Back to Some Random Thoughts

While I am still researching the question of how much oil is left on the planet (I've got some rough estimates but they are from wikipedia and I'd like to get some more solid sources) there are a whole bunch of other thoughts I've had over the past couple of days.

The Summer Movie Season

Last year's summer movie season was touted as "The Summer of Sequels" and it certainly lived up to that name. Of the 16 summer movies that made over $100 million, 12 of them were either direct sequels, remakes, or were based on long-running tv shows (in other words, they were not original works). This included Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Simpsons Movie, Rush Hour 3, Live Free or Die Hard, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Evan Almighty, and Hairspray. If you're curious, the 4 that did represent "original" works were Ratatouille, Superbad, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and Knocked Up. I have nothing specifically against sequels, and I will admit that I have seen all but 3 of the previously mentioned films (Evan Almighty, Hairspray, and Harry Potter because that was the one book in the series I hated). I figured if Hollywood was going to advertise it as "Summer of the Sequel", that must mean it was a rare, near fluke occurrence that all these just happened to come out in one summer. Well, now here we are heading into the next summer and, appropriately, this looks to be "Summer of the Sequel II: Even Sequelier" (or "Sequel Harder" if you are a Kevin Smith or Die Hard fan). This summer we get: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Incredible Hulk, Speed Racer, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Sex and the City, Get Smart, Hellboy 2, The Dark Knight, X-Files 2, and The Mummy 3. Even one of the "original" works is Iron Man and considering it's the umpteenth summer superhero movie and is based on a 45-year old comic book character I'm not sure how "original" you can claim it is. Balanced against that, I could only find 7 other likely hits coming out this summer (Kung-Fu Panda, You Don't Mess With the Zoltan, The Happening, Hancock, Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder).

I remember in 1997 when I heard that the movie Good Burger had just been released I asked "Has Hollywood just completely run out of ideas?" And now I ask the same question again. Unfortunately, the answer is actually worse than that. Now moreso than ever, big studios are hesitant to dump big money into something that may turn into a colossal failure. It doesn't take many Waterworlds to make you gunshy. At the same time, executives hold on with an icy death grip the rights to any film that ends up profitable and has any form of sequel potential (i.e. every film in the eyes of studio execs). Maybe it was just my perception, but it used to be that you made a movie and if it turned out to be a success, you'd see if maybe you could get everyone back together and catch lightning in a bottle again. Sequels were the exception. Now, they are the rule. Almost every major film and tv deal has a clause locking them up for a number of sequels just on the off chance the studio decides it wants to make them. This becomes particularly frustrating for fans of a show like Firefly that was cancelled by Fox after 6 episodes; yet they own the rights to it for 10 years. Thus even if a network like Sci-Fi wanted to pick it up, they can't because Fox would rather see the show dead than have it become a hit somewhere else and make them look stupid(er). Fortunately, at the same time all this is happening in the major studios, technology has progressed to the point where really high quality films can be made for progressively cheaper and as a result we are seeing some of the best independent films ever made. The only problem is that unless you are a hardcore film geek (like me) you aren't seeing any advertising for them and you probably don't even know that they exist.

And now, just to undercut everything I've just said, I've heard that Iron Man is really good and I'm excited to go see it this weekend.

Obamania!

Well, Indiana couldn't quite come through for me with a Barrack victory, but the result is much the same and the race is, for all intents and purposes, over. A lot of people are wondering why Clinton hasn't already dropped out. There's actually a couple legitimate reasons why she hasn't (well, one legitimate, and one selfish). The selfish reason is that she loaned her campaign over $11 million, and if she drops out now it's all a complete loss. She's in a position now where she can continue to raise money and not have to spend a lot since she's heavily favored in both West Virginia and Kentucky and they are small media markets anyway. The hope on her part will be that after 2 weeks she will have enough campaign cash to pay herself back. Let me just add that even though I said this was selfish I don't blame her. $11 million is a lot to eat, even for millionaires like the Clinton family. The legitimate reason for her to stay in the race is, ironically, as a courtesy to Obama. Much like it was a little embarassing for McCain when Huckabee kept winning southern states after the race was over, it would be embarassing to Obama to still lose West Virginia and Kentucky with Clinton gone (which he still would). With her still as a candidate, she can give one more victory speech next Tuesday in West Virginia (which should also help fundraising) and then go out on a semi-high note the following Tuesday when they split Kentucky and Oregon on May 20th. May 20th is really the key date here, because that will be the day that Obama is projected to go over the halfway mark of all delegates (pledged and super), thus finally making it mathematically impossible for her to catch him. Hence, we should be looking towards the evening of May 20th or the afternoon of May 21st for her to officially withdraw from the race. The only possible reason she would have to stay in after that point is to make good on her commitment to make sure Michigan and Florida delegates are seated (which they will be regardless, now that it won't matter). That meeting occurs on May 31st. Well, I guess there's another reason she could choose to stay in after that: just to be a bitch.

