Honda has officially christened their new sport utility truck: Ridgeline. No new pictures or anything at the web site, just the new Ridgeline logo and same SUT concept photos that have been around since the truck was introduced at the North American Auto Show. I’m not sure if I like the name or not, but it seems to be somewhat unique, and “Honda Ridgeline” does roll off the tongue.
So another weekend of college football has come and gone, and the SEC still gets no respect. Auburn goes 8-0, clinches the SEC West, yet remains at number 3 when they should be number 1. How is it that California, with one loss, is ahead of Wisconsin, which is undefeated, in the AP Poll? What is this blinding obsession the sports press has with the PAC 10?
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, there is obviously a large sympathy vote out there for USC, on top of the PAC 10 obsession. Since the BCS failed to do the right thing last year and pit USC against LSU for the national title, the sports press is making sure they get the title shot this year, deservedly or not.
Moving on, I realize Utah is undefeated, but what are they doing in the Top 10? Their conference is just packed with those football heavyweights of BYU, Air Force, and UNLV. The MWC doesn’t compare to the Big 12, Big 10, or SEC.
The voters in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches’ Poll can’t let go of their obsession with Miami, keeping them at number 10, despite the stomping the Canes received from North Carolina. Sure, the Tar Heels only won by a field goal, but when you consider they were three touchdown underdogs, to win by three points constitutes a whoopin’.
So, without further ado, this week’s Retrophish™ Real-World Top 5:
So a couple of months ago, our TiVo recorded Lost in Translation. This was one of those critically-acclaimed films we were not able to see in the theater, being the parents of a prematurely-born child. My wife was thrilled when she saw the DVR had saved this movie, and eventually she watched it without me.
I finished watching it today. Please allow me to give you a quick review, in case, like me, you were curious about the film and have not yet gotten around to seeing it.
What a waste of celluloid.
Here’s the plot: Sofia Coppola wanted to make a movie that’s shot in Tokyo, and a little in Kyoto, show off the beauty of Japan, a little in its countryside, but mostly in its urban areas. To sell it to a studio for distribution, she discovered that her name alone wasn’t enough to foster such tripe onto an unsuspecting, movie-going public, and she was forced to hammer out a pathetic excuse for a script that essentially has Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson sitting around for half the movie, gazing forlornly out the windows of their hotel, feeling sorry for themselves with the whole “stranger in a strange land” vibe that everyone on this planet has felt at one time or another, and no, we weren’t particularly fond of it then so why do we have to be reminded of it yet again?
The one scene with any real humor in it, the whiskey photo shoot featuring Murray’s character Bob Harris, was so overplayed during all of the film’s promotion that I didn’t crack a smile once. I know the movie is not a comedy, but the script clearly calls for moments of humor, again, noting the “stranger in a strange land” cliche previously mentioned.
The film’s only saving grace is a lot of footage of Ms. Johansson’s Charlotte moping around her hotel suite in her underwear. I know that in our “modern” society, sex sells, but I thought Ms. Coppola was attempting a great piece of cinematic art, not Cinemax-grade soft porn.
Bob’s in a mid-life crisis. Charlotte, thirty years his junior, has been married to a rock-star photographer for two years, and doesn’t know what she wants to do in her life. Hell, I’m about to turn thirty-four, I got laid off last year from quite possibly the best job I’ve ever had, am still unemployed, and I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. Not a lot of sympathy on my end for poor ol’ Charlotte!
We’re supposed to feel sorry for Bob and Charlotte, but I found myself continuously hitting the fast-forward button. There’s little dialogue, which is on purpose, and what dialogue there is in the film is nothing to hold up as quality writing and production. The audience is even excluded, in a scene widely hailed by the critical press, from what Bob whispers in Charlotte’s ear in the final scene.
I’d like this hour and a half of my life back, please. With interest.