Author: Bryant
According to DVDfile.com, Sapphire and Steel is about to see a DVD release. Sadly, I can’t find a press release on the topic, just the one mention. Still excellent news; this is some of the best of freaky BBC ATV science fiction.
(Thanks to Adam Tinworth for correcting my lame knowledge of British TV.)
(TINWORTH. No excuse except being up till 2 AM last night watching the baseball playoffs.)
You wouldn’t expect a movie about corporate espionage among multinational anime porn to be a bad viewing experience… well, OK, maybe you would. Still, I thought Demonlover was worth my ten bucks. Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep got excellent reviews, and Demonlover stars Connie Nielsen and Gina Gershon, so there was potential there.
I pretty much liked the first half. Chloe Sevigny was tremendously callow, and whether or not her character was meant to be played that way, her performance left me cold. The rest of the movie was fine, though. Very stylish, shot in blues and greys in a kind of 70s futuristic aesthetic. The plot was nicely tangled.
In the last hour or so, the movie went seriously downhill. The final shots struck me as deeply non-profound, despite being set off from the rest of the film in style and tone. But the message didn’t live up to the stylistic flourishes. Further, there wasn’t any tension after a certain point. The resolution came about halfway through the movie, and everything afterwards was just an extended version of the “ten years later” epilogues common in bad 80s teen comedies.
Good concepts. Bad execution.
Not to harp on Glenn, but I think this is actually an important general point: are bloggers amateur or professional? I think it’s past time we stopped equating “blog” with “amateur.”
In this post, Glenn defends his right to write about whatever he wants, which is a right I certainly support. He also says we shouldn’t use him as our only news source, which is commendable. However, he also says “And this is, as Eugene properly notes, an amateur activity.”
His very next post is a pointer to his TechCentralStation column.
He didn’t get the column gig because he’s a famous law professor. He got it because he’s a famous blogger. He’s not getting paid for Instapundit.com, but it sure has led to paying jobs. That doesn’t make it a professional pursuit, per se. Does it blur the line between amateur and professional? Of course it does.
Dear Brother #11 picks up after the PCs left Chicago and headed down to Mississippi. Chronologically speaking, these events occurred before those recorded in Dear Brother #10c, but we played them out after we played out the trip to Mexico. If I’d known we were going to do that I suppose I’d have held off on writing #10 until we’d finished playing the events leading up to it — but it doesn’t hurt the story at all, so no harm done.
On the other hand, we did wind up playing out the events described here after we played the events described in the upcoming Dear Brother #12. But this time I knew it was coming so I can write #11 and #12 in chronological order.
(None of this matters or impinges on the entertainment value one bit, so don’t worry. I’m just noting it so I’ll remember what happened years from now when I’m old and grey. And I’m not complaining, cause Rob makes it all work)
Glenn Reynolds, once again, is confused.
THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson’s views with an important mission.
If you follow the link, you’ll find Bill Hobbs ranting about a speech Joseph Wilson gave on June 14th, 2003. The very perceptive among us will notice that June 14th is somewhat later than the date on which Wilson went to Niger to look into the yellowcake assertions.
Let’s say you went to Niger to investigate claims that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq, and you found out that the claims were false. You made a report to that effect. Despite your report, Bush kept claiming that Niger sold yellowcake to Iraq. It became an important component of his justification for war, and you knew it was a lie. It further became evident that the remainder of Bush’s allegations concerning WMD were inaccurate.
Might your views change?
What’s more likely: that Bush chose an investigator who was deeply and fundamentally biased, or that Joseph Wilson altered his opinions in light of the way his report was treated?
It kind of boggles me, in either case, that Reynolds could claim with a straight face that views Wilson expressed on June 16th, 2003 were a good reason to not send him to Niger in 2002.
Ed Gray, a sportswriter for the Boston Herald, came out today.
“I’m out because I no longer, in good conscience, choose to ignore the unabashed homophobia that is so cavalierly tolerated within the world of sports. I’m out, because the silence of a closeted gay man only serves to give his implicit approval to bigotry. I’m out, because I refuse to continue hiding from the truth that an openly gay man has as much right as a straight man to play sports or report on them.”
It’s not a superbly written article, and Ed Gray isn’t a top tier Boston sportswriter, but he’s a brave guy and I admire him. Come to think of it, the Herald also deserves some praise. They didn’t have to print that piece, and if you buy into stereotypes you might think that the conservative Boston paper formerly owned by Rupert Murdoch would be unlikely to print a pro-homosexuality piece. Goes to show that stereotypes are tricky things.
I found out about the story while listening to WEEI on my drive into work this morning; Dennis and Callahan gave him a call, and he agreed to do an interview. He doesn’t want to be a pioneer or a trailblazer. He just wants to be able to say “I’m gay” without people like Todd Jones, Garrison Hearst, and Jeremy Shockey insulting him. He was quiet, calm, and didn’t rant. He sounded a little worried. He sounded like he was utterly sure he made the right decision.
He also said, during the call, that he thinks a gay player could come out and survive. I hope he’s right. I do know this: whether or not he wants to be a pioneer, he just made it a little bit easier for the first gay player to make that decision.
rebelcoyote has pictures of a kitten on a tank. I dunno, there’s probably some big political significance to this, but all I can say is “awwwwww.”
Let’s get ready to Mashup! (And remember, there’s an new game meme announcement list — get your gaming memes piping hot.)
Today we’re going to take another SF classic and subject it to our evil whims. Your target du jour is Star Trek, and we’re not talking any of that revisionist stuff. No Enterprise, no Next Generation, no Deep Space Nine. We’re doing Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and the five year journey. Or the movies, cause hey, everyone loves Ricardo.
The core characters of Star Trek were officers in charge of an exploration mission. They were often caught between duty and humanity; I wouldn’t give Star Trek the same props I give Horatio Hornblower, but Roddenberry knew what drove his conflicts. I think there are some interesting possibilities for mashing.
Some polling tidbits from Iraq, via Juan Cole — 94% of Baghdad residents think Baghdad is more dangerous now than it was before the invasion. 29% of Baghdad residents have a favorable view of the US; 55% have a favorable view of France.
On the other hand, countrywide, 33% of those polled think they’re better off now than they were before the invasion, but 67% think they’ll be better off in five years. Which actually strikes me as fairly accurate. Mind you, they could be thinking “as soon as the Americans leave,” which bodes poorly for our long-term ability to work with Middle Eastern countries.
Aqila al-Hashimi died. Old news, but as long as I’m on the subject of Iraq…
Also, we’re calling up more troops. We’re not getting any help from India and while we still want Turkey to send troops, Iraqi leaders are not thrilled about the idea.
Syria’s willing to help, though.