BillSaysThis

Rob, congratulations on your exciting new gig. Hope to be publishing similar good news myself one of these days months decades.

HBO Films consistently makes terrific films yet I often look at the trailers and discount them only to finally watch and realize how good their productions are. The latest, an adaptation of Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s stage play Lackawanna Blues, is yet another example; I only watched after Tivo Suggests recorded it for me and at the end I was crying. A bit, just a bit.

On the outside, Blues doesn’t seem like much: the story of a beloved woman who kept her small city community together until outside forces and age did her in. Seeing it is completely different. The core morals of this film are that good can conquer evil, that happiness can be found by letting yourself be happy. Despite events that make you think otherwise, happiness is on the inside.

S. Epatha Merkerson (Lt. Van Buren from Law & Order) is a knockout as Nanny, the woman whose love, wisdom and generosity save many souls from trouble, and should easily be in the seats at the next Emmys. Marcus Carl Franklin plays Junior for most of the show, a young boy who Nanny takes in when his own parents can’t, the other central character; Junior is used well by Santiago-Hudson as a way to tell small stories of other people who float in and out of Nanna’s boardinghouse. Hill Harper (CSI: NY) plays the boy as a grownup and voices the narration.

Now that HBO’s original productions have earned the network a reputation for quality without the normal concerns of ratings or box office, plenty of actors are happy to be even a small part of them. So it is here, with supporting roles and cameos from Jimmy Smits, Louis Gossett, Jr., Rosie Perez, Delroy Lindo, Mos Def, Macy Gray, Ernie Hudson, Leiv Schriber, Henry Simmons, Patricia Wettig, Julie Benz, and Jeffrey Wright. Terrence Howard has a meatier role as Nanny’s 17 year younger husband.

Directed by George Wolfe, who mostly works on Broadway (where he directed this as a play and won a Tony for Angels in America), makes the movie work by never really slowing down and bringing out just the right level of emotions from his cast. Given the difference in mediums, Wolfe makes the transition smoothly, using a deft touch in mixing visuals and transitions pacing the plot.

recommended

[Previously: 2004, 2001]

Official site. Yeah, I know Foxx is unlikely to do the double but stranger things have happened. I also think Million Dollar Baby is too controversial, the outcome too negatively perceived, for the picture to win any of the top prizes except for Swank and her only because (a) none of the competition has gotten near her and (b) nobody holds her responsible for Eastwood’s decisions.

Award	Bill’s Picks	Vivian’s Picks
Best Picture	Ray	Will: The Aviator, Should: Ray
Actor	Jamie Foxx	Jamie Foxx
Actress	Hilary Swank	Hilary Swank
Supporting Actor	Jamie Foxx	Clive Owen
Supporting Actress	Cate Blanchett	Laura Linney
Director	Martin Scorsese	Clint Eastwood

Last year, we both got Best Picture, Actress, and Director, Vivian got Actor and I got Supporting Actress.

The NY Times has an interesting piece by Michael Marmot on studies of life expectancy and the Oscars.

Job posting: Help Wanted to Expand Free Speech Globally

Angelina Jolie in extremely flattering tight outfits? Check. Whacked out phantasmagorical plot? Check. Diabolical villain racing our heroine to an ancient artifact that could doom millions? Check. Sure enough everything’s in place for the 2003 sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

What do you expect from movies based on video games? At least director Jan de Bont keeps the bullets and bombs within reason, a bit of computer generated menace and the visible blood absolutely minimal, a positive in my book. Gerard Butler, Ciaran Hinds, and Djimon Hounsou provide romance, evil and wisdom in support.

Yes, nearly everything is cartoony but from that perspective this is successful. A female Indiana Jones, as my sweetie suggested. Not box office gold, considering the $90 million budget, probably profitable in the long run but Jolie has said she won’t do a third.

moderately recommended

What a wasted afternoon! The Norton SystemWorks subscription on TS1’s PC Twiggy was running out and it had the 2002 version which is no longer supported so I ordered her 2005 for a few dollars more than just a year’s anti-virus updates. The box arrived yesterday and I started the install as we went out to Quizno’s for a low carb lunch, figuring it would be done when we were back.

I was right. The software had a Please Reboot dialog up and I clicked okay. Should be all that’s necessary other than perhaps confirming the configuration and scheduling. That would have been nice, eh?

