Movie Review: Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" tells the simple story of an aging fight trainer and a white trash girl who thinks she can be a boxer. It is less a boxing movie and more about a boxer. The real strength of this movie is how involved you get with the characters. You get involved and pay a price for it. Eastwood plays a trainer running a seedy gym in LA. Hilary Swank plays Maggie who sees boxing as a way out of her hum drum life. Morgan Freeman plays a former boxer running the gym. His character is the narrator and of course reminds you of that role in “The Shawshank Redemption”. That might be a bad thing, but it was also a fine film so the comparison holds up.

While technically a boxing film, don’t expect “Rocky.” The fight scenes are standard, but remember this is not a boxing film. The supporting characters are there mostly to make the surrounding world seem real. The priest is one of the more interesting characters as he is not the stereotypical priest. The characters are the important thing here. I suspect the artistry of the writing and performances may be lost on some. It wasn’t lost on me. Questions are left to be debated and some to be unanswered. If you like to think about a movie and the characters you met while watching it this is a great film for that.

I was impressed. I’ll give it an A.

Johnny Carson

I was a big Johnny Carson fan. As a young man I stayed up late whenever I could and watched Johnny. I saw the B&W shows with Ed and Skitch through the move to Hollywood. The best parts of Johnny’s comedic talent were his takes. It is something in which few comics today excel. I watched him until Bette Midler sang to him during the final show. I’ve since switched to Letterman. But Dave would agree: Johnny was the best.

Weather

I moved from New Jersey to Texas five years ago. There's a blizzard today in New Jersey. I went to dinner and was "freezing" tonight. It was in the 50's. I've become such a weather wimp.

Freedom - The misuse of the word

I didn't watch George W. Bush’s second Inaugural Address but I have seen clips and read newspaper articles about it. Really annoying is his use of a rhetorical device in which he stated obvious truisms about “freedom” with the suggestion that opponents of his policies – from invading Iraq to privatizing Social Security – must be people who hate freedom. I always object when people refer to our troops fighting for our freedom in Iraq. Orwell's 1984 has more meaning now than ever.

Rant: Four More

I’ve really been holding back from writing something political. Today begins the second term of George W. Bush. This has been an administration that won a dubious victory in 2000. But despite the fact that I can’t “get over it” I’ll move on. Greed, hate, and fear have been the things that this administration has manipulated for more than four years. On September 11th I was as angry as almost anyone. Based on what I learned in the media I supported going into Afghanistan and the hunt for Bin Laden. But I have always opposed the bait and switch used to invade Iraq. I lived through Vietnam, and I lost a dear friend there. I believed the inspectors were doing their job. I never bought the WMD argument, and I feel there were many in the world that suggested we could be wrong. We were. I simply don’t believe the cost of American soldier’s lives, American soldier’s limbs, Billions of dollars in “our” money, and bankrupting American goodwill worldwide was worth it to depose a two-bit dictator. I haven’t found a person who can reasonably convince me otherwise. Bush has lied. Don’t give me the flawed intelligence stuff!

I’m also appalled at how religion has been manipulated by this administration. I suspect Jesus would not approve. I’m very appalled by the media. They allowed this to happen. They permitted the lies to go unchallenged.

I’m most sorry for the generations that will follow me. I’m sorry. I hoped we’d leave them a better world.

Blog: I'll make it more than reviews

Still getting familar with this blog thing. I noticed I seem to just be writing reviews. I promise I'll start writing other items as time permits.

Movie Review: Phantom of the Opera

Phantom of the Opera, the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, has been made into what I think is a wonderful film. Let me be clear if you are not a fan of the musical this isn’t for you, but I have seen the Broadway version twice and it is one of my favorites. That might make me a candidate to not like the film version. The cast is younger and some might argue not as vocally talented as the stage renditions. The story is still an old fashioned one, a variation on a love triangle. I hate retelling the story in a review so I won’t bother with more.

The cinematic adaptation has the advantage of doing some things possible only in film. The use of black and white at the beginning, end, and elsewhere provides an interesting frame to the story. Director Joel Schumacher assembles a fresh cast. No big time names here which I think was a good idea. Gerard Butler plays the phantom. It took me a while to adjust to his voice. Michael Crawford is in his 60’s so he wouldn’t do Phantom fans. Emmy Rossum did a real nice job as Christine. I’ve heard criticism of her performance. Her first night as soprano instead of Diva Carlotta is low key. It may not match the enthusiasm the opera performers, but I think it was intentional. Patrick Wilson as the love interest, Roaul, was good. I’ve seen Wilson in three recent films (Angels in America, The Alamo, and Phantom of the Opera) and have enjoyed all three of his performances. Minnie Driver plays Carlotta and has some fun with the part.

