You are currently browsing the Wetshadows weblog archives for the day 22. May 2008.
22. May 2008 by admin.
This is a great video–not sure it would make me want to buy a Honda as a result of watching it, but very cool.
Posted in "wow" | Print | 1 Comment »
22. May 2008 by admin.
If you want a good laugh, check this out. You probably should see the original if you haven’t already before watching this ‘remix’.
Posted in Politics & Current Events, Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »
22. May 2008 by admin.
Here are some TV shows I think are pretty good. If you get a chance, check them out–they should all be on DVD at this point. 1. "The IT crowd": This is a British series about people who work in the IT Department at a company in the UK. It’s pretty funny, and the three leads are all very good. One example of the show’s humor: the lead woman in the show is a smoker. She and the other smokers (who are all Russian) are increasingly exiled further and further from the building in which they work. This whole sequence about her smoking is presented as a bleak foreign film–pretty funny on a couple of levels. You can find it at Amazon or Netflix for rent.
2. "In Treatment": This show, which ran every week night for months on HBO, tracks 4 indivduals and one couple through a weekly therapy session. There are several outstanding performances in the show, I think, including Gabriel Byrne as the psychotherapist, a young woman who plays a teenage gymnast who purposely caused herself to be in an auto accident months before Olympic tryouts, and Blair Underwood as a navy pilot who is having issues after having bombed people in Iraq.
Each episode is 30 minutes long and the episodes are generally very well written and directed.
3. "The Worst Week of My Life": Another British series, the first 6 episodes of which have to be some of the funniest TV I have seen in a long time. There are 3 6 episode seasons (each season is called a ’series’ in Britain), and the first details an about-to-be-married couple’s preparations for their wedding. Everything that can go wrong does, but in ways that are so excruciatingly embarrassing for the couple and esp. the man, that you almost can’t bear to watch.
Very funny. The second and third series are also very funny (esp. compared to most American sit-coms), but don’t match the first series. You definitely need to watch this.
4. "Carrier": A PBS series about life on the state-of-the-art Nimitz Aircraft Carrier, a floating city. Though the naval personnel aren’t always that interesting individually, learning about what life is like onboard such an amazing ship is certainly interesting.
I think you can watch the whole series streaming off of the PBS website.
"The IT Crowd" and "Worst Week" are available on DVD for purchase and rental; "In Treatment" hasn’t yet been released on DVD but soon will be.
Posted in Recommended DVDs | Print | 1 Comment »
22. May 2008 by admin.
Here are some DVDs that were a waste of my time and probably yours, too:
1. "Lions for Lambs": A serious political film that purports to examine the issues underlying our current foreign policy with respect to Iraq. Meryl Streep gives the worst performance I can remember in the last 10 years. Robert Redford acts stilted and looks like he’s on drugs (perhaps it’s his botox injections or face-lift), and the dialog he gives himself (he’s also the director) sounds like it came out of a college freshman’s writing class. To cap it off, Tom Cruise delivers the coup de grace in the acting department, playing a self-satisfied super-patriotic senator, who has come up with a new strategy for winning the war in Iraq.
I left the film thinking that it failed on all accounts: despite trying to be a film like (the much-better) "Syriana" or "Traffic", that asks penetrating questions about our place in the world and delivers performances that infuse these questions with poignancy, it wound up taking rote Q&A dialog and trying to elevate it to a higher plane than it , the script, deserved.
See "Syriana", "Traffic" or "Babel".
2. "Sleuth" (the 2007 remake): At first blush, this film, directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Michael Caine–who was also in the original, but playing the other lead role–and Jude Law, seems like a ‘can’t-miss’ line-up. If you thought that, you’d be wrong. Caine does okay, but Law looks like he’s a couple of testosterone shots short of qualifying as male; I know women, including my wife, find Law to be irresistible, but here he seems like a real ponce.
The set design of Caine’s designer home is so bad, so distractingly awful, that I spent most of the time, during the scenes set there, marvelling at how anybody could/would want to live in such a trainwreck of a contemporary super-upscale house. It looks like it was designed by art-school grads who had suffered macular degeneration.
Finally, you walk away from the movie saying "I spent hours of my life on this?"
