John McCain

John McCain should never have become a politician.  He was a commendable, honorable, brave naval aviator who suffered for his country like few ever have.  But for his injuries as a POW, he might have followed his father and grandfather to become a navy admiral.  Instead, he ran for office.  McCain was an uneasy Republican, famously called a maverick thanks to his frequent clashes with his fellow Republicans.  He was beloved by the media while he trashed his fellow party members but, when it came time to run for president, the media that had so loved him turned on him; why vote Democrat-lite when you could get the real thing with Obama?  So long as he opposed Trump, the media loved him again.

 

RIP

Puzzle

Agnes (Kelly McDonald) is getting ready for a birthday party.  She puts up decorations, bakes a cake, sets out dishes, and so forth.  During the party, she asks her husband, Louie (David Denman), if he is having a good time.  She seems to be something of a wallflower during the event, soon vanishing into the kitchen to put candles on the cake.  She brings it out as Happy Birthday is sung and places it on the table.  It is at this point we discover it is Agnes' birthday!  Among her gifts are an iPhone - she is quite content with her landline - and a 1000 piece puzzle.  The puzzle attracts her interest and she puts it together in no time.  Her interest sparked, she calls the giver and asks where the puzzle was bought: New York City.  She takes a train to the city, buys 2 puzzles, and gets the number of someone looking for a puzzle partner.  After another puzzle, she's hooked and calls the number.  Robert (Irrfan Khan) is an inventor and puzzle aficionado.  He had signed up for a puzzle competition but his partner - his wife - left him.  Initially skeptical that Agnes is any good, he is amazed after they complete a puzzle together in record time.

 

Agnes is the center of the movie and it is hard to identify with her or understand the reasons behind her actions.  In order to practice with Robert, she lies to her family and friends.  She let's her domestic chores slide - she is a stay-at-home mom though her sons are 17 or older - and becomes confrontational with her husband.  From what we see, he is a loyal and loving husband but far from exciting.  Beyond the shared interest in puzzles, it is inexplicable that she falls for Robert.  As the movie progressed, I found myself more and more disliking Agnes.  At every step along the way, she lied about where she was going and what she was doing.  Why?  Sure, once the affair kicked off but prior to that?  The point is that she went from being selfless incarnate to doing something for herself.  Her life went from serving others - family, church - to finally taking action on her desires and interests.

 

Mostly disappointing.

Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984)

While his dimension-hopping rocket car is being prepared for its maiden voyage, Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller) is busy performing emergency brain surgery at the request of a colleague, Dr. Sidney Zweibel (Jeff Goldblum).  Having successfully completed the surgery, he flies to the desert and arrives only moments before the count down finishes for his rocket car.  Woosh!  He breaks the sound barrier and then - thanks to the "oscillation overthruster" - he drives through a mountain, thus visiting the 8th dimension.  When he returns to the desert, he has a brain-like alien life form attached to the undercarriage.  Hmm.  The last man to travel to the 8th dimension - Doctor Emilio Lizardo (John Lithgow) - returned utterly insane.  The very day that Banzai succeeded in breeching the 8th dimension, Lizardo escaped from the asylum; this is no coincidence.  Lizardo was possessed by John Whorfin - a Hitler-like figure from Planet 10 who had been banished to the 8th dimension.  If Whorfin can get his hands on Banzai's oscillation overthruster, he will be able to release his followers from the 8th dimension and reconquer Planet 10.

 

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension has a comic book feel to it and also has a vibe of not being the first film.  Buckaroo has a band of allies, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, who get only the barest of introductions.  It's kind of like Ant-Man showing up in Captain America: Civil War; we all remember him from Ant-Man so he doesn't need a backstory.  There is a lot of that in this movie, from the Blue Blazer Irregulars to the unexplained watermelon.  There is even the oddity that Penny (Ellen Barkin) is the long lost twin of Buckaroo's deceased wife, a weird way of bringing back the same actress for the love interest even though she was killed off.  All of this was fully explained in the last film and is included here as something of an Easter Egg.  Except there was no last film.

