The End of Hollywood

There is a new moviemaker on the block and it's called Seedance.  Just a few minutes of watching what it can produce shows that $100 million movies are not long for the world.  Sure, there are clunky bits, but imagine what it will be like next year, or the year after.  We are on the cusp of where anyone can make a blockbuster quality film with just the correct series of prompts.  Behold the possibilities.  Any actor in any setting with crazy effects and essentially a limitless budget.

Damnation Alley (1977)

Lt. Jake Tanner (Jan Michael Vincent) and Major Eugene Denton (George Peppard) arrived at Fort Tipton AFB in the Mojave Desert.  Denton warned Tanner that he requested a change of assignment, as he doesn't think their styles mesh.  They had hardly taken their post at the launch controls of a nuclear missile silo when a missile strike from the USSR was detected.  Responding to orders, the pair launch all the Fort Tipton missiles.  World War III is over in an hour.

It had been two years and the survivors of Fort Tipton were isolated.  Jake left the Airforce but still lived on base with Keegan (Paul Winfield), another airman who quit the military.  Jake had a scouted around, but found no other survivors.  Meanwhile, Major Denton was busy working on an experimental military vehicle, the Landmaster.  He had only just received approval from General Landers to take it into the field when the base exploded in a tragic accident.  When the dust settled, only Tanner, Denton, Keegan, and Lt. Tom Perry were still alive.

Over the last two years, there has only been one repeated signal from Albany, NY.  Denton decided that would be their destination.  Of course, much of the area was an irradiated wasteland but their was a path through the destruction, a corridor named Damnation Alley.  With stops in Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Detroit, the survivors of Fort Tipton must overcome hostile new lifeforms, extreme weather events, and bandits, while also collecting other survivors: Janice (Dominique Sanda) and Billy (Jackie Earle Haley).

Intended as a sci-fi epic, this was released the same year as Star Wars.  Amazingly, 20th Century Fox expected Star Wars to be the flop and Damnation Alley to be the hit.  The movie fits nicely into the disaster theme that was popular in the 1970s, even borrowing footage from Earthquake (1974), an earlier disaster flick.

Roger Zelazny, who authored the story upon which this was based, hated the film.  Looks like I'm going to have to read the book and find out why.

Anyway, the movie is just okay.  It feels more like a low budget SyFy channel movie than a big studio production.  In fact, I always thought it was made for TV until this latest viewing.

Mountains of the Moon (1990)

Richard Hanning Speke (Iain Glen) arrived on the coast of East Africa in 1854 with plans of exploring the dark continent.  There he met Richard Burton (Patrick Bergin), already famous for having gone on the Haj to Mecca.  Burton has planned a trek inland to find the source of the Nile and Speke is eager to go with him.  Speke brought lots of guns and ammunition, making him a welcome addition to the expedition.  They have hardly gone inland than they were attacked by tribesmen, killing most of the company.  Both seriously wounded, Burton and Speke escaped nonetheless.

The pair returned to England and sought funding for a new expedition.  In the interim, Burton met Isabel Arundell (Fiona Shaw), who proved to be a great admirer of his writing.  A torrid affair ensued.  Meanwhile, Speke was approached by Laurence Oliphant (Richard E. Grant), who wanted to both help fund the next expedition and publish the findings. Additionally, Oliphant plotted a split between Speke and Burton.  The second expedition set out in 1856.  The men explored inland from Zanzibar, reaching the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1857.  With Burton seriously ill, only Speke could explore to the shores of Lake Victoria.  The pair returned to England in 1859 with very different ideas on what had been discovered.  Their disagreements led to a break between the two.  The next expedition was led by Speke while Burton was left on the sidelines.

There are surprises here.  Omar Sharif has a cameo as an Arab Chief.  Fiona Shaw, who most will remember as Harry Potter's shrewish Aunt Petunia Dursley, is terrific as Burton's love interest.  The two have great chemistry, allowing a fully realized love story despite being secondary to the Burton-Speke relationship.

An enjoyable movie that gives a general look at exploring Africa in the mid-nineteenth century.  No discussion of this period would be complete without Dr. Livingston (Bernard Hill).  Sure enough, he makes an appearance.  The lighthearted bit where Livingston and Burton compared scars that they have received was most entertaining.

