October 2004 Archives
A very Happy Halloween to you and yours (Fanboy pumpkin courtesy of the worth-perusing Zombie Pumpkins.) As I said before, I'd been thinking of dressing up as Shaun of the Dead, until I wavered on growing the goatee and couldn't procure a cricket bat from my Aussie &/or Jamaican friends as easily as anticipated...perhaps next year. Then, I briefly flirted with dressing up as Mosh-Eminem, since it's both topical and extremely simple (urban camo pants notwithstanding.) But, I finally went back to my first idea and chose Donnie Darko -- skeleton costume, hoodie, pill canister (full of jellybeans), and Watership Down -- despite my total and utter lack of Gyllenhaality. At any rate, have a good one and be safe out there: we're going to need your votes to prevent a nightmare on Tuesday...
Is anyone else out there having a problem with interminably long rebuild times on Movable Type? It's been slow as molasses around here since 3.11, and 3.121 hasn't helped matters. And it's gotten to the point where it takes 15-20 minutes to post a single entry or to delete one wave of comment-spam, which obviously is cutting down on the choice links and commentary in these parts. Advice on rectifying this would be greatly appreciated, either here or at my post in the MT forums. Update: Michal Sabren, the always friendly proprietor of Cornerhost, has tweaked the archiving around here, which should hopefully bring things back up to speed.
There's no Bagginses 'round here. They're all out in Flores.
In somewhat related news, a number of RotK:EE screencaps turn up online, including new and spoiler-filled looks at Voice of Saruman and the Mouth of Sauron. And, along the same lines, some official Episode III pics are released, perhaps to offset this extremely spoiler-laden review of the final installment. Update: The official official Ep. III teaser poster gets out, and, well, it's kinda lame.
Well, we're through the looking glass now, folks. After 86 years of trying, the Red Sox have won the Series! The sweep was a bit anti-climactic after the surprising Yankee-beating last week, but, still, an awesome feat nonetheless. Just think of all those terminally depressed Sox fans out there, who now have to find a new locus for their discontent. (By the way, Dubya, Massachusetts is coming for you next.)
until the American people crawl out of the television set and kick this godawful administration to the curb. I know Dubya is up ever so slightly in the polls, but ties generally go to the challenger, and, at this point I still feel pretty confident that Kerry is going to win next Tuesday. (Then again, I've felt that way since the primaries ended, which probably has more to do with my inability to conceive of this nation actually choosing Dubya than anything else.) And, with Big Bill back in the game to help close the deal in swing states (something Gore should have considered more seriously in 2000), I think we're good to go. Hope is on the way, y'all.
Remember how much was made of Kerry saying Iraq had cost $200 billion in the debate? Well, "the Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq." $225 billion...for that kind of cheddar, you'd think the Bushies could at least have locked down those 380 tons of lethal ordnance, eh?
R.I.P. John Peel 1939-2004...He's signed off for the last time, and the music world is smaller without him.
WB continues to roll out the Batman Begins cast with new pics of Cillian Murphy, Katie Holmes, and Rutger Hauer (although, unfortunately, Murphy isn't dressed as the Scarecrow.)
Just in case anybody needed it spelled out, Rehnquist's recent health problems make it explicit: next week's vote will in fact determine the Supreme Court. It'd be hard to find a judge more Right-Wing than the Chief here, but I'm sure a second Dubya administration would do its damnedest to find one nevertheless.
Once in a blue moon? Not even. As it turns out, Game 4 of the World Series will be played under a lunar eclipse. I think the Series will go more than four, but if it doesn't...
Finally, paparazzi are good for something...the reclusive Willy Wonka is spotted by a British tabloid. No word on whether he will yet submit to UN factory inspections, as The Onion reported a few years ago.
"I'm not going to beat around the bush. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the single best PlayStation 2 title I have ever played." Six -- SIX -- times bigger than Vice City, and featuring an all-star vocal cast running from Samuel L. to Axl, it's finally here. So I'm off to San Andreas in what moments of free time I have these days, and I don't expect I shall return. In fact, I mean not to!
Two for the trailer bin: Meet the Fockers (hmmm...this looks like it might be a swing-and-a-miss), and Danny Boyle's Millions (a.k.a. Trainspotting meets Pay it Forward...unfortunately, I doubt I'd pay money to see anything meets Pay it Forward.)
"'There's not a chance in the world, I don't think, of the House turning over,' political analyst Charles E. Cook Jr. said last week." The Post examines Democratic prospects in the House and finds that "the combination of Republican firepower, Democratic miscues and a controversial Republican redistricting plan in Texas virtually assures the continuation of GOP rule."
By way of Looka and The Nation, 100 Facts and 1 Opinion: The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration. If you know any undecideds out there, this might be a good one to share.
Batman? Try the Scarecrow. Christian Bale purportedly lost 65 pounds for his role as The Machinist, and, boy, does it show. In a film that swims in unease, Bale is the creepiest special effect of all, jutting collarbones and vertebrae this way and that. If nothing else, he has done for eating disorders here what highway-gore films of the '50s, '60s, and '70s did for Driver's Ed. And the movie itself? Well, I'm not sure if it (or any film, for that matter) would be worth Bale's gruesome physical transformation, but The Machinist is a pretty solid foray into puzzle-movie territory, one that establishes a grim, unsettling mood early on and maintains it throughout.
Bale's Trevor Reznick -- Given the explicit nods to Dostoevsky throughout, the name resemblance to NIN's frontman is probably also intentional -- splits his time among his job, an airport cafe, and the bed of his favorite hooker (Jennifer Jason Leigh, less show-offy than usual.) He shambles through the world without food, sleep, or even much color (everything, other than the occasional flash of red, has that institutional-green Matrix cast to it.) And, as the film goes on, Reznick tries to make sense of the increasingly strange events that befall him...events which I can't really talk about without giving the game away, but that may involve conspiracies, murders, impending madness, and/or all of the above.
