, he says.

8:05: As a tribute to servicemen and women goes on at the convention, email from Obama comes in, saying, "Ann -- Before I go on stage to accept the nomination, there's one thing I need to say... Can you pitch in $25 or more right now?"

8:44: Jill Biden warmed us up to think of Joe Biden as the embodiment of human caring, and now Joe Biden is doing the same for Barack Obama. He tells us he "loves" Obama. Obama was "gutsy."

9:40: Obama is giving his speech. Here's the whole text.  His inflections are polished, but nothing is jumping out at me as different from what I've heard him say many times.

9:55: "We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense." Is that controversial?

10:03: The word "hope" appears 15 times in his speech. The last 3 come near the end:  "And I think about the young sailor I met at Walter Reed hospital, still recovering from a grenade attack that would cause him to have his leg amputated above the knee... He gives me hope. I don’t know what party [various heretofore mentioned] men and women belong to. I don’t know if they’ll vote for me. But I know that their spirit defines us. They remind me, in the words of Scripture, that ours is a 'future filled with hope.' And if you share that faith with me – if you share that hope with me – I ask you tonight for your vote." Other people give him hope, the Bible refers to hope, and if you hope like he hopes, you should vote for him. Because... hope!

10:17: The speech ends, and there's a flurry of confetti. No balloons, because an indoor presentation hadn't been planned. Obama steps forward and waves. There's a closeup of his face and I think I see his lip curl with a bit of disgust, and I rewind and ask Meade to interpret the face and he says: resignation. Subjectively, we think we see in his face that he knows he's going to lose. Michelle and Malia and Sasha come out, looking perfectly glossy and pretty, and then there's Biden and Jill and Mrs. Robinson and various other relatives, milling around, waving a bit, and then the long view of the stage shows they've clumped toward the rear wall. Why are they huddling there? The shots of the crowd show some ecstatic delegates — all women — and many stolid/dispirited faces — male and female. At one point there's a hitch in the Bruce Springsteen music — a silent gap — but then it plays again. And now they're gone.

10:26: The Cardinal wanders out to the lectern. He's got his benediction written out on folded sheets of paper. "Help us to see that a society's greatness is found, above all, in the respect it shows for the weakest and neediest among us." He thanks God for giving us those "inalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." He thanks God for "the gift of life" and asks that we be given "the courage to defend it." In subtle defiance of the convention's abortion-rights theme, he says: "We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected."

11:03: The Democrats didn't have anything oddball, like Clint Eastwood. Nothing surprising. Nothing to talk about. Speaking of nothing, on Intrade, Obama re-election shares today experienced a 0.0% change. Oh! I checked back, now he's down 0.2%. (Romney is up 0.7% on the day.)

11:12: I just realized I fast-forwarded through Charlie Crist. Looked like another white male governor.  I forgot about the whole former-Republican thing. Does anyone really care?

Clinton holds up a finger and says "You will feel it" — in this Drudge juxtaposition.

Here's the whole page frozen in time right now, but let me close in on these 4 photos:



"You will feel it" is — of course — a line from Clinton's convention speech, but illustrated with the finger pointed up, it takes us back to the Lewinsky days, when we heard about finger-shaped things inserted into vaginas and a finger was famously wagged at us for imagining that he had sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

Right underneath Bill Clinton — double meaning right there — is Hillary Clinton, and she's getting "snubbed." The snub is by the Chinese VP, but we imagine other snubs. Additional lines under Hillary's picture have her "dubbed" a "sneaky troublemaker."

And, speaking of troublemakers, we're reminded that Hillary is "half a world away" "[a]s Bill speaks." In case that's not a sharp enough nudge to get you to think about things Bill might do while his wife is away, your eyes are drawn quickly to the swelling bosom of Scarlett Johansson, who is one of "Barack's Angels," who will be on the convention stage tonight. (Scarlett's golden hair rolls and flows all down her breasts, while Hillary's hair, in that other pic, is dull, lank, and flat.) And what else are these beautiful young women up to in Charlotte where Hillary is half a world away? In Drudge tease, the trio of beauties "makes push."

And that push? You will feel it.

IN THE COMMENTS: Paul Zrimsek said:

And here I thought the true caption for the Scarlett Johanssen photo was the line above it, not the line below.

He's referring to: "Advisers lower expectations for convention bounce..."

"I look like your wicked sexy English teacher and you look like you're writing a sequel to 'Our Town' for your final project."

Fashion -- I won't say "catfight" -- dialogue.

The new Woody Allen movie: "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

I walked over to Sundance to catch the 2 PM showing of the new Woody Allen movie, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." I'm a longtime Woody Allen fan, and this one got excellent reviews, so that was enough to get me out to see it on the first day.

