Baron Dave Romm
Alice In Wonderland
By Baron Dave Romm
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Sort of Alice in sort of Wonderland
Star Trek is not Star Trek but something else. The 2009 "reimagining" by JJ Abrams, is a different story, a different background. Unlike the "rebooting" of the James Bond films, the new movie takes away everything that make Star Trek mythic and important and substituted an okay action flick with references. Sure, fine. I had fun, but it felt more like closing Roddenberry's universe than expanding it. We had forty-three good years. Time for the grandkids to play with our old toys.
Tim Burton's new take on Alice In Wonderland just doesn't work. Trying to "reimagine" an 1865 classic is a far cry from trying to jump start a tv series with younger actors and better special effects. In this take, a 19-year-old Alice, who doesn't remember her previous adventures, is about to marry a prince. Nobody in Victorian England would give up a chance to be Queen even if the King is not your cup of tea. It's all well and good to have strong female characters, but the strongest real life character at the time was Queen Victoria. Alice's amnesia and doubts about reaching the pinnacle of society took me out of the movie from the beginning.
"Okay," I say to myself, "it's not my beloved Alice's Adventures In Wonderland," so I'll just watch whatever this is as if I didn't know anything about the characters or plot."
But no. Burton couldn't let go. He ignores the whole point of the book while harping on small aspects. The Vorpal Blade isn't just a line or two in a masterful nonsense poem, it's the major plot device. The Mad Hatter isn't an eccentric character based on a current expression who dissects language and British customs, he's a central character to be kidnapped. The movie has bits of the book but none of the wordplay; some of the concepts but none of the ideas. You can't escape the original, and you desperately want to.
The effects are okay, though the 3-D didn't add much. The acting is fine. The dialog stupid. The characters, even Alice, one-dimensional.
Alice In Wonderland is to Alice's Adventures In Wonderland what The Phantom Menace was to Star Wars.
Parenthood
Parenthood is a mid-season replacement tv show about families without necessarily being for families. Some of the subject matter gets fairly adult, like discussions of fake orgasms and barely post-coital scenes where the orgasm wasn't faked (she claims). A whole bunch of kids, now grown, under the watchful eye of their parents have kids of their own. Planned and unplanned. Successful marriages and non.
I don't have the characters straight yet. There are a lot of them, and they fill the hour (well, 42 minutes). Some familiar faces pop up; good actors all, but it still feels like The Gilmore Girls. You may take this as more of a plus than me.
Mostly, Parenthood works. It's not as tightly written or as humorous as the half-hour Modern Family, but the interwoven stories generally wind up in a good place. Arrested Development tried a similar kind of family story, aiming for laughs, but it was more tedious than humorous. Parenthood is family drama for adults, with humor derived from the situation and more than a little heartstring-tugging.
Goodnight, John-Boy. G'night Sheriff Taylor.
Ugly Americans
Ugly Americans is icky but genteel. The basic premise is that the world (specifically New York City) is full of zombies, wizards, blobs, Yeti and such. No one thinks this is unusual.
The outrageous creatures behaving like humans allows for some barbs at religion and race. It's too silly to be offensive and yet played too straight to be pointed commentary. South Park and Futurama get away with a lot because the characters do not inhabit our time and place. So far, Ugly Americans hasn't had to get away with much, even though the alternate world could be worse than Night of the Living Dead.
I gave up on South Park a long time ago; too many shows were on the wrong side of the edge between humor and offensiveness. Last week's episode, on Facebook sucking Stan into a Tron-like internal universe, was moderately amusing. Futurama was great and is coming back. Ugly Americans follows in the other Comedy Central shows by being outré in concept but may just fail by being too bland. The throwaway jokes can be funny, and the situations absurd, but they have yet to really hit their comedic stride. I'll continue to watch, preferably recorded so I can stop to read the signs, but it's not a priority.
24 Cancelled
Some are making a Big Deal about 24 being cancelled. I'm amused. The show lasted eight "days" or seasons, which is good by tv standards. Really, only the first 13 or 14 hours were good, and it's been living off that high for years.
Jack Bauer has been touted by some in the conservative news media as a hero, one who is sure torture will get what he needs from baddies and doesn't apologize for it. This is incorrect.
