All Thoughts Being Equal

Contra this op-ed piece in the New York Times : Technology Provides an Alternative to Love . Read that, then get back to me. Now back to that. Now back to me. Okay, one more thing, said by me on Facebook: Interesting, but that guy's writing style ground on my nerves. The message is cloyingly earnest but it doesn't stick to a single point. He starts off with tech-culture specifically but shifts to consumer-culture in general and then offers h is anecdote on birdwatching (which, how the hell does birdwatching do anything for conservation except as a preliminary step?) and offers a meek "well, try it sometime" conclusion. Even that title annoys me. Clearly the thesis is that the erotic/consumerist nature of technology is WORSE than love; why didn't they title it "Technology Prevents Us From Loving Things"? THAT'S a killer title. That was my first conclusion: namely, that the article itself was all over the map and fairly poor-quality overa...

So I gave a rather glowing review of True Grit in my last post , and in fact I plan to see it for a third time in theaters up here in Bellingham. Needless to say, I liked that movie. So why, on my second viewing, did I choose to see that over a second shot at TRON: Legacy (and even when the latter was offered in 3-D)?

The man (Dude?) has been rather prolific of late. I first saw him in Iron Man , where he played Obadiah “TONY STARK! BUILT THIS! IN A CAVE! WITH A BUNCH OF SCRAPS!” Stane, the bad bald guy who likes making money off of things that blow up. I have never, regrettably, seen The Big Lebowski , but that’s just a result of my slowness in watching Cohen brothers movies. (I watched No Country For Old Men only a couple weeks ago; it was excellent, excellent, excellent.) Okay, speaking of the Cohens, let’s start with the good news: True Grit . Again I have not had time to tap the source material(s), either the original movie or the original-original book, but I did watch my roommate play Red Dead Redemption so I feel qualified to judge this 2010 remake on its modern Old-West aesthetic.