After 1,017 postings, I’ve decided to begin using WordPress. All of these pages should stay the way they are.
All updates from now on (including podcasts that can be listened to from the webpages) will be posted here:
Comments are welcome.
Michael.
Archive for the “Uncategorized” CategoryAfter 1,017 postings, I’ve decided to begin using WordPress. All of these pages should stay the way they are. All updates from now on (including podcasts that can be listened to from the webpages) will be posted here: Comments are welcome. Michael. I’ve been told by snobby computer people-in-the-know that Blogger is so very 2005 and I should upgrade to WordPress. Let’s see how this goes. All of my more than 1000 past movie review postings can still be found from the old Blogger page which is here. Both Blogger and WordPress pages are hosted at www.michaelvox.com so I don’t see any issues with pages disappearing. I’m just getting used to WordPress. In fact, I’m not sure how to add a blogroll to this template. But I’ll try and keep a steep learning curve. Issues I’m Dealing With: –when I update a link or template or anything else, it says “changes saved” or whatever, but it doesn’t update the page itself until I come back to this edit screen, make a change of some kind in the text box, and then save. I’m sure I’m missing some equivalent of Blogger’s “republish entire site” See ya, MichaelVox 2007
May 26, 2008 I admire the casting and the different types of film and the pacing and the naming of the characters. But I just didn’t like it. I wasn’t exactly bored, though it went on a bit too long. Each and every actor who plays Bob Dylan is remarkable. But those performances don’t really add up to much in my mind. A cool DVD feature is having the lyrics printed on the screen during the film. So you can tell what the hell he’s singing about for once. 7.3 Metacritic ~~ 2005 May 25, 2008 First six episodes. Pam and Jim are more flirty than I remember. Kelly is more Indian. There are six or seven commentaries and about 45 minutes of deleted scenes that are well worth watching. Includes Diversity Day and The Hot Girl episodes. 9.4 IMDB ~~ 2008
May 25, 2008 A dramatization, whatever that means, of the debacle that was the Florida portion of the 2000 Presidential election. We get big names playing real people. We get outraged responses to court rulings and appointed politicians. We see Warren Christopher bend over for James Baker. And we know that whatever Kevin Spacey and Denis Leary believe is the truth. I hope people watch this and become outraged. I consider myself something of a Florida Recount Student, watching every possible story from every possible angle about this. Because of that, the single bit of information that I had not known before watching RECOUNT was the Gore lawyer, getting a sample blank ballot to study, being threatened in a crowded elevator by the frat-boy thugs that the RNC had bussed down to Florida demanding that their vote count (even though they were all employees of Republicans up in Washington and had no connection with Florida). We see clips during the credits of all the real participants and lo and behold, there he is being escorted out of the election office by a half dozen cops. A character says in passing that the RNC Abercrombie boys were flown from DC to Florida on the Enron jet. There is a much better primer on this whole issue called UNPRECEDENTED: THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, which lays out in easy-to-follow detail exactly what forces had to come together for this to happen. That documentary painted the Supreme Court and Florida Secretary of State (and Bush Campaign Chair–conflict of interest anyone?) Katherine Harris as the main culprits. RECOUNT adds Joe Lieberman and Warren Christopher to that list. One villain not mentioned is Fox News, who has been blamed for being the first to call Florida that night for Bush, even though they knew that the numbers didn’t yet add up. Watch the documentary OUTFOXED for more on that.