Only took five hours more, just how I was expecting to enjoy my Saturday. Good thing I’d watched Manchester United’s straightforward 2-0 take down of Portsmouth first. At first the problem was just puzzling, when starting the app a broken dialog came up with only a Next button that did zilch when clicked. Couldn’t sneak around it either, when I tried the Product Activation dialog came up with its template placeholders showing instead of numbers and, again, clicking the visible Continue button did nada.

How about uninstalling the craptasticness? Nah, that’d be too easy for BillSaysThis. Besides, I couldn’t find a way to do it. Not from its Program Group choices, not from the directories, not from the CD. The Help insisted I had to use the Control Panel’s Add or Remove Software utlity.

That was the next problem, a weird one too. The applet window came up but no list of installed programs was in it. Tried Windows Update to restore some normality and got a blank web page rather than the Microsoft applet. Weird, huh? I rebooted for the 427th time and still the same. Round and round. Finally occured to me to look at Symantec’s support site where I had another surprise–the page used JavaScript to drill down to specific product versions and yet another bit that worked fine yesterday wasn’t now.

I guess this happens often enough for their web guys to add No JavaScript links and I finally–and I mean after another half hour or so–found an article explaining what to do if no method of uninstalling SystemWorks was available. Something about reinstalling the Windows Scripting Engine. Um, what?!?!

Despite my confusion and disbelief, however, this was the piece that got me over the top. Installed it, rebooted and wouldn’t you know it things started working again. The product activation did its thing, the SystemWorks console started and I could configure what need configuring. Except… you knew there had to be a catch.

The Worm protection feature wouldn’t install. The Help suggested a conflict with Zone Alarm, but I wasn’t running that application. Another reboot, another five minutes. Run LiveUpdate yet again. Still no love. Reboot, LiveUpdate and–what, wait, do my eyes deceive me? No, they do not! I actually had on my Sweet One’s PC a running, up to date, functional installation of Norton SystemWorks 2005! Only a tad more than five hours without quite pulling any hair out. I was saving that for hour six.

At least the sun was just going down over the horizon, right?

I remember this event, 12 years ago today: Blast Hits Trade Center, Bomb Suspected; 5 Killed, Thousands Flee Smoke in Towers. I had passed through the World Trade Center 45 minutes or an hour before on my way to the old Home Insurance Company offices on Maiden Lane and afterwards every thing was crazy. Though not close to the chaos after 9/11.

TS1 asked a very interesting question this morning: Why has Tom Cruise never hosted Saturday Night Live?

Sure to be linked from every far corner of the blogosphere: John Heilemann’s lengthy, somewhat bloated and yet still insightful GQ feature on the personalities running Google. Mainly covering the periods around the 1999 initial venture funding and the 2004 IPO. Should have either been edited for length or bolstered with a lot more content but the author does have more than enough insider interviews to make for an interesting piece. [via Battelle]

Excellent OpEd piece in the NY Times, A Shell Game in the Arms Race, that nails our government for doing business with companies that break weapons sanctions. This is not just a Bush/Republican thing, the primary example cited began under Clinton, but IMO the author doesn’t go far enough. All these conflicts we see in the news, the fighters on both sides get their weapons from somewhere. Almost always from companies in countries not directly involved. If we want to shut down the Islamic terrorists, the janjaweed militia, the FARC and so forth, why don’t we go after the arms suppliers? I cannot believe nearly all the material involved cannot be traced to the originating factories. But that, my friends, would cut into profits!

Courthouse shootout leaves three dead in Texas. Garret points to this tragedy and comments “The use of a stereotypical assault weapon, being successfully opposed by a licensed concealed handgun, poses an interesting conundrum.” I disagree.

Let’s not forget the most important fact of all: David Hernandez Arroyo Sr. started this mess by using his legally obtained semi-automatic assault rifle. Second, good samaritan Mark Wilson’s concealed handgun was only of minor use–the dad was wearing protective gear that Wilson’s handgun couldn’t penetrate–and meanwhile left himself vulnerable (during a reload?) and then dead. Let’s consider the possibility that if Wilson wasn’t present and didn’t intervene, then Hernandez Arroyo would have killed his son (instead of Wilson). So, though one cannot know exactly how the situation would have played out, I think the most likely result would have been the same number of dead people and one less person in the hospital.