I have to say I was a bit dismayed by the way the pieces ended up fitting together in the end, but The Machinist is more about the journey than the destination anyway, and as a sinister tone poem the film works quite well...not a masterpiece by any means, but definitely a respectable night at the movies. Now, Alfred, could you please bring Mr. Wayne here a few cheeseburgers?
Biden, Holbrooke, Biden, Holbrooke...Richardson? The Washington Post starts handicapping Kerry's possible Cabinet choices. "Kerry has told friends he wants to tap a Republican for one of the top national security posts, preferably defense or state. Those under consideration include Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), as well as former senator Warren Rudman." Somehow I think the GOP won't return the favor should Dubya win.
So, just before the Sox took George Steinbrenner down a peg this past Wednesday, I got to witness an ornery Kim Jong Il marionette suffer a similar fate at the hands of Team America: World Police. Going in to said puppet show, I was expecting a gut-bustingly funny film a la the South Park movie (and most South Park episodes), despite David Edelstein's warning about sloppy satire. Well, unfortunately, Edelstein was right: While Team America does have some really hilarious moments (the cyanide hammer, Kim's attack panthers, Matt Damon, the Michael Bay song), as a whole it doesn't really hold together.
I should say first off that, the humor notwithstanding, this is probably one of the most amazing (non-stop-motion) puppet shows ever put to film. There are a few extended sequences -- Paris, the Panama Canal -- where the scale and execution of this puppet world is breathtaking. But, sadly, this ambition and devotion to detail doesn't carry over to the script. For the first two-thirds or so, Team America is a spot-on imitation of pretty much any Jerry Bruckheimer film...but, unfortunately, it lampoons the genre so closely that it's easy to forget you're watching a parody. Instead, half the time I felt like I'd stumbled onto one of the New Classics on TNT.
Then, the final third of the movie swings too far in the other direction, and ends up relying way too heavily on puppet entrails and cussing dolls to generate laughs. As for the politics of the piece, I just don't get how the South Park guys, who usually craft some of the most devastating satire around, couldn't mine anything more substantive out of the War on Terror than the notion that left-wing Hollywood activists coddle tyrants by speaking their mind. (And, Trey & Matt, if we're not supposed to care what the likes of Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin think, then why in Hell should we listen to you two?) In short, the puppetry in Team America is inspired, but the comedy is often lazy. Funny at times, sure, but I expected more than just an intermittently amusing anti-Hollywood screed from the creators of Cartman & co.
Several choice clips from the RotK: Extended Edition materialize online, including more from the Gandalf-Witch King fracas, a longer Paths of the Dead, and a quiet moment between Faramir and Pippin. (Also, the Merry-Pippin post-Pelennor sequence has gone from day to dusk, thanks to the magic of digital grading.)
A new study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland finally figures out the crux of Dubya's support: the misinformed. "75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission." And that's just the beginning, folks.
Rockstar updates its site for GTA: San Andreas (due out Tuesday) with a new trailer and an interactive map of Las Venturas (Las Vegas), the third of the game's major cities. In case you missed them, Los Santos/LA and San Fierro/San Fran are also worth a gander.
The trailer for Ocean's Twelve also hit today, and it looks as fun, well-crafted, breezy, and instantly forgettable as the first outing.
Lots of Fantastic Four news milling about today...Entertainment Tonight shows an early preview, while HNR obtains several pics of The Thing in costume...I'll admit, Ben Grimm's look is growing on me, even if he still seems a little Toxie.
In a Nickelodeon online poll, nearly 400,000 American children pick Kerry over Dubya 57%-43%. "Nickelodeon has held a "Kids' Vote" every election year since 1988, and kids have correctly predicted the winner of the general elections for the last four U.S. presidential campaigns."
So, how you like them apples? Against all odds, the Sox reverse the Curse and finally defeat the detestable Yanks 10-3. We shouldn't throw up the "Mission Accomplished" banner prior to the Series, but still, this must bode well for Johnny Kerry...
Thankfully for SW fans, there'll be no Meet Joe Black scenario this time around. As expected, word is the Episode III teaser will be released Nov. 5, in front of The Incredibles.
"[I]t would be impossible to overstate the impact on any team of losing back-to-back extra-inning games after saves were blown in regulation time. To do it twice with the pennant in your hands is unprecedented." 1918? Try 10/18. I still think the Sox are dead in the water after their lousy 0-3 start in the ALCS, but at least the past two games have made it interesting. Update: Verrrry interesting...I've got members of the BoSox Nation flying in from the West Coast just for tonight's Game 7. One way or another, it should be a hot time in the old town tonight.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group fires their Washington bureau chief, Jon Leiberman, after he makes his displeasure about their right-wing proselytizing known to the Baltimore Sun. Whatsmore, the wingnut network is playing hardball: "Sinclair would not waive his noncompete agreement, which means he cannot work for a broadcast outlet in any market that has a Sinclair station." Hmmm...well, two (and more) can play at that game. Update: Sinclair buckles.
Thanks to boffo box office for Alien v. Predator, the marketing geniuses at Fox give the Alien franchise to notorious hack Paul W.S. Anderson. Ugh, what a waste. Well, hopefully Sigourney Weaver will have the sense to stay away from this burgeoning fiasco.
"Sun is shinin' in the sky, there ain't a cloud in sight..." Life imitates art as scientists attempt to achieve "therapeutic forgetting", a.k.a. the focused erasure of memories. Right now, though, they haven't got much past dulling the edge off old remembrances. "Our experiences and our memories in a lot of ways define us and define who we are," notes Stanford ethicist David Magnus about the field, "[a]nd so that's a scary step to go down. We should be very careful about going down a path that could lead to a serious alteration of the core essence of our identities." Can you hear me? I don't want this anymore, I want to call it off!
If Hero didn't satisfy your quota for arthouse kung-fu in 2004, the teaser for Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers is now up, and it looks to be more of the same aesthetic...hopefully, with less jingoism this time around.
