We're Baaaaaack!

About a month ago, I wrote this diatribe against the multitudinous failings of American athletes in non-major sports. In the interim, things got worse: we let a Frenchman, a FRENCHMAN, walk away with the NBA Finals MVP (and Eva Longoria), an out-of-shape, chain-smoking Argentine held off Tiger Woods at the US Open, and the US Women's Soccer Team had adopted gold uniforms at the behest of Nike, eschewing the beloved red, white, and blue. Needless to say, the American athlete appeared to be in a state of disrepair, our physical hegemony more dubious than ever.
Red, White, and....Gold? Embarrassing.

So, imagine my glee when I found out (because I certainly didn't watch, and it's possible it wasn't even televised) the U.S. Soccer Team was stepping up out on the pitch, heeding my call for excellence in athletics. Yes, Team USA went on to win the CONCACAF Gold Cup, with (I'm told) a thrilling come from behind 2-1 victory over bitter rival, Mexico, with team captain Landon Donovan matching Eric Wynalda's record for goals in international competition in the process. Granted, this generation of Team USA always beats Mexico, but this was a big game and a big win. Hey Mexico, stop sending your undesirables across our border under the guise of being "poor, unskilled labor" when we all know it's nothing but a sinister nationalist plot to attempt to dilute the level of competition in the dominant breeding grounds that are our youth soccer leagues with your children and their soccer-deficient DNA.

Also, Tyson Gay became the newest American sprinting sensation, clocking the 2nd fastest 100m time into a headwind ever (9.84s), while winning by the largest margin of anyone in decades in the 100. Then he recorded the 2nd fastest 200m in history, 19.62s (personally, I don't think the record, 19.32s, will ever be broken. Michael Johnson was a 200m/400m deity, especially at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996). Times like that make him a legitimate contender to de-throne Jamaican 100m world record holder Asafa Powell, who has been mostly unbeatable in recent years.

Come on folks, let's keep the good times rolling and hope for some magic at Wimbeldon (which began today), the upcoming Tour de France (somebody call Lance!), and hope all accounts are correct and an American gets taken #1 at the NBA draft this year, reversing that shameful debacle of drafting an Italian #1 last year. (I'll allow an exception for the drafting of Yao Ming #1 in 2002 because I have no interest in drawing the ire of the Chinese).

Here's Comes the Sun, the Relentless, Scalding Sun...I Hope I Don't Melt....Away

It is now officially summer, easily my least favorite season of the year. It's too hot, too many kids out and about during the day, no close parking spots, it's too hot, I get chastised for being in the house all the time, the only major sport in competition is baseball, there is a higher quotient of bad movies, overweight young ladies too scantily clad, mosquitoes, and did I mention it's too freaking hot.

Now, summer does offer a few positives: swimming, 4th of July, listening to the Beach Boys (who's latest collection of greatest not-quite hits, Warmth of the Sun, is very good).... Speaking of which, I feel the first day of summer is a fitting time to celebrate (one day belatedly) the 65th birthday of Brian Wilson, genius behind the Beach Boys, who gave us one of my favorite quotes of all-time, “Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you'll suck forever." and one of my favorite albums of all-time, Pet Sounds. Tom Petty put it this way, "I think I would put him up there with any composer - especially Pet Sounds. I don't think there is anything better that that, necessarily. I don't think you'd be out of line comparing him to Beethoven - to any composer. The word genius is used a lot with Brian. I don't know if he's a genius or not, but I know that music is probably as good as any music you can make."

As a means to get you through the doldrums of summer, a Brian Wilson track you may actually be unfamiliar with. Everyone knows the Beach Boys classics, but this one, Melt Away, is from his eponymous solo debut album. Not exactly a summer anthem along the lines of Surfin USA, it's more of a sunset on the beach song; one might call it a re-visiting of God Only Knows, 20 years later.

Anyway, enjoy. Here's to a surviving another summer. And stay away from that suck-inducing lollipop of mediocrity.

110 Years, 100 Movies!: The AFI's Self Re-evaluation

Back in 1997, AFI celebrated the century mark of the cinema by releasing a list of what they dubbed the 100 greatest American films of all-time. Citizen Kane reigned supreme, Steven Spielberg was the most celebrated director, and animation was once again snubbed, garnering just 2 spots on the list.

Well, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 100th anniversary list, AFI is once again offering a list of the 100 greatest American movies, this time with the potential inclusion of those films made from 1997-2006, to be announced tonight at 8 on CBS, hosted by the ubiquitous Morgan Freeman.

According to the AFI website, the ballot consists of 400 movies (over 100 years? It seems like there have been 400 movies released just this year already) from which voters can choose, plus up to 5 write-ins if necessary.

