Category: Personal

What makes a movie good?

Britney Spears raises an interesting point as she addresses ‘Crossroads’ critics, Crossroads being the movie in which she has her first starring role. The critics are consistent in their negative reaction, as one would expect, going so far as to break out into laughter at screenings. Crossraods is not a comedy, though, and so Spears responds: “Everything the critics like, I hate.”

What does make a good movie? Why do critics so often despise the movies that audiences love? I’m no fan of Britney’s music although I love to look at her dance but I see her point. This is, of course, an old argument between a self-appointed elite and the teeming masses. Britney makes her money while the critics enjoy their mockery and everyone gets paid in their own way.

Football coaching merrygoround: Gruden to Tampa Bay?

The Raiders get rooked once again, in their opinion, by biased NFL officiating and the next day Gruden rumors are flying. A player (Pro Bowl db Ronde Barber?) and a draft pick from Tampa and Al Davis will rid himself of the hottest pro coach? Maybe, stranger things have happened. And this would give Al Davis a way to hire Denny Green, which (more) rumors say he wants to do. I still think, especially after Saturday’s win over Green Bay, that the Bucs would be best served by waiting for Lovie Smith to become available. The latest ESPN coaching rumors page shows that Carolina has the most interesting list of candidates, mostly good assistants like John Fox, Marvin Lewis, and Ted Cottrell. San Diego, while considering run and gun god June Jones, is mainly looking at WWBs (washedup white boys).

Last night’s movie: Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers

J. Michael Straczynski delivered a stunning and original vision in the late TV series Babylon 5. He felt five years, plus a couple of movies, was enough to tell the stories of that particular set of characters. So he moved on to a different aspect of his creation in the series Crusaders, which went nowhere fast. Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers is an attempt to recapture the magic of the original but at a different level; this movie is a pilot for a proposed series.

B5 was very political with a high level military component. Heck, the lead character was commander of a small world at the beginning of the series, leader of a rebellion against a dictatorship on Earth, and president of an interstellar alliance at the end. The connecting character to Rangers is G’Kar, a Narn, who is an ambassador for the Alliance now, although he was a leader of the Narns in B5. In Rangers we are going to follow a somewhat tarnished starship captain and a misfit crew. The Rangers, who played a key role in B5’s war against the Vorlons, are a 1,000 year old group of interstellar, well, cops.

In this movie, we meet Captain Dylan Neal and his crew as they disgrace themselves by running from a suicidal battle. As the saying goes, “We live for the one, we die for the one.” And these guys didn’t die. Actually I thought this was a logical weak spot since no military organization, at least that I know of, can afford to have highly trained, expensively equipped troops and officers throw themselves away in unwinnable situations. Still, they make it back home and are almost drummed out of the corps until G’Kar intervenes. Given an old, haunted ship, the crew head out on what looks like a milk run.

Of course the trip turns bad, we meet (at a distance) some of the puppets of the immensely evil bad race which apparently will be the villains should this be picked up as a series. Here is another complaint: Why would a race that is so ancient as The Hand and so powerful want to destroy everything? In B5 the Shadows at first seemed like a similarly inexplicable group of old baddies until we learned that they had a philosophy that said conflict breeds advance. I expect finding out what is guiding The Hand will come out eventually but for now it just makes them look two dimensional.

Overall I enjoyed the show and would probably watch if it turns into a series. The crew compliment and interviews with Straczynski show that this is set up differently than a Star Trek. Humans are only part of the mix, not the whole story. And Straczynski has a way with visuals that is terrific.

Borland, as retold in Biblical style

Read the Dead C Scrolls as written by humor columnist Verity Stob, after the King James’ Authorised Bible. Sample quote:

When the sons of Kahn looked upon Veesee-ell and Delphi, and they saw that Delphi micturith upon the head of Vi Su-Albahsic, as though from the top of the mountain of Rockee.

More in the same style are Yocam Hocum and Book of Yocam (contd). Great laughs!

Like they would tell us

Many people have speculated on where the Bush team will take the War on Terrorism next. Somalia, Yemen, Iraq. But whichever they choose, there is no way that the target would be leaked to a tabloid rag like the NY Post. So of course the Post runs SECRET PLAN TO TOPPLE SADDAM and attributes the story to an unnamed individual and then only claim this person is “reported to have said” it. Gee and people think newspapers are full of crap; articles like this are precisely why!

A reason to see a show

E! Online News is reporting The Boss Goes Broadway?!?, that a theater group called the Culture Project is putting together a show called Drive All Night featuring lots of Bruce music as it tells the story of a working-class guy named Eddie. This would for sure get my dollars. Now let’s see if Bruce gives it a thumbs up.

I thought the fighting in Afghanistan was over

Apparently some protesters don’t think so since 50 of them from the War Resisters’ League turned out at St. Patrick’s Cathedral this morning. However, they clearly don’t know how to dress or make dolls either.

Even sexy women wear granny panties

No question that Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is sexy. But in this photo we see that she has poor taste in panties. Love her, hate the music, it’s all good.

Football coaching merrygoround: Tampa Bay sucking wind

So sure, Parcells was all set to take over the Bucs, he was even accused of tampering with some other teams’ assistant coaches, but The Tuna blew the Bucs off so he could enter the Hall of Fame. EPSN’s Len Pasquarelli says the choices are limited for Tampa Bay and he reviews what is for the most part a bunch of washed up white guys. Okay, Denny Green is a washed up black guy, better he should go fishing and run a NASCAR team next year than coach.

To me, the only interesting name on the list is St. Louis defensive coordinator Lovie Smith. He did a great job with the Rams’ D this year and could end up being the key to a second Super Bowl win there in two weeks and is only one year away from being the Buc’s linebacker coach.