First. The threats posed by a fictional tv show don't map very well to Real Life (tm). When the fictional character sees 1) an immediate threat where 2) he has someone in custody that 3) is likely to tell accurate information 4) in time, it's a construct. Compare with two terror suspects held in captivity, Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: Waterboarding Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects. And the CIA was so unsuccessful that they felt compelled to lie about it: "A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew." No Jack Bauer there, just some pathetic Cheney-types trying to cover their own asses. Kiriakou may fool Glenn Beck into thinking he's Jack Bauer, but the reality is the exact opposite of the fiction.
Second. The writers, perhaps feeling a little heat or maybe just a guilty conscience, had Bauer testify before a Senate committee last season. Afterwards, a right-winger expresses outrage to Jack over his grilling. "No," says Jack Bauer, "The American people have a right to know what's being done in their name." (Quote approx. from memory.) This was then lost in the noise of explosions and death. Sometimes, even fictional characters know when they're not role models.
24 worked best when the highly-rigged scenarios created a wedge between self-preservation and morality, when the immediate survival of the individual seemed more important than the survival of the rule of law. And when the action kept you on the edge of your seat. Coherent plots, ethics and common sense fell by the wayside. Hey, it was a tv show. When it worked, which wasn't often, it worked pretty well. When it didn't work, the viewer had to slog through some tedious times and sphincter-clenching cliffhangers. The best way to watch was on VCR or DVR so you could skip over the commercials.
I saw every episode of 24, and don't regret it. On the other hand, I won't miss it. Soon, Jack Bauer will fade into popular culture trivia like Illya Kuryakin or Steve Urkel.
I might miss Chloe. We shall see.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. A nascent collection of videos are on Baron Dave's YouTube channel. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Steve Chapman: Time for a Change in Baseball (creators.com)
One of baseball's venerable axioms is that no one goes to a game to watch the umpires. Maybe not, but I for one will be happy to go to cheer the umpires. Nonunion miners keep their mouths shut, too. When you don't have union protection, you don't question practices or procedures, especially where the coal mine is the only job in town. Massey Energy Co.'s Upper Big Branch Mine is nonunion and has a long history of trouble.
Connie Schultz: The Ghosts of West Virginia (creators.com)
These days, the majority of miner injuries and deaths happen at nonunion mines. The equation is painfully simple: No union, no voice. No backup documentation of reported problems, no pressure for follow-ups.
Alexander Cockburn: The Cover-Ups That Exploded (creators.com)
The Pentagon is reeling after two lethal episodes uncovered by diligent journalism show trigger-happy U.S. Army helicopter pilots and U.S. Special Forces slaughtering civilians, then seeking to cover up their crimes.
"Backing Into Forward: A Memoir" by Jules Feiffer: A review by Nancy Rommelmann
This past February, cartoonist and author Jules Feiffer delivered the eulogy for his friend, and my stepfather, The New York Review of Books caricaturist David Levine, explaining that Dave assumed the mantle that every serious satirist must, that of "the artist as the happy bomb thrower."
"Letters of Ted Hughes" (UK Edition) by Ted Hughes: A review by John Leonard
Against death the poet Ted Hughes elaborated his own mythology. Birds and beasts were involved -- crows, hawks, tigers, foxes, and wolves. So were metamorphosis, shamanism, and the collective unconscious -- the White Goddess, the Ghost Dance, and Carl Jung.
Gary Owen: Bridgend and beyond (guardian.co.uk)
The series of teenage suicides in his home town was one subject writer Gary Owen didn't want to tackle. He tells Lyn Gardner what changed his mind.
Jody Rosen: Chaos and Cash (slate.com)
Remembering Malcolm McLaren, huckster extraordinaire.
Mark Beaumont: "Meat Loaf reveals all: 'I felt surrounded by evil'" (timesonline.co.uk)
Illness, legal battles, a tour cancelled: the bat out of hell has endured a tumultuous few years. But he's bouncing back.
David Ng: Austrian composer suppressed by the Nazis finally gets a wider hearing in the U.S. (Los Angeles Times)
Smoldering passion. Graphic sex. Orgies. Franz Schreker's "The Stigmatized" contains enough adult content that it might have garnered the dreaded NC-17 if the Motion Picture Assn. of America rated opera productions in addition to films.
Will Harris: A Chat with Comedian David Cross (bullz-eye.com)
"As far as the extremists go, it's Liberals and Progressives who have probably the worst sense of humor when it comes to evolved, smart-thinking people. They're way overly PC, and they can't or don't find the humor in the things that you might joke about."
Steven Zeitchik: "'Exit Through the Gift Shop': The enigma known as Banksy"
Hardly anyone knows what he looks like and only a handful of people have seen his art.
