|
|
|
July 20, 2005 July 17, 2005  Tom DeLay and Karl Rove could learn a number of lessons from Jessica Fletcher, who, in an improbable but wonderfully charming episode of Murder, She Wrote, briefly takes over for her deceased congressman in Washington. In the process, she resists undue lobbyist influence, treats her staff with courtesy, and uses her best judgment in voting against a new cannery that would spoil the environment near her hometown of Cabot Cove, ME. Oh, and she solves a vicious murder as well. July 13, 2005  Here's a post about Corey Haim. Much ink has already been spilled on the hilarity of the Me, Myself and I promotional video that Corey made in the late 80s after drug abuse had already damaged his young career. I highly recommend it; also, here is the most essential section of the E! True Hollywood Story on Haim, which I have prepared for you in WMV format. The setup: Haim is in Los Angeles in 2001 trying to resurrect his long-dead career, and is attempting to give a fluff interview. July 08, 2005
So it seems that after more than a decade, the "official," big-budget version of The Fantastic Four is probably not much better than the unreleased Roger Corman version, which is highly sought after in the bootleg world.
It's an interesting story in that the movie rights to the Fantastic Four, presumably purchased by Neue Constantin Films in the early to mid 80s when no one else was interested, were about to expire in 1994 because no movie was in production. So Neue Constantin engaged New Horizons and Roger Corman to make a movie, preserving its option rights and forcing 20th Century Fox--which at the time was waiting for the rights to expire so Chris Columbus could make his own Fantastic Four movie--to pay a ton of money both for the rights and for no one to release the (hilariously awful) movie. It was highly profitable for Neue Constantin, who didn't actually have to release the movie, but it remains to be seen whether it made sense for Fox to sit on it for a decade (the Columbus version didn't get made) and then make a bad movie of its own, albeit one with probably 50 times the budget of the Corman version. (The trailer for Corman's Fantastic Four is hilarious and more memorable than sitting through the interminable movie, and features no sound work except for James Horner's inspired main title from Battle Beyond the Stars.) This is a bit like what happened with Cannon and the Spiderman movie. Cannon purchased the rights from Marvel when no one else was interested, but went bankrupt before Golan could put a suitable Spiderman project into production. However, he took the rights with him to 21st Century Pictures. The fight between Carolco--which was going to do a James Cameron-directed version--and 21st Century apparently never got resolved. Sony, which 21st Century was allied with, bought and/or kept the rights after 21st Century's bankruptcy, and then waited for a while before making the Raimi version. It's interesting in that Cannon's rights to the Spiderman movie franchise have today turned out to be worth perhaps several billion dollars to Sony, far more than anyone would have dreamed when they were sold. July 05, 2005
Has anyone pointed out that, if Rehnquist resigns and the Democrats filibuster both nominations, the liberals will have a solid 4-3 majority? Furthermore, if there are two vacancies and only one gets filled, a string of 4-4 decisions will render the court ineffective.
July 01, 2005  I may be completely wrong here, but one thing I haven't read anyone saying yet about O'Connor's retirement is the idea that Justice Kennedy, who will presumably now be forced into the "swing vote" role as never before, may find himself moderating his positions now that he will know what is at stake. He has already shown a great reluctance to overturn Roe, and that's really the only thing that matters at this point. Supreme Court justices are not immutable, and the right wing may have a harder time counting on Kennedy's vote on divisive issues, precisely because the Supreme Court hates the appearance of being able to be politically controlled, even though it is of course. Most of the other 5-4 decisions of the past few years have been hopelessly watery and muddled anyway, mostly thanks to O'Connor. For instance, even though the prisoners at Guantanamo "won" their case 5-4 with O'Connor making the deciding vote, a legitimate Supreme Court would have told the government that keeping prisoners there in violation of the Geneva Convention can't stand. Instead, what we got was the Court telling the government that it needs to provide the prisoners with legal representation. But it hasn't had much of an effect on the lawlessness of the current administration. So I think it will be interesting to see whether Kennedy gets frightened by whatever bottom-dweller Bush finds to occupy O'Connor's seat, and starts occupying the role that O'Connor played. |
