Sometimes people ask me if critics get hardened to movies — if we never laugh, cry, or gasp in horror; if the images that we see are simply passing before our eyes, to be noted rather than experienced. I can only speak for myself, but the answer is no. What I see in a dark theater often stays with me long afterward, for good or ill. “Wolf Creek” sickened me, to the point that I couldn’t be in the same room with it any more.
Having walked out once, I’ve no intention of making a practice of it. But I’m not sorry I made an early exit from “Wolf Creek.” I only wish I’d done it sooner, so the sound of that screaming wouldn’t still be echoing in my head.
Seattle Times: ‘A first: a movie that made this critic walk out’
Microsoft faces fines of up to €2 million (£1.36m) a day, after failing to comply with a European Commission ruling that found the company had broken competition rules.
“I would like to stress that we expect of course Microsoft to comply with the March 2004 decision and not with their own interpretation of the March 2004 decision” Neelie Kroes, the EU Competition Commissioner, said.
The Times: Microsoft faces €2m daily fine
This years Google Zeitgeist is out, and as usual, it’s a hoot. Where do people go for their news when there’s a real crisis, who’s the most interesting to the public: Brad, Angelina or Jennifer? Compare and contrast the searches of the past year with the power of Google’s analysis behind you, telling the tale.
Google Press Center: Zeitgeist
But I’m nowhere near as gay as my sisters. This is the problem with coming home for the holidays; I can hear them two floors below me, singing acapella to the Chordettes classic, Mr Sandman. Seriously, is it possible to be any more faggy?!
nstead of what we have in the UK called ‘Wife Swap’, in the States it’s called Trading Spouses, I’d have thought a far less catchy name. I suppose Fox, the network on which the show airs, didn’t want any association with the sexual antics side of the term which Channel 4 was deliberately courting when they named show.
Sometimes, Trading Spouses goes wrong, very wrong. When a Louisiana woman called Marguerite Perrin returned from her swap, she went into mild melt-down. In response to the ‘dark-sidedness’ of the family she was traded into, she declared herself a God Warrior, a phrase which has now made its way into the zeitgeist and has become a phrase of note, with depictions of her raging face used on bumper stickers and model clay dolls.
from the LA Times’ Calendarlive.com:
To this day, Perrin said she does not understand what went so wrong that she kicked a camera crew out of her Louisiana house and broke down. A devout Christian who owns a dance studio with her 24-year-old daughter, Ashley, Perrin traded homes with Jeanne D’Amico-Flisher, a 47-year-old hypnotist and pressure healer from Boxborough, Mass., who reads tarot cards and has a syndicated radio program called “Love Talk USA” with her husband, Chris.
WMV Trading Spouses clip
via Overyourhead.co.uk
Getting on the bus earlier today and darn if the only money I could find at the bottom of my satchel was chocolate coins.
It really shows the time of year. ’tis the season!
From Washington State Univesity comes the website of the book, a page that lists literally hundreds of crazy, insane and embarassing mistakes that people make when writing and speaking the language. It’s a hoot, especially Stock and Trade, Guild vs Gild, Calm, Cool, and Collective, and Callous vs Callused.
Common Errors in English
I’m going out with a really great guy at the moment and I really like him. We’ve been together a lot, almost constantly, since we actually got together mid-term and I really like that. I feel completely comfortable with him because I think we were both pretty open from the start and aren’t averse to talking about the idea of ‘us’. This excellent state of being means that I have a couple problems that I’ve not experienced thus far and as a result I’m slowly melting like the Wicked Witch of the West in her cauldron. I’ve never had to do this before and it’s eating me up; I’ve never had to buy Christmas presents for anyone who I’m really into and had to wonder, ‘what will this say’?
I’ve never been in a relationship over Christmas, odd in itself. And I’ve never had to worry so much about what the gifts say about me what they say about us and what they say for us.
Everything I consider in my mind as I go about the day, could be an option but it’s either too boring, too traditional, too insignificant, too impersonal, too expensive or too showy. I’m not being miserly when I say that it’d look bad to spend too much money, but at the same time it would be bad to not spend enough. I always think it’s bad if a gift could be purchased from any city, if it’s from a chain that’s as likely to be in his hometown as mine. If I give something, it doesn’t make sense for there to be a chance that he could have bought it and simply didn’t because it wasn’t good enough!
The days draw closer that I have to mail these things off and it’s not come together yet, it’s not gelled in my mind and so I’m left trying to desperately think of something that’s less than what I’ve got, but at the same time, more.
It’s not for you and me, and I’m guessing it’s not for many other people. At almost £2,000 for a return ticket, I’d be looking at anywhere else before trying to go to Italy this winter.
Aged 58, Spencer, who was most famous for his role as US Presidential Chief Of Staff in the NBC show ‘The West Wing’, died of a heart attack on Friday 16th December. He had a wit, a cheery smile and an appearance of wholesomeness that was an ever attractive quality and a joy to watch. He was certainly one of the most engaging actors I’ve watched, which I say having obsessed about The West Wing for the last six years of my life since the show first aired in September ‘99. It took a while for the show to cross the Atlantic but Spencer’s role as part of the team that made the fictional White House so real can’t be over estimated.
He will be missed by many but forgotten by few.
Executive Producers Aaron Sorkin and Tommy Schlamme also said, “We’re shocked and deeply saddened by the sudden death of our friend and colleague. John was an uncommonly good man, an exceptional role model and a brilliant actor. We feel privileged to have known him and worked with him. He’ll be missed and remembered everyday by his many, many friends.”
ComingSoon.net: West Wing Actor John Spencer Dies
