The Confessional Interview
By now, everybody knows Lance Armstrong 'fessed up to his 'roiding ways. All bets are on for a flurry of court cases from people chasing their money and dignity. Still, you sort of wonder how the sport stayed so blind for so long.
As I pointed out before, even if they take away his bronze medal from Sydney 2000 and strip him of his 7 Tour de France titles, you're left with the accomplishment itself; and God only knows who else was doing what for their placings in all those races. There's simply no undoing this mess.
Although in the bright light of retrospection given his confession, it seems mightily obvious that something was very awry with the sport of cycling if somebody won the Tour 7 times. A cycling athlete once told me that cyclists could be broken into two rough groups: Short guys with lots of torque leading the way through the mountainous terrain and tall guys pumping their way ahead on the flat plains. There really isn't a cyclist who is at once both tall and short, so it is hard for a cyclist to be dominant over the field - unlike say the way Pete Sampras or Roger Federer towered over their field. The athlete said that it was highly unlikely the same competitor won 2 Tours, let alone twice in a row.
And here we had an individual winning it a record seven times. Even if they strip him of his wins, nobody is ever going to win as many as seven tours without some kind of help. It's just that kind of sport and that kind of race. So they can strip Armstrong of these honours, but over time I think the seven abandoned results are going to mean something totally different, for, unlike Ben Johnson's tainted 100m sprint record from Seoul 1988, nobody 'doing it fair' is going to go past 7 wins let alone come close.
And there it would sit, in everybody's consciousness that one time, a man with the help of medical science was able to accomplish the impossible. We may berate him for being a cheat today, but we may well come to a different understanding at some point in the future.
A Gen-X View of the Universe.
"The Issue Isn't Pussy, It's Monkey" - from The Right Stuff
Film, Cinema, Movies, TV, Music, Rock
2013/01/19
2013/01/11
Fracture
Plotting In Cliches
Tell me if you've seen this movie. Anthony Hopkins plays a really smart, erudite criminal. A jealous husband shoots his wife. The good looking DA is looking to move over to the private sector where there's oodles of money. There's a trick. It's the last day, but he can't get out. Rosamund Pike plays the supportive love interest.
That's it right here. I groaned when I read the blurb description but, hey, how bad could it get? Not too bad as it turned out.
What's Good About It
It's pretty slick and makes LA look sophisticated. Maye it is these days, I haven't been there or many years but last I heard of it was Sean Penn's description likening it to Yoghurt but without the living culture. Like science Fiction, I kind of like it when a film creates a totally unbelievable world. LA with culture? Fancy that.
So in this film, LA is slick and sophisticated in this one, and everything looks perfectly production designed. Even the old car Ryan Gosling's DA is driving around in is a classy 60s BMW. Like, really? With California's emission laws? There's even Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks in Rosamund Pike's glossy modern apartment. Well, I never! As for Anthony Hopkins' character's residence? Well, the production designer sure spent their budget well.
Some times movies are a lot better when the money is spent on the screen well and this might be Exhibit A for that argument.
If you like courtroom dramas this has something for you; if you like intrigue, this has it for you. For a film with a straight forward narrative, it allows itself time and space to have mysteries, and this makes it more watchable than the run of the mill courtroom movie.
What's Bad About It
It gets pretty surreal as it loses itself in the plot points, trying to establish important bits for the trial when in fact it's establishing it for the ending. As such you wonder if you're supposed to be rooting for Anthony Hopkins to get away with murder, which is one kind of film or whether you're rooting for Ryan Gosling to leave the public sector and go work for Anthony Hopkins and make a lot of money.
What's Interesting About It
The trick. But for once I'll do my best not to spoil it. It sure wasn't the butler.
Consumerism As Identikit
I won't go into it, but it does feature a very interesting comment about our consumerist world, namely that we go out and buy things to define ourselves but all the time the things on offer are mostly mass-manufactured. What this means is that our identity that we present ourselves to the world is like an idenitkit of ideology as well as taste, preference, sensibility and occupation. In a world of semiotics, we are leaking with 'meaning' but at the same time this meaning is emergent of consumerism. So just how individual can anybody get?
As captives, we overlook the degree to which even our said taste, preference, and sensibility are largely dictated to by the information provided to us through mass media outlets which are on the whole, purveyors of consumerism again. A decade on from 'Fight Club', this film goes a little way to show through its trick that we are in fact our sum total of choices, but that mostly those sum total of choices are choices made from frothy selections of consumerist confection. If we think we're the sum total of moral choices, then we're probably the victim of Hollywood propaganda.
The mass media machine offering up choices between Coke and Pepsi or between Ford and GM Holden as if there is something incredibly different between these things when in fact the essential differences between these things are trivial. What seems to peep through is the barren landscape where we are merely the sum total of things we choose to buy.
The Court Has A Narrow Door
The film starts off with the position that it is an open and shut case with a confession from the perpetrator. Then, the court case veers off-track wildly when the attempted murder cannot be linked to the gun or the casings. After that, the plot twists and turns around what else canot be permitted in court. You get the feeling that evidence that can be brought in to a courtroom is made out to be more difficult than it really is in real life.
It's one of the fascinating things about American courtroom dramas is the regular tropes of inadmissible evidence. You sort of wonder if judges are readily throwing our evidence in real life on the grounds of admissibility. Think of all the cases that might have swung on inadmissible evidence. Think of all the people coin off death row thanks to DNA evidence that came many years later.
It sure makes the lay person wonder about the law's attitude to evidence.
Euthanasia As Murder
I brought this up in the Movie Double for 'Terminal Trust' and The Three Stooges' but there seems to be a developing trope that the problem with Euthanasia is that it could be used for murder.
I'm a little surprised to find it again in this film.
The Title
Given what happens in the film and the sort of polemic it pursues, the film gives rise to the question, what the title means. The more we look at it, the more abstract this title seems to become. What is it that is fracturing or is fractured? Is it society? Is it the relationship between the magnate and his wife? Is it the District Attorney's office politics? Or is it the sense of civic duty that should be in the District Attorney that is fractured?
When I reflect upon it, there really isn't something that gives away a concrete anchor point to this title. In that sense it seems like an incredibly opaque and abstract title to give a film.
Tell me if you've seen this movie. Anthony Hopkins plays a really smart, erudite criminal. A jealous husband shoots his wife. The good looking DA is looking to move over to the private sector where there's oodles of money. There's a trick. It's the last day, but he can't get out. Rosamund Pike plays the supportive love interest.
That's it right here. I groaned when I read the blurb description but, hey, how bad could it get? Not too bad as it turned out.
What's Good About It
It's pretty slick and makes LA look sophisticated. Maye it is these days, I haven't been there or many years but last I heard of it was Sean Penn's description likening it to Yoghurt but without the living culture. Like science Fiction, I kind of like it when a film creates a totally unbelievable world. LA with culture? Fancy that.
So in this film, LA is slick and sophisticated in this one, and everything looks perfectly production designed. Even the old car Ryan Gosling's DA is driving around in is a classy 60s BMW. Like, really? With California's emission laws? There's even Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks in Rosamund Pike's glossy modern apartment. Well, I never! As for Anthony Hopkins' character's residence? Well, the production designer sure spent their budget well.
Some times movies are a lot better when the money is spent on the screen well and this might be Exhibit A for that argument.
If you like courtroom dramas this has something for you; if you like intrigue, this has it for you. For a film with a straight forward narrative, it allows itself time and space to have mysteries, and this makes it more watchable than the run of the mill courtroom movie.
What's Bad About It
It gets pretty surreal as it loses itself in the plot points, trying to establish important bits for the trial when in fact it's establishing it for the ending. As such you wonder if you're supposed to be rooting for Anthony Hopkins to get away with murder, which is one kind of film or whether you're rooting for Ryan Gosling to leave the public sector and go work for Anthony Hopkins and make a lot of money.
What's Interesting About It
The trick. But for once I'll do my best not to spoil it. It sure wasn't the butler.
Consumerism As Identikit
I won't go into it, but it does feature a very interesting comment about our consumerist world, namely that we go out and buy things to define ourselves but all the time the things on offer are mostly mass-manufactured. What this means is that our identity that we present ourselves to the world is like an idenitkit of ideology as well as taste, preference, sensibility and occupation. In a world of semiotics, we are leaking with 'meaning' but at the same time this meaning is emergent of consumerism. So just how individual can anybody get?
As captives, we overlook the degree to which even our said taste, preference, and sensibility are largely dictated to by the information provided to us through mass media outlets which are on the whole, purveyors of consumerism again. A decade on from 'Fight Club', this film goes a little way to show through its trick that we are in fact our sum total of choices, but that mostly those sum total of choices are choices made from frothy selections of consumerist confection. If we think we're the sum total of moral choices, then we're probably the victim of Hollywood propaganda.
The mass media machine offering up choices between Coke and Pepsi or between Ford and GM Holden as if there is something incredibly different between these things when in fact the essential differences between these things are trivial. What seems to peep through is the barren landscape where we are merely the sum total of things we choose to buy.
The Court Has A Narrow Door
The film starts off with the position that it is an open and shut case with a confession from the perpetrator. Then, the court case veers off-track wildly when the attempted murder cannot be linked to the gun or the casings. After that, the plot twists and turns around what else canot be permitted in court. You get the feeling that evidence that can be brought in to a courtroom is made out to be more difficult than it really is in real life.
It's one of the fascinating things about American courtroom dramas is the regular tropes of inadmissible evidence. You sort of wonder if judges are readily throwing our evidence in real life on the grounds of admissibility. Think of all the cases that might have swung on inadmissible evidence. Think of all the people coin off death row thanks to DNA evidence that came many years later.
It sure makes the lay person wonder about the law's attitude to evidence.
Euthanasia As Murder
I brought this up in the Movie Double for 'Terminal Trust' and The Three Stooges' but there seems to be a developing trope that the problem with Euthanasia is that it could be used for murder.
I'm a little surprised to find it again in this film.
The Title
Given what happens in the film and the sort of polemic it pursues, the film gives rise to the question, what the title means. The more we look at it, the more abstract this title seems to become. What is it that is fracturing or is fractured? Is it society? Is it the relationship between the magnate and his wife? Is it the District Attorney's office politics? Or is it the sense of civic duty that should be in the District Attorney that is fractured?
When I reflect upon it, there really isn't something that gives away a concrete anchor point to this title. In that sense it seems like an incredibly opaque and abstract title to give a film.
2013/01/10
Burn Down The House
Campbell Newman, Hates Green
This link talking about Campbell Newman's Anti-Environment policies came in from a horrified Pleiades:
Oh boy, that's some list! "Queensland - Perfect One Day, Newman-ed the next."
For all the prattle that politicians say just to get elected, the worst might have been Newman's promise of having a stronger focus on the environment so that he could speed up mining and development approvals. It seems the strong focus he is talking about is a strong focus to eradicate any kind of environment. It's clearly Orwellian 'Doublespeak' to promise a "strong focus on the environment" only to do away with any and all regulations protecting the environment.
It shouldn't be surprising. If you put into government somebody with a radical agenda and a significant majority, then it stands to reason that they will go to metaphorically burn down the house. It would be okay if it were only their metaphorical houses, but there is only one world; he's burning down the whole block. When he allows these mining and developing interests to proceed without any caution or regulation, he's doing it at our expense in other states.
It's some pretty evil shit.
This link talking about Campbell Newman's Anti-Environment policies came in from a horrified Pleiades:
Newman’s administration has:
- Dismantled all carbon abatement and climate change schemes — including research into clean energy and programs that encourage people to reduce their carbon footprint — when it eliminated the Office of Climate Change.
