I got an email from a friend who has done a lot of Hurricane Katrina relief work. Here are some extraordinary photos, taken by people on the ground. According to my friend, these pictures were made by a man in Magee, Mississippi, where the eye of the storm passed through. Magee is 150 miles North of Waveland, Mississippi, where the Hurricane made landfall:

The following picture was taken from the third- story balcony of Saint Stanislaus College, located next door to Our Lady of the Gulf Church in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, on the morning of August 29th, 2005. This is believed to be the initial tidal wave from Hurricane Katrina. The tidal wave was approximately 35 to 40 feet high. It slammed into the beach front communities of Bay Saint Louis and Waveland, Mississippi, and completely destroyed 99% of every structure along the beach for 9 miles.The destruction only started there. The flooding that continued inland destroyed the contents of all but 35 homes in these two communities of approximately 14,000 people:


Wow.

UPDATE: Jay Johnson advises that the photos above, while very striking, are NOT Katrina-related. They are in fact photos taken by storm chasers in 2002 and 2004 of extreme weather in Nebraska and Kansas. Sorry about that. Now, the last photo, which does appear to be some nasty tidal surge, nevertheless must be of doubtful provenance, given the innacuracy of the previous eight. If anyone know where it came from, or can confirm that it IS a Katrina-related image, please let us know in the comments.

Memjet: The Future of Printing? Check this out:

What Memjet does is hard to believe: It prints letter-size output at 60 ppm—that's one page per second—with a 1,600- by 1,600-dot-per-inch (dpi) printer that Silverbrook says will be available in 2008 for maybe $200 to $300. Not only that, but the projected cost per page is less than 2 cents for a monochrome page and less than 6 cents for a color page.

Supposedly, this miracle will be available next year. If it's true, sign me up for one!

A comment on the comments to my last post aboutgas prices: wow.

I'm trying not to take the various negative comments too seriously, even the ones that used variations on "you're an idiot." I still think [very unscientifically] that gas prices now hurt a lot more than they have in the past. Also, it just seems, uh, unusual, for prices to shoot up by such relatively large increments. For example, between last week and this, gas prices here in Knoxville jumped 8 to 10 cents. I stand by my statement that I have never seen such sudden -- and consistent -- price bumping.

On a (hopefully) less controversial front, I'm starting to think about adding some sort of audio system to my HD TV. I'm interested in anyone's opinions. At first, I thought of just hooking up an old stero receiver and a couple of speakers. Then, trying to avoid working, I saw this Sony HT-DDW700 Complete 5.1-Channel DVD Home Theater System. I don't really need DVD capacity [I've got one already, of course], and my price range is below $250. Any comments or suggested alternatives?

OK, I'm one of those Democrats "seething" at the injustice of high gas prices. Geroge Will, who I bet hasn't had to worry about what it costs to fill up a tank with gas in a lot of years, pooh-poohs the ridiculously high gas prices: "In real (inflation-adjusted) rather than nominal dollars, $3.07 is less than gasoline cost in 1981."

Here's the BIIIG problem with that. Average salaries/pay rates haven't kept up with the rising cost of goods and services -- especially gasoline. I'd be interested in what the "real (inflation adjusted)" salary/pay rates are, as well. I mean, you can't draw an informed conclusion without that datum.

Oh, and why has gas consumption gone up a little over 2% in the past year? Could it be that fewer people are flying because flying is so damn expensive? And why is flying so damn expensive? Hmmmm.

Also, when have we EVER seen gas prices increase so radically so fast? Prior to Katrina, I can't ever remember a time when we would see a pump price increase by 10 cents per gallon within a week's space of time. Now it's routine. The reason for these unconscionable price hikes is that the oil companies, when they saw we would pay anything for the gas, simply decided to kick up the price. It didn't matter how much or how quickly, they knew we would pay, because we HAVE to pay. What real choice do we have? Of course we're being gouged, and the oil industry is laughing all the way to the bank with their record profits.

I saw a program on TV recently about alternative fuel sources, including hybrid, biodiesel, hydrogen and compressed air. What most of these developers have done on literally a shoestring suggests to me that with a concerted government effort, we could be in business with, say hydrogen, almost right away. Here's one outfit, in Norway, that's, uh, paving the way. for a comprehensive look at U.S. government info on this topic check out the 2007 Cyber Guide to Hydrogen Energy, Fuel Cell Cars and Vehicles, Federal Government Research (Three CD-ROM Set).

In the realm of oil/politics fiction (maybe), check out The Formula,featuring George C. Scott and Marlon Brando, and directed by Rocky and The Karate Kid's director, John Avildsen.

UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous commenter, it appears that, comparing 1981 to 2004, average weekly wages between the two are essentially identical. So, while wages have remained the same, look at where gas prices have gone. It IS more for schlubs like us, because our wages haven't kept up with gas prices.

Instapundit has an interesting post on the Japanese criminal justice system. Well, it was interesting to me, because I just happened to finish reading James Clavell's Gai-Jin, an incredibly dense and vivd historical novel of the early years of western involvement in Japan (1862, specifically). While a novel, the book highlights the extraordinary cultural and moral differences between westerners (British, French, American, etc.) and the native Japanese. The Japanese justice system, which I bet was grafted onto the country following WWII, is consistent with those differences, and demonstrates the extent to which asians generally, and Japanese particularly, simply think differently than we do. As Gai-Jin illustrates, that's neither good nor bad; it simply is.

