Category: Personal

Relief: Even at Charity Used to Aiding, It’s a Scramble: “We are looking at this as the disaster of the decade,” said Patrick C. Johns, Catholic Relief Service’s director for security and emergency services. We all hope he’s right, but the pessimist/cynic in me remembers there are still six years left in this decade.

Mark Cuban had the same idea as I wrote up yesterday: Cancel the party, extravaganza functions at Bush’s inauguration. Given his much higher visibility, perhaps the idea will actually get some traction.

A: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”

B: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work, Frodo, than the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring. In which case you also were meant to have it, and that is an encouraging thought.”

Another epistle after reading News Analysis: Diplomacy: It’s About Aid, and an Image in today’s Times:

In response to the horrific tragedy of Sunday’s Asian Tsunami and the need to bring substantive resources to bear for the area’s recovery, a simple suggestion of where many millions of additional dollars are to be found: President Bush’s inaugural celebration. Estimates forecast over $35 million will be spent on this event, and I doubt that total includes the money spent on travel and food by the thousands in attendance. To show solidarity and care, cancel the vast majority of the events and travel and donate that money instead.

Now I think Amazon is to be commended for being the first (AFAIK) commercial web site to open up a generally available, easy to use, right on the front page donate to tsunami victims functionality. I thought enough of this to actually use it. Since my finances are not what they would be if I were actually employed, TS1 and I agreed to use a gift certificate from Amazon that we recieved as a gift last week.

But nooooooo, Amazon is only set up to accept credit cards to pay for donations. I wrote to ask why, since they already actually have the money in their bank account that paid for the certificate but the only answer was “sorry we’re not set up for that.” How lame! Anybody want to buy the certificate (for face value) so I can have the cash to donate?

When I read stuff I’ve written on the web, especially comments like this one, I would swear it was my father talking through my body.

Jerry Orbach Dies: In a week of extraordinary sadness, another patch of darkness.

Navy SEALs Sue Associated Press Over Iraq Photos. Because prison torture is embarrassing, I guess.

Released in 2002, this Canadian feature from writer/director Kari Skogland, this film will generally be compared to Colin Farrell’s Phonebooth from the same year. Both have the same basic framework of a sniper hidden from everyone but a trapped, specially chosen target though in Farrell’s film–which I haven’t seen–the shooter had a very different motivation.

Starring Wesley Snipes as the man with the gun and bombs, Linda Fiorentino as his victim, and Oliver Platt as her husband, Liberty Stands Still essentially comes down to an extended conversation between Snipes and Fiorentino. He’s the father of a girl killed by a classmate with a (legally acquired) gun and she’s the vice-president of a family-owned company which manufactured it. Platt is the company president, responsible along with her father (now a US Senator), for all sorts of nefarious dealings. All other roles are played by serviceable, if little known Canadian actors as Vancouver stands in for an anoymous American city

The film plays out in real time as Fiorentina is driving to see her lover in the last performance of a play and a more intimate post-show encounter. She stops in a park across the street from the theater to buy some coke from a hot dog cart vendor and her cell rings when she takes a snort; Snipes is on the other end and a red laser target dot is convincing enough to begin the encounter.

Two key issues for me overall:

1. Given the core theme, that a modern urban society is not well-served by maintaining slavish adherence to an unrestrained interpretation of our right to bear arms, I felt that far too little of the conversation actually concerned it. Who cares if the gun company executives bribe politicians, shave corners of the laws or sell to any buyer (domestic or foreign), and why have Fiorentino rationalize her position and then rapidly cave in? The company’s been owned and run by her family since before the Civil War, would she really (without the pressure of being under the gun) agree with Snipes in less than an hour?
2. No attempt is made to disguise the Canadian shooting location even though the film revolves around America’s 2nd Amendment and political machinery; the police and television newspeople are completely generic even though placing this in a specific city, such as, say, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, would have made a difference.

Further, there’s too much clutter brought in to make sure the film fills a minimally required 90 minutes. Fussing around the lover’s play, for instance, and chatter among the SWAT team serve no other purpose. Liberty Stands Still almost feels like it was initially written as a two character stage play.

not recommended

Scribbling.net: How to fix Mom’s computer [via Zawodny]

I understand why Thirteen drew such a high level of critical acclaim and appall. The story, partially based on the life of co-star/co-writer Nikki Reed, shows how Reed’s Evie comes into the life of Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), another sweet young (13 year old) girl, and nearly destroys her with drugs, sex, thievery and lies. Not sure why director/co-writer Catherine Hardwicke felt the need to use the nearly cliched opening scene that’s set just before the climax and then jump back to the story’s beginning after the credits but it doesn’t add anything for me.

