Former NBC news correspondent Garrick Utley.
Archive for February, 2014
Obit watch: February 21, 2014.
Friday, February 21st, 2014Banana republicans watch: February 21, 2014.
Friday, February 21st, 2014You may recall that last year, members of the city council of the notoriously corrupt city of Bell stood trial. One member was completely acquitted of the charges against him; the other five were found guilty on some charges, and had mistrials declared on others. The prosecution had indicated it planned to retry the cases that ended in mistrials.
However, the LAT is reporting that the prosecution is playing “Let’s Make a Deal” instead:
Five former Bell council members accused of looting the small city are scheduled to be in court Friday to consider an offer of a maximum four-year prison term in exchange for their guilty pleas.
The former leaders already face possible eight-year prison terms after being convicted on related corruption charges last year, making the four-year offer attractive.
It isn’t clear from the article, but my assumption is that the four-year terms would run concurrently with the eight-year ones, so the council members wouldn’t actually serve any additional time. But first they have to agree to the plea deal, and that doesn’t sound like a sure thing.
Edited to add: Indeed. The LAT is now reporting that only one out of five former council members expressed any desire to take the deal; the prosecution says either all five take the deal, or
Anyway, the lawyers have asked for more time, and it looks like the next hearing will be April 3rd. Watch this space for updates.
Still here. Just quiet.
Wednesday, February 19th, 2014Nothing really worth writing about. I don’t even have any interesting beef jerky and Michael Jackson fueled dreams to discuss.
(Possible addition to The Rules Of the Gunfight: Never bring beef jerky to a gunfight.)
Speaking of being quiet, is it just me, or did the NBA have their All-Star Game this past weekend…to massive public indifference? I don’t think there was even a FARK Sports tab thread.
Two random movie related notes:
- I’ve pretty much reached the limit of my tolerance for the trailer for “Cheap Thrills“, as well as the movie itself. I don’t care if it marks me as an old man; I’ve already fully embraced my old man status, and I’m just tired of movies about horrible people doing horrible things to other people.
- Dear Tim League: I totally get that you like Wes Anderson movies. I, personally, would not have made 4% of my desert island movie list Wes Anderson films; I’m not even sure a Wes Anderson film would be in my top 100. But de gustibus non est disputandum.
And the trailer for “The Grand Budapest Hotel” does look interesting; it almost seems like Wes Anderson trying to do his own version of “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” It is possible that I’ll actually pay money to see this at the Drafthouse. (I’m not sure if it helps or hurts the cause that I accidentally stumbled across and read a complete plot synopsis online. Even after that, I’m still not sure what Harvey Keitel is doing in this movie.)
But could we please lose your interminable introduction to the frigging trailer, for crying out loud? Hand to God, I think your introduction is as long as the trailer itself. Put it on YouTube or something, but don’t make me sit through it again. Let the trailer stand on its own.
Cahiers du cinéma: American Hustle
Monday, February 17th, 2014This is why I love the Alamo Drafthouse so much. I was sitting in my seat watching the closing credits. The usher/waiter came over and asked me, “Was everything okay? Did you have any issues?” And I told him, kind of jokingly, “The only issue I had is that I can’t get these darn pens to write.” (There’s pens at each seat that you use to write down your order.)
And the guy smiles at me, says “Here. Go see a movie on me.” and hands me a free pass. When was the last time this happened to you?
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I liked “American Hustle” a little better than “The Wolf of Wall Street” for two reasons. Namely, these two:
Sometimes, what is hidden is sexier than what is revealed.
Ms. Adams is wonderful. As are her costumes. I could stare at her all day long (or at least until she said “Stop staring at my cleavage”) and would happily take her out for the usual cheeseburger and house red.
Christian Bale completely disappears into the role of an overweight balding scam artist, and Bradley Cooper is fine as his FBI handler. “Hustle” is a perfectly fine way to spend a little over two hours. (At least it is fairly efficient in its storytelling, with no digressions about Quaaludes.) It even has a redemptive arc. So why don’t I have warmer feelings about the movie? Idiosyncratic personal reasons, which you can agree or disagree with.
There is a school of criticism that says you should judge the movie based on what’s on the screen, not the background or the subtext or even how closely it sticks to real events, even if it claims to be “based on a true story”. I mostly agree with this school of thought, but as I get older and Hollywood turns out more “based on a true story” movies, I start to think that it is fair to judge a movie that makes that claim, at least in part, on how closely it sticks to the facts. I don’t think that should be the only factor, but I do believe it is fair to say, “Look, the people behind this movie changed X, Y, and Z, their reasons for doing so aren’t convincing, and I think these changes make the movie weaker.”
“American Hustle”, to be fair, does not claim to be “based on a true story”. David O. Russell states up front that “Some of this actually happened”. And it is arguably fair for him and for the writers to deviate some from the real story behind Abscam.
My problem is that I read Robert Greene’s The Sting Man: Inside Abscam
Specifically, I didn’t buy into the whole love triangle between Richie DiMaso (the FBI agent), Irving Rosenfeld (the Bale character) Sydney Prosser (the Amy Adams character, who starts out as Rosenfeld’s mistress). Other than Sydney wearing dresses slit down to waist level, what is the reason for the engaged DiMaso to fall so hard for her, hard enough to endanger his career? (In the real world, the Rosenfeld character’s mistress was nowhere near as heavily involved in Abscam as “Prosser” was; the Rosenfeld character got her off the hook as a condition for participating in the operation.)
