PS: The coffee is on; but, it’s decaf. Sorry, my wife is cutting down on caffeine. No pastries, either, as my favorite bakery was on the ground floor of a building that caught fire.
Thanks for asking, but not really. We had a family emergency and I spent all weekend (literally 14 hours straight on Saturday) in the car. Everything had the best possible outcome, so that is wonderful, but I am just exhausted.
Believe me, if I had that much I’d not be shaving off statuary on the back of my head. I do still have a fair crop, but none I really care to get rid of.
All right . . .*sigh* I stayed up late(r than usual) because my wife implored me to watch the Oscars with her. I stayed long enough (about 5 minutes) to see Chris Rock’s bit, then came back to the computer. I was UP, I wasn’t IN BED! I gave her five minutes with that stupid show, then left. At the very least, I was in the same house with her.
The Academy Awards show is the most artificial, contrived contest in American. It’s so bad, that I’m sure ACORN has something to do with it. Very little of the award has anything to do with merit; the winners are usually those who threw the most money around (say “hello” to Harvey Weinstein, everybody!) Yeah, the Academy members get their free DVDs, and even free home remodeling, from what I’ve read. I do remember a time when it was a show worth watching. Hasn’t been that way for years, though. Decades, even.
Here’s what I posted on my FB wall re: The Oscars:
F* the Oscars—nothing more than a circle-jerk for a bunch of narcissistic, Che-loving, child-rapist defending hypocrites who get paid (too much) to lie for a living. YMMV.
Apologies to Wanks, if you read this and get the vapors. Out of respect, I stayed away from the Oscar thread. But it’s fair game now!
The last Oscar ceremony I cared about was back in ’04, when there was a whole bunch of manly big-budget epics that got nominated (Lord of the Rings: ROTK, Master and Commander, The Last Samurai). Ever since then it’s been all downhill with lots of pretentious nihilistic art films, preachy race relations movies, and general Clooney-esque smugness. We need more Braveheart and less Crash in our Oscars.
No offense taken. If you’d read the thread, you’d know I’ve got my own problems with the show itself and the people involved.
But I did dearly love The Artist, and Jean Dujardin’s performance in it. I haven’t so enjoyed a first-run film in years and years. I’d missed that, desperately.
And Harvey Weinstein is a jerkoff, but he’s a jerkoff who has a real gift for seeing and promoting great films. And throwing money around is one of the things that gets films promoted, like it or not.
Sure, some of it is to be part of his Greater Glory (eh, that’s true of all of them), but the industry is poorer for Miramax being gone, and the better for a Weinstein being back in it.
Yeah, I’m glad The Artist won as well. A movie-buff buddy of mine went out and saw all the Best Picture nominees last week (he’s got more free time than me and a penchant for masochism). He said he was rooting for The Artist to win, because it was the only one that didn’t make him want to put a gun to his temple.
Hee.
I think I might like The Descendants, though, because I’m an Alexander Payne fan. He’s an optimist at heart, thogh his heroes are all loser schlubs.
I don’t have a problem with throwing money around to promote a film. I have a problem with throwing money around to win an award.
Marketing is marketing, and that’s what Weinstein does best, apparently. If money has to buy an Oscar, though, and the Academy should put a stop to it.
It should read this way: “If money has to buy an Oscar, that’s wrong, and the Academy should put a stop to it.” How blatant does a “conflict of interest” have to be? Obama wants to regulate the NFL?? Let him regulate Hollywood, first, beginning with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I relented and we have some bacon again this morning Sgt. Major! We might as well eat and drink coffee. It’s gonna take Tink awhile to figure out what I was talking about with the poolboy!
I think Alan Dershowitz is going to find himself yelling down a very empty hallway. Growing up in NY, I’ve been exposed to some of the liberal Jewish orthodoxy. Recently for instance, a Jewish friend said he was culturally Jewish and that his spiritually came “from Nature.” It was his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah so I didn’t think it was the time or place for a discussion. Instead I just filed that in my mind under “What the hell?” and moved on.
