"Never ascribe to malice ...

... that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
 ~Napoleon Bonaparte

23 Mar 2013 - Updated at end.
11 Jul 2017   - ANOTHER Update, about the insignia.
05 Jul 2019   - ADDENDUM - Incompetence OR Malice???

Caught Emperor (2012) Saturday night at the River Oaks theater and was surprised to find a packed auditorium for an independent film with almost no advertising. Admittedly, it's a pretty small auditorium, being one of two that the original balcony was divided up as, after being walled up from the main auditorium below. But, still ...

Matthew Fox (left) & Tommy Lee Jones (center) as General Bonner Fellers

and General Douglas MacArthur respectively.    From mysanantonio.com

24 Mar 2013 - A commenter noted "By the way, that is NOT Matthew Fox in the picture above!". He's right. See correction below.

The official storyline ...
A story of love and understanding set amidst the tensions and uncertainties of the days immediately following the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II. On the staff of General Douglas MacArthur (Jones), the de facto ruler of Japan as Supreme Commander of the occupying forces, a leading Japanese expert, General Bonner Fellers (Fox) is charged with reaching a decision of historical importance: should Emperor Hirohito be tried and hanged as a war criminal? Interwoven is the story of Fellers' love affair with Aya, a Japanese exchange student he had met years previously in the U.S. Memories of Aya and his quest to find her in the ravaged post-war landscape help Fellers to discover both his wisdom and his humanity and enable him to come to the momentous decision that changed the course of history and the future of two nations.

Ok. When I heard that Tommy Lee Jones was playing Douglas MacArthur, I knew I had to check it out.

He does just fine; handling his Texas accent the same way Sean Connery handled his Scottish accent when playing a Lithuanian captain of a Soviet submarine in "The Hunt for Red October" and Arnold Schwarzenegger handles his Austrian accent when playing anything: with an attitude of "Accent? WHAT accent?!!!".

I really liked this movie; which the Philadelphia Inquirer dismissed as "an unsatisfying history lesson" (probably because of the interwoven love story which was used as a device for exploring the differences between Japanese culture and ours).

My biggest gripe (and the reason for the title of this post) comes during the end credits.  As with many historical dramas, they show pictures of the real people involved, with a short blurb about their fate.

In the case of General Bonner Fellers, the blurb notes that he was demoted to colonel by General Eisenhower, without a single word as to why, leaving you to wonder if Fellers screwed up or something.

I did a little research to confirm that what I thought may have happened was really the case.

What happened was that the war was over, and we no longer needed the huge army we had built up. The army doesn't hang on to officers unless there is something for them to command; a command appropriate to their rank.

Excess officers can either leave the army, or accept a lower rank for which more commands may be available. In October 1946, Fellers reverted to rank of colonel as part of a reduction in rank of 212 generals.

A total of about 16,000,000 Americans served in some branch of the armed forces during WWII (from a population of approximately 140,000,000). The U. S. Army had risen from a strength of just 190,000 soldiers in 1939 to a peak of 8,290,000 in March of 1945.

But, until the advent of the Korean War and the Cold War, the U.S. had a history (and a doctrine) of not maintaining a large standing army during peacetime. Thusly, by the end of 1948 that force had been reduced to 554,000, approximately one-sixteenth of its earlier size. Whole divisions and brigades ceased to exist except as placeholders in the organization structure (Order of Battle). Simply a case of "too many chiefs and not enough Indians".

Fellers retired from the Army on November 30, 1946. In 1948, his retirement rank was reinstated as brigadier general.

I do not believe for a moment that the end credit slight was deliberate, but just a lack of thought by whoever worked up the end credits sequence. But if any of Bonner Fellers family is still with us, they deserve an apology.

Hence, the title of this post. :(

Update 1440 CDT 23 Mar 2013 - My site meter shows this modest little post getting lots of hits, from all over, by people who (like me) were curious about why Fellers was demoted and were sent here by google and other search engines.

I hope they are satisfied with the explanation I have offered, as I feel it is accurate. I place absolutely no credence on some rumors of bad feeling between Eisenhower and Fellers (they had both served under MacArthur) as the cause. If there's anyone for whom Ike may have had some animosity, it would have been MacArthur himself, having remarked once that he "had studied dramatics under MacArthur", probably considering him a self-promoting showboat.

Correction 1035 CDT 24 Mar 2013 - A commenter noted "By the way, that is NOT Matthew Fox in the picture above!". He's right. The source for the picture identified him as such (as did many other sources using that same picture).

BUT, while I thought it looked a bit like him, the problem is the insignia on his collar.

A brigadier general wears a single silver star there.  I couldn't get enough resolution on that picture to really make out the insignia, but it is definitely gold. I thought it might be the gold oak leaf of a major, but it appeared too wide for that. The best guess I can make is the "Rising Eagle" of a  warrant-officer.  (11 Jul 2017 - See new update below)

Here's a picture that really is Fox (no longer "Lost") as Fellers ...

from facebook.com

11 Jul 2017   - ANOTHER Update, about the insignia.

I did a google search for that photo at the top, and found a Really, REALLY big one, from which I extracted ;;;

... AND ...