Pasquarelli also has a good column on why John Fox will be the next Carolina coach. Fox is currently the Giants’ defensive coordinator (do we see a theme here?) and defense wasn’t the reason the Giants missed the playoffs a year after their amazing run to the Super Bowl. Fox deserves a shot but this could be another case of friend hiring friend too.

US to Europe: shut up already

Steven Denbeste, the warblogging captain of the USS Clueless, pulls the camouflage off the biggest secret of the last 60 years in By george, I think he’s got it: After WWII, America occupied Western Europe. We did it in the guise of keeping the Soviets from invading but Steven points out that our million troops stationed there also kept the French, Germans, and British from attacking each other (and drawing us in) a third time; note that the Soviets have been gone for years and there is no more threat of invasion but American troops are still there. I think I’m a fiarly well read person but I’ve never read this rationale for NATO before.

Until late last year, we tried to play nice with the Europeans in world affairs (ref. the Marshall Plan, the Gulf War, Yugoslavia) but all they did was give us bad advice and hinder/prevent the optimal outcome. After the Al Quaeda attacks in September we responded on our own, ignoring the advice proferred unasked by various European politicians and pundits and succeeded faster and with less collateral damage than anyone foresaw. So, as Steven implies, isn’t it time for the Europeans to shut up and listen to us for a change?

Posner’s “Public Intellectuals”: an odd book

Americans love their lists. Remember the bestselling “Book of Lists” from the ’70s? Richard Posner, the federal judge who attempted and failed to mediate the Microsoft Antitrust case, is a prolific author whose latest work tries to quantify the top intellectuals. He uses the investigative tools of our times, the Google search engine, the Lexis-Nexis database, and several indexes of scholarly publications, to generate several listings. Henry Kissinger leads the media mentions list, while the author ranks 70th. Alan Wolfe, who shows up at 98 on the list, excoriates the methodology and results of Posner’s work, saying that in the end, Posner had to choose between the academy and the marketplace and although his heart said market, he couldn’t shake loose his fears and wrote academy. I doubt this book will make it onto many reading lists.

HP/CPQ: Getting nasty

Well, I suppose in this day and age nothing should be surprising. Politicians have run negative campaigns for years. But the execs at HP must be getting nervous to put out a letter attacking Walter Hewlett, attacking on a personal level that is. Really sad and looks way desperate. Stock was down 4% for the day.

Can you say ‘Oops!’?

Life is about making choices. Generally one tries to mak good ones and then stick with them. Sometimes, though, one has second thoughts. You can look back in regret, saying only if…, or you can try and act on those second thoughts before the decision is irreversible. Two good examples showed up in the press today, one of the former and one of the latter, from Marconi PLC and Kana Software respectively.

Marconi, a telecommunications company based in the UK, was approached for a merger that valued the company at about $35.8 billion nearly two years ago, according to an interview in the Financial Times with former company finance director and later chief executive-designate John Mayo. The company directors spurned the offer, with one director claiming “We didn’t give up on the beaches of Dunkirk, and we are not going to give up now.” Today the company stock is worth around $1.4 billion. You do the math, Bucky. If only…

Kana, running into major money trouble in this post-dotcom economy, arranged an infusion of cash from private investors. The business turned around a bit plus a reverse split was successfully engineered, Wall Street reacted well, and now the deal doesn’t look good. So the Kana directors are asking stockholders to reject the financing. The private investors are not thrilled but will get a consolation prize worth at least $4.5 million at today’s prices. Is it too late or will the directors be able to correct their mistake?

Dave is bored

Dave, sometimes known as the winer, gets oh so world weary in today’s Scripting News: “A soundbite: Microsoft bores me. Open source bores me. Sun bores me.” Sorry Dave. I know RU8 is neat and maybe even cool but for sure is not the only interesting thing going on in software these days.

Baseball is not the only sport facing a financial crisis

Soccernet, my favorite place to follow the Liverpool FC, has an excellent feature article today on the Italian crisis and the warning this provides to the Premiership. Clubs, in short, are far too dependent on TV revenues that may dry up in the very near future as ambitious contracts handed out by the broadcasters are falling far short of forecast. Clubs, though, are not necessarily getting the message–Real Madrid is seeking to sign Arsenal star Patrick Veira for a record UKP50 million.

Football coaching merrygoround: There’s humor, of course

The ESPN.com Page2 staff, in Ready, aim … fire!, has come up with their own parody of all the changes–the article gives a reason to fire all 31 coaches, even one day on the job Steve Spurrier! And in real though humourous turns, the Bucs have admitted they are on the prowl for some Tuna, 76 year young Marv Levy has contacted the Colts (Tony Dungy appears to be the frontrunner for that job), and Marty Schottenheimer, who one would think is ready for some fishing, and Norv Turner, who one would think just ought to know better, are both interviewing for the Charger gig that Tuna apparently has turned down.

Radio Userland 8 as a Blogger authoring tool

This post is a test, first of several I expect, to see how I like using RU8 as an authoring tool in place of/in addition to the others I already use.

Update: Blogger and RU seem to disagree over some formatting so this was hand-edited using the standard Blogger client.

Fascinating look at the Torah’s authorship

Of course, some will state unequivocally that the Torah is the literal word of God or at least that the text is divinely inspired. Others that Moses wrote the five books. Alternatively, Straight Dope reports in

Who wrote the Bible? (Part 1), there is an academic school of thought called Documentary theory which lays out a timeline of authorships. Part 5 lays out some information on how the Torah (and the Christian Bible) came to be standardized. Very interesting.