Monthly Archive for May, 2008

Food for thought

Published
by
Pseudo
on May 26, 2008
in Life
. 1 Comment

The other day I was doing research for a personal project, and found this quote in an issue of LIFE magazine:

In an important sense, this world of ours is a new world, in which the unity of knowledge, the nature of human communities, the order of society, the order of ideas, the very notions of society and culture have changed, and will not return to what they have been in the past. What is new is not new because it has never been there before, but because it has changed in quality.

One thing that is new is the prevalence of newness, the changing scale and scope of change itself, so that the world alters as we walk in it, so that the years of a man’s life measure not some small growth or rearrangement or moderation of what he learned in childhood, but a great upheaval.

What is new is that in one generation our knowledge of the natural world engulfs, upsets, and complements all knowledge of the natural world before. The techniques, among which and by which we live, multiply and ramify, so that the whole world is bound together by communication, blocked here and there by the immense synapses of political tyrrany.

The global quality of the world is new: our knowledge of and sympathy with remote and diverse peoples, our involvement with them in practical terms and our commitment to them in terms of brotherhood. What is new in the world is the massive character of dissolution and corruption of authority, in belief, in ritual, and in temporal order.

Yet this is the world that we have come to live in. The very difficulties which it presents derive from growth in understanding, in skill, in power. To assail the changes that have unmoored us from the past is futile, and in a deep sense, I think it is wicked. We need to recognize the change and learn what resources we have…

That was written by J. Robert Oppenheimer - in 1955! Yet it could have been written yesterday.

Just a little food for thought on Memorial Day.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Published
by
Pseudo
on May 22, 2008
in Movies
. 0 Comments

1. Harrison Ford = Back in top form, and still capable of kicking ass at age 65. We missed ya, Harry.

2. Karen Allen = Underutilized, but it’s nice to see her back. And at 56, she’s still a fine-looking woman.

3. Cate Blanchett = Call me crazy, but I think she’s quite sexy in this film. I’m a sucker for a woman with an accent.

4. Shia LeBeouf = not as horrible as I expected, but his presence is unwelcome. And when they started laying the groundwork for him to take over the series, I felt a seething hatred for my childhood heroes George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.

4. Direction = The Beard did a solid job of directing, as expected, but his hand was on the throttle - the film never becomes a true thrill ride like the first two films.

5. Script = Lousy, I’m sad to say. Lots of mumbo-jumbo that doesn’t add up to anything, and the characters are thin. Word is that screenwriter David Koepp basically stitched together a dozen or so drafts by other writers. Is this really the best they could come up with after twenty years?

6. Action = It’s all fun, but nothing feels life-threatening except for the scene with the ants… for five minutes, the old Spielberg treated me to a high-stakes fistfight, and I was grinning like an idiot at every punch and kick.

7. Cinematography = I’m not a fan of Spielberg’s longtime cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski. Granted, he’s imitating the look of Douglas Slocombe, who shot the first three films, but Kaminski’s own soft, diffused style still bleeds through.

8. Visual effects = Sometimes, they look great. Sometimes, they look shoddy. And toward the end, there are just too damn many of them.

9. Music = Sadly, my boy Johnny turned in a workmanlike score. We get the classic Raiders theme, and Marion’s theme returns from the first film, but otherwise the score feels uninspired. But hey, the guy is 76 - I’m willing to cut him some slack.

10. Conclusion = It’s about 25% of the film I wanted it to be.

NYPD Beard

Published
by
Pseudo
on May 13, 2008
in Television
. 0 Comments

As of late, I’ve been plowing my way through N.Y.P.D Blue, thanks to the magic of Netflix.

I was too distracted and too broke to really focus on the show when it first aired - but now, fifteen years later, having rediscovered Hill Street Blues and how brilliant it is, I naturally gravitated toward N.Y.P.D. Blue. It was made by the same people, and even stars some of the same people.

But I’ll review the show some other time. On with the story…

This past weekend, I watched a couple of episodes in the dead of the night. The body was tired, but the brain was restless - so I got out of bed, kicked back on the couch and fired up the DVD player.

I started to fade after two episodes, but they were particularly gripping episodes, and I just had to find out what happened next - so I decided to go for a third episode. This necessitated changing the disc.

So I crack open the Netflix envelope, pull out the disc, and here’s what I find -

Some brilliant, deeply demented individual out there felt that Sharon Lawrence needed a beard - so he gave her one, and then returned the disc to Netflix.

It’s 4 am. I’m tired, a little loopy, and I’ve just seen two very serious episodes of N.Y.P.D. Blue. So this cracks me up in a big way.

Sure, it’s infantile and stupid, but it’s so damn funny I’m in tears. I laugh until it hurts. I can’t even bear to look at the DVD. She’s tilting her head back and smiling as if she’s proud to have a beard.

The next morning, I’m shaving, and the image pops into my head. I start laughing so hard I can’t hold the razor steady. Even now, two days later, the above picture makes me smile.

So this blog is a thank-you note to the demented individual who felt compelled to give Sharon Lawrence a beard. Thanks for a good laugh.

Iron Man

Published
by
Pseudo
on May 4, 2008
in Movies
. 0 Comments

1. Robert Downey Jr. = Excellent. He gives charm and pathos to what could have been an extraordinarily dull character.
2. Jeff Bridges = Excellent. He clearly had a field day with this role. And what a beard!
3. Gwyneth Paltrow = Merely adequate. I’ve always found her to be a bore, and the only reason she’s even mildly interesting here is because of her interaction with Downey.
4. Terence Howard = Solid. I look forward to seeing what becomes of his character in future films.
5. Direction = Solid. Like Downey, he took what could have been a pedestrian film and gave it some charm and pathos.
6. Plot = Merely adequate. Good guys vs. bad guys.
7. Action sequences = Solid, but nothing that ever really got my blood going.
8. Visual effects = Very good. Sometimes I couldn’t tell the difference between the Stan Winston (RIP) costume and the digital version.
9. Music = Mediocre. Rock music? Really, people?
10. Conclusion = I enjoyed it. Sometimes the pace lags, and it’s a very simple film at the end of the day, but it has charm to spare.