Disaster Area

Osama bin Dead'un

The opening clip from Team America (IMDB)

Interesting reactions around the world. Predictable hand-wringing from the "there's no such thing as bad people, just bad actions" liberal crowd, who somehow think if we'd only been more understanding that all of this could have ended in a few verses of Kumbaya around the camp fire. On the other hand, the beer-swilling frat boy approach to celebration is equally predictable and just slightly more deplorable, albeit less dangerous to global stability.

The fact is there are sociopaths in the world who will do bad things. Very bad things. And they don't give a rip what people think of them. They surround themselves with almost equally fanatical sycophants and just do whatever they want. It's not really political or religious - they are just the convenient excuses they use that the rest of the world understands.

Irredeemable? Probably. And that small chance they aren't isn't worth giving them any leeway whatsoever.

What about the future of al Qaeda? One common argument is that cutting off the head will only spawn more retaliation and some other schmoe will take over. In this case, though, bin Laden was clearly head and shoulders in cunning and ruthlessness above the vast majority of his terrorist peers of the last fifty years or so. He will be hard to replace, although rumor has it Robert Mugabe may be looking for a new job soon. I wonder how that interview would go...

Finally, for the not so faint of heart, the Team America theme song (warning, explicit language...)

Risky Business and Tangerine Dream

Just watched the 1983 movie for the first time on a long time and marveled at the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. Sure, the Bob Seger track Old Time Rock and Roll is the signature moment, but Tangerine Dream set the tone for the whole movie. In many ways it rivals Princess Bride for best mood setter.

Black Swan

Since first seeing the premise of Black Swan I really wanted to see it. With a backdrop of my favorite ballet, it was likely to be a must see regardless, but the reviews have been uniformly excellent so it was a must see NOW.

Went to see it this afternoon and it is, indeed, brilliant. Rarely have I been so glued to the screen for an entire movie. This year I've seen Avatar and Inception - both excellent, but for sheer must-watchativity Black Swan beats them hands down.

And lest you think it's merely and adult Ballet Shoes, it's not. It's a thriller Hitchcock would have been proud of, and scarier than any slasher movie. Not for the faint of heart, it should win Natalie Portman an Oscar.

I'm Dreaming of a White...

...um, something. If only I could remember what it was. Name's on the tip of my tongue.

Anyway, once again, here's the cast list of a really famous yuletide movie... (hint: it's White Christmas)

Emma Dreaming, Arthur White, Chris Muss,
Jess Like-Dee, Juan Swee, Hugh Sterno,
Wendy Treetops-Glissen, Anne Chilled-Wren, Liz Anne,
"Two Ears" Laybelle, Cindy Snow,

Emma Dreaming, Arthur White, Chris Musswit,
Avery Chris, Miss Carr, Dai Wright,
Mayor Dazeby, Mary-Anne Bright,
Ann May Hall-York-Rhys, Mrs. B. White.

(courtesy of a Goodies annual from way back when...)

"Reprinted" from my post of 2006 and 2004

How Time Flies

After seeing the new Harry Potter movie this weekend, I'm watching the first movie right now. Daniel Radcliffe was about 11 when it was made (absolutely right for the character), with Rupert Grint a year older and Emma Watson a year younger. They definitely looked their ages, and it's remarkable to look back and see how they've grown up alongside and into their fictional counterparts. In fact, it's amazing that they've been able to stay together and do the full 7 school years/8 movies together and do them all so well.

10-10-10

Yes, it's that day - three better than 9-9-9 last year. But not as good as next year's 11-11-11 (which will occur precisely two months two days after the 10th anniversary of 9-11-01)

As someone has pointed out to me, you have to be careful because the UK and US date conventions are different. So remember, in the UK it's 10-10-10, while in the US it's 10-10-10. See the difference? More on this later.

Several people have remarked that 101010 in binary is the number 42 in base 10 (our more familiar human mathematical base, presumably originating because of our 10 digits), thus invoking the godfather of this blog, Douglas Adams. 42, was (and presumably remains) the answer to the Ultimate Question. Unfortunately, we never got to know the question, so the answer is, to say the least, open to interpretation.

