Some rediscovered video of David Bowie performing “Jean Genie” during the hey day of glam rock. If there was a revival today would they call it Bling Rock? Bling Boogie?
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol follows the action/spy thriller formula to the letter. There’s not even a hint of straying outside the genre’s tropes. But they do it oh so well. Fight moves I’ve never seen before. Stunning photography. Chase scenes I’ve never seen before. Cool new gadgets you’ve never seen before that walk the line between plausibility and science fiction. Cool cars. Hot women. Lots of bling from all over the world. I had a damn good time at this movie and can heartily recommend it if you are looking for a good action movie.
The movie is well cast. Never been a big Tom Cruise fan, but this is a good role for him and the supporting cast holds their own in every scene, especially Paula Patton who plays on of Cruise’s team mates. She’s just as bad ass as he is and is not the typical withering female that you find in Bond movies. Simon Pegg is quickly sealing his title of geek of choice in the A List Actors league. And Jeremey Renner could easily carry his own action movie franchise.
Of course all those explosions of famous land marks, car chase scenes, building climbing, computer network hacks don’t leave much time for character development. The few seconds of poignant character background development are laughable, “yeah, whatever” moments in the film. That’s fine. No great loss. For what it is, Mission Impossible: ghost Protocol is a bang up good movie.
I know. I know. Anything to get kids to read and get them interested in the wonderful world of books. But to try to lure kids into reading with Angry Birds really smacks of desperation.
Dec 042011
Hugo Cabret's father teaches him how to fix the automaton.
The first thing I think is important to tell you about the movie Hugo is that it has been misleadingly marketed. The movie trailers give you the impression this is going to be a 30′s era steam punkish sort of movie complete with mechanical automatons. The trailer sets you up to expect that robots are gong to play a central part of the movie. They don’t. I’d say that the automaton you see in the trailer plays a pivotal role in the movie. But anyone who enters the theater expecting a whimsical clockwork movie is going to be disappointed.
At first.
The movie is actually a fairly standard-issue orphan story. But it is story that’s beautifully told and it has many facets that explore the same basic theme. The movie’s protagonist, orphan Hugo, eeks out a living, taking care of clocks in a train station and hoping the authorities don’t discover that his drunk uncle has died because if they do, he’ll get sent to the orphanage. Because his deceased father was a mechanical genius with clocks and automata, Hugo is naturally interested in them too. And this colors his view of the world. About midway through the movie he tells his one and only friend, Isabelle:
“I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason.”
Thus perfectly tying the theme of the movie to the setting.
The theme is played out on several fronts, primarily Hugo’s search to find his place in the world. But the theme is explored through the other lonely people Hugo sees in the train station and a mysterious, crotchety man who runs a toy store in the station.
This story line by itself would have made an excellent movie. Especially one that is so amazingly rendered in film. Every scene in the movie is gorgeous.
For better or worse the movie takes a turn as Hugo’s future gets tied up in finding out how is father died and his father’s relationship to the automaton in the trailer. Telling you any more would spoil it. You might say the sub plot overshadows the main plot of the movie. Or maybe it enlightens the main plot. Kinda hard to say. Up to you to decide.
I’m not a judge of acting. But I’d say the cast was fantastic. Asa Butterfield and Chloë Grace Moretz do the bulk of the heavy lifting in the movie, playing Hugo and Isabelle. They have to convince us they are kids still unsure of how the world works while pulling off some dramatic, emotional scenes with strength. But top acting kudos have to go to Ben Kingsley, playing the crotchety old toy store keeper. The minor characters that Hugo watches in the station are well-portrayed by their actors, coming across, quirky, flawed, funny, but very very human too.
Watch for the cameos. I’ll say no more.
Definitely not what I was expecting, but I also thoroughly enjoyed it.
Nov 262011
Went to see The Muppets tonight. I had the benefit of seeing the movie without any foreknowledge of all the hoopla and drama surrounding the movie in terms of the original muppeteers not being involved etc. I also had the benefit of sitting next to a 5 year old. As a result I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and it made me super nostalgic for the good old days of The Muppet Show.