... showing the Gold Oak Leaf of a Major.  You can rest easy, now.  :-)

05 JUL 2019 - ADDENDUM - Incompetence OR Malice???
In a comment, about six months after my original publishing of this post, I noted ...

As an aside, I finally got around to renting the DVD of the movie and found it to contain the same issue I had with the movie: mentioning Feller's demotion without any explanation. 

Above, in my post, I felt that it was just thoughtlessness; not a deliberate slight.

Now, I'm not so sure.

There's a commentary on the DVD, from the director Peter Webber, and a woman producer. When that note about the demotion appears in the end credits, Webber mentions getting lots of tweets and emails about that, asking WHY.

He just says that it's a long story and people will just have to look it up.

Well, if THAT's how he feels, WHY in HELL did he even bring it up that way?

I stand by the reason I gave for the demotion. Webber could have mentioned that his demotion was part of a reduction in rank of 212 generals because of demobilization after the end of the war -- could probably have done it in a short paragraph -- but, he DIDN'T!

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On Reading (Updated) ...

(Originally published 04 May 2010 - Updated below 16 Mar 2013)

I'll send out a bunch of emails about this post and, from experience, have a pretty good notion of the seven or eight who will actually take a look at it.

Many of those who wont bother will pass simply because they are busy with this thing called LIFE.  It's silly and selfish to want them to put "Read Paul's blog" at the top of their priorities list, and I'd have to be even more full of myself than I usually am to expect that.

I'll always remember an episode of Candice Bergen's "Murphy Brown" TV series (1988-1998) in which she plays a TV news reporter showing up at a politician's office, starts telling the secretary who she is, only to have that secretary cut her off at the knees with, "I don't watch television; I have a LIFE!"

And, many of those to whom I send my "Look at me! Look at me!" messages are in that situation.

But, I suspect that for a few, the real reason is that reading is an ordeal for them.  I'm not the first to wonder that;  Isaac Asimov noted in an essay of his, probably before some of you were even born,  that reading (just like playing an instrument, sports, and many other skills) is something that some have a knack for, and others have to work like hell to accomplish.

I'm speaking now of extremely intelligent people who overcome that problem, through sheer will and discipline, by reading what they have to but take no real pleasure in it. If you find a profile they've put up anywhere, and there's a "Favorite Reading:" list on it, they're apt to put on it, "I don't like reading."

One of the luckiest things about my life is that I've always loved reading (almost anything), and that it's always been easy for me.

I had to drop out of school after the ninth grade (I did get a GED during a period of unemployment thirty years later), and have never had much study discipline (or any other kind of discipline, for that matter), but it's very hard to read as much as I have without some of it managing to stick. As a result, I tend to do very well on tests.

Such tests impressed the USAF enough that they sent this high-school dropout to Yale for a year (for language schooling) and this accomplishment helped my way into engineering and IT careers. And overall, I can't really complain about how my life has turned out.

But, for that, I have to credit loving reading and never having to struggle with it.  In my case, that was a knack that I had the sheer good luck to be born with.

(Originally published 5/4/10 11:14 PM)

Update - Sat, 16 Mar 2013 - I may have had some help with that "luck".
Today, I came across this post More on reading; a bit of the absurd by Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I sent an email to him, mentioning A Profound Sadness at the Polling Station (my thoughts on how vital mastery of English can be to making it here), and also the post you are now reading.

In Dr. Pournelle's post was an email from one of his readers noting ...

When our daughter was in kindergarten, she read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Yes, she understood it with the help of her Parental Dictionaries and a bit of phonetic guidance with things like wingardia leviosa. My sainted mother-in-law took the place of an English nanny.

This reminded me that some of my "luck" was certainly due to Mom and Dad. Both of them were voracious readers and kept plenty of material at hand.

By the time I was 7 or 8, I was devouring copies of Mechanix Illustrated left by my uncle (who was a subscriber and also read a lot). That magazine had many articles on just about everything besides the usual auto repair and furniture building you would expect (see The Year of the Jackpot).

Dad kept a large supply of Zane Grey and Max Brand paperback westerns I got hooked on.

I think it was about this time that Mom showed me a copy of Treasure Island, warned me that I shouldn't read it as it "might give me nightmares", and hid it away. Of course, I found it and devoured it. It didn't occur to me until much later that it wasn't all that difficult for me to find.

I'm pretty confident that I had been played. :-)

Thanks, Mom and Dad.
-

The "Field of Dreams" Principle

-"If you build it, they will come."

(Nope! This post is not about that particular movie. But, ultimately, it is about a couple of other movies: one current, and the other ten years ago).

My best friend and former co-worker at a software company, at which I was a programmer for 12 years (1986-1998), thusly described the apparent operating philosophy of the owners of that company. We developed what may well have been the finest GIS (Geographic Information System) software used by (all too few) companies in the petroleum industry.

