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July 28, 2005

Steven Bochco's Over There: He Supports Our Dead-Ender, Defeatist, Sub-Moronic Psychopathic Troops

Cake or Death reviews his new show. There's no singing this time, but there's a lot of brutishness... on the part of our troops.

Steven Bochco can suck my cock.

This is the sort of glib liberal fool that Hollywood entrusts for this sort of project. No Donald Belasarius, no Steven J. Cannell.

And yes, I know Steven J. Cannell would have our troops assisted by cute robots and zooming around Baghdad in "Assault Ferraris," but shit, I'd still watch it.

Well, no I wouldn't. But I'd promote it.

A Contrary Take: Jessica, guest-posting at Alarming News, says it's actually a good show.

Hmmmm... not sure I care either way, unfortunately. I don't like "shows."

posted by Ace at 02:03 PM

Comments

I talked to my libby anti-war friends and they loved it.

I'm downloading it as we speak. Let's hear it for the internets!

Posted by: Greg on July 28, 2005 02:26 PM

Didn't Bochco bring us "Cop Rock"?

On that basis alone, he should be jailed.

Posted by: Preston Taylor Holmes on July 28, 2005 02:36 PM

What were you expecting? Something like "Blackhawk Down"? Sorry, but Ridley Scott doesn't do TV. Then again, after the sucky box office performance of "Kingdom of Heaven", Scott might start considering the small screen.

Posted by: kbiel on July 28, 2005 02:46 PM

Everything is Vietnam. Soldiers are dopes or baby-killers. Quagmire!! We get it hollywood. Unfortunately, you don't.

Posted by: brak on July 28, 2005 02:47 PM

I completely forgot to deconstruct the show's political content and subject its dialogue to a rigorous vetting for liberal bias or consider the broader ramifications of the mono-culture that describes much of Hollywood and the impact that has on art and entertainment. As a result of that lapse, I accidentally paid attention to the story, the performances and the cinematography, and thus enjoyed it.

I'll try to do better next time.

Posted by: planetmoron on July 28, 2005 04:20 PM

"I completely forgot to deconstruct the show's political content... and thus enjoyed it."

Yes, there are those who profess to enjoying "The West Wing," despite its vapid leftoid politics. Though, for the love of almighty God, I can't see how.

Posted by: Bob Didier's Mask on July 28, 2005 04:57 PM

I only saw a little more than half of it but I was struck by the fact that while our boys were enjoying defending themselves and killing the bad guys, the show ended on a very sour note for us; a truck of ours stumbled onto a roadside bomb which graphically blew the leg off of one of our heroes who would not stop screaming at the top of his lungs and tossing on the stretcher till he disappeared into the rising medivac chopper. So we were left to ponder (to the tune of some silly ass anti-war song) how after the fun and games; the reality of war had come home to our young, innocent boys, who had joined up for all sorts of different reasons, none of which had to do with fighting terrorists.

Posted by: 72 Knights of the Templar on July 28, 2005 06:27 PM

Give the show time, guys. I didn't think it was trying to slip in liberal peace-monkey crap about Iraq, just trying to show how chaotic and brutal combat is. The soldiers are all young and untested, not stupid or brutal (except for that one weird chick, maybe). And trust me, the Army has it's share of dipshit officers like that lieutenant and lowlifes like that pothead. That's not to say that the majority aren't noble or brave; they are. But if you're going for realism, you need to show a fighting force made up of real humans, not square-jawed cartoons.

Posted by: UGAdawg on July 28, 2005 10:07 PM

Worse -- is Battlestar Galactica going to go all moonbat on us this season?

"It stands to reason that in a show that's all about how we're all trying to survive this horrific attack by this inhuman enemy, that the thing that we're really exploring is not that threat from without, but how it turns itself inward and how it becomes insidious and internal, and how it begins to break us down from inside ourselves," [the executive producer] said. "And what better way to take that idea to the next level than to introduce another human being who, on the face of it, is going to help us defeat the Cylons, defeat that third outside enemy, once and for all, but in reality serves to only remind us once again that the biggest enemy is really us?"

If anyone knows any real spoilers, I'd love some confirmation and/or reassurance on this one (without actually spoiling me).

Posted by: someone on July 29, 2005 04:36 AM

They'd better not f*ck up Battlestar Galactica. I lovon TV e that show more than I've been into anything since the early days of the X-Files.

OK, Over There WASN'T THAT BAD.

Small goofs. One, the base in the beginning didn't look a damn thing like Fort Stewart.

Second, I ain't seen a Bradley yet, and the 3rd ID's infantry are all 11M's. The M is for Mechanized. Me, I'm an 11B, we're the light weapons guys.

On the weapons, 3rd ID mostly carries M16A4's, not M4 carbines. 20" barrel as opposed to 14.5". Better open country rifle. Also, they all have their laser designators in place, a mixed bag of PAQ-4C's and PEQ-2A's, but there isn't a single optical sight around except for dude's Trijicon ACOG, and no E2 is going to show up in country with one unless he dropped 1100 bucks and bought his own. Ditto them showing up with PVS-14 NVG's. Usually a replacement shows up with a stripped rifle, if that, and gets issued the NVG's, lasers, and optics that are all property of the unit he gets assigned to.

And the most annoying is the idea. You're not going to have a gang of replacements get press-ganged into a firefight when their truck gets hit then stay with the unit, let alone under a staff sergeant who was individually held over for 90 days. Intact units replace intact units over there, there is NOT a lot of individual replacement going on. We tried it in Vietnam, it didn't work, so we don't do it that way. While there was obviously some military knowledge on the part of the screenwriter, it was thin and or outdated.

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Posted by: Irenka on August 1, 2005 03:48 AM

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Top Headlines

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Classic Rock Mystery Click
This is super-obscure and I only barely remember it. Given that, I'll give you the hint that it's by the Red Rocker.
And I guess you think you've got it made
Oh, but then, you never were afraid
Of anything that you've left behind
Oh, but it's alright with me now
'Cause I'll get back up somehow
And with a little luck, yes, I'm bound to win
Now twenty people will tell me it's not obscure, it was huge in their hometown and played at their prom. That's how it usually goes. When I linked Donnie Iris's "Love is Like a Rock," everyone said they knew that one and that his other song (which I didn't know at all) Ah Leah! was huge in their area.

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thanks to stevey

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David French just posted:

Populists ask what conservativism has ever conserved?
Well its about to conserve birthright citizenship!
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In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
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Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.