By the way, Gai-Jin is a helluva book, but at 1,035 pages, you have to wade through it a bit. Nevertheless, I give it four flicks, and recommend the rest of the Clavell Asia novels.

"My Favorite Use of Post-It Notes"

This should be my worst problem....

I was reading Eric Muller's post on discovering his Uncle Leo's identity card 65 years after the Germans sent him to the gas in Poland. One commenter speaks of the pure evil operating in Nazi Germany. While I don't quibble with the term, I think that many people miss the point when trying to apply the historical significance of the German "Final Solution" to our contemporary lives.

The point here is not that "monsters" perpetrated these acts. The point is that regular, everyday Germans did so, while going about their regular everyday business. It bears thinking about that the clerks and bureaucratic functionaries who signed the orders, made the entries, ensured the trains were full, and dropped the poison zyklon pellets were all regular people, doing what they were told to do because their government told them the subhuman Jews were the enemy. Apparently for the Germans, their government's denunciation was enough; without a flicker of remorse or second-guessing [collectively, at least], regular Germans as "normal" as any average American accepted unquestioningly the twisted ravings of a few, and translated it into a horrifyingly efficient and bureaucratically well-documented genocide.

For those interested in the best and most-readable exposition of the German-perpetrated genocide, as well as the typical German efficiency with which it was carried out, read Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance. The made for TV miniseries of War & Remembrance is flawed, but the episodes dealing with the Holocaust-related aspects of World War II are strikingly well done. In fact, the Auschwitz scenes were actually filmed there.

It is naive to think another such holocaust could never happen here. Without constant vigilance, it could happen anywhere.

After using up all my excuses, I finally watched the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth. This Oscar-winning documentary makes the case that global warming is a reality, and is a call to action on this "moral, not political" issue.

Now, I have some history with Al Gore, albeit tangential. I interned in his Senate office as a third year law student. While I had very limited exposure to the Senator at the time, it was apparent that he was extremely hard-working, thoughtful, and well-meaning. It was also clear to all that this guy was going to be president one day. With me personally, he amused me greatly when he met my parents who came in for a courtesy call during my law school graduation. Gore sat there and, with a straight face, told them I was the best intern he had ever had. I practically guffawed, because I was sure that he didn't even know my name. Good staff work, I guess. Oh, he was even then a techno-geek; he was one of the first legislators to have a computer at his desk.

Those irerelevancies aside, my thoughts on the documentary:

The Good: It's hard to take the relatively dry subject matter of global warming, presented essentially in a powerpoint-type presentation, and make it interesting. Gore and the filmmakers succeeded for the most part. Substantively they make a compelling case for the increasing dangers of global warming, and for the reality of its existence. The filmmakers use an effective device in telling their "story;" they make Gore the "protagonist," interspersing into his presentation a summary of his life and career, and how it informed his commitment to this issue. As Gore is the "good guy," it follows that those who oppose the clarion call are perceived as the "bad guys." Those who oppose his position here may or may not be bad, but you have to admit, it's an effective storytelling device. Even Ann Althouse thought so, more or less ("And dammit, it works. I do feel good about Al Gore!"). The statistic that stays with me over a week after viewing the movie is that there have been close to 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles demonstraitng the reality of global warming, and zero such papers refuting its existence. He then contrasted that statstic with the countervailing statistic that in popular publications there are over 50% that dispute the reality of global warming. I found the production values good -- sharp, pleasant photography, and enough cutting to keep it interesting without giving me a headache. I thought the movie presented a compelling argument.

The Bad: Well, I did fall asleep twice trying to get through it. That's why God invented "rewind."

The Bottom Line: Four Flicks. I didn't think this was a Gore for President info-mercial; I think they used him to tell their story and make their point. For a documentary, it was solid work.

Those who decry Gore for using more energy than the average joe miss the point, I think. Don't shoot the messenger; Gore's personal habits don't negatively affect the credibility of his message. Lambasting him simply muddies the waters, which is the goal of the nay-sayers anyway. While this documentary may have oversimplified some points, the broad theme seems valid. And as I have said for some time, even if they're wrong about global warming, we ought to hedge our bets and start reducing our emissions. Now if I could only afford a hybrid car....

I just glanced at all the comments of my review of Little Miss Sunshine. Thanks for looking in, everybody! I agree with one of them that I did not sense some sort of liberal political agenda in the plotting of or approach to the film. If anything, this movie is indicative of middle class desperation, and the crazy ways we cope with day to day stresses of just getting through.

I did perceive the metaphor of family in everyone having to push the van to get it started. I just didn't think to mention it, not only to avoid a spoiler, but also because it just seemed to be lost in the rest of the background noise.

A commenter correctly noted that I did not mention Paul Dano, who played the angst-ridden teenage brother. Well, it was 1:30 a.m. when I wrote it, so give me a break, huh? Also, I led the review with HIS quote, so don't I get props for that?