Recommended.

USS Cyane: Workhorse of the Pacific Squadron

The USS Cyane was a 22-gun sloop-of-war with a complement of 200 crew that joined the US Navy in May 1838.  In 1845, the Cyane was dispatched to the Pacific Squadron.  At the time, this was a monumental voyage around South America.  It was not until January 1846 that she arrived at Mazatlan.  In February, Lt. Archibald Gillespie of the US Marines came aboard; he had secret messages to deliver to Commodore Sloat, US Consul Thomas O. Larkin, and John C. Fremont.  The Cyane departed Mazatlan and sailed to Monterey, California, by way of the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands.  Gillespie was left in Monterey in April.  By the end of the month, the Cyane was back in Mazatlan where it found an English rear admiral commanding a line-of-battle-ship and two additional ships of the British fleet.  Were the British keeping tabs on the Americans in this tense period between Mexico and the United States?

The Cyane again set out for Monterey in May and arrived in June.  On the 2nd of July, Commodore Sloat arrived on the flagship Savannah, a 54-gun frigate with a complement of 480 men.  Sloat had received word of the battles in Texas but dallied.  Finally, on July 7th, he ordered the capture of Monterey, the capital of Alta California.  Captain Mervine of the Cyane led the landing party that raised the US Flag over California.  The Pacific Squadron was officially in the war.

On July 14th, the USS Congress arrived in Monterey with Commodore Robert 'Fighting Bob' Stockton.  He replaced Commodore Sloat in command of the Pacific Squadron.  The following day, the HMS Collingwood, an 80-gun ship-of-the-line, arrived in Monterey.   Would the American capture of California have been so easy if the Collingwood had arrived a week earlier?

Captain Mervine was transferred to the Savannah and Captain Samuel Du Pont took command of the Cyane.  The Cyane also took aboard Lt. Col. John C. Fremont's California Battalion, providing transport to San Diego.  The Cyane captured a Mexican brig, the Juanita, before it could leave the harbor.  Fremont was let off at San Diego where that port was captured with similar efficiency as Monterey.  Alta California apparently settled, the Cyane set out for a cruise along the west coast of Mexico.

In August, she captured the Primavera.  In September, she blockaded the port of San Blas where she captured two additional ships: Solita and Susana.  Crossing to Baja California and the port of La Paz, the Cyane took control of 7 ships from the harbor, including the Baltimore-built Julia.  The Julia was quickly added to the Pacific Squadron.  Sailing further into the Gulf of California, she captured the Libertad and the Fortuna on the 1st of October.  The following day, she seized the Rosita.  Two days later, she captured the Chapita and the Alerto.  A raid on Guaymas destroyed three additional ships.

In November, the Cyane blockaded Mazatlan, but the ship ran out of supplies.  As the US had no Pacific ports, it depended on friendly ports or supply ships.  Sailing north once again, the Cyane found orders in San Francisco to join the squadron in retaking California; there had been a rebellion during the Cyane's absence.

In January 1847, she provided men for the recapture of Los Angeles, joining in the Battles of San Gabriel (Jan 8) and La Mesa (Jan 9).  Los Angeles was occupied the following day.  But the Cyane was not done with the war yet.

The Pacific Squadron had other duties than just the war and the Cyane went looking for pirates and protecting the US whaling fleet.  In November 1847, the Cyane joined the Congress and the Independence in the capture of Mazatlan.

The Cyane's final operation during the war was to relieve the siege at San Jose del Cabo (Baja California) in February 1848.  The Cyane remained in the region, relocating to Mazatlan.  On June 7th, while at the port of San Blas, the ship recieved word that the peace treaty was signed and the war was over.

No other ship in the US fleet on either coast saw so much action as the USS Cyane.  The ship remained active on the coasts of North and South America until she was decommissioned in 1871.

Slap Shot (1977)

The Charlestown Chiefs are a hockey team on a losing streak.  Their coach, Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman), is also a player.  Their star player, Ned (Michael Ontkean), is a college graduate who preferred to 'slum' it as a hockey player. Ned's wife, Lily (Lindsay Crouse), is not at all happy about living in a working-class mill town, especially since her parents are rich and Ned has great prospects.  The manager, McGrath (Strother Martin), scrounges for funds to keep the team afloat, including selling equipment and having the players model clothes.  Enter the Hanson brothers.  The Hanson brothers could be triplets but are actually 18, 19, and 20.  Their style of hockey involves goonery, a frequent switch to violence and foul play to diminish the other team.  Ned, an adherent to 'old-timey' hockey where skill and team play would win games, is horrified by the Hansons.  Reggie isn't too keen on it either, but his views change as the Chiefs start winning and game attendance skyrockets.

