Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving


I intended to blog a bit more this week than I was able, but have run out of time. We are heading for the land of crabs and honey for a few days to see my parents (and the Della Rattas). We'll return to this space next week with undoubtedly scintilating commentary on such controversial matters as whether Michigan got robbed, whether "Casino Royale" is as good as everyone says it is, whether "The Good German" will suck as badly as I have predicted, and whether Golden Retrievers are really cute. ( I hate to ruin the suspense, but the answer in all four cases is "yes".)

Happy Thanksgiving.

Posted by jwb at 8:40 AM  · 1 Comments   

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Apple bleg

I've been having a bit of 'puter trouble recently and wonder if our readers might be able to offer some advice or insight. I've got an Apple iMac G5 that's about two years old and has recently (i.e., within the last month or so) started to misbehave. The major problem is that it locks up when I "wake" it from the sleep mode. The screen turns white (or, sometimes, blue) often with a bunch of thin gray lines across the page. Sometimes the fan starts running full blast. The only way to get out of it--as far as I have been able to figure out--is to pull the plug and re-boot. Any idea what's going on?

I gather, based on a little googling, that there have been more problems with the G5s than one might guess from the usual Mac euphoria one encounters amongst the converted--problems with power supplies, fans, etc. Of course, there's also been lots of angst concerning the new version of iTunes, which has caused all sorts of problems. (One of our iPods went belly-up just after downloading the latest iTunes. Coincidence or conspiracy?) Does this seem like a hardware problem or a software problem?

Any thoughts would be welcome.

Posted by jwb at 3:40 PM  · 0 Comments   

World Hello Day

I realize that the day is half over so you'll have some catching up to do, but, in case you haven't heard, today is World Hello Day. The organizers of this holiday, which has been around since 1973, would like you to say hello to ten people today. (Via LGM.)

In sharp contrast, today in Boston it is Give Someone the Finger Day. Come to think of it, every day in Boston is Give Someone the Finger Day. I can feel the holiday spirit coming over me already.

Posted by jwb at 2:00 PM  · 0 Comments   

Friday, November 17, 2006

Casino Royale


Casino Royale opens today. I suspect that Bond geeks everywhere are feeling a bit giddy this morning. I'll just note that I've been feeling pretty good about this movie since I first heard that Daniel Craig was going to be the new Bond, and perhaps even before that. Change was in the air. The results--judging by the reviews I've looked at thus far--suggest that my optimism was well-founded. Here's a quick look at a couple of the more prominent reviews by film critics that aren't all that easy to please.

Moriarty, in a really long review on the movie-geek site Ain't It Cool News, gives it a rave:

CASINO ROYALE is the rebirth of James Bond, and it is the first entry in the series since ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE that can be called an excellent film, and not just a “good James Bond movie.” Somehow, the combination of screenwriting team Purvis & Wade (responsible for some of the worst screenplays in the entire series) and the dreaded Paul Haggis has resulted in a lean and efficient script. It not only effectively adapts the Ian Fleming novel, but it also expands up on it in ways that acknowledge the film’s status as a giant franchise action film without compromising any integrity. There are a few choices I’m not crazy about, but overall, I am impressed and amazed. Martin Campbell has stepped up with his best-directed film to date. Campbell is a professional, and I think he does solid work most of the time, but he’s hardly an artist. Here, I think he raises his game, and the result is something special, something with a real pulse, a vital film that absolutely rehabilitates the character and that delivers Daniel Craig to superstardom, fully formed.


Along with some very astute analysis of what was wrong with the more recent Bond films, Magnolia Darkness of the Times comes very close--for her, anyway--to gushing:

Here what pops off the screen aren’t the exploding orange fireballs that have long been a staple of the Bond films and have been taken to new pyrotechnic levels by Hollywood producers like Jerry Bruckheimer, but some sensational stunt work and a core seriousness. Successful franchises are always serious business, yet this is the first Bond film in a long while that feels as if it were made by people who realize they have to fight for audiences’ attention, not just bank on it. You see Mr. Craig sweating (and very nice sweat it is too); you sense the filmmakers doing the same….

Mr. Craig ... walks the walk and talks the talk, and he keeps the film going even during the interminable high-stakes card game that nearly shuts it down.