Watch the original with Olivier and Caine.
3. "Brothers Solomon": A ‘comedy’ (I put this in quotes because that’s what it claims to be, but doesn’t turn out that way) with two funny guys who manage not to be funny in this movie: Will Arnett (from "Blades of Glory", "30 Rock", etc.) and Will Forte (from "Saturday Night Live") are brothers who want to find women to impregnate so they can give their comatose father a grandchild. Now you might blame me (probably rightly) for watching this piece of crap film in the first place and say, "Joe, it doesn’t even SOUND like a good film in the first place, and I haven’t even watched it yet". To this I would say, "it had good comedians including the two I mentioned and Jenna Fischer from ‘The Office’ tv series, and was directed by a writer for ‘The Simpsons’"–surely it could have had some decent scenes and laughs?"
Anyway, it’s bad–real bad. We’ve already spent too much time writing about it and reading about it.
4. "Suburban Girl": This would be a watchable movie with someone other than Sarah Michelle Gellar (she played Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the TV series). However, she is not a good actress in my opinion and, to top it off, she had a bad nose job, which is almost as big a distraction as the set design in Michael Caine’s house in "Sleuth" (see above review of "Sleuth"). Alec Baldwin, who’s never bad in anything–he could make a cough syrup commercial compelling–does all he can here, but it’s not enough to save the picture from Gellar.
Rejoice in the time I’m saving you and see some good movies…
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22. May 2008 by admin.
Here are some more DVDs I recommend:
1. "Atonement": Many of you have probably already seen this film either in theaters or on DVD. If you haven’t, you should. The main reason is the cinematography. The director of photography on this film, Seamus McGarvey, does an outstanding job.
The acting is solid, esp. two of the lesser roles in the film, Romola Garai, who plays the grown-up sister of Keira Knightley’s role, and Lynn Redgrave, who plays an even older version of Keira Knightley’s sister. The editing and script could be better.
As a big fan of David Lean’s cinematographer, Freddie Young, I have to say that McGarvey comes close to matching the heights achieved by Young in Lawrence of Arabia. Simply stunning film visually.
2. "Jesus Camp": A documentary about a camp for fundamentalist Christian children. The woman who runs the camp likens her philosophy to that of Muslims who train children to become suicide bombers; her viewpoint is, ‘if Muslims can be inspired to be that zealous in their beliefs, why shouldn’t we inspire equal zealousness in our children’?
Very interesting view on what some kids do on their Summer Vacations.
3. "Nine Queens": An Argentinian film, since re-made (not nearly as well-done) in the U.S., that is like a David Mamet heist-within-a-heist story. Very well-done and entertaining as long as you don’t mind sub-titles.
4. "DiG": A documentary chronicling two bands, "The Dandy Warhols" and "The Brian Jonestown Massacre" from their initiation to one of the band’s ultimate success and the other’s plunge into obscurity. The leaders of both bands are considered by many as the ‘ next big things’ in popular music. The story of how they fulfill or don’t fulfill these expectations over 7 years was very interesting, at least to me. I am now a big fan of the Dandy Warhols, and became introduced to them through this documentary.
That’s all for now
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22. May 2008 by admin.
We can survive without oil. We can’t survive without drinking water.
Potable water supplies are growing smaller and it is increasingly likely
that we will have massive conflicts over drinking water at some point in the
not too distant future. Already, there are severe droughts in the Atlanta area and others across
the U.S. Yet what attention do we see at a national level to addressing this problem, and
to figuring out how to make it rain in places that are suffering severe droughts?
Perhaps rather than competing to see who can be the poster-boy (or girl) for change,
our presidential candidates should worry about increasing the supply of potable water.
Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »
22. May 2008 by admin.
Every time you watch a commercial DVD, one of the first things
you see is an FBI warning. I really resent the idea that my
entertainment experience has to be marred by an FBI seal
and jail threat. Imagine a generation of kids growing up
who will never have a home video experience that isn’t
accompanied by a warning from our Federal Government.
Why do we tolerate this?
Posted in things to think about | Print | 1 Comment »
22. May 2008 by admin.
Good essay by Naomi Klein & Jeremy Scahill
www.naomiklein.org
“So?”
