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Monday Movie Roundup

March 13, 2006 • • 4 Comments

We spent some time catching up on the Netflix and DVR backlog. Here’s what we saw.

Along Came a Spider (2001, Lee Tamahori)

Along Came a Spider was a pretty cool little detective thriller. Morgan Freeman plays an expert profiler who gets pulled into a case involving a teacher who kidnaps one of his students from an elite Washington, DC school for the children of politicians and diplomats. The movie has some nice twists and clever turns. It’s pretty enjoyable, though I’d almost forgotten it by Sunday evening. Three stars.

Open Water (2003, Chris Kentis)

Yikes. I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie this terrifying. It’s an incredibly tight film based on the true story of a vacationing couple who go SCUBA diving only to come up after their boat has headed home leaving them alone on the open ocean. They float in shark-infested waters for most of the film, clinging to one another while writer/director Chris Kentis expertly builds a palpable feeling of isolation. The film is beautiful to watch and yet the events so hopeless and terrifying that you can’t help but feel that you’re floating there with the two lost divers. Four stars.

Walk the Line (2005, James Mangold)

I’ve always liked Johnny Cash, but knew very little about his life. Walk the Line is a very well done biopic that captures the excitement and fun of Cash’s early career as it quickly degrades into a hell of drug addiction, self-loathing and betrayal. The movie focuses on the romance between Cash and June Carter and his struggle to win her heart. Cash’s music sounds as good as ever and the film does a nice job probing behind the music and into those wells of darkness that Cash drew upon to bring that grim and yet somehow hopeful feel to his music. Four stars.

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003, Jim Jarmusch)

We tried. Coffee and Cigarettes appears to be a series of vignettes in which witty verbose people sit in coffee shops, drinking coffee and yes smoking cigarettes while having tedious conversations. It seems to be slices of life, but not the choice cuts as it were. It’s just the sort of movie everyone back in film school might have been into, talking it up in class and then going back to apartments and dorm rooms to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. Stopped after ten minutes. Couldn’t take it.

Buffalo 66 (1998, Vincent Gallo)

This one has to grow on you, but unlike Coffee and Cigarettes it does. The film is about Billy Brown (played by Vincent Gallo who also wrote and directed the film) who upon getting out of jail decides to visit his parents. He told them he’s been working for the government and living a successful life so he kidnaps a girl and forces her to pretend to be his wife in order to complete the illusion for his bizarre parents.

The dialogue can be annoyingly repetitive at times, but eventually I stopped noticing and began to enjoy the quirky storyline. I can even forgive the gigantic plot hole, namely the fact that the kidnapped girl, played by Christina Ricci, never once tries to escape despite the fact that she has plenty of opportunities (and reasons) to do so. I guess her curiosity and pity keep her there. Despite all that, it’s an interesting and well made little indy that has fun with the conventions of film, demostrates a wickedly dark sense of humor and yet manages to bring it all together in a very human and satisfying – if not believable – story without ever once coming off as pretentious. Three and a half stars.

Back to the Future 2 (1989, Robert Zemeckis)

I love Back to the Future. It’s one of those franchises they try to get you to hate when you’re in film school, but they’re fun, amusing movies that no amount of academic arm twisting could make me hate. I mean how can you beat Christopher Lloyd, time travel paradoxes, and mean old Biff tearing up the scenery in his bumbling efforts to tear up Marty McFly? Good Stuff. Three stars.

Weekend Hound Blogging: Dangerous Greyhound?

March 12, 2006 • • 2 Comments

Dangerous Daph

Ok, so Daphne isn’t really a dangerous greyhound. She just likes to gently chew on people when it’s time to play. She’s just a bit mouthy. Like a shark.

Doug petch’s comment-a-thon to help greyhounds continues on this post (it’s a new one, so go over and leave a comment and he’ll donate to a greyhound rescue group) and don’t forget to visit this week’s Carnival of the Dogs and Friday Ark

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Want to make a fast friend by saving a greyhound in Central Texas? Check these pups out. Or go here to find a greyhound near you. You can also go here to find out why greyhounds are running for their lives.