Of course, the majority of the '97 list is predicted to hold steady, but the real question is just how many of the movies from the interim will make the list? There are several quality contenders (some that I would vouch for, others not so much, but they are relevant and have many fans): Gladiator, Moulin Rouge, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Fight Club, Shrek, Memento, Crash, The Sixth Sense, Almost Famous, Office Space, The Ring, Being John Malkovich, Sideways, Saving Private Ryan, Million Dollar Baby, Brokeback Mountain, The Big Lebowski, Black Hawk Down, and the list goes on. And then there are some films who have gained in reputation in recent years like The Shawshank Redemption (thanks to TBS' near-incessant airing thereof) or were otherwise omitted last time that could make the leap into the list.

What do you think? What should/shouldn't make the list? Should there be a list at all?
The Chicago Reader's indispensable (if intentionally contrarian) movie guru, Jonathan Rosenbaum, wrote, in his lament of the original list, "Is the list simply a commercial ploy dreamed up by a consortium of marketers to repackage familiar goods, or is it a legitimate cultural contribution that's somehow supposed to improve the quality of our lives? (Are we still capable of distinguishing between the two?) If it's the former, then surely it qualifies as front-page news only if we're living in the equivalent of Stalinist Russia. If it's the latter, then why does the list contain so many movies that lie--about Vietnam (The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now), about racism (The Birth of a Nation, Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction), about countless other matters? And why are so many of the entries aesthetically bland or worse while recapitulating all the worst habits of Hollywood self-infatuation...my impulse is to defend the breadth, richness, and intelligence of the American cinema against its self-appointed custodians, who seem to want to lock us into an eternity of Oscar nights."

I hastily threw together a rough top 50 (minus Kubrick, because I never know if his movies are "American" or "British") to partake in the festivities, and I encourage you to do the same:
Adaptation
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Amadeus
Annie Hall
Before Sunset
Birth
The Body Snatcher
Captain Blood
Chinatown
Citizen Kane
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Directors Cut)
Detour
Do the Right Thing
Double Indemnity
Duck Soup
The Front
The General
Ghostbusters
The Godfather
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Jaws
Kicking and Screaming
The Kid
The King of Comedy
The Lion King
Love and Death
The Magnificent Ambersons
Meet Me in St. Louis
Miller's Crossing
Million Dollar Baby
Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Murder on the Orient Express
Night of the Hunter
North by Northwest
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Player
Quiz Show
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rear Window
Requiem for a Heavyweight
The Set-Up
Shadow of a Doubt
Shop Around The Corner
Singin in the Rain
Sullivan's Travels
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Sunset Boulevard
Trading Places
When Harry Met Sally
You Can't Take it With You

Dang it! Spielberg wins again.

Stop Holding Out On Us, U.K.

After their wily concealing of Lewis Taylor (which I dutifully exposed earlier this spring), it appears that, once again, the British have been holding out on us musically, this time in the realm of female pop singers. Oh sure, they pitched us Joss Stone, Fergie, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Amy Winehouse, with varying degrees of merit, thinking we'll be appeased while they remain determined to hold back the best of them all: one Emma Bunton (better known to most as the former Baby Spice of Spice Girls fame).

Her U.S. debut, Free Me (2005), is one of the best mainstream pop albums of the decade. Unfortunately, her follow-up, Life in Mono, is not available this side of the pond after being released in the U.K. last fall. Nevertheless, Free Me mixes 60's Motown girl group harmonies/hooks with bossa nova/Latin Jazz flair, with a nod to Burt Bacharach-style composition, and modern pop drum programming. It's modern, yet retro, and it all hangs together gloriously.

But don't take my word for it, from the IGN review:
As with her work with the Girls, the 12 songs included here are pure bred pop, focusing on an incredibly light and airy musical motif that is inescapably catchy. And while her previous work sounded like she was trying to hard to be the next Madonna/Britney/J-Lo heir, here she takes a decidedly different tact, branching out into pre-fab '60s Euro pop terrain to rekindle the kitsch and be-pop aesthetics of the Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, and Burt Bacharach with a sense of buoyant homage and retro love.

A lot of the success of the album comes from the fact that Bunton was wise enough to employ actual musicians, accomplished studio musicians at that, instead of relying on sample driven, ProTools laden production. The result is a full sounding album that pops, bristles, and bounces with a vibrant sense of self-awareness. The end result is an album that is both a throwback to a time when pop music was witty, smart, and resilient and a fresh sounding blast of PoPoMo dance music.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that she looks like this:



For your viewing pleasurement:

Back From The Grave [and deteriorating], It's....It's...It's The Iraq Study Group Report!