The reason the majority of commenters were as dissatisfied with the picture as I was is that the distributor and MSM touted this movie as something that it was not. It was not a warm family comedy; it was a dark, bittersweet [emphasis on bitter] examination of dysfunctional family mechanics. Maybe the problem was that it tried to be all things to all people, but failed [all due respect to those who did find it amusing]. Sometimes you can't take your eyes off a train wreck, no matter how distasteful it is. This movie was not one of those occasions.

Finally, I do want to acknowledge what I have said for years: I'm just one critic. I may like the movie, but that doesn't mean anything if you don't. You know, different strokes and all that.

Keep watching!

UPDATE: Apparently, I'm "some sort of a clown." Well, clowns are entertaining, so I guess that means I am, too. I'll take that as a compliment. Yeah, that's the ticket.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Well, the hits just keep on comin'! I'm also "The most banal fim critic ever." At least someone's reading....

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: From a pithy commenter, my quote of the day: "parade of human ugliness." Indeed.

One of the characters in Little Miss Sunshineadroitly sums up this movie for any potential viewers: "welcome to hell." What is billed as a charming and quirky comedy is actually a painful exercise in "let's make fun of the dysfunctional family." If you get the impression I didn't much like the picture, you may be right.

This one hour and 43 minute study in misery and seat squirming is the story of a truly sad family and their odyssey to make it to the youngest daughter's "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant. "Sunshine" is actually reminiscent of funnier movies, like National Lampoon's Vacation,even down to certain plot points that I won't give away here. But while the latter actually amused, Little Miss Sunshine simply made me want to hide my face in my hands and pray for the end credits.

The Good: Not much actually. The best part of the movie is the young pageant contestant's talent performance, as choreographed by her grandfather. That amused for about 2 minutes. Of course, I had to figure out a way to deal with the remaining 11 minutes.

Dustin Hoffmancalled young newcomer Abigail Breslin's work the best child actress performance he ever saw. While this young girl is reasonably engaging, she can't make up for this sad excuse for a story/script. Personally, I think Dustin should have seen, say, Tatum O'Neal's tour de force in Paper Moon. Alan Arkinwon an Oscar for his part as the heroin snorting, foul-mouthed grandfather. I can't figure out why, unless the award was more for his body of work than for this particular part. Greg Kinnearis appropriately smarmy as the motivational expert who can't get anyone motivated. However, he's effective enough that one can't really like -- or root for -- his character. Toni Colletteis the one relatively normal member of this family, and her role is essentially straight man to the rest of them. She's wasted in the part; anyone with any acting ability could have played it. Steve Carrell,who's hot as a firecracker as a comedy performer these days, is maybe the most effective actor in this piece, with his understated delivery of the gay, suicidal, Proust expert along for the ride. On the other hand, all he's got to do is look sad and play it straight.

The Bad: I get enough dysfunctional unhappiness in my own life; why would I consider it entertainment to watch it on a movie screen? as alluded to above, some of the movie was deriviative of other road movies. While I understood the theme that the filmmakers were going for [family, for better or worse], I was expectng some humor, and what I got was almost painful to watch.

The Bottom Line: One Flick. This picture would have gotten zero flicks, but the talent competition sequence did amuse, however briefly. Why so many others have raved about this waste of time is beyond me.

In The Sentinel, Michael Douglas is a well-liked, veteran Secret Service agent who, years previously, took a bullet for Ronald Reagan. He also has a secret -- he's schtupping the current First Lady. He starts having a really bad day when an assasination plot against the president is uncovered, pointing at him as the secret service mole setting up his boss, the leader of the free world. From there, mayhem, chase scenes and high body count ensue. Here's what I thought of it:

The Good: This movie is a nicely paced, reasonably taut thriller. Douglas, typically, gives a strong performance, and largely erases my image of him as The President in The American President. Kiefer Sutherland is not bad as the investigating agent who is out to crucify his former mentor and friend. For a while, I was left guessing where the story would go. Although I eventually figured out the whodunnit part, the picture nevertheless kept my interest.

The Bad: The filmmakers left a lot of this story untold, for whatever reason. An agent is murdered early on in the action, and while it's implied that he dies because he has learned something about the assasination attempt, we never find out what he knew. When we find out who the assasins are, we get precious little exposition on why they're gunning for the president. I suspect we were supposed to be carried along with the story at such a rate that we would forget for those niggling details. Eva Longoria and Kim Basinger are basically wasted in their supporting roles as the newbie Secret Service Agent and cheatin' First Lady, respectively.

The Bottom Line: Three flicks. Kept my interest, but predictable in the end.

And now, a brief foray into music, one of my other passions.

One of my early drummer heroes was Danny Seraphine from Chicago. For reasons never disseminated to the public, Danny was unceremoniously canned by the band in 1990, and he fell off the radar screen. Well, he's re-emerged with a great new interview. This interview, for the first time, gives us some explanation for his unfortunate departure from one of the most successful bands in rock history.

More interestingly, he's put together a new band, called -- slyly -- CTA (California Transit Authority). The web site has an audio montage of some of his work with this new band, and it sounds really good. I can't wait for an album, which apparently is in the works. Now what's cool is that part of that montage is a cover of Chicago's Mississippi Delta City Blues from Chicago XI, maybe my all-time fave Chicago tune.

