Category Archives: Top Five Lists

My Top Five (plus one) local radio stations

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By the way, I should add to my Daniel Schorr diatribe that I love NPR. If I could only listen to one radio station, that would be my choice. That doesn’t mean I have to be crazy about everything I hear on it…

Which reminds me that I was talking radio with a friend today about favorite radio stations. The radio spectrum is so broad that I hesitate to try to create a Top Five list, since there could be a station I haven’t ever heard that would be my favorite if I did hear it. But what I can to is provide a list of the six buttons pre-programmed on FM1 in my truck. I’d be interested to hear what y’all like as well — maybe I’ll do some reprogramming:

  1. S.C. ETV Radio, 88.1 — Or sometimes, 91.3, but the one out of Sumter has more news, which is mainly what I listen for. I like classical music, but NPR is just so well done. The material is better organized and presented than any almost print medium in this country, which is saying something for radio.
  2. WUSC, 90.5 — One of my kids was once a DJ at the station, and I keep it programmed for when I want to hear something really unique.
  3. Steve FM, 96.7 — Yeah, the station ID messages can be really grating — that tedious “we’re deliberately sounding unprofessional” tone — but the song selections are pretty good about 50 percent of the time.
  4. WXRY, the Independent Alternative, 99.3 — The best of the largely contemporary formats locally, near as I can make out.
  5. WWNQ, Flashback 94.3 — Oldies, pure and simple. (This station used to have a format that played Country classics, and for a C/W format was pretty listenable, but a year or so ago they went to mainstream oldies.)
  6. WTCB 106.7 — Occasionally, when there’s no music on the other commercial stations, I switch to this one — and will sometimes stay for a song or two, if they’re playing 80s stuff. (Not my era, but I turn to different stations for different things.)

By the way, those are not actually in order of preference — those are the assigned buttons. You’ll note that No. 5 is out of order. That’s because it replaced a station that replaced another station that DID fit between 99.3 and 106.7.

Of course, about half the time I’m listening to a CD instead — often something I’ve burned from one of my old vinyl albums.

And while blogging, I often listen to Pandora. Two current favorite “stations:” My Erik Satie and Solomon Burke stations. (I threw that in so that the Barrys out there could not sneer at my mundane radio tastes.)

’25 Best Conservative Movies’

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As y’all know, I am inordinately fond of movies, and also of Top Five Lists and their lesser cousins, Top Ten lists and other denominations.

So it was with interest that I perused this one put together by National Review, “the 25 best conservative movies of the last 25 years,” which are described as “great movies that offer compelling messages about freedom, families, patriotism, traditions, and more.” It’s not a list it would have occurred to me to compile, since I don’t think in those left-vs.-right terms. And in some cases NR has to put an odd spin on them to make them “conservative,” but in others I see the point, to the extent that it matters. Who cares? A good movie is a good movie. But I perused it with interest, as I do all such lists. Here I add a little of my own commentary on each (for the magazine’s commentary, follow the link):

The Best Conservative Movies
1. The Lives of Others (2007): This WAS wonderful, and if you haven’t seen it, order it from Netflix or whatever. It’s in German, with subtitles — so Herb should especially like it. I think maybe it made No. 1 on this list because it was one of the last movies William F. Buckley saw, and he raved about it. Well, the man always had good taste.
2. The Incredibles (2004): This was good, but would not make any kind of “best 25” list I would compile.
3. Metropolitan (1990): Never saw it.
4. Forrest Gump (1994): OK, fine.
5. 300 (2007): Didn’t like it all that much. Too artificial.
6. Groundhog Day (1993): Definitely a Top 25 on any list, but this is one where the “conservatives” are missing the point, although they’re certainly right to say, “Theologians and philosophers across the ideological spectrum have embraced it.” You know where I first heard about it? In a homily at St. Peter’s. Msgr. Lehocky was impressed by it because the entire point of the movie is that the only way Murray’s character can escape the pointless treadmill of his existence is to live one day that is perfectly lived for other people, NOT for himself. “Conservatives” of the über-selfish, modern libertarian variety have to overlook that obvious message to like this flick. Again, it’s not about the value of “the permanent things,” but about living for OTHERS. But I’m glad for them to like it anyway. Everyone should.
7. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006): Haven’t seen it.
8. Juno (2007): Yes, it was wonderful. And yeah, it had a “conservative” message in that if affirmed life. Although I’m still, after all these years, trying to figure out how affirming life got to be “conservative.” Yet another way that Roe has distorted the way we think, and even the way we think about thinking, in this country.
9. Blast from the Past (1999): Very enjoyable, and yeah, it spoke up for traditional values.
10. Ghostbusters (1984): Bet you didn’t know that this one was political. Neither did I. The justification for this call is pretty thin. It seems mostly based on the bad guy being from the EPA, and Akroyd’s hilarious line: “I don’t know about that. I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results!”
11. The Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003): Yeah, OK — I can see that.
12. The Dark Knight (2008): Again, seems odd on this list. And while it might be one of the best 25 new movies I’ve seen in the past year, I wouldn’t elevate it above that.
13. Braveheart (1995): Saw it. Hated it. The first sign of Mel Gibson’s obsession with characters who are gruesomely tortured to death, which is all I remember of it.
14. A Simple Plan (1998): Never saw it.
15. Red Dawn (1984): Well, of course. And I enjoyed it for what it was, minus the political preaching. I enjoyed it on this level — there were times as a high school student I would have welcomed the fantasy of paratroopers suddenly landing in the schoolyard and shooting up the school, so that I’d have a good excuse to grab some friends (including girls) and some guns and run up into the mountains for an extended adventure. Didn’t you think thoughts like that in school? OK, never mind…
16. Master and Commander (2003): Yes, folks, this is why I posted this entire item. As y’all know, I’m always bringing up O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books here on the blog, and nobody ever engages the subject, which is a big disappointment. This offers me another excuse. And yes, if you’re reaching for it, I guess this movie extols conservative virtues. (I guess it didn’t strike me because, having grown up in the navy, the conservative values it portrays are ones that I, and John McCain, take for granted.) As NR says, the H.M.S Surprise is “a coherent society in which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty and his place.” Granted. And Jack Aubrey is as Tory as they come. But then the stories are equally about Stephen Maturin, who is after all a former Irish republican, who detests authority from that practiced by naval officers to that assumed by Buonoparte. But Stephen is no modern, milksop liberal — although strangely, in the movie version, he is portrayed that way (right up until the moment he boards the enemy ship sword in hand, which the movie makers really didn’t prepare the viewer for, since at every moment up to that point you were given the impression he was a pacifist or something). Yeah, the movie was great, but the books are a thousand times better — whatever your political orientation. Some of y’all go read them, so we can discuss them here.
17. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (2005): Didn’t see it; never particularly wanted to. I’m guessing you had to read these books as a kid to be interested.
18. The Edge (1997): Never saw it.
19. We Were Soldiers (2002): This was OK, but not any kind of top 25. An ironic choice for NR, since it was written by Joe Galloway, who was there. If you’ve read Joe’s columns, you know what I mean. He doesn’t see the world their way (or mine, either).
20. Gattaca (1997): Yeah, it was OK. Worth seeing. Not that great, though.
21. Heartbreak Ridge (1986): This movie stunk up the place! I can’t get past the first 10 or 15 minutes. Awful acting. Cartoonish depiction of the Corps. Yeah, I was hoping this movie would be what NR seems to think it was. But it wasn’t. Not one of Eastwood’s better efforts.
22. Brazil (1985): Hated it. Yeah, it had its cool parts — DeNiro’s guerrilla repairman, for instance — but on the whole a bummer. I hate these nihilistic, hopeless tales that go to such lengths to conjure a world in which life is useless and meaningless. Isn’t life depressing enough?
23. United 93 (2006): A fine film, a fine tribute. Not a Top 25, though.
24. Team America: World Police (2004): Never saw it; never wanted to. (You get the idea that they included this one for ironic effect or something?)
25. Gran Torino (2008): Just saw it SUNDAY NIGHT, and it was great. My wife and I had a rare night out. It surprised me that she wanted to see it, and one of my daughters almost talked her out of it (we considered going to see “Slumdog Millionaire” instead, which would have been OK, but I really wanted to see this one). Well, we both loved it. The reviews that rave about it are not exaggerating. Clint Eastwood just gets better and better at his craft.