It appears that at some point in the last 6 months a few people actually took the time to read through the Iraq Study Group Report, (If you recall [or are new here] I noted back when it came out that the majority of those commenting on the report made remarks such as, "While I haven't read the thing cover to cover, blah, blah, blah, it sucks and here's why, blah blah blah"...Tony Snow, Tucker Carlson, I'm looking in your direction) and now it seems to have gained some fans. President Bush and Co. have returned to discussing the ISG Report, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sang the praises of the report on Face the Nation today, the Dem candidates for president regularly reference it in the debates.

Almost universally derided as over-reaching and implausible upon release (not to mention the use of the phrase "grave and deteriorating" to describe the situation practically writing the headlines for the newspapers by itself), I guess they're hoping we've all forgotten their initial disdain to accept their praise of it now uncritically.

Or perhaps the perpetually maligned Maliki government's inability to "meet the benchmarks" that keep being set has changed the hearts and minds of the Congress? (Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) quipped, glibly, "It's kind of odd for the Senate to be telling other politicians 'why can't you get your act together'").

Anybody want in on a bet that the weight currently being put on the magical mystery date of September by the GOP as the turning point in Iraq disappears 6 weeks from now, in favor of "we knew it was going to get worse before it gets better, but if we leave they'll follow us home" rhetoric?

Ahhh, what ever happened to colonialism? I hate summer; at least gas prices are plummeting. (down $.30-40 in 2-3 weeks!).

Forget Baghdad, What Do We Do About Bogota?

Excerpted from The Washington Post:
When U.S. defense contractors were first hired by the U.S. government in 2000 to help the Colombian government under the multibillion-dollar Plan Colombia aid package, American officials assumed the contractors would be gradually replaced as they trained Colombians.

But a recent State Department report obtained by The Associated Press shows more U.S. aid going to private companies, igniting criticism of the spending in Congress. "We need to be working ourselves out of a job in Colombia but these contracts are creating dependency on U.S. contractors and are not helping build a sustainable or peaceful Colombia," said Congressman Sam Farr, a Democrat from California. "The Colombians should assume more responsibility," said Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who chairs the Senate subcommittee on foreign aid. "With the right training they could do the job better and cheaper."

Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside of the Middle East and Afghanistan, is in the midst of five-decade civil conflict that pits rebels against far-right death squads and the government, a battle in part funded by the world's largest cocaine industry.

The State and Defense departments spent about $300 million on private contractors in 2006, just under half of the roughly $630 million in U.S. military aid for Colombia, the largest recipient of U.S. aid outside of the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Last year, Falls Church, Va.-based Dyncorp International Inc., whose pilots fumigate coca fields with armored crop dusters, took in $164 million for work in Colombia, according to the recent State Department report, or a quarter of all aid destined for Colombia's military and police. That was double what Dyncorp got in 2002. Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp., which does much of the maintenance for Colombia's air fleet, saw the value of its contracts more than triple over the same four years to about $80 million.

Critics already were questioning the effectiveness of U.S. aid in Colombia. Despite record drug eradication efforts - the bulk of it carried out by the contractors - a U.S. survey earlier this month found coca planting in Colombia rose for a third consecutive year in 2006.

A 2002 report detailing Dyncorp's mission explained that a "primary responsibility" of contractors was to train Colombians, but that such training would occur some time in the future. Virtually identical language was used again in the report for 2006.

A U.S. Embassy statement suggested that the figures could be misleading. It said some projects have grown without an increase in costs because "the Colombian army is taking more responsibility for their systems." But increased eradication missions have left little time for training, the State Department said.

Happy Flag Day, Mel Blanc!

Perhaps the most overlooked of the non-official holidays, Flag Day, celebrating the adoption of Betsy Ross' Flag as the national flag by the Continental Congress. From the official US Code:
TITLE 36 - Subtitle I - Part A - CHAPTER 1 - § 110
(a) Designation.— June 14 is Flag Day.
(b) Proclamation.— The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation—
(1) calling on United States Government officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on Flag Day; and
(2) urging the people of the United States to observe Flag Day as the anniversary of the adoption on June 14, 1777, by the Continental Congress of the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States.

And what better way is there to celebrate this most overlooked of American of holidays than by celebrating (albeit 2 weeks belatedly) the posthumous 99th birthday of one of our most overlooked geniuses, Mel Blanc.

The name may not readily familiar, but the voices no doubt will be. Blanc was, most famously, the voice of Bugs Bunny. In addition to Bugs, he also voiced Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Woody Woodpecker, Sylvester and Tweety, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzales, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Le Pew, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Barney Rubble from The Flintstones, Mr. Spacely from The Jetsons, and many others. Dubbed The Man of a Million Voices, in short, he was Warner Bros. animation for 30 years. He was Chuck Jones' muse (Jones of course being one of the greatest artists in the history of American animation/cinema).


