- So now terrorism suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba are taking the same approach to their trials as the collective IQ of most jurors takes in criminal trials here in the United States: not attending. Just as many jurors in cases like the murder trials of O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake didn’t bother to bring a single shred of their intelligence to the courtroom, defendants in war crimes trials at Gitmo are beginning to employ the unique strategy of boycotting their trials. Three alleged al-Qaida operatives have decided to boycott their upcoming trials and many more inmates at the detention/torture (allegedly) facility are now expected to take the same approach. Not that it’s going to make any difference, what with the fact that these men are basically confirmed terrorists who wouldn’t attempt to plead their innocence if they did show up. They’d simply go on some anti-American rant, declare all Americans to be infidels and call us the Great Satan before the judge had them tossed from the courtroom. Just know this, terrorism suspects: show up or not, you’re still going to be found guilty. No one is going to marvel at your dedication to your cause or respect your steadfast refusal to respect our system of justice. You might think you’re proving a point, just know that no one here is paying attention to what it is.
- So One Tree Hill returned this Monday, with an episode titled after a Foo Fighters album (Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace), always a good start. But the real theme of the episode was therapy sessions, both formal and informal. Everyone was in a therapeutic mood, sitting down on a comfy couch or chair and spilling their secrets to a trusted confidant. Each segment of the show rotated between characters in different places, talking to their confidant about their problems. Actually, there was a quick, one-minute segment at the start of the show that didn’t follow this theme. It picked up where the show left off a few weeks ago, the night Nathan and Haley’s son Jamie was kidnapped by his psycho former nanny and then rescued by his recently paroled grandfather Dan. At the start of this week’s episode, both Lucas and Nathan rushed out of the house to punch Dan but in a show of crappy fighting skills, he was able to fend both of them off at once. The show then leapt ahead four weeks, keeping up its theme of fast forwarding through time (i.e. the four-year leap between the end of last season and the start of this one). Our first therapy session featured Nathan and Haley in an actual therapy session with a middle-aged. British therapist who is helping them work out their marriage problems. She convinces them to consider picking up their old individual passions of basketball (Nathan) and music (Haley) in order to start loving themselves more and getting back to the people they used to be. Her insights work because in the end, each of them are happier and Haley finally decides to stop making Nathan sleep on the couch. The Brit therapist also reminds them that although they’re married and parents, they’re still young and should act like it. Trying not to act like she’s young is Brooke Davis, who is meeting with a representative from an adoption agency who visits her home to judge Brooke’s fitness to be an adoptive mother. Throughout the episode, this woman grills Brooke about every aspect of her life, all the way back to her relationship with Lucas in high school, her campaign for class president and up to her fast-paced lifestyle in the fashion world that includes a relationship with bartender Owen at the club Tric, her housing of friend and noted drug addict Rachel Gotina and her falling out with her mom. Ultimately, it’s the agency worker’s conversations with Brooke’s mom Victoria that do Brooke in, with Victoria showing her witchy ways by saying that her daughter would make a terrible mother. Meanwhile, Peyton went through her own therapy as she was without Lucas (out of town), her record label’s only artist Mia (on tour) and pretty much anyone she could talk to. Looking for inspiration, she went back to the record store in Tree Hill she used to frequent as a kid and found that its proprietor Max (a.k.a. the show’s exec producer Mark Schwann) had closed the store. She left a note for him on the store door and he soon showed up in her record label office. After lamenting the rise of digital music as his reason for closing his store, Max encourages Peyton to do the same thing Nathan and Haley’s therapist told them to do: get back to your dream you’ve abandoned. For Peyton, that meant rolling down the convertible top in her old car, taking to the road and blasting her favorite music from the speakers. Miles away, Lucas was getting a blast of his own, but that blast came in the form of a challenge from his mom’s boyfriend Andy, the über-rich Aussie businessman. With his new novel finished but his emotional state in disarray after his wedding day went awry and his bride, Lindsey, bolted, Lucas is still in a funk. He doesn’t believe that his choice of using Peyton’s car as a point of inspiration in his new novel is meaningful and he still wants to be with Lindsey. Andy offers him use of his private jet to fly to New York to see Lindsey, which Lucas eventually takes him up on. He flies to New York and surprises Lindsey by popping up in her office. He offers her a deal after telling her that he still loves her and doesn’t want to be without her (always a good first step): he either turns in his new novel and she edits it herself, meaning lots of long hours and late nights working together, or he doesn’t publish the novel. Lindsey agrees, but says it’s only because she believes in the book and that there’s no way she can still be with Lucas. He brushes off her reservations and says eventually they’ll be together again. As the episode ends, character after character does a voice over, encouraging one and all to focus on their dream, to believe it really is possible and to pursue it passionately. A good message to end on, even if it is a tad sappy. Sometimes sappy is good…..until next time…..
