I saw V for Vendetta this weekend with the wife and some friends. Everyone but me wasn't sure what to expect but on Friday I had checked out some reviews and synopsis of the movie and kind of knew to expect a cultural critique of current world transdoings.
Overall i thought the movie was really well done, very interesting and engaging. It was really hard to watch and figure out which "side" to root for. Basically V is a terrorist/hero/revolutionary. And there always seems to be a fine line between heroic revolutionary and fundamentalist wacko terrorist. The movie seems to want to dance on that fine line and make the viewer contemplate whether they see V as a revolutionary or a terrorist. I'd argue that the movie makes V a hero because he stands against the fascist regime and through his acts of terrorism awakens the britons spirit to stand up for what they believe in.
Its a hard movie to digest and i'm still working through its social critique. For the most part i disagree with alot of its critiques. It seems exagerated in most of its complaints. I mean standing up against a fascist regime is good. Likening our current government to a fascist regime however is a joke. So if you don't connect the movie to america i think it has a lot of good stuff, but when you start trying to draw those connections, which the wachowski brothers want you to do, I think the movie's critiques are so flawed and one sided that they lose all relevance.
I recommend the movie for people who want to be challenged on various ideas from terrorism to gay rights. Its a hard movie to watch at times, seeing parliament blow up was very frusterating as in a lot of ways its a symbol of freedom and representation and i felt blowing it up in reality doesn't convey the meaning it does in the movie. In the movie it is a symbol of destroying the oppressive government, however in our world, in reality its a symbol of what is good in Great Britain. I feel like if they had made a false headquarters of this oppressive regime that blowing up that would have made more sense and conveyed the message better. To me its like blowing up the Lincoln monument it makes no sense to blow something up that is a symbol of freedom.
Man i'll have the FBI and CIA all over me for this post. FYI I'm not a revolutionary or a crazy man. I like our government and will not do anything bad. I have a very nice tax return coming and i don't want to jepordize that. USA all the way.
In a lot of ways i see this movie like Million Dollar Baby. I went to it with my own opinions about the subject at hand... the movie challenged those opinions, I rethink my opinions, and in a way become more sure of those held opinions. Its a lot like resistence training, by challenging me i become all the more assured of what i believe.
Its hard for me to care too much about local politics since i reside in GA. But since I work, play, and worship in TN I have to sort of stay keyed into the Chattanooga politics. I wasn't a big fan of Ron Littlefield when he ran for govenor. I wasn't gung ho about his competitors either. Ann Coulter was the only candidate that seemed to carry the Corker vibe and thus i was in favor of her but she got the city vote but not the surrounding areas. And since I couldn't vote anyway it was sort of a non issue for me to care.
But what has really ticked me off about Littlefield is the pretty much halting of improvements down town. He sort of spun his whole election of improving other areas besides down town which could be a valid argument. However one only needs to look at the big old pile of dirt off of frasier to see that it looks like some projects have stalled completely. The Coolidge wetlands area seems to have not changed in the past 6 months. They created a really cool pile of dirt and left it alone.
I"m not keyed into the whole political scene, nor do a i care. But much like the EPB building i fear this project may never be completed.
Also my other city complaint: The chicken plant needs to be moved. I realize it probably generates a lot of money via taxes for the city so they would like to keep it in city limits. But if south side wants to develop then they're going to have to move the chicken processing plant. Now i realize this only affects a few people but as i have to park at finley for work it affects me and so thus you should care.
I grew up in St. Louey and that city has a problem with a larger company that makes odor. Anheuser-Busch in the south side of town produces a foul odor of hops and what not. You sort of get used to the smell and its nothing compared to rotting chicken corpses. I think if the city wants to continue to grow and progress southward then the chicken plan will have to go. I always want to stop by Tbones bar on my way home from work but i'm afraid that after a few beers i'll walk out of there and catch a good wiff and lose all my partially digested beer.
Well it looks like my bracket is already broken. Pretty much I had a lot riding on Syracuse. They were in my sweet 16. Plus all my upsets didn't come through. I had picked
San Diego ST over Indiana
Marquette over Alabama (didn't trust Bama as they've been pretty mediocre all year)
Syracuse killed me.
Seton Hall over Witchita St didn't happen either. I knew I should have picked Witchita because everyone and their mother told people to stick with the Missouri Conference... i betrayed my midwestern roots.
And Montana a state with no one in it somehow beat Nevada and OK choked against Milwaukee. I thought Milwaukee would be nothing without Pearl but i guess i was wrong...
So with that many games missed i'm pretty much out. The race is tight this year because almost everyone has picked the same final four or at least in all the ones I'm in someone has the same final four as me and has more points than me after the first round... excuse me only half of the first round.
