The Red Cross says conditions in Guantanamo Bay are problematic, but won’t confirm a New York Times report that said the Red Cross claims prisoners were effectively tortured. The official White House response is not exactly conclusive: “We strongly disagree with any characterization that suggests the way detainees are being treated is inconsistent with the policies the president has outlined.” Well, that’s all very well and good, but it’s not entirely clear that it is inconsistent with the Red Cross claims. The President’s policies may or may not authorize actions that are effectively torture (original), after all. ...

We all know what Spinal Tap is, right? Good. (I said the Monday Mashups would be sporadic. You thought they were gone for good, didn’t you? Hmph.)

This is mostly for my mother’s sake. She asked! But, you know, if anyone else wants to take advantage of it that’s OK. (And Derek, I’m gonna take you up on that invitation post-Xmas.)

Given the current state of the Ukraine, it is enlightening to look back on the history of Ukrainian nuclear weaponry. The Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear weapons because Senators Nunn and Lugar worked hard to convince Ukrainian leaders not to have nuclear weapons, backed up by government funding. Funding for Cooperative Threat Reduction peaked under Clinton in 2000 at $475.5 million. In 2001, it dropped to $433.4 million. In 2002, it dropped to $403 million. More on this here (original) (PDF).

Any Given Sunday Stormy Monday Once Upon a Time in America The Addams Family Fort Apache The Long Good Friday Saturday Night Fever Material for those middle days is a little thin on the ground.

Embarrassingly, up until very recently I had not seen a lot of Wong Kar Wai. By which I basically mean none. But I am determined to correct my cinematic errors and last night, desperately needing something to clear my brain from the mediocrity that was Alexander, I dug around and came up with Days of Being Wild. It was the right choice; it’s haunting me. It reminds me of the Bayeux Tapestry. Wong flattens out the passage of time, deliberately eschewing conventional sequential techniques. There’s no build-up, no climax to the scenes. Things happen, flat against the backdrop of the world. The four protagonists shuffle around, touch each others lives, talk in pairs, and shuffle again. Time passes like a metronome, without emphasis. ...

I have this picture of Oliver Stone going “Yeah, so we’ll do the entire thing in narration, Anthony Hopkins will just tell us what happened, and then we’ll sort of intersperse moments where Alexander says something glorious and inspiring.” Then for some reason everyone else said “Good idea!” It was not, in fact, a good idea. Val Kilmer was pretty good as Phillip. Hopefully Oliver Stone’s failure will brighten up the prospects for Baz Luhrmann’s Alexander movie (original). No other silver linings are visible.

Lifted from The 20’ by 20’ Room (original): 1. What is the first RPG you ever played? Tunnels and Trolls, solo. I loved it. I still love it, actually. 2. What RPG do you currently play most often? If you count D20 as one RPG, it’s D20. Otherwise it’s a split between D&D 3.5 and Adventure D20, both of which I play once every couple of weeks. 3. What is the best system you’ve played? ...

I gotta remember that two Takashi Miike movies in quick succession can have unusual effects. Fortunately, Deadly Outlaw Rekka wasn’t the disturbingly transgressive experience that One Missed Call was, so I survived the doubleheader without too much pain. One Missed Call first. The theater was packed. The first hour of the movie was a straight-faced satire of the Japanese technohorror genre ( Ringu, Ju-on, Uzumaki, etc.). One by one, the cell phones belonging to a group of attractive college students ring. The call comes from three days in the future and was made by the person getting the call at the exact moment they die. No matter what they do, at the moment the call was placed, they die. The imagery is stolen from the rest of the genre with glee: we’ve got the tight focus on the medium of horror, the long flowing hair appearing from off-frame, the half-seen spirit in grainy photos (this time from the cell phones) — all that good stuff. ...

If Bill Condon’s going to keep making such great movies, I guess it’s OK that he only makes ‘em once every six years or so. Kinsey was awfully good. Not perfect, but awfully good. You have to start with Liam Neeson, who turned in a brilliant performance, not stinting on either Kinsey’s flaws or his strengths. Laura Linney is the obvious key co-star, but I gotta say nice things also about John Lithgow, who was perfect as Kinsey’s father. The movie explores, briefly, the way in which Kinsey became as much a preacher as his father was, and that would not have worked half so well if Neeson and Lithgow hadn’t worked so well together. ...