Archive for March, 2008
Obama STILL Being Completely Dishonest about McCain’s “100 years” Comment
Mar 31st
Barack Obama once again distorted…no, I’m sorry, Obama told a blatant and bald faced lie about John Mccain’s comment that we could be in Iraq for 100 years.
Speaking at a gas station in PA, Obama claimed that McCain said he would support the troop levels we have now at the cost we have now and in a war situation. The messiah will rescue us, thank the lord! Except, he was lying on all counts. McCain, when he made the comment in question, SPECIFICALLY stated that he would be okay with troops there for 50 years or maybe 100 years IF it was a situaion with little violence, like the situation where we have troops in Germany, Japan, and South Korea to this day! Of course, a non-violent troop level for a sustained period of time would also mean a much lower cost than what we have today with actual violence on the ground, which means Obama lied about the cost aspect.
Obama foolishly thought he’d look innocent on this massive lie by asking the reporter who originally asked the question if he had mischaracterized McCain’s comment. Of course, the report, as we knew he would, feigned ignorance on McCain’s comment and the context it was spoken in. Obama, the wonderful orator who isn’t all that great an orator then pressed harder with nonsense about troop levels and costs as they exist today when it was clear that McCain meant nothing of the sort. I guess you sometimes have to be a creepy liar when you’re playing to the surrender America far left crowd who despises this nation and thinks it can do no right.
Obama has this absurd line that he would keep a small “strike force” in Iraq, yet he completely refuses to tell anyone of us what the hell a small strike force would mean. He looked really odd here in this clip when he compared his idea of a strike force to the number of soldiers we have at the US Embassy in France! So Obama wants to immediately pull out troops but leave a highly trained team of 4 men?!! I have to say- for someone who is praised as a gifted orator, Barack is utter shit when he has no script.
Obama shows his true colors when he attacks like this. He constantly claims to be about change, to not be about politics as usual, but the truth is, and most sensible people should realize this- he’s the very same guy he claims to hate. He’s a rich, smarmy clown who has no idea what the average American thinks or feels, and like many he will do anything to grab a bit of power…to hell with honesty and integrity.
Chelsea Clinton Has no Right to Dodge Lewinksy Questions
Mar 31st
Chelsea Clinton was again asked about Moica Lewinsky on the campaign trail She refused to answer and claimed it was “personal family business.” In the video here, the MSNBC anchor says she’s well within her rights to dodge the question. Is she tho? I don’t think so. The Lewinksy affair is an issue that the American people have a right to talk about and question Hillary on…
Chelsea is out there as a Hillary campaigner, so the questions aren’t really being asked of Chelsea but more of Mrs. Clinton. One could argue that the question was posed as how it made Chelsea feel, but to me it’s the same as someone asking a Hillary staffer what they think of the affair or how it makes them feel about Hillary and her character.
it goes to the root of the problems with the Clintons- they’ll do anything for power, and they’ll do anything to protect the power they have. Hillary was in charge of hiring thugs to harass and threaten Bill’s “bimbo eruptions”. That goes to her character.
If Chelsea is adult enough to campaign nonstop for her mother, she’s adult enough to answer the questions the people have concern about. It’s sort of like saying- ‘I don’t care what legit matters are important to you, voter…I will only answer questions I think are important.’
The affair is an important issue. It raises many questions about both Bill and Hillary and how far they will go to achieve power and to what means they will use to keep it. If Chelsea can’t stand the heat of campaigning, she needs to get out of the kitchen (and yes I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself for even daring to use that phrase right there).
Il Cartaio (The Card Player) Movie Review
Mar 30th
Just watched Dario Argento’s The Card Player on Netflix online. Decent movie. Certainly not his best, but not his worst either.
It’s an interesting story of a detective named Anna who is trying to track down a serial killer known as the card player, because he kidnaps young girls and invites the police to play a game of online poker to save their lives. The police are directed to a website with a webcam of the girl bound and gagged…best out of 3 hands wins. If the card player wins, the girl dies on camera. If the police win, the girl is let free.
A nice concept that is pulled of here decently. As with most Argento’s movies- the dialogue is pretty horrible in parts. It’s usually a mixed bag with some good writing, but then you get some parts of the movie where you can’t help but laugh out loud at the silly thing a character says. In this film, there are a few scenes that make no sense in the real world…from the weird and short singing morgue worker who calls one of the victims’ bodies his “doll” to the weird ‘party’ scene- Argento seems to add a scene or two in every film that doesn’t quite add up to reality. This takes away from the film, but not that much. The execution of the entire thing is fairly poor overall, so that alone does it in.