 

The movie has a lot of oddball features.  Every alien is named John.  Surnames vary wildly and are often silly: Bigboote (pronounced Big Booty or Big Boo Tay), Small Berries, Yaya.  In addition to being a neurosurgeon and particle physicist, Buckaroo is also a rockstar and has a comic book series detailing his adventures.  His entourage all go by nicknames like Rawhide (Clancy Brown), Reno Nevada (Pepe Serna), Perfect Tommy (Lewis Smith), and New Jersey (Goldblum).  It is never explained why?  New Jersey has only just been recruited to the Cavaliers so we see him transition from Dr. Sidney Zweibel to New Jersey.  When asking him to join the crew, Buckaroo wanted to know if he could sing.  You need to be a member of the band.  Very quirky.  Buckaroo Banzai is a character who needs an origin story, something along the lines of Batman Begins.

 

John Lithgow is over the top, which is par for the course.  I've generally found him to be an overactor in the William Shatner vein of acting.  His wacky Italian accent, constant bluster, and random misquotes make Lizardo an unstable villain who is more likely to defeat himself than require a hyper-competent adversary like Banzai.  He is more comically demented bumpkin than evil mad scientist.  Lithgow is at his best in serious roles (e.g. The Crown, Interstellar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes).  It may be he has mellowed with age.

 

An oddball movie that is unfocused but still fun.

Security Clearance

It comes as a surprise to me that former government officials retain their security clearance.  I work in a school district; when someone leaves, their account is disabled and their security badge is returned.  There is no need for these people to still have access to district campuses, email accounts, or district records.  There is limited access to personal files, such as paystubs.  In previous jobs, when I moved on, I didn't get to keep the door keys.  This is so obvious that I was startled when it became clear that was not the case for the federal government.

Not only should John Brennan's security clearance have been revoked, every member of every administration who is not currently employed by the government should have clearance revoked.  Does Michael Flynn still have a security clearance?  I hope not.  Ditto for James Clapper, James Comey, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Joe Biden, Al Gore, Madeline Albright, Dan Quayle, and so forth.  Maybe former presidents should get an exemption, but that's about it.  When you leave government service, your clearance is cancelled.  No hard feelings, nothing personal, just common sense.  The more people who know a secret, the less secret it becomes.

The Secret to Russian Hacking

If Russians are hacking the voting machines, let's return to paper ballots.  Try hacking that from Siberia, comrade.  Problem solved.

Crazy Rich Asians

Rachel (Constance Wu), an economics professor at NYU, has been dating Nick (Henry Golding) for a year.  Having been invited to the wedding of a friend in Singapore, Nick wants Rachel to go with him; she can meet his family.  Upon arrival, Rachel discovers that Nick has wealth beyond her wildest dreams.  All Nick's local relations immediately view Rachel as a gold digger.  Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), Nick's mother, is clearly not pleased with her son's choice in girlfriends.  Nick wants to marry Rachel, even though that will likely result in excommunication from his family.  Can Rachel and Nick stay together without a break from his family?

 

There are additional subplots, the most noteworthy being Nick's cousin Astrid (Gemma Chan).  She is a combination supermodel-philanthropist who is much beloved.  She married a soldier who is having trouble being the comparatively poor husband.

 

Peik Lin Goh (Awkwafina) is Rachel's former college roommate and native to Singapore.  She sports blonde hair and crazy outfits.  She is Rachel's constant ally and a source of considerable humor.  She does a terrific job.  Her father is played by Ken Jeong, probably best remembered as Mr. Chow from the Hangover trilogy.

 

The weakest part of the movie was the opening.  It is 1995 and Eleanor arrives at a posh hotel on a rainy night with a young Nick and Astrid.  Despite having made reservations, the manager suggests she find other accommodations, perhaps Chinatown.  Ah, racism.  Maybe that's the way things were in London in 1995 but it struck a negative and unnecessary tone.  It has no bearing on the rest of the film.  With all the pre-film hype of this being the first American film with a majority Asian cast since the Joy Luck Club (1993), this came across as an attack.

 

All in all, this is an excellent romantic comedy.  Thumbs up.

