Not sure why, but this is extremely appealing to me.
The whole underground bunker thing – tres chic.
here’s the question, though – would this be as secure after the whole “Time Traveler” scenario as, say, Fiji? It’s an absolute death trap in the event of zombies, which is one big drawback…
BTW – I finally RTFA after I posted, and this scared the crap out of me: “Vintners expect an explosion in the sale of fine wines next year when changes in pension regulations will enable people to invest their savings in claret.”
Is there a word for the circle with a slash symbol through it?
One of my youngest multi-sense memories of music is Johnny Cash’s Orange Blossom Special — an orange 8 track that was always somewhere in the truck when we were on the road for camping trips and I’ve known the song since I was young enough to identify a piece of music. So, it is hard for me to be objective about a documentary that covers the back-story of the song but The Special isn’t blowing smoke when they argue this is the most well-known bluegrass tune and has been for nearly 60 years. Seeing it performed and discussed by the likes of the McCoury family, Vassar Clemens, The String Cheese Incident and Johnny Cash reveals the strong personal connection that musicians, and audiences through them, have to this amazing song. If you are willing to go through the hassle you can purchase this documentary for $40 on DVD from info@nlprod.com and they’ll tell you how to snail mail them a check (which seems ridiculous to me that they can put togethor a professional documentary, but they can’t hire a decent web guy to set up a online order system.)
Continuing the theme of actors playing against type in film festival movies, Patrick Warburton plays a complete louse who finds redempiton (eventually) through his purchased Asian bride, acted gorgeously by Marie Matiko, in The Civilaztion of Maxwell Bright. Warburton pushes the limits, at times a bellowing mysogonistic ape and at times a regretful apologetic child. (Considering his voluminous body hair this film may be a pre-cursor to King Kong.) Don’t be scared away by the title or the poster. I really enjoyed this melancholy movie about kharma and love as it can occur in marriage. Altogether excellent filmmaking is acheived.
One of the many positives of working for “the man” (especially one who cares as much as Dell) is they offer some sweet benefits programs. Just a couple days ago the wife and I came in to my office early for our Wellness Check-up. Our stats were as expected except that my HDL is over the line. So for awhile I will be eating lots of fruits (and maybe vegetables) and I plan to get there with the help of Ben & Jerry Smoothies and a local Austin chain called La Palatera that features cups and bowls of amazingly fresh fruit. Today I got this for lunch there:
Yes my lunch was a chilli dog and soda with “la Lancha” — oranges, kiwi, banana, apples, strawberries, watermelon, cantalope, mango, pinapples, cherries, coconut and cucumber with salt, lime juice and chilli powder — and for dessert: a chocolate covered strawberry.
p.s. While I’m on the food kick, check out what I saw at the movie theater last night from Cinnabon©:
the pretzel Cinnabon© all-in-one. genius.
F’n Fox. Spoiling the post-season by completely dwelling on blown calls instead of seven series of absolutely riveting baseball, and the best World Series since, well, last year. Two teams playing for the first time in almost anyone’s lifetime, both with Jank family connections. World-class players on both teams (A whole set of Killer B’s for the Astros, including Blum, the one that got away in Game 3; and a bunch of Cuban political refugees that NRO feted). And, the first Series games played in Texas.
In any case, Fox’s focus on marginal calls, which, in truth, evened out across the series, has every swingin’ Richard spouting off that baseball needs some sort of instant replay review.
Bah, I say.
Read more!
I thought it was a joke when EFF.org sent this story but apparently it’s true.
A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document.
The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known. …
In many ways film festivals are a way for artists, be they actors or directors, to have films shown that allow them to break from their typecasting. The Austin Film Festival is no different and Winter Passing is part of that. Adam Rapp (brother of Anthony ‘Tony’ Rapp who makes a guest appearance) directs Zooey Deschanel, Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, and Amelia Warner in this somber but eventually sentimental film. Where a standard movie, say one of my favorites Jerry Maguire, might start at 5 on the happy scale and end at 10, this starts at 2 and ends at 8. It’s hard to say more without spoiling key scenes, but it can be very hard at times. This story about the daughter of famous authors who left home at 18 and didn’t return for her mother’s funeral three years later is still worth seeing, though.
Fans may feel differently but ATHF‘s creator Jay Edwards movie Stomp! Shout! Scream! is like most of the genre it tries to imitate. A girl band in the ’60s doing a self-managed tour through the Southeast has car problems in a town north of Florida at the same time a swamp creature washes up on shore and kills several beach-goers. There are a few ATHF-ish scenes that garner a chuckle, but the screenplay adheres too much to it’s beach party, swamp monster genre and becomes pedestrian.
With all due respect to everyone’s religious beliefs,
Most Americans do not accept the theory of evolution. Instead, 51 percent of Americans say God created humans in their present form
And I’m not trying to make the hard atheist evolution argument here. How hard is it to believe in god as a concious motivating force inside the infinitely complex, beautiful, and internally logical natural universe we live in?