Connie Ogle: 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is Scandinavia's first blockbuster (McClatchy Newspapers)
Like just about everyone else who has read and marveled over Stieg Larsson's dark, violent international bestseller "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," director Niels Arden Oplev is mesmerized by Lisbeth Salander, the novel's pierced, fierce computer-hacker heroine.
David Bruce: Free Writing Handouts with Anecdotes, Volume 3 (lulu.com)
Free download. New pamphlet. This little pamphlet contains a number of handouts that teachers can use to teach their students how to avoid some common writing errors. Of course, students and other people can use this short pamphlet simply as a way to refresh their memory about some simple rules of writing. Feel free to make as many copies as you want to for educational purposes. Feel free to distribute this little pamphlet as a pdf file.
Monday Notice
Poll-Fans
Attention, Poll-fans! Today is the last day to get yer responses in fer the 'Ban the Burka' poll... Cut off time is 8pm EDT! Be there or be square!
BttbB
Hubert's Poetry Corner
"The Great Airline Price Increase"
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Banning the Burka' Edition...
Belgium may be the first European country to ban the full-covering Islamic veils from being worn in public... The Belgian parliament's home affairs unanimously backed a proposal to ban the so-called burka and niqab, two forms of the Muslim veil covering the entire body and face. If the law is enacted, women who wear this in public would be fined 15-25 euros and may face a jail sentence of up to seven days.
EUobserver / Belgium moves towards banning the burka
Would you support or oppose such a ban here in the US? (and why?)
A.) Support ______
B.) Oppose ______
C.) WTF? I gots more important things to worry about, dagnabbit! _______
Send your response to
replied:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
POGO
Hi Marty, an item you can use, if you choose:
POGO is on the march:
People Opposing Glorified Oligarchy, P.O.G.O., is gaining strength everyday. Made up of moderates who are sick and tired of extremists trying to tell them what to do. Our numbers are by far exceeding any beverage named party. Admission is by invitation only, that's how we keep out the Neanderthals who still, in this day and age, can't believe the south lost the civil war. And when our leaders give speeches, they do not read notes on their hands.
Uncle Sky
Thanks, Uncle!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and cool.
`SNL' Visit
Tina Fey
Tina Fey reprised her impression of Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live" while hosting the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday night. It was Fey's first performance as the former Alaska governor since her iconic impressions during the 2008 presidential campaign when Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate.
Fey appeared as Palin in a sketch introducing a mock "Sarah Palin Network," satirizing Palin's entry into media. Palin recently launched the program "Real American Stories" on Fox News Channel and will soon begin production on "Sarah Palin's Alaska," an eight-part series for TLC.
Appearing as Palin in a leather jacket with an American flag pin, Fey introduced a lineup of shows like "Tea Party Wheel of Fortune" (the puzzle read "Obamar is a terrist"), "Are You Smarter than a Half-Term Governor?" and "30 Main Street," a parody of her own "30 Rock."
Other fake shows included "Hey Journalist, I Gotcha," in which Palin re-edited interviews to make it look like her interviewers - like CBS' Katie Couric - were "woefully unprepared." Also touted was a spinoff starring husband Todd Palin (played on "SNL" by cast member Jason Sudeikis) as a renegade police officer transferred from Alaska to New York.
Tina Fey
Visits Haitians Tent Camps
Shakira
Hip-shaking Colombian pop star Shakira is meeting with Haitian earthquake survivors living in makeshift camps and she says she is searching for suitable land to build a school for needy children.
Arriving Sunday, the singer waved to onlookers and greeted infants living on a Haitian golf course that has turned into a sprawling makeshift camp for 50,000 quake survivors.
Her Barefoot foundation provides nutrition to more than 6,000 children in Colombia, and she is member of the ALAS foundation that advocates for children across Latin America.
Shakira was greeted by actor Sean Penn, who is providing humanitarian aid at Haitian refugee camps. The two stars spoke about challenges confronting Haiti since the Jan. 12 disaster.
Shakira
Begins Comedy Tour
Conan
When Conan O'Brien kicks off his U.S. comedy tour in Oregon Monday night, the most important critics will be the owners of Fox stations.
Talks between Fox and O'Brien's handlers have made significant progress during recent days toward a deal that would bring the former "Tonight Show" host back to broadcast TV. But affiliate concerns about airing the new venture threaten to derail any agreement.
