Surprised it took this long

So this appeared recently in the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame:

Yes, it's a mural of a guy who looks an awful lot like George Zimmerman, shooting someone in a hoodie with the image of Martin Luther King hovering nearby. The face of the hoodie victim is actually a mirror, so you can see yourself as a victim, or something.

Since in nine cases out of ten, young black men are shot by other young black men, shouldn't the shooter here be, you know, another guy in a hoodie?

Or perhaps the shooter should be covered in blood, with a broken nose and be lying on his back while the mirror-faced hoodie wearer delivers a ground-and-pound beating? You know, like what was actually happening?

And what the f*ck does Martin Luther King have to do with a drug-dealing, trouble-making, thug-in-training dude in a hoodie anyway?

Just wondering.

And btw, before you think I'm jumping to conclusions here about the artist's intentions, I believe the mural is titled "We are all Trayvon Martin" or something to that effect.

Life imitating art?

So I was watching Robocop 2 tonight, and I was kind of struck by the fact that either life sort of imitates art, or we just always have the same sorts of things going on and we don't realize it.

Made in 1990, the movie features a story and screenplay by Frank Miller, the wonderful writer behind 300, The Dark Night Returns, Sin City, and some of the best storylines in comics like Daredevil and The Punisher.

You've got a bankrupt Detroit in the movie -- now, yeah...same thing. People making the case that legalized drugs will reduce crime and put more people to work making the drugs -- see marijuana, medical. Civil servants (cops in the movie) on strike for wages and benefits -- pretty much any state with a Republican governor trying to make budget. And so on.

The overly PC people in the movie cramming Robocop's head full of touchy-feely directives -- address environmental concerns, stop shooting "that big gun of his" be a better role model, get a consensus before you act, etc. Doesn't that sound like every pantiwaist whiny liberal you hear on tv today?

And I love the commercial for the blue stuff to slather on to spend some time by the pool because of the hole in the ozone. Of course, like all climite hysteria, that was a load of crap too. But funny to look back and see something about it in a movie. It's like picking up a magazine from the 70s and seeing one of those articles about how half of North America would be covered in ice by 1985 because of global cooling. Oops . . .

One other thing I liked was the deliciously evil Dr. Faxx, played by underrated beauty Belinda Bauer. I think she writes crime novels or something now, but here's a shot of her on the cover of Esquire circa 1977 looking pretty hot in those halcyon days of no Photoshop:

Movie review -- Walled In

This is a little straight-to-video foreign flick that caught my eye a while back. I think it's an underrated little movie, so I figured I would give it a little write up in my underrated movie reviews. heh

Before the title credits roll, we get a disturbing opening -- a young girl, eight-ish, is in a small, enclosed space. She awakens to her predicament and begins crying for her mother and father. Soon concrete begins pouring in at her feet. The level rises slowly as she screams, until just her face is showing -- then the screen goes black.

rugged

We're then introduced to Sam Walzcak, played by Mischa Barton. She's the stereotyped "first in our family" to graduate from college and she's getting a birthday party. We're informed that the Walzcak's "blow sh*t up" which is to say, they are in the demolition business. And as a birthday present, Sam is being given the opportunity to engineer a demolition on her own. As a bonus, Sam is also given two tickets to a tour of the architectural wonders of Europe to share with the professor she's been sleeping with while in college.

Off she goes to the building, out in the middle of some nowhere marsh-land town called Grand Ridge. The building was built by famed architect Malestrazza who has a reputation for putting up indestructible buildings that remain standing after all manner of natural disasters.

It's an odd looking structure, I'm sure created by CGI, but they did their job making it sort of creepy looking. The interior is dark and stark. The entry foyer has columns with an odd silvery-gold detail on the lower third. Plus the lights go out every six minutes in the hallways -- you know that's going to cause problems at some point. Basically, the building is another character in the movie, and a well done one at that.

Sam meets two of the building four occupants right away. The caretaker -- Mary, played by Deborah Kara Unger and her son Jimmy, played by Cameron Bright. Both Unger and Bright have their creepiness dialed up to eleven for the movie, and I doubt the casting could have been any better.

