Month: July 2003 (Page 3 of 8)

In honor of the 2003 Bulwer-Lytton Contest winners announced last week, here’s one of my unsubmitted attempts at writing an entry:

The old grandfather clock in the oak-paneled hallway of Critchwick Manor intoned the hour, its haunting chime echoing along the parquet floor, out the stained glass window depicting the Battle of Agincourt and traveling down to the moors where Geoffrey stood, stalwart, his hazel eyes blazing as he thought of the lost years he had spent without his one true love Belinda, staring into the mist longingly for what seemed like an eternity before muttering at last to himself and no one else, “What the hell was that noise?”

“And apparently we killed Saddam’s kids today! Well, they won’t be bothering……..Mrs. Hussein anymore.”

-Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, I hope sharing my brain-crushing ambivalence at this news

Eloquent essay on Daily Kos by Steve Gilliard: The disappearing President.

MST3K

Sarah Connor: Can you stop it?

Kyle Reese: I don’t know. With these weapons…I don’t know.

Jesse (interjecting): Maybe we can lure it away to become Governor of California!

“I’d like to hug Kaylee and tell her that Ann Coulter doesn’t exist, but you can’t lie to your kids.”

Funny stuff from the Tallahassee Democrat, by way of Barney Gumble. Unlike most Onion stories, though, I think this one would have been even better if it had been fleshed out a little bit.

Quote of the Day

“I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.”

-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, while touring the U.S.-occupied country

Taking umbrage

Many Democratic leaders worry that Dean’s renewed insistence that the war was wrong could prove disastrous in a general election.

“There are a lot of Americans who are going to take umbrage with the argument that all those lives were lost in vain and it was in some manner a hoax,” said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank.

-from an L.A. Times story about the double-edged sword of criticizing Iraq

Yeah, people don’t like getting taken. But you would think they would be smart enough to take out their anger on the guy who took them, not the one who pointed out the swindle.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Much, much better than any movie based on a Disney theme park ride has a right to be. Johnny Depp’s performance as Capt. Jack Sparrow is a joy – all flouncy disregard for both traditional pirate behavior and “serious” film acting. He’s having a ball, and wants us to have one too.

But (see how I always give you the good news first?), this 2 1/2-hour romp could have easily been an hour shorter, and better for it. I don’t mind long movies on principle, if there are enough ideas to sustain the length. That just wasn’t the case here.

Also, I think I would have enjoyed myself more if the other two leads, Keira Knightly of “Bend it Like Beckham” and Orlando Bloom of, well, you know, weren’t such pale shadows in comparison to Depp. They’re like theme park employees playing out roles for the tourists.

Even more depressing was the roster of previews before “Pirates,” including Eddie Murphy’s latest attempt to torpedo his own career, a movie based on Disney’s Haunted Mansion attraction. Ugh. But after seeing Depp here, if they were making a “It’s a Small World After All” movie starring him, I just might give it a chance.

BONUS: A visual pirate joke. (Although I think they should have included an “I” key.)

Winged Migration

If it was 45 minutes long, and shown on Discovery Channel HDTV on the Sony 16×9 television I will own someday, I would say this elegant documentary about migrating birds would be just about perfect. The filmmakers used gliders and other stealth technology to get mindblowing footage flying alongside the flocks, and the landscapes are just as breathtaking.

But at 90 minutes, shown with a crappy “dragged across a concrete floor” print at Hilldale Theatres, I have to admit I was sort of dozing off in a few spots. With almost no narration and just a handful of informational titles, they seemed unsure about whether they wanted to make a documentary or a nature tone poem.

Beautiful images, no question. But I need a little more than that to sustain me.

To put it mildly

TIM RUSSERT: What would the Republicans have done, if a Democratic president had made comments in the State of the Union, comments about national security, that were found to be false?

SEN. JOE BIDEN: …They would have torn his skin off.

-“Meet the Press” today

Great quote from Biden. But it begs the question, why aren’t the Democrats doing the same to Bush?