Posts tagged New York City
Stop Saying “Take a Look”!
Jan 30th
The three most overused and unnecessary words you ever hear on television are “Take a look.”
Take a look at this.
First of all, except for blind people who only listen to the television set, we are already looking at it, and so people on television don’t have to tell us to look at it!
Take a look at this.
And for all we know, blind people might get offended by being reminded all the time that they can’t see anything whenever told to “take a look.”
Take a look at this.
Second of all, what does saying “Take a look” add that a simple “Look” doesn’t convey?
Take a look at this.
And third of all, the expression in either its shortest form of “Look,” its longer form of “Take a look,” or even its longer forms of “Take a look at this,” “Take a live look,” or “Taking a look at the temperatures” are all just a lazy way of introducing what the meteorologist, traffic reporter, or any other on-camera person wants to talk about next. Much worse is “take a listen.”
Take a look at this.
I first became aware of this lazy crutch of an expression back in the past when I would attend a presentation by a programmer I worked with, and he would mangle it by saying “Take and look” instead of “Take a look.”
Take a look at this.
For example, he would have a visual aid displayed before us and say something like, “If we take and look at the coding, we can see how the reverse Polish notation affects all the lines that follow.”
Take a look at this.
Then I began noticing that the weather girl on the local news that I watch every morning was saying “Take a look” much too often and even more much too unnecessarily.
Take a look at this.
Then I began to notice that the traffic reporter who would follow her weather report was using “Take a look” in his reports, too, and sometimes even saying “Take a look” twice in the same sentence.
Take a look at this.
And then I began to notice that national reporters on television and hosts on national talk shows were being lazy and using the expression, which, when you think about it, doesn’t add anything to the introduction of whatever follows that we are being told to look at.
Take a look at this.
Rather than saying “Take a look at these temperatures,” the weather girl could simply tell us that the temperature in Denver is a pleasant 65 degrees, compared with the temperatures in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.
Take a look at this.
Rather than saying “Take a look at the traffic map,” the traffic reporter could simply say “The traffic is heavy on the Interstate highway, so you might want to avoid it.”
Take a look at this.
And rather than saying “Take a look” when a national reporter or a talk-show host wants to introduce a piece of video footage, a simple description of what is going to be shown would suffice or even a simple “Play it” when the person might not know what is about to be shown.
Take a look at this.
Now that I have made you aware of this excessive and unnecessary overused expression on television, start counting the number of times you hear it said, and if you use social media to follow either the person you hear say it too much or the program on which you heard it said or even the network on which the person or program appears, write using either of the more popular social-network tools directly to the person, program, or network and encourage them to stop using that now offensive, unnecessary and overused expression.
Take a look at this.
Unfortunately, this might turn out to be a lost cause. Emphasis on good language and effective communication might have been lost ever since the Baby Boomers became a major influence in society in the Sixties.
Take a look at this.
I don’t watch religious shows on television, and so I don’t know if televangelists use the expression in their sermons or requests for money, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, because I am hearing the expression almost every time I turn on the television.
Take a look at this.
The same goes for politicians.
I rest my case.
“Zero Dark Thirty” Deserves All the Awards It Receives
Jan 19th
“All the Awards It Receives”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Zero Dark Thirty is the fascinating story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden by the C.I.A. and the attack by SEAL Team 6 on his compound in Pakistan which ended with his death.
It was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who previously directed the 2009 The Hurt Locker, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and for which Bigelow won the Academy Award for Best Director, the first time a woman had ever won that award.
That feat could easily be duplicated with this outstanding film.
The title refers to 30 minutes after midnight, and Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, based on the real C.I.A. agent who was most responsible for the work it took to track down and locate where bin Laden was hiding almost 10 years after the attack and destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City.
Chastain has already won an award for this role and most likely will win many more awards for her outstanding acting in this film.
We see Maya at a so-called “black site,” where she is observing the “enhanced interrogation” of a detainee, which is being conducted by Dan, a fellow agent.
Dan tells the detainee, “When you lie to me, I hurt you.”
And Dan does, which is a bit ingenuous, because how can you tell that a person is lying when such interrogation tactics are being used on him?
Maya is based in Pakistan, and we learn that she didn’t volunteer for this assignment to track down bin Laden, but she was appointed to it because Washington believes she is a “killer” at her job.
While we watch Maya and her colleagues gather the evidence they need in order to uncover the whereabouts of their target, we also see the terrorist attacks around the world that occurred during those years, which were attributed to al Qaida, if not to bin Laden himself.
Maya concentrates her search on one man, Abu Ahmed, whom she believes to be the courier for bin Laden, and time is lost over a confusion brought about by his name.
In fact, Arab names are confusing and hard to understand by westerners, including those in the audience.
Familiar actors also appear in the film, but Chastain stands out.
Zero Dark Thirty deserves all the awards it receives.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Promised Land” Is a Big Tease
Jan 13th
“A Big Tease”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Promised Land is a film about the controversial subject of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in which an oil and gas company drills into the ground and pumps liquid chemicals into the earth in order to release the oil and natural gas that is trapped in the rocks below the surface.
Matt Damon plays Steve Butler, and he and his partner, Sue, played by Frances McDormand, work for one such company, and their job is to visit the property owners in a small community and purchase the drilling rights on their land so that the company can drill there.
Because of the economy, the property owners, many of whom are farmers, are struggling, and by buying those leases starting at $2,000 an acre, Steve says, “I’m not selling them natural gas; I’m selling them the only way they have to get out.”
Steve and Sue are the best team the company has, having closed out more towns than the team behind them by triple digits, but Steve is under additional pressure for their current assignment, because if he does well, he could get a promotion to a job in the company’s New York City headquarters.
So, we see Steve and Sue come into town, buy the clothes they believe will help the property owners identify with them, and go out on their sales calls.
They also have to overcome the stories about fracking causing some people to be able to light their drinking water on fire and causing the property owners to become sick.
Steve’s argument that fracking is far from a perfect process isn’t enough to refute those stories, and he also has to fight the arguments from Frank Yates, played by Hal Holbrook, a local resident with enough experience to know what he is talking about when he objects to the owners selling their drilling rights.
However, the biggest obstacle that Steve and Sue have to overcome is Dustin Noble, played by John Krasinski, an environmental activist who shows up in town and says that he is from Nebraska where fracking ruined his home town.
Damon and Krasinski wrote the screenplay for this film, which was directed by Gus Van Sant, and I have to warn you that it has a plot twist which might make you disappointed in it.
Promised Land is a big tease.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”