24 posts tagged “entertainment”

This morning while idly surfing the net, I read one woman's rant about the latest sexual brouhaha du jour; that of David Letterman being blackmailed over the many sexual dalliances he's had over the years with women he'd worked with.  In complete indignation, she ripped Letterman up one side and down the other.

She reviled him for his inability to be monogamous; that he'd been repeatedly unfaithful to his partner of 23 years.  Calling him a "creepy, perverted old man", she jeered at him for his apparent inability to "keep in in his pants".  And then she wrapped up with hand-wringing about the increasingly so-called "dying breed" of men who remain absolutely sexually faithful to their female partners who, unlike Letterman, in her opinion, were "upright, righteous, strong, moral men with integrity".

I won't take the time to address all her points here, because that isn't the main point of this post, save to say that infidelity wasn't something invented in the 1960s.   People have been struggling to adhere to monogamy ever since it was imposed on us by religion countless generations ago.

What mainly struck me as absurd and short sighted about her post was the fact that the Letterman "sextortion" news has followed directly on the heels of the latest news about Roman Polanski's arrest.

If she wanted to vent her spleen on a "creepy, perverted old man", then she need not have looked any further than Polanski, who drugged and forcibly raped a 13 year old kid, then evaded justice for over thirty years.  Polanski is the real deal when it comes to creepy, perverted old men and it's completely ludicrous to even attempt to put Letterman into the same category.

Unlike Polanski and his misguided defenders, (such as Whoopi Goldberg, who has said that Polanski did not commit "rape-rape", but "something else"), who have tried to minimize the seriousness of what he did,  Letterman has stepped up to the plate like a man and openly admitted the dalliances without trying to explain them away.  Unlike many other celebrity men who have been outed for adultery in recent years, was honest about his behavior. 

Letterman was also involved with adult women in consensual encounters; hardly the crime of the century that will lead to the end of civilization as we know it.  Polanski and his defenders, who somehow think he's special and not subject to the same laws as the rest of us, on the other hand, say something very sad about our society.

Thoughts?

What follows is a list of movies that have been voted by users of IMDb as their 250 best movies.   I question the inclusion of some movies, wonder where several others are that I think should have been included, and question the order of popularity of many of the movies.    The movies I've seen are bolded.  Feel free to pick some from this list as your favorites and list them in the comment box.

