OK, so the Oscars are coming, and I've been making an effort to see some films that I think/have thought might be recognized.
First, there's Gran Torino. This latest (and perhaps last) work by Clint Eastwood (director and lead actor) features the man himself playing a veteran of the Korean war living as a widower in an urban neighborhood that has seen better days. When the movie starts, he's a complete grouch, disgusted with his grandchildren, and suspicious of the Asian family that has moved in next door. Coincidentally, this family is missing a father figure, and the younger brother, Thao, in the family is facing troubled times, including bullying by a gang including one of his cousins. To impress the gang, Thao tries to steal Clint's 1973 Gran Torino, and fails when Clint interrupts him.
Well, you know where this is going. When the gang comes back to harrass Thao, Clint comes out with a rifle (shotgun?) and tells them "Get off my lawn!" Not much more of the plot needs to be said, but it's worth saying that the manner in which Clint warms up to the Asians is convincing. Particularly endearing is Ahney Her as the older sister Sue. Also playing a major role in the film is Christopher Carley as the local priest who's been tasked by Clint's late wife to look after him.
(BTW, Clint's character is named Walter Kowalski, but who cares?)
There are some great dialogues in this film and Clint manages to pull off the gruff curmudgeon reasonably well, in spite of the fact that this character type has been beaten to death over the years. (Walter Matthau played aging curmudgeons starting at the age of 28. Not a joke!) This film succeeds in spite of the fact that it lays on the patriarchy angle a bit thickly. It is worth seeing for the banter alone.
Next up: Slumdog Millionaire! This latest flick from Danny Boyle tells the story of a young Indian man named Jamal Malik on the cusp of winning the top prize from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The movie starts with him being taken by the police, beaten and electrocuted so he'll admit to having cheated. He has, at that point, reached the final stages of the show, and nobody can believe that a slumdog like Jamal could know all of the answers.
Most of the film is told in flashback, as Jamal slowly explains how he knows the answers, and in doing so, tells the story of his life. For example, the first question asks the name of the actor who starred in a certain film in the 70s. Jamal tells the story of how he, as a very young boy, got Amitabh Bachchan's autograph in spite of being locked in a latrine by his older brother Salim. He escaped the latrine by jumping out the bottom into the pile of shit, and made his way through the crowd. Jealous Salim then sold the autographed picture while Jamal was taking a bath.
We see the life of Jamal and Salim go from there - we see their mother slain during an anti-Muslim riot, and how they are exploited by an orphanage in a truly Dickensian manner. Along the way, the two of them join forces with a girl named Latika, who becomes to focus of Jamal's adoration.
Slumdog Millionaire has a lot of the elements that make a film enjoyable. For starters, it shows what life in India is like, and that is not something American audiences know a lot about. It has the story of spunky orphans turning to petty crime, and then we see how petty crime becomes much more serious. It has a love triangle of sorts, and the strength of the family ties between Jamal and Salim are shown as they are tested time and time again.
What I felt sets Slumdog Millionaire apart from so many films is that it tells an interesting story. So many films either recycle used plots are just sit there, saying very little of interest. Every scence of Slumdog shows me a new side of life in India, or develops the characters in an interesting way. By the end of the film, as Jamal struggles with the final few questions, I found myself nearly shouting out the answers at him, even for a question about cricket where I know as little as Jamal does. My only concern as the film moved forward was concern about how Danny Boyle films often lose focus towards the end. Trainspotting, Sunshine, and 28 Days Later all thrived for the first hour + and then lost a bit of their direction towards the end.
My concerns were unfounded. Slumdog is a very enjoyable film and, given the weakness of the competition this year, it's the odds-on favorite for Best Picture.
My final review of the day is about the Kate Winslet vehicle The Reader. It's become a bit of a joke that Kate Winslet has no Oscar yet. In recent years we've seen Oscars go to Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Charlize Theron, and Hillary Swank (twice!), none of whom is in Winslet's league as an actress. She joked about this for the Ricky Gervais show Extras, in which she played a nun fighting the Nazis.
One gets the suspicion that Winslet decided to push all the buttons with The Reader to go for the gold. Not only is she playing a former Nazi guard in a Holocaust story, she's also (minor spoiler) an illiterate hiding her lack of literacy! The film details an affair her character had during the late 50s, as a woman in her 30s with a local teenaged boy. Lots of sex ensues, but it didn't feel sexy so much as awkward and bizarre. The film really never addressed the bizarre nature of the affair directly (or adequately, IMO). And once it seems like it might be headed down that path, as the boy (played by David Kross) starts to flirt with girls his own age, and Hanna (Kate) starts getting jealous, the film up and cuts the affair off.