While such issues as O'Brien's specific compensation and ownership of a new show are still being discussed, the host has agreed to key concessions including lowering his salary and slashing production costs. "It will be leaner and meaner," a source close to the negotiations said.
But the host won't commit to Fox unless the network can guarantee that stations will air his show in all or nearly all of the country.
Conan
Major Labels Eager To Enter App Marketplace
iPad
When avid technophile Mike Shinoda was approached backstage last year with an idea for developing a Linkin Park iPhone game, the band's co-frontman knew he wanted it to be more than just another run-of-the-mill artist app.
"It was important to us to do something creative and fun," he says. "We didn't want to throw a bunch of songs at the game, slap our name on it and cash the checks."
The result is "8-Bit Rebellion," a soon-to-be-released iPhone game with an iPad version on the way. Whereas most artist-branded games tend to be rhythm-based, "8-Bit Rebellion" is an action game that has users fighting enemies alongside members of the band. The soundtrack features several Linkin Park hits in both standard and 8-bit fidelity, plus an exclusive track, "Blackbirds," for fans who complete the game.
But according to Maryanna Donaldson, creative director of the game's developer, Artificial Life, the real innovation was the degree to which Linkin Park was involved. Each band member helped design a different "district" in which the game takes place, personalized to his individual interests. Shinoda designed the members' avatars and edited every line of dialogue. The process wound up taking the better part of a year, but Donaldson says the result sets a new bar for artist-branded apps.
iPad
India Opens To Foreigners
Himalayan Peaks
Foreigners will be allowed to climb nearly 100 high-altitude Himalayan peaks for the first time on the Indian side of Kashmir, an official said Friday.
The move by the Indian government to allow foreign climbers follows a significant decline in violence by insurgent groups in the region since India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004, said Farooq Ahmed Shah, a state tourism official.
The move is aimed at helping to boost tourism, an important source of income for Kashmiris and their saucer-shaped valley of fruit orchards, lakes and wildflowers.
Before the start of the insurgency by separatists in 1989, hundreds of thousands of tourists flocked to the region - known as the Switzerland of the east - to enjoy the glacier-fed streams flowing through the forests and grasslands or lounge on houseboats floating on Srinagar's Dal Lake.
Himalayan Peaks
Stands Up For Racism
Haley Barbour
The dustup over Virginia's proclamation for Confederate History Month seems like a lot of noise over something that "doesn't amount to diddly," Mississippi's governor said in an interview aired Sunday.
Virginia's Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, apologized for leaving out of his proclamation any reference to slavery. He added language to the decree calling slavery "evil and inhumane" after being criticized for reviving what many Virginians believe is an insensitive commemoration of its Confederate past.
Fellow GOP Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi said he doesn't think the proclamation was a mistake.
Last year, Barbour issued a similar proclamation in his state that did not mention slavery. He also noted that his state has a holiday, Confederate Memorial Day, that has been maintained by Democratic and Republican governors and the state's majority-Democrat legislature. The state also honors the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Confederate general Robert E. Lee on the same day in January.
Haley Barbour
Public Expense, Private Profits
Stewart and Lynda Resnick
They grew their fortune in the California sun, turning pedestrian fruits and nuts into a vast and varied empire that secured their place in Hollywood.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick's flashy bottles of Fiji Water and POM Wonderful are now coveted across the globe. Their donations keep the lights on in art museums across the country. And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arianna Huffington count them among their dearest friends.
But as their marketshare rises worldwide, one of the billionaires' competitors is fighting back, accusing the Western power couple of profiting at the public's expense, court records and interviews show.
Now, as drought-stricken California weighs whether to give private companies more control in managing its scarce water supplies, a new lawsuit claiming the Resnicks violated utilities law by making money from a vast, taxpayer-funded underground reservoir is causing a stir in the state Capitol.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick
Ivory Tower Past
Benny
Long before entering Vatican life, Pope Benedict XVI won renown as a theologian and a German university professor, penning more than 40 books and winning a devoted following of students who respected his prodigious memory and brilliant mind.
One thing absent from his resume? Significant time as a parish priest.
Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, only worked 15 months tending to a flock in the 59 years since taking his vows, instead closing himself in the ivory tower of academia - a background that may help account for his troubled handling of the sex abuse crisis engulfing the church.
For one, it adds to the impression of an out-of-touch pontiff who simply doesn't grasp the enormity of the fury around the world over mounting evidence of sex abuse by priests, and inaction on the part of the Vatican and Benedict himself.