In "something of a surprise," the Supreme Court authorizes a three-judge district court to review its earlier decision upholding Tom DeLay's partisan gerrymandering of Texas. It's too late for 2004, but perhaps this will bear fruit before 2006, as the Hammer's other shady dealings come to light.
Superhero Hype! posts what's purported to be the first official pic of Victor Von Doom in Fantastic Four, but all I'm seeing is a guy in a suit. Please don't tell me they're foregoing the mask...that'd be the worst costuming decision since Willem DeFoe's static faceplate in Spiderman. Slightly more promising are these new pics from Batman Begins, which include Ken Watanabe as Ras Al Ghul and Tom Wilkinson as a mafioso.
It's finally here...at 9pm tonight and tomorrow, Sci-Fi will air Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, the long-awaited and warmly reviewed conclusion to what TV Guide long ago correctly deemed "the best science-fiction series on TV." Apparently, it's still fun even if you don't know the continuity, so come on aboard...there's lots of room on this here interstellar bandwagon.
If you never saw Blake's 7, which is 'Scape's immediate ancestor, then here's the basic gist: Smart-ass, gung-ho astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) was inadvertently sent through a wormhole to the far corner of space several years ago, whereupon he fell in with a bunch of rag-tag aliens aboard the living prison ship Moya. For the past four years or so, Crichton has been battling the nefarious Peacekeepers (Think Star Trek's Federation gone bad) while falling in love with one of their number, Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), refining his knowledge of wormhole tech in order to get back home, and annoying all manner of extraterrestrial species with his inveterate pop culture referencing. (He's already made it back to Earth a few times now...don't worry, this ain't Quantum Leap, and the show never takes quite the tack you expect.) In recent seasons, however, Crichton and his band of cranky shipmates have discovered that there's a much bigger danger lurking in the far regions of space than the Peacekeepers...the reptilian, take-no-guff Scarrans. There's obviously been a lot of twists and turns along the way, which I highly suggest you check out on DVD, but basically the Moya crew has had to align with some of their most dangerous past enemies (namely, the Scarran half-breed Scorpius) in order to outwit, outfox, and outlast the new Big Bads. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess...but if you're a fan of either quality sci-fi or smart, funny, sexy television in general (I'm looking at you, B5'ers, Buffyites, and Whedoniacs), you owe it to yourself to check Farscape out. Update: Brief, spoiler-filled thoughts in the comments.
"We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better." The New York Times endorses John Kerry for President. Not much of a surprise, sure, but still worth reading.
Has Latino Review unearthed Bryan Singer's Superman? They believe so, and his name is Brandon Routh. Well, Singer did say he's looking for an unknown... Update: Routh is confirmed.
"[Bruce] Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: 'This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them...This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts...He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis.'" Ron Suskind, co-author of The Price of Loyalty, delves into the sadly myopic halls of Dubya's faith-based presidency (and attempts to explain why our current Prez can't distinguish between Sweden and Switzerland...no one in the White House ever openly challenges his ignorance.)
A NYT report finds mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo is much more widespread than earlier suggested by Rumsfeld and other administration officials. "One regular procedure...was making uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having them sit in a chair while shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure strobe lights and screamingly loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers, while the air-conditioning was turned up to maximum levels...Such sessions could last up to 14 hours with breaks."
Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor and consigliere to Bush I, decries Dubya's diplomacy in the Financial Times, calling Iraq a "failed venture" and questioning this administration's penchant for unilateralism.
"CARLSON: You need to get a job at a journalism school, I think. STEWART: You need to go to one." Sent to me by a friend in the program here, Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson battle it out on Crossfire. (More here.) I wish I'd seen this live...the transcript is definitely worth a read. "CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery? STEWART: Absolutely...You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls." Update: See it here, via High Industrial.
Well, Dubya's still up slightly in the polls right now, but Republican pollster Frank Luntz has nevertheless sounded the warning bells for the GOP. "Step by step, debate-by-debate, John Kerry has addressed and removed many remaining doubts among uncommitted voters. My own polling research after each debate suggests a rather bleak outlook for the Bush candidacy: many who still claim to be 'undecided' are in fact leaning to Mr. Kerry and are about ready to commit."
As GTA: San Andreas edges closer, the gang at Rockstar preview the ten in-game radio stations to be had this time around, and as expected the selections seem as deep and diverse as they were on Vice City. More info will be out Monday, but the artists featured so far (along with G'n'R and A Guy Called Gerald, which we already knew about) include James Brown ("Payback"), Slick Rick ("Children's Story), Bel Biv Devoe ("Poison"), Rage Against the Machine ("Killing in the Name"), The Ohio Players ("Funky Worm"), Eddie Money ("Two Tickets to Paradise"), Max Romeo ("Chase the Devil"), Willie Nelson ("Crazy"), 2Pac ("I Don't Give a F**k"), and Raze ("Break For Love"). Good driving music, that. Update: Rockstar reveals the official soundtrack listing, which includes a lot of the songs above, and extends many of the radio station previews to include tracks by Heart, Cypress Hill, Eric B & Rakim, and others.
"Long have you hunted me, long have I eluded you...No more!" Finally, the official LotR site posts an extended edition preview, with new scenes involving Aragorn and the Palantir, Eowyn and Faramir, Saruman and Gandalf, and our best look yet at the Mouth of Sauron. Booyah! "I do not believe this darkness will endure." Update: Bigger version here.
Well, I must confess, when I had first heard that Mrs. Clarke's new tome, detailing the illustrious and somewhat murky history of those wily English magicians Strange & Norrell, may rival Tolkien and Peake in its depth and prodigiousness, I could not refrain from shewing my surprize to the other guests at last month's gala ball for the Historians-in-Training, an offense which may work to keep me off the social rolls for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, in spite of this inadvertent affront to polite academic society, I immediately alighted to the booksellers of Mr. Barnes & Mr. Noble to procure a copy of this well-received book, arguably the most important work on matters of European prestidigitation since Strange's own The History and Practice of English Magic. (No disrespect to M. Segundus intended. I find his works on magic very illuminating, but they're entirely too theoretical for my taste.)