We fast forward nearly a decade. The boy, Michael, is now a law student, and his class attends the trial of several guards from Auschwitz. Included among the six women is, to his great suprise and astonishment, Kate! Um, Hanna. Without getting too much into the details, Michael knows that Hanna is being set up by the other guards to be more culpable than is fair, and she hides her (relative) innocence when her illiteracy would have given her a defense.
The film is somewhat maddening. The characters certainly are, as their motivations remain obscure. Winslet does a good job playing an inscrutable woman, but let's face it, "inscrutable" is pretty easy to do from an acting standpoint. I thought Kross did a very good job, and then later Ralph Fiennes shows up to play the adult Michael, by which point the film is starting to get very boring.
Somehow The Reader has gotten a Best Picture nomination. Suspicion is laid at the feet of the Weinstein brothers, who have managed to get nominations for all sorts of crap (remember Shakespeare in Love?) Winslet might even win this year. She's done better work: I'm a bigger fan of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and of Little Children. It's kind of sad that she's playing the Holocaust card and the illiteracy card here. I cannot recommend paying much money to see this film. Yes, Winslet is nude a lot, but anybody who calls this "soft-core porn" doesn't fathom porn at all. Y Tu Mama Tambien was soft-core porn. The Reader has a lot of sex, and yet it isn't terribly titillating.
Summary: of the three, Slumdog is the one to see. Gran Torino is also good, esp. for Eastwood fans. Winslet has done better.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Whee!!!
Look at this graph I purloined from Swampland:
I wonder when it will be considered "conventional wisdom" that this generation of Republican leaders is just a bunch of self-serving idiots?
Poor Hunter S. Thompson. He saw all of this clearly over twenty years ago, but despaired at the lack of justice in the world.
I wonder when it will be considered "conventional wisdom" that this generation of Republican leaders is just a bunch of self-serving idiots?
Poor Hunter S. Thompson. He saw all of this clearly over twenty years ago, but despaired at the lack of justice in the world.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
media death and the importance of blogging
Was pointed by Atrios to this article by Jay Rosen about the way the mass media frames the boundaries of consensus and "legitimate debate". It's pretty good. I won't repeat what he says since you can just click through. But basically it's about the cognitive shortcomings of the press when they decide certain issues are part of the "consensus" mindset while other opinions are "extremist". This model explains how Howard Dean is portrayed as a lunatic extremist in 2004 for putting forth the same ideas about withdrawal from Iraq that are part of the national consensus (outside the corridors of power, of course) by 2008.
I also heard last night that the Christian Science Monitor is going to stop killing as many trees, and only go with a print edition once per week. My mom subscribed to this paper when I was a kid, and I always thought it did a decent job. They seemed to do a better job with foreign policy than almost every major newspaper did. While listening to the story of their demise, it occurred to me that the death of the daily newspaper is inevitable. I'm sure this is not a new idea, but it had never been made so clear to me.
Finally, I'll add a note about Mickey Edwards. I heard him on NPR last night and I was impressed. He's a Republican and former Bush supporter who, curiously, is one of the few people who is willing to talk about the constant and egregious violations of the law and Constitution that Bush has engaged in over the past 8 years. For some reason, the world of debate that the media has created simply refuses to allow for the idea that Bush has been consistently violating the law and abusing power for the past 8 years. From my standpoint, it's the most obvious thing to see, but the media don't even allow discussion along these lines to ever be aired.
And that is part of why the mainstream media are held in such contempt by so many people these days.
I also heard last night that the Christian Science Monitor is going to stop killing as many trees, and only go with a print edition once per week. My mom subscribed to this paper when I was a kid, and I always thought it did a decent job. They seemed to do a better job with foreign policy than almost every major newspaper did. While listening to the story of their demise, it occurred to me that the death of the daily newspaper is inevitable. I'm sure this is not a new idea, but it had never been made so clear to me.
Finally, I'll add a note about Mickey Edwards. I heard him on NPR last night and I was impressed. He's a Republican and former Bush supporter who, curiously, is one of the few people who is willing to talk about the constant and egregious violations of the law and Constitution that Bush has engaged in over the past 8 years. For some reason, the world of debate that the media has created simply refuses to allow for the idea that Bush has been consistently violating the law and abusing power for the past 8 years. From my standpoint, it's the most obvious thing to see, but the media don't even allow discussion along these lines to ever be aired.
And that is part of why the mainstream media are held in such contempt by so many people these days.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Bill James on the BCS
More precisely, Bill James on the abomination known as the Bowl Championship Series.
