My Five Favorite Films From...1994

Honorable Mention – Natural Born Killers: I have a story to tell about this film but I will save it for another time. Very intense, bloody and off-the-charts nuts, but it’s well-made and definitely worth seeing.

5. Hoop Dreams: Even now I think this stands as one of the better documentaries of the past 20 years or so. It was a sin against common sense and general decency that it wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award that year.

4. Clerks: To many this is still Kevin Smith’s best movie*. I think it holds up as one of the better comedies of my generation. The sequel…not so much.

3. The Shawshank Redemption: If this was a list about quality, this would be first in a cakewalk. The best adaptation of a Stephen King story ever**. Still amazes me whenever I watch it.

2. Léon (The Professional): A huge sleeper film that caught everyone by surprise and is now recognized by many as one of the better movies ever made***. Not a down moment the entire movie. And it still amazes me that this was Natalie Portman’s first film. Who acts like that their first time out?

Why am I Subsidizing Boner Pills?

In the wake of five men on the Supreme Court deciding that corporations, provided they are "closely held", can have religious preferences, the scene is set for some bad things to happen.

First bad thing: this is another "one-off" decision by the conservative wing of the Supreme Court to get a result that following precedent would have denied them. Just like Bush v. Gore, it is an on-the-fly decision tailored to get the result they want. The Hobby Lobby case will not apply to all corporations, and (according to the judges) not even all health care options. Just 16 different kinds of contraception for women who happen to work for "closely-held" corporations.

And yes, it's all of them. One of the arguments after the decision was that the ruling only applied to the four kinds of contraception that Hobby Lobby supporters called "abortifacents". Their use of the term, unlike actual science, is more of a pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo catch-all word wrapped up in the Shroud of Turin. It has less to do with worrying about an egg smaller than the point of a needle and more about their need to go all Helen Lovejoy:



Yes, won't somebody think of the children? Because with decisions like this, our children are going to grow up in a very fucked up society.

Second bad thing: "Closely-held" corporations are a lot more prevalent than you think. According to this piece in the Wall Street Journal, up to 90% of American companies qualify as "closely-held".

The Internal Revenue Service defines a closely held company as a corporation that has more than 50% of the value of its outstanding stock directly or indirectly owned by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year. It also cannot be a personal-service corporation.

Massive corporations like Mars Inc. and Cargill Inc. actually qualify as "closely-held" companies. Those two companies alone employ over 200,000 people.

Now, will all these companies follow Hobby Lobby and discriminate against women and their health-care choices? Likely not. Least of which because it makes your company look ignorant, backwards and ridiculous.

But now there is a legal stamp of approval to do something like this. It creates a constant sense of concern for women because now they could lose a part of their health care.

Third bad thing: There is no guarantee this stops here. Remember the first bad thing about conservative court members trying to limit this religious exemption? There is no guarantee that will happen. Justice Ginsberg, in a stinging dissent, made it clear that the Court had entered some very dangerous territory.

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.

"The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."

And it has. Now that the Court established that a corporation can have religious beliefs, trying to tell a closely-held corporation run by Jehovah's Witnesses that they have to cover transfusions is going to be a rough sell. And in the end, I don't see how the Court could make them do it because of the Establishment Clause.

In short, because Alito, Scalia and the other three are scared of vaginas, we're going to have a Constitutional crisis sometime in the next 10 years or so over this topic. Thanks a lot, guys.

But really, I just want to know one thing...

Why am I subsidizing boner pills?

Okay Climate Change Deniers, Here's Your Chance to Make $10,000

My suggestion, though, is that you don't spend it before you win it. Because the chance you actually win this $10,000 is very, very, very...hell, it's zero. The chance you win this money is zero.

Despite the scientific proof, the overwhelming scientific proof that human-instigated climate change is real, there are some ignorant people out there who refuse to believe it. Unfortunately, a good number of these ignorant fools are Republicans in the federal government.

Anyway, this refusal to acknowledge fact has some very real repercussions. Rising tides, drought, disrupted weather patterns...oh, and the end of our way of life as we know it today. That also happens down the road. But none of that matters to these brave deniers of truth. For reasons that usually go "Obama...UN...socialism...no freedom!!!"

Well, one scientist is now giving these fools the chance to profit.

Outraged by the unsavory tactics of climate change deniers, physicist Christopher Keating says he'll give $10,000 to anyone who can use the scientific method to prove that human-instigated climate change isn't real.

Keating has been involved in one way or another with climate change for the past three decades. He's been a professor of physics for over 20 years and has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Keating taught at Annapolis and New London? Well, there goes the "He's a god-hating liberal" argument out the door. That's going to put these deniers in a tough spot before they even start.

Actually, there are two prizes. $10,000 to anyone who can "prove — via the scientific method — that anthropogenic climate change is not real". In other words, simply saying "It used to be cold a long time ago. Humans exhale CO2 - how can it be bad??" isn't going to cut it.

But if that is too heavy of a lift, Keating will give you a grand to "anyone who can provide any scientific evidence at all that it isn't real."

C'mon deniers!! You talk all the time about all this "evidence" that disproves man-made climate change. But it's ignored or suppressed or what have you. Now's your chance! Make a grand and show this remarkably-qualified scientist that he's wrong.

Something tells me that Dr. Keating's money is safe.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated topic, half of the US is in drought right now. Sure that has nothing to do with climate change.

The Awesome Nick Offerman as The Narrator in The Gunfighter is ... Awesome

One of the oldest narrative tools in film is the voice-over. A way to convey information to the audience, or storyline information to the audience while keeping characters on-screen ignorant of that information, they can be useful or clunky or outright bad.

Good voice-overs add to the narrative. An example would be anything from Goodfellas



Bad voice-overs cover for holes in a weak script. Or add nothing to the film. The voice-over that was added to Blade Runner fits this description perfectly. Forced to add it in by the studios, the rumor is that Harrison Ford intentionally delivered it poorly so it would have to be cut. It didn't work and the film was released with voice-overs in 1982.



But now comes the short film The Gunfighter which presents a different take on the voice-over. What if everyone on screen could hear the voice? And what if Nick Offerman were said voice? The results are pretty fantastic.

The Best Thing About USA vs Portugal

Yeah, being brought down to a tie in what was literally the final seconds of a match sucks. Tying Portugal 2-2 feels more like a loss than a draw. But it leaves the US in control of their own destiny. Win or tie with Germany and the USA is into the knockout rounds. Considering the same holds for Germany, my guess is we'll see a boring, defensive draw that benefits both sides. But who knows.

But that is something to worry about come Thursday. For now, let's forget Michael Bradley's horrendous ball control in midfield and Geoff Cameron's seeming inability to properly mark someone coming into the six-yard box. And let's rejoice in the most beautiful goal I have ever seen an American score in the World Cup.



Jermaine Jones plays in Germany for Schalke 04, though he has been loaned out a bit and finished last year on loan to Turkish side Beşiktaş. He is one of the oldest players on the American squad at 32 years of age. He is usually known for committing fouls.

But Jones has become a rampaging monster of doom in the center of the pitch in this World Cup. He is playing hard but smart and has been the USA's most consistent player. And then that goal...Messi couldn't have done it better.

Also, we all owe some retroactive thanks to President Truman and Secretary of State Marshall who made sure the US stayed involved in Europe after WW2. Without US servicemen in Germany, we'd be without not only Jermaine Jones but John Brooks as well and would likely be going home at this point.