'TBH Politoons'
Ralph Cuts the Classics #3
Get a Rope
Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most beloved and celebrated directors in American cinema. Pointing out that a number of his movies are technically a mess to film lovers is a lot like saying "Grandpa just wet his pants" at Thanksgiving dinner. It may be true, but something you shouldn't say.
Rope is one of those movies where Hitchcock still has a technical grasp, but the technical work doesn't come into play. There are no shots looking up (or down) a long staircase, for which Hitchcock became famous. Nor are there none of those annoying back-of-the-bus window shots where the bus bounces around like crazy.
The story is classic Hitchcock: two young students commit a murder to prove a point-that they can do it and get away with it. Their philosophy, taken (not explicitly) from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, is that a certain class of people should be allowed to commit murder. Also like Dostoyevsky, the murderers are faced with a relentless opponent who suspects they committed a murder and eventually drives them to admit their guilt.
One of the "innovations" in Rope is that it is shot in real time all on one set. Hitchcock wanted to make one long shot and not even edit it, but film came only in 8-minute cans at the time, so the movie is a series of 8-minute shots, punctuated by odd shots which allowed the shots to be edited together. This means that you watch it like a play
well, not quite, because unlike a play they don't even change the scene. So it is like going to the theatre, but without the ephemeral nature that makes going to the theatre worthwhile. I also couldn't help but think that Hitchcock needed some jack at the time and said, "Quick! Let's make a movie."
Which might also explain why he used Jimmy Stewart in the lead. I admit to not being a Jimmy Stewart fan. Wha-wha-why not you say? I can't imagine. I suppose use of actors is Hitchcock's strong point, but in Rope he's working with clay and the result is terra cotta. For a sterling performance you have to watch him work with Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and Claude Rains in Notorious.
Hitchcock is at his best when the suspense builds, as in Psycho, or the memorable scene in Torn Curtain where Paul Newman is escaping on the bus. In Rope, I read Crime and Punishment and I know in the end Raskalnikov gets caught. I suppose it could have had a different ending, but you know they are going to get caught almost immediately when one of the young murderers begins to crack.
"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it," said Hitchcock. By this definition, Rope falls flat. The story is unoriginal, not well acted and not even suspenseful. Is it even technically interesting? I don't think so. A gimmick, perhaps, but certainly not a triumph.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Army Fixes Recruiting Problems (hoolinet.com)
Washington - The Pentagon announced today that it had finally found a solution to its repeated failures to meet recruiting goals. The Army will now begin to focus its efforts on a vast and so far untapped resource - young Republicans.
Oren Dorell: Soldier's mother keeps protest vigil at Bush ranch (USA TODAY)
Biting bugs. Baking sun. The cold shoulder from residents. To Cindy Sheehan, they're just obstacles to overcome in her quest to meet with President Bush at his ranch here.
Trish Gannon: Left Behind: A Wake-Up Call for Education (irascibleprofessor.com)
The National Education Association, the nation's largest union for teachers, characterizes NCLB as presenting "real obstacles to helping students and strengthening public schools"
NCLB-Let's Get It Right (The American Federation of Teachers)
The American Federation of Teachers has long been a leader in promoting high standards of learning and teaching and is working actively to close the achievement gap.
David Bruce: Wise Up: Crime (athensnews.com)
Liane de Pougy, an author and the lesbian lover of the American poet Natalie Barney, was reputed to say this during confession: "Father, except for murder and robbery I've done everything."
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still hot, bit more humid.
Talked to dear old Dad tonight - he was watching 'Bill Maher: I'm Swiss' on HBO.
He quite liked it, and greatly appreciated the reaming of the chimp. However, he was concerned for Maher's employment status in the future.
Told him Maher's new season starts next week (the 19th) and not to worry (heh - that's my job).
Musicians Take Anti-War Message to D.C.
'Operation Ceasefire'
An eclectic lineup of punk, country and ambient musicians will gather on the National Mall in September to build support for ending the war in Iraq.
Jello Biafra, formerly of the group Dead Kennedys, will host the "Operation Ceasefire" concert at the Washington Monument on September 24. Other acts include iconoclastic country crooner Steve Earle and Wayne Kramer from 1960s-era radical rockers MC5.
The concert is part of a weekend-long series of anti-war marches and rallies in Washington that organizers have timed to coincide with International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in the city.
'Operation Ceasefire'
FEC Dismisses Complaints
Michael Moore
Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 lived on at the Federal Election Commission after it left theatres.
The FEC said Tuesday it has dismissed two complaints that accused Moore and others involved in the 2004 film of violating a ban on the use of corporate money for election-time presidential ads. Moore's documentary portrayed Bush as lazy and inattentive to warnings in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that terrorists were preparing to strike the United States.