This was attested to by those users, and by observation of the competition at annual SEG (Society of Exploration Geophysicists) conventions. We had a foothold in Shell Oil and Fina Oil & Chemical (now part of Total), and a very good shot at a contract with Saudi Aramco. A good enough shot that I was one of those who had to get a passport in case I ever had to fly out there.

BUT, we spent very little on a sales force to go out and promote that product. When you are a small outfit (maybe a dozen and a half employees at most) and your chief competitor is a subsidiary of Schlumberger, well, you might well guess that "If you build it, they will come" just ain't how the world works. That contract never materialized and the big guy won. Our company closed it's Houston office in '98 and, instead of becoming fabulously wealthy (or at least very well to to) I was out of a job for a loooong time.

The Field of Dreams Principle seems to apply to the movie business as well.

For several months now, I've seen posters in movie theaters for ...

From beyondhollywood.com

Synopsis for Phantom (2013) ...
'Ed Harris' plays the captain of a Cold War Soviet missile submarine who has secretly been suffering from seizures that alter his perception of reality. Forced to leave his wife and daughter, he is rushed into a classified mission, where he is haunted by his past and challenged by a rogue KGB group (led by David Duchovny) bent on seizing control of the ship's nuclear missile. With the fate of humanity in his hands, Harris discovers he's been chosen for this mission in the belief he would fail. 'Phantom' is a suspense submarine thriller about extraordinary men facing impossible choices.

Ok. I kept an eye out for it, and when I got home from work Friday, saw in the IMDB showtimes that it had arrived. Cool!

Clicking on it showed that, out of 55 theaters within a 25 mile radius of my zip-code (with God only knows how many hundreds of screens), it was showing at precisely ONE, in the middle of the day at 11:30 AM and 2:20 PM, at the Star Cinema Grill (a very nice place) in Missouri City. nearly 20 miles away. As it was too late for me to go Friday, I went yesterday.

While waiting for it these past months, I never saw one preview for it, nor a single commercial. Predictably, when I reached the auditorium, I saw that a couple in the middle were the only ones there besides myself. I suppose the psychic powers of our population are just not enough to compensate for the total lack of promotion.

The technical term for this is "dumping". After spending millions to make the movie, they seem to find nothing in the budget for marketing and advertising for it, preferring to spend it on something they probably invested a lot more in and promising far greater returns. Sometimes, what happens is a change at the top when a rew CEO takes over the studio and promoting the efforts of his predecessor is not even on his "to-do" list, as he has his own mark to make on things.

"Phantom" is a damn fine movie, worthy of far better treatment than it's getting, but if I find it to be completely gone next weekend, it wouldn't surprise me a bit. If it's showing anywhere near you at the moment, keep that in mind. Otherwise, you'll have to wait several months for the DVD.

That DVD will be worth getting.

(Update - 1415 CDT 23 Mar 2013 - That "next weekend" (of Friday, 15 Mar 2013) has come and gone, as has the movie. Not really a great insight on my part;  it was (in the words of one of Robert A. Heinlein's characters in "Methuselah's Children") "like predicting an egg will break when you see it already on its way to the floor". The DVD will probably be released by (or shortly before) summer. I promise you, it's worth it.)

This is a case of history repeating itself.

In late 2002, I saw posters for Below (2002) ...

From impawards.com

... about a WWII submarine, supposedly haunted. Mostly a psychological thriller (it's left open as to whether anything supernatural is involved or maybe gas buildup from the batteries is causing hallucinations), this is another first-rate movie that had posters everywhere, no previews nor any  commercials and only appeared in a handful of multiplexes the first week, was down to one the second, and gone by the third. In 2002, you had to wait about nine months after theatrical release before the DVD came out.

That DVD is still available and I highly recommend it.

So!  If you build it, will they come?

Sadly, I kinda doubt it. :(
-

Devil in a Blue Dress (Revised)

Saturday, 23 Feb 2013 - I revised this post to add a couple of pictures, remove one that didn't really belong and to fix up some quotes.

Recently, Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle teamed up in Flight (2012), in which Denzel played an airline pilot who, when his plane malfunctioned in mid-air, managed to successfully crash land it, saving 96 of the 102 passengers and crew on board.

The sticking point, of course, is the six that did not survive.

It turns out that Denzel's character has a drinking problem, kept well hidden for years. That brings up the possibility of manslaughter charges.

Don Cheadle plays a lawyer for the pilots union, assigned to protect him from those charges, who is in awe of the pilot's performance in the incident, but is clearly disgusted with the man as a person.

Denzel has played bad guys before ("Training Day" and "American Gangster" come to mind) but this time he's brave enough to risk his image by playing an asshole. Don't recall him doing that before.

A powerful film, with strong performances by everyone, but it's not what this post is really about.

Washington and Cheadle were together once before,
in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995),...

From samefacts.com

... directed by Carl Franklin (who also did One False Move (1992) with Bill Paxton in one of his few starring roles, and Billy Bob Thornton as a very scary crook).

Walter Mosely wrote a series of novels about black detective Ezekiel ("Easy") Rawlins, of which "Devil" was the first.

