The "Strange Doctrines" Undercroft

Born Losers

This WaPo article reminds me that I'd wanted to briefly blog my reaction to the film Sideways:

1. Paul Giamatti's character is a complete schmuck, but exudes so much pathos that I find myself getting teary-eyed several times. Why is it that in a movie you can have so much empathy with a character when in real life the same personality traits would mostly elicit your exasperation?
2. Great wine talk. Still...it may well be impressive that wine tasters can differentiate the finest details in color, aroma, bouquet, flavor, etc. But at the end of the day, you know, we're still talking about different kinds of spoiled grape juice.

Elmer Bernstein Dies

Legendary film composer Elmer Bernstein dies and not one lousy post from any of my blog feeds yet. It's an outrage. The papers mention Bernstein's scores for The Magnificent Seven (great), Cape Fear (cool) and Airplane! (brilliant because Bernstein plays it entirely straight the whole way). Interesting thing: None of the accounts I've read mentions Bernstein's Coplandesque theme for the National Geographic specials back in the '60s. Yet surely that piece is iconic--perhaps the single most recognizeable thing Bernstein ever did. In fact, Cheech Marin immortalized it in one of the Cheech and Chong movies, setting it to the following lyric:

Look at that old man, he looks like a big ape, DUM DUM.

That's when Bernstein must have known he'd made it.

Observations Upon Seeing Fahrenheit 9/11

1. Michael Moore is a flawed and manipulative documentarian. 2. Every American voter should see Fahrenheit 9/11.

Off to Never Never Land

The NYT profiles an upcoming documentary that captures Metallica in group therapy. (Trailer here.) Fascinating. (Via Ann Althouse.)