Lighter Fare: NASCAR and Movies - EDIT
O.K. So I’m a NASCAR Ninny
Well, from reading the spate of articles that have come out online and in NASCAR Scene this week, I see I read the situation quite wrong. Elliott’s not in the same place he was last summer and it was silly of me to assume that. Not only has he taken on the Quarterback role that Tommy Baldwin ascribed to him at the beginning of this season very well, but has accepted his upcoming mantle of being the lead driver at RYR quite gracefully. Apologies to Mr. Sadler, I should have had more faith in him.
Apologies to RYR itself for assuming that they and not Elliott were the one who took him out of the Busch ride. From what Doug Yates and Elliott said, it seems that was Elliott’s decision, not theirs. Still, I am glad to see him back in it. I have to agree with Yates on this one: More track time = more experience. Hopefully that experience is something that not only Elliott, but Baldwin, can mine.
I would again like to commend both Sadler and the organization for stepping up to the plate and making changes to get the #38 back in contention. It’s refreshing to see an organization that doesn’t whine about “We’re traditional, we don’t like to change.” when it’s so very obvious that they need to.
“I’m a very competitive person.” You don’t say Mr. Elliott-sports-driving-sports-hunting-sports-video games-sports-Sadler. I would have never known. ;)
It has also been interesting reading the commentary on the Speed Channel board about the Yates-Roush engine program and the benefits to each. The popular concept is that Roush was the one that benefited the most from it but I have to wonder if that is true. As has just been demonstrated, Yates doesn’t put up with bad situation forever. I also would like to commend Yates for not whining, as Roush is, about Toyota coming into the sport or at least pinpointing honestly what the worry really is: the vast amount of resources and money Toyota has at their disposal.
Best of luck to the #38, the #8 and the #6 teams this weekend for the 600!
Sleepers
Being as I am just working over the summer, that means I come home at night with nothing hanging over my head. This is something fairly new for me in the last, jeez, 7 years? Either I have been doing the work-school thing or I was slowly packing up and getting ready to move here. So now I have evenings free to do as I please sans guilt, so I’ve been working my way through my movie collection. (When that runs out, I might give in and get a PS2…thinking about it.) Anyway, all that lead in to discuss some films that didn’t make the splash in the entertainment industry that they really deserved to. Small budgets, great stories and good acting. Gawd knows the public doesn’t want to see any of that. These aren’t snooty art house films, but truly enjoyable “lesser kights” that just didn’t make it into the limelight they deserved.
The Gift. Cate Blanchett stars in this film set in the gulf coast about a reader (clairvoyant) who gets involved in a murder case. Besides being one of the most realistic portrayals of psychic abilities I have seen onscreen*. The story is filled with interesting characters in a convoluted plot that would make Hitchcock certainly sit up and take notice, if not applaud outright. Great acting with Giovanni Ribisi (who was incredible), Greg Kinnear, Hillary Swank and yes, Keanu Reeves does actually act, it’s filled with scary moments with a couple that makes you jump right out of your seat.
Sneakers. In the last few years, this film has developed it’s own humble cult status. Quite frankly, when it came out I don’t think the studio knew how to market this because it has good elements of both a cloak and dagger thriller and a comedy and it blends them extremely well. The cast is incredibly high powered for such a small film: Robert Redford, Sidney Pointier, David Strathairn, Dan Ackroyd, River Phoenix and Ben Kingsley as the villain). High concept tech for the time (for those were pre-internet days of 1992), yet the story is so good, the plot so twisted, and the comedy so well done that it still holds up watching it 14 years later. The score rocks too.
Pitch Black. Now I’ve heard many negative comments about this film, but they’re from everyone outside the SciFi community generally who openly hate SciFi. This film unapologetically entwines elements of “Alien” and the iconic Issac Asimov short story “Nightfall” but it does so extremely well. What makes this film great, besides the plot, action and effects, is the fact that is a character driven SciFi movie that was very well written. It seems that usually in large cast thrillers, every character usually gets his moment of “Hi, my name is so-and-so, this is my background.” With the exception on Riddick having a single brief moment of talking about his personal history, you never learn the any of character’s backgrounds and yet it is written so well you know them and what they are about to do. I was utterly blown away by that.
