IMDb External Reviews

Just so everyone knows, IMDb seems to have added all of the reviews of films we've written on this blog.

So, for instance, my Children of Men review can be found by clicking "external links" on the Children of Men IMDb page.

So. I guess that's pretty cool.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

I recently watched the sixth James Bond film. It was the thankless orphan “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”

Regrettably, it was George Lazenby’s first, best and last Bond film.

I was stunned.

I’d never watched it before because I was told that it was that sad orphan and that Lazenby wasn’t very good. I would argue that Lazenby is every bit as good as Daniel Craig, making them tied for my second favorite Bond. He brought a realistic anonymity to the role that it needed. He brought depth to it.

He was the perfect follow-up to Connery. And I would argue that the James Bond franchise wouldn’t have needed this “reboot” of Casino Royale if Lazenby would have remained James Bond. “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” maintained a gritty reality and warmth that the Connery Bond films had since left behind to a degree. It grounded them back into some sense of reality.

And, to be honest, the ending of the film is both haunting and heart breaking. Even by the end of Casino Royale I wasn’t nearing tears, but the end of this picture truly made me sad.

The raw emotion and vulnerability when Lazenby says, “It’s all right. She’s just resting. We have all the time in the world,” is enough to melt hearts of even the toughest Bond fans.

I watched it and then re-watched it and it made me wish that Roger Moore hadn’t been James Bond. Don’t get me wrong, I like Roger Moore, but lets face it, his Bond movies were fucking cartoons. Remember how he picks up Blofeld on his wheelchair from the helicopter and drops him down an industrial smoke stack in “For Your Eyes Only”? It was balls.

I’d forgotten why the Dr. Evil character in Austin Powers was so funny, because I’d only remembered Donald Pleasance and Telly Savalas playing him and they were bloody brilliant.

Anyhow, what I’m saying is this: if you like James Bond movies, go back and give “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” another viewing. It’s now one of the few Bond movies I want to own. (To date, I only own Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice and Goldeneye.)

A name fitting UVSC's slant

Well, Michael Moore and UVSC are together again in the news. This time, a “Charles F. Abbot” of Provo offered the following in today’s Daily Herald under the headline “A name fitting UVSC‘s slant”:

After the Michael Moore fiasco and Utah Valley State College’s decision to select the “Vagina Monologues” as its school play I decided I would never support this college, even by visiting its campus, and encourage my friends to withdraw any support they might be offering.

However, I understand the college is seeking help on picking a new name. I decided this was some small support I could in good conscience offer. How about “UVSC at Berkeley”?

Charles F. Abbot
Provo

Two things disturb me about this letter. The first is all the standard arguments about this manss anti-intellectualism, etc. It’s disturbing that people are still pissed off about Michael Moore’s visit to campus and the production of the “Vagina Monologues.” It’s even more disturbing that this Charles F. Abbott character is so bent out of shape about it that he had to renew his rage in so public a forum.

The most disturbing thing about this is, though, is that I’m almost sure this Charles F. Abbott guy used to write what used to be one of my favorite columns in the Herald from my days in High School. He wrote a column that answered various legal questions and explained the ins-and-outs of the law. I really liked his column. I’m something of a junkie for that sort of thing, but if it was him that did all that writing, I doubt I’d read his column again. I mean, if his judgment was so lapsed about the above issue, what else could he be dead wrong about?

(I did a little calling around and I'm still not sure if they're the same guy. I would hope not, the lawyer Charles F. Abbott seems like he'd be way more reasonable than letter-to-the-editor writing zealot Charles F. Abbott.)

Utah Senators Should Be Beaten With A Hammer

So, I go to lunch yesterday and there's a Salt Lake Tribune just chillin on the counter. I pick it up and read the front page headlines.

Top of the page:

"UTAH SENATORS STAND BY BUSH" After a sneak preview of the new Iraq plan, Hatch and Bennett have nice things to say.

Right under that (like 2 inches):

"THREE DEATHS HAUNT TIGHTKNIT GROUP" Bomb-dismantling squadron leader calls fatal blast 'catastrophic'.

Those three deaths were of Utah soldiers in Iraq. They blew up. One of these soldiers was Elizabeth Loncki, age 23. Here's her picture. She's dead now. And probably in pieces.


Senator Orrin Hatch, kool-aid drinker and cult member, said, "Retreat is not an option." As if he's fuckin' Charles Bronson or something.

Senator Bob Bennett said, "This (Iraq Plan) appears to be the best way to move in this situation and we'll wait and see if it produces success."

"WE'LL WAIT AND SEE"?!?!?!?!?!

With all due respect, Senator Bennett, but fuck you.

And fuck you, Orrin Hatch. You're both a disgrace to logic and reason and to the lives of those being lost senselessly in Iraq.

Orrin Hatch can play "Book Of Mormon Stories" with his eyes closed AND has "nice things to say" about the war in Iraq.

"Vultures, vultures everywhere."

This a repost from a while ago. I read this post again and it rekindled all sorts of rage, so for those of you who haven't read it, here it is again.

Credit Card companies are vultures and they are, I believe, in part, responsible for the financial crises low-income and/or young Americans find themselves in these days. Bear with me, I'm going to go on a well researched rant about companies like Citibank and MBNA, etc. In the efforts of full disclosure, I want to say that I don't have a credit card. I don't have a debit card. I don't have a checking account. I have a savings account and when I need to pay a bill, I get a bank check from a teller. I don't do automatic withdrawals and I don't like buying stuff on the internet. I don't like the idea of being in debt. I've had a couple of personal bad experiences with credit card companies and have vowed not to use them.

I apologize for the unreasonably long post, but please bear with me.