The magazine then listed 25 “Also-Rans,” as follows:

Air Force One, Amazing Grace, An American Carol, Barcelona, Bella, Cinderella Man, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hamburger Hill, The Hanoi Hilton, The Hunt for Red October, The Island, Knocked Up, The Last Days of Disco, The Lost City, Miracle, The Patriot, Rocky Balboa, Serenity, Stand and Deliver, Tears of the Sun, Thank You for Smoking, Three Kings, Tin Men, The Truman Show, Witness

Of those, several should have made the Top 25, being way better than most on the list that made it, specifically:

Air Force One — Nothing like a president who kicks terrorist butt personally. He’d have my vote. Aside from that, just a well-done action flick, as only Wolfgang Peterson can make ’em. (Although you know what I liked better? “In the Line of Fire.” Not for its conservatism, but for its communitarianism. What? You don’t remember Eastwood saying repeatedly how much he loved public transportation?)
Bella — Beautiful flick, although the parts that flash back to the terrible thing that happened are hard to take. It helps to understand Spanish (the movie’s sort of bilingual), but it’s not necessary.
Knocked Up — A real hoot, and of course we know about how it’s an unconventional evocation of traditional values. It’s still a hoot.
Serenity — A little preachier than the original series on the whole anti-Nanny State thing, but the characters and the action make it easy to ignore. Why did “Firefly” not last? Because it was too good, I guess.
Witness — Another of Harrison Ford’s best. Excellent fish-out-of-water drama.

Heck, even “The Island” was better than most of those that made the list…

Oh, just to finish the job. If I were to pick a Top Five List from among the above 50 — just Top Five, regardless of political “message” — I’d go with:

  1. Groundhog Day
  2. The Lives of Others
  3. Master and Commander
  4. Air Force One
  5. Serenity

Mind you, if I were compiling a list of Top 25 from the past 25 years without restrictions, it would include a lot of flicks not among the 50 above. Such as “Almost Famous,” “American History X” and “Apollo 13,” and that’s just the A’s. How about you?

Historians: Lincoln is tops; W. ranks 36th

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Just for a talker, I thought I'd share the results of this C-SPAN survey on how historians rate the leadership of presidents:

C-SPAN RELEASES SECOND
HISTORIANS SURVEY OF

 PRESIDENTIAL
LEADERSHIP

      Abraham Lincoln Retains Top
      Position;

Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush
and Bill Clinton Advance Since 2000 Survey; George W. Bush Ranks 36th
Overall By Historians

(Washington, DC, February 15, 2009) –  Timed
for Presidents Day 2009, C-SPAN today releases the results of its second
Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership, in which a cross-section of 65
presidential historians ranked the 42 former occupants of the White House on ten
attributes of leadership.

As in C-SPAN’s first such survey, released in
2000, Abraham Lincoln received top billing among the historians, just as the
nation marks the bicentennial of his birth. George Washington placed second,
while spots three through five were held by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, and Harry Truman, in that order.

Based on the results of historians surveyed,
George W. Bush received an overall ranking of 36.  Among other recent
Presidents, Bill Clinton who was ranked 21 in the 2000 survey, advanced six
spots in 2009 to an overall ranking of 15; Ronald Reagan moved from 11 to 10;
George H.W. Bush went from 20 to 18, and Jimmy Carter’s ranking declined from 22
to 25.  

As in 2000, C-SPAN was guided in this effort by
a team of academic advisors: Dr. Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Rice University; Dr. Edna Greene Medford, Associate Professor of History, Howard
University; and Richard
Norton Smith, Scholar in
Residence at George Mason University. The team approved the ten criteria, which
were the same used in C-SPAN’s 2000 Survey, reviewed the list of invited
participants, and supervised the reporting of the results.  Harvey C. Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at
Harvard, also consulted on the names of invited historians with an
overall goal of geographic, demographic, and ideological diversity.

“Bill Clinton and Ulysses S. Grant aren't often
mentioned in the same sentence – until now.  Participants in the latest C-SPAN
survey of presidential historians have boosted each man significantly higher
than in the original survey conducted in 2000. All of which goes to show two
things: the fluidity with which presidential reputations are judged, and the
difficulty of assessing any president who has only just recently left office,”
said Richard Norton Smith. 

“As much as is possible,
we created a poll that was non-partisan, judicious and fair minded, and it’s
fitting that for the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln that he remains at the
top of these presidential rankings,” noted Dr. Douglas Brinkley.