If you have dogs who need proven leadership, go here to find a cat.

Zero

March 9, 2006 • • 3 Comments

I just finished reading a book about nothing. Actually it’s about everything, which is of course the flip side of nothing. More specifically, I’ve been reading Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. The book is an interesting and insightful exploration of the history of this troubling and important number that we so easily take for granted.

Seife traces zero’s roots from a placeholder in the Babylonian number system all the way up to the problems it causes in modern physics whether deep in the gravity wells of black holes or in the subatomic orbits of electrons.

My favorite thing about reading this was the historical aspects of the tale. Zero was considered heresy in early Christian Europe because it represented the void and brought up issues surrounding the infinite, both of which clashed with the Aristotelian theology at the heart of the early church. Without zero, though, European math would be trapped forever within the perimeters of geometry.

Seife relates the stories of sometimes clandestine efforts of mathematicians who worked with the Eastern algebra and its conception of zero, combining it with geometry and developing trigonometry and finally calculus. Along the way they discovered irrational numbers, negative numbers, and my favorite from high school – imaginary numbers, a concept that still blows my mind just as it did back then.

When I took Calculus back in high school, I didn’t understand why it existed or what you could do with it. It was just problems I couldn’t figure out how to work. Without getting too mathematical, Seife articulately explains what calculus is for and why it’s needed. In essence it’s the language of change and motion, the language of physics, without which science as we know it could not have developed. And calculus couldn’t have developed without an understanding of the mathematical properties of zero and infinity. Perhaps it would have been more interesting back then if I had understood its purpose.

Seife finally moves from a history of math to an overview of the great mysteries surrounding modern physics such as the big bang and black holes (zeros in relativity), electrons (zeros in quantum mechanics) and finally a quick take on the efforts of string theorists to remove those zeros that cause breakdowns in the laws of physics. String theory is briefly explained as a primarily mathematical attempt to unify relativity with quantum mechanics in a quantum theory of gravity or better yet, a theory of everything. He wraps the book up with thoughts about the beginning and end of the universe, literally going from nothing to everything.

In the Talking Heads song “Heaven” David Byrne sings, “It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting, could be so much fun.” It’s a beautiful song and one that may or may not capture the essence of Heaven, but certainly describes the experience of reading Zero, a book about nothing at all, and yet so much fun.

Help a Greyhound!

March 8, 2006 • • Leave a comment

Phoebe and Daphne

This is cool.

You can go to Doug Petch’s site and just leave a comment on this post, and he will donate 50 cents to a randomly chosen greyhound rescue group. All it takes is one comment and you can help beautiful, loving dogs escape the life of pure hell and misery to which they are accustomed on the track.

Greyhounds love to run, but if they don’t win, they get killed. Often brutally. They aren’t considered dogs in some states so they can be treated as disposable livestock. It’s a disgusting business and no one who has ever spent time around a friendly, gentle, affectionate grey (as they all are) will ever understand how people can mistreat them, but they do.

It is true that greyhounds are literally running for their lives. Considering that she lost her first two races, it is very surprising that our dog Phoebe wasn’t killed.

So go on. Leave a comment on Doug’s blog. Some greyhound out there losing his last race will thank you for it.

[saveagrey]

The Education of Greyhound Phoebe, Chapter the Fourth

March 7, 2006 • • 6 Comments

in which Phoebe contemplates the loneliness of the long-distance hound

Phoebe

Phoebe has now reached the midpoint in her education, but was happy to note that there are no midterms in this curriculum.

Last night we learned stay and come. The teacher would hold each dog’s leash while the dog’s person would slowly walk away giving the stay command. At a distance of about twenty feet she would release the dog so we could give the come command.