There was a ton of typical Woody Allen stuff in this movie:

1. It's set in a European city that Woody apparently decided he wanted to hang around in. (The city is Barcelona.)

2. It depicts Woody Allen's sexual fantasies. A man can sidle up to the table of 2 beautiful women in a restaurant, ask them to fly away with him — in 1 hour! — in his private plane to a picturesque little village and have sex with him there, and the 2 women will go with him.

3. Everyone is inexplicably rich, ensconced in beautifully decorated mansions, but all the good people are anti-materialistic and unimpressed with their surroundings.

4. Young women glow spiritually and sexually in the presence of an artist or when they listen to the kind of music that Woody himself likes. In this case, Spanish guitar music.

5. Each woman is neurotic/crazy in her own special way, but they are easily categorized as the repressed type or the freely expressive type, and Woody really seems to love them all.

6. The men are either businessmen — and it's clear Woody doesn't like them — or artists — and you know Woody identifies with them.

7. Philosophical themes. A voice-over instructs us that the 2 main characters represent order and chaos. Someone lashes out at someone for wielding the categorical imperative.

That said, the movie isn't a Woody Allen cliché. It's continually delightful and surprising, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I got chills when characters kissed. I laughed out loud. And I loved, loved, loved Penelope Cruz. I was enjoying the movie immensely, and since I hadn't read the reviews, I didn't know that the character — Maria Elena — that they kept talking about would turn up and be Penelope Cruz. All the other actors seemed pretty good, and then she showed up and invented a new kind of intensity. Wow. Penelope Cruz.



It's enough to make me want to take up smoking. So exciting. And — spoiler alert — she kisses Scarlett Johansson.

No, that's not the kiss that gave me chills. Javier Bardem is in the movie too, bringing the testosterone to the table.

ADDED: Now that I've seen the movie, I'm reading articles about it. I found this hilariously bad sentence in the L.A. Times:

Of all the major American artists, Allen has experienced one of the cruelest and most violent whipsaws of fortune, of tumbling from audience adulation to mass approbation.

Wow, quite a tumble!

"I'm imagining this 22-year-old guy with his scenario for, you know, marrying Scarlett Johansson."

Jonathan Chait talks to Matthew Yglesias about what it would take for Rudy Giuliani to win the nomination. Video.

Two top 10 lists.

What is true about the persons on the first list is the opposite for those on the second list. Try to guess what it is before clicking on the link.

The first list:

1. Johnny Depp
2. Matt Damon
3. George Clooney
4. Jack Nicholson
5. Rosario Dawson
6. John Travolta
7. Katherine Heigl
8. Jay Leno
9. Dakota Fanning
10. Russell Crowe

The second list:

1. Will Ferrell
2. Tobey Maguire
3. Joaquin Phoenix
4. William Shatner
5. Renée Zellweger
6. John Malkovich
7. Julie Andrews
8. Bruce Willis
9. Teri Hatcher
10. Scarlett Johansson

What the new Woody Allen movie "Scoop" is really about.

The new Woody Allen movie "Scoop" -- which I saw last night -- is ostensibly about a beautiful college girl who fancies herself a reporter and sleeps with men as an investigative reporting technique. She's trying to get the scoop. We see her using this technique -- ineffectively -- in a short scene in the beginning of the movie. Then, after she gets a tip from a ghost that a certain aristocrat is a serial murderer, she applies this technique to him. Scarlett Johansson plays the woman, AKA Sondra Pransky, AKA Jade Julliard Spence. Hugh Jackman is the aristocrat, Peter Lydon. And Woody Allen plays a catalytic role as a corny old magician named Splendini, who unwittingly puts Scarlett in touch with the ghost when he pulls her out of the audience to participate in a trick. She, in turn, pulls him out of his stale magician life to investigate the serial murder with her. Along the way, she tells the aristocrats he's her father, and he plays along, becoming more involved in the investigation as she drifts into love with Peter Lydon.

Okay, that's all very well. There were some jokes that made me laugh out loud. For some reason, I thought it was hilarious when Splendini was posing as a reporter, and his interviewee asked him what paper he was from, and -- after some stuttering -- he said, "The Washington Post," and then babbled about "All the President's Men" and said that he was "the little guy."

Seeing the story this way, it seems good enough, but likely to be dismissed as fluff.

But this is not what the movie is about!

First, if you're inclined to think it's one of Allen's throwaway flicks, a light variation on the dark "Matchpoint," which also starred Johansson, you might point to the silliness of starting off the story by having a ghost giving the main character a tip about a murder. But that's no mark of frivolity. That's an allusion to "Hamlet." That's a tip for you to concentrate on the psycho-sexual details of the story.