This guy's a monster drummer, who has been an inspiration to a whole generation of drummers. Stay tuned for his next move.

Cameron Crowe is the luckiest guy in the world. At fifteen or thereabouts, he was touring and writing about the biggest bands on the rock scene. See Almost Famous - The Director's Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition). And getting paid for it! But, "what I really want to do is direct." So he gets to direct, and he does so well. See Jerry Maguire, Say Anything, Vanilla Sky. On top of everything else, he's married to Nancy Wilson from Heart. He gives hope to geeks everywhere.

So it was with great interest that I watched Elizabethtown, Crowe's latest. He's got a strong cast, including Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, and Susan Sarandon, and he's got a penchant for telling effective character-based stories. So did he pull it off again? Let's see:

The Good: Drew (Bloom) is having the bad day of bad days. The shoe he has developed has laid an elephant-sized egg, to the tune of about a billion dollars. His craven boss (Alec Baldwin, in a throwaway part) wants Bloom to take the heat for the fiasco. To make his day perfect, he learns that his father has died in rural Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and he's been drafted to schlep cross-country to the hinterlands to collect the body and deal with the (to his mother and sister) annoying locals. As he sits on the plane, basically suicidal, he encounters the most proactive filght attendant I ever saw. And what happens to Drew as he moves physically and spiritually through Elizabethtown and beyond is the real story here.

Bloom, who is English, affects a flawless -- if regionally neutral -- American accent, and is engaging as the beset-upon Drew. Kirsten Dunst, as usual, lights up the screen. The movie basically is Drew's voyage of discovery and redemption, as he comes to terms with the death of his father, the collective love of dad's native Elizabethtown friends and family, his own professional failures, and and his own disconnect with all of the above. Crowe is an engaging writer, and has good chops in telling a story as a director. I figured out fairly quickly that this movie was informed by Crowe's loss of his own father, many years ago. While I applaud Crowe for giving it the old college try, the movie just doesn't hold together in the end.

The Bad: As alluded to earlier, Kirsten is the most in-your-face flight attendant in history. Why don't I get stewardesses like that [you really want me to answer that? -- ed.]? As my wife the retailer said while watching the movie, it's just not realistic that the shoe that Drew developed would have ever gone to market before exhaustive testing to ensure it didn't lay the egg described in the story. Certainly, the designer is not going to be the only one in the chain to take the heat for the failure.

I was annoyed at what I perceived to be the stereotyping of small southern communities portrayed by Californian cum Washingtonian Crowe. Although he did appear to soft peddle it, the Elizabethtown residents were the usual suspects: the frosted-hair aunts, the redneck local businessmen, the redneck single father cousin. Maybe I'm just hypersensitive here, but I don't see that kind of thing here in Knoxville, at least.

Ultimately, I didn't think the action while in the town scanned. Why didn't Sarandon, as Drew's mother and new widow, go to Elizabethtown to deal with arrangements concerning her own dead husband? If she had such a good relationship with her husband, why then was she taking cooking and tap dancing classes instead of burying her beloved? If it was because she couldn't stand the townspeople, or her family in-laws, then why did she show up at the end of the picture for the memorial service they held? She was basically wasted in this role.

Come to think of it, we never learned why dad was in his native Elizabethtown in the first place. If he and his family were as estranged with his local family as implied, then why was he there? Why was dad so revered by local family and friends? Let's face it: out of sight means out of mind. If he had been gone from his home town for decades, as implied, then it is likely that the town was not going to be as collectively prostrate with grief as portrayed.

I also couldn't suspend disbelief long enough to believe in the crucial and central relationship between Bloom and Dunst. Don't get me wrong; I rooted for them, but I just didn't believe it. And Bloom's questing drive cross-country to cap off the film is supposed to be quixotically romantic, I suppose. It just comes off as silly to me.

The Bottom Line: Two Flicks. I really wanted to like this movie better, but it just didn't stack up well compared to Crowe's very solid previous work. To use a sports metaphor, sometimes, you've got the right play called, the right players on the field, and the touchdown pass just falls short. That's "Elizabethtown" to me.

I always got a kick out of the 1976 Walter Matthau/Tatum O'Neal vehicle The Bad News Bears,and I've watched it many times over the years. The picture got a lot of attention in the day for the raw language and situations the child characters found themselves in. But the interplay between Matthau and O'Neal, Matthau and the kids, Matthau and the adults [detect a trend there?] creates a sort of whimsical atmosphere. That, with a clear love of thegame of baseball, made the original work notable andentertaining.

So it was with some trepidation that I sat down with the remake of it -- 2005's Bad News Bears,this one with Billy Bob Thornton apparently trying to channel the late Matthau. Here's my take:

The Good: Not much, frankly. Billy Bob is serviceable as Buttermaker, but viewed -- inevitably -- through the patina of Matthaus's bravura performance almost 30 years previously, it comes off as a pale imitation of the original. There are a couple of decent gags, but I found myself amused really only two or three times.

