From Soup to Nuts
We saw Ratatouille this afternoon. It was a great little story. Brad Bird is certainly a master. I also found the music to be well-suited for the film. For Pixar, not having Randy Newman at all must have been a stretch. This would be one of the best Pixar films if you ask me. Great storytelling, voice actors that don't make you think "oh, it's that guy" and a lovely visual.
I think Pixar has gotten past the need to wow us with the visuals, since computer animation has become so normal to us now, but this one has a realism that was just fantastic. If you took out the characters, which are cartooney, the backgrounds and the kitchen and the food look really realistic. It's quite an accomplishment. Still, it all comes down to the story, which is simple and told, as I said, really well. I think I'd rank the Pixar Movies released so far thusly:
The Incredibles
Ratatouille
Toy Story
Finding Nemo
Cars
Toy Story 2
Monsters, Inc.
A Bugs Life
The Wall*E teaser trailer makes me want to know more.
Otherwise, on a completely different subject, I've been thinking about the recent terror attacks in Great Britain. they seem simple enough, and British and Scottish officials have done a decent job of pulling everything together and keeping the public safe. The thing is, they've been through this. The IRA attacks over a couple of decades gave them useful training and knowledge on how the police should deal with the small attacks like this.
There was no panic, just a resolve to try to get to the ones involved with the planning and execution of the attacks. I do wonder how they handle the racial profiling there, since it always seems to be such a hot button issue here. the people there do know that these guys are trying to intimidate them, and Britain, having been through WWII and other terrorist attacks does seem to hold their stiff upper lip well.
I'm truly worried though if something similar were to happen here. I'm worried that we've been placed in such a terrorist panic in this country that people would just go batshit crazy. I'm worried that police aren't really trained for this kind of work, even with the SWAT teams and all. I'm worried that just like the threat of Anthrax a few years ago, the media will take hold of a story like that and blow it out of proportion.
The British attacks seem to be on a very low level of organization...organic car bombs scheduled to go off in relatively similar amounts of time around the country. This doesn't sound to me like the organization that pulled off the September 11th attacks, or the 4/11 attacks in Spain or the 7/7 attacks in London. It sounds like a bunch of hooligans with some sort of grudge trying to make a point and hope the country will kowtow to them.
In this country we have been living longer with the threat, that I'm afraid that we'll snap when the inevitable does come to town. Especially when you mix in politics. we have so many politicians pushing fear and saying how tough they'll be on terrorism, how fast would one of them call out the National Guard (what's left of it)? A car bombing is a crime, and should be treated as such. Now, if it were bigger, say a a repeat of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, that would be a bigger issue, but remember what was first said by the media when it happened - that it must have been caused by muslim extremists? Fear makes us jump to conclusions.
When something like this does happen over here, and it will, I hope we can deal with it as calmly and rationally as the British and Scottish. I hope we won't once again go running to politicians to exchange our freedoms for security and go on misguided attempts for vengeance when all we need is some simple Law and Order.
The fact is, there are terrorists out there, there are fundamentalists out there of several stripes (some blow up abortion clinics, remember?). What we need to do is show that we won't lose our freedom, and we won't turn back the clock to take away freedoms and civil rights that have been earned and fought over. We are stronger than they are when we don't let ourselves be motivated, and subjugated by fear.
The life we have now is far superior to the one they envision for us. We must not allow violence to change who we are.
I think Pixar has gotten past the need to wow us with the visuals, since computer animation has become so normal to us now, but this one has a realism that was just fantastic. If you took out the characters, which are cartooney, the backgrounds and the kitchen and the food look really realistic. It's quite an accomplishment. Still, it all comes down to the story, which is simple and told, as I said, really well. I think I'd rank the Pixar Movies released so far thusly:
The Incredibles
Ratatouille
Toy Story
Finding Nemo
Cars
Toy Story 2
Monsters, Inc.
A Bugs Life
The Wall*E teaser trailer makes me want to know more.
Otherwise, on a completely different subject, I've been thinking about the recent terror attacks in Great Britain. they seem simple enough, and British and Scottish officials have done a decent job of pulling everything together and keeping the public safe. The thing is, they've been through this. The IRA attacks over a couple of decades gave them useful training and knowledge on how the police should deal with the small attacks like this.
There was no panic, just a resolve to try to get to the ones involved with the planning and execution of the attacks. I do wonder how they handle the racial profiling there, since it always seems to be such a hot button issue here. the people there do know that these guys are trying to intimidate them, and Britain, having been through WWII and other terrorist attacks does seem to hold their stiff upper lip well.
I'm truly worried though if something similar were to happen here. I'm worried that we've been placed in such a terrorist panic in this country that people would just go batshit crazy. I'm worried that police aren't really trained for this kind of work, even with the SWAT teams and all. I'm worried that just like the threat of Anthrax a few years ago, the media will take hold of a story like that and blow it out of proportion.
The British attacks seem to be on a very low level of organization...organic car bombs scheduled to go off in relatively similar amounts of time around the country. This doesn't sound to me like the organization that pulled off the September 11th attacks, or the 4/11 attacks in Spain or the 7/7 attacks in London. It sounds like a bunch of hooligans with some sort of grudge trying to make a point and hope the country will kowtow to them.
In this country we have been living longer with the threat, that I'm afraid that we'll snap when the inevitable does come to town. Especially when you mix in politics. we have so many politicians pushing fear and saying how tough they'll be on terrorism, how fast would one of them call out the National Guard (what's left of it)? A car bombing is a crime, and should be treated as such. Now, if it were bigger, say a a repeat of the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City, that would be a bigger issue, but remember what was first said by the media when it happened - that it must have been caused by muslim extremists? Fear makes us jump to conclusions.
When something like this does happen over here, and it will, I hope we can deal with it as calmly and rationally as the British and Scottish. I hope we won't once again go running to politicians to exchange our freedoms for security and go on misguided attempts for vengeance when all we need is some simple Law and Order.
The fact is, there are terrorists out there, there are fundamentalists out there of several stripes (some blow up abortion clinics, remember?). What we need to do is show that we won't lose our freedom, and we won't turn back the clock to take away freedoms and civil rights that have been earned and fought over. We are stronger than they are when we don't let ourselves be motivated, and subjugated by fear.
The life we have now is far superior to the one they envision for us. We must not allow violence to change who we are.