Sadly, though, the renewed interest in Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is somewhat misplaced.

By the way, doesn't it sem like the titular gadget from the books has already come to pass already as a combination of the iPhone, Google, and wikipedia - throw in Amazon.com and you can go one better - you've got all the world's knowledge and a means to buy whatever you want, wherever you want.

While there is some debate and possible confusion, the answer 42 was actually in base 13, meaning that it is actually 54 in base 10 (4x13 + 2 = 54 in base 10). As noted in the link, Arthur Dent drew out Scrabble tiles spelling out 'What do you get if you multiply six by nine?".Which is, of course, 54 in base 10. As some people figured out the 6x9=42 in base 13 answer, Adams remarked that he disn't write jokes in base 13. But who knows? Maybe he did.

So the answer to the ultimate question in binary is actually 110110. And here's where the US/UK date conventions come into play. In the UK, the day has already happened - 11th Jan 2010, whereas in the US it will occur in about three weeks on the 1st Nov 2011 2010.

(D'oh - corrected as noted in italics above).

Movies and Gender Roles

I just got back from staffing a diocesan youth weekend here in Seattle (appearances by both bishops - yay!). The theme was "Now Playing", basically a movie-themed weekend. I thought a fun game would be "guess the movie" based on a synopsis, a good review and a bad review - with any obvious details removed, of course. Well known movies only, of course.

I got my info from Amazon, as the bad reviews especially are easy to pick out with just a mouse click. One really interesting one star review was this one - see if you can guess the movie:

There's no way to put a good spin on this bad plot. The little meek heroine gives up her voice to get the man. Not too subtle, is it? The interesting woman in the movie is the smart, intelligent, proactive and powerful woman. Why can't they offer women role models who are powerful, smart and good? Powerful women are scary so they must be evil and seek to harm and diminish and denigrate other women. So much for sisterhood. It's very disappointing that in the 21st Century, we're still peddling this extremely negative message to little girls. And what must the heroine give up in order to have her man? Let's see...her voice, her talent, her home, her dreams, but alas, it's all worth it. Or so we're led to believe. Yuck. I am profoundly disappointed that these type of movies are still popular amongst parents and children alike.

At first I was taken aback, but quite quickly I was taken with how accurate the review was. Any guesses as to which movie it is? Answer after the jump...

Five Christmas Movies

With just a couple of days of work left in the year (for us employees of corporate giants at least) it's time to start thinking about entertainment options for the holidays. I thought I'd start by offering up my five favorite Christmas movies. So, without further ado, in reverse order:

#5 - A Christmas Story. Now twenty years old, this is a kid's eye view of the All-American Christmas from the  40s. When it was released it was a huge flop in the movie theaters, but became a cult classic due to TV runs, and now is a genuine mainstream classic. All Ralphie wants is a Red Ryder BB gun, but he's foiled at every turn, with several hilariously surreal moments along the way. A cable TV channel has showed this nonstop for 48 hours in the past (TNT, I think) at some point during the holidays, and it's well worth catching.

Bush on Brokeback

So President Bush was asked about Brokeback Mountain and the 30 second video of his answer is now apparently circulating the web like Mercury circles the sun - relentlessly and often...

Really, what did anyone expect him to say? You can see that he's thinking on his feet, buying time to come up with a good one-line comeback, doesn't quite get there, reiterates that he's never seen the movie, and moves on. Big deal. Did he say anything offensive? No, not at all. However, if he'd really been on the ball I'm sure he could've got a wicked punchline in about Golden Globes, though. But then I'm not sure that the White House employs joke writers in quite the quantity that Jay Leno and David Letterman do.

By the way, does nobody else think that it's a bit strange that the big breakout tragic gay cowboy movie story was written by a woman? And not only that, the woman who is famous (nah, let's say notorious is more like it) for writing The Shipping News (Amazon reviewer: "Tries way too hard, slow and dull" - which is, in my opinion, overly generous) which I had the great misfortune to see as a movie some years ago. Believe me, watching paint drying is absolutely fascinating compared to that windswept, rain soaked piece of dreary flotsam. I would have set fire to the video after it wasted two hours of my life, but it was just too darn wet to catch fire.