“How we rank our presidents is, to a large
extent, influenced by our own times. Today’s concerns shape our views of the
past, be it in the area of foreign policy, managing the economy, or human
rights.  The survey results also reinforce the idea that history is less about
agreed-upon facts than about perceptions of who we are as a nation and how our
leaders have either enhanced or tarnished that image we have of ourselves.
Lincoln continues to rank at the top in all categories because he is perceived
to embody the nation’s avowed core values: integrity, moderation, persistence in
the pursuit of honorable goals, respect for human rights, compassion; those who
collect near the bottom are perceived as having failed to uphold those values,”
concluded Dr. Edna Medford.

Full rankings for each of the 42 presidents are
available at
www.c-span.org/presidentialsurvey <http://www.c-span.org/presidentialsurvey>

Methodology

C-SPAN’s academic advisors
devised a survey in which participants used a one ("not effective") to ten
("very effective") scale to rate each president on ten qualities of presidential
leadership: "Public Persuasion," "Crisis Leadership," "Economic Management,"
"Moral Authority," "International Relations," "Administrative Skills,"
"Relations with Congress," "Vision/Setting An Agenda," “Pursued Equal Justice
for All,” and “Performance Within the Context of His Times."

Surveys were distributed to 147
historians and other professional observers of the presidency, drawn from a
database of C-SPAN's programming, augmented by suggestions from the academic
advisors.  Sixty-five agreed to participate.  Participants were guaranteed that
individual survey results remain confidential.  Survey responses were tabulated
by averaging all responses in a given category for each president.  Each of the
ten categories was given equal weighting in the total scores.  Overseeing the
2000 and 2009 tabulations were C-SPAN CFO Robert Kennedy and Dr. Robert
Browning, a political scientist who serves as director of the C-SPAN
archives.

Note that presidents might do well in one category, not so well in another. For instance, Bill Clinton made the top ten on "Public Persuasion," but was sixth from the bottom on "Moral Authority." Which makes sense.

I was going to construct my own Nick Hornby-style Top Five List, but I found it hard to argue with the one that the historians came up with:

  1. Abraham Lincoln
  2. George Washington
  3. Franklin D. Roosevelt
  4. Theodore Roosevelt
  5. Harry Truman

I hated that my favorite Founder John Adams didn't make the Top Ten — he came in 17th — but it's hard to argue with. His greatest contributions to the nation came long before he was president, and however much I like him, he was not that successful a president (probably the greatest thing he did as president was surrender power peacefully to Jefferson). Sort of like the fact that I LIKED Jimmy Carter, but can't say he did that great a job, accomplishment-wise.

My biggest hit ever: McCain on ‘that little jerk’ Graham

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The kind words some of y’all offered about my video on this last post — which featured Lindsey Graham talking about Sarah Palin — reminded me of something I noticed just the other day.

Remember how I used to bore y’all with my Top Five Lists of which of my video clips were getting the most play on YouTube? Well, I sort of got out of the habit there for awhile (partly because I was tired of being depressed by the fact that three of my Top Five were clips of neoNazis at the State House), but the other day I looked, and lo and behold, the above clip from more than a year ago had come out of nowhere to top my list.

The last time I’d taken any notice of my stats, my top videos were at around 20,000 views. All of a sudden, the clip I shot in the Vista on the night of the first GOP presidential debate in South Carolina — way back in May 2007 (is it possible it was that long ago) — had shot up from nowhere to the top spot, at 45,000 views! It’s the one in which John McCain, standing on a podium with Henry McMaster and Bobby Harrell, looks out into the crowd and says,

… and I know that little jerk Lindsey Graham is around here somewhere.

Of course, being all about giving y’all the full story, I also posted the full, unedited context of that joke, in which McCain went on to say nice things about his buddy. But that context — which is sort of worth watching for the way my shaky handheld style captures the confusion and crowd excitement, although inadvertently — isn’t nearly as popular. It’s been viewed less than 1,000 times.

Obviously, on YouTube, brevity sells. So does irony.

One last note: I’m happy to say that my critically acclaimed "Who Resurrected the Electric Car?," probably my finest job of video editing ever (considering the low-res images I work with), stays in the number three spot at 28,000 views — right behind the not-so-acclaimed "Sieg Heil at the State House" and "Hillary’s Heckler."

Anyway, enjoy.

If we DO have a run on the banks, can I be George Bailey?

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After posting my last post, I went to find this scene from "It’s a Wonderful Life" — one of my All-Time, All-Category, Top Five Movies (in fact, I listed it on the blog as my No. 1, but I go back and forth on that). Interesting thing, when I went to YouTube and typed in the title, the bank run scene came up second — which makes me think others have that scene on their minds.

Surely things aren’t that bad, are they?

Well, if it does come to that, can I be George Bailey? I want to be the reassuring guy who says, "Just remember that this thing isn’t as black as it appears," just before the sirens go by. Then I can say,

No, but you’re… you’re, you’re-you’re thinkin’ of this place all wrong, as if I had the money back in a safe. Th-th-The money’s not here… why, your money’s in Joe’s house, that’s right next to yours, and in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Maitland’s house, and, and a hundred others. … Why, you’re lending them the money to build, and then they’re gonna pay it back to you as best they can, now what’re you gonna do, foreclose on them?

I’ve always enjoyed that, a nice communitarian lesson in how a healthy community operates economically.

Of course, if you’d rather get 50 cents on the dollar from that free-market monster Mr. Potter, wull-wull-wull go right ahead, but don’t then don’t come crying to ol’ George Bailey… No, wait: I guess George wouldn’t say that, would he?

Top Five courtroom dramas

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Got this e-mail yesterday from a local trial lawyer:

Mr. Warthen

Read with interest your brief comments about Ms. Brockovich’s appearance at our convention. Why not come listen to her before you judge? You might actually learn something.

By the way, Jonathan Harr, who wrote "A Civil Action," (the book is much, much better than the movie) spoke by invitation to a group of trial lawyers, hosted by former AAJ president Ken Suggs, a few years ago. Signed my copy of the book! And the lawyer who was portrayed (Jan Schlictmann) has been invited numerous times to speak to our group. Ask your daughter, Elizabeth — we trial lawyers have open minds!

First, I have a daughter who is a lawyer, but her name is not Elizabeth. I’m leaving this lawyer’s name off to protect him from my daughter.

I replied by saying I didn’t know I was "judging," I thought I was just riffing on the blog as usual. And sorry, but I really didn’t like the movie. I did mention another I liked — "Runaway Jury."

