A meditation on film, or, burn in hell Cameron Crowe

Let us take a moment from our stresses, and reflect upon the films of Cameron Crowe.

His films vary wildly in quality, from entertaining diversion (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), to self indulgent blow jobs (Vanilla Sky). Let us review them one by one, in order of release:

Fast Times at Ridgemont High: One of the three films on this list I would actually say is worth watching: its got it's moments, but ultimately becomes a meandering series of interwoven sketches. His career could have gone either way at this point. It is to be noted that he wrote, but did not direct this one, so it doesn't show him in the full light.

The Wild Life: The only Crowe movie I have not seen. Boasted as "from the creators of Fast Times at Ridgemont High", and has a middle of the road IMDB raiting. Take it as you will.

Say Anything...: The second worthwhile movie on the list, as long as you've just graduated from high school. It's sort of like a John Hughes movie with a male lead, and slightly more realistic characters. It has not aged well as a film, but can still be enjoyed if just for it's place in thrusting John Cusack into the lime light.

Singles: And here our true troubles begin. A framework for a grunge soundtrack with a maudlin collection of stories about people in lousy relationships. Unwatchable clap trap.

Jerry McGuire: One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Predicable, sappy vehicle for a collection of catch phrases. Add in a cute kid, Rene Zelwigger, and Cuba Gooding Jr. screaming his head off in one of the most puzzling Oscar awarded performances of the last twenty years, and you've got a simply terrible movie. It didn't help that I kept having to hear SHOW ME THE MONEY!! bellowed from my roommates, who did not agree with my assessment of the film, for several weeks following it's release.

Almost Famous: The third and final decent movie on the list. While a little sappy, it has a good heart. It's music fits the film, and the time period and although the ending seems a bit hooky, but it was a sweet little movie. The typical Croweisms were there, but were tolerable. I started to forgive Crowe for his missteps...

Vanilla Sky: Until I saw this maudlin, nonsensical piece of shit. I refuse to dwell on it, other than to ponder this: When a perfectly good foreign film is made (The Wings of Desire), why do we, as Americans, remake them as far inferior vehicles for our lesser stars (City of Angles staring Meg Ryan)?

Elizabethtown: Say Anything... only with a dull story and twenty somethings at a funeral. Retreading your previous material does not make for a good thing Mister Crowe.

While some films suffer from it more than others, all of them feel like a series of events strung together to form a whole rather than a cohesive story. Its like watching a series of SNL skits with connectors to make them seem like an actual narrative. I'm done with him, and bored to tears with his shitty movies. I'd rather watch a Uwe Boll film. At least he knows what he is: a hack.

(Thank you Holly for giving me the nudge to get blogging again)

Back when I watched basketball

When I was a young, I loved basketball. We're talking Larry Bird, Danny Hale, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar era basketball here. The 80's to early 90's.

I remember my enjoyment of the sport drifting away about the same time Jordan began to fade. He was the best, of course, and had a good team to play around him. They played as a team, not as a group of individuals just supporting Jordan.

A few years after I lost interest the NBA seemed to fall on bad times. Players started to get a sense of entitlement, and a slew of arrests and other pretty rotten stuff was floating around (an era when our Trailblazers were rechristened the "Jailblazers"

It all culminated with the Kobe Bryant Colorado incident (no matter what really happened in that hotel room, we can know for sure that Bryant is a pretty terrible person), and at that point the league seemed say "Okay, out of the Pool."

A lot of the bad off court things started to dry up, but there was still the one man team problem, with Bryant again being the poster boy for the way he forced Shaquille O'Neal off the Lakers. To many teams are either dominated by these huge egos (Bryant & the Lakers), or the team it's self puts all it's eggs in one basket and doesn't give their top player enough (LeBron James & the Cavs).

Reenter the Celtics

They built a team of three top guns: while no one of them as good as Kobe Bryant, as a unit they were tough to beat. The remaining starters and the bench were no cut rate rejects, they trained and acquired their way to a top notch team. They had unity, they had ubuntu, and now that have a shiny trophy, rings, and have reawakened the interest in the game for at least one former fan.

let's see what next year brings.