Phoebe went first. I slowly backed away giving the stay signal. Whenever she looked away I threw a watch me at her and while I was within ten feet, all was fine. Once I got past ten feet she lost interest in the game and began sniffing around, checking out the other dogs and doing whatever she wanted. She stayed, but probably because she wanted to.

Finally, I gave the come signal and started calling her over. She looked at me as if to say “oh, there you are” and she walked towards me. While she walked she contemplated her life, her existence as a racer, her foster home, her new home, the dog that moved in next door, Daphne and Morrison and the more she thought, the more she remembered, she knew that she could never sell out. The feet drifted by as in a dream and Phoebe knew that she could do any trick, learn any command, but only for herself. Not for the teacher, not for me, not for anyone.

She stopped a few feet short and refused to cross the finish line come up to me until I feigned disinterest at which point she decided she really did want the treat.

Towards the end of class we started work on lie down. Phoebe stared at the teacher, refusing to lay down. Then the teacher turned her back and the moment she wasn’t looking, Phoebe did lay down.

<< previous chapter | next chapter >>

Visit Phoebe’s friends at the Carnival of the Dogs!

[saveagrey]

The Great Democratic Ghost Dance (aka Texas Primaries)

March 7, 2006 • • 5 Comments

I occasionally join in the ghost dance that is the Texas Democratic Party primary, but it’s usually an exercise in pointlessness, akin to the efforts of many late nineteenth century Native Americans who hoped they could dance the white man into oblivion.

These days the Democratic Party primaries exist only to choose the guy who will lose by a margin that looks more like a close football game rather than a blowout in basketball. Instead, I tend to vote in the Republican primaries because I live in Texas and the reality of the situation is that that’s were the actual decisions are made. I don’t like it, but there it is.

This year, however, I am not voting in any primaries. Texas has a most undemocratic system designed to prevent independents from reaching the ballot: independent candidates must collect nearly 50,000 signatures from people who did not vote in the primaries, and they only have sixty days to do it.

When I think of this year’s primaries I see no way Rick “What Do You Mean Fix It?” Perry can lose on the Republican side and no difference between Bob “Who?” Gammage and Chris “Who #2?” Bell, either of whom would probably lose a head-to-head race against Perry. I think any of the two Democrats or the two independents – Kinky “Why the Hell Not?” Friedman or Carole “One Tough Grandma” Strayhorn – would be a better governor than Perry and should an independent win, I think it would be good for Texas politics.

One way or another, Rick Perry should be ousted. He has been an ineffective leader, unable to tackle the state’s most serious problem: education funding. He managed to accomplish mid-decade redistricting for Tom Delay, but has shown no leadership when it comes to real problems. He is incompetent and ineffective and he needs to go.

Strayhorn is conservative, but serious (I think) about the problems facing public schools. Friedman is probably more conservative than he appears, but in the honest libertarian way. With a four-way race including three conservative candidates, Perry’s chances likely – hopefully – diminish. With two independent candidates siphoning away his votes, a Democrat could win (the best situation) or an independent could win (the second and third best situations).

I don’t know which candidate I’ll vote for in November, but in the coming weeks I will sign one of the two petitions.

Learning to Succeed

March 3, 2006 • • 3 Comments

The other day we had an awards ceremony for the students. Several of them were recognized for academic excellence, which here means no incident reports for thirty days and a concerted effort to take charge of their own education, showing constant improvement. The kids didn’t know about it. They just lined up, surely expecting another inspection.

The principal explained the award and called the names. The kids came to the front and stood at attention while we teachers pinned the awards on their uniforms and shook their hands. The thing that amazed me was the look of sheer pride on the faces of the kids who earned the award. I’ve seen many kids practically melt with shame at getting recognized for academics in regular public schools. But not these kids, some of whom had never had anyone – ever – think of them as being good students or even smart. These are the kids who got pigeon-holed and began to believe that they really were bad students, that school wasn’t for them. The sad thing is most of them really want to learn.

