Ubuntucat

Maybe chalk it up to how, when I was a kid, my mom used to walk up to me as I was watching TV and just start asking me things (at which point, I would miss whatever was being said on TV, because I was hearing my mother instead), but I’ve really grown to love captions. Of course, what’s been said on TV is really important. Whatever my mom was saying must not have been. And back then you couldn’t pause live TV.

Well, it’s decades later, and I don’t live with my mom any more, but I do appreciate those captions. A loud banging comes from our neighbor’s yard while I’m watching TV. A plane flies overhead. People upstairs are yelling about God knows what. The character onscreen is mumbling. No sweat. I still know what they’re talking about on my favorite show of the moment, all thanks to captions.

Of course, captions are not without their faults. First of all, some people think my wife and I are freaks for liking captions. Uh, we’re not deaf. And the captions take up a huge amount of screen space on the TV. We’ve also kind of become dependent on them… at least I have. If I’m watching a show that doesn’t have captions I’m like “What? I can’t understand what they’re saying. What’s going on? It sounds as if they’re speaking English, but what are they saying?” Worse yet, sometimes the captions are just wrong. Wrong word. Wrong foreign language.

My favorite caption screw-ups for foreign language are when they guess the wrong foreign language (in Pretty Woman, when the valets are speaking Cantonese and the captions say they’re speaking Japanese, for example) or don’t know a foreign language that should be fairly obvious (in a Dexter episode, when someone is speaking Spanish, and instead of saying Speaking Spanish, the caption says Speaking Foreign Language).

Well, Mom. Thanks for making me appreciate captions.

As you may know if you’ve read my post from four years ago “Subversive” Saved!? I get annoyed when people use the word subversive inappropriately.

Well, I just saw a movie called For the Bible Tells Me So, and I have to say it’s pretty subversive. Unlike Jesus Camp and Hell House, this film doesn’t have as its primary purpose the making fun of “those crazy Christians.” In fact, rather than seeking to appease anti-Christian non-Christians, For the Bible Tells Me So seeks mainly to educate Christians about Biblical interpretation and the theological dangers of selective literalism.

And where it doesn’t get you on an intellectual level, it also presents the real humanity of the situation: even if you do want to be anti-gay as a Christian, how can your heart not cry out for people with gay children having rocks being thrown in the windows of their houses? How can you not feel compassion for gay people being beaten to death?

But, apart from one badly written and juvenile animated segment, the film really is quite educational and should be a must-see for any Christian who is anti-gay. I can’t guarantee you’ll change your theological views on sexuality after seeing this movie. You should still see it, though. It’s great exercise for the mind and the heart.

I know I’m in the minority opinion on this one, but I found Wall-E disappointing. It wasn’t a bad movie. I don’t think it’s possible for Pixar to make a bad movie. It was, however, disappointing.

See, what’s great about Pixar movies is the whole package. Pixar movies (Wall-E excluded) tend to have it all. They have a good story, engaging scenes, refreshing humor, appeal to all age groups, stunning animation, character development, and proper pacing. When I see a non-Pixar movie, I expect something to be sacrificed. If the special effects and pacing are good, maybe the dialogue is awful or the jokes unoriginal. If the character development is good, maybe the plot is disjointed or the pacing is off.

Whether it’s only great movies (Cars, Monsters, Inc.) or amazing movies (Toy Story 2, The Incredibles), Pixar never sacrificed anything… until now. Wall-E is engaging. It’s funny. It’s cute. The animation is the best I’ve seen yet. That’s about all I can say for it, though. It isn’t a typical Pixar movie. The character development, almost nonexistent. The plot is lopsided and resolved too quickly. The conflict is mainly an external one. There is too much suspension of disbelief required (yes, even within the framework of the story) of the viewer.

Well, will people care? No, they’ll still see it. I still saw it. I still enjoyed it. I just hope that it’s a blip on the otherwise clear radar of Pixar greatness. I’m hoping the next Pixar movie won’t sacrifice plot and character development for special effects and humor. They’ve shown us many times that you can have your cinematic pie and eat it, too.

The New York Daily News recently published this article: ‘Wanted’ man Roman Polanski dodges legal bullet. Let me translate some chunks for you.

Polanski was, and remains, a brilliant film director. But to many people, particularly in America, he is most famously remembered for fleeing the country after pleading guilty to “unlawful sexual intercourse” with a 13-year-old girl who was modeling for him.

In case you’re wondering, the pedophilic rapist in question only pled guilty to this “crime,” and it doesn’t matter anyway, since he’s good at his normal job.

The original judge, Laurence Rittenband, was a publicity hound and celebrity sniffer who cared more about how he looked in the press than what happened to either Polanski or the 13-year-old girl.

Both the lead prosecutor and the defense attorney explain in great detail how the case was about to be resolved, with a guilty plea and no hard jail time. But Rittenband thought that might make him look bad, so he ignored judicial protocol and went back on his own promises, declaring instead he wanted Polanski in prison.

Ordinarily society will let someone who’s good at his normal job off the hook for raping a 13-year-old, but one judge decided a rapist of young girls should get some kind of actual punishment. He must have ulterior motives for doing so.

The fact that this film focuses more on the court than the crime will understandably bother some viewers, since offering drugs to naked 13-year-olds and having sex with them is conduct the average American finds repugnant.

Perhaps to balance this, the film talks extensively with the victim.

Her biggest frustration, she says, is that no one believed her, or that people felt she or her mother, who set up the photo session, must have done something wrong.