Go Celtics (and, okay, I'll root for the 'Blazers as well)

Political Endorsements

American politics is often like watching a Dennis Hopper movie. You know that you'll either hate it, or enjoy it despite the feeling that something is eating away at your soul.

Keeping this in mind, I hereby endorse Barak Obama for President.

Will this make a difference to anyone? No. He's not a perfect candidate (I don't like his stand on same sex partner marriage, and I don't think he'll go far enough on health care), but he's better than the alternative (she's great and all, but she there's to much baggage, she plays fast and loose with the rules, and we don't need another political dynasty) , or the unthinkable (McCain? Does any one really think that's a good idea?).

For Senate I endorse Steve Novick, because his politics are pretty good, and what better way to say fuck you to the Republicans by replacing Gordon Smith with a four foot tall liberal with a hook for a hand.

Baseball is coming: Some news and thoughts on my Sox

The season is creeping up on us, and the Red Sox have made some moves.

The two most notable item are the release of Doug Mirabelli and Curt Shilling's placement on the 60 day DL

The Shilling move is not a surprise. His right shoulder is in bad shape, and he hasn't been able to throw in awhile. The best case scenario is a return somewhere around the All-Star break, but I think that likely won't happen. He's been dodging surgery and trying to physical therapy his way out of the problem, and it doesn't seem to be working. In this fan's opinion, it's time for Shill to retire.

He's had a hell of a run, won a ton of games, and helped bring 2 rings to Boston. It's been a great career, and while the Cy Young award has eluded him, he should have little trouble reaching the hall of fame when the time comes (plenty more room now since Clemons pissed away his chance of ever getting in).

The Mirabelli move, while not expected, isn't all that shocking if you think about it. He's been Wake's personal back stop for the better part of 5 seasons, and while he's a damn fine catcher, his offense has really suffered the last couple of years. It looks like Kevin Cash will fill in the Wakefield/Backup spot at least for the time being. I wish Mirabelli the best, and you never know, we might have another miracle reacquisition like there was back in early 06.

Bad Mike Myers, Bad!

In the course of my busy day, I stopped to think about Mike Myers, and how much I hate his movies. The Wayne's World movies and How I Married An Axe Murderer were okay, but all the Austin Powers movies and the abomination that was Cat In The Hat overshadow those. The AP movies are just a long series of shit jokes that show a shocking level of sexism and cruelty, while The Cat In The Hat suffers from being a movie based on a Dr. Seuss, which suffer from a perfect fail rate.

I thought about how he had not haunted our land with bad movies in awhile (I'm not counting the Shrek movies here, his voice work is fine), so I popped over to IMDB to see what he was up to. While he has a few things in the works, he has this coming later in the year. Click through, look at the premise and the cast list. You should most likely shudder in horror

I now have an early pick for what the worst movie in the year is! Although to be fair, I haven't checked on what Eddie Murphy is up to yet.

Update:
Eddie Murphy will be in this sure to be classic. The Love Guru now seems slightly less bad, but still pretty awful none the less

Bigotry wins again (for now)

It seems that the United Bigots of Tennessee have hoodwinked a Judge into issuing a restraining order against the Oregon Equality Act.

Today, people should have been celebrating their union are instead stuck with a candlelight vigil and another round of frustration.

The good news is, it's a TRO, so this mess could all mercifully end on February 1st. The bad news is if the judge rules that indeed signing a petition carries the same weight as voting, then we'll have to wait even longer for an election to get this decided, and the bad guys might win.

The guns....they've stopped, the wussification of childhood threats, and the last post on the decay of Star Wars

The presents are opened, and the insanity at BLB01 should be down to a dull roar.

As a result, my mind has returned to think of the normal things that rattle around in my head, specifically, Star Wars.

