Viraj's Weblog

I'm reading "The Elements of Style." Some choice quotes:

Flammable. An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning "combustible" is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means "not combustible." For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.

...

Hopefully. This once-useful adverb meaning "with hope" has been distorted and is now widely used to mean "I hope" or "it is to be hoped." Such use is not merely wrong, it is silly. To say, "Hopefully I'll leave on the noon plane" is to talk nonsense. Do you mean you'll leave on the noon plane in a hopeful frame of mind? Or do you mean you hope you'll leave on the noon plane? Whichever you mean, you haven't said it clearly. Although the word in its new, free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense.

...

Nature should be avoided in such vague expressions as "a lover of nature," "poems about nature." Unless more specific statements follow, the reader cannot tell whether the poems have to do with the natural scenery, rural life, the sunset, the untracked wilderness, or the habits of squirrels.

I remember a few years ago a high school took their students to see Spielberg's "Schindler's List". There is a scene where a lady is shot point blank in the head causing her head to flop back. Some of the students in the theater burst out into laughter. I believe at least one of those students was suspended or similarly punished, and there was a whole controversy about it in the news. I knew it was only the beginning. Comedy is so subjective, and what is one day very serious, only takes time to become very funny.

I feel like Tropic Thunder is that student's payback. This is a movie where that kind of laughter is the main goal. It is really over the top. The violence and vulgarity is just insane, and the movie manages to be incredibly funny. Yeah, it's ok to laugh at the extremely graphic disembowelment of a soldier, because behind it all is an intelligent satire.

Robert Downey Jr. is pretty amazing in it. For those that don't know, he plays an Australian who plays a black guy. His scenes were probably the funniest. Some really like Tom Cruise's cameo, but I thought it was a bit overkill.

The movie basically pokes fun at the movie business, and the fake trailers at the beginning are actually hard to distinguish from the real trailers just a few minutes before. It reminded me of "War, Inc." but less political and more acceptable to a wider audience. It's great fun if you have the stomach for it. A choice comment from IMDB:

If you are offended by this movie, then don't see it. Go see Space Chimps (good movie), unless you are going to be offended by degradation of Life on other Planets, etc.

Yeah, etc indeed.

An interesting article about banning spectators from the Olympics cycling event.

Relatives of Australian racing champion, Matthew Lloyd, managed to work their way through the heavily guarded finishing line by bribing a security official. But his mother Barbara Lloyd was told to leave the area, because she was cheering too much, The Herald reported.

After a relative was denied watching the race, they allowed her to watch TV:

She didn't have a ticket, normally you don't need a ticket to watch the road race,'' he said. "She flew over here from Australia to watch it and watched it on TV."

Come on, isn't a major part of a race having fans cheer you on?

The six hour race, in some of the most picturesque countryside, finished at the Great Wall but with not a spectator in sight.

I have to agree with Ebert on this one and say this movie is just absolutely wonderful. I didn't think such a story could be told without coming across as drab, but the way this movie is put together is a great achievement in filmmaking, not to say anything about the actual storyline. And there is a storyline, and it's portrayed better than most fictional heist movies.

But the main attraction is the characters themselves, and Philippe Petit is of course the star. Even at his late age, he comes across more lively than most children, and it is very infectious (however some may find it annoying). You have to really have a mind like a child to find him interesting, and that is a compliment. These type of people are very infectious, and they embody the human spirit in their achievement.

The movie is about a man attempting to walk a tightrope across the World Trace Center towers and essentially the buildup to that event. When it happens the audience is thrilled, and silent. The movie surreptitiously compares the tightrope to life itself, and how me must all walk on our own tightropes. I always found the act of living similar to walking on a tightrope. At any moment we can be knocked off. One small puncture through a few millimeters of our skin, one wrong turn on the highway, one small step, and we are tumbling down. As we age, it becomes more difficult to stay on the tightrope, and eventually no matter how much we try we can't stay on and finally drop off. The movie conveys this fact, and you appreciate life more coming out of the theater.

There is an amazing scene in the movie depicting the careful moments late in the evening as they prepare to string a wire across the World Trade Center towers. The cinematography here is just amazing. They are racing against time, and time is depicted as the rotating stars in the heavens and the lighthouse-like light at the top of the tower pulsating like a heartbeat. Meanwhile, in the front of the scene you see the silhouette of the characters hard at work trying to beat the morning light. It is really breathtaking and I don't even know how to explain it, but it captured everything the scene needed to convey.

I also found fascinatingly nostalgic the scenes of the actual building of the WTC towers. With the thought of them gone now, it really puts it into perspective just how much work was done building them and the human efforts made to create such tall structures. I found those scenes very somber and sad, to see all that hard work come crumbling down. But it also reminded me of the impermanence of everything, and just because we put so much effort into creating something, it will definitely not last forever.

The moral is you are on the rope whether you like it or not. Why not enjoy yourself and realize the magnificence of it all?