And just in case you think that maybe the movie makers ruined her perfectly good story, I offer you the woman's own biography in her own hand as evidence of her soporific skills... Before clicking that link, take a deep breath, gulp a few cups of strong coffee and keep the caffeine pills handy, because I defy you to make it to the end without keeling over of sheer boredom.

Phantom of the Oprah

Well, here's that frivolous post I was writing about. For her birthday last week one of the many gifts I got her was the DVD of the Phantom of the Opera movie. Now, I don't recall the movie making much of a splash when it came out, so I presumed it would be OK, but not great. We have seen the stage production four times, once on Broadway (missed Michael Crawford by four weeks, darn it), Vancouver twice and Seattle once. The best of those were the Vancouver performances, believe it or not, followed by Broadway (the guy who replaced Michael Crawford was a tad too high opera for my taste) and finally, the pretty poor Seattle performance (and IIRC, that was the one where two women talked behind us all the way through, grrrr.)

Anyway, you would think with almost 20 years of experience with the stage productions and a decent budget that the movie would have been at least a three star effort. The three main characters are critical - Christine, the Phantom and Raoul. Well, two out of three doesn't cut it, I'm afraid. Emmy Rossum does a nice job with Christine - very ingenue-ious, and Patrick Wilson is a pretty good Raoul. But really, Gerard Butler is awful, pathetic, terrible as the Phantom. I read somewhere that he had that "rock and roll voice" that Andrew Lloyd Webber was looking for (as if ALW would recognize rock and/or roll if it ran him over in the street...) Butler barely has a voice, never mind a particular style of voice. Rumor had it back when that he was in line to be the next James Bond. Please God, no!

Add to that a singular lack of imagination with the critical scenes and the whole affair is lacklustre at best. In the theatre, even the fourth time through, the chandelier rising and blazing to light never ceases to shock. In the movie it's kind of, "Ho hum, here comes the chandelier..." Call this the Oprah book club version (handsome and fluffy, but lacking substance.)

So it's a shame that they couldn't pull off a decent interpretation. For your amusement I suggest a visit to the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes. They collect all reviews and generate a rotten (less than 60% positive) or fresh score for every movie out there.

Some choice comments on the movie (a truly rotten 34% rating):

"Phantom has always been a spooky story filled with drama, suspense, romance, and horror. … until now."

"...feels like little more than a 2+ hour promotional video for perfume, jewelry, corsets and curtains."

"Should appeal to people who like musicals but cannot afford them, though this is not a particularly inventive nor a particularly cinematic adaptation." (and this is one of the positive reviews)

"I didn't see a single fat lady in the entire thing. That must be why it never ended."

"What passion and excitement there is in the work has been sucked out; it has become boring.... It is shallow, yes, but even shallow works need competent directors."

"Lloyd Webber’s dated songs are like goth-lite for the Michael Bolton set."

"portions of the movie have the feel of a photographed stage production. ...The crucial atmosphere of menace isn't there; suddenly, we're watching 'The Batman of the Opera.'"

"Takes everything that's wrong with Broadway and puts it on the big screen in a gaudy splat."

(one of my favorites here)
"Like being trapped in the frilly bedroom of an absurdly romantic, borderline psychotic 13-year-old girl for nearly two and a half hours. The story is garbled, unclear and at the same time, painfully thin."

"Where's Homeland Security when you need it?"

"Like overpriced costume jewelry, this tasteless, soulless contraption is sure to appeal to anyone who owns Celine Dion and Meatloaf albums."

"The movie version of Lloyd Webber's swooning 1986 horror operetta has been directed, by Joel Schumacher, as if Schumacher were the world's hardest-working upholstery salesman."

Oh well, I guess it could have been worse - it could have been a Tom Cruise movie...