RobertR

Frankly, I think you're not giving Keanu enough credit. Far from a great actor, but I'd put him as a net plus in the Bill and Ted movies, Parenthood, Speed, and The Matrix. That's more than I can say for Worthington, although maybe Clash of the Titans will change my mind. So far, I'd say he's no better than Vin Diesel. Robert

No, I don't consider Lance Henrickson, Biehn, Paxton, or Hamilton great actors either. But they're not blocks of wood or ciphers either. And, of course, Arnold isn't a great actor, but he is charismatic. But Kate, Leo, Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Jamie Lee Curtis, and, of course, Sigourney Weaver in a lead role are better than the leads in this movie. Gloria Stuart and Kathy Bates too. Zoe Saldana does hold her own, but Sam Worthington really brought nothing to the role. He's probably the worst central performance in a Cameron movie since Eddie Furlong. But even in the supporting roles, Paul Reiser was a memorable corporate weasel in Aliens. The corporate weasel in Avatar is unmemorable. There's no reason with just a little care and attention that the human side of the equation couldn't have been significantly better. Heck, Cameron has done better with similar characters in the past. Cameron is a skillful technical director, but he's starting to resemble George Lucas. And not the George Lucas of American Graffitti. Robert

I have to say that I think Joe Morgan is among the least of ESPN's problems. Yeah, he's bad, but being a bad color commentator isn't the end of the world. Heck, you want bad commentary, see Dick Vitale at the NBA draft shows. The screaming heads, corporate cross promoting, ignoring stories from smaller markets, rolling over whenever the leagues squawk, pushing catch phrases and personalities at the expense of reporting, rampant product placement, and general hypocrisy are ESPN's problems. Bob Ley's Outside the Lines is about the only thing with depth they have going for them outside of the events themselves. Robert

I saw it this weekend. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I'll go with the concensus and wish that Cameron had spent as much attention and care on the human side of things as he did on the Pandora side. And I really hated the video diaries and narration which told us how he was conflicted, etc. instead of showing us that. Then again, I suspect that Sam Worthington simply isn't that good an actor. Certainly not up to the quality of actor that Cameron had worked with prior. But it is a marvel of spectacle and imagery. And it's probably taken for granted that everyone has seen Dances With Wolves, which I'll bet isn't true for the vast majority of the audience. Particularly the teenage audience. Robert

To me, I don't think the "I'd still do her" is what Kornheiser is getting at. I think it goes no farther than, she's dressed like a streetwalker. Which probably is over the line, but I don't think Tony actually thinks or wanted to imply that Hannah Storm is the equivalent of a streetwalker, only that she dressed poorly. Robert

Catching up. Finally got around to watching The Reader. I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole thing, although I think it picks up quite a bit once Ralph Fiennes becomes the focus. Kate Winslet is very good, but the whole thing seems to be trying to do too much with ideas on the shame of illiteracy, illicit sex, Germany's guilt, how one relationship, however brief, can overshadow one's life, etc. without ever being able to come to one conclusion about anything. Maybe there's a better movie buried in the editing suite, but what made it out is much less than the sum of its parts. A similar reaction to Julie & Julia. I can watch Meryl Streep all day as Julia Child. She and Stanley Tucci have great chemistry together. The film is handsomely shot. Amy Adams does what she can, but Julie Powell is without a doubt one of the least interesting main characters I've ever seen as a subject of a film. What the heck is supposed to be interesting about her? She seems to want to be a famous writer as some sort of affirmation or because of the celebrity status, not because she has anything to say. Or can say it in an interesting manner. There are great movies about food like Tampopo. There are great films about writing. And cooking. This isn't one of them. I've also been rewatching the BBC 50s serials, Quatermass 2 and Quatermass and the Pit. The former is an Invasion of the Body Snatcher's take combined with some good conspiracy theory fodder, aliens are controlling our government!, and is still pretty topical as the issue of "state security" is questioned as the be all and end all. The last episode doesn't hold up very well though. Quatermass and the Pit is the best of the Quatermass stories and holds interest all the way through. Both sci-fi classics. I also watched North Face which is a very solid mountain climbing suspense film. That will be hitting the art theaters soon and likely will be out on DVD this Summer. More on that elsewhere. Robert

Ultimately, it is on the skater. But, the coach confusing him as to which lane he should be in was certainly a contributing factor. If he had told the skater the right lane, it probably never would have happened. So, no, not 100%. Robert