The Bad: Richard Linklater, the director, clearly couldn't figure out how to handle this remake. Retell the story, or change it up enough to make it independent of the original? What results is a mish mash of attempts at originality, interpsersed with distracting thefts from the original. For example, Linklater steals almost verbatim the gag involving Tanner in the Bears's first game. They can't stop the Yankees from running the bases, so in frustration Tanner starts throwing his glove at the opposing base runners. The only change is that Linklater has the Tanner character go an additional step. He jumps on the base runners as well. Big deal. In another example, Buttermaker is pitching to his team in practice, all the while getting crocked. The scene culminates with a cut to a prostrate Buttermaker, completely passed out over the pitcher's mound. Linklater does the same thing, with the only extension being the kids actually picking his pocket and stealing his money. Hilarious. These retreads of the original's scenes continue throughout, even down to using the same camera angle as the original on one scene, when Timmy Lupus finally gets a chance to catch a fly ball. Here, the sublime finally becomes the ridiculous. Lupus gets his glove on the ball, but he doesn't get the catch; instead, it's bounces off to be caught by Hooper, a paraplegic [yeah, you read that right], who gets to play in the outfield. Uh, how does this kid bat out of a powered wheelchair? Well, we don't have to figure that one out, because Linklater conveniently never puts him up at bat.

The worst failing is the Tatum O'Neal character, Amanda. The young actress is sadly miscast, and has no chemistry with Billy Bob at all. The key to the original was the implicit, bittersweet interplay between Matthau and O'Neal. That interplay is wholly nonexistent in the new movie. This movie just never captures any of the whimsy that made the original so special.

The Bottom Line: One Flick. Watch the original. You'll see the same gags, and much better executed.

UPDATE: I watched the original Bad News Bears yesterday, and realized that I was flat wrong with my reference to the camera angle on the penultimate Lupus catch toward the end of the picture. The 2005 shot was a point of view shot from the ball, in the air. In the 1976 movie, the shot is from the ground level. Sorry about the mistake, but I still stand by my take on the two fims. The first one just hangs together better, and is sweeter than the new one, language notwithstanding.

Once every so often, you find a TV show that transcends the standard fare, and that achieves the extraordinary. For me and many others the first four seasons of The West Wing did just that. I remember one commentator being astounded that policy wonk issues could form the basis of a successful hour-long drama. But that observation misses the point. It wasn't so much the stories that grabbed the viewer, it was the incredible pacing and dialogue. Watching a West Wing episode was not only a pleasure for those who thrive on snappy repartee, it was also a challenge. Creator-writer Aaron Sorkin paces his stories along so fast, you better pay close attention, or you'll miss something good. He's also not afraid of poking fun at his own [political] side. My favorite line, from season 2, episode 1:

Josh Lyman: Mr. Secretary, the Democrats aren't going to nominate another liberal academic former governor from New England. I mean, we're dumb, but we're not that dumb.

Former Secretary Leo McGarry: Nah. I think we're exactly that dumb.

Anticlimactic though it may be, here's my take on the series:

The Good: Seasons 1 through 4 -- everything. Many of the actors in the show are Sorkin regulars. For instance, Martin Sheen [President Bartlet], played Chief of Staff McInerney in the Sorkin-penned The American President, while Joshua Malina was not only in the former, but also was a featured player in another Sorkin TV show, the interesting but ill-fated Sports Night. This show was one of the few -- if not the only -- that actually stopped regular production after 9/11, retooled with a script Sorkin had dashed off in, like 48 hours, filemd an entirely new episode dealing with incipient anti-arab fears rumbling since the attack, and had the show on the air within, like two or three weeks after 9/11. Thus, instead of blithely carrying on with their story arc, they simply pushed it back a week, stopped, and presented their own ode to the world as of September 2001. I don't know that I've ever seen such a thing coming out of series TV before, and certainly not since.

Overall, the casting, using many actors you've seen before in supporting or character roles, is uncannily perfect, from Sheen as the president, to Brad Whitford, as Deputy Chief of Staff Lyman, to Richard Schiff, who often steals the show as curmudgeonly Toby Ziegler. I could highlight just about any cast member; they all work in their roles. And, as it should be, The west Wing has made them stars in their own right.

The stories are, well, riveting. As alluded to above, the genius of Aaron Sorkin is his ability to do it with lines like, "I need Section 202 of the National Securities Act of 1947." The West Wing is the perfect example of "getting there is
all the fun. Or, it's not the result; it's the process.
Now, while I freely admit I'm a Democrat, and the show is about a Democratic administration, I posit that viewers of any political bent would enjoy this show, by simply ignoring the substance they don't agree with. That's what I did in various episodes where I disagreed with the obvious political or ideological point the writers were making. It's the process, not the result, after all.

The Bad: Well, maybe not bad, per se, but certainly not as good as years one through four, are the five through seventh seasons. Apparently, Sorkin was turning out genius writing by holing up in a hotel, loading up on crack, and churning, baby, churning. Apparently NBC got tired of this relatively uncertain way of getting scripts, severed its relationship with Sorkin, and placed ER's John Wells in charge of the shooting match. Seasons 5 through 7 are OK, but just don't hold up well to the first four. I thought the writing became a little more preachy in seasons 5 and 6; I don't see that Sorkin would have taken the same tone or direction. Nevertheless, it was still damn good TV. The seventh season was largely taken up with the faux presidential campaign to replace the outgoing Bartlet, and the show returned to almost-Sorkin form. Again, we really didn't know whether the Democrat [Jimmy Smits] was going to win, or the Republican [Alan Alda] would take the presidential prize. The writers cannily made you like both the candidates, and left the result up in the air just about as long as the Bush-Gore result was undecided. Frankly, I still was sorry to see the series end, just when it was getting interesting again.