The liberal Jew’s belief that the Religious Right (whoever they may be) is out to get them and only the saintly secular Democrats can protect them seems so ingrained I cannot imagine even Mr. Dershowitz being able to make a dent in anyone who already doesn’t support Democrats.
Technically he was the third but his predecessors only served for a combined 13 months (where he served for the following 3 years until the end of the Confederacy). Toombs, the first guy, was an interesting character. He was one of the only who openly questioned the wisdom of attacking Fort Sumter and quit out of frustration after just a couple of months to join as a commander in the army. His replacement left to serve in the Confederate Senate and then we get to Judah P. Benjamin. He was a descendant of the Jews exiled from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition.
There are some exceptions. I just was friended on FB by a lady from Russia who is now a US citizen and is Jewish. She is also a Reagan conservative. I do realize that she is an exception, but there are some out there.
He says that food stamps put people to work. I don’t know where he lives; but, in our town, the public assistance offices have been downsizing. I’m not sure what that means to the food stamp issuers; but, it would seem to indicate less of them, not more.
It was only a matter of time. Big Gov’t reports that the IRS, at the urging of six Democrat senators (Al Franken being one), are investigating local Tea Parties: http://z6.co.uk/1ry
If there is one bureaucracy that instills thoughts of terror in citizen’s minds it would be the IRS. Considering how much power our government yields by squeezing the commerce clause for every last drop, this is the one group that makes the most sense.
Act of Valor review, sort of. He mostly mentions Christian Toto’s roundup of liberal critics who hate the film and explains why. As if don’t know already. Also throws in a new one that compared the move to Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (totally did’t see that one coming).
It pulled in a cool 25million. I was planning on seeing it this week, who is coming?
Lucky for you – I had a co-worker see it on Friday and he really liked it. To carry over from last week, he said the bad guys were from Mexico (also alluded to in the review Skip posted) and the Middle East, with the big bad from Serbia, he thought.
My folks saw it Friday (great birthday present said pops) and though the birthday boy admits it’s not of early 80s Stallone action quality, definitely worth seeing. “The good guys get to kick ass, what a concept.”
I just saw it. (I was off today). It was pretty good, as has been said elsewhere the real SEALs are kind of wooden actors, but what do you expect. The sound of a real minigun firing real ammo is incredible. Having sat in a few real brieifngs the briefing contents in the movie were a bit sparse, but it is kind of difficult for me to seperate the story from fact…overall it was OK, I would recommend it.
The bad guys weren’t from Mexico, they were going to enter the USA from Mexico. The uber bad guy was a Chechen.
Interesting that you mention the real ammo sounds, because it’s one of the things that’s been referenced in nearly every review. I wonder how different it will sound to my completely untrained ear.
I don’t think you would know the real from the blank ammo, it just sounded cool/impressive. I can see where the tree huggers out there would wet their pants and call it propaganda. They are against anything that young men might view and think impressive that might cause them to consider military service.
I’m amazed at how many critics are bitching about how this movie could be used as “a recuiting tool” for the military. They didn’t seem too concerned that An Inconvenient Truth might be used as a recruiting tool for radical environmentalists, or that V for Vendetta might be used as a recruiting tool for violent anarchist groups. But a movie that might encourage people to join the military? Run away, run away!
Excellent article by Kurt Schlicter about the success of “Act of Valor”. It made $25 million (more than double its budget) over the same weekend that the Oscars, with Billy Crystal taking predictable cheap shots at the out-of-power GOP candidates, got lousy ratings for the umpteenth year in a row. It’s a perfect contrast showing everything that Hollywood is doing wrong, and everything that they could be doing right, if they’d just pull their heads out of their collective asses.
Kurt Schlicter writes some interesting stuff. He talked about disliking “The Walking Dead” before it became cool to do so, well cool to me anyway as my interest dropped to zero. Cannot say it more plainly than what he did.
I’ve always thought zombies were a limited concept. After Omega Man and George ROmero’s first two films and maybe 28 Days Later what else is there to do?