If Mr. Campbell and his team haven’t reinvented the Bond film with this 21st edition, they have shaken (and stirred) it a little, chipping away some of the ritualized gentility that turned it into a waxworks.


Finally, I'm struck that the reviewers in some of the local papers really like it but also seem determined to give it only grudging respect. Here's an example from the rubes at the Boston Globe. The reviewer thinks Daniel Craig is great (Though this'll make Bram cringe: "No slight to Connery, Timothy Dalton, or Pierce Brosnan, but there’s something to be said for casting an actor of depth and creative daring as Bond.") but thinks the directing was a little uninspired.

In sum, I'm having a hard time thinking of a recent movie that has garnered this many positive reviews. My contrarian nature makes me wonder what is going on here. Is the movie really that good? Or are Bond fans rooting for this movie so much that they're making it seem better than it really is? I suppose there's only one way to find out. My preliminary conclusion, however, is that the praise seems to be genuine. (Faint praise, I think, would be obvious, and this seems to be the real thing.)

Consider this some homework from jwbblog: Go to the movies this weekend. You have my permission to sneak in to see "For Your Consideration"--or, if you've not grown tired of all the hype, "Borat"--but only after you've purchased a ticket for and seen "Casino Royale." Do it!

UPDATE: Nick checks in from Chicago (or, as we like to say, Chi-town). He saw it last night and gives it three stars (out of, I assume, four), says there are a few problems with the story that will be evident to any Bond geek, but that Daniel Craig is very good. Nick is a certified bad-ass in real life--I can't say more; it's very hush-hush--so he knows whereof he speaks.

There is also a semi-amusing story that I came across in the dead-tree version of the Times about the British reception of Craig as the new Bond: "New Bond Sielnces the British Naysayers." Ah, the sayers of nay. What would we do without them.

Posted by jwb at 11:00 AM  · 3 Comments   

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Happy Birthday, Shannon



The editors of jwbblog would like to send a Happy Birthday shout-out (as the kids like to say) to our sister-in-law, Shannon. We would also like to make it clear to her that if she has not received her card yet, it is our fault and ours alone. The Post Office, it is just so far away.*

That is all.

*This is a joke--a poor one, I will admit--since the Post Office is only about a five minute walk from the house.

Posted by jwb at 3:00 PM  · 0 Comments   

Sports bloggin'


Sorry for the lack of posting all week. I've been busy, man, so just get off my back! Anyway, a few random thoughts that seem to be about sports to one degree or another.

#1 Ohio State plays #2 Michigan on Saturday afternoon in Columbus. Every single analyst on ESPN seems to think that Ohio State is going to mop up the place with Michigan. I am a Michigan fan by marriage--although I did go to math camp in Ann Arbor one summer--and, therefore, hope they are wrong. This hopefulness may be misplaced, but Michigan does seem to be able to get up for these big games, especially when they aren't the favorite. (See here for some evidence to support this assertion.)

My father-in-law reports that tickets to the game are harder to come by than World Series tickets were in Detroit (or "The D", as we like to say). Nickelback can't even get them.

In a related note, there are few things in life more painful to read than intellectuals writing about sports (c.f., Will, George). However, if you're into that kind of thing, two 'tards from Slate discuss the game here.

In unrelated news, its been a while since we pondered the fate of apparent Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, but, if this report is correct, he may have gotten screwed. Apparently, Le Monde is reporting that the lab mixed his B sample up with someone else's sample. Woops. One wonders where Floyd has to go to get his reputation back. (I kid, of course.)

There was something else sports-related that I wanted to mention, but I've forgotten what it was. Go Blue!

UPDATE (11/17): Yikes! Bo Schembechler dies this morning, at 77. Here's the story from ESPN.

Posted by jwb at 2:10 PM  · 0 Comments   

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Spies

For many reasons--mainly ignorance--we blog a lot more here about fictitious spy masters than the real thing. Here's an exception: An actual, genuine, seriously bad-ass spymaster has died. Here's some good stuff from the Times:

Markus Wolf, the ''man without a face'' who outwitted the West as communist East Germany's long-serving spymaster, died Thursday. He was 83…. He planted some 4,000 agents in the West -- most famously, placing Guenter Guillaume as a top aide to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. The agent's unmasking forced Brandt to resign in 1974. Wolf, who said he spurned a CIA offer of a safe new life in California after the Cold War, managed to steal NATO secrets for the Soviet bloc that could have been decisive if war had broken out in Europe.

