Appreciating Simon

Simon Cowel on American Idol has the role of playing the non-American who does not have to worry about the self-esteem of the contestants. In this role he is great. Notice how gingerly Randy and Paula back their way into telling any one they did not like something. Typical Americans these days. That no one would pay a dime for a record by the non-competitive contestant means nothing. They want to break it gently. This is nice, but showbiz is not.

Of course note how this non-approved behavior has to be discredited. Is there much else that Seacrest says except to dig at Cowel? Then there are the frustrations of Paula.

The Notebook

The Notebook [2004] is one great picture. It follows Duke [James Garner] reading what appears to be a book to Allie [Gina Rowlands], while the screen shifts back and forth to the action of the “book.” The story has been accused of being smaltzy, but who cares. If Hollywood burned good smaltz movies, the town would fit in a desert garage.

The mystery of the book becoming just a notebook about Duke and Allie earlier in life is only hinted at until it slowly begins to become an obvious fact. Duke appears as a friendly guy just reading to an elderly women at the start, but it turns into something more at just the right pace. The roles are well acted, and the movie as a whole is very touching. .In our normal at home DVD-watching mode, we are doing something else part of the time. With The Notebook, we put those things down and watched.

Check its website at: The Notebook

State of the Union Media Bias?

With all the specualtion concerning media bias during the 2004 election, I noticed an oddity during the State of the Union address on Feb 2, 2005. During the speech I often swithch channels to see if there are altenative camera angles. Last night I noticed that the Fargo FOX and ABC channels had a louder volumne than the NBC and CBS outlets. While this could be the choice of engineers in Fargo and have nothing to do with media bias, it was curious. THew channel thought more pro-Bush has more volumne than the two considered more anti-Bush.