And the verdict? Well, those hardy and deluded souls suggesting Mr. Tolkien's work of years past has now been surpassed should aspire to do more reading of the fantastical sort. Nevertheless, Mrs. Clarke's work is a delightful and compulsively readable fantasy-of-manners that, as others have noted, effortlessly blends the genre milieu of Mrs. Rowling with the authorial voice of the nineteenth century British novel. Her sketches of those enigmatic souls Mssrs. Norrell & Strange, as well as such Dickensian personae as Mssrs. Childermass, Drawlight, Lascelles, and Pole, are for the most part convincing, as are her disquisitions on such otherwise notable figures as Lords Wellington and Byron.
Mrs. Clarke's work is particularly successful in capturing the peculiarly English quality of Strange & Norrell's history. Indeed, from the chilly, funereal melancholy that pervades the Faerie court of Lost-Hope to the circuitous rituals of courtship that have always defined our Atlantic brethren, the book headily invokes those days soon after the Napoleonic Wars when the thaumaturgic spirit of the Raven King reawoke throughout the villages, fields, copses, and moors of John Bull. In this emphasis and intertwining of magic and national character, I was often reminded of American Gods by Mr. Gaiman, who has heretofore expressed great admiration for Mrs. Clarke's project. (Speaking of which, as a student of the former Colonies, I do wish Mrs. Clarke had taken more seriously the considerable contributions to the Magickal Arts made by Americans at this historical moment, but perhaps that is a matter left to scholars of our own Republic.)
Despite this lapse, however, Mrs. Clarke's timely chronicle more than lives up to the high bar we've come to expect from Cantabridgian historians of magic. I highly recommend this treatise to those of you even remotely curious about the British magical renaissance of two centuries ago, and particularly if you want your understanding of the subject unsullied by the forthcoming film from New Line Cinema. (In that regard, perhaps Mssrs. Holm and Bettany can be prevailed upon to depict Norrell & Strange respectively...)
"Less than a day after President Bush implied that Senator John Kerry lacked 'fiscal sanity,' the Bush administration said on Thursday that the federal government had hit the debt ceiling set by Congress [for the fourth time in three years] and would have to borrow from the civil service retirement system until after the elections." As this article goes on to note, the Congressional GOP kicked the vote on this matter until after Election Day, so Dubya wouldn't get any bad press. Under this president, the national debt has increased 40%, to $7.4 trillion.
"This is one of those Bush/Cheney invitation-only lovefests where the president could walk out in his boxer shorts and speak in pig Latin and the crowd would still chant 'four more years.'" With the debates over, it's shore-up-the-base time for Dubya (Hence, the return of the dreaded "L-Word".) And, along those lines, evangelical leaders are working hard to get believers out for Bush. Update: Liberal Christians push back.
The Force.Net get their hands on what looks to be the Episode III one-sheet from the same source who outlined the coming teaser. The nod to A New Hope is a deft touch.
"The senator now says we'd have to pass some international truth standard." Um, well, yes, we do. As Will Saletan points out, in the final three weeks of the campaign, Dubya is now explicitly running against reality. The reality is, it's time for this faith-based administration to go.
You'll have to sit through a clip from ABC's Lost (which I tried to get into on account of Monaghan, JJ Abrams, and Party of Five's Charlie, but it didn't grab me) and some morning-show chatter with Dominic Monaghan on his post-LotR ups and downs, but buried in this Good Day interview is our first look at Merry pledging fealty to Theoden in the RotK:EE, a scene which was glimpsed in the pre-Thirteen Days teaser way back in early 2001 and now finally sees the light of day.
In the most recent Kong production diary, Peter Jackson teaches Adrien Brody and Naomi Watts the techniques of 21st century bluescreen/animatic acting a la Sky Captain.
When you die, you see The Ring. Ok, well, you might see 2 Rings. Or maybe just the teaser for The Ring 2. Alright, you got me...I have no idea what you'll see.
Well, to no one's surprise, I think John Kerry won again. But, while I'd like to say that the Senator knocked this final debate in Tempe, Arizona out of the park, frankly, he didn't. In the early going, I thought he seemed tired and slightly discombobulated, and, at times when a concise rebuttal could have scored some serious points, Kerry's answers often seemed more wordy and circuitous than necessary. On the other hand, I thought this was Dubya's best performance - he was still smirking and guffawing too much, still distorting the facts, still running from his record, and still demonizing his opponent like the best of 'em, but at least he seemed in full possession of his faculties this time around (perhaps the wire was working tonight.) I did think that Kerry warmed up in the middle third, but he lost focus again during the final questions (Native American blessings? Idears?) That being said, given the relative lack of drama tonight and the playoff baseball on FOX, I highly doubt this final debate will end up altering the current campaign dynamic much.
So there you have it, folks. Barring an October Surprise in the next three weeks, it now all comes down to the ground game, and -- given what we've been hearing regarding voter registration, given the white-hot contempt towards Dubya held by Dems and the ambivalence with which fiscal conservatives and many veterans view this administration, and given the usual tendency of undecideds to break towards the challenger -- turnout is a factor which John Kerry should win handily (barring Diebold shenanigans.) It ain't over yet, to be sure, but right now I'd say that, despite tonight's missed opportunities, John Kerry and John Edwards have put themselves in a solid position to win with their cumulative debate performance. The election is too close to call, definitely, but at this point I feel pretty confident our nation will make the right decision on Nov 2.
"Senator Charles E. Grassley needed every possible vote to pass his mammoth corporate tax bill. So he was more than willing to accept Zell Miller's plea on behalf of imported ceiling fans...[This] provision is just one tiny example of how the need to solve a narrow tax problem in 2002 gave birth to the biggest free-for-all in corporate lobbying that Congress has experienced in nearly 20 years." The NYT conducts a post-mortem of the pork-bloated corporate tax legislation passed by Congress on Monday.
