The Thing Called Love

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Youngsters may not believe this, but there was once a guy named Peter Bogdonovich who was a majorly talented director. He made fantastic movies in the early 70s: The Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc, and Paper Moon. Then things kind of fizzled. This movie is kind of a good example: Bogdonovich made it in 1993, it was a huge box office flop, only seeing limited release. The DVD was only released earlier this year.

So it's a chance to see Sandra Bullock in one of the early movies she made, and River Phoenix in one of his last. (It's a little weird how movie history-time works; Sandra Bullock seems to have been around longer than that, and River Phoenix doesn't seem to have kicked the bucket so long ago. But the IMDB doesn't lie …)

Oh, how's the movie? It's OK, a story about young people trying to Make It in Nashville. Very clichéd, but there are some clever scenes and dialog. Sandra Bullock has I'm-gonna-be-a-star written all over her. In her first scene, she auditions a song she (actually) wrote herself, and it's hilarious.


Last Modified 2024-02-03 8:02 AM EDT

URLs du Jour

2006-08-29

  • If you'd like to know exactly how plugged into the local political scene Pun Salad is: while I was taking a Saturday afternoon nap at Pun Salad Manor in Rollinsford, Shawn Macomber was approximately 3.4 miles away partying down with NY Governor George Pataki and the Strafford County Republicans. (But, frankly, reading Shawn's article is as good as, if not better than, being there.)

  • Depressing Story du Jour: One of the major points in James Fallows' widely-hyped Atlantic Monthly article "Declaring Victory" was that Muslims in America were infertile ground for launching terror plots, since the US was a lot better at assimilation than Europe and Britain. Unfortunately, a recent WaPo article says, in essence: not so fast, Jim:
    If only the Muslims in Europe -- with their hearts focused on the Islamic world and their carry-on liquids poised for destruction in the West -- could behave like the well-educated, secular and Americanizing Muslims in the United States, no one would have to worry.

    So runs the comforting media narrative that has developed around the approximately 6 million Muslims in the United States, who are often portrayed as well-assimilated and willing to leave their religion and culture behind in pursuit of American values and lifestyle. But over the past two years, I have traveled the country, visiting mosques, interviewing Muslim leaders and speaking to Muslim youths in universities and Islamic centers from New York to Michigan to California -- and I have encountered a different truth. I found few signs of London-style radicalism among Muslims in the United States. At the same time, the real story of American Muslims is one of accelerating alienation from the mainstream of U.S. life, with Muslims in this country choosing their Islamic identity over their American one.

    So good news about the "few signs" of "radicalism", bad news about the increasing alienation; that's not the way it's supposed to work. (Via LGF.)

    You might (however) want to check out Aziz for a contrary take. (Via Instapundit.)

  • Manatees: not as dumb as they look. An inspiration to all of us who aspire to that status.

  • Quote du Jour: via Thomas Sowell:
    Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm—but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.

    —T. S. Eliot

Moonbat in our Midst

The New Hampshire mainstream media (in the form of the Manchester (NH) Union Leader) has noticed that UNH psych prof William Woodward is a member of lunatic conspiracy group "Scholars for 9/11 Truth." Their initial Sunday article is here; initial reader response here; Monday followup here. And today (Tuesday) there's another article and also an editorial. The dustup has prompted an article at Inside Higher Ed, which has further quotes.

[If the Union Leader reporters had been Pun Salad readers, they could have discovered Prof Woodward back on June 20 or July 30.]

Prof Woodward now says he wants to teach a 9/11-related course, which would be akin to having a Holocaust revisionist teach HIST 869 ("Germany from 1918 to Present"). I don't think anyone in charge here is actually dim enough to let him do that, but I've been surprised and disappointed by unexpected dimness before.

The Union Leader articles document a spectrum of responses from (a) outraged demands for Prof Woodward's firing; to (b) delicately-worded responses from politicians and university officials, paraphrasible as "He's a loon, but, hey, academic freedom"; to (c) cheers from fellow moonbats for Woodward's "speaking truth to power". NH-blogger Kim comes down solidly in camp (a).

Pun Salad, on the other hand, favors ridicule and contempt, in roughly equal measures. And also plans to encourage UNH sophomore Pun Daughter to keep away from psych courses.


Last Modified 2012-10-23 1:52 PM EDT