...but it doesn't hesitate to extradite "Dog" Chapman when the Mexican government orders it to.
Rep. Tom Tancredo has published a letter about it. I'm not that big a fan of "Dog" Chapman, but this stinks to high heaven.
Friday, September 15, 2006
ERAGON trailer hits online
I haven't read this book yet. Lisa has and swears it's really good. Guess I'll have one more thing to catch up on before December, which is when this movie is coming out. Anyways, hit here for the Eragon trailer.
The top five videogames of all time
TrustedReviews has some of their staff pick their top five video/computer games of all time. It's a long but good read and includes several games that I'd never heard of before (I did know about the PC Engine though so that sorta makes me a videogame geek). A few good surprises on the list too, like 1998's Blade Runner (which was a VERY good game).
If anyone asks, here's my personal top five videogames of all time, for various reasons:
- Pitfall II: Lost Caverns - Atari 2600I first played Pitfall II: Lost Caverns in 1984 and even today, after completely memorizing how to play a perfect game on it, it's still engrossing. TIE Fighter is bar none the finest Star Wars game ever created. Super Mario Bros. 3 was the NES at its best. Doom... well, as one person so eloquently put it: "Doom will never die... only its players will". And Halo is so beautiful that Lisa was utterly amazed by it the first time we put it in our Xbox. There are other games that come to mind too, - like Tetris and Wing Commander and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis - but if you were to strand me on a desert island and give me five games to keep me from going completely mad, those five would be them.
- TIE Fighter - PC
- Super Mario Bros. 3 - Nintendo Entertainment System
- Doom - PC
- Halo - Xbox
EDIT 3:55 PM EST: Why didn't I think to put Donkey Kong Country on this list somewhere? Maybe I should just post a Top Ten Videogames list someday :-)
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Ann Richards has died
She was the former governor of Texas. And her mouth was legendary. You might remember her speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, and her immortal line...
"Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."I used to do a dead-on Ann Richardson impersonation for years, using that line. It was so fun to do: "Poooooooor Jee-orge, he CAIN'T heppit... he was born with a silver FUT in his mowth!" I enjoyed doing that one even more than I did impersonating Ross Perot.
Whatever your political stripe, it has to be said: America has lost quite an original character tonight. Prayers going out to her family.
SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS: One of the most uplifting stories of Christian courage I've ever seen
For the past nine months I've been determined... no, obsessed with trying to watch a certain movie. It's a German film, apparently it got very limited showing here in the states and it's due to arrive as an English-subtitled DVD in November. But I haven't wanted to wait that long. This is the story of one of the most inspirational and heart-breaking things that happened during World War II and ever since I first read about these three students years ago, I've been utterly captivated by their courage... and the faith in Christ that sustained them through their trials until the very end. Finding and seeing this film has been one of the bigger projects I've occupied myself with since the year started.
Well yesterday, after making numerous inquiries about it over the better part of the past year, a copy arrived. Not the highest quality that I have been hoping for and I'll definitely be buying the DVD on the day it comes out on November 14th, this is so deserving of space on my DVD shelf. But this is such an important movie that I could not resist talking about it now...
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (click for official website) is the story of the White Rose: a group of college students in Munich who published a series of underground pamphlets denouncing Hitler and the Nazi regime. The film focuses on Sophie Scholl (beautifully played by Julia Jentsch), who was at the center of the White Rose along with her brother Hans and their friend Christoph Probst.
Over the years I've read and studied everything that I could about the White Rose, and I am absolutely floored at the historical accuracy of this movie. But what amazes me even more is that in making this film, the producers did not at all play down the students's faith in God that first motivated them to strike such a blow at Hitler's government, and then gave them the conviction to stand boldly before their accusers in the shadows of a Nazi courtroom. This is absolutely a story of having the courage to stand for Christ even in the face of your own death. Compared to the only other prominent religious movie that's come out in the past few years - The Passion of the Christ - Sophie Scholl: The Final Days stands out as being the far more inspiring tale. This is a movie that should be played for church youth groups across the country, as well as in every high school history classroom.
Everything about this movie is perfect: from when we first see Sophie singing playfully with a friend, to the final moments as she holds her head high and smiles while being walked to the waiting guillotine (that really happened by the way: witnesses said they had never seen someone so serenely accept her fate as did Sophie on the day of her execution). The acting, the lighting and camera-work, the music... good Lord this movie is going to be haunting me for the next few days, I just know it.
I wrote an op-ed column when I was at Elon about the White Rose. I'll say here what I said then: that there comes a time when a person has to stop and look at the way things are going around him or her. And realize that things are not right at all. And then has to have the courage to stand up and say "STOP this @&$% is WRONG!" regardless of how much the temporal authorities have it within their power to kill you for saying it. You have no choice: either you choose to take the stand, or no one else will. And does it really matter that "they" can destroy you in the flesh for doing it? Sophie, Hans and Christoph decided it was better to do what is right in the eyes of God than to do what the thugs in the Nazi regime were telling them to do. Every German schoolchild today knows the story of the White Rose... while those who killed them are nothing but scum in the dustbin of history.
