Monday, September 03, 2007

Polit-ainment

I don't comment much here about politics or entertainment on this blog because I'm very, very sensitive about who I might offend. But since today will probably be a slow day on the Internet with everyone putting their diets on hold and grilling hot dogs and burgers and feeding their kids highly caffeinated and sugared drinks, I thought I'd go out on a limb and make some political/entertainment commentary.

I've been sitting in front of a flat screen TV more than your average couch potato lately. Movies and Fox News are pretty much all I can tolerate. I like those spy/war movies. Watching those kind of movies is like getting a steroid injection and a high-intensity workout without ever leaving my Lazy-boy. The Shooter and the latest Bond flick, Casino Royale are the most recent DVDs I've seen. One thing I notice when I watch too much Fox News combined with politically charged action flicks is that reality and fantasy kind of morphs into a world view that gets slightly skewed. But that keeps the conversation interesting when we're on the verge of electing a new president.

The Shooter was a cool movie where Mark Wahlberg plays a retired Marine Gunnery Sgt. (my dad's a retired Marine Gunny) that takes on war mongering ex-military national security types run by a red-state Republican megalomaniac/senator (the ultimate bad guy). I dug this movie. It celebrates the highly-trained-but-easily-duped-military-patriot-regular-blue-collar-guy while demonstrating how incredibly-evil-money-and-power-hungry-Republican-conservatives with more authority and weapons than they can morally commandeer. The bottom line message of the movie is that we hate our government but love and support the troops that carry out their leaders' evil will. For some reason I found it very entertaining and will probably kick my work-out up a notch so I can be as buff as Wahlburg.

I also saw Casino Royale. I've never been a fan of James Bond movies, but I kinda dug this movie.
They cast Daniel Craig as the latest Bond James Bond. I personally think Craig is even more studly than Sean Connery (but don't tell the charming and beautiful Susan I said so) or Roger Moore (Roger Rabbit is more macho than Roger Moore). The latest Bond fights and breaks all laws of gravity like Jackie Chan. But Craig's got funny looking ears.
They remind me of a Delorean with its doors open.

I also think that the movie was a little ahead of its time as far as political commentary is concerned. If you've been staying in tune with our slow news summer as I have, Russia has been making news lately with claiming the North Pole and a defiant, demonstrative show of military prowess. I think its interesting that they made the antagonist in Casino Royale look like Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Vladimir Putin


Le Chiffre


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Shooter is one of my favorite movies! I also really liked Casino Royale, interesting observation of Putin and the actor they chose, I'm not very up on my current affairs, but that is interesting.