Rants and Ruminations

The man that Elvis stole his groove from.. One of the most innovative guitarists ever.  His use of the drummers stylings on the guitar was sick!

The world is definitely less cool today.

There have been some very large, and in my opinion, disappointing movements in the gay marriage debate in the last couple of weeks.  First off in California the State Supreme Court struck down the ban on gay marriage.  Riding off the momentum of that ruling New York State Governor David Patterson issued a memorandum that all government agencies must start recognizing gay marriages performed in states where it is legal.

Now this post is not about getting into the gay marriage debate.  Quite the contrary.  What I am interested in is the process in which we got to this result.  To put it plainly…the people have been cut out.  By any measure the California State Supreme Court has been the example of judicial activism.  Of legislating rather that interpreting.  This ruling takes the intent of the law and turns it upside down.   It totally dismisses the intent of legislation that was passed and voted on by legally elected representatives of the populace and made into law by a legally elected governor.  The Court legislated the law from the bench and totally dismissed the will of the residents of California.

New York State Governor David Patterson has now done essentially the same thing.  His issuance of the memo to all government agencies to recognize gay marriage in a state where gay marriage is illegal takes the will of the people and the intent of the current law and throws it out.  Again the people have been cut out.

Patterson should have taken this issue to the State Legislature but did not because he knew there was a very good chance that he would not get what he wanted.  Her knew he more than likely would not get the idea passed by the legally elected representatives of the people.  Did he not learn the lesson of his predecessor and his illegal immigrant drivers license fiasco?

More and more we are faced with this kind of “mama knows best” attitude.  The social elitism that thinks that the people of a state are not able to make a “proper” decision.

This is an issue that each state needs to take up for itself and get this done once and for all.  The voice of the people needs to be heard and its collective will needs to be enforced.

A thought popped into my head as I was talking to some people about the realities, or lack thereof, of racism.  The question is this: Does national multi-culturalism create an environment where racism is the natural result?  Are we trying to fix a problem that we are continually exacerbating?  Is forced integration the real answer to racism?

People, I think, are segregationalist by nature.  We  like to congregate with people who we are like, or to whom we identify with.  That does not necessarily mean race but could mean religion, club affiliations, loyalty to a sports team, living in a certain neighborhood or any number of other reasons.

Given that reality, is forced integration or multi-culturalism the way to go?  No don’t get multi-culturalism confused with diversity.  Diversity is good and essential but multi-culturalism promotes separation.   This is where America has it wrong.  Multi-culturalism can be changed to diversity when America and it’s culture is the glue that people associate with.  We have lost that (if we ever had it).

Before we get into this movie let’s get one thing out of the way…  There was no way I wasn’t going to like this movie.  Rocky I is arguably my favorite movie ever.  Sly can’t act his way out of a wet paper sack (Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!, Judge Dredd) but that bastard can write a boxing movie that has actual character development and emotional struggles.

We start this movie with Rocky, who is lost after the death of Adrian, living in the past.  He goes on a tour of the old neighborhood with Paulie, visiting all his old haunts.  At his restaurant (an Italian place with a bunch of Mexican cooks)  he is constantly having to tell fight stories to his customers.  So during his “old home week” tour he meets up with Little Marie who is tending bar at the old haunt.  Over the next several scenes he spends some effort trying to help out this kid from his past but he really starts to feel like some kind of stalker.  :^)  He spends time with her Half Jamaican kid, Steps, giving him the “meaning of life according to Rocky” lessons.

He is also having a bit of trouble with his kid, Robert who is trying to make his way out of his Dad’s shadow.   Not to be outdone, Paulie is not there for him in some critical situations.  This wasn’t really spelled out in the movie but the binus features REALLY spelled that out.  Just an interesting tidbit.  :^)

All this emotional turmoil Rocky is going through comes to a head when he sees a computer simulated boxing match on ESPN between him and the current Champ:  Mason Dixon (LHW Antonio Tarver).   This leads him to want to box again but only in small local gigs.  Of course when Dixon’s management sees that Rocky has been granted his license they go to work trying to book a match with him and Dixon.  Dixon, you see, has been spoon fed a bunch of chumps during his title reign and his reputation has suffered because of it.  He has never been challenged in a fight so no one knows what he is made of.

So true to Rocky movie form, the training begins and the training process brings everyone in Rocky’s life together and helps to heal any rifts there.  Emotional turmoil ends…

…Now comes the fight.  From the get-go you can really see the emotional peaks and valleys in the fight.  The struggle and frustration of Rocky is evident trying to deal with the much quicker and longer reached Dixon as well as Dixon’s realization that he has underestimated Rocky and he’s getting hit with bombs.  Using Tarver here really paid off as the fight was crisp and much more realistic than, say, the Drago fight which sucked.  Stallone did that purposely thinking that he could bring the actor out of the boxer but to train an actor to box is more difficult.  And they didn’t pull punches in this fight.  They were really beating the hell out of each other.

The best scene of the movie for me comes at the conclusion of this fight.  before the scorecards are read (a split decision) Rocky and the crew go ahead and leave the ring area.  He did what he wanted and that was that.

Rating: Wicked Good Flick

Coming up: Oceans 13 and 300 unless the wife tries to sneak another chick flick into the queue.

I’ll take movie requests, too!!!  Email me : steve@thesupervillain.net

The wife and I have had this long love-hate relationship with Blockbuster.  It seems like every time we go there they never have anything we want to see or there is another charge they want us to pay.  So we finally broke down and got ourselves a Netflix account.  So since I suck at keeping this blog updated, I’m gonna talk about the movies we get cuz I know that interests my millions and millions of two readers.  :^)

So here we go:

We Own the Night (IMDB page)

I was really looking forward to this movie.  Boy, did I get disappointed.   The plot was predictable and cliche and Joaquim Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg really didn’t click for me as brothers.  There was really no chemistry there.  So as much as I wanted to like this…it was just ok.

Rating: meh

Knocked Up (IMDB page)

So the wife thought she was gonna be slick and login to sneak what she thought was a chick flick to the top of our queue.  Boy was she sadly mistaken.  This movie is freaking hilarious!  I rolled the whole way through the DVD.  Judd Apatow is a genius!  I worship at the alter of his penis jokes.  I didn’t think there was anyway to top 40 year Old Virgin but I was oh so wrong.  Definitely get this movie!!!

Rating: Way Cool

I Am Legend (IMDB page)

Another movie I was looking forward to as I had read the Richard Matheson books many years ago and they were incredible.   Unfortunately, this movie blew.  It really couldn’t decide if it wanted to be speculative fiction or a b grade horror flick and didn’t do either well at all.   The acting by Will Smith was stale at best (and I usually like his performances), the plot was FULL of logic errors, and the graphics (outside of the first shot of abandoned Manhattan) were cheesy.  But that first shot of Manhattan was INCREDIBLE.  So…points for that.  The rest…not so much.

Rating: suckfest

Up next in the queue… Oceans 13, 300, The Pursuit of Happiness (it’s a Will Smith overload!)