Rented the Johnny Cash movie last night, great film. Worth seeing for Reece Witherspoon’s felonious theft of every damned scene if nothing else.
Kevin Drum saw about half of What the Bleep Do We Know before his brain rebelled. I have to agree with him about that, the audience could learn as much or more by turning to the person on their left and asking what he/she thinks about quantum theory. Or quantum feelings, or whatever the heck the movie is trying to say.
Rant about whatever.
Paddy O'Shea
Newsweek: The Leaker In Chief
More fuel for the growing public perception that Bush leaks like a pair of wino’s trousers.
msnbc.msn.com/id/12228726/site/newsweek/
jon
I think Ms. Witherspoono earned her Oscar the minute she perfectly delivered the line “Don’t worry, I can keep this funny for at least another minute.”
Priceless.
Perry Como
Where’s the Democrats plan to come up short with Army officers?
Mr.Ortiz
I think the graphic at the top of this page should be changed to “Tim F.’s Balloon Juice”. That’s not a slight against Mr. Cole, it’s just that he hardly posts anymore. Can’t blame him. I’d be laying low too, if I were a Republican.
demimondian
Perry, what’s the extra value of coming up with short Army offic…oh. Never mind.
Armand
Yeah, it’s a shame Walk the Line wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. I liked it much more than Crash. It’s a great film and both leads were terrific.
Zifnab
Ever wish we had post counts? I’m just curious how many times everyone’s posted.
Pb
Perry Como,
From the article:
Ugh. I suppose it wouldn’t have been appropriate for them to have said “Republican with Presidential aspirations who occasionally deviates from the party line Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.”, but… “Republican maverick”? Please.
Pb
Zifnab,
Counts, hell, I wish we had comment histories. And all those other little niceties from Scoop and/or Slash. And a pony…
Krista
True, but during arguments, the posts would all be Al Maviva-eque in word count, which means that nobody would read them.
Pb
Krista,
?
Perry Como
I think the reporter meant it in an “animal seperated from its mother” sense.
demimondian
Have you ever looked at Slashcode? Scoop, maybe…but slash? [shudder]
Krista
Pb – sorry. Forgot that you can’t read my mind. What I was trying to say was that if we could see each others’ post histories, then when two parties got into an argument, the thread would wind up being filled with absurdly lengthy posts full of blockquotes.
ppGaz
You mean, like GOP4me does?
The Other Steve
**shudder**
Ned Raggett
Rant about whatever — okay, Kinski is a great band, Nick Castro is a good up-and-comer, Klang seem good but should get around to a second album soon and it’s very nice to finally have a rereleased Living Ornaments ’80 from Gary Numan. Why no, what makes you think I was at Amoeba in Hollywood yesterday?
Pb
demimondian,
Re: looking at slashcode, no, I still have my vision. Incidentally, I believe Scoop was created in part as a reaction to that…
Jess
I was really disapointed by Walk the Line–I thought it was a heavy-handed, schmaltzy cliche from beginning to end. I felt like I had seen it at least 20 times before. Witherspoon (always one of my favorites–especially in “Election”) was the only relief. Finally saw Brokeback Mountain last night–now THAT is a good and original movie. I was also impressed by A History of Violence, somewhat to my surprise–what did y’all think of that one?
Bob In Pacifica
I don’t think that Phoenix was as evil as he was in “The Gladiator.”
Gump, Esq
History of violence was kind of boring. I kept expecting more.
Paddy O'Shea
News is River Phoenix has signed on to play the part of George W. Bush in a movie based on the life and later presidency of the same.
Due out summer of 2008.
CaseyL
The movie ends with Bush climbing onto the roof of the WH and screaming, “Top of the world, Ma!” as a lightning bolt from Angry God Productions, Inc., hits.
demimondian
It was. The history is that Rusty had a falling out with the Slashdolts, and went off to found his own site, tried to use Slash for it, couldn’t, and wrote Scoop.
Jess
Even the nasty sex on the stairs? Hurt my back just watching it…I didn’t expect much from it (the film, not the sex), so I was surprised by the emotional power of its cumulative effect, especially after the slow beginning. Maria Bello was great, anyway.
The Other Steve
I really liked Walk the Line. I thought both Phoenix and Witherspoon did a good job, and I normally can’t stand Witherspoon.
A History of Violence was awesome. One of the best films of 2005.
Last week we went to see Ice Age 2. I didn’t much care for it in the end. funny, but cliched.
demimondian
No, no, that’s the wrong movie. The Bush movie ends with Bush sitting on a bomb twirling a lariat above his head as it is dropped out of a B-52.
