Month: November 2003 (Page 4 of 7)

Master and Commander

It’s a bad sign when I start writing my weblog review of a movie while I’m watching it. That happened with “Master and Commander” because I was insanely bored during the first half, a naval combat drama set almost entirely at night, with photography that made you strain to even see what’s going on.

The second half, set mostly amid the climactic battle between Russell Crowe’s damaged English vessel and the evil (and much larger and more heavily armed) French ship, is basically a cinematic essay on “What It Means To Be A Man.” I actually thought while I was sitting there, “Kim du Toit is going to love this movie.” It’s so reactionary I think it actually took the audience back in time with it.

This male morality play spools out like a live-action version of Kim’s infamous “Pussification” rant, dressed up as a Russell Crowe historical drama projected on the UltraScreen. This was when men were men, and gay men were OK as long as they were willing to, say, rip bullets from their own entrails without anaesthetic.

I might have been willing to stomach the good-old-boy social commentary if the action were involving or well-directed. But it’s not. The drawn-out first half makes the movie seem much longer than its 2:15 running time, and the second half is just a muddle. One of the few things that kept me going was the phrase “soused ox face” (referring to that night’s grub in the mess); I kept thinking about it during boring and/or “dramatic” moments, and disturbing those around me with strangled laughter.

For Kim du Toit: Highly recommended.
For everyone else: Not so much.

It’s all about me

This morning I solved a particularly thorny (for me) programming problem that I’d been working on for a week without success. I was wearing my bathrobe at the time. I think from now on, I’ll get all my work done in the morning before I shower and dress. My mind seems to work better that way.

Child abuse

(for Becky)

Paraphrased Quote of the Week

“You are the Marilyn Munster in the sitcom of your life.”

–David E. Farré, about me

Calling Madison Avenue

I just thought of a great slogan for “Extreme Makeover.”

Extreme Makeover: We take ordinary women, and turn them into beautiful drag queens!

Funniest sentence ever printed on CNN.com

“Fawcett, 40, was the ‘indispensable’ royal aide said to have regularly squeezed the Prince of Wales’s toothpaste.”

-from a CNN.com story on the incipient royal scandal in Britain, still unreported directly in the British press, where Prince Charles is alleged to have had some special services performed by his valet

Wonderful and amazing

I’ve been pretty down lately. The crappy weather, the lack of work coinciding with my utter lack of enthusiasm for work, and the continuing mess in this country’s head have all contributed. Still, there are aspects of my life that are going amazingly well. One thing I’ve learned is, you should seek out the people and situations that make you smile. That helps a lot. (Those of you out there who do this for me, you know who you are. And thank you.)

So if you’re feeling down, or even if you’re not, one suggestion I have is to bookmark Margaret Cho’s site and return often. She is an amazing writer, but even more importantly, she has a sense of hard-won optimism that is breathtaking. (Another must-read is her “Letter to Todd.”) And boy do we (I) need that right now.

Jeb Bush: Asshat

I hate to use a term that’s probably already trademarked by insane right-wing weblogs, but hey, what’s good for the goose…

Clueless quote of the week

“Is there anybody still in the closet? What is there to be in the closet about any more?”

-Oprah, on a show about “family secrets”

Just as I was writing the previous post, my good friend Becky sent me a link to Nicholas Kristof’s piece in the New York Times, “Hold the Vitriol.” (reg required, sorry) It’s basically about how the left shouldn’t become as strident as the right was during Clinton.

Well, I guess I’ve had a little too much du Toit lately, because I fired off this response to Becky:

Nice thoughts, on the surface. But I don’t agree that the left needs to be less angry. If anything, we need more anger. We’ve always been the ones to back down, the ones to say, “let’s consider all sides.” Well, look where that got us. When the insane right is out of power, we can afford to be sweet and hug everyone. Until then, well…this is war, and we have to fight it or be snuffed out. Do you know that on weblogs like Dean Esmay’s, they’re talking about what will happen eventually when the Democratic Party doesn’t exist? The left isn’t who made this country polarized – it was the right pushing and pushing and pushing, because they saw they could.

And if he’s saying the left needs to be more religious, that’s bunk. If anything, we should be talking about how religious agnostics are better for religion in general, because we want everyone to be able to practice whatever they want, and we’re not trying to shove the Ten Commandments down other people’s throats.

I probably was too harsh in the moment, but I stand by every word I said there.

UPDATE: I was being mild. Atrios’ comment on the Kristof piece: “Hey, Nick Kristof – blow me.”