Yet another story about people staying home to watch DVDs, play video games, etc. instead of going to the movies. This captures the overall thrust of the article:
With box-office attendance sliding, so far, for the third consecutive year, many in the industry are starting to ask whether the slump is just part of a cyclical swing driven mostly by a crop of weak movies or whether it reflects a much bigger change in the way Americans look to be entertained - a change that will pose serious new challenges to Hollywood.
Studios have made more on DVD sales and licensing products than on theatrical releases for some time. Now, technologies like TiVo and video-on-demand are keeping even more people at home, as are advanced home entertainment centers, with their high-definition television images on large flat screens and multichannel sound systems.
This is fine as far as it goes, but it leaves out something important. Here's why I don't go to movies more often:
The sad thing is that watching a movie in a theater with a large group of people can be a great experience. We saw "Casablanca" last winter in the theater, and I enjoyed it more than I have in the past watching it on TV. Of course, that was at a film festival, and was a much different experience than your typical blockbuster where you're likely sandwiched between Bubba and his 64 oz. drink on one side, a restless 9-year old on the other and Julie the Cruise Director ("Omigod!") on her cell phone behind you. Ugh.
So right wingers are literally in support of the dark side of the force:
Having decided that Revenge of the Sith is as blantantly an anti-Bush movie as Fahrenheit 9/11, the Right Wing Mao Squad has undertaken the rehabilitiation of...wait for it...
Darth Sidious.
I'll admit to being mildly baffled at how much political discussion the new Star Wars movie has generated, but anything that gets these nut jobs on record as saying "Darth Vader good, Yoda bad" is okay in my book. People may not follow a lot of political wrangling, but every 10 year-old in the country can tell you that Darth Vader and the Emperor are the Bad Guys.
Forget the political message in Episode III. The real question is, what's the Jedi position on boning?
Just came across a wikipedia entry on George Galloway, which is a fascinating read.
Whatever they want to call it (), here's what this is all about:
Unfortunately, I live in a state whose senators march in lockstep with the Republican Party, but there are others who do not. Hopefully they'll have the balls to do what's right so that we can look back on this moment as the time when America woke up and turned it's back on fascism, and not the time when everything started to come apart.
The Scottish accent just makes this all the more cool. God I wish some of our politicians had the balls to say stuff like this.
Saw another in a string of filibuster stories just now, this one pointing out that it's not just Democrats who would get screwed by the end of filibusters. Moderate Republicans would get hosed, too.
Last Gasp for Moderate Republicans?: "This is going to be a remarkable battle. The nuclear option, banning filibuster, is targeted not only against Democrats but against these moderate Republican Senators. Filibusters exist as a parliamentary technique to help ensure -- if not consensus -- at least general comity in the debates, and act as a moderating force preventing a bare majority from having carte blanche legislative powers. If anyone can understand that, it's the few remaining Republican Senators -- McCain, Chafee, Snowe, Specter, Collins, and even Hagel and Voinovich -- who are still willing to stray from the party lines over particular matters of conscience."
So here's a little fantasy. Say that Frist manages to ram through the rules change, somehow. There are a number of ways he could make that happen. I count seven Republicans in that list. If these guys really cared about making a difference, they could switch parties. That would instantly change the balance in the Senate from 55 R - 45 D to 48 R - 52 D. It's clear enough that these seven aren't welcome in today's Republican party, so why not?
Ok, it'll never happen, but after all the bullying these people have had to deal with over the last five years, I have to imagine that it would feel really good to give Frist, Cheney, Bush et al the royal screwing they deserve. There's not enough KY in the world to make this one feel good.
Joe Conason asks a couple of good questions:
Are Americans so jaded about the deceptions perpetrated by our own government to lead us into war in Iraq that we are no longer interested in fresh and damning evidence of those lies? Or are the editors and producers who oversee the American news industry simply too timid to report that proof on the evening broadcasts and front pages?
There is a 'smoking memo' that confirms the worst assumptions about the Bush administration's Iraq policy, but although that memo generated huge pre-election headlines in Britain, its existence has hardly been mentioned here.
Now I don't claim to speak for all Americans (if I did then we never would have had this shit-for-brains jackass as a president, and "Angel" would still be on the air), but I can confidently say that yes, I'm completely jaded about this government. It's not so much that I'm not interested in the new evidence, as it is that it's old news by now. It's been obvious for a long, long, time that Dubya was going to invade Iraq come hell or high water, justification or no justification. The latest revelations are just details.
Having said that, I don't have a clue what the problem is with the news industry. You would think that this would be a big story-- it's got lies, death, a huge price tag. Maybe they see this as old news, too. Maybe it's because Democrats aren't making a stink about it. Maybe it's because they're too busy camped out at the Michael Jackson trial or chasing would-be brides across the country. Maybe they're chicken. Maybe it's easier to sell boner pills when they're covering Laura Bush joking about her husband jerking off a horse. I don't know.
grrr...argh...
Bought the new Star Wars soundtrack yesterday, and was greeted with the new FBI Warning they're now plastering all over everything. So instead of being excited at the prospect of a new Star Wars movie (which will hopefully not suck) as I opened the case, my first thought was, "Goddammit!" Just what in the hell do they think these warning are going to do besides piss people off who bought them legitimately? Do they really think that some Chinese bootlegger is going to see the FBI warning and think, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't sell these. I must atone for my sins."? We've been living with those stupid FBI warnings on VHS and DVD movies now for years, and have they had any impact on piracy? I doubt it.
You know, I hear that car theft is a big problem, too. Maybe we should start slapping warning on the steering wheels of all new cars so that we can be reminded that stealing cars is bad. Sales of "The Club" might suffer, but I'm sure that folks would appreciate being able to leave their cars unlocked in New York again.
Once again, I'm amazed at the stuff you can do via command-line in OS X (and other unix variants, I imagine). Here's today's tidbit: launch Terminal and type:
cal -y
Nifty, eh?
I took another look at the recently released images of war casualties, and came to two conclusions. First, whoever is censoring these images is a douchebag. Only a portion of them are censored, and the rest are untouched. Second, if they're going to censor these images they might as well do it in such a way that they'll stay on message. I think this is closer to what the Bush administration would like us to think about the whole godforsaken enterprise:
MAKE YOUR OWN PRUNO AND MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL.: "Wine that has been urinated in several times is far too presumptuous, even for a convict's palate"
(Via Cruel Site of the Day.)