Reviews

Movie and book reviews

Book Review: CASCA

You may remember Barry Sadler, the famous soldier and author of the popular song; “Ballad of the Green Berets”.  I was not aware that he also wrote a fictional novel, and then he wrote 24 more novels before his untimely and mysterious death in 1989.  In each of these novels, Casca is Barry Sadler’s observer in a different part of military history - a nifty literary device.  My boss was kind enough to loan me the first in the series over Christmas break.

Here’s the setup: Casca Rufio Longinus was the soldier who pierced Jesus’ side with a spear at Golgotha.  Jesus cursed him to wander the Earth forever as a soldier, and this first novel is the story of how he became the eternal mercenary.  It has some truly horrifying twists, such as when Casca realizes that 1) he cannot die, and 2) as a slave in the copper mines, if he were buried alive as slaves often were, it would be for all eternity.  After more than a decade he escapes the mine, but he must forever move on.  If anyone learned his secret, they might burn him at the stake for witchcraft, or impale him, or visit any number of other kinds of execution.  And while he could not die, he could certainly feel pain.

He makes some very interesting friends, among them Shiu Tze, a Confucian philosopher far from home.  There’s a a number of gory battle scenes and one climactic battle with his nemesis in the gladiatorial arena before the emperor Nero. After one especially pointless and bloody battle against the Parthians, he curses the Christian god as a sadist for placing him on the road from which he cannot escape.  But when he tries to kill himself by falling on his sword…

Alas, they’re out of print but I’ll be watching the book sales. 

Posted by George on 01/09/08 at 09:51 PM
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Monday Morning Music - Gnarls Barkley CRAZY

This intricate video has a lot of unexpected visual tricks, including jarring reminders that absolute facial symmetry is unsettling, and can go either way emotionally depending which side of the face is used.  And Thomas Callaway is an incredible singer.

And what the hell, I like this one because it’s really fun, if a trifle disturbing:

I’m really glad these two got together.

Posted by George on 01/07/08 at 06:49 AM
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Movie Review: Ratatouille

MrsDoF and I saw the Disney/Pixar film Ratatouille at the Historic Normal Theater this evening.  You know the story: a rat with a culinary gift becomes the master chef at a French restaurant.  Since I couldn’t figure out how the story was supposed to work, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. 

I was surprised to find that it did work, was funny, and engaging, and very literate, and I liked it.  (I should have known, co-directed by Brad Bird.) If your kids watch it, it might even improve their vocabulary, too.  In the pattern of Incredibles, there was some some inspirational stuff but not too much.  And a bit of romance, but not too much.  Some violence, but not too much. And the animation was not only technically superb but lovingly artistic as one could hope.  Tasty!

Posted by George on 01/05/08 at 09:30 PM
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Mr. President?  Is that you?

It’s a chilly January night and MrsDoF is in the living room watching Disney’s 1991 movie, Beauty And The Beast.  I like the movie a lot, so I’ve been popping in to watch the cool scenes with her.  I especially like the part where the Beast saves Belle from the wolves.

Then I overheard the obnoxious bully Gaston, use a familiar phrase.  To MrsDoF’s annoyance, I came in and rewound the tape to catch a picture of it (the animation is between-frames but the closed-caption is clear).  Gaston vows to “Kill the beast!” and Belle, who has befriended the misshapen monster, says “I won’t let you!” To which Gaston replies; ”If you’re not with us, you’re against us!”

Sound like anyone we know? I think it’s a pretty good fit.

Posted by George on 01/01/08 at 10:55 PM
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National swagger and whistling in the dark

A correspondent best known for penning the infamous ”Letter to Dr. Laura” sent me this brief review of a new book yesterday:

Friends,

I just finished a new book that I must enthusiastically recommend:
”Are We Rome?” by Cullen Murphy. It’s a sobering comparison of the USA and the Roman Empire in its latter stages. Just a few of his observations:

  • Roman leaders had a mindset that Rome was invincible, and refused to visualize military defeat by “inferior” forces.
  • Romans saw themselves as the center of the Universe, with no need to understand other cultures.
  • Over the years, the Roman government, and in particular its military services, became increasingly privatized, resulting in lack of oversight and an epidemic of corruption.
  • In Rome, the economic disparity between the numerically tiny ruling class and the majority working class greatly increased over the course of its history.
  • Rome began as a secular republic and ended as an empire with an official state religion.

