Navel Gazing Jerkily

Conditions: Cloudy.


Let The Exercise In Pointlessness Begin

Not content with ushering through a radical reforming of health care in America this week, President Obama has also made strides in a diplomatic agreement with Russia regarding Nuclear Weapons reductions.

Flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Obama said he was pleased to announce that "the United States and Russia have agreed to the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades."

The new treaty, which lasts ten years, will reduce the limit on deployed strategic nuclear warheads by more than 25 percent, and on launchers by half. It will also reestablish an inspection and verification regime that expired in December. Each nation will have to make its stockpile cuts within seven years after the treaty is ratified.
[...]

Though the pact recognizes Moscow's strong opposition to US plans to set up missile defenses in Europe, it does not restrict the United States from building such bases. Instead, the two nations have each drafted nonbinding statements outlining their positions on missile defense.

In its statement, Russia said that it reserved the right to use the withdrawal clause, available to both parties, if it decided the American missile defense plans threatened its security.

- truthout.org/

And the missile defense disagreements still overshadows everything.

Well this is all nice and good, but a 25 percent reduction in deployed missiles is not 100 percent, and it's never going to be. It is a move by America to get Russia to destroy it's missiles to better prevent them falling into terrorist hands, which is kind of insulting to the Russians, but they've signed up for it so what do I know. I just hope we all bear in mind that in no way does any of this have anything to do with getting rid of nuclear weapons, because the genie does not go back into the bottle.



Film Review: Green Zone.

Having seen previous Paul Greengrass movies I knew what to expect and purchased a ticket situated a little further back in the cinema than usual. And sure enough Greengrass brings us yet another shaky cam feast, where no matter what is happening, be it a dialog scene or an action scene, you are guaranteed not to be able to make out half of it thanks to the camera being shaken around as if it's being held by drunken uncle at a wedding. And as a special bonus, Paul has degraded the picture quality as well, so not only can you not tell what's happening, it looks as if it's coming in on that old television in the garage with the broken aerial. How charming.

It's a double pity this time because the film itself is pretty good. Matt Damon stars as a soldier tasked with charging around post-invasion Iraq looking for WMD's, and gradually figuring out that there's none to be found, and so trips over the big conspiracy that set the war up in the first place, and pits him against powerful forces who want the truth swept under the carpet.

This is heady stuff, and it's dragged out through an authentic-feeling fog of war that blanketed Baghdad in 2003. As with all Iraq movies, it will leave you feeling frustrated and angry, because of course we know the good guys aren't going to win, and the ending will not be a happy one. And that's bad, but you have to say everyone in front of the camera is doing a bang-up job regardless. The music is pretty good too, as is the plot. The action sequences are very exciting, and the characters are nicely filled out. It's just such a shame the camerawork is so distracting. Just think what a proper director could have done with this. Three blurs out of Five.


- Peace out.

Want Off The Bus

Conditions: Cold, Some Warmth.

Roll On Freedom Train


Thomas L Friedman has written an op-ed on the anniversary of the Iraq war in which he's considering the voting Iraqis, and how much freedom they're taking for themselves now, and waxing philosophical.

Of all the pictures I saw from the Iraqi elections last weekend, my favorite was on nytimes.com: an Iraqi expatriate mother, voting in Michigan, holding up her son to let him stuff her ballot into the box. I loved that picture. Being able to freely cast a ballot for the candidate of your choice is still unusual for Iraqis and for that entire region. That mother seemed to be saying: When I was a child, I never got to vote. I want to live in a world where my child will always be able to.

God bless her. This was a very good day for Iraq.

Now I can agree that the voting process is indeed a good thing in Iraq, no problem with that. But of course we can't just leave things there, can we. No of course not.

Former President George W. Bush’s gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution. This war has been extraordinarily painful and costly. But democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq, which has never known any such thing.

Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs. Historians will sort that out. Personally, at this stage, I only care about one thing: that the outcome in Iraq be positive enough and forward-looking enough that those who have actually paid the price — in lost loved ones or injured bodies, in broken homes or broken lives, be they Iraqis or Americans or Brits — see Iraq evolve into something that will enable them to say that whatever the cost, it has given freedom and decent government to people who had none.

- nytimes.com/

See the most dangerous part in that sentence is the phrase "whatever the cost", as if no matter how many died, that as long as the survivors are freely democratic then "it" was worth it. It doesn't really take a lot of imagination to wonder where that kind of attitude can lead us. Frankly it's the exact same kind of attitude that lead us into this God-awful situation in the first place, hundreds of thousands are dead, countless more are injured, lives torn apart, infrastructures destroyed, and who really knows what the future implications will be. It's a strong indicator that despite it all, despite it all, some still *somehow* just haven't learnt the damn lesson, and so will never learn the lesson, and so will always believe that there is one pure right way to live, and that anyone who is not living that one right way is wrong, and must be "helped" into conforming. No matter the cost.

