“Hitchcock” about the Master of Manipulation
Dec 22nd
“Master of Manipulation”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Hitchcock is about the famous British director, Alfred Hitchcock, who was known as the Master of Suspense, and takes place in Hollywood when he was making his most famous film, the 1960 Psycho.
We see Hitchcock in 1959 Chicago at the opening of his previous movie, his 46th, and a reporter points out that Hitchcock is 60 and says shouldn’t he just quit while he is ahead.
Thankfully, Hitchcock didn’t, who is played by Anthony Hopkins made up to look like the director and using a voice as reminiscent of the popular figure on television that we soon begin to believe that he is Hitchcock.
In fact, Hitchcock says that he is looking for a nice clean, nasty little book to make into his next movie.
That book becomes Psycho, a novel by Robert Bloch, based on Ed Gein and the murders he had committed in Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, we meet Alma, Hitchcock’s wife, played by Helen Mirren, and we learn that she had even been Hitchcock’s boss in England when he was first starting out in the movie business, and they had collaborated on some of his early movies.
So, Alma helps Hitchcock with some of the casting and even makes suggestions for the plot, such as killing off the leading actress after the first 30 minutes instead of waiting halfway through.
Scarlett Johansson plays Janet Leigh, James D’Arcy plays Anthony Perkins, and in their first meeting, Hitchcock says, “Call me Hitch. Hold the ‘cock.'”
Then we see all the difficulties that Hitch had making this movie, with the studio, the censors, and even an actress with whom Hitch had a previous history, Vera Miles, played by Jessica Biel.
At one point, the picture is two days behind and $60,000 over budget, Hitch gets sick and confined to bed, and Alma goes to the set and takes over, showing everyone that she knows what she is doing.
One thing that might confuse you is that Hitch dreams and fantasizes about Ed Gein, the real murderer, and we see those scenes, but there is enough humor and lightheartedness in the movie to make up for these distractions, just like Hitch had in his own movies and TV shows.
Hitchcock is about the Master of Suspense, but he could just as easily have been called the Master of Manipulation.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
My Cold, Dead Fingers The Naked Curmudgeon by Dan Culberson
Dec 22nd
The Naked Curmudgeon curmudgeon n [origin unknown] (1577) a crusty, ill-tempered, and usu. old man. naked adj 6: devoid of concealment or disguise. Attempting to cover everything that annoys me, Dan Culberson.
Here’s what gets me.
Does it have to take an English major to explain the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution and put to rest this unjustifiable crutch of the right-wing, gun-toting fanatics and their conservative supporters?
For those of you who don’t remember, Amendment II states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Even for those of you who do remember, Amendment II states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
That is what it says word for word, comma for comma, capitalization for capitalization. Notice that the subject is “Militia,” the verb is “shall not be infringed,” and the sentence becomes “A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed.”
“What about the bits between commas?” you say? Those are two appositional phrases, and an apposition is “a grammatical construction in which a noun or pronoun is followed by another that explains it.”
The subject, a noun (See how it works?), is followed by “being necessary to the security of a free State,” and it is followed by “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” in order to explain “a well regulated Militia,” the subject of the sentence.
The subject cannot be “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” because you cannot put a single comma between the subject and the verb of a sentence. You cannot write “The dog, ran around the yard.” You can write “The dog, being frightened by the gunfire, ran around the yard,” because now we have two commas separating the subject and the verb. You can also write “The dog, being frightened by the gunfire, the pet of the neighbor, ran around the yard.”
That sentence is not “The pet of the neighbor, ran around the yard,” because that would be ungrammatical, just as “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” is ungrammatical and therefore not the sentence of Amendment II.
“The right of the people to keep and bear Arms” is an apposition that explains the subject, “a well regulated Militia,” just as the other apposition, “being necessary to the security of a free State,” does. It is a “Militia” that is “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” which is necessary to the security of a free State and which shall not be infringed.
In other words, the citizens of the United States have the right to keep and bear Arms in “a well regulated Militia,” not to stockpile weapons at home and to carry a gun around with them in some Old West mentality.
And what did the sheriff in the Old West do to maintain order? Do the words “Check your guns at the door” strike a familiar note? That didn’t mean “Inspect your guns to ensure that they are in proper working order.” That meant “Turn your guns in at the door. It’s too dangerous for you to carry guns here.”
Now, the possibility of everyone having a concealed weapon might deter a few criminal acts, but the probability that hotheads and teenagers carrying a weapon could use it in a moment of unbridled emotion is far greater.
Sir William Blackstone (1723-80), a British jurist and Oxford instructor who was the first at a British university to teach English law as opposed to Roman law (See how those appositions work?), wrote in his great work Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69), “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.”
I believe it is better that ten crimes be committed than one innocent victim be killed by a convenient handgun.
Luke Woodham, a teenager in Pearl, Mississippi, who is spending the rest of his life in prison for murdering his mother and two fellow students in October 1997 when he was 16, kept a map on his bedroom wall with the slogan “One Nation Under My Gun.” Do we want our immature, impressionable children growing up and believing this heinous claim?
We used to see so-called Amendment II supporters brag “I’ll give up my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.”
After a moment of rage, I don’t want those cold, dead fingers to be mine.
I rest my case.
Local guy donates 500 M to Palo Alto charity: Mark Zuckerberg Facebook
Dec 19th
Wow! This is big news for Palo Alto. In one shot this is more money given to a community foundation than is give to 1000’s of do gooder charites in a life time of the charity. Hope is does some good. This charity that doesn’t really need it.
“Two years ago, Priscilla and I signed The Giving Pledge, committing to donate the majority of the money we earn to charity.
Our first major project has been around education reform with Startup: Education in Newark, NJ. I’m really proud of the work we’ve done there, helping leaders like Governor Chris Christie and Mayor Cory Booker sign the most progressive teachers contract in our country, opening four new district high schools, 11 new charter schools and more.
Today, in order to lay the foundation for new projects, we’ve made a contribution of 18 million Facebook shares to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Together, we will look for areas in education and health to focus on next. I’m hopeful we’ll be able to have as positive an impact in our next set of projects.”
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook
