::Saturday, August 10, 2002::

TRIPLE STARS FOR TRIPLE X - This movie was a Bond rip-off. There's no doubt about that. I counted scenes taken right of The World is Not Enough, Goldfinger, Thunderball and Goldeneye. Not to mention we have such Bond staples as the bad girl who is really good, faceless bad guy cronies, fast cars, a gadget guy and the remorseless boss. Having said that, and considering Bond is one of the best franchises ever created I really can't complain about xXx.

When you think about it Triple X is really an American version of Bond. Bond is the uptight, suave British guy. He does everything in a tux and with a grin. He's enemies are clever, and so is he. His women are sophisticated and often smart. And his gadgets and cars are cool and calm. This is the British way of doing things. Triple X is all America. His gadgets, women and enemies are rougher and tougher. Triple X is not for his country first. He wears a fur coat, sports tattoos and has probably never been fitted for a tux in his life. He enemies aren't as suave as Bond's; they are rather foolish Russian cast-offs. His women have more sex appeal then class and his gadget freak is not nearly as inventive as Q. Throw in that fact that X's car is faster and gritty then Bond's classy BMW and the British to American transition is complete.

I'm surprised no one has thought of this idea earlier. Why not have an American version of Bond? Everything that is not American about Bond, Triple X is. Everything that makes Bond English, Triple X is not. Of course American audiences are going to go for this!

The movie itself is lots of fun. Vin Diesel looks gruff and like a good old American badass. He's an Extreme Sports athlete, a classification of athletics the fast paced, take it to the edge Americans have certainly invented and taken to the Max. He becomes a Secret Agent by being tough and fearless, which is probably better for a fighter pilot then an undercover agent. But Diesel's X is smart and seems to take to his job pretty well. He fights the bad guys, and goes for the girl. The scenery is great and the stunts top of the line. Having Diesel's character be a extreme athlete allows Rob Cohen, the director, to make him do a lot of crazy stuff and allow it to be almost believable. The bad guys aren't real smart. The live in castle of all places and they have a plan (sorta) to cause anarchy for the sake of causing it.

None of this matters in a movie like this. It's about the guy and his mission and how he does it. And xXx does it all just right. Vin Deisel is the American superhero. He's what we look for in our tough guys...forget the tux.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 1:58:15 AM| Link This ::

THE BUNNY SAYS KISS IT - The Facer has uncovered some distrubing things being done by General Mills, those once gentle cereal making folk:

Rarely do I get offended by things. Even more rarely do I get offended by cereal boxes. But I draw the line when a cereal box, marketed specifically at children, blatantly endorses anal fingering of rodentia. And I'm not talking Playboy bunnies, either.

For more go to The Facer's website and read about the rabbit and his debauchry. What a sad, sad world we live in. Who do these General Mills people think they are, animators at Disney?
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 4:44:40 PM| Link This ::

SNEAK PEAK MOVIE OF THE DAY -

THE PLAYERS - Robert DeNiro, Frances McDormand, James Franco, Eliza Dushku, William Forsythe, George Dzundza, Ansen Mount, Nestor Serranom, Patti Lu
THE DIRECTOR - Michael Caton-Jones
THE SCRIBE - Ken Hixon
THE TRAILER - Movie-list.com
OFFICIAL SITE - City by the Sea
THE PLOT - New York City homicide detective Vincent LaMarca (De Niro) has forged a long and distinguished career in law enforcement, making a name for himself as a man intensely committed to his work. But on his latest case, the stakes are higher for Vincent – the suspect he’s investigating is his own son (Franco). He and Joey have been painfully estranged ever since Vincent divorced his wife and left the decaying boardwalks of Long Beach, Long Island for the anonymity of Manhattan and a successful career with the NYPD. He lives his life in solitude, keeping his girlfriend (McDormand) at arm’s length; the closest relationship he maintains is with his partner, Reg (Dzundza) – and Vincent makes sure that stops at the precinct door. As long as Vincent lives in the protection of the present, he doesn’t have to deal with the pain of his past – or his sorrow over his broken relationship with Joey. But this murder investigation is drawing Vincent home to Long Beach, the self-proclaimed “City by the Sea,” where the past has been waiting for him to return. The agonizing memory that has tortured him all his life – the death of his father, a convicted murderer who was executed when Vincent was just a boy – still plagues him. In the course of the investigation, he discovers that his own unresolved pain and failures as a father have deeply influenced Joey’s life, and now his 18-month-old grandson may be fated to follow their self-destructive paths. Haunted by his father’s death, the sins of his own past, and the desire to break the cycle for the sake of his grandson’s future, Vincent must put his life on the line in order to do right by both his family and his profession.

