We’re moving
Hello again.
I have decided to switch to a new blogging platform. Because I can and I want to.
Sorry if this is inconvenient for you, but my new address is gregwiese.tumblr.com
If you could start directing yourself there, that would be appreciated.
Apologies
My most sincerest apologies to my dedicated readers. I have not been writing as much as I should. Or at all.
I would like to say that I will do a better job in the near future. But I can’t promise that. What I can promise, is a video of a paper plane getting thrown out of a 31st floor window in New York.
Superhero Battles
Time magazine blew it. Big time.
I’m looking over Time’s “Best of Everything 2008″ issue. They have a lot of neat lists, and it is all interesting and I like lists and who doesn’t like lists and I am enjoying myself. I begin reading the Best Movies of ‘08 and am thinking it’s pretty legit. Then I get to number eight: Iron Man.
“Yeah,” I think, “Iron Man was a good movie.” But wait. What about Batman? What about The Dark Knight? Surely, they could not have overlooked the block buster powerhouse film. Ah, of course, they must have been weird and put it below Iron Man in spot nine or ten.
9. Speed Racer
What? No. I mean. Seriously, how big a bribe did it take to get Speed Racer even on this list. Especially if The Dark Knight was completely excluded?
Let me back up a bit. I’m not a fanboy here, complaining about my feelings getting hurt by some magazine not picking my favorite cosplay subject. I am a future journalist legitimately concerned that one of the largest magazines in circulation is, a bastion of the magazine world, has so severely bungled a simple movie list.
My I direct your attention to this piece about Knight:
The best superhero movie ever. It’s crowned by Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker, but Christian Bale makes a great Batman, delivering a performance where dignity and despair are in perfect sync. The supporting cast (especially Michael Caine as Alfred) is wonderful. This is to cape-and-tights movies what Godfather II was to the gangster movie: a genre-defining event.
You know who said that? Stephen King. I don’t care what you think of King, the man knows good story-telling when he sees it. (Just ask the 300 million or so books he has sold.) And that one? Yeah, that is a “1.” for the top of King’s movies of 2008 list.
He wasn’t alone, Lisa Schwarzbaum and Owen Gleiberman, the Entertainment Weekly movie reviewers put The Dark Knight as second and third on their own lists respectively. You know what wasn’t on any of these people’s lists? Neither Iron Man nor Speed Racer.
I am sure that Entertainment Weekly was not alone in its glowing praise of Knight. However I am too lazy to go find more examples.
I’m not saying Iron Man was bad. But, um, who thinks that it was better than The Dark Knight? In fact, who thinks Iron Man could even exist if it weren’t for Knight’s predecessor, Batman Begins? Or what if I phrased it this way: Robert Downey Jr. or Heath Ledger?
It is not as if they thought to avoid putting superhero movies into the list. No, instead they put a good superhero movie on the list and ignored “the best superhero movie ever.”I just don’t know if I can trust the cultural judgment of a publication that overlooks something like that. If they can’t get this close to right, how can they get foreign policy coverage right? How can they give good analysis of economic trends or political movements?
I guess I might be getting myself into a tizzy over something small. I need to step back and ask myself: Why so serious?
Flat N All That
Excerpt from Matt Taibbi’s review of Thomas Friedman’s new book:
Friedman writes:
Because if the spread of freedom and free markets is not accompanied by a new approach to how we produce energy and treat the environment… then Mother Nature and planet earth will impose their own constraints and limits on our way of life—constraints that will be worse than communism.
Three observations about this touching and seemingly remarkable development, i.e. onetime unrepentant free-market icon Thomas Friedman suddenly coming out huge for the environment and against the evils of gross consumerism:
1. The need for massive investment in green energy is an idea so obvious and inoffensive that even presidential candidates from both parties could be seen fighting over who’s for it more in nationally televised debates last fall;
2. I wish I had the balls to first spend six long years madly cheering on an Iraq war that not only reintroduced Sharia law to the streets of Baghdad, but radicalized the entire Islamic world against American influence—and then write a book blaming the spread of fundamentalist Islam on the ignorant consumers of the middle American heartland, who bought too many Hummers and spent too much time shopping for iPods in my wife’s giganto-malls.
Back in High School, I decided to be very intellectual and try to read The World is Flat, Friedman’s breakout book. I didn’t finish reading it. I didn’t finish reading it. After learning more about Friedman in this review, I realize the reason i didn’t finish the book is because:
- Friedman is a so-so writer at best
- Friedman is a hypocrite
- I was in High School and found the question of whether or not Moiraine was dead, or merely trapped in an alternate dimension, significantly more interesting than whether or not globalization was happening.
I had never researched Thomas Friedman before, but after reading this review I am led to believe Friedman is:
- a Hypocrite
- married to the daughter of a Mall Tycoon
- living in a mansion large enough to house several small armies
Whether or not this is true, it is true that I once noted Friedman as one of my journalistic heroes. This is highly ironic to me, and is further proof that trying to sound smart by name-dropping New York Times columnists is the reverse of intellectual. Let us all take a moment and chuckle at me.
But now I have learned. Taibbi has taught me. True intellectuality is exhibited by ridiculing NYT columnists!
I Couldn’t Think of a Title
One year ago today I was deboarding a jet in Washington, D.C. making my way through the cold streets to my little flat on Capitol Hill. There I met some fine people, some of whom I became close friends with. Four months of intense East Coast life were to follow. It is truly crazy that it was only a year ago that I started living in D.C.
Today, I met a new group of people. This semester I have volunteered my time to be a group leader for my school’s Freshman “Psychology of Personal Development” class. I have been assigned a group of ten Freshman level students. We will be meeting once a week with each other to discuss…anything. Actually, I don;t really know. I am the leader of the group, but I really don’t have a clue what I am doing. It should be an exciting exercise, though, and hopefully an enjoyable one for me and those lucky (unlucky?) enough to be a member of my group. However, I will not speak of them again, for the group is confidential. (The first rule of Small Group is, don’t talk about Small Group?) I merely make mention of it here, because it is interesting to me, and interesting things are what make it onto this blog.
I have so far been completely unsuccessful in getting to school by any othe rmeans than my car. This is frustrating me, because about 75 percent of the times I need to drive to or from class are during peak traffice times, and I just generally feel that I don’t need to be consuming that petroleum. Friday I will make one more effort to get tot school by bus. We will see how it goes.
The Last First Day of School
I’ve been going to school for a little over 16 years now, more if you count preschool. I am at the top of the food chain. I know where my classes are, I am aware of the finer points of being a student.
Yet, I still can’t sleep the night before the first day of school, and so I was pretty exhausted on my last first day of school. Which led to me getting coffee later than usual, which led to the coffee getting spilled on one of my bodies more sensitive areas.
Things got better however. My classes appear as if they will be invigorating. Although it dawned on me in the middle of our newspaper meeting that I have another four months of newspaper to “look forward to.” We’ll see how that goes.
Klosterman, Axl Rose, and Unicorns
Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It’s more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom? I’ve been thinking about this record for 15 years…
Chuck Klosterman has reviewed the much anticipated Guns N Roses album, Chinese democracy. Read the whole thing here.
