Westside Steve
-
Posts
39,315 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
388
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Westside Steve
-
-
-
PS I do think her, and everybody's, anti-tik tok Hysteria is nonsense.
WSS
-
14 hours ago, VaporTrail said:
He ordered that the Florida universities deactivate the pro-Palestinian groups on campus because they're "associated with terrorism." The actual document from the school is in the first post in this thread.
Oh, okay. Well I can certainly grasp the concept of a hands-off approach to free speech but I can't imagine the courts being as lenient if somebody wanted to start a pro American Nazi party or Ku Klux Klan group on campus. I'm struggling to find the silver lining in Hamas or hezbollah.
WSS
-
2
-
-
57 minutes ago, VaporTrail said:
Good news. The Florida universities are refusing to enforce Gov Desantis' mandate because they're concerned about being personally liable for damages (i.e. - their lawyers know damn well it's a blatant 1A violation).
Refresh my memory; what was the mandate again?
WSS
-
https://www.aol.com/fighting-empties-north-gaza-humanitarian-075526635.html
The Israeli military raided Gaza's largest hospital early Wednesday, conducting what it called a targeted operation against Hamas as troops seized broader cont...
Hamas slash Hezbollah/ every other Arab terrorist group is/are famous for setting up headquarters in hospitals. I can't imagine this not pissing everyone off except for maybe the most hardcore anti-Semitic b l m loving democrats.
WSS
-
Yes, liberals are certainly hypocritical racist fools.
WSS
-
https://www.aol.com/hamas-command-node-under-al-174953596.html
A US official with knowledge of American intelligence says Hamas has a command node under the Al-Shifa hospital, uses fuel intended for it and its fighters reg...
-
1 minute ago, MLD Woody said:
Most of that was very, very stupid. Most annoying may have been Maher's need for the audience to jerk him off with applause after every line.
Takes like this and assuming it's all of college are ignorant and reflect a lot of the same bias and ignorance he's describing in the video.
The back half at least turns it to ivy league schools slightly, which definitely have plenty of issues. But framing this as all college is just more pandering by Maher.
Oh well. Didn't expect anything to enlightening or groundbreaking anyway.
The whole thing is basically an indictment of the Ivy League schools and for good reason. Hard to Fathom your blind support for any course that offers a masters. There are most certainly courses of study that prepare one for specialized careers etc. Yours is one. Also plenty, if not most, that offer bullshit just so the universities can grab money from suckers. No doubt you will attack mine but there really are many worse than that.
(Not to mention the fact that affirmative action has taken away one of the few positives in a Harvard or other high profile College offers)
WSS
-
https://www.aol.com/tim-scott-drops-2024-presidential-024455382.html
Tim Scott dropped out of the 2024 presidential campaign Sunday, shocking a TV interviewer and even his own campaign staff with an abrupt departure from the race
Seems like a nice guy but just doesn't quite have the gravitas needed for the gig. Of course most don't but still...
WSS
-
1
-
-
-
Just as soon have him as probably any Congress person in office today.
WSS
-
1
-
-
-
Killers of the Flower Moon
Paramount/Apple
R. 208 min
The other side of the coin we talked about with BUTCHER’S CROSSING, in which the director didn't have the juice to direct the star we have a case where nobody involved with the production has the stones to tell the director, Martin Scorsese, that he might be going a little long, though the length really only goes to deter the erstwhile moviegoer.
The two films also share a common theme which boils down to the ham handed dealings the United States government had with the natives. Unlike the Romans who, upon conquering any nation, made all the inhabitants citizens of Rome or the Vikings who assimilated the current culture with their own, the European settlers brought with them what might be the worst plague ever foisted upon a nation; namely lawyers.
In 1875 the government employed Buffalo Hunters to eliminate the source of the Indians life and sustenance. Barbaric? Probably but at least more straightforward than the approach 50 years later. Lawyers and politicians wrote some crazy laws and made treaties with people who had absolutely no understanding or grasp of either European law or politics. Hence the Indians were swindled into accepting useless land across the West as reservations. The Osage wound up with a large piece of Oklahoma that no one cared about until oil was found. All of a sudden the Osage tribe were among the richest people in the world. Having no concept of wealth they became the targets of swindlers and crooks who ran the legal system. Legally Indians were forbidden from all sorts of different things, including free and complete access to wealth unless they were married to a white person. That led to a rash of marriages to unsuspecting Indian women by ruthless and greedy White men. Reprehensible? Absolutely, but it gets worse. The natives, already fallen prey to diabetes , probably caused by a completely new diet, fire water and horrible medical practices, are dying at an alarming rate. Natural causes are only part of this film the focus is on actual murder for profit.
