she's addicted to nicotine patches...

Added my review of Jim Sheridan's In America. You can see the trailer here.

in the garden i did no crime...

Roger Ebert, the most respected and recognized film critic out there, has released his top-10 list of movies for 2003. They are as follows:

1. Monster
2. Lost in Translation
3. American Splendor
4. Finding Nemo
5. Master and Commander
6. Mystic River
7. Owning Mahowny
8. The Son
9. Whale Rider
10. In America

He adds that Charlize Theron gives the performance of the year in Monster. The movie will be released on December 26th in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco; it will be released nationwide on January 9th. Looking forward to it...

i didn't know we could break a silver lining...

Added my review of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I feel human again.

Watch the trailer here.

i'm unimpressed with your loneliness...

Here are Owen Gleiberman's picks for the top-10 movies of the year:

1. American Splendor
2. Capturing the Friedmans
3. School of Rock
4. Lilya 4-Ever
5. Bend It Like Beckham
6. The Magdalene Sisters
7. A Mighty Wind
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
9. Thirteen
10. Kill Bill, Vol. 1

Capturing the Friedmans? Please. A Mighty Wind? I laugh at thee, Owen Gleiberman.

Entertainment Weekly has released its lists of the best movies of the year. Here are Lisa Schwarzbaum's picks:

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2. Mystic River
3. Lost in Translation
4. American Splendor
5. Finding Nemo
6. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
7. The Fog of War
8. Kill Bill, Vol. 1
9. The Man Without a Past
10. To Be and to Have

Tomorrow, I will post Owen Gleiberman's picks, who is the other EW critic.

but I have to get to texas, said I have to get to texas...

Texan: What's your name?
Pee-wee: I don't remember.
Texan: Where are you from?
Pee-wee: I don't remember.
Texan: Do you remember anything?
Pee-wee: I remember...the Alamo.
All: Woo-hoo!!!

Classic. I'm going home now. Feels good, too.

so maybe we're a bliss of another kind...

The correct answer is (d). If Elaine’s face-to-face profanity tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace, then it’s constitutionally unprotected fighting words, see Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire.

(a) is wrong because the question is whether the speech tends to incite a breach, not whether it actually incited the breach. (b) is wrong because Brandenburg deals with attempts to persuade others to commit crimes; there’s no reason to think that Elaine was intending to persuade Nader to imminently attack her. (c) is wrong because Nader is a public figure, and given Hustler v. Falwell, speech about a public figure may not be punished as intentional infliction of emotional distress unless it’s otherwise unprotected. (e) is wrong because the fact that speech involves a profanity doesn’t make it either fighting words or obscenity, see Cohen v. California.

And that concludes my first semester at Harvard Law School. :-)

i believe in us someday...

And now, it's time for the Free Speech Question of the Week! It goes something like this:

Elaine Mandel, an Al Gore supporter, runs into Ralph Nader at a party and says “Look at the mess your fucking ego trip got us into, you asshole.” Nader throws his drink (soda water only, of course) into Elaine’s face. Which of the following is most accurate?

(a) Elaine’s speech is not constitutionally unprotected fighting words, because Nader did not punch her or do anything else that was likely to seriously injure her.

(b) Elaine’s speech is constitutionally unprotected incitement under Brandenburg v. Ohio, because it was foreseeably likely to cause imminent unlawful conduct by Nader.

(c) Whether or not Elaine’s speech is constitutionally unprotected fighting words, the speech is constitutionally unprotected intentional infliction of emotional distress, because her main purpose in saying what she said was to insult Nader.

(d) Elaine’s speech is constitutionally unprotected fighting words if it tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace.

(e) Elaine’s speech is constitutionally unprotected because it involves an obscenity (“fucking”).

This is a real question posed by Professor Volokh in a past exam. The answer shall be revealed tomorrow.

now i'm wishing for my best impression...

The San Francisco Film Critics Circle has chosen Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation as the year's Best Picture, and the film's Bill Murray as Best Actor. Unsurprisingly, the Boston Society of Film Critics instead chose Clint Eastwood's Mystic River as its top film (it takes place in Boston), but the group still granted Lost in Translation wins for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress (Scarlett Johansson).

Moreover, the New York Film Critics Online have named their top-10 films of the year. They are:

1. Lost in Translation
2. American Splendor
3. In America
4. 21 Grams
5. A Mighty Wind
6. Cold Mountain
7. Girl With a Pearl Earring
8. Lawless Heart
9. The Barbarian Invasions
10. The Station Agent

I must say this is probably one of the most pretentious top-10 lists I've seen in a while. I'd say that 7 out of the 10 films are "independent" films with little or no major publicity. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the NY online critics are trying a little too hard to distinguish themselves...

don't say the morning's come...