As Sam begins her work, measuring the building for demolition, she begins to find that things are not quite right there. The interior measurements don't match the plans. Plus Sam is hearing things in the walls and having scary dreams.

Not only that, the building itself has a sordid history -- it's home to the infamous "Walled in murders" some 15 years before. It turns out that during construction, 16 people were murdered and sealed up in the walls of the building, including Malestrazza himself. And Jimmie's father as well.

Also causing problems is the fact that 25 year old Sam is mildly flirtatious with 15 year old Jimmy in the way older girls often are with younger boys they find non-threatening. Jimmy plays Sam adroitly, alternating scary anecdotes and cruel pranks with kindly help and advices. His statement at one point "I tell stories, I don't lie" should have been a warning to Sam, who doesn't see Jimmie for what he may be. But it is obvious he is infatuated with her . . . perhaps too much so.

When Sam's boyfriend, the professor, shows up, things go quickly downhill. On the verge of abandoning her job because of all the bizarre and frightening occurrences, Sam is coerced into staying by Jimmie who gives her Malestrazza's notebook. It contains the actual plans to the building which show a hidden interior and his thoughts on the primitive belief that buildings can be strengthened by embedding the spiritual energy of the living within them.

Desperate to find that hidden interior, Sam becomes trapped in the building. She awakens bloodied, nude and with a sprained ankle. And there's someone else in the nearly pitch black octagonal room with her. Who is he? And does he mean to harm her?

Sam's trapped, her boyfriend is dead and the demolition crew is coming. I won't spoil it for you, but the movie plays out pretty well from there on out. Several things caught me by surprise, which I like. And the ending didn't seem contrived at all. Promoted as a horror flick, it's really a psychological thriller and a moody, dark one at that.

Barton does a good job with the role. She manages the varying emotions quite believably. Made in 2007, Mischa, whose body weight has wildly fluctuated through the years, was beginning to fill out a bit. So she's delightfully muffin-topping her jeans in this, which I like. They also went light on the make-up. Mischa's actually quite pretty and I think it was a good look for her. Plus I noticed a slight y-shaped scar under her left eye that I've never noticed before. Real? If so, it was a nice touch to leave it in.

No nudity, some pg-13 sex, and the blood isn't overwhelming. As I said -- I think it is an underrated movie and worth watching if you get the chance. Don't know if you should spend money to see it, but definitely, if it comes around on cable again, give it a look -- recommended.

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Did you find this review helpful? Check out my other reviews for my thoughts on the flicks and the occasional gallery of hotness that accompanies them:

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And speaking of occasional galleries of hotness, here's some sexy images of Mischa Barton to finish things off nicely:

Helen Hunt in a one-piece = respectable

Helen Hunt went out paddleboarding or surfing, not sure which recently and did a good job rockin' the one piece swimsuit. Can't tell if it's the harsh outdoor light or what, but her face looks a little botox-y, which is a shame. She should take her cue from the smokin' hot Helen Mirren and let herself age naturally.

No matter . . . still works for me :-)

Hackers are entrepreneurs too, you know

I always like to think of myself as one of the earliest hackers. Back in 1975, my buddies and I in high school developed a program to steal the passwords of other high schools that enabled them to log onto the server at the local science center.

Back in those days, it was all chunka-chunka Telex paper print outs, programs stored on punch tape, no crt's, and the servers ran on the high-speed spinning tape drives you see in old movies. Our program had to be manually loaded into each high school's computer as it was online. Labor intensive, but it worked.

Of course, programming and the internet have raced past me at light speed now. I'm barely able to do basic html scripting. But others, well . . .

In a Wall Street Journal article recently, Jennifer Valentino-Devries and Danny Yadron bring to light some pretty alarming developments in hacking technology and exactly who is using them.

The FBI not only employs hackers, but outsources to private companies creating hacking software to gain the upper hand in the surveillance of suspects who've gone off the grid, so to speak. They currently have software that can remotely activate the microphones on Android powered cell phones so that they can record conversations. Apparently they can also do the same to certain laptops. So that bit in the second Batman movie wasn't exactly fantasy after all.