IMDb Top 250 Movies

1.    9.1    The Shawshank Redemption (1994)   
2.    9.1    The Godfather (1972)   
3.    9.0    The Godfather: Part II (1974)   
4.    8.9    Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. (1966)   
5.    8.9    Pulp Fiction (1994)   
6.    8.9    Schindler's List (1993)   
7.    8.8    12 Angry Men (1957)   
8.    8.8    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)   
9.    8.8    The Dark Knight (2008)   
10.    8.8    Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)   
11.    8.8    Casablanca (1942)
12.    8.8    Star Wars (1977)   
13.    8.8    The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)   
14.    8.8    Shichinin no samurai (1954)   
15.    8.7    Goodfellas (1990)   
16.    8.7    Rear Window (1954)   
17.    8.7    Cidade de Deus (2002)   
18.    8.7    Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)   
19.    8.7    Fight Club (1999)   
20.    8.7    The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)   
21.    8.7    C'era una volta il West (1968)   
22.    8.7    The Usual Suspects (1995)   
23.    8.7    Psycho (1960)
24.    8.6    The Silence of the Lambs (1991)   
25.    8.6    Sunset Blvd. (1950)   
26.    8.6    The Matrix (1999)   
27.    8.6    Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
28.    8.6    Memento (2000)
29.    8.6    North by Northwest (1959)
30.    8.6    It's a Wonderful Life (1946)   
31.    8.6    Se7en (1995)   
32.    8.6    The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)   
33.    8.6    Citizen Kane (1941)   
34.    8.6    Léon (1994)   
35.    8.6    Apocalypse Now (1979)   
36.    8.6    American Beauty (1999)
37.    8.6    Up (2009)   
38.    8.5    Taxi Driver (1976)   
39.    8.5    American History X (1998)   
40.    8.5    Inglourious Basterds (2009)   
41.    8.5    Vertigo (1958)   
42.    8.5    Forrest Gump (1994)   
43.    8.5    Lawrence of Arabia (1962)   
44.    8.5    WALL·E (2008)   
45.    8.5    Paths of Glory (1957)   
46.    8.5    Double Indemnity (1944)   
47.    8.5    Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)   
48.    8.5    M (1931)   
49.    8.5    Alien (1979)   
50.    8.5    To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)   
51.    8.5    The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)   
52.    8.5    A Clockwork Orange (1971)   
53.    8.5    Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)   
54.    8.5    Saving Private Ryan (1998)   
55.    8.5    The Shining (1980)   
56.    8.5    District 9 (2009)   
57.    8.5    The Third Man (1949)   
58.    8.5    The Departed (2006)   
59.    8.5    Das Leben der Anderen (2006)   
60.    8.5    The Pianist (2002)   
61.    8.4    Chinatown (1974)   
62.    8.4    City Lights (1931)   
63.    8.4    Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)   
64.    8.4    Aliens (1986)   
65.    8.4    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)   
66.    8.4    L.A. Confidential (1997)   
67.    8.4    Das Boot (1981)   
68.    8.4    Requiem for a Dream (2000)   
69.    8.4    The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)   
70.    8.4    Reservoir Dogs (1992)   
71.    8.4    Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
72.    8.4    El laberinto del fauno (2006)   
73.    8.4    All About Eve (1950)   
74.    8.4    Raging Bull (1980)   
75.    8.4    Slumdog Millionaire (2008)   
76.    8.4    The Maltese Falcon (1941)   
77.    8.4    Rashômon (1950)   
78.    8.4    Singin' in the Rain (1952)   
79.    8.4    Modern Times (1936)   
80.    8.4    Some Like It Hot (1959)   
81.    8.3    Rebecca (1940)   
82.    8.3    The Prestige (2006)   
83.    8.3    Gran Torino (2008)   
84.    8.3    Der Untergang (2004)   
85.    8.3    The Apartment (1960)   
86.    8.3    Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988)   
87.    8.3    Metropolis (1927)   
88.    8.3    The Elephant Man (1980)   
89.    8.3    Amadeus (1984)   
90.    8.3    The Great Dictator (1940)   
91.    8.3    La vita è bella (1997)   
92.    8.3    2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)   
93.    8.3    Once Upon a Time in America (1984)   
94.    8.3    Ladri di biciclette (1948)   
95.    8.3    Back to the Future (1985)   
96.    8.3    Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)   
97.    8.3    Full Metal Jacket (1987)
98.    8.3    The Sting (1973)   
99.    8.3    The Great Escape (1963)   
100.    8.3    Braveheart (1995)   
101.    8.3    Sin City (2005)   
102.    8.3    Touch of Evil (1958)   
103.    8.3    On the Waterfront (1954)   
104.    8.3    Det sjunde inseglet (1957)   
105.    8.3    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)   
106.    8.3    The Green Mile (1999)   
107.    8.3    Batman Begins (2005)   
108.    8.3    Jaws (1975)   
109.    8.3    Hotel Rwanda (2004)   
110.    8.3    Unforgiven (1992)   
111.    8.3    Strangers on a Train (1951)   
112.    8.3    Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)   
113.    8.3    No Country for Old Men (2007)   
114.    8.3    Blade Runner (1982)   
115.    8.3    Gladiator (2000)
116.    8.3    Star Trek (2009)
117.    8.2    Notorious (1946)   
118.    8.2    The Manchurian Candidate (1962)   
119.    8.2    The Wrestler (2008)   
120.    8.2    Die Hard (1988)   
121.    8.2    Oldboy (2003)   
122.    8.2    High Noon (1952)   
123.    8.2    Per qualche dollaro in più (1965)   
124.    8.2    The Big Sleep (1946)   
125.    8.2    Cool Hand Luke (1967)   