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was just named picture of the year by the New York Film Critics Circle. The movie will be released on Wednesday.

Also, Sofia Coppola was named Best Director for her brilliant second feature, Lost in Translation. Bill Murray won Best Actor for his role in that film as well.

i said too much...

The American Film Institute announced its top-10 list for 2003. Their alphabetical list is as follows:

- American Splendor
- Finding Nemo
- The Human Stain
- In America
- The Last Samurai
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- Lost in Translation
- Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- Monster
- Mystic River

Unfortunately, AFI does not rank its list. Looking at Peter Travers' list, and at the National Board of Review's list, it appears that Mystic River, Lost in Translation, and Master and Commander are clear favorites this year.

if i could take 25 minutes out of the recordbooks...

Watch the new Spider-Man 2 trailer here. One word: Wow!

somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly...

Mr. Poon points to the Ethical Philosophy Selector, which generates a list of philosophers and philosophies that matches your own ethical/moral predispositions according to the answers you provide. Try it out. Here are my top-5 results, which I found to be remarkably accurate:

1. Nietzsche (100%)
2. Jean-Paul Sartre (80%)
3. David Hume (80%)
4. Stoics (74%)
5. Cynics (72%)

And here are the bottom 5:

15. St. Augustine (31%)
16. John Stuart Mill (31%)
17. Ockham (26%)
18. Plato (23%)
19. Prescriptivism (22%)

This is an almost perfect representation of my moral proclivities: I am most certainly Nietzschean, as I am an avowed ethical nihilist. However, if the test were perfect, Plato would have been dead last. Hehe.

gladys save a place for me on your grapevine...

The Bush Administration captured Saddam Hussein today, and with him the 2004 Presidency! Accept it.

and i think i could leave your world...

Fans of Spider-Man rejoice! The trailer for Spider-Man 2 will world-premiere at midnight tonight (Eastern Time) on Yahoo!. This time around, the mild-mannered Peter Parker will be facing double trouble from Dr. Otto Octavius. Returning are director Sam Raimi; Kirsten Dunst as Parker's love interest, Mary Jane Watson; and James Franco as his best friend, Harry Osborn. I thoroughly enjoyed last year's Spider-Man; I thought Tobey Maguire was perfect for the role, and that the movie was a quintessential example of pure, innocent fun. (I gave it an A.) I hope the next installment will deliver in like kind. However, we'll have to wait until July 2nd to find out.

they say that your demons can't go there...

Added my review of 21 Grams, Mystic River's blood-brother.

You can watch the trailer for 21 Grams here, if you want. I wouldn't recommend it though.

i'm sure you've heard it all before...

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone has chosen his top-10 movies of the year. Here is his list:

1. Mystic River
2. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
3. Lost in Translation
4. Master and Commander
5. Cold Mountain
6. American Splendor
7. Big Fish
8. A Mighty Wind
9. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
10. Angels in America

I am shocked that he chose A Mighty Wind, as it was utter drivel. If you want to see a good Christopher Guest movie, watch Waiting for Guffman instead. Not to mention the egregious mistake of naming the emotionally officious Mystic River as the best movie of the year. That's two number-one picks for Clint Eastwood's movie. See the National Board of Review's top-10 picks here.

so i walked right up to you...

Rolling Stone named Radiohead's Hail to the Thief one of the 50 best albums of the year. They have this to say about it:

"Hail wasn't exactly Radiohead's anticipated return to rock; instead, the band simply turns down the volume on the electronics and lets the songwriting drift to less chaotic, more atmospheric realms. But on the singles "There, There" and "Go to Sleep," the album comes into scary focus: guitars swell to arena-worthy crescendos, supporting songs that demand repeated exposure to reveal themselves. And on this past summer's tour, Radiohead proved again that they're the best band in the world."

They also had the good sense to choose The White Stripes' Elephant:

"Once again, less is more. The White Stripes' fourth album takes the breakthrough of 2001's White Blood Cells to a place that was both musically adventurous and in keeping with the duo's spartan, retro aesthetic. Constant touring has paid off: The quiet tracks are just as intense as rockers such as "Seven Nation Army," and Jack and Meg White play as if their hands were attached to the same body."

Finally, they also picked The Raveonettes' Chain Gang of Love:

"Thirteen concise tracks of solid-gold distortion and street-corner-angel harmonies, the full-length debut by this Danish duo is ferociously modern pop with a nostalgic twist: nostalgia for an alternate world where the Shangri-La's were bigger than the Beatles, the Ramones ruled Top Forty radio in the 1970s, and the Jesus and Mary Chain always kicked Van Halen's ass on the charts."

