I’ve not seen the movie “Avatar” and I likely won’t see it in the theaters. As good as the movie may be – and there’s no question it’s great, technically, but perhaps not in terms of plotline – I’m a bit dismayed at the reported surge in parents deciding to name their kids after characters and terms in the movie. From The Sun:
MOVIE fans are rushing to name their babies after characters in sci-fi smash Avatar.
Choices include Neytiri – after the film’s Na’vi warrior-princess – and giant flying creature Toruk.
Another favourite is Pandora, name of the blockbuster flick’s fictional planet.
Pandora is tipped as top choice among US fans, with UK parents set to follow.
Seriously? You’re going to name your son, your precious child, “Toruk?” And when, in school, they’re going over where their names came from and what they mean, your little tyke is going to get up and say he’s named after a tiger-striped, pterodactyl-shaped, Hollywood-induced fictional flying lizard? You know, ’cause Mom & Dad were swooning over a film umpty-some years ago and thought it’d be sooooooooooo cooooooooool if they named their kid after it?
And not to get all Ivy league on anyone, but have these people never heard of Pandora before? Meaning: the millennia-old Greek myth? The woman who managed to open the container (box, jar, whatever) that contained all the evils in the world and set them free to run around in it? Yeah, that’s going to play well in school.
Folks, names have great import and their effects are felt most and longest by the people who bear the name, not the people who bestow them. Offering up your kid as a homage to a Hollywood flick that will be passe in 5 years, obsolete and well surpassed in 10, is self-indulgent not clever. Give the kids a break and leave the Na’vi to the movie screen.
January 18th, 2010
Posted by
ricjames |
Entertainment, Human Interest |
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That the defenders of Roman Polanski are dismissing the fact that the man raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl – after drugging her, I might add – says a lot about them. What it says isn’t good. The staggering double-standard was described perfectly today by Father Tom Reese, Society of Jesus. A “Father Polanski”, guilty of exactly the same thing, would be in jail.
“Imagine if the Knights of Columbus decided to give an award to a pedophile priest who had fled the country to avoid prison,” Father Tom Reese, S.J., points out. “The outcry would be universal.”
Writing for the Newsweek/Washington Post website, he adds that “Victim groups would demand the award be withdrawn and that the organization apologize. Religion reporters would be on the case with the encouragement of their editors. Editorial writers and columnist would denounce the knights as another example of the insensitivity of the Catholic Church to sexual abuse.” And then he adds: “And they would all be correct. And I would join them.”
So would I. And I’m a Knight myself. In fact, I’d be willing to go out on a limb and say most of my fellow Knights here in my council would call, write, or march to New Haven, CT personally to make sure the Supreme Knight got the message loud and clear.
But Hollywood sees it differently. Even though this isn’t an “alleged” anything, even though the crime definitely occurred and was admitted to in court, they just can’t see their way clear to hold one of their own accountable for his sexual assault on a little girl. Like Ed Morrissey, I am adamant that he should be held accountable not only for the original crime but for fleeing justice and enjoying his freedom for the 32 years he was a fugitive. I couldn’t care less that he’s 76 years old. As has been mentioned by others, Hollywood would be calling for the man’s head if he were a plumber or a conservative talk-show host. I hope they’ll remember this when the day comes that it’s one of their daughters recovering from rape and sodomy.
September 29th, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Crime & Punishment, Entertainment, Politics, The Media |
one comment
You can tell your family consists of real fans of MythBusters when your 7-year-old daughter warns you she’s popping one of her old balloons by yelling, “Fire in the hole!”
July 5th, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Entertainment, Human Interest, Science, Technology |
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Man, it seems we’re losing well-knowns from Hollywood by the minute these days. Thanks to a reference at Instapundit, I see that Karl Malden died yesterday at the age of 97.
Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden died today, July 1, of natural causes at the age of 97. Born Mladen Sekulovich on March 22, 1912, the bulb-nose character actor was a star of both stage and screen. Raised in Gary, Indiana, Malden briefly attended a teacher’s college, then enrolled in Chicago’s Goodman Theatre Dramatic School. Following World War II-era service in the Army Air Force, Malden’s career took off with the role of Mitch in the 1947 Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire, opposite Marlon Brando.
