The Best Movies

Here are my favourite films, in no particular order:
   

The Seven Samurai	1951	Akira Kurosawa
L.A. Confidential	1997	Curtis Hanson
The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers	2002	Peter Jackson
The Maltese Falcon	1941	John Huston
Blade Runner	1982	Ridley Scott
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back	1980	George Lucas
Chinatown	1974	Roman Polanski
Monty Python and the Holy Grail	1975	Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
The Searchers	1956	John Ford
Saving Private Ryan	1998	Steven Spielberg
Some Like It Hot	1959	Billy Wilder
Aliens	1986	James Cameron
Cool Hand Luke	1967	Stuart Rosenberg
The Wild Bunch	1968	Sam Pechinpah
Arsenic and Old Lace	1944	Frank Capra
Snatch	2000	Guy Ritchie
Heat	1995	Michael Mann
Yojimbo	1961	Akira Kurosawa
Last Of The Mohicans	1992	Michael Mann
Training Day	2001	Antoine Fuqua
A Fish Called Wanda	1988	Charles Crichton
Reservoir Dogs	1992	Quentin Tarantino
Three Kings	1999	David O. Russell
Red River	1948	Howard Hawks
Hombre	1967	Martin Ritt
The Commitments	1991	Alan Parker
Terminator 2: Judgement Day	1991	James Cameron

 
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Lessons From Katrina

   As a member of the Emergency Services I was amazed by the response to Hurricane Katrina by all levels of government, but especially by the federal government.

  Now this is perhaps understandable in the case of state and local agencies as Louisiana in general and New Orleans in particular have legendary levels of corruption, and hence incompetence.

  However in the case of the US government it is rather more dismaying.
The US federal government spends massive amounts of money and much air-time convincing Americans that they are doing everything humanly possible to keep them safe. They created a whole new Dept after 9/11, The Dept of Homeland Security.

  FEMA the Federal Emergency Management Agency, formally an independent body was put under the auspices of this Dept. Mr Bush then appointed a man with no experience in Emergency Management to lead this group.

  The US Government's and FEMA's response to Katrina was woeful. Even once the full extent of the disaster was known it was painfully slow. Now Mr Brown has dutifully fallen on his sword and at least someone more qualified went into his position but it still leaves several major important questions to answer.

  Homeland Security's budget is almost immeasurable. New Orleans is a relatively small city. What would happen if a major catastrophe were to occur in New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago? How could the government adequately respond to the having to deal with millions of homeless or injured?

  Rita has shown that agencies are learning from their mistakes, but the chilling question remains that we are ill prepared for a major catastrophe either natural or man made.
  

What's Wrong With Network TV

What has become of Network TV? Viewership is dropping rapidly and, for the most part the powers that be don't seem to be capable of doing anything about it.

In my opinion the bottom line is that the crap that is churned out by the major American networks is, for the most part unwatchable. Yet at the same time cable TV is offering television that is constantly breaking new ground and evolving. Programs like The Sopranos, Sex In The City, The Shield, Deadwood, The Wire, Rescue Me and others offer TV that rivals the best in Hollywood movies.

The failure of Network TV I assign to 3 reasons:

1- First and foremost, I blame the problem on Conservative special interest groups, nothing even approaching reality can be shown by the networks without being inundated by complaints from "the moral majority", clamoring that it be taken off the air lest innocent children are corrupted by it.

2- Secondly, stupidity. All of these networks are run by businessmen, who know nothing about art, and less about good television, as such everybody is attempting to copy whatever format was successful last season.

3- Lastly, the bane of all that is good in television "REALITY TV" which of course in really has no connection to reality, but has one great redeeming quality for programmers, its cheap, no actors to pay you see?

So for the foreseeable future I predict a continued downward spiral for the networks, in fact unless they completely reinvent themselves they will soon be totally redundant and unnecessary. In the not to distant future they may well be totally replaced by cable networks that are leaner, meaner and quite frankly much better

The "Burden" Of Equalization

Ontario Premier Dalton McGinty is upset with Ottawa. You see he claims his province is unfairly burdened by the Federal Governments Equalization scheme. It seems Ontario's budgetary debt has suddenly risen to over 6 billion annually, shocking indeed. Now Mr McGinty's seems unwilling to deal with this problem, by either cutting back OR raising taxes because, well because its everyone else's fault. You see he feels the debt wouldn't be there, if only Ontarians didn't have to support the rest of Canada. Thats right Ontario, by the sweat of its brow is propping up all those lazy bastards in the rest of Canada. Who new?

