Best of Oscar, Part 4: Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon
Written by Peter Morgan, directed by Ron Howard, and starring Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon and Matthew Macfadyen.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 35 years since Richard Nixon was forced to resign as president of the United States. We’re trained to automatically rate Nixon as one of the, if not the, worst presidents the US has ever had. But for having made such a long and lasting impression on American politics, many details of Richard Nixon’s ‘crookedness’, as well as the aftermath of his resignation, have been lost in the decades that followed. Several generations are simply too young to ever have fully understood the meaning of the Watergate events, which is certainly true for me. Frost/Nixon, based on Peter Morgan’s play, is doing its part to rectify the situation.

The setup of Frost/Nixon is remarkably similar to modern times: a controversial president has left the office with record low approval ratings and allegations of misconduct; through all this said president never wavered in his uncompromising style or attitude (he most certainly never admitted to errors in judgment or flat out wrongdoing); the American public is coming to terms with an unproductive (and potentially unnecessary) war…; and although a new president is in office and life has supposedly moved on, the nation is still reeling with the distinct feeling of unfinished business, of missing resolution.

In 1974, it felt like Richard Nixon got off the hook.

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“Secret Recipe”? Yeah right.

Am I the only one who is amused by Coca Cola ads that tout the commitment to their “secret recipe”? When, you know, HFCS profoundly changed the taste of their drink over the last three decades? Yeah, the Coca Cola Company is certainly committed to the purity of their drinks. Not marketing.

How We Met Their Mother

Victoria and I agree: How I Met Your Mother is the best sitcom currently on TV. ‘Til Death held the distinction (at least in our minds) for a while, but apparently the writers decided that it was time to systematically destroy that show, instead.

So HIMYM it is. It’s funny, it’s life-assuring, it has that extra little bit of mystery (who is Ted going to marry?), and it has an attractive cast that we’re familiar with from other movies and TV series. Not since Friends has a sitcom assembled a group of actors with such great chemistry. Victoria and I aren’t exactly long-time followers of the show, though. I do remember watching a few of the early episodes (how can you forget a show with an episode called “The Slutty Pumpkin“?); but we only started watching all the DVD sets a few months ago, after Victoria caught one of the later episodes on TV and luckily insisted that we watch it.

Now we’re all caught up with the show’s mysteries and storylines. The writers have been battling with one fundamental problem from the start, of course: to stay true to the premise of the show, we cannot meet Ted’s future wife until the series is closing in on the end – the question of who will turn out to be the future Mrs. Mosby is one of the show’s big overarching themes, after all. The show’s source of information (the future Ted Mosby) is intentionally written as an unreliable narrator, which keeps doors open (and seasons flowing). Many of the romantic interests that Ted meets turn out to be flukes, if simply by necessity. But as a self-proclaimed HIMYM geek, I think I already know who Ted is going to end up marrying! And I will happily present that theory behind the cut (which, RSS readers should know, is right here). Think of it as a SPOILER barricade for everybody not caught up on seasons 3 & 4.

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Best of Oscars, Part 3: Milk

Milk
Written by Dustin Lance Black, directed by Gus Van Sant, and starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin and James Franco.

(Mild story spoilers follow.)

In 1970, on the eve of his 40th birthday, Harvey Milk tells his soon-to-be boyfriend that he hasn’t accomplished anything yet in life. This will certainly change over the next 8 years, as Milk moves to San Francisco’s Castro district and works on becoming the first openly gay elected official in the US, championing civil rights in a time when American gay rights were virtually non-existent. The biopic Milk documents Harvey’s rise: from the early days when he was simply “the mayor of Castro Street”, through several elections, his eventual appointment as one of 11 San Francisco city supervisors, to his untimely death in 1978.

Harvey Milk’s life is very well documented, so let’s focus on the movie instead. I’d heard of Milk way before the movie was ever advertised, when my friend (and then co-worker) Wolfi took the day off to work as an extra in the film’s crowd scenes that were being shot in San Francisco. To be honest, I didn’t know anything about Harvey Milk or what he stood for until I watched this movie. As I expected, Milk educated me very well in that regard and gave me a lot of appreciation for the history of the American gay rights movement.

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Silent Reviews

• RENT Live on Broadway (Blu-ray) – Yes
• Daytona 500…
  Gavin DeGraw’s national anthem – WTF?
  Digger Cartoons – No
  Race – No
• Food poisoning – NO

NASCAR Hauler Timelapse

Now that the 2009 NASCAR season is officially underway, I want to kick off my own season by posting the 2nd timelapse that I recorded when NASCAR was at Infineon Raceway in 2008.

This took about an hour in realtime.You can watch the other timelapse (filmed concurrently on the dragstrip) here.