James echoes the argument made by Hal S. Stern in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis of Sports against statisticians' participation in the sham known as the BCS.
Stern says:
James feels most strongly about 3), pointing out correctly that it makes no sense to involve statisticians when the purpose of their involvement is never defined. Are the rankings supposed to find the team that is most likely to win any head-to-head contest? Or the team that has been the most dominant over the course of the season?
Worse, as James points out, after 2001 any "computer rankings" used by the BCS have been prohibited from using data about the scoring margin when calculating rankings. The professed nobility of this decision was to keep teams (like Nebraska at the time) from running up the scores against weaker opponents.
From a learning theory standpoint (my field), this is breathtakingly stupid. Statisticians are instructed to ignore possibly the most interesting data from each and every contest. Information discarded can only make the resulting system weaker. Thus is, to choose a random example, Rutgers beats Va. Tech by 1 point while Maryland beats them by 55 points, the rating system is instructed to view each game only as "a win".
The decision to exclude margin of victory in any rankings reminds me of the decision of the IOC to ban site visits when deciding to choose the locations of future Olympics. Yes, there has been a lot of abuse of site visits, but the solution surely would have been to have more oversight and regulation of site visits, rather than jettisoning the practice entirely! How can a voter from Oceania decide between a site in Brazil and one in South Africa without being allowed to visit the locations? It's madness! Yes, it can be done, but it's silly to go down that path at all!
I would say that I'm participating in the "boycott" of the BCS, but it would be more honest to say simply that the way the system has been constructed has left me feeling that it's more of a PR exercise than a serious attempt to find out who the best team is. Regardless of who wins the Oklahoma-Florida game, you're going to be hard-pressed to convince me that the team in question is better than USC or Texas.
And that doesn't even bring up Utah, which has gone undefeated including an impressive bowl win over Alabama!
College football needed a playoff including all of the following teams: Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Penn State, Florida, and Alabama. If the ACC and Big East need to feel relevant, invite Cincinnati and Va. Tech. But really you shouldn't. You'd have been more justified inviting Boise State. Texas Tech is out for being blown out by Oklahoma.
If you are seriously interested in finding the "best" team, then at least the first seven teams should be invited. And yes, I know winning a tournament isn't the same as being the "best team" (see last year's NFL season, for example), but winning a tournament is surely better than winning a single game when participation in the game is based entirely on the arbitrary judgments of voters.
James echoes the argument made by Hal S. Stern in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis of Sports against statisticians' participation in the sham known as the BCS.
Stern says:
- That there is a profound lack of conceptual clarity about the goals of the method;
- That there is no genuine interest here in using statistical analysis to figure out how the teams compare with one another. The real purpose is to create some gobbledygook math to endorse the coaches' and sportswriters' vote;
- That the ground rules of the calculations are irrational and prevent the statisticians from making any meaningful contribution; and
- That the existence of this system has the purpose of justifying a few rich conferences in hijacking the search for a national title, avoiding a postseason tournament that would be preferred by the overwhelming majority of fans.
James feels most strongly about 3), pointing out correctly that it makes no sense to involve statisticians when the purpose of their involvement is never defined. Are the rankings supposed to find the team that is most likely to win any head-to-head contest? Or the team that has been the most dominant over the course of the season?
Worse, as James points out, after 2001 any "computer rankings" used by the BCS have been prohibited from using data about the scoring margin when calculating rankings. The professed nobility of this decision was to keep teams (like Nebraska at the time) from running up the scores against weaker opponents.
From a learning theory standpoint (my field), this is breathtakingly stupid. Statisticians are instructed to ignore possibly the most interesting data from each and every contest. Information discarded can only make the resulting system weaker. Thus is, to choose a random example, Rutgers beats Va. Tech by 1 point while Maryland beats them by 55 points, the rating system is instructed to view each game only as "a win".
The decision to exclude margin of victory in any rankings reminds me of the decision of the IOC to ban site visits when deciding to choose the locations of future Olympics. Yes, there has been a lot of abuse of site visits, but the solution surely would have been to have more oversight and regulation of site visits, rather than jettisoning the practice entirely! How can a voter from Oceania decide between a site in Brazil and one in South Africa without being allowed to visit the locations? It's madness! Yes, it can be done, but it's silly to go down that path at all!
I would say that I'm participating in the "boycott" of the BCS, but it would be more honest to say simply that the way the system has been constructed has left me feeling that it's more of a PR exercise than a serious attempt to find out who the best team is. Regardless of who wins the Oklahoma-Florida game, you're going to be hard-pressed to convince me that the team in question is better than USC or Texas.