The story is set in 1948. Rawlins, a  WWII army veteran, has moved from Houston to the Watts area of Los Angeles, to work in an aircraft factory and is paying a mortgage on a house. When he loses that job and is desperate for money, a friend introduces him to DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore) ...

From forums.filmnoirbuff.com

... who offers him a couple of hundred dollars (in a time when a rental or mortgage payment might have been $50.00/month) to help him find the missing fiance of a local politician.

That fiance, Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals) ...

From rollingstone.com

... has disappeared into the black community and Albright figures that Rawlins may have a lot more success than he would asking questions there.

Accepting the job, Rawlins soon finds himself in a "Chinatown" situation (the subtext of that movie being "You never knew what was going on.") in which people are killed, the local police become very interested in him in connection, and he is threatened by Albright and his goons...

Screencap from DVD

Back in Houston, Rawlins had a trigger-happy, dangerous as a rattlesnake friend, Mouse (Don Cheadle)...

From guardian.co.uk

... Because of those character traits ("If you got a friend that you know does bad things -- I mean real bad things -- can you still keep him as a friend? You think that's wrong?" - Reply: "All you got is your friends.") he's kinda kept his distance from him, but knowing he's in way over his head, decides it's time to give him a call.

Mouse arrives just in time ...

Screencap from DVD

... to help Rawlins in a confrontation with a local gangster upset by Rawlins poking around, shooting said gangster in the arm resulting in his departure.
(YES! That is a British Mark VI Webley service revolver in .455 caliber that Mouse is holding.  As this is three years after the end of WWII, a lot of them found their way over here, brought back as souvenirs by returning soldiers. It's not far fetched for Mouse to have gotten hold of one. While not quite as powerful as our .45 Colt or .45 ACP, nevertheless it does throw a big fat heavy bullet that makes a big hole and is a proven man-stopper. In short, it gets the job done. Mouse probably found it suited him perfectly.)

Rawlins (all his misgivings returning): "You ain't been in my house five minutes, and you've done shot somebody already!"

Rawlins finally meets with Daphne a couple of times, only to have her taken away from him at the second meet by Albright and his goons. Rawlins and Mouse go hunting for her, with the assistance of an associate of Albright whom they capture and force to tell where they might be.

They find them and a bloody gunfight ensues. I don't know what mean streets director Carl Franklin grew up on, but the violence and gunplay in his movies have a feel of someone who has either actually seen it, or more likely heard about it. Ugly and messy...

Screencap from DVD

Returning to their car, with Daphne, Rawlins looks for that associate mentioned above: "Where's *****?, Mouse"

Mouse (like a kid who's done something he shouldn't):  "Huh?"

Rawlins: "Where *****?"

Mouse: "Uh - he's - uh - right there."

Rawlins (seeing a body on the ground): "What happened?"

Mouse: "I ain't had no time to be tyin' him up, Easy."

Rawlins: "What?"

Mouse (defensively):  "Look, you just said 'Don't shoot him, right?"

Rawlins: "That's right."

Mouse: "Well, I didn't. I just -- choked him."

Rawlins: "WHAT?!!!"

Mouse: "Well, how am I gonna help you out if I'm back here foolin' around with him now?" -- If you ain't want him killed, why'd you leave him with me?"

As Rawlins was told before, "All you got is your friends."

Don Cheadle has been first-rate in everything I've ever seen him in, but Mouse is my absolute favorite of his roles. He is what makes this movie worth seeking out.

Note: If you click the IMDB link for "Devil", you'll see they only rate it 6.5 out of a possible 10. With all due respect for the morons who so rated it - wrong, Wrong, WRONG!!!

Hunt it up and see for yourself.
-

A Good Day To Die Hard

I wanted to title this post (about Bruce Willis' latest) "Hokahey Hard" in a parody of Lakota Sioux but learned that wouldn't fly because of this from http://www.native-languages.org/iaq21.htm ...

... which Hollywood believes has the meaning "It's a good day to die!" in Sioux. That isn't true either--"Hokahey" is a man's exclamation in Sioux, similar to the American expressions "Let's do it!" or "Let's roll!" The reason people think it means "it's a good day to die" is that the Lakota Sioux leader Crazy Horse famously exhorted his troops "Hokahey, today is a good day to die!" Which meant something like "Let's go men, today is a good day to die!"

Ok, then. With that out of the way, what about the movie?

This latest installment of the "Die Hard" franchise succeeds beautifully at what Arnold Schwarzenegger almost pulled off with "The Last Stand", and what Sylvester Stallone barely even tried for in "Bullet To The Head" : To make a put brain in neutral and enjoy piece of fun from the blow em up real good school of movie making.

Bruce's John McClane character flies to Moscow to get his grown son Jack out of serious trouble, only to find that Jack is working for the CIA and trying to stop weapons grade uranium from falling into criminal hands. Much violence and mayhem ensue.

Jack is played by Australian actor Jai Courtney (who also has a major role in Tom Cruise's excellent (and highly recommended by me) "Jack Reacher")...

From ew.com

He is an excellent actor and has a powerful screen presence, at the moment mostly as another Vin Diesel. As we already have one of those, when he gets around to defining just what a Jai Courtney is, I suspect he'll be even better.