Mr. DeNiro is my favorite actor and the fact that his newest movie is coming out one day after my birthday makes for a fine present. And of course there's not a better act who can play a New York Policeofficer. DeNiro was playing these roles when Nixon was President and George Lucas was making student films named TX1473801431322. Now the director and writer aren't exactly A-list quality but there is potentional here to put together a real solid film. DeNiro is in such demand and has done so many movies, become so revered, that he often only chooses the projects that appeal to him personally. This looks like a solid one.

Warner Brothers opens City by the Sea nationwide on September 6th, 2002.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 1:58:19 AM| Link This ::

TELL DASCHLE TO DO SOME WORK - I am writing to express my strong opposition to partial-birth abortion and to urge you to bring the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2002 up for a vote in the Senate.

There is no medical or moral reason for any woman to ever have this procedure, or for any child to suffer such a cruel death. The American Medical Association, the 600-member Physicians’ Ad hoc Coalition for Truth (PHACT) as well as our nation’s highly respected former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, all agree that partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary.

In addition to these medical groups, the overwhelming majority of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, men and women, and many who consider themselves “pro-choice,” agree that partial birth abortion is closer to infanticide than abortion, and has no place in our civilized society.

I urge you, in the best interests of women and their children, to vote in support of an immediate vote and end to partial-birth abortion. Please support the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2002 (H.R. 4965) introduced by Congressman Steve Chabot and passed by the House.

I would appreciate a prompt reply to my letter.

Taking bets now on when, if ever, Puff replies to the letter or does a decent act by bringing the PBA ban to the floor of the Senate. The bill already passed in the House of Representatives with a bipartisan vote of 274-151. Congress (including those fools and fence sitters in the Senate) has approved national bans on the partial-birth abortion twice before but both were vetoed by Clinton in 1996 and 1997.

You yourself can contact Daschle by going here but since that will just take you to a contact form on his personal web page I doubt he'll ever know. Here's some more useful information:
Washington Office:

Phone: (202) 224-2321
Fax: (202) 224-6603
509 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-4103

Main District Office:
Phone: (605) 334-9596
Fax: (605) 334-2591
320 N. Main St., Ste. B
Sioux Falls, SD 57104

But best of all is the email forms available at 60-Second Activist. This is the best place to get phone numbers, email addy and contact information for your congressmen. The site also provides form letters you can send out to your elected officials to help save you the trouble of writing one yourself (we're all lazy sometimes.) It's good to write them every now and then and remind them you are alive and do have a vote. I write Hillary once a month but she never responds (suprise, suprise!). Senator Schumer and my Rep. Boehlert often do send a form letter thanking me for my correspondence. Boehlert's letters often detail his thoughts on the issue I've written him about and what action he's taken on them.

Since Daschle is on vacation for the next month it'd be great if he returned to his D.C. office to find lots of letters, emails and phone messages for him. Right now the Senator is spending his month off driving the 66 counties of South Dakota. He’s trying to remind his voters that he was once a good conservative and that just because the state went more for George W. then any other state in the Union back in ’00, that doesn't mean they shouldn't hate his neo-socialist, obstructionist, anti-democratic leadership in the Senate. Nope he's just doing what must Southern and Mid-West Democrats do every election summer...pretend they aren't Democrats.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 7:25:41 AM| Link This ::

QUOTES OF THE DAY -
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We need a renaissance of wonder. We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls, the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense that life is miracle and magic." -- E. Merrill Root
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 5:50:43 AM| Link This ::

