[REVIEW] Ladder 49

I got into the movie theatre just in time to avoid missing the start of Ladder 49 at 7 o'clock this evening. (See the trailer here.) It was an early showing of the film, pre-release; I got into it with a free pass I'd received from my manager at Indigo upon signing the contracts, and after demonstrating that no, I was not carrying any illicit recording devices on my person. I suppose that this will qualify as an inside peek at the movie anyway, since it isn't set to be released until next month.

Ladder 49 isn't the sort of movie I usually watch. The story of Baltimore firefighter Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix) trapped in a burning warehouse, experiencing flashbacks to earlier moments--his first day on his job, his courting of his wife, further incidents in his personal and professional careers--as he tries to survive. He's aided in this task by his former chief played by John Travolta, present and helpless outside of the burning building. Will Jack Morrison be rescued? Go see the movie and find out.

The entire movie definitely fits into the post-9/11 mold of the firefighter as a quintessential American hero. Indeed, the Americanness and the foreignness of the film is something that impressed me. Ladder 49 draws heavily upon working-class American culture, more specifically a working-class American Catholic culture heavily influenced by Irish culture(claddagh rings, St. Patrick's Day parties at bars) and strongly connected to the firefighting service. The anthropology of the Ladder 49 crew and their culture is fascinating.

Ladder 49 isn't the sort of film I'd go out to see on my own. I certainly wouldn't recommend that people wouldn't go see it, though--it's definitely not in Alien vs. Predator territory, but I think that people who are interested in stories about modern-day heroes would do worse than to go see it.

[BRIEF NOTE] Political Demography, now in the US

Both Abiola Lapite and charlemagne77 have criticized this article by Philip Longman in the Washington Post, which suggests that on the basis of marginal differences in fertility rates between Red and Blue states in the US--roughly replacement level in Red states, and roughly 10-15% below replacement in Blue states--the United States is headed inevitably towards a conservative majority. (This topic is also covered, much less seriously and competently, by James Pinkerton at Tech Central Station.)

The whole argument has many flaws, not least of which is the point--raised in Abiola's comments section--that the trend over the past century has been for increased liberalism despite the ever-present higher fertility of cultural conservatives. I just found a line in the second-to-last paragraph funny:

[I]f the Gore states seceded from the Bush states and formed a new nation, it would have the same fertility rate, and the same rapidly aging population, as France -- that bastion of "old Europe."

I wonder if Longman, and the various people who talk about France as "Old Europe," are aware that France has much the youngest population of any European country and the highest fertility rate in the entire European Union after only Ireland, or that according to the Population Reference Bureau (PDF format) its population is expected to grow significantly to reach a close third, just behind Britain and no longer very far behind a diminished Germany?

Naah. That would be too much to expect.