I've been thinking alot about this recently and I came across this article that started to piss me off. Here's a couple of highlights:

[people] born in the 1980s, [are] the leading edge of a generation that is shunning paper payments like no other before it.

So even if they aren't increasing their debt by buying with a credit card, consumers who use debit cards might wind up with less money to save than they would if they paid for things with cash.

The article also goes on to explain that this plastic spending trend is significantly reducing our national level of savings. This article explains that in November '05 Americans spent 0.2% more than they made, it was the seventh straight month of Americans spending more than they made and they expect that trend to maintain it's average over the entire year when all the data has been analyzed.

"You're seeing a situation where the consumers are spending every penny they possibly can and borrowing on top of that," said Joel Naroff, a Pennsylvania economic consultant...

And these credit card companies are offering people who can't afford a credit card credit cards, throwing them into debt and bankruptcy. It's not just anecdotal evidence that credit card companies will send pre-approved offers to anyone. My son, who is three years old got one a couple of weeks ago.

I was at Little Caeasers pizza last night buying a pizza and there was a human "lead box" for a credit card company there. He was offering a free pizza to any BYU student who would surrender to him all of their vital information for a credit card application. (And who knows who else they'd be selling this database of information to.) He'd taken out ads around campus and the lobby was literally chock full of 35 students hungry for a pizza willing to hand over all of their personal, vital information to this vulture. So, these starving students will get this card, spend on it, not be able to pay it back and then end up in Bankruptcy court. They'll end up declaring bankruptcy because they were hungry for a $5 pizza.

And sometimes, even if you can pay it back, they still come back to haunt you. When Elias and I made our first film, Missy, we spent about $5,000 of our own money on it. For about $500 of it I got two credit cards of $250 each so we could make the movie. I paid them both off and forgot about them. (bear in my mind, I was also 18 years old and shouldn't have been able to get $500 in credit in the first place.) A couple of years later, one of the companies sent me a $500 bill. The company I'd originally got the card from and paid the debt off to, "sold" the paid debt to another company and that company contended that I'd never paid them. I sent them copies of checks and everything, nothing would abate them. I was too young and naive to realize I could sue them for this gross mismanagement of data, so I just paid them. In any case though, these aren't problems people should be dealing with.

Were I to have declared bankruptcy, I'd still have that on my record. And with these new credit-card company written Bankruptcy laws on the books, I'd be boned if I had to do it now. I did some research about those and found this, this and this.

A couple of my favorite quotes?

Far from being either an effort to stem "Bankruptcy Abuse" or an effort at "Consumer Protection", the bill is in fact an attempt to rewrite bankruptcy laws to reduce the ability of those laws to protect consumers from predatory lending practices on the part of MBNA members, and to stiffen the capabilities of those corporations to collect from consumers already suffering from extreme financial hardships.

Consumer advocates say it is bad enough that the bill does nothing to protect consumers against predatory lenders and faux non-profits, but they also fear that the bill will actually push people into economic relationships with those types of agencies.

"In our opinion, it’s going to create a whole new industry based on taking advantage of the people who can least afford it..."

Here's a good transcript of Democracy Now! about the situation with Re. Jim McDermott.

Some highlights it reveals:

You know, the corporate media has sort of presented two views on this: One is that the bill is addressing massive fraud, a claim disproven by evidence from the Congressional Budget Office, the Government Accounting Office, the FDIC, the non-partisan American Bankruptcy Institute, numerous academic studies. The truth of the matter is that bankruptcies are up, because debt is up, dramatically. And in fact, in relation to debt, bankruptcy filings are down. And debt is up in large part because of the neglected health care crisis

Since 1989, the credit card companies have given over $43 million in campaign contributions.

Child support payments will go first to credit card companies in many cases, rather than to children. I mean, it's absolutely extreme. And there's a long laundry list of changes, and they are all to the disadvantage of consumers.

It is a done deal, but there's an election next year, and we want to remember who voted which way, and we want to keep up the pressure and the media attention.

DebtSlavery.org is a good place to see a number of other articles and references.

Predictably, my own representatives in the Senate, Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett voted for it, as did my Congressman, Chris Cannon (who also took $2,000 from Jack Abramoff). An interesting sidenote about Chris Cannons press release is that he claims child support payments move up to priority one on the list of debts, but detractors of the bill claim that money goes first to the credit card companies, then to child support.

Looking to the passed text of the bill it's too confusing for me to tell who's right. This bit from "The Women's News" had this to say about it:

As wives and mothers, Entmacher said, women would suffer an additional burden if the bankruptcy bill became law because spouses who are seeking alimony or child support have the same priority as commercial creditors--without the legal staffs to pursue their claims.

And I found this bit from a non-partisan consumer reporting agency, Consumer Reports:

The payment of child support and alimony would be endangered. Today, child support is among the few obligations that cannot be wiped away in bankruptcy. By allowing more credit card and other debts to also survive the bankruptcy process, the bill puts banks in competition with parents trying to collect child support from former spouses who have declared bankruptcy. The bill’s provision that would require child support to be paid first when distributing the assets of chapter 7 debtors is virtually meaningless. About 95 percent of chapter 7 debtors have no assets to distribute in the bankruptcy proceeding.

The article itself is very informative about the bill in general as well. Highlights from the rest of the article:

The bill does not contain a single restriction on reckless or predatory lending by creditors. “While credit card companies urge Congress to erect new bankruptcy barriers for many families, their profits are soaring,” he said. A large body of evidence links the rise in consumer bankruptcies in the last twenty years directly to an increase in consumer debt.