Those are my picks for the top three albums of the year, not necessarily in that order!

i read the news today oh boy...

Did I fall from the face of the Earth? It feels like it. I just finished an 8-hour take home exam for my Federal Courts class. Needless to say, preparing for that exam completely usurped my entire week. Exhausted, but happy to be done. Up next: Free Speech. Here we go again...

However, I might take a break tonight and go to see a movie or something. I'm sorely behind on my movie-watching.

i got a desert in my mouth...

Director Peter Jackson has revealed that, copyright issues permitting, he would love to film The Hobbit, the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is anything like The Two Towers, then I'm behind him. He has certainly carved out a niche for himself in the film industry as a quirky, adventuresome director with a grandiose style. Even in his ultimately unbearable Heavenly Creatures, we saw the same kind of experimentation with computer-generated characters (the clay figurines coming to life), and those grand, overhead shots of fields, valleys, and mountains, that has become the staple of the Lord of the Rings series. At any rate, I always thought Bilbo was a more complex character than Frodo. He always seemed more vulnerable, more emotional, less secure in his ability to handle the power of the ring. We'll see if anything comes of it.

inspired by nietzsche on european nihilism...

And whence morality, science, truth-seeking, metaphysics, religion? Our natural need to justify evil; to give our lives the appearance of meaning. Why natural? Our instincts demand it. They demand the feeling that our self is growing, expanding, conquering, being. Why heed our instincts? A nonsensical question. What is instinct? The only given. Therefore, the only value worthy of contemplation. But, if instinct demands a justification for evil, then instinct demands morality, religion, metaphysics. Nature as its own enemy? A puzzle.

sleeping beauty trips me with a frown...

Blah. I'm in the middle of studying for finals right now. What does this mean for this site? Well, I have no time to review the movies I've seen, and no time to watch any new ones. Truly unfortunate. To keep you guys going, I will say that I managed to see The Matrix: Revolutions, and will give it a B-. I also saw 21 Grams, and I will give it a C-. I promise I'll properly review them after finals.

In the meantime, you can watch a really neat trailer for Jim Carrey's new movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (cool title, no?). However, it won't be released until March. Something to look forward to, no doubt.

And it is indeed snowing!

i saw a film today, oh boy...

Talk of top-ten lists for the 2003 movie-going year has already begun, and we still have a whole month to go. Indeed, the National Board of Review has named Mystic River the best movie of the year. If you've read my review of Mystic River, you know that I did not much care for it. I thought it was the most emotionally obnoxious movie of the year. And I'm sticking to that. But as I predicted in my review, it will win the awards (perhaps the Oscar, even) because it followed all the rules.

Here is the complete top-10 list of the National Board of Review, which is made up of teachers, writers, actors and movie production workers:

1. Mystic River
2. The Last Samurai
3. The Station Agent
4. 21 Grams
5. House of Sand and Fog
6. Lost in Translation
7. Cold Mountain
8. In America
9. Seabiscuit
10. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

What of my top-ten list? Well it's coming. But before I publish it, I still have to see, at the very least, the following movies: The Station Agent, In My Skin, In America, The Last Samurai, Big Fish, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Cold Mountain, House of Sand and Fog, Mona Lisa Smile, The Fog of War, and Monster. All of these movies have either already been released, or will be released shortly (before January 1st). I must say, however, that making a top-10 list for this year will be tough. I've seen a lot of good movies. In the meantime, you can check out my top-ten lists for previous years here.

you've never seen fire until you've seen pele blow...

"The mother has been denied custody because of her adultery... The father has been denied custody because there is sufficient proof for the court to find that he has been contaminated with the germ of Nazism which makes him totally unfit to rear and guide the destiny of any living thing...

"The father in a communication addressed to this Court has stated: ‘May I wish to say in conclusion that I deem it rather peculiar to balance a political belief, (‘No one even tainted with Nazism is going to have anything to do with that child’) against ethics and matrimonial vows (adultery).’ It is strange to have a pro-Nazi urge ‘ethics’ as a basis for human relationships...

"As a subterfuge Nazism, as the father contends, has been artfully presented on many occasions as merely a political philosophy. In reality it is comparable to a plague that has paralyzed the souls of its adherents and warped their minds, turning them into Robots dedicated to bringing endless human suffer-ing and complete destruction to all of mankind on this earth who possess sufficient strength of mind and character to resist the terrible affliction of Nazism. This should suffice to explain to the father why this court will not permit anyone ‘tainted with Nazism’ to have anything to do with the child, inasmuch as the child is the ward of this court." (Reimann v. Reimann, 39 N.Y.S.2d 485 (1942))

So that's what family law is about!

can you launch rockets from here?