The Bottom Line:Seasons 1-4: Five Flicks. Perhaps the best series television [drama] ever made.

Seasons 5-7: three Flicks. Still good, but still a pale shadow of the sartorial glory that was the first four years of The West Wing.

Well, the Tennessee Lady Vols have done it again, winning their seventh national basketball championship against Rutgers, 59-46. It puts me in mind of perhaps the Lady Vols's longest shot championship, after the 1996-97 season, chronicled in A Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back. I thought it would be timely to review this absorbing HBO documentary.

The Good: Want to know what it's like to play for Pat Summitt? To be a part of a championship team that is underachieving? A Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back takes the viewer into the locker room, the weight room, and right onto the court. The documentary filmmakers had almost unprecedented access to Summitt, her staff, and her players. Unless you are a fan of the program, you really don't know what's going to happen next. And more characteristic of a fictional drama, the twists and turns of this most unlikely of seasons will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The film works on another level, too. By delving into the backgrounds of Summitt and recalcitrant senior forward Abby Conklin, the filmmakers set up a quasi-dramatic adversarial tension between the two that further informs the piece. I tend to watch it again every year at tournament time, because it gets me fired up. Poignant, exciting, and eminently entertaining.

The Bad: I wish it had run longer. I felt like the fimmakers had to cut the piece too much, probably to fit time limitations imposed by HBO. Other than that, no down side at all.

The Bottom line: Four Flicks. A director's cut would probably get five flicks in my book.

A commenter writes:

I think this is going to be a great year for Ishtar... the 20th anniversary will mark a big resurgence. There is a documentary film about Ishtar fandom in the works, The guy that runs the Ishtar fan website (http://www.ishtarthemovie.com/) is putting together a tribute CD featuring cover versions of songs from the movie, there's an Ishtar fan group, and possibly a US release on DVD (something the heathen in Europe have been enjoying for years). So shake off that square world, get with the countdown, and blast off to Ishtar!

So maybe I was wrong about Ishtar. Then again....

And the worst movie I ever saw? Even though it was 30 years ago, I still have to vote for Sorcerer,a Billy Friedkin job from 1977 with Roy Scheider. I never saw the original on which this piece of crap was based [The Wages of Fear],but this movie was awful from the first. Ironically, I actually had to sit through this 121 minutes of hell on earth twice!

The Good: Uh, Uh.... Well, Amazon gave it 4.5 stars. Somehow.

The Bad: As I rcall, the first 30 minutes were in French, without subtitles! Believe me, the visual narrative flow was nonexistent and incoherent. Once it started maing some sense, the story was excruciating, involving prisoners in the jungle transporting high explosives somewhere in rickety trucks. Roy Scheider is in the lead, and I hope he got paid well, because that would have been the only good thing to come out of this turgid excuse for entertainment.

The Bottom Line: No Flicks. It really is the worst movie I can remember ever seeing. And I saw Ishtar!

Well, I'm back from my tenth Grand Cayman trip since 1999. Can you tell I kind of like the place? For all you cruise ship types looking for an island to land on next time, give a hard look at Grand Cayman. The people are nice, the food is good, it's relaxing, and the diving is as good as it gets, if that's your thing. It sure is mine; I managed 11 dives in 4 days, and would have had more, had it not been for the dreadful Delta Airlines experience we had trying to get there in the first place.

The night before I left on the trip I [idiotically] stayed up till 3:00 a.m. watching Into the Blue,a treasure hunt caper that deals with scuba diving to a large extent. Here's my take:

The Good: Jessica Alba, engaging photography, moderately interesting treasure hunt story, Jessica Alba, a couple of twists that even jaded I didn't figure out, and Jessica Alba.

The Bad: It WAS a bit of a pot boiler, and for anyone who has given any thought to treasure hunting, the setup was somewhat less than credible. From a back story point of view, I learned about a year ago that the producers had looked at filming this picture in Grand Cayman instead of the Bahamas, and Alba even came to Cayman for a tutorial in free diving [diving without scuba] from my friend Sebastian and the good folks at DiveTech. Unfortunately, the government apparently couldn't get out of its own way to make the deal, so off the production went to the Bahamas.

The Bottom Line: Three Flicks. It ain't the greatest movie I ever saw, but the dive photography was well done, and there is Jessica Alba, after all....

The Shawshank Redemption would have been the best movie of the year any year. Except 1994, when it was released. That was also the year of Forrest Gump. Talk about an embarassment of riches! We'll deal with Gump later; now, let's take a quick look at Shawshank:

The Good: This movie is one where I can truly say, it's all good. Understand that I'd already seen, and felt allegience to, Forrest Gump. So, I went into seeing Shawshank with a bias against liking the picture. I also am not the biggest fan of prison stories. I walked out of the theatre and LOVED the movie.

