Have you got two and a half minutes? Here, check this out:
All I can say is NOOOOOO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO.
Wait, I can say more.
Let's take a look at the cast of characters: we've got a Jude, Lucy, Prudence, Sadie, JoJo, Desmond, Max (which I can only assume is short for Maxwell), Bill, and of course Mr. Kite (played by Eddie Izzard). I didn't have the patience to look at the whole thing, but I'm going to assume that there's a Michelle, Martha, Julia, Doctor Robert, Pam, Eleanor (Rigby), and AAAGGGGHHHHHHHH GOD IT'S SO GRATINGLY "CLEVER" I WANT TO SHOOT SOMETHING.
Now look, I know this kind of crap is inevitable. I Am Sam did that whole "Beatles-cover" shtick too, and that actually resulted in several listenable tracks... ok, two I guess, but that's an argument for another day.
The point is, this sort of crap should usually be relegated to braindead musical theater shows, where a bunch of struggling actors dress up in the most obnoxious 1980s clothing imaginable and sing a bunch of Billy Joel songs that have been loosely slapped together into some kind of idiotic haphazard story, so that baby boomers can go and have fun and pay $35 to hear inferior versions of songs they've heard several million times since they were 13.
And if they did that with the Beatles, I'd have no problem with that. Hell, they did it with the Beach Boys, they might as well. And it would be ok because the whole thing would be completely under my radar, and I could be blissfully unaware of the whole thing, and not hear a thing about it until the touring production of "A Day in the Life, Featuring the Music of the Beatles" came to the Forrest Theatre for a week, and then I'd be mildly annoyed because somebody would say "Hey Tom, you going? Heh heh heh," just to be a wiseguy, but still, I wouldn't really care.
But no. It HAD to be a damn movie. AND LOOK HOW FUCKING SERIOUSLY THIS THING IS TAKING ITSELF. God. The plot synopsis on the imdb describes it as "a fictional love story set in the 1960s amid the turbulent years of anti-war protest, the struggle for free speech and civil rights, mind exploration and rock and roll." Cool. I remember that VH1 miniseries too. Not to mention Forrest Gump.
God. This thing needs to come out and flop so I can forget it ever happened.
EDIT: this was posted at first with a completely different video embedded other than the one I wrote about. I'm assuming that any reasonably intelligent person could figure out that the text and video did not correspond. But I fixed it now. All is well.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Politicians are dumb
From the very start, this Iraq resolution that's been making its way through Congress has seemed like a waste of time to me. They're spending hours and hours debating a resolution that is non-binding, no more than a simple expression of the opinion of the Congress that maybe Bush shouldn't be sending 21,000 more troops to Iraq, that Bush has promised to ignore anyway. (And as a side note, why do we keep calling it a "surge" when referring to it? Did a focus group reveal that "increased military presence" sounds too harsh?)
Some conservatives have criticized it as being a transparent attempt to embarrass the president, and for once I completely agree with them. If it had passed, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could trumpet their success to the American people, because what would the headlines say? "Congress Passes Resolution Against Iraq War." And then in the smaller print in the actual article that nobody actually reads, we see (or don't see) that it's non-binding, won't change a thing, that they spent hours debating over three versions of it with subtle wording differences that may allow politicians an exit if the "surge" somehow actually works, and blah blah blah.
Of course, that's all a moot point now, because it's essentially dead. Perhaps they killed did it for different reasons than I would have done it, but for now, no more time will be spent on the resolutions, and maybe now the Senate can start worrying about things that will actually have an effect on policy, like, say, the $245 billion that the Bush Administration wants for the war.
But here's the funny thing. The Democrats didn't even need to pass the resolution to come out looking good. Check out the headline of that news article:
"Republicans block Senate debate on Iraq"
The Republicans aren't going to win a lot of voters with that, are they?
Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah liberal media blah blah blah. I just think it's amusing.
Some conservatives have criticized it as being a transparent attempt to embarrass the president, and for once I completely agree with them. If it had passed, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could trumpet their success to the American people, because what would the headlines say? "Congress Passes Resolution Against Iraq War." And then in the smaller print in the actual article that nobody actually reads, we see (or don't see) that it's non-binding, won't change a thing, that they spent hours debating over three versions of it with subtle wording differences that may allow politicians an exit if the "surge" somehow actually works, and blah blah blah.