It's actually snowing right now! This is the first I've ever seen real snow falling. The first day of many, I presume. Hehe.

Meanwhile, Jim Dedman drowns in a tepid cesspool of his own rhetoric as he unsuccessfully attempts to salvage his dignity by resorting to a series of puerile ad hominems that fail to address even a single issue raised by my previous post. However, Jim does have the good sense to recommend the new Guns N' Roses DVDs featuring concert footage from 1992. Ahh...those were the days!

cellophane flowers of yellow and green...

Jim Dedman exasperatedly retorts, regarding Cash's cover of NIN's "Hurt":

"The fact that it may have been a concept album does not, in my opinion, imbue its final track with so much significance and external meaning that it dwarfs any cover thereof. (Sgt. Pepper's was, after all, a concept album, and I'll put Joe Cocker's version of "With A Little Help From My Friends" against Ringo's any day.)"

Sgt. Pepper's may have been a concept album, but not of the kind The Downward Spiral was. The Downward Spiral told a story--a coherent narrative with one central character; Sgt. Pepper merely created a fictitious, alter-ego band. Indeed, this is why Joe Cocker can best the Beatles (and their fictitious band)--there was no continuity of theme, style, or narrative in Sgt. Pepper's. (In fact, the Beatles abandon the "concept" after the first two songs, and the ending.)

The indefatigable Jim goes on to note:

"We know Cash has struggled with life and narcotics, we know he has sinned and paid for it, we know he has broken so many rules and yet somehow survived in order to seek redemption."

Presumably because Cash has "struggled," and used narcotics, and has sinned, and broken a rule or two, his version of "Hurt" should easily trump Reznor's. Here's a news flash: Trent Reznor is no saint. He's an industrial-metal rocker, for crying out loud! Indeed, Reznor was the poster-boy for existential struggle, drug use, sin, and general mayhem when The Downward Spiral was released in 1994. And if Jim wants to see Reznor "seek redemption," then he should give a listen to NIN's follow-up album, The Fragile,which is imbued with a sense of hope and salvation that was explicitly missing in The Downward Spiral.

Amazingly, Jim continues:

"[Cash's rendition] is far more haunting and evocative than the Reznor's version, which is preceded by only thirteen tracks."

That's like saying that the final tragic scene in Hamlet is "preceded by only" four Acts. The suggestion is laughable.

i hurt myself today...

Jim Dedman says that Johnny Cash's version of Nine Inch Nail's "Hurt" is better than the original because "Reznor comes off as a fashionably depressed brat governed by trendy sadness, while Cash is so much more genuine." I'd have to disagree. I don't know whether Jim owns a copy of Nine Inch Nail's The Downward Spiral, which is the album featuring "Hurt." The Downward Spiral is a concept album, which means that all of the songs build upon one another, making for an evolutionary musical, emotional, and thematic experience from the time one hits PLAY to the time the album finishes. "Hurt" is the final song on that album, and it represents the speaker's suicidal climax. In that context, NIN's version is certainly a more potent, shocking, and sometimes overwhelming experience than is Cash's singular, stand-alone cover of the song. That is not to say that Cash's version is bad. Indeed, I have commented before on it here, praising Cash's version, but also ultimately qualifying that statement by focusing on the impact of the song itself, as opposed to the artist playing it.

"Hurt" represents Reznor's most vulnerable moment in all of NIN's oeuvre, as that is the point where he realizes that all the pain, anguish, disappointment, and brief instances of (self-deceptive) pride are for naught. He is left only with his memories of these disappointments ("try to kill it all away, but i remember everything"). And indeed, those memories have usurped his self-image, making him unrecognizable even to himself ("what have I become?"). He finally recognizes the most haunting consequence of it all: "Everyone I know goes away in the end." He has alienated everyone, all those he loves, even himself. Overcome with regret, he says that if he could start again, "I would keep myself; I would find a way." Of course, that is no longer an option.

The song ends in a burst of sonic chaos, ultimately drowning out the speaker (and hence making his suicide explicit). Because at that point we have already spent over an hour with the speaker as he revealed his innermost thoughts, desires, virtues, and flaws, we are naturally shocked--much more so than had this not been the finale of a concept album. This is why I think Cash's version isn't as shocking or as "authentic." It's like reading the climax of the story without having become intimately acquainted with the characters. And that doesn't sound like authenticity to me--it's more like exploitation.