Wonderful Matters

Right now I'm in the midst of industriously managing family affairs, teaching summer school, and trying to squeeze in assembling a decent home page piece for the next month's edition of my webzine. Most times all of this very much precludes me from blogging, but I have to get this down here, briefly (if I can!) I teach students U.S. Government at a high school. Part of their lessons involves immersing themselves in current events. This past two weeks we'd been mulling over two of the most publicized cases about which the Supreme Court has issued or will be issuing a ruling. It already announced its decision regarding the notoriously strict Arizona illegal immigration law. It had struck down some of it, kept some of it. So we talked about this and talked about that, in watching and listening to all that's said I'd been trying to make heads or tails of this part of it and that, I'd been seeing and hearing some people say this and some people say that... Unti...

We saw Prometheus the other night, and while it was enjoyable -- we saw it in IMAX 3D! Wow! -- I liked it less and less afterwards. I've always been a fan of the Alien series, particularly the first two, because even in all the alien creepiness there is a tremendously compelling aspect to the vibrant storytelling. I also just like good horror and sci-fi films. The two things that frustrated me most were, one, it was really just a remake of the first Alien . Really, it was as if Ridley Scott said to himself, "What would Alien be like if I made it today ?" He put in a few variations, used CGI a bit more (of course), but it really was exactly the same story. Same theme. Same motif. I even heard exactly the same music at times -- no, not similar music, but the exact same parts of the original Alien musical score. There was the gargantuan ship ( Prometheus=Nostromo ) and the scheming android (David=Ash) and the curmudgeonly crewmembers bickering over work and pay... I co...