- Pulled state government support from the $1.2 billion Solar Dawn solar research and power plant — which was destined to be the largest in the world and would have given Queensland a clear path to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
- Eliminated more than 1,400 jobs across government departments dealing with environmental concerns, as part of a plan announced in the September budget to shed a total 14,000 positions across the Queensland public service through redundancy and “natural attrition”.
- Announced that it would roll back the Wild Rivers legislation that protects areas from development and mining in the Cape York and Western Rivers areas — despite a pre-election promise to leave the western rivers alone.
- Flagged changes to the enforcement of the Vegetation Management Act which regulates how and when landholders can clear native vegetation.
- Lifted the ban on shooting flying foxes, despite the endangered status of some species.
- Proposed changes to the management of national parks that would open them up to tourism, allowing more access for 4WDs, horses and bikes in some areas.
- Announced plans to remove the South-East Queensland urban footprint, which determines the density of development in the region, a planning tool conservationists say protects koala habitat and safeguards biodiversity.
- Prioritised development in the Great Barrier Reef area, with plans to approve projects that UNESCO has asked the government to delay, given the condition of the reef.
In total, such changes have led critics to say the government has put development first and the environment last.
“Whatever the rule book was beforehand, it’s now open slather,” says one former Department of Environment and Resource Management employee, who now works with government in the private sector and therefore wants to remain anonymous.
“[Under the previous Labor government] the environment was an important part of the decision-making process. You couldn’t just go and do whatever you wanted without giving thought to how it impacts on the environment … Under this government they’re just freeing it up so you don’t have to think about it.
“They are just going to town on everything — any piece of environmental legislation.’’
Oh boy, that's some list! "Queensland - Perfect One Day, Newman-ed the next."
For all the prattle that politicians say just to get elected, the worst might have been Newman's promise of having a stronger focus on the environment so that he could speed up mining and development approvals. It seems the strong focus he is talking about is a strong focus to eradicate any kind of environment. It's clearly Orwellian 'Doublespeak' to promise a "strong focus on the environment" only to do away with any and all regulations protecting the environment.
It shouldn't be surprising. If you put into government somebody with a radical agenda and a significant majority, then it stands to reason that they will go to metaphorically burn down the house. It would be okay if it were only their metaphorical houses, but there is only one world; he's burning down the whole block. When he allows these mining and developing interests to proceed without any caution or regulation, he's doing it at our expense in other states.
It's some pretty evil shit.
2013/01/09
'Me And Orson Welles'
Orson Welles, Something Smells
The amazing thing about Orson Welles is that he was so much larger than life, he's warranted several depictions on screen to tell parts of his life story. There are 'The Night That Panicked America'; 'RKO 281' which was all about the making of 'Citizen Kane', the 'Cradle Will Rock' chronicling the musical production, but also vital moments in 'Radio Days' 'Ed Wood', 'Heavenly Creatures' as well.
He was so interesting stories about him doing things seem to warrant as much cultural space as his own films. Taken on their own they don't seem to be much, but the more people refer to him and cast other actors to play him, it sort of obfuscates the outline of his work.
What's Good About It
The film's script is witty enough that parts of it are more mirthful than one would imagine. The period feel is well done and the concentrated action in the theatre space helps to maintain the mood and feel. Exteriors that might strain the budget are kept to a minimum.
The real strength of the film is in the cast. The performances are solid enough and not given to too much whimsy that creeps in when films dissect actors. Zac Efron is passably good (he gets a lot of screen time without getting boring); James Tupper who plays Joe Cotton is particularly impressive; Clare Danes is Clare Danes (something a little naff about her in this one); Ben Chaplin as George Coulouris is quite good; Leo Bill as Norman Lloyd is a little too mincing, but still fun. Combined, the sum total of these performances builds a very believable time and space.
Also, the directing makes no attempt to emulate Welles' style. Thank goodness for that!
What's Bad About It
I know Christian McKay has portrayed Orson Welles a lot and often, but unfortunately he's too old in this film version. Welles was born in in 1915. 1937 puts him at about 22. McKay simply looks too old. Also, McKay has the diction down, but his voice is not enough like Welles. They're minor quibbles, but they do a lot to damage the credibility of what's happening on screen.
For a reference, this is what Orson Welles looked like at about the time he was doing Julius Caesar:
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="570"]
Orson Welles in 1937[/caption]
With all due respect to Chris MacKay and his craft, he just doesn't have the bloom of youth.
What's Interesting About It
Any time you have a close look at Orson Welles career, you're struck by how much he was able to do at such a young age. It is as if he appeared into the world fully formed. The anecdotes of him quoting Shakespeare at three seem far fetched and yet he had an encyclopaedic command of the Shakespeare canon by the time he was 18. By the time he was doing his Julius Caesar with the newly minted Mercury Theater, he already was a tyro in New York.
Consider that he was 25 when he did Citizen Kane. This number has weighed on the vast majority of film students who get to Film Schools in their twenties and find that Orson Welles had carved a place in history with just one film by the time he was 25. Perhaps this is why Welles keeps on inspiring film makers to do bio pics or reference him as a character.
How difficult the rest of his career turned out is yet another story. Orson Welles' amazing career to the point of 'Citizen Kane' in a sense defined the young new director with a vision ever since, and just about everybody who got a big break at a young age in Hollywood owes it to Welles blazing that path.
Consider for a moment that the people who put the Mercury Theater were a bunch of twenty-somethings and ended up having such far-reaching cultural impact, and then ponder the opportunities that are genuinely available today. The only other parallel I could think of, is The Beatles and the British invasion or Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and the personal computing revolution.
To be fair, not every group of twenty-somethings is going to be brilliant, but it happens quite seldom, when you look at history from at birds' eye view. The only way it happens is if the area is new and not too much is established, like talking pictures in the 1930s or Rock music in the 60s or personal computers in the late 70s. Once the area gets established and built up, you only get the facsimile of youthful exuberance. Which brings me to our current incarnation of youthful zest...,
Zac Efron
This is the young person we get today, marketed to us by the dream factory marketing machine. He can dance, he can sing, and he can act well enough to pass on TV. Still, he's no Orson Welles. It's not a fair comparison, and he might be the next Leo DiCaprio, but you get my point.
Richard Linklater
The director for this film Richard Linklater is doing some interesting work lately. There's 'School of Rock', 'A Scanner Darkly' and 'Fast Food Nation' to his credit as well as this film but also 'Bernie'. He sure picks and chooses some interesting things to film. I don't know how all these films connect up in his thinking and that alone makes it fascinating.
The amazing thing about Orson Welles is that he was so much larger than life, he's warranted several depictions on screen to tell parts of his life story. There are 'The Night That Panicked America'; 'RKO 281' which was all about the making of 'Citizen Kane', the 'Cradle Will Rock' chronicling the musical production, but also vital moments in 'Radio Days' 'Ed Wood', 'Heavenly Creatures' as well.
He was so interesting stories about him doing things seem to warrant as much cultural space as his own films. Taken on their own they don't seem to be much, but the more people refer to him and cast other actors to play him, it sort of obfuscates the outline of his work.
What's Good About It
The film's script is witty enough that parts of it are more mirthful than one would imagine. The period feel is well done and the concentrated action in the theatre space helps to maintain the mood and feel. Exteriors that might strain the budget are kept to a minimum.
The real strength of the film is in the cast. The performances are solid enough and not given to too much whimsy that creeps in when films dissect actors. Zac Efron is passably good (he gets a lot of screen time without getting boring); James Tupper who plays Joe Cotton is particularly impressive; Clare Danes is Clare Danes (something a little naff about her in this one); Ben Chaplin as George Coulouris is quite good; Leo Bill as Norman Lloyd is a little too mincing, but still fun. Combined, the sum total of these performances builds a very believable time and space.
Also, the directing makes no attempt to emulate Welles' style. Thank goodness for that!
What's Bad About It
I know Christian McKay has portrayed Orson Welles a lot and often, but unfortunately he's too old in this film version. Welles was born in in 1915. 1937 puts him at about 22. McKay simply looks too old. Also, McKay has the diction down, but his voice is not enough like Welles. They're minor quibbles, but they do a lot to damage the credibility of what's happening on screen.
For a reference, this is what Orson Welles looked like at about the time he was doing Julius Caesar:
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="570"]
Orson Welles in 1937[/caption]With all due respect to Chris MacKay and his craft, he just doesn't have the bloom of youth.
What's Interesting About It
Any time you have a close look at Orson Welles career, you're struck by how much he was able to do at such a young age. It is as if he appeared into the world fully formed. The anecdotes of him quoting Shakespeare at three seem far fetched and yet he had an encyclopaedic command of the Shakespeare canon by the time he was 18. By the time he was doing his Julius Caesar with the newly minted Mercury Theater, he already was a tyro in New York.
Consider that he was 25 when he did Citizen Kane. This number has weighed on the vast majority of film students who get to Film Schools in their twenties and find that Orson Welles had carved a place in history with just one film by the time he was 25. Perhaps this is why Welles keeps on inspiring film makers to do bio pics or reference him as a character.
How difficult the rest of his career turned out is yet another story. Orson Welles' amazing career to the point of 'Citizen Kane' in a sense defined the young new director with a vision ever since, and just about everybody who got a big break at a young age in Hollywood owes it to Welles blazing that path.
Consider for a moment that the people who put the Mercury Theater were a bunch of twenty-somethings and ended up having such far-reaching cultural impact, and then ponder the opportunities that are genuinely available today. The only other parallel I could think of, is The Beatles and the British invasion or Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and the personal computing revolution.
To be fair, not every group of twenty-somethings is going to be brilliant, but it happens quite seldom, when you look at history from at birds' eye view. The only way it happens is if the area is new and not too much is established, like talking pictures in the 1930s or Rock music in the 60s or personal computers in the late 70s. Once the area gets established and built up, you only get the facsimile of youthful exuberance. Which brings me to our current incarnation of youthful zest...,
Zac Efron
This is the young person we get today, marketed to us by the dream factory marketing machine. He can dance, he can sing, and he can act well enough to pass on TV. Still, he's no Orson Welles. It's not a fair comparison, and he might be the next Leo DiCaprio, but you get my point.
Richard Linklater
The director for this film Richard Linklater is doing some interesting work lately. There's 'School of Rock', 'A Scanner Darkly' and 'Fast Food Nation' to his credit as well as this film but also 'Bernie'. He sure picks and chooses some interesting things to film. I don't know how all these films connect up in his thinking and that alone makes it fascinating.
2013/01/05
The Expendables 2
More Is More, More or Less
Sly and Co. are back for another ripper yarn of an adventure blowing up shit and shooting lots of people. As usual, nobody seriously gets hit or dies, Sylvester's character Barny gets hit twice, but he's wearing a bulletproof vest ("yay!") and everybody gets to show off something including Dolph Lundgren's comic turn. The gang is back for more, where more of everything is crammed into this nonsensical adventure.
What's Good About It
As with the first film, this one seems to have artistic pretensions. They're mere pretensions, but they are there, even in the muck and grind of low-brow action movies-ville, it's throbbing in there with a heart of pulp.
It's impressive they've managed to collar together all these stars of yesteryear. It's supposed to be a smorgasbord of Action stars, let loose to do their thing, and their thing mostly consists of shooting and maiming and blowing things up. Dialogue is to a minimum with a good dose of cheese. I'm not convinced this is all good, but if I bothered to watch it, it must be because I wanted to see Arnie say "I'll be back."
What's Bad About It
Pedestrian plotting, lame revenge plot, all-too-convenient appearances of Chuck Norris, and there's absolutely nothing you can take seriously, so it feels like a giant waste of time when you finish watching it.