Normally, a voice-over narration is seen as a weakness in a movie's structure; the visual narrative ought to tell the story, and not an omniscient voice-over. Here, Morgan Freeman's dulcet, understated tones set the stage for a helluva story, with a great twist of an ending. Freeman,who is perhaps the leading light in American cinema, gives a bravura performance as Red, the world-weary con who befriends Tim Robbins's Andy, a newbie convicted of killing his wife and her lover. Tim Robbinsgives the performance of his career, eclipsing even that classic, Bull Durham,with his subtlety and sure acting touch. Strong performances also were given by all the supporting cast, including William Sadler as a fellow inmate, Bob Gunton as the oily, conniving warden, and Clancy Brownas the sadistic but opportunistic head guard. This movie should have, and would have, won the Best Picture Oscar, had it not been for Gump. That circumstance of timing does not diminish the power and quality of the picture, though. The Shawshank Redemption is one of the best movies I have seen in the past 30 years or so.

The Bad: Nothing, really. I suppose one might have a mild problem with some of the subject matter, particularly the gay rape scenes, as well as some of the relatively mild violence. But the former is mostly implied, and the latter is pretty tame by today's standards.

The Bottom Line: Five Flicks. See this movie. Really.

The day before yesterday, I was out to lunch [some would say that's my normal state], and, needing something to read, stopped in at a local bookstore. What I ended up with was a James Taylorbio, called Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Story. I'm a big JT fan, so that looked interesting. I blew through it in a day, and here's what I think of the work:

The Good: Halperin uses research and interviews well to tell Taylor's story, especially in his early life and career. I found quite interesting the singer's travails through the early 1980s. I certainly got a much clearer picture of his instabilities and peccadillos in his younger life -- his serious drug use [chronic IV heroin use], and his notorious reputation with the ladies [he apparently was a renowned tail hound].

The Bad: Not the most engaging writing I've ever seen. Lots of typos and missed words in the text. They really should have proofread the book better. My biggest gripe is that the author, Ian Halperin, seemed to grow tired of the subject about halfway through, that is, in about 1982 chronologically. I would have been quite interested in knowing more about why Taylor got so writer's-blocked between 1982 and 1985, and why the gaps between releases got longer and longer. After 1982, the story gets much more sketchy. Also, the book is a litle too fan adulatory, as opposed to even-handed reporting. That got annoying to me.

The Bottom Line: Two flicks. It was an OK read in a pinch, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read it again.

Ah, I feel like I'm now well and truly on my way, thanks to friends in high places. Wlcome to all visitors; come again often!

One commenter mentioned an internal HD-DVD player, and I've seen the like at local electronics stores. I just don't have the time to deal with installation, obtaining the HD-tuner that must be necessary, and space is a concern in my family room. Besides, I got a MCE computer last April with the TV tuner [non-HD], and have had loads of problems getting it to work properly. Currently, it's completely non-functional, and I don't have the extra brain space [already QUITE limited] to figure out the problem.

Another commenter referred me to the Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player with HDMI, 1080p Up-Converting, DivX & SACD. Unfortunately, I blew my wad with the JVC DVD/VHS combo unit, which supposedly upconverts to 1080i, and records in the bargain. Maybe it's better than the progressive scan DVD that is on the TIVO/Humax box, but I can't really tell. If this blog takes off, maybe I'll have an excuse to get a Blueray or HD-DVD player. I also expect to win the Powerball tomorrow night....

Technorati Profile

A word on what equipment I use to view content. I've got the 46 inch version of the JVC LT40FN97 40" 1080p Flat Panel LCD TV. Here's a great review of the 46 inch set, which [something I didn't know when I bought it] is considered to have about the best picture available.

I have not hooked up any external speakers, because of the cost as well as how my room is laid out. The onboard sound, including quasi-surround, is OK, but not spectacular. Having the wireless headphones helps.

I have Comcast cable, with all the movie channels. I use two different converter boxes, both Motorola. One is the hi-def box with dual tuner DVR capability. I view this converter box through either video 3 in [component cables] or HDMI 2 in. HDMI gives a subtle but discernible improved picture over the component cables, but HDMI will not allow me to use my wireless headphones. Thus, I have redundancy with the component in, when I need to use headphones.

The other set top box supports "digital" cable, but not hi-def. It is dedicated to my Humax DRT800 DVD-R/RW Recorder/TiVo Series2 DVR Combo. The TIVO box is not hi-def, but short of spending $800 for a TIVO HD box, it's the best I can do. The box does have a DVD player/recorder which, when set for progressive scan, gives as good a picture for DVDs as my [supposedly] DVD and VHS Recorder/player Combo with Up-conversion.

DVD play quality is OK, but definitely not HD quality. I can view it either through video 2 [regular AV cables], or through HDMI 1. The HDMI picture is significantly better quality than the AV cables, but again, I can't listen with the headphones on the HDMI input. Maybe one day, finances willing, I'll get the Blueray or HD-DVD players. We'll see....

Finally, when perversity strikes, or when I'm recording three other programs [2 on the HD DVR, and 1 on the TIVO], I can watch over the air HD, enabled to a certain extent with this Radio Shack Antenna. For some reason, reception can be hit and miss, but this antenna, with something like 12 powered position settings [remote to change the settings included], maximizes reception. If I want basic cable, I also have the capability to watch the basic channels [2-98] with a co-ax line directly into the set.