Now, that is real immortality, my friends.
I'm going to post about this again the day the DVD comes out here in the states, but I'm giving you all fair notice now: by any means possible, you absolutely must watch Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. Indeed, I can think of no other movie in recent memory that has so much relevance to the world we are even now seeing arise around us... and what the task is that God would have each of us do in spite of it.
Test new weapons on Americans first, says Air Force chief
Good God, they really aren't even trying to hide it anymore, are they? To this United States government the biggest enemy to worry about is the American people. And now we have confirmation about it from the head of the Air Force:
Test nonlethal weapons on U.S. citizens, official saysI have an idea: let's strap Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne down on a table and aim several microwave weapons down on him, particularly his genital area. Then turn on the weapons and walk away for the next several days.By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated PressWASHINGTON - Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.
Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.
"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne.
"(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."
The Air Force has funded research into nonlethal weapons, but he said the service isn't likely to spend more money on development until injury issues are reviewed by medical experts and resolved.
Nonlethal weapons can weaken people if they are hit with the beam.
Some of the weapons can emit short, intense energy pulses that also disable some electronic devices.
These people just don't get it: that they are providing all the reasons why some out there are actively imagining hurting and killing "them".
Let's put it more succinctly: we have much more to worry about from President Bush and his administration and too many of our own military leaders than we ever have from Osama Bin Laden, the president of Iran and all those "terrorists" out there.
News from KWerky Productions: New projects, making a statement with the feature film, and the ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK "update" edit
Time for a lil' update on what's going on with KWerky Productions, the filmmaking outfit founded by "Weird" Ed and myself.
As more time goes by I'm starting to think that it was for the better that we weren't able to make The Charles Schulz Code, because there were problems inherent to it that just weren't going to make it work. And the Da Vinci Code craze is now in such terminal condition that to press ahead with a parody of it... just doesn't have the "coolness" factor to it anymore. So far as short pieces go, Ed and I have an idea for a music video: we'll think about it some more and see if we can pull it off.
Meanwhile, KWerky Productions is entering the political realm, as it's producting at least one and maybe two TV commercials for my school board campaign. One of the commercials is pretty straightforward serious and the other... has something in it that some people are telling me is going to be very controversial. Or very funny. When they're done I'll post them to the campaign's website.
Those are the only projects of our own we are doing right now, but we've started being contacted by a few others who want our help in shooting productions. I've more or less agreed to be cinematographer of one production with a pretty ambitious goal ahead of it. One guy is doing an action-packed martial arts thriller that we're looking to help him with come November and a few weeks ago we were in talks about helping to make a historical documentary... which I am very much looking foward to doing with the people involved in this.
As for the full-length feature that I've been developing since this past spring: I'm still planning to go forward with it, but running for school board has really taken priority over most everything else I've been working on. The general story is there, but no real script yet. When this campaign is over (and Lord willing I'll be elected :-) I'll set to work in earnest on it, and possibly become the world's first independent filmmaker school board member :-)
On a related note: after a lot of thinking about it, and after being offered some VERY nice cameras (we're talking high-definition 3-CCD variety shooting at actual 23.97 fps) I've decided that we're going to make this movie with the same Sony Digital 8 Handycam that we made Forcery with. Why? Because after some of the nonsense I went thorugh last year I'm determined to take the biggest swipe that I can at some people's snooty elitism. By setting out to make the point that anyone... anyone... can be a good filmmaker, no matter what tools they have handy. Guess you could say I'm out to become a populist filmmaker, or maybe an Amish one since I'm so determined to go backwards on the high-tech stuff. But if there's going to come the real entertainment revolution by allowing each person the opportunity to make a great film, it's going to have to fly in the face of what certain "gatekeepers and lords" have decreed upon the rest of us. There's no reason why somebody with an average consumer-grade camcorder can not make a film that is on par with what is coming out of the biggest studios in Hollywood. And hopefully by the time this film is finished and released, I will have demonstrated that point completely.
Finally, the last time I did one of these updates I mentioned something that might be a little "controversial". Well, I tried... honest folks, I did... to use what skills and tools are in my possession to create a "fan-edited special edition" of John Carpenter's Escape From New York. This was not something I ever planned to distribute in any way shape or form: it existed solely as an experiment for sake of my own curiosity. What I tried to do is take the original 1982 movie and with some careful edits of scenery, spoken words, etc. instead of having it portray a 1997 that never happened, it would instead depict a vaguely defined possible future reflecting a New York City minus the World Trade Center towers (in the "update" Snake lands atop one of Donald Trump's skyscrapers) and an America where the PATRIOT Act finally went too far. There's so much material in the original film that I think foreshadows the things we've seen happen to this country in the past five years and I just wanted to run away with all that. Well, the furthest I successfully got was an adaptation of the original screenplay that took into effect all of these present-day factors, from which was extrapolated the grim world we saw in Escape From New York. Maybe I'll post the script someday, if I can be absolutely 100% sure that doing so wouldn't violate any copyright.
And that's basically your KWerky Productions update for this quarter :-)