The music, as always, is wonderful. How Argento’s movies always come out with such wonderful scores is beyond me. Talented musical assistance for decades, I guess. That and the bodies in this movie are so realistic, you’ll probably find yourself more than a bit grossed out. The direction, tho, is what you always come back for with Argento. The man just knows horror movies and how to direct them. He knows how to create that certain look that he’s become famous for. Unlike some previous works, this one has a number of scenes that are filled with true suspense and horror. The scene in Anna’s house was great…totally scary. And it was mainly scary because of the way it was shot- which is why I will rarely pass up a chance to view Argento’s work.
The guy may come up with some silly characters that are downright laughable or some dialogue that falls into the same category…but in the end it’s always worth it. It’s like watching a piece of film history everytime.
JUST TO ADD…how wonderful is the Netflix ability to view movies on demand online? I hooked up a second PC to my 37″ LCD HDTV in the living room, and the video quality is crisp, it’s clean, it’s not at all jerky, the resolution is great. I have no idea how on earth Netflix does it, and they do it so quickly- you can start a movie in a matter of seconds of buffering. I have had no issues with movies shutting down, browsers locking up, no need for restarts, no need to buffer the video. And I’m only running 512MB of ram on this particular PC. I watch a lot of movies OnDemand via cable, but with Netflix you get most of the movies you’d find there plus about ten times more. And it’s all unlimited with your subscription. Amazing.
RiffTrax
Mar 26th
Watched a movie with some good folks last night…and they used something called RiffTrax to accompany it. It was Fantastic 4 Pt 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer- a downright horrible film with absolutely no redeeming qualities at all. Bad all the way through. I’d never heard of it before, but RiffTrax are commentary tracks you download from RiffTrax.com- they’re from the guy who hosted Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Mike Nelson) and the guys who did the voices of Servo and Crow do commentary here as well, just not as the characters they played in the Sci-Fi Channel series.
You download the track (after paying $3.99 for this particular commentary- I think $3.99 is the highest level for the movies, many are $2.99 and some even lower)…then you play it on your PC or MP3 player or whatever else (the mp3′s have no rights management, so you can download them to anything) and sync it to the DVD you rented (via instructions given in the track). So, it’s like watching an episode of MST3K but without the breaks or their heads at the bottom of the screen. Well, that and they use their regular voices and don’t play the characters I know I grew to love.
Very cool idea…glad I discovered it. I came home from work tonight and downloaded the commentary for Halloween (the original). They have an impressive catalogue or new movies and some terrible low budget films, some classics like Jurassic Park where Weird Al joins in the commentary…tons of stuff. They even started doing a few of their own videos, but I didn’t check any of that out yet.
Highly recommend. Check their site to see what movies they have commentaries on, go rent that movie, and enjoy the laughs.
Kickin’ It Old Skool (Movie)
Mar 22nd
Watched Kickin’ It Old Skool this afternoon…I like Jaimie Kennedy, and I think he’s generally funny, but even he couldn’t save this one. It wasn’t intolerable, and I watched the entire movie, but it just wasn’t funny. I think I laughed out loud one time, but I can’t even remember what the line was.
The story is about Kennedy’s character who, as a kid, hurts himself in a break dancing contest and goes into a coma for 20 years. He wakes up as a kid in an adult’s body, has to save his family home with money from a new dance contest, has to save the girl from the jerk she’s about to marry, and has to make his way through a world he hasn’t been a part of in two decades. Calamity ensues…
They would have done well to explore the plot points in Kennedy missing the past 20 years and how that would freak someone out if they were in his position. They did this, but it was a minor point in the plot…they dedicated most of the time to him still being child-like in his attitude and actions. Maybe a deeper exploration of missing all this new stuff would have made the movie funnier??
Maria Menounos is amazingly beautiful and she was interesting here. Kennedy’s character was mildy entertaining and only partly annoying.
As for the comedy- it didn’t work because everything was played TOO silly and TOO over-the-top. His father acting like an idiot and telling him to do the chores right after he was released from the hospital, the over-the-top kid stuff (he was more mature a kid when he went into a coma than when he went out!)…they just played it too stupid throughout for any of the odd stuff to have much of an effect.