This brings us to the fact that we haven’t had a Top Five list in days. How about a Top Five Coutroom Dramas list? Here’s one to start the conversation with:

  1. "12 Angry Men" — Nothing else can touch this, of course. It’s to courtroom dramas what "High Noon" is to Westerns.
  2. "To Kill A Mockingbird" — Very close second, and even maybe a better movie — but only part of it happens in the courthouse.
  3. "A Few Good Men" — Does military justice count? I think so.
  4. "Witness for the Prosecution" — Just to get all snooty and throw in some foreign accents.
  5. "Primal Fear" —  Edward Norton’s breakout, and certainly scariest, performance. Richard Gere almost disqualifies this one, but Norton saves it.

Other candidates?

But what are Obama’s Top Five?

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The Republican National Committee seems to think it has some sort of "gotcha" with this frivolous little item from Entertainment Weekly , apparently based upon a stunningly shallow interview with Barack Obama.

This is apparently part of a series of RNC releases that they call "Audacity Watch," which provides further proof of the lack of wit among partisans, as if any were needed.

Anyway, here’s the "article" from EW that the RNC refers to. The implication on the part of the GOPpers seems to be that Obama has been caught discussing something silly and beneath the dignity of one who would be president.

But I don’t see it that way. Unlike our pal Lee (such things are beneath him), I think a person’s cultural proclivities are indicative of character, and I do want to know about them. My complaint with EW, and the reason I call the interview "shallow," is that it doesn’t go deep enough even into this shallow end of the character pool.

They don’t even provide a Top Five list! That’s just inexcusable. So he likes "The Godfather" — big deal. That tells us nothing. Everybody (except bud) likes "The Godfather." The real clues to his character — the test as to whether he has the judgment and, dare I use the word, discrimination to be president — is in the OTHER four movies on his "Top Five" list.

And what about TV shows — assuming Obama has ever watched TV, which many Americans doubt? (And no, I don’t watch it, either, but I did when I was younger.) We are informed that he likes "The Dick Van Dyke Show" — an excellent, primo choice — but that is listed AFTER the saccharine, anachronistic, smug "M*A*S*H," one of the lamest hits in the history of the idiotic box. Where are his other picks? Does he redeem himself? We are not told.

The item does tells us that there are lists on Obama’s Facebook page, so finally we get somewhere. His Top Five movies:

  1. Casablanca
  2. Godfather I
  3. Godfather II
  4. Lawrence of Arabia
  5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Good. Very nice touch with "Cuckoo’s Nest" — very cool, not too obvious. But "Lawrence of Arabia?" Respect it as a David Lean masterpiece, fine. But who lists it as a favorite? Seems pretentious to me, the sort of thing that one reads that he should like it, and puts it on the list to impress people. And, given the subject matter, what does this tell us about his likely Mideast policy? Must give us pause.

And mind you, I’m not even going to get into his choosing Stevie Wonder on a list with Miles Davis (pretentious again), Coltrane and Dylan. I’ll let Jack Black’s Barry, purveyor extraordinaire of Top Five lists, pass judgment on that.

Now, does anybody know where we can find a similar list for John McCain? This could be important, people, so get on it.

Top Five movies adapted from TV (original cast)

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This is a category that kept popping into my head back when I was doing this post and this one. With "Sex and the City" fans all atwitter about their gal pals being back, I thought first, "would a Sopranos reunion on the big screen be a good thing?" I decided not, as a large part of its appeal was its serial, episodic nature, day-in, day-out, life goes on (except for those who are whacked).

But this raises the question, "Can any TV series yield a movie worth the price of the popcorn (which, when you think about it, is a pretty high standard)?"

And the answer is yes — just look at "Serenity." So I compiled this list. Admittedly, it’s a pretty restrictive list, and doesn’t contain any movies that would make even a Top 100 list from among films in general. And I’m not allowing movies inspired by TV series, but with a different cast — a la "The Untouchables," or "The Addams Family." So the list is what it is. And what it is is an excuse to urge you to see "Serenity" if you haven’t. The rest is just a nod to the Top Five art form, in keeping with the Nick Hornby standard:

  • "Serenity" — I saw this without having ever seen "Firefly," upon which it is based, which means I was like most people in the known ‘verse. "Firefly," probably the best sci-fi series ever, lasted less than a season. I now own the whole catalog on DVD, including several episodes never aired. How to describe it? Basically, it’s a classic western translated to outer space (in the vein of the "Outland" remake of "High Noon," only wittier), complete with the residual tension of the Civil War thrown in. The protagonists are a motley ship’s company built around a captain and exec who were Browncoats (rebels) back in the war. Their side lost to the Alliance, which rules all the core planets in the settled universe, and their ship (a Firefly-class relic named "Serenity," after the pivotal battle in which the Browncoats lost the war) bounces around the frontier fringe planets (where Alliance authority is shaky), making an iffy living off of smuggling and other shady enterprises. There are all sorts of cool little side notes in this future world, including the fact that their Old West diction is laced with Chinese-derived profanity — when they’re not resorting to such everyday epithets as "gorram," and "ruttin’". The characters are a lot of fun, especially Jayne the mercenary, and Kaylee the mechanic. And the best news of all is that you can see and enjoy "Serenity" without ever having seen the series, and it gives nothing away. But after you see the movie, you’ll want to see the series. Oh, one more thing — the Browncoats are essentially libertarians who just want the authoritarian Alliance to leave them alone. But I enjoyed it anyway. It was shiny.
  • "The Simpsons Movie" — It lived up to the standard set by the series, which is all you can ask.
  • "The Blues Brothers" — This one’s kind of obvious, to the point that I’m almost embarrassed to include it. Everybody picks this one.
  • "The Naked Gun" — A fitting translation of "Police Squad," it is what it is (just to thoroughly overwork a phrase).
  • "Batman (1966)"  — Give me a break on this, too. I was 12 years old, and it was everything I expected.

As you can see, a very restrictive category. I would have included "Wayne’s World," but I wasn’t going to allow more than one SNL spinoff (and as long as I’m being absurdly pedantic, I probably shouldn’t have included either of them, since a skit is not a series). "Star Trek" fans would probably have included one or more of those films, but I was never really into that ‘verse.