I see Wilson’s actions as foolish and futile, not heroic, and what happens now to his own family? The article doesn’t mention if he had one but a 52 year old conservative small businessman generally does, and now that family has a hole in it. The whole situation makes me ill, especially if gun proponents try and make Wilson a martyr for the cause. In the current political climate I bet there are already spinmeisters and pundits hotting up their computer keyboards.

In case you had any doubt who runs our government, just read this. Wow.

Wade Horn, Asst. Secretary, Administration for Children and Families, Dept. of Health and Human Services, slings typical Bush Administration rhetorical crap in a letter to the NY Times titled Effective Sex Education. While correctly stating that schoolchildren aren’t harmed by including abstinence in sex education programs and that current implementation of such programs aren’t 100% effective, Horn completely ignores the truth of his administration’s program proposal: abstinence is the only method which educators should be allowed to teach. What a load, yet so many people buy off on each of these little pieces of the plan and dismiss objections such as mine without any real reason.

The 2005 Wired Rave Awards were not all that interesting or insightful but in the honorable mentions for the technology award (to Mark Fletcher for the overrated BlogLines) I noticed Adam Curry listed for iPodder. Which made me think that Dave Winer has gone sort of silent on Adam since he posted an entry stating that the two would not be starting a podcasting-ish based business together. Though he did take Wired to task last week for giving the award nomination to Curry instead of him, and that’s probably why reading the awards article brough this to mind.

Some people will say this is Dave whining yet again but–and I’m far from his biggest fan–this seems to be a legitimate complaint. Four years ago, when Dave was still running UserLand, they did deliver a lot of innovation in this space. Since he left after having heart problems a couple of years ago that’s changed but when earned give the man his due. At least the recent NYT article on podcasting credited them together but credits Winer only as “an early Web log writer,” which is just stupid. You’d think someone skilled enough to get a byline in the New York Times Technology section would know better.

Where am I going with this? Not sure. I was thinking initially about the ephemeral nature of friendships and partnerships, then about the continuing inability of even “with it” mainstream media to get facts straight, then about reputation and spin in the web age. In the end, of course, there are no answers, just observations.

This time around Will Smith and Martin Lawrence (does anyone call him Marty to his face?) get a much bigger budget for their Miami drug cop action comedy. That means lots more big booms, crashes and massive quantities of bullets flying in Bad Boys II but what they didn’t invest enough in was a scriptwriter. Hollywood vet Ron Shelton and Jerry Stahl (who wrote up his addiction and recovery in Permanent Midnight) have both done quality work but neither has delivered an action success.

Michael Bay had his first directing success with the original Boys back in 1995 and certainly knows his way around this kind of movie. Press reports, though, have been talking lately about his desire to move onto more challenging types of work and Boys II seems like the result of a contract he had to fulfill. Like I said, the huge budget certainly shows on screen but its hollow.

Over the top doesn’t begin to describe how ridiculous the movie is. Drugs and money shipped inside corpses. Rats infesting piles of drug money. DEA, FBI, CIA agents teamed up with Miami cops and Cuban dissidents to raid a home in Cuba and fight off Cuban military, all off the books.

not recommended

Continuing a strange up and down season, the Reds hosted Landon Donovan’s new German club and beat them 3 – 1; the American international didn’t come on until the 69th minute, however, and had little effect on the result. The odd thing is that as much as I wanted them to win, I didn’t consider it very likely given recent form, a multitude of injuries and the required absence of Steven Gerrard through suspension. Yet the team closed up after some early struggles, the only score allowed coming seconds from the end, so another strange outcome in LFC2004-05. Two weeks from now the reverse fixture will be quite the test; Gerrard will be back but how will Leverkusen’s away goal play into the final result?

Google book plan sparks French war of words: This is the web, Google is a private company, put up your own servers with the content you believe is left out. Or make a deal with one of Google’s competitors to do it. Otherwise, stop whining.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: A Memo Distributed Among the “Project Loverboy” Staff, Regarding “Turn Me Loose”. Best explanation I’ve seen yet.

