Saturday, June 01, 2002 :::
 
It's officially summer in Berkeley- you could fry an egg on the streets of Telegraph, only to have a gang of gutterpunks jump you and take the egg. The Perch doesn't have a whole lot of really exciting news these day, but that's OK because I'm certain many of you out there aren't as news-starved over the summer as you were during the school year. Therefore, all I've got today are a couple of comments on some more entertainment-related matters. Because after all, if you're not using your summer to relax, what are you doing? If the answer to that question is "working" or "summer school", tough love.

There's a movie out right now called About a Boy. Ordinarily, I wouldn't give this chick-flicky looking Hugh Grant picture two glances sideways, but what caught my eye (and what should catch yours) is that the movie is based on a book by the incredible Nick Hornby. If you've ever seen the John Cusack film High Fidelity, you've seen the genius of Nick Hornby. His writing is slick, smart, very often funny, and manages to delve into the male perspective with uncanny accuracy. I highly reccomend either book for some quality lazy summer reading. For those of you who are illiterate, I've heard good things about the film versions, too.

Substantially less entertaining than Nick Hornby but still pretty neat in its own right (pun!) is the new blog, Res Ispa Something. I don't know Latin, but Rory does and I trust him when he tells me that the title of this blog means "The matter speaks for itself" in Latin. Well, there you go. The author, under the pseudonym Petty Bourgeosis, can get pretty intense sometimes. I see him becoming the next generation of Rory... the Angrier Clam, if you will.

::: posted by Andrewski at 1:52 PM

Thursday, May 30, 2002 :::
 
This actually makes a lot of sense.

::: posted by Andrewski at 3:29 PM

Tuesday, May 28, 2002 :::
 
The Daily Cal has started bi-weekly printing for the summer. Stories of notable interest:

A Cal student and a UC Riverside student were deported from Israel following their involvement in the Church of Nativity standoff in Bethlehem last month, and were also withdrawn from the Education Abroad program. Although the UC spokesman wouldn't say what their direct involvement was (which is the really juicy bit), it's still interesting that they're not detaining these kids in another country for that long. I'm also curious what kind of punishment, if any, the U.S. Government will pass down. Is that aiding terrorism?

In the most shocking non-news of the year, ladies and gentlemen, Chandra Levy was murdered. I know, folks, I'm as shocked as you are! I mean, when they found her skeletal remains in the park, I sort of assumed she had just buried herself. And by the way, Gary Condit is a sick, terrible person who needs to live out the rest of his life in shame. Can you believe the people we elect? This guy did everything he could to evade questioning about a missing girl so that his dirty little secret wouldn't come out and potentially ruin his campaign. If you ever want to see how decent politicians handle crisis, watch 24 or West Wing, and compare it to the little political dystopia we live in these days.

::: posted by Andrewski at 12:48 PM

Monday, May 27, 2002 :::
 
Hello, loyal readers. Many of you have gone off and perched elsewhere for the summer, but I'm going to be right here, in my new Albatross Perch HQ in the Berkeley chapter house of Phi Delta Theta. Our top story: Worst timing... ever.

I read the book Sum Of All Fears over a year and a half ago. The basic premise is that a nuclear weapon is made and detonated during the Super Bowl. The resulting drama stems from Jack Ryan trying not to stop the bomb from going off, but rather trying to control the damage. Although the explosion is an act of terrorism, immediately everyone wants to start dropping bombs on Russia. Go figure.

Anyways, I've been looking forward to Paramount's movie version of Sum of All Fears for a while now, because the book was fairly interesting and refreshing. Despite the fact that it's Ben Affleck instead of Harrison Ford in role of Ryan, ("Affleck, you da bomb in Phantoms, yo!") this movie has gathered other negative publicity. But then again, there is no such thing as bad publicity, is there?

What's most interesting to me is that, as Drudge reports, a Bush official is questioning the movie's timing. First of all, the book was written years ago, and most of the production was completed before September 11. If you have any inkling of how Hollywood works, you'd know that movies do not go from start to finish in 8 months, especially not one based on a novel. Secondly, in what I think is a far-overlooked change to the movie, the bad guys were changed from Arab terrorists to Nazis. I don't know how much of a threat Nazis are these days, but it sure is fun to have them as the Universal Bad Guy. It may not be politically correct (some may even label it racist) to suggest that a terrorist attack would very likely come from Islamic Middle Eastern men, but recent events haven't done much to disprove that, have they?

So the changes to the movie have gone to ensure that Paramount doesn't get itself taken down a notch by the "champions of decency and good taste", aka the Moral Majority. And still, some official has to question the movie's timing.

On a related note: How many of you saw the film Pearl Harbor that came out last year? I did, unfortunately. It was terrible. But do you remember the graceful, slow motion bombing of the Harbor, the way the dramatic music swelled as bullet-ridden American flags floated to the surface of a bloody ocean? How long do you think it'll be before we see the exact same treatment for "September 11: The Movie?" 5 years? 10 years? 25?

::: posted by Andrewski at 2:56 PM