This is one of those moments where one's faith in the human species and our grand civilisation just kind of crumbles away, and the hard-edged reality gleams through from underneath. We really aren't going to learn, are we? We really are just going to do all this again, a few decades or so down the line, aren't we?




Film Review: Law Abiding Citizen

You know, films can be so frustrating sometimes. Films that come along that have a great premise, top actors, a good budget, and yet somehow manage to be less than the sum of their parts. Like this film, for example. On paper this promises to be brilliant stuff. Gerard Butler plays a father who takes revenge on the entire American legal system after the thug who kills his family in front of him is given a light sentence as part of a deal with hot shot prosecutor Jamie Foxx. It's a very familiar scenario to those of us who watch Law & Order, where a prosecutor has to make deals with murderers to get some kind of justice.

Denied true justice for so heinous a crime, Gerard then plans an elaborate revenge against not just the bad guys but also the entire legal system, a revenge that escalates even as he's put into jail. The plot is a cracker, but unfortunately the execution has not been carried out as well it might have. There are many places, and moments where they could have pushed things a little more, gotten some more from the actors, turned up the music a little louder, made the camera move a little more, really wring out the tension and the drama that's bubbling away beneath the surface here. Gerard's in his element as a brilliant engineer twisted by his need for revenge and desire to bring the system down. Jamie Foxx can do stylish hotshot lawyer with one arm tied behind his back, but what we really needed was a better sense of anguish as he sees this man start undermining his career, and his life, all with a demented grin on his face.

A final confrontation between the two is provided, but somehow the heat has come out of it, like a kettle taken off the boil. And while the conclusion itself is somewhat satisfying, it too is not fully explored, and it's frustrating seeing how good this film could have been if the director had just pushed things a little more, had wrung some more out of this than what we end up with. Three and a half fake mustaches out of Five.


- Peace out.

Let's Go To The Movies!

Conditions: Warm, Cold, Rainy, Fine, Bah.

Film Review: Shutter Island

It feels like about the tenth time DiCaprio has teamed up with Martin Scorsese, and it's easy enough to see why they like working together. Scorsese's films seem to work better with the kind of intensity DiCaprio can bring to a role. Shutter Island is however a bit different, in that it's about a couple of federal agents investigating an Insane Asylum that's rumored to be carrying out experiments on it's patients.

Set in the 50's, DiCaprio plays a Fed who is haunted by his experiences as a soldier in WW2, and damaged by memories of a woman who killed her three children. But as the film develops we realize that there's a lot more going on, and that the truth is a lot more awful than we thought. Of course there's a big gothic storm, and a big gothic building, and big gothic doctors with their big gothic needles in concert with a big gothic soundtrack. And thrown into the mix are the flashbacks DiCaprio keeps having about being part of the American division of troops that first reached the Dachau concentration camp near the end of WW2. There's other flashbacks concerning his deceased wife trying to help him out. Or, is she?

It's a strong film, very dark and, well, gothic and fundamental. Ben Kingsley is in good form as the slightly odd head doctor, and Mark Ruffalo does a good job playing the partner. But the key is the big twist ending, that I won't spoil. It's a good twist, one that I feel the film legitimately earns, and of course changes everything we've seen. But in that twist any hope for redemption or a happy ending is completely lost, leaving the audience on a bit of a downer. And with a twist of this nature, there is a plot hole or two in how things shake out, and at some points you get the feeling Scorsese is trying a little too hard. But for the most part the atmosphere and the actors make things hum along nicely. Three pills out of Five.



Film Review: 9

In what could best be described as Wall-E meets Terminator, 9 tells the tale of humanity, in fact all life on earth, being wiped out following a war against artificially intelligent machines. Long afterward, amid the rubble, an odd puppet-like device awakes and begins to explore his surroundings, with the number 9 stenciled onto his back. He is quickly discovered by similar characters, each numbered, and realizes the state the world is in. The machines are still functioning, hunting and destroying anything that moves, and what's worse is a strange small device that could hold the key to defeating the A.I once and for all has gone missing.

These puppet characters, each with their own distinctive personalities and attitudes are then dragged into a desperate struggle to find the device and evade the head A.I machine and it's minions. Ultimately the film is about life, war, sacrifice and spirit. Flawlessly animated, a lot of the visuals are totally stunning, while the characters are distinctive and very authentic.

If there is one flaw in this charming film it is that it feels a little bit rushed, as if we're always in a hurry to get to the next sequence. The action sequences are amazing, but just as important are the character moments and the specter of a wasted world, full of junk. The ultimate message is one of hope amid hopelessness and the ever present threat of dehumanization in the face of technology. That it uses these strange little mechanized puppets to so strongly tell such a human story is a remarkable feat. Four springs out of Five.



- Peace out