This is someone to watch.
-

"It is a tale told by an idiot, ...

... full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

How I've wanted to apply that line from Macbeth to an Obama speech (almost any of his speeches would qualify).

The State of the Union speech seemed a perfect candidate (and I'll bet it was appropriate) but I cannot really say because I didn't watch it.

To honestly use that line for that has a fearful price; I would actually have to watch that speech, listen to that moron drone on and on (and on) about his wonderful accomplishments capped with "But we're not done yet. We still have a lot of work to do." (After all, he hasn't finished destroying this country yet).

That promised to be an exercise in masochism. In my current state of black depression, I decided "Life's too short!", and this will be the post that never was.
-

"Do what you have to do."

On 31 October 2012, I posted "Criminally Negligent Manslaughter ...", in which I openly accused President Barack Obama of precisely that in the Benghazi incident of 11 Sep 2012 that resulted in the deaths of four of our citizens.

If you notice that I didn't provide a link to that post, it's because I have pulled it.

In the hearings on the incident, CIA Director Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta testified that President Obama told him to "Do what you have to do." (OOPS!! - He was CIA Director until he became SecDef on 01 Jun 2011.)

In Dr. Jerry Pournelle's latest post Do what you have to do (from which I borrowed the title for my post) he notes ...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This morning Rush Limbaugh was castigating President Obama for not being in the command scene during the last of the Benghazi crisis. According to Limbaugh, the President told the Secretary of Defense “Do what you have to do,” and vanished from scene.

If this is true, I would say it is to the President’s credit, and reminiscent of President Reagan who, told of the opportunity to capture a known terrorist by taking him from an EgyptAir 737 now in flight. The risks and benefits were explained. The President ordered the military to do it. When asked if he wanted to be kept up to date on the operation, he said, “Sure. Let me know when you’ve got him.” This in contrast to President Carter, who was on the phone to Colonel Beckwith at all phases of the doomed attempt to rescue the American embassy personnel held captive in Tehran. As von Moltke the elder put it after his success against the Austrians, this was probably the last battle in which a general did not have a telegraph wire from supreme command up his bum. That was prophetic but not always. Reagan told his people to do the job and got out of the way.

This sounds like what President Obama did. If we seek enlightenment on why so little was done after that, we have to ask the Secretary of Defense and the duty officers in command – why the President’s blank check wasn’t passed along to the theater commander. “Do what you have to do” sounds like the kind of orders that put heart in a soldier. Why didn’t Panetta call the theater commander and simply say, “The consulate is under attack. Use whatever resources you have to get the American personnel and consulate employees out of the consulate and safe house. The President says do what you have to do. I’ll get out of your way now.”

We can ask why nothing was done, but it’s hard to say the President didn’t give the right order.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope Dr. Pournelle will forgive me for using half of his post in that quote above. In this case, I found him persuasive enough to pull my own post and felt that he should be quoted accurately instead of cherry picking from it.

I've seen nothing in his posts to indicate that he is a fan and supporter of The One, but he is willing to give the President a fair shake on this. I have to admit that's more than I've done.

No! I have not become a convert to The One and am not likely to ever do so.  There are many issues for which the word "despise" is not too strong to describe my feelings towards him.

The "If this is true" is a very important caveat, but, if we make it past that obstacle, then I was wrong and I have to face that.
-

The Conan Sword

At the end of Zero Dark Thirty is THE Best movie of 2012, I noted ...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Slightly off topic - Tonight, I'm checking out Arnold Schwarzenegger's "The Last Stand".  It had already been on my "to-do" list, but something I saw in a commercial for it a few nights ago moved it to the top of that list.

If you've seen previews or commercials for it, then you know that he plays a sheriff, in a small town near the border to which an escaped drug cartel leader and his gang are headed,

In many of those commercials are scenes where Arnold and his men feel the need for more firepower, and there's a scene of his deputy holding up a sword, saying "You never know".

When I saw that commercial, a couple of nights ago, I looked closer at that scene and realized, "Wait a minute! That's Conan's sword!!!"

So naturally I've just gotta see if that sword, the same one Arnold used in his "Conan the Barbarian", actually has any use at all in this movie, or if it's a bit of a tease for the fact that he will be filming a new Conan later this year.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

As it doesn't really have anything to do with "Zero Dark Thirty", I've pulled it out of that post and made this little post to deal with it.

Well, I did check out "The Last Stand".  While not great, it's not bad either; a sort of fun, "Put brain in neutral and enjoy" movie (with an amazing cast that includes Forrest Whitaker , Peter Stormare and and an all too rare brief appearance by Harry Dean Stanton) that manages to kill a couple of hours without disappointing.

To answer the question I posed about the sword ...

The only spoiler I'll give about the movie is that the sword only appears for a few seconds, plays no part whatever in the movie, and its appearance is almost certainly a tease and an inside joke.

So, what about Conan's sword?

Actually, two swords play a prominent part in Arnie's 1982 version of "Conan the Barbarian".