When done well, the zombie concept can become focused on what values and morals humanity can hold onto without becoming animals when they lose technology, the law, etc. That’s what the comic and TV show, The Walking Dead, does well. It’s about making choices to preserve what’s important about humanity and seeing the key to survival as sticking together, as opposed to viewing survival as a mercenary state of being. Omega Man, Romero’s movies, and the 28 Later movies were short story, physical survivalist movies, that didn’t go into what a long term plan of thinking the characters would need to keep surviving in such a world. The Walking Dead branches into new territory by having people not just reacting toward the dangers they face, but trying to keep their humanity in tact while dealing with the many issues that this worst case scenario brings upon them. And there are differences of opinions on what it means to keep their humanity in tact, and how to deal with issues that arise, that creates tension between characters and makes the show more realistic than prior movies/stories do. So in answer to what else is there to do … what this show does is show how far you’d have to go to keep taking the higher road while others out there, on top of the zombie situation, are taking the low road by preying on each other.
Hey everyone, been on vacation in the mountains for the past 4 days. Got online and just happened to see that I didn’t recognize 90% of the actors or movies that won stuff while I was gone. So, didn’t miss anything there.
Morning, all! Stayed up too late, last night; but not because of the Academy Awards.
I found this interesting. A liberal taking a liberal group to task. Maybe this is what it will take to put Media Matters in their place: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/dershowitz-media-matters-israel/2012/02/27/id/430618
PS: The coffee is on; but, it’s decaf. Sorry, my wife is cutting down on caffeine. No pastries, either, as my favorite bakery was on the ground floor of a building that caught fire.
Wow, you’re no fun. Won’t tell us why you stayed up late, serving decaf and no goodies. Harrumph.
And in other news, it’s Monday.
Not to fear m’dear…the coffeeman’s here!
Gallons of the stuff. Hot and black and guaranteed to put hair on your chest! Well, either your own, or the hair of your favorite poolboy!
Hiya, Fritzie! Grass doesn’t grow on playgrounds.
LOL!
Did you enjoy your weekend roadtrip?
Thanks for asking, but not really. We had a family emergency and I spent all weekend (literally 14 hours straight on Saturday) in the car. Everything had the best possible outcome, so that is wonderful, but I am just exhausted.
Sorry for the family emergency. I thought you were just roadtripping because you could. Glad it all went well!
That’s true…that much traffic kills anything that tries to grow.
I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes! Box o’ cookies to Goozer!
Hey, Tink! -fritz- is dipping into your cookies!
Loose lips sink ships!
Don’t make me cut off your bacon supply!
I am not sure exactly what you are implying here, Magnus.
OOOOOOOooooooooo, steady on there, missus!
The Colonel has monkey bars and teeter-totters on his head?
My avatar is bald. I, however, am not!
Proof:
http://dft.ba/-1ZHs
I WISH I had that much hair.
Believe me, if I had that much I’d not be shaving off statuary on the back of my head. I do still have a fair crop, but none I really care to get rid of.
Is that a dopiary?
Topiary yes. Dopiary? Are you calling me a dope?
All right . . .*sigh* I stayed up late(r than usual) because my wife implored me to watch the Oscars with her. I stayed long enough (about 5 minutes) to see Chris Rock’s bit, then came back to the computer. I was UP, I wasn’t IN BED! I gave her five minutes with that stupid show, then left. At the very least, I was in the same house with her.
The Academy Awards show is the most artificial, contrived contest in American. It’s so bad, that I’m sure ACORN has something to do with it. Very little of the award has anything to do with merit; the winners are usually those who threw the most money around (say “hello” to Harvey Weinstein, everybody!) Yeah, the Academy members get their free DVDs, and even free home remodeling, from what I’ve read. I do remember a time when it was a show worth watching. Hasn’t been that way for years, though. Decades, even.
Here’s what I posted on my FB wall re: The Oscars:
F* the Oscars—nothing more than a circle-jerk for a bunch of narcissistic, Che-loving, child-rapist defending hypocrites who get paid (too much) to lie for a living. YMMV.