The Red Violin. This one might dabble on the edge of “art house”, but it is brisk moving enough to be a very entertaining drama. The idea of the story is to track “the world most perfect acoustical instrument” in it’s journey from 17th century Italy, romance/Victorian era England to the newly born Red China and finally to a modern art auction house in Montreal. The themes are the passion inspired by and for music and how the love of music transcends both culture and time. The story construction is elaborate due to it being told both forward from the kitchen of a 17th century Italian Artisans wife and backward from Samuel L. Jackson (yes, Mister Bad-Ass does do drama, and rather well I might add) expert trying to trace down it’s history. Yet it is never confusing nor burdensome. It’s just a great story filled with interesting characters.
Those are just the ones off the top of my head, I may add more latr on in the day.
*I point out the Gift as being one the best portrayal of psychic abilities because most films about witches and neo-pagan beliefs are really, really bad. As someone said in 24 Hour Party People: “If you have to choose between fact and the legend, chose the legend.” Hollywood always goes for the most sensationalistic and usually negative, portrayal of this faith as possible. The truth is almost all witches are just folks trying to make a living, pay the bills, drive their kids to school and soccer practice, and come home at night to fix dinner and sit down to watch King of Queens or CSI:New York. No pacts with dark powers, no lightening bolts coming out of their hands. They’re just folks. I’m not “gifted”, certainly not in the sense that Annie Wilson is, through I do have some experience with reading and know people far more gifted than myself and this film has it right. Many people pointed out that Annie is using ESP cards rather than the traditional Tarot deck, but the truth is the cards or the lines on the palm of a hand or tea leaves are just a catalyst for one’s other vision. Anything can be used as that catalyst and indeed, most people who “see” do tend to find small omens and auguries in the general world as they go about their business as Annie does (like the pencil falling off the desk in The Gift). It also points out the terrible misconceptions readers and those of the Neo-Pagan faiths (note the “and”, clairvoyance is not specific to any faith) have to deal with from people who don’t know and don’t care to know what it’s really all about.
EDIT: Like the people who are stonewalling this.
The only other film to come close in essence, through not in effect, was Practical Magic. Granted, there are some very spiffy special effects, but the bond of the women at the core of this film as well as Sally’s explanation of the Craft in the hot house is what is the most like Wicca and the neo-pagan faiths in the real world. That too is a really great fun movie, though it may be a little too estrogen laden for most guys.
Well, from reading the spate of articles that have come out online and in NASCAR Scene this week, I see I read the situation quite wrong. Elliott’s not in the same place he was last summer and it was silly of me to assume that. Not only has he taken on the Quarterback role that Tommy Baldwin ascribed to him at the beginning of this season very well, but has accepted his upcoming mantle of being the lead driver at RYR quite gracefully. Apologies to Mr. Sadler, I should have had more faith in him.
Apologies to RYR itself for assuming that they and not Elliott were the one who took him out of the Busch ride. From what Doug Yates and Elliott said, it seems that was Elliott’s decision, not theirs. Still, I am glad to see him back in it. I have to agree with Yates on this one: More track time = more experience. Hopefully that experience is something that not only Elliott, but Baldwin, can mine.
I would again like to commend both Sadler and the organization for stepping up to the plate and making changes to get the #38 back in contention. It’s refreshing to see an organization that doesn’t whine about “We’re traditional, we don’t like to change.” when it’s so very obvious that they need to.
“I’m a very competitive person.” You don’t say Mr. Elliott-sports-driving-sports-hunting-sports-video games-sports-Sadler. I would have never known. ;)
It has also been interesting reading the commentary on the Speed Channel board about the Yates-Roush engine program and the benefits to each. The popular concept is that Roush was the one that benefited the most from it but I have to wonder if that is true. As has just been demonstrated, Yates doesn’t put up with bad situation forever. I also would like to commend Yates for not whining, as Roush is, about Toyota coming into the sport or at least pinpointing honestly what the worry really is: the vast amount of resources and money Toyota has at their disposal.
Best of luck to the #38, the #8 and the #6 teams this weekend for the 600!
Sleepers
Being as I am just working over the summer, that means I come home at night with nothing hanging over my head. This is something fairly new for me in the last, jeez, 7 years? Either I have been doing the work-school thing or I was slowly packing up and getting ready to move here. So now I have evenings free to do as I please sans guilt, so I’ve been working my way through my movie collection. (When that runs out, I might give in and get a PS2…thinking about it.) Anyway, all that lead in to discuss some films that didn’t make the splash in the entertainment industry that they really deserved to. Small budgets, great stories and good acting. Gawd knows the public doesn’t want to see any of that. These aren’t snooty art house films, but truly enjoyable “lesser kights” that just didn’t make it into the limelight they deserved.