I had three kids who earned the award and they came back to class just glowing, filled with a kind of pride that most of them had never felt. It didn’t matter that they were locked up, that they couldn’t go see their families or get high, or run with their buddies because they couldn’t believe that their teachers thought they were good at school.

I know all my kids made some very bad choices and did some incredibly stupid things to wind up where they are, but I hope that this awareness that there is a place for them and that they can succeed where they thought they couldn’t will stick with them. I hope that those who return to regular public schools won’t forget the pride they felt when they realized that they could be good students, and that that was cool.

Port Security Issues Part 2: Phantom Ships and Flags of Convenience

March 3, 2006 • • 2 Comments

Ok, this will probably be it for port security posts. I’ve never done a series like this before and it takes more time than I have, at least for now. It sure is nice, though, when your school district gets access to a news database and tells all the teachers to go “research stuff to test it out and see what you think.” For those of us who enjoy “researching stuff” it’s a nice way to be expected to spend some conference periods. So here we go, looking beyond the dangers posed by container ships…

The danger of a container ship bearing a bomb into a US port is frightening to imagine, but another scenario is just as scary and more audacious.

Pirates (or terrorists) can and do hijack ships and then repaint and reflag them at sea, thus creating what is known as a phantom ship. Phantom ships are aided by the phenomenon in the shipping industry known as flags of convenience that allows ship owners to avoid taxes, labor laws, safety and environmental regulation, and any number of other ‘inconveniences’ that can slow a ship down. William Langewiesche describes this in The Outlaw Sea:

No one pretends that a ship comes from the home port painted on its stern, or that it has ever been anywhere near. Panama is the largest maritime nation on earth, followed by bloody Liberia, which hardly exists. No coastline is required either. There are ships that hail from La Paz, in landlocked Bolivia. There are ships that hail from the Mongolian desert. Moreover, the registries themselves are rarely based in the countries whose names they carry: Panama is considered to be an old-fashioned “flag” because its consulates handle the paperwork and collect the registration fees, but “Liberia” is run by a company in Virginia, “Cambodia” by another in South Korea, and the proud and independent “Bahamas” by a group in the City of London.

All of this makes determining exactly who owns any ship a major investigative task and the seeming ease with which flags of convenience can be acquired would make it simple for a phantom ship to pose as legit. The article “Terrorism Goes to Sea” (Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 04) discusses an “al Queda Navy” made up of phantom ships:

Intelligence agencies estimate that al Qaeda and its affiliates now own dozens of phantom ships-hijacked vessels that have been repainted and renamed and operate under false documentation, manned by crews with fake passports and forged competency certificates. Security experts have long warned that terrorists might try to ram a ship loaded with explosive cargo, perhaps even a weapon of mass destruction, into a major port or terminal.

In a previous post, I referenced a JINSA article that described an incident in which so-called pirates hijacked a ship in the Straits of Malacca, but instead of stealing anything simply practiced steering the ship for about an hour. This sounds a lot like the preparations made by terrorists who were interested in learning to fly airplanes but not in how to land them. You don’t need to land a plane or dock a ship if your intent is to crash it.

Between flags of convenience, phantom ships and the fact that terrorists have clearly been practicing steering large ships, I can’t help but wonder if our enemies might be thinking bigger than just slipping an explosive container aboard a cargo ship bound for a US port. Let’s remember, these people tend to think big. Do we have the resources in place to stop such an attack? We knew Hurricane Katrina was coming days in advance and we knew where it was going to hit and yet, we weren’t ready. A ship full of explosives or hazardous cargo crashing and igniting in the Houston Ship Channel with its refineries and chemical plants would make Katrina look like a rainy day at the park. Imagine the Texas City Disaster of 1947, only engineered for maximum effect including the release of toxins or radioactive substances.

Increasing funding for the US Coast Guard will not necessarily prevent such an attack from occuring, but it would decrease the likelihood. Spending that money to protect not just our ports but the cities in which they’re based would be well-worth the expense.