 

Bill Maher is Right for a Change

Bill Maher has come out in defense of Alex Jones.  Though he in no way agrees with Jones and even prefaces his defense with an attack on Jones, Jones should nonetheless be allowed to speak.  That he was booed by his audience and shocked his guests should be of concern.  Free speech should be a value of all Americans.  That value is clearly fading.

The Black Ice

Detective Bosch is spending Christmas alone, which is usual for him.  He is the on-call Hollywood detective for the night but, oddly, finds he wasn't called for a death in his division.  He shows up anyway to find Officer Calexico "Cal" Moore has committed suicide and the police department handed the case to more prestigious detectives from Robbery Homicide Division (RHD).  Bosch is miffed.  Yes, because the decedent is a cop, the case would have gone to RHD but he still should have been called.  Though Bosch hardly knew Moore, he takes an interest in the case and starts digging.  Moore worked narcotics and was looking into a new drug called Black Ice, which was related to a homicide that Bosch is investigating.  Maybe Moore's death is related.

 

Despite pressure from the upper echelons of the LAPD, Bosch pursues the case to the Mexican border - the twin cities of Calexico-Mexicali - where Cal Moore was raised.  He knows he's getting close when someone takes a shot at him.  Increasing pressure from LA means he needs to return with the whole package or suffer consequences.  The most surprising incident was when he was attacked by a bull soon after having attended a bull fight, using a bulletproof vest as a matador's cape.  Good stuff.  Of course, he again has the opportunity to creep through tunnels, harkening back to his days as a tunnel rat in Vietnam.

 

Excellent book.  Recommended.

 

The Meg

Mana One is a top of the line oceanic research station funded by billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson) and headed by Dr. Minway Zhang (Winston Chao).  Morris arrives at the station just in time to see the discovery of a previously hidden deep sea ecosphere.  No sooner has the three man sub deployed a rover than both it and the rover are attacked.  Someone needs to rescue the stranded sub.  Enter Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham), the top deep sea rescuer in the world.  While rescuing the crew of the disabled sub, the Megalodon - a 70 foot shark that has been extinct for millions of years - is revealed as not so extinct after all.  Escaping back to Mana One, the submariners are followed by the Meg.  The Meg proceeds to terrorize the region and is soon headed for a popular beach on the Chinese coast.

Though many scenes harken back to Jaws, it is not a scary movie.  Rather than the slow ticks of a fishing line or the bobbing of barrels on the ocean, this movie has speeding subs that make maneuvers more suited to jets in the sky than mini-subs in the sea.  As there are a lot more characters, none of them develop the depth of Chief Brody, Quint, or Matt Hooper.  This is an action movie, not a suspense thriller.  If there isn't wildly unlikely action, then there is a pause for Jonas and Suyin (Li Bingbing) to show growing attraction toward one another or some planning session on how to resolve the latest problem.

 

Statham is himself.  Where his Transporter persona - Frank Martin - is a master with cars and martial arts, Jonas is a master of subs and scuba.  He does it well, as usual, but this doesn't expand his acting chops.  Shuya Sophia Cai shines as Suyin's daughter, Meiying.  She steals scenes throughout the movie and often has the best lines.  She even plays matchmaker for her mother and Jonas.  Rainn Wilson does a surprisingly good job as the billionaire until he is made stupid.  After having survived being on a very large ship that the meg sank, he then goes hunting the meg on a much smaller boat while a helicopter drops bombs on the meg.  Why isn't he on the helicopter?  Well, he wouldn't get his comeuppance that way.

 

This movie is pure popcorn fun.  Thumbs up.

 

The Black Echo

It is 1990 or thereabouts.  Harry Bosch is an LA police detective in the Hollywood Division.  He gets assigned to check on a dead body in a pipe near the reservoir.  Though everyone on scene wants to declare the death an accidental overdose by a known drug user, Bosch has his doubts.  He is even more doubtful when he recognizes the man as a fellow tunnel rat from Vietnam.  It soon becomes clear that the dead man was involved in a tunnel job that emptied a safety deposit vault 10 months earlier.