The Gift. Cate Blanchett stars in this film set in the gulf coast about a reader (clairvoyant) who gets involved in a murder case. Besides being one of the most realistic portrayals of psychic abilities I have seen onscreen*. The story is filled with interesting characters in a convoluted plot that would make Hitchcock certainly sit up and take notice, if not applaud outright. Great acting with Giovanni Ribisi (who was incredible), Greg Kinnear, Hillary Swank and yes, Keanu Reeves does actually act, it’s filled with scary moments with a couple that makes you jump right out of your seat.
Sneakers. In the last few years, this film has developed it’s own humble cult status. Quite frankly, when it came out I don’t think the studio knew how to market this because it has good elements of both a cloak and dagger thriller and a comedy and it blends them extremely well. The cast is incredibly high powered for such a small film: Robert Redford, Sidney Pointier, David Strathairn, Dan Ackroyd, River Phoenix and Ben Kingsley as the villain). High concept tech for the time (for those were pre-internet days of 1992), yet the story is so good, the plot so twisted, and the comedy so well done that it still holds up watching it 14 years later. The score rocks too.
Pitch Black. Now I’ve heard many negative comments about this film, but they’re from everyone outside the SciFi community generally who openly hate SciFi. This film unapologetically entwines elements of “Alien” and the iconic Issac Asimov short story “Nightfall” but it does so extremely well. What makes this film great, besides the plot, action and effects, is the fact that is a character driven SciFi movie that was very well written. It seems that usually in large cast thrillers, every character usually gets his moment of “Hi, my name is so-and-so, this is my background.” With the exception on Riddick having a single brief moment of talking about his personal history, you never learn the any of character’s backgrounds and yet it is written so well you know them and what they are about to do. I was utterly blown away by that.
The Red Violin. This one might dabble on the edge of “art house”, but it is brisk moving enough to be a very entertaining drama. The idea of the story is to track “the world most perfect acoustical instrument” in it’s journey from 17th century Italy, romance/Victorian era England to the newly born Red China and finally to a modern art auction house in Montreal. The themes are the passion inspired by and for music and how the love of music transcends both culture and time. The story construction is elaborate due to it being told both forward from the kitchen of a 17th century Italian Artisans wife and backward from Samuel L. Jackson (yes, Mister Bad-Ass does do drama, and rather well I might add) expert trying to trace down it’s history. Yet it is never confusing nor burdensome. It’s just a great story filled with interesting characters.
Those are just the ones off the top of my head, I may add more latr on in the day.
*I point out the Gift as being one the best portrayal of psychic abilities because most films about witches and neo-pagan beliefs are really, really bad. As someone said in 24 Hour Party People: “If you have to choose between fact and the legend, chose the legend.” Hollywood always goes for the most sensationalistic and usually negative, portrayal of this faith as possible. The truth is almost all witches are just folks trying to make a living, pay the bills, drive their kids to school and soccer practice, and come home at night to fix dinner and sit down to watch King of Queens or CSI:New York. No pacts with dark powers, no lightening bolts coming out of their hands. They’re just folks. I’m not “gifted”, certainly not in the sense that Annie Wilson is, through I do have some experience with reading and know people far more gifted than myself and this film has it right. Many people pointed out that Annie is using ESP cards rather than the traditional Tarot deck, but the truth is the cards or the lines on the palm of a hand or tea leaves are just a catalyst for one’s other vision. Anything can be used as that catalyst and indeed, most people who “see” do tend to find small omens and auguries in the general world as they go about their business as Annie does (like the pencil falling off the desk in The Gift). It also points out the terrible misconceptions readers and those of the Neo-Pagan faiths (note the “and”, clairvoyance is not specific to any faith) have to deal with from people who don’t know and don’t care to know what it’s really all about.
EDIT: Like the people who are stonewalling this.
The only other film to come close in essence, through not in effect, was Practical Magic. Granted, there are some very spiffy special effects, but the bond of the women at the core of this film as well as Sally’s explanation of the Craft in the hot house is what is the most like Wicca and the neo-pagan faiths in the real world. That too is a really great fun movie, though it may be a little too estrogen laden for most guys.
posted by KiplingKat | 10:42 AM
4 Comments:
Just dropping a line to ask if you've seen skisad's fall yet...i was watching speed channel at 5 a.m. this morning (seriously, there are only infomercials on at that hour...my channel included) and saw elliot's disastrous attempt to ape jeffy the spiffy commentator as he dove into the crowd. i even said out loud when i saw him thinking about it "dude, you're gonna fall on your ass" because the distance (if you haven't seen it yet) was like 5 or 6 feet from the stage to the first member of the crowd.
