Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in the West

It seems almost ludicrous to be reviewing a movie that’s over 40 years old in 2009, but I watched it again last night as part of the initiative of going through the “Man with no Name” series, and you can’t help but get to Once Upon a Time. When I first saw this I was 13 years old and it was dubbed in German. It worked well enough for me to walk away at the time and say that this was the best Western of all time, and no more Westerns need be made. The Western had now been done.

I still feel this way today and I have said it to people from time to time when making small talk about movies. I am sure I saw it once or twice  more through the years, but it’s been a long time and there was much detail I had forgotten about.

Ennio Morricone’s music in this movie is one of my favorite movie scores. I can’t name another one that comes even close. Ennio’s work contributes just as much to this genre as Sergio’s does. When I reviewed The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and I talked about how unrealistic the story was, a person by the name of Ennio commented and set me straight.

The story in this movie is of course also unrealistic, but so is every other movie, so that by itself is not the problem. But here it comes to life as you are watching. There is no way to not feel very deeply when Frank kills the little boy. There is no way to not wonder what’s with the harmonica, and when it finally is revealed at the end, to experience an overwhelming rush of emotion in sympathy for the pain of the Harmonica character, another man with no name.

The dialog and script of this movie would fit on a few pages. Not much is being said. But it’s 2 hours and 45 minutes of music, breathtaking scenery and pictorial storytelling and every minute of that time is full.

After 40 years I say it again: There were other Westerns made in the meantime, and many of them have men in long dusters in them doubtlessly taken from Once Upon a Time. Many of those other Westerns are good. But this is the greatest Western of all time.

Rating: ****

Obama Accepts Nobel Peace Prize

Alfred Nobel, the person who invented dynamite, set up the Nobel Peace Prize.

On Thursday, Barack Obama received the Peace Prize. The reason given was: for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

The American right-wing, with spokespeople Hannity and Limbaugh front and forward, argue that he did not deserve the prize.

Let’s assume he didn’t for moment. What should he have done? Not accepted it? It’s ludicrous for us to blame Obama for the award, as if he had done it for himself. The fact is, a panel in Norway made the decision. It’s not an American decision, and it’s not an American choice.

This award shows that the international community sees a positive change in American policy after 8 years of jingoism. The jingoists may not like it, but the Norwegians get to express their opinion, and that’s what they did. And whether we like it or not, Obama is joining an exclusive list of names, including

• Woodrow Wilson
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Martin Luther King
• Nelson Mandela
• George Marshall
• Willy Brandt
• Andrei Sakharov
• Mother Teresa
• Lech Walesa
• Elie Wiesel
• Mikhail Gorbachev
• Jimmy Carter
• Al Gore

We may not agree with  the panel’s decision, but as a nation we should be proud that our president won this honor. His acceptance speech was humble and appropriate.

Palin – drones – Take Five

Palin and Gore are now duking it out over climate change.

Gore must be outscoring Palin by 60 IQ points minimum.

I’ll go for IQ points anytime.

Have you read any of Gore’s books?

Murdoch and Microsoft to Strip Power of Google

According to a column in the December 7 issue of Business Week’s Executive Summary, Murdoch’s News Corp has held early stage talks with Microsoft to forge a deal that would strip Wall Street Journal Content from Google’s search engine. Microsoft would pay since it would get a bump from traffic to Bing.

W.H.A.T?

The Wall Street Journal’s site is getting 26% of its readers sent from Google.

When is the last time censorship or restriction of content has actually been successful and helped anyone, anywhere?

If they actually succeed in this deal, closing off content from Google, it’s another big step in the decline of the Wall Street Journal.

Murdoch must have a death wish.

What Is That?

 

Forbes: The World’s Most Powerful People

Forbes Magazine’s lead article in the November 30 edition is The World’s Most Powerful People.

In a subsection, they asked Howard Dean and Karl Rove to pick the most powerful people in politics.

The link above shows the full stories, albeit in Forbes.com awfully slow and bloated web format, which is, for my tastes, too cumbersome to read. Get a hint, Forbes: Take the flashiness and fluff out of your site and make it friendlier to readers and not to advertisers.