I’d pass this one up. Did I mention Maria Menounos? (call me)
Ken Burns’ Annoying Obsession with Race
Mar 22nd
Ken Burns…America’s documentarian. I’m sure someone has penned a line like that somewhere in response to his numerous documentaries that air on PBS. I watched his latest documentary, The War (it was boring and tedious)…I’ve seen Jazz (it wasn’t really about jazz history or the music, but rather mostly about race and race relations)…I’m watching the first disc to Baseball right now, and I’m already getting Burns’ tired act. I have a feeling this is going to be a 12 hour film on race, racism, and all things regarding race.
One has to wonder why Burns doesn’t just get this annoying repetition out of his system by producing “Racism: A Ken Burn’s Film”.
Call me crazy (go ahead), but Burns has got to be one of the most overrated directors in the country. We all love to fawn all over his films as if they’re genius…pretending they’re not completely boring and one-sided, because we want to look smart and chic. Which is another thing- Burns’ stuff is so completely tainted by his liberal politics. That and he’s far too politically correct for his own good. From what I’ve seen, most people can’t stand the very idea of being politically correct. It’s phony and annoying to put on an act just to be “safe” or say things that are safe and good and all full of love, no matter what your true feelings are. A documentarian that can’t stop injecting his political leanings into his films is a hack in my book…and it’s worse when the films are boring because of these leanings.
I will try to make it thru Baseball, but I have a feeling Burns won’t disappoint here and will likely turn it into yet another examination of race in America. Which is a shame, because baseball is quite a worthy subject for a long form piece like this…just without the obsession with race and political correctness. (IF that turns out to be the case, as it seems to be from disc 1)…
Kontroll (Hungarian Film)
Mar 21st
Watched my new Netflix movie last night…a Hungarian thriller called Kontroll. VERY weird movie. It takes place entirely underground in the Budapest metro system.
The story is centered around a group of ticket control agents that make sure all passengers have paid for the appropriate tickets, aren’t causing trouble, and aren’t making things rough for them. The main character is a guy named Bulcsu. He’s troubled by something, tho they never reveal what the problem really is.
There are a bunch of odd characters- especially the quirky control agents. One has narcolepsy and konks out numerous times during the movie, there’s a new guy who is way too hyper for his own good, an older agent who thinks he knows it all but doesn’t, and a few others that round out the group.
There’s also a murderer pushing people onto the tracks to their deaths. That and the film has a young female character who spends too much time on the trains in a teddy bear suit. I said it was odd.
There’s really very little story here, and that was disappointing. There were some really interesting music sections that helped the story along in quick bits. I liked the movie, but it could have been much better if there was a plot to speak of and if it made a but more sense. You can’t not like the movie just due to the fact that it seemed so independent, and it was totally quirky and weird in a good way. Would have been a much better film with a few improvements in the plot and a little less of the whacky over-the-top stuff. Whackiness is okay, but there’s a line you cross and it becomes annoying. This film almost went over that line.
I noticed my second Netflix movie is Keeping Mum- a movie with Rowan Atkinson starring as a priest and a housekeeper or something comes into the picture, capers ensue…I’m not totally sure what it’s all about.
The two new movies I added to Netflix- OFF THE BLACK (an interesting looking film with Nick Nolte) and LIFE OF THE PARTY, which I have seen sitting on the shelf at Blockbuster many times, but the trailer made it look downright hee-larious. We’ll see…
Ann Coulter on Rev Wright Issue: “How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people?”
Mar 20th
Ann Coulter hits the nail on the head…saying what most have, thus far, been afraid to say, even if we all know it’s true.
By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours.
But the “post-racial candidate” thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people?
As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said — not about black people, but literally, the exact same things — I think we’d notice that he’s crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke’s love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming “home to roost.”)
Imagine a white pastor saying: “Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. … We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God.”
I am also tired of the constant whining. What I find really odd are the people who claim endemic racism in the US. All the while, a black man is sure to grab the Democratic nomination for president. That could not possibly happen if what Wright said was even remotely true.
How about the so-called leaders of the black community stop looking for imaginary boogeymen and look within to the root of the major problems among blacks in this country. The insane out-of-wedlock birthrate, for example…might it have something to do with some of these major issues? The disproportionate level of crimes committed by young black males (especially the all too common black-on-black crimes within some urban areas) should also be looked at. Wright, and others like him, need to stop chasing ghosts and get down to the real causes of the problems they claim they want to fix. Unfortunately, one can hardly even mention the out-of-wedlock birthrate or the high levels of crime among black males without being called a racist…which is why these problems won’t be solved anytime soon. And we have men like “Reverend” Wright to thank for that.