And that doesn't even bring up Utah, which has gone undefeated including an impressive bowl win over Alabama!
College football needed a playoff including all of the following teams: Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, USC, Penn State, Florida, and Alabama. If the ACC and Big East need to feel relevant, invite Cincinnati and Va. Tech. But really you shouldn't. You'd have been more justified inviting Boise State. Texas Tech is out for being blown out by Oklahoma.
If you are seriously interested in finding the "best" team, then at least the first seven teams should be invited. And yes, I know winning a tournament isn't the same as being the "best team" (see last year's NFL season, for example), but winning a tournament is surely better than winning a single game when participation in the game is based entirely on the arbitrary judgments of voters.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
My letter from Citibank
Dear Taxpayer,
As you have read in the latest news, our financial institution has undergone some tough times. Some may say that we have brought this upon ourselves with our aggressive, high-risk approach to banking. And it's true that we've needed the intervention of the Federal government to stay solvent.
Like in 1929.
And in 1982.
And in the 90s.
And, well, this week.
Since we are feeling a bit guilty about our repeated inability to police our own actions, and our constant need for taxpayer help, we've decided to give you, a Citibank credit card holder and American taxpayer, a 6-month interest holiday. Congratulations!
Sincerely,
Citibank
(OK, that's what I think they should write.)
So, on the day I read about Citigroup's gotten an infusion of $20 billion from the US government, as well as a guarantee backing hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans made by Citigroup, the following is an abridged version of the letter I've actually gotten from Citibank.
Notice of Change in Terms and Right to Opt Out
The Changes.
We are changing your Card Agreement. The changes will be effective for all billing periods beginning on or after December 3, 2008. The changes will be effective whether or not you receive a billing statement.
1. We are changing the following sections regarding APRs:
Default APR:
All your APRs (including promotional APRs) on all balances may automatically increase to the default APR if you
- do not make the minimum payment when due
- go over the credit line
- make a payment that is not honored
The default APR equals the greater of (1) the Prime Rate plus up to 23.99% or (2) up to 29.99%.
(snip)
I really find the timing of this mind-boggling. Back when I first got this card, it was literally illegal (I believe) for any credit card to have a rate over 19.99%.
Bankers run an industry that has not developed a new product in millenia. It's always just money, in one form or another. So how have they maintained the illusion of a growth industry? By perfecting the art of predatory practices. The subprime loans that helped scuttle the mortgage industry are one example, and the predatory practices of the credit card industry are another.
It seems to me that, if the taxpayers are going to be asked to foot the bill to cover all the mistakes made by banks in the past decade, the least they could offer in return would be a cessation of the predatory practices that turn credit card debt into a disaster for so many Americans.
We could have
- a hard limit on maximum interest rates that is much closer to the prime rate. It makes no sense to have the Fed continually dropping the prime rate while letting the big banks charge 25% or more on credit cards
- regulation on the practices of assigning punitive fees and jacking up rates on credit card holders in tough times
It seems very weird to me that when Citigroup makes bad decisions, I have to pay, but if I make bad decisions (hypothetically), I have to pay.
Can we get President Obama and our Democratic Congress to do something to help credit card holders as a quid pro quo for the fact that we're getting stuck with the bill for their bad loan decisions?
Details on Citigroup's history from an article by Annys Shin.
(Cross-posted as diary at DailyKos)
As you have read in the latest news, our financial institution has undergone some tough times. Some may say that we have brought this upon ourselves with our aggressive, high-risk approach to banking. And it's true that we've needed the intervention of the Federal government to stay solvent.
Like in 1929.
And in 1982.
And in the 90s.
And, well, this week.
Since we are feeling a bit guilty about our repeated inability to police our own actions, and our constant need for taxpayer help, we've decided to give you, a Citibank credit card holder and American taxpayer, a 6-month interest holiday. Congratulations!
Sincerely,
Citibank
(OK, that's what I think they should write.)
So, on the day I read about Citigroup's gotten an infusion of $20 billion from the US government, as well as a guarantee backing hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans made by Citigroup, the following is an abridged version of the letter I've actually gotten from Citibank.
Notice of Change in Terms and Right to Opt Out
The Changes.
We are changing your Card Agreement. The changes will be effective for all billing periods beginning on or after December 3, 2008. The changes will be effective whether or not you receive a billing statement.
1. We are changing the following sections regarding APRs:
Default APR:
All your APRs (including promotional APRs) on all balances may automatically increase to the default APR if you
- do not make the minimum payment when due
- go over the credit line
- make a payment that is not honored
The default APR equals the greater of (1) the Prime Rate plus up to 23.99% or (2) up to 29.99%.
