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I watch a ton of movies, so I’ll try to keep the review to headline-level complexity.

Bean, the Movie – 3/5. It’s some of the better bits from the TV show. If it’s your first introduction to Bean, it’s hiliarious, but otherwise unnecessary.

The Black Adder, Season 1 – 3/5. I think you have to both appreciate British history and cheesy sitcoms to really enjoy this. Rowan Atkinson is a spedcial kind of talent, that’s for sure.

Chungking Express – 4/5. Wong Kar Wai’s first crossover movie, and it’s a good one. Two movies, actually, with a split in the middle and only a bit of crossover. Tony Leung and Faye Wong star.

City of God – 4/5. Boyz in the Hood, if the Hood is Rio. Aside from the crushing poverty and rampant violence, one of the most striking things of the movie is how beautiful Brazillians are.

The Cooler – 4/5. Quirky, enjoyable. It’s supposed to be W.H. Macy’s movie, but Alec Baldwin steals the show. The movie follows a guy whose luck is so bad that he is employed by a casino to cool off anyone who is winning by too much. And then he falls in love…

Gentleman’s Agreement – 2/5. Featuring a so-young-as-to-be-unrecognizable Gregory Peck, this movie is a heavy handed diatribe on the evils of antisemitism. Antisemitism is bad! Bad, bad, bad! As a message, it’s great. As a movie, this is dogshit.

Gladiator – 1/5. I hated it in the theatres, I still hate it. Ridley Scott and his awful direction should stick to commercials or glacially paced scifi horror movies. Anyone who pulls the 12fps/48fps directorial bullshit during a fight scene to show the “ebb and flow” of the action deserves to be taken behind the NYU woodshed.

Good Night, and Good Luck – 4/5. Good movie, well told. Some annoying indie schtick (the jazz interludes). Stratham’s role of a lifetime.

Irma Vep – 4/5. Gonzo filmmaking plus satire of French New Wave cinema. Maggie Cheung is awesome in this role written specifically for her by her ex-husband. Think: Being John Malkovich meets In the Presence of a Clown meets Shadow of the Vampire.

La Femme Nikita – 5/5. French original, not shitty American remake. Still Luc Besson’s best, with an edginess not recently captured. I can’t believe they made a TV series out of what is essentially an indictment of the sociopathy of governments.

Matchstick Men – 2/5. Was a 4 right up until the bullshit ending. Grifters getting grifted was good, but don’t fucking show the post-mortem, particularly when it’s just to rescue the reputation of an actress who wants a big time Hollywood career show the grifter with a heart of gold angle. Plus, upon reflection, the movie is told in a fundamentally dishonest way, which is unfair to the audience.

Maverick – 4/5. Good, clean fun, with good acting and rapport. They really needed to do a Maverick 2, but I think Garner’s health and the animosity between Foster and Gibson probably short circuited that.

MST3K: The Wild World of Batwoman – 2/5. Even the MST3K boys couldn’t save this thing. Dear FSM, it’s awful. Best line: “Hello, college Republicans”… guess you had to be there.

The Mummy – 2/5. Mindless crap action. Bonus: Rachel Weisz, not as bad as The Mummy Returns.

My Summer of Love – 2/5. I have no idea what makes this movie remarkable other than a lesbian angle and that its competence won it a BAFTA award. It’s got some potential and cute moments, but overall it feels strained, awkward, and amateurish. Emily Booth could be a doppelganger for Fiona Apple, and may make a career out of this movie business.

Phantom of the Opera – 2/5. It has pretty costumes, shitty music, a retarded plot, and horrid acting.

Romance – 2/5. French existentialism with “shocking” graphic sexual content. Supposedly an exploration of need, desire, love, and sex… movie would have been a lot better – and shorter – if the protagonist had dumped her boyfriend in the first 20 minutes.

Stargate – 3/5. It’s a crap movie, but it’s fun. Too bad it was successful, because it directly lead to the decline of Western civilization via ID4 and Godzilla.

Uzumaki – 1/5. Japanese horror film. Two of earlier examples of which, Ringu and Ju-on, have been remade as Hollywood thrillers The Ring and The Grudge. Uzumaki will not be a third. It’s a cheese fest with Saturday night made-for-TV movie scare attempts. It feels like it had a budget of about $20 and a student film crew headed by the cliched gotcha! direction of M. Night Shyamalamadingdong.