The FEC ruled that the film and the promotion of it represented legitimate commercial activity, and also noted that ads for the film didn't fall within the two months before last November's election or refer to a clearly identified candidate.
The two complaints, one filed by Dale Clausnitzer of San Diego and the other by Jeffrey S. Smith of Easton, Pa., are among at least three against Moore, all dismissed by the FEC.
Michael Moore
Portugal's Order Of Liberty
U2
Portugal said on Tuesday it would award Irish rockers U2 the country's Order of Liberty to honor the band's humanitarian efforts.
President Jorge Sampaio will award the Dublin four -- lead singer Bono, guitarist The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. -- before a concert in Lisbon on Sunday.
U2
New Zealand Ad
Pizza
The US Embassy in Wellington is trying to see the funny side of a billboard promoting a pizza company which features George W Bush.
The Hell Pizza billboard has a photo of the President on one half, with the words 'Hell: Too Good For Some Evil Bastards' on the other.
Pizza
New Zealand Pizza Billboards Say Hell's Too Good For Bush
Picture of the billboard
Egg Boy Reports...
Mick Jagger
"You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite/ You call yourself a patriot. Well, I think your are full of sh*t!... How come you're so wrong, my sweet neo-con."
Ready to drop in the coming weeks, a new Bush-bashing tune from the ROLLING STONES: "Sweet Neo Con."
The full lyric also mocks National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
News about the song surfaced a few weeks ago with many expecting that it would not make the finally cut on the new CD, A BIGGER BANG.
Mick Jagger
Ditch Planned Changes
Emmys
Changes intended to streamline this year's Emmy Awards were scrapped by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences after a reappraisal.
In April, academy officials announced that acceptance speeches in selected categories would be replaced by pre-taped, timed remarks from winners. Writers and directors were among those affected; actors were exempt.
"In effect, the amount of time being saved was not as much as originally thought and the costs incurred would be in excess of original projections," the academy said in a statement Tuesday.
Emmys
This Year's Class Of 12
Jazz Hall of Fame
Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman head this year's class of 12 inductees to the Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame, which opened last fall at Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home in the Time Warner Center.
The other 2005 inductees, announced Monday, include trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Basie band drummer Jo "Papa Jo" Jones, bassist-bandleader-composer Charles Mingus, cornetist Joe "King" Oliver, who brought Louis Armstrong north to Chicago from New Orleans in 1922, and Thomas "Fats" Waller, the stride pianist and singer who wrote hit tunes such as "Ain't Misbehavin" and "Honeysuckle Rose."
Pioneering bebop drummer Max Roach and tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins became the first living inductees. The Jazz Hall of Fame is named after the Turkish-born Ertegun, who played a key role in developing the catalog of jazz, R&B and rock albums at Atlantic Records, the label founded by his brother Ahmet.
Jazz Hall of Fame
Re-Creating Destroyed Buddhas
Hiro Yamagata
When the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan destroyed two 1,600-year-old Buddha statues lining Bamiyan Valley's soaring cliffs, the world shook with shock at the demise of such huge archaeological treasures.
Now, artist Hiro Yamagata plans to commemorate the towering Buddhas by projecting multicolored laser images onto the clay cliffsides where the figures once stood, about 80 miles west of Kabul.
Powered by solar panels and windmills, the 125- to 175-foot-high squiggle-style, Day-Glo images - the same size as the original Buddhas - would be in stark contrast to the austere, rural valley below, a land wracked by poverty and violence; a land that has little electricity of its own.
Of the roughly 140 4,000-kilowatt windmills he plans to ship into Afghanistan for the Bamiyan project, Yamagata said that 100 of them would provide power for surrounding villages. He also wants to hire 40 local young men, typically jobless, to dig foundations for the windmills, starting in March 2006. Completion of the project is set for June 2007.
Hiro Yamagata
Judge Sides With Disney Board
Michael Ovitz
The Walt Disney Co.'s board did not breach its fiscal responsibilities by agreeing to hire Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz as president in 1995, then granting him a $140 million severance package when he left just 14 months later, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Chancellor William Chandler III said that while the directors' conduct "fell significantly short of the best practices of ideal corporate governance," board members did not violate their duties or waste Disney resources.
Michael Ovitz
Sect Appeal?
Novakula
Does Bob Novak owe his uncanny capacity for secrecy to the right-wing Catholic sect Opus Dei? While his Network-like turn on CNN last Thursday seemed to suggest a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, the columnist has so far managed to ignore persistent demands that he reveal his involvement in the Valerie Plame leak-a feat of rare internal fortitude that some say is a hallmark of the shadowy Christian group.