Laura Dern plays Harris as a dim-witted bible thumper bowing to the will of whoever is loudest. To think that Bush-buddy Harris is partially responsible for the man who now resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue makes my blood boil. Fictionalized films like this one can do a good job of making hard-to-understand legal minutia easy to digest. A character will say “The Supreme Court has ruled that this is a one-time decision”, and then another character, standing in for those of us at home will say, “has that ever happened before?”, and the lesson will be complete when the first guy says “never in the history of the Supreme Court” and we’re all a bit more well-versed on Constitutional Law. Ed Begley perfectly nails the head Dem lawyer. In fact, just about everyone at least looks like their real-life counterpart. It isn’t said in the film, but Bush took office in January of 2001 without a mandate, knowing that he lost the popular vote, with a whiff of scandal already in the air. He couldn’t get anything passed, was about to become the most ineffective president since Carter. And then the towers fell and the very office of the Chief Executive changed, probably forever. Thank you Dick Cheney, et al. How would the world have been different if Harris wasn’t secretary of state, the recount went on longer, and Mr. Gore took the oath that January day? The towers probably still would have fallen. But what about everything after that? The mind boggles. Leary and Spacey engage in this kind of “what if” as they walk to their airplanes to leave Florida. Harris, Supreme Court, voter rolls erased, Gore fighting, Christopher’s sick daughter, and Clinton’s blowjob all are included. What if, indeed. As a film, it has much stacked up against it. Obviously, we know the ending. We also know what a chad is, what the participants sound like, and how the Supreme Court ruled. We also get several incredibly terrible scenes, the first of which is when a roly-poly Gore aid is told to stop the Vice-President from conceding before a recount can be started. He falls out of his town car, is stopped by secret service (even though he was in the motorcade), and finally catches up to Gore, breathless, just as he’s about to step on the stage to deliver his election night speech. Not even the West Wing would have had that kind of madcap pratfalling. But it gets better from there. Each of these documentaries related to 2000 election is better that RECOUNT: Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002) 6.6 Metacritic RECOUNT 2007
May 22, 2008 The Search For True Love Begins Outside The Box. I really wanted to love this one. But I didn’t. The writer has mentioned that she wrote this based on the idea of what would happen if a town reacted to a mental illness with compassion instead of ridicule. Lars is so messed up mentally that he sits up on his bed all night, hides from everyone, including his own family, and won’t interact with the cute girl at work who is all but throwing herself at him. He won’t eat dinner next door at his brother’s house. One day he shows up with a Real Doll, one of those lifelike, expensive sex dolls that prove that we have a long way to go before either men or women can be replaced by technology. After initial “my brother is looney” type conversations, the town–I mean the whole town–goes along with Lars’ psychosis. They offer his doll, now called Bianca, jobs, haircuts, knitting circles, dances. Everything. Not a single person calls the rest of the town out. How about some hospitalization? How about sending Lars to a specialist instead of a do-it-all doctor played perfectly by Patricia Clarkson? The idea of someone so afraid of human contact that he’d rather cart around a doll as his lover is very compelling. But the tone was all wrong–one minute a madcap comedy, the next a dark film about childhood trauma. There have been several documentaries on this same topic. And these people who have shunned real humans for dolls are incredibly intriguing subjects. But they are not exactly normal. They themselves say as much. I’d rather watch another one of those documentaries than LARS AND THE REAL GIRL. I’d hoped for so much better. 7.0 Metacritic LARS AND THE REAL GIRL LILA SAYS
May 21, 2008 Chimo is a 19-year-old Arab living in a slightly slummy part of a city, committing petty crimes and odd jobs, and hanging out with his three equally unmotivated buddies. His world is turned upside down with the arrival of one of the sexiest presence in movies that I’ve ever seen. She’s a French girl named Lila, and she’s amazing. Gorgeous, brazen, self-assured. Chimo doesn’t stand a chance. She makes him an early offer that causes him to remark in voiceover “Lila could cause a Jihad.” They take romantic, sexy moped rides together, she whispers her secrets and desires to him, and he gets crap from his buddies for not making his move on her. She also causes him to write, which we’re led to believe he’s good at, because he is visited by a teacher who encourages him to enroll in some famous writing school in Paris. Lila is played by an actress named Vahina Giocante, who I will have to go research now. There isn’t very much to this film. Their differences in religion and background aren’t really explored. It’s one of those movies where a hottie will ride by a group of guys and somehow pick out the one she should be with and smile only at him. We know he’s the right one because he writes, is more polite, and is the most handsome of the group. One thing that is hard to figure out is why he hangs out with the idiotic and felonious group of guys we always see him with. He is smarter than they, more compassionate, has a brighter future. I found that to be less-than-realistic. Besides a pre-20s mutual attraction, I’m not sure what this film is trying to say. We get blowing sundresses, stolen peeks of flesh, the application of suntan lotion, and deep soulful looks into eyes. Not much more. But did I mention that Lila is beautiful? 