Lobster At A Diner

Funny. You can do it SNL if you try...

Ravin' crustacean from r/gifs

A project for a revolution in the Ukraine?

Ace just ran this link from Russia Today. Instapundit has more here.

Since this is breaking news and there is not a lot to go with, why not a Rule 5 Ukrainian Post (grab your self a bowl of borsch):

Joe Biden says Ukrainian women most beautiful in the world...

Wombat's Rule 5 Sunday, Quiet Splendor
Wombat notes the protesters are on the barricades (have they not seen Les Misérables, it ends badly for most).

Les Misérables

Gollum sings Les Miserablés...

Smeagol gives the most emotional performance since Susan Boyle.  

Sorry Anne, he even out does you...

Academy Awards Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Rule 5

Best Actress in a Supporting Role.  Here is one member's picks.  I am going with Anne Hathaway on this because she nailed her songs in Les Misérables.  Amy Adams was very good in The Master, but I will go with Anne.  Sally Fields did a journeyman job in Lincoln, nothing more.  I did not see Silver Linings Playbook or The Sessions yet, but I cannot imagine Jackie Weaver or Helen Hunt (although if you really want to see Ms. Hunt naked this one is for you) out doing Anne's Fantine.  

Update:  
Beyond the big dresses, there was a lot of back stage back stabbing and Hollyweird politics.  
The relationship of Hollyweird and the media to Barack Obama...

Amy Adams, The Master

Amy Adams, The Master

Lots of big dresses

Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

Winner!  

Sally Fields, Lincoln

Sally Fields, Lincoln

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Jackie Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

Jackie Weaver Silver Linings Playbook

An Academy Award Members' honest assessment of this year's Oscar picks...

The Oscar

DrewM. at Ace of Spades gets the hat tip for finding this.

I liked the assessment very much and I agree with most of it (I did see Paperman when I went to see Wreck It Ralph, and I am glad he picked it for animated short).  I would have picked The Pirates over Wreck It Ralph, but I am am partial to ham.

I liked The Master very much and thought Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman did a great job.  Daniel Day Lewis absolutely deserves best actor for Lincoln (and I would be fine if Hoffman got best supporting for The Master).

I did not consider the commentary brutal at all (although it is honest), even if I liked Les Misérables and Argo better than he did.  Beasts of the Southern Wild sucked and it is nuts to pretend otherwise.  Zero Dark Thirty would be my pick for best picture (although I suspect Lincoln will win).    I liked Django Unchained, but it is basically a rehashing of Tarantino's previous work and it does not deserve best picture.

The New York Times critics makes their suggestions for Oscar nominations...

The New York Times has its picks for Oscar nominations.  Pirates made one of their lists.  As kids movies go, Pirates was one that will have parents chuckling at times.  It was worth a rental.

Don't believe the hype over Beasts of the Southern Wild--it is wildly over rated.  The Master, while not a movie for most, was a very good film for studying the creepy weirdness of cults.  I liked Les Misérables, Django Unchained, Lincoln, Life of Pi, and Argo.  I also saw Moonlight Kingdom and it is worth a rental (it was okay)--but it was not an Oscar contender.  I also liked The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey, and Richard Fernandez explores the Beowulf themes in this excellent post.

I have not seen Zero Dark Thirty, but I want to.  I also want to see Silver Linings Playbook.

Ted will probably not be getting any nominations, but it was funny.  

Parents reacting to Les Misérables

Les Misérables Movie Review

John Boehner:  Speaker of the House
Anne Hathaway:  Devestated and Sad
One Day More
Rule 5

John Boehner: Speaker of the House

John Boehner managed to hold on to the Speaker of the House.  So how about a song...

GOP House Elites:
Come on, you old pest!
Fetch a bottle of your best!
What's the nectar of the day?

Boehner:
Here try this lot
Guaranteed to hit the spot
Or I'm not the Orange Dude!

Tea Party:
Give us a glass of tea!
Speaker over here!

Boehner:
Right away you scum,
Right away Monsieur!

Tea Party:
God, this place has gone to hell
So you tell me every year!
Mine host, Boehner
He was there, so they say
At the field of Romney's Waterloo,
Got there, it's true
When the fight was all through
But he knew just what to do!
Crawling through the mud, so I've heard it said
Picking through the pockets of the Republican dead
He made a tidy score from the spoils of war!