Much of this lending boom was fueled by the extension of credit to vulnerable consumers, including young people, lower income Americans and minorities, and the elderly. Some lenders, such as those offering “predatory” mortgage loans, targeted these borrowers with often deceptive offers that had abusive terms.

“By making it harder for consumers to wipe away abusive loans in bankruptcy, this bill rewards the bottom feeders in the lending industry,” said Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Programs Director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “These are the firms bombarding college students with high interest credit card offers, or peddling predatory mortgage loans to older Americans, or marketing payday loans at triple digit interest rates to cash strapped members of the military.”

See, more evidence of that human lead box at Little Caesaers being a predatory asshole.

Here's the Wikipedia article about the bill. It's worth reading, too.

I don't know. I want to apologize for the length of this post, but I wanted to be thorough. I think theres a reason credit-card companies are bad and the politicians they have in their pockets (Republicans as well as Democrats) need to be held accountable for the vicious nature of their industry. We need to see this on the midterm slate of election issues and Democratic and Republican candidates alike need to work towards a reasonable Bankruptcy reform bill that addresses the need for protection of consumers from the predatory nature of the credit card companies, not the other way around.

I hope Pete Ashdown takes this to the mat as a key issue he can use to get the moral high ground over Orrin Hatch.


Loan-sharks like Citi-bank and MBNA truly are the vultures described by the pick-pocket in Casablanca. Or perhaps with this new bill, a more fitting description would be that of Shylock... Either way, they're picking our pockets when we can least afford it.

Wikipedia

We finally have a wikipedia entry for "This Divided State."

I think that's pretty cool.

Two New Short Stories

I unearthed a couple of shorts from a few years ago, so I posted them.

Both are scripts for short films that were going to be shot, but never were.

The Last Days, a story about war

and

The Executive Attendant, a comedy.

Children of Men

Children of Men.

Wow.

This was a breathtaking piece of legitimate science-fiction. It’s not often anymore to see a film that is true science-fiction. Much as I love Star Wars, it truly did popularize the notion that Space Opera was science-fiction.

Good science-fiction, to me, is something of a more literary quality.

1984.

THX-1138.

Blade Runner.

These, to me, typify the dystopian myths of the future. Good science-fiction is a parable. Something that, when stripped away, will show you something about the goings-on of the day that you didn’t fully realize. Great science-fiction seems to be apt at just about any juncture in history. 1984, for instance, becomes more and more harrowingly luminescent of things to come as time marches on. THX-1138 is a blueprint for the direction of the world if prozak-popping Christian conservatives were in charge. Each time one is elected, we come one step closer to the horrifying reality portrayed in the film. Blade Runner shows us what life is like when people are treated like robots to the point where we have to test peoples humanity in order to separate men from machines.

Children of Men is a story not only about the spirit of man, but a world with an ever increasing distrust of foreigners and immigrants. It also reveals the dangers of a government that is willing to encroach on civilian life with military force. Bexhill, the immigrant “refugee” camp seems to me to represent Baghdad and government armies and political radicals fight each other in the midst of civilians without a care in the world. The camp of Bexhill is even outfitted with Guantanamo-style prisoner kennels, replete with black hoods and blaring music.

It’s horrifying and scary.

Except, in this world, the mere sight of a child is able to stop the fighting. In the current war, in Iraq, the sight of children seems to stop nothing.

The more I think about it, the portrayal of war in this picture is actually nicer than what is happening in Iraq.

The point is, the story is amazing. The storytelling, the filmmaking, is utterly breathtaking.

Cuaron stages shots that go ten minutes in length across three blocks and up flights of stairs that include heavy physical effects, tanks, hundreds of extras, squibs, gunshots and top-notch acting performances that force actors to remain in character for ungodly lengths of time. Sustained shots for more than a minute or two always keep me on edge and some of these shots go on for entire reels, it seems.

And they all stand out.

One is an amazing chase from the inside of a car where action is occurring on the outside and the five performers on the inside are all reacting. Another amazing shot is a car chase down a grassy hill where a car won’t start all in one sustained shot.

The most bizarre thing about the chase is that, in one single camera shot, Cuaron manages to make it tense and electrifying. He keeps the action on the edge of your seat and the cars are literally just rolling down a hill. I was on the edge of my seat.

Long story short, every good thing you hear about this film is true. Cuaron is an amazing filmmaker. (To date, he’s made the only Harry Potter picture worth watching.)

You owe it to yourself to go see this motion picture.

The Democrats have a plan

It seems as though the Democrats finally have a unified strategy on Iraq:

"Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror," Reid and Pelosi wrote.

It's great that they do. But does it really make a damn bit of difference unless they actually mandate it as a law.

Bush isn't going to listen to them, so realistically, they could suggest anything they want to. Anything would be better than increasing troop levels and if it comes from the democrats, then Bush is sure to ignore it.

They could devise a plan that could guarantee we're out of there in three days in victory and Bush would still ignore them.

Although this plan sounds sane, they could argue that the reason we lost the war in the first place is because we didn't give the Iraqi's flowers to throw at us when we "liberated" (read: bombed) them, and since that lost us so far, it stands to reason that if we give each Iraqi a fresh carnation, we'll be out of there all the sooner. For all the pomp and circumstance of their counterplan to Bush, it still amounts to nothing of flowery talk. They don't have to come up with a plan to be used, because they know it won't be used. They need the appearance of a plan.

Because it doesn't matter. To Bush, phased redeployment and shifting the principle mission to training is the same to him as asking him to give government issue pink carnations to each Iraqi citizen.

And for that, he's a hard-headed douche bag.

Y tu mama tambien

In advance of my plans to go see "Children of Men" tomorrow night, I watched "Y tu mama tambien."

