Monday Stuff

Putin Threatens Europe : In one of the most un-surprising events of the weekend, Russia’s thuggish former-spy-in-chief acts like, well, a thug. There are so many things wrong with what he’s saying, I just don’t know where to begin. I bet a lot of Eastern European countries are feeling very justified about joining in the missile defense shield right now. Is Putin an untrustworthy bastard or what?

“Fearless” starring Jet Li. I did not watch this when it first came out due the anti-western nature of the trailer. However, the actual movie does not focus on that at all. Jet Li does an excellent job playing a character that’s not always likeable and as usual, has wonderfully emotive facial expressions. He really is underappreciated in that regard. The film is well-paced, fights are nicely spaced out and just when the drama/angst gets boring, well, time for another smack-down. The movie does focus on a time unpleasant for China but it does not make the foreigners faceless bad guys. Some are good guys, some are not. Some aspects of western civilization are shown without criticism and some are shown in their historically accurate unfavorable light. I especially liked the relationship between Jet Li’s character & the Japanese fighter, Tanaka.

Hilarious Item of the Day: While catching up at the Motivational Poster thread on Television without Pity, I found this. Scroll down three-quarters of the page to Notorious JMG’s entry.
Three words: Daleks, kittens and…..self-fulfillment.

Coming up this week Book review/essay (I don’t quite know which yet) and, possibly, a music post