Boehner:
My band of soaks, my den of dissolute's
My dirty jokes, my always pissed as newts
My Lobbying whores spend there lives in my inn,
Flies to shit homing in
They fly through my doors,
And their money's good as yours!

Tea Party:
Ain't got a clue what he put into this stew,
Must've scraped it off the street.
God what a wine, Chateauneuf du Terpentine,
Must've pressed it with his feet!
Speaker over here
Where's the bloody man?
One more for the road,
One more slug of gin!
Just one more or my old man is gonna do me in...

Boehner:
Welcome, Monsieur, sit yourself down
And meet the best Speaker in town
As for the rest, all of 'em crooks:
Rooking their guests and crooking the books
Seldom do you see 
Honest men like me
A gent of good intent
Who's content to be

Speaker of the House, doling out the charm
Ready with a handshake and an open palm
Tells a saucy tale, makes a little stir
Lobbyists appreciate a bon-viveur
Glad to do a friend a favor
Doesn't cost me to be nice
But nothing gets you nothing
Everything has got a little price!

Speaker of the House, keeper of the zoo
Ready to relieve 'em of a sou or two
Watering the wine, making up the weight
Pickin' up their knick-knacks when they can't see straight
Everybody loves a Speaker
Everybody's bosom friend
I do whatever pleases
Jesus! Won't I bleed 'em in the end!

Boeher & GOP Elites:
Speaker of the House, quick to catch yer eye
Never wants a passerby to pass him by
Servant to the poor, butler to the great
Comforter, philosopher, and lifelong mate!
Everybody's boon companion
Everybody's chaperone

Boehner:

But lock up your valises
Jesus! Won't I skin you to the bone!

Enter Monsieur, lay down your load
Unlace your boots, rest from the road
This weighs a ton, travel's a curse
But here we strive to lighten your purse
Here the goose is cooked
Here the fat is fried
And nothing's overlooked
Till I'm satisfied

Earmarks beyond compare. Earmarks beyond belief
Get an AG bill and pretend it's beef
Kidney of a horse, liver of a cat
Filling up the sausages with this and that
Special interests are more than welcome
Bridal suite is occupied
Reasonable charges
Plus some little extras on the side!

Charge 'em for the lice, extra for the mice
Two percent for looking in the mirror twice
Here a little slice, there a little cut
Three percent for sleeping with the window shut
When it comes to fixing budgets
There are a lot of tricks he knows
How it all increases, all them bits and pieces
Jesus! It's amazing how it grows!

Boehner & GOP Elite Chorus:
Speaker of the House, quick to catch yer eye
Never wants a passerby to pass him by
Servant to the poor, butler to the great
Comforter, philosopher, and lifelong mate!
Everybody's boon companion
Gives 'em everything he's got

Boehner:
Dirty bunch of geezers (that means you Reid)
Jesus! What a sorry little lot!

Nancy Pelosi:
I used to dream that I would meet a prince
But God Almighty, have you seen what's happened since?

Speaker of the House? Isn't worth me spit!
`Comforter, philosopher' and lifelong shit!
Cunning little brain, regular Voltaire
Thinks he's quite a lover but there's not much there
What a cruel trick of nature landed me with such a louse
God knows how I've lasted living with this bastard in the house!

Boehner & House Members:

Speaker of the House!

Nancy Pelosi:
Speaker and a half!

Boehner & House GOP Elites:
Comforter, philosopher

Nancy Pelosi:
Ah, don't make me laugh!

Boehner & House GOP Elites:
Servant to the poor, butler to the great

Nancy Pelosi:
Hypocrite and toady and inebriate!

Boehner & GOP House Elites:
Everybody bless the Speaker!
Everybody bless his spouse!

Boehner:
Everybody raise a glass

Nancy Pelosi:
Raise it up the Speaker's arse

All
Everybody raise a glass to the Speaker of the House!

Update:  TOM: Be an optimist!  

Parenting Fail: Pregnant Daughter of Doctor found with explosives and weapons with her Occupy Wall Street boyfriend...

Parenting Fail

Happy New Year!