#1 have you ever tried to jump your height? you need a running start, or a lot of practice. preferably both.
#2 have you ever crowd-surfed? first of all, you can't just jump on the first row; you need to aim for about 3 deep in order to be caught and actually held aloft without doing the embarassing face plant.
which is exactly what poor elliot did. after, of course, he caught the security fence in the gut, and then flipped over it.
it must have hurt like a bitch. i think jeff's mic was still on, because someone said quite loudly "oh my god, he hit his head". the crowd got completely silent. security was all over it, screaming for them to get away. the other twits tried to wrap the show on a perky note, which failed utterly, and pissed off blake shelton who clearly thought his "brother" had just killed himself on a stupid stunt.
as a viewer, it was bad. as a behind the scenes disaster vet, i was seriously alarmed and ashamed. he was miked, but no earpiece? no one was yelling "don't do that, we're live and can't hide it if you fuck up?" where was his version of jade, to give him the angry-mom look? you don't risk your new role as the adult around the shop to one-up hammond, let hammond break his tv-pretty ass if he wants to, skisad's got a goddam contract and a career to save. WTF?
sorry, stupidity bugs me.
anyway, so here's the amusing part: the only report thus far has him injuring his thigh only slightly, in language that totally downplays the event. it was like, huge, and embarassing, and bad. i felt terrible for the poor idiot. he'd been doing so well with the banter and stuff up until then, he made the regular guys look bad. then that pesky (yet hot) hammond had to go and try his dover dive. he made it look easy, so skiSad once again falls victim to the bigger kids.
shouldn't his momma and he have had this conversation about 25 years ago? that boy clearly needs round the clock care. get in there, kip.
OH My Gawd!
No, being cable-less I was spared that. Glad to hear he is "relatively" o.k. considering.
He was trying to do a stage dive? This is not his year. *Oi!* I bet he'll slinking about the garage for a while.
His version of Jade is one of his buddies: Brett. I suspect if anything, Brett was probably egging him on. Ah well, men. They usually have to figure these thing out for themselves.
One of my cats got out last night and I'm printing up a bunch of flyers to spread around the aprtment complex. I'll chat more later.
did kitty come home? it sucks to misplace a pet. my dog has just taken off into the center of the street before, completely unafraid of traffic and just assuming cars will be friendly and stop for him. it drives me into complete lunacy. (and yes, he once was trained, but it's amazing what a few years with nana will do for a trained glutton) i can't imagine how i'll react when i have kids and they scamper off. i'll probably hog-tie them moments after birth, just so i can sleep at night. ayway, the combo of guilt, fear, and i'm-gonna-tie-your-tail-in-a-knot anger is pretty potent. if you still haven't found her, try to think of a sound that she'll associate with you (tv, radio, vacuum, whatever..) then open the windows and let her find you. smell won't carry as far, your voice getting upset may panic her more, so just throw out a beacon and she'll come back. outside is scary.
our 20-year-old, recovering alcoholic kitty is hell-bent on getting outside for some reason. whenever she manages it, she almost always freezes in place like a petrified cat statue until i get her. they think it will be crazy fun until they're actually out. then they freak.
No, but I did see her. I flooded the neighborhood with flyers and walked around pretty much all day. She is in the little bit of woods behind my apartment complex playing "jungle kitty". Just as the light failed, she came to me when I called and then ran away when I reached down to her. I feel like a horribe mommy. :( Why does my baby run away? But she is after all, a cat and of the four (yes, I have four cats), Bastet is the most "street savy" if you will, she was a feral kitten and and indoor-outdoor cat until I got these other three which don't have a "horse sense". Heck, when I found Sabre, she'd been kicked so hard one side of her jaw was broken and one eye completely greyed out and yet, she loves everyone, any stranger that walks in the door she runs right up to them as asks to be picked up. Not a survival instinct in her body. Whenever she or the other younger ones get out they also freeze, do the "head bob" and make noises. Which is probably why I didn't notice Bastet slipping out, she justr ran for it. Bastet I don't work about *so* much. What does worry me is that she's 15 and she was used to being out in an urban environment, not rural. But the little woods right behind my place are surrounded by other apartment complexes and a big field, so not a lot of predators in the neighborhood and none in the little woods she's is hanging out in...if she is still there. I'm trying not to fret, but if she doesn't come hom by tomorrow, I'm going to set a have-a-heart trap.
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