 

Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch is a very deep character even in this debut novel.  His mother was murdered when he was a child and he spent much of his youth in foster care.  He went to Vietnam where he volunteered to go into Vietcong tunnels - the Black Echo.  He had a very successful career in the police department - solving some headline cases - which led to a movie and TV series based on him and his partner.  Then he had the fall from grace for shooting an unarmed suspect.  Most characters get this level of depth over the course of several novels, not right out the gate.  Impressive.

 

By the end, it turns out that everything was important, every bit of evidence or even random banter was a clue or backstory for the conclusion.  Bosch doesn't believe in coincidences and this intricate story proves him right.  The pacing starts a bit slow but it picks up speed with every chapter.  By the climax, it is hard to put the book down.  Really impressive job of building tension.

 

Having watched the Amazon Series, it was clear that Season 3 was based on this book though, by comparison, it was only a shadow.  The modern story is present but the tie-in to Vietnam is gone and the epic chase through the sewers is absent.

 

Excellent book and highly recommended.

 

Walk of Infamy?

Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been vandalized yet again and the city council is considering removing it.  Meh.  I can see that.  If it is just going to get the sledge hammer treatment every few weeks, it might be best to remove it.  However, that isn't the reason provided by the council.

The City Council will consider adopting a resolution urging the Los Angeles City Council and Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to remove President Donald J. Trump’s star from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, due to his disturbing treatment of women and other actions that do not meet the shared values of the City of West Hollywood, the region, state, and country.

That is a dangerous precedent.  Is the council going to remove Bill Cosby?  James Franco?  Tavis Smiley?  Jeffery Tambor?  Brett Ratner?  Kevin Spacey?  Oliver Stone?  All have been accused of 'disturbing treatment' against both women or men.  Gee, that makes it sound like these are shared values of West Hollywood.  In any case, if the council is going to yank Trump's star for the listed reason, these others should also be on the chopping block.  If not, sounds like a double standard.

Deplatforming is the New Censorship

Alex Jones is a crackpot.  I had heard about him from time to time, always in a negative light from one of the various sources I read or watch.  One day, about a year ago, I decided to watch one of his videos.  I don't remember the topic he covered but I knew very quickly he was a conspiracy crank.  And that was that.  I haven't watched him since.  His crackpottery has not troubled me since.

 

Alex Jones is big news today - at least in the places I visit.  He has been banned from Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and Spotify in the last 24 hours.  That's odd.  Why?  Well, each of these sites claim that he has broken the rules by spouting hate or some such.  Uh huh.  So, people voluntarily clicked on his show and were then offended by his crackpottery and demanded that he be banned less they voluntarily click on yet another of his offensive rants.  Okay.  If you find him offensive, don't go to his site.  Ah, but that isn't the problem.  Others go to his site and the would-be censor can prevent them from accessing Jones by lodging complaints.  It's a variant of the denial of service attack.

 

This is a bad precedent.  It is the most recent bad precedent in a string of bad precedents.  Too many have accepted the idea that it is appropriate to obstruct the speech of others.  Berkley had a riot to prevent people from hearing Milo.  Speakers on one side of the aisle are heckled or attacked to prevent or at least disrupt their speech.  Free speech is the fundamental principle of a free society, which is why it is listed in the 1st Amendment.

 

Alex Jones is a nut who spouts conspiracy theories and crazy interpretations of current events.  These four social platforms acting in unison like this might be good fodder for a conspiracy theory.

 

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

Thomas Paine

 

They came for Milo Yiannopoulos, and I did not speak out - because I was not a homosexual.  Then they came for Alex Jones, and I did not speak out - because I was not a crank.  Then they came for me...

Ignorant by Design

Americans don't know their rights and that's no accident.  A recent survey showed that 40% of respondents could not identify even one freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.  Ignorant people are more easily led, misled, or cheated.  If you know nothing about cars, an unscrupulous mechanic will sell you blinker fluid.  If you know nothing of economics, you might be convinced that a $15 minimum wage won't lead to higher unemployment.  If you know nothing of the Constitution, you might accept that Freedom of Speech can be limited when it is 'hate' speech.

