Unlike Herr Kommandant Ashcroft's ill-fated TIPS Program, here's a local snitch program I can get behind. You can report a litterbug on the roads by clicking here (or on the spiffy logo at right) to visit the "Don't Mess With Texas" website. Enter the time, date, Texas license number, car make/model and what was littered and the offender gets a letter from the State of Texas with a notice of the report, a litter bag, and a reminder that if a cop had turned them in they'd have to pay a fine of up to $500. You remain anonymous, but smug.
I HATE people who litter, especially the friggin idiots that throw lit cigarette butts, endangering my life as a convertible driver, and yours as a resident of a state filled with dry kindling. So start ratting. The more people that do this the better the chance of stopping this scourge.
Here's a review in Salon that soundly thrashes the "new" Hannibal Lector film, Red Dragon (based on the same Thomas Harris novel as the 1986 film, Manhunter).
I usually appreciate Sir Anthony's work, so I wasn't thrilled to see his latest effort eviscerated, but the critique was served up with faba beans and a nice Chianti (sorry!). To wit:
[Edward Norton] delivers his lines like a guy who sure knows how to deliver lines -- he hits them like a tennis pro idly whacking a ball against the wall over and over again. They make contact; they just don't whirr or sting. At the very least, though, his brand of understatement is a blessed relief next to Hopkins' coming on like a bad Bette Davis impersonator.
The only pleasure to be had in "Red Dragon" comes from some of its smaller performances: Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a sleazy tabloid journalist, delivering all his lines sideways -- they bounce off the movie's margins instead of thudding right toward its lumbering moose of a center, as nearly everyone else's do.
On another note, George Will gets a little of his due in the pages of Salon here and previously, here. I particularly like the later as it chronicles Norman Mailer's pounding of Will for comparing Dubya's prose to Hemingway! An excerpt of the letter Mailer sent to the Boston Globe:
... but I do know that to put George W. Bush's prose next to Hemingway is equal to saying that Jackie Susann is right up there with Jane Austen. Did a sense of shame ever reside in our Republican toadies? You can't stop people who are never embarrassed by themselves. Will's readiness to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse can be cited as world class sycophancy.
Obscenity, Crossing State Lines and the Evil Lodge Industry
Long time lurker, First time poster. (I've always wanted to type that.)
And even lamer, I'm stealing this from a conversation baz and I had last night. I was pretty blissfully unaware of the attacks on so-called obscenity that have been ocurring lately. I knew about the big ones, but this article really scared the crap out of me. In a similar article about a Kentucky hotel, there was this quote by CCV President Phil Burress:
"No doubt some people will label this action a violation of privacy," said Burress. "It's not a matter of violating privacy or of imposing values. It is a matter of law. In Stanley vs. Georgia (1969) the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that the First Amendment protects the private use of obscene pornography. But in Miller vs. California (1973) the same court also made it clear that the sale and distribution of obscene pornography is not protected by the First Amendment." Burress continued, "This is not about what someone views in the privacy of their home or hotel room. This is about selling and distributing obscenity. There are state and federal laws against that. And major hotels are not above the law."
And in the cincinnati article, there was this from Burress: "Under federal law, a common carrier cannot be used to pander obscenity, and courts have ruled that satellites are common carriers."
Is anyone aware of officials in the federal government (ashcroft, for instance) who might be listening to these people?
This sounds like a great piece of theatre ... that I don't want to see (in the same way that I've avoided Schindler's List and Black Hawk Down). Here's the blurb from their site:
One of the most unique and riveting theatrical experiences to hit New York in seasons, CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO (CVR) is a live performance documentary derived entirely from the "Black Box" transcripts of six major real-life airline emergencies. Allowing the audience into the tension-filled cockpits of actual flights in distress, CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO is a fascinating portrait of the psychology of crisis and a testimony to the ability to live to the last second of life. What is going on up there behind the door in the front of the airplane? Who are these people we trust our lives to, and what do they really do when things go horribly wrong?
CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO is playing in Austin Wednesday - Saturday, October 9 - 12, 8:00 pm, at the B. Iden Payne Theatre. [Ticket Info]
Is information overload, our McHaveItYourWay world, our sense of entitlement to instant satisfaction ... is our way of life ruinous for the future of art? I've heard it before: Low-brow vs. high-brow culture. Britney Spears vs. André Previn. Who's to say what future generations will regard as lasting masterpieces of our time? Anyway, it's been a while since I thought about it. And all I'm really doing here is paraphrasing some parts of this salon.com article (be a good girl or boy and read all 4 pages of it if you click in). It made me want to head to an art gallery every weekend for the rest of my life to start soaking up things that aren't offered up to me via a focus group. It's anybody's guess if I'll really follow through on that, though. I've got to get back to watching "Six Feet Under."
Apparently my last post required too much reading, or was too heavy for some 'Fuzzers, as no ego-stroking comments ensued. ;-)
No matter, on to another fave topic--critics who are really good at slamming something. I take an English major's pleasure in good use of words to review bad stuff. Here's an excerpt from a deliciously scathing review (in Premiere magazine) of the upcoming film based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel "Rules Of Attraction:"
In a sense, Avary's film is a perfect transposition of Ellis's novel, which reads like the rantings of a sensitive nerd who's not nearly as gifted as he thinks he is and who's still harping on the idea that all of his college classmates got laid a lot more than he did. And, in fact, I would say going out and getting laid would be a preferable activity to seeing this film. As would be clipping your toenails, alphabetizing your socks, watching commercials for cat litter . . . whatever. --Glenn Kenny
He also takes on the TV "stars" in this lightweight cinematic junk food:
This sort of material, of course, gives television lightweights such as James Van Der Beek, Fred Savage, and Jessica Biel the chance to act all fucked up, so they can prove to themselves how really edgy they are. Good for them, I guess. Not very good for audiences, though. Sure, less-than-pure-of-heart fans of "7th Heaven" will get to see Biel in her underwear, but at what psychic and spiritual cost?
Here's a great piece from Joe Conason's blog on Salon (page down to "Mooning Bush"), that in turn points to this article in the Washington Times, about how Dubya (or his ventriloquists) just keeping making shit up. Much like the "trifecta" nonsense they concocted earlier.
