Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Now for something from the lighter side…
Of course it’s in list form, which means we can all disagree with items on it and have some fun doing the disagreeing. My personal favorite disagreement is Brain De Palma’s “The Fury,” which I consider to be an underrated gem. The inclusion of this entry doesn’t even jive with the author’s overall theme; it delivers exactly the big finish that is lacking in the other entries. In fact, without the ending, I never would have taken notice of Fury in the first place.
And he should’ve included this.
But I agree with the rest of it. Especially this…
Seems that in recent years, Spielberg has developed a bad case of anticlimactitis, an alarmingly common affliction among pop-culture artists that causes them to either (a) overstate the themes of the film in case anyone in the audience had missed them (“Minority Report”); (b) chicken out and deliver an unearned feel-good ending (“War of the Worlds”); (c) allow the film to drag on for an additional 45 minutes beyond its organic, satisfying ending and into a protracted, agonized, unconvincing epilogue that turns everything that came before into a pseudo-Freudian nightmare (“AI”); and worst of all (d) take all the artfulness out of a powerful piece of fiction and transform it into a weirdly ritualized, lily-gilding present day with real people doing real things like lighting candles and saluting gravestones, just to underline the film’s nobility (“Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan”). It’s a frustrating trend, one that makes it harder to defend one of cinema’s most maligned directors. It also makes you long for the sight of Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider paddling for shore on the splinters of a blown-up fishing boat, great white shark guts bobbing in their wake. Now that’s an ending.
Freakin’ PERFECT. Took the words right out of my mouth.
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