As Hollywood's Big Night Nears...

The Academy Awards are on Sunday night. As is my long-time custom, I won't be watching. But as is my short-time  custom,(this is my third year observing it), I've watched from the comfort of the love seat in my den all ten of the films nominated for Best Picture.

From bottom to top, from least favorite to most, here are my quick thoughts on each of them. (These are not plot summaries, so if you don't know anything about these movies, my comments may not mean all that much.)

10. Frankenstein - Dark and turgid throughout, I really disliked this one. Definitely took a nap-een during it, and didn't miss a thing. Other than, presumably, some dark and turgid whatever. Give me Boris Karloff in the 1930's horror flick. Or Peter Boyle in Mel Brook's madcap Young Frankenstein any old day

09. F1 - This is a perfectly entertaining old-fashioned movie. Brad Pitt can still bring plenty of good looks-ness and charm. But F1 could have been made 50 years ago. It's not that I disliked it. There was one movie the nominee list that I actually hated. (Looking at you, Marty Supreme.) It's just that F1 didn't seem, to me, to have enough of anything distinctive to merit a nomination.

08. Marty Supreme - I like Timothée Chalomet. I really do. Liked him in Little Women. Loved him as Bob Dylan. But I found Marty Supreme one chaotic mess, with Chalomet frenetically ping-ponging around for two long hours+. It was all just a bit too much. The fifties atmospherics were interesting, and I suppose it was inspired to cast a-hole businessman Kevin O'Leary (he of Shark Tank fame) as an a-hole businessman. But a supremely hard pass on Marty Supreme. 

07. Hamnet - This is one beautiful film. Just gorgeous. The acting was fine. But it left me cold. My one takeaway is that the kid who played Hamnet looked a lot like Prince George.

06. One Battle After Another - There was some great acting, and some wonderful bits. I loved the white nationalist rich guy cabal. And Sean Penn as Colonel Lockjaw (a character highly reminiscent of now-demoted ICE honcho Greg Bovino) was deleriosly hilarious. But I found OBAA pretty confusing. And, as I find almost every movie that runs over 2 hours, way too long. But I liked it well enough. 

05. Sinners - There's lots to admire about Sinners, especially the acting (e.g., Michael B. Jordan) and the setting in Depression-era Mississippi. I also liked the look into Black life (however surreal many elements were). But magical realism is not now and has never been my jam, so there were parts that lost me. 

04. Bugonia - If a little magic realism goes a long way, well, so does a little science fiction, a little fantasy, and little horror. And Bugonia had some of all of the above. But it also had a ton going for it. Like Emma Stone. And the on-point portrayal of richy-rich CEO life, the horrors of big pharma, and the left-behind working class. So the good outweighed the bad, and I much enjoyed Bugonia. 

03. Secret Agent - I even mucher enjoyed Secret Agent. Okay, there was too much violence to my liking. And although Secret Agent didn't drag, does any movie need to run 2 hours and 40 minutes? They could have saved a good slug of time by cutting out the hairy leg stuff, which did nothing to advance the plot of how harrowing it is to like in a violent, repressive, thug-ridden, poor, authoritarian country, as was Brazil in the late 1970's. (I shudder to think that our country may just be a few degrees of separation away from this state...) 

02. Train Dreams - What was it that drew me right into this low key movie? The low key-ness. The simplicity. The generosity. The quiet (even when noisy). The humanity at its core. The incredible natural beautiful of the Pacific Northwest setting. This is a very sad movie, but it's devoid of gimmicks, special effects, magical realism, and surreality. And I loved it. Contributing to my loving it, Train Dreams clocks in at 102 minutes. Yes!

