Another photograph I wish I had taken

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Arabesque, les Baux

photo by Rutger Ten Broeke, 1964

Climate change, indeed!

That’s what I’m sayin’ ……

Toles nails it.

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“Hereafter” redux: Clint, get a composer…

Back in October I devoted a post to Mick LaSalle’s enthusiastic review of Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter.” I did not carry through with my hope to see it in the theater. However, I finally did watch it last night on Blu Ray on our big screen TV. I thought the movie was very good, but I didn’t like it as much as Mick LaSalle did.

That being said, it is worth a viewing just to see the incredible set piece depicting the onslaught and aftermath of a massive tsunami. It was awesome.

However, the main purpose of this post is to tell you what I really did not like: Clint Eastwood’s self-composed score. Ouch! I have tolerated his composition in his other movies, but let’s face it, he is not a naturally gifted musician. Anyway, in “Hereafter” we get a further ration of Clint’s melodic musings, which are passable, but nothing memorable. The huge problem is that the music simply does not fit at all with what is happening on the screen, or with the over-arching theme of the film. It’s like someone found a can of film, then went to his CD shelf and with eyes closed picked a CD and declared it would be the sound track for the found film. That would never happen if someone like James Horner had written the score.

Oh, I know, you are going to say “hey, Clint wanted something jazz-oriented and Horner can’t lay down that shit.” No, that’s not it. It would have been far, far, better if Terence Blanchard had done the score, and his jazz cred is unassailable. (I count over 30 film scores in his filmography covering widely different themes and styles.) [I love Terence Blanchard’s work, aside from this discussion. ] Oh, and one other guy who would have written a great score is Hans Zimmer, whose versatility amazes me – can you believe the range of what he has done?

So, Clint, swallow your pride, rein in your ego, and hire a real pro to write the score for your next flick. (But by all means keep making movies!)

Stewart waxes O’Reilly!

Dang, I missed that debate between Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly over whether Common should have been invited to the White House.  Fortunately, Lawrence O’Donnell had a great segment about it on his show; just click to play the video after you get the link loaded.  The whole segment is fascinating, but the money shot was O’Donnell’s revealing the results of the poll taken of Fox News viewers after the debate.  I you want to skip the whole video and only see him discuss the results, click ahead to five minutes and thirty seconds.  Or you can read about the poll results here.  WTF?!  Is there actually some sense to the universe?

Will I ever get to be a junior?

You’ve heard of sophomoric humor, right.  I tried to keep from laughing at this video, but I couldn’t help it.  For me, it’s hilarious.

Freddie Mercury

I was stumbling around the Net the yesterday and I ran across this great phot0…

Although I’m not gay, even I can tell that Feddie Mercury was hot! 

And he was a great singer and performer.

Credit where credit is …

I am getting a big kick out of listening to the right wing trying to torture (I use that term advisedly) the facts into an interpretation of history that gives Bush all the credit for ridding the world of bin Laden.  Of course it’s is hard to get around this:

I had forgotten what a dufus he was…

And then there is the fact that in 2005 Bush completely shut down and disbanded the unit that had been responsible for finding bin Laden.

Of course, this cartoon says it all:

Kicking and screaming! Contemplating the unthinkable.

You are hearing it here first.  I am probably going to join Facebook today.  I have resisted for a long time, but it has gotten to the point where so many of the people, pundits, writers, and entities that I truly dig are putting everything up on Facebook, I am going to have to join.  Couple that with a lot of my family and close friends bugging me to join and it seems like the time has come. 

Facebook will never supplant this blog.  In fact, I may be able to get more people to read it by putting links to it on the Facebook page. 

For those of you who are already on Facebook, look for me there in a day or so.

~ Tom

Bin Laden–Rest in Hell

"I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." – Mark Twain

Despite Twain’s nifty quote, I can think of a few that I would have “wished dead.”  Of course Hitler is a “no brainer,” and Osama Bin Laden would be on the top of the list.

From what I have read so far, the immensely satisfying result of the operation that finally ended the life of OBL was in no small part due to the leadership, patience, intelligence, and tenacity of our President.  No leaks, no mistakes, no large civilian casualties, and lots and lots of training, including building a full “set” of the compound and rehearsing over and over.

Of course the right wingers, tea baggers, and assorted trolls will “pooh pooh” the plain truth and claim that Obama had nothing to do with it,  he was just lucky, the military did it all without his help, and so on.  It reminds me of something I heard a couple of days ago that is funny, yet sadly so true:

“If the President walked on water, the right wing would criticize him for being too lazy to swim.”

Peace out,

~Tom