That’s Thomas Sangster, and he’s TINTIN.
I have no particular opinion on this, really. But this is interesting:
…alongside Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in the adaptation of Tolkien’s books, as Captain Haddock.
Serkis is perfect. He’s nothing like what (who) I would have come up with on my own, but he’s also completely plastic. Hey, he’s played a huge gorilla. Of course he can play Haddock.
Not sure what I think about the whole “Baseball in China and Japan” angle, but Eric Neel has a great PIECE on the Dodgers’ trip to China earlier this month. Fun read, especially because it says so much about Joe Torre. (Torre is still a wildcard to me. I sure hope he doesn’t pull a “Dusty,” and blow out Kershaw’s arm, or something like that.)
More reason for Torre Concern:
One pitcher who won’t be making the Opening Day roster is Mike Myers, who was released Thursday.
“It’s a shame, because I thought he was pitching well,” said Torre, who said he felt bad, but it was just a matter of numbers.
In 7 2/3 innings, Myers had given up 10 hits and struck out four, while allowing seven earned runs to score.
That’s not “pitching well,” Joe.
Course, this is an encouraging approach:
Matt Kemp should sweat the details. This spring, he ran with his head down from first to third on a single, and after sliding in headfirst, he looked up and saw James Loney standing on the bag. “How old are you, son?” Joe Torre asked Kemp afterward. When Kemp said 23, Torre responded, “Good, there will be plenty of time to fix that.”
(More ESPN Dodger COVERAGE.)
The new Netflix “homepage” seems nice. It’s a tad cumbersome, but I like the way it groups films by category. And I like the way it offers recommendations. Or at least I like it in theory.
This is what I got when I logged on today:
OK, those two films have nothing in common. Actually, make that “less than nothing.” I have no idea what sort of algorithm they’re using to come up with these recommendations, but it’s not working. The chances are very good that everyone who has seen and enjoyed Ushpizin will hate My Scene Goes Hollywood: The Movie.
Still reeling…
Not sure if it’ll be big enough for anyone to see anything, but the blog gets all stretched out otherwise. (Interesting note: this was a really, really boring picture in color. Glad Bizzy suggested I think about B&W a bit more.)
Paul Scofield passed away on Wednesday, at the age of 86.
He will always be remembered for his incomparable performance as Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, for which he won an Oscar.
But, as InsideCatholic’s Margaret Cabaniss POINTS out, his most astounding feature may well have been his normalcy in the midst of an industry that so often destroys that very feature.
…though I am tempted to vote for the “married to the same woman for 65 years” fact, myself. Again, given the destructive nature of the industry, that’s truly astounding.
HERE is American Rhetoric’s recording of More’s final court room speech. Fantastic scene, and an even more fantastic performance. (And HERE is the Grey Lady’s obit.)
Do yourself a favor and see Martin Chuzzlewit.
David’s awake later than any of the other kids, so he bears the brunt of my photography bug. Course, he’s terribly photogenic, so it could be a lot worse.
HERE’S yesterday’s speech.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
Dom wonders if it wasn’t closely connected to the release of THIS, and is a bit …sceptical of the timing. (Myself, I think Steele’s probably clean; his BIO would not suggest an association of any kind with Obama.)
The more interesting question is not whether or not it was meant to directly address Steele’s summary of the “race objection,” but whether or not it does actually address it.
Deal says NO, and that the issue is far from over.
Obama’s speech is beautifully written, but it is essentially spin, an avoidance of the central issue as posed by black theology: Is the white race the oppressor, and should it addressed as an oppressor and treated as one?
Brian Saint-Paul says YES, and hopes the issue is over.
I have plenty of friends and family who hold views I don’t particularly care for. So what? They remain my friends and family, despite the disagreements. If I don’t live my own life following a Purity of Association standard, why should I demand it of a presidential candidate? Do I care if my automechanic’s wife insists she was abducted by aliens? Does it matter if my physician’s husband is an atheist? Will I switch banks if I learn that the president’s father is a cranky old racist? Where does it end?
I dearly hope that with this speech, the media will be ready to abandon the distractions of Reverend Wright and John Hagee and move onto the issues that will affect the country the next 4 years. With a collapsing economy, a war in Iraq, a skyrocketing deficit, plummeting currency, and a sizable portion of the planet that neither trusts nor likes us, we’ve surely got more pressing matters.
But I think Todd really NAILS it. And that’s why it’s not over.
So Obama ought rightly to be taken to task, and held there a good long time, over this Wright business. First, simply because of his long habit of consorting with a spewer of anti-Americanism, and second and more importantly, because it can rightly be wondered how much of Obama’s political and moral views has been influenced by 20 years of sitting in the guy’s pews.
Scary.
(The conversation continued yesterday evenign and this morning over at IC. THIS is Todd’s latest - and probably last - blast.)