01. Sentimental Values - Although I pretty much saw all of Imgmar Bergman during my prime movie going days, I was never a huge fan. The movies were almost always a slog, heavy going, moody, depressing. But I pretty much love anything in a Scandinavian settin, so Sentimental Values was right up my cinematic alley. Plus Skellen Skarsgard who plays the no longer relevant, aging acto paterfamilias of an artsy/acting Norwegian family. The movie deals with memory, resentment, intimacy, war, parents, children, rage, and the house you grow up in. What I loved about this - other than the Scando setting, the acting, and the house to die for (before they modernized it) was that it was intensely real. No tricks up its sleeve that I could see. My favorite movie of the Big Ten, but not all that much farovite-y than Train Dreams or Secret Agent.  

I will check on Monday to see which movie won. Unlikely to be one of my faves. (I'm thinking Sinners for the win.) 

Meanwhile, I haven't checked on the contents of the swagbag yet, so I don't know what goodies the illustrious nominees for Actor/Actress/Director/Picture et al. get for showing up. And after watching 30 movies over the past three years, the majority of which I didn't particularly care for, I think I deserve a swagbag for myself.

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Image Source: LA Lifestyle

At the movies

Tomorrow's post will be my overall take on the ten movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Although I seldom go to the movies, and never watch the Academy Awards, I've been doing this the last couple of years. Which means I've been sitting through a bunch of movies I wouldn't necessarily see if they weren't nominated.

What's different this year is that I didn't actually see any of these movies at a theater, but watched from the comfy-cozy of my very own home.

Which got me thinking of some of the odder experiences I've had in movie theaters over the years.

One of my first movie-going experiences was seeing Disney's Cinderella at Worcester's Park Theatre. My father took me, my sister Kath, and my brother Tom, and once we'd gotten settled in, he gave us each a dime to get a drink from the flat soda machine. Kath got Tom's, no problem. Put the dime in the slot, grabbed a paper cone cup,  and the Kool-aid-ish sweet drink was dispensed. She then took care of her own. Again, no

problem. I, of course, wanted to DIY the experience. I put my dime in, but, alas, there were no more paper cone cups. And I stood there and watched the orange fake Kool-Aid go down the drain. 

Why I didn't tell my father, as he surely would have gone out to the lobby and demanded justice in the form of a paper cone cup and some sticky-sweet orange gluck. Guess I had already embraced the motto of my time and place: oh, just suck it up. 

Fast forward a couple of years. I can't remember what the movie was - no doubt something Disney - but I wasn't there with my father. I was with Kath and our friends. I believe we were in downtown Worcester at the Plymouth Theater, which was well known for the sticky cement floors they never seemed to wash. Anyway, for some reason - it was during my peak religo years - I had brought with me the "crystal" rosary beads I'd been given for my First Communion. And somehow managed to lose them. We all searched high and low under the seats, spotting discarded paper cone cups and assorted detritus, but not, alas, my rosary beads. Did I ask an usher to come look with his flashlight? Of course not. As noted above, I had already embraced the motto of my time and place: oh, just suck it up. 

I didn't go to the movies all that often, but often engough. And during the remainder of my grade school years, and on through high school, college and grad school, my theater going was without incident. 

And then, in 1974, I went with my sister and brother-in-law to Cambridge's Orson Welles Cinema to see a late night duo of The Harder They Come and Gimme Shelter, both of which are pretty loud and noisy. A young, hippie-ish couple had taken an infant in with them and, not surprisingly, the baby was disturbed by the noise and, no doubt, the fact that it was closing in on midnight. The baby started crying - make that screaming. And screaming. And screaming. 

I thought for sure my sister Kath, who is pretty outspoken, was going to say something. I sensed her agitation and reached out to pat her arm a couple of times as we sat there hoping that the new parents would come to what few senses they had. (Seriously, who takes a baby to the midnight showing of Gimme Shelter?) 

As it turned out, it wasn't Kath who blew her stack. It was me of the notoriously long fuse and placid disposition.

"Take that baby out of here!" I yelled.

The couple left in a huff, the father yelling back at me, "You care more about this fucking movie than you do about my baby."

Not quite the burn he hoped it was, as I had the perfect followup: "You obviously do."

Anyway, I got a nice ovation from the theatergoers. 

