This past week has been pretty good. A definite improvement over last week, anyway.

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Kevin was able to see only one of the three Honolulu International Film Festival films for which we bought tickets, because of his crazy work schedule. Fortunately, I had no problems selling the tickets for Friday's show, so he was out the cost of only one ticket.

Saturday night was a showing of Shadow of the Vampire, which was awesome and surprisingly funny, at the Hawaii Theater. I had trouble hearing some of the lines, so I'm looking forward to seeing it again in a venue made for specifically for movies. And I know Kevin will need to see it. The Hawaii Theater is a beautiful venue, though.

Prior to Shadow of the Vampire was Waking Mele, which is an award-winning short that was done by a filmmaker from Hawaii. The imagery was beautiful, but as a story it didn't do much for me. I read the synopsis, saw the film, then read the synopsis again. I don't make the connections that are said to be there. Maybe I'm just not all that sophisticated. (Probably I'm just not all that sophisticated.)

Sunday I saw Charlie's Angels with some friends at their instigation. It was OK candy fluff for matinee price. I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, though.

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And speaking of movies, I'm very, very conflicted about the live action How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Very, very conflicted. The animated Grinch is quite dear to me, and I can't imagine the audacity it would take to decide that it could be improved upon. Sacrilege! Thieves! Boil them in oil!

The Grinch does not throw off one-liners. The Grinch is not funny -- he's overly grumpy and grinchy. He's a caricature of every neighborhood's cranky old bitch on the corner. I don't wanna see him Jim-Carrified. The Grinch may be grinchy, but he did nothing to deserve this.

And the commercialization associated with the new movie is rather counterintuitive, don't you think, seeing as how the whole point of the book is that it's not the stuff that matters, but the spirit?

The conflict is that the author's widow, Audrey Geisel, is said to have played an important role in the making of the movie and has reined in some well-publicized attempts at overt stupidity. Perhaps what they've made is truer to Seuss's vision than the animated TV special, or at least a different aspect that Seuss would have put a stamp of approval on. Dr. Seuss is a god in my universe, you see.

I don't know if I will be able to sit through it without throwing something at the screen, or coming away with one of my childhood icons somehow diminished.

Kevin has promised to go see it first, and then let me know if I could handle it. (Kinda like being in elementary school all over again, getting other people to OK your movies first.)

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I have tuned out election madness. I'll check back in on Friday once Florida's absentee ballots are counted. We've gone from breathtaking suspense to slimy legal manuevering. Just a couple of things to get off my chest first, though.

I don't think that it's unreasonable to expect that you should come up with the same number of votes when you count them the second time as you did when you counted them the first time. Margin of error applies to surveys, not votes. If they don't match, you keep counting until everyone agrees that the number that's reached is the right one.

When I used to work in the back office at the bookstore, I had to be able to count the bank deposit accurately. It had to be counted twice, then a third time by the manager on duty. All three counts had to result in the same amount. Every day. For thousands and thousands of dollars. You keep counting until you are positive that it's been counted correctly, even if the surly armored car guy has to stand around waiting for you, contemplating the consequences of taking out that gun and shooting you for making him wait.

If the machines that count came up with two different totals, I don't think that you have a leg to stand on when you claim that machine counts are more accurate than hand counts. I've been working around machines for a while now, and can tell you that they aren't infallible. As long as you have safeguards in place and don't give the sole responsibility for the manual count to some partisan, then I don't think that hand counts are inherently less accurate.

The Nader supporters who are saying that Bush and Gore are just two sides of the same coin need to have their heads examined (that includes Nader himself). Yes, the two major parties have both crept a little closer to the middle in recent years (not a bad thing), but they are still miles apart. Especially when it comes to things that are quite important to me and relevant in my life. Like the right to make decisions about my own body. Their underlying philosophies are different.

If you're a Floridian and you voted for Nader, thinking that Gore and Bush are clones, I hope you're happy. I don't relish the thought of four years of "leadership" from a guy's whose claim to fame is having 131 people executed during his tenure as governor and once owning a baseball team.

And when did likeability become a prerequisite for president? Give me a brainiac over the class clown any day. Especially a clown who has admitted to drunk driving, and who picked a scary running mate who was caught TWICE for drunk driving. DUIs are like cockroaches -- for every one you see, there are hundreds more lurking below the surface.

To stave off the indignant replies, I am not a democrat. I can't wholeheartedly agree with the full platforms of either of the major parties. If the libertarians weren't so wacky and extremist, I'd probably be one of them. Libertarian Lite, I suppose. But given the choice of candidates this time around, I'd be much, much, much more comfortable with Gore in charge than with Bush. 'Nuff said.
- posted by Lori @ 4:18:00 PM | permanent link | |