Top Five Harrison Ford flicks

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Lost_ark

We had a list in the paper Friday, compiled by someone with Newsday, that purports to be of Harrison Ford’s 10 best movies (among which, sadly, I hear his latest would not be a contender). The list had its good points and bad points. Basically, it lacked discipline. With Harrison Ford, you only get serious when you try to come up with a Top Five List. Here’s mine, unranked:

  1. Blade Runner — The one de rigueur item on the list, for aesthetic reasons if none other. The film buff’s Harrison Ford movie, if not his most popular (and not my favorite).
  2. Star Wars — A.K.A. "Episode IV: A New Hope." Note that I include this rather than The Empire Strikes Back. Sure, the plot of the latter is built more around Han Solo, but he defines the character in the first film. After that, the freshness, and the fun, is gone. Han is at his best before he becomes heroic, when he is the brash rogue who had not yet decided to do the right thing.
  3. Air Force One — My kind of president, with my kind of foreign policy set out in the "Be Afraid" speech: "Never again will I allow our political self-interest to deter us from
    doing what we know to be morally right. Atrocity and terror are not
    political weapons. And to those who would use them, your day is over.
    We will never negotiate. We will no longer tolerate and we will no
    longer be afraid. It’s your turn to be afraid." And don’t forget Gary Oldman’s villain — his best line is when he says "smart bomb." Like many action movies, this requires suspension of disbelief, but Wolfgang Petersen makes that easy and pleasurable.
  4. Witness — In this one, Ford represents Modern Man with all his violent foolishness, the "English" among the Amish, and this is what he’s good at — Regular American Guy out of water. Also featuring Danny Glover as a bad guy, which was running against type, but he carries it off.
  5. Raiders of the Lost Ark — The Regular American Guy resplendent, letting it all hang out in a story based in an All-American story-telling form — the old-style adventure cliff-hanger serial. East meets West in a most stark fashion — Indy comes up against the masterful scimitar-wielding opponent, gives an "I don’t have time for this" shoots and shoots him. He’s scared of snakes, and just making it up as he goes along. As regular as a guy gets.

Close contenders for the list: "The Fugitive" and "American Grafitti" But the former is more a showcase for Tommy Lee Jones’ talents, and his part in the latter just isn’t big enough. I also liked "Regarding Henry."

Dissed by ‘Foreign Policy’

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Foreign Policy magazine is inviting readers to vote for their Top Five Public Intellectuals. Here’s the link. As you can see, there are 100 "intellectuals" listed.

One Hundred. And yet, I didn’t make the list. Tom Friedman — sure, HE made the list. And the Pope, too — and you know, I don’t even like this Pope as much as the last one…

I’m reduced to being like one of those pathetic celebrity freaks at a premiere, standing alongside the red carpet, hoping to see an intellectual I recognize: "Oh, LOOK, there’s Salman Rushdie! I know him — I met him at a reception over at Andrew Sorensen’s place! I had my picture taken with him (and I’m still waiting to get a copy, I might add)!"

It’s sad. So then I pore over the list, looking for the biases of the compilers. Hmmm. I see four guys who are mainly known for being famous atheists, so is that … no, there are several religious types other than the Pope. Wait, what’s this — how can you have a "Muslim Televangelist," since "evangelist" refers to a proclaimer of the Gospel? No way. They could have put me in that guy’s place…

Oh, well. At least I can pick my own Top Five. Here they are, in alphabetical order, with the rather thin rationales for each:

  1. Pope Benedict XVI — As I said, no John Paul the Great, but a smart guy, whatever you think of him. And he has one of the world’s bulliest pulpits. I figure if you’re looking for public intellectuals, we’re talking potential for influence, right?
  2. Umberto Eco — Did you read The Name of the Rose? I did, and was impressed. (Not so much by Foucault’s Pendulum, though.)
  3. Tom Friedman — Hey, I had to give a nod to somebody in the trade. And he has potential to have more public influence (and for the good, I’d say) than almost anyone else on the list.
  4. Vaclav Havel — Based on the cool factor. Both a playwright and a paradigm-busting political leader.
  5. David Petraeus — There is no more practical or unforgiving testing ground for an idea than the battlefield. By applying his ideas, he turned around both facts on the ground and the political momentum in this country. No mean feat.

I almost put Robert Putnam on there, just to get somebody with communitarian cred. But you can’t have everything in a Top Five list. In fact, if you don’t shoot from the hip, you can’t get your list done. Reflect too much and it doesn’t work.

And believe you me, the most famous names of the moment are likely to dominate here — unless the Foreign Policy readers ALL go esoteric, just to prove how smart they are, which is a distinct possibility.

But this list was compiled with an eye to celebrity, and provocation, for that matter. For instance, I find Robert Samuelson more intellectually impressive than Paul Krugman, but Krugman made the list (provocation) and Samuelson didn’t. And I’ve had the privilege of engaging in long conversations with both Al Gore and Lindsey Graham, and guess what — while Al’s no slouch, Lindsey’s smarter. But with his Nobel and his Oscar, of course he was chosen (also, in defense, he’s WAY more influential, thanks to that celebrity).

Have I ticked off enough people yet? I’m sure I have. OK, smart guy — who’s in YOUR Top Five?

Strange moments in cinema

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This being Sunday, I’m not going to go to all the trouble of compiling a full Top Five List on this subject. But if I did, I think this one would make the list.

Have you seen the recent Will Smith vehicle, "I Am Legend?" I did, and I suppose it was OK. But having seen it, I recalled that I had not seen the 1971 flick of which it was a remake — "The Omega Man," which in turn was a remake of Vincent Price’s "The Last Man on Earth," which was based on the 1954 Richard Matheson sci-fi novel, I Am Legend.

So in honor of the recently departed Charlton Heston, I ordered "The Omega Man," and watched it last night. It was OK, although it’s cheesy production values were approximately those of the average made-for-TV movie of the period. Overall, the Will Smith version was better, although more maudlin.

But in one respect, "Omega" beat the more recent version all hollow. In term of evoking sheer weirdness, Will Smith watching "Shrek" and maniacally reciting all the line along with the DVD doesn’t accomplish much. To get that full, apocalyptic, world-has-already-come-to-an-end feeling, you have to see the scene in which Charlton Heston goes into a movie theater, cranks up the projector and watches "Woodstock," and recites the dialogue from that. You know at that point that everything that can happen in this world has happened, and then some.

You just haven’t seen "out of character" until you’ve seen the man who was both Moses and head of the NRA channeling  a blissed-out flower child asking, "If we can’t all live together and be happy… if you have to be afraid to smile at somebody… what kind of a way is that to go through this life?"

It’s a grabber in the same league as the last scene of "Planet of the Apes." It will leave you muttering, "Charlton, we hardly knew ye."

And if you don’t believe me, here’s the video. You can skip the rest of the flick; this is the good part.

Next, I’m going to order "Touch of Evil."

