Hollywood War

A hoot of a read.

"In all fairness, moviemakers have a legitimately baffling problem with the nature of the war itself. In order to honestly dramatize the simple truth about this existential struggle, you have to depict right-minded Americans — some of whom may be white and male and Christian — hunting down and killing dark-skinned villains of a false and wicked creed. That's what's happening, on a good day anyway, so that's what you'd have to show."

If only we were fighting neo-Nazis, like in all the other movies.

Frank Miller on the State of America

Frank Miller, writer of the best issues of Daredevil, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, and lots of great stuff was on NPR. Here's what he had to say.

HT: Koly

Best of BSG

Well, I just nuked the file I was working on. So I guess that'll be a smidge delayed.

Some days...

...playing the soundtrack to Star Wars just makes it all better. It's true.

24!

For the 24 addicted out there (I'm not one) Lileks is doing a minute by minute rundown. I'm sure I'll regret reading it someday when I've drunk from the 24 cool-aid. (Boy has THAT phrase become ubiquitous.) But for the moment I'm hip deep in SPOILERS, baby! And I. Don't. Care! Wheeee!

BSG Tuesday!

Ok, here's the rundown. I liked it. It was BSG, there are terrific developments, everything made as much sense as it ever does. I guess all of the Show Changing Developments came in so fast and furious in the last act that I haven't really processed them. The biggest two devs are obviously that Three got boxed (bye, Lucy!) and that Baltar AND Six are back on Galactica! This promises lots of fun. But then, so did almost every story-line attributed to Lee Adama that never went anywhere. "Follow-up" has not been the watchword for the last year.

Helo sucks. No really. Airlock him. Now. He's a bigger threat than Baltar. Has he EVER said "I have two choices, one benefits the fleet, the other benefits me. The Fleet (AND ALL OF FRACKING HUMANITY!) it is!" No. Not once. Ever. 'Lock him! How did "Athena" have all of "Boomer's" memories? When does that sharing take place? Obviously without the knowledge of the SLEEPER CYLON WHO DOESN'T KNOW SHE'S A TOASTER! So, why is Athena downloading such a harmless proposition? That data doesn't get stored someplace? You guys know that for 100% certain? And there's Helo going on about "YOU made us do this!" Well, maybe because we knew you're going to get us all killed if it comes down to a nasty choice, Agathon! At this point I wouldn't mind seeing him beaten to death with Lee and Kara's severed arms. (More on that in a moment.)

Tyrol's story wasn't as cool as I wanted it to be. I mean, he had the "ah-ha" line, but he never really got to discover anything. Good grief, the place "sang" to him, and all he got to do was blow it up. (Try to.)

The Cylons just boxed the one model that managed to stare down Wild Bill. I would think that was valuable.

Baltar's life is going to be very very different, don't you think?

Poor Six. I just love that they managed to get from breaking baby's necks to "Poor Six". Awesome, that.

Not enough EyeTigh.

At this point I wouldn't mind Lee AND Kara getting some serious quiet time. Really. Grow up, kids. It's mostly Kara's fault, but if Lee got married just to get back at Kara, then the heck with both of them. I like that the show is brave enough to make two of it's leads that unattractive, but this way lies Buffy Season Six. Careful.

What's Laura doing these days? Her story has been mostly reacting to whatever is going on these days, i.e. she doesn't have much of one. And bring back Tom Zerick, please?

So, it'll be an interesting ride for the rest of the season. Of course, last season post cliff-hangar we got Black Market. Beware.

I'll get that "Best of" list sometime this week.

BSG Monday

Psyche! BSG Monday has been delayed due to stupid time-slot placement. It aired last night, hopefully the DVR picked it up, we'll be watching tonight, I'll be all blown away and stuff, and I'll report back tomorrow.

We've reached the eps in Veronica Mars where "frack" is a regular part of their vocabulary. Those writers are bigger nerds than I am. Well, close, and they get paid for it, so that gives them the edge.

Star Wars! Look at those Star Wars!

You would think that this would be getting a TEENY bit more press.

