Rhetorical question
Do you think every time Alan Colmes has to say “You are watching the network you trust for real news – fair and balanced” into the camera, his soul dies a little?
Month: December 2003 (Page 4 of 7)
Quote of the day
“Republicans are big on giving Democrats advice these days, especially on how to conduct campaigns. It’s like Tonya Harding coaching Nancy Kerrigan on the finer points of sportsmanship.”
-P.M. Carpenter, History News Network (via Smirking Chimp)
Admission
All this crowing over Saddam has me thinking about Howard Dean. I so want Dean to win, mainly because I think he’s the right man for the job, and because he can begin to dig us out of the hole we made for ourselves. He stands up for what he believes in, the Democratic values that are actually shared by a large majority of our country’s population.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a part of me wants Dean to win so all the right-wingers, religious conservatives, and neocons can eat dirt. I’d love to see them take a nice big mouthful. They deserve every morsel.
Is it just me, or is Mrs. du Toit’s online Christmas card mind-numbingly hilarious, on multiple levels?
Listening to…
“Be Careful,” Patty Griffin
Can you tell I like Patty Griffin? 🙂 Her songs have such resonance for me, for many reasons. I feel like she came along just when I needed her.
Saddam
What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Saddam’s capture is a great thing for the Iraqi people, and a great thing for our troops. I hope he’s tried by Iraqis or by a world court, and not by the U.S. But the inescapable fact is: Saddam captured alive + no shots fired = A Good Thing.
At the same time, I hate the thought of the political hay that the Bushies will make of capturing a man who had nothing to do with the War on Terror (if we even know what that is anymore).
But that’s OK. My friend Lisa says it’s all right for me to have mixed feelings about this. And I trust Lisa’s advice in all things.
Scoring movie reviews
Steve has suggested that I use a rating scale (stars? numbers?) in my movie reviews. In the past I’ve specifically avoided that; I think a movie deserves discussion, not just a number attached to it. But if enough people want me to start doing this, I will. (I definitely won’t do just a “thumbs up/thumbs down” thing, though.) Let me know what you think of in the comments.
The Last Samurai
Tom Cruise tries hard. In every role he plays, you can almost feel his effort oozing out of every pore. You can imagine him in front of the mirror in his trailer, repeating “I *am* a disillusioned Civil War hero!” over and over. He never relaxes, and that gets tiring. He’s trying so hard *not* to be the instantly-recognizable Hollywood star that he actually is, he doesn’t let us in.
That’s less of a problem with contemporary movies like “Jerry Maguire” or futuristic ones like “Minority Report,” where Cruise’s teeth-grinding intensity can be used to better effect. But he’s wildly miscast in this “epic,” another non-Western story told with a Western white male as its protagonist. I couldn’t stop thinking, whenever he was on screen, “There’s Tom Cruise!” That’s deadly for a historical drama.
Not that this movie doesn’t have other problems. It’s two and a half hours long, and includes (conservatively) 3,613 impalings. It goes through the motions of an epic, with its hero learning the value of honor blah blah blah. But it feels plastic, no matter how beautiful the rural Japan landscapes may be. There’s no beating heart at the core of this story.
One example: we’re often treated to voice-over readings of Capt. Algren’s diaries kept while in Japan, where he talks about how the samurai are “an intriguing people” and some such. Memo to screenwriters: show, not tell.
It’s not a particularly bad movie, and there are some interesting and fun performances from supporting players (Timothy Spall as the translator, and a woefully underused Billy Connolly as Algren’s military colleague). But there isn’t anything all that good about it, either. It’s another product of the Hollywood epic machine, which should have clogged itself up years ago.
But hey, if you love Tom Cruise, go for it. And if you love impalings, this is the Movie of the Year.
Word of the day
“Adam could have used some crampons during his walk around the neighborhood, since the sidewalks were dangerously icy.”
Now I believe
Bill Kristol’s latest column should be titled “How Dean Will Win.” Stunning truth-telling from smirking Fox News Sunday panelist Kristol.
Bring in on, baby. Bring it on.