Benny
Scientists Race to Engineer
New Magnet
A magnet at the heart of high-tech products such as cell phones and hybrid cars relies upon an increasingly scarce supply of the rare earth element known as neodymium. Now one of the original inventors of that magnet hopes to create a new generation of magnetic materials that can ease or break free of that dependence.
The neodymium-iron-boron magnet represents the most powerful commercial magnet available today, and has a starring role in many technologies crucial to the U.S. economy and defense. But the U.S. overwhelmingly relies upon China for its supply of neodymium and other rare earth minerals, and China has warned that its own domestic demand may soon force it to cut off that supply.
That means the U.S. may face a shortage of neodymium and other rare earths, unless it spends the time and money to begin mining its own fairly untapped reserves. The possibility of a shortage has also led to renewed research aimed at developing magnets less dependent upon neodymium.
"It's been 27 or 28 years since the discovery of neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B), and we have not yet found a better magnet," said George Hadjipanayis, a physicist at the University of Delaware and co-inventor of the Nd-Fe-B magnet.
Hadjipanayis leads a collaborative research effort with $4.6 million in funding from ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Energy's agency that backs high-risk but potentially high-payoff projects.
New Magnet
Survives Plunge
Alaskan Eagle
An acrobatic display of passion proved too much for a pair of eagles engaged in a mating dance over Alaska's Prince William Sound.
The female bird is recovering from an injured wing and other injuries sustained when the couple slammed beak-first into a hard snowbank in what her rescuers believe was an aerial courting ritual gone awry. The male eagle died in the impact, which left the birds buried upside down at least two feet in the snow in the town of Valdez.
It's mating season for eagles, who perform an elaborate ritual where they clasp talons and spiral toward the ground. This pair probably got caught up in the throes of the moment, said Bob Benda, a bird rescuer and biology professor at Prince William Sound Community College who was among those responding to the Easter Sunday crash.
But most eagles fling themselves back to reality instead of diving through a crunchy layer of snow. In this case, the male landed next to the female. If the talons had been locked, they were now separated, possibly thrust apart by the velocity of the landing.
Alaskan Eagle
Watchers Fear Dip In Population
Gray Whales
Gazing past the rolling whitecaps in the middle of San Diego's whale-watching season, boat captain Bill Reese was dismayed by what he wasn't seeing.
"Where are the whales?" said Reese. "Where are the whales?"
Long held as an environmental success story after being taken off the endangered list in 1994, California gray whales draw legions of fans into boats or atop cliffs to watch the leviathans lumber down the coast to spawning grounds in Baja.
But whale-watching skippers became alarmed after sightings dropped from 25 a day in good years to five a day this season. Such anecdotal evidence has left conservationists and state officials worried about the whale's future, especially now.
Gray Whales
Weekend Box Office
'Date Night'
No. 1 bragging rights for the weekend were too close to call Sunday, with 20th Century Fox estimating a $27.1 million debut for Carell and Fey's comedy "Date Night" and Warner Bros. reporting the action tale "Clash of the Titans" at $26.9 million.
Rankings will be sorted out Monday when studios release final numbers, which can vary by $1 million or more for some films compared with Sunday estimates.
Running a close No. 3 was DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon," which took in $25.4 million, lifting its 17-day total to $133.9 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Date Night," $27.1 million.
2. "Clash of the Titans," $26.9 million.
3. "How to Train Your Dragon," $25.4 million.
4. "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?", $11 million.
5. "The Last Song," $10 million.
6. "Alice in Wonderland," $5.6 million.
7. "Hot Tub Time Machine," $5.4 million.
8. "The Bounty Hunter," $4.3 million.
9. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," $4.1 million.
10. "Letters to God," $1.3 million.
'Date Night'
In Memory
Hisashi Inoue
Japanese playwright Hisashi Inoue, best known for his vehement pacifism, has died of lung cancer, his family said Sunday. He was 75.
Inoue was known as a strong proponent of the Japanese constitution, imposed by the United States after Tokyo surrendered in World War II. It renounces the use of military force in settling international disputes.
He established a pro-constitutional group in 2004 with other intellectuals, including the Nobel laureate novelist Kenzaburo Oe.
After starting his career as a TV script and gag writer while still at university, he published a number of novels and plays, including "Tegusari Shinju" (Handcuffed Double Suicide) which won him the prestigious Naoki literature award in 1972.
His works also include "Chichi to Kuraseba", translated in English as "The Face of Jizo", a play about a father and daughter who experienced the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Hisashi Inoue
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