Born to be kings

Conditions: Sunny, cool.


The other Guantanamo

Article from the New Republic spotlights a detention facility in Afghanistan that perhaps is even more grisly that the one in Cuba, but unlike that one has managed to stay under the radar:

From the start, the processing of prisoners entailed some grisly practices. When Captain Carolyn Wood assumed control of the prison in the summer of 2002--she ran it until taking over Abu Ghraib a year later--interrogation tactics came to include beatings, anal violation with sharp objects, blows to the genitals, and "peroneal" strikes (an incapacitating blow to the leg with a baton, a knee, or a shin). We know about these tactics because an internal Army investigation into two prisoner deaths was obtained by The New York Times. These detainees--a 22-year-old taxi driver and the brother of a Taliban commander--were found dead and hanging from the wrists by shackles. A coroner's report said the two men died after being subjected to dozens of peroneal strikes. According to the coroner's report, the "pulpified" legs of one of the corpses looked as if they had "been run over by a bus."
[...]

the Pentagon has implicitly conceded that the prison no longer serves its initial short-term purpose, changing its name from Bagram Collection Point to the Bagram Theater Internment Facility.

During this transformation, some of the worst abuses at Bagram, such as anal violations and beatings, have been curbed, according to former detainees, the Afghan Human Rights Commission, and Human Rights Watch.
[...]

But, for all these changes, the growing detainee population still lives in overcrowded cages. Prisoners don't even have the limited access to lawyers available to prisoners in Guantánamo. Nor do they have the right to Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which Guantánamo detainees won in the 2004 Supreme Court ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. Instead, if a combat commander chooses, he can convene an Enemy Combatant Review Board (ecrb), at which the detainee has no right to a personal advocate, no chance to speak in his own defense, and no opportunity to review the evidence against him. The detainee isn't even allowed to attend. And, thanks to such limited access to justice, many former detainees say they have no idea why they were either detained or released.

God debate

Finally, the existence of God is to be proven on Wednesday next week, at least according to actor Kirk Cameron and author Ray Comfort, who are taking part in an online debate at ABC.com against two atheists. Article here.

Comfort, who says he can prove God exists scientifically, said ABC originally offered him four minutes to present his case. After conferring with Cameron and the atheists, the time was raised to 13 minutes.

I can't wait to see what the proof is. Maybe Kirk will blindfold himself and throw 13 bibles at Ray's head, baseball style. Who's on first?!



The Quickening!!

Believe it or not, but the giant summer movie action boom! blockbuster go movie, er, season is upon us. So let's use the time remaining to anticipate what treats, or horrors, are about to descend upon us.

SpiderMan 3
Amid the controversy over the 300+ million dollar budget rumours, which if true is going to be seriously difficult for James 'King of the World' Cameron to top in a few years when he returns, the word is the film is more talky than audiences were expecting. Personally I've no time for Spiderman, he's an annoying introverted adolescent who flits around New York like, well, Superman. And look how well that turned out. Too much whining, not enough drama. Too much drama, not enough action. Too much CGI, not enough humans.


Pirates of the Caribbean 3
I remember reading years ago about how they were shooting both this film and Pirates 2 at the same time in order to keep costs down, despite the semi-important point that they didn't yet have a script for Pirates 3. Word is now that the thing is over three hours long. I just can't see how they can drag out a story with these characters for that length of time and still make it interesting. I thought the first film was good, the second not so much (too long and muddled), and I'm sort of dreading the third at this point, though at least Geoffrey Rush is back "on board." Har.


Shrek 3
Oy. Here's a really good idea for a film, that's now been dragged out round the block way too many times. I loathed the second film. It was awful. All the adventure, style and snark of the first film were gone, replaced by a desperate need to pad out the running time with musicals, real-world references and special guests. Shrek only worked because it was a quite brilliant re-interpretation of a fairy tale. This new one is apparently about inheriting the crown and dealing with coups. What fun.


Ocean's 13
Oy again. All we have are sequels to disapointing sequels. Ocean's 12 sucked. Everything that worked in the first film was discarded for the second - the actual heist is done somewhere else entirely, the finale relies on a really bad in-joke, and it turns out everyone is in on it execpt the audience. Gotcha? How about 'screw this'? So far it's really difficult to know what the plot of the new one is, although it looks like Andy Garcia is now part of the team, and Al Pacino's the bad guy. Yeah. Well there's no denying the cast they have for these films, at least.


