Movies I’ve Seen — No. 21 — Ratatouille — brad bird, pixar
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land And don’t criticize what you can’t understand Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command Your old road is rapidly aging Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand For the times, they are a changin’
Peter, Paul & Mary are hard to beat.
You can see it in that performance of “Early in the Morning,” but Mary Travers’ power really comes through in this clip of “If I Had a Hammer.”
It’s no wonder the camera spends most of the song focused in tight on her face. She’s a gorgeous blonde, of course, but more than that, she’s a powerhouse of confidence and vitality, which electrifies her physical beauty tenfold. And the voice, of course, pushing aside Yarrow’s weaker tenor. By the time they hit the final verse (1:30), she’s absolutely beaming with strength and joy and power and vamping sexuality.
Even focusing on the music itself, I’m struck too by the vigor, the urgency of these performances. Born at least a decade after their heyday, I met them, with John Denver, Anne Murray, Jim Croce, et al., as my mother’s easy listening music, played on Sundays while I was supposed to be dusting the living room. Even later, as I picked up a greatest hits album for my own collection, PP&M seemed mostly about the soaring harmonies.
But as with Croce, as I’ve discovered, it isn’t all pretty melodies. A lot of this is hard-driving, up-tempo, rhythmic stuff, ripped through in 2 minutes or less. The acoustic guitar work is hardly virtuoso, but it chug-a-chugs like a train, to borrow a metaphor from Johnny Cash. It rocks surprisingly hard.
In summary: Well done, oldie oldsters. I like your music.
Sep
8th
Tue
I don’t follow Virginia football as closely as I once did, so I have little idea whether Al Groh is truly “on the hot seat.” Certainly the media and fans say he is.
My feeling now and my feeling when he was hired is that UVa would need to sacrifice something too dear to be a top-notch football program. I think Groh did a fantastic job his first several years. Those nine-win seasons are about all you can ask for — and it’s very, very hard to make the leap beyond that, for any program.
Without a doubt, the past few years have been a step back. I just hate the fact that however it ends, Groh will have spent most of his tenure “on the hot seat” because of fairweather alumni and national media who don’t understand his program — or in the alums’ case, even understand college football very well.
Elsewhere in Hooville, I’m exhausted by the cycle UVa basketball has been going through in the past 10 years, going from former golden boy Jeff Jones to savior Pete Gillen to savior Dave Leitao to now Tony Bennett.
It’s hard to find a championship head coach. Gotta kiss a lot of frogs. And every team can’t win. Someone’s got to lose the games.
I’m just a little tired of UVa fans and media constantly clamoring for the Cavs to move on to the new guy, like he’s going to be so much better.
Aug
18th
Tue
Jul
9th
Thu
Jun
28th
Sun
Jun
12th
Fri
Good Lord are these Orlando Magic frustrating. At their best, they play beautiful basketball. At their worst, they make me curse the injury gods for depriving the Celtics of so many key players.
Last night down the stretch Orlando did its very best to give away Game 4 — a game that was, from their perspective, a must-win home game. Let’s review, shall we?
Up five in the closing minutes, Rashard Lewis’ game-long struggles continue when he misses a short pull-up jumper that might well have iced the game.
The Lakers, then, get a run-out and Mikael Pietrus doesn’t sprint back, helping Pau Gasol get an open dunk to cut the lead to three.
Rolling to the hoop, Dwight Howard catches the ball high and brings it down to his waist, allowing the deceptively strong Kobe Bryant to wrap him up instead of getting an easy dunk and potential three-point play.
Howard makes it a no-point play by missing both free throws. Either one would have pushed the lead to four points with 11 seconds left and all but clinched the game.
Up three as the Lakers bring the ball the length of the court, Orlando doesn’t come close to fouling to preempt a potential tying 3-pointer.
Jameer Nelson, tonight’s beneficiary of Stan Van Gundy’s bizarrely malleable rotation, sags several feet off the 3-point line as Derek Fisher crosses half-court, allowing the Lakers veteran space to tie the score with a 3-pointer. (Derek Fisher: Right place, right time, yet again. What an oddly celebrated player. These days he’s not even league-average.)
Left with time for a final play, Orlando manages to get the ball not to inbounder Hedo Turkoglu or Lewis in the corner or Howard down low, but to Pietrus, who unsurprisingly can’t create anything but a long and sadly off-target leaner as the regulation buzzer sounds.
Sigh.
Jun
11th
Thu
Sullivan astutely taps MLK in explaining the Fierce Urgency of Now as regards gay marriage:
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
“It’s a hard time to make a buck in journalism today. Circulation and ratings are down. People are getting news online for free. Our benefactors in the auto industry are going through bankruptcy. We’re praying that people will pay $359 and up for a gadget from Amazon so they can pay even more to read the publications they’re not paying for now.”
May
31st
Sun
Reason No. 3,488 why I can’t stand most people who talk on television for a living …
Not two minutes into Saturday night’s Magic-Cavs game, TNT play-by-play man Marv Albert mentioned Dwight Howard’s foul trouble in recent games, sparking this exchange with broadcast partner Reggie Miller:
REGGIE: How the officials officiate Dwight Howard is going to be key in this game. He can’t be dumb and pick up silly fouls, especially if LeBron James is going to be attacking him in that pick-and-roll situation. He’s going to have to learn sometimes to let LeBron or whoever else — sometimes it’s okay to give them an occasional two. You can’t block and contest everything.
MARV: And at the other end, Stan Van Gundy concerned that Dwight has been a bit tentative on some possessions because he’s afraid of picking up early fouls — and he has fouled out on three occasions.
REGGIE: Well, you can’t worry about picking up fouls. If it’s in your nature to be aggressive defensively, then you’ve got to play that way.
And then my head asplode.
But truly, TV networks don’t care as long as Reggie stays famous (for his playing career), looks handsome and speaks in clear, complete sentences. They’re devoid of any rational thought or cogent analysis — and sometimes they’re batshit insane — but that doesn’t matter.
Doug Collins, I’m coming for you next. Why can’t Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy call every game?
We are still in a “war” against a method of violence, which means there is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and imprison anyone they determine to be “the enemy” forever.
—snip
There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or capture and then the “war” will be over and the babies will always be safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.
May
14th
Thu
Hip-hop ain’t dead cuz the pulse is in us I got the Everclear flow, they mimosa with it We are the hope of the culture, they ‘posed to listen And I’m ‘posed to pivot like I’m a forward in the league, I’m Oden with it Yet don’t owe them niggas nothing but potent lyrics But if you ain’t got the dance they revoke your spinning So good rappers ain’t eating, they Olsen twinning