I’ve been remiss with my reviews, so I thought I’d play a little catch-up.

Kings of Infinite Space – 3/5.
Starts off well, fades badly. Goes from creepy Lovecraftian/Wellsian to Carroll-esque plus cheese.

The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman – 4/5.
Excellent surrealish British fantasy/adolescent novel. There are two more in the series, which I hear turns more into some Manichean religious end times type deal, but the first book was just fine. The Golden Compass is a charming book, though not nearly so excellent as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (admittedly, they are aiming at different audiences), which I link in my head because they both have that indefinable fantasy Britishosity, or at least what I consider to be the archetypical examples of such.

Memories of Ice – Steven Erikson – 5/5.
With this book, Erikson passes George Martin as the best hard fantasy series ever. A world so detailed, so incredibly well envisioned by the author that it requires no extemporaneous explanations. Erikson (a pseudonym) is the Salman Rushdie of the fantasy authors – complex, rich works that require investment on the part of the reader to complete, but are well worth it nonetheless. Like Rushdie, you need a break after one of these novels before you can go on to his next one

The Little Sister – Raymond Chandler – 3/5.
My first Chandler book. The misogyny that comes through so well in the movies is definitely present, but the movies miss the misanthropy, alienation, dissociation, and depression of the novels. It’s a good, quick read with lots of active verbs and not a lot of fluff in the prose… but the plot is as disjointed and jumpy as the worst of the movies, like say The Big Sleep. You want deus ex machina and massive leaps of logic? Chandler’s your guy. On the plus side, he doesn’t laboriously paint every step in the ladder, which is a nice change of pace.

Amnesia Moon – Jonathan Lethem – 3/5.
I loved Lethem’s Gun with Occasional Music, and this was his followup novel. They are completely unrelated. Amnesia Moon deals with the subjective nature of reality, dreams, human society, and forms of dominance. It feels incomplete.

Blood Music – Greg Bear – 3/5.
Greg Bear’s first book, and you can see why he became a successful author and one of my favorites (at least up until Dinosaur Summer, but there are at least 4 of his early works that I call great without hesitation). This one is the biological version of the nanotech nightmare of a grey goo planet. It feels somewhat like a bastard child of To Marry Medusa with an update written in the 80′s by a scientist.

I doubt Bush shares my sentiments.

A blistering comedy “tribute” to President Bush by Comedy Central’s faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close.

Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the 2700 attendees, including celebrities and top officials, with the help of a Bush impersonator.

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the president to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “They are re-arranging the deck chairs–on the Hindenburg.”

What, no hahahaha! fun-nee slideshows about looking for WMDs in the White House couch this year?

That Hindenberg line is genius.

The whole event is on C-SPAN, but C&L has just the Colbert part.

C-SPAN on Google video, whole thing.

Hey, if Joey “the Rat” Ratzinger thinks its a bad thing, I’m going to see the movie and buy a copy of the book too. I already told Donald the Duck Wildmon that I’d buy a Ford just to hack him off if FORD would only make a MiniVan with Stow and Go seating.

Shinjo leaves the ballpark for a quiet life of nude modelling

Tsuyoshi Shinjo waves to cheering fans during the 2005 season opening ceremony at Sapporo Dome May 6, 2005.

“I’ve decided to take my uniform off at the end of this season.”

With these words, Nippon Ham Fighters outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo announced his plans to end one of the more unconventional careers in Japanese professional baseball.

Republican Culture of Corruption

The Wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman Randall “Duke” Cunningham may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes.

The two defense contractors who allegedly paid most of the bills, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I’ve learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post. I’ve also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I’ve learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service.

I shall dub thee Watergategate. The person who “now holds a powerful intelligence post” is Porter Goss, the head of the CIA, btw.

Apparently, the signal strength to my home is abysmal (read: much noise, packet loss on the line). This is the reason for the slowdowns and absence of the server. Probably also the voice quality for those of you complaining about my phone quality. Maybe there’s something that can be done, maybe not. We’ll find out more tonight after some tests.

Sounds like some sort of medical procedure, no?

In any event, as soon as my contract is up, I’ll be moving this site to a dedicated hoster and switching ISPs. I may even go for cable + broadband, since that will get me the fast download speeds that I want and I won’t have to worry about running a server. Then again, fuck the cable companies. I’ll see what kind of deal I can get on a Working Assets land line + DSL package from a local ISP v. the cost of monopoly cable + broadband. It’s got to be cheaper than the $150/mo I’m paying now for this crapfest.