Of course, that's all a moot point now, because it's essentially dead. Perhaps they killed did it for different reasons than I would have done it, but for now, no more time will be spent on the resolutions, and maybe now the Senate can start worrying about things that will actually have an effect on policy, like, say, the $245 billion that the Bush Administration wants for the war.
But here's the funny thing. The Democrats didn't even need to pass the resolution to come out looking good. Check out the headline of that news article:
"Republicans block Senate debate on Iraq"
The Republicans aren't going to win a lot of voters with that, are they?
Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah liberal media blah blah blah. I just think it's amusing.
A movie review, three years late
So, I saw the feature documentary film The Fog of War last night. It was released almost exactly three years ago, but I'm going to bet that most of you haven't seen it, so I'm going to go ahead and offer up my thoughts anyway. Here we go.
At first, Robert McNamara would seem to make a strange subject for an Errol Morris documentary. Morris has made a career out of his odd choice of subject matters, but these are usually limited to offbeat types like pet cemetery managers (Gates of Heaven, one of my favorite movies), backwoods small town residents who hunt turkeys (Vernon, Florida), mole rat specialists, robot inventors, lion tamers, shrub sculptors (all four in Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control), and even once a death row inmate (The Thin Blue Line, no relation to Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line). But McNamara brings with him a much heavier story, considered by many to be the "architect" of the Vietnam War, the supervisor of one of the worst military fiascoes in American history, responsible for the deaths of thousands.
As it turns out, McNamara makes a very prototypical Morris subject: a conflicted man often paralyzed by his own complexity, a man clearly torn apart by his culpability, but not willing to admit that in as many words.
Long story short, The Fog of War reveals McNamara to be, at 85 years old, hardly the arrogant and bullheaded fiend his critics claim him to be (and to be honest, that's how I saw him going into the movie). He's surprisingly introspective, ruminating freely on his thoughts at being close at hand (and partially responsible) for the US firebombing of Tokyo in World War II that killed 100,000, and for being second in command only to the president (first Kennedy, then Johnson) during a conflict that saw 25,000 US soldiers killed during his command, and countless more Vietnamese. He refuses to take direct responsibility for anything, but openly admits that he was in charge when Agent Orange was introduced, among many other things.
McNamara walks an odd tightrope throughout the film, coming tantalizingly close to an apology for the things he did while also never really accepting full responsibility for them. Asked by Morris who was responsible for the Vietnam War, he responds without a moment of hesitation, "The President" (that being Lyndon Johnson in this case).
The parallels to today's situation in Iraq are so obvious that I almost feel like I'm wasting time by bringing it up at all, but I would be very interested as to what George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld would say about The Fog of War, and McNamara's candidness about the mistakes he made in Vietnam that were repeated almost exactly by Rumsfeld, who only recently finally resigned from the same office that McNamara once held.
Morris, as usual, does an excellent job of bringing out the most fascinating side of his interview subject, although his visual metaphors can be laughably literal (the transition from WWII to Vietnam, for example, is made by showing dominoes toppling on a large map of Europe and Asia on a line from Moscow to Hanoi). But is anybody really counting that against him in a documentary? Consider that The Fog of War won the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award in 2004, an award which had been won the previous year by Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. I'll take Morris' unobtrusive thoughtfulness over Moore's ham-fisted propaganda any day of the week.
And finally, the music: Philip Glass, one of my favorite composers, provided a score for the film, and did a fair job of it. Glass often seems a stone's throw away from self-parody, and that's certainly the case here, as he reprises some of his earlier works from the 1980s almost verbatim, and then actually includes several of his earlier works from the 1980s. Oh well. Glass has done enough amazing work that I'm ok with letting him slide with a mediocre film soundtrack, since most of the movie consists of McNamara talking to a camera anyway.
At first, Robert McNamara would seem to make a strange subject for an Errol Morris documentary. Morris has made a career out of his odd choice of subject matters, but these are usually limited to offbeat types like pet cemetery managers (Gates of Heaven, one of my favorite movies), backwoods small town residents who hunt turkeys (Vernon, Florida), mole rat specialists, robot inventors, lion tamers, shrub sculptors (all four in Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control), and even once a death row inmate (The Thin Blue Line, no relation to Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line). But McNamara brings with him a much heavier story, considered by many to be the "architect" of the Vietnam War, the supervisor of one of the worst military fiascoes in American history, responsible for the deaths of thousands.
As it turns out, McNamara makes a very prototypical Morris subject: a conflicted man often paralyzed by his own complexity, a man clearly torn apart by his culpability, but not willing to admit that in as many words.