Because of his elusiveness, his rivals nicknamed him ''the man without a face.''…

Western agencies didn't know what the East German spy chief looked like until 1978, when he was photographed during a visit to Sweden. An East German defector, Werner Stiller, then identified Wolf to West German counterintelligence as the man in the picture.

Some also believe Wolf was the model for John Le Carre's wily communist spymaster ''Karla'' in his espionage novels.

The Stasi -- which at home enlisted spouses and lovers to spy on their partners -- sent seductive ''Romeo'' agents to the West to steal secrets from lonely government secretaries. Wolf said in his memoirs that ''if I go down in espionage history, it may well be for perfecting the use of sex in spying.''...

In May 1990, with German reunification approaching, Wolf said two men appeared at his dacha near Berlin with an offer from then-CIA director William Webster to work for the U.S. spy agency. One of the two was Gardner Hathaway, who had just retired as assistant CIA director for counterintelligence, Wolf said. They offered a ''seven-figure sum,'' a new identity and a house in California. Wolf said he turned down the offer because he would never have betrayed his ex-agents -- even though it would have put him out of the reach of German prosecutors, who were seeking him for espionage, treason and bribery....


He was a serious bastard. However, as Robert Farley of LGM notes, "credit where due. Farewell, master spy."

Posted by jwb at 1:37 PM  · 0 Comments   

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

"The internet, that's the one with e-mail, right?"


A short post about some movies that we are--or, in some cases, are not--looking forward to.

1. Making fun of Hollywood is sort of like making fun of ... oh, I don't know ... something that's hard to make fun of because it's so absurd to begin with. Um, anyway, we're looking forward to the latest offering from Christopher Guest and his crew, For Your Consideration, in which he makes fun of all the hype surrounding the Oscars. It will no doubt be much funnier than it ought to be given the subject matter. (I hate to break it to you, but if Fred Willard with a faux-hawk doesn't make you laugh out loud, you have no sense of humor.) Click here for the trailer.

2. In our continuing fascination with the myriad ways in which Hollywood can take a perfectly good story and ruin it, today's item is "The Good German", an excellent novel by Joseph Kanon that takes place amongst the rubble of Berlin in the immediate aftermath of WWII. If you like the kind of stuff that Alan Furst does, I suspect you'll like this book. And while it's probably slightly unfair to judge a movie based on its trailer--though, as a trained social scientist, I would guess that 99 percent of the time, if the trailer blows, the movie will too--the trailer for the Steven Soderbergh film is awful. (Or, as the smartass from I Watch Stuff puts it, "It's more German than good.") This must be Soderburgh in minor mode. We might have to skip this one.

3.We'll call this one an outlier. Here's a case--one which violates the empirical proposition I stated in the previous paragraph--in which the trailer is a little weak but the movie is going to be great: Zhang Yimou's "Curse of the Golden Flower." Though I don't get to watch them very often because my wife hates anything with martial arts in it, Zhang's Hero and House of Flying Daggers are brilliant, visually stunning movies. We are anticipating more of the same here. And, like those silly hobbit movies, this one is probably worth seeing on the Big Sreen.

3. As regular readers know, we pretty much like anything with spies in it. With that in mind, The Good Shephard--with Matt Damon and Bobby DeNiro--looks pretty good. (Click here, if you so desire.) Lots of old buildings. And cigarette smoke. And Alec Baldwin. What's not to like? That said, and I realize this may be controversial, but I'm beginning to think that Angelina Jolie is a terrible actress.

4. Judging by the trailer for 300 (based, apparently, on an "epic" graphic novel by Frank Miller), there was a lot of yelling in ancient Sparta. I'm wondering whether the comic geeks in the audience think this looks interesting or not.