Also in 1974, as a foreign movie aficionado (that is to say, snob), I went to see Lina Wertmüller's Swept Away at the now long gone Exeter Theatre (a somewhat "high culture" venue) with my friend Mary Beth. If Swept Away wasn't the worst movie I ever saw, I can't think of another one. (Okay, I can: A Walk with Love and Death which I saw in college, with Mary Beth, among others. Assaf Dayan was hot. Other than that...) We were sitting there deciding how much longer we were going to endure the show when they announced that the theater was being evacuated because of a bomb scare. This was well pre-cellphone, so it was't one of the patrons who was calling in a bomb scare. But most of us sure were hoping for it. And, miraculously, it happened! Yay! We kept our stubs as rainchecks, which we got to use at a later date. (What for, I can't remember.)

(A few years later, I was with Mary Beth when we had a fairly amusing experience when we went to see Unmarried Woman at the Cheri. The Cheri was a multiplex, and the ticket seller needed to know which movie the two elderly women in line in front of us wanted to see. Unmarried Women? she asked. The two woman gave each other a somewhat questioning look, shrugged, and one of them told the ticket seller, "Yes. We're both widows."Honestly, the ticket seller should have comped the Golden Girls the tickets.)

Movie-ing on, somewhere in the mid-late 1970's, I was with my husband watching Barbet Schroeder's documentary, Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait. We were enjoying this chilling and weirdly comic film when we heard an unmistakable noise a few rows behind us and, blessedly, a few seats over. Yes, someone had whipped it out and was peeing. We looked over and saw an exceedingly large stream of pee coursing down the floor underneath the seats. Fortunately not our seats. But we decamped to a safer space in what was a nearly empty theater.

In 1981, at the Charles Cinema, my sister Trish and I were watching Mommy Dearest when a man ran into the theater. Chased by another man pointing a gun at him. Remarkably, Trish and I were the only ones in the audience who fled. I can't remember whether the police were called, but after hanging in the lobby for a few, we were assured that things were now safe, and we did end up seeing the rest of the movie. But it was all very odd. 

I can't remember the theater or the movie, but somewhere in the late 80's or early 90's, I was at the movies with Trish and our friend Peter. I was sitting on the aisle and was passed the large popcorn bucket we were sharing when it literally flew away. I have no idea what happened, but my bucket-holding arm flung out and most of the popcorn ended up in the aisle. Oops! Peter and Trish gave me "what just happened?" looks, but damned if I knew. My inner poltergeist took over? Who knows.

As time went by, I went less and less to movies in person. Instead of going to the movies, we rented videos and played them at home. And now I stream, as I did with all of the Best Picture nominees.  

Anyway, nothing else all that memorable has happened in a movie theater. No bomb scares. No screaming babies. No bad hombres chasing each other with guns. But is it any wonder I'm just as happy to watch from the comfort of my own home, knowing that, if I want a soda, it won't be flat and I won't have to drink it out of a flimsy paper cone.  

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Image source: Amazon

"Thou shalt not have strange gods before me..."

In the Catholic version of the ten commandments the first commandment is "I am the lord thy God, thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

Other than when, say, a state like Texas tries to force them onto the walls of public schools, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the ten commandments. But a few weeks ago, when I read about "Don Colossus," that "strange gods" one sure popped into mind.

"Don Colossus" is a 15 foot tall bronze statue of Trump that's "finished with a thick layer of gold leaf." Gold leaf? But of course! When astride its pedestal, the statue will be "about the height of a two-story building." Unfortunately, since it will be erected at Trump's Doral golf course in Florida, I will never be able to scorn it in person. Nor, since it's going to be on private property, will I be able to join the gleeful mob toppling it once the the too-long reign of Mad President Donald finally and blessedly comes to a halt. (Sigh.)

In case you're worrying, the taxpayers aren't (yet or directly) footing the bill for Don Colossus. No, the tab - $300K - is being picked up by a bunch of crypto bros who want to honor Trump for his suport of cryptocurrency. (Whatever you have to say about Trump, he sure has an eye for the flim-flam, the grift, doesn't he?) Anyway, the statue is also being used "to promote a memecoin called $PATRIOT."

