Categories
General

Burn Hollywood Burn

I consider myself a movie afficionado, and I got the street cred to back it up. I dare say I’m a film snob.

This evening I went to see Bend it Like Beckham. Its a very good movie. Go see it, thumbs up, yadda yadda. However, while I was watching it, it dawned on me just how unbalanced the quality of indie movies has become compared to Hollywood. I’m sure there are plenty of crappy indie movies, but they never make it to the theater, whereas, there doesn’t appear to be any crap filter in Hollywood.

What I find amazing, is that you can smell a crappy Hollywood movie from a mile away, yet people still go to see them and they still keep churning them out. What’s amazing is that the entertainment industry seems willingly ignorant about the whole thing. They can’t say that Gigli is a hunk of crap, because they really just want an excuse to talk about Ben Afleck and JLo. So long as you have an A list star in the film, it gets a free pass. It doesn’t’ mean that anyone is going to see it, but good luck finding a negative word about it on Entertainment Tonight.

Its a real shame that so few people ever bother to see any of the good films that are out there. By failing to go watch them, they are just giving incentive to Hollywood to produce more crap.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is “what are your three favorite movies made from before you were born?” What answer they give isn’t as important as them just having an answer, and coming up with it relatively quickly. I’m even more impressed if they can come up with their three favorite black and white movies, and super impressed if they have even seen three silent films.

Categories
General

Flying Chinese Characters

This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. A guy in Switzerland took a short movie of the International Space Station as it flew past the Sun. With the contrast of the sun, you can really see the detail of the ISS. It looks like a chinese character moving across the sky. I found the link on Spaceweather.com.

Categories
General

Dirty Pretty Things

I saw Dirty Pretty Things today. Oddly enough, I just saw Ameile last night. While Audrey Tautou is given top billing and is on the poster, she’s not really the focus of the film. Nonetheless, she’s great.

If you’ve seen Amelie, you might have a hard time envisioning her as anything other than Amelie (which is a testiment to how well she nailed that role). Dirty Pretty Things is in english and she’s plays a Turkish character. There is no hint of a French accent. She’s not Amelie, but there is still an intrinsic cuteness about her. Think Audrey Hepburn with an edge.

There are some overseas stars who have been able to make it big in Hollywood (Jackie Chan, Jean Reno, Jet Li) and I think she has big bucks written all over her.

The lead in the movie is Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays a Nigeran doctor living illegally in London. He does a great job of playing a good man in not so good circumstances.

Overall, the movie is very very good.

I also saw SWAT on Friday. It was very so-so.

In sum: go see Dirty Pretty Things now. Wait for SWAT to appear on cable.

Categories
General

Diversity, fried twinkies, and America

The Minnesota State Fair is one of the highlights of the year for me. I love the fair. I like looking at farm equipment, cows, and all the various booths hawking their products, politics and various cheap crap. At the fair, you can find fried twinkies, alligator on a stick, ostrich, elk burgers, corn on the cob, pickel dogs, and most every manner of ethnic food you can think of.

If you want diversity, then go to the fair. The State Fair has real diversity, not the warmed over facade they call diversity in college. At the fair, you will see Democrats and Republicans, farmers and city folk, union members, entrapreneuers and big businesses. Mensa has a booth, as do the boy scouts. You can talk to the Green Party and various church groups. You can hear pitchmen hawking knives, mops, rags, and of course, the Vita-Mix. There is a building for art and one for technology. You can hear live music everywhere.

When people talk about diversity, most people talk about “celebrating” and “valuing” it. However, if you look at the diversity that is walking around the fairgrounds, you can see the underside of it all. It appears that diversity has a big gut, lots of tatoos, and smells really bad when walking around in the sun for several hours.

There is no celebration of the diversity at the fair, because its just taken as a given. I suppose that’s the great part about it. If your not dwelling on it, your not shooting each other. I think most people aren’t really too interestsed in dwelling on the differences of those around them. They’re far too interested in riding on the midway rides, eating fried food on sticks, and watching bands that we’re past their prime 20 years ago.

For better and for worse, the fair is uniquely American.

Categories
General

I do so love Paris in the Winter

Here are a handful of photos I took in Paris a few years ago. I got more I’ll put up later. I’m off to the Minnsota State Fair today.