"The meeting with Kobe reinforced an idea I had been contemplating since July, since Colorado, since everything changed. I decided to enlist a therapist to help me cope with what will surely be the most turbulent season of my coaching career. After receiving a few recommendations, I selected a therapist who has dealt with narcissistic behavior in the Los Angeles public school system. He'll be right at home here." Sports Illustrated publishes some revealing excerpts from Phil Jackson's forthcoming book on the 2003-2004 Laker season, and it's already clear this tome won't do much for Kobe's tattered reputation around the league...he comes off here as a hopelessly arrogant prima donna, as well as an out-and-out terrible teammate.
Well, admittedly writer-director Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow -- which I finally caught on Sunday afternoon -- doesn't look much like a film shot in a tiny blue room, but, lordy, it sure as heck feels like it. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Michael Gambon...they're all fine enough in other situations. But, alas, pretty much everyone here, with the possible exceptions of Giovanni Ribisi, Bai Ling (who doesn't speak), and the dead Lawrence Olivier, have contracted Portmanitis, and what considerable acting chops they usually possess have been sucked into the CGI machines and spat back out as a deathly dull flatness.
I don't blame the cast, though. Because, however pretty the movie looks on occasion, the upshot is Sky Captain is as terribly written as Stephen Sommer's ghastly Van Helsing this past summer. Seriously, this film makes zero sense whatsoever - the scenes of robots, planes, flying carriers, etc. just pile up on each other with no underlying sense of plot or development. Meanwhile, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow are forced to deliver C-movie boilerplate that would've seem dated in Buster Crabbe's day. I know we've reached an age where visual effects technology can spruce up even the lamest of tales, but still...I just don't understand how a script this bad makes it out of Quality Control.
Perhaps to compensate for the wooden script, Conran packs his film chock-full of genre homages and fanboy cues, and one would think these would help alleviate the boredom. But, to be honest, they came so thick and so hamhandedly that even I, who usually has a high tolerance for this type of in-joke, started to feel beaten down by them. Oh, look, Metropolis, The Iron Giant, Office 1138, the SS Venture, Indy, Dagobah, Shangri-La as Rivendell...no, wait, Naboo...by the end of it, Sky Captain seemed less a full-fledged film than a 120 minute attempt to impress Harry Knowles. (Apparently, it worked. Harry is producing Conran's next film (sigh), A Princess of Mars.)
As with Van Helsing, arguing that Sky Captain is a nod to the serials of the 1930's is really no excuse. So was Raiders of the Lost Ark or even a B-movie like Big Trouble in Little China, and they held together a lot better than this overstuffed claptrap. In sum, the view out Sky Captain's cockpit may be oh-so-pretty and genrefied, but the story here is strictly World of Yesterday.
So apparently the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a right-wing-flunky television conglomerate who previously refused to air a Nightline on fallen soldiers in Iraq, will show an anti-Kerry hatchet-job on its swing state affiliates in the next two weeks. Well, I must say, that's quite an end-run around the equal time rule, if not a blatant misuse of the public airwaves. Perhaps the FCC can extricate themselves from their shock over Janet Jackson's breast long enough to look into this.
Looking to recess in time for some electioneering, the House and Senate both pass a pork-swollen corporate tax measure by comfortable margins. "[C]ritics -- including budget watchdogs, liberal activists and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow -- decried what they saw as a cornucopia of special-interest tax cuts that would complicate the tax code, favor companies doing business overseas and ultimately worsen the budget deficit. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pronounced it 'disgraceful' and 'a classic example of the special interests prevailing over the people's interest.'"
"On a bright sunny day at the end of the Third Age of Middle Earth, a new unelected king was crowned. His name? Aragorn, son of Arathorn. How did it all happen? Was it all just a dream? I mean, it looked real enough. The guys with the pointed ears were there, the short guys with beards were there, even those weird little hobbit guys were there. Who were these people, this elitist group of carnival freaks who wanted to control the fate of Middle Earth?" I can't say I much agree with its politics, and the same basic joke was made in this McSweeney's piece last year. Still, the Michael Moore parody Fellowship 9/11 is for the most part pretty clever, and worth watching...if nothing else than to see a mean Brad Dourif impression and to hear Gandalf the Grey croon "Let the Eagle Soar."
Along the same lines, Slate's Seth Stevenson scrutinizes the return of the (Burger) King.
The Force.Net obtains a teaser description for Revenge of the Sith, and it sounds like Lucas isn't holding back on the Big Moment. Major spoilers, I guess, but you'll be seeing this teaser in theaters next month anyway, most likely with The Incredibles.
FYI, tickets for my sister's and ABT's forthcoming City Center season (Oct. 20-Nov. 7) are now on sale. Get yours before they sell out.
An hour after tonight's town hall debate in St. Louis, the immediate spin seems to be that it was a draw, mainly because Dubya didn't scowl and sputter to the extent he did last time around. (The "soft bigotry of low expectations" strikes again.) But it must be a Two Americas thing, 'cause that's not the debate I saw...most of the time I was waiting for Rove and Cheney to run on stage, hold a light to Dubya's eyes, and squirt some water in his mouth. As before, John Kerry radiated calm, determination, and a quick, roving intelligence. In a word, leadership. Dubya, on the other hand, was once again all hat and no cattle, trying to shirk, smirk, weasel, bluster, and lie his way through the proceedings. "Flip-flopper," "global test," tax-and-spend, etc...Dubya sought to evade every single question about his dismal record with a insult or a threat, even going so far as to throw around "Liberal" desperately, a word still verboten since his Daddy ran it through the mud in '88.
Kerry's been surging since last Thursday, and I expect it'll continue after tonight. But I confess, I really can't wrap my mind around how anyone could have watched tonight's event and think Bush would be the better choice between these two men. With the possible exception of the canned Red Sox quip, there wasn't a moment when Kerry didn't seem presidential and didn't hold the upper hand. And, as for Dubya...based on tonight, I wouldn't trust this guy to run the local chapter of the Elks, much less the Oval Office. No mistakes made at all, Mr. President? Who wants a President so blatantly unreflective about life-and-death decisions? I mean, he could have at least tried to look one up on the Internets. Would forgetting about your timber company count as a mistake?