Virtually nearly everyone in the crypto world has tried to profit from the Trump presidency, striking business deals with his family or seeking regulatory relief from his administration. But few have attempted it as boldly as the backers of $PATRIOT.

A memecoin is a type of cryptocurrency with hardly any function beyond speculation. It’s usually based on a viral joke or celebrity mascot, and worth only as much as online fans are willing to pay. The crucial ingredient is internet hype, enough to convince potential buyers that the price will keep going up. (Source: NY Times)

The crypto bros have been banging away at the grift for over a year, having started selling their memecoin after the ignominious 2024 election. During the inaguration festivities, they gave Trump's pal Steve Bannon a bronze miniature version.

Sales of the $PATRIOT took off. 

But delays and infighting have marred the venture, offering a window into the volatile world of memecoins, which are plagued by scams that often end up costing investors money. The $PATRIOT coin’s price cratered last year, losing nearly all its value. As the coin’s backers rushed to finish the statue and boost coin sales, they clashed with their Ohio-based sculptor, Alan Cottrill.

There's a couple of problems floating around here. One is that the cryptos owe $75K for the IP rights to the statue. Despite not paying for those rights, it will come as a surprise to exactly no one, they've been using the copyrighted image in their marketing efforts. But the bigger problem - which will, once again, come as a surprise to exactly no one - is that Trump went ahead an launched his own competing memecoin, $TRUMP, which took off and cut into $PATRIOT sales. 

By the way, I have no idea what his politics are, but Alan Cottrill is not some right wing nutter artist  doing Trump-glorifying "art" like that produced by Jon McNaughton. "Art," e.g., like "MAGA Symphony," or as I like to think of it, "Sympathy for the Devil."

No, Cottrill is the real deal, and has created larger-than-life statues of the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Jesse Owens, and George Marshall. Of course, the largest monuments he's made have only been 10-feet tall. Trump's, of course, had to be even larger than larger than life. And, of course, had to portray an idealized version of the man:

“I had him very lifelike,” Mr. Cottrill said in an interview last month. “The crypto guys said I had to get rid of some of the turkey neck. I had to thin him down.”

Because the statue is a) larger than life; b) flatters Tump; and is c) is gold covered, Trump likes what he's seen so far, and will likely be at the Doral unveiling whenever it happens. The crypto bros just need to pay what they owe Cottrill (which is the $75K for the intellectual property rights and another $15K worth of incidentals). Which they'll no doubt pony up if they want to see $PATRIOT get a boost.

If it's not toppled by a frothing crowd, I hope that Don Colossus is struck by lightning, blown over in a hurricane, swept away in a flood, sucked into one of those famous Florida sinkholes. It's colossally ridiculous, and a colossal embarrassment to our country.

Seriously, even among the most ardent of Trump cultists, there can't be many remaining who don't find this sort of glorification of Trump somewhat disturbing, creepy, unsettling. And let's not get into the banners of Trump now flowing near the flag at the Deparment of Justice, the renaming of the Kennedy Center, the proposal to add Trump to Mt. Rushmore, etc.  

Donald J. Trump. Gotta be one of the all time strangest of strange gods.

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Image source: Don Colossus - Charisma

Image source: MAGA Symphony - Jon McNaughton

I can think of worse crimes

Kinston, NC, doesn't get a lot of snow. But in February, they got 15", breaking a record that has stood since 1927. 

One thing about living in a place that's not a stranger to snowfall, people pretty much know how to get through it. There are snowplows. Mounds of sand and rocksalt. Although I am always surprised when there's a first-storm-of-the-season rush on hardware stores for shovels, most folks do have a shovel around. And if they're smart, a 40 pound balt of ice melt. Or at least an 8 pound shaker. 