At a little over 400 Pages the book, which bored me nearly to tears, covers an almost indeterminable number of characters and situations ranging from bad to horrible. For that reason, I was extremely hesitant to sit through three and a half hours of an emotional and depressing picture made from that subject matter. For any of you out there who have that concern let me tell you right now I was wrong. I should never have doubted Scorsese. There's no possible way to document all the different stories of all the different characters so I won't, but what I can do is assure you that in some ways at the end of the film you might just feel the three and a half hours wasn't quite enough to tell the whole story. It's something we never knew, and it's brilliant.
And kudos to Robert De Niro for his first quality role in years.
A
WSS
-
Butchers Crossing
Saban
R. 105 Min
A few random thoughts on the latest Nicholas Cage film:
1 It seems like he's cranking out a new movie every few months lately and he's not afraid to accept odd roles and a wide variety of subject matter.
2 Though he is not without talent and charisma sometimes it seems that these roles, despite their diversity, are the same guy. Does that make sense? With very few exceptions the character becomes Nick Cage and not the other way around.
3 He prefers to be not only the biggest, but often the only star in the movie.
4 It's a good idea to be suspicious of movies with a lot of production companies in the opening credits.
5 You will rarely find a powerful or famous director at the helm of any of these flicks. Which will dovetail into a similar but opposite situation with another film I'm doing this month.
6 since there's barely enough money in the budget for Nick's salary you won't find a lot of expensive sets or special effects. Not necessarily a bad thing, it is what it is.
And now the movie folks. A note for our younger friends who may think that history began 25 years ago; it actually didn't. For centuries indigenous peoples have been overtaken by stronger bolder and more adventurous tribes. In 1875 European settlers were claiming everything West of Massachusetts and doing their best to marginalize the Indians. One of those methods was hiring hordes of buffalo hunters to exterminate the breed which the natives desperately needed for survival. Bands them were getting rich by killing as many as they could and selling the hides while leaving the carcasses to rot in the wasteland. Fred Hechinger is Will Andrews, the son of a Unitarian minister who has left Harvard to experience first hand the ways of the wild west and a buffalo hunt in particular. There are just too many mugs applying for too few jobs so Will is set on his way, but we'll meet up with a fellow named Miller who claims to know of a gigantic herd located in a remote Valley a long and treacherous journey away. Nobody is willing to make the journey, besides they think Miller is nuts, until the kid chips in his 500 bucks he's brought from the east.
Now Miller, Will, old Charlie the cook, and Jeremy Bobb the antagonist head into the mountains and lo and behold there are the Buffalo. Even though they have more hides than they know what to do with Miller refuses to leave until he is captured every last one when things take a big turn for the worse: winter arrives early and the four are stuck for the next 6 months or until the thaw comes.
There are a lot story lines that could have been fleshed out into appealing subplots, unfortunately it doesn't look like there was enough money to hire competent writers so these opportunities just die on the vine.
All I can tell you about the ending (a year after the team set out on what should have been a two or three-month affair) is lifted from one of my favorite episodes of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone.
This is just one more Nicholas Cage movie that squandered the opportunity for greatness by a half-assed approach.