It was an excellent film.

I was really surprised. It was really good.

I was a little pissed off that I didn't see it before I started (or finished) my novel, which covers a bit of the same ground. It's weird how that works, you create something and then it's validated a little bit when you see truths of it scattered in other pieces of popular media.

Cuaron is also shaping up to be one of my favorite filmmakers.

We'll see how "Children of Men" turns out.

Barack Obama

I think Barack Obama could make a good next president.

Personally, I really like the guy. his speech at the last Democratic Convention was, to put it mildly, electric. He seems like a decent man with a good head on his shoulders. He's soft spoken and has had no problems in admitting mistakes (even if those mistakes include having done blow.)

I read his editorial in the Washington Post today and it gives me hope that the next generation of lawmakers have a chance to help fix things.

And, if you notice, Barack Obama doesn't seem to talk like other politicians. I've never got the impression from the man that he was capable of double-speaking his positions. He just seems so sincere and likable. Those are important qualities in a political environment based on TV appearances. He's like a young, black, Jack Kennedy. And instead of having to jump the religion hurdle, like Kennedy did, he'll have to jump the race hurdle.

I just hope that either Barack Obama or someone like him can make it to the stage of Presidential Candidacy. I mean, as much as I'm probably going to vote for a third party, a third party isn't going to win. No matter how much I'd like Ralph Nader to be president, it's not going to happen. So the best I can hope for is people to nominate a seemingly stand-up act like Barack Obama.

Who knows.

Maybe he can do it. Maybe he won't. Maybe he's just another politician who says whatever he can to get where he wants. Maybe not. I don't get that impression.

But I could be wrong.

Straczynski

Mr. Straczynski (JMS as he signs his email) has responded to me about his thoughts on the film personally. I have asked for his permission to republish them here.

If I get the permission, I will post it up here.

He's a sharp guy.

Also, I think it's amazing how many different random photos of the man there are on the internet.

RECENT "DIVIDED STATE" PRAISE

Haters beware...

Hi,

My name is Andreas Haglund, I am an 18 year old filmstudent from Sweden. I just bought the swedish Devided State dvd, and I'm stummed, or however you spell it.

I have seen so much Iraq, Us-election, Bush Vs. Kerry Crap the last two
years but this film was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. I mean, it's
Koyaanisqatsi, The Friedmans and This wounderful devided state.

The very last clip, the no-one-is-the-devil-character and the not at all
many Michael Moore-scenes.

Yes, that was a film.

Best Wishes

Andreas Haglund

______________________________

I just watched “This Divided State” on Free Speech TV, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Great job!

Craig Gillette
Justice Through Music Project
http:/www.jtmp.org

_______________________________

Hey Steven... just saw your movie. Great stuff, man.

I'm in the beginning stages of working on a documentary of my own and I wanted to touch base with you for some thoughts and advice. Please let me know if you're down to chat.

Thanks!


Danny Ledonne
http://www.emberwildeproductions.com

J. Michael Straczynski Update

I went over to the message board dealie and, as per Jan's instructions, posted a question over there, so we'll see if it gets responded to, I'll let everyone know. My message was as follows:

"This Divided State" was on the list and I'm curious what you thought about it...

I'm the producer/assistant director and everything else on it and I was at your writing seminar at Comic-Con (I asked you how to get an agent, I already had stuff at WMA, CAA, etc. and you sarcastically told me to get the hell out, that I didn't need anything from you).

Had I known you knew about our little film I'd have tried to catch you and ask you about it then.

I posted up a post about this on the films official blog as well, if you care to check it out...

http://thisdividedstate.blogspot.com/2007/01/j-michael-straczynski.html

I'd love to pick your brain about the film (or film in general) for five minutes if you were interested.

Bryan Young
This Divided State

Also, in a bizarre coincidence: according to the IMDb, JMS (as he seems to be known on the internets) and I share a birthday. I was beginning to think David Hasslehoff was the only other person in film born on July 17th. And before you say Hasslehoff wasn't in any films, let me remind you that he was once Nick Fury: Agent of Shield.

J. Michael Straczynski

This is an odd bit of news here.

I don't know how many of you know who J. Michael Straczynski is, but he created and wrote the brunt of the Babylon 5 series and written a number of top notch comics (Supreme Power, The Amazing Spider-man, Fantastic Four, etc.). I really like his work in comics (I actually haven't seen Babylon 5 although it's been highly recommended to me repeatedly) and so when I had the opportunity to go to a writing seminar he was holding at Comic-Con I had to go. Whenever I'm at events like that I always have to go to the screenwriting seminars just to see if there is anything about anyone else's method that I can learn from. In Vancouver, I went to a presentation Neil LaBute did, in High School I did three weekends of training under Orson Scott Card in lecture format... Needless to say I like that sort of thing.

Anyhow, I went to J. Michael Straczynki's and explained to him where I was professionally as a screenwriter and he told me, sarcastically, to get the hell out of there, I didn't need anything from him, I sounded like I was doing just fine already.

He led an interesting seminar, but it would have been twice as interesting if I would have known this.

He posted to his message board system the movies he owns and counted among them is "This Divided State."

I could have had a much more interesting and in-depth conversation with him had I known he was a fan of our work. (Maybe he's not a fan, maybe someone gave it to him and he hasn't seen it and doesn't care to, who am I to guess?)

I guess you just never know.

I would ask him what he thought about it, but apparently you have to be some type of hip member or something to comment.

CLICK HERE FOR AN UPDATE

Free Speech TV

I have been informed that Free Speech TV is running "This Divided State" fairly consistently at the moment.

