Movie Quotes: The Hunt for Red October

Jeffrey Jones will always be Principal Ed Rooney. Barring that, he may unfortunately always be that actor guy arrested for paying a 14 year old to pose nude for him back in 2001. But let us look back to happier days when his career was in better shape and he wasn't consorting with minors. In the midst of the goofy characters he was known for playing, he did a straight role in, of all things, a Tom Clancy movie. In The Hunt for Red October, he plays a submarine expert visited by Jack Ryan, played by Alec Baldwin (who also co-starred with Jones in Beetlejuice), who comes to talk to him about a new Russian sub. Jones is given a nice couple of lines where he illustrates to Ryan how dangerous this new sub could be.

Skip Tyler: When I was twelve, I helped my daddy build a bomb shelter in our basement because some fool parked a dozen warheads 90 miles off the coast of Florida. Well, this thing could park a couple of hundred warheads off Washington and New York and no one would know anything about it till it was all over.

They can't form the letters with those stiff arms

Sometimes the most unique LEGO creations are quite simple. Frightening, but simple.

For traveling light, avoid taking a camera crew whenever possible

Mrs. Mosley and I are planning on an around the world trip in the next four years or so. In that spirit, I'd like to point out someone who has already done it and then some: Former Monty Python member Michael Palin. His site Palin's Travels has full text of all six travel books he's written corresponding to each series he has done for the BBC. Go check him out.

Perhaps I'm the subject of an investigative report

Stopping by Panera this morning for a little breakfast, I happened to spy two personalities from First Coast News: Patricia Crosby and Angela Spears. They eventually went together to a booth, probably to wake the hell up so that they can get busy being cheery for the cameras.

All this after a little incident Mrs. Mosley and I experienced during a trip to Adventure Landing last Saturday. We invited her two little brothers, Michael and Marcus, to come with us. As could have been predicted, our energy level did not last nearly as long as the two munchkins. Mrs. Mosley and I eventually sat on some bleachers to wait for them to finish on the go cart track. Michael got off first and headed right for us, but Marcus kept on walking. I called to him, each shout getting louder over the crowd, "Marcus! MARCus! MARCus!". After this last shout, not only did Marcus turn around but so did Mark Spain, who genially smiled and waved back at me before moving with the crowd towards the exit.

So to the news team of First Coast News, allow me to say this: I'm not following you if you're not following me.

Apocalypto, the Wrath of Mel

Mel Gibson is hard at work on his next project. CNN provides a few interesting details:

Gibson is due to begin shooting the film, titled "Apocalypto," on location in Mexico in October and is aiming for a summer 2006 release, spokesman Alan Nierob said on Monday.

As with "Passion," Gibson will direct and produce the Mayan-language film from his own script through his own company, Icon Productions, and he will not appear in the movie.

The film's cast will consist of unknown performers native to the region of Mexico where the film is being shot, Nierob said. Few others details about Gibson's project were revealed.

"He lets his work speak for itself," Nierob said.

The story, which Gibson began writing nine months ago, is described as a "unique adventure" set 500 years in the past. Nierob said the title, "Apocalypto," was taken from the Greek word for an unveiling or new beginning.

OK, so first off we have yet another film done in an archaic language. That's cool with me. The whole Aramaic thing with the last film didn't bother me as it did some others at the time. I respected it and respected him for having the balls to do it.

Then we have the title and plot description. The details are thin, but enough can be construed from what is given. "500 years in the past", according to this Mayan timeline, puts us around the Spanish conquest led by Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado. As the timeline phrases it, "What force does not accomplish, disease does. Smallpox, measles, influenza, and other introduced diseases kill about 90 percent of the Maya within a century".

So, we have a very powerful and fervent Catholic tackling a period in history where some very powerful and fervent Catholics nearly decimate a civilization. What happened, Mel? Did another studio have a Spanish Inquisition film already in production?

Now, Mel is nothing if not shrewd. The Passion proved that. He's not about to piss off all those culturally conservative Christians who now admire him by making some PC film that paints European Catholics in a poor light. Or would he?

It all depends on how he approaches the subject matter. As it is mentioned in the article, "Apocalypto" (which is close enough to a generic LaHaye title to get some pulses racing in the heartland) translates into "a new beginning". That probably is the key to how he looks upon the film as a whole. He'll pull no punches in terms of showcasing brutality (we all know by now that he's capable of this), but he will also probably emphasize how it was all for a greater good in the transformation of South America into a bastion of Catholicism.

(Goofy aside: Somebody in Hollywood should make a post-WWIII film starring Harry Belafonte and call it Apocalypso!)

So what's my guess for the plot? The Spanish will indeed be bad guys, but it will be portrayed as a force of their political culture more than their religion. The Mayans will indeed be good guys, and they will embrace Catholicism while simultaneously resisting the brutality of the Spanish. They will see this new faith as a step up from their own (We'll see at least one Mayan human sacrifice during the course of the film) and a step towards knowing the true face of God.

Now, let's think about this plot in more general terms: A country driven by zealous belief in their God invades and occupies a foreign land. They claim it is for the natives' own good as they seek to change their backward culture for the better. Despite the thousands upon thousands of deaths that result, there is a hope that somewhere down the road a new nation will emerge. Ideally, this nation will change those around it so that the entire region is rebuilding their society upon the foundations of this new faith that was brought to them.

Yep. Mel's one shrewd guy.


(This can also be viewed at Blogcritics)

Squeamishness for the Silly

So, there are some newspapers out there who don't want to run a recent Doonesbury strip where Bush calls Karl Rove "Turd Blossom". Are any of these people who were offended aware that Bush has publicly called Rove that name?

Furthermore, I checked the subscription database America's Newspapers and found just in their archives that a total of 19 different newspapers ran articles that included the name and the fact that it was applied to Rove by Bush. I wanted to cross reference these titles with the newspapers that pulled the strip, but none of the Doonesbury articles list the titles. So anyway, If you're a newspaper out there that pulled today's strip and your name appears below, you can just bite me, alright?

Hartford Courant, The (CT)
Ocala Star-Banner (FL)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
York Sunday News (PA)
Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)
Ruidoso News (NM)
San Antonio Express-News (TX)
Sacramento Bee, The (CA)
Boston Globe, The (MA)
Olympian, The (WA)
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN)
Sacramento Bee, The (CA)
Washington Post (DC)
Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
Los Angeles Times (CA)
Houston Chronicle (TX)
Salt Lake Tribune, The (UT)
New York Post (NY)