John on May 11, 2008
Jim Young is an obviously talented Reuters photojournalist. If you read the news you’ve likely seen some of his work, like this shot…
That said, I think it’s possible that Mr. Young is getting a bit bored with his assignment. Specifically, this photo from May 7th (which I’m dubbing the “headless President”) makes me wonder if that is the case.
What exactly is the news value here? Is Mr. Young just trying to entertain himself?
A quick search of Yahoo’s news photo archive showed that this is just the most recent in a line of Jim Young photos where the President seems to be more background element than foreground. Call it the incredible disappearing President Bush:
Mr. Young seems a lot more attentive to other subjects, such as LeBron James and Pamela Anderson. Neither of them appear as tiny background specks or slivers.
So I guess my question is…What’s the point? Is there one? Specifically, why is Reuters selecting these odd photos of the President for release to the world? Sort of makes me wonder if they aren’t intrigued by the idea of seeing the President fade into the background and, as the headless President photo suggests, finally just disappear.
Category: News |
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John on May 10, 2008
Stolen from HotAir who got it from LGF…
Buried deep in a NY Times story on foreign policy wrangling between Obama and McCain is this gem:
Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”
Of course Obama would never meet with the leaders of rogue states unconditionally. Where would anyone get that idea??! Uhh, hold on a minute…
As Allah notes back at HotAir:
Not only did the Prince of Peace say at the YouTube debate last July that he’d meet personally and without precondition with Iran, he reaffirmed that position in November in an interview with — ta da — the New York Times, a fact, incredibly, that’s omitted from today’s article.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing a clarification of Dr. Rice’s remarks shortly. Either that or this space on Obama’s website where his intention to meet Iran’s leader “without preconditions” still appears in black and white is in for some revisions.
Category: Politics |
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John on May 10, 2008
Maybe it’s that my expectations were so low after listening to some of the horrible reviews.
Maybe it’s that I’ve been a fan of the original since I was four years old.
Or maybe it’s the cold medicine I took this morning before taking my kids to the local multiplex.
But I thought Speed Racer was surprisingly good. Almost great. Honestly, I had as much fun at this film as I did at Iron Man.
My seven year old daughter, who has seen a bunch of the original show, had trouble following some of the plot, but laughed hysterically at all the Chim-Chim comic relief.
My four year old daughter, who I only took because she would have started a revolt if she’d been left at home, watched the entire 2 hour 10 minute film without complaining. Afterwards she told me the racing parts were great!
So, I don’t care if Rotten Tomatoes says this is a stinker at 35% fresh (but hey…the RT Community is giving it 73%). The critics are just wrong in this case and, I can only guess, are too old to enjoy something meant to simply be a fun fantasy.
My advice is ignore the paid critics. The Wachowski Brothers have made a really enjoyable family movie, full of amazing visuals and enough heart to make it all work. And it didn’t hurt that the film stayed true to the original show in lots of fun and surprising ways for us aging fans.
Seriously, this is not a clunker like The Flintstones or even the third Matrix film.
This works.
It’s fun.
Take the kids.
SCOTT ADDS: I agree with John! My seven year old and I went with John and his two. My son has a tough time sitting through any two hour film, so he was squirming after the first hour, but every time the racing sequences kicked in he stopped moving with his eyes glued to the big screen.
When John told me that Michael Medved said this movie was one of the worst films (if not THE worst film) he had ever seen, I was shocked! My only conclusion was that Medved must have never watched the original series. If he had, he would realize that the movie is an amazing transposition of a concept from small screen anime to giant screen film adaption. The car effects, the on-track racing, the cross-country racing through dangerous winding roads, the devilish racers with all sorts of evil gadgets aimed at taking out the other cars, Spridle and Chim Chim, etc. They even worked in some piranha fish in one scene! (Speed Racer was the show that introduced me and my friends to the idea of the flesh eating fish. More than once our imaginary games included tanks of dangerous, hungry piranha that we had to navigate to get the bad guy and save the girl.)
The movie also included a good amount of positive life lessons related to family, loyalty, the dangers of greed, the nobility of sacrifice, etc. As I watched the film I was reminded of the times I was younger and would watch the TV show with my friends and we would experience those same lessons on a much smaller scale. Those same lessons were carried out into our playground exploits and into the rest of our lives.
I don’t care what the critics might be saying. John is right - I enjoyed this film as much as I did IRON MAN, though maybe for different reasons.
Category: Movies |
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