Voting by YouTube

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Readers may have noticed that I take an interest in which of my videos seem to be most popular — more of an interest than readers themselves take, judging by the few comments on my Top Five Videos posts. Fine. But maybe you’ll find this interesting.

It just occurred to me to compare videos posted at roughly the same time featuring competing presidential candidates. The results are interesting — OK, they’re interesting to me. But I’m going to share them anyway. If you’d like to look at the raw data to draw your own conclusions, my videos are listed chronologically, with the most recent first, at this link. For the most popular, with the most-watched first, click here. But here’s what I’ve noticed glancing over them just now:

  • The cleanest comparison you’re likely to find of this sort among the Democrats who were still in the race at the time of our primary is in these three videos I posted the same day (MLK Day). They feature Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama speaking at King Day at the Dome. All are of poor quality, but of roughly equally poor quality. The Obama one is probably worst, because I was the farthest away when he was speaking. But what interested me was that the Obama video was watched 390 times, the Clinton video 150 times, and the Edwards clip 16 times. That’s a bigger margin than the actual vote. I wonder how the demographics break down? No way to tell.
  • Before you start feeling bad for Hillary, though, remember that my "Hillary’s Heckler" video is still my most- watched ever, at 17,019 views. You have to wonder, though — are people watching it because they like Hillary, or because they like to see her heckled? Difficult to tell. I will say that if you try reading the comments, it won’t make you feel better about the electorate.
  • The only presidential candidates to make it into my all-time Top Ten are Hillary, Stephen Colbert, Jeri Thompson (you might object that she wasn’t technically a candidate, but that would be ungallant of you, and besides, neither was Colbert), and Joe Biden. Ol’ Joe got there in spite of the wretched quality — it was from my phone. Oh, I forgot — John Taylor Bowles. You may have forgotten Mr. Bowles. He’s the Nazi party candidate. Make what you will of the fact that all three of the clips I put up from the Nazi rally at the State House a few months back are in my Top Five, which means having more than 10,000 views each.
  • Fred Thompson (that’s Jeri’s husband) may be out of it technically, but here’s an interesting fact. I attended a Thompson event and a Huckabee event on the same night, shooting video at both. I posted them at the same time. The Thompson video was of markedly poorer quality, because of the angle and distance (I was right up against the platform at the Huckabee deal). As I reported at the time, and as you can see on the videos, the energy level was much higher at the Huckabee event — a phenomenon borne out in the voting on primary day. But that has nothing to do with page views — the Thompson video has 1,396 views, giving it Top Twenty status. The Huckabee clip was only watched 172 times. Go figure.

That’s all for now.

Hillary Uber Alles — on video, that is

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Can I call ’em or can I call ’em? P.T. Barnum’s got nothing on me when it comes to knowing what the public wants. On Aug. 25, I predicted the following:

But wait — my Hillary’s Heckler video is moving up at an unprecedented
speed, having passed 6,000 views in only 3 weeks. (What’s faster than Blitzkrieg?)
I’m thinking that within a month, that clip of Mrs. Clinton and her
detractor at the recent College Democrats’ confab will outpace
everything, and put the Nazis in its shadow.

And here we are on September 19th, and my heckler video, shot during the College Democrats’ confab at the end of July, is now my most-watched video clip ever. It’s also the first ever to surpass the 8,000-view threshold — and it shows no signs of slowing down. (Yesterday, it was in third place.)

This is a good sign for the public’s tastes, as it finally eclipsed the previous favorite, which shows a Nazi leader talking about the Confederate flag on our State House steps. (OK, maybe a heckler isn’t the height of good taste, but it’s an improvement.) I’m also proud that my critically acclaimed "Who Resurrected the Electric Car?" — probably my finest use ever of my celebrated voice-over technique, not to mention its social relevance — is holding firm at third place. Indeed, until the heckler’s last-minute surge since yesterday, it was in second place.

Yeah, I know — nobody cares about this except me. But it takes a lot of work to produce these babies, and so I care a lot. That is, I care enough to bring you once again my Top Five Most-Watched Videos:

  1. "Hillary’s Heckler," only 6 weeks old, zooming at Ludicrous Speed to 8,059.
  2. "Nazi Presidential Candidate Defends Confederate Flag"
    — 5 months old, with 7,906, this was the fastest-riser
    ever before Hillary.
  3. "Who Resurrected the Electric Car?"
    — 6 months old, still probably my masterpiece in terms of sheer
    artistry (the YouTube critics give it 5 stars). 7,810 views and also rising quickly. This is the feel-good hit of my repertoire.
  4. "The Alpha and Beta of Thomas Ravenel"
    — 11 months old, with 6,996 views, and falling farther behind as the scandal fades into the background. T-Rav is no longer box office magic.
  5. "Nazis Defend Confederate Flag II." My shameless exploitative sequel, shot and released the same day as the first hit, a la LOTR. 5,269 views.

Nazi Blitzkrieg rolls over Ravenel; Hillary’s Heckler in hot pursuit

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Thomas Ravenel’s notoriety is fading on YouTube.

My most popular (among fascists, who seem to be a fairly large constituency on the Web) video of Nazis defending the Confederate flag on our State House grounds has now taken the number-one slot among my most-watched clips. Disturbing, isn’t it? Of course, there was a certain car-wreck rubbernecking quality to the fame of the Ravenel video, so it didn’t exactly put the human race (or the master race, either) in a flattering light.

But wait — my Hillary’s Heckler video is moving up at an unprecedented speed, having passed 6,000 views in only 3 weeks. (What’s faster than Blitzkrieg?) I’m thinking that within a month, that clip of Mrs. Clinton and her detractor at the recent College Democrats’ confab will outpace everything, and put the Nazis in its shadow.

In any case, here’s where things stand:

  1. "Nazi Presidential Candidate Defends Confederate Flag"
    — 3 months old, with 6,862, this was the fastest-riser
    ever before Hillary. It’s resuming the number-one spot it held just before the Ravenel scandal broke.
  2. "The Alpha and Beta of Thomas Ravenel"
    — 10 months old, with 6,850 views.
  3. "Hillary’s Heckler," only 3 weeks old, coming up at Ludicrous Speed, at 6,235.
  4. "Who Resurrected the Electric Car?"
    — 4 months old, still probably my masterpiece in terms of sheer
    artistry (the YouTube critics give it 5 stars), with my first effective
    use of the voiceover technique. 6,054 views and also rising quickly. This is the feel-good hit of my repertoire.
  5. "Nazis Defend Confederate Flag II." My shameless exploitative sequel, shot and released the same day as the first hit, a la LOTR. 4,416 views.

