The America We Never Seem to Talk About. Brenda Ann Kenneally captures the female working poor and culture of incarceration in Troy, N.Y., where the presidential race has little resonance.
posted by chunking express on Nov 4, 2008 - 53 comments

The Supreme Court today issued a one line statement refusing to hear Troy Davis' appeal. Troy Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of a police officer in Savannah, GA, and sentenced to death solely on eyewitness testimony. No murder weapon or any physical evidence linked him to the crime. Since the conviction, seven of the nine witnesses have recanted or changed their stories, and one of the two who haven't changed their stories is the other suspect in the case. Things were looking good for Davis when the Supreme Court issued a stay two hours before his execution last month. Justice may really be dead in this country.
posted by x_3mta3 on Oct 14, 2008 - 60 comments

This turns into one of those cases where researching a story gets weirder. The documentary Super Size Me centers on a documentary filmmaker's 30 day experience eating nothing but McDonalds. The film is doing amazingly well as a limited release documentary grossing more per screen than high-budget Troy. Here is the weird part, Reuters has picked up on a distributor press release claiming that MTV is refusing to air advertising for Super Size Me because the film is "disparaging to fast-food restaurants". The Reuters short seems to have quite a bit of legs. However a Hollywood Reporter article details MTVs side of the story placing the blame on the film's distributor. Is this really a case of a network getting cold feet? Or is it a case of distributor trying to pull the "too edgy for MTV" moneymaking ploy? And what is with the continually morphing Reuters clip that is just now being tossed onto doorsteps and stuffed into newsboxes across North America? (The film was previously discussed on metafilter back in January.
posted by KirkJobSluder on May 27, 2004 - 23 comments

Troy (the movie) in 15 minutes. Just in case you didn't feel like sitting through the whole ten years two hours 43 minutes. via BoingBoing

Bedroom of Helen of Troy Sparta
PARIS: Hey, baby, I brought you a pearl necklace.
HELEN [weepy]: I can’t wear it because I’m sort of already married to that other guy but we’ve been doing the royal nasty for a week already anyway and you’re going to leave tomorrow and WAHHHHH.
PARIS: You could stow away and come with me and start a war that will end up killing 90% of the cast and totally be the downfall of my people and my kingdom!
HELEN: *sniff* I think… that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.
posted by gottabefunky on May 20, 2004 - 10 comments

The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships Just in time for "Troy Story", a lyrical evocation of the Iliad.
posted by rdone on May 11, 2004 - 19 comments

Prior to Heinrich Schliemann's excavations in 1871, the academic world held that the city of Troy had never existed; it was just a tale in a book; as silly to search for as Utopia or Robinson Crusoe’s Island. But Schliemann believed Homer’s Troy must have existed. He wanted it to exist, the story had caught his imagination. Acting upon descriptions of Troy’s location from Homer’s ‘Iliad’, (written more than 500 years after the fall of Troy) Schliemann started digging…and proved everyone wrong.
posted by rrtek on Jul 22, 2003 - 16 comments