So now that the field looks to be officially set for November, the next question will be who the VP picks will be. I have absolutely no idea who McCain is going to pick. The hip pick of the moment from pundits is Condoleeza Rice, which would make sense in a weird sort of way, but I don't see it happening just because it gives the Democrats way too much fuel to continue to hammer that McCain represents "a 3rd term of George Bush". On the Obama side, though, I see a clear front runner, and it's Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell. It makes a ton of sense to me (much moreso than the "dream ticket" of Obama-Clinton) but rather than expound on the reasons, since I'm getting long-winded anyway, the reasons are laid out very nicely in this article (http://tinyurl.com/69xyq6) so you can read it if you are interested.

Also, just to finish my thoughts on the Democratic primary, there is a good article describing the mistakes that Clinton made here: http://tinyurl.com/3za5nd. Nothing mind-blowing here, but it's a good summation.

Books

As I mentioned before, one of the things I was most looking forward to after being done with the CPA was getting back to reading. In the last 2 weeks I've finished two books, and they were both excellent. The first was The Teapot Dome Scandal by Laton McCartney. It is a fascinating true story about a political scandal that most people only know by name. It is about how Big Oil literally bought the Republican nomination for Warren Harding in exchange for an agreement that he would make one of their people Secretary of the Interior, who would in turn open up the Teapot Dome oil fields (they were naval reserves at the time) for private drilling. It is all the old-time, smoke-filled room, underhanded bribes with stacks of money in suitcases changing hands that people imagine when they thing corrupt politics. One of the most amazing things comes right at the beginning. At the 1920 Republican convention, the clear favorite was General Wood. After the first round of votes he had far more votes than any candidate, just not enough to get the nomination. Here's the thing, though; he wouldn't cut a deal. The party leaders and members from the oil company came to him and tried to make the same deal with him that Harding had. He refused. Then they said, over a phone call, "Ok, well just give promise us any 3 cabinet posts." At this point, his political advisor covered the phone up and said to Wood, "with one word here, you will be the next President". His response was "I am my own man, and I will make my own decisions. I promise nothing." And with that, the nomination went to Harding. I read that and had great ambivalence. On one hand, I thought "What an idiot! He had it wrapped up!" and at the same time I thought "Wow! That's some amazing ethical principles to turn that down. Think of what kind of a President someone with those kind of morals could have been!" Unfortunately, we'll never get to know, and General Wood will forever just be a small footnote in U.S. history.

The second book I read was The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. This story has gotten a lot of press lately, but for those that may not have heard about it here's a quick recap. A lot of universities have professors give a "last lecture". It's supposed to be a hypothetical situation where if you knew you were dying and that this would be your final lecture what would you say that you would want to be remembered for? Well, in the case of Randy Pausch, there was nothing hypothetical about it. He had recently been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and knew he had less than a year to live. This book is an expansion of the lecture he gave and, really, is a gift to his kids (who are 6, 4, and 18 months) to try and teach them the things he would have tried to if he had lived another 20 years. He gave the lecture in September of 2007 and is, as of today, still alive. It is one thing to read about someone post-humously who exhibited tremendouns bravery when facing death. But there is something even more surreal to read about someone and to know that this person is still doing it right now. The book is all at once touching, wise, uplifting, sad, happy, and heartbreaking. You can read about his story at http://www.thelastlecture.com/; he also has a link to his blog and health report there too.

The book I have just begun now is The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, who is one of my favorite political pundits. I highly recommend that you read the book if you have any interest at all in global politics and economics and the place the U.S. is likely to have in it in the 21st century. For a great summary of the main ideas in the book, though, head on over to http://www.charlierose.com/ and catch the interview with him from May 1st. Truly fascinating stuff (at least to me).

OK, I think that does it for me today. Should find out about the CPA in ~ 1 week. Have a good weekend everyone and Happy Mother's Day!