That being said, I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that, when considering the inevitable Supreme Court appointments over the next four years, Dubya has at least promised not to overturn Dred Scott v. Sandford. Phew! Say what you will about Dubya's godawful judicial nominees, at least we know they'll hold up the Thirteenth Amendment. (Civil rights and civil liberties, of course, are another matter...) Update: Ok, now I get it. It was a coded pro-life message to the right-wing fundies. (Via Blivet.) Update 2: Tim Noah talks more about Dred.
J.K. Rowling hints that at least one more character will die in the final two Potter tomes...I presume she's not referring to Voldemort.
What do the Bushies do with their backs to the wall? Why, lie, of course. "From the beginning of the year, the White House has charted new ground with the sweep of its negative campaigning...[but now] several analysts say, Mr. Bush pushed the limits of subjective interpretation and offered exaggerated or what some Democrats said were distorted accounts of Mr. Kerry's positions on health care, tax cuts, the Iraq war and foreign policy."
Don't say Britney didn't try to warn you, Mr. President. Republicans and campaign aides fret over the consequences of Dubya's isolation thus far.
When I first heard that David Russell's I Heart Huckabees was billing itself as an "existential comedy," I cringed. At the very least it sounded pretentious, and the last Naomi Watts film I saw about interconnected nothingness -- 21 Grams -- turned out to be a dog's breakfast. But, given the cast and David Russell, I remained intrigued, and gave it a go on Wednesday. As it turns out, Huckabees is actually pretty solid -- fitful and a bit meandering, sure, but still a pleasant, funny, and decently thought-provoking night at the movies.
Russell gets special points for making both his bizarre tale and his philosophical digressions easy and entertaining to follow. -- unlike, say, Waking Life, you never feel like you're getting battered over the head with coffee-house theory. Albert (Jason Schwartzman) is an embattled young environmental activist who enlists the aid of "existential detectives" Bernard and Vivian (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) to ascertain the cosmic reasons behind a seemingly random coincidence involving a tall Sudanese immigrant (Ger Duany). After further research, our detective duo discover Albert's plight probably also involves Huckabees corporate cog Brad (Jude Law, with a lousy American accent) and Brad's girlfriend and Huckabees spokesmodel Dawn (Naomi Watts, ditto.) All the while, Albert and his "Other" -- petroleum-despising fireman Tommy (Mark Wahlberg) -- have begun to doubt the meaning of it all and are inexorably falling under the sway of Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert), a french nihilist to do Lebowski proud.
Got all that? Well, like I said, it makes more sense on the screen than it does on the page (or, um, computer screen, well you get it.) For the most part, particularly in the early going, Huckabees is jaunty and whimsical. Albert and Tommy's visit to the god-fearing Hooten household (Jean Smart and Richard Jenkins) is particularly funny. (And, perhaps surprisingly given the cast here, Mark Wahlberg steals every scene he's in.) But, I'll admit, as the film wore on, there were times when I began to doubt its infinite nature. I thought some of the visual playfulness ("blanket-vision," or the godawful-creepy Jude Madonna) fell flat, and I found my attention wandering during the final act. Still, all in all, I'd recommend the film with some reservations...You may not heart Huckabees by the end, but you'll more than likely be entertained by it. I give it two-parts blanket, one-part void.
Well, I woke up yesterday feeling under-the-weather and decided a day of rest might do me good. As it turns out, I woke up this morning with a full-on case of the sniffles. Drink your Vitamin C out there, y'all.
"This administration is amazingly inept and incompetent. John Ashcroft in charge of justice? The man thinks dancing is a sin." Following in the footsteps of the Boss and similar remarks in Rolling Stone, Mike Mills of R.E.M. again makes the case against Dubya in the Orlando Sentinel.
Tim Noah of Slate continues to connect the dots of Tom DeLay's attempted bribery of fellow congressman Nick Smith.
Sent to me by way of Raza at High Industrial: Is Bush Wired? Hmmm...I see two major problems with this particular conspiracy theory. For one, given how much Dubya is photographed, an earpiece would be extremely hard to hide. For another, if Dubya were being prompted from afar, one would think he'd be much more articulate than he in fact is most of the time. Update: Salon follows the meme.
Zooey Deschanel checks in to discuss progress on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, probably my most eagerly awaited fanboy film of next summer (and, yes, unfortunately, I'm counting Episode III and FF.)
Now here's a strange cultural artifact...Harrison Ford appears as Jethro the Snoop-talkin' Bus Driver for this extremely low-budget snowboarding film, Water to Wine. Bizarre as this is, I think it might just have been more entertaining than Random Hearts.
In today's movie bin, a post-Eternal Sunshine Jim Carrey returns to hamming it up in the full trailer for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Sean Penn (with the aid of 21 Grams co-star Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle) resurrects Samuel Byck (also featured in Stephen Sondheim's Assassins) in the international teaser for The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Mark Noferi -- an old friend, former DC speechwriter, current Stanford law student, and inveterate Red Sox fan -- has joined the Blog Nation over at Nofeblog. Worth checking out, particularly if your interests run towards law, music, baseball, and/or politics.
Bored by the pre-debate spin cycle and inspired by Lots of Co's alt.homecoming mix, I went scouring the Internet yesterday evening for some of the mixes Max mentioned (such as "Without Vader", a.k.a. Eminem v. John Williams) and found Bass 21, which includes a number of versus versions for perusing and/or downloading to the iPod. Enjoy. (I must admit a particularly guilty fondness for "Go Toxic," a.k.a. Britney v. Yaz.)
Perhaps John Woo can take a cue from the Coens...By way of Quiddity, it's Masters of the Universe meets The Big Lebowski, and it appears Skeletor was a founding member of Autobahn. Pretty profane, Dude, and unsafe for work.
