Trailer and video from Whit Stillman's Barcelona.

Strange to be cheering on White House economists, but I really do hope these people are successful. Most people admit they don't know what will happen, which on one hand is unnerving, but on another it means they will be willing to try different approaches. It's also good to hear they understand speed is of the essence. Reagan and Clinton didn't fully enact their big economic packages until August. Obama and his propellerheads got it done in a month. From the New York Times:

Sometimes, during the 30-minute briefings that Mr. Summers delivers in the Oval Office nearly every day, Mr. Obama addresses him as Professor, as in, "What do you think, Professor Summers?" Sometimes, as he did in the Roosevelt Room one recent afternoon, Mr. Obama tweaks him and his fellow policy wonks, dubbing them "the propeller-heads."

This, senior White House officials say, is the president’s way of ribbing Mr. Summers, who is back in Washington - he served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton - in the role of what his new boss calls a "thought leader."


...
"The irony is that Summers and Geithner wrote the textbook on how to manage these crises, and they lectured countries all over the world on what to do," said Adam S. Posen, deputy director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, lamenting that they did not "follow through with their own prescriptions."

Mr. Summers dismissed the criticism, maintaining that the bailout plan, for which he said Mr. Geithner would announce details in due time, was "tough and ambitious."

In the meantime, Mr. Obama’s chief propeller-head is on to other matters, like housing and huddling in the Roosevelt Room to plan the budget with the president, as he did on Friday, when Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director, passed out propeller-head hats.

Ian McEwan writes about John Updike.