This is the first Being Bipolar video that I've made with my iPad. Still playing around with figuring everything out, but that's why the aspect ratio is more vertical than horizontal with this segment. Next time I'll know better :-)
Because I saw Thor at 12:01 this past Friday morning and the more I think about it the more I find myself believing it to be the best pure comic book superhero movie that I've ever seen.
Based on the Marvel Comics character created by Kirby, Stan Lee and Larry Leiber, Thor is the adaptation of "The King"'s trademark vast cosmic vision that we always wanted in a movie but never thought we'd actually get! I would even say that Thor is a film that we've seen precious little of since the first Star Wars movie (A New Hope, NOT The Phantom Menace). Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Chris Hemsworth as the titular Norse god of thunder, Thor is a movie of big concepts painted with broad brushes across an epic scale...
...and it is one heckuva fun ride!
Thor doesn't bother with puny mortal concerns like justifying the reality of science with the mystic wonder of magic. As Thor describes it at one point, his world is one where science and magic are one and the same. Or if you want a more pedestrian explanation: Thor and his people are an alien civilization of overwhelming power and achievement, that we Earthlings can only perceive as magic. I liked that. It's what lets a movie like Thor dispense with tedious rationale and get on to the action, action, ACTION!
The film's plot - the story comes from Mark Protosevich and J. Michael Straczynski: a man who has no small amount of experience in this sort of thing (he created Babylon 5) - will be gratefully acknowledged by those who have followed Thor in Marvel Comics, while also being readily accessible to those unfamiliar with the character. The movie opens with Thor being thrown down from heaven (literally) and crashing into the New Mexico desert, where he is found by scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), assistant Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) and Jane's advisor Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard). Thinking that this strapping muscular blond guy needs medical attention, Jane and crew ferry the unconscious Thor off to a hospital... and failing to notice the metal hammer that has followed Thor from space.
From there we get a glorious synopsis of the world that Thor comes from, courtesy of monologue from Thor's father Odin, the king of Asgard (played magnificently by Sir Anthony Hopkins). We see how the race of Asgardians battled the Frost Giants over a thousand years ago to keep them from conquering the Nine Worlds (of which Midgard - the realm of Earth - is a part). We see Odin taking his young sons Thor and Loki to look at the Casket of Ancient Winters, the source of the Frost Giants' power. The obvious setup is that the Frost Giants will soon (in Asgardian terms if not human) try to take back what was once theirs.
That comes several hundreds of years later when Odin is about to proclaim Thor (Hemsworth) King of Asgard with Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Queen Frigga (Rene Russo) and the rest of the royal court witnessing the coronation. The Frost Giants attempt to steal the Casket, they fail... and Thor is perturbed, to put it mildly. So Thor gathers up his posse consisting of Loki, Sif (Jaimie Alexander) and the Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson, Tadanobu Asano and Joshua Dallas). They make their way over the Bifrost Bridge to convince Heimdall (Idris Elba) to open the gate to the Giants' world of Jotunheim so that Thor and company can wage war on Laufey (Colm Feore) and his frigid brethren.
Well, Thor wanted battle and that's what he and his compatriots get. But it's not what Odin desires. Thor's daddy shows up, brings the wayward Asgardians back and has some not-so-nice words for Thor. The culmination of Thor's chastisement? The god of thunder is stripped of his powers and his hammer Mjolnir and cast down to Earth.
For the next good bit Thor is quite an entertaining "fish out of water" story. Thor knows who he is and he knows where Odin has exiled him to... but that doesn't stop him from making a Nordic spectacle of himself (the line that he tells the pet shop clerk is especially hilarious). But this isn't a story about fallen gods trying to hack it like mortals must: this is Marvel Comics' Thor and it's not long before Loki... who made a discovery about his own heritage during the jaunt to Jotunheim... takes advantage of Odin's fall into the deep Odinsleep in order to claim the throne of Asgard. Sif and the Warriors Three sneak to Earth to find Thor and from that point on magic, mystery, mischief and might are on a honkin' big collision course, culminating in a battle for all creation.
Thor is everything of the purest essence of comic bookdom's Silver Age writ large for the silver screen. Some will argue that the film might suffer a bit from a slower mid section, but you know what: I didn't have any particular problem with that. Because Thor at its heart is a story about humility and how one must learn to be humble. When we first see Thor he's brash, headstrong, eager to fight... and those aren't the qualities needed in a king. So we watch Thor learn the hard way that he's not the centerpiece of Asgard, and that a king must govern not so much with power as with wisdom. In that respect Thor might be too rushed for some people... but hey, if you're going to see Thor you're going to watch stuff like Thor fighting the Destroyer, not for Ayn Rand-ish soliloquies about virtue.