It's like when you go to McDonalds because you've forgotten how awful it is, then you finish the burger and you vow never to have another McDonalds' burger. This film is exactly that kind of product. The strange thing is that world is in some marginal ay better with McDonalds and Coca Cola and films like this. It's hard to explain but easy to show - Growing up in communist Eastern Europe really sucked before the arrival of McDonalds, Coca Cola and Hollywood action movies. Now it sucks much less. You might bag out marginal use-value products like fast food and entertainment but they do have a rightful, net-positive place in the world.
What's Interesting About It
It's not nearly as interesting as the first one. Even Chuck Norris' participation is a little dull and not much flash.
The Return of Arnie
After the cameo in the first one, Arnie is "back" as he is fond of saying and firing away in action sequences. If the ravages of age were unkind on Sly in the first one, then the ravages are much harsher with the former Governator. He looks stiffer than ever before and somewhat saggy of skin and receding of hair.
That being said I do welcome Arnie back to the world of movies and fiction in general. It restores a sense of order in the universe.
O Bruce!
I think Bruce Willis fares worse in this film as well. Once upon a time he was Hudson Hawk getting a stern talking-to from an aged James Coburn. Now he's the aged dude giving stern talk to Sly and it just doesn't wash.
The star omnibus quality of this film sort of wears out about the time Jet Li parachutes out of the story line never to come back. Bruce Willis never seems to find the right tone for his participation in this film. As a result he comes across as Bruce Willis floundering between irony and bad taste.
I hope they don't make another one of these.
Sly and Co. are back for another ripper yarn of an adventure blowing up shit and shooting lots of people. As usual, nobody seriously gets hit or dies, Sylvester's character Barny gets hit twice, but he's wearing a bulletproof vest ("yay!") and everybody gets to show off something including Dolph Lundgren's comic turn. The gang is back for more, where more of everything is crammed into this nonsensical adventure.
What's Good About It
As with the first film, this one seems to have artistic pretensions. They're mere pretensions, but they are there, even in the muck and grind of low-brow action movies-ville, it's throbbing in there with a heart of pulp.
It's impressive they've managed to collar together all these stars of yesteryear. It's supposed to be a smorgasbord of Action stars, let loose to do their thing, and their thing mostly consists of shooting and maiming and blowing things up. Dialogue is to a minimum with a good dose of cheese. I'm not convinced this is all good, but if I bothered to watch it, it must be because I wanted to see Arnie say "I'll be back."
What's Bad About It
Pedestrian plotting, lame revenge plot, all-too-convenient appearances of Chuck Norris, and there's absolutely nothing you can take seriously, so it feels like a giant waste of time when you finish watching it.
It's like when you go to McDonalds because you've forgotten how awful it is, then you finish the burger and you vow never to have another McDonalds' burger. This film is exactly that kind of product. The strange thing is that world is in some marginal ay better with McDonalds and Coca Cola and films like this. It's hard to explain but easy to show - Growing up in communist Eastern Europe really sucked before the arrival of McDonalds, Coca Cola and Hollywood action movies. Now it sucks much less. You might bag out marginal use-value products like fast food and entertainment but they do have a rightful, net-positive place in the world.
What's Interesting About It
It's not nearly as interesting as the first one. Even Chuck Norris' participation is a little dull and not much flash.
The Return of Arnie
After the cameo in the first one, Arnie is "back" as he is fond of saying and firing away in action sequences. If the ravages of age were unkind on Sly in the first one, then the ravages are much harsher with the former Governator. He looks stiffer than ever before and somewhat saggy of skin and receding of hair.
That being said I do welcome Arnie back to the world of movies and fiction in general. It restores a sense of order in the universe.
O Bruce!
I think Bruce Willis fares worse in this film as well. Once upon a time he was Hudson Hawk getting a stern talking-to from an aged James Coburn. Now he's the aged dude giving stern talk to Sly and it just doesn't wash.
The star omnibus quality of this film sort of wears out about the time Jet Li parachutes out of the story line never to come back. Bruce Willis never seems to find the right tone for his participation in this film. As a result he comes across as Bruce Willis floundering between irony and bad taste.
I hope they don't make another one of these.
2013/01/04
Firebird VII
Firebird Sweet
My Big Guitar Project for 2012 turned out to be this red Gibson Firebird VII with gold trim like the picture above. It's a bit of confluence of things that led to this project but when I list to factors, you might grok in fullness the weird road to the Gibson Firebird VII.
The most familiar Firebird player in my collection of CDs is Clarence Gatemouth Brown. He had a swanky Firebird V, and there is no duplicating his clean tone without some Firebird under your fingers. It's just the way it is, because not only is the cut of the body an oddball shape, Firebirds sport minihumbuckers and walnut bodies, with through-body necks.
Other oddities in the Firebird design would be the through-neck design and the Cadillac-fin styling of the body (it was designed by a car designer Gibson Co. hired). It has had many variants over the years, but perhaps the most appealing to me is the Firebird VII with the 3 pickup with Maestro Vibrola arm. Yes, it's Gibson's copy of the Fender Stratocaster - even though they'd never admit the bleeding obvious - and being a dyed-in-the-wool Strat player, the one that resonates the most is the FB VII.
Of course, Gibson wares in Australia are always priced for lawyers, advertising execs and drug-dealers, so it was going to be hard to say, "Oh I'll check out the Gibson". Sure. On my way home from buying my Aston Martin Bond car.
Anyway, I thought if I could pick up an Epiphone version of the FB VII, I wouldn't mind loading it up with Seymour Duncans and giving it a red hot go. Of course, Epiphone stopped making their version some years back, so the opportunity seemed to be less than initially imagined. Then along came a full custom shop "body and neck only" in good nick, so that made me empty my piggy bank.
The thing about electric guitars is that you can go through life not knowing the subtleties of what goes into the sound and still be a great player. But if you want to be a unique player, you have to be willing to go much further afield than Strats, Telecasters, Les Pauls and Flying Vs. Similarly, with the choice of wood, you have to leave behind Swamp Ash or Alder or Mahogany. Walnut is the thing! (technically, there is mahogany sandwiched in the FB VII, but the 'wings' are Walnut).
Walnut warrants a bit of explication. Alembic use Walnut to build thru-body neck designs for their high end product. The grain is open but tight and so there is a fair chunk of density. It has a higher tone than Mahogany, Swamp Ash or Alder, but is not as bright as Maple. Walnut shows great resonance when you rap it with your knuckles. One of my pet dream projects is to build a guitar around a big Walnut body - like a L5S body - and a Walnut neck, to get the maximum wood tone of Walnut and call it 'Wally'.
The surprsing thing about the Firebird design is just how much wood there is in it. When I sit it next to a Stratocaster, it's clear it has so much more wood in the headstock and body. This is important because what gives an electric guitar distinctive tone is the wood; and the more wood there is, the more complex and rich the decay of the envelope. Add in the fact that there is no neck joint and you have the recipe for a very rich sounding guitar.
I installed Seymour Duncan SM-1n in the neck and S-M3n and SM-3b for the middle and bridge positions. They're all wound around Alnico V magnets instead of ceramic magnets, which gives them a warmer, 'rounded' tone. I guess one could dream about getting Alnico II versions from somewhere, but Alnico Vs should be good enough for now.
Wiring up was a little strange. The Firebird chamber is very small, and it sports 3 Volume knobs and 1 Tone, but only a 3 way switch. I tried using a 6 way switch but that didn't work out too well. The 3 Volume pots makes things interesting, especially because there's effectively no Master Volume control, but there is a master Tone control. You do have more control over tonal combinations between the pickups but the wiring is convoluted as a result of the choice.
The tuning pegs were also an interesting problem. Because of the oddball design in the headstock and tuners, I had to get Steinberger Gearless Tuners. These are interesting things because they work like a clamp and a shifter rather than the traditional winding on to posts. They too were a learning exercise but now that they're on, they seem to be very stable tuners.
The weird thing about the Gibson Firebird is that there is nothing apart from the body and neck that can't be improved by third party parts. The Seymour Duncans are better than the Gibson minihumbuckers; the third party Vibrola copy is more stable than the original; there is a roller saddle bridge with locking posts out there that is an improvement on the Tune-o-matic bridge favoured by Gibson. All the same, when you string it up and set up the action, you're confronted by the great craftsmanship on the body and neck. It sure makes you wonder about the Gibson company.
My Big Guitar Project for 2012 turned out to be this red Gibson Firebird VII with gold trim like the picture above. It's a bit of confluence of things that led to this project but when I list to factors, you might grok in fullness the weird road to the Gibson Firebird VII.
The most familiar Firebird player in my collection of CDs is Clarence Gatemouth Brown. He had a swanky Firebird V, and there is no duplicating his clean tone without some Firebird under your fingers. It's just the way it is, because not only is the cut of the body an oddball shape, Firebirds sport minihumbuckers and walnut bodies, with through-body necks.
Other oddities in the Firebird design would be the through-neck design and the Cadillac-fin styling of the body (it was designed by a car designer Gibson Co. hired). It has had many variants over the years, but perhaps the most appealing to me is the Firebird VII with the 3 pickup with Maestro Vibrola arm. Yes, it's Gibson's copy of the Fender Stratocaster - even though they'd never admit the bleeding obvious - and being a dyed-in-the-wool Strat player, the one that resonates the most is the FB VII.
Of course, Gibson wares in Australia are always priced for lawyers, advertising execs and drug-dealers, so it was going to be hard to say, "Oh I'll check out the Gibson". Sure. On my way home from buying my Aston Martin Bond car.
Anyway, I thought if I could pick up an Epiphone version of the FB VII, I wouldn't mind loading it up with Seymour Duncans and giving it a red hot go. Of course, Epiphone stopped making their version some years back, so the opportunity seemed to be less than initially imagined. Then along came a full custom shop "body and neck only" in good nick, so that made me empty my piggy bank.
The thing about electric guitars is that you can go through life not knowing the subtleties of what goes into the sound and still be a great player. But if you want to be a unique player, you have to be willing to go much further afield than Strats, Telecasters, Les Pauls and Flying Vs. Similarly, with the choice of wood, you have to leave behind Swamp Ash or Alder or Mahogany. Walnut is the thing! (technically, there is mahogany sandwiched in the FB VII, but the 'wings' are Walnut).
Walnut warrants a bit of explication. Alembic use Walnut to build thru-body neck designs for their high end product. The grain is open but tight and so there is a fair chunk of density. It has a higher tone than Mahogany, Swamp Ash or Alder, but is not as bright as Maple. Walnut shows great resonance when you rap it with your knuckles. One of my pet dream projects is to build a guitar around a big Walnut body - like a L5S body - and a Walnut neck, to get the maximum wood tone of Walnut and call it 'Wally'.
The surprsing thing about the Firebird design is just how much wood there is in it. When I sit it next to a Stratocaster, it's clear it has so much more wood in the headstock and body. This is important because what gives an electric guitar distinctive tone is the wood; and the more wood there is, the more complex and rich the decay of the envelope. Add in the fact that there is no neck joint and you have the recipe for a very rich sounding guitar.
I installed Seymour Duncan SM-1n in the neck and S-M3n and SM-3b for the middle and bridge positions. They're all wound around Alnico V magnets instead of ceramic magnets, which gives them a warmer, 'rounded' tone. I guess one could dream about getting Alnico II versions from somewhere, but Alnico Vs should be good enough for now.
Wiring up was a little strange. The Firebird chamber is very small, and it sports 3 Volume knobs and 1 Tone, but only a 3 way switch. I tried using a 6 way switch but that didn't work out too well. The 3 Volume pots makes things interesting, especially because there's effectively no Master Volume control, but there is a master Tone control. You do have more control over tonal combinations between the pickups but the wiring is convoluted as a result of the choice.