Conan's father is a blacksmith and makes his own weapons. At the beginning of the movie, during the opening title sequence, we see the casting, forging and tempering of his father's sword ...

From auctions.shopgala.com

Forging and tempering are mainstays of director John Milius' writing and direction.  In Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" (Trust me. We're still on topic), when construction of the giant cannon is almost complete, the builders get a telegram from a Frenchman who plans to ride in its projectile.

When Verne describes him, he concludes with "forged, not cast", as something cast comes from a mold from which many indistinguishable copies can be made, while something that is forged and tempered is unique.

The forging and tempering of that sword is a metaphor for the later forging and tempering of Conan himself (Yeah, I know. Duh!)

This is what I refer to as the Conan Sword ...

From entertainmentearth.com

Also known as the Atlantean Sword (because its former owner was believed to be a ruler of (or at least from) Atlantis), Conan found this in a cave that turns out to be the crypt of that owner.  From that point on, he makes it his own.

If interested, here's a site: The Barbarian Keep: Heroic Swords, with info on both swords, some from Mr. Jody Samson, the master sword maker who made them for the movie.

The brief glimpse I got of the sword in "The Last Stand" made me confident that it was the Conan Sword I saw there. In my search for pictures of it, I came across this, which pretty well clinched it for me ...

That picture is from Stuff U Can Use, in a post from several years ago while Arnold was still Governor of California. This is a partial screen capture of the page ...

If true (and frankly I cannot think of any good reason to believe otherwise), then that sword in the movie truly is the Conan Sword; not just a replica, but the very one that Arnold used in both movies.

I suspect that he may have contributed it, not just out of a sense of humor (although he does have one; he's greatly underestimated there), but also to pique interest in the new Conan movie he's supposed to start on this year.

For a long time, he's wanted to make "King Conan", about Conan's later years. He's likely decided that, since he's in his later years now, maybe he'd better get moving on it. 

No real idea if this new one will be that or not (one report says its title may be "The Legend of Conan") and no mention of whether John Milius will be involved. That is something I would really love; Milius considers it his sacred duty to tell a tall tale and to tell it well.  In his "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean", the text scrolling up in the opening title sequence, after giving a lurid account on life in the territory concerned, said something to the effect of, "If this ain't the way it was, it's the way it should have been."

That's why I so much want John Milius involved here. That's the absolutely perfect attitude toward telling a Conan story.

Please! :-)

-

Zero Dark Thirty is THE Best movie of 2012

That's my final choice, after initially going with "The Avengers", for its pure entertainment value, and then with Ben Affleck's "Argo".

It has gotten an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, with which I wholly agree.  But, its director, Kathryn Bigelow was not nominated for Best Director, which I feel is a felony. Did the Academy think that the movie somehow just made itself, without the help of a director?

For the few that may not know, "Zero Dark Thirty" is about the raid that finally nailed Osama bin Laden, and what led up to it.

How accurate is it.  This is literally a case of "Who can say?"  What I saw jibed with reports I have read.

BUT, those reports (and the movie itself) come from first-hand accounts which, by definition, are from people who are masters of deception with plenty of reason to mislead.  It doesn't appear unreasonable to wonder if some of the methods actually used were not believed to be known to terrorists and that it might be prudent in their public reports  to substitute methods that were plausible and already known by them.

That is pure speculation on my part. The only contribution I can make is the purely unscientific observation that "It feels right."  That is what "verisimilitude" means. It does not mean "It is right."

Keeping those caveats in mind, this is probably the best account of that operation you'll likely see in ages, and is totally gripping throughout.

If this interests you at all, I sincerely recommend that you catch it in a theater, on the big screen, hopefully in an auditorium where it is digitally projected. The raid occurs at night, and this movie has some of the best night work I've ever seen. The shots of the helicopters flying though the mountains of Afghanistan at night, where you can see that terrain under conditions that look realistic, are almost worth the price of admission alone, and are something that I doubt will look nearly as impressive on your home TV set if you just wait for the DVD or Blu-Ray.

This is one hell of a fine movie. See it.

(Why do I call it the best movie of 2012?  It had a limited release a few weeks ago, in December 2012, to qualify for the awards of that year. It's general release to everyone was Friday, 08 Jan 2013 when I caught it. I saw it again last night and confirmed my feelings for it.).
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Camera

This is a Ricoh Singlex TLS (Through the Lens System) single-lens reflex 35mm camera ...

This model was developed in 1967. In early 1972, I bought one very much like it (along with a 300mm telephoto lens) for the events I posted about in Adventure of a Lifetime, and its sequel The Adventure - Continued (about my trips to Cape Canaveral to watch the launches of Apollo 16 and Apollo 17). 

I used it for fourteen years, until mid-1986 when I had to sell it during an extended period of unemployment.

It was totally manual, with the only electronic part being a built-in light meter, using the match-needle exposure system.  Other than the rewind knob (with folding lever) on top of the camera, at the right end of the picture above, the main controls were here ...

You'd open the back, thread in the film (up to 36 exposures on a roll), close the back and thumb the advance lever to move the film (one frame each time) and cock the shutter.