Yes, people get into a pre-storm panic and quickly strip the grocery store shelves of bread, the coolers of milk. But those of us in Snow Country have useful skills, like knowing how to drive in the white stuff. And mostly, we know enough that, when "they" suggest that we stay home, we stay the f home. Curfews are only for insane blizzard conditions. Not your average 15" dump o' snow.

Snowy weather skills are honed over generations, and even when we haven't been having bad winters for a stretch, when they do happen race memory kicks in and we know how to cope. (We've had pretty lousy winter in these parts. Most snow in the last five years, and the coldest winter since 1977. Heating bills are sky high, but at least bitter cold helps tamp down rat reproduction. So there's that.)

But Kinston, NC - while it gets bad hurricane season rotten weather - doesn't get a lot of bad snowy weather. So the mayor of this small city (population roughly 20,000) set a curfew. Unless you were working, you were supposed to stay in. Which means that you couldn't be out and about.

Apparently, the problem for Jonathan Hackett was that he didn't have a place to stay, so he couldn't help but be out and about.

But he found his way to the Little Caesars where he used to work. They hadn't changed the key code from his time there so, push a few buttons and - voila - Hackett was in. (He claimed that the manager gave him permission to spend the night. Not clear whether that was in fact the case.)

With time on his hands, and the storm raging, Hackett did what any old pizza shop worker might do: He started making pizzas. (Give a man the ability to make a pizza, and he'll have work for life...) What do you do with a pizza? Why you can always give it away for free. Or so the message started spreading via Facebook. 

So, figuring that Little Caesars was making a goodwill gesture to the snowbound community, a few folks decided curfew-smurfew and showed up for their free pizza. 

But the enterprising Hackett decided he could make a buck. He started selling pizzas for $5 a pie, which even though Little Caesars in Kinston, NC is pretty inexpensive, was at least a slight bargain. (Some buyers said they were charged $10, which is closer to the standard price for a pizza.)

All in all, Hackett claims to have sold 10 pizzas, so he pocketed maybe $50 bucks.

He took off at some point, but when he arrived back at the shop, he encountered the manager and her family there. They had been at work, prepping the business for the next day, and decided to camp out there on a snowy night.

Everyone was asleep, when someone heard a noise. It was Hackett in the room. The [manager's] husband was awakened by a figure in the room: Hackett. That’s when the fight ensused. The husband told police that he was “about to do my thing” when Hackett swung at him and ran, so he chased Hackett down, confessing to police that he was “whooping his ass.” His son came outside, saw his dad holding Hackett, and “did what he had to do.”

The manager called the police, and told them that they’d detained a trespasser. When two officers showed up around 9:30, Hackett was being held down outside, bleeding from his face. For his part, Hackett told the police that he didn’t know why he’d been chased and beaten up. Again, even though he was a former employee, he said that the manager had given him permission to come into the Little Caesars to sleep. He did admit to selling pizzas, though. (Source: Jeremy Markovich, NC Rabbithole)

Hackett is facing a few felony charges - including B&E, larceny - and a couple of misdemeanor counts, including violating the Kinston curfew. In addition to getting his "ass whooped," Hackett could end up serving a prison sentence for his troubles. 

If this is all they have on him, I hope that Jonathan Hackett doesn't end up in the hoosegow for a couple of years. I can think of a lot worse crimes than breaking and entering a pizza shop and selling a few crappy pizzas to folks just looking for some comfort food on a snowy night. 

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Image Source: Little Caesars Peoria Facebook

One potato chip factory...

I am an absolute sucker for local products that make it big, especially food products. Some of my favorites - but of course! - are from Worcester: Near East Rice Pilaf. Polar Soda. Table Talk Pies.

I always have a couple of boxes of Near East rice/pilaf/couscous in my kichen cabinets. In my fridge, there'll always be some Polar Soda. (I especially like the diet orange and the diet cranberry. Mixed together, it's a wonderful combo.) I don't have any Table Talk Pies around, but when I go to a Woo Sox (Red Sox AAA team in Worcester) game - which I do a couple of times a season - I always get me a pie-let, even though they rarely if ever have my favorite, which is cherry.