5. Oh, and have I mentioned Casino Royale?

Posted by jwb at 6:00 PM  · 4 Comments   

The Election

A few thoughts:

1. Great cooga-looga-cooga-looga! And all it took (as Professor of Dangerous Studies Michael Berube puts it) was "the Abramoff scandal, the Foley scandal, the Haggard scandal, the suspension of habeas corpus, the creation of the Cheney Archipelago of secret torture sites, a criminally incompetent response to one of the worst natural disasters in US history, and a hopeless war that has killed thousands of US troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and may well go down as the single worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the republic. I can’t wait for ‘08!" Yeah, me too.

2. More seriously, I was in DC in '94 during the so-called Republican Revolution, and it had a similar "throw the bums out" kind of feeling. For complicated reasons, it's very difficult to unseat an incumbent in our political system in its current forum, and yet an astonishing number of entrenched, incumbent Republicans (though no Dems) will be looking for other employment in a few weeks. People appear to be really angry. Much of the anger is (obviously) about Iraq but a good deal of it seems to stem from the feeling that, in twelve short years, the Republicans had become incredibly corrupt.

3. Some thoughts on specific races I care about:

a. Massachusetts has its first black governor in its history (and the second in the country's) and Deval Patrick is a decent guy with mostly good ideas. In other respects, it was a pretty boring election here. The only alternative to our congressman was a socialist, and I haven't gone that crazy. Also Massholes appear to prefer to be inconvenienced when buying a bottle of wine. Another victory for classic interest group politics.

b. Virginia: Webb won, though it looks like they'll be a re-count. George Allen is an a-hole. I have a hard time imagining they can figure out a way to cheat enough to make up 7,000 votes. Also, I agree with Matt: Damn you, G.G. Parker. In other news, Virginians don't like gays.

c. In Pennsylvania, Senator "man on dog" is now a member of the private sector. I could only handle CNN last night in 10 minute doses. They were talking about Santorum as if he was the second coming of Pay Moynihan. Who are they kidding. The guy's an idiot.

d. In Maryland, in my opinion--though perhaps others will differ--the voters got it right. Ehrlich and Steele are basically bad guys and they deserved to lose.

4. A lot of moderate Republicans went down in the House. I suppose I should be upset about that, since I'm basically a moderate Republican myself. But I'm not. The reason is that, over the last six years, on votes where it really mattered (e.g., over torture and Supreme Court nominees), Republican moderates were always and in every case a rubber stamp for what Bush wanted. The idea that they're some kind of break on right-wing extremism is little more than a joke.

5. Thank the Lord we won't have to hear/read any more stories about what a genius Karl Rove is. Ezra Klein sums things up nicely: "If nothing else, this election will destroy the myth of Rove. He managed to lose the vote in 2000. Win a few seats in 2002. Barely pull out a reelection during a time of instability and war. And then lead his party to historic losses in 2006. Enough of this guy. He could've created an enduring majority after 9/11. Instead, he pursued a strategy of polarization and radicalization, tenuously constructed atop a foundation of corporate handouts (Medicare Part D), perverse policy, and fear mongering. Along the way, he destroyed the country's fiscal health and international prestige. Discrediting his leadership template will be one of this election's sweetest effects."

6. I suspect that this book will be a big seller among Republicans in the coming weeks.

7. Finally, if you think that this experience is going to make Bush and company more conciliatory, I would recommend that you not bet much money on it or you'll be severely disapointed (and somewhat poorer). (Click here for more.) However, as I've learned from the Dog Whisperer, you can teach old dogs new tricks, so maybe I'll be the one who's surprised. But I doubt it.

Posted by jwb at 11:26 AM  · 0 Comments   

Friday, November 03, 2006

Hottest Bond Girl Ever?


Casino Royale is due in theaters on November 17. Time flies, huh? Anyway, our friends at Egotastic wonder if Eva Green is the hottest Bond girl ever. Though they're reasoning is a little suspect, they say yes and I'm inclined to agree.

In other Bondiana, Bram points out that there's something very post modern about this entire enterprise. For instance, Casino Royale is, of course, the first Bond story and yet we get the most recent M (Judy Dench, though I imagine Bernard Lee is looking a little, er, haggard at this point) and we get a brand spanking new Aston Martin rather than a more historically appropriate one given the setting of the book. Discuss!

Posted by jwb at 9:30 AM  · 4 Comments