To further complicate matters, the mill has closed and it is unlikely the team will survive with a crashing local economy; who will be able to afford to attend games?  To keep morale up, Reggie concocts a story about a potential sale of the team to some Florida investors.  He fed the story to sportswriter Dickie Dunn (M. Emmet Walsh) and radio broadcaster Jim Carr (Andrew Duncan).  However, that's only temporary measures.  If he is going to avoid the team folding, he needs to find out who owns the team, but McGrath won't say.

For its time, it was the most profanity-filled movie made.  This may be the movie that inspired the old joke about going to the fights and a hockey game broke out.  It is certainly a movie of its time with men wearing platform shoes, leather pants, turtle-neck shirts, paisley patterns, wide collars, and just generally loud clothing.  All the cars are gas-guzzling land yachts or sporty muscle cars.  Mostly, this is a movie that riffs on all things related to hockey and hockey players.  There are no life-altering character arcs or deep messages, just a romp through the wild and wooly life of hockey players.

Good popcorn fun! 

Fallout (season 2)

At the end of last season, Lucy's father, Hank (Kyle MacLachlan), was shown to be the true monster.  While Maximus (Aaron Moten) returned to the Brotherhood of Steel with cold fusion, Lucy (Ella Purnell) and the Ghoul (Walton Goggins) followed Hank to New Vegas.

In flashback, Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) found himself at odds with his wife (Frances Turner) and roped into an assassination plot against noted industrialist, Robert Edwin House (Justin Theroux).  House was the CEO of a robotics company but was also developing a mind-control device for use on people. Cooper's past was further revealed with another flashback to his time in Alaska during the war.  Here he first saw a Deathclaw.

Back with the Brotherhood, Maximus gains considerable status on account of his recent success.  However, he has also grown on conscience on account of his recent travels with Lucy.  Can he accept that the power of cold fusion will launch his faction of the Brotherhood into a civil war with the rest?

In her trek to New Vegas, Lucy encountered various groups that seek to establish a new civilization.  First, there is Caesar's Legion, a band of people who have adopted the Roman Empire.  Among them is Lacerta Legate (Macaulay Culkin), a high ranking officer who controls Lucy's fate.  Then there are the soldiers of the New California Republic, a would-be government for the wasteland.

While Lucy hunts for her father, Norm finds his way to the surface with freshly awoken Vault 31 middle managers.  Can he fool them into believing he is in charge while also delegating to them solving his problems?  So far, so good.

Lastly, there are those who are still in the vault, trying to rebuild.  Not everyone is who they seem to be, especially Stephanie (Annabel O'Hagan).  Though promoted to overseer of the re-established Vault 32, she proves to be... gasp...  Canadian!  There is a lot of backstory for the cyclops lady.

The second season is outstanding, every bit as good as season 1.  Not only is more of the pre-apocalypse explored, there are many developments in the present.  Hugely entertaining and highly recommended!

Filibuster

Traditionally, the filibuster was used to prevent legislation from proceeding to a vote in the Senate.  Strom Thurmond famously spoke for more than 24 hours in an effort to prevent passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.  The point is that the Senate allows debate to continue until everyone has had their say, even if it happens to be reading the phone directory into the Senate record.  In order to end debate, the Senate must assemble 60 votes.  What we have today is autopilot filibusters.  No one debates the bill.  No one puts in the time to speak ad nauseum to prevent a vote.  Nope, the minority party just says filibuster and voila, no vote without 60 votes.

The filibuster is a rule the Senate adopted that has no basis in the Constitution.  It could be eliminated, if the majority party so chose.  It has seen a lot of modification over the years, being nixed for judicial nominations, including Supreme Court nominees.  If no one is willing to carry on the debate, then it should just be a matter of calling for the vote.  The filibustering party should be required to talk the issue to death, which takes really commitment.

Debate or vote.