So I'll tally my pool but i probably won't watch any games now. Maybe a few big ones. Its just not as fun when you're out of it.
I used to never be into college sports, especially basketball. Mainly because i found it frusterating that every four years you had an entirely new team on the court and i could never keep up with who was on which team. Not much has changed, they still have new teams every four years or so and i only know about three players in the entire collegiate world.
But nevertheless i've followed NCAA more the past two years and what has really peaked my interest is the pools. Not that i'm a gamblaholic but picking teams in a bracket really gives you something to cheer for... especially if there's a big purse. Last year I was in three contests and only won the one that had no money or prize. This year i hope for the opposite to happen.
My final four has Duke, Kansas, Uconn, and Ohio State, with Uconn beating Duke for the championship. I mean its all a crap shoot but Duke and Uconn i have a feeling will be the final two just because no other team has really showed the dominance that they have. But i could be wrong.
I'm excited to see how it goes today. Looking at all the brackets my coworkers have turned in its looking like most people have the same picks. There are few upsets that are on every bracket and so I think the contest this year will be a lot closer than in years past.
I"m already off to a good start... I already picked Monmouth over Hampton... so thats good for a half point.
I was going to lay off the blogging about the oscars and leave it to the other chattablogers but no one seems to be disecting it. So even though I only saw none of the movies up for best picture i figured I'd weigh in on it.
It annoys me to see people say, "Hollywood is not ready for Brokeback to win..." Maybe Crash was just a better movie in a lot of people's minds. Why does it have to be people not being ready? I think that takes away from Crash possibly being a great movie. Granted haven't seen either so my opinion is baseless.
No the only two movies that I saw that were Oscar worthy were Cinderella man and Walk the Line. Cinderella Man i think got snubbed due to its timing, early year release. This coupled with the "he already won an oscar effect." Oscars as well as NBA MVP's seem to go to people who haven't won before instead of the truly best performance. For NBA example Steve Nash is looking to be the best individual player of the year again but won't win because he won last year. Well Ron Howard and Russell Crowe have both already won oscars and so their bids were sort of ignored in my opinion. Plus I don't know how movies get up for nomination but I'm sure it has to be some politics involved and for some reason some movies don't get good enough lobbyists i guess.
Similarly Walk the Line suffered from the belief and reality that in a lot of ways it was too much like Ray. Granted it was still a great movie and humans are fickle and unfortunately let illogical things factor their decision making and overlooked a great movie... possibly. Like I said i haven't seen the others so I don't know. But I've heard that a lot of the movies up for Oscar were frankly kind of boring and i must admit they look boring to the average joe... aka me.
Capote kind of interests me as its a "true" story so that looks intresting. Crash looks interesting to me as well because it deals with race. Brokeback... didn't interest me what so ever. I'm not into westerns, not into love stories... and not into that other thing either. Constant Gardener... looked boring. Good night and good luck did look interesting but i didn't want to get any second hand smoke.
Compared to all the movie nominated i thought king kong was sort of snubbed too. I thought it was a great movie in comparisson... granted havent' seen any of the other movies. Though that being said I think both cinderella man and walk the line were better than king kong.
Other thoughts on the oscars:
Ben Stiller I thought was funny.
If i won i would steal the band conductor's baton so he could start the music on me.
I would have at least an entertaining speech ready so many speeches as of late have sucked and been dull. Where's the Robeteo Benni's when we need them??
Interesting note a good source told me Seymour Hoffman was supposed to bark his oscar acceptance speech based on a pact he made with his drinking buddies before he became famous. He let us all down.
Jack Nicholson seemed high or drunk.
Jon Stewart was funny.
So those are my thoughts.
Man things have been busy at casa de holton. We got the babies room painted a nice pink color and got the carpet laid on tuesday. THe carpet looks good and we're really happy with it. The babies room is all but completed, wifey still has some curtains to sew but she has the material and is ready to work.
Wife's doing fine as well, she's slowed down a bit and is transitioning to staying home most of the time. Her nannying is sporadic now mostly due to the lady she nanny's for not calling as often lately. But she's staying busy while at home with lots of house work that sort of popped up with rearranging the whole house in order to carpet our bed room. Plus she has her reunion in a week or so where her girl friends from college will descend on our house. THus meaning i will be kicked to the curb in search of a home for a weekend. I'm planning on going camping with copper and possibly some black watch guys.
Other than that just working on the house a lot. I'm painting the last bed room in our house that has not yet been paiinted. It was the least visited room up until we put a computer in it. So now it needs a good coat to make it less offensive and to cover the hand prints the prior owners kids made.
Anyway thats about it.