If you haven't seen it yet or know of people who haven't seen it, then now is the time to see it for free on television.

Bryan's Top 5 of 2006

I've been thinking alot about this list and it's really sort of torn me apart. There's movies that I thought would rate the list that I haven't been able to see yet because of my geographic handicap (Good German, Pan's Labyrinth, Children of Men, Babel, etc.) and it's really sort of just pissed me off.

So, know that it took a lot out of me to make this list. But here goes:

Honorable Mention: Scoop.

It wasn't Woody Allen's best, but I thought it was certainly one of the funniest. It has the first runner-up award this year.

5) Monster House.
No two ways about it, this was some of the most enjoyable time I've ever spent in a theatre. I must have seen it five times, twice with my kids and three times by myself. It was everything kids movies used to be and still should be but aren't. And Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon wrote a helluva script. It's just dynamite.

4) An Inconvenient Truth.

This was an amazing documentary and I ended up seeing it twice in the theatres. I bought a copy of it and I've passed it around so much I haven't even had the chance to watch it on DVD for myself. I felt it was terribly important and the filmmaking was quite stunning for what it was. Basically, it made the list because I am forced to advise everyone to watch it.

3) The Fountain.Read my review here. I know Steve thinks I'm crazy, but I think he's crazy. Steve is actually the only person I've talked to personally that didn't like it. Mybrother loved it, Elias loved it, I loved it... Steve is the odd man out on this one.

2) The Prestige.
I can't sing enough praises about this picture. I've seen it five times and it works better and better each time. I read the book back in February and have been a fan of it ever since. The Nolan Brothers adaptation of the material was mind-blowing, I wish I could adapt material with such pizazz. I've been advising people to see the hell out of this movie, too.

1) The Departed.

I guess there's no surprises here. I saw this picture five times as well and I think that it was certainly one of Scorsese's best. And the balls it took to take a mainstream movie and kill pretty much everybody and still make $100 million+ at the Box Office makes me giddy.

Two days from now I'll be kicking myself for excluding something from this list, but I'll come back and make a top ten, using these as the top five....

If I forgot anything, be sure to let me know.

WHERE THE HELL IS THIS GUY?

OK, OK, Saddam is dead. Great. But what the fuck?!?!
Remember Osama bin Laden?

He killed Laura Palmer. And, like, 3000 others.
Why the fuck isn't he hanging from a noose?

SADDAM'S EXECUTION

Should have been a pit of hungry lions or snakes.

So Saddam Hussein was executed this week for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It was a death by hanging, as it were. And what a stupid way for an evil dictator to die. They should have thrown him into a pit of lions or maybe snakes, or both. Armed with only a super soaker gun. Even cooler would have been a "Running Man" competition, where he has to run through a deadly gauntlet like Arnold Schwarzenegger did in that one 80's movie. FOX could have aired it live and it would have made millions. But, alas, they gave a very anti-climatic end to the bad guy who attacked us on 9/11.

I watched the video of Saddam's execution and it's typical voyeur snuff film. It's kind of weird watching a person be alive in one second and totally and completely dead in the next. Can I say that I felt kind of sad? Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure if I visually saw all the atrocities that Saddam had committed in the 1980's, I'd be really super pissed and my weak emotions of vengence would justify my pleasure in watching his neck get broken from a rope drop. But, still, I've never been too stoked on the idea of capital punishment. No matter who it is. Not because I defend what the criminal has done, but because I believe it's a lazy and medieval way of solving problems. Killing. If anything good comes out of Saddam's execution, other than a gigantic erection from George Bush, you guys let me know, OK?

One down, one to go.

That said, I was wondering if this would be the beginning of a new trend? You know, those involved with war crimes are tried in a worldly tribunal and then executed? If so, then Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush should start working out and pumping some iron. Cuz I hear those Running Man gauntlets are a bitch. And wrestling hungry lions ain't no picnic.

Movie Recomendation

I'm going to suggest a movie, just for Duckie because he felt so jilted by my endorsement of Rocky Balboa.

So, here you go, here's three movies you should see and in no particular order, because I like them. (I didn't specifically choose movies in the theatre, because in my area, nothing is really out.)

And none of them are sports or sci-fi or superheroes or anything like that.

So, here goes:

Seven Samurai: My absolute favorite non-Star Wars movie. Kurosawa's seminal classic from the fifties. It has every kind of story you could want in it: Romance, Action, Drama, Coming of Age, Politics. Seriously, it has everything. (Also, just for fun, after you watch this, go watch Pixar's A Bug's Life. Seriously.)


Notorious: Alfred Hitchcock directing Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in a Nazi spy thriller. It's really, really good. Aside from North by Northwest and Shadow of a Doubt, it's one of my favorite Hitchcock films.


Mother Night: This is probably the finest adaptation of any Kurt Vonnegut material to the silver screen ever. And the red band trailer on the DVD for this film is (aside from Star Wars trailers) probably the best cut trailer ever made. Nolte stars as Howard W. Campbell, Jr., an American spy who must pose as a very public Nazi propagandist. It's an amazing journey and one of my favorite films.

So...

There you go, try those on for size. I hope these redeem my opinion of movies for all of you who felt I missed the mark on Rocky Balboa.

Rough Draft of my Novel

Well, I had a little celebrating to do.

I got online earlier and said that I was going to spend tonight and tomorrow trying to finish the rough draft of my novel and as soon as I posted that last post I went straight to work.

In between now and then, everything crystalized in my head so perfectly, I cranked out the last twenty pages of the novel and the rough draft is done.

I thought that I would feel an immense sense of accomplishment, but now I just want to get to work on the revisions because it is in no shape for another human soul to look at.