For the most part, The Muppets movie does a good job of staying true to the spirit of the muppets in general and the muppet show in particular. Full of corny jokes. breaking the fourth wall, vaudeville slapstick, and goofy dance numbers. (The rap by Chris Cooper was particularly inspired.) All of the muppets were thoroughly in character and consistent with their personality as far as I remembered. Everyone got some screen time. Was glad to see that my favorite muppet, Rowlf, had a good few seconds of humorous glory that was just perfect for him.
You could pick nits here and there about the characterizations of the various muppets and make claims about how, maybe, the voices weren’t quite right. But they got all the essential basics right.
My main complaint, to the extent I have one, is that they tried to cram too much into one movie. To many major themes and plots. This is a movie that could have benefited from a thinner story line in order to give the muppets more time to, ahem, flesh out their character.
But I still heartily recommend the movie. Good family fun. Lots of cameos from famous Hollywood folks. Classic muppet humor.
Yesterday Boing Boing posted an article about PT Barnum’s The Art of Money Getting. Among other things, I learned that PT Barnum is not the guy who coined the phrase, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” According to their sources, it was a competitor who coined the phrase.
In any case, they posted a link to an apparently public domain version of The Art Of Money Getting. I read the whole thing in about 15 minutes. That was one of the things that struck me about the book. It’s amazingly concise. It’s concrete, but not wordy.
Another thing that impressed me about the book was simply that it proves the market for self-help books is not a new phenomena. This is very clearly a book intended to give advice about how to accumulate wealth and be successful in business. I don’t know why but I kinda thought that was a modern invention.
The diction is archaic but refreshing somehow. The only really bad anachronism that came across was that for the most of the book he talks about boys choosing careers and the mistakes they make in trying to accumulate wealth. In the introduction he clearly says that any man or woman can be successful and build up wealth. But the bulk of the book is written as if he were only addressing men.
One surprising thing that came out was how much he railed against tobacco. Of course he approaches it from the perspective that it is a waste of money that steals money from more productive pursuits. But it’s also interesting that he correctly describes it as an addiction.
But the most surprising thing is how much good advice can be packed into such a small book. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any of the advice that I disagreed with or thought was archaic.
Highly recommend spending a few minutes reading this book.
Anthem for the #OccupyWallStreet crowd……
Oct 012011
This is the letter I just sent to my U.S. House Representative, David Price, inquiring about his position on the killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi. If I get a response, I’ll post it here.
I urge everyone to write similar letters to your congressional representatives.
October 1, 2011
Calvin Powers
123 Nolen Ln
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
calvin@cspowers.com
The Honorable David Price
2162 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC, 200515
Mr. Price,
I am writing to ask you to:
- state, for the record, your position on whether the President of the United States should have the authority to order the killing of a U.S. citizens such as Anwar al-Aulaqi.
- ask the President to document the legal authority he which authorized him to order that Anwar al-Aulaqi be killed.
I know you issued a statement earlier this year regarding the killing of Osama Bin Laden, so I am surprised and disappointed that you have not issued a statement stating your position on the killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi.
The only legal justification I’ve seen about the killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi was in a Washington Post story on September 30th, which reported:
“The Justice Department wrote a secret memorandum authorizing the lethal targeting of Anwar al-Aulaqi, the American-born radical cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike Friday, according to administration officials.”
The news story cites no authority to justify the killing of an American citizen without due process and the President as far as I know, has issued no statements citing the authority by which he ordered the extrajudicial killing of a United States citizen. From the perspective of your constituents, it looks like the President simply ordered the CIA to kill him.
In March 2007, you cosponsored HR 1415, the “Restoring The Constitution Act of 2007,” which would have extended the right of habeus corpus to unlawful enemy combatants. So I can only assume that you are outraged that a U.S. Citizen’s right to habeus corpus appears to have been blatantly disregarded. And yet as far as I can tell from your web site, you have been mute on this incident.
Thank you for your helping your constiuents understand the issues surrounding the killing of Anwar al-Aulaqi.
Sincerely,
Calvin Powers
cc: www.StuckInTraffic.com
Sep 202011
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.