5.7 Metacritic LILA SAYS 2005
May 18, 2008 There’s A Hero Inside Everyone. Not a good film. Mild-mannered comic book geek, Norman Neale, is convinced that he works with an actual superhero after watching him catch coffee cups without looking and single-handedly win the company softball tournament. The geek is quiet and not respected and awkward-looking while the hero, Victor Ventura (see what they did with the character’s names?), is stunningly attractive and popular. Norman spends his off hours in a comic book store, owned by Danny Baldwin (fantastic!), who believes that Norman is merely writing a comic book, not living a comic book life. With Baldwin’s encouragement, Norman realizes that his task is to train Victor to utilize all of his abilities, like a good sidekick should. The tone of the film is all wrong. Is it humorous, realistic (or at least as realistic as a comic book film can get), moody, or dark. Is it supposed to tell us something about modern life? The hero is an absolutely misogynist prick and there is a lot of mean-spiritedness throughout. One memorable scene involves a “training night” whereby Victor and Norman come upon a group of ne’er-do-wells and are taunted for being gay. Victor uses his superpowers to make the two toughest thugs kiss each other, and then one sinks to his knees to simulate the toughs’ worst case scenario. All to teach them a little lesson about tolerance. We’re here, we’re superheroes, get used to it! Proudly low-budget, but somehow the brief 87 minute running time was simply not brief enough. One bright spot in the experience was the appearance of the writer of the film, Michael Sparaga, who spoke to the audience after our screening. I’m not sure how to say this another way, but Sparaga could not have been more Canadian–and I mean that as a compliment. Self-deprecating, funny, gracious, optimistic, and incredibly polite. A master storyteller. I could have listened to him speak at the microphone during the Q & A for hours. In fact, I would have preferred 87 minutes of “Sparaga At The Mic” than the film SIDEKICK. 5.4 IMDB SIDEKICK 2007
May 16, 2008 Yikes. Sylvia (Ellen Page) is the daughter of a carny couple who is left with a normal-seeming woman who has a brood of her own children and entertains other kids from the neighborhood in her average Indiana home. Her parents promise to pay $20 a month to the single mom, played by Catherine Keener. When the first check is late, Page and her younger sister are taken to the basement and given the belt. This turns out to be the least brutal “punishment” that Sylvia is given. Based on the actual transcripts of the court case from 1966, this film is even more shocking that it first appears. Keener, while trying to “protect” her loose and pregnant oldest daughter, continues to “punish” Sylvia for simply not being as big a screw-up as her own daughter. She is burned with cigarettes, branded with hot safety pins, sexually assaulted, and slapped repeatedly. And then it gets worse. Her own young children can’t hide their basement-dwelling curiosity, and they begin invite neighborhood friends over to burn, beat, and hose down Sylvia who is kept in the basement. That these kids do this with minimal provoking is the most horrifying aspect of this horrifying (and true) story. And the neighbors, hearing the screams, continued to rake leaves like nothing was wrong. “Best we keep to ourselves.” Page is spectacular and you will forget she had anything to do with JUNO after watching this. Keener’s character slowly devolves into a monster, but never a cardboard cutout monster. The kids are sufficiently scary in a numbed-by-what-they’ve-seen way. Not exactly a happy time at the movies, but worth it for the Keener and Page performances. 7.6 IMDB AN AMERICAN CRIME 2007
