BillSaysThis

Am I Right: Misheard Bruce Springsteen Lyrics – “Well if James Dean threw up, Wouldn’t that be nice!” “Baby this town rips the balls from your back”

“You have a divine animal right to protect your own life and the life of your offspring.” Of course, a slutty waitress (played by Juliette Lewis) knows the philosophical laws of life, right? Anyway, Enough is a decent movie, especially for the female viewers–the women in the audience I saw it with applauded when J. Lo finally struck back. Given the epidemic of violence by idiotic (moronic) men against women in this country and others, I’m not at all surprised that this film was finally made and Jennifer Lopez was a good choice for the lead. Though I don’t get why so many people think she’s so sexy. Billy Campbell has no problem being the big, bad scary dude. And, yeah, once again we did not get into About a Boy. Recommended.

Dinner: $40	Movie: $18	All night fun: Priceless

Clint Mathis: America’s Best Shot at the World Cup

About a Boy was sold out so we switched around the schedule and saw Insomnia instead. Make no mistake, this is an Al Pacino acting showcase. Hilary Swank is alright but has a fairly small role; Robin Williams’ part is bigger and he does a superb job, very understated and quite the opposite of his work in, for example, Death to Smoochy. But Pacino is the man here, in every scene, making every important move. His eyes, burdened with the weight of being awake, seem like they weigh half a ton by the end. Director Christopher Nolan (Memento) makes excellent use of the round the clock sunlight in Alaskan summers. And maybe it was just me but I thought the ending was ambiguous enough to give one some hope for Pacino’s detective. Recommended

Give Mitch Albom a pat on the back: Terror, Mideast and hypocrisy

Reading this NY Times review of Insomnia, I’m not sure if the author liked the movie or not, is recommending it or not. We may see it this weekend either way, Pacino and Williams together are too much to pass up.

garret asks if anyone is still interested in enlisting after reading about Navy nerve gas tests in the ’50s and ’60s but he missed yesterday’s biggest sports story: Arizona Cardinals safety Pat Tillman turned down a five-year, $9 million offer last summer to enlist in the Army for a three year tour along with his younger brother Kevin, a minor league baseball player. The Tillmans expect to serve in the elite Ranger unit and Pat was looking at the age limit (he would have been passed it by the time his next contract was finished) so it was either now or never. He hopes to return to the NFL when his service is over.

This was one of three landmark films Sidney Poitier made in 1967, along with In the Heat of the Night and To Sir, With Love, which changed Hollywood in sort of the same way that Jackie Robinson changed baseball. Not that he was the first black actor but he was the first black film star. This was also the last time Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn acted together, the last movie Tracy made before he passed away. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was a big box office hit and played straight into the changing attitudes of Americans at the time. No doubt about anybody’s character, though, with Hepburn and Tracy rich white San Francisco liberals, Poitier a world-famous philanthropist doctor, and Hepburn’s neice Katharine Houghton making her only major film appearance as the young, beautiful, willful daughter who brings him home.

The script does have some stilted dialog; the producers obviously had a message to deliver and weren’t worried about pushing it. The monsignor’s speeches and the scene were Hepburn fires her gallery manager are two good examples. One quibble: I know I was just a little kid and not too observant when this film was made but I know I don’t remember teenagers dancing around the suburban streets just because a radio was playing.

Stanley Kramer directed Guess with a strong touch, setting off the dramatics with comical scenes with Isabel Sanford (yes, she went on to move on up as Mrs. Jefferson), using strong, emotional colors to augment the tone. Every (major) character gets at least one significant monologue but Spencer Tracy’s speech, the film’s climax, is powerful yet understated, moving, and wonderful.

Recommended–duh!

I bet you never heard of this one either. But thanks to the magic of Tivo Suggests, I ended up with 1940’s The Earl of Chicago on my playlist and on a whim watched it. Robert Montgomery plays the title character, a Chicago mobster who becomes an English lord through an accident of birth, with a kind of Edward G. Robinson pseudo-impersonation and an odd little nervous laugh. Edward Arnold plays the lawyer who Montgomery framed and then befriends. Edmund Gwenn plays the perfect English butler. I thought this was a comedy, to be honest, until the ending.

Director Richard Thorpe, who started in mass-produced silent Westerns and went on to make some classics and some Elvis flicks, doesn’t do much in this movie at all but that’s not too surprising since Earl is one of three movies he directed in 1940. Lesser Samuels wrote the screenplay and he ought to get the blame, I suppose. Not recommended

Pootie Poot? We elected a man president of these United States and he goes around calling the president of Russia Pootie Poot?

Negative-interest bonds just sound weird, don’t they? But when Warren Buffett is doing the selling, institutions line up to buy.

When I first moved to California, I opened my checking account with First Nationwide Bank based on branch location, fees, and recommendation. Not longer after, the bank was acquired by Golden State Bancorp, which merged First Nationwide into it’s CalFed (California Federal Bank) operating subsidiary. I’ve been reasonably satisfied with CalFed over the last few years and use the online banking facility extensively; I guess my biggest complaint has been the user unfriendly nature of that application. My investments, such as they are, have been handled for a number of years at Salomon Smith Barney. Actually, the account was with Smith Barney originally and then that firm was acquired by Travelers and merged in with Salomon Brothers; Travelers later merged with Citicorp to form Citigroup.

The financial world keeps getting smaller. In a move that some analysts say presages a new round of consolidation in the industry, Citigroup has made a deal to acquire Golden State Bancorp. The seller in this situation, the largest shareholder of Golden State, is none other than Ron Perelman, who needs the dough to clean up some of his other financial shenanigans. Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill, on the other hand, is a major strategist and seems to live for the next deal.

Meanwhile, I will (a) probably need to get new checks and get used to a new online banking system and (b) wonder if there will be any worthwhile synergistic changes from having investment and retail banking with the same company. Some banks, for example, count investment accounts towards minimums required for certain levels of service. Which might be nice. Or will I find the new fee and minimums structure unreasonable and switch my retail banking? Since this merger probably won’t close for the better part of a year, I have plenty of time to find out.

She wants to hold my hand, Daddy!

What do you want son?

What should I do, she wants to hold my hand!

What does your heart say, son?

She watches me across from the playground!

What does she see, son?

She passes me notes in class.

What does she write, son?

She whispers in my ear as we pass in the hall!

What does she tell you, son?

She giggles at me every morning on the bus.

What makes her laugh, son?

I KISSED HER DAD!

Sure they have Hamlet, the Book of Job, and The Old Man and the Sea on the list but no Heinlein, Clancy, or Grisham?

Those who forget history…

When is About Schmidt going to be released?

RSN, of course, is a TLA that means Real Soon Now. An old standby in the software business. Customer question: When will that bug be fixed? Vendor answer: Real soon now. Sun announced today that RSN they will include a free application server with Solaris 9. Well, not until next year, actually. And now customers will have to pay for Solaris on multi-processor computers even though they don’t pay now. (Did I mention that about 99% of the servers Sun sells have two or more CPUs?)

The only price information I can find is “$50 and up.” But the app server, and directory server too, will be included. Since we used to list the price of the application server, when I worked there, at as much as $35,000 per CPU (including a directory server license), this is probably a price break for customers. New level of competition for BEA too, eh? Further, Sun will also include file system and volume management improvements in Solaris 9 that eliminate the need for customers to purchase corresponding Veritas products that run up to $40,000 plus support. A Veritas spokesman says this is only a minor inconvenience for his company.

Vegas Trip pictures are now online