Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

MOVIE REVIEW: Charlie Wilson’s War


Back on ML King Day, Carol and I went to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. One must always take advantage of those times when the child is in day care and the parents both have the day off.
The goal in Roger’s Oscar roulette is to see as many Oscar-nominated films before the actual awards (this year: February 24), whether it’s a gala affair or Golden Globes press conference, part 2.

Charlie Wilson’s War is a Hollywood movie. I mean that in all the good and bad sense of that term. To the good, the production values are more than adequate; to the bad, it’s rather bland.

An early scene involves a number of naked women. Is this titillating? It is not. It was, surprisingly flat and boring. In fact, the film felt that way pretty much until Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character shows up. It’s comedic and has a certain energy; his Oscar nomination is deserved, for this and other roles this past year.

Tom Hanks is Tom Hanks. I don’t know what else to say.

Julia Roberts has taken a lot of heat, not just for this role, but somehow for her whole acting career. I thought she was fine in Erin Brockovich, playing a real person, (though Ellen Burstyn should have won for Requiem for a Dream that year, rather than Julia). And her hair looks A LOT like the real woman she is portraying. But here, her performance is rather flat, and I don’t know why.

If you don’t know, this movie is based on a real Texas congressman who found a way to fund the Afghans fighting the Russians. Much has been made of the ending, with some suggesting a more specific conclusion, telling the audience that the money shelled out for Charlie’s war helped in the development of the Taliban. I tend to disagree; the oblique dialogue between Charlie and the CIA man Gust (Hoffman) is enough, without it either 1) being preachy and/or 2) having to resort to that clumsy overlay technique of text at the end of the film telling you what happens next, used in films based on fiction as well as reality.

The story was written by the late CBS News producer George Crile, and the real Charlie Wilson appeared on 60 Minutes seven years ago. The average grade in Entertainment Weekly for this movie is a B. That’s just about right. It was by no means a terrible movie-going experience, but it wasn’t extraordinary, either. Maybe its lack of honesty and bite (except for Hoffman’s character) hurts it as a film as well.
ROG

ROG

Beatles’ TV Alert

On A&E, Sunday, February 3, 2008

7 a.m. BIOGRAPHY: The Beatles’ women
A look at the women–some celebrated, some forgotten–who influenced the lives of the Fab Four and were often the muses behind some of the Beatles’ greatest songs. Includes portraits of Yoko Ono, Linda Eastman, Pattie Boyd, Barbara Bach and Heather Mills. Plus, we look back at May Pang, John Lennon’s lost weekend companion; Cynthia Lennon, his first wife; Jane Asher, Paul McCartney’s posh girlfriend during the band’s heyday; Maureen Cox, Ringo’s first wife; and Olivia Trinidad Arias, who married George in 1978. TVPG | cc
8 a.m. Paul McCartney: Live at the Olympia
They are known among fans as the “secret concerts.” In 2007, Sir Paul McCartney took his band to a few small select venues around the world to play the most intimate, raw, and stripped down shows of his storied career. The shows have already become legendary. The most spectacular of all the performances was in Paris at the Olympia Theater in October. 43 years earlier the Beatles had played a series of concerts at the venue and for the 2007 show McCartney revisited the Beatles songbook, as well as playing solo hits and some tracks from his Grammy-nominated album “Memory Almost Full.” TVPG | cc
9 a.m. Private Sessions: Ringo Starr “Ringo shares a private look into his career.”
This morning, in an in-depth exclusive interview, former Beatle Ringo Starr chats with host Lynn Hoffman about his incredible career. His music, as a solo artist and as a Beatle, is permeated with his personality, his warmth and humor and his exceptional musicianship, which have given us songs we all know and love. Starr reflects about what it was like being part of the world’s most adored and famous group; his solo career; and his touring the globe with his All Starr Bands. TVPG | cc

9 A.M. for the premiere of the Ringo piece?? If you miss it, the Ringo piece will be repeated at 4 a.m. on Sunday, February 10.

ROG

ROG

Music by the Decade QUESTION

Groundhog’s Day is for recollecting: It’s not THAT neat and tidy, but it seems that each decade of my music collecting life was dominated by a few groups or solo artists.
1960s: The Beatles, the Supremes. Sure, I could add the Rascals, the Rolling Stones, the Temptations, Simon & Garfunkel, and undoubtedly others.
1970s: Clearly Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. I have every album each one put out (yes, even Stevie’s Secret Life of Plants). Other contenders: Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading, Beach Boys, Elton John, Neil Young.
1980s: Talking Heads, the Police. I also considered Bruce Springsteen, Prince, REM, Neil Young.
1990s: Johnny Cash and Nirvana. Also Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lyle Lovett, U2, Beatles.
2000s: There hasn’t been an overriding group, but I’ll suggest that compilations by Fred Hembeck and Lefty Brown (along with Lefty’s fellow travelers) has definitely shaped my music the most this century.