We have the dynamic of kids of privilege deciding they want to embrace the romanticism of revolutionary spirit.  Sort of like Les Misérables, but without any Christian redemption, morality, or grace (think of terrorists Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, or college poster child and sadist, Che Guevara).  What I  would like to see is how these kids went wrong.

Then I saw this story about how bullying is the mechanism for terrorists finding and recruiting suicide bombers.  That is probably a different dynamic than the story above.  But it is obviously an important one to understand.

And it also seems to be a big factor in youth shootings here in the USA.  It was reportedly a factor in 12 out of 15 school shooting cases in the 1990s.

We have our work cut out of us in 2013!

Update:
The Other McCain notes this has to be blamed on sneaky Tea Party extremists!   Did anyone blame George Bush yet for this?
Ace of Spades notes the boyfriend/father of her child wanted to blow up the Washington Square arch in NYC

Les Misérables: A movie review (updated with spoilers)

Samantha Banks as Eponine

Don't believe the negative reviews.  If you liked Les Misérables the play you will almost certainly like the Les Misérables the movie (I liked the novel, play and now the movie).  It sticks very close to the original book (as in the play, not the Victor Hugo novel), but is delivered in a series of close up shots, with the actors singing on the set (rather in a sound studio after the fact).  While some may find this jarring, it does give a perspective to the work that you cannot get in a live performance short of being able to wander around the stage.  Some of the sadder scenes are made all that much more intimate.  The theme of redemption and grace remains.

This only works because the performances and production quality are mostly top notch.  Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway give amazing performances.  Samantha Banks is great as Eponine (both singing and in acting).  Even Russell Crowe's Javert is decent (granted he did not have the singing chops, but I had low expectations going in and thought he pulled it off by acting).   Tom Hooper does a great job with the directing, cinematography and in creating 19th century France.  I was only mildly disappointed in Sasha Barron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter--and they were still okay as the Thénardiers (just not as good as some of the theatrical performances I have seen).

The film is over the top and lavish, but in the end it works.  I am sure it will be a commercial success and will become a classic.

Cameo Note:  Colm Wilkinson, who played Jean Valjean in the original West End and Broadway runs, plays the Bishop of Digne, who inspires Valjean to become a better man.  Some of the critics of this film may be confused by a Catholic priest is a positive roll.  Then again, Les Misérables was panned by the elite critics in 1862 when it was first published.

Émile Bayard, 1883, Cossette engraving for a later edition of Les Misérables

The historic backstory to the novel, play and film.

Update:
This review is very good (caution spoilers):

Here is a different perspective:  A review by the Anchoress (actually two other reviews that the Anchoress contrasts).
Here is a slightly more critical review (very funny)

And The Belmont Club notes:  Do you hear the people sing?  

Anne Hathaway "devastated" and "sad" after her "down under" bottomless wardrobe malfunction?

Seems like the only "malfunction" is Anne Hathaway forget to put on underwear?  

I like how she deflected Matt Lauer's question back to Les Misérables, even though her explanation is a bunch of nonsense.  But I like Anne Hathaway so she gets a pass.  And I am sure a few people like seeing Anne Hathaway bottomless.

And what is with those leggings?  It is like Flashdance meets formal Forest Gump braces.

Here are some more pictures from the New York premier of Les Misérables:

Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfriend

One Day More...

Get out and vote for Romney Ryan.  And then vote for GOP candidates down ticket.  

Les Misérables extended look trailer

Sammy Davis Jr. I Dreamed A Dream

This may have been his last public performance.  He was found to have throat cancer shortly after this.  

Rule 5 Les Misérables

This trailer played before 2016: Obama's America.   I was going to do a Conservative Women Rule 5 for the Republican Convention, but if Barack Obama is re-elected we will all be the miserable ones, so to the barricades!

Evil Misogynistic Inspector Sullivan is back, but played in the film by Russell Crowe.

And while she is a big Obama fan, it is hard not to like
the lovely Ann Hathaway, who plays Fantine.

Samantha Bank plays Éponine

Samantha Banks sang in the 25th Anniversary Concert

Amanda Seyfried plays Cozette

Helena Bonham Carter plays Madame Thénardier (10th Anniversary concert, starting at 2:10)

More inside information on the film.