Malden’s movie career is impressive and the list I’ve linked doesn’t include his TV appearances. It’s been a sad couple of weeks.
July 2nd, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Entertainment, Human Interest |
no comments
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit talking about a boxed set of DVD’s on Amazon:
“I WAS NEVER THAT INTO STARGATE SG-1, but even after the deep discount this seems kind of expensive for a boxed set.”
(Sigh.) Philistine.
June 30th, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Entertainment, Human Interest |
no comments
Justin Hart, whose work I’ve become lately introduced to over at Too Conservative, has been tweeting up a storm on a variety of issues. His latest (as of this moment) includes a fascinating link to an article in the December 1900 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal wherein the LHJ made predictions of what would come to pass in the next 100 years. Some of these predictions are eerily accurate:
Prediction #1: There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”
Prediction #6: Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride in automobile sleighs in winter. Automobiles will have been substituted for every horse vehicle now known. There will be, as already exist today, automobile hearses, automobile police patrols, automobile ambulances, automobile street sweepers. The horse in harness will be as scarce, if, indeed, not even scarcer, then as the yoked ox is today.
Prediction #9: Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later. Even to-day photographs are being telegraphed over short distances. Photographs will reproduce all of Nature’s colors.
Prediction #10: Man will See Around the World. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span. American audiences in their theatres will view upon huge curtains before them the coronations of kings in Europe or the progress of battles in the Orient. The instrument bringing these distant scenes to the very doors of people will be connected with a giant telephone apparatus transmitting each incidental sound in its appropriate place. Thus the guns of a distant battle will be heard to boom when seen to blaze, and thus the lips of a remote actor or singer will be heard to utter words or music when seen to move.
Prediction #18: Telephones Around the World. Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.
Others… well… Riiiight.
Prediction #11: No Mosquitoes nor Flies. Insect screens will be unnecessary. Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been practically exterminated. Boards of health will have destroyed all mosquito haunts and breeding-grounds, drained all stagnant pools, filled in all swamp-lands, and chemically treated all still-water streams. The extermination of the horse and its stable will reduce the house-fly.
Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.
There are items within these predictions that are equally off-target even though the prediction, taken as a whole, wasn’t completely off base. (I found myself snorting over predictions #17’s assertion that etiquette and housekeeping would be important studies in public schools. If only…)
Seeing predictions like these, particularly with several so spot-on, makes me a bit suspicious about their origin, so I went looking for it. If you’d like to see them from the original publication, here’s the link to the Ladies’ Home Journal site complete with a reproduction of the orignial article’s 1st page. It’s a fascinating read, equally so for the predictions that didn’t come true as those that did.
June 7th, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Economy, Entertainment, Environment, History, Human Interest, Internet, Medicine, Politics, Science, Technology |
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I remember watching the TV series “Kung Fu” in my youth and Carradine’s character, Kwai Chang Caine, sparked my interest in the martial arts and asian culture. Those interests remain today regardless of the assessment that Hollywood’s take on the martial arts is – shall we say? – skewed. Carradine’s career played on that early role often throughout his life and I took note whenever he surfaced to act on TV or the movies.
Today, he’s in the public eye again but for a very different and very sad reason. Fox News: Actor David Carradine Dead at 72.
”Kung Fu” and “Kill Bill” actor David Carradine was found dead Thursday in a Bangkok hotel room, his manager told FOX News.
A Thailand newspaper, The Nation, reported the 72-year-old actor was found hanging.
Chuck Binder, Carradine’s manager, said the actor was staying in the Thai capital while shooting a movie. When a producer went to his luxury hotel room, he discovered the actor’s body, Binder said, adding that the cause of death is “under investigation.”
Did he hang himself? Was something more sinister going on? When I hear more, I’ll post more.
June 4th, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Entertainment, Human Interest |
4 comments
As a belated Christmas gift to ourselves (ok, ok, to me) I bought myself a new universal remote control. Now, I know what you’re thinking. These aren’t new and they never really work like the actual remotes that come with your gear do. Up to now all of my experiences with universals would support that thought but this one’s different.