Long story short, The Fog of War reveals McNamara to be, at 85 years old, hardly the arrogant and bullheaded fiend his critics claim him to be (and to be honest, that's how I saw him going into the movie). He's surprisingly introspective, ruminating freely on his thoughts at being close at hand (and partially responsible) for the US firebombing of Tokyo in World War II that killed 100,000, and for being second in command only to the president (first Kennedy, then Johnson) during a conflict that saw 25,000 US soldiers killed during his command, and countless more Vietnamese. He refuses to take direct responsibility for anything, but openly admits that he was in charge when Agent Orange was introduced, among many other things.
McNamara walks an odd tightrope throughout the film, coming tantalizingly close to an apology for the things he did while also never really accepting full responsibility for them. Asked by Morris who was responsible for the Vietnam War, he responds without a moment of hesitation, "The President" (that being Lyndon Johnson in this case).
The parallels to today's situation in Iraq are so obvious that I almost feel like I'm wasting time by bringing it up at all, but I would be very interested as to what George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld would say about The Fog of War, and McNamara's candidness about the mistakes he made in Vietnam that were repeated almost exactly by Rumsfeld, who only recently finally resigned from the same office that McNamara once held.
Morris, as usual, does an excellent job of bringing out the most fascinating side of his interview subject, although his visual metaphors can be laughably literal (the transition from WWII to Vietnam, for example, is made by showing dominoes toppling on a large map of Europe and Asia on a line from Moscow to Hanoi). But is anybody really counting that against him in a documentary? Consider that The Fog of War won the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award in 2004, an award which had been won the previous year by Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. I'll take Morris' unobtrusive thoughtfulness over Moore's ham-fisted propaganda any day of the week.
And finally, the music: Philip Glass, one of my favorite composers, provided a score for the film, and did a fair job of it. Glass often seems a stone's throw away from self-parody, and that's certainly the case here, as he reprises some of his earlier works from the 1980s almost verbatim, and then actually includes several of his earlier works from the 1980s. Oh well. Glass has done enough amazing work that I'm ok with letting him slide with a mediocre film soundtrack, since most of the movie consists of McNamara talking to a camera anyway.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Aqua Teen Hunger Blah
The "tempest in a teapot" story of the century can be found right here.
I'm sure that most of you have heard about that by now (and by "most" I mean "3 of the 4 people reading this"), so I'm not going to write about all the details. I just want to vent about how idiotic the whole story is.
Let's start with this paragraph: "Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards 'bomblike' devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city."
By this logic, I could be arrested and charged with a felony for driving my car on a road in Boston. Cars can have bombs in them! If my car had a bomb in it it certainly could have damaged transportation infrastructure, right?
Never mind that these "bomblike" lightboards had been in the city for three weeks without any problem, or that they have also been in nine other cities (including Philadelphia) without incident. Nope. A couple phone calls to the police, and suddenly the bomb squad has to come out, shut down the whole area, and detonate a Lite-Brite of a cartoon moon man giving the middle finger in a controlled explosion.
But for now, let's go back to the news story for a second: "Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called the stunt 'unconscionable,' while Boston Mayor Thomas Menino called it 'outrageous' and the product of 'corporate greed.' Democratic Rep. Ed Markey, a Boston-area congressman, added, 'It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt.'"
Read that again: "It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt."
Ed Markey may be lacking in the imagination department, but then again, he is a professional politician, so it's not that surprising (see, I can rag on Democrats too). Either way, that quote is pretty symbolic of the whole reaction to this. Or maybe a harmless viral marketing campaign that didn't affect a soul until the city of Boston went nuts over it is, in fact, the most appalling publicity stunt ever.
It makes me wonder what would happen if I called my local police and said, "Yeah, I'd like to report an emergency. There are all these big blue boxes with small openings at the top all over the place. There's one at 42nd and Pine, another at 43rd and Spruce, and still another at 43rd and Chester! And every night at 5:00 this guy in a blue uniform-type outfit comes and does something with it. Probably fine-tuning the timer in the bomb!"
Maybe I could get mailboxes removed from the entire city.
Meanwhile, you can bet that Aqua Teen Hunger Force will have the highest ratings of its entire run now, after news outlets across the country have been forced to offer some sort of explanation of what the show is.
Anyway, I'm sure somebody out there is thinking "I'd rather have this than terrorist bombings all across the country," and I guess I can't really argue with that, but it still wouldn't hurt to use a little common sense one in a while.