Members of the 76-year-old sect are known for self-flagellation and wearing spiked metal garters underneath their clothes as forms of penance-the kind of extreme self-discipline that's said to have also appealed to one of Opus Dei's most infamous initiates, ex-FBI agent and convicted Russian spy Robert Hanssen.
Despite the controversy that's dogged it from its inception, the sect has emerged as one of the most conservative and influence-seeking wings of the Catholic Church and is said to enjoy a uniquely close relationship with the Vatican. Though Novak's adherence to Opus Dei has never been confirmed-as a policy, the organization doesn't reveal its rolls-D.C. insiders have for years noted the pundit's close relationship with Father C. John McCloskey III, an eminent member of the group who helped baptize the Jewish-born Novak into Catholicism in 1998. McCloskey is also believed to have brought other high-profile Washington conservatives into the group, including book publisher Alfred Regnery, Republican Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, and Novak's former CNN colleague, Larry Kudlow. No prominent Democrats are known to be members of Opus Dei, a fact that makes the organization's donkey mascot more than a tad ironic.
For the rest, Novakula
Celebrates 75th Birthday
Betty Boop
Boop-oop-a-doop! Betty Boop is 75!
Created by Max Fleischer, Betty has gone from a cartoon character depicted as a French poodle in the animated short "Dizzy Dishes," released on Aug. 9, 1930, to curvaceous sex symbol two years later, to merchandising icon today.
Boop - whose red dress, bob haircut, saucerlike eyes and gold loop earrings are indelible - has starred in more than 100 cartoons, two syndicated comic strips and two animated musical TV specials on CBS. She also had a cameo appearance in the 1988 film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."
Boop, who was Bimbo the dog's girlfriend in several early cartoons, introduced the world to Popeye the Sailor in 1933.
Betty Boop
Return To Russia
Romanov Water-Colors
More than 200 paintings, most of them bucolic water-colors, by the sister of the last czar, the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, went on display in Moscow.
The Duchess escaped the tragic fate of most of the imperial family and escaped to Denmark with her two children, and went from there to Canada, where she died in 1960.
She was a life-long painter, and her works in exile depicted an idyllic Russia that existed only in the minds of emigres.
Romanov Water-Colors
Cartoon Network Deal
'The Land Before Time'
After selling more than 60 million units on DVD and VHS, the "Land Before Time" dinosaur franchise is headed to television.
The series of direct-to-video sequels to 1988's "The Land Before Time," directed by Don Bluth and executive produced by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, has sparked the development of an animated TV series that is slated to debut on the Cartoon Network in the first-half of 2007. After the series airs, episodes will be released on DVD via Universal Studios.
Production has begun on 26 episodes of the "Land Before Time" series. It will feature many of the same characters that appeared in the movie and its 10 direct-to-video sequels, mostly such lovable animated dinosaurs as Littlefoot, Cera and Petrie. New characters also will be introduced. The series will be created using a combination of 2-D and 3-D backgrounds.
'The Land Before Time'
Prime-Time Nielsen
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen Media Research for Aug. 1-7. Top 20 listings include the week's ranking, with viewership for the week and season-to-date rankings in parentheses. An "X" in parentheses denotes a one-time-only presentation.
1. (3) "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," CBS, 13.9 million viewers.
2. (8) "Without a Trace," CBS, 11.8 million viewers.
3. (7) "CSI: Miami," CBS, 10.2 million viewers.
4. (20) "NCIS," CBS, 9.4 million viewers.
5. (13) "Two and a Half Men," CBS, 9.4 million viewers.
6. (33) "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," NBC, 9 million viewers.
7. (100) "Hell's Kitchen," Fox, 8.9 million viewers.
8. (38) "CBS Sunday Movie: Deep Impact," CBS, 8.9 million viewers.
9. (16) "Cold Case," CBS, 8.8 million viewers.
10. (20) "Law & Order," NBC, 8.7 million viewers.
11. (73) "Big Brother 6," (Tuesday), CBS, 8.6 million viewers.
12. (67) "Law & Order" (Wednesday, 9 p.m.), NBC, 8.2 million viewers.
13. (20) "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.2 million viewers.
14. (11) "Everybody Loves Raymond," CBS, 8.2 million viewers.
15. (51) "Brat Camp," ABC, 8 million viewers.
16. (16) "Law & Order: SVU," NBC, 7.8 million viewers.
17. (79) "Big Brother 6," (Thursday), CBS, 7.7 million viewers.
18. (X) "Country Music Association Music Festival," ABC, 7.6 million viewers.
19. (105) "Most Outrageous Moments on Live TV," NBC, 7.3 million viewers.
20. (30) "House," Fox, 7.3 million viewers.
Ratings
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
