IntenseDebate - JerseyJeff

14 years ago @ Big Hollywood - 'Broadcast News' Predi... · 0 replies · +6 points

Just before "Broadcast News," Neil Postman's excellent book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death" explains the role of television in the death of discourse. Both have proven to be prescient on the subject. To paraphrase Postman, "TV succeeds best at sitcoms and games shows. You know ... the stupid stuff." This is why we now have a glib community organizer leading the nation.

14 years ago @ Big Journalism - Media Acts As Propagan... · 0 replies · +4 points

Seems like all you need to get media attention today is a loose wig and a little red book. What an a-hole!

14 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Whoopi Goldberg on Com... · 0 replies · +1 points

Marx said, "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." We all know celebrities are hyper needy. Unfortunately, we can expect much "from" these two.

14 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Woody Guthrie's 1942 N... · 0 replies · +2 points

Sand, seal and varnish teeth.

14 years ago @ Big Hollywood - Writers Guild Loves Oc... · 0 replies · +22 points

The OWS geniuses thought they were protesting SUVs.

14 years ago @ Big Hollywood - What Shoulda Won? 1999... · 1 reply · +3 points

I don't know enough about Mendez' politics, so I just watched the film and found it a great piece of art. A conservative director could have made the same film, with the characters simply exhibiting the irony of our stereotyped view of them.

I still love the main message -- you can only see beauty when you lose your fear. The characters are all unhappy yet don't realize that happiness is just an arms-length away, if they could just stop being so damned afraid.

Now that I know a bit more about Mendez, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to watch any of his films, but I think he made a masterpiece without even realizing it. Each time I watch "AB" I get the feeling that the director's subconscious made one movie while he consciously made something else -- which may be the true measure of an art film.

14 years ago @ Big Journalism - FDU Poll: Fox News Mak... · 0 replies · +2 points

The 'study' was sponsored by WFDU, the campus radio station. The report reads like a student's first attempt at polling. To call it "amateurish" would be an insult to amateurs.

14 years ago @ Big Hollywood - What Shoulda Won? 1999... · 2 replies · -7 points

IMHO "American Beauty" was the best film of the decade. Ball and Mendez may have set out to make a movie about the hypocrisy and neuroses of suburban America, but what they ended up making was a brilliant film about how fear is the only thing that separates us from the simple beauty of life. All the characters are defined by their fears -- fear of failure, fear of your own nature, fear of making mistakes, fear of being normal. Ricky Fitz is the only character without fear, and the only one capable of seeing the beauty in life, including the simple dance of a plastic bag in the wind. Lester's arc is his journey from soul-numbed drone to a man who finally sees the beauty in just being alive. Whenever I need an affirmation, watching this flick does the trick.

14 years ago @ Big Journalism - Philadelphia Inqui... · 0 replies · +2 points

Like most other failed and crumbling cities, Philly has been run by Democrats for the last 60 years and the local cage-liner is reliably in the tank to the party. According to the Inky, the GOP is responsible for all that is wrong in the world and is the only thing standing between the good Democrats of Philadelphia and sunshine and cheesesteaks for all.

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