May 15, 2008 This film does a lot of little things well. Frank Langella is a writer of some note, the author of four books, whose been working on his fifth for more than ten years. He has an extremely regimented life–rising at the same hour, working at the same hour, ordering the same lunch, etc. Lili Taylor is his almost 40 daughter who is craving a child but her true love, Casey, has made that a deal breaker. Father and daughter have an easy connection, attending dance recitals, book readings, and other New York art events. Lauren Ambrose appears as a Brown University grad student who wants to write her thesis on Langella. She is simultaneously in love with his work and the him she knows him to be. She is 20something, he is 60something. But with Langella’s intelligent eyes and Ambrose’s optimistic youth (her Ivy League vocabulary struggling to cover up her giddiness), the thought of these two together as some kind of couple isn’t as strange as it might at first seem. Langella is excellent as a gruff, by the book, quiet author. He doesn’t say much, he responds to Ambrose’s questions with thoughtful, though cold answers. She wants to get at the heart of his work. Ambrose is really the surprise here. If you’ve only seen her as the youngest of the Fisher clan on Six Feet Under, you’re in for a treat. I completely bought that she was a brilliant grad student who is widely read and could pull off the revitalization of Langella’s career with the right literary criticism. She is tough-acting, vulnerable, and when she puts forth all the theories bouncing around inside of her huge brain, it’s hard not to fall for her. And the way she looks at him with such feeling. Lili Taylor chalks up another of her perfectly noted performances. From the trailer, you wouldn’t guess that she has such a large part in the film. She is struggling with her love for Casey and the two of them together make an almost perfect pair. Taylor suffered a breakup with him five years prior that resulted in her not leaving her bed for several months. But they look at each other with such love, that you wonder why they can’t get that one huge disagreement settled and live happily ever after. This film gets New York City right. Which may sound ridiculous coming from a person whose never lived there. They mention traffic and sharing cabs and coffee shops. They have their own neighborhoods where they know the waitress and the cafe owner. They go to events at the 92nd Street YMCA, they watch the Dance Theater of Harlem perform. They attend book release parties. At least, to me, it seemed like they got the NYC that an author of his age would inhabit right. Even the doorman’s character seems realistic. This film is about so much more than a young woman infatuated, influenced, and interested in a man in the twilight of his productive years. It’s about four people living in New York City. And it is terrific. 7.8 Metacritic STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING 2007
May 14, 2008 Connection Is Everything. After you’ve seen THE VISITOR, listen to our spoiler-filled Cinebanter podcast which is posted here . *** Ebert ~~ 2006
May 11, 2008 8.0 Metacritic ~~ 2007
December 30, 2007 A Comedy About Growing Up…And The Bumps Along The Way. After you’ve seen JUNO, listen to our spoiler-filled Cinebanter podcast here. This time, just for the DVD extras, including the commentary. They had good extras including deleted scenes that maybe shouldn’t have been deleted. And the commentary by Diablo and Jason was fairly educational. I noticed things I hadn’t before, though that could be because it was my third time. 8.1 Metacritic ~~ LADY VENGEANCE
May 7, 2008 All She Wanted Was A Peaceful Life…They Didn’t Give It. 7.5 Metacritic ~~ 2008 May 6, 2008 After you’ve seen IRON MAN, listen to our Cinebanter podcast, which is available here. 7.8 Metacritic ~~ 2008
May 5, 2008 Puts a human face on the thousands of sailors deployed on the USS Nimitz for incredibly long periods of time. We get to know sailors at every level of seniority. How do they date? eat? wash the ship? entertain themselves? Ten hours long, but never dull for a moment. They are allowed to honestly discuss issues of policy and war and patriotism. In no way are the interviews completely pro-navy. Absolutely fascinating, and not just in a guyish “that’s so cool” way. I may have to buy this. 8.3 IMDB ~~ 2005
April 26, 2008 8.4 Metacritic ~~ 2006
April 26, 2008 7.9 Metacritic ~~ 2003
April 24, 2008 15 Years Of Imprisonment, Five Days Of Vengeance. Fabulous, fun, kinetic, violent. A great experience, even with the implied torture and cut tongues and broken fingers and hammers to heads. Guy gets out of a hotel-prison after 15 years and wants to know who put him in there and why. Along the way he’s joined by a hot sushi chef. Reasons for everything are revealed. Go see it. 7.4 Metacritic ~~ AN ADOLESCENT
April 24, 2008 5.5 Metacritic ~~ 2008 April 23, 2008 After you’ve seen FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, listen to our Cinebanter podcast, which is available here. 6.7 Metacritic ~~ 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST
April 18, 2008 7.7 Metacritic ~~ 2007
April 18, 2008 Just when I was about to give up on Wes Anderson, he makes this gem of a film about brotherhood, soul-searching, and travel. No slow patches, no annoying quirks. An incredibly brief 91 minutes in India. 6.7 Metacritic ~~ THE PORNOGRAPHERS
Netflix Criterion DVD