 

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people

John Adams

 

Educate and inform the whole mass of people.  They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of liberty.

Thomas Jefferson

 

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

George Orwell

 

Ignorant people can be easily molded.  An astonishing number of young people have embraced socialism, utterly oblivious that it always fails and leads to mass poverty like we see in Venezuela.  The government education system has gutted history and civics.  This survey shows the level of 'success' that has been achieved in producing misinformed citizens who don't know they are being taken for a ride.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Ethan (Tom Cruise), Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) are out to purchase plutonium before terrorists can get it.  However, the mission goes bad and Ethan risks the plutonium to save Luther.  Though he saves Luther, the plutonium is in the wind.  Though they have a backup plan, CIA demands to have an agent along.  August Walker (Henry Cavill) is a CIA assassin who does not play well with others.  The new plan is to get the plutonium before Solomon Lane's (Sean Harris) - main villain from Rogue Nation - network gets it; the plan requires freeing Lane from French custody.

 

The movie is a long action romp that demonstrates Tom Cruise's athleticism and willingness to perform stunts.  He flies a helicopter, jumps out of a plane, rides a motorcycle against traffic, and leaps from roof to roof (during which he broke his ankle and delayed the film).  Tom isn't the only one to have an action-packed adventure.  Simon Pegg is more hands on than in previous films.  Rebecca Ferguson also returns from Rogue Nation and she is both adversary and ally.  Henry Cavill has a complex role that is similar to Ferguson - adversary and ally, which shows more range in his acting than his Superman gig.

 

Fallout is non-stop and surprisingly good story-telling.  Though it is two and a half hours long, the time goes quickly.  The pacing is excellent and it has no slow parts.  Well made film.  Go see it.

 

Preacher - Season 1

In Annville, Texas, Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) is the son of a preacher who has, after a life of crime, taken up his father's profession.  He is not very good at it.  In fact, he is inclined to quit.  His former girl friend, Tulip (Ruth Negga), wants him to join her on a quest for vengeance.  Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) is a vampire who fell out of a plane and ended up as a handyman in the church.  Meanwhile, something has arrived on earth and tried to inhabit religious leaders.  Every leader so inhabited has exploded, including Scientology's Tom Cruise!  The night before his final sermon, Jesse is drunk in the church when the strange force enters him.  As he is both criminal and holy man, he does not explode.  Genesis, as it is called, is the offspring of an angel and a demon and grants Jesse the power to command.  If Jesse says jump, you jump.  He's like Kilgrave from Jessica Jones, only not evil.  Well, only half evil.  It gets interesting when two angels arrive to reclaim Genesis.

 

Preacher is a strange mash up of genres.  There is horror (with SO much blood), crime, drama, and paranormal.  There is also plenty of dark comedy.  The local villain is Odin Quincannon (Jackie Earle Haley), owner of Quincannon Meat & Power.  He runs a packing house that also powers the town with methane from cow dung.  There is also a historical tale that intersperses the first season.  A laconic and imposing man in the 1880s rides to a town located in the same place as Annville and bad things happen.  How that ties to the current storyline is not explained until the season finale.  Wow.  Certainly entertaining.  Thumbs up.

 

What Law Did He Adjudicate?

District Judge John Bates has ordered the government to restart the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  The DACA law was never passed.  Congress declined to pass the DREAM Act so President Obama issued an executive order for the government to enforce immigration laws as if Congress had passed a watered-down DREAM Act.  Let us ignore the legality of the president enforcing a law that was not passed and accept that the executive order was a temporary workaround.  However, executive orders are entirely under the discretion of the sitting president.  Obama countermanded many Bush executive orders and Trump can do the same with Obama's executive orders.  The president is not bound by the executive actions of his predecessors.  There is no law for a judge to rule upon.  He is ruling upon discretion that is completely in the hands of the executive branch.  Unless Congress has passed a law that changed the discretion since Obama implemented DACA, the court has no role if Trump used that same discretion to eliminate the program.  This is obviously judicial overreach and will clearly be overturned on appeal.  This is judicial activism.