What happens between the three of them sets up a nice twist ending that gives us catharsis; but the catharsis wouldn’t have been needed without that peculiar choice, which seems to have been motivated primarily by the desire to show off Amy Adams’ cleavage. (I won’t give away the twist in case you haven’t seen the movie, but in reality? Nothing even remotely close to it happened.)
Maybe I’m wrong, or maybe I’m being unfair to the movie. But I think Russell could have made just as good a movie by sticking closer to the true story, while still working in Ms. Adams and her spectacular cleavage.
Angry bird.
Saturday, February 15th, 2014A peacock? My grandmother had peacocks around when I was a child; I don’t remember them being particularly vicious.
Stun guns: not just for high school students.
Joe Biden, call your office please.
I have no joke here, I just like saying “feral peacocks”.
My humps, my humps…
Friday, February 14th, 2014Thoughts:
1. I admit I’ve written some bad Perl code. But I don’t recall writing any that ran away. SQL queries, yes, but not Perl code.
2. “Runaway Camel” sort of sounds like a stunt organized by those truth jackasses.
3. I have a “primates” tag; do I need a “mammals” tag?
Edited to add: I think I do need a “mammals” tag, and an associated “camels” tag. But even though primates are mammals, I don’t feel right moving the “primates” tag under the “mammals” tag, so I’m keeping them separate for now.
Cahiers du cinéma: The Wolf of Wall Street
Friday, February 14th, 2014I went to see “The Wolf of Wall Street” last night.
I’m really not the best person to talk about Martin Scorsese’s work and how “Wolf” fits into the context of his career; I’m really spotty on Scorsese, though I’m working to fill in some gaps. But what I can do is take it in isolation as a movie, without the burden of trying to fit it into any other context.
If you like hookers and blow, this is your movie. There is plenty of nekked woman-flesh on display – and we’re not talking just topless; there’s a considerable amount of full-frontal female nudity. There’s also plenty of Bolivian marching powder, and quite a few scenes involving the snorting of same off of the neither regions of paid professionals, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
But even more prevalent than Peruvian E is Quaalude. In case you haven’t read any reviews of “Wolf”, the movie is also jam-packed with references to, and discourses upon, Quaaludes. Quaaludes drive several of the major plot points of the movie, including a funny sequence involving the titular “Wolf” (he he, he said “titular”) suddenly experiencing the effects of an old batch of tablets at precisely the worst possible moment.
Did I mention that “Wolf” is funny? I’ve seen it described as a “black comedy”, and I can’t really argue with that. I wouldn’t say it was as convulsively funny as “Sharknado” or “Spinal Tap”, but it had me smiling and quietly giggling during much of the three hour running time.
(In case you haven’t read any reviews II: this is a long movie. Not Larry of Araby long, but still pretty long.)
I wish Joanna Lumley had more screen time. She’s luminous in the few scenes she has. She’s especially good in the “is he hitting on me/is she hitting on me?” scene with DiCaprio; watching that scene…well, I wanted very much to take Ms. Lumley out for a cheeseburger and the amusing house red, and get her away from that sleezebag.
The problem I have with “Wolf”, though, is that it seems empty: Jordan Belfort, DiCaprio’s character, becomes a greedy bag of crap within the first five minutes of the movie, and doesn’t change at all. Even at the end of the movie, after he’s been sent to prison (for three! whole! years!), it is established that he’s still searching for another big score. There’s no redemptive arc to this story, just a horrible man doing horrible things.
Does a movie have to have a redemptive arc to be good? That’s a fair question. Is there a redemptive arc to Henry Hill’s character in “Goodfellas”? I honestly don’t know; I’ve watched about half of “Goodfellas” and need to watch the whole thing again. But it does seem to me that, redemptive arc or no, Henry Hill and his life as a low level underworld hustler is more interesting than Belfort and his hookers and blow and ludes.
I don’t think “Wolf” is a waste of time. But I don’t think it is that good or memorable of a movie, either; maybe three out of five stars, or slightly above average, and a “wait for the DVD” rating.
(I haven’t been able to make the timing work so far, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to see “American Hustle” either Sunday or Monday. If I have any thoughts on that, I’ll post them here.)
Happy Valentine’s Day.
Friday, February 14th, 2014How about a little musical interlude? This is one of my favorite songs; oddly enough, it is also the only one I can think of off the top of my head that works for both Valentine’s Day and Halloween.
And if you haven’t purchased something for your significant other yet, you may wish to check this out. Usual conflict of interest disclaimer applies.
Obit watch: February 13, 2014.
Thursday, February 13th, 2014You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! watch (#9 in a series)
Wednesday, February 12th, 2014And I was worried that I wouldn’t find anything worth writing about today.
Nola.com states that “Under federal sentencing rules, he could be facing a 20-year prison term, possibly more…” I would take that with a large grain of salt, given that they don’t show their work.
Here’s a helpful complete breakdown of all the charges. Note, for the record, that Mayor Chocolate City was acquitted on one bribery count. I hope he enjoys those granite countertops.
Obit watch: February 11, 2014.
Tuesday, February 11th, 2014Some people call him Maurice…
Sunday, February 9th, 2014…but not “Coach” any longer: Maurice Cheeks out as head coach of the Pistons, in what I believe is the first NBA coach firing of the season.
Cheeks was hired in the offseason last year and coached a total of 50 games for Detroit, with a 21-29 record.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)