Ted Kennedy on Republicans and Minimum wage

A wonderful Ted Kennedy rant on the Senate floor. He castigates the Republicans for holding up passage of the minimum wage increase. He really gets wound up and it's totally genuine. I love this guy.

Metacritic is cool

Most of my friends and family love to talk about movies. Movies are the subject of many blog posts. A commonly-felt "loved it," "liked it," or "hated it" often pave the way to friendships. So, is there a cool site where you can get recommendations as to the latest "in theater" films, as well as DVD's? Yep! Check out Metacritic.

While the Internet Movie Database is clearly the definitive Internet source for everything "Movie," Metacritic is what I use to decide what movies I will attend, and what DVD's I rent from Netflix.

Here is how it works. Metacritic takes the reviews from almost all major critics/publications and then weights each review on a scale of 1 t0 100. The average is the "final grade." Then they assign it a color, green being 100 - 60, yellow 59 - 40, and red being below 40. You can sort by title or by ranking.

Once you select a movie, all of the actual reviews are listed in descending rank, and if you click on any one of them it will take you to the actual review in full -- totally cool.

For instance, Little Miss Sunshine is rated 80 based on 37 reviews, all of which are listed, and include, TV Guide (100), LA Times (100), SF Chronicle (100), Wall St. Journal (90), Newsweek (90), Time (80), Salon.com (80), Village Voice (40).

At least every week I go to Metacritic, select "DVD" and then "recent releases" and sort by ranking. I check out all the "greens" and read reviews that interest me and decide which ones I want to add to my Neflix queue. Neat! Sometimes if I'm wondering about a movie I have heard about from other sources, I sort by title and see how it's ranked.

There are lots of other features that I will let you discover for yourself. Five out of five on Tom's "cool meter." Check it out. You won't regret it.

~ Tom

Obama's "blackness" questioned........

Here is a very interesting take on Barack Obama's candidacy that appears on today's Salon website. I have a premium subscription to Salon, but I'm hoping the link will allow you to read the entire article even though you don't have a membership.

The writer is Debra Dickerson a black writer and pundit with impressive credentials. Here are a couple of salient paragraphs from the article.

"Which brings me to the main reason I delayed writing about Obama. For me, it was a trick question in a game I refused to play. Since the issue was always framed as a battle between gender and race (read: non-whiteness -- the question is moot when all the players are white), I didn't have the heart (or the stomach) to point out the obvious: Obama isn't black.

"Black," in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can't be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won't bother to make the distinction. They're both "black" as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally black, as we use the term."

I'm still mulling this over. I'm not sure I agree with her distinction between descendants of slavery vs. "voluntary immigrants." When a cop stops an immigrant of color for "driving while black," or a landlord denies housing to him, or he and his family are subjected to racial epithets, isn't it the same thing?

~ Tom

Radio Paradise

What about Internet radio stations?

Being the radio fan that I am, I became a bit of a "ground-floor" devotee when it comes to Internet radio stations. If I get any encouragement, I can offer a lot of information and handy links relating to that milieu. But, for now, I want to pull your collective coats to one of my absolute favorites: Radio Paradise!

One of my best feelings in life is when I see a movie, hear a piece of music, or read something and say to myself, "Geez, that was created just for me." Example from movies: "High Fidelity"

Well, with respect to Internet radio stations, only one (so far) hits that note: Radio Paradise. I love this station for lots of reasons, and here are some of them:

1. They play music that (on the whole) I really enjoy;

2. Not only do they play tracks that I have loved for a long time, but they play tracks that I have never heard before, and (usually) really dig. In this regard, you will find new and exciting artists/albums. In my case, two examples are the groups "Deep Forest and "Chorus of Tribes";

3. Their "play stream" always displays what you are hearing, with the added bonus that if you click on the album logo, you get full details about the album and artists;

4. They have a "play list" option that displays that last six hours of their stream. This is great if you are cleaning the house with your wireless headphones on at full blast and later want to find out what that "awesome" cut you heard was, and what album it was on, etc.

5. Paradise really is a small town in California, where the creators actually live, and from which they do their magic. As an aside, about 12 years ago I did a 100-mile "century" bike ride that went through Paradise.

6. You can get FABULOUS esoteric gear through their site. I love their long-sleeved T-shirts: not only are they totally hip, but the quality of the shirt is A-One. I have a black one and a blue one, both of which people always ask me about.

A final word: Don't give up on them. If you decide to listen, give it at least an hour, and if you still don't dig it, well hell – different strokes for different folks.

~ Tom

An Unsung Singer...

I saw the latest Bond movie a while back and really enjoyed it. Many friends and most reviewers had good things to say about it, especially Daniel Craig's portrayal, acting abilities, and screen presence. What I want to talk about here is the song that plays under the opening credits.

As I sat there, I immediately knew that the singer was none other than Chris Cornell, currently the lead singer in the wonderful amalgam known as "Audioslave." Formerly, Chris was the long-time lead singer for the Seattle-based "Soundgarden," a great band that disbanded in April 1997. The name of the tune he sings in the new Bond movie is "You Know My Name." Here is a mini-review from Rhapsody, where you can listen to the tune in full if you are a member.

"The Audioslave frontman takes on the coveted task of providing the theme song to the James bond film, Casino Royale. Written and performed by Cornell, the lyrics hew close to your standard 007 themes, analyzing the sinister side of chance, luck, and much moola. The sleek sexiness of past Bond themes is lacking, but menacing bass lines and Cornell's raspy shouts of "You know my name!" give 007 the rock star treatment he surely deserves."

In my humble opinion Chris Cornell is today's greatest "pure rock" lead singer. He is in the league with Robert Plant in Robert's heyday with Led Zeppelin. That's why for me, sitting there in anticipation of the movie to come, the sheer surprise and joy of hearing Chris wailing away in the well-termed "sinister side of chance, luck, and much moola" had me in a lather! I hope you all dug it too, even if you didn't really know who or what your were listening to.

You might also note that Cornell's compelling voice was used with awesome effect in the Michael Mann film "Collateral." Recall the scene where the coyote runs through the headlights? The absolutely perfect song that plays behind that scene is Audioslave's "Shadow on the Sun," with Chris doing the vocal.

See, now you know sumpin' new!

~ Tom

Explaining great comedy - can't do it.

In his 12/29/06 post, The Bad Shepherd, Lally lists "Little Miss Sunshine" as one of his favorite movies of the year. Coincidentally, a few days before, I had seen it on DVD. Haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

I recently was talking with a good friend and enthusiastically pulled his coat to it. Being put off by the title, he asked me to tell him what it was about and why I thought it was funny. It was then I got a crystallizing flash of something I hadn't been able to grasp before: The better a comedy is, the harder it is to try to explain! Try doing justice by way of explanation to "Young Frankenstein," or "A Fish Called Wanda," or "Heathers" or all the really good comedies. Can't do it, right? Same deal with "Little Miss Sunshine." The reason of course is that a really good comedy is like laughter itself. It's ephemeral. So I just said, "Trust me, you'll laugh your ass off."

Conversely, I have no trouble doing my oral Cliff Notes for really great drama's... (short of holding back "spoilers" for people who haven't seen the play/movie yet). Great comedy? No way. So take the word of me and Michael -- trust us. We can't really explain it, but you'll laugh your ass off over "Little Miss Sunshine."

Let's all have a great New Year.

~ Tom