It’s food for thought when we contemplate the best direction for the United States.

- Kent

This is exactly why I am more afraid of preening, ignorant, pious, tough-talking, denialist politicians than of our country’s enemies.  It has never seemed likely to me that America could be brought down by an outside enemy without mutual destruction by superpowers.  But our situation is more analogous to cancer. 

Posted by George on 12/21/07 at 07:11 AM
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New jacket!

Hot Damn!  The weather’s supposed to be miserable tomorrow!

Q: “What do you think, son?  It’s my new REI Ultra-Light waterproof windbreaker jacket.”

A: “Gee, dad, I suddenly have the urge to throw a bucket of ice-water on you!”

It is a pretty nifty jacket.  I also like my Sierra Designs MicroLight windbreaker though it’s more for Spring and Fall where the REI is for the sleet and howling gales.  It is a versatile, configurable jacket for rough conditions.

That is, if you’re the type who prefers a windbreaker instead of a heavy coat even in extreme weather.  The idea is you can fine-tune the amount of insulation as simply as putting on a bulky sweater under it.  I just find the windbreaker more comfortable when I’m bicycling or doing other physical work.  A heavy coat restricts movement.

Pete got the first REI in the office, and Webs got the second one.  But neither of them were geeky enough for jacket-blogging.

Update: 18 February 2008.  After using the REI jacket for a few months, here’s what I found.  It is great protection from severe weather, except the neck isn’t big enough to zip up comfortably.  (I have the same problem with shirts; if you are pencil-necked, it won’t be a problem.) And it has no document pocket; a place to stow an office envelope or a magazine would be nice.  Sierra Designs has an extreme jacket similar to the REI; I may try one since I like my SD light-duty jacket so much.

Posted by George on 12/06/07 at 09:47 PM
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“Wild stray cat, you’re a real gone guy…”

Headin’ into winter, gettin’ kinda gloomy?  Have some finger-snappin’ toe-tappin’ Setzer with a Mancini chaser

STRAY CAT STRUT

(There’s even a “Pink Panther” interlude in the middle)

Continued...

Posted by George on 12/03/07 at 07:15 AM
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Judgment Day - Intelligent Design On Trial

I reckon there’s a discussion to be had over the PBS Nova documentary Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial.  I just finished watching the first half of it and will try to get the second hour tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, if you have seen it and want to give your impressions, feel free.  Don’t worry about spoiling it for me, I followed the trial pretty closely.

Update: the PBS ombudsman gets letters from viewers about the program.  Most criticized Judgment Day for being too “one-sided”.  To me this is a pretty good illustration of how successful creationists have been in undermining biology education in this country, and as a bonus it illustrates how journalism’s daffy definition of “balance” has permeated the public mind.  If you find an expert in any field - someone of world renown who embodies the best current science, a “journalist” will prop up alongside him some whacko who disagrees with him/her because it isn’t biblical, and call it “balance”. 

What NOVA did in this program was different - it was real journalism.  They reported on what happened.  And what happened is the Discovery Institute and the school district had their asses handed to them on a plate by a conservative judge, a Bush appointee, who made an honest ruling.  Sometimes reality is “one-sided” and it’s perfectly fair and balanced to report it that way. 

Posted by George on 11/13/07 at 11:10 PM
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Ken Burns’ lecture

I went to a lecture by the great film documentarian Ken Burns this evening.  He has produced celebrated docuementaries on topics from the Civil War to Jazz, Baseball to Mark Twin and lately, World War Two.

Sure, I like history, and might even be considered somewhat of a history nerd.  I’ve enjoyed books by David McCullough, Will Durant, Daniel Boorstin and others.  But I’ve never seen a Ken Burns documentary.

OK, if you really dig Ken Burns, forgive me, but he sounded like a walking thesaurus, given to grandiloquent language and awfully impressed with himself.  Of course, he has a lot more reason for self-satisfaction than I do, (it’s not like I’ve produced any hit 16-hour documentaries about the Civil War) but still…

After his prepared speech came questions and he sounded much more direct.  Asked what he thought were the differences between the current war and WWII, he said the main difference was the sense of investment that we lack in this war.  “If my president after 9/11 had asked me to sacrifice fifty things I would have sacrificed fifty-one and felt richer for it.  Instead I was told; ‘Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, just go shopping’”. 

Posted by George on 11/01/07 at 08:34 PM
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Can Rowling say that Dumbledore is gay?