So said Dick Cheney when asked last week about public opinion being overwhelming against the war in Iraq. “You can’t be blown off course by polls.”
His attitude about the the fact that the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq has reached 4,000 displayed similar levels of sympathy. They “voluntarily put on the uniform,” the Vice-President told ABC news. This brick wall of indifference helps explain the paradox in which we in the anti-war camp find ourselves five years into the occupation of Iraq: anti-war sentiment is as strong as ever, but our movement seems to be dwindling.
Sixty-four per cent of Americans tell pollsters they oppose the war, but you’d never know it from the thin turnout at recent anniversary rallies and vigils.
When asked why they aren’t expressing their anti-war opinions through the anti-war movement, many say they have simply lost faith in the power of protest. They marched against the war before it began, marched on the first, second and third anniversaries. And yet five years on, U.S. leaders are still shrugging: “So?”
There is no question that the Bush administration has proven impervious to public pressure. That’s why it’s time for the anti-war movement to change tactics. We should direct our energy where it can still have an impact: the leading Democratic contenders.
Many argue otherwise. They say that if we want to end the war, we should simply pick a candidate who is not John McCain and help them win: We’ll sort out the details after the Republicans are evicted from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Some of the most prominent anti-war voices–from MoveOn.org to the magazine we write for, The Nation–have gone this route, throwing their weight behind the Obama campaign.
This is a serious strategic mistake. It is during a hotly contested campaign that anti-war forces have the power to actually sway U. S. policy. As soon as we pick sides, we relegate ourselves to mere cheerleaders.
And when it comes to Iraq, there is little to cheer. Look past the rhetoric and it becomes clear that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has a real plan to end the occupation. They could, however, be forced to change their positions — thanks to the unique dynamics of the prolonged primary battle.
Despite the calls for Clinton to withdraw in the name of “unity,” it is the very fact that Clinton and Obama are still fighting it out, fiercely vying for votes, that presents the anti-war movement with its best pressure point. And our pressure is badly needed.
For the first time in 14 years, weapons manufacturers are donating more to Democrats than to Republicans. The Dems have received 52 percent of the defense industry’s political donations in this election cycle – up from a low of 32 per cent in 1996. That money is about shaping foreign policy, and so far, it appears to be well spent.
While Clinton and Obama denounce the war with great passion, they both have detailed plans to continue it. Both say they intend to maintain the massive Green Zone, including the monstrous U.S. embassy, and to retain U.S. control of the Baghdad Airport.
They will have a “strike force” to engage in counterterrorism, as well as trainers for the Iraqi military. Beyond these U.S. forces, the army of Green Zone diplomats will require heavily armed security details, which are currently provided by Blackwater and other private security companies. At present there are as many private contractors supporting the occupation as there are soldiers so these plans could mean tens of thousands of U. S. personnel entrenched for the future.
In sharp contrast to this downsized occupation is the unequivocal message coming from hundreds of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq Veterans Against the War, who held the historic “Winter Soldier” hearings in Silver Spring, Md. earlier this month, are not supporting any candidate or party. Instead they are calling for immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. soldiers and contractors. Coming from peace activists, the “out now” position has been dismissed as naive. It is distinctly harder to ignore coming from hundreds who have served–and continue to serve–on the frontlines.
The candidates know that much of the passion fueling their campaigns flows from the desire among so many rank-and-file Democrats to end this disastrous war. It is this desire for change that has filled stadiums and campaign coffers.
Crucially, the candidates have already shown that they are vulnerable to pressure from the peace camp: When The Nation revealed that neither candidate was supporting legislation that would ban the use of Blackwater and other private security companies in Iraq, Clinton abruptly changed course. She became the most important U. S. political leader to endorse the ban, scoring a point on Obama, who opposed the invasion from the start.
This is exactly where we want the candidates: outdoing each other to prove how serious they are about ending the war. That kind of issue-based battle has the power to energize voters and break the cynicism that is threatening both campaigns.
Let’s remember: unlike the outgoing Bush Administration, these candidates need the support of the two-thirds of Americans who oppose the war in Iraq. If opinion transforms into action, they won’t be able to afford to say, “So?”
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