Eesh!

One such private supplier of this software, the UK based Gamma International supplies what they call "0 day exploits" -- spyware that exploits holes in software the providers don't know about yet, such as Internet Explorer.

Google, the creator of Android, and Microsoft obviously won't comment on the possible vulnerability of their software. But you don't have to be a genius to realize that the more complex the software, the easier it is to find a chink in the armor that hopefully protects it. Apple's proprietary software protected it initially, but even they are now vulnerable as they expand their compatibility to other systems.

All this comes as a disturbing addendum to the data mining by the NSA. Like most, I'm torn where to come down on that business. We want to be able to track terrorists and criminals, but we also want our privacy protected. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be a way to do both. As we've seen with the current scandals in Washington, trusting government to do the right thing is kinda hard these days. We have a President using supposedly independent agencies like the IRS to target his political enemies and a supposedly independent press giving him cover for it. How can we trust these people to do the right thing with our private information?

It has been pointed out frequently that the very freedoms that make this the greatest country on Earth, also make us vulnerable to those with bad intentions toward us. We shouldn't have to worry about those we charge with protecting us as well.

No Michelle, I haven't forgotten

The US Army is finally conducting the trial of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan after years of waiting. Michelle Malkin has an excellent article at her website detailing many of the forgotten facts about this act of terrorism. I won't bother to excerpt it here, you should go and read it and the accompanying articles for yourself.

As I said in the title to this post, I haven't forgotten about this tragedy . . . because my son was based at Ft. Hood when it happened. It was the most frightening moment of my life. Sitting at home, seeing the news flash on television and realizing my only child was in the midst of a terrorist attack.

I managed to get him via text message, and since the base was in a lock-down condition, I relayed what they were saying on the news to him so that he could pass that on to his comrades. Finally getting through on phone . . . hearing the incredulity in his voice as he relayed the news to others that it was a Major doing the killing . . . can't ever forget that.

But I have also not forgotten the coward-in-chief, our Islamic terrorist appeasing President calling this an incident of "workplace violence". Perhaps one of the most shameful moments of any President in my lifetime.

In the days subsequent to the attack at Ft. Hood, I kept in closer contact with my son than usual. I passed along a news report that said that Hasan, who was still in the hospital recovering from the bullet wounds he suffered in his capture, was too weak to stand trial. My son suggested they simply strap him onto his gurney and stand him before a firing squad.

My thoughts exactly! Send this f*cker to his 72 virgins and be done with him!

You've got to be kidding me!

So I pop over to the Red Sox site to see how the guys are doing in their second game against the last place Astros after being shut out in the first game, and they're getting clobbered again. Might have been something like 7-2 in the fourth inning, but I'm not sure.

They decided to try Steven Wright, the knuckleballer they brought up from the minors who's done well out of the pen, as a starter. Well, kid's no Tim Wakefield as he barely lasted an inning, getting shelled for three quick runs. And the apparent rout was on.

I say apparent, because I just checked back and the score is now 15-9 Red Sox in the top of the 7th! WTF?! I cannot wait to see the box score for this game, 'cause someone got lit up here! Wow!

My initial idea for this post was to wonder why they were starting this kid Wright, when they've got an up-and-coming guy in Brandon Workman who looks to be a solid starter. But I guess that's sort of a moot point now.

With the Rays lurking only a half game back, I don't think this is the time for Farrell to be experimenting with starting pitchers. Kind of need to win games now, you know?

Update:
So checking the wrap up, I'm guessing Farrell pulled Wright after Lavarnway had four passed balls in the first inning. It looked like the knuckleball was all over the place and not only not going for strikes it was uncatchable. The guys had two five run innings to pull ahead for the win. Interestingly, Brandon Workman got the win, coming in to pitch in the second inning, even though he gave up six runs in his four innings of work. Guys got lucky in this one. Take it and move on.

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And because I feel sort of bad for assaulting my visitors with the post right below this one, here's some Ella hotness to try and make amends: