Now We Won’t Find Out How He Would Have Done It
Word just broke that the increasingly controversial OJ Simpson book “If I Did It,” where the football legend and movie star speculates exactly how he would have killed his wife and Ron Goldman “if he did it,” has been canceled by the publisher. The 2-part TV interview scheduled for a week from today has been canceled, also.
I guess they ran this one up the flagpole and nobody saluted, as we say in the corporate world!
I had no plans on watching it nor buying the book, but at the same time i figured the tv interview was going to be a huge hit. Folks eat this stuff up. I guess some serious heat came down.
Michael Richards Racist Tirade
Fans at the West Hollywood ‘Laugh Factory’ were treated to an unexpected part of Michael Richard’s stand-up act.
After being badgered by several patrons who were heckling him, he exploded in a bigoted tirade that has to be seen to be believed. Yahoo News reports.
The tirade apparently began after two black audience members started shouting at him that he wasn’t funny.
Richards retorted: “Shut up! Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a f—— fork up your a–.”
He then paced across the stage taunting the men for interrupting his show, peppering his speech with racial slurs and profanities.
“You can talk, you can talk, you’re brave now mother——. Throw his a– out. He’s a n—–!” Richards shouts before repeating the racial epithet over and over again.
I expected a lot worse.
Paramount got around to releasing some promotional material for the new enhanced Star Trek. Based on those clips, it looks like it could have been a lot worse. While I am still against this in principle, the enhancements don’t seem too intrusive to me. I’ll have to watch a few episodes to be sure. In the meanwhile, here are some video previews.
The first video is a 3 minute promotional film that explores the digital cleanup of the film and the transfer to HD. Some of the split screen comparisons looked exaggerated to me but it does look nice. The new FX look pretty good but the fact is that it’s just not the same, but I was fearing worse. One particularly annoying thing is the announcer, who seems to think the series is named ‘Star TRACK.’ Oh well, you can’t win them all!
Next is a short video on the re-recording of the music. It does seem fairly authentic, but I have to admit it kind-of creeps me out to see the female vocalist there. I always new the original theme had a female vocalist but it was better left to the imagination.
Last is a short piece on the digital cleanup of the original films.
It’s worth the 6 minutes to take a peek at these videos. I was very curious about the ‘enhancements’. This sneak preview hit the spot!
“Is God proud of you?”
On September 11, 2001 the world stood still as Islamic terrorists used four planes as lethal weapons against innocent Americans. The 9/11 Commission was formed to determine how such an attack could happen, and its report documented the trail from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the tragedy of that September morning.
ABC is commemorating the 5th Anniversary of the attacks with a two part tv movie, ‘The Path To 911.’ It draws from the 911 Commission Report, published accounts, and interviews to create a dramatization of the events surrounding the incident, tracing the roots back over 8 years to the first WTC bombing in 1973. The primary character is FBI agent John O’Neill, who had a ringside seat at how ineptly the Federal government handled the growing Islamic terrorist threat in the 1990s.
The first part was long but good. It covers a lot of ground but it’s never particularly dull. Hindsight being 20/20, the errors in judgment on the part of the Feds is remarkable. It’s clear from the dramatization that the Clinton administration was just incapable of taking a strong posture as terrorist attacks grew more bold.
President Clinton, Madeline Albright, and Sandy Berger in particular have objected to the representations in the film. Putting aside the unintentional comedy of Bill Clinton stressing the value of telling the truth (remember he manipulated his wife and members of his cabinet to go around on tv shows and interviews and repeat his lies regarding his perjury & obstruction of justice charges), let’s just say that ‘Clinton’ and ‘Credibility’ aren’t exactly synonymous. Sandy Berger, the guy who stuffed documents from the national archives in his socks and panties, similarly isn’t Mr Credibility when it comes to matters like this. The Democrat leadership have gone so far as to lean on ABC to not air the film, which really demonstrates how far they have fallen in the modern era.
Dramatizations do put words in peoples mouths that they may never have said. Dramatizations also puts people in situations that may not exactly reflect the real-life incidents. Too bad for the Clinton crew that it doesn’t matter – that’s the nature of dramatizations and everybody knows it. While the words and situations do not literally portray what happen, they do dramatize a basic truth – the administration didn’t have the wits to recognize the growing threat, nor the will to handle the growing threat.
I’m reluctant, and always have been reluctant, to be a ‘blamer.’ The people to blame for the 911 attacks are the attackers themselves and the organization that made their mission possible. That being said, the 911 Commission’s mandate was not to lay blame but rather to find out what went wrong and to make suggestions to make things right for the future. Whether it succeeded or not is not yet clear, but there is plenty to learn from the failures of the Clinton & Bush administrations.
We can’t fix a problem if we can’t first isolate the problem. Political figures taking a posture of ‘don’t look at me’ is embarrassing. Indeed, it smacks of ego – people who really think the lessons of the ‘Path to 911′ tv movie as primarily about them have a lot of ‘problems.’
I’m sorry to say that it appears that we have quite a few people along the political landscape with a lot of ‘problems.’
Going back to where no man has gone before!
Looks like the original Star Trek series is getting a special effects makeover to appeal to a whole new generation of young video game zombies!
The press release with all sorts of details is reprinted at the end of this entry. I can’t say I am happy with this: I like the originals just the way they are. Paramount has figured out that they can keep tweaking and repackaging the same old stuff and people will keep buying it. Just greed at work here.
Also, something that hasn’t been broached yet is what will be edited out of the original series. Late 1960s tv programs were formatted for fewer commercials than the 21st century television world. While I am sure the packaged DVD version will have no substantive edits, the televised version will almost certainly have scenes cut to fit into the 44 minutes of modern 1-hour programs.
Wait and see.
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