A local food favorite that broke out of local availability into nationwide presence doesn't have to be from Worcester. I like Brigham's ice cream. And since I first had one, decades ago, Cape Code Potato Chips, has been my chip o' choice. 

As I write this post, there are no bags of Cape Codders in my kitchen, but there is an empty bag in my kitchen wastebasket. 

So I was sad to read the news that those chips, as of April, will not longer be made in Massachusetts. The OG plant in Hyannis is closing down, and 49 employees will be losing their jobs.

In a statement, the company said the Hyannis plant produces just 4 percent of the Cape Cod and Kettle brand chips, while newer plants in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania produce the majority. The move will end production of Cape Cod chips in Massachusetts. (Source: Boston Globe)

The company, by the way, is not Cape Cod Potato Chips. It's Campbell's, as in soups in red and white cans. They acquired Cape Cod back in 2018. I can't say I remember this acquisition, but I'm sure I was aware of it at the time. As I'm sure I would have feared that, post acquisition, chip quality would go down, and those yummy Cape Codders would no longer be so Mm! Mm! Good!

Purists may notice a difference, but I can't say that I have. Cape Cod Potato Chips remain my brand. (I favor the sea-salt originals, but also like the russets.)

Still, sorry to see the chip production leave Hyannis, even though it's unlikely that the chips in the bag I just consumed were actually made locally. I fished the bag out of the trash, but there was no indication of where the chips were produced. All I learned was that the chips were distributed by Cape Cod in Hyannis.

Probably not for long.

The Hyannis site “no longer makes economic sense for the business,” the company said. “Production will be transferred to more modern and efficient plants, enabling a more agile and flexible manufacturing network” while maintaining quality. 

Blah, blah, blah-di-blah blah.  And, for the employees who are about to be pink-slipped, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, life goes on.

Campbell’s said it will provide “impacted employees with separation benefits, job placement support and guidance on how to access state assistance programs.”

The company said it plans to connect with Cape Cod organizations that “offer culinary entrepreneur programs, workforce development, and career pathways” in the hospitality industry. It will also allow nonprofits to apply for grants from the Campbell Foundation, which targets communities where the company has operations.

Good luck to the laid-off employees. I can't quite figure out how working on a manufacturing line can translate into culinary entrepreneurship, but, then again, I am singularly lacking in careerish imagination. Good luck to them all!

And I do have to say that there was something a bit romantic about Cape Cod Potato Chips actually being made on Cape Cod as opposed to, say, Wisconsin. The sea salt from Wisconsin won't exactly be local. And while I know that Wisconsin has a titanic lake next door. And dunes. It's not the same. No one ever wrote a song about Wisconsin that holds a candle to Old Cape Cod. 

If you spend an evening, then you'll want to stay.
Watching the moonlight on Cape Cod Bay.
You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.

Sentimental me. (Oh, boo-hoo.) 

Makes me want to go out and get a Party Size bag of Cape Cod Originals. (And while I'm in a pro local mood, a quart of Brigham's Mocha Almond ice cream. I'll hold off on the Table Talk Pie until I get to Worcester for a Woo Sox game.)

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Image Source: Cape Cod Chips. 

Guilty until proven innocent

Hard to believe it's been over a month now since Nancy Guthrie went missing. Hard to believe they haven't found something: Nancy (dead or alive), the kidnappers. 

I cannot begin to imagine what this poor woman is going through/went through. Nancy Guthrie is/was eight years older than I am, and she sure looks like she could be someone I know. Part of the alumni commitee I'm a member of. A fellow volunteer. A neighbor. Someone cruising the same shelves at the library looking for a bunch of good reads. A nice, pleasant "older lady" who looks like she doesn't have a mean bone in her body.

I cannot begin to imagine what her poor family is going through. There's the act of the kidnapping. But even worse is the not knowing. It's god-awful to sit through a death watch. It's god-awful to lose someone you love. But not knowing what your loved one is enduring/has endured? Not knowing if they're alive or dead? Not knowing if you'll ever know? Unimaginable.