Transformers.
Aka the little engine that could. Michael Bay's Pearl Harbour wasn't great, it was a bit too-long and a bit too overly-melodramatic, but The Island was pretty good. In fact, against all odds Bay seems to be improving as a filmmaker with every film he makes, calming down his shots and getting more meat out of the stories, while still making the exciting parts very, very exciting. And then word came down that he was helming the big-budget Transformers movie. Initial reaction was along the lines of 'I guess he doesn't care anymore', but damn me if the trailers so far have actually looked really good. Of course we all know judging a film by a trailer is stupid, but I'm surprised to find myself actually looking forward to this, what should be a numbingly stupid kids movie about robots fighting.


Die Hard 3
Or, Hell Freezes Over. This one is all over the place. The script was about computer hackers trying to take down Washington. That's bad. Then Len 'Underworld' Wiseman was tapped to direct. That's good. Then they teamed Willis with some kid as his sidekick. That's bad. Then they released the teaser, which is full of things exploding really nicely. That's good. Now there's a rumour the film will be cut for a PG rating. That's bad. Awfully bad. Terribly bad. Crimes against humanity bad.


Evan Almighty
I only mention this because at $175 million, it's the most expensive comedy ever made. The sequel to Bruce Almighty, it stars Steve Carell, who has to build an ark because God (Morgan Freeman again) tells him another flood is on the way.


The Bourne Ultimatum
As with all the Bourne films, this one looks good. Matt Damon has really found a great role for himself. But as with the last Bourne film, director Paul Greengrass will likely spoil the excellent action scenes by shaking the camera around so much that the audience can't tell what's happening on screen. Most. Frustrating. Thing. Ever.


Ratatouille
You should never dismiss Pixar, even if the pitch is about a rat who wants to be a chef and so travels to France and gets chased around snooty French kitchens. But it's Pixar. Who knew a film about a fish trying to find his son could end up being the feel-good film of the year?


Fantastic Four 2
The first film feels weak to me. It's superhero lite, as opposed to Batman or Blade, or X-Men or even (sigh) Spiderman. The promise is that the second ups the ante, increases the amount of bad guys running around, makes everything more exciting. But I am skeptical. I mean, the bad guy is some silver dude who comes from space and swoops around on a surfboard? The hell?



The Simpsons Movie.
Yes, well, assuming everyone is intrigued enough to leave their televisions and actually pay to see the Simpsons, I actually have a good feeling about this. The plot apparently revolves around the Simpson patriarch being forced to save the world from a disaster he unwittingly created. So no surprises there, but the trailer makes it look good. - Which are famous last words. But these guys have been working on this for like 13 years, I have to think they're going to have this cranked up as fast and as punchy as the Simpsons used to be.



That's enough. As one can see, it's sequel city. But I suspect the Hollywood accountants may be in for a bit of a shock once the dust settles. A lot of these new sequels are actually sequels to movies I think weren't very good. Because while a bad sequel might still make a LOT of money due to people liking the first film so much, a sequel to a bad sequel will make much LESS money than it should because of how bad the first sequel was. It's a 'sins visited upon the son' kind of thing.



Roadkill

I came this close to killing some one the other day. With my car, of all things. Some idiot decides to cross the road in front of me while I'm looking the other way at an intersection. I turn back in time to see a blur go past the right front corner. Here's a tip: If I can't see you, I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. I'm not psychic, and you're not bulletproof, so stay off the freaking road.



Film Review: Shooter

I think we can agree that Mark Whalberg is a pretty talented actor. Furthermore, I think we can agree that Antoine Fuqua is a pretty talented director. Therefore I find it difficult to understand how a film with a cracking premise, a fine actor, and a good director, can be as inactive and lifeless as this. The trailer, if you saw it, promised an intense exciting thriller. Surprisingly, this is not so. All the ingredients are there, a plot about a sniper who gets set up by bad guys to take the fall for a political assassination. Of course he escapes and has to figure out what's going on. But the mix is severely lacking in spice. It's essentially an undercooked Commando, played serious instead of the enjoyable over-the-top.

Here's how distracted I became by watching this: I actually started thinking about what Arnold Schwarzenegger would have brought to this film. A larger than life character can make even the dreariest dialogue-heavy scene spring to life. Sadly, this is a something Whalberg does not do. His character, "Jack", is a quiet, softly spoken kind of guy who doesn't say much, and rarely speaks. Also, he's not much for the talking. Perhaps this deficit is taken up by a humourous sidekick, or a scene-eating, moustache-twirling bad guy? No. The sidekick is played as a guy who's having his first day on the job, and the bad guy (Danny Glover!) hardly does anything at all. He stands around and talks. Quietly. The big finale is oddly paced, and somewhat unsatisfying, and then the movie ends. They're trying for a 'power corrupts, and politicians suck' kind of deal, but we already knew that. Sam deserved better. Two bullet holes out of five.



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