The tuning pegs were also an interesting problem. Because of the oddball design in the headstock and tuners, I had to get Steinberger Gearless Tuners. These are interesting things because they work like a clamp and a shifter rather than the traditional winding on to posts. They too were a learning exercise but now that they're on, they seem to be very stable tuners.
The weird thing about the Gibson Firebird is that there is nothing apart from the body and neck that can't be improved by third party parts. The Seymour Duncans are better than the Gibson minihumbuckers; the third party Vibrola copy is more stable than the original; there is a roller saddle bridge with locking posts out there that is an improvement on the Tune-o-matic bridge favoured by Gibson. All the same, when you string it up and set up the action, you're confronted by the great craftsmanship on the body and neck. It sure makes you wonder about the Gibson company.
2012/12/30
Movie Doubles - 'Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides' & 'Freelancers'
The Picaresque And Pretense of Evil
Today's movie double is about the 'bad guy as hero'. The broad genre convention of picaresques is that the main character be something of a charmer but somehow lacking in moral fortitude. The classic definition involves the satirical content as well as the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society.
It seems interesting to compare Johnny Depp in his fourth outing as Captain Jack Sparrow is solidly set in his piratical ways, while 50cent tries to extend his rap singer persona out as a rookie cop turned bad cop 'Malo'. The Picaresque might be making a comeback in these uncertain times.
A World Of Crooks
The civilised parts of the world in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' are always so full of stuffy nasty poncy Englishmen who seem either captive servitors of a rather nasty system, or servile, willing collaborators for the rich and nasty types. The promise of freedom is offered up by the pirates and their way of life. By this, the fourth installation, it seems like a ritual that somebody attempts to hang Jack Sparrow which leads to a dating escape. Somehow these sequences get more elaborate and silly as the films go on.
Similarly in 'Freelancers', the world of New York City police force life for rookie cop 'Malo' seems to be a foregone conclusion of corruption and mayhem. The senior police represented in this little segment of the world seem to be all heavily compromised in their ethical stances. Led by Robert De Niro's Joe Sarcone (whose main purpose seems to be to lend weight to this trifling film with his actorly baggage of good films), the senior cops provide bad examples for the newly minted rookie cops.
Both these films paint bleak portraits of society, although it has to be said the Pirate movies are not serious at all about its portrayal of class in England. Meanwhile, 'Freelancers' seems to want to make the serious point that every second cop in New York City is crooked, mostly by necessity of the socius. It's a difficult claim to take seriously, but, because 50cent has a public persona to maintain, this is what we get.
Whereas the Pirate movie offers us moments of genuine delight and abrasive satire at the pomp of the British Royal family, 'Freelancers' wants us to take the social commentary very seriously. Now, it might be the case that the police in New York City are corrupt, but this movie portrays the rookie cops like idiots and babes in the woods, ready to be corrupted by the older hands.
The flipside of this is that they're all portrayals of a certain kind of Americana. Jack Sparrow exists defiant and opposite to the British class system, which informs the kind of gun-toting second-amendment-loving diatribe that falls out of the the birth of the USA. You could read the supernatural story of Jack Sparrow as kind of metaphorical birth of America. Meanwhile, 'Freelancers' paints a picture of where America is today and the irony is that the society portrayed by the latter film is just as bad as the society that tries to hang Jack Sparrow every episode.
The Anti-Establishment Credentials
It makes me laugh to read that in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, the NRA thinks Hollywood films and violent video games and music videos have to shoulder some blame. If ever there was an entity that basically provokes this irrational fear of edgy entertainment, it is a rap star like 50 Cent.
It goes without saying that 50 Cent and his persona cannot relinquish the street, so the film ends up being a tortured revenge story where the main character is hardly heroic; he's more a vagabond in a cop uniform, ready to go on the take faster than you can say "fifty cents". If this willful distortion of 'values' doesn't grind people's gears and their sense of society, then surely the film needs some kind of ballast and that seems to be what Robert De Niro and Forest Whitaker provide. Combined, the film has an all-over-the-shop sort of mimesis that simply has not existed before, where the audience is rooting for a bad cop played by a gangsta-rapper.
Forget the ubiquity of drugs and the tortured discourse about the 'n-word', the film staggers along what can only be described as the social sewers of New York, all the while people are snorting and fucking and snorting while fucking. For me, it's kind of a dystopia, but this film is pitched for somebody - I feel sorry for that somebody. As picaresques go, this one makes you wonder if western civilisation has reached a saturation point in decadence.
The Fountain Of Youth As Arbitrary Symbol
One of the most peculiar concerns in 'Pirates IV' is that the characters are in search of the fountain of youth, while the main character seems rather oblique to these passions. It's not clear that Jack Sparrow wants to get there, let alone take part in the required ritual at the end of the journey. It seems incredibly disingenuous even, that Jack Sparrow would not be interested in the fountain of youth if such a thing existed - and this being a movie, of course it exists.
His sometime nemesis and other-time partner in crime Hector Barbossa is equally disinterested in the fountain. He's after revenge against Blackbeard, so it is purely coincidental that the fountain of youth is involved in the story. For all he cares he would have his revenge on the streets of London or a pub somewhere. The character who has the clear motivation of getting to the fountain then is the villain Blackbeard except it is not even clear he believes in the necessity. On some level he seems to be resigned to his fate of being killed by the one-legged man. He's only going because he's being goaded into it by his daughter.
This explains the title in a roundabout way, why it might not be 'Fountain of Youth' but 'On Stranger Tides'. The film's main characters are actually oddly blase about getting to the destination.
Do They Learn Anything?
Picaresques in general are narratives to highlight and satirise the societies in which they are set . That being said, it is hard to see if the main characters in these stories really learn anything. Even Jack Sparrow seems largely unchanged by any and all the adventures he has found himself. The inability to change is probably due to the fact that the authorial voice is usually couched through the incredulity or passive-aggressive compliance of the main characters. Thus Jack Sparrow seemingly eludes any emotional change as readily he eludes his captors in the big chase show pieces, right across 4 films.
In 'Freelancers', it is clear that 'Malo' learns something about his father and therefore his own identity. Whether what he learns contributes anything positive is rather questionable, as even the ending shows that Malo might be much happier operating on the wrong side of the law than the right one.
Malo finds out that his father was a crooked cop on the take. His father died when he tried to turn states evidence, and Joe Sarcone found out and killed him. When Malo grows up to be a cop, the first thing Joe Sarcone does is recruit Malo. This is a mystery given the prior history - the man ought to fear revenge, but there is no such sign of consternation. Malo, gets with the crooked cop routine like fish to water. this to is mysterious. it doesn't seem to occur to Malo to walk the straight and narrow. Instead his own solution is to betray Joe, set him up for a hit, while also tipping off the DEA (which, in the scheme of things makes no sense).
So Malo too expresses the authorial voice's - probably 50cent's own - need to castigate New York City, but at the same time he is entirely complicit in the bullshit. It might dress itself up as some kind of social critique but it's pretty piss poor in quality when it is too easy on itself.
Schtick As Acting, Acting As Schtick
I've pointed out before how, the more something veers toward comedy, the layers of acting increase. So we know that 'Stranger Tides' is firmly a comedy early on when we are presented with Jack Sparrow pretending to be a judge and Penelope Cruz's Angelica pretending to be Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa pretending to be a respectable privateer for His Majesty. Geoffrey Rush's turn as Hector Barbossa seems to grow more arch and convoluted with each outing. This time he is missing a leg but he uses his stump peg leg as a flask.
I've been told this kind of acting is over-acting and in bad taste but alas a) I have a taste for bad comedy and find it hard to throw away and b) I have a strong distaste for realism as a benchmark. Especially in a flipping weird series of films as the Pirates of Caribbean, where at some point a ship is rolled across the desert on rocks or eyeballs or whatever. Realism that, fellas.
In Hollywood fare, it's immensely difficult to see the acting for the stars, and the star system banks on the fact that you don't see the acting - that you only see the schtick.Tom Cruise's entire career has been built on this premise. In this day and age, do you really get to see Robert De Niro *act*, or do you get to see Robert De Niro trot out his schtick? Lately I'm inclined to think it's the latter, the longer the career goes. Is he phoning it in? Probably. But I imagine I would have ended up watching 'Freelancers' any way, even if Joe Sarcone had been played by... Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino, Danny Aiello, or even Danny DeVito. It might have been even better had it been Danny DeVito. I don't know what to make of Forest Whitaker and Robert De Niro's turn in 'Freelancers'; Even accounting for them phoning it in, it's a pretty ordinary effort. Especially the scene where both of them order Malo to snort not one but two lines of cocaine. I found myself thinking "this is too fucking stupid for words." Except at some point somebody wrote the script with those very words. The God of Filmmaking is not only blind, he's illiterate as well. 50 Cent's acting is pretty ordinary, even allowing for my lax tastes. I can handle ham, I can handle cheese, or for that matter ham with cheese. I just can't handle crap, and this is crap.
What Frightens Me
Hollywood is hard up for ideas. That's why Pirates of the Caribbean is on to it's Fourth film and maybe there's even going to be yet another sequel. it's a money making machine, born out of a theme park ride and mostly devoid of any ambition in its narrative stakes. 'Freelancers' is some kind of garbled street cred movie from a rap star. It's clear they're hard up for good ideas and they've lost the balls for doing anything daring.
Given the parlous state of Hollywood, what frightens me is that 'Freelancers' will have a sequel.
Today's movie double is about the 'bad guy as hero'. The broad genre convention of picaresques is that the main character be something of a charmer but somehow lacking in moral fortitude. The classic definition involves the satirical content as well as the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society.
It seems interesting to compare Johnny Depp in his fourth outing as Captain Jack Sparrow is solidly set in his piratical ways, while 50cent tries to extend his rap singer persona out as a rookie cop turned bad cop 'Malo'. The Picaresque might be making a comeback in these uncertain times.
A World Of Crooks
The civilised parts of the world in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' are always so full of stuffy nasty poncy Englishmen who seem either captive servitors of a rather nasty system, or servile, willing collaborators for the rich and nasty types. The promise of freedom is offered up by the pirates and their way of life. By this, the fourth installation, it seems like a ritual that somebody attempts to hang Jack Sparrow which leads to a dating escape. Somehow these sequences get more elaborate and silly as the films go on.
Similarly in 'Freelancers', the world of New York City police force life for rookie cop 'Malo' seems to be a foregone conclusion of corruption and mayhem. The senior police represented in this little segment of the world seem to be all heavily compromised in their ethical stances. Led by Robert De Niro's Joe Sarcone (whose main purpose seems to be to lend weight to this trifling film with his actorly baggage of good films), the senior cops provide bad examples for the newly minted rookie cops.
Both these films paint bleak portraits of society, although it has to be said the Pirate movies are not serious at all about its portrayal of class in England. Meanwhile, 'Freelancers' seems to want to make the serious point that every second cop in New York City is crooked, mostly by necessity of the socius. It's a difficult claim to take seriously, but, because 50cent has a public persona to maintain, this is what we get.
Whereas the Pirate movie offers us moments of genuine delight and abrasive satire at the pomp of the British Royal family, 'Freelancers' wants us to take the social commentary very seriously. Now, it might be the case that the police in New York City are corrupt, but this movie portrays the rookie cops like idiots and babes in the woods, ready to be corrupted by the older hands.
The flipside of this is that they're all portrayals of a certain kind of Americana. Jack Sparrow exists defiant and opposite to the British class system, which informs the kind of gun-toting second-amendment-loving diatribe that falls out of the the birth of the USA. You could read the supernatural story of Jack Sparrow as kind of metaphorical birth of America. Meanwhile, 'Freelancers' paints a picture of where America is today and the irony is that the society portrayed by the latter film is just as bad as the society that tries to hang Jack Sparrow every episode.