The remote is by Logitech, those folks that make all the neat computer accessories. It’s the Harmony 550 Universal Remote and it’s quite different than what you’re used to. In previous universals that I’ve owned there’s always been some kind of brand-name code sequence you put in that makes the universal access the TV or DVD you’ve got. The problem is that tends to treat every Panasonic TV, for instance, exactly the same. You’ll get basic functions like on/off, volume and channel changing but you won’t get menu access or source input selection, for example. The Harmony is way different.
First off, you have to hook the remote into your computer. The software that comes with the remote has to be installed and you’ll connect the Harmony to a USB port on the PC. Basic firmware updates are then pushed to the remote and you’re presented with the first screen of a wizard designed to help you set the remote up. At this point, you’ll need the manufacturer and model number of every device you want to control. The scope of devices controllable by the Harmony is impressive. TV’s, DVD/VCR’s, cable boxes, DVR’s, game consoles, sound systems, lighting, and any other device that uses infra-red to accept control inputs are all in the clearly massive database Logitech has built. The wizard will take you through adding each device on your list, pulling the control setup from the online database and pushing that to your remote.
Once all the devices are added, the wizard will guide you through setting up “Activities.” There’s a big, wide button near the end of the remote labeled “Activities” and what that does is display on the small LCD a list of all the kinds of activities you might use the remote for. “Watch TV” is one of the activities the wizard will set up for you. “Watch a DVD” is another, as is “Play Game Console.” The wizard asks you questions about what you would normally do to get your gear set up to watch a DVD. For example, I would have to turn on the TV, select source Video 1, turn on the DVD/VCR and select DVD as the function. Having set up the activity, I now just press the Activities button and select “Watch a DVD” on the menu. The remote then fires the control sequences I’ve described automatically. Selecting the “Watch TV” activity turns on the TV and makes sure it’s set to the HDMI input from the cable box. The cable box stays on all the time to keep the channel guide active and I’ve instructed the wizard to not send an “off” command to it. Now, when I press the power button on the remote, all the gear in the entertainment systems shuts off except the cable box. It really works very well.
I don’t have a really complicated setup but there are reviews out there with people using this 1 remote to control over a dozen devices. It gets generally high marks in those customer reviews and you can count this one down as one more thumbs’ up.
January 22nd, 2009
Posted by
ricjames |
Entertainment, Technology |
3 comments
Madonna joins the ranks of entertainment people who seem to confuse their performance success with political savvy at the opening of her new tour in Cardiff, England. She just cuts right to the Godwin’s Law violation and proves she’s another of The Chosen One’s groupies:
Amid a four-act show at Cardiff’s packed Millennium Stadium, a video interlude carried images of destruction, global warming, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Zimbabwe’s authoritarian President Robert Mugabe and U.S. Senator John McCain. Another sequence, shown later, pictured slain Beatle John Lennon, followed by climate activist Al Gore, Mahatma Gandhi and finally McCain’s Democratic rival Barack Obama.
I think Madonna should get her bony butt on a plane and head right down to Zimbabwe immediately. Then she can take a visit – sans security personnel – of Zimbabwe’s poorest neighborhoods to witness what a totalitarian rulership actually looks like. Perhaps, if she’ll take off her Obama-colored glasses, she’ll see that the comparison of McCain to either of the tyrants she invokes is just too ludicrous to be seriously considered.
Assuming, of course, that she’s even capable of that manner of grown-up, rational thought. I tend to doubt it, these days. What’s more, she’s consigned herself to the dustbin of aging performers looking to prop up their waning days with some semblance of “See there? I mattered!”
Update:The McCain Campaign has fired back on this with a wonderful summation:
“The comparisons are outrageous, unacceptable and crudely divisive all at the same time. It clearly shows that when it comes to supporting Barack Obama, his fellow worldwide celebrities refuse to consider any smear or attack off limits,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said.
Nicely put.
August 24th, 2008
Posted by
ricjames |
2008 Presidential Race, Entertainment, Politics |
4 comments
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