I’ve discovered something rather interesting coming out of Hollywood this month. A minor story trend that is at the heart of two very different movies, the Wachowski’s Speed Racer and David Mamet’s Redbelt. Essentially these two movies make the same point in very different ways, that it is better to compete in a sport for the sheer love of the game than compete for a monetary prize. Both films have as villains conglomerates who fix the competitions so that particular people win and are opposed by single heroes who fight to expose the hypocrisy of the business. Personally of the two I prefer Speed Racer’s confusing Tron inspired escapades to Mamet’s thoughtful and thought provoking drama for one simple fact, Speed wants to earn an honest living doing what he loves, while Mamet’s protagonist prefers subjecting a life of quiet destitution on himself and his family rather than sully the good name of martial arts by actually earning money with it. Considering how many people are broke and out of work, I’d rather root for someone’s financial and moral victory rather than just a moral victory that, knowing Mamet, wouldn’t change the status quo anyway.
Archive for Musings
So the big forecast this week from the media and interactive research analyst Edward Woo is that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV will cause Iron Man to tank at the box office because all of the people who would go to see Iron Man will be at home playing GTA IV instead. I feel kind of insulted by this. Once again there is a cliched stereotype branded onto comic book fans by the mainstream media, that they are all fourteen year old geeks who won’t be able to tear themselves away from their game consuls to check out a superhero movie. Never mind the fact that Iron Man has been published for over forty years so that the fan base for the character stretches from teenagers to people contemplating retirement, never mind that it stars a legitimate actor with a solid fan base among older theater goers, and especially never mind that not everyone that reads comic books plays video games…like me. I like movies and I like comic books, but I’m not really into gaming, my wife, The Patient One, likes gaming but really isn’t into comic books, yet we both are looking forward to seeing Iron Man, and neither of us are considered a target demographic, due to our being older than the considered appropriate age group. But that’s not the real kicker from the doom sayers. One of the facts they are using to make this prediction is that Halo 3 came out the same week Ben Stiller’s The Heartbreak Kid debuted and it tanked at the box office, never mind that the movie sucked, or that not everyone is a Ben Stiller fan, it must have been that darn video game. Please! Give me a break! How about people that play GTA games will probably go see Iron Man as well. Want proof? I have a friend who is a GTA fanatic and he is planning on going to see Iron Man several times, oh and he is in his late thirties. Why don’t you crunch them numbers Mr. Woo.
Wesley Snipes was just sentenced to three years for tax evasion. The government is really cracking down, gone are the days when they just take everything you have, like with Red Foxx, or where they just take all of your income from future projects, like with Willie Nelson. Now you go to jail, and pay the bill. I never thought I would be so glad to be working a low paying, dead end job in Ohio. The only things I have of any value are a ten year old car and the ten year old computer I’m typing this post on. Hooray for poverty! Seriously though, the thing that bothers me about all this is that the accountants who got him into this mess in the first place seem to be getting off with the proverbial slap on the wrist. If I came up with an idea on how to rob a bank, told someone how to do it, and then they go and get caught following my detailed instructions, I would be arrested for conspiring to commit a crime. So why is it an accountant can detail a way for a client to not pay taxes, yet when the client ends up getting caught and sent to jail, the accountant is only guilty of giving bad advice? John Grisham needs to write a thriller around this conundrum.