There's Just Not a Lot Going On

Well, nothing I feel like writing about. So this is what's going on on TV that I know about.

I don't watch 24. EVERYONE around me at the office does. (I don't watch The Office. Do they watch 24?) None of them like it very much. Oh, wait, no, it's that other thing.

American Idol kicks off tonight. I'm excited about that when I think about it. But I DON'T like the auditions part. For every contestant that you say "Gosh, I hope they get in, they're pretty good and kind of cool" there are four that you wonder how they function in society without shock treatment. So it's good that Idol is back on, but not for a few more weeks.

BSG starts next week. Terrible things will happen this season. Mark my words. Really. Sometime this week I will complete my list of all the eps so far in order of preference. 33 so far is pretty tough to beat as the perfect BSG ep.

SWIMW and I plowed through the first season of Veronica Mars and on to the second. It's Buffy meets The Big Sleep. Great cast, wonderful characters, and it has Elliot from Just Shoot Me. (Mathesar from Galaxy Quest for my nerdier readers.) I used to say my soap operas had to have rocket launchers, monsters, and space ships. Now they have private detectives.

Unmistakable Evidence

I didn't recognize Sandy Berger without the clasified papers in his socks.

If the moon landings were fake...

...why lose the fake footage? Unless of course, this was the tape with the janitor that backed onto the set on July 20th, 1969 and bumped into the flag. Why didn't the black helicopters find that guy?

But seriously folks, good luck.

Hewitt vs. Football

Ok, I don't follow football even a little bit. But Duane over on the Hugh Hewitt show playing Titanic over the game clips of the Ohio / Florida game is just mean and uncalled for. (But really really really funny.) (OTOH, now that it isn't on the radio 24/7, I remember that I like the song. Ten years this year, can you believe it?)

Uh oh. Someone's trying to get Hugh to root for the Patriots. Look out, Dad!

Have You Seen It?

Have you seen the new iPhone? Scott Kurtz has.

Right now I'm about where I was when the iPod was first introduced. Maybe a little more, because I didn't think then that the iPod would be that big of a deal. This might be a big deal, it just isn't yet. The iPod got my attention when it went to 20GB. I'm not sure when this will get my attention. But it definitely looks potentially nifty.

And the appleTV doesn't mean a lot for me yet. The industry is running at cross purposes at the moment. The reason an iPod is SOOOOO cool is because I can take ALL of my music that I have spent the last 20 years collecting and put it in my pocket. The RIAA might get cranky about it, but the format allows it, and in my case I'm not uploading it to the world. And I can mix, match, shuffle, make playlists, edit tracks, life is awesome! Movies are a different matter. Putting my DVDs on my iPod is illegal. The very act of trying to figure out HOW to write software to do this is illegal. I can do it, but in that shady stupid area of the law that needs to go away. (Excuse me, I need to go watch Star Wars on my iPod for a moment.) The appleTV right now will only (easily) use content from iTunes. I'm not buying MOVIES from iTunes. There may come a day when I do, but it's a LOOOOOOONG way off. I'm still leary of any content that can be switched off. (If I really wanted to I can burn my iTunes purchased music to CD and then it is free of the chains of Apple.) The movie industry is screwier than the recording industry. Seen the original Spider-Man trailer with the World Trade Center lately? (Ok, it's here.) How about a copy of Aladdin with the lyric "Where they cut off your ear / if they don't like your face. / It's barbaric, but hey, it's home!" Now I'm going to give those keys to the Lucas' and the Disney's to content I've already bought? No chance. This is why DIVX died a horrible (and deserved) death. But I digress...

Someday (NOW!) I want an iPod for my movies. I want to be able to dial up the La Marseillaise scene from Casablanca as easily as I call up As Time Goes By on my iPod. When I'm watching Angel and they reference some dumb plot point from three seasons ago, I want to dial over to that, call them on their continuity goof, and dial back to the show. I want the same absurd control over my movies and TV I know have over my music, preferably carried in a dot over my right ear. The appleTV isn't there yet.

Shop smart: Shop S-Mart!