For Hanukah, my wife got me Hill Street Blues - Season 2. This was like buying catnip for a cat. Over 20 years ago [ugh], Thursday night at 10:00 was a sacrosanct timefor me; "The Hill" was on. I've seen various episodes over the years, but this was the first time I got to go through the season in sequence, episode by episode. Just great!

Hill Street Blues

The Good: This show set the contemporary standard for cop shows on TV. Great stories about real people, great acting, and a gritty,realistic feel. Basically, every cop show since has built on Hill Street's foundation. Every show opens with "Roll Call, 7:04 a.m. [or whatever time]," and carries the viewer through a day with the Hill Street Blues, that is, the Hill Street cops, from the captain, to the uniformed patrolmen, to the prosecutors and defenders and other regulars in the precinct house. While it's not as racy as, say NYPD Blue, another Steven Bochco show, it's actually quite refreshing that the sexiest thing that happens is that two of the characters regularly get together for a nooner. In the middle of the day! What made this show, as well as any good program, so good is that the viewer cares about the characters, and will tune in to see what's going on with them from week to week.

The Bad: If you watch on HD TV, then you will be somewhat disappointed. This is analog TV, with little or no up-conversion for digital or HD. I watch on a DVD and VHS Recorder/player Combo with Up-conversion, and the picture is clear and all, but it ain't HD. Substantively, for about five minutes in the first episode, the show feels a bit dated. Then, you fall into the world of Captain Furillo and the Hill Street gang, and it don't make no difference at all. Shows like Hill Street have been accused of being prime time soap operas. I understand the criticism, except that with soap operas, I used to be able to stop watching for weeks, and then when I came back to the soap, I hadn't missed anything. Not so with Hill Street, which normally operated in three-episode arcs, another innovation introduced [or at least used successfully] by the show.

The Bottom Line:: Five Flicks. Of all the TV I've ever seen, this show really is "must see TV." For old fans of the show, it's a chance to visit old friends. For the uninitiated, it's a chance to see better TV than 99% of what's on the air now. Don't miss it.

I watched Poseidon last night. I was the geeky 12 year old that saw the original The Poseidon Adventure back in the day, so I was interested to see what take the remake took. So, how about a head to head comparison?

Poseidon

The Good: Cruise ship Poseidon turns turtle on New Year's Eve as a result of the timely intercession of a "rogue" [how convenient] wave. A small group of intrepid survivors, who don't want to sit pat and await rescue, go through hell and high water [literally] to get out pf the ship. Reasonably cool effects, although I kept thinking that the swooping exteriors of the fictional cruise ship were (a) kinda fake-looking, and (b) kinda "Titanic goes 21st century." The cast, featuring Kurt Russell, is passable, with the exception of Richard Dreyfuss, who not only was wasted in a tangential supporting role, but also who was badly unbelieveable as an older gay man who gets jilted just seconds before you-know-what happens. And it does happen, with pretty cool effects. Interesting story elements, that evoke but update for contemporary times the original. More than once, I found myself on the edge of my seat a few times, even though I knew how it was going to turn out.

The Bad: Well, you know how it ends. For all the updating, it's still just the original on steroids. The gags are too eerily reminiscent of the original, especially the obligatory swimming marathon sequence, as well as the roster of those who don't make it. You can just imagine how they pitched this one: "Think of Titanic, put in the present time, and update the gags from the original. It'll make a ga-zillion!" In what might be an upside for some, there were many more dead folks floating by. For me, though, after 9/11, post-Katrina, and the Tsunami, I've seen enough corpses to last me for a while.

The Bottom Line: Two Flicks. It's OK, but wait for cable.

The Poseidon Adventure

The Good: As above, the ship gets hit by a rogue wave and turns upside down on New Year's Eve. Led by self-reliant preacher Gene Hackman, an all-star cast including Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, and Roddy McDowell, encounter upside-down toilets, among other things, on their way to salvation at the bottom of the ship. Cool Effects for 1972, and Hackman is deliciously over the top as the fiery, self-sacrificing preacher. Shelley Winters, as the elderly matron with the high school swimming medal, is fun to watch during the original obligatory swim through the muck sequence. In hindsight, I loved Leslie Nielson in just about his last straight role before eventually becoming Frank Drebbin.

The Bad: The dialogue is a bit shrill, and the little kid is -- and was, in the day -- annoying as hell. The exteriors of the ship itself are pretty sophomoric, although in line with early 1970s technology. It just shows how far we've come since then [Yeah, real far: great effects, but we're still telling the same stories, in remake after remake].

The Bottom line: Three Flicks. If you have to choose, choose the original. Although dated, it still tells the better story.

One science fiction film that I like is Serenity, which is now available in an HD-DVD version. Wish I had an HD-DVD player!

OK. Here we go. A new blog intended to discuss and/or review -- hopefully intelligently -- movies I happen to like. Or don't like. Since I love a good movie -- and hate a bad movie -- I thought it made sense to try to share my dubious profundities with the world. Well, at least the seven or eight of you that actually tune in.