- Yeah, that’ll work, Haitian government. Firing your Prime Minister in a feeble attempt to quell the growing outrage among your citizens over soaring food prices should solve all of your problems with looting, rioting and civil unrest. In no way will your citizens continue to be outraged over the fact that they can't afford food to feed their families after you’ve taken the monumental step of getting rid of a single government official. They’ll be so thrilled to see Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis removed from office that they won't remember that the price of a loaf of bread is costing them a single day’s wages. Either that or they’re still going to be pissed and they’re going to continue rioting and storming the presidential palace until you do something to address their concerns. Presidente Rene Preval announcing plans to slightly reduce the price of rice is a step in the right direction, but it’s nowhere near enough to end this crisis. If you need proof of that, look at the fact that on the same day the rice-price reduction was announced, a U.N. soldier serving in a unit tasked specifically to deal with riots was shot and killed by a Haitian citizen. Suffice it to say that Haitians are still angry about what they’re being forced to pay for food and they’re not shy about doing whatever they feel is necessary to make their voices heard…..
- Allow me to save you the trouble and the $10: Prom Night is not a good horror movie. While horror may be an apt description of your prom night and the prom nights of many people, this movie does a substandard job of delivering the thrills and scares from start to finish (which, at 88 minutes, aren’t that far apart). Even if you’re a Brittany Snow fan (hot yes, great actress….not so much), the heavy handed, blatantly obvious nature of this movie and its lumbering, lurching plot take the enjoyment out of watching it in a hurry. That shouldn’t be a major surprise, given the fact that it’s a remake of a film of the same name made back in 1980. Actually, if you take the 1980 version and reduce the quality a couple of notches, you’ll know exactly what to expect from the 2008 version. By now, the incessant string of commercials and promos for the movie have made it infinitely clear that the plot centers on an obsessed, psycho teacher who believes he’s found his dream girl in Donna (Snow). The teacher, Fenton, breaks out of prison the night of Donna and her classmates’ senior prom and makes a beeline for the Pacific Grand Hotel, where the dance is being held. A script full of moronic, mindless dialogue and characters so clichéd and uninteresting that a third grader could come up with better ones further drag down the movie. There’s the heroic cop who finds out about Fenton’s escape and brilliantly deduces that he’s on his way to the hotel. There’s the fact that Fenton is miraculously able to hide in a matter of one or two seconds when someone is looking for him, another implausible plot “twist.” All of the characters are rip-offs from “Casting for Teen Dramas 101” and add nothing to the film. The only point seems to be piling up as many bodies and as much blood as possible with the least amount of effort devoted to writing and good acting. If anyone rates this film higher than a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, go ahead and assume that they are friends or relatives of a member of the cast or crew…..next……
- The NBA season is winding down. Teams have two games left to either solidify/improve their playoff position or to pad their loss totals with a couple of extra L’s to garner more ping-pong balls for the draft lottery, depending on the season they’ve had so far. For the teams headed to the playoffs, you would imagine that they want their players zoned in and focused on the goal, that goal being to win and NBA championship and doing everything within their power to make that dream a reality. Anthony also failed several field sobriety tests when pulled over, which would be the alcohol-soaked icing on the cake. Now I may be way off on this one, but last I checked, getting arrested for DUI wasn’t one of those things you need to do to prepare yourself for a successful playoff run. Carmelo Anthony should have realized that before he was picked up by police in Denver after allegedly driving erratically early Monday morning, weaving from lane to lane, having his windows rolled down with music blaring, failing to turn down his brights when signaled and basically looking like the poster child for driving drunk. ‘Melo was taken to the drunk tank before a friend came to bail him out, but the damage had already been done. Well done, ‘Melo, well done. I’m sure that your coach, George Carl, was looking for someone to step up and register a DUI right about now. He was looking for someone to come through in the clutch with that arrest and mug shot that the team so desperately needed to get ready for a tough first-round series against either the Lakers or Hornets. Way to give your team just what it needed at the most important time of the year, idiot. And oh yeah, way to put the life of every person out on I-25 at the same time as you in danger. A drunk driver and a speeding car are one of the most deadly weapons around, so any idiot who drives while drunk deserves the harshest punishment possible. Anthony has apologized, both on his own and through is lawyer, but this isn’t one of those things you can tie off with a nice, neat apology. The only way to truly apologize for this is to never, ever, ever do it again. Call a cab, a limo or a friend, ‘Melo, because all of those are better choices than being an ass and driving drunk.
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