Letters to the Editor
kevred
Published Letters: 96 Editor's Choice: 8
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@ melthough
[Read the article: But see, some women ARE bitches]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In response to your somewhat bizarre swipe:
First off, I was commenting on something that was said in the very program depicted in the video clip. Certainly no less off-topic than many of the comments here. And I commented on the clip, by stating my opinion that it was a bit of an obvious thing to target, and not the most urgent or troubling information from that program. The very cry of "OT" itself shows the limitations of a vehicle like Broadsheet, when larger context is neglected in favor of a more singular focus. It's not inherently bad, but its benefits come with a cost.
Secondly, how is putting your views on race on paper different from speaking to someone in person, in the context of my comment? The point I was making was that not everyone with racist views would be comfortable sharing them with others, and the degree of anonymity or detachment doesn't change that. It's almost certain that more people had those views than shared them.
Thirdly, please try to communicate in more mature language, as opposed to shouting "STOP IT!" at a complete stranger. It will encourage responses that make you look less silly! :)
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Nice moments buried in excessive Lucas-y special effects
[Read the article: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](This comment contains mild spoilers, so skip if you don't want to know anything.)
I saw the midnight show last night, and both liked and didn't like the film. First off, what I liked. Ford got it right and was very plausible in action (possibly even too much so). LeBoeuf was actually just fine and pretty darned endearing and appealing. Karen Allen looked fantastic and added great energy, despite a very underwritten part (which plagued every character, though). I always like seeing Ray Winstone on screen, and his role was like a too-small excerpt of a character you'd probably like but saw and learned too little of.
But as the movie progressed, the character moments became steadily buried under the weight of typical Lucas spectacle special effects. And by that, I mean the sort of bland, dehumanizing kind that made the Star Wars prequels feel like little more than exercises in what we can do with technology. The same green-screen look pervades most of this film: everything was sort of soft with slightly fuzzy halos around the actors. Lost was the feeling of "being there" that the old, dusty, dirty films had. Much of the film visually felt like a sound stage, but a bit sterile, without the charm of, say, the Ark sets. (Speaking of the Ark, I recommend not blinking during the warehouse chase early in the film.)
By the last big action sequence of the movie, it might as well have been The Mummy or Tomb Raider or the second Pirates of the Caribbean film, because it was pretty much just the main characters running as a group through enormous, impersonal special effects, with little dialogue and some too-implausible-to-be-satisfyingly-fun action. It felt more like a Lucas film than a Speilberg film. To me, the latter's touch struggled to be seen under the weight of the visual junk.
The climactic moment near the end summed it up well for me: a tiny figure of Indy, standing at the bottom of the screen on the edge of a cliff facing away from the camera, watching an incredibly massive special effect that didn't really impact any of the characters. That's what the film felt like to me--a series of colorful characters being introduced but ultimately left to be little more than spectators for digital effects.
There are a lot of small things to like about this film, many charming, adventurous, funny moments. Shia has some great lines, Indy's snake fear is resurrected in a funny way, there's a moment at the end with the fedora that was a fabulous little wink at the audience. But when the film ended, my first feeling was, "great, we've got all these pieces in place--now let's have these characters go on a real adventure without all this cosmically-scaled special effects crap."
So, mixed feelings from me. They didn't nail it or ruin it, but with all the successful pieces they had, I can't help but feel they fell short on what could have been a classic Indy film by pulling the focus too far away from the characters. As it is, I feel it's the third best Indiana Jones movie, though I doubt I'll ever watch the big spectacle sequences again, as they completely failed to move me.
But hats off to Ford, Allen, LeBoeuf, Winstone, and Broadbent for giving the movie its heart. That, despite all the interference, somehow remains intact.
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Further evidence of how serious an issue this is
[Read the article: Abuse me, abuse my pet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hopefully this will help those who still aren't convinced that abuse is a serious issue and a dangerous sickness. Abuse can't be relegated to something that's just between two people, a two-way street, or whatever other excuses people make for abusers.
It's a power and control issue, and whether it's women, children, or animals, it's a dangerous form of behavior that likely predicts other and increasing violence. When someone abuses an adult, children and animals aren't safe. When someone abuses an animal, women and children near them aren't safe. Etc. It can't be compartmentalized and dismissed as something isolated.
It's so easy for discussions of topics like animal abuse to fall into polarized groups that deny the validity of it by contrasting it to human abuse--the old, tired, "why don't you care about people being abused" excuse.
Stories like this paint the truth: it's all connected. There's no safety for one unless there's safety for all.