i m N s h o

I saw Munich the other day. I don't watch many "political" films (at least, the obviously political ones). I think I get too wrapped up in them and find that my opinions and feelings are a little too intense to separate the movie-going experience from the politics of the movie. Either I agree with the movie's point of view, and find myself angered by the things the movie is speaking out against, or I disagree with the movie's POV and I'm angered by that. So it's a no-win situation that I'd just as soon avoid. I'm not quite sure what I expected when I went to see this one. I'd heard all the positive reviews and critical raves, and bought into all the Spielbergian hype: "Hey, he's doing a serious movie, we'd better take it seriously!" I cannot explain my reaction, but when I left that movie, I was livid. I've tried for a few days now to reduce my reaction to something definable. It's not the politics of the film, per se

Let's face it, from high school, where the smart kid always gets smacked around by the jocks, to politics, where a moron like George W. Bush can be President and intelligent candidates don't stand a chance because "they're not trustworthy", people in this country seem to have a tough time with intellect. In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous. — Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899) A.Word.A.Day -- ad lib (Yes, I know Clinton was an intelligent man who got elected President. Guess that's the exception that proves the rule . And look what happened to him!)

Like that's news. But this IS pretty amusing… Legal Papers Prove She's No Einstein I'm perversely fascinated by all the interest in Hilton. I just don't understand it, but I've gotta say, she's got one hell of a publicist.  

When I first heard Avenged Sevenfold on KROQ a few months ago, I was struck by how bad they were. 'My god,' I thought, 'another wanta-be 80's hair band!' And I immediately changed the station. Time has not mellowed this reaction… if anything, my response time has gotten better, as I can recognize one of their songs in fewer notes and change the station that much faster. Then I recently read somewhere that they were being compared to Guns 'n Roses, thus reinforcing my original opinion of their music. I mean, do we REALLY need 80's headbanger rock today? (Judging from their lamentable success, I guess the answer is yes. But I don't have to like it. Nor listen to it.) Finally, this week on KROQ they were featured in their daily music news, talking about the Christian themes in their music. And I realized they're not just a a god-awful want-be 80's hair band… they're a god-awful, born again , wanta-be 80's hair band. Like I said. All the more

Back when I was getting my theatre degree, I was forced to take a bunch of "history of the theatre" courses. (Most degrees are like that, I'm sure… there's always survey/history courses you have to take to "give you the basics" of the curriculum. I'm convinced they exist to weed out the uncommitted. If you can suffer through those stultifying classes, then you've got what it takes to complete the degree.) One of the things I remember from those history lessons was the "definitions" of classical comedy and tragedy. Comedy and Tragedy were very well defined in Classical theatre (for the purposes of this post, that's roughly the Greeks through Shakespeare). In Tragedy, the protagonist has some fatal character flaw which is his ultimate downfall. His destruction often brought others down with him, those implied or complicit in his guilt and his flaw. But, in the end, as the joke goes … "The bad end unhappily, the good, unluckily."

I've been fascinated by this phrase since I came across it a couple of years ago in a WordSpy email. uncanny valley n. Feelings of unease, fear, or revulsion created by a robot or robotic device that appears to be, but is not quite, human-like. As the definition suggests, it's a term used by roboticists when discussing form and design, but it's one that also really applies to digital animation, I think. When I first saw this phrase, it was shortly after the Final Fantasy movie flopped so hard it took down Sony's new digital animation studio with it. At the time, I thought it applicable, but the more I think about it, the more I think FF's problems stemmed more from the "why bother" nature of the animation (why go to the effort to create a nearly photo-real presentation for a film that could EASILY have been handled with live actors and digital effects) and the untranslatable nature of the storytelling (you can translate the words, you just can't tr