"The global test is the measurement of the president's assertions against the real world, the world you and I can see. This is the test Bush has failed." Will Saletan dispels the "global test" canard that the GOP has been latching on to since last Thursday.
Yesterday, Paul Bremer -- Dubya's former chief man in Iraq -- admitted in remarks intended for a private audience that many more troops were needed on the ground after Saddam's fall to stave off looting and lawlessness. Today, a report by Charles Duelfer -- the chief weapons inspector in Iraq (after the departed David Kay, who's already quit the WMD party line) -- concludes "that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess, or have concrete plans to develop, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons." How many more "failures of judgment" in Iraq, to put it charitably, do we need to see from these jokers?
Well, to my partisan eye, Dick Cheney proved time and time again in tonight's sole veep debate that he's not only an inveterate liar but a major-league asshole. (Yeah, big time.) Iraq ("It's going great!"), Osama ("We never stopped going after him!"), the homefront ("Things are looking up!"), you name it...the guy just seems to have no compunction about dissembling flat-out to the American people. Said the veep early on, "The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11." Really, Dick? How were we supposed to take Saddam "had long-established ties with Al Qaeda" then? Similarly, the audacity of Dick Cheney attacking John Kerry for voting against weapons systems he himself opposed is simply staggering.
From lies to misdirection. How did Cheney try to explain away Halliburton's sweetheart no-bid Iraq contracts, and the subsequent looking askance at their egregious overbilling of the American people? "Um, John, I've never seen you around the Senate before." (Not true, of course, but nice of Dick to send voters to the Soros-run FactCheck.com rather than FactCheck.org, though.) And, when Edwards skewered the veep with his own voting record from back in the day -- no to Head Start, Meals on Wheels, and the Education Dept, no to MLK Day and to condemning apartheid(?!) -- what was Cheney's answer? "Oh, I think his record speaks for itself." You're damn right it does, as does yours.
All that being said, I thought Edwards missed a few chances to put the hurt on Cheney in the early going, and should have responded harder to the ridiculous "facing-up-to-Howard Dean" riff. And he didn't really hit his stride until the domestic-policy-oriented second half, when less-interested swing voters out there had probably started tuning out. (Conversely, I thought Cheney self-destructed for awhile there, mumbling about No Child Left Behind in a question about jobs.) So, while my gut (and the insta-polling) say Edwards took this one, I'm guessing the numbers in the next few days will show a draw, if only because Cheney seemed at least somewhat cognizant of the world around him, unlike his running mate. Next stop: Friday.
"When I was born, the doctor came into the waiting room and said to my father, "I'm sorry. We did everything we could, but he pulled through." Pull through he did...alas, until today. R.I.P. Rodney Dangerfield 1921-2004.
After SpaceShipOne's historic win yesterday, the X Prize becomes the X Cup. "Teams will compete in five different categories to win the overall cup: Fastest turnaround time between the first launch and second landing, maximum number of passengers per launch, total number of passengers during the competition, maximum altitude and fastest flight time."
"'Chronicles: Volume One' leaves much to be said in future installments, and much good reason to look forward to them." Ex-film critic Janet Maslin peruses Dylan's "flabbergasting" Chronicles for the NYT. Update: Along related lines, Salon compiles a list of First Dylan meetings.
"The 50-50 split is not between Democrats and Republicans, but those who vote and those who don't. That's right: nearly 50% of eligible voters chose not to vote in 2000. The underlying challenge of our democracy is to change this non-participation and to ensure that the core values of citizenship and active participation in the electoral process overshadow the domination of big money and corporate power." Sent to me by Chris at Do You Feel Loved, the inimitable Bill Bradley emerges from hiding to admire the Vote for Change tour in USA Today.
The french trailer for Wong Kar Wai's 2046, alluded to here, is now back online. Looks beautiful, if nothing else.
True to form, "House Republicans are working to eliminate or dilute provisions in a new corporate tax bill aimed at cracking down on illegal shelters." This despite the fact that a "study last week by Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal research organization, reported that 82 of the nation's most profitable companies paid no corporate taxes in at least one of the last three years." Say what they will about Dubyanomics, it is patently obvious once again that the Republican Party does not represent the best interests of you, I, or the vast majority of this nation. Vote 'em out, already.
"So am I with you or am I against? I don't think it's that easy, we're lost in regret." This line (from "The Outsiders," featuring A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip) emerges as the central theme in Around the Sun -- R.E.M.'s 13th album -- which was released today. And, while it may take a few more listens than usual to differentiate among the many glum mid-tempo tracks on this album, I'd say Around the Sun is easily R.E.M.'s most cohesive album since Monster. Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and new drummer Bill Rieflin have finally emerged with a confident sound that incorporates the musical experimentation of Up and Reveal with the classic jingly-jangly R.E.M. we all remember from the Bill Berry era. In fact, I think Around the Sun compares favorably to the Automatic days, when the Athens boys enjoyed their widest popularity stateside with a similarly disconsolate set of songs.
Early word on Around the Sun was that we were in for a very political album, one swept up in and honed on progressive outrage over Dubya excess. And, while such sentiments appear explicitly on "Final Straw" (released in 2002 during the build-up to the war in Iraq) and "I Wanted to Be Wrong" ("We can't approach the Allies because they seem a little peeved."), Michael Stipe's political sermonizing is never as overt as, on say, "Exhuming McCarthy," "Cuyahoga," or "Welcome to the Occupation" in the Life's Rich Pageant/Document era.