Mild-mannered-seeming Ogata falls in love with his landlady, moves in with she and her two children, never telling them that he doesn’t sell medical equipment, he produces and sells porn. It’s the 1960s in Japan. Ogata hires almost-retarded people to star in his films. They are beyond low budget, but the stressed out businessmen that he comes in contact with can’t get enough of his 8mm loops or his photos or his written work. He delves into prostitution a little bit as well. This must have been shocking in 1966. It is completely tame by today’s standards. There is no nudity and no shocking language. But it does cover some pretty taboo ground. Ogata finds his thoughts towards his stepdaughter changing as she grows from little girl to teenage temptation. He is harassed by the mob, is shocked to learn that someone has brought a retarded girl to a movie set (“she’s old enough, at least”), his lover claims that her first husband has been reincarnated as the carp she keeps all too close, his step son climbs into bed with his mother, even though he’s college age. Japan is a strange mixture of puritan and fetishistic. The subcultures there vary much more than they do in the United States, but there is no legal porn there that comes close to the explicitness that you’d find in America. Women are expected not to look young, as in America, but to actually act young. Pigtails, Hello Kitty, schoolgirl sailor suits. Ogata doesn’t think he’s doing anything wrong, in fact he believes he’s keeping the men of Japan sane. Eating and sex are the only two things men need, he says. Modern audiences will find it just weird enough to be interesting. With mental illness just around the corner for just about every character. Everyone is messed up a bit in the head, this film seems to say, what’s the harm in a little porn to brighten one’s day. 7.7 IMDB ~~ 2006
April 17, 2008
This is your brain on anime. Impossible to categorize (is there any other kind) anime about a dream machine which can capture dreams and record them on computers to be analyzed later. It seems that someone evil is placing people in other people’s dreams until everyone ends up in the same huge scary, yet creative, dreamworld. Because half of the story takes place in the characters’ dreamstates, the anime is used to great effect. People’s faces can melt, a hottie can turn into a scary dragon, people can fly, etc. When I was younger I’d probably assume that the filmmaker was complete high while making this film. But now I just think that there’s a collection of incredibly creative people in Japan that can somehow put down on film the wacky images they see in their heads. There is a parade that is part of everyone’s dream that includes such a wide variety of objects that it can scarcely be believed. China dolls, the statute of liberty, teddy bears, robots, godzilla, the gates to a temple, umbrellas, confetti, and literally hundreds of others. Like the guy looked around a child’s room and brought everything to life. A detective uses the dream machine to solve a case, the scientists use it to understand the mind, and evil men use it to control the thoughts of the whole world. The Paprika of the title is some kind of alter-ego cute 20ish pixie who can be summoned up to help within dreams. Sort of a Japanese animated Lola from Run Lola Run. A feast for the eyes. 8.1 Metacritic ~~ 2007 April 13, 2008 Lukas works in an Orange County toll booth. He lives in a tiny apartment in Los Angeles. His life appears to be going nowhere. He visits his comatose mother in the hospital from time to time. He tries to interact with drivers with varying success. One day rednecks in a pickup (stereotype much?) throw a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf into his booth after paying the toll. He begins to read it, mostly out of boredom. A few days later, an old Jewish man notices the book while paying and goes ballistic. Never mind that all informed people should know what’s inside Hitler’s book, if only to try to come to terms with his madness. In this survivor’s head, the book itself should be burned. Lukas says he “doesn’t believe in burning books.” The Jew drives off angry. Several days later the man appears again and hands Lukas a videotape without explanation. At home Lukas watches it (on his 13 inch screen) and it turns out to be an interview with the man about his experiences during the Holocaust. It’s here that the movie goes crazy. Lukas, apparently finding nothing in his own life to suffer through, gets himself hired at the production company, begs to film other survivors, takes to wearing a yellow star, visits temple, purposely gets beat up by skinheads, and becomes some sort of expert on a Holocaust he’s far too young to have experienced. His life is so isolated and boring in the tollbooth that he needs the identity of a Holocaust survivor? Perhaps. While caring for his mother (or is she?) in the hospital he meets and becomes smitten with Mira, a doctor who is a bit too young to be practicing and is the daughter of a survivor who has yet to have his story filmed. What she could possibly see in a psychotic toll booth worker is beyond me. Our club director mentioned before the film started that this was the most unique telling yet of a topic we’ve all seen too many filmed examples of. This fact does not make it good, however. Some of the early scenes of his transformation are humorous. He keeps his kitchen kosher, he buys a prayer shawl while wearing a cross, he transforms his tollbooth into a mini-temple. But then it goes off the rails. It’s unbelievable, clunky, and a bit racist. The equivalent might be a white guy putting on blackface to march on Washington demanding his slavery reparations. 8.1 IMDB ~~ 1998 April 12, 2008 Seven years later, more paunch, less hair. Who would have thought that Tony would be so well-adjusted? The no-shows this time are John, Charles, and Peter. 8.6 Metacritic ~~ 2006