The Anti-Establishment Credentials
It makes me laugh to read that in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, the NRA thinks Hollywood films and violent video games and music videos have to shoulder some blame. If ever there was an entity that basically provokes this irrational fear of edgy entertainment, it is a rap star like 50 Cent.
It goes without saying that 50 Cent and his persona cannot relinquish the street, so the film ends up being a tortured revenge story where the main character is hardly heroic; he's more a vagabond in a cop uniform, ready to go on the take faster than you can say "fifty cents". If this willful distortion of 'values' doesn't grind people's gears and their sense of society, then surely the film needs some kind of ballast and that seems to be what Robert De Niro and Forest Whitaker provide. Combined, the film has an all-over-the-shop sort of mimesis that simply has not existed before, where the audience is rooting for a bad cop played by a gangsta-rapper.
Forget the ubiquity of drugs and the tortured discourse about the 'n-word', the film staggers along what can only be described as the social sewers of New York, all the while people are snorting and fucking and snorting while fucking. For me, it's kind of a dystopia, but this film is pitched for somebody - I feel sorry for that somebody. As picaresques go, this one makes you wonder if western civilisation has reached a saturation point in decadence.
The Fountain Of Youth As Arbitrary Symbol
One of the most peculiar concerns in 'Pirates IV' is that the characters are in search of the fountain of youth, while the main character seems rather oblique to these passions. It's not clear that Jack Sparrow wants to get there, let alone take part in the required ritual at the end of the journey. It seems incredibly disingenuous even, that Jack Sparrow would not be interested in the fountain of youth if such a thing existed - and this being a movie, of course it exists.
His sometime nemesis and other-time partner in crime Hector Barbossa is equally disinterested in the fountain. He's after revenge against Blackbeard, so it is purely coincidental that the fountain of youth is involved in the story. For all he cares he would have his revenge on the streets of London or a pub somewhere. The character who has the clear motivation of getting to the fountain then is the villain Blackbeard except it is not even clear he believes in the necessity. On some level he seems to be resigned to his fate of being killed by the one-legged man. He's only going because he's being goaded into it by his daughter.
This explains the title in a roundabout way, why it might not be 'Fountain of Youth' but 'On Stranger Tides'. The film's main characters are actually oddly blase about getting to the destination.
Do They Learn Anything?
Picaresques in general are narratives to highlight and satirise the societies in which they are set . That being said, it is hard to see if the main characters in these stories really learn anything. Even Jack Sparrow seems largely unchanged by any and all the adventures he has found himself. The inability to change is probably due to the fact that the authorial voice is usually couched through the incredulity or passive-aggressive compliance of the main characters. Thus Jack Sparrow seemingly eludes any emotional change as readily he eludes his captors in the big chase show pieces, right across 4 films.
In 'Freelancers', it is clear that 'Malo' learns something about his father and therefore his own identity. Whether what he learns contributes anything positive is rather questionable, as even the ending shows that Malo might be much happier operating on the wrong side of the law than the right one.
Malo finds out that his father was a crooked cop on the take. His father died when he tried to turn states evidence, and Joe Sarcone found out and killed him. When Malo grows up to be a cop, the first thing Joe Sarcone does is recruit Malo. This is a mystery given the prior history - the man ought to fear revenge, but there is no such sign of consternation. Malo, gets with the crooked cop routine like fish to water. this to is mysterious. it doesn't seem to occur to Malo to walk the straight and narrow. Instead his own solution is to betray Joe, set him up for a hit, while also tipping off the DEA (which, in the scheme of things makes no sense).
So Malo too expresses the authorial voice's - probably 50cent's own - need to castigate New York City, but at the same time he is entirely complicit in the bullshit. It might dress itself up as some kind of social critique but it's pretty piss poor in quality when it is too easy on itself.
Schtick As Acting, Acting As Schtick
I've pointed out before how, the more something veers toward comedy, the layers of acting increase. So we know that 'Stranger Tides' is firmly a comedy early on when we are presented with Jack Sparrow pretending to be a judge and Penelope Cruz's Angelica pretending to be Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa pretending to be a respectable privateer for His Majesty. Geoffrey Rush's turn as Hector Barbossa seems to grow more arch and convoluted with each outing. This time he is missing a leg but he uses his stump peg leg as a flask.
I've been told this kind of acting is over-acting and in bad taste but alas a) I have a taste for bad comedy and find it hard to throw away and b) I have a strong distaste for realism as a benchmark. Especially in a flipping weird series of films as the Pirates of Caribbean, where at some point a ship is rolled across the desert on rocks or eyeballs or whatever. Realism that, fellas.
In Hollywood fare, it's immensely difficult to see the acting for the stars, and the star system banks on the fact that you don't see the acting - that you only see the schtick.Tom Cruise's entire career has been built on this premise. In this day and age, do you really get to see Robert De Niro *act*, or do you get to see Robert De Niro trot out his schtick? Lately I'm inclined to think it's the latter, the longer the career goes. Is he phoning it in? Probably. But I imagine I would have ended up watching 'Freelancers' any way, even if Joe Sarcone had been played by... Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Paul Sorvino, Danny Aiello, or even Danny DeVito. It might have been even better had it been Danny DeVito. I don't know what to make of Forest Whitaker and Robert De Niro's turn in 'Freelancers'; Even accounting for them phoning it in, it's a pretty ordinary effort. Especially the scene where both of them order Malo to snort not one but two lines of cocaine. I found myself thinking "this is too fucking stupid for words." Except at some point somebody wrote the script with those very words. The God of Filmmaking is not only blind, he's illiterate as well. 50 Cent's acting is pretty ordinary, even allowing for my lax tastes. I can handle ham, I can handle cheese, or for that matter ham with cheese. I just can't handle crap, and this is crap.
What Frightens Me
Hollywood is hard up for ideas. That's why Pirates of the Caribbean is on to it's Fourth film and maybe there's even going to be yet another sequel. it's a money making machine, born out of a theme park ride and mostly devoid of any ambition in its narrative stakes. 'Freelancers' is some kind of garbled street cred movie from a rap star. It's clear they're hard up for good ideas and they've lost the balls for doing anything daring.
Given the parlous state of Hollywood, what frightens me is that 'Freelancers' will have a sequel.
2012/12/29
Contrasting Styles
Reforms, The Chinese Way
Here's an article about China needing reforms and here's an article about India needing reforms. It's interesting that they come up on the same day in the same way with similar problems.
China first.
There's a list of challenges this year for China, but basically there's no guessing how this reform will be accomplished. The leadership and its processes are opaque to the point of obscure. Nobody knows how they will deal with tough issues that involve vested interests. It's actually a deep mystery how they prioritise their issues.
This is in stark contrast to India:
There's a democratically elected leader pointing to the problems with no veiled language that needs to be dissected and decoded. The article then goes on to a discussion about the need for a Goods and Services Tax.
I offer this up as interesting because with China you have an oligarchic state that will do what's required from the top down without any insight into the debate while with India you have a state that spells out what needs to be done but must build a difficult consensus in order to get those things done.
If I were an investor, I'd be challenged by what is on offer here. On the one hand it's high growth, multiple and high political risks with China, and relatively lower growth with comparatively lower political risk with India. Not to lowball China's accomplishments so far, but the lack of transparency in China just scares the hell out of me. Equally, tales of vast inefficiencies, and red tape in India would brown me off from putting money there in a hurry.
Here's an article about China needing reforms and here's an article about India needing reforms. It's interesting that they come up on the same day in the same way with similar problems.
China first.
Chinese officials did little to dispel some of the more extreme rumours, including that he was seriously ill, or that he was hit in the back with a chair hurled during a meeting that turned violent with a fellow ''princeling'' - a term used to describe the close-knit network of sons and daughters of revolutionary heroes increasingly gaining influence and political capital in China. Again, no explanation was proffered.
China's standing in the world now, combined with the lack of regular access to senior politicians, has meant the increasing horde of China-watchers tend to hang off every public utterance from the likes of Xi, trying to read between the lines, squinting for subtle messages in what is invariably tightly scripted party-speak.
Just this month, Xi's visit to Shenzhen, in China's south, drew close attention from state and international media. Shenzhen was a stop on Deng Xiaoping's landmark southern tour in 1992 - the genesis of the catchcry ''to get rich is glorious'' - and where he canvassed support for his platform of economic reform.
There's a list of challenges this year for China, but basically there's no guessing how this reform will be accomplished. The leadership and its processes are opaque to the point of obscure. Nobody knows how they will deal with tough issues that involve vested interests. It's actually a deep mystery how they prioritise their issues.
This is in stark contrast to India:
''The current economic situation is difficult. The continuing crisis in the global economy … combined with some domestic constraints, has meant that our growth has also slowed down,'' Dr Singh told the National Development Council, India's major economic planning body that includes the leaders of all 28 states.
''Our first priority must be to reverse this slowdown. We cannot change the global economy, but we can do something about the domestic constraints which have contributed to the downturn.''
Dr Singh said the world's largest democracy needed major economic reforms, and rapidly, to lift its poorest citizens from poverty.
An estimated 400 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day.
''We must remember that we are still a low-income country. We need 20 years of rapid growth to bring it to middle-income level. The journey is long and requires hard work.''
India's growth rate for the fiscal year ending in March is expected to be 5.7 to 5.9 per cent, the slowest since 2002-03.
There's a democratically elected leader pointing to the problems with no veiled language that needs to be dissected and decoded. The article then goes on to a discussion about the need for a Goods and Services Tax.
I offer this up as interesting because with China you have an oligarchic state that will do what's required from the top down without any insight into the debate while with India you have a state that spells out what needs to be done but must build a difficult consensus in order to get those things done.
If I were an investor, I'd be challenged by what is on offer here. On the one hand it's high growth, multiple and high political risks with China, and relatively lower growth with comparatively lower political risk with India. Not to lowball China's accomplishments so far, but the lack of transparency in China just scares the hell out of me. Equally, tales of vast inefficiencies, and red tape in India would brown me off from putting money there in a hurry.
2012/12/23
Harmon Kardon Sound Stick III
Plastic Can Sound This Good?
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="665"]
Harmon Kardon Sound Stick III[/caption]
For Christmas, my better half bought a Harmon Kardon Sound Stick III system for me to use in the kitchen. The original idea was to get a Boom Box so I could just plug in the iPod, but a bit of shopping around and auditioning led us to this contraption which has been around in one version or another for a good decade, but the current version really sparkled.
Truth be known, I was mean to most of the Boom Boxes and powered speakers on display in JB Hi-Fi - I ran original instrument violins and cellos sawing their way through J.S. Bach, which is not the kind of music those things are generally designed for. All the same, the Sound Stick IIIs were able to give a sense of timbre beyond the squeaky 'squeeeeeee' of the original instruments and the shop demo doof music seemed to have some kind of shape. it wasn't much to go on, but it was a loud shop at Christmas Shopping time.
Even then you could hear this thing was head and shoulders above anything in its price range, let alone stuff for which they were asking twice the money. It was the only system where the strings sounded like strings and harpsichord sounded like harpsichord, and Glenn Gould moans sounded like Glenn Gould moans. The dude in the shop wasn't particularly impressed I was pumping piano music loud just so I could hear Glenn Gould moan, but ... you get that. Soon enough, we decided this one would do.
Once I got home and ran some full-blooded rock and full-hearted jazz through these things, the sound scape just expanded and filled the space like some bit of proper hi-fi equipment. And I found myself staring at the marvelous plastic object, honestly wondering from where in the good name of the lord, this sound was being summoned, because the clear bits of plastic just don't look like they should be doing this well.
