The Wicker Man

Last March one of my Sunday night Movies was The Wicker Man a film I have enjoyed since I saw it on HBO back in 1979. Now when I watched it last year it was the ‘director’s cut.’ In actuality I’m not sure if this represents the director’s true visions but I know it is the closest surviving print of that version. Sadly, the studio accidentally destroyed the negative this cut was made from a 1″ videotape duplicate, so the visuals suffer.

Late laste year or early this year I picked up the theatrical cut on DVD so that I could have all the bonus material. (the boxed set I had purchased seven or eight years ago came with two discs, one with teh bonus material and the theatrical cut and the second disc with this ‘director’s cut’, sadly only one disc worked.)

Of course I had to watch the theatrical cut in addition to the bonus materials.

I am so torn. In a perfect world there would be a high quality print with material from both cuts. I can’t honestly say if one is better than the other. Each stresses different points, and each omits scenes that I think are really really important.

(Ignore the fact that there was an American *ah hem* remake. That was pure garbage and ignored the themes of the film replacing them with its own misogynistic malevolence.)

I doubt that there are many fi any people reading my blog who has seen both, but if there are, do you have a preference and if so why?

 

What I am really excited about is next year….

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No Sunday Night Movie this week.

Life has been busy and my writing has taken up quite a bit of my time. (that’s a good thing for me, not so good if you enjoy content here. Sorry.)

I’ve got a couple of short stories in the fire, and my next Seth jackson novel, Command and Control is coming along nicely in the outline stages.

 

See you all later.

 

 

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What happened? Updated

So last night I brought up the question what happened to the Republican dominance in California for Presidential elections. Brad theorized that it was a demographic change that lead to Claifornia becoming a safe state for the Democratic Party in presidential elections. I expressed some doubt, but he may be right. Be low the cut is a graph I made of the popular vote totals in California for both the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. For comparison I also graphed the popular vote totals for both parties nationally.

The Democratic part has been gaining  steadily in the Golden State since about 1980, this did not translate into victories until 1992, but the trend is plain. What I found even more surprising was that the trend was mirrored, though delayed in the national vote totals. From 1952 through 2008 in general the Democratic Party has been gaining popular votes and the Republican Party has been bleeding them.

If this is demographics, then it could spell massive trouble for the Republican Party. The Tea Party revolution will be carrying the party into the wrong direction for electoral victory. Note that the Republicans did not lose votes totals, slipping behind the Democrats when the total losses became too great, but rather votes moved from the Republican ledger to the Democratic ledger. It is hardly likely that those migrating votes are of a Tea Party mentality. As such moving towards the Tea Party is unlikely to bring those votes back to the Republican party and is therefore unlikely to help in the long term electoral prospects of that party. (there may be short term swings such as 1964 or 1994 but the trend lines continue.)

Becoming a lite version of the Democratic pArty is no answer, rather the Republicans are faced with a generational challenge of finding a philosophical stance that agrees with their principles, and is flexible enough to sweep in votes from the growing Democratic wave.

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So what happened?

A friend of mine is fond of saying that his vote, nationally, doesn’t matter because he lives here in California and no matter what he thinks, wants, or votes California is going to be in the Democratic column come election night.

Today that is true, but it hasn’t always been that way.

From 1952 through 1988 California was a reliable Republican state, only once 1964 ending up in the Democratic totals during the Goldwater Disaster.  However from 1988 through the current day, five straight elections, California has gone Democratic and teh Republicab’s haven’t had a ghost of chance at the electoral college votes locked up in the Golden State. Why?

Did California turn that Liberal in 1992?

Did the Republicans move that far right in 1992?

Was it a combination of both?

 

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A very deserving collapse

I am terribly pleased to see that this man’s campaign has collapsed. Should by some quirk of fate he rise again and takes the nomination I will happily vote for Obama against him in the general election.

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Achievement Unlocked! Outline Completed! (20 gamer points)

So, tonight I finished the first draft of my outline for the novel Command & Control. This is another Seth Jackson novel set in my nationalized Space universe. A future where mankind never unified and national identity has been carried out to the stars, and there appear to be no intelligent aliens at all.

The  outline clocked in at 34 pages, and I need to go back now and revise the out, then use it to prepare for the actual writing. The book has three big sections and each section has its own cast of characters, along with a small number that carry though. (this book has a high body count.)

I am also working on two short stories, so there’s now now doubt. I have gone insane.

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Can he get the ring off the map?


A game I own and used to play quite a bit with friends of mine is Risk: the Lord Of The Rings Edition. Unlike normal Risk which is a game that can last forever, I remember games that went over entire weekends, this version actually has a set ending. There is a timer of sorts, a golden ring (the One Ring) traveling to Mordor. To get the ring to Mordor the player’s whose turn it was had to roll high enough to get the ring there, if he failed the ring sat in place and the next player took a turn and the end tried to move the ring off the map and end the game. In general whoever had the final turn usually ended up winning.
Watching the Republican Nomination process this cycle I’m suddenly think if Risk: Lord Of The Rings again. There are only 27 days until the first contest and the first delegates and I am wondering if Newt can get the ring off on his turn. If you look at the chart of combined polls above you can see that Romney has a fairly steady level of support, but never a lot. One by one others have challenged him, first Bachmann but even as she started to climb, Perry jumped into the race stole her fire, raced to the lead and crashed just as quickly. Perry was replace by Cain, he took his turn at the lead and then like Icarus fly too high, got burned and came crashing to the ground, now it seems to be Newt’s turn. (‘My name’s Newt! No One calls be Rebecca!’ — Sorry, wrong Newt.) He’s getting to level that none of the other not-Romney have attained and he’s doing it so close to the first contests. Can he start a tide of victories and steal the nomination from the traditional Republican choice? (The runner up from the last contest often seem to get the nomination with the Republcan Party, see John McCain for details.)
No matter what happens, it’s going to be exciting.

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Sunday Night Movie: Bowfinger

I was not in the mood for an untested product on Sunday night so I dove into my library of DVDs and pulled out a comedy that I knew I would enjoy and that I have not watched in some time, Bowfinger.

I missed this film in the theater and caught it went I rented it once from an internet company that is no longer with us. I honestly can’t remember the name of the company but there business was that they would bring DVDs and food to your home within an hour of your order. Netflix is a better deal, this was still daily charges and the whole shebang that most video stores did for their and to their customers.

Anywho, I really enjoy this film though it is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s a simple story really, Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) desperately wants to be a film maker, but he’s never been on the inside. His account has written a spec script and Bowfinger tries to get hollywoods biggest action star, Kit Ramsey (Eddie Murphy) to agree to be in the movie. Naturally that fails but Bowfinger, undaunted by such setback decides he will make the movie, with Kit in it, anyway. He’ll simply secretly film Kit, and a person who has an amazing resemblance to Kit (Eddie Murphy again) and edit these strangely filmed scenes together. Except for the camera man the rest of the actors and crew have no idea that Kit has never agreed to be in the movie. So Bowfinger is conning Kit, and his friends and associates.

There is a wonderful performance by most the cast, particularity Heather Graham who plays a wide-eyed innocent just off the bus and looking to be a star. A young lady who rapidly learns how to works the business if show business.

This movie is not perfect. I agree with a friend of mine who think it would have worked better had everyone been in on the con except Kit, but faults aside I still very much enjoy this film. In no small part due to the fact it is really about dreamers and how clinging to your dream can be a very painful thing in this cynical and dirty world, but losing them is worse.

 

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