It's also unimaginable to be an innocent bystander, someone who had less than zero to do with this heinous crime, yet find yourself a prime suspect, plastered all over social media and having civilian vigilante crime-stoppers stalking you (and your family) online and up close and personal.

As has happened to Dominic Evans, a Tucson grade-school teacher who had the ill luck to have been the drummer for Early Black, a band for which Nancy Guthrie's son in law Tommaso Cioni is the bassist. Early on, Cioni was named (by someone, somewhere) as the prime suspect in Guthrie's disappearance. ("The authorities" - and they've been none too authoritative here - have since announce that all the family members, including Cioni, have been cleared.)

Evans, who is 48, also became a prime target because of his criminal past. I.e., Internet sleuthers, in their zest to solve a crime, unearthed the fact that 27 years ago, when Evans was 21, he was arrested "for drunkenly swiping a calculator and watch while out at a bar." Crime of the century, that. 

Anyway, as things do, speculation about Evans' culpability went viral.

The accusations were levied online, but they have become a real-life nightmare for Mr. Evans and his wife. They hid in their bedroom with the lights off that night, too frightened to pick up their son from his grandmother’s house, for fear of being followed. Days later, another swarm of journalists, livestreamers and gawkers photographed the family’s home and knocked on their neighbors’ doors. (Source: NY Times)

When the speculation hit the fan, the Evans' asked their parents to keep their two youngest overnight. They told their teenage son not to come home. Evans had spoken with investigators (legit ones) and, while he hasn't yet been cleared, they haven't reached out to him in the weeks following the first interview. Looks to me like no one suspects Evans of anything. 

Yet when the doorbell camera pictures of the ski-masked man on Nancy Guthrie's doorstep were released, online "crime solvers" decided that yep, the guy was Evans. 

The lives of Evans, his wife, his children have been turned upside down. No, it's not the same degree as what the Guthrie family's experiencing, but it ain't nothing, either. 

“I feel like someone’s taken my name,” Mr. Evans said. But for what reasons? “I don’t know — monetary, clickbait, to be relevant, entertainment — but there are innocent people that get hurt.”

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos (who, regretably, has come across as something of a Barney Fife throughout the investigation) recently said that, while no one other than Guthrie's family (inclding Tommaso Cioni) has been ruled out as a suspect, he feels bad for Dominic Evans. 

“He’s going through hell, and it is horrible,” Sheriff Nanos said. “And I don’t know what to tell him except he probably should be speaking with some attorneys and sue some of these people for libel...I wish I could jump out and defend every single one of them that’s been falsely accused,” he added.

Good luck to Evans if he does decide to sue. I'm sure the defense will be some combination of First Amendment, we were just thinking out loud, we meant no harm, we were just trying to help. Not to mention that most of the social media Sherlocks probably don't have two nickels to rub together. 

The "accusatory onslaught against" Evans has been dying down, and life is getting back to the new normal.

But the lasting effects are clear. The other day, Mr. Evans worried that a man was following him at a department store. Ms. Evans can’t help pulling out her phone and searching her husband’s name — she wants to know in advance if people might mob their neighborhood.

“None of this is real, but there’s so much of it,” Ms. Evans said of the speculation. “How can anyone decipher or catch all of it?”

Problem is, you can't.

I feel plenty bad for Nancy Guthrie, and for her family. They're going through hell. But I'm also feeling plenty bad for Dominic Evans and his family, collateral damage in the hunt for Nancy Guthrie and her abductor(s). And in the eyes and limited little minds of the nothing-better-to-do-brigade of amateur crime solvers, guilty until proven innocent.

Look, I understand just how entertaining it is to poke around the web googling "stuff." Way back in 2013, when the Boston Marathon Bombing occurred, I spent hours haunting the web. And when they released the names of the bombing brothers, I found info on Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev - where he was a student, what he was studying - before it hit any of the news sites. 