Chris Hemsworth is spot-on perfect as Thor. Anthony Hopkins brings the requisite weight and gravitas to the role of Odin. But the character that I really wound up digging the most was Tom Hiddleston's Loki. This is a villain who is so not like the stereotypical cartoon bad guy. Indeed: Loki is darn nearly a character that you must feel sympathy toward. It's obvious that beneath it all he loves his father and brother very dearly. This is the kind of complicated emotion that would have been fun to behold in Anakin Skywalker with the Star Wars prequels that we unfortunately didn't get. I can easily imagine that it will be but one more thing that will entice many to see Thor during its first run at the box office.
I'll give Thor my highest recommendation possible for a movie, and I'm probably going to catch it again later this week with some more friends. Oh yeah: look for Stan Lee in his most brief (and somehow funniest) cameo yet in a Marvel Comics movie. And don't be so quick to leave the theater: there's a scene after the credits which sets the stage for Thor's return in The Avengers next summer!
I can not in good conscience be a part of this any further, nor can I provide support which has in the past been cheerfully rendered, until I am convinced that a significant taking of stock and reflection has transpired.
It is not only my own faith in this enterprise which has been shaken, but also that of numerous other individuals who I have spoken with.
If it means halting things now, then so be it. It would be better to pause and lose little at present than to see everything be made waste... and that is exactly where things are heading.
Sincerely,
Chris
...but my Muse has left me, and I must give her merry chase so that I can feel inspired enough to write well again.
(Figuratively of course. But if there really is a Muse, I plan to capture her again and hogtie her to the hood of my car and bring her back long enough to let me write some more :-)
Anyhoo, come back Sunday evening and there should be more stuff here.
As best I can tell, the damage is pretty consistent with the details about how Osama Bin Laden went down, with the associated skull damage that we've heard about.
I thought long and hard about how to make a post of this. In the end, I chose to post the pic straight onto the blog. I'm not claiming that this is Osama Bin Laden after joining the choir invisible. In fact, I would welcome any and all evidence to the contrary. If it is Bin Laden's actual corpse, well... I don't see any reason why this should be hidden away. We have photos of Mussolini's corpse, of most of the Nazi high command's corpses following their executions, of Pol Pot's corpse... among many others. We even have photographs taken during the autopsy of President Kennedy, and those are also fairly available.
If this is the bodily remains of the mastermind of 9/11, I don't see how it should be treated any differently.
So here it is:
(EDIT 12:11 p.m. EST: The picture has now... and I am glad to report... been determined to be a fake. I am removing it from this post but if you do choose to see it here is a much better version of the same image.)Comments?
(And now back to work on the real post that I've been pouring my heart out into all night, which will be much better, in my earnest opinion!)
EDIT 1:14 a.m. EST: In all seriousness, please: if this is NOT Osama Bin Laden's body, then I want to take this photo down at once. I only ask for substantial evidence that it is not. Real history isn't something I wanna play games with, y'all.
Well, it just aired on this evening's Fox 8 News 10:00 News and lo and behold it's already on the Fox 8 website!
Here's the direct link to the segment.
And look! Embeddable video thingy!
Good job Bob and Chris! Hope that this snags y'all another Emmy or two :-)
I guess that means we can finally get rid of the Department of Homeland Security and that unforgivable abomination of bureaucracy called the Transportation Security Administration. Right?
Right???
EDIT 11:52 p.m. EST: I will make note of my thankfulness that Bin Laden has finally come to his just desserts, by humbly suggesting that his corpse be given the "Mussolini treatment", culminating in his remains being eternally desecrated by wrapping them in pig skins.
But still: tonight, the United States has won as decisive a victory as could possibly be had against the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
Some will say that this presents an opportunity to bring our armed forces home.
I disagree.
Tonight, there is an obligation to bring them home.
A few months shy of the tenth anniversary of the attacks, and we can finally say in all truthfulness, "Mission Accomplished".
If Americans want to feel earnest victory tonight, then we should begin to take a good hard look at what we have lost since 9/11... and resolve to take it back.