Ancient Purple
On the political front…
Sen. Joe Lieberman (D or r-Connecticut) was caught saying on the record that if he doesn’t win the primary against Ned Lamont (D), he won’t rule out running as an independent because (and your going to love this)…
In other words, “If I don’t win the primary, I am taking my ball and going home. And I love Zell Miller.”
Tim F.
History of Violence had the only ending that an American movie of its type is allowed to have (it started out as a psychological drama, but by halfway through it became a Mel Gibson actioner), but it was the wrong ending.
Jess
Why do you say this? I saw it as a statement about having to come to terms with and accept our violent natures and the consequences of this, rather than either deny or indulge them without consequences. His family has to accept their own violent tendencies if they’re going to accept him back into the fold. I like that the apparent resolution actually points to a larger irresolution. What kind of ending would you rather see?
capelza
Loved History of Violence, suprising film in a lot of ways.
RIVER Phoenix signed on? You mean Joaquin, right? He actually could pull that off.
Pb
demimondian,
Yeah, and the moderation system was created as a reaction to slashdot’s moderation woes at the time; I talked to kmself about back in the day, over at sid=moderation on slashdot (hidden sids still exist? ahh!). I’m one of those odd people who essentially migrated from slashdot to kuro5hin to dailykos to…
Jim Allen
Um, river Phoenix has been dead since 1993 — we are aware of that, right?
David
Which, to my mind, makes him much better-suited to play GWB than Joaquin. More likely to accept, too.
demimondian
I was thinking that the bomb-drop scene would be cheaper to film, him already being dead and all.
Jay C
FWIW, agree with Tim, here: Walk the Line was a far better film than I expected from the standard music-biopic genre: one of those movies where we started out wondering “what was so good about this flick that So-and-So deserved an Oscar” – then stopped wondering after about half an hour.
Also very impressed that both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon sang all the songs themselves (after six months “training”) – we coulda sworn some of the tracks were dubbed.
Sstarr
Just to let everyone know, the movie “What the @#$(%& do We Know” was funded by a religious cult based in the town of Yelm, Washington. The cult is led by JZ Knight, a woman who channels an ancient warrior spirit. Or so she says.
Here’s a link to the wikipedia article on JZ Knight, and here’s a review of the movie in Seattle Weekly, noting the influence of JZ Knight.
The upshot of this is that the science in the film is really, really poor. It’s a new age propoganda film.
Smurfette
Loved ‘Walk the Line’, was bored to tears by ‘History of Violence’, walked out of ‘What the $%$%’ after busting a gut laughing at the science.
That is all.
Geoduck
I live in the next town over from Yelm, more or less. Everything you need to know about Ms. Knight can be seen when you drive by her compound; the wall out front is stone topped with fancy glass orbs. As soon as it turns away from the road, it switches over to chainlink topped with barbed wire.
HyperIon
I was wondering if anyone had seen the Ellen Goodman column in which she mentions a blogger named TBone who posted something about Jill Carroll. Could this be the B-J tBone?
Sorry I can’t provide links. but google “Ellen Goodman” + tBone to get many hits…
CaseyL
Whew, Geoduck. I had a chance to visit another rich person’s compound in Yelm a year or so ago – just the grounds, the owner being out of town – and wondered if it was Knight’s place, because it was so relentlessly New Age. But there wasn’t any barbed wire on chainlink, so probably not.
The place was gorgeous, I’ll give the owner that. Lots of wonderful little meditation gardens, meticulous landscaping, statuary, a stable, a main house the architecture of which was fascinating… and no one was there except a couple groundskeepers.
That was the odd thing, no one being there. I was told the owner spent at least half the year traveling out of the country. This huge, fantastical wonderland was uninhabited most of the year. But everything was taken care of as if the owner might be back any minute.
There are a fair number of huge estates here in Seattle. Mostly, they’re walled off (though you can peer through the hedges and over the fences). And I very rarely see people out and about in those estates. I don’t even see kids playing in those enormous yards with the fancy play equipment.
The owners are wealthy enough to hire people to keep it all looking perfect, while they do – what? Travel all the time? Stay in the house all the time?
Maybe it’s just me, but that strikes me as spooky, rather sad, and a waste.
James Richardson
I tried watching it too and stopped. It’s a whole movie that asks questions, and the answers never come. It’s Ms. Matalin walking around looking curious for two hours.
I’d suggest the three part series The Elegant Universe.
Anyone remember that comedy central parody of Bush, that they stopped showing after 9/11?