I received a "Darth Tater" Mr. Potato Head from my former boss, and it sits next to my head in the living room (Sadimac: don't worry I have no intention of leaving it there). It's been the trigger of a train of thought I've been playing with all day: Lucas, in his finite wisdom, has made Darth Vader as wuss.

I think the wussification of Vader began before the prequels, with the Energizer Bunny commercial where Vader faced off against the EB, only to have his lightsaber fritz out due to inferior batteries.



I remember being pissed about that when it came out. Vader was supposed to be the personification of menace, evil, and (a clunky, nonsensical, & hamfisted) redemption: not a shill to sell frelling batteries.

Not so long after that, the "Special Edition" of the original trilogy came out. With new special effects, and some tweeks, most importantly Greedo shooting first. Any one who knows me, or has seen my "Han Shot First" shirt knows how I feel about that. Lucas claims that the films were never how he wanted them, and all of the changes he made were just stuff he could only do with current SFX technology. Both you and I know that he's lying, so we won't get into that. What really chaifed me was his assertation that it was his right as the creator to go back and "fix" his own work.

Now some films are ok to go back and re-cut. What Blade Runner is supposed to be has always been controversial, all the way back to it's original release, so Ridley Scott making changes to that is fine. Releasing an "extended cut" or "unrated" DVD of a recent film is fine too, as we're talking about a 6 to nine month period between theatrical and DVD release, so it's not really something that's in the cultural consciousness yet. Then, some things are specifically designed to be added to and extended (such as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings), and that causes little or no pain, as we know it's coming.

What Lucas did could be compared to Jackson Pollack walking into a museum, pulling one of his works that had been there 20 years off the wall, and making changes (note: I am not saying that Star Wars is equal in artistic merit to a Pollack painting)


Of course then, years later, the prequels hit. They were riddled with problems. They over reached (Anakin as immaculate conception), pandered (Jar Jar Binks), and were, frankly, down right racist (Watto, the Neimoidians, and Jar-Jar again), sexist (Amadala's transformation from forceful, wise ruler to trembling waif who just couldn't go on living, only about seven or so women in the whole thing have speaking roles.

These three films, all of them bad and with few redeeming qualities, actually make the original trilogy look almost as bad. This religion and order of knights that Luke worked so hard to restore was corrupt, archaic, and badly needed to go down. Only a precious few Jedi had it right (Qui-Gon, to a certain extent Obi-Wan, Shaak-Ti, and in the comics Quinlan Vos and Tholme), and most were pretty awful (Mace Windu, Ki Adi Mundi, and the wise old one who's advice was always bad, Yoda). They, and the republic needed to go down, and be replaced: the empire was a piss poor replacement of course, but one lousy system being replaced with another is par for the course...

I've vented enough though. This was, if you will, the last great public complaint on Star Wars. I'll always have my opinions, and I'll likely mention them from time to time, but this is the clear out. There's plenty of good Sci-Fi to talk about (Doctor Who, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, etc), and I'm tired of it wasting my thoughts on this thing I can do nothing about but whine.

I hear by resolve to stop beating this dead horse. It is the Sci-Fi of childhood, and the more sophisticated things I enjoy deserve my attention, and praise, rather than my continued scorn of what was lost by the actions a sad little rich fat man with a god complex.

D&D 4E, or why I stopped giving WoTC my money

As I mentioned previously, D&D 4th Edition is coming out next year. Now that I know a little bit more about it, I feel comfortable putting some of my concerns/bitter hatred in a more cogent form.

It seems that the mechanics of the new Star Wars RPG is pretty close to what we can expect from 4E, and I've reviewed some of that material in the last couple of weeks. I am not impressed.

Some of the ideas are fine and good, and might even find themselves house ruled into our game (Combining all of the sneaking skills into a single skill is okay, being able to spend skill points to improve initiative is long overdue in my mind, and nobody can argue with more stat bumps), a lot of them are just a mess (starting first level with 30+ hit points is excessive, I think the combining of skills went to far: Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate are not the same thing, neither are Spot and Sense Motive, and eliminating Saving Throws in favor of three different AC's is just going to breed confusion).