The movie’s intense and frightening yet also seductive; is as often wishing that Tracy will pull Evie out of her pit as worried that Tracy’ll be pulled down; the ending, interestingly, is ambiguous so we’re left to our own conclusions. The performances are everything–little of the plot is surprising in general terms–and besides outstanding work from the two girls, Holly Hunter is impressive as Wood’s mom while Brady Corbet as her brother and Jeremy Sisto (6 Feet Under, and the title character in USA Network’s Julius Caesar) as Hunter’s reformed addict boyfriend do what they can. 24‘s Sarah Clarke (the deadly worm Nina), Cynthia Ettinger (the soon returning Carnivale) and DW Moffat have small parts as well.

moderately recommended

The California Nonprofit Corporation Kit

Know Your Stuff Home Inventory from the Insurance Industry Institute seems like useful software for people who have insurance on their home(s) or the contents of same. Windows only, YMMV. Not sure why but Slashdot rejected a post I submitted on this, oh well.

Cringely gives a Christmas present to REAL Software though perhaps we’re the true recipients.

A bit of quality in a small major studio film, Gene Hackman, a year after leaving office as the most popular president in US history, and Ray Romano, owner of a local hardware store, define the word contrast as they contest for the mayoralty of a small town and the hand of a pretty veterinarian (Maura Tierney) in Welcome To Mooseport.

Something you don’t see a lot of, scriptwriter Tom Schulman gives both of the men character growth and personal insight and director Donald Petrie, often a hit or miss proposition, creates an authentic modern small town environment. Everybody knows each other and says good morning but they also play golf; one bit missing, now that I think about it, is an almost complete lack of home PCs or internet use. I suppose movie makers in general are still figuring out how to integrate something that doesn’t lend itself well to the visual demands of film.

A little nit: While they chose a great, completely suitable song to run over the end credits, Mayor of Simpleton, why did they use some unknown band called The Engine Room which I can’t even find in AllMusic instead of the classic powerpop original by XTC?

moderately recommended

Trying a European variation on Bonnie and Clyde, I suppose, Warren Beatty made Richard Brook’s anti-hero caper flick $ with Goldie Hawn in 1971. He’s a bank security consultant come to Hamburg to bring the latest tools and methods to a big bank and she’s a cute American somehow turned to hooking there and somehow, we’re never told so much as how they meet, but they’re working together on his scheme to rip off the safe deposit boxes of customers who can’t complain about their losses.

The targets, who all depend on then-existent bank security laws guaranteeing anonymity, are a mob lawyer (character actor Robert Webber) who makes monthly deposits from the Vegas skim, a pair of American serviceman stationed in Germany and running a series of protection rackets and other scams and a murderous drug courier. Beatty uses a fake bomb threat to trap himself inside the vault holding the boxes and craftily transfers the contents into Hawn’s own box.

Written and directed by Brooks, who’d been nominated and won Oscars for such great films as Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Professionals, and In Cold Blood, the film should have ended there, with Beatty and Hawn laughing in his car and the three victims discovering their loss, but no, that’s not good enough for these moviemakers. Though the mob lawyer appears to die of a heart attack after opening his empty box, the other three connect and go after their money. So we get a strung out, two part chase, on foot, in cars, up an enormous stairway, even across a frozen lake. And yes, that champagne bottle does finally get used.

Not bad, not great

A bit more than three years ago I went to see the first romp with this gang and came out of the theater surprised that I enjoyed Ocean’s 11, though not as much as the 1960 Rat Pack original. Today, because it was the best mutually agreeable choice TS1 and I saw Ocean’s 12 but I cannot tell you I really enjoyed myself as much.

Three years have passed since George Clooney and crew took off Andy Garcia’s casinos for $160 million, he’s married again to Julia Roberts and the rest are generally enjoying themselves to varying degrees. Brad Pitt, for instance, bought himself an LA hotel and we see he’s dealing with difficult movie star guests like a long-haired, heartbroken Topher Grace (who, you may recall, was one of Pitt’s poker students in 11). Casey Affleck and Scott Caan were probably as grateful as any of the cast that this sequel got made, and they play the goofy, arguing brothers although they’re barely given anything to do. Anyway…

Somehow Garcia has tracked down all the men who were part of the heist and given them two weeks to pay back what they took, plus interest. Instead of killing them, though no explain is given for this, and they all agree, rather than, say, try and kill Garcia. Not an auspicious beginning. The crew realize they’re short $100 million on what they owe and can’t work in America; no problem, Pitt has booked them tickets to Amsterdam for that evening, with a meeting already set with someone (Robby Coltrane, who must have still been tired from playing Hagrid) who can point them to a small but useful job.

