"The Most Dangerous Man In America"

Suck it, Mad Men.

Look at me smoking in the steno pool!  I'm so retro!

If you really want to go back to the 60s to find out why then is so different from now, forget Mad Men and see "Dangerous Man".  This true tale about a daring whistleblower who changed American history doesn't star Matt Damon, but it's safe to say Matt would heartily recommend it.


Betty Sez: Free speech rebels are hot!

"We got to get this son of a bitch." -- Richard Nixon

This affectionate recap of how Vietnam War strategist Daniel Ellsberg was so shocked by his own research that he became America's most infamous war protestor will delight progressives.

But I just see it as a long-playing version of that thrilling moment when nerdy Clark Kent ducks into a phone booth and then busts out as Superman -- able to leap tall Washington monuments and 20-year cover ups in a single bound.

If (like me) you get off on bad ass geeks, or didn't know that Ellsberg's one-man war protest led to the Supreme Court's most important free speech ruling, it's a must see.  Right now it's in theaters, and this fall it will air on the PBS series POV.  Here's the trailer.

Plot: Narrated by the film's hero Ellsberg (with creepy snippets of Nixon ranting about how to crush him), enjoy this first-person version of all the facts fit to print about how an architect of the Vietnam War made the life-altering decision to leak a top secret report to the press, hoping to stop the war he'd come to hate.

To Its Credit: Interesting interviews with gobsmacked Nixon staffers and the butch New York Times team who threw sedition laws to the wind and first published the "Pentagon Papers"; Cool danger music courtesy "The Wire" composer Blake Leyh.

Pluses: Awesome audio of Nixon losing his religion; Surprisingly, also a charming love story. 

Minuses: It's all so fascinating you'll want to press pause and Google The Pentagon Papers.

You'll Like It If You Like: The Informant; The Insider; Fog of War; Berkeley in the 60s; Milk; The Times of Harvey Milk; Platoon, Invictus, Revenge of the Nerds.


My "Dangerous" Day Out
There's nothing I like more than an interactive movie screening (I once dated a cop from East LA just for an immersive screening of Colors).  Today was ideal!

First, walking from my apartment in Santa Monica to the theater, I passed THIS:

The site where Ellsberg infamously hand-Xeroxed all 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers

Then, after the movie I saw THIS!

Dangerous Daniel today..."The Most Adorable Grandpa in America." 

Ellsberg's juicy Q&A included tales about Nixon's plot to have him "rendered ineffectual" by Cuban hit men and his theory on why Afghanistan is no Vietnam ("In Afghanistan you get a dry heat.")

Grateful Vietnam protesters and even Vets offered tearful thanks, then Ellsberg asked if anyone from nearby RAND had actually shown up.  Two chicks raised their hands.  Ellsberg decided they deserved a prize and gave them each a copy of his book Secrets (on which the film is based).

On the left a RAND staffer from the 70's and on the right a current staffer...who asked to be pixilated!


Ellsberg and wife Patricia.

Believe it or not, I'm actually a bit allergic to "leftie" films, and "Dangerous Man" is decidedly leftie.  But I love me a story about a rebel geek!  What I took away from this film was the story of a simple analyst...swimming in paper clips and grizzly facts...who made the brave decision to give up his priviledged life to stop what he came to believe was an unjust war.  Not only a suspensful tale of how one nerd can change the world, but a sad reminder of just how low we've set the bar these days with our hero tales.

Give me a nerdy warrior armed with facts over a blow hard any day!

Note the mysterious orb in this pic I took tonight; After watching the film and meeting Grandpa Ellsberg in person, I'm convinced that's an angel on his shoulder!

Here's The Dangerous Man website (where you will find ample ways to fight the power).

Here's Ellsberg's personal website (where you'll find his current thoughts on why war sucks).