Isn’t the idea that god is the creator of a universe in which a process as simple as evolution can produce something as complex as humanity far more inspiring than the idea that god likes to sit around in his garden making little people out of play-doh?
I’m going to posit that if most Americans would in fact tell a CBS pollster that they reject the most basic principle of biology, it’s most likely not because they have evaluated science and found that it doesn’t sufficiently explain their world. Rather, certain powers that be have done very well for themselves fomenting a culture war in which science is deemed incompatible with religion and being religious is equivalent to being an American.
Although I’m sure there’s still a frighteningly large percentage who reject evolution out of fear that the rattlesnakes will bite them on Sunday if they don’t.
All due respect and all.
Does Rick Detorie have a crystal ball next to his drawing table? He got the score wrong, but there are many a young lad having difficulty crawling out of bed today after last night’s 14 innings.
(I didn’t personally stay up until 1am watching the game, but I thought about it and it’s the thought that counts…right?)
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Bridge State) wants to subsidize set top conversion boxes once broadcast TV goes all digital.
Want to clean up in ’06? Update the “Contract with America” to emphasize health care or a living wage instead of reforming unemployment, keep the language about balanced budgets, and point to 4 years of surpluses under Clinton. Simplifying the tax code would be a plus. Especially go after the folks who initially supported term limits…
The whole thing about “Power Corrupts” is probably understated. 40 years of the DNC, and the GOP creates a mirror image of the 80’s and Tip O’Neal in a decade. The upside? It’s making it easier to think about voting for Lieberman next year…
What drives a director to think that a stage play would make a good movie? that a book would make a good stage play? If it’s done right I like to think it’s because the story can be told more thoroughly or take on new meaning in a different mediem. Unfortunately, The Sisters — based on a Chekov book then adapted for stage — seems to have only been made because the director wanted to capture a “just ok” stage play on the big screen. There are good performances from Maria Bello, Mary Stuart Masterson, Eric McCormack and Rip Torn but in the end the only people who will enjoy this film are theatre addicts.
From it’s cast list Mrs. Henderson Presents would lead you to think another staid British film is on it’s way to you local arthouse. Instead Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, and Christopher Guest bring you the movie you were expecting with a full dose of nudity. Sentimental to it’s core, this story about an aristocratic widow trying to keep her theater open during World War II is on the long side, but it’s worth seeing.
Two Harbors fully defines independent film. Shot on low-end equipment with a cast of less than a dozen (that focuses almost entirely on two of the characters) and zero special effects, it might as well be a stage production. It comes across as exactly the kind of movie I would probably end up making if I had to make one all by myself.
Clear Cut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen. A documentary should primarily serve the function of reflecting the subject matter without distortion, and in my estimation it is best to do this without redundancy or extraneous information. This is why many documentaries should be delivered as short films and fall flat due to lengthy non-crucial scenes or messages that seem to repeat (as if the audience wasn’t smart enough to get it the first time.) Gee, look how poorly I’ve choosen to select my dietary intake. and Did we communicate how cold and barren it is? are two recent documentary “hits” that represent this problem. Clear Cut delivers it’s reflection about the divisive battle between the conservative faction (who pull in the might of the wealthy executors of the Philomath scholarships) and the more progressive (and generally more pedestrian) education system dwellers, and the film delivers more than expected by representing a lot of America’s dischordance today. Be sure to check out the director’s blog.
Bee Season (based on the top-selling novel from Myla Goldberg — who comes across intelligently wicked (good thing) in this Fresh Air Interview for her new book Wickett’s Remedy) brings an impressive well-known cast with Richard Gere, Juliette Binoche and Kate Bosworth who serve as very talented chorus to lead child actress Flora Cross. It may have helped that I got to see this film on an IMAX screen, but the spelling scenes are beautifully psychedelic and Cross plays them wonderfully. Unfortunately for fans of the book, the climax of the book is not as well-delivered in the film and causes a signifigant short-fall in an otherwise lovely, quiet movie.
There are probably several high brow cinephiles who will bristle at the camparison, but I think Donal Logue is establishing a character manner of dialog or patter that is as identifiable and enjoyable as Whit Stillman’s. Tennis Anyone? isn’t related in any mechanically devisable manner to The Tao of Steve but the way that Logue interacts with Kirk Fox and his character’s general demeanor are practically a follow-up chapter. Don’t expect any revelatory soul-exposing events like the cult hit, Tao, but if you enjoyed Donal then you will like him now.
The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai is a “pink film” about a hooker who becomes really smart after taking a bullet to the center of her head after acquiring the cloned middle finger of Bush (43). (“Pink film” is a Japanese genre of pseudo porn — no below-the-waist nudity, lots of simulated sex…imagine the merkin budget.) I heard Eli Roth before Cabin Fever was released explain that while he really loved the horror genre, if he wasn’t willing to work in horror he wouldn’t be sitting in the director’s chair. In much the same manner, the director of GLoSH knows that he wouldn’t have the opportunity to show his belief in Bush’s willingness to abuse people so literally if he wasn’t doing pink. I don’t think any of you have to worry about seeing this film. (And if you do that’s between you and…whoever.)