And when it comes to Obama…I don’t take the line that many do and separate him from Wright completely…I have a feeling Obama shares some of these feelings deep down. You can’t sit in a pew for 20 years, claim the man is like an uncle, claim him as your spiritual guide, have him baptize your children and marrry you and then claim that you don’t share any of his feelings. Why did you stay in a church where you so radically disagreed with a very insane pastor? Either Obama is the world’s biggest coward (well, well, I I couldn’t possibly approach my spiritual mentor about these issues)…or, more likely- Barack’s true feelings aren’t all that different than those of Wright himself.
Either way- there’s no way on earth I’d want this man leading me or anyone else in this country. I certainly wouldn’t want this man as leader of the free world. Not to mention the fact that National Journal has him ranked as the MOST liberal member of Congress, and he has promised a disasterous withdrawal of troops no matter what the commanders on the ground say about it. A trillion dollar health care promise he can’t keep, abortion on demand, children having abortions behind their parents’ backs (kids need strict parent permission to get their ears piereced, but some fools like Obama and most US liberals think they should be able to get an abortion without telling their parents!)…outside of the fact that Obama has an uber racist pastor for 20 years and probably shares many of his racist ideals, he would be a complete disaster all around.
Pub Quiz
Mar 18th
Our team won pub quiz tonight at the local Irish pub. And they have delicious reuben sandwiches by the way…
There was a lot of mancrying and manhugging going on. Well, there was neither, but we’ll pretend. I don’t drink, but it actually came out to a tie, and you have to chug a beer to decide who wins a tie. I walked up to volunteer (I’ve had exactly one beer in my life and I chugged it when I drank it), but another teammate who actually drinks volunteered himself, so I said ‘you go, girlfriend.’ (yeah, I speak like a sassy black woman…so what?)
I’m off to bed…O’Grady here I come.
“Kill The Man” (Movie Review)
Mar 17th
I recorded “Kill The Man” to my DVR from Sundance channel the other night…watched it tonight. Really good movie. Surprising, as it looks very low budget and the premise seemed very silly. It was very silly, but it worked really well. Luke Wilson and Joshua Malina actually have very good chemistry together in this, and oddly enough it was Malina that had some of the funniest lines of the film.
Wilson and Malina play buddies who have opened a small copy shop up after Wilson’s character won thousands sinking a long shot at a basketball game. (Their store is called Long Shot Copies). They’re struggling to make any money, and matters are made worse when a big King Co. Super Copy Center opens up across the street and takes ALL of the business to be had. They just can’t compete with the bigger store and cheaper prices. So, they do what any good businessmen would do- they play dirty tricks on their competitors to drain them of business in devious ways. They make counterfeit money and then have people go in and buy one copy at the King Co. and get the change…they all have real cash and the big guy is left with counterfeit. They pretend to be pest control pros looking for rats in the store…other silly schemes take place, and Malina really shines here.
Wilson’s love interest is Paula Devicq (Charlie’s gal from Party Of Five)…she wants Wilson’s character to grow up and marry her. There’s a minor subplot there, but it’s focused on the store and the schemes. They bring in a black revolutionary (fighting the man) into the mix (played wonderfully by the brilliant actor and voice actor, Phil Lemarr)- he joins them in their schemes and he’s a nice addition to the duo. There’s one other character too, but he plays a smaller role and isn’t all that well defined. I wasn’t sure if he was playing gay or just weird (it was hard to tell- he did wink a few times while spouting what sounded like sexual commentary to the guys a couple of times, but it wasn’t totally clear).
I should just stop and mention Lemarr again- he’s one of my favorite voice actors, and merely because he did the voice for Carver on the Disney animated series, “The Weekenders.” His character was very funny, and he played it all VERY well.
The story is pretty silly and over the top for the most part, but it’s all good…it works. There were a number of laugh out loud moments for me, and the cast did a perfect job of it. Totally recommend.
On another note…I watched Vantage Point at the theatre Friday. Really liked it. Also saw Nattevagten (1994) which is the original version of the Ewan McGregor film Nightwatch (a movie I’ve always liked). It’s Danish and stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as the character that McGregor played in the remake. I was surprised, as Nikolaj Coster-Waldau also stars in the new Fox series “New Amsterdam” which I’ve watched (3 episodes have aired so far), and he’s very charming. He looks rather funny in the film if you ask me, but he’s still a charming lead. Not sure who I like more in the role- him or McGregor. The American remake almost matches it completely in the plotpoints, the dialogue, etc…one of the fews films I’ve seen where the original writer/director wrote and directed the remake.
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