In the meantime, while you wait for me to post the first chapter, you guys should read everything and anything else I have posted over at the Short Story blog.

New Years Eve

I still don't know what I'm doing for tomorrow night.

Tomorrow, during the day, however, I'm going to try and finish the novel I've been writing. I'm in the home stretch and I really feel like I can get it done before the year is out. As soon as I get this first complete rough draft done, I'll start transferring it into the computer (i've written it all by hand, then into the typewriter) and maybe I'll throw up the first chapter on the Short Story blog to see if anyone likes it.

My guess is that you won't since I still haven't decided if I like it or not yet.

Anyhow, thought I'd lay that on all of you and wish everyone who reads this God forsaken blog (even you Duckie) a Happy New Year.

I hope that 2007 is better for everyone than 2006, I truly do.

From the bottom of my heart.

In all sincerity.

Seriously.

Saddam

Well, they're hanging Saddam.

Tonight.

It seems as though they're rushing it so that they can avoid criticism for the lack of fairness or justice to the trial. But to be honest, this is probably going to cause some problems. People in Iraq are already pissed off about pretty much everything. So, you've got the Kurds right now saber-rattling because they haven't had a chance to hold Saddam accountable for any of the crimes he committed against them, you've got the former Bathists who think this is all bullshit and you've got the Shi'ites who are going to be celebrating in the streets.

It all sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.

We'll see what happens.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Has anybody heard about this movie?

Kurt Vonnegut first introduced me to the story of Sacco and Vanzetti and I've been fascinated with it ever since and now I want to see it.

So...

Yeah...

Here's the trailer.

Gerald Ford

Gerald Ford passed away yesterday. And he's probably the last Republican President I've had even a shred of respect for. Although if I were to do any digging I'm not sure if I would have any more respect for him, but that's beside the point.

I want to talk about the decisions of the Daily Herald.

I opened up the paper this morning and figured that the passing of the 38th and (almost) only unelected President would rate a five column headline across the top of the page. If nothing else, I figured that it would be at the very least above the fold. Instead, above the fold is a local story of Human tragedy. Granted it is important, but more important than the death of one of the few remaining former presidents?

So, I turn the paper over, and 2/3rds of the paper below the fold is a photograph of a man ice climbing with no accompanying story.

Below that is the news that Gerald Ford died.

I don't know. I like the Herald and, in all honesty, they probably made this decision to sell more papers but it just feels like it was a bad choice.

Holy Foreskin

I read this article (thanks to Jesus' General for pointing it out to me) and I have to say, this is the kind of thing that endears me to Religious people. Particularly the Catholics, as I was raised Catholic. I spent many hours studying bizarre church history from the story of Saint George and the Dragon to people like Saint Augustine of Hippo (who is, according to my Confirmation, my patron Saint) and it was all very entertaining to me.

Catholic Mythology has always, always fascinated the hell out of me. (Just ask Elias, according to him I unconsciously insert Catholic imagery, symbolism or undertones to anything we write. Which is okay since Elias unconsciously inserts bodily functions into anything we write.)

Anyhow, when I read the article about the travails of Jesus' foreskin from the above linked article(and this Wikipedia article), I couldn't help but want to share it with everyone who reads this. Relics from the church always fascinate the hell out of me.

Just writing this took me like an hour and a half because Wikipedia has an exhaustive volume of articles on Saints and their reliquaries. Even stories about the foreskin we amazing, take this one for instance:

Apart from its physical importance as a relic, the Holy Foreskin is sometimes claimed to have appeared in a famous vision of Saint Catherine of Siena. In the vision, Jesus mystically marries her, and his amputated foreskin is given to her as a wedding ring.

And this one is just as good.

Saint Bridget was said to have received the Holy Prepuce from an angel, and would experience "orgasm-like sensations" when she would place bits of it on her tongue.

But some might argue that it's no longer on earth, like this Catholic scholar who beleived that the Holy Foreskin is now a ring of Saturn:

During the late 17th century, Catholic scholar and theologian Leo Allatius in De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba ("Discussion concerning the Prepuce of our Lord Jesus Christ") speculated that the Holy Foreskin may have ascended into Heaven at the same time as Jesus himself and might have become the rings of Saturn, then only recently observed by telescope.

God, I love learning about religion. I really do.

Global Warming

I want anyone who doesn't think global warming is occuring to read the following article:

Global Warming Claims Tropical Island.

This is really scary shit and could be prevented if we had people in office (of either party) with the balls to admit that we should be regulating greenhouse gasses.

BUSH'S SHATTERED GLASS

Move over Chuck Norris. Bush kills way more people in his little action movie.

WARNING:
This Blog Post States The Obvious.

I've been following the recent developments of the new Iraq Study Group's report saying that basically the war in Iraq is a God-awful mess and that Bush has utterly and completely screwed up everything.

Bush is now on some kind of humble defensive saying that he's now "willing to listen" to what I can only describe as common sense.

But the facts that have come out over the past few years have exposed George Bush as a stubborn-headed liar and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost. Wow, that bears repeating. HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF LIVES have been lost. And for what? For what purpose did they die for?

I'll answer that question: They died because that's how the story goes.

Yes, the story that Bush has been writing since day one. It's about a lone crusader who battles the forces of evil with a merciless and endless amount of guns and ammo. A kind of Die Hard John McClane character who stands up to opposition and bombs the shit out the bad guys. There's a lot of blood involved. A LOT OF BLOOD.