126.    8.2    The General (1926)   
127.    8.2    Fargo (1996)   
128.    8.2    Witness for the Prosecution (1957)   
129.    8.2    The Wizard of Oz (1939)
130.    8.2    Mononoke-hime (1997)   
131.    8.2    Smultronstället (1957)   
132.    8.2    It Happened One Night (1934)
133.    8.2    Heat (1995)   
134.    8.2    Donnie Darko (2001)   
135.    8.2    There Will Be Blood (2007)   
136.    8.2    Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)   
137.    8.2    Annie Hall (1977)   
138.    8.2    Yojimbo (1961)   
139.    8.2    Ran (1985)   
140.    8.2    The Deer Hunter (1978)   
141.    8.2    Les diaboliques (1955)   
142.    8.2    Ben-Hur (1959)   
143.    8.2    The Sixth Sense (1999)   
144.    8.2    Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)   
145.    8.2    Platoon (1986)   
146.    8.2    Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)   
147.    8.2    Into the Wild (2007)   
148.    8.2    Le notti di Cabiria (1957)   
149.    8.2    Sherlock Jr. (1924)   
150.    8.2    Le salaire de la peur (1953)   
151.    8.2    Million Dollar Baby (2004)   
152.    8.2    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)   
153.    8.2    The Grapes of Wrath (1940)   
154.    8.1    The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)   
155.    8.1    8½ (1963)   
156.    8.1    Life of Brian (1979)
157.    8.1    Snatch. (2000)   
158.    8.1    The Big Lebowski (1998)
159.    8.1    The Gold Rush (1925)
160.    8.1    (500) Days of Summer (2009)   
161.    8.1    The Night of the Hunter (1955)   
162.    8.1    The Graduate (1967)   
163.    8.1    Stand by Me (1986)   
164.    8.1    Finding Nemo (2003)   
165.    8.1    Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)   
166.    8.1    Gandhi (1982)   
167.    8.1    The Lion King (1994)   
168.    8.1    Brief Encounter (1945)   
169.    8.1    The Killing (1956)   
170.    8.1    Gone with the Wind (1939)   
171.    8.1    Ratatouille (2007)   
172.    8.1    Dog Day Afternoon (1975)   
173.    8.1    Amores perros (2000)   
174.    8.1    Trainspotting (1996)   
175.    8.1    Scarface (1983)   
176.    8.1    The Kid (1921)   
177.    8.1    The Thing (1982)   
178.    8.1    Groundhog Day (1993)   
179.    8.1    The Terminator (1984)   
180.    8.1    The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)   
181.    8.1    Sleuth (1972)   
182.    8.1    Harvey (1950)   
183.    8.1    Toy Story (1995)   
184.    8.1    The Wild Bunch (1969)   
185.    8.1    The Hustler (1961)   
186.    8.1    V for Vendetta (2005)   
187.    8.1    Umberto D. (1952)   
188.    8.1    Shadow of a Doubt (1943)   
189.    8.1    The Princess Bride (1987)   
190.    8.1    The Incredibles (2004)   
191.    8.1    Twelve Monkeys (1995)   
192.    8.1    Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels    
193.    8.1    Stalag 17 (1953)
194.    8.1    Casino (1995)   
195.    8.1    Hotaru no haka (1988)   
196.    8.1    Children of Men (2006)   
197.    8.0    Dial M for Murder (1954)   
198.    8.0    The Lady Vanishes (1938)   
199.    8.0    Duck Soup (1933)   
200.    8.0    The African Queen (1951)   
201.    8.0    Anatomy of a Murder (1959)   
202.    8.0    La battaglia di Algeri (1966)   
203.    8.0    In Bruges (2008)   
204.    8.0    A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)   
205.    8.0    La strada (1954)   
206.    8.0    Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)   
207.    8.0    The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)   
208.    8.0    King Kong (1933)   
209.    8.0    The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)   
210.    8.0    Safety Last! (1923)   
211.    8.0    The Lost Weekend (1945)   
212.    8.0    His Girl Friday (1940)   
213.    8.0    The Exorcist (1973)   
214.    8.0    Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)   
215.    8.0    The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)   
216.    8.0    Rope (1948)   
217.    8.0    The Conversation (1974)   
218.    8.0    Ed Wood (1994)   
219.    8.0    Rosemary's Baby (1968)   
220.    8.0    Bonnie and Clyde (1967)   
221.    8.0    Låt den rätte komma in (2008)   
222.    8.0    Le scaphandre et le papillon (2007)   
223.    8.0    Sweet Smell of Success (1957)   
224.    8.0    Manhattan (1979)   
225.    8.0    All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)   
226.    8.0    Network (1976)   
227.    8.0    The Hangover (2009)   
228.    8.0    The Philadelphia Story (1940)   
229.    8.0    Changeling (2008)   
230.    8.0    Frankenstein (1931)   
231.    8.0    Great Expectations (1946)   
232.    8.0    Crash (2004/I)   
233.    8.0    Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)   
234.    8.0    Patton (1970)   
235.    8.0    Laura (1944)   
236.    8.0    Big Fish (2003)   
237.    8.0    Good Will Hunting (1997)   
238.    8.0    Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)   
239.    8.0    My Man Godfrey (1936)
240.    8.0    Magnolia (1999)   
241.    8.0    Mystic River (2003)   
242.    8.0    Rocky (1976)   
243.    8.0    The Red Shoes (1948)   
244.    8.0    Bringing Up Baby (1938)   
245.    8.0    The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)   
246.    8.0    Wo hu cang long (2000)   
247.    8.0    Roman Holiday (1953)   
248.    8.0    Glory (1989)   
249.    8.0    Harold and Maude (1971)   
250.    8.0    Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

