Red Right Blog |
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Rants, Rates, Slags, Slates. Manic-depressive posts from Red Wright-Hand. Because there are thousands of worthless blogs out there and who am I not to add to their number?
Total US troop deaths in Iraq to date (09/01/07) since 03/20/03: 3739
From 05/02/03 through 06/28/04: 718 Myeloma (etc.) Blogs
Adventures of Cancer Girl Browse
Arts & Letters Daily
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Wednesday, July 28, 2004
A couple of online entertainments: First, the apparently very popular "This Land" animation, courtesy of JibJab, and then, the ought-to-be-as-popular "I Know Where Bruce Lee Lives" ultra-interactive Kung-fu Remixer, which frankly I don't quite understand yet, but it's blowing my mind anyway. Yes, Alex, this is the coolest site ever. Are the lug nuts on a '55 Ford really that tight? Dan Rather weighs in on the "dullsville" Democratic Convention, daddy-o. Monday, July 26, 2004
THE MAN WHOSE BANDWIDTH EXPANDED: Lots of Fall videos available for online viewing at this spot. Because, you know, I don't mention The Fall enough around here. Sunday, July 25, 2004
"It's true that I've driven through a number of red lights on occasion, but on the other hand, I've stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it." Glenn Gould, quoted in this year's biography, Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould, by Kevin Bazzana Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Yeah, you can just forget about significant updates until at least this Friday night, as Internet connectivity is sporadic at best from my location(s) here on the Eastern Shore. See y'all later....and that includes all you fans of "Uma Thurman's feet" [popular search item #36] Friday, July 16, 2004
The Red Right Road Show returns to Chincoteague, Virginia tomorrow, on account of last year was just such a blast. No, seriously, adjacent Assateague Island has miles of wonderful beach, so that's where I'll be, dodging skeeters, wild ponies and the occasional shark (at least I think that's what I saw swim past me out on that sandbar). In honor of the local horses, I'll be bringing along Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry stories...and likely a good thing too: look at this miserable forecast. Wednesday, July 07, 2004
On the afternoon of July 3rd, after leaving a screening of Fahrenheit 9/11, I biked over to Independence National Historic Park to see the Eyes Wide Open exhibit, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, on display at the Visitors Center. The following afternoon I returned to take some photos: here is one, and a second, and a third and a fourth. The next morning I went out along Penn's Landing to see some of the sailing ships that were moored there in the Delaware River, and in some cases already preparing to depart. Also in the Delaware was a Navy patrol boat, apparently providing security both in general and for the USS Navy destroyer Laboon anchored just a bit further upwater. Here is a second patrol boat. I keep wanting to say "That's Cambodia, Captain." Monday, July 05, 2004
I FELT LIKE A GRINGO Performed by Minutemen on the EP "Buzz or Howl under the Influence of Heat" (1983) Written by Mike Watt Sunday, July 04, 2004
THE TEMPERATURE AT WHICH PATIENCE BURNS: Make no mistake, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is a phenomenon. I didn’t even try to get tickets on its opening weekend, and the following Wednesday, after work, when I strolled by the single theater in downtown Philadelphia where it’s currently playing (on two screens), both prime-time evening shows were already sold-out, so I bailed once again. Yesterday I bought my seat for the 3 PM show two hours in advance…and a good thing too; that show sold out, as had at least two of the later shows by the time I exited around 5 PM. I’m pleased to see this movie doing so sensationally well, concretizing in unavoidable long lines the degree of sheer disgust so many in this country feel with President Bush and his cabinet. Hope sprouts. As a matter of fact, there’s just one thing wrong with "Fahrenheit 9/11," and that’s the fact that it really isn’t a very good movie. Michael Moore’s biggest "mistake" (one that’s already made his movie the highest-grossing documentary in history, so I fully concede the joke is on me, if not the President) is his determination to tackle virtually every aspect of the W. Bush Administration in under two hours. He could easily have got one solid movie (hell, three or four) if he’d focused on a single area: the 2000 election fiasco; 9/11; the Bush family’s obscene ties to Saudi business interests; the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Of course I realize these subjects are inter-related, but in his haste (an unkinder man would say his desperation) to show the darker connections between and among them, in his rush to get it all in, Moore neglects to make real ipso facto arguments, supplying instead his characteristic insinuations and cheap stock-footage inserts and musical cues so that we in the audience can congratulate ourselves for being in on the joke and knowing the real score. (And why not, I hear you ask, when these methods have served him so well to date? Yes, they’ve served Moore very well, but have they served the cause of getting the greater truth established once and for all?) And speaking of rushed, what’s with the editing job Moore performs on "the smoking gun," the "he'll be toast" footage of Bush freezing up for a full seven minutes in front of that Florida classroom on the morning of Sept. 11, after being told that a second plane had just struck the World Trade Center? I couldn’t wait to see it...and I’m still waiting, because it isn’t in the movie. What Moore did (after apparently coming to a decision about his audience’s patience) was drastically telescope the footage to perhaps 30 seconds (and I’m being generous here) overlaying a time-stamp every few seconds along with his patented sarcastic narration as to what Bush might have been thinking as the minutes passed. Imagine how effective that agonizingly uninterrupted shot of Bush could have been...if only Moore could have let it alone, no edits, no voice-over, nothing. Just the dreary real-time event itself. Imagine the audience positively squirming with rage and anguish as Bush sits there for 420 very long seconds, making his eye-wandering faces, an absolute picture of ineptitude rendered Andy Warhol-style. Imagine if the movie had started this way. (Or should I leave my own screwy film tastes out of my argument?) After all, is there a better way to subvert Bush than by simply showing footage of him hanging himself in front of a live camera? (Happily, the movie ends with a well-known doozy of an example of just this.) Maybe what galls me most about Moore is his "whatever works best this minute" approach, which leads to wildly contradictory material being present here, as in all of his films. About midway through "Fahrenheit 9/11", there’s a montage of American soldiers describing the best heavy metal to listen to in their tanks as they lay waste to Iraqi homes and civilians. Our horrible soldiers are roasting the children of Iraq and grooving to the action! Then, when Moore wants to make the point of the war’s cost to American families, he shows us the GI coffins and amputees, the weeping mothers, the bitter veterans. Our poor soldiers are being roasted in Iraq and nobody cares! Gee, it’s amazing how the troubling complexity of real life manages to creep into even a movie that features "Do Something: www.michaelmoore.com" and no other website addresses, activist or otherwise, in its closing credits. So, in conclusion, SEE THIS MOVIE! Register to vote! Get unregistered people to vote! Read non-mainstream and/or non-US news sources (many of them freely available online). And stay tuned for more Independence Day coverage, including, possibly, photos. Friday, July 02, 2004
The actor by which all others will forever be judged....and the only one who could have properly played The Judge in any film adaptation of Blood Meridian. (I'm convinced Cormac McCarthy had Brando in mind when he wrote the character.) People always joked about Marlon Brando (in fact, as a child I saw him parodied by television comics long before I had any idea who he was), because when you're that great, it's what people do. He was riveting even in the poorer films, even in the outright stinkers, searing in the great ones. And let's state the obvious: he and Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire give the best paired performances in movie history. So fire up the DVD player tonight, soil up your undershirt, and drink a toast to an American son. |
