The BBC announced the “winners” in their Top Ten Worst Films Ever list. The choices are interesting, but they’re hardly what I consider the worst. In fact, I only agree with one of their choices, although I applaud their snarkiness. Topping (or bottoming, I guess) the list is Titanic, which certainly should be number one on the Over-hyped list of the Overstaying Its Welcome list but is hardly the worst film ever made. I think it was a terribly misguided idea for James Cameron to try and outdo A Night to Remember by having his made-up characters overshadow the inherent real-life drama of its passengers, but the movie is still a well-made and handsome production.A.I., number two on the list, was a thought-provoking blending of Spielberg’s and Kubrick’s styles. Most everyone complains about the protracted ending, but I didn’t mind it, and I appreciated the film as one of the few attempts at thought-provoking adult cinema in 2001. Other movies on the list, Vanilla Sky and Eyes Wide Shut for example, are on the list for seemingly similar reasons. They were ambitious productions which didn’t quite succeed; and this is reason enough for BBC viewers to lambaste them.
In fact, for most of their choices, there are as many good things to say about the movies as bad. Titanic might have cringe-worthy dialogue and a sophomoric love story, but the sets and special effects and attention to detail were all impressive. A.I. might have an overly long ending, but it has many great scenes and one of John Williams’ best scores in recent years. Vanilla Sky might be a bizarre amalgamation of romantic comedy and science fiction, but it has some excellent dialogue (as always, since it’s a Cameron Crowe movie). Eyes Wide Shut has Nicole Kidman in her underwear. And Blair Witch is one of the most brilliant concepts for a movie ever — how to make a full-length Hollywood movie with just a 16mm camera, a video camera, and some friends.
So, obviously, I don’t agree with their choices and I don’t agree with the mindset behind their choices. Besides, any list of worst movies is suspect when Battlefield Earth is listed eighth and not first. Now that is an inept and unforgivably bad movie.
I got my copies from Amazon. They showed up yesterday. The discs have some nice albeit simple packaging, and a very nice touch is the inclusion of JB’s “handwritten” setlists.
During high school and college people said I reminded them of John Belushi. After college, it was Jon Lovitz. Later on, after I started wearing glasses, people said I looked like “Newman” (Wayne Knight) from Seinfeld. (Gee, thanks.) They also said I looked like George Costanza — and even Kramer! — but I wouldn’t be surprised if they meant Newman.
During my latest dabblings in Linux — the OS which continues to taunt and thwart me — I was concentrating on Red Hat, since it was a well-known name and a name I thought I could trust. I guess I was wrong. According to 
I thought I’d share this piece of video with you since I finally found a copy of it. It’s Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at the Star Wars: Attack of the Clones premiere, and it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. It’s not my encode, it’s a very large file, and you can download it here in WMV form (17.7 MBs).
This photo is too good not to share. Today’s Yahoo! news has an article titled “
Apparently the solar flares the Sun has been coughing up caused the Northern Lights to appear as far south as Texas and Florida last night. As usual I missed it, and as usual it was cloudy around here anyway. Still, others were able to get some pretty impressive photographs. Here’s 