Lately, I’ve been turning to the library to fill in the gaps in my music collection. I’ve been borrowing CDs to take home to upload into my Windows Media Player and will, at some point, load selected songs into my MP3 player.  Money is tight right now, plus I’ve noticed that the places I usually buy CDs at have drastically reduced their selections for some reason.

I didn’t have anything particular in mind, so I just browsed the stacks.  After looking through the jazz selection, I ended up with a Dave Brubeck CD, “Time Out”, which included the track “Take Five“.   It brought back a lot of memories, as this was a song that I discovered when I was around 11 0r 12.

I began taking piano lessons when I was ten years old, and started in band the following year.   At that time, kids in the “band culture” of my school were exposed to a lot of jazz.  So, while most kids my age were listening to rock, pop, and the like, I was listening to jazz.  Though I like rock music now, my first choices in music when I started getting my own albums were in jazz.

“Take Five” was one of the first jazz songs I got into, and I was fortunate to hear Brubeck, along with Gerry Mulligan perform this song in the summer of 1972 at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York City.  I was also lucky enough to meet them after the set, and I think it pleased them that someone as young as I was at the time was getting into their music (I was 14),   In next few years, I also saw Maynard Ferguson in concert twice and participated in a jazz workshop with Stan Kenton at my high school.  At that time I wanted to be a jazz musician myself (and I’m sorry I didn’t fulfill my dream now).

The CD I borrowed was the original recording with Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond (who wrote the song).  I was surprised to see that this song was originally recorded in 1959 — at the time I first got into it, I’d assumed it was a recent recording.   But as I listened to it in the car on the way home from the library, it still had all the original electricity that attracted me to the song in the first place and in no way sounded as if it had been recorded 50 years ago.  It sounds as fresh now as it did in the summer of 1959 when they recorded it.   And it still has sufficient power to make me feel the feelings all over again I had as a teen in the early 70s when I first wanted to become a musician.

In a recent New York Times article, Reverend Jesse Jackson, has speculated about Michael Vick not yet being signed to an NFL team, wondering if it was a racist conspiracy among NFL team owners to keep him out of the league.  Jackson even had the temerity to compare Vick's situation with that of Jackie Robinson, the first black American signed to play major league baseball in 1947.

Give me a break!

To even mention Vick's name in the same sentence as Robinson's does a disservice to Robinson's memory and place in history.  The experiences of the two men are in no way comparable.

Robinson was a law-abiding citizen whose only "crime" was being the wrong color in a time when racial prejudice was pervasive in American society.  Vick has known nothing of the racism in his sports career that was an everyday fact of life for Jackie Robinson.

Vick's current problem was caused by Michael Vick, not a racist conspiracy.  They're not picking on him "just because he's black".  To suggest otherwise and to compare him to Robinson just cheapens and demeans all that Robinson had to overcome to come out on top.

It's one thing to believe that Vick has paid his debt to society and to think he deserves another chance.  That's fine.

But it's quite another thing to act as if he's an innocent victim in all of this by playing the race card.

Thoughts?