Public criticism of a person's wardrobe isn't sexual harassment. If it is, Joan Rivers is the world champ. The Holden Caufield comment probably is over the line, but frankly this is only an issue because ESPN tried to make it an issue. Robert

I wouldn't call Moore's squid ending cheesy, but then I'm familiar with a lot of the tropes he was playing with. In many ways, Watchmen is Moore transposing EC's genres on superheroes. Crime Suspenstories. Weird Fantasy. Two-Fisted Tales. Piracy. They all have echoes in Watchmen. That said, I don't have much problem with the mechanics of Snyder's ending. I do have a problem with the bloodlessness of it and the fact that by trimming out all the peripheral characters, we have no stake in the characters in Manhattan. I liked The Black Freighter, but it's really designed to work in context of Watchmen more than stand on its own. But it captures Moore's voice better than the movie does and it looks really nice. I haven't seen the Ultimate Cut yet, I tend to be like a shark with movies, always swimming forward rather than repeating, and I'm dubious of how the animation and live action would mix together, but more of the two Bernies is welcome by me. I really would have liked the idea that "The Black Freighter never came" introduced into the movie, for instance. Anyone see The Ultimate Cut and want to comment? I also dug that "Pirate Jenny" plays over the closing credits. I didn't figure out until last year that "The Black Freighter" was a Threepenny Opera reference. Under the Hood is a very well done companion piece. As for the comic itself, it's a masterpiece. At its best, the movie is an advertisement for it. And every time I reread it, I find something new. It's a marvel of form. Heck, the third panel of the book presents an enormous clue right up front. Robert

A curling win! The long national nightmare is over. Robert

1988 continued Best Actor Dustin Hoffman - Rain Man Tom Hanks - Big Gene Hackman - Mississippi Burning Max von Sydow - Pelle the Conqueror Edward James Olmos - Stand and Deliver Other notables: Forest Whitaker - Bird, Tom Hulce - Dominic and Eugene, Robert Downey Jr. - Less than Zero, Willem Defoe - The Last Temptation of Christ, Daniel Day Lewis - The Unbearable Lightness of Being, John Cleese - A Fish Called Wanda, Bob Hoskins - Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Robert Deniro - Midnight Run, William Hurt - The Accidental Tourist, John Malkovich - Dangerous Liaisons My Choice: Tom Hanks - Big Thoughts: Tough to go wrong with just about anybody here. A really deep, well rounded year with great comedic performances right alongside great dramatic performances. I would imagine the Hoffman and Hanks would be nominated again if the balloting were retaken, but you probably could pull the other three out of a hat. Heck, I thought long and hard about Bruce Willis in Die Hard. While it may not technically be great acting, it is a great character and a lot of that owes to it being Bruce Willis. I can't imagine Die Hard working with a Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger in his place. Best Actress Jodie Foster - The Accused Glenn Close - Dangerous Liaisons Meryl Streep - Evil Angels Sigourney Weaver - Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey Melanie Griffith - Working Girl Other notables: Jamie Lee Curtis - A Fish Called Wanda, Susan Sarandon - Bull Durham, Michelle Pfeiffer - Married to the Mob, Amy Irving - Crossing Delancey, Christine Lahti - Running on Empty, Shirley MacLaine - Madame Sousatzka My Choice: Jodie Foster - The Accused Thoughts: I think that ultimately it was a fine choice and Foster really elevates the movie above "movie of the week" material. I suspect that Close and Weaver would be nominated again if balloting were held today. Honestly, I don't recall Evil Angels at all. And I don't believe Working Girl holds up, although undoubtedly it struck a chord at the time. I'd probably substitute Jamie Lee Curtis and Susan Sarandon into the top 5 if I had my druthers. Both terrific comedy performances in a really fine year for comedies. Robert

Is there a genre of film that fails as often to live up to it's description as "romantic comedy"? Many films fail at both. I thought about "science fiction", particularly the "science" part, but decided against it. Robert

Yeah, at this level that's just a terrible choke job. At this point the other teams must just be saying, stay close and let the Americans screw up. Robert

Yeah, if Hardy just keeps his mouth and doesn't make excuses for a crummy year, this wouldn't be an issue. Mind you, I don't believe Doug Melvin for a second that sending Hardy down at that point wasn't at least partially motivated by reclaiming a year of service time. But, it also was motivated by the fact that the Brewers believed that the combination of Counsell and Escobar would be more productive while they were still theoretically in contention. And Counsell and Escobar both outperformed Hardy's season line in August, so Melvin may very well have been right about that. The root cause of Hardy getting sent down was his poor performance last year. If he had performed, he wouldn't have opened the door at all. And, as far as I can tell, the only cause of Hardy's poor performance is J. J. Hardy. Robert