The one bit of British television that I had my DVR set to record this week (and I mean that in a good way too), tonight brought the second episode of the sixth season (or the thirty-second season, if we're counting to the show's very beginning in 1963) of Doctor Who. Picking up from "The Impossible Astronaut", "Day of the Moon" continues the first Doctor Who story to be filmed in the United States. I watched "The Impossible Astronaut" twice more over the past week and had my expectations set high for Part 2.
I don't know what precisely to say but, alternatively, "WOW!" and "HUH?!?"
The episode picks up three months after last week's episode, still in 1969 and on the eve of the Apollo 11 launch, with Amy Pond fleeing across the Utah desert. Her pursuer? None other than Canton Delaware... who is also seen chasing down Rory and River Song. And curiously, all three have tally marks covering every exposed inch of their skin. Meanwhile the Doctor is being held prisoner at Area 51 (Matt Smith giving us the most disheveled-looking Doctor in the history of anything).
And somehow from there we get to an abandoned orphanage, to the cockpit of Neil Armstrong's command module, to the streets of New York City... in what has to be the most dizzying and mind-warping tale that Steven Moffat has ever weaved in all the years that he's been writing for Doctor Who. But don't fret. It all makes sense in the end, as the Doctor and company set out to rescue humanity from the Silence: an alien race that has been running amok on Earth for, it turns out, thousands of years. And in classic Moffat fashion, it's like the best magician's tricks: being done right in front of our eyes, without us even realizing it until the Doctor's moment of triumph.
"Day of the Moon", I'm almost afraid to say that this sets the bar way too high for the rest of the season. This is practically season finale material, friends and neighbors. Karen Gillan continues to be a pleasure to watch as Amy, and Arthur Darvill's Rory is beginning to grow on me more as a regular companion to the Doctor. But the real delight, as in every episode that she appears in, is Alex Kingston's River Song (just wait'll you see her gunplay). Also have to give props to Stuart Milligan's portrayal of President Nixon, for whom Moffat took a considerably high-brow approach toward writing (it might be the best treatment that Nixon has had on the television medium in decades).
"Day of the Moon" gets this reviewer's full FIVE Sonic Screwdrivers in rapturous approval! And that would have been even without the shocker of a final scene... which is almost certain to set tongues wagging about Doctor Who mythology more than anything in many, many years.
Y'know, Benny Hinn is known for pulling off mind tricks. And didn't he once claim he could keep people from dying, just like Darth Plagueis was reputed to be capable of? Maybe there's something to this....
I'm only wondering what should Hinn's Sith title be. "Darth Pantene" perhaps?
Sanford, here in my home state of North Carolina, is still recovering from a horrific tornado that went through there this past weekend. And since Tuesday communities from Mississippi and Arkansas all the way east to Virginia have been hit by even worse storms. At this hour the death toll is approaching 300, in what is being called the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes the south has ever seen. We were under tornado watch for most of yesterday and early this morning but, doesn't look like any touched down.
For those who are hurting this day, our thoughts and prayers go out to you.
There is all the difference in the world between rejecting God, and still seeking God.
Do not be quick to challenge the righteousness of another, if he or she has yet to arrive to a place with God. Rather rejoice that such a one is chasing after Him. Trust that God will answer such a person in His time, and to His satisfaction... and that it is not dependent upon our own.
The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located at Pripyat in Ukraine, suffered a severe meltdown in Reactor No. 4 following an attempted experiment. The town of Pripyat was evacuated and thousands of firefighters and other workers died either during the immediate crisis or in the following weeks from radiation poisoning. The reactor ended up entombed within a "sarcophagus" and the entire area rendered a wasteland. It'll take several thousands of more years yet before human resettlement within what has come to be known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone will be possible again. The years since have seen some very tragic results, such as birth defects and an increase in cancer rates of those who were most in the path of the radioactive cloud (which wound up being detected all over the world).
One other effect of Chernobyl is that the disaster crippled the finances of what was then the Soviet Union. It is thought that the accident served to accelerate the collapse of that country's economy and led to the end of the Soviet government five years later.
Naturally, you can find out much more about the Chernobyl disaster on Wikipedia. But by far the most intriguing online resource about Chernobyl is the website of Elena Filatova, AKA "Kiddofspeed". A few years ago she rode her motorcycle through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone and documented her travels, along with several photographs of what the area around Chernobyl looks like today. They might be some of the eeriest photographs you're apt to find on the Internet.
(Well, it's important to me, anyway :-)