The shutter speed and film speed controls were combined on a single knob. You'd pull out on that knob (I think. It's been over 26 years now) and turn it to the ASA number for the film you are using (I favored Kodak High-Speed Ektachrome, at 160 ASA). The camera in the picture appears to be set at 100 ASA; that's a 64 showing below it). With the knob back in its normal place (it's spring loaded), turn it to the shutter speed you want (in the picture it's set at 1/500th of a second).

With the match-needle system, a combination of aperture (lens opening) and shutter speed control the exposure.  While looking though the viewfinder, adjust the aperture (set with a ring on the lens) and/or shutter speed until the needle visible in the viewfinder is centered.

What I liked so much about it was that the controls were relatively simple, becoming instinctive with practice, and easy to use just by feel. The shutter button I've pointed out above is actually a top button that presses on the real button inside the camera. The part that protrudes above the rest has a tapered threaded hole in it, to which various release cables or timer devices can be screwed in that use a rod to press the button (or lever or whatever) inside the camera.

That button, with that raised part is easy enough to find by feel, but it can be improved even further with a screw-in "soft button", like this one ...

i had a black version screwed into mine, and it allowed for a more sensitive touch when trying to shoot without unduly disturbing the camera, especially at slow shutter speeds.

As you can see from the picture below (of a different camera) ...

It would also make it even easier to locate by feel.

For an air show, I would use the telephoto lens I mentioned above, presetting my exposure by picking an airplane on the ground that showed a good combination of light and shadow, setting the slowest shutter speed I could get away with using that lens (around 1/30th of a second). I did that because a lot of the planes I would be shooting had propellers and really fast shutter speeds would freeze those props.

I preferred color slide film because, with it, "What you shot was what you got."  When shooting an airplane in the sky, you got a lot of very bright sky in the background. With color negative film, automatic processors would interpret that as overexposure, and would "correct" it when doing the prints. The only way around that with negative film and prints would be to pay for custom developing, trying to explain just what you were after (surprisingly difficult; I'll get back to that in a bit).

With that old-fashioned manual antique, I could even take shots while driving. Just preset the exposure and focus and, if something interesting showed up, pick up the camera with one hand, thumb the advance lever and shoot. Piece of cake.

Ok. So much for past history. What do I try to take pictures with today?

At the moment, I have two cameras. An Olympus D-520 ZOOM pocket camera I've used for some blog pictures recently. I've had it for years, but nothing at all instinctive about it. And, a Canon Power Shot SX-10 IS (IS is for Image Stabilization) that I bought around late October of 2009.

I liked it a lot, but in late 2010 I began experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome leaving very little feeling in my finger tips. It was (and still is) like trying to do things with gloves on.

Both of the cameras have very small controls and shutter buttons that are flush with the camera body. I simply cannot operate them by feel alone.

This became glaringly obvious when I took the Canon to an airshow in October of 2010. I vented about it in Airshow, after not being able to get even one decent shot, because I had to keep taking my eye out of the viewfinder to make sure my fingertip was even on the shutter button.

If you want to to try and preset either one, you have to wade through several menus, and your settings only remain while the camera is switched on.

As for quick shooting, you look through the viewfinder, press the button halfway down (really fun when you can hardly even feel it) and wait a second or two while the camera automatically tries to work out exposure and focus, and finally tells you it's happy and you can finish pushing the shutter button.

Such is progress. :(

(And, YES! I'm actually considering going for an old 35mm camera. Scanning the slides (especially if there are a lot of them) can be a nuisance, as is waiting a day or two to even get the slides back. I'll have to find out what services are available -- and affordable.)

The thing I said I'd get back to was about explaining things to people. The most frustrating thing about this is talking to camera salesmen and seeing in their eyes that I might as well be speaking in South Martian -- They haven't a clue as to what I am talking about.  Never, never think that just because they sell the things they actually know something about them. That is an assumption; all too often unwarranted.

What I'd love to find would be a digital version of that old Ricoh Singlex, as manual and mechanical as possible, and of course with controls I can actually feel.

Any ideas?
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Two Movies. (Updated)

Right now, I'd rather talk about them than about politics.

You may have guessed that I absolutely love movies, and devour them.

Since the disaster of November 6, I haven't felt like seeing anything until I finally went out and caught Skyfall (2012) Monday evening. I'll get back to it in a bit, but if you surmise from the fact that I've even mentioned it here, that I liked it a lot, then (in Yoda speak), "Be mighty correct you would!" :-)

I don't recall what was the last thing I saw before the election, but the best thing (about three weeks before) was Argo (2012).

What's it about?  In late 1979, when Iranian militants stormed and took over the American Embassy in Tehran, six Americans (seeing what was likely to happen), slipped out of one of the back doors and made their way to the Canadian Ambassador's residence where they were given refuge.

The CIA worked up a plan to get them out of the country by giving them false identities as a Canadian film crew scouting out exotic locations for a science-fiction movie named "Argo" (actually based on a real script that was never  produced).

Not at all far fetched; a few years prior George Lucas and company spent some time in Tunisia shooting desert scenes for this little thing called "Star Wars".