I'm sure that most of you have heard about that by now (and by "most" I mean "3 of the 4 people reading this"), so I'm not going to write about all the details. I just want to vent about how idiotic the whole story is.
Let's start with this paragraph: "Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards 'bomblike' devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city."
By this logic, I could be arrested and charged with a felony for driving my car on a road in Boston. Cars can have bombs in them! If my car had a bomb in it it certainly could have damaged transportation infrastructure, right?
Never mind that these "bomblike" lightboards had been in the city for three weeks without any problem, or that they have also been in nine other cities (including Philadelphia) without incident. Nope. A couple phone calls to the police, and suddenly the bomb squad has to come out, shut down the whole area, and detonate a Lite-Brite of a cartoon moon man giving the middle finger in a controlled explosion.
But for now, let's go back to the news story for a second: "Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called the stunt 'unconscionable,' while Boston Mayor Thomas Menino called it 'outrageous' and the product of 'corporate greed.' Democratic Rep. Ed Markey, a Boston-area congressman, added, 'It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt.'"
Read that again: "It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt."
Ed Markey may be lacking in the imagination department, but then again, he is a professional politician, so it's not that surprising (see, I can rag on Democrats too). Either way, that quote is pretty symbolic of the whole reaction to this. Or maybe a harmless viral marketing campaign that didn't affect a soul until the city of Boston went nuts over it is, in fact, the most appalling publicity stunt ever.
It makes me wonder what would happen if I called my local police and said, "Yeah, I'd like to report an emergency. There are all these big blue boxes with small openings at the top all over the place. There's one at 42nd and Pine, another at 43rd and Spruce, and still another at 43rd and Chester! And every night at 5:00 this guy in a blue uniform-type outfit comes and does something with it. Probably fine-tuning the timer in the bomb!"
Maybe I could get mailboxes removed from the entire city.
Meanwhile, you can bet that Aqua Teen Hunger Force will have the highest ratings of its entire run now, after news outlets across the country have been forced to offer some sort of explanation of what the show is.
Anyway, I'm sure somebody out there is thinking "I'd rather have this than terrorist bombings all across the country," and I guess I can't really argue with that, but it still wouldn't hurt to use a little common sense one in a while.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
blog
blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog blog
right?
right?
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Eagles 23, Giants 20
I'm just going to go ahead and say what everybody else is obviously thinking:
The biggest reason the Eagles won their playoff game today against the New York Giants?
#10.
Koy Detmer.
KOY.
IS.
OUR.
BOY.
See. David Akers knows. And that's not a typo in that picture. David Akers just doesn't feel the need to pronounce "ing" in its entirety when talking.
I missed the poor sadsack excuse for an NFL quarterback. He was clean of his neckbeard for today's game, but that's ok. I'm sure he can probably grow it back instantly at will. I expect the usual scuzz and fuzz stretching three inches below his chinstrap next week against New Orleans. I was actually planning on praising the virtues of Koy even if the Eagles didn't need a last second field goal to win (this entry would be funnier if all Koy did was hold for three extra points or something), but that makes it better anyway.
And speaking of the New Orleans game, can you ever remember the Eagles playing a game in which their opponent would so clearly be the sentimental favorite for 99% of the country? I mean damn, the Eagles had a good Cinderella story going this season, but New Orleans? Forget it. We might be stuck with more idiotic "Eagles fans are horrible people" stories this week just to remind us who the good guys are.
The biggest reason the Eagles won their playoff game today against the New York Giants?
#10.
Koy Detmer.
KOY.
IS.
OUR.
BOY.
See. David Akers knows. And that's not a typo in that picture. David Akers just doesn't feel the need to pronounce "ing" in its entirety when talking.
I missed the poor sadsack excuse for an NFL quarterback. He was clean of his neckbeard for today's game, but that's ok. I'm sure he can probably grow it back instantly at will. I expect the usual scuzz and fuzz stretching three inches below his chinstrap next week against New Orleans. I was actually planning on praising the virtues of Koy even if the Eagles didn't need a last second field goal to win (this entry would be funnier if all Koy did was hold for three extra points or something), but that makes it better anyway.
And speaking of the New Orleans game, can you ever remember the Eagles playing a game in which their opponent would so clearly be the sentimental favorite for 99% of the country? I mean damn, the Eagles had a good Cinderella story going this season, but New Orleans? Forget it. We might be stuck with more idiotic "Eagles fans are horrible people" stories this week just to remind us who the good guys are.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Three things...
