Just Like Billy Cole

Conditions: Bottom of the Ninth

Iran Nuke Deal Back Off Again

Amid the discussions taking place over the nuclear deal with Iran, there was an unwelcome bump in the road as the Americans made an announcement

Iranian diplomats involved in nuclear talks with six world powers in Vienna interrupted the discussions on Friday after the United States announced an expanded list of companies and individuals whose trading activities it would try to block for evading sanctions against Iran. The Iranians, suggesting that they needed to consult with officials in Tehran, responded angrily to what the Obama administration characterized as enforcement actions.

- nytimes.com/

Sigh. Enforcement actions? While in the middle of tentative negotiations that would negate the need for the damned enforcement in the first place? You’ve got to wonder sometimes if it really is just monumental incompetence, or some kind of grim malice, cut with incompetence, that keeps tripping us up every time we try to take a step forward.



Film Review: Enders Game

Ender refers to Ender Wiggins, a bright young lad who is enrolled at a big military academy presided over by Admiral Graff (Harrison Ford) (!!), whose goal is to find a great military leader who will lead us to victory over a vast alien menace. See at a certain point in the future the Earth is attacked by an alien fleet, and after a great many deaths we were finally able to defeat them – thanks to a legendary commander. Ever since then the military has been obsessed with finding a new commander who will be able to effectively take command of the military with the right mix of tactics and aggression, presumably should the aliens ever return for round two. Since children are a lot better at adapting and processing large amounts of information and dealing with new fangled gadgets than adults, the military has decided to focus on kids – all being ruthlessly trained in the arts of space warfare. The film is basically about finding out if Ender’s got the right stuff, pushing him to become a great ruthless military leader, and then turning him loose on the alien home-world.

Although it could have been a gung-ho series of military cliches, the film stays focused on how this Ender kid thinks, adapts and moves up the chain of command as he is shuffled through the various off world training installations. Overseen by Harrison Ford and Viola Davis, with a final assist by Ben Kingsley, there’s questions about Ender having a temper problem and being pushed too hard, along with the overall implications of sending gifted children off to an orbital battlestation in order to train ceaselessly for war. There’s some quiet satirical stuff going on, which does eventually pay off at the end. Ford in particular is a real hardass here, not giving a damn about Enders emotional issues, and enjoying every little victory and every sign of ruthlessness Ender shows. In fact this is the most engaged I’ve seen Harrison be in a film for a long while, and it’s terrific to have him back. Eventually we move to phase two, which is final simulation training, ready to take on the alien fleet. There’s a big twist in how this develops which leads to a drastic tonal change in the story, and a welcome expansion of the world that being built by this film.

The only real problem I have is that we have no idea at all who the aliens are and what they’re like. This is an issue Ender himself brings up on a couple of occasions, and actually becomes the theme of the film, that so much has been done and is being doing to fight this future war and yet we have no idea who the “they” are. The other issue is the pace of the movie: it is breakneck, charging flat out all the way through without a pause or a moment to breathe. Given the scale of the film, and the interesting themes therein, it is odd for it to not have an actual moment to contemplate. Despite this however, it’s an impressive film. All the actors come across very well, the direction is excellent, the special effects are superb and the music is really fantastic. It ends pretty strongly too, with some big moral questions being raised about how you win being just as important as the winning itself. I don’t know if there is a potential for a sequel here, but this was a surprisingly good space epic. Four sacrificed transports out of five.



- Peace out