Now if Mr McGinty has problems now, think how bad they would be if not for the fact of the tens of thousands of FEDERAL employees who live and work in his province.You see he fails to mention anything about that, perhaps he thinks its his god given right to hoard all those Federal employees, each of which pays substantial taxes into Ontario provincial government coffers.

I tell you what Mr McGinty. I live in one of those provinces that benefits from equalization benefits. You give us all the federal employees in Ottawa, and we will give up our equalization, if fact we might even throw a little back into the kitty. We could pay you some equalization, and we wouldn't even complain.

Why Does Talent Not Always Translate Into Success?

When Steve Marriot left The Small Faces in 1969 (to form Humble Pie) One could expect that that was it for the band. However, the remaining members replaced him with singer Rod Stewart (arguable to become rock's most recognizable voice)and Ron Wood, one of Englands most brilliant guitar players.

They changed their name to The Faces and set out producing some of the early 70's most facinating music. They changed their sound completly to a sort of sloppy hard driving rock and roll, rootsy, yet not as much in the boogie style as Humble Pie became.

Wood and Lane were both strong songwriters, and the band produced some of the best covers ever, Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" being a standout example.

Yet they were never terribly successful. there only real chart success was "Stay With Me" from there second album. It certainly didn't help that Stewart was pursuing a simulaneous (and wildly successful) solo career, even if the Faces did play on most of his best songs.

So why did it all self destruct? Was it really just Stewarts ego? Or was it that the record buying public just wasn't interested. 20 years on two brothers from Atlanta made millions by simply emulating them [well ok The Black Crowes were a damn good band] In retrospect I think that there might just have been a glut of great bands in the early 70's

Rhino Records has released, what can only be described as one of the best boxed sets ever in Five Guys Walk Into A Bar Produced by the bands keyboardist Ian McLagen this seeming random collection of album and rare tracks is masterful. And better then any of their studio albums portrays just what a fabulous band they were.

Preying On The Fear Of Crime

If one listened to the news, one could swear there is a murder on every street corner, a rape in every bedroom, and a terrorist around every corner.

Violence sells, so news reports show lots of violence, which convinces the public violent crime is on the rise, yet the fact remains it is on the decrease in North America and has been for many years. The FBI's Uniformed Crime Statistics show that violent crime in urban centers generally has been decreasing steadily for the past 15 years or so. But no police chief ever got a new helicopter by saying crime was on the downswing.

The actual problem is that Property crime is on the rise, mostly due to a lack of uniforms on the street. It would make more sense if what they were doing was to increase the actual number of policemen on the street, but that is hardly ever the case, Police Chiefs don't like Policemen, they'd rather a new toy, or form a new "Strike Team" to combat whatever flavour of the weak the press is touting, which does nothing but take more police off the street. Acronyms are the thing, but you know what, I've never seen a S.W.A.T. or a D.A.R.T. or E.R.T. prevent one burglar

Some of our American brethren may remember President Clinton came up with a federal "initiative" which was going to put 100,000 new police officers on the street nationally. IIRC the actual number of Policemen that ended up on the street was something in the order of 15,000.

There is lots of crime out there, but not as much (in most areas) as the evening news would have you believe. There are solutions to the property crime problems, but they would cost money to fix, unfortunately too many citizens would rather spend their money on a gun to keep under their pillow, or armed security guards.

The Deal Is Done

Premier Danny Williams came home last weekend with a deal. I don't pretend to know all the details. But Williams , who seems pretty hard nosed appears to be pleased with it.

For me, this victory was symbolic, it cements our place as an equal partner in the Canadian experiment. Well at least as equal as a province with but a half million people can be in a country of almost 40 million. Now we have no one else to blame for our future then ourselves. New deals are in the offing, ones that could turn us from have not to have. It remains to be seen if we will make better deals in the future. We have a long history of our leaders giving away everything for nothing.

Now, with Ottawa out of the picture the real controversy arises. Everyone wants to know what the Premier plans to do with the 2 Billion he came home with. And of course everyone and his mother has his hand out for a cut.

To be honest, I don't care, everyone has a point, and there really is no bad way to spend this money. While I don't think Mr Williams makes the best Premier, I do trust his judgment in fiscal matters. I am not a big believer in the need to service debt, after all The US Government cares little for the trillions of dollars of debt that they have amassed. However Our little province cannot afford to ignore it. What I don't want is to have my children crippled by it.

So Bravo Mr Williams for a job well done, this has been a trying time for all of us, and has apparently destroyed the career of one of this provinces most popular politicians. I just hope he continues to make good decisions.