Misc Commentary For June 21, 2004

21 Jun, 2004 by John Hawkins

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— I caught “Chronicles of Riddick” this week-end and I wasn’t exactly blown away. Yes, Vin Diesel’s Riddick character was just as entertaining as he was in “Pitch Black,” but believe it or not, this was an action film with way, way, too much plot. You had 1/2 dead invasion fleets wiping out planets, bounty hunters, prison breaks, Riddick trying to find Jack (the little girl from the last movie), a “Pitch Black-like” run across a planet’s surface, machiavellian plots in the invading force, elementals, Furians…it felt like this was the middle of 6 part mini-series. And this is compared to the original movie which was basically “we have to get away before the creatures eat us”. The core of the movie was Riddick killing people and making wisecracks and the rest of it was mostly fluff. Thumbs in the middle.

— I’ve noticed that they’re doing yet another King Arthur. What a waste. I mean, it’s not as if there haven’t already been some excellent movies covering Arthurian Legend (“First Knight” & “Excalibur” anyone?).

Here’s a suggestion for someone who wants to do those kinds of movies: How about a movie that covers Cortes vs. Aztecs or the Barbary war? In the Cortes movie, you have vastly outnumbered conquistadors fighting evil, human sacrificing savages. The Aztecs were actually dragging Cortes men away from the fighting and sacrificing them on the alter. It’s an incredible story.

But, in these days, a movie about the Barbary War might be even better. You could do a nice, patriotic movie, with Thomas Jefferson, Steven Decatur, Islamic pirates ranting about American infidels, “Millions For Defense, Not A Penny For Tribute”, “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong”…that would a rockin’ movie if they did it right.

— A while back, on a lark, I sent Matt Drudge an email offering him a 1000 bucks for a permanent link on the Drudge Report. A G is a heck of a lot of money for me and I really didn’t know how much traffic it would bring in, but given how big Drudge is and that his audience is just my type (politically active), I figured it would be worth it. Unfortunately, Drudge never replied.

But today, while I was perusing Andrew Sullivan’s, I found out it would have been $1k well spent. I say that because Sullivan does have a Drudge permalink and in 21 weeks or so, Drudge has sent him 851,537 referrers, which comes out to roughly 5800 sets of eyeballs per day.

All I can say is too bad that Drudge wasn’t dying to blow a $1000 when I made that offer….of course, if anybody knows Drudge, tell him the offer still stands =D

— Here are sentiments I agree with completely from James Lileks latest bleat,

For the last few weeks I’ve had this gnawing belief that bin Laden got lucky by attacking during Bush’s term. Conventional wisdom says the opposite, because Bush fought back. But he’s the enemy now. I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated. (They’re quick to insist that they’d want Kerry to get bin Laden ASAP. Although the details are sketchy.) ….Perhaps this is why I haven’t written much about the subject lately with the usual chest-thumping brio: I think it’s going to have to get much worse before we get clarity.”

Like I’ve said before, defending America is now a partisan issue and while I’m hoping for the best, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the end, we end up paying for that with more of blood and treasure than we’ve lost anytime lost since WW2.