REASON #45,284 THAT WINDOWS IS SUPERIOR TO MACS - Bill Gates isn't creating fake websites to have people tattoo little windows on themselves. What will these Mac fans do when the company goes out of business in five years or is bought up by Bill Gates? This is just like the stock market. When tattoing yourself with (read: investing in) a product choose a stable company (i.e. Coca-Cola).
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 5:31:20 AM| Link This ::

WHAT RYAN'S READING -

There was a time when reading Joseph Heller's classic satire on the murderous insanity of war was nothing less than a rite of passage. Echoes of Yossarian, the wise-ass bombardier who was too smart to die but not smart enough to find a way out of his predicament, could be heard throughout the counterculture. As a result, it's impossible not to consider Catch-22 to be something of a period piece. But 40 years on, the novel's undiminished strength is its looking-glass logic. Again and again, Heller's characters demonstrate that what is commonly held to be good, is bad; what is sensible, is nonsense.

Yossarian says, "You're talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive."
"Exactly," Clevinger snapped smugly. "And which do you think is more important?"
"To whom?" Yossarian shot back. "It doesn't make a damn bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead."
"I can't think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy."
"The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on."

Mirabile dictu, the book holds up post-Reagan, post-Gulf War. It's a good thing, too. As long as there's a military, that engine of lethal authority, Catch-22 will shine as a handbook for smart-alecky pacifists. It's an utterly serious and sad, but damn funny book. My great friend Manu Samnotra demanded for near two years that I read this book. Knowing it's content I avoided it, but must now admit that for what it's trying to do, from the point of veiw it's coming from, it's a very effective novel and certainly a neccessary read.

Like all great works of literature, this can only be enjoyed with repeated reading. The performative nature of Beckett's art insists on SHOWING one what boredom is rather than telling one about it. The lack of definite structure and the seemingly rambling dialogue is Beckett's way of expressing the uncertainty and loss of order in the modern world. Yet the play is peppered with little stabs of lyric and sheer poetry. Despite our futile existence, we are sometimes capable of the great and good. The wait for Godot is a remark on just how much faith we place on a thread of hope and how much we need/depend on it. In uncertainty, there is only hope to cling to. The beauty of the play lies not in its easy accessibility, but in its powerful reflection on human nature and life. One of the best of the twentieth century plays i've read.

And tomorrow I will be driving to Borders to pick up the new novel from my 3rd favorite author...I can't wait!

Long before he was President or head of the CIA, before he fought terrorist attacks on the Super Bowl or the White House, even before a submarine named Red October made its perilous way across the Atlantic, Jack Ryan was a historian, teacher, and recent ex-Marine temporarily living in England while researching a book. A series of deadly encounters with an IRA splinter group had brought him to the attention of the CIA's Deputy Director, Vice Admiral James Greer-as well as his counterpart with the British SIS, Sir Basil Charleston-and when Greer asked him if he wanted to come aboard as a freelance analyst, Jack was quick to accept. The opportunity was irresistible, and he was sure he could fit it in with the rest of his work.

And then Jack forgot all about the rest of his work, because one of his first assignments was to help debrief a high-level Soviet defector, and the defector told an amazing tale: Top Soviet officials, including Yuri Andropov, were planning to assassinate the Pope, John Paul II.

Could it be true? As the days and weeks go by, Ryan must battle, first to try to confirm the plot, and then to prevent it, but this is a brave new world, and nothing he has done up to now has prepared him for the lethal game of cat-and-mouse that is the Soviet Union versus the United States. In the end, it will be not just the Pope's life but the stability of the Western world that is at stake. . . and it may already be too late for a novice CIA analyst to do anything about it.

Red Rabbit, a Tom Clancy novel and published by Penguin USA arrives in bookstores August 5th, 2002.
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 2:23:47 AM| Link This ::

SEE I TOLD YOU SO - I said this exact thing would happen just last Sunday.

The only difference is that I thought it was going to be Les Moonves and CBS who made a mockery of heroism but surprisingly it looks like it'll be Disney and in all likelyhood ABC Television who takes the honors. I can't wait!
:: Posted by Citizen Ryan | 2:58:34 AM| Link This ::

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