Hillary bumps Biden, quickly makes my Top Five list

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My Top Five Videos, that is. She’s not on my Top Five Candidates list. That doesn’t mean she won’t be; I just haven’t composed that one yet.

But in just two weeks of boffo box-office, she has muscled her way to No. 3 among my most-watched video clips on YouTube. Well, she didn’t do it herself. Some credit goes to the star of the clip — the woman who heckled her at the College Democrats meeting in Columbia — and to her cinematographer, moi.

The title ("Hillary’s Heckler") probably helped. Alliteration is a powerful thing. Also boosting it was the fact that there was a CNN clip of the same incident. Still, that one — shot with a better camera and from a somewhat more advantageous vantage point — only got 2,232 hits, while mine had received 5,639.

How could that happen? Well, I’m going to credit the rough style of mine. First, I used the Steven Spielberg/"Saving Private Ryan" hand-held-no-steadicam style, rather than the stodgy, omniscient-viewer, fixed-position technique of the network. This really puts you in the action.

It’s shot from a combatants’ viewpoint. This is what a rapt young Democrat, fascinated by everything Mrs. Clinton had to say, would have seen and heard. The camera stays on Hillary, then there are murmurs and cries of "No!" and you don’t know what’s happening at first. Is the crowd turning against Hillary? Do they not like what she’s saying? But wait! The camera swings in the direction of the sounds, and here’s this nutty lady yelling at her, and (unlike in the CNN clip) you can hear what she’s saying — not that it makes sense, but you can’t have everything.

The jostling, the confusion, the lack of explanation of what just happened, Hillary’s smooth slide back into her speech — all add to a dynamic viewing experience.

That’s my interpretation, anyway.

Whatever the explanation, no video of mine has ever topped 5,000 in less than two weeks. And it makes poor Joe Biden — whose frenetic Rotary performance topped the chart for a time — even more of a footnote. Show biz is hell.

Here’s the list as it stands now:

So we see what sells, don’t we? Cars, cocaine, controversy and Nazis. At least I haven’t stooped to luring y’all in with sex. But that’s just because Ségolène Royal‘s agent has been completely unreasonable.

Ravenel topples the classics

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Here’s what a little news can do to your box-office.

Last time I mentioned my most popular blog videos, this Thomas Ravenel clip — last seen at 662 views had fallen off my Top Five most-watched on YouTube. But the classic of Grady Patterson talking about Ravenel, which for the first few months it was up had been my all-time most popular, was still hanging on.

Well, now that cocky pup Ravenel has bumped Grady again. First he took his job; now he’s taken his place in screen history. Both still trail the Nazis, though, and I’m gratified to see that my critically-acclaimed "Electric Car" video has climbed to second place. Still, my first Nazi video is far ahead, approaching 4,000 — remarkable in such a low-budget vehicle.

Nothing like a little publicity. Ravenel’s sudden notoriety has zipped him up to over 1,500 views, placing him solidly at the number five position. And with Biden’s presidential hopes pretty too small to measure, I expect "The Alpha and Beta" to be in fourth place before long. Grady is still stuck in triple-digits.

Anyway, here are the latest tallies:

  1. "Nazi Presidential Candidate Defends Confederate Flag" — 3,961 views
  2. "Who Resurrected the Electric Car?" — 2,283
  3. Nazis Defend Confederate Flag II — 2,137
  4. Joe Biden at Rotary — 1,926 views.
  5. The Alpha and Beta of Thomas Ravenel — 1,590

Is there a serious point in any of this? Yes, in a way. As I suggested yesterday, and at least one first-time viewer mentioned to me today, looking back at Ravenel’s breezy cockiness during the campaign has an extra punch for the viewer now. It’s hard to say exactly why; it just does.

Worst recent war movies

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Tell you what: To relieve the tension a bit (there’s a lot of angry back-and-forth in the last few days, and poor Mary keeps reposting her deleted posts, and is increasingly COMMUNICATING IN SHOUT MODE), let’s take a frivolous digression.

bud attaches great importance to Joe Lieberman having been seen cheering and pumping his fist when the Americans strike a blow against the Serbs in "Behind Enemy Lines." He sees this as reflective of a deep character defect.

Rather than our getting into a really angry back-and-forth about whether one should cheer for Americans or not (I come down on the "yes" side of that), I’m looking for common ground. bud says I don’t see flaws in my heroes. I say that cheering at any part of a movie as bad as "Behind Enemy Lines" is at least indicative of lousy cinematic taste.

Unlike the characters in Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity; I don’t consider tastes unlike my own to reflect a deep character defect.
But I do unconsciously give extra points to people who appreciate the "good" stuff — "good" as define by my own proclivities.

So let’s make like Rob, Dick and Barry and construct a Top Five Worst War Movies (post-Vietnam era only, just to limit the field):

  1. "Behind Enemy Lines" — This was done so very much better in "BAT*21," so you know we can’t blame Gene Hackman, since he was in both of them. I was about to blame John Woo, but he didn’t direct this one. It just looks cheesy enough to be one of his.
  2. "The Thin Red Line" — Such a horrible disappointment, by comparison with James Jones’ novel, that I wrote a whole column
    about it.
  3. "The Great Raid" — Another disappointment from a perfectly good book. Hollywood tried to turn a remarkable, true story about rescuing hundreds of Allied POWs from the murderous abuses of the Japanese into a sappy romance. Why, I don’t know, but it failed on all levels.
  4. "Pearl Harbor" — More sappy romance, but that wasn’t the worst thing (you want romance done right, see "From Here to Eternity"). The worst thing was the use of special effects for special effects’ sake. In fact, it seemed the entire excuse for the film. Worst moment: When two fighter aircraft, locked in a dog fight, fly between two one-story buildings, turning onto their wingtips to negotiate the narrow alleyway.
  5. "Enemy at the Gates" — This one almost didn’t make the list, but it did for a reason it has in common with Nos. 2, 3 and 4: Sheer disappointment. Finally, I thought, Hollywood was going to pay proper, respectful acknowledgement to the horrors of the Great Patriotic War. Up until then, you’d have thought the Americans and British won the war by themselves; talk about ethnocentric. But the titanic, genocidal struggle between Teutons and Slavs that was the Siege of Stalingrad was reduced to the level of a personal feud between Ed Harris and Jude Law (Jude Law! As the emblematic New Soviet Man!) Really, really disappointing.