Yet the case clearly didn’t break her. She’s frustrated with the system, but she settled a civil suit against Polanski and publicly forgave him. She’s a mother of three who’s been married for 18 years. She seems OK.

In case you’re tempted to have a normal reaction to this horrendous crime and don’t really care for Roman Polanski’s films, let me try to justify the crime. It’s not really a crime. After all, the supposed victim seems okay. Life went on. It’s not like she committed suicide or anything. Geez.

It does note, however, that many of his greatest films, like “Chinatown” and “Rosemary’s Baby,” suggest there sometimes is no justice. Which would be a curiously dispassionate coda to a case and a life marked by so much fire.

C’est la vie.

Poor, poor brilliant pedophile rapist filmmaker. No justice for him. People should just leave the poor guy alone.

If you’re a rapist, you’re a rapist. If you’re a pedophile rapist, you’re a pedophile rapist. Or that’s the way it should be. Perhaps we should go find all the sex offenders in prison and see which ones of them might be brilliant performing musicians or innovative entrepeneurs if we just let them out of prison. After all, their victims might seem okay. Their victims, after thirty years, might be married and have kids. Right? And the judges in their cases might have had ulterior motives for sending them to prison. After all, raping 13-year-olds isn’t an offense that warrants a prison term… at least not for people who are good at their jobs.

Let’s take a look at the girl Polanski raped thirty years ago. From a 2003 article:

“Everything was going fine; then he asked me to change, well, in front of him,” she says. “It didn’t feel right, and I didn’t want to go back to the second shoot. But I didn’t at that time have the self-confidence to tell my mother and everyone, ‘No, I’m not going to go.’”

During that second shoot, Polanski’s motives became apparent.

“We did photos with me drinking champagne,” Geimer says. “Toward the end it got a little scary, and I realized he had other intentions and I knew I was not where I should be. I just didn’t quite know how to get myself out of there.”

Polanski sexually assaulted her after giving her a combination of champagne and Quaaludes.

Let’s see. It didn’t feel right, but she lacked the self-confidence to refuse (maybe this is why statutory rape laws exist?), and then he gave her alcohol and drugs and sexually assaulted her. What’s not wrong about this? Seriously.

I’m a male who is more than a decade younger than Polanski was at the time of the rape. I’m not a brilliant film director, but I’m pretty good at my job. I work in an admission office at a high school. Can you imagine if I told a 13-year-old applicant to take off her clothes, gave her drugs and alcohol, and then raped her? That would be awful. Since I’m not an Academy Award-Winning director, I’ll tell you what would happen. I’d be fired immediately, or at least temporarily suspended pending further investigation; ostracized from my church, family, and friends; given divorce papers immediately by my wife; and probably sent to prison for over a decade if not several decades, during which time I’d be tormented and raped by other prisoners. Yes, that’s what happens to pedophile rapists. And I doubt anyone would believe my defense if I said, “Uh, she seems okay now.”

Much as I loved Death and the Maiden, I can’t believe that not only is Roman Polanski walking free, but the the media is defending him. Yes, of course, the woman he raped when she was only 13 has been unbelievably strong and managed after thirty years to move on with her life, but that doesn’t make what he did any less wrong.

Ever since I saw the first preview, I’d been dying to see the big screen version of Sex and the City. My wife wasn’t that excited, but I was. And the friend we saw it with yesterday told people she was going to go see it with her married straight male friend just to amuse them. I didn’t realize what a novelty I was, of course, until I went to the bathroom after the movie was done—women’s bathroom across the way, totally full; men’s bathroom where I was, totally empty.

Granted, I’m a bit more “sensitive” than most straight males I know, but if women can see a male-targeted film like Iron Man, why can’t men see a female-targeted film like Sex and the City? I’ve never drooled over Gucci, Louis Vuitton, or Manolo Blahnik. I’ve never had the kind of dating drama these women have had. I’m not white. I’m not rich. I don’t live in New York City. I’m not a woman. I’m not in my 40s.

Then again, I’ve never been captured by terrorists in Afghanistan and forced to make weapons in a cave. I’ve also never been an archeologist professor adventurer.

Contrary to what the lackluster reviews might have you think, Sex and the City was an entertaining movie, one of the most engaging I’ve seen all year. I don’t have to relate directly to it. It’s funny (yes, even with its bad puns) and involvingly dramatic.

Maybe I’m just coming from a different place. I know some people (both male and female, of various sexual orientations) can directly relate to a lot of movies. I don’t think I ever have. First of all, as an Asian-American who enjoys movie-going, I usually have to force myself to identify myself with main characters who are White or Black Americans or with main characters who are Asian (as in, from Asia). And, no, I didn’t feel as if the nerd-thugs from Better Luck Tomorrow were like me at all. Never have I come across characters who are feminist Christian males. Rarely have I come across slightly effeminate straight males. I’m okay with this, though.

I know for some others, movies are about speaking for the speechless, offering a voice and identification to various groups. I applaud these efforts. I’d love to be more represented in films (independent or mainstream), but I go to movies for the same reason people went to them during the Great Depression: I go to escape. Movies, for me, are about entertainment. I like a good explosion and chase sequence. I like a good joke or gag. I like relationship drama and yelling. I like some good character development and maybe even a little tragedy. I like to think. And I even appreciate a bad pun every now and then (Sex and the City, both movie and TV show, has this in spades).

I may have been the only straight guy at SATC yesterday, but it was a good movie, and I think a lot of guys missed out on some fun.