That's true Igor. It's also true that it's rarely news when projects finish at or under budget. But, here's a challenge, what's the last major WDOT project that was over budget? You're not going to find too many, because of how the State's contracts are written. One thing to understand, it's hard to get around an agreed to price once a contract is signed. And if you think a construction contract is easy to work around, you obviously have never worked in the industry. It's why I'm not too impressed that the Marquette came in under budget. I'm impressed that disruptions were minimized and it hit the timetable precisely, but not so much with being under budget. There really are only two ways that a project comes in over budget. One, significant changes in the design as pet projects are added in/Change Orders. If they start adding stations that's a red flag. Two, "differing site conditions" claims. The latter isn't likely to be too prevalent, it's a railroad track in rural areas that already is a railroad track. But, there's potentially some unknown environmental issues that might be encountered, but again much of this runs through rural areas away from human activities in the first place and the odds of there being anything extensive is very low. The other potential issue is the "landbridges" part of the railline through some marshy areas proving to be more extensive. But, they've done quite a bit of geotechnical investigation already and seem relatively conservative in their approach. They probably could save money on the landbridges by doing a few rock corings. (Note: Differing Site Conditions are notorious in tunneling projects as estimating the amount of boulders potentially encountered is educated guesswork at best.) That Norfolk example is an example of both Change Orders and Differing Site Conditions. Obviously, Differing Site Conditions is tough to plan for, you try to do the best investigation you can before hand, but there will be gaps. Change Orders is generally on the government/engineers though. Robert

Now that was a good night of events. Women's downhill lived up to the billing. Spectacular race by Vonn and some edge of your seat racing and crashes. Shani Davis lived up to his billing in speedskating. And what planet is Shaun White from? You didn't need to force human interest stories when the events themselves were that compelling. Robert

May JJ never face real hardship in his life. It's clear he doesn't have the maturity to handle it or to take responsibility for his actions. Stories like that are why I think that the Brewers won't regret trading Hardy too much. Baseball is a game of setbacks and adjustments for hitters and he really hasn't shown much resiliency. Undoubtedly, he'll be better than he showed in 2009, but I don't think he'll be a perennial all star any time soon either. Robert

Yeah, I was very disappointed in that. One of the flat out best events of the Winter Olympics and almost covered as an afterthought. Curling is one of those sports that I've always wanted to try. Looks like fun. I know Wauwatosa has a curling club. Robert

1988 Best Picture Rain Man Dangerous Liaisons Mississippi Burning The Accidental Tourist Working Girl Other Notables: Big, A Fish Called Wanda, Die Hard, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Bull Durham, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey, Beetle Juice, Pelle the Conqueror, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Bird, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, The Accussed, Midnight Run, Running on Empty, Evil Angels My Choice of Nominees: Dangerous Liaisons My Choice Overall: Die Hard Thoughts: We've had discussions in this topic about how some of the nominees have aged, notably Tootsie and Fatal Attraction. Working Girl belongs in that discussion and I have a hard time believing that it would be renominated today. Although it might not be alone. Rain Man is the only one of the nominees that's really lived on in the public consciousness with perhaps Dangerous Liaisons on the edge. You can look at the other notables list and find lots of popular and influential movies. Pixar's Tin Toy won animated short in 1987 and that's had more influence than all the Best Picture nominees combined. 1988 was a really solid year in terms of comedies, certainly in the running for the best. I could have very well thrown in Coming to America to the list. A comedy was chosen to make the Best Picture list, but looking back the Academy could have done better for itself. Heck, Women on the Verge of a Nervous breakdown is notable for not only being a good, funny movie, but Almodovar's breakthrough in America. Have fun figuring out a proper order for the comedies. I have a tough time reconciling my thoughts on Rain Man. I do think it's a good movie, but something always feels phony about it to me. Is Hoffman's performance a portrait of someone unreachable and unchangeable or a serious of actorly tics? Does the Vegas sequence undercut the more serious strains of the film? It was a popular film and I was entertained when I watched it, but it's not something that I think I need to revisit. As I said, of the best picture nominees, Dangerous Liaisons still works for me the best, due to the sharp dialogue, acting, cinematography, and story twists. It's probably worth pointing out that there was definitely some controversy in the air in 1988. The Last Temptation of Christ was particularly controversial, although I think it's reputation has outlasted the controversy. There was also the controversy about Mississippi Burning kind of whitewashing the FBI and relegating real activists to the sidelines. I think that has kind of stuck to the movie. More later. Robert