Last night, I came home to find out that veteran newsman Walter Cronkite had died at the age of 92.   Chosen several times over as “the most trusted man in America” in viewer opinion polls, Cronkite’s long and distinguished career extending from before World War II into the 21st century.

Morley Safer, a longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent, called Cronkite “the father of television news.”

“The trust that viewers placed in him was based on the recognition of his fairness, honesty and strict objectivity … and of course his long experience as a shoe-leather reporter covering everything from local politics to World War II and its aftermath in the Soviet Union,” Safer said. “He was a giant of journalism and privately one of the funniest, happiest men I’ve ever known.”

As the anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981,  he brought the news of countless world-changing events to millions of Americans, from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King to the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Iranian hostage crisis.  He ended each evening’s broadcast with his signature statement: “And that’s the way it is.”

From the perspective of a five year old in 1963, I well remember Cronkite choking up as he delivered the report of President John F. Kennedy’s death.

Walter Cronkite reports the death of JFK
November 22, 1963

His 1968 editorial declaring the United States was “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam was seen by some as a turning point in U.S. opinion of the war. He also helped broker the 1977 invitation that took Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, the breakthrough to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

Cronkite was also an fervent supporter of America’s space program and was on hand to report every milestone in the high-coverage sixties from the first suborbital flight to the first moon landing to covering John Glenn’s return to space in 1998.  His enthusiasm was evident when  he exclaimed “Look at those pictures, wow!” as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon’s surface.

“He had a passion for human space exploration, an enthusiasm that was contagious, and the trust of his audience. He will be missed,” Neil Armstrong said.

I, like millions of others, grew up with Walter Cronkite bringing us the news,  He was a nightly constant from my earliest memories to the time my son was born.   His death is but another part of my childhood gone forever.

And that’s the way it was.

What's your favorite Michael Jackson song? Bonus points if you share the video.

I'd have to say Billie Jean, with the strong bass line in it.  I've never been a rabid Michael Jackson fan in general, but I always liked this song.

I've posted about TV commercials that annoy the crap out of me in a few past entries.  Today, I thought I'd be different and write about one that is currently my favorite.   I could see how people could find this one annoying as well, but there's something about it that hits my funny bone just the right way and makes me laugh.

This one is the latest in a series of Alltel commercials where Chad the Alltel guy outwits four dweeby, dorky representatives from four other cell phone companies who wear brightly colored polo shirts.. In this most recent commercial, Chad is standing on the sidewalk trying to persuade a family to switch cell phone companies.   The four dorks come along and the guy in the yellow shirt, a pudgy, short guy with a Richard Simmons lookalike hairstyle, starts ranting and raving:

This commercial is shown about a hundred times a day, but it cracks me up every time.  I think the guy who plays the dork in the yellow shirt probably has a brilliant career ahead of him in comedy.

Alltel commercial

Miss California is in the news again, this time concerning the topless photos she posed for.  Pageant officials are set to strip her of her crown and give it to the runner-up, Miss Malibu.

I don't see why anyone is surprised that she'd pose for topless photos. As I see it, the only difference between posing for such photos and competing in a beauty pageant is one of degree rather than kind.

Both activities involve her capitalizing on her physical appearance for personal gain.

So, I see no problem whatsoever with her choosing to pose for these photos.

What does bother me is the rampant hypocrisy, both hers and that of those who run these beauty pageants. Hers because of her holier than thou comments about same sex marriage and that of the contest's promoters for failing to acknowledge that soft core porn and beauty pageants are simply two points on the same continuum.

And as far as her original comments about same sex marriage goes, who really cares what she had to say, anyway? It's a beauty pageant for crap's sake; it's not as if anyone expects these women to be Rhodes scholars. I'm actually surprised that these pageants still exist in 2009, to be perfectly honest.

Thoughts?

In my last entry about the beauty pageant clones, I spelled out what I didn’t like about these women.  Following below is a photo of a woman who shows what I do like:

This is the actress Jane Russell, in a photo taken some time in the 1940s.

Lush curves, creamy skin, bedroom eyes, kissable lips.  Mmm.  Neither of the metallic bimbos in the previous entry hold a candle to the lovely Jane.

Sometimes, I think I was born in the wrong era.