The movie teems with sexual imagery -- and I don't just mean the frequent tableaux of a man in a boat. There is also the woman in a box -- the magician's box -- where the man -- Splendini -- "excites her molecules" -- as he puts it, more than once, during a trick where she's supposed to disappear (and where she is stunned to encounter a man who tells her something shocking). There is the locked music room, which you have to go downstairs to reach and find next to a wine rack that consists of phallic bottles stuck in holes.

You need to know the secret code to get into the room. Peter Lydon -- Peter Lie Down -- takes the woman into the room when he is trying to seduce her. The instruments all symbolize genitalia -- oboes and clarinets for the male and plenty of lutes and violins and French horns for the female. Lydon shows Sondra a Stradivarius and tells her it needs to be played. Remember her invented middle name is Juilliard.

Later, Splendini gets into the music room with Sondra, and he picks up the French horn and holds it with the fingers of one hand inside the bell and says he knows a filthy joke about how the French horn player slept with his wife. We never hear the joke, so we're forced to speculate on our own about the way the horn is like a woman's body and the position of the man's hand. Later, important clues are found hidden under the bell of that French horn.

Now, Lydon gets the girl, and he also easily knows the code to get into the music room. Splendini is denied access to her. Woody Allen displays himself as miserably old, shrunken away from any sexual vibrancy. And Sondra has designated him as her father -- giving the character the message that he can't ever be considered. And Woody Allen further humbles himself before us, because we know of his real-life humiliation as a man who had sex with a woman for whom he served as a father. Splendini's wretched age shows itself as he cannot remember the code to get into the room. The code is a series of three two-digit numbers (even though the lock is a keypad, not a combination lock), and the three numbers really seem like the ages of young women he cannot have, something like 16, 21, 23.

So I think this is Woody's elaborate meditation about sex, specifically about an old man's exclusion from sex. The scoop, which Splendini can't get, is the woman's vagina. (Dictionary definition of "scoop": "7. A hollow area; a cavity.") There are many more things I could talk about here, but I don't want to spoil the ending and I've gone on too long already.

"Match Point."

Is this movie any good? Chris says some things I agree with. We were laughing at it a lot early on, and I thought it was incredibly empty and stultifying. Woody Allen is mindnumbingly interested in rich people. But it ended well, and Scarlett Johansson did some terrific acting. She was quite fascinating even as she was saying rather dull lines. And both of the lead actors did have immense and shapely upper lips. That's gotta count for something.

The one fall movie I suddenly care about.

When I went to the movies today, I was irritated by all the trailers for the coming Oscar Season movies — that thing with Scarlett Johansson and Helen Hunt, and then that one with Emma Thompson and Ian McKellan. Actors acting in that I-deserve-an-award mode, swathed in Cinematography. They finally got to the last trailer, with me in a thoroughly negative mode. But I loved it: "Everything Is Illuminated."

CORRECTION: That wasn't Emma Thompson, it was Natasha Richardson. But who gives a damn?

MORE: Manohla Dargis writes:

As Stella, the 1950's bored wife, inattentive mother and unhinged adulteress at the center of this story, Ms. Richardson initially affects the vacant mien of cinema's classically oppressed women. Like the lonely wives and widows of untold Hollywood melodramas, Stella is a martyr in heels and pearls. She burns from within; we, in turn, wait for her to be consumed in flames.

Ha, ha. I'll just get out my old copy of "Beyond the Forest."

"Lost in Translation." I finally got around to watching the DVD that arrived last week, after thinking about going to see the film in the theater for months and never actually going to see it. I don't see what the huge fuss over this film is. I loved the photography of various Japanese locations, especially the neon-lit streets, including the neon lights reflected in the car window with the actor's face on the other side of the glass, like Keir Dullea in his space mask in "2001. The part in the middle where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson go out to various spots reminded me of the stock section in late 1960s/early 1970s films where the characters take drugs and then go running about doing various things. (The part of "Easy Rider" where they take LSD in New Orleans is the most memorable example of this sort of thing, which tended to be the most boring part of those movies.)

But I didn't think the characters were too interesting--even as an example of flat, bland people. Why is it in movies, when you're supposed to think of a character as highly intelligent, instead of having them say highly intelligent things, they just inform us about some paper credentials, like their IQ or their GPA or their SAT score? Does the Scarlett Johansson character ever say anything particularly intelligent in the entire film? Maybe not, but we're informed that she went to Yale and majored in Philosophy. Then she smirks at someone else who is made to be as completely stupid as possible (the airheaded actress). We're supposed to think highly of a character by contrast to a bunch of idiots. That's a lame set-up. Show me a film where even the minor characters do interesting things that make sense in their own ways.

UPDATE: I movie I saw recently on DVD that met this request (lots of characters doing interesting things that make some kind sense in their own weird ways) is "Amores Perros."