What do you think of Garrett Epps saying Justice Alito "looked for all the world like Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High..."

"... signaling to the homies his contempt for Ray Walston as the bothersome history teacher, Mr. Hand"? Commenters at "Did Justice Alito roll his eyes while Justice Ginsburg was speaking?" let Epps have it. Does he even know the movie? Amartel said:

If Alito had ordered a pizza to be delivered to the well at the Supreme Court, or called Ginsburg a "dick" that would be, like, a totally different story.

Likewise, Youngblood says:

Spicoli doesn't act like that in the film. Now, if Justice Alito said to Justice Ginsburg, "You DICK!" or ordered a pizza in the middle of class, that would be a different story. But little niggling gestures of disrespect aren't really Spicoli-like at all.

And CatherineM:

What I find most offensive is the Spicoli reference. Has Epps ever watched Fast Times? Jeff called Hand a dick once for ripping up his excuse, but he never mocked Mr. Hand. He was incapable. He was too high.

That's his tell. Epps is lying. I object.

To sum up, here's Henry:

Jeff Spicoli is a hero. When did liberals go all in on being turgid squares?

I don't know, man, but the Supreme Court is about to close up for the summer, and maybe all Sam Alito needs are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and he'll be fine.  When it's October, and the Justices are back for oral arguments, maybe he will order that pizza....

Did Justice Alito roll his eyes while Justice Ginsburg was speaking?

Garrett Epps and Dana Milbank think so.

Milbank says "Alito visibly mocked his colleague":

Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the high court, was making her argument about how the majority opinion made it easier for sexual harassment to occur in the workplace when Alito, seated immediately to Ginsburg’s left, shook his head from side to side in disagreement, rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

Epps:

... Alito pursed his lips, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and shook his head "no." He looked for all the world like Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, signaling to the homies his contempt for Ray Walston as the bothersome history teacher, Mr. Hand. 

I don't trust the descriptions of Epps and Milbank. Maybe we could get some more discussion of the meaning of Alito's head — from some observers who like him. And then I could calculate the truth from there. But what would be better would be  cameras in the Supreme Court chambers. This is a new argument for cameras in the Supreme Court — to protect Samuel Alito from calumny.

Amusingly, Epps begins his little article with:

I suspect that the cause of cameras in the Supreme Court suffered a blow on Monday. I am glad the nation did not see first-hand Justice Samuel Alito's display of rudeness to his senior colleague, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Because Alito's mini-tantrum was silent, it will not be recorded in transcript or audio; but it was clear to all with eyes, and brought gasps from more than one person in the audience.

It wasn't clear to me, and I have eyes.

Nice of Epps to want to protect me and the rest of Americans who didn't make it into the courtroom that day, but I prefer to be free to look things and form my own opinion, not to get second-hand descriptions from partisans and polemicists.

And by the way, the notion that female Justices command stronger displays of decorum than male Justices is sexist. Show some real respect.

AND: Do I detect anti-Italian prejudice? Alito is too visibly expressive. He's like a movie character with an Italian name (Spicoli)? The rule is your face should be a mask? WASP-style?

ALSO: Remember the words of one of the world's greatest Italian-Americans:



MOREOVER: Want to bet that if emotions played across the visage of Sonia Sotomayor while Alito or Scalia were articulating some nugget of conservatism that media's Epps and Milbanks would tell us that this — this! — was the empathy Obama said was essential to judging?

AND: A new post highlighting comments about what's wrong with likening Alito to Spicoli.

Hollywood law: Double jeopardy.

Here's the assistant district attorney, addressing a woman who has committed a crime:

"You see, there is a law that no one may be tried twice for the same wrong. I think it's a good law. In a way, you've been tried once, Miss Kelton, and you sentenced yourself to a bitter memory that only time can erase."

That is, the accused own self-torment is the trial and punishment that speaks in favor of a decision not to prosecute (assuming the victim of the crime wants it that way). I won't put in any further spoilers, because I highly recommend the 1949 movie "Not Wanted" about a young woman who falls for a piano player and gets pregnant. If you want to think about the problem of unwed mothers in the historical context predating birth control, abortion, and the normalization of single motherhood, this is just the thing.

This is a very cheaply made film noir, with many scenes in which 2 actors emote at and around each other. Patterns of light and shadow take the place of set design. It's melodramatic, but there's complexity to the characters. The piano player — who has what I'm just guessing is the single most common name for a character in the movies ("Steve Ryan") — is played by Leo Penn, the father of Sean Penn. Leo Penn — who's great in this movie — was later blacklisted after refusing to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The credits for "Not Wanted" display Elmer Clifton as the director, but he had a heart attack midway through the project and Ida Lupino, one of the screenwriters, took over. Lupino was an actress who — Wikipedia says — turned to directing when she was on suspension for refusing a role.

We watched "Not Wanted" via Amazon "instant video," streaming it with a Roku 3, which worked really well. The Roku 3 is great, by the way. It has an earphone plug in the remote control.

"When you get divorced, all the truths that come out, you sit there and you go, 'What the f*** was I doing?'"

"'What was I doing believing that this person was invested in this way?' Which is a fantastically strong humiliation in the best sense..."

Says Sean Penn, who doesn't "feel that I have ever been loved."