1) Happy 2007, y'all. I, for one, am hoping that 2007 is less timultuous for me than 2006, which saw me start a new job, move into a new apartment, and create and (possibly) destroy the most meaningful and fulfilling personal relationship I've had in years. My New Year's Resolution is to be slightly less insane than I was last year. And try to gain a little financial security, for Christ's sake. And maybe lose a little weight while I'm at it.
2) HOW 'BOUT DEM BOIDS?! NFC EAST CHAMPIONS, FIVE OUT OF SIX YEARS! BACK WHERE WE BELONG, BABY! I think at this point, despite the grave doubts many of us had just a few weeks ago, it is safe to say that last year was an aberration, and that the Eagles are still one of the elite teams of the NFC. The numbers speak for themselves: a 10-6 record, the #3 seed in the NFC, another division championship, a home playoff game against the struggling Giants. After the win two weeks ago against the Giants, I damn near laughed my dad out of the room for comparing this year's Eagles to last year's Steelers, who struggled for awhile, then put together an impressive winning streak and eventually won the Super Bowl. After the Cowboys game, and now the division championship, to say nothing of the fact that the Eagles' second string beat the Falcons' first string, it doesn't seem so ridiculous. Is there an NFC team you don't think the Eagles could beat right now? An AFC team?
3) HOW 'BOUT DEM FALCONS/COWBOYS/GIANTS?! It's a good time to be rooting against every team that we Eagles fans traditionally hate. The Cowboys lost to the worst team in the NFL today, even though the Lions had nothing to play for and the Cowboys had the NFC East crown in sight (which they would not have won anyway, since the Eagles beat the Falcons). Terrell Owens, of all people, led the NFL in dropped passes this year. The Giants, despite Tiki Barber's heroic efforts (and in the midst of all the complete assholes who play for that team, I still admire Tiki, even though I want to choke his brother to death, and even though a guy who publicly questions his coach's ability is always an asshole), are floundering, with a quarterback who will never come close to living up to his older brother's standard and without a defensive lineman who likes to bully women media members who are half his size. The Falcons, of course, have completed the worst free fall of any of those three, finishing this season with a losing record, and seemingly proving once and for all that Michael Vick is horribly overrated (which I've been saying at least since that playoff game in 2003 at the Vet that I was at) and an asshole to boot, and that Jim Mora, Jr. is no Jim Mora, Sr., who was nothing to begin with.
Well. Life is not too bad right now.
2) HOW 'BOUT DEM BOIDS?! NFC EAST CHAMPIONS, FIVE OUT OF SIX YEARS! BACK WHERE WE BELONG, BABY! I think at this point, despite the grave doubts many of us had just a few weeks ago, it is safe to say that last year was an aberration, and that the Eagles are still one of the elite teams of the NFC. The numbers speak for themselves: a 10-6 record, the #3 seed in the NFC, another division championship, a home playoff game against the struggling Giants. After the win two weeks ago against the Giants, I damn near laughed my dad out of the room for comparing this year's Eagles to last year's Steelers, who struggled for awhile, then put together an impressive winning streak and eventually won the Super Bowl. After the Cowboys game, and now the division championship, to say nothing of the fact that the Eagles' second string beat the Falcons' first string, it doesn't seem so ridiculous. Is there an NFC team you don't think the Eagles could beat right now? An AFC team?
3) HOW 'BOUT DEM FALCONS/COWBOYS/GIANTS?! It's a good time to be rooting against every team that we Eagles fans traditionally hate. The Cowboys lost to the worst team in the NFL today, even though the Lions had nothing to play for and the Cowboys had the NFC East crown in sight (which they would not have won anyway, since the Eagles beat the Falcons). Terrell Owens, of all people, led the NFL in dropped passes this year. The Giants, despite Tiki Barber's heroic efforts (and in the midst of all the complete assholes who play for that team, I still admire Tiki, even though I want to choke his brother to death, and even though a guy who publicly questions his coach's ability is always an asshole), are floundering, with a quarterback who will never come close to living up to his older brother's standard and without a defensive lineman who likes to bully women media members who are half his size. The Falcons, of course, have completed the worst free fall of any of those three, finishing this season with a losing record, and seemingly proving once and for all that Michael Vick is horribly overrated (which I've been saying at least since that playoff game in 2003 at the Vet that I was at) and an asshole to boot, and that Jim Mora, Jr. is no Jim Mora, Sr., who was nothing to begin with.
Well. Life is not too bad right now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)