John McClane About To Fuck Up Some Sunnis

And then there's more hard-cock talk like "Let's smoke 'em out" and "Bring 'em on." And there's at least a dozen times when someone says "Yippee Kayay, Mother Fucker" right before they blow someone's brains out. And then, once this fearless hero seems victorious and everything is about to end, the bad guys double and triple and quadruple their forces and start kicking some serious ass. Good guys start dropping like flys. And all of a sudden, you're reading this story and thinking, "Jesus Christ, I thought Bruce Willis' character was supposed to be the one who won."

And then it hits you.

This isn't a story. For God's sake, this isn't a story.

But we've been told this story over and over and over again by it's author, George W. Bush. A cleverly crafted story right out of a Hollywood action movie or a Tom Clancy novel.

But the only difference is that when someone dies in Bruce Willis, they don't really die. When someone gets all blown up in a Tom Clancy novel, they don't really die. Because they're just fictional characters. And that's the story Bush has wanted us to hear. A fictional one. One where people don't really die and where things don't really go THAT wrong. In the end, the "good guys" win.

Action Figure George Bush about to stab and shoot Saddam Hussein.

Well, the story is ending. The Iraq Study Group's report sheds a strong light on the realities of the war and it's origin. It's a real bitch-slap of reality. As it stands:

2,957 US Troops have been fucking killed.
22,235 US Troops have been injured in combat.
100,000+ Iraqi Civilians have been fucking killed.

In George Bush's action movie, women aren't just unharmed sex objects.
They get their fucking legs blown off.

One Study Group Panel Member said: "The situation in Iraq is very grave. We do not know if it can be turned around..."

George Bush's story telling is over, folks. If he wanted to, he should have written a actual novel about his war fantasies instead of trying to convince the world that the story was real. But he did anyways, and now more and more of the world is discovering that he a delusional liar with apocalyptic visions of action movie victory.

It's like Stephen Glass in the movie "SHATTERED GLASS". A true story, Glass writes these series of AMAZING stories for THE NEW REPUBLIC magazine and is heralded as brilliant and a superior journalist.

But, an independent team of journalists dig into his stories and found out that most, if not all, of his printed works were utterly and completely fabricated. His colleagues at THE NEW REPUBLIC are baffled and approach Glass on the allegations.

Glass tries and tries to create more lies to cover up his previous lies, but in the end, everything comes unraveled. Stephen Glass is exposed as a national fraud and his life falls apart. He becomes dreadfully suicidal, realizing that the fantasy world he's been living in is suddenly crumbling.

I hope and pray that the Iraq Study Group's report is the beginning of the end of this absurdity of a war. I hope more and more of Bush's lies will come out. And when they do, I hope we as a nation have enough patriotism to tear him down. Tear him down to that which he fears the most, reality.

Because this can not stand. This war. These lies. It can't stand. Not anymore. Even John McClane wouldn't let this happen. He'd be throwing grenades at the White House covered in camouflage paint.

And that's how the story goes...

"John McClane killed my parents and now I'm covered in their own blood!"

Rocky Balboa

So, I've been binging on Rocky movies for the last few weeks.

Before last month, I'd never seen a single Rocky picture and I kept seeing the trailer for Rocky Balboa and thinking to myself, "Jesus, that looks like it's going to be pretty bad, but something I can't define makes me want to go see it as soon as I can."

So, I rented the first Rocky picture and was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was really simple, but very good. Was it better than it's other Best Picture contenders? No. I mean, it beat out Network, All the Presidents Men and Taxi Driver. There's no way Rocky was a better movie than those. More popular perhaps, but not better. (Read my other rants about Network here and here.)

And watching the rest of the Rocky films back to back to back really places into perspective how much better the first picture is than all the others. I have to say though, I really, really, liked Rocky III. It was really fun to watch. Rocky IV was completely terrible, but I enjoyed the hell out of watching it, too. I mean, come on, what's with that God-damn robot? And I couldn't even stay awake for all of Rocky V.

But I went last night, opening day, to see the latest in the franchise, Rocky Balboa. As far as Rocky movies go, this film was a masterpiece. Yeah, yeah, it's all the same as the others. The formula for the movies has always been the same:

1) Rocky wants to fight but either can't or shouldn't. In this case, he's too old.

2) An opportunity is put in front of him by some promoters (basically the same thing Apollo Creed did in the first film) to fight even though he shouldn't have a shot

3) A training montage set to Bill Conti music

4) An edge-of-your seat fight, wondering always who's going to win.

It's a by-the-numbers Rocky, but it works. I was like a kid watching that movie.

Anyhow, my advice is to go see it, if nothing else because it's a nostaligic piece of film history. And you'll enjoy the hell out of it. And you've all seen Rocky IV and V and it's waaaay better than those two. Also, if this movie doesn't give you a new respect for Stallone, then go and read his Q & A sessions over at Ain't It Cool News. It's a fascinating read.

U.S. Not winning in Iraq

Ordinarily, this wouldn't rate massive headline, that the U.S. isn't winning the war in Iraq, not for a long time now, anyway. It rates as a headline now because it's the first time Bush is the one saying it.

It's certainly no surpise to anyone with half a brain that we're not winning, but hearing Bush say it, I can't help but think that it's some type of political manuever. Maybe he's finally realized that things aren't going well in Iraq or maybe he's just realizing how much of an ass beating his party took in the mid-terms.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm just some type of jaded partisan hack, but all I see Bush doing is playing politics, not governing.

It's frustrating to me. Especially when people are dying because of decisions he makes that any five-year old could tell you would be a bad idea.

The Good German

So, I picked up a copy of "The Good German" the other day and I couldn't put it down. I devoured inside of the first twenty-four hours of owning it.

It was a marvelous piece of fiction that reminded me of a slightly more long winded version of a Graham Greene.