Oh dear. What fever dream produced THIS nugget of advertizing? Ladies and gentlemen: Bruce Campbell. Hail to the king, baby. (Insert any other Army of Darkness / Evil Dead quotes at random.)

A Pious Vulture of the Law

...who with a gesture of his claw
removed the barber from his plate...

Well, I don't know if Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd will be any good, but it will be scary.

I give you Judge Turpin:

Can Rickman SING? (Ok, can ANY of this cast sing?)

Lileks in the Valley

In case you hadn't been reading The Bleat (What? You read my blog and you don't read the Bleat? I... I don't understand!) Mr. Lileks was in the Valley of the (hahahahahaha) Sun last week while I was in the Valley of the Ohio. We had the same weather. I made all of my flights, Lileks did not. I love hearing Lileks and Hewitt talking about Paradise Valley and Camelback Mountain. I also love reading Lileks talking about standing at the outside mall where I used to have lunch and having it be rainy and cold on him. Ah, the small pleasures of life.

Apropos of nothing other than holiday travels, I just realized that I spent Christmas week in a land that has a Friendly's and did NOT have a holiday ice cream roll! Because that was what our week was really missing, MORE FOOD. Excuse me while I roll myself to the "Post" button...

Senator EyeTigh!

Just saw an interview with John McCain, MY Senator (*cough*). Couldn't figure out what was WRONG with what I was seeing. Some sort of visual disconnect.

Then I realized - he didn't have his eye-patch!

Foxtrot Moves to Sunday Only

For those of you that missed it (I'm still catching up this week) Foxtrot ran it's last week of dailys. We'll miss you, Bill. Go catch them before they're too old to see.

If I Had No Other Reason to Dislike the UN...

This one would do just fine. The defence?

"We are applying a standard of morality that is very, very high but we cannot expect that soldiers when they go abroad are going to behave themselves as we think they should."

Gee, that's worked so well for United States troops.

"There are a wide range of countries being represented in the UN forces and among these there is always going to be a bad apple."

When do we get to hear Ted Kennedy or Cindy Sheehan go on a bit about the attrocities of the UN Right about the same time Sadaam starts building snowmen, I'd guess.

Chlorine in the Gene Pool

As the near year dawn we look back on the old year and reflect. Well, those of that aren't contending for the 2006 Darwin Awards, that is.

...And Love the Bomb

We watched a program on the History Channel last night about the Doomsday Clock. Perhaps I'm just ignorant of such things, but I'd never heard of this before. (I'll bet Alan Moore had though.) I objected a little that this was on the program "Modern Marvels". While it was an interesting look at nuclear brinkmanship over the last sixty years, I don't consider a think-tank of scientists arbitrarily setting a clock's hands to reflect how much of the brown stuff we're in to be a "Marvel". (I wanted to see Aircraft Carriers or Hoover Dam.)

The thing that struck me, watching this program, was what the last sixty years would have been like without The Bomb. The U.S.S.R. was ready, willing, and able to invade large swaths of the world (and was occasionally doing so). They were not so much held in check by conventional weapons. And if they had been it would have been by their use, not just by their existence (as with The Bomb). If you want to take the flip-side of "the U.S.A. is just another Empire" then fine, it kept us in place too.

Another piece of info that got skipped was while they were talking about the Genie in the Bottle. That once it was seen that such a weapon could be invented, it was only a matter of time before it was replicated. To the best of my knowledge (and from another History Channel show) the nuclear weapon has only been invented ONCE. At tremendous cost with astonishing resources. All of the other atomic nations have gotten their intel from the U.S. by various means. (But hey, espionage is no big deal and it's all a bunch of witch hunts.)

So while a nuclear exchange was (is) clearly unwinnable, it probably kept some more "winnable" propositions off the table.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I was at Blockbuster on New Year's Eve and looking at one of the racks I realized I was looking at something I never thought I'd see. A new Harrison Ford movie sitting right next to a new Steven Spielberg movie and I had no interest in seeing either of them. (Firewall and Munich.) The pain of Star Wars I-III is well known. So this news just doesn't excite me even a bitty-bit.

Happy New Year!

Hi gang! I'm back. Did anything happen while I was gone?