But finding "stuff" out is one thing, keyboard and phone vid rampaging around accusing innocent people of crimes they didn't commit is quite another. Get a life, folks. And if you can't get a life, why not STFU rather than keep hurting the lives of others.

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Image Source: Screen Daily

AI AI AI AI!

I'm a pretty big Ken Burns fan. I love, love, loved The Civil War, Baseball, The Vietnam War, Country Music. If I had to pick a favorite, tie goes to Baseball and The Vietnam War. I remember a lot about Baseball. Understandably, as it paid a lot of attention to the Olde Towne Team. The Vietnam War I recall in far less detail, other than that I was heartsick (and often crying) while watching it.  

Yes, there's a sameness to Burns' work, a familiar trope that unites them all. The old documents and pictures, the talking heads, the "you are there" shouts and shots, the period music. (Even if it's faux period. Seriously, who cares if The Civil War's "Ashokan Farewell" was written in 1982, not 1862?) But I love the way he so skillfully weaves everything together. And I always come away from a Ken Burns' series having learned a few things.

That said, I was a bit underwhelmed by The American Revolution, his latest. Yes, it was interesting. Yes, I loved the local history. (While out and about, I pass the site of the Boston Massacre a couple of times a week.) And yes, I learned stuff. Like just how bloody (literally) awful it all was. Still, it's not one of my favorite Ken Burns' outing. 

Yet I would watch it on endless loop before I'd sit through the entirety of Darren Aronofsy's new “On This Day… 1776,” a series of (blessedly) short videos that chronicle one event that took place during that so-critical year of the founding of the United States. 

Aronosky is a well-known director - that is, well-known other than to me (although I believe I've seen bits of Black Swan - who has chosen to do without the expense of using human actors, actual horses, period costumes, and real locations and "create" everything using AI.

I watched a couple of them. “The Flag” focuses on King George blithering and "our" George (Washington) raising the first, pre-Betsy Ross version of the American flag. “Common Sense"  features Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin who is depicted as something of a droll little Muppet. they were pretty creepy. The "characters" - if you can call them that - are affectless, hollow-eyed, affectless. The "acting" - if you can call it that - is wooden, probably because the mouths don't sync up with the dubbed voices.

You didn't need the little early-on disclaimer that states "altered or synthetic content" is being used. That's pretty obvious from the jump.

It looks like a video game. And if it's supposed to be stirring, engaging, emotionally satisfying, well, let's jus say it's not like hearing Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife being read while "Ashokan Farewell" plays softly in the background.

Here's what Gizmodo (a tech news site) had to say:

The series uses human voice actors who belong to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), which is clearly an attempt to tamp down on the inevitable backlash from both inside and outside Hollywood. Folks inside the movie and TV industry have fiercely pushed back against the use of AI to replace the skilled artists and actors who create the media we watch. That concern obviously comes from a place of self-interest because nobody wants to be pushed out of a job. But they also care about the quality of the work being produced. And there’s also been a revolt among the average consumer, people who’ve been inundated with the lowest-grade AI garbage imaginable. It’s really everywhere now. (Source: Gizmodo)

 Writer Matt Novak further characterized it as AI slop that "looks like dogshit."

Over time, we can expect a couple of things. The quality of AI-generated movies will no doubt improve. There'll be real actors behind some of the AIs, who may be just as happy to accept half pay to lend their name and voice without having to show up on location and do multiple takes. There'll be AIs who don't represent an actual human being at all. But they'll have backstories, social media presence, and adoring followers. 

And moviegoers will grow to accept the soulless enterprise that is AI when it enters the creative realm.

AI has its place, its uses. Trouble is, it's going to be creepily creeping in to places where we'd be better off without it.

Guess we'll have to take the advice of the Ay-Ay-Ay-Ay song and canta no llores. (Sing, don't cry.)

Meanwhile:

Gizmodo reached out to Ken Burns for comment, but didn’t immediately receive a reply 

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(Image Source: CineD)