Apologies to Wanks, if you read this and get the vapors. Out of respect, I stayed away from the Oscar thread. But it’s fair game now!
The public will start caring about the Oscars again when Hollywood starts making movies for the public again. I don’t see that happening soon.
The last Oscar ceremony I cared about was back in ’04, when there was a whole bunch of manly big-budget epics that got nominated (Lord of the Rings: ROTK, Master and Commander, The Last Samurai). Ever since then it’s been all downhill with lots of pretentious nihilistic art films, preachy race relations movies, and general Clooney-esque smugness. We need more Braveheart and less Crash in our Oscars.
No offense taken. If you’d read the thread, you’d know I’ve got my own problems with the show itself and the people involved.
But I did dearly love The Artist, and Jean Dujardin’s performance in it. I haven’t so enjoyed a first-run film in years and years. I’d missed that, desperately.
And Harvey Weinstein is a jerkoff, but he’s a jerkoff who has a real gift for seeing and promoting great films. And throwing money around is one of the things that gets films promoted, like it or not.
Sure, some of it is to be part of his Greater Glory (eh, that’s true of all of them), but the industry is poorer for Miramax being gone, and the better for a Weinstein being back in it.
Yeah, I’m glad The Artist won as well. A movie-buff buddy of mine went out and saw all the Best Picture nominees last week (he’s got more free time than me and a penchant for masochism). He said he was rooting for The Artist to win, because it was the only one that didn’t make him want to put a gun to his temple.
Hee.
I think I might like The Descendants, though, because I’m an Alexander Payne fan. He’s an optimist at heart, thogh his heroes are all loser schlubs.
Isn’t The Descendants the one where the people go down into the cave and get eaten by hominoid creatures?
That one was called The Descent. This one is about their older female relatives.
older female relatives… different caves
It sounds scarier.
I don’t have a problem with throwing money around to promote a film. I have a problem with throwing money around to win an award.
Marketing is marketing, and that’s what Weinstein does best, apparently. If money has to buy an Oscar, though, and the Academy should put a stop to it.
It should read this way: “If money has to buy an Oscar, that’s wrong, and the Academy should put a stop to it.” How blatant does a “conflict of interest” have to be? Obama wants to regulate the NFL?? Let him regulate Hollywood, first, beginning with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I relented and we have some bacon again this morning Sgt. Major! We might as well eat and drink coffee. It’s gonna take Tink awhile to figure out what I was talking about with the poolboy!
What were you talking about with the poolboy?
You HAVE a poolboy?
I am the poolboy. At least at Casa -fritz- I’m the poolboy.
I am the Walrus. Goo-goo-ga-joob.
So, you talk to yourself a lot? Don’t feel bad; intelligent people talk to themselves.
I’ll get the baked goods. No worries. Found out we are pcsing to Korea in June. Not happy. At all.
San Diego to Korea? Wow, culture and weather shock all rolled into one! It gets really frosty there in winter.
Sort of like Chicago.
How long will you be away?
Should we pack the M-4 carbine, or MP-4 or whichever?
I think Alan Dershowitz is going to find himself yelling down a very empty hallway. Growing up in NY, I’ve been exposed to some of the liberal Jewish orthodoxy. Recently for instance, a Jewish friend said he was culturally Jewish and that his spiritually came “from Nature.” It was his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah so I didn’t think it was the time or place for a discussion. Instead I just filed that in my mind under “What the hell?” and moved on.
The liberal Jew’s belief that the Religious Right (whoever they may be) is out to get them and only the saintly secular Democrats can protect them seems so ingrained I cannot imagine even Mr. Dershowitz being able to make a dent in anyone who already doesn’t support Democrats.
If you really want to make their heads explode, tell them that during the Civil War, the Confederate secretary of state was a Jew.
No kidding?
Yup. Former US Senator and a candidate for nomination to the Supreme Court, before the war, if my memory doesn’t fail me.