If you are a fan of musicals (and I am) you’ll find this film most entertaining. The grade for you: B plus

If you’re waiting on the next Vin Diesel movie, don’t bother.

Game Review: Sid Meier's Pirates

Pirates was a game I enjoyed back in my old Apple //e days. Sid Meier, the creator, just released a new version of the old game. It has all the great qualities of the old game and a terrific new look. I prefer playing strategy games. I usually use them as way to escape stress. Thanks to Sid Meier I've been able to avoid thinking about the next four years for periods of time. ( Politics is something I haven't included in this blog, but I'm sure a rant will be coming soon.)
So I can just cruise the Carribean and plunder the Dutch, the English, the French, and/or the Spainish. It would be difficult to explain all the game play, but if you imagine what a Pirate may do you get the general idea. There are several levels of difficulty so almost anyone can play. For now, Aargh! Matey!

Movie Review: The Aviator

My first venture into the movie theaters this year was to see Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. Outside of Goodfellas and Raging Bull this may be Scorsese’s best work. Although I did find Gangs of New York more interesting than most. The film is lengthy. I usually don’t complain about such things, but I did see the opportunity to cutback some on the scenes emphasizing Hughes’ wackiness. Scorsese used a unique color technique going from two-tone Technicolor, to three-tone, to modern Technicolor gives the film a period touch but I found it distracting.

Leonardo DiCaprio's performance is worthy of an Oscar nod once you get by his youthful appearance. Cate Blanchett was great as Katharine Hepburn. My wife thought it took a while to be comfortable with her in that role. Alec Baldwin’s part didn’t really lend itself to his best work. Alan Alda’s senator role was good. (No Hawkeye goes to Washington.)

All in all it was an entertaining biography of a historical character about which I knew just some things.
It was a very good film. Being an educator this is how I grade: B plus

College Football

So tonight I settled in to watch the Orange Bowl. Oklahoma vs. USC for the national championship. I'm not a big college football fan, but I thought this game could be interesting. It wasn't. Thankfully I had a DVD handy.

USC romped 55-19. Oh well, pitchers and catchers report next month.

2004: Big Year for Blogs

About a year ago I talked of including a blog course at the local college. We didn't but perhaps I was ahead of my time.
...
Readership is up, but most Web surfers still don't know what blogs are.

Paul Roberts, IDG News Service

Last year proved big for blogs and bloggers, according to data released from The Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Blog readership jumped 58 percent between February and November, and comprised 32 million U.S. citizens in 2004. More than 8 million U.S. citizens have created a Web-based diary, and one in 10, or around 14 million U.S. Internet users, has contributed thoughts or comments to a blog.

The figures released by the Pew Research Center are just the latest in a series of studies on the growth of blogs on the Internet, and show that the online diaries are becoming important sources of information for Internet users.

Despite gains in popularity, blogs are still the domain of Internet cognoscenti. More than 62 percent of those surveyed said they do not know what a blog is, Pew says in a statement.

Steady Growth
Pew began surveying Internet users about blogs in the spring of 2002, and has charted a steady growth in blog readership since 2003, from 11 percent of U.S. Internet users to 27 percent in November 2004.

Most of these readers, 57 percent, are male. Less than half of the surveyed blog readers, 48 percent, are under 30, and a whopping 82 percent are long-time Internet users, with more than six years experience online.

Internet users who were new to the medium, used the Internet less often or had less education were less likely to be bloggers or blog readers, the Pew study finds.

Technology used to read blogs is also beginning to take hold. The study found that 5 percent of Internet users received their news from RSS (Really Simple Syndication) aggregators, or XML (Extensible Markup Language) readers that pull information from blogs and other Web pages.

Here we go!

I've decided to try this blog thing. I've had a "vanity" web site in the past, but thought at least this would be a way for me to vent, etc. I have some friends who have blogs that I could never compare myself to. See I already dangled a preposition. It's all new to me. Here goes.