When you look at it closely you can see the sticks are in fact little baffled speakers in their own right, while the main sub unit is like an alien dome with its own baffle design. The design itself has been around for a few years now and it's allegedly in the New York Museum of Modern Art for its design, which tells you it ticks the Modernist chic box nice and well. I remember seeing the original ones thinking, "oh, yeah, that looks interesting... but all that plastic?" I've got a lot of prejudice about materials that way - But the marvel is when you run a bit of King Crimson or Herbie Hancock or even the remastered Sgt. Peppers through it from the iPod. Yes, the damn iPod Classic running 192kbps AAC files. Plastic? You can not hear the plastic. Honestly, this thing has got me baffled with how well it works.
A clear plastic thing hurling out monster sound. Go figure that one out.
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="665"]
Harmon Kardon Sound Stick III[/caption]For Christmas, my better half bought a Harmon Kardon Sound Stick III system for me to use in the kitchen. The original idea was to get a Boom Box so I could just plug in the iPod, but a bit of shopping around and auditioning led us to this contraption which has been around in one version or another for a good decade, but the current version really sparkled.
Truth be known, I was mean to most of the Boom Boxes and powered speakers on display in JB Hi-Fi - I ran original instrument violins and cellos sawing their way through J.S. Bach, which is not the kind of music those things are generally designed for. All the same, the Sound Stick IIIs were able to give a sense of timbre beyond the squeaky 'squeeeeeee' of the original instruments and the shop demo doof music seemed to have some kind of shape. it wasn't much to go on, but it was a loud shop at Christmas Shopping time.
Even then you could hear this thing was head and shoulders above anything in its price range, let alone stuff for which they were asking twice the money. It was the only system where the strings sounded like strings and harpsichord sounded like harpsichord, and Glenn Gould moans sounded like Glenn Gould moans. The dude in the shop wasn't particularly impressed I was pumping piano music loud just so I could hear Glenn Gould moan, but ... you get that. Soon enough, we decided this one would do.
Once I got home and ran some full-blooded rock and full-hearted jazz through these things, the sound scape just expanded and filled the space like some bit of proper hi-fi equipment. And I found myself staring at the marvelous plastic object, honestly wondering from where in the good name of the lord, this sound was being summoned, because the clear bits of plastic just don't look like they should be doing this well.
When you look at it closely you can see the sticks are in fact little baffled speakers in their own right, while the main sub unit is like an alien dome with its own baffle design. The design itself has been around for a few years now and it's allegedly in the New York Museum of Modern Art for its design, which tells you it ticks the Modernist chic box nice and well. I remember seeing the original ones thinking, "oh, yeah, that looks interesting... but all that plastic?" I've got a lot of prejudice about materials that way - But the marvel is when you run a bit of King Crimson or Herbie Hancock or even the remastered Sgt. Peppers through it from the iPod. Yes, the damn iPod Classic running 192kbps AAC files. Plastic? You can not hear the plastic. Honestly, this thing has got me baffled with how well it works.
A clear plastic thing hurling out monster sound. Go figure that one out.
2012/12/19
News That's Fit To Punt - 18/Dec/2012
Shinzo Abe Wins In Japan
Predictably, the Democrats lost in Japan to the Liberal Democrats in the election on Sunday. now that the dust has cleared, there's a lot of talk about how this is a hard move to the right. The DPJ were not only kicked out, they were more decimated to about one sixth of representation. in the landslide, the 'Restoration Party' also picked up a bunch of seats in the lower house, putting them at about equal footing with the DPJ, while the Social democrats got smashed to two seats. The end for Prime Minster was more crash-and-burn than going out in style.
What's got my interest right now more than all this talk of Japan might be turning hard to the right is the notion that Shinzo Abe wants to challenge the Bank of Japan to do the kind of Quantitative Easing in the style of Ben Bernanke and the US Federal Reserve.
Which, when you think about it is pretty enticing. It's certainly a return to Keynsian economic thinking, and something I've been wondering for some years now. Japan was actually coming out of the lost decade around 2007 when the GFC kicked in, and since then, asset deflation has hit growth pretty hard. More to the point, if there's one nation that could have printed more money in the last 20years,it was Japan.
Now, there are reasons the Bank of Japan hasn't simply printed money, and this is because the property bubble came about because there was so much cash flying around the economy, looking for places to be invested; and under the old hyper regulated markets of Japan, inevitably found their way to real estate which led to the Bubble. Since then of course there's been a whole lot of deregulation. It may work better now that there has been all this deregulation that has happened since 1990.
This next bit also got my attention:
You can just see the successor to Shirakawa - whoever it's going to be - would want to put up a big fight with Abe. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me that if one sector in Japan has made lots of money since the Bubble, it's actually the banks. Banks everywhere seem to thrive a lot better when interest rates are lower, and the banks in Japan have been able to grow steadily in spite of the low growth economy for quite some years now. So, rocking the boat and printing money may actually be something the banks would like. The Bank of Japan claiming it's been holding off inflation seems to have been way off the mark for most of the time since the Bubble burst.
No More Of Tanaka In Niigata Ward 5
Daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, Makiko Tanaka lost her seat to Tadayoshi Nagashima of the LDP. The interesting thing about that is that it happened in Niigata where the name of Kakuei Tanaka brings awe (and graft money by the truckload). Some of you might know this but the man who deposed her is the former mayor of Yamakoshi village that suffered greatly from an Earthquake earlier in the decade, and led the recovery of that village for years.
I met Mr. Nagashima when he came out to Sydney for the Japanese Film Festival. He is a career politician in many ways, but he did it from the ground up. He's not one of those people who come from dynastic families of politicians, unlike Makiko Tanaka, who is the epitome of that problem. Whatever Makiko Tanaka might say, she lost to a man who knew the electorate and understood how to do elections there. Talk about an end of an era that dates back to the mid 1950s.
Good Riddance, I say.
Predictably, the Democrats lost in Japan to the Liberal Democrats in the election on Sunday. now that the dust has cleared, there's a lot of talk about how this is a hard move to the right. The DPJ were not only kicked out, they were more decimated to about one sixth of representation. in the landslide, the 'Restoration Party' also picked up a bunch of seats in the lower house, putting them at about equal footing with the DPJ, while the Social democrats got smashed to two seats. The end for Prime Minster was more crash-and-burn than going out in style.
What's got my interest right now more than all this talk of Japan might be turning hard to the right is the notion that Shinzo Abe wants to challenge the Bank of Japan to do the kind of Quantitative Easing in the style of Ben Bernanke and the US Federal Reserve.
Mr Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won a landslide victory on Sunday, securing a two-thirds "super-majority" in the Diet with allies that can override senate vetoes.
Armed with a crushing mandate, Mr Abe said he would "set a policy accord" with the Bank of Japan for a mandatory inflation target of 2 per cent, backed by "unlimited" monetary stimulus.
"It's very rare for monetary policy to be the focus of an election. We campaigned on the need to beat deflation, and our argument has won strong support. I hope the Bank of Japan accepts the results and takes an appropriate decision," he said.
The menace behind his words did not have to be spelled out. He has already threatened to change the Bank of Japan’s governing law if it refuses to comply.
"An all-out attack on deflation is on its way," said Jesper Koll, Japanese equity chief at JPMorgan.
Mr Abe plans to empower an economic council to "spearhead" a shift in fiscal and monetary strategy, eviscerating the central bank’s independence.
The council is to set a 3 per cent growth target for nominal GDP, embracing a theory pushed by a small band of "market monetarists" around the world.
Which, when you think about it is pretty enticing. It's certainly a return to Keynsian economic thinking, and something I've been wondering for some years now. Japan was actually coming out of the lost decade around 2007 when the GFC kicked in, and since then, asset deflation has hit growth pretty hard. More to the point, if there's one nation that could have printed more money in the last 20years,it was Japan.
Now, there are reasons the Bank of Japan hasn't simply printed money, and this is because the property bubble came about because there was so much cash flying around the economy, looking for places to be invested; and under the old hyper regulated markets of Japan, inevitably found their way to real estate which led to the Bubble. Since then of course there's been a whole lot of deregulation. It may work better now that there has been all this deregulation that has happened since 1990.
This next bit also got my attention:
"Any meaningful sell-off in the JGBs could trigger a serious problem in Japan’s banking system. The holdings of JGBs by Japanese banks account for 900pc of their Tier I capital," he said. Better the Devil you know.
Professor Richard Werner from Southampton University, author of Princes of the Yen, said the Bank of Japan is to blame for the country's failure to shake off its financial crisis in the early 1990s and for two Lost Decades of perma-slump that have followed. He accused the bank of dragging its feet at every stage, forcing governments to rely on huge fiscal deficits instead.
This tight-money/loose fiscal mix has pushed public debt to 240 per cent of GDP. The country would have been better served if the bank had stopped the rot immediately by flooding the money supply to kickstart lending. "It has taken 20 years and the Fed's Ben Bernanke to show them how to do it."
"Mr Abe has the right intentions but the Bank of Japan knows how to put up a fight. After watching the glacial moves in Japan for over 20 years - often in the wrong direction - I want to see the details before being sure that something really big is happening," he said.
You can just see the successor to Shirakawa - whoever it's going to be - would want to put up a big fight with Abe. Now, I don't know about you, but it seems to me that if one sector in Japan has made lots of money since the Bubble, it's actually the banks. Banks everywhere seem to thrive a lot better when interest rates are lower, and the banks in Japan have been able to grow steadily in spite of the low growth economy for quite some years now. So, rocking the boat and printing money may actually be something the banks would like. The Bank of Japan claiming it's been holding off inflation seems to have been way off the mark for most of the time since the Bubble burst.
No More Of Tanaka In Niigata Ward 5
Daughter of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, Makiko Tanaka lost her seat to Tadayoshi Nagashima of the LDP. The interesting thing about that is that it happened in Niigata where the name of Kakuei Tanaka brings awe (and graft money by the truckload). Some of you might know this but the man who deposed her is the former mayor of Yamakoshi village that suffered greatly from an Earthquake earlier in the decade, and led the recovery of that village for years.
I met Mr. Nagashima when he came out to Sydney for the Japanese Film Festival. He is a career politician in many ways, but he did it from the ground up. He's not one of those people who come from dynastic families of politicians, unlike Makiko Tanaka, who is the epitome of that problem. Whatever Makiko Tanaka might say, she lost to a man who knew the electorate and understood how to do elections there. Talk about an end of an era that dates back to the mid 1950s.
Good Riddance, I say.
2012/12/15
News That's Fit To Punt - 14/Dec/2012
How Low Can You Go, Bro(ugh)?
We all want to know this, now that the Federal Court has thrown out James Ashby's case. What's interesting about the case is not only did judge Steven Rares throw out the case, he awarded costs against Ashby. Which is to say, the judge thinks Ashby has not just been a public nuisance but a malicious muck-raker unto Peter Slipper and now must make amends to the man.
This has led to ALP front benchers accusing the Coalition of being part of a conspiracy, and Julia Gillard has called for Mal Brough to front up to a press conference in Canberra. It's all a little too late for Peter Slipper himself, as Anna Burke will stay Speaker of the House. Mal Brough will stay the candidate for the LNP trying to unseat Peter Slipper, and the Coalition has been pretending that they had nothing to do with Ashby's case. the problem of course is that the first person to fail the Cui Bono test is Tony Abbott and the second person to fail is everybody else in the Federal Coalition.
In my books, you don't call this sort of thing a 'conspiracy'. It's called gaming the system, and it's exactly why the judge threw out the case - he did not wish the court to be made into the Coalition's play thing. I'm sure there will be retaliation from the Coalition once they get into power; and it has to be said, they will deny that it is revenge when they exact it upon the judge.