Howard Dean picked, somewhat predictably:

1. Barack Obama- President, U.S
2. Michelle Obama – First Lady, U.S.
3. Nancy Pelosi – Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
4. Harry Reid – Majority Leader, U.S. Senate
5. Christopher Dodd – Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking
6. Barney Frank – Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Financial Services
7. Karen Ignagni – Chief Executive, American Health Insurance Plans

Karl Rove picked:

1. Mitch McConnell – Senate Republican Leader, U.S. Senate
2. John Boehner – House Republican Leader, U.S. Senate
3. Jon Kyl – Senate minority whip, U.S. Senate
4. Eric Cantor, House minority whip, U.S. House of Representatives
5. Paul Ryan, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives
6. Edwin Feulner, President, Heritage Foundation
7. Charles Krauthammer, Columnist, the Washington Post

Out of Howard Dean’s list, the only one that I would not recognize walking past her on the street is Karen Ignagni. I remember having heard of her before, but I cannot picture her face. The 7^th most powerful person in Washington?

But Karl Rove must be on sedatives. How can he possibly make a list and leave Obama off the list? This is preposterous. He may not like Obama or his policies. But the guy is the president, and he has the power. Forbes didn’t ask Rove who he wishes to be the most powerful people in politics, but who actually are.

And then, excuse my being obtuse, but I would recognize not one of  the seven if they passed me on the street. I would not be able to pick out Mitch McConnell in a lineup. I would probably pick out Boehner in a lineup, but I am not sure I’d recognize him passing in the street. The other ones, I have heard some of the names, but I could not picture their faces. The 7 most powerful people in politics?

It’s time for Karl Rove to go away. He’s had his years. It’s not his turn anymore.

Simon and Garfunkel on HBO

Yesterday I saw a half hour section of a current Simon and Garfunkel performance on HBO. The duo are in their late sixties now, but The Sound of Silence is as young as ever and it penetrates deeply through the fabric of our entire generation up to today.

Sadly, I could  not find a YouTube rendition of that performance yet. But take any older one, and close your eyes, and you are there. Simon and Garfunkel are two icons of our age and the age of Rock ‘n Roll.

Last Stacey’s Bookstore Closed

I am staying in Fremont, California and I was looking forward to a trip across the bay to San Francisco to visit Stacey’s Bookstore, the most exciting independent book store I had ever been in. Unfortunately, the last time I positively remember being there was 1993, so I could not remember the address. I googled it, and promptly found this article of  January 9, 2009 announcing closure of the store in March 2009.

I am saddened and disappointed. I had talked about Stacey’s to many people over the years and tooted its horn. It had an amazing array of technical and medical books that you could find nowhere else, along with all the other standard fare of any chain bookstore. There are many computer graphics, robotics and programming books in boxes in my garage that I carried home from Stacey’s during frequent visits there in the early 1990-ies.

Evolution has struck again.

Obama’s Stimulus and Job Losses

Obama makes headlines today about more job gaps and how it’s his fear that they won’t close.

Duh!

Our company is in the business of supplying services to government agencies that are in part stimulus funded. Little of those funds has been spent yet, and certainly not a penny has come to our company, despite our very best efforts to chase after some of those projects, all year long.

I don’t care about new stimulus money. The old dollars have not been spent yet so they have stimulated nothing. Agencies appear to be sitting on them, trying to figure out what to do, and keeping themselves busy in the bureaucratic machinations of writing requirement documents, while the private sector is waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and eventually running out of resources to wait any longer.

Worse, some stimulus money, for instance in California, appears to be used to backfill funding of programs that were cut and lost. Such expenditures stimulate nothing, but rather only extend the deadline for doom of those programs.

More unemployment will follow. We have not hit bottom yet.

Mr. Obama, the stimulus, albeit an interesting idea in 2008, is not doing any stimulating. We need to think of other approaches.

Movie Review: 88 Minutes

This is a serial-killer thriller that I didn’t intend to watch, but I just happened to and I can’t tell why I kept going. Al Pacino plays a college professor and forensic psychiatrist who works for the FBI and testifies in court cases against serial killers. He has a persona of a puffed up ivory tower egomaniac, who nonetheless carries a handgun – being FBI and all.

There are countless plot twists that overwhelm you quickly and you can’t keep track of them. His students all become suspects, like that would be realistic.

This is definitely a B movie with an A movie cast and probably Al Pacino’s worst movie ever. Look at  the astonishingly bad reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

You can safely skip this  movie and not miss a thing. But then, why did I keep watching?

Rating: *