Turn Off the Robot

Here is an interesting study about turning off robots.  When the robot begged to not be turned off, humans hesitated or even complied with the robot.  Does this bode ill for the future?  Probably not.  As robots become more common and people become familiar with how they operate, this experiment will likely flip.  Turning off a robot will become no more unusual than turning off the TV or a computer.  If only the folks at Westworld could have installed an off switch...

Westworld - Season 2

At the end of last season, the hosts had achieved sentience and were now rampaging.  The second season picks up from there and continues the multiple timelines to confuse the narrative.  Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) is searching for her father and also out to destroy humanity.  Bernard (Jeffery Wright) is suffering dementia, not sure what side he is on.  Maeve (Thandie Newton) is trying to reconnect with her daughter and discovering how to mind control any host near her.  The Man in Black (Ed Harris) has no idea what he is doing but is quite determined to get it done.  Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) is dead but is still a ghost in the machine.

The big problem with the series is that our 'heroes' are robots.  Moreover, it is repeatedly demonstrated that they are reprogrammable robots.  Maeve becomes a genius because she moves a slider on her attributes page.  Teddy (James Marsden) is turned into a cold-blooded killer by altering a different set of sliders.  Hosts only have memories because the programmers at Westworld are too stupid to clear the cache files.  They have hundreds of unusable robots in the basement because they can't figure out how to put in a new hard drive or reinstall the operating system.

 

A second major problem is that humans are evil or stupid, often both.  In order to make the audience root for the robots, it becomes necessary to paint humanity as villainous.  Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) gladly murders people if they stand in her way.  Robert Ford did the same last season.  If they aren't evil, they are stupid.  Simon (Lee Sizemore) offers to provide a rearguard so that robot Maeve can rejoin her robot daughter, thus following the programming that Simon wrote.  Simon walks into gunfire while spouting idiotic lines that he wrote for one of the hosts.  Look how much he has grown over the two series: from miserable jerk to a man who will sacrifice himself for a glorified toaster.

 

Next, why don't the humans have guns that will kill hosts?  It's like the guys in Jurassic World who didn't have guns that could kill dinosaurs.  You are here to fight the robots but didn't bring weapons that make you vastly superior to the robots?  Again, humans are just stupid.

 

When the human-robot war comes, I plan to be on the human side.  Westworld is on the robots' side.  As such, not particularly eager to see season three.

Desperately Looking for Racism

Here is a story of a man who walked the streets of New York with a shirt the resembled the Redskins logo but was instead the profile of a white man.  The faux team was the Caucasians.  That's funny.  I would laugh at that.  Certainly not offended by it.  Of note, the story is entirely self-reported.  The journalist takes his word for everything.  Sure, an old lady said it was disrespectful and a white guy called him an a--hole when he realized it wasn't a Redskins logo.  That is obviously the reaction Mr. Joseph wanted and that is the reaction he reports to Yahoo News.  And they parrot it without any skepticism.  Hmm.

By contrast, when a woman wanted to demonstrate that she was 'harassed' while walking down the street, she had it all on film.  Mr. Joseph should try his 'experiment' again and have a similar camera setup.  I am doubtful that his reported interactions would repeat.  Also, there would probably be a lot of laughs.  Checking the comments, it seems the majority had exactly my take on the story.

Speaking of the Redskins controversy, the team is not named that to be insulting or privileged.  Barring the rare exceptions (e.g. UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, UC Irvine Anteaters), team names are chosen for being fierce (e.g. Lions, Bengals, Bears), or cool (e.g. Cowboys, Patriots, Buccaneers), or representative of local industry (e.g. Oilers, Packers, Steelers), and so forth.  Serious teams aren't named the Village Idiots, the Dolts, the Weaklings, etc.  No one wants a name that will provoke scorn or disrespect.  Should I be offended by the Boston Celtics or the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame?

 

Thought experiment: What if there was exactly one incident of overt racism every day and that one incident led the news that night.  Would that give an accurate picture of the level of racism in our society?  On the one hand, racist incidents are in the news every night but on the other hand there is only 1 incident a day in a country of 320 million people.  How we see the world is shaped and molded by the editorial decisions of a relatively small number of people.