April 12, 2008
“Sorry is nothing but worn out joy” Slow as molasses (sometimes in a good way, sometimes not) story of two men, former sorta-hippies friends who have grown apart, who get together for a night in the woods in search of a hot springs outside of Portland, Oregon. A film like this could only take place in the woods in Oregon, I think. The film captures how two best friends can become different from each other. One (Mark) by selling out–that is, starting a family and owning a Volvo. The other (Kurt) by continuing to live in his late 30s exactly how he lived as a 20something in borrowed houses doing odd jobs. The two men have an easy familiarity that comes with years of friendship. They talk about news big and small, about triumphs and tragedies, all while in search of a hot springs. The guy with the Volvo says something early that is important to certain men of a certain age “I sure could use a night in the woods.” He finds his tattered tent and sleeping bag underneath some potting soil, happy about being able to use it again. His pregnant partner knows that he needs to re-experience a night of camping–we get the feeling she’s no stranger to the outdoors herself. He seems hesitant to leave her and he checks in periodically using a cell phone–more proof that he’s becoming “The Man.” The plot isn’t much. The two men leave around noon and return the following evening. They talk while driving, they find a place to sleep, they eat at one of the hundreds of diners I myself have enjoyed in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. All the roads are two lane, the traffic minimal, the skies cloudy, the trees magnificent. A road trip where nothing happens. You wonder where all those psuedo-hippies you went to college with ended up? Here are two examples. Beer is drunk. Pot is smoked. Campfires are built. Hikes are taken. Bodies are soaked. The trip can either be a reintroduction of two friends, or the last chance for that friendship to continue. The photography seems to drip with the moisture of the trees. The conversation seems natural, the actors are unknown. Absolutely no excitement. It’s better than that. This is perhaps the most relaxing film I’ve ever seen. And those hot springs are magical. *** Wilmington ~~ 2007 April 10, 2008 Some Will Fall. Some Will Fly. After you’ve seen SNOW ANGELS, listen to our Cinebanter podcast, which is available here. **** Phillips ~~ 2005 April 9, 2008 New Yorker John Pierson spends one year screening free movies on a Fijian Island. Pierson used to have a program on IFC called Split Screen and one of the stories on that show was a trip to the most isolated movie theater on the planet. They picked one that is right smack on the International Dateline in Fiji. The segment had two programmers show up at the same time as a humorous punchline. There was also footage of the islanders enjoying (not really a strong enough word) several Three Stooges shorts. Pierson took that one-week experience, moved his family to Fiji, and set about writing a book about his experiences showing movies for free to Fijians. The film works on two levels. One, I have personally thought that if I hit the lottery, I would both exhibit whatever wacky cinema taste I have after purchasing a theater, and buy land on a South Pacific Island. So it fulfills that fantasy that many of us have. Our favorite hobby and a spot in paradise. Check and check. The film also works on a more serious level. Uninvited Americans are thrust into a culture they know nothing about, bringing with them films which don’t mesh with Fijian society. Pierson’s family of four and his seemingly drunken Australian landlord are the only white faces we see on the whole island. Shouldn’t the Piersons adapt to the islanders and not the other way around? It doesn’t help that Pierson is a complete control freak, used to exhibiting films in indie theaters in New York where the patrons “know the rules.” The film works also as a culture-shock portrait of two teenagers trying to assimilate into an island culture where the concept of time is tenuous at best. The 16 year old daughter thinks nothing of running away, drinking, and showing a bit more of her body than might be safe. The younger boy is cynical. Both children talk back to their parents, who speak with unedited language around them. They are a New York liberal family dropped into a culture with thousand year old traditions, ideas about ownership, and a history of being invaded (by both Catholics and wealthy white men). I commend the family for allowing the camera to follow them, even when they’re not acting as the best ambassadors of America, or even when they are scarcely acting like normal human beings. There is an element of white privilege and the civilizing of “noble savages” that permeates the whole enterprise. I’ve been to several different islands in the South Pacific and any business venture I’d choose to start would be welcomed with varying enthusiasm. Raratonga, maybe. Molokai, no way. *** Ebert ~~ |