(snip)
I really find the timing of this mind-boggling. Back when I first got this card, it was literally illegal (I believe) for any credit card to have a rate over 19.99%.
Bankers run an industry that has not developed a new product in millenia. It's always just money, in one form or another. So how have they maintained the illusion of a growth industry? By perfecting the art of predatory practices. The subprime loans that helped scuttle the mortgage industry are one example, and the predatory practices of the credit card industry are another.
It seems to me that, if the taxpayers are going to be asked to foot the bill to cover all the mistakes made by banks in the past decade, the least they could offer in return would be a cessation of the predatory practices that turn credit card debt into a disaster for so many Americans.
We could have
- a hard limit on maximum interest rates that is much closer to the prime rate. It makes no sense to have the Fed continually dropping the prime rate while letting the big banks charge 25% or more on credit cards
- regulation on the practices of assigning punitive fees and jacking up rates on credit card holders in tough times
It seems very weird to me that when Citigroup makes bad decisions, I have to pay, but if I make bad decisions (hypothetically), I have to pay.
Can we get President Obama and our Democratic Congress to do something to help credit card holders as a quid pro quo for the fact that we're getting stuck with the bill for their bad loan decisions?
Details on Citigroup's history from an article by Annys Shin.
(Cross-posted as diary at DailyKos)
Monday, November 03, 2008
election predictions
Well, it has become the fashion to publish predictions for the election. I just follow the news, but what the heck, seeing as I pick football games every weekend, why not do so for the election?
PRESIDENTIAL
Well, of course Obama wins. He's well ahead in many of the polls.
As to the State-by-State particulars...
for starters, Obama will probably win every Kerry state. The only one that might flip is New Hampshire. McCain has been putting a lot of effort into trying to make a dent in Pennsylvania, but it will be for naught. I even think that he might know that, but feels that he has to make the effort, or else it will be obvious that he's given up.
For poll details, I suggest FiveThirtyEight.com.
The Bush states where Obama has been leading in polls include
Iowa (+>10%), New Mexico (+8-17%), Colorado (+4-10%), Virginia (+4-9%), Ohio (-2-+9%), Nevada (+4-10%). These have been leads of a reasonably consistent margin.
Other possibilities include Florida and North Carolina, where Nate Silver's simulations tend to favor Obama. Next in line is Missouri, which is the nearest thing to a true toss-up we see.
Red states that might flip in a true landslide include Indiana, Georgia, Montana, and North Dakota.
When I add the states in the first group to Obama's column, his total rises to 311. If I put all the states in the last group into McCain's column, he's at 174.
I'm going to put NC in McCain's column, and FL and MO in Obama's column. The last two are a bit dicey, as both states are notorious for voter suppression. But, what the heck, eh?
If all of this happens, Obama will win 349-189.
PoD says Obama will get 326. He flips NC, FL, and MO from my picks.
Landru says the exact same, but informs me "I said so first".
OK, so now I've changed my mind and switched NC and MO. That would make it 353 for Obama, 185 for McCain.
I have nothing to add about the House or Senate races.
PRESIDENTIAL
Well, of course Obama wins. He's well ahead in many of the polls.
As to the State-by-State particulars...
for starters, Obama will probably win every Kerry state. The only one that might flip is New Hampshire. McCain has been putting a lot of effort into trying to make a dent in Pennsylvania, but it will be for naught. I even think that he might know that, but feels that he has to make the effort, or else it will be obvious that he's given up.
For poll details, I suggest FiveThirtyEight.com.
The Bush states where Obama has been leading in polls include
Iowa (+>10%), New Mexico (+8-17%), Colorado (+4-10%), Virginia (+4-9%), Ohio (-2-+9%), Nevada (+4-10%). These have been leads of a reasonably consistent margin.
Other possibilities include Florida and North Carolina, where Nate Silver's simulations tend to favor Obama. Next in line is Missouri, which is the nearest thing to a true toss-up we see.
Red states that might flip in a true landslide include Indiana, Georgia, Montana, and North Dakota.
When I add the states in the first group to Obama's column, his total rises to 311. If I put all the states in the last group into McCain's column, he's at 174.
I'm going to put NC in McCain's column, and FL and MO in Obama's column. The last two are a bit dicey, as both states are notorious for voter suppression. But, what the heck, eh?
If all of this happens, Obama will win 349-189.
PoD says Obama will get 326. He flips NC, FL, and MO from my picks.
Landru says the exact same, but informs me "I said so first".
OK, so now I've changed my mind and switched NC and MO. That would make it 353 for Obama, 185 for McCain.
I have nothing to add about the House or Senate races.
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