We'll all have to hold our noses so long we'll go blue and die.
Weasel Words
Julia Gillard has said Abbott has to stop using weasel words:
As Mr Abbott today denied there was a Coalition conspiracy, Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott had to stop using ''weasel'' words over the matter and disendorse the Liberal National Party candidacy of Mal Brough - who the Federal Court found worked with James Ashby to harm Mr Slipper.
Which is funny because the Conservatives delight in weasel words. It's their credo that the language they speak is not English but Weasel Words. Pointing this out doesn't even constitute an insult. it's like telling a leopard won't change his spots - of course not, not only is it impossible, he's proud of them. I just thought I'd mention that.
Bob Carr's Lucky Break
This week, Julian Assange has been making noises he will run for the Senate in earnest. This is interesting because I've also noticed that the person who has been the least helpful to Asange's cause might be the foreign minster of Australia himself, Bob Carr. Yes, he who used to be the Premier of NSW and jumped before he got found out for running a corrupt ship of fools. There he was languishing in retirement, doing power walks around the footpaths of Iron Cove, and voila, his lifelong dream of being a foreign Minster opens up because Mark Arbib had to fall on his sword.
I seem to recall Mark Arbib got named as a CIA informant in leaked documents - documents leaked via good old Wikileaks - and so he had to fall on that sword; Mark Arbib's senate seat never would have opened up had it not been for the good work Julian Assange did in exposing that RattusRattus. Bob Carr is a net beneficiary there of the chain of events.
Well, it occurred to me today that Bob Carr should be thanking Julian Assange for allowing his lifelong dream to come true, and that he should do a much better job of protecting Mr. Assange and bringing him home.
I know he won't see it that way - he's the master of non sequitur responses and would claim some arcane reason why he's not - but it seems obvious as daylight if you bother to read the newspapers. Oh I forgot, nobody does that anymore.
2012/12/08
Forgetting Romnesia?
Mr. Romney's Ready For His Close Up, Mr. Spielberg
Here's something interesting out at the Economist about how the republicans are scapegoating Mitt Romney after his defeat.
The 47% incident pretty much sums up Romney campaign at this point in history, now that it's all said and done. It was a colossal 'blunder' - or moment of frankness - because the Democrats were working pretty hard to paint Romney as a plutocrat, and he essentially served up his own credo to be put in stocks and be pelted.
This all got me to be thinking about the Obama Campaign's campaign director Jim Messina and how he drew from a wide range of sources for his plan. The most inttersting bit in is that he consulted none other than Steven Spielberg:
Obviously that bit stuck in my mind for months because it shows that in going for the jugular, they picked the mind of the man who was most attuned to putting an emotive message across, and the advice was decisive. When you consider the Republicans got Clint Eastwood to turn up at their convention to talk to a chair, you get the feeling that the Republicans were more than a little behind in how messages are put out to the public. The Democrats were making ads with Spielberg's input to get the nuance exactly right while the Republicans were essentially waving symbols around - "Look, we got Clint Eastwood who used to be Dirty Harry!". The level of abstraction and sophistication is so low it beggars belief.
It was certainly an interesting moment in history because the Democratic machine was coming at them with what can only be described as 'applied Marshall McLuhan Communication Theory' and the Republicans were essentially doing things that weren't far removed from semaphore and cave paintings. Even if you don't take into account the demographic shift going against the white establishment, you seriously wonder if the Republicans are going to be able to get their heads around this problem, because it's not just who you talk to, but it's how you talk to them and what you tell them in order to persuade them.
They can scapegoat Mitt Romney all they like, but it seems to me they had much deeper problems than Mitt Romney being a gaff-prone plutocrat.
Here's something interesting out at the Economist about how the republicans are scapegoating Mitt Romney after his defeat.
Yet fair or unfair, the trashing of Mr Romney should be welcomed, because it shows signs of reflection among those now vying to lead the party. Mr Romney faces two main charges. First, he allowed the Republicans to be seen as a party of the rich. Second, he seemed to scorn social mobility. Exhibit A for both charges is the moment when Mr Romney was secretly filmed at a dinner with donors asserting that 47% of Americans are Democratic voters “no matter what” because they are dependent on government largesse, pay no federal income tax and are thus deaf to arguments about low taxes or personal responsibility.
In recent days, a string of grandees have singled out those comments for attack. Mitch Daniels, the outgoing governor of Indiana, calls the 47% incident a “self-inflicted fatal blow”, compounded shortly after the election when Mr Romney blamed defeat on voters greedy for government “gifts”. Ted Cruz, a senator-elect from Texas, claims (rather implausibly) that the 47% comments—rather than Republican hostility to immigration—explain Mr Romney’s dire showing among Latinos. Mr Romney’s running-mate, Paul Ryan, has let it be known that he “seethed” about his boss’s blunder.
The 47% incident pretty much sums up Romney campaign at this point in history, now that it's all said and done. It was a colossal 'blunder' - or moment of frankness - because the Democrats were working pretty hard to paint Romney as a plutocrat, and he essentially served up his own credo to be put in stocks and be pelted.
This all got me to be thinking about the Obama Campaign's campaign director Jim Messina and how he drew from a wide range of sources for his plan. The most inttersting bit in is that he consulted none other than Steven Spielberg:
Messina spent time with filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who briefed him on what messages got the attention of audience, and reportedly had input into a advertisement against Mitt Romney that highlighted his time at Bain Capital, a private equity firm that he co-founded.
"Romney had run on this business record of, 'I'm a manager, I know how to turn things around'. And the Obama strategy over the summer was to turn that positive into a negative by running these ads in states like Ohio, talking about Romney's record at Bain Capital - outsourcing, jobs, laying off workers," Mr Freedman said.
While the negative ad was slammed and described as many commentators as unsuccessful, Mr Freedman said the campaign against the Republican challenger, who was at that time still pre-occupied with the primary, ultimately appeared to be effective in the swing states.
Obviously that bit stuck in my mind for months because it shows that in going for the jugular, they picked the mind of the man who was most attuned to putting an emotive message across, and the advice was decisive. When you consider the Republicans got Clint Eastwood to turn up at their convention to talk to a chair, you get the feeling that the Republicans were more than a little behind in how messages are put out to the public. The Democrats were making ads with Spielberg's input to get the nuance exactly right while the Republicans were essentially waving symbols around - "Look, we got Clint Eastwood who used to be Dirty Harry!". The level of abstraction and sophistication is so low it beggars belief.
It was certainly an interesting moment in history because the Democratic machine was coming at them with what can only be described as 'applied Marshall McLuhan Communication Theory' and the Republicans were essentially doing things that weren't far removed from semaphore and cave paintings. Even if you don't take into account the demographic shift going against the white establishment, you seriously wonder if the Republicans are going to be able to get their heads around this problem, because it's not just who you talk to, but it's how you talk to them and what you tell them in order to persuade them.
They can scapegoat Mitt Romney all they like, but it seems to me they had much deeper problems than Mitt Romney being a gaff-prone plutocrat.
Burning Down The (Movie) House
From Miserable Failure To Abject Failure
A heads-up from Pleiades gave me this wonderful view of how a company purporting to be a Film & TV production company soaked up millions in investor funds and then hurriedly went into receivership.
Pierpont then goes into great detail as to what tipped him off that Robyn Gardiner's outfit was headed for financial disaster. What's amazing is that the adventure also sucked in S$27.5million of the Singaporean government's money - and once again we reiterate, without having made a single film.
The business side o the film industry can be quite opaque to outside observers, what with all these different types of 'producers', but in a nutshell it comes down to finishing up with a product on a certain date and delivering it to the market in the manner desired by the exhibitors. It goes without saying that the content has to be good and compelling; but also the films have to be able to go into other ancillary markets.
It's really hard to make money back from the market if you don't make a single film and call yourself a production company, while pulling down studio exec paychecks. Naturally, it follows that we have to be suspicious of the people involved, whether they really had any intention to produce any films, or not as the case may be. Without accusing anybody of anything, the track record described does make one wonder as to where exactly the priorities of the executives of RGM sat, given that inglorious track record.
Faking Bad
One understands that the free-to-air TV business is under great strain, like at no other time in the relatively short history of free-to-air television, with business models crumbling and advertising revenue plummeting. In that light it seemed rather odd that Lachlan Murdoch and Jamie Packer put themselves on the board of the Ten Network. Under their ownership, Ten has sunk from about $1.50 a share to 33cents. Some unkind people have been calling the Ten Network 'Two.Tel' and 'Ten.Tel'.
You get the drift.
Today, I found this article in the SMH that led me to think maybe this wasn't entirely unplanned.
As of this writing, Gina Rinehart has joined the other billionaires, so she too is playing ball. What if the billionaires were indeed planning on privatising the Ten Network and having decided on that course of action, gone to own trying to drive the share price down by driving the business into the ground? Could this even be possible?
You could see the motive, but that alone doesn't prove anything. They have the means to do such a thing, and sure enough the share price for Ten has gone down steadily in the last 24months. You'd be hard pressed to say the possibility wasn't there.
A heads-up from Pleiades gave me this wonderful view of how a company purporting to be a Film & TV production company soaked up millions in investor funds and then hurriedly went into receivership.
Pierpont never watched the sitcom, Hey Dad, so his withers were unwrung last September when its lead actor, Robert Hughes, was charged with sexually assaulting children.
Your correspondent has no idea whether Robert is guilty or not. However, while the authorities are at it, they might take a look at his wife’s company, where the wallets of investors have been getting assaulted a bit for the past couple of years.
Robert is married to Robyn Gardiner, who is quite a movie celebrity in her own right. In 1982 she set up Robyn Gardiner Management, attracting a galaxy of 300 clients including Cate Blanchett, Sigourney Weaver and Lisa McCune.
In 2005, Robyn moved her RGM group to Singapore to expand into Asian movies and TV.
In 2010, RGM Media listed in Australia. Since then it has burned through some $14 million and gone into administration without – as far as Pierpont can ascertain – ever producing a single movie or TV show.
Pierpont then goes into great detail as to what tipped him off that Robyn Gardiner's outfit was headed for financial disaster. What's amazing is that the adventure also sucked in S$27.5million of the Singaporean government's money - and once again we reiterate, without having made a single film.
The business side o the film industry can be quite opaque to outside observers, what with all these different types of 'producers', but in a nutshell it comes down to finishing up with a product on a certain date and delivering it to the market in the manner desired by the exhibitors. It goes without saying that the content has to be good and compelling; but also the films have to be able to go into other ancillary markets.
It's really hard to make money back from the market if you don't make a single film and call yourself a production company, while pulling down studio exec paychecks. Naturally, it follows that we have to be suspicious of the people involved, whether they really had any intention to produce any films, or not as the case may be. Without accusing anybody of anything, the track record described does make one wonder as to where exactly the priorities of the executives of RGM sat, given that inglorious track record.
Faking Bad
One understands that the free-to-air TV business is under great strain, like at no other time in the relatively short history of free-to-air television, with business models crumbling and advertising revenue plummeting. In that light it seemed rather odd that Lachlan Murdoch and Jamie Packer put themselves on the board of the Ten Network. Under their ownership, Ten has sunk from about $1.50 a share to 33cents. Some unkind people have been calling the Ten Network 'Two.Tel' and 'Ten.Tel'.
You get the drift.
Today, I found this article in the SMH that led me to think maybe this wasn't entirely unplanned.
A report released on Thursday by BBY media analyst Mark McDonnell boldly states: ''We do not accept the chairman's [Lachlan Murdoch's] description of this raising as 'prudent' - a better term would be excessive, given the resulting net cash position and the practical effect of almost halving the value of shares from already historic lows due to the massive dilution.''
