This is a response to a post this morning by political blogger Andrew Sullivan about Sarah Palin. Now Andrew has many fine traits as a political blogger, but among his down-checks is a bit of an obsession about Sarah Palin. Continue reading
This is only part one and it’s nearly ten minutes long, but it is worth it if you have seen Avatar.
This news report – on our local station I’m sad to say — is a prime example of the mindlessness that passes a Tv news today. Really? With all the problems in the world, hell with all the problems in San Diego a dysfunctional local government, crumbling infrastructure, and all the rest these bozos spend valuable air time and resources on a piece about the dangers of a freaking Ouija board?
It’s cardboard, ink, and plastic for god’s sake nothing more. There is no magic to the freaking ouija board. They’re made in china. What do these people think is going over there? Blood Sorcerers enchanting each piece as it gets printed, stamped, and packaged?
Look at who they went to for opinion; mindless drone who are the types to give religious people bad names. I know a number of religious people and frankly they don’t think like this.
Oh Karen Thompson, so what if Ouija boards freaked you out as a kid. Lots of things freak lots of kids out. Clowns. Many a kid has endless nightmares about the clowns, shall do scary ‘news’ reports about them too?
Pastor Phelan? Spend a little less time worrying about cheap Chinese junk and a little more time about how to open hearts vs closing minds and I think you’ll be a little closer to god’s work.
The piece really went off the cliff when they went to the random internet comments as sources of opinion. Hell bells I was waiting for someone to comment that Hitler liked them or some other mind rotting garbage.
That 1st amendment protects fools and prophets alike.
Short post — I want one.
Longer post. I can’t afford to buy one right now and unlike Steven Colbert I can’t beg for one on television.
So here’s the deal I made with myself.
I can buy myself an iPad when I can pay for it entirely with monies earned from my writing. Not from my day job, not from tax overpayment returns and not from any gift cards, but solely from money paid to me for my writing.
It could be a long time before I get one.
So this week I got a copy of The Hurt Locker in blu-ray from Netflix. It was a film I wanted to see in the theaters, but sadly I missed. Sunday night I almost selected it as my Sunday Night Movie, but I was in a more whimsical mood and didn’t want a film that was going to cause deep thinking or such on my tired and stressed brain. (I had worked Overtime at the day job and I was in serious need of just brain downtime when Sunday night rolled around.) So I wen through my DVD library looking for something that suited my suddenly fickle mood.
Back To The Future II seemed perfect. I had purchased the entire trilogy as a box set last year, but I had watched only the first film on DVD. It was time to watch the second film. A movie I had not seen since it was in the theaters.
For those not in the know, the Back to The Future franchise is about Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his adventures with a time traveling Delorean built by local eccentric scientist Dr Emmet Brown (Christopher Lloyd.) The first film is about Marty traveling backwards to when his own parents are teenagers and his adventures as a fish out of water as an 80’s teenager in 50’s America. The writers quite properly had the time machine non-fucntional for the majority of the film saving them from dealing with the inherent paradoxes of most time travel stories.
The Second film picks up where the first film left own, with Marty traveling into his own future at the behest of Dr Brown because something has to be done about Marty’s kids. This film plays more with the idea of time travel and some of the well known dangers involved. The cast is perfect in their role and I was always impressed the most by Thomas F. Wilson who not only played his character at different ages but played different version of his own character as the time line changed and created new realities.
The special effects were outstanding for their time, 1989, but compared to todays dazzling wizardry the smoke and mirrors simple do not work. The composited images are clearly lit different from the background plates and this would be acceptable in a made for ScFi (sorry SyFy) channel presentation today. However they are not bad just dated.
This was what I need for an under two hour no brain stretch of a movie.
So today I was working my way through the outline for Cawdor and I was relieved to find that I am still excited for the project. With all the interruptions and emotional turmoil of the last few months I had not been able to devote much time or energy to this project. Then the short story — A Song Of Silence — came along diverted me again.
After all that I was afraid that my passion for Cawdor had ebbed; not so. Reading through the outline feeling the pulse of the story got me excited to get working on it. I hope to be turning out prose pages within a week or so. There is more spade work to be done. Mainly in area that were underdeveloped in the first version of my outline that I have a better understanding in how to develop.
I’m still hoping to bring this in for around 110,000 words.
So tonight I finished my outline for my next novel, Cawdor. This is version one of the outline as I will need to go through and tweek it a bit and flesh out things I had not expected. However that said I am very happy with the outline and where the story went. I started where I wanted to, I ended where I wanted to and I think the trip in between was interesting. Now a week or so of detail work and I can start writing the novel it self.
I apologize for the long absence of my regular feature, Sunday Night Movie. The last several weeks have been filled with all sorts personal issue and drama leaving me too tired and and wrung out to watch movies, much less blog about them. I am happy to report that things seem to be getting back on an more even keel and life is slowly returning to normal.
Sunday afternoon I picked a copy of L.A. Confidential on blu-ray. I already owned the film in the DVD format, but the blu-ray was well prices and came with numerous new bonus features. I spent Sunday afternoon and evening digging through the bonus feature, before settling in to watch this film I love once more.
This is a sprawling complex character -driven movie and one that should have won Best Picture in 1997. (The nominees were As Good as It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, Titanic, and L.A. Confidential. Titanic won, but it did not deserve the prize in that line-up.) Based on the large — and many ways inferior — novel by James Ellroy, LA Confidential is the story crime, corruption, and illusion in L.A. in the 1950s. The film had a modest budget for 1997 — 15 million dollars — and few stars. Kevin Spacey had just the year before won an Oscar for his role in The Usual Suspects (I another film I adore) Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito were well known, but cast here in supporting roles. (Kim Basinger went on to win an Oscar for her performance in L.A. Confidential.) The remaining lead actors in the films were at that time unknowns to the American Public, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. Two Aussie actors who have go one to be stars and leading men in their own rights.
L.A. Confidential is a rich and powerful period crime story that is clearly set in the 1950s, but without the saccharine sweetness of nostalgia. It is a film that in many ways is a revival of Film Noir, but without looking like it was a revival. It is dense and complex and expect the viewer to be smart enough to follow along. It doesn’t backdown from racism and classism of the period without resorting to preachiness and lectures. It lets the characters be who they are true to their fault and their culture. Photographic with gorgeous colors and detail this film is a feast for the eye, told expertly and with stunningly powerful action it is a feast for the brain, the music, both period and original is pitch perfect.
I cannot recommend this film enough.
Sorry I have been out of it for the last couple of days. Monday was sniffles and a regular headache and yesterday was fully clogged-up and a migraine headache. I stayed home from work yesterday and pretty much just whimpered in the dark.
I will have a new Sunday night movie posting for you tonight. While walking around Fry’s electronics on Sunday afternoon with a apl looking at LCD and LED Tvs, (For his house not mine, I already am very happy with my LCD 42″ set) I spotted a good deal on the movie L.A. Confidential . Truly it was the film that should have won best picture and not Titanic. Because it wasa good price and came loaded with new bonus features I had to buy it replacing my DVD of the movie. I also picked up for under $20 Inglorious Basterds another really good film.
Chat with you soon.