Christians have had a range of responses to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, from “It’s evil witchcraft!” to “It’s Christian allegory”.  Now that she has outed the wizard Dumbledore as gay, there are various kinds of backlash.  One of the more interesting kinds is that Rowling has no right to decide if Dumbledore is gay:

Nonsense. There is no evidence of it in the books and the books (at this point) are all that matter. I have always thought the books deeply Christian not because Rowling told me so (which she recently confirmed), but because the text is full of Christian images and ideas… No offense to an excellent author, but Dumbledore no longer belongs only to Rowling.

I’ve seen this reaction in a lot of places, and I’d ignore it except it always annoys me when literary critics second-guess the author.  It’s presumptuous to second-guess another person’s motives in everyday life and more so in literature. Don’t you hate it when someone says to you; “You only did that because you (are a woman, a man, white, rich, poor, atheist, Christian, hate critics, whatever.)?” What the hell do they know?

What they apparently don’t know is that it is standard practice for most fiction authors to create complete profiles of their characters before they even begin writing the story.  Here’s author and writing instructor Richard Peck in Fiction Is Folks:

Continued...

Posted by George on 10/24/07 at 07:42 PM
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Gerald Ford stamps available

 
 

I’ve written before about how I pick stamps to express honor to a person, object, or idea.  They almost always have something interesting I can choose.  Last week I needed stamps and this one was a very easy choice:
 

Is there anybody like this running for the office now?.

Posted by George on 10/08/07 at 03:57 PM
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2007 manhattan Short Film Festival

Local theaters are wonderful.  The Historic Normal Theater just showed the 2007 Manhattan Short Film Festival, which was followed by an international voting for the best one.  Our theater was the only one in Illinois hosting the event.

My favorites in order were Lines, Clooney, Boris’ Complete Book Of Rules, and The Prestidigitator.  Lots of people were very impressed by 1/100 of a second but I thought it pushed emotional buttons in a rather clumsy fashion. Feeling Lonely was a very obvious reworking of Rear Window and I Want To Be A Pilot was like the world’s most tedious Christian Children’s Fund commercial.  The others were so-so. 

Lines could be, and should be, made into a series for high-school kids.  You could do an awful lot with the main character they created and I think it would be massively popular. Unfortunately it has not hit YouTube yet. 

Posted by George on 09/29/07 at 09:16 PM
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Giving truthiness to falsity

Here’s a report that’s unlikely to brighten your day.  On The Media relates a study about how the brain tends to cling to the most-heard piece of information as true, even if the actual quote said it was false.  I bet GOP strategists have known about this for a long time. 

Posted by George on 09/10/07 at 08:10 PM
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Monday Morning music

I reckon any Monday is improved by some finger-snappin’ toe-tappin’…

(Actual music starts 30 seconds in)

Posted by George on 09/10/07 at 06:11 AM
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Movie Review: The 5,000 Fingers Of Doctor T

I love Theodore Geisel (Doctor Seuss) and recently learned that he did a live-action movie in 1959.  Entitled The 5,000 Fingers Of Doctor T, it told the story of Bart Collins, a young boy tormented by a cultured but evil piano teacher named Robert Terwilliker.

(Waaaait a minute… there’s something awfully familiar about that.  Could there be an inspirational relationship to young Bart Simpson, and his cultured but evil nemesis, (Sideshow) Bob Terwilliger? Hmmm...)

Bart apparently has some sleep disorder; he falls asleep at inopportune times, dreaming that his piano instructor Doctor T is after him.  In the dream that encompasses most of the movie, his instructor founds the “Terwilliker Institute” to enslave 500 young boys to play the world’s largest piano (and not incidentally run a gigantic and very profitable racket).

Producer Stanley Kramer pulled out all the stops to translate the surreal world of Doctor Suess to 3-dimensional reality.  I imagine that stratospheric costs prevented another live-action Suess flick from being made until special effects could be produced digitally. 

The sets, lighting, choreography, and musical numbers are simply astounding.  The orchestral number (performed in a dungeon with fanciful instruments that only Doctor Suess could possibly invent) is wonderful but impossible to describe.  The movie does run a bit slow for my Die Hard conditioned movie sensibilities but heck, it was made in 1959.

This movie was a lot of fun.  I’m going to have to watch it a couple more times to catch everything.  You can get your own copy on Amazon.

SPOILER ALERT below the fold

Continued...

Posted by George on 08/26/07 at 09:45 PM
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