I can think of no "big name" director less compatible with Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy than Roland Emmerich. Naturally, Emmerich is attached. Aren't there enough big, famous, science fiction novels with action that Emmerich would be a decent fit for? Robert

That's almost too easy. I've only seen 48 of the 82 Best Picture winners, counting 1927's 2 different Best Picture awards, but Crash is certainly in competition for the bottom of what I've seen. Along with The English Patient, pretty, well acted, and a total bore, Chariots of Fire, pretty, well acted, and a total bore other than them running on the beach to Vangelis, and Around the World in 80 Days, one of the most light-weight movies ever to win anything major. While mentioning 1927, I think the first award is instructive to the split the Academy has always encountered. They had 2 awards, Best Picture, Production which went to Wings, a big popular picture with action and big stars and Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production which went to the sublime Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. They combined them shortly thereafter and you can still see the two currents competing at the Oscars. Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker. Star Wars vs. Annie Hall. Rocky vs. Taxi Driver and Network. Robert

Yeah, there's a prequel somewhere out in the internet aether now where I covered 1991 to 1999. Someone with better internet skills than I might be able to find an archive somewhere. Along with the material I wrote on the last Sight and Sound poll. FWIW, you and me both on American Beauty. I just find the whole ending a cop out. I might take Katuluu up on his offer one of these years. Only problem is that I might feel compelled to watch more of the films instead of shooting from the hip on some. I'm certainly going to continue in some fashion though. Maybe do the 70s next, although you might hear me say "The Academy did a good job" quite a few times. OTOH, the Annie Hall vs. Star Wars debate is always fascinating. Or I could do the 00s. I do like looking at things in blocks of time, easier to spot trends, but who knows, maybe I'll do requests. Robert

Wait, NBC is showing the accident on their website? Yeah, stay classy NBC with that snuff film footage of yours. Does anybody have a brain in that organization? Robert

Yeah, I might be misrembering on Sally Kirkland. I know that there were a few years there where networking did matter who who got one of the last nominations though. It's the ending of Fatal Attraction that kind of does it in for me. And perhaps I'm putting too much weight on that. There's no doubt though that Fatal Attraction did strike a nerve that year and if being a snapshot of the year is one of the criteria, then it fits perfectly. Moving on for 1987 Best Supporting Actor Sean Connery - The Untouchables Albert Brooks - Broadcast News Denzel Washington - Cry Freedom Vincent Gardenia - Moonstruck Morgan Freeman - Street Smart Other notables: Robert DeNiro - The Untouchables, R. Lee Ermey - Full Metal Jacket, Ronnie Cox - Robocop, Kurtwood Smith - Robocop My Choice: Sean Connery - The Untouchables Thoughts: It probably would be a three man race if voting were held today between Connery, Washington, and Freeman. And you couldn't go wrong with either. I just love Connery in The Untouchables, even if the accent is off. It doesn't hurt that he has some great lines which he just nails. It may have been a career achievement award, but the performance is good enough that it doesn't matter. There's a great quartet of movie villains that weren't nominated. R. Lee Ermey is a one trick pony as an actor, but that one trick was a show stopper. Best Supporting Actress Olympia Dukakis - Moonstruck Anne Archer - Fatal Attraction Norma Aleandro - Gaby: A True Story Ann Sothern - The Whales of August Anne Ramsey - Throw Momma from the Train Other notables: Vanessa Redgrave - Prick Up Your Ears My Pick: Olympia Dukakis - Moonstruck Thoughts: Pretty weak year. Of what I've seen, Dukakis manages to create the most rounded character of the bunch. Can't say that I feel strongly about the rest. Anybody else have some thoughts on 1987? I have to say that overall it might be the weakest year of the 80s, although I remember 1989 as being also weak. Robert

(Bold text highlighted by me, for obvious reasons.) I have a lot of concerns about whether this rail upgrade will create a long-term cost savings for State/Federal taxpayers (the only measure that matters to me, as a Wisconsin taxpayer), but the possibility of speeding up the trip from the northern Chicago suburbs to Mitchell Airport seems like something that can work in conjunction with private industry. ...plus, it's all inter-modal-ly....which you lefties clearly love. While that's all well and good and part of the overall package, in fairness it should be noted that the Chicago-Milwaukee upgrades are going to cost about $12 million in the total package. I don't think there's much controversy about that part of the plan. Robert