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June 29, 2005  "It's hard work ... we're making progress ... we need to stay the course ... our enemies hate freedom." June 28, 2005  George Romero's Land of the Dead is a hoot, any horror fan and all self-respecting Pennsylvanians should see it. It got me thinking of the quirky brilliance of two of Romero's unheralded other movies: --Knightriders is probably my favorite Romero movie. A full-blown epic weighing in at 145 minutes, the 1981 film stars a young Ed Harris as the "king" of a traveling renaissance fair. The fair sets up in various central Pennsylvania small towns, and its main event is the knightriders, who do jousting competitions from souped-up motorcycles. The movie is as much a spiritual journey as a dramatic one, as the knighriders fight amongst themselves and with local police, while staving off the pressures of super-stardom. One of the more unique and satisfying independent movies of the 80s. --Martin is a modern vampire tale set in Pittsburgh, where a teenage Nosferatu plies his victims with drugs. It's a creepy, understated, perfectly executed film. --Also, the "ultimate" edition of Dawn of the Dead is worth checking out. Finally, all three versions of the movie that have been released a million times before are restored with pristine picture and sound in one four-DVD package. I highly recommend the 118-minute European cut, which is the most economical, direct presentation of the material. The longer U.S. theatrical cut and the Cannes cut are by and large inferior, in my opinion, because some needless exposition really makes them drag. The European cut, supervised by Dario Argento, is also cut more slickly during many of the action sequences. June 27, 2005  Lots of great stuff from the Supreme Court today: --Apparently there are some indie rock fans in Justice Souter's chambers, as the highly anticipated (and thankfully, correctly decided) Grokster case produced the following passage: "While there is doubtless some demand for free Shakespeare, the evidence shows that substantive volume is a function of free access to copyrighted work. Users seeking Top 40 songs, for example, or the latest release by Modest Mouse, are certain to be far more numerous than those seeking a free Decameron, and Grokster and StreamCast translated that demand into dollars." I would have changed that to "Users seeking ... the latest release by Billy Ocean..." --The frightening ten-commandments cases revealed that the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1993 "voted unanimously ... to adjourn ... 'in remembrance and honor of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Ethics.'" Mind you that the appellants in question had produced this as evidence that the Ten Commandments displays should be allowed to stand, because it reflects the will of the legislature. For the rest of the world, I would gather, this is further evidence that we need to re-deploy the National Guard to protect citizens from Confederate state legislatures. The only question left over is how Breyer became the swing vote that allowed the State of Texas to keep one of Cecil B. DeMille's gaudy Ten Commandments monuments on its Capitol grounds. And, as if on cue, Justice Kennedy shows some of his right-wing mettle right when it was questioned by the New York Times. --Scalia's dissent in the cable-internet case is a good one, and I happen to agree with him (and his strange bedfellows, Ginsburg and Souter) because the majority position will continue to allow cable internet companies to charge too much for their service. Here's the good part, Scalia explaining why the majority's position--that cable internet service is not actually telecommunication service offered by a telecommunications company and the companies are therefore not required to open up their lines to competition like the phone company--doesn't make any sense: "If, for example, I call up a pizzeria and ask whether they offer delivery, both common sense and common "usage" would prevent them from answering: "No, we do not offer delivery--but if you order a pizza from us, we'll bake it for you and then bring it to your house." The logical response to this would be something on the order of, "so, you do offer delivery." But our pizza-man may continue to deny the obvious and explain, paraphrasing the FCC and the Court: "No, even though we bring the pizza to your house, we are not actually 'offering' you delivery, because the delivery that we provide to our end users is 'part and parcel' of our pizzeria-pizza-at-home service and is 'integral to its other capabilities.'" Any reasonable customer would conclude at that point that his interlocutor was either crazy or following some too-clever-by-half legal advice." June 21, 2005
My good friend John Gorenfeld has a big story in this month's American Prospect magazine. John has been doing investigative work on the Moonies for several years now, and this piece chronicles the lunacy of the Washington Times, one of the country's filthiest right-wing newspapers. The Times is owned by Moon, along with the UPI wire service and half of midtown Manhattan, apparently.
June 10, 2005
I was sitting beside a guy on the subway today who was reading Dean Koontz's Frankenstein, which is apparently a real book. I'm thinking Sean Hannity's The Brothers Karamazov can't be far behind...
Also, if you don't buy a copy of Kraftwerk's Minimum-Maximum, which is a smashing 2CD live set of all their greatest tracks, you can't be my friend anymore. June 05, 2005 June 01, 2005  A few observations about tonight's Kraftwerk show: --The band has wisely removed the hair from the Florian robot to better reflect reality, although they also need to remove the hair from the Fritz Hilpert robot and seriously scale back the hair on the Ralf robot. --To the person who was wondering loudly why they didn't have an opening act, you missed the point. --To the person who was talking loudly about how their neon suits are "so European," you got the point ... belatedly. --I'll always wonder what's going through their heads when they're up there staring blankly at the audience and occasionally smiling at each other. --Ralf was most animated during "The Model," the new "Tour de France" and the awesome part of "It's More Fun to Compute/Home Computer." --There is not a better song in the world than "Neon Lights." |