Stealing the entry title from The Rude Pundit is completely fitting for a farewell to Doc Gonzo, who was a thin white duke long before Bowie stole the idea. Unlike the Rude One I never met the man but he was one of two sources of inspiration for my decision to major in journalism many years ago before electricity was domesticated (the other, of course, was the work Woodward and Bernstein did in the same era). Doc Searles chimes in too but is too much of a gentleman, something I fear he cannot escape, for this event.

Oddly I can discern no hint of his coming demise in the final column HST wrote for ESPN.com, all about a new, biathlon-ish form of golf he invented where instead of skiing with occasional stops for target shooting one player hits the ball and the other attempts to drive it off course with a shotgun. Typically wacky and the column comes complete with a late night phone call to Bill Murray.

A habit I developed early in life is to find regular sources of information on subjects of interest to me and read them religiously. When I was young this meant two daily newspapers (the regional Newark Star-Ledger and the national New York Times), as many books as my dad passed on or I got from the library (odd melanges of science fiction, history, investing and constitutional law), and magazines, a buttload of magazines. Time, TV Guide, Analog, Business Week, Boy’s Life, Scholastic, Omni, Sports Illustrated, Creem, Rolling Stone and others that came my way from time to time.

Rolling Stone was where I first met Thompson, so to speak, with his columns a departure from the music and movies focus of all the other pages. I was still young and naive, not really aware of what drugs could do to and for a body; articles that mentioned booze, pills and pot were just words to me until a few years later–but that’s another story, for another post. Hunter, though, gave me a glimpse of the mind altering power of these substances with his towering, brash verbiage. If he wasn’t a poet like Dylan or Plant delivering experience through songs, his writing still washed over me with similar effect.

On the newspaper pages I was reading Woodward and Bernstein slowly, surely, methodically peeling away the layers of deception and corruption in the Nixon Administration and in Rolling Stone HST was swinging a much blunter axe but both were chronicling the downfall of the man who “broke the heart of the American Dream.” Why did he choose to type -30- on his life this weekend? Perhaps, after 50 years, Hunter Thompson finally realized that booze, cigarettes, drugs and other forms of bodily abuse and self-medication couldn’t fend off the void clamoring for his soul.

Far too often a Hollywood studio movie “based upon true events” would be better off not having been made. I’m not talking about documentaries, I’m talking about lightly dramatized real events like French Connection, Silkwood or Erin Brockovich. Except the three I mentioned are exceptions because, frankly, the bad ones aren’t worthy remembering. Biographies tend to be a little different though producers seem to overestimate the box office appeal more often than they should.

One good sign for a biography is the participation of the subject but only if she or he is willing to be reasonably honest. Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz is a terrific example; not only does Fosse participate, he wrote and directed a strongly critical examination of his emotional life. Ray isn’t as trippy as that late ’70s masterpiece but Ray Charles was active in the project right up to his death and his son was a producer. Neither felt the need to pull punches and so we get a portrait of a creative genius that includes huge portions of guilt, loneliness, shame and arrogance.

Jamie Fox plays Ray in the performance of his career, perhaps one of the top American movie performances since the turn of the century; if he doesn’t win the Oscar next Sunday night there’s a bigger problem in Hollywood than I thought. I haven’t seen his four competitors and though all are respected actors Fox just too many chops to lose. There are other good actors in this film, Clifton Powell as bus driver, confidant and manager Jeff Powell, Regina King as backup singer (and one of Charles’ many lovers) Margie Hendricks and Bokeem Woodbine as Fathead Newman, a great sax player who was Ray’s first connection to heroin. But Fox is simply all over this movie, completely inhabiting his character, blindness, piano playing, ruthless self-confidence.

Director Taylor Hackford has had a decent career, he made The Idolmaker, a film I consider seriously underrated, and An Officer and a Gentleman early on and then seemed to get lost in the studio system until now. Here he makes a movie, one that never seems to drag or get lost in the minutia of a life jampacked with public events. The only quibble I can make is that he ends the movie in the late ’60s after Charles is busted for bringing drugs back to America in his jacket and goes through detox to finally quit them. True, after that the hits stopped coming but I felt an abruptness that jarred me out of the groove; 30 more years of life surely justifies some kind of coda better than few sentences in voiceover and a photo montage.

One funny thing about Ray is that despite all the music, of which there’s plenty and it’s all good, this never becomes a tribute concert with some biographical sketches gluing things together. We get a complex, complete portrait of an imperfect wonderful human being.

definitely recommended