Cleared for Docking

The Docking Station, which is a local cyber cafe a friend of mine started up back in 2000, has closed its doors. After eight years of just breaking even, they have decided to hang it up. I wish I could say I went there more often than I did, but it's location in Regency was never a convenient spot for me to just "drop by".

A very informal wake was held yesterday afternoon where we sat and talked about the history of the place. One longtime employee stated how a generation of teenagers that had come there to game have now either gone off to college or gotten married and had kids. Though the business will be no more, it's nice to think that it has a permeant place in the hearts of one local age group and will live on in that fashion.

Parts of the place already look dismantled, and they're looking to unload a lot of computer equipment and furniture at drastic discounts before they move out at the end of the month. Anyone interested can call them at 722-3625.

So long, old friend.

Must be the brown acid.

So every summer, the Florida Theatre downtown does the Summer Movie Classics series every Sunday afternoon. In previous years, I've taken in A Man for All Seasons, The Sting and a number of others. It's a great theater and a great way to see a classic movie (and at $6.00 per adult, it kicks Regal's ass).

The lineup for this year was recently released and had some great choices such as An American in Paris, To Catch a Thief, The Searchers, and ... Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?

You mean the one with George Burns and the friggin Bee Gees in it? Really? Really?!?!?

OK. I'm going out on a limb and guess that either film prints were really hard to come by this year or one of the people in charge of choosing the films was a hard core Peter Frampton fan.

One year and over one million hits later...

Strictly speaking, this isn't really a one year anniversary of "100 Movies 100 Quotes 100 Numbers". I originally posted the video at YouTube on February 19th, 2007. In the first 86 days after it was posted, the video had been viewed just over 4,000 times. Then on Tuesday, May 15th, the video was featured on the website I Am Bored, and all hell broke loose.

A flood of people found my video and from there posted links to it on their own sites. It was quickly picked up by such websites as Neatorama, Digg, Metafilter, YesButNoButYes, EW.com, and a number of different movie blogs. It even made it onto the top of IMDb's hot on Friday the 18th, which meant that it stayed on that list all weekend long.

The hits went through the roof, and I got comments from all over the world about how they loved it. Professional film critics Peter Bradshaw and Roger Ebert mentioned it on their websites. It was featured on the Very Short List website as well as the Colin Murray Show on BBC Radio 1.

I wish I had something profound to say about it. Getting comments is still very cool after all this time and has motivated me to make more videos (I'm working on a direct sequel to "100 Movies" to be finished sometime this summer). Mainly, this post is just a way to mark the occasion and thank the hundreds of thousands of people who have helped make the video a success.




And now I promise to finally shut up about it.

Fore!

Mrs. Mosley's jaw dropped when I relayed to her this story from last night:

President Bush sure does feel for U.S. troops, doesn't he? First he told soldiers in Afghanistan how envious he is of them for their chance to do something "exciting" and "romantic," and now, in a recent interview, he revealed that he has given up golf in solidarity with their families.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," Bush said. "I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do."

It actually turns out that the day Bush refers to was not the last day he played. The man he refers to as de Mello is Sergio Vieira de Mello, who was the U.N.'s top official in Iraq. He was killed when the world body's headquarters in Iraq was bombed in August 2003. But according to records kept by CBS News, Bush played his last round of golf in October 2003.

Though he would never, ever want to admit that such a man affected his view of things, I had to wonder whether the much repeated clip from Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 motivated his decision to not appear like a crass prick anymore. And here comes the kicker: Apprently, even when Dubya makes the shallowest of gestures, he's lying about it:

Also, as Warren Street at Blue Girl, Red State points out, at the time he apparently stopped playing golf, he was also dealing with knee problems that had forced him to stop his running routine.

That's My Bush: The Movie

And you thought The Reagans was controversial:

Oliver Stone is flinging open French doors inside an enormous brick mansion in Shreveport, La., inspecting locations for his new film about the 43rd President of the United States. ''This one is too small,'' he says. ''This one looks like George Tenet's bedroom. Where did we decide to put Bush's bedroom? It's around here somewhere, isn't it?''

Shooting begins in less than two weeks on W (or dub-ya, as it's spelled out in the initial sketches for the poster), but not everything is exactly where it should be, and not only here in the house where the First Family's residence will be re-created. The 32,000-square-foot soundstage the production is renting across town stands empty, waiting for the Oval Office and Cabinet Room sets to get trucked in from Los Angeles. The screenplay still needs work too. It's gone through two rewrites since an earlier draft leaked to the press last month (some skeptics took it as an April Fools' joke), but Stone would still like one more pass at it (''It's evolving,'' he says). And while most of the cast has been assembled and outfitted with prosthetic noses and hairpieces — Josh Brolin will play President George W. Bush and Elizabeth Banks will star as Laura — there is one major character still in search of an actor: a heavy named Dick Cheney.

In a sense, Stone is the perfect person to direct it. Some might have preferred that someone less controversial have done it, but why bother. Those few that still love Dubya are going to be inclined to despise the film no matter who directs it. And, in my view, Stone did a fine job at humanizing and providing a sympathetic view of the most unpopular Republican president before Georgie came along. In that light, Dubya's fans should be damn grateful that Stone is at the helm.

And if it is a little skewed against him, then I would consider it Cinematic Karma. Five years ago, a shameless hagiography of Bush came out before the presidential election. Now, before this next election where the Bush legacy will be buried and eulogized, Stone will present us with the story of the man who did become King ... at least for eight years.

Glory be.

The only cast member who shares the same nationality as the soundtrack.

Though I have impressed my wife over the years by my enjoyment of "chick" entertainment (Notting Hill, The Vagina Monologues, The entire oeuvre of Jane Austen), there are some things I have been reticent to see. The musical Mamma Mia falls into this later category. As much as Mrs. Mosley has been eager to see it, the whole goofy aura combined with the ABBA music has turned me off.

Ah, but now here comes the movie. We had a chance to see the trailer in the theater a month ago. Having now seen a little of the plot, I'm a little less reluctant. But there was one thing that bothered me about the trailer.

The story involves a mother (Meryl Streep) and her newly engaged daughter (Amanda Seyfried) planning their wedding. Having never met her father, the daughter tracks down the three men who dated her mother at the time of conception and invites all three to the wedding. Wackiness, as they say, ensues.

The three men are played by Colin "Mr. Darcy" Firth, Pierce "Mr. Bond" Brosnan and Stellan... er... "Bootstrap Bill" Skarsgard. In the trailer, Firth and Brosnan are announced by name along with Streep, but Skarsgard is not. This is a great shame. I'm assuming that, for the sake of suspense, the story doesn't favor any of the three so that the audience is kept guessing until the end. In which case, even though two of the three are world class sex symbols, they should have spared a few extra seconds in the trailer to highlight Stellan.

C'mon, guys. He's a great actor who's done fabulous work in Good Will Hunting, Ronin and a butload of Swedish films. Give him the highlighting he deserves!