Harry Brown - Movie Review

The conservative movie website, Big Hollywood, recommended Harry Brown so we picked it up from Redbox when it became available. It doesn't disappoint.

Michael Caine plays British pensioner living in a housing project who finally has enough of the thuggery around him and decides to do something about it. Hewing closely to the plot of the similar Death Wish, its depiction of urban savagery is as disturbing as that earlier movie; today's criminals use today's tech to record their bad deeds and the opening scene makes effective use of a handheld mini-cam. The project where Brown lives is a testament to the ability of the State to provide for the welfare of its citizens and the set design and camerawork gives it a dank, dismal, other-worldly feel. Caine gives a gritty performance of a man pushed too far and the movie makes some good points about how well the State can handle crime gone rampant. A movie full of outrage and a good one, too.

Deadlines? We're Not Afraid of No Deadlines!

September 15th was the last chance deadline filing for business tax returns and we were churning away right up until noon. Everyone who had their information to us was taken care of - and some who didn't have their information to us were taken care of, too, we're just that good. So the last few weeks were pretty hectic but my great staff managed to make me look good in the eyes of our clients. Miracles? Why, we perform them everyday.

Time to regroup. pick up some pieces, sharpen some tools, gird ourselves for the next filing deadline of October 15th.

Teen Golfer Disqualifies Self, Gives Up Medal

Kids these days . . .

Golf is a game of rules both obvious and arcane, and if you're going to play the game, you have to play by its rules. No matter what the cost.

Today, a classic "what would you do?" moment. Zach Nash is a 14-year-old Wisconsin kid who happens to be a fine golfer. So good, in fact, that he won a junior Wisconsin PGA tournament.

Problem was, he won it by violating -- albeit unintentionally -- one of golf's most straightforward rules. He had too many clubs in his bag. And the worst part? It was a total accident, discovered long after the fact.

Good for Nash. He'll go far.

Oklahoma is Internationally Cool

Say, what's that t-shirt that super-cool Coldplay front man Chris Martin is wearing?



Why, it's Oklahoma's own super-cool The Flaming Lips!

iPod Shuffle: Random?

I've put my iPhone's iPod on shuffle play for my bought music list and I'm finally learning that this mode, like the universe, isn't entirely random. Every morning when I fire up the iPod, I keep coming across music I heard just the other day. Yeah, yeah, I know, there's an algorithm at work that takes the number of my previous plays and factors them in some how with the current ones and when all the ciphering's done, a tune is spit out. It's supposed to please me, I suppose, but instead it leaves me scratching my head: I just want to work my way through the list in a random way. Why is that seemingly not possible?

I've long suspected there's an intelligence at work behind the scenes of my iPod. This is only more evidence that it's so.

More Ray Bradbury - On Video!

I can't figure out how to embed the video here so here's the link to Bradbury talking with is biographer Sam Weller.

Interesting for fans. Maybe non-fans, too.

Dylan Takes a Stand

Brother John sends along this link:

Bob Dylan is refusing to sell advanced tickets to an upcoming concert in a bid to tackle internet resellers and give fans an equal chance to catch him live.

Tickets for the folk singer's concert at The Warfield in San Francisco on Wednesday will be sold at the door. Fans will be permitted to line up at midday but will only be allowed to buy one ticket each, in cash.

The plan was established to prevent touts from purchasing large batches of tickets and selling them for an inflated cost online. It will also eliminate handling and processing fees.

Dylan's still a rebel, even in his codgerdom.

A Change in the Weather

The weather folk promise a break in the skull-cracking heat wave we've been having for the last month or so. I've been doing my part: watering the lawn, washing the car. Both sure fire methods of brewing up a rainstorm.

Might be working. Take a look at the skies from yesterday evening:

The same view, Ansel Adams style:

We got no rain from those but at least it was a welcome change from the usual blazing skies of late August. We'll miss that in a few months but for now we've had enough, thank you very much.

Ray Bradbury Hates big Government

I'm late to the game on this - the Bradbury-hates-Big-Government meme's been floating around the conservative blogosphere for a few days now - but I had this marked to post so I might as well post it.

Hey, have you heard writer Ray Bradbury doesn't like big government? It's true:

“There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people.”

The native of Waukegan, Ill., has never been shy about expressing himself -- he described President Clinton with a word that rhymes with "knithead" back in 2001-- nor is he timid about correcting people when it comes to his own perceived legacy. Bradbury chafes, for instance, at the description of his work as science fiction -- in the past he has pointed out that, to his mind, "Fahrenheit 451"is the only sci-fi book in his vast body of work -- and despite his passion for more national space projects, he is not technology obsessive by any means.

“We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”

Sounds like Bradbury's got the curmudgeon dial cranked to 11 - and, yeah, he's at odds with himself about wanting less government and having the government getting us to the moon and Mars but, well, there you are - but close readers of his work will notice this stance is nothing new. Take a look at his introduction to Fahrenheit 451 and you'll see an author railing against political correctness long before political correctness had sunken its fangs into our culture. He's a radical old man, that Bradbury, and I'm glad to see him still alive and kicking and grousing about one thing or another.

Books I'm Not Reading: The Sound and the Fury

At least I'm not reading a classic this time.

For the last few years we've driven through Mississippi to get to Florida and each time, on that highway south of Memphis headed towards Oxford, I've thought about William Faulkner. We've never had time to divert our path over to his home but it was enough to know I was traveling through the very country he wrote about and imagine how this land he wrote about had probably greatly changed. Would he recognize any of it if he were alive? (I know, I know, the joke is if Faulkner were alive he'd be trying to claw his way out of his casket. Hardy har.) I'd think I really need to go back and re-read some of his books - way back when, I'd managed to work my way through all of his available work and it might be high time to re-visit them.

Well, now's not that time it turns out. Sure, I'm a fool to have chosen The Sound and the Fury, one of his most challenging works, but I could've done harder: Absalom, Absalom is far more difficult though I'm not sure if it's any more rewarding. Maybe I should've gone with something more accessible. No, the problem isn't the difficulty of the book - I actually enjoy the notorious stream-of-conscious narrative of the idiot, Benjy, and have not trouble following the storyline; the problem is that I really don't care right now. I have other things I'd like to read and I've already been over this ground. Not that I don't want to go back; I just don't want to go back right now. Fifty or so pages was enough to convince me that there's nothing new here for me, though I envy the first time reader who manages to unlock the magic of this book and his others. Faulkner is an American treasure who deserves to be read but unless you're a college professor, or student, I don't see the need to re-visit him.

Still, it's a lovely right through Mississippi. If you haven't been, you really should go.