Joshua Taj Bozeman
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Posts by Joshua Taj Bozeman
New Amsterdam (TV Series)
Apr 2nd
Many have attacked the new Fox series New Amstersam as lame or sort of ripping off ideas from other shows. Well, that’s what I’ve read from various sites…I personally like the show a lot. I was looking into the status of new episodes, as I read they cut the order back from 13 episodes to 8 I think it was, and they stopped production altogether with no plans for future production. No clear word from futoncritic.com or any other major site out there from what I can tell. TV.com has no definitive information either from what I found.
Anyhow- wikipedia has a nice timeline of John Amsterdam’s life, the people in his life, and the events associated with all of that.
I like how they combined a series about a detective who is all the things we all want to be- smooth, good looking, charming (and he gets the most beautiful women!) with a lot of historical perspective…mostly history from his own life, but they deftly add history of New York City (New Amsterdam) with various time periods in a more general scope. The flashbacks are a nice touch- almost two stories each week, separate yet intertwined completely. And who can deny the Dutch actor (whose name I’m too lazy to look up) isn’t great in the role?
Washington Nationals Fans Show Their Lack of Class with the President
Apr 1st
President Bush threw the ceremonial first pitch at the season opener and first game from the brand new National Park in DC (VIDEO HERE). Many of the fans booed the president. Whether you like the guy or not, booing is classless, and it’s an embarassment to the team, the players, and the city itself.
There’s no excuse for this sort of behavior. It makes the people involved look like bratty children…adults with class don’t act this way. They don’t like someone all that much, they simply clap less or maybe not clap at all, but for heaven’s sakes folks- shows some damned respect. You’re lucky it’s 2008…through most of history you would have had your ass handed to you for such nonsense.
Stay classy you tactless juveniles.
King Of Kong (Movie)
Apr 1st
I just watched the best documentary I’ve ever seen (via Netflix online)…King Of Kong. How a movie about the world record score of Donkey Kong could be the best documentary ever…I have no idea. It’s just downright wonderful tho. Long live Steve Wiebe. (I googled this and he lost the title to Billy Mitchell in 2007).
More sometime tomorrow or Wednesday. I’m off to bed for the night…
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)…
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