Technically he was the third but his predecessors only served for a combined 13 months (where he served for the following 3 years until the end of the Confederacy). Toombs, the first guy, was an interesting character. He was one of the only who openly questioned the wisdom of attacking Fort Sumter and quit out of frustration after just a couple of months to join as a commander in the army. His replacement left to serve in the Confederate Senate and then we get to Judah P. Benjamin. He was a descendant of the Jews exiled from Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition.
Excellent recall there David.
Abraham Lincoln was Jewish, too. He was shot in the temple.
*Groan* But I still laughed, because I am wrong that way. I am surprised I haven’t heard that one before.
I’m surprised you haven’t heard that before. It’s probably as old as the morning after Ford’s Theatre.
Are you intimating that Tink should be old enough to have heard the very first iteration of that joke? Careful Matt, she’s a kitten with a whip!
You may have a point; but, the man who has the ear of that many Jewish folks may be able to turn a few of them, and sometimes, that’s all it takes.
There are some exceptions. I just was friended on FB by a lady from Russia who is now a US citizen and is Jewish. She is also a Reagan conservative. I do realize that she is an exception, but there are some out there.
In other news (only from the Rev. Jackson): http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2402698&spid=
He says that food stamps put people to work. I don’t know where he lives; but, in our town, the public assistance offices have been downsizing. I’m not sure what that means to the food stamp issuers; but, it would seem to indicate less of them, not more.
I can not repeat what I am thinking right now. Oy!
Paging Doctor Schplatt: The Bing picture today is of The National Theatre in Taipai, Taiwan. It looks really beautiful. Have you ever been there?
Wow! That is beautiful!
It was only a matter of time. Big Gov’t reports that the IRS, at the urging of six Democrat senators (Al Franken being one), are investigating local Tea Parties: http://z6.co.uk/1ry
If there is one bureaucracy that instills thoughts of terror in citizen’s minds it would be the IRS. Considering how much power our government yields by squeezing the commerce clause for every last drop, this is the one group that makes the most sense.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=49793
Act of Valor review, sort of. He mostly mentions Christian Toto’s roundup of liberal critics who hate the film and explains why. As if don’t know already. Also throws in a new one that compared the move to Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (totally did’t see that one coming).
It pulled in a cool 25million. I was planning on seeing it this week, who is coming?
I’m wit ya!
Will you buy the popcorn?
You bet. I’ll even cut a hole in the bottom and hold it in my lap for you.
Holy Moly! (Yes, I’m blushing.)
I assume you’ll be springing for an extra large?
Make sure you don’t ask for extra butter.
Eek! Or salt?
EEEEEYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, Jimmy!
Skip started it.
Super sized with lots of salt and butter.
Is there an antidote to Rule 34? Please let there be one!
That’s not Rule 34 that’s a reference to the movie Diner.
Oh, they will find a way to make it fall under Rule 34!
That gag has been around way before that. I first heard it back in the mid 60s.
THAT LONG AGO???
MEAN!
Yes to Tink. That long ago.
Agreeing with Magnus…she is mean! :-0
I’ll bring the foot-long wiener…I mean…all-beef franks!
Don’t forget the buns!
I thought the ladies were providing the buns?
One would hope so.
Looking like tomorrow night for me.
Lucky for you – I had a co-worker see it on Friday and he really liked it. To carry over from last week, he said the bad guys were from Mexico (also alluded to in the review Skip posted) and the Middle East, with the big bad from Serbia, he thought.
My folks saw it Friday (great birthday present said pops) and though the birthday boy admits it’s not of early 80s Stallone action quality, definitely worth seeing. “The good guys get to kick ass, what a concept.”
I just saw it. (I was off today). It was pretty good, as has been said elsewhere the real SEALs are kind of wooden actors, but what do you expect. The sound of a real minigun firing real ammo is incredible. Having sat in a few real brieifngs the briefing contents in the movie were a bit sparse, but it is kind of difficult for me to seperate the story from fact…overall it was OK, I would recommend it.