It would have been both a joy and a torture to cut down into an adaptation and I would have loved doing so. I'm very curious to see how they do it.

But like I said, if the movie is half as good as the book is, we're all in for a treat.

The thing that sucks about it though is this: "The Good German" came out yesterday, but only in limited release. I might not get to see it here until well into next month and that both confuses and infuriates me. I want to see it now, I've been dying to see it for a while. I like Soderbergh (generally) and I love old post-war reconstruction films of the era which this is so clearly aping.

It makes me happy. Whether this is a success or not, they should take more cues from films that came out of that era. They're much more timeless than most of the crap that comes out nowadays.

Apocalypto and Blood Diamond

I just wanted to come over here and weigh in on the two movies I saw over the weekend.

First up:

Mel Gibson's masterpiece "Apocalypto."

This movie is really good. It also serves as an intense kick in the pants. A major sequence of the film takes place while invaders are killing and raping pretty much everything in the village of the main character (Jaguar Paw, played to perfection by Rudy Youngblood). I have to say, the sequence was so brutal and heart wrenching, if I weren't with my brother I might have cried. The make-up effects for the gore was superb.

The story was exceedingly simple and that's maybe something filmmakers forget they can do these days. It's about a guy who gets abducted into slavery and wants to get back to his wife. That's it. No Internal Affairs investigations, no rug-pull endings, no Keyser Soze, no nothing. A guy wants to get home to his family and it works.

The character work is astonishing, especially when you take into account that the vast majority of the cast have never done ANY acting work.

I know I say this a lot, but pieces of the cinematography were stand out. There's a shot that dollies maybe thirty feet, beyond Jaguar Paw and then cranes ten feet over the edge of a waterfall. It was outstanding.

As far as the language is concerned, I think Mel Gibson (say what you will about him personally, but professionally, screw yourself) is making other filmmakers look extremely lazy. I mean, nowadays, it seems as though audiences are capable of reading subtitles, so there's no reason to do a movie in any language but the right one. I think Passion of the Christ's Aramaic might be half the reason The Nativity Story flopped. People just didn't find it as authentic.

Anyway, long story short, go see Apocalypto, it's good.

Next up, Ed Zwick's "Blood Diamond."

There's not much to say about, it's fairly by the numbers. There wasn't anything overtly terrible about it, but I have three major beefs with it:

1) It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fucking long. It needed thirty minutes trimmed out of it. At 2 hours and 18 minutes, there's no reason it couldn't be thirty minutes shorter.

2) Most of those minutes need to come out of the film where they are trying to make Leo look like an action star. He's really, really good in the movie but when it stops being an interesting character-driven political thriller, it turns into a really boring action film. Leonardo DiCaprio is not an action figure, please refrain from using him as such.

and

3) I knew about the politics about diamond trafficking going into the film, so it didn't hold any surprises for me, but I don't think that Zwick did enough to make the situation clear to someone who doesn't already have a prior knowledge about the process. Maybe he was trying to balance preachy and interesting, but I think he could have been more informative.

I feel like Zwick just pulls punches for no reason. In this, it wasn't a scathing enough explanation about the politics of diamonds. In Last Samurai, Tom Cruise should have committed Seppuku on the battlefield.... I don't know.

It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't great. It looks like Zwick is in the same league as Ron Howard and Tony Scott. They so badly want to be with the big boys, but just can't make a film any better than "pretty good" and more often than not, not even that good.

(On a side note, I picked up a copy of the book "The Good German" last night. I'm half way through it and if the movie is half as kick ass as the book is so far, we've got something to look forward to on Friday. I'll write more about it when I finish the book.)

Glorious Quicktime

Maybe seeing the trailer in Quicktime will change your tune.

Here's a link to the TMNT trailer.

Come on, you guys have to admit that the live-action Ninja Turtles movie (the first one) holds up as a really kick ass comic book adaptation. In fact, I watched it a couple of nights ago and still found myself laughing my ass off and getting worked up in all the right places.

I also just want to point out to everyone that they should read the run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that Image published in the late nineties. Erik Larson of Savage Dragon fame edited it and it was probably 23 of the coolest issues of anything I've ever read. (I also got a letter of mine published in issue 21:)


At the end of the day, the Turtles are part of the modern pop-culture and mythology and I would argue that they are an important part of modern pop-culture and mythology. I would bet that the Ninja Turtles have name recognition as high as Batman or Superman or The Beatles or Adolf Hitler.

And the comics that have published that aren't kid-centric are some of the best that have ever been published. So.... There....

Take the Money and Run

Well, it seems as though most of you don't share the same passion and enthusiasm for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I do, but, I suppose a love for the Turtles can be chalked up to varying tastes. I mean, you guys can't blame me for liking comic books. You guys knew I owned my own comic book store for a few years there, right?

Anyway, I finally got a chance to see "Take the Money and Run" last night which was both Woody Allen's directorial debut and Duckie's prime suggestion for a movie for me to watch.

It was hilarious.

I really liked it. I wouldn't call it my favorite Woody Allen movie, but it was certainly entertaining and worth owning.

To be honest, the Woody Allen movies I like the best are the ones that have some dramatic meat to them. Seriously, Hannah and her Sisters and Manhattan and maybe Husbands and Wives and Match Point are probably the ones I like the most.

Take the Money and Run is more in the straight comedy vein of Scoop and Curse of the Jade Scorpion (which I loved as well.)

So, thanks for the suggestion, Duckie.

Excitement Personified

For the love of all that is holy, follow this link.

This is the thing I am most excited for in 2007 so far. The only thing at this point I might be more excited about is that Star Wars cartoon...

But....

Yeah.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are rad. Beyond compare, even.