McDonnell believes Ten's latest equity raising - the second in six months - could well be a form of creeping privatisation by a few ''insiders''.
It is an interesting theory, given the equity issue will thrust Ten from a net debt position to a net cash position. On the face of it the move seems extreme, given it has been achieved at a massive 38 per cent discount that will result in up to 2.5 billion shares on issue.
Billionaires Lachlan Murdoch, James Packer and Bruce Gordon, who collectively control 32 per cent of the company, have agreed to support the latest $225 million equity issue. The other billionaire board member, Gina Rinehart, who turned up 45 minutes late to Ten's annual meeting on Thursday, has opted to keep everyone in the dark about her intentions.
As of this writing, Gina Rinehart has joined the other billionaires, so she too is playing ball. What if the billionaires were indeed planning on privatising the Ten Network and having decided on that course of action, gone to own trying to drive the share price down by driving the business into the ground? Could this even be possible?
You could see the motive, but that alone doesn't prove anything. They have the means to do such a thing, and sure enough the share price for Ten has gone down steadily in the last 24months. You'd be hard pressed to say the possibility wasn't there.
2012/11/29
'Skyfall'
Bond At 50 years
It's hard to write something new about James Bond movies in light of 50years of Bond movies. One ca imagine it's even harder to come up with a new script and a new threat. This current Bond movie is getting rave reviews from otherwise difficult-to-please people so it's interesting that the Bond Movie that brings up the half-century is still hitting its mark.
What's Good About It
Some of the action set pieces in this one are more visceral and tense than in 'Quantum of Solace'. The title sequence is pretty cool, but maybe not as cool as the one on 'Casino Royale'. That one was pretty special. At least in this one, like it is in 'Casino Royale, the action has a sense of space and time in which things take place. The frenetic post- 'Jason Bourne' action seqeunces in Quantum of Solace were pretty ridiculous.
Some of the stunts in the earlier part are great. The action towards the climax seems more like a re-run of the sot o action we used to see in the early Die Hard movies. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in the context of a Bond movie. Bond is a man of action after all.
What's Bad About It
It's been said for many years that James Bond the character is a sociopath, and may even be some kind of psychopath. the man never really changes. The moments we've seen Bond change as a result of the action are few and far in between. The greatness of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' with George Lazenby lies with the ending which strongly suggests Bond is transformed. There really isn't an equivalent moment in Roger Moore's tenure, which in most part was about a glib one liner in the face of immensely awful violence.
Once again, having gotten to the third film, Daniel Craig's Bond is showing the strain of being unable to transform. In the absence of the glibness he's got fewer means to charm, and at this point in the Bond franchise, he's actually a standout for having the least charm.
What's Interesting About It
There have been all kinds of articles about James Bond in the 50th anniversary of Dr. No coinciding with this film. One of the most interesting was the graph put together in the Economist.
Look, I'm no Nate Silver, but I do put trust in what numbers say about players. :)
As you can see, as thuggish as Daniel Craig's Bond might seem, he had nothing on the kill total of the Pierce Brosnan Bond. The Bond with the least kills and by extension, the least action was Timothy Dalton, which tallies with my impression of his low octane Bond Movies. Craig's Bond is about on par with Connery' Bond in terms of kills per movie, which flies in the face of Connery's complaint that Bond these days is about the killing. If Mr. Connery could have a whinge about Craig's Bond using his own Bond as a yard stick, it would be that Bond seems to gets laid less and drinks more.
Moore's Bond drank the least and killed fewer than Connery, Craig or 'Killer' Brosnan. I sort of expected him to get laid more, but that doesn't seem to have been the case. George Lazenby's Bond had a better track record in his one appearance, than the averaged efforts of the others.
For my money, I suspect the Brosnan Bond movies are more up my alley judging from the body count - but I remember being so appalled by 'Tomorrow Never Dies', I never went to see the rest of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies after that; I gave up on Bond movies until they rebooted with 'Casino Royale'. 'Quantum of Solace' sorely tested my patience. If the Brosnan Bonds are anything to go by, - and as Sick Boy observes in 'Trainspotting' one day you have it, and then you don't - I wouldn't put much stock in the next two Bond movies being any good, even with Daniel Craig doing his damnedest.
It's hard to write something new about James Bond movies in light of 50years of Bond movies. One ca imagine it's even harder to come up with a new script and a new threat. This current Bond movie is getting rave reviews from otherwise difficult-to-please people so it's interesting that the Bond Movie that brings up the half-century is still hitting its mark.
What's Good About It
Some of the action set pieces in this one are more visceral and tense than in 'Quantum of Solace'. The title sequence is pretty cool, but maybe not as cool as the one on 'Casino Royale'. That one was pretty special. At least in this one, like it is in 'Casino Royale, the action has a sense of space and time in which things take place. The frenetic post- 'Jason Bourne' action seqeunces in Quantum of Solace were pretty ridiculous.
Some of the stunts in the earlier part are great. The action towards the climax seems more like a re-run of the sot o action we used to see in the early Die Hard movies. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in the context of a Bond movie. Bond is a man of action after all.
What's Bad About It
It's been said for many years that James Bond the character is a sociopath, and may even be some kind of psychopath. the man never really changes. The moments we've seen Bond change as a result of the action are few and far in between. The greatness of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' with George Lazenby lies with the ending which strongly suggests Bond is transformed. There really isn't an equivalent moment in Roger Moore's tenure, which in most part was about a glib one liner in the face of immensely awful violence.
Once again, having gotten to the third film, Daniel Craig's Bond is showing the strain of being unable to transform. In the absence of the glibness he's got fewer means to charm, and at this point in the Bond franchise, he's actually a standout for having the least charm.
What's Interesting About It
There have been all kinds of articles about James Bond in the 50th anniversary of Dr. No coinciding with this film. One of the most interesting was the graph put together in the Economist.
Look, I'm no Nate Silver, but I do put trust in what numbers say about players. :)
As you can see, as thuggish as Daniel Craig's Bond might seem, he had nothing on the kill total of the Pierce Brosnan Bond. The Bond with the least kills and by extension, the least action was Timothy Dalton, which tallies with my impression of his low octane Bond Movies. Craig's Bond is about on par with Connery' Bond in terms of kills per movie, which flies in the face of Connery's complaint that Bond these days is about the killing. If Mr. Connery could have a whinge about Craig's Bond using his own Bond as a yard stick, it would be that Bond seems to gets laid less and drinks more.
Moore's Bond drank the least and killed fewer than Connery, Craig or 'Killer' Brosnan. I sort of expected him to get laid more, but that doesn't seem to have been the case. George Lazenby's Bond had a better track record in his one appearance, than the averaged efforts of the others.
For my money, I suspect the Brosnan Bond movies are more up my alley judging from the body count - but I remember being so appalled by 'Tomorrow Never Dies', I never went to see the rest of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies after that; I gave up on Bond movies until they rebooted with 'Casino Royale'. 'Quantum of Solace' sorely tested my patience. If the Brosnan Bonds are anything to go by, - and as Sick Boy observes in 'Trainspotting' one day you have it, and then you don't - I wouldn't put much stock in the next two Bond movies being any good, even with Daniel Craig doing his damnedest.
2012/11/28
Warriors Past
Restoration Of What Exactly?
Before I get into today's entry, I just want to say I can't stand the right wing nationalists in Japan. They drive around town in their black vans blaring their slogans and World War II era tunes that sound *terrible* through the megaphone speakers mounted on the roof. They create a commotion on crowded streets and really at their core, they're just nothing but nostalgists in denial.
So, when 80 year old Shintaro Ishihara goes into a national election in Japan forming a team with the Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto and his Japan Restoration party, one can't help but get a little suspicious of this so-called third force in politics. Indeed, in most modern (and post-modern and post-post-modern) democracies, the experience has been that the third force is invariably fascist, and conservatives are always conned into thinking fascists are the better allies than the old adversary, the progressives.
That's how Hitler and the Nazis snuck by the deteriorating Hindenburg, and brought about the end of the Weimar Republic. I dare say the rise of the Tea Party on the back of sloganeering idiocy of the likes of Sarah Palin tells you just enough that there really isn't much of a difference between the methods of the Nazis and the Tea Party. History tells us the third force is a collection of crackpots trying to disrupt the orthodoxy of the polity for its radical agenda.
In Shintaro Ishihara, we can see a man who is nostalgic for the kind of Japan that was a military power in the first half of the Twentieth Century, and it's an uncomfortable sort of nostalgia because it means he has to line up with those morons in the black vans and their megaphones. Any person with a modicum of sanity and good sense would stay away from that mob, but alas no, Ishihara wants to get third party going with the express hope of confronting Communist China.
This bring me to this column by Peter Hartcher today.
Those ghosts of the warriors are never too far away; and if you are Japanese, there's something deathly compelling about some of the symbols.
Why, even today in the Sankei Newspaper, they are celebrating the last 'operational' Zero Fighter.
It's exactly the kind of symbolism that stirs the hearts of nostalgists. I should know - it stirs something in me! And I'm not a nationalist - but I am a historian.
Before I get into today's entry, I just want to say I can't stand the right wing nationalists in Japan. They drive around town in their black vans blaring their slogans and World War II era tunes that sound *terrible* through the megaphone speakers mounted on the roof. They create a commotion on crowded streets and really at their core, they're just nothing but nostalgists in denial.
So, when 80 year old Shintaro Ishihara goes into a national election in Japan forming a team with the Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto and his Japan Restoration party, one can't help but get a little suspicious of this so-called third force in politics. Indeed, in most modern (and post-modern and post-post-modern) democracies, the experience has been that the third force is invariably fascist, and conservatives are always conned into thinking fascists are the better allies than the old adversary, the progressives.
That's how Hitler and the Nazis snuck by the deteriorating Hindenburg, and brought about the end of the Weimar Republic. I dare say the rise of the Tea Party on the back of sloganeering idiocy of the likes of Sarah Palin tells you just enough that there really isn't much of a difference between the methods of the Nazis and the Tea Party. History tells us the third force is a collection of crackpots trying to disrupt the orthodoxy of the polity for its radical agenda.
In Shintaro Ishihara, we can see a man who is nostalgic for the kind of Japan that was a military power in the first half of the Twentieth Century, and it's an uncomfortable sort of nostalgia because it means he has to line up with those morons in the black vans and their megaphones. Any person with a modicum of sanity and good sense would stay away from that mob, but alas no, Ishihara wants to get third party going with the express hope of confronting Communist China.
This bring me to this column by Peter Hartcher today.
Hashimoto and Ishihara are taking advantage of a growing disenchantment among Japan's voters with either of the major parties. But China, through its nationalist assertiveness, might be providing them with a new purpose and platform.
It would be a profound historical blunder if Beijing's decision to energise and enlarge its territorial claims turns out to have not only alarmed its neighbours and reinvigorated US commitment to the region - it has already managed to achieve these unintended consequences - but to have remilitarised its historical enemy Japan as well.
The Japanese people favour their current constitution and oppose nuclear armament. But China is giving the neonationalists an opening and they are taking it.
In the 1980s, the first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, once counselled against then-prevalent 1980s complaints against Japan's commercial success.
''The Japanese are good merchants but they are better warriors,'' he said. And he didn't think Japan's underlying warrior prowess was dead, only dormant. China should be careful it does not push its neighbours too far.
Those ghosts of the warriors are never too far away; and if you are Japanese, there's something deathly compelling about some of the symbols.
Why, even today in the Sankei Newspaper, they are celebrating the last 'operational' Zero Fighter.
It's exactly the kind of symbolism that stirs the hearts of nostalgists. I should know - it stirs something in me! And I'm not a nationalist - but I am a historian.
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