Cleaning my desk I: Clemson list

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Trying to clear the decks a bit as we draw close to the end of our endorsement interview marathon (both Mark Sanford and Tommy Moore today), I ran across the several blog-worthy items that had been lying around on my desk. Here’s the first:

Recently, Clemson President James F. Barker spoke to my Rotary, and he told us about "five things you don’t know about Clemson." Well, by the time I got a chance to take notes — about 45 minutes later — I could only remember three. I suppose they were the most interesting three. They were interesting to me, anyway:

  1. It has the largest collection of plant genes in the world. I mean, I knew they were into agriculture, but that’s quite a statistic.
  2. Athletes graduate in a higher percentage than at any other ACC school — a category that includes Duke and UVa.
  3. It runs the largest free public transit system in the world, serving 13,000 in the town of Clemson.

Around here in Gamecock country, those are not the kinds of items you normally hear in a list about Clemson.

We need a new axis of evil

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Ahmadinejadthin_2Kimthin_1Saddamthin_1
The President didn’t send me a copy of his speech today, so I haven’t read it. (What? You want me to go look it up? I’m way too lazy for that; just ask Mary.) But Joe Biden was kind enough to send along his response, and one phrase particularly grabbed my imagination.

Among a litany of what he sees as the administration’s faults, he said "five years after 9/11, each member of the so-called ‘axis of evil’ is more
dangerous."

I got to thinking about it, and he’s got a point — about two out of the three, at least.

Well, the likes of Bush and Biden might talk about this stuff, but I’m a man of action. If things haven’t worked out with this Axis of Evil, I say let’s chuck it and get us a new one. The one we’ve got has been ornery and uncooperative, and with the whole world to choose from, I think we can do better. Yes, the current members will likely protest — indeed, Iran and North Korea have put a lot of effort into being evil lately, and they won’t think they deserve to get sent back down — but the country needs an Axis that we can unite behind and feel better about.

Our new Axis should consist of nations that are irritating enough to make the list, but less likely to cause so much trouble. They should be countries that we could take if we had to, but less likely to let things get to that point.

Just to start the ball rolling, I hereby present my Top Five candidates for the New Axis of Evil. Maybe y’all can suggest other likely objects of vilification, or at least help me winnow this one down:

  1. France. They hate us already, and we don’t much like them. They won’t fight, but if they did we could finish it pretty cleanly. You can trust them — when they surrender, they really mean it. They already have the bomb, but they only use it to get a rise out of Greenpeace. I think we could do business with these guys.
  2. Argentina. The Brits took Argentina all by themselves, when they were way past their prime. It has a temperate climate. If we need an excuse to invade, we can always claim that they’re still hiding Nazis. If we don’t find any, we can said they sent them to Chile just before we got there. I’ve always felt bad that the U.S. doesn’t pay enough attention to South America, so this would address that problem as well. (Sure, we could go with Venezuela, but Chavez wants in so badly, and I just wouldn’t want to give him the satisfaction.)
  3. Russia. You might say we’d be biting off a bit much — they are much heavier hitters than any of the current lineup. But think about it: Back when they were a superpower, we stood toe-to-toe for 40-plus years, and it never came to blows (not directly, anyhow). And Putin’s been a real pain lately. Besides, they’ve got oil.
  4. Switzerland. The whole civilized world has been fighting for a century, and these slackers have sat it out. What makes them so special? I’ve had it with them doing nothing but making cuckoo clocks and sitting on all our money. Sure, their Army has the benefit of some highly advanced pocketknife technology, but that doesn’t stack up so well against an F-18.
  5. California. It thinks it’s a country already, even to the point of making treaties with our allies. Most Americans don’t like it any more than they like France — or not much more. Mainly, I just think Ahnold would be a much more fun to demonize than Dear Leader.

That’s my list so far. What do y’all think?

Chiracthin_1Putinthin_2Ahnoldthin_1

Dances with Pretension

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Yes, Mark, of course we despise "Dances With Wolves!" It’s pretentious, silly, boring, condescending, tedious and intellectually offensive. The worst thing about it was that Hollywood thought it was profound, and that just confirms so much about Hollywood, doesn’t it?

You see, this "epic" — which I believe lasted about 14 hours, but it may have been longer — was intended to teach Deep Lessons to us hicks out here in Flyover Land all about the Noble Red Man. It seems that Hollywood had just discovered the American Indian, and learned that he was treated badly by the white man, and was going to teach all of us about it, because of COURSE we couldn’t have heard about it out here.

Never mind that the theme of the Noble Savage had been done to death in the early 19th century by James Fenimore Cooper, as any literate person (a category that, as near as I can tell, does not involve anyone in Hollywood) would know.

Or that the theme had become so passe that Mark Twain brutally satirized it later in the century. And remember, Twain was a very liberal, free-thinking sort, but he could not abide pretension.

Or that Hollywood — John Ford, no less — had decades previously given the subject serious, respectable treatment, in a way that might make even John Wayne feel guilty about the white man’s role.

Or that Hollywood, in a more thoughtful era, had even satirized that. In fact, let’s consider "Little Big Man" for a moment. It had fun with almost every Western cliche you can think of, including that of the noble, mystical Red Man (and yes, that was, is, and always will be a cliche, which is my point here — the people making "Dances with Wolves" were not sophisticated enough to know that; they actually thought they were breaking new ground, and that is what is so embarrassing and offensive about it).

"Little Big Man" paid the American Indian the compliment of treating him as a human being, rather than as a stereotype, positive or negative. Director Arthur Penn had the good sense to give his Indians — who, appropriately enough, referred to themselves collectively as "the Human Beings" — the full range of human attributes. They were brave, silly, wise, stupid, tragic, comic and so forth.

The best bit in the whole movie was when Chief Dan George, the wise, earthy Grandfather, decided it was "a good day to die," and went out and lay down to do just that. Of course, the viewer thinks, "Wow, Indians can really do that? I guess it’s because they’re just so much more attuned to the universe than we are." A few moments later, raindrops hit his apparently lifeless face. He opens his eyes and asks Dustin Hoffman whether he is dead yet. A relieved Hoffman says no, so Grandfather gets up with the younger man’s help, shrugs and says something to the effect of, well, maybe some other day would be a better day to die. Or so I remember; I don’t have it at hand to check.

It was so down-to-earth, real, fallible and human. And for those reasons, Grandfather actually is noble — unlike the cardboard cutouts of "Dances With Wolves."

Do you see what I’m saying?

As for "Apocalypse Now" — I’ll deal with that, at least in passing, in my next post. As it happens, my thoughts on it are sort of the opposite of Dave’s.