So what music has dominated your life at various points? You don’t have to break it down in 10-year periods, as I did, but whatever bite-sized time frame you wish. ROG

ROG

Timing Is Everything

It was four years ago. I was at a church with a BIG (100″)-screen TV. It was halftime of the game, and I wasn’t all that interested in the performers. So I went to the kitchen to get something to eat. And I missed Nipplegate.

Sure, I’ve caught it on the Internet subsequently – THAT was what the excitement was about? – but I wasn’t even aware of it, really, until the next day, though the announcers were making some vague comments in the second half that didn’t quite register at the time.

Since then, the FCC was SHOCKED! by this lewd behavior and fined CBS a zillion dollars.

Janet Jackson was vilified, not allowed to go on some awards show that was coming up, and became the poster child for our declining society. She’s had minimal commercial success since, relatively speaking.

Justin Timberlake got to go on the awards show and apologize, has had massive commercial success and is responsible for an extremely popular Saturday Night Live bit that was at least as risque as Nipplegate. Of course, it was after 11:30 pm, so “our children” weren’t exposed to it. Unless they happen to have access to YouTube or like entities.

Oh, yeah. That Super Bowl game in Houston four years ago was one of the best, with New England beating Carolina 32-29.

ROG

ROG

The Black Candidate

I was shocked – SHOCKED! – to discover that race has actually been integrated into the Democratic Presidential primary race. I kid. I’m only surprised it didn’t come up sooner.

This got me to thinking about the black people who ran for President in my recollection. In all cases except the first, I’ll limit the discussion to the major-party candidates.

1968: I couldn’t vote yet, but my mother and father asked me whether they should vote for Dick Gregory, who was running on the Freedom and Peace Party, or to vote for Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey. Being a pragmatist at the time, I suggested the latter, but I did recognize the attractiveness about the idea of voting for a black man for President.
1972: Or black woman. If Shirley Chisholm had been on the ballot in my district, surely I would have voted for her in the Democratic primary. But getting on the ballot in New York was/is complicated, requiring getting delegates in each of the Congressional districts and evidently, the Congresswoman failed to garner enough support in my upstate New York region.
1984: I was ready to vote for Jesse Jackson in the Democratic primary until I heard about the disparaging remarks he made about Jews and New York City. I guess I was holding a civil rights leader to a higher standard. I didn’t vote for him in 1988, either.
1996: Alan Keyes was running in the Republican primaries, and in New York, there is no crossover voting, as there is in Michigan, e.g. Still, I wouldn’t have voted for him anyway. He ran in 2000 as well, and I understand he’s running again, presumably as an independent.
2004: Both Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley-Braun were running in the Democratic primary. The preacher I didn’t particular trust, though occasionally at the debates, he made the most sense, and the former senator from Illinois never got any traction.

Which brings me to this year. Yeah, I still like Dennis Kucinich, but recognize that a snowball in Hades will get better odds than DK becoming POTUS. Anyway, he’s “transitioning out of” the presidential race. Edwards losing badly in his home state of South Carolina didn’t speak well of his chances, and now he’s done, too.

About a month ago, I took a test here. I’d taken other tests before, with varying results. What I found was that the pencil point touched the bottom left of Barack Obama’s picture.
“What does the pencil indicate?
The point of the pencil is the exact average of your answers. This is YOUR POSITION in the political landscape.”

Of course, Edwards, Clinton and Bill Richardson, who was still in the race at that point, were all in the area around my pencil point.
“What is the ellipse around the pencil?
The ellipse surrounding your position is the standard deviation. The standard deviation indicates to what extent your answers differ mutually. The standard deviation is the average deviation of the mean, one could say.”

I don’t want to vote for “the black candidate” or “the woman candidate”. But, I don’t NOT want to vote for them based on race or gender. The pencil mark across Obama’s face was almost like marking a ballot.

Shelby Steele was instructive. The author of A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can’t Win was on Bill Moyers a few weeks ago. He spoke almost as much about why Obama SHOULDN’T win as why he COULDN’T win – that all things for all people thing he does – but it had the opposite effect on me, making Obama a more attractive candidate.

I think that Osama/Obama spam mail has also solidified my intent. So, even though I have my reservations – that he’s still as beholden to corporate America as most of the others – I’ll vote for Barack Obama in the NYS primary on February 5.
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From the NYS Board of Elections re: the February 5 (Presidential) and September 9 (unofficial date for other offices) New York State 2008 primaries.

In New York City and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Erie, POLLS OPEN AT 6 AM – CLOSE AT 9 PM. In all other counties, POLLS OPEN AT 12 NOON and CLOSE AT 9 PM.

Here’s a list of candidates’ delegates.
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My friend Dan sent it to me, and it’s also on Boing Boing, but has Hillary Clinton REALLY adopted an obscure Golden Earring song as one of her official campaign songs? If so, as Dan said, “Clearly, she has not seen the video.

ROG

ROG
Ramblin' with Roger
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