A thread for discussing the 2010-2011 NFL season. Mitchell loves making predictions, and I think it would be fun for others to make their predictions (and we can see how much people really know! 
Please offer your predictions, but I also wanted to start things off by discussing some of the new rules and possibly future ones. Read more »
NPR’s Talk of the Nation did a program on memorable meals in film. What are some of your favorite meals in films, or favorite scenes involving food?
“Post” may be premature, but let’s hope it’s not. While the American economy may not be in a crisis, it’s not necessarily thriving, either. I wanted to start a thread to collect articles as well as discuss this issue. Here’s a relatively scary article about housing that prompted this thread. Read more »
Most Chrisitians would agree that the Holy Spirit is and should be the leader of the church–versus, say, a charismatic human being. But in reality, how often is that the case? Active Churches with high attendance probably have strong leaders at the head of the church. That’s not to suggest that strong leaders and letting the Holy Spirit lead the church are mutually exclusive. On the other hand, knowing the difference is not easy to distinguish. Can a church be lead by the Holy Spirit and not have really talented leaders at the same time? I want to explore this question as well as others in this thread. Read more »
Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
Kevin recommended this to me, and I just finished it. I think the book might be more aptly titled, Architecture of Beauty, as the author talks more about beauty than happiness. Indeed, at the end of the book I feel like de Botton equates “happy” architecture with beautiful architecture. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. What was bad was that he didn’t really clearly articulate his definition of beauty or happiness. (I did like the historical overview of the concept of beauty through history, the reasons our notions of beauty change and the attitude we should have towards beauty.) Read more »
What do you think about LeBron James and his move to Miami?
I want to draw the idiots’ attention to one of the best critical reviews I have come across. The review–or, to be more specific, the analysis–is of the Harold Arlen song, “Over the Rainbow,” and it comes from the NPR music series, “What Makes it Great,” a series that explains what makes specific, famous songs so good. (I urge you to check out the review here.) Everyone knows the song, but the commentators, Fred Child and Rob Kapilow, walk the listener through the song–with Kapilow playing the song on the piano while he and Child interject comments. Sometimes Kapilow will repeat a phrase until the point is clear; at other times he will play a phrase in a way one would expect and then quickly play the actual way it was written. The approach is highly effective, and the points made are absolutely clear and compelling–so much so that I want to use the words like “enligtening” and “magical” to describe the review.
Now, how often does that happen with a review of a movie, book, or piece of music? I’d say almost never–certainly not in as vivid and compelling a way as this NPR episode. While I don’t expect reviews to be “magical,” I do expect a better job of helping me appreciate the merits (or lack thereof) of the work in question.
To be fair, I think reviewers have multiple objectives: they want to help viewers determine whether they should see a movie or not (which is not always related to the aesthetic merits of a film) and they want to critically analyze the work (at least some of the reviewers). Complicating matters is the high volume of movies/books/music they must review, as well as the limited words and time to write these reviews. It’s no wonder that reviews don’t leave people with a greater understanding of what makes a work of art great or bad.
Here are some changes I would suggest to deal with the problem:
Helping the layperson to understand what makes a specific book, movie or piece of music so great is one of the most important roles a critic plays in society. While the suggestions above aren’t easy, I think they would go a long way in making the reviews more valuable.
I think I could give up eating beef, but the thought of never eating a good steak again would make it really tough. “In Search of a Steak Glory” is an Atlantic article by Marck Schatzcker about the quest for the greatest tasting steak. (He’s written a book about the quest called, Steak: One Man’s Quest for the World’s Tastiest Beef.) In the process, he’s come to examine what exactly makes steak taste so good. The answer is not simple, but according to him, it has nothing to do with marbling or with grain fed cattle. Schatzcker touches on the science of what makes beef so tasty, and it’s pretty interesting.
What are some of the best steaks you have eaten? What restaurants, in Hawai’i or other places you’ve tried, serve the best steak?
The discussion boards on mubi.com currently has a film director’s cup challenge that some of you would be interested in. Basically, this a tournament style competition between the film directors. Here’s how it works. Individual users select specific directors to “manage.” The users will then select a film from their director in the first round. These films are then paired up in a “competition.” For example, in the first round, Alfred Hitchcock might go against Steven Spielberg. The users managing the directors might choose Psycho and Jaws as the films to “compete.” The general user group at the site then votes on which film wins. The winning director advances to the next round, until only one director remains. The tricky part is that only films can only be used once, so the managers have to be strategic in their selection. Think of this as a sort of “fantasy football of films.”
