Discovering The Fountain
posted 12-11-2006

 
Darren Aronovsky’s film The Fountain was meant to be an indie film. This, despite the fact that big studios were involved early on during nearly ten years’ worth of attempts to make the film, attempts that always fell through for one reason or another, until Aronovsky decided to make it on his own. That meant giving up all the resources that connection to a major studio might provide, including costly special effects and computer-generated imagery. In the end, Aronovsky returned to his indie background in order to get the film made, and the film is better for it.

Remarkable. That’s the first word that occurs once one has seen it.

Raw. Powerful. Provocative. Moving. It’s all that. The editing is so tight and artless that it’s invisible – the flow feels completely uninterrupted. The casting is precisely right: you’d never guess that Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz weren’t Aronovsky’s original choices for the lead roles. Weisz seems born to have been Izzie. Jackman is a revelation: you realize as you watch him that you really didn’t know him before, that you didn’t know he had this in him. And that he’d been wasted in everything he’d done before this. Ellen Burstyn is pitch-perfect in what could have been a throwaway supporting role. In fact, everyone is pitch-perfect. No one sets a foot wrong; there’s not one extraneous gesture, not one wrong word anywhere. Even the sets and locations hit just the right note in atmosphere.

On losing habeas corpus posted 9-29-2006

 
The end of habeas corpus.

With the capitulation of the Senate, the dotard George W. Bush has undone 200 years of legal protection for all Americans, and the public has said nothing. It may not even be aware of the loss, despite the news coverage.

This is so deeply disturbing that one doesn't even know where to begin. If one needed more evidence of the aggressively witless bombast of the chief executive or what depraved, power-crazed jackals he has for counselors in Cheney and Rumsfeld, this would be it.

Snark Bytes
USAVoice.org: Add another thud
8-15-2006

 
Now you just knew all the fake hype wasn't going to end with the last e-mail from USAVoice, now didn't you? (See previous two posts here and here for the background on this scam.) Sure enough, I got another e-mail, this one inviting me to sign up for a one-hour conference call, which sounded like maybe it would finally be an interview of sorts with real people participating (besides me, that is; but as it turns out, I wasn't by any means the only one 'invited' — see the comment at the end of the first post).

No such luck: when I went to the sign-up page, it was headlined Training Call. Now there's a dead giveaway if ever I saw one. It's the kind of thing one expects when one is being considered for a job at a call center, not for an editing or reporting position. Not only have they not interviewed me yet, let alone made a job offer, but they reveal that 1) the call will actually be 90 minutes long, 2) that participating in the call doesn't yet constitute a job offer, 3) that there will be several other 'candidates' on the line with us but 4) that we won't be able to talk or be heard while the 'lecture' is going on, 5) that I have to be able to talk on the phone during the conference call while being online (I guess those of us 'candidates' who are forced to use dial-up Internet were out of luck, eh?), and 5) that I should take careful notes. Oh, and this was going to be a long-distance call, with no mention of it being toll free.

Snark Bytes
USAVoice.org: Just another dud on the media landscape
8-3-2006

 
Well, it’s official: USAVoice is just another irritating, hype-laden non-starter out there in the ether, a marketing tool masquerading as new journalism. Having billed itself as the Internet’s answer to CNN (as if that wasn’t a dead giveaway right there), it missed its debut deadline — twice in one month — and hasn’t uttered a peep. As of Wednesday, August 2nd, its home page was still promising a start date of July 31st, and nothing new had been added to the site that this writer could find. All of which tempts one to say: Get lost, you bloody posers — and quit jerking around my colleagues!

Even if they eventually made an appearance and start doing business as a news outlet, at this point they’ve already lost what little credibility any such start-up might have. And that’s the kiss of death.

Meanwhile, they got an awful lot of e-mail addresses and other information out of freelance or unemployed journalists who applied looking for real jobs in online journalism. Poor saps. I was almost one of them, and I understand the temptation.

Tales of the New Media: Is USAVoice.org Real?

 
There’s a new wanna-be news organization supposedly ready to burst onto the scene that claims it will be to the Internet what CNN was 20 years ago to broadcasting. In fact, it intends to displace CNN and other major news organizations in the hearts and minds of average readers and viewers. Or so it says.

Well, maybe … that is, if the organization in question really exists and if news gathering, rather than marketing or something else more nefarious in media clothing, is its real motive. There seems to be considerable room for doubt. But one thing is certain: you don’t advertise for 1,200 positions in online job sites like Careerbuilder or Yahoo! HotJobs without having some big bucks to throw around.

The enterprise calls itself USAVoice, and it’s had a lot of journalists wondering just what’s going on. The new (fake?) news venue was supposed to start business on July 4th but put that off until month’s end. It’s been advertising since late June for editors and writers en masse in the states, possibly internationally — but it isn’t really interested in applicants with legitimate journalism backgrounds or experience. Moreover, nobody seems to know who’s behind this effort or where they came from, let alone where they’re really located, and they appear to be connected to at least one possible con artist.

On literature and first glances
posted 4-21-2006

 
Now that spring has shown and the saps are flowing (who, me — slam lovesick swains? Na-a-a-ahh.), it’s time to reconsider dating. Having recovered from Seasonal Affective Disorder and crawled out from under my overburdened life like a chipmunk emerging from hibernation, I’ve been scouting out flirty little flouncy dresses and pastel pumps with which to bewitch, replenishing my make-up, and trying new scents with abandon, like a good little girl answering Nature’s call.

But my brain, as usual, has taken a step back from both this and reading the newspapers, trolling for something succulent to write about, and rethought what it really means to be dating. Or, for that matter, writing while dating (it is an unseemly fact that writers, being well able to pen glorious love letters themselves, vainly hope to receive same from the various targets of their affections; and this almost never happens, disgustingly).

When of all things, the movie channels on cable intervened, drawing me to an inescapable conclusion: I am jealous — of both people who have someone appreciative to whom they can write magnificent love letters, and those who receive such. The cool, perfect, sunlit day today merely intensifies this.

Damn the French! They know how to write belles lettres when it suits them.

Snark Bytes
Snarking back at the snarkmeisters
3-16-2006

 
Consider:

What's Better? His Empty Suit or Her Baggage?
By MAUREEN DOWD
The Democrats should not dismiss a politically less experienced but personally more charismatic presidential prospect.
Q.: His Empty Suit or Her Baggage?
A.: Maybe neither. But that doesn't mean Hillary shouldn't run. And anybody else willing to take some risk by taking on Dubya.

So: MoDo basically thinks Barack Obama’s charisma may yet be a saving grace, along with his sense of humor, despite his presence in the Senate being nearly devoid of meaningful content or action. The problem here is that Obama has kept his profile so low, his nose so clean, and he’s taken so few (any??) risks that we have no idea what he really stands for or what he could do (see cover story in this month's Chicago mag for a revealing slice of Not Much about Obama). And Hillary's not taking any risks, either, just when somebody should.