Film, culture, history
In 1984 we had Ronald Reagan, the Tupperware Party, Steve Jobs, Bob Hope, and Back to the Future.
27 years later we have Barrack Obama and the Tea Party, no Jobs, no Hope, and no Future.
Reagan is a man who defines an era. The 1980s were known as the “me” generation, a time when people were said to be selfish.
Back in 1997, when a Balanced Budget amendment was put forth by the US Senate, the Committee on the Judiciary quoted Thomas Jefferson almost from the start.
Towards the top of Senator Orrin Hatch’s report it affirms that “the public debt is one of the greatest dangers to be feared by a republican government.”
On September 3 this year, another politician claimed that Jefferson saw a balanced budget amendment as the solution, and his aids had the quote to prove it.
Continue reading “Did Jefferson support a Balanced Budget amendment?”
On screenjunkies.com, Honora James made a list of the top ten “English historical movies”, whatever that means. Not only did Honora list a flick about a Scot as the top “English movie”, but she left out a few of the treasures that show the Sceptred Isle in its true splendor.
So, I’ve made my own list of great motion pictures that tell us about the history of Britain. Continue reading “Ten great British history films.”
Is nationality the fruit of a family tree?
The Cherokee have voted to exclude those who are not on the 1906 Dawes Roll from their tribe. Yahoo News emphasizes the fact that the some descendants of slaves will lose their Cherokee “citizenship.”
Continue reading “What is a Cherokee? (updated 12 September)”
It has been ten years since a small group of men hijacked a few planes and flew themselves into buildings. Their cause appears to have been a religious one.
But we forget that millions of other people with the same religion don’t fly planes into buildings. More significantly than that, other men flew themselves into buildings afterwards, and their cause was not a religious one. Continue reading “Does religion cause war?”
I read yet another article on how Americans “can’t read maps,” and aren’t being “international” enough.
I don’t see why we should censor ourselves to please China’s autocracy. Continue reading “Who do we make movies for anyway?”
Lies, more lies, and false statistics.
Sure, the average American spends more money than the average Angolan. But does that make America rich?
A friend of mine… Do me a favor… could you please vote for… if you vote for me, I’ll vote for you…
You sick of these messages yet?
Gone are the days when critics and filmmakers were two different breeds of people. Gone are the days when critics were professionals, who were not anonymous but had to live by their words. Gone are the days when art was judged on some sort of merit rather than politics or favor swapping.
Despite that, some backscratching existed back in the old days. What really gets me sick these days is the no-life reputation destroyers. I’m emailed by people “warning” me about others who supposedly did something terrible. Like had a day job as a clown once.
One guy asked me to give another filmmaker one star on youtube. Why?
Was the other filmmaker evil? No.
Did he have a bad video? No, it was better than any film the guy who wanted to give one star ever made.
So, why did he want me to give him one star? It’s someone from his old school, an old rival, who called him a name.
Now, what was this horrible name? Was it something incredibly offensive? Maybe, but it was true. He was called “unprofessional”.
Now tell me, what’s more unprofessional than telling other people to go around giving your “enemies” one star?
Anyway, I think he later told people to give a videos I was in one star, because I agreed with the enemy that he was unprofessional. I don’t think anybody agreed though. A series of new accounts were made just to rate my video (and thrown away afterwards). It wasn’t the best video I made, but come on. What an unprofessional. (At least he could have kept the accounts to down rate his other enemies as well.)
The sad thing is, he’s not abnormal, anymore. People are doing this all over the place. “If I scratch your back, you stab my friend’s.”
What an unprofessional attitude. Welcome to the idiotocracy known as “social networking”.