Imagine, if you will, living in 1939 going to a legendary picture palace to see a Michael Curtiz directed costume epic starring Errol Flynn and Olivia da Haviland (say, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex), preceded by a Mel Blanc-voiced Porky and Daffy cartoon and a trailer for His Girl Friday. Makes me sad when I compare something like that to what we have at the multiplex today: a Sprite "Sublymonal" commercial [by the way, wtf is really going on with this sublymonal stuff anyway?], 2 spots telling me to turn off my cell phone, and a trailer for an Adam Sandler-Kevin James faux gay romp.

Showing he was more than just a cartoon voice, Blanc also did radio, particularly a recurring role on The Jack Benny Show (Benny was a fantastic comedian in his own right, as the progenitor of the sitcom format). If, by some unbelievably unfortunate chance, you have somehow not been exposed to the wonderful worlds of the characters of Mel Blanc, you must, must, do yourself a favor and seek the man and his brilliant work out on DVD/TV/youtube/however else video may be available.

Have You Been (to see) Knocked Up?

I was trying to work up something about the film Knocked Up, but then I came across Jim Emerson's piece on it, and, well, it's pretty solid.

Excerpted:
Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" ought to be the most-discussed (and argument-generating) movie of the year so far -- which means it's uncommonly smart and subversive and disturbing (and funny), especially for a summer sex comedy...Sometimes you don't even know if the scene is funny or not -- and those are inevitably the most revealing and rewarding kinds of laughs, when you surprise yourself by laughing at how awful and truthful the characters are behaving.

My first reaction to the Ben-Alison match was that she would never want to see him again after their one-night stand. But, like so many women, Alison is someone who falls in love with a guy for who she wants him to be, not for who he really is. (She doesn't even know who he is -- and vice-versa.)...Alison wants to be in love with the father of her child (their child, she insists), so she is determined to make herself believe that's the case, even when it isn't, because that's the way it should be. And maybe she can even make him believe it.

When it comes to pregnancy, men of my generation (and Ben's) are taught -- by society and by law -- that we had better get used to being unnecessary. ("A Woman Without A Man Is Like A Fish Without A Bicycle.") It's all about respecting the woman's right to do whatever she wants with her own body. It's her body, and there's no question about that. And I'm not saying that's wrong or undesirable. Just that there are... complications. What the movie suggests (and this is where it really starts to get subversive) is that this attitude actually lets men off the moral hook when it comes to questions of abortion and child-rearing. Hey, it's her decision, after all!

Read the rest here

200th post!

Well, here we are, #200. It feels like there was less time between 100 and 200, but I think the reverse is actually true (I don't particularly care to go back and look it up). Either way, it's been a good ride, and one of these days I'll get back to posting more regularly, but today is just another day to celebrate. Speaking of celebrate, I had a birthday and turned 23 this weekend and have had enough cake to kill 3 diabetics in the last 3-4 days so I'm barely alive as it is, so give me a few more days.

While I continue my extended respite, and we dive full on into a summer movie season replete with sequels and threequels, I recommend you take a look at this defense of movie sequels (conceptually) from David Bordwell and a group of other film historians/researchers/professors.

Michael Newman writes: "Sequels exist in all narrative forms–novels, plays, movies, television, videogames, comics, operas. What is the Bible but a series of sequels? Didn’t Shakespeare follow up Henry IV with a part II? What of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Updike’s Rabbit novels? Many novelists of high reputation have written sequels, including Thackeray, Trollope, Faulkner, and Roth. There is nothing intrinsically unimaginative about continuing a story from one text to another. Because narratives draw their basic materials from life, they can always go on, just as the world goes on. Endings are always, to an extent, arbitrary. Sequels exploit the affordance of narrative to continue."

Pistol Pete Is Back!

Oh sure, every Thanksgiving we all take turns around the dinner table, spouting platitudes and insincerities about things for which we are "thankful". This November, however, there will actually be something worth mentioning:

Pete Sampras will play top-ranked Roger Federer in three exhibition matches throughout Asia in November.

Sampras, who retired in 2002, will challenge Federer on Nov. 22 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Two days later, they will play at the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau. The location for the third match on Nov. 20 has not been determined. “I am so excited to play Pete and I am really looking forward to visiting Malaysia for the first time,” Federer said. “There is no doubt that we will play some great tennis.”

The exhibitions originated after Sampras invited Federer to practice at his home in Los Angeles as part of Federer’s preparations for the Indian Wells tournament in March.

“Obviously he’s a great player, but I felt like I didn’t embarrass myself out there,” Sampras said. “I feel like I can hold my own.”

The greatest of this generation vs. the greatest of last generation in a Chinese gambling enclave? Count me in!

On the other end of the spectrum you can count out all Americans in both the male and female sides of the French Open already. Great job, folks. Way to represent the ol' red, white, and blue.