Elegant Distractions

Twenty-five years ago, anything that showed up at the multiplex with the names Spielberg or Lucas would be cause for excitement and an automatic must-see.

Today no director gets an automatic ticket purchase. The closest any come are Clint Eastwood, Ridley Scott, Peter Jackson, and Ron Howard. These few get the benefit of the doubt.

What about the previous box-office champs? There is plenty of debate as to whether or not Lucas is, or even was, a great director. The best of the Star Wars series had other helmers (and other writers). After his handling of the three pre-quels, I throw my vote behind this contention. My guess is that he insisted on directing those pictures to disprove those arguments and instead has reinforced them.

Spielberg was King of the World and then he decided to be Important. Not enough to dominate the box office whenever he touched a film, he wanted approval of his peers. He wanted to Make Statements, Use His Influence, and Make a Difference. The moment he set foot down that path his magic fled like fog before the morning sun. He has tried returning to his storytelling roots with some success but he's not the same director he was before becoming Important.

Eastwood is steady as a rock and seems to be getting nothing but better. I don't always like his stories but he gets his point across with style.

Scott is a fantastic director with several ground-breaking pictures to his credit. Kingdom of Heaven was too similar to Gladiator but I am rarely disappointed by his work.

Perhaps the most underrated director working today is Ron Howard. Any director who can make you nervous watching a scene where you know the outcome is OK by me.

Still, the new King of the Hill is Peter Jackson. Following up LOTR with a fantastic King Kong shows the man has all the tools. I noticed the same writing team was at work here (good choice) as the story for Kong was the real muscle. Yes, the visual FX of the ape were often seamless but without the power of the story it would have turned no better than The Hulk.

Jackson is getting dangerously close to earning the much-coveted Automatic Ticket Purchase.

Posted by director at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Categories: Film

James C. Bennett quotes an article from The Australian that shows the Lebanese community where the riots took place had a significantly lower assimilation rate than other communities.

Studies by Monash University's Bob Birrell of the most revealing test of immigrant integration, the marriage rate, showed that by the end of the '90s less than 10 per cent of second-generation marriages of people of European descent were to someone from their parents' country. Much the same was true of immigrants from south and east Asia. Only 6 per cent of Indians married within their ethnic group, as did only 18 per cent of Chinese. In short, most immigrants, whatever their race, married Australians of other nationalities.

However, for the Lebanese, of whom most of marriageable age were Muslims, these figures were reversed. No less than 74 per cent of Lebanese brides and 61 per cent of Lebanese grooms married within their own ethnic group. Moreover, these figures had increased since the early '90s, when they were about six percentage points lower. This pattern may have fulfilled the community-building objective sought by Lebanese political and religious leaders, but it has been a disaster for their constituents' relationship with the rest of Australia.

The effectivenss of cultural assimilation was proven here in the US over the course of a couple centuries, so of course certain people feel it must be stopped at all costs. The same people who think the US (and the entire Anglosphere) must be stopped to make way for the People's Paradise (or the new Caliphate, take your pick).

Via Insy

Posted by director at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) | Categories: Politics