What makes this cool is that you can see a lot of good films, films you may not have heard of, and you get to discuss them with other people. Some of the films are hard to get a hold of, but many of the films can be seen on youtube.
So yeah. I’m six months late with this. Based on my list at IMDB, which is based on my ratings on VI, I saw eight films I ranked 8/10 or better (no 10/10s this year). This means that all I had to do was rank the nines in order, then the eights in order. Then I got to choose my two best sevens. Here’s how they came out, in order from best to tenth-best:
Read more »
By now, most of you know that the Wahine softball team is going to the College World Series. On local talk radio, there was some discussion about the bias the announcers had against UH. I hadn’t heard the call until now. Here’s my opinion. Read more »
This is the third film by Michael Haneke–and the third film in what I’ve learned is called the “Glaciation Trilogy.” (Is that a word?)
For those of you who would like a plot description, here it is: Read more »
This is the book that followed Robinson’s Gilead. It has the same characters, but occurs at the same time as the first (a parallel novel). Imo, it’s not as good as Gilead, but if you liked the first book, and you wanted to know more about the Boughton’s, particularly Jack and his relationship with his father and sister, Glory, then I would recommend this.
I think Mitchell may even like this more than Gilead. (There’s a chance that he could love one aspect of this book, which I won’t say.)
While this may not be a better book, I think it might generate more interesting discussions than the latter. I wanted to jot some of my thoughts down before I forget them, just in case any of you want to read this. (Btw, I recommend reading this right after Gilead, so the events are fresh in your mind.) Read more »
I saw a Time magazine article, “How Twitter Will Change the Wolrd”. I haven’t read it yet, but I know that Mitchell (and maybe others) use twitter. I wanted to hear the value they see in using the medium and possible pitfalls.
Last Fall Atlantic Monthly published an article, How American Health Care Killed My Father” about the root cause of the high costs and relatively mediocre quality of American health care. The author, David Goldhill, is neither a health care expert or a conservative, yet his diagnosis and prescription for a cure center on the lack of market forces and increasing those forces into American health care. Here is a summary of the article: Read more »
Do any of you remember Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict, a book written as an apology for the existence of God and the claims of Christianity? I had an interest in apologetics in college, but at some point in my life, I lost all interest in the idea of proving God’s existence (so much so that writing these words makes me feel a little embarrassed). I guess I don’t think one can prove or disprove the existence of God. Nevertheless, when I heard that Tom Ashbrook, a radio host for On Point, moderated a debate between Christopher Hitchens, an intellectual and atheist, and Rabbi David Wolpe called “The Great God Debate”–which not only covered the existence of God, but the value of religion in general–I was curious to check it out. Here are some of my general thoughts and impressions: Read more »
The story is that Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg (whose work I am not familiar with) sat down and hashed out a new extreme in film-making as a response to big-budget films. The Dogme 95 Manifesto, which has been violated by its own creators since the first two Dogme films, looks like this, according to Wikipedia:
Read more »
Dir. Michael Haneke
70/100
I’d mildly recommend this to Kevin. I think Penny, Grace, Mitchell and Chris would find this an interesting film, even if it’s not something they would love. I wouldn’t recommend this to Marc, Don, Joel, Jill or Larri.
**
This is a film based on an actual event concerning an Austrian middle-class family. The film takes place over a three year period and in that time we see the family in their daily routines: the husband going off to work; the wife going off to work; the daugther going to school. At some point the family decides to make a change in their lives. Read more »
Penny and I are in the process of watching the films of Michael Haneke–one of the darlings of the critical establishment (if not the critics then cinephiles, perhaps). I’ve seen several of his films and at first I thought Penny (and maybe Kevin) would be interested in his films–but I actually think others–Mitchell, Kevin, Chris and maybe even Tony–would be interested in his films.
We’re planning to see the films in chronological order. (There are eleven total.) I recently watched Haneke’s first film, The Seventh Continent, and I’ll be starting a thread on that soon.
For those of you who want some background on Haneke before deciding to see his films, here’s a brief introduction. Read more »
At Don’s urging I made it a point to watch the game. Don thought I would like watching Duke’s offense, even though they didn’t have talent. I have to say that I did like watching them and, yes, they really didn’t have that many talented players (at least in terms of playing at the next level). In fact, I can’t think of another championship game where I saw less talent on both teams. Having said that, I thought this was a well-played game by both teams. Here are some other impressions: Read more »
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
Michel de Montaigne
Penny for Your Thoughts Reid: My Mind Where’s Mitchell?