C
WSS
-
The Rolling Stones and Brian Jones
Magnolia
92 min. NR
There are watershed periods of time throughout history the change the course of world progress. Not the least of which would be the 1960s and one of the reasons for that is the coming of age of what we now call the Baby Boomers. Young people are more likely to want to do something different than the previous generation and nowhere in World culture is that more evident then the British Invasion in rock and roll. For those who care to remember there were the Beatles and The Rolling Stones and dozens of other who were virtually indistinguishable to the untrained eye; meaning well, our parents. Another subgroup of opinions deal with which of the two vanguards of the generation was the most important. I will leave that up to you, but THE ROLLING STONES AND BRIAN JONES from Magnolia films takes that one step further as to which era of the Stones fame may or may not have been the most important. To the casual fan of the Stones, Brian Jones probably wouldn't be the first name that comes to mind. That honor goes to Mick Jagger and Keith Richard who, as the front man and song writing duo, the face of the band as time went on. Those with a deep understanding of the history of the band know that in the beginning there was Brian Jones an earnest middle class boy who wanted nothing more than to start his own band and play the music he loved. He did the promotion he enlisted the musicians he booked the dates he did the leg work and the promotion. But he didn't write the songs and he didn't front the band. Still some people might forget how important his contribution to the music was. While not a virtuoso he was intuitive and creative and many of his embellishments made Stones songs great. Think of Ruby Tuesday without the flute, Lady Jane without the counter melody or Paint It Black without that sitar riff. While all young people struggle mightily with perceived rejection it can have a devastating effect on someone with instantaneous fame and money losing his grip on the empire that he created. As the Rolling Stones image became one of faux rebels Brian became more estranged from the other members and found solace in the crazy sexual drug alcohol and fashion culture of swinging London. In the film these situations treat Jones with more sympathy than the Richard autobiography and that's fine with me. Unfortunately few people remember him or understand how he became a metaphor for the 1960s which began with such great promise and tragically came to an end as the world and it's culture moved on.
Thanks to the good people at Magnolia for the Press screening. Kindest wishes for a best documentary statue.
A
WSS
-
1
-
-
53 minutes ago, VaporTrail said:
As it turns out, there are consequences to seeing a generation of our veterans killing themselves after being sent to Iraq for Halliburton and Afghanistan for Pfizer.
I'm old enough to remember when the Liberals didn't love the military industrial complex.
WSS
-
27 minutes ago, VaporTrail said:
It's all cyclical. The last time inflation was this high and tranny shit being pushed on the public was Weimar Germany in 1932...
So why am I thinking about Joel gray and Liza Minnelli?
WSS
-
1
-
-
7 minutes ago, Orion said:
No argument. But I don't know if Watson's played enough games in a row to know how good he is / isn't. He strung a few together and then played well against Tenn....until needlessly going head first instead of sliding (which he did again against the Cards. And so now this week he's playing the Ravens defense with both starting Tackles out...and one of them was the backup to the actual starter who went on IR some time ago. He'll probably get hurt again.
Of course it's possible. And when the Cleveland Browns win a Super Bowl and Watson goes into the Hall of Fame I will eat my words about Jimmy Haslam because he was the only guy in the league willing to give up that much. You think Watson would be in Cleveland if Atlanta New Orleans or Miami would have matched that offer? And just for the record having a good enough game once in awhile is it pretty poor return on that deal.
WSS
-
1
-
2
-
-
54 minutes ago, DieHardBrownsFan1 said:
If you can yell 'I can't breathe', you can breathe.
True
WSS
-
-
Our legal system is garbage.
WSS
-
In the 18th century it was common for someone who printed pamphlets advocating democracy over monarchy or one church over the other to be flogged or hung for sedition. That's why they wrote the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment as simple as that. Sometimes conservatives are accused of wanting to turn the clock back to the 1950s but these guys want to turn it back to the 1750s.
WSS
-
I don't see any coach with a spine or self-confidence taking a knee to Jimmy and Dee and Berry and Depo.
I understand that a head coaching job is a feather in anybody's cap but..
WSS
-
I know none of you lefties will admit it but Ted Cruz won that debate. I think Bill is a smart guy and sometimes we agree but he was wrong here. And still there's nothing wrong with demanding a recertification of an election, even if it would turn out to be a waste of time and a pain in the ass. And yes you guys are the ones who won't let it go because you think it's a campaign issue and like a pitbull with a child's leg in its teeth, you are going to hold on forever.
WSS
Ps as to the before the cock crowed line Hillary kept that up for well over a year after the election.
Pps how many recounts did Al Gore get?
-
3
-
More from the JV debate
in POLITICAL DISCUSSION
Posted
Trust? Good luck. For the most part I like Indians because they seem to be more patriotic than a lot of other subgroups in america. They appreciate working hard and being rewarded for it in the greatest nation in the world. At least a lot of them. But everybody in the debate picks an issue or two that they think will resonate with the voters and hangs on like a pitbull.
WSS