These things could have been released as an alternate rule book (Unearthed Arcana II or whatever) and priced at $25 to $30 bucks. About 50 to 80% of players would pick it up and use about 20 to 30% of the book. Everyone would use a different 20 to 30% (except for the initiative as a skill and extra Stat bumps: everyone would use those), and we'd all be happy.

But no, they have to make 4E to try and sell us three $40 dollar books, and render the rest of our collection obsolete. Frak that.

Then there is the online component. Not so long ago D&D had an ad campaign encouraging gamers to leave their basements and play in a social setting. The new business model trashes that and tries to chase everyone back to their computers. You can play entirely on line (if you pay the ridiculous $10 to $15 a month fee) if you like, there fore crippling the vital social interaction aspect of the game. WotC claims that the game will still primarily meant to be played at the kitchen table, but this is largely bullshit. So much of the game is now tied up with the online aspect that it just encourages people to stay locked up in their homes. They are trying to emulate the WoW model, and they will fail.

Oh, and if you have a Mac you're apparently not part of WotC's glorious vision of the future. The key elements of the online D&D experience will only run on a PC, with the informational stuff being all that a Mac user can access. More short sighted mistakes that will cost them a lot of players in the future.

I will continue to enjoy my 3.5 D&D, thank you very much. I won't cry too much when this grand experiment that WotC is embarking on fails.

A brief thought for the day

Elia Kazan would have been 99 today, but instead, he's rotting in hell.

While I do feel a slight blip of sympathy for his plight, the flood gates he opened destroyed hundreds of lives.

You should have taken one for the team Elia. You could have helped stop what happened to Dalton Trumbo from happening to so many others.

Blips in the Universe, and some house keeping

Dubya seems to think that we should have stayed in Vietnam, and the Chairman of the Atlanta NAACP has decided to defend Michael Vick.

Whatever.

I'm in a work crunch busy social phase that hasn't left as much time for blogging as I'd like. The posts for the last two D&D sessions should be up soon, and I'm in theory getting a laptop in the next week or two that should help give me more time to write with.

Call it an exercise...

So, at my father's request, I'm taking another crack at sports commentary. The fact that I started with a pun for the title should make you all quake in fear.

The Red Sox, my team of choice, are having a good year. We're keeping a solid grip on the best record in the game, and have been keeping the Yankees at bay for the most part (they've surged to with in 6, but I'm not sweating it just yet).

The trade deadline moves were good. We unloaded a pitcher who's name escapes me at the moment (shows how much I'll miss him) off for some cash and the infamous player to be named later, and swapped Kason Gabbard, a promising lefty starter who I'm a little sad to see go, to the Rangers for Eric Gagne, an excellent right handed relief pitcher who I'm very happy to see in Boston. He's primarily a closer, but with Papelbon holding on tight to that position, Gagne will probably see a lot of set up work - which kind of gives us a double closer scenario.

All that, and we've got Okajima, Tavarez, and a whole other box full of tools that I think gives us one of the two or three strongest bullpens in the game. San Diego is probably a little better, but that's not something we'll likely have to face.

The only thing I'm sorry I didn't see happen was a trade that moved Willy Mo Pena out for a more reliable back up outfielder. With Drew having an off year, we're down a bat. While Willy Mo can hit a ton, he rarely does.

The hated Yankees meanwhile, are on the upswing. They've gone from being down and nearly out to being a wild card contender, and from there, they're dangerous enough to take the lead. All it takes is a five game win streak when the Sox are down on their luck and it's a whole mess of trouble (see last year).

But the hated Yankees are winning on power. While the bats are hot, which means run production, but their bullpen still kind of sucks. Mariano Rivera is way past his prime, and while he still saves more than he blows, he's vulnerable. The rest of the bullpen is shaky at best, and while their starting pitching is still pretty good, it's late in the season, and those arms are starting to get awfully tired...