Instead, for R.E.M. this time around, the political is personal. In fact, the band doesn't seem angry so much as disheartened. From the opening track (and first single) "Leaving New York" ("It's easier to leave than to be left behind") a large majority of songs on Around the Sun dwell not on political causes but on the "Aftermath" (also the name of the second single) of shattered relationships...the turmoil, bitterness, conflict, and -- eventually -- grudging acceptance that accompanies a love run its course. On the cascading "Make it All Ok": "So you worked out your excuses, turned away and shut the door. The world's too vast for us now, and you wanted to explore." On "High-Speed Train" (whose crunchy metallic drone makes the minor-key railroad rock of Driver 8 seem like a pleasure ride): "You've mirrored my best disguise and turned it back on me." On "The Worst Joke Ever": "Some things don't hold up over the course of a lifetime." On "The Ascent of Man": "I'm so in love I won't attract, and with my hands tied I won't crack, 'cause in my mind I called you back." This despondent cloud over the album reaches its apex -- or nadir, actually -- in the album's relentlessly downbeat stand-out track, "Boy in the Well": "It's that sinking feeling, you know what it's bringing on...I see it, I feel it, this town is going wrong." Forget "Fall on Me": On Around the Sun, the sky has already fallen, and it's all about picking up the pieces.
To be sure, all this oppressive dwelling on lost loves can be tough to take, and I can see how some critics might feel like R.E.M. have hit a thematic rut here. Even "Wanderlust," the only relatively peppy track on the disc, doesn't avoid the album's general gloom: "Looks like the world revolves around me. Looks like it's falling down." Simply put, it's hard not to come out of a listen to Around the Sun feeling somewhat dejected. But the payoff is there, in a way, in the last track (strangely enough for R.E.M., also named "Around the Sun"): "Hold on world 'cause you don't know what's coming. Hold on world 'cause I'm not jumping off. Hold onto this boy a little longer, take another trip around the sun." Soon thereafter, in the final moments, "Around the Sun" changes keys, a ray of light pierces the clouds, and the album floats away in a sort-of-Beach-Boys shimmer (done much more successfully than any of the attempts to do this on Reveal): "Let my dreams set me free. Believe. Believe. Now now now now now now..."
As with love, Around the Sun seems to argue by the end, so with America. R.E.M. could easily have hammered the anti-Dubya agenda much harder on this album, and judging from early reports on the Vote for Change tour, it sounds like they'll be doing so extensively at their live shows. But, in a way, Around the Sun sets its goal at something broader. Don't let Dubya's travesty of an administration dishonor your admiration for the American ideal. And don't let the pains, compromises, and betrayals of this world steal from you your heart. "Do I even dare to speak? To dream? Believe?," asks "Around the Sun." The answer is Yes, "Give me a voice so strong I can question what I have seen." Hold on to the dream. Believe.
Two choice links courtesy of Tomb of Horrors: The Infocom Hitchhiker's Guide game gets a 20th anniversary makeover, and a site emerges to preserve the correspondence between Dave Sim and Neil Gaiman.
"In heavily Democratic Rhode Island, he has been a Republican since birth; his parents named him Lincoln after the first Republican president. He says he is waiting for the moderate wing of the party to rise again; in the meantime, he was asked if he went to bed at night wondering how he could remain a Republican. 'Yes,' he said, 'I don't deny that.'" Also in the NYT, GOP moderate Lincoln Chafee contemplates pulling a Jeffords. Although he says he's sticking with his party for now, Chafee has already declared he won't be voting for Dubya this election cycle...and it seems doubtful that this White House will take kindly to such a decision.
The NYT's Linda Greenhouse and Slate's Thomas Baker preview the coming Supreme Court term, which we already know won't involve appeals by Roy Moore, credit card companies, or telemarketers. Update: Dahlia Lithwick talks Blakely.
With the sports world rightly focused on the baseball playoffs right now -- I'm rooting for the BoSox as usual, but that's more a tip-of-the-hat to my many friends among the Nation than it is a deeply-felt affection on my part -- some news of the coming NBA season has nevertheless begun leaking out with the start of training camp. Despite rumblings to the contrary, Gary Payton showed up in Celtics Green on time and ready to give it a go, as did Vince Carter (still) in Toronto. Meanwhile, Scottie Pippen gave notice and the Knicks signed Tracy Murray, who's a pretty one-dimensional 3-ball shooter when you get right down to it, and who probably won't make much of a dent in the Power Rankings.
"The redemptive power of suffering is, in my experience at least, vastly overrated." Over this past weekend, I finally got the chance to read Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow, and, while it becomes a dark journey indeed for Emilio Sandoz, our Jesuit protagonist, over the course of the novel, I heartily recommend it. In fact, it's probably the best science-fiction book I've read since Perdido Street Station (although Russell's book is much less phantasmagoric than Mieville's more fantasy-tinged stuff.)
A former paleo-anthropologist and academic jack-of-all-trades, Russell has retold the standard First Contact type of story here with a blend of straight-up hard sci-fi, Columbian commentary, and devastating ruminations on the price of faith and the laws of unintended consequences. While the story here seemed self-contained, I'm now rather looking forward to picking up her sequel, Children of God (although the reading queue is pretty backed up right now.) At any rate, if you like your sci-fi literate, intelligent, and ultimately somewhat nightmarish, think about checking out The Sparrow. Update: You can read the first chapter here. Also, if you haven't read The Sparrow, stay out of the comments, where the end of the book is being discussed.
No more DeLay? As allegations of corruption swirl closer to the House Majority Leader's roost, Salon reports that the Exterminator's empire may soon be ending.
Score one for the "model builders"! SpaceShipOne won the X Prize this morning, with nary a barrel roll in sight. This is big news, indeed. Might be time to start saving up my pennies.
The final trailer for Oliver Stone's Alexander hits the web. I dunno...I like Stone's movies more than most, but I'm getting a serious Moreau-vibe from Val Kilmer, and Angelina Jolie appears to be channeling Kate Beckinsale in Van Helsing.
Human reinforcements arrive as Team Human Nature/Ian and Eowyn, a.k.a. Tim Robbins and Miranda Otto respectively, spell Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning in Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Good. I generally root for all of these actors, Code 46 notwithstanding.
What has gotten into John Woo these days? Apparently, he'll now be making He-Man after finishing up Spy Hunter with The Rock. I mean, I know the guy needs a hit, but this is an even worse idea than Metroid. (And between this and The Punisher, Dolph Lundgren must be wondering at this point when Rocky IV is getting redone.)