That job’s a bust, a setup by a “notorious” European master thief known only as the Night Fox (played by a well-known European actor named Vincent Cassel). Oddly enough, our boys have connections who tell them instantly the real identity of their nemesis despite his ability to elude all the police forces of Europe for over a decade. Even Catherine Zeta-Jones, a detective on a made-up continental police squad. Cassel, it seems, was insulted by an older, father figure thief (brief cameo from Albert Finney), who said that the crew’s casino job made Danny Ocean a better thief. No, no, great wealth and an ability to fool nearly every person on Earth is not enough; such an insult cannot be suffered. And so we have our challenge.

Enough recapitulation. I noticed that George Nolfi, whose only other movie credit is co-writer of the dreadful adaptation of Chrichton’s Timeline, is the sole credited writer here. The New Yorker review of 12, though, mentions that Nolfi wrote a script called Honor Among Thieves and director Steven Soderbergh and producer Jerry Weintraub “shoehorned” it into what they needed for this movie. I am not surprised to learn this because there is little of the banter and ensemble work of the first film and instead Pitt and Clooney have major focus instead of being leaders of a group.

Further, the structure and cinematography get lost in Soderbergh’s experimentalism, a tendency he was able to put aside in 11 and Erin Brockovich, almost a game of we’re too smart for you boobs. There’s too much of a two steps forward, one step back to the whole thing, and a wildly inconsistent approach to the camera work and color scheme.

Disappointing

Here’s a scary article for your Xmas cheer: As Nuclear Secrets Emerge, More Are Suspected. The one positive thing I came away thinking is that if a non-state group (Al Qaeda and such) did get the necessary technology from AQ Khan, why haven’t they used it yet? I see little advantage for them in waiting compared to North Korea or Iran. Then again, what do I know about how such people think?

“You’ll shoot your eye out.” That’s all poor Ralphie hears from adults when he answers the question what do you want for Christmas with the one thing that he’s just dying to have: a Daisy Brand Red Ryder repeating BB carbine with a compass mounted in the stock. Now this story’s set in the late 1940s in small town Indiana, so don’t go getting the wrong idea.

Based on Jean Shepherd’s (much better, I thought) novel In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, A Christmas Story was almost unnoticed when first released before Thanksgiving 1983; word of mouth pulled more and more people into theaters after it almost closed before that Christmas but the real turning point was its release on video and now cable station TBS has a 24 hour (12 repeats in a row!) showing every year starting on Christmas Eve.

Ralphie (Peter Billingsly, the cute kid co-host of the then hit TV proto-reality series Real People) is a pretty basic kid and the movie wastes little energy fleshing his character out. The two biggest bits of character development are his fight with a bully and his disillusionment after finally receiving a secret Little Orphan Annie decoder sent away for weeks previously. Mainly he’s deadlocked on getting that rifle.

Mom and Dad are Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin; mom’s mainly a stickfigure housewife, dad a midwestern cliche. Ralphie’s little brother has one big scene, where he refuses to eat his dinner until Dillon suggests he pretend his plate is a trough and he a pig. There are friends too, one of whom gets to show us what happens when a gullible boy licks a flagpole in winter.

I suppose writer/director Bob Clark, coming off the first two Porky’s teen schlockers, was looking for a movie that would show a bit more of his creativity but Shepherd’s material–which I’d read ten years or so earlier–doesn’t offer a story of sufficient depth to drive a feature-length film. His best works are short stories and even the novel from which the movie comes is more episodic, a series of connected incidents. Clark’s script tries to work in many of these, the father’s leg lamp award, ongoing battles with the neighbor’s pack of dogs, Christmas dinner at the Chinese restaurant, but is constrained from really making a meal of them.

Then there’s the cultural obsolecence of A Christmas Story, a distance from our own times that grows greater every year but doesn’t reach the classic resonance of, say, A Christmas Carol or Miracle on 34th Street. I’m not sure why, maybe the movie’s too new or we’re not far enough from 1948, but as I listened to the frequent voiceovers, Shepherd himself as the adult Ralph, I couldn’t help but wonder why he was talking so much.

recommended because I seem to be about the only person who didn’t warm to this tale.