CIA operative Tony Mendez, who was a specialist at getting people out of very bad places, went in with the necessary (and false) documents and handled the operation.

Ben Affleck directed this, and played Mendez.

Sometime back, I posted Presence in which I tried to define the term with examples of what it was. In that post, I mentioned Affleck as an example of what it was not. Give it a look, Ok?. It's one I'm rather fond of.

After seeing "Argo", I updated the post, noting that it was time for me to stop picking on Affleck. He has greatly improved as an actor, and as a director he is absolutely first rate. This is his third directorial effort (after "Gone, Baby, Gone", and "The Town"). For a while this year, I considered "The Avengers" as the best movie of 2012, just for its pure entertainment value. I still love that movie, but I now consider "Argo" the best. If it's still showing in your town, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Ok, then. The title of this post is "Two Movies". So let's get on with "Skyfall".

This is the third time for Daniel Craig as James Bond, and was directed by Sam Mendes (who had worked with Craig before, in a Tom Hanks movie, Road to Perdition (2002), set during Prohibition in which Hanks is an enforcer (with a Tommy gun) working for mob boss Paul Newman. Craig played Newman's son, whose actions result in all out war between Hanks and Newman.)

In "Skyfall", MI-6, and especially M (played again by the wonderful Judi Dench) come under attack by a former MI-6 operative who feels that he was sacrificed by M, that this was a betrayal, and is just not going to get over it.

That operative is played by Javier Bardem, the killer in No Country for Old Men (2007), and he is something else as an adversary. I think I'm correct in using that term instead of villain, as his motive is vengeance, which he feels is entirely justified.

Everyone in "Skyfall" is first rate, but when Bardem shows up he makes the movie his own. Simply put, the man is mesmerizing. Should I ever expand my "Presence" post further, he would be a perfect addition.

Seeing how menacing he could be in "No Country" and "Skyfall", it's difficult to believe that, before "No Country", this Spaniard was mostly known for romantic comedies in Europe. When the script for "No Country" was submitted to him, he called the Coen brothers to say, "I can't drive. I speak bad English. And, I hate violence! Are you sure you've got the right guy?"

Maybe it was something that only the Coens could see, but they certainly had the right guy that time. As is also the case for "Skyfall".

After fifty years of 007, this latest is, if not the absolute best, is certainly damned near the top of the list.  Am I recommending it?

Do you really have to ask? :-)
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Update - Thu, 13 Dec 2012 - The # 1 reason to check out "Skyfall" ...

Top photo from explore.bfi.org.uk, lower 

photo from bjjjicjalapicture.blogspot.com

Those two photos are of Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men". Supposedly, his first reaction to the hair style he would wear for the film was, "Oh, Great! Now I wont get laid for months."

He was nominated for a best supporting actor Academy award for that role, and WON.

And now, here he is as Raoul Silva in "Skyfall" ...

The top photo of this pair is from weblogs.variety.com, and the lower 

(a behind the scenes picture of his character, obviously in disguise 

as that character is not on the side of the angels) is from ifc.com

I mentioned above his nomination and win of an Academy award for "No Country". Well, it could happen again. I've just read that he's been nominated for best supporting actor for this role. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if he wins this time too.

Update - Tue, 22 Jan 2012 - Well, HELL!!! - Don't recall just where I read of Bardem's nomination, but I've just now seen the Academy Awards list.  He has not been nominated this time.  Dammit!  He shoulda been!.  :(

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"I'll be back."

  ~The Terminator (1984)

I rather doubt that my entrance will be nearly as dramatic as the one it made, when it kept its promise a few minutes later.

It's been almost a solid month since my last post ("Things could be worse!"), which was a "whistling past the graveyard" effort to disguise the fact that, since the election, I've slipped into the blackest depression in memory.

But, there's only so long that one just stay in a hole and cover it over him. This mess will be with us for years now, and I'll just have to live with it.

I'm a bit burnt out over politics now (for some unfathomable reason), although I'll eventually get back to that.

I'm going to try and catch up on some movies (if you look at the "Categories" list in the left column, click on "Movies", and wade through the results, you'll discover my true passion.

I'm also considering a post or two on hank Williams songs. While I've never been married, I've seen plenty of other people's marriages. and while most are good, more than a few can be described perfectly by his songs ...
      "I remember when you were nice and sweet.
      "Things have changed; you'd rather fight than eat!"
        (Middle verse of "Long Gone Daddy".)

See! There's a whole world of things to write about that are far less depressing than politics. I just need to get to it.

A couple of days after I posted "Things ...", I got this email from a former boss of mine whom I'm proud to consider one of my very best friends ...
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Paul,

Some of your posts are really good so don't stop! 

But how did a Texas Hill Country boy, from the heart of German rational liberalism get to where your views are today - don't answer that?

Your friend, Bryan
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Well, to answer what he said not to, I got to where my views are today because I learned!

But, as to his advice on posting, who am I to argue with his logic?  The fact is he is simply one of the smartest people I have ever known. 

And he knows it. :-)
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