Some unintended consequences of the Bush administration’s incompetence, lack of care, and mendacity – thousands of kids suffering from PTSD post-Katrina:

Some 1.2 million children under 18 were living in counties rendered disaster zones by Katrina. As many as 8 percent, or 100,000, are expected to develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to one assessment.

Most experts say the toll is likely far higher. Of the first 1,000 children screened by the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, 27 percent displayed symptoms of trauma, including nightmares, flashbacks, heightened anxiety and bedwetting, says Dr. Joy Osofsky, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at LSU’s Harris Center for Infant Mental Health.

Alyssa Milano has a blog. Which I’m linking to despite the fact that her site design is circa-2001 awful, rarely updated, and restricted in layout (what did they do, design it for 640×480?), but because she’s liberal, does a lot of social work, supports the troops, and is slightly geeky. Dude, her sixth post was about net neutrality! C’mon, feel the geek libertarian lurve. I totally didn’t link because she’s smokin hot. Seriously. Besides, you knew that already. With her USOC tours and pinup tendencies and such, she’s a one of those classic American dame. Or mol. Whichev.

What other celebs blog? (besides those on HuffPo or MSM outlets, that is)

More liveblogging, since I was too busy to blog during the day and nothing extraordinary happened anyway. I need to IM myself, that would make these things easier. Today, I’m including comments from my friend Rob. Read more…

I got tired of pestering my friends with my inane and Larry King-esque running commentary of baseball games, but I can’t shut up, so I thought I’d liveblog. Enjoy. Or Not.
Read more…

If someone dictates the terms of something, say a contract, they are deciding the framework of that contract. Thus, the dictator is also the decider.

Dictator. Decider.

“I hear the voices and I read the front page and I know the speculation,” the president told reporters in the Rose Garden. “But I’m the decider and I decide what’s best. And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense.”

Decider. Dictator.

The entire secret-prison-US-tortures-people thing was a ruse to hunt out moles in the CIA.

You only wish I was kidding.

and why you should support it, presented in a in a two minute clip.

My position on open standards, neutrality, and fairness have been discussed here quite a bit, and this is no different. The internet has been one of the greatest forces for change and democracy in a long time; at the very least, it has been a catalyst for the explosive growth of knowledge and information sharing (not to mention giving The People a voice that they haven’t had – ever. A necessary voice that is the only thing currently safeguarding our democracy on the popular front). There is a slight argument toward a capitalist solution (i.e. neutral providers will attract more customers), but in a monopolistic situation (at best, most people in America effectively only have a duopoly of ISPs from which to choose), I do not think this applies. See also, Wal-Mart).

Without net neutrality, the inernet as you know it will likely die. Many scenarios have already unfolded, such as Comcast Cable blocking Vonage packets… and then rolling out their own VOIP solution a few months later. As things stand, even with the many to many access model, ISPs are our gateways, and are still subject to control from the anticompetitive, antipeople corporations. If the internet had not been developed the way it had and been nurtured via universities, we would currently have a “net” of walled communities, to which we would have to pay to access. Think this wasn’t what the Suits wanted? Imagine a world where the “internet” are competing AOLs.

That’s the future we are heading toward, and the Suit lobbyists from AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, in coordination with the corrupt GOP Congress are trying to turn back the clock and destroy the internet as we know it. For the businesses, it makes sense to try and control content. For the government, it makes sense to try and control information, and there has not been a governmental body in history that has not tried to coopt and control any and all technologies that increase the amount of information available to the people.

We must not allow the internet to become a series of walled gardens, run by warlords, robber barons, and tinpot dictators. Let your Congresscritter know how you feel.

If nothing else convinces you, imagine how much the temperature in hell dropped when they realized that Instacracker and MoveOn were on the same side of this issue. And if that inbred, mouthbreathing, genocidal racist twit can come around to the correct viewpoint… hell, everyone should.

I was thinking today about many of the social changes that have occurred in the last 12 years or so (though the roots go much further back, but I’m dating it to the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994), and I was struck by the number of changes to our discourse and ideals. Primarily, I was struck by how some things that were once considered repugnant and whose practitioners or believers were considered the most vile, subhuman, and insane persons in the country… are now mainstream.

So I thought I’d make a little table summarizing what I was thinking:

and so on…