The bad guys weren’t from Mexico, they were going to enter the USA from Mexico. The uber bad guy was a Chechen.
Interesting that you mention the real ammo sounds, because it’s one of the things that’s been referenced in nearly every review. I wonder how different it will sound to my completely untrained ear.
I don’t think you would know the real from the blank ammo, it just sounded cool/impressive. I can see where the tree huggers out there would wet their pants and call it propaganda. They are against anything that young men might view and think impressive that might cause them to consider military service.
If they are the same as the OWS crowd, apparently the thought of using indoor plumbing also makes them wet their pants.
Cookie!
I’m amazed at how many critics are bitching about how this movie could be used as “a recuiting tool” for the military. They didn’t seem too concerned that An Inconvenient Truth might be used as a recruiting tool for radical environmentalists, or that V for Vendetta might be used as a recruiting tool for violent anarchist groups. But a movie that might encourage people to join the military? Run away, run away!
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close used 9/11 to manipulate viewers’ emotions.”
You mean like Academy Award winning Fahrenheit 911 did?
So noted – I guess he didn’t know there would be test later.
I used to get paid to notice details, no worries.
The sound of an A-10 making a pass is also an awesome thing!
Excellent article by Kurt Schlicter about the success of “Act of Valor”. It made $25 million (more than double its budget) over the same weekend that the Oscars, with Billy Crystal taking predictable cheap shots at the out-of-power GOP candidates, got lousy ratings for the umpteenth year in a row. It’s a perfect contrast showing everything that Hollywood is doing wrong, and everything that they could be doing right, if they’d just pull their heads out of their collective asses.
Kurt Schlicter writes some interesting stuff. He talked about disliking “The Walking Dead” before it became cool to do so, well cool to me anyway as my interest dropped to zero. Cannot say it more plainly than what he did.
I’ve always thought zombies were a limited concept. After Omega Man and George ROmero’s first two films and maybe 28 Days Later what else is there to do?
When done well, the zombie concept can become focused on what values and morals humanity can hold onto without becoming animals when they lose technology, the law, etc. That’s what the comic and TV show, The Walking Dead, does well. It’s about making choices to preserve what’s important about humanity and seeing the key to survival as sticking together, as opposed to viewing survival as a mercenary state of being. Omega Man, Romero’s movies, and the 28 Later movies were short story, physical survivalist movies, that didn’t go into what a long term plan of thinking the characters would need to keep surviving in such a world. The Walking Dead branches into new territory by having people not just reacting toward the dangers they face, but trying to keep their humanity in tact while dealing with the many issues that this worst case scenario brings upon them. And there are differences of opinions on what it means to keep their humanity in tact, and how to deal with issues that arise, that creates tension between characters and makes the show more realistic than prior movies/stories do. So in answer to what else is there to do … what this show does is show how far you’d have to go to keep taking the higher road while others out there, on top of the zombie situation, are taking the low road by preying on each other.
Maybe Obama will apologize for this, too. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/02/horror-pakistanis-desecrate-holy-korans-in-smelly-sewage-ditch-video/
Depends on his golf schedule this week.
+82
That’s just the front 9.
+164
Hey everyone, been on vacation in the mountains for the past 4 days. Got online and just happened to see that I didn’t recognize 90% of the actors or movies that won stuff while I was gone. So, didn’t miss anything there.
Mountain vacation > Hollywood.
Glad you had a good trip! Did you see the Bing picture today?
Somedays, it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed: http://z6.co.uk/dipwad
At first, I thought, “18 years for being naked at work????” Then came the rest of the story.
I love that tiny url you have there – “dipwad.”
Don’t ever tell a man that he has a tiny URL! And then turn around and call him a dipwad?
Late breaking screws, er um, news! Obammy’s after the military again on their healthcare:
http://freebeacon.com/trashing-tricare/
Not really news, for those of us who now pay for what was promised to be “free for life”. “Thank you for your service”, indeed.
Don’t worry Outlaw… I hear there will be veterans’ preferences on the death panels.