Late Night Revolution, Musberger Mess, When The News Is The News

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of January 14, 2013



My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

Late Night Revolution                                                                                               

You never want to jump to a conclusion but it looks like there may be something very interesting about to happen in late night TV.  Late night television has been one of the most astoundingly stable time periods in TV history.  First there was Steve Allen, the Jack Paar, then there was Johnny Carson.  And for 30 years that was pretty much it.  When Carson retired Jay Leno stepped up and David Letterman stepped up and a bunch of other guys tried to pick up the crumbs.  But it’s been Leno and Letterman holding down most of the late night audience.

The problem is that both of the top guys are getting old.  Leno is 63 and Letterman is 65.  And the question has to be who is the next king of late night?

It looked like Conan O’Brien might be that person.  Maybe it’s Jimmy Fallon.  Or maybe it’s Jimmy Kimmel.  Kimmel’s show on ABC got moved last week to the same time slot as both Leno and Letterman.  While Kimmel has been saying all the right things, like he thinks he’ll eventually settle into third place behind the two veteran hosts, the results of his first show in the competitive time slot have to have the big boys worried.

On the first night Kimmel finished in second place comfortably in front of Letterman, he finished the week with a couple of thirds and another second place finish.  But in the key 18-49 audience demographics Kimmel was a power.  He finished second the first night, tied Leno on the second night and easily out distanced the Tonight Show on the third night with growth in younger viewers every single night.

Now one week is way too small a sample size to be drawing any profound conclusions from but it’s well worth considering the potential that’s out there.  Over the last couple years the big boys have messed around (remember the whole Jay Leno to prime time catastrophe?) and that means there’s an opening that could be exploited by a smart, new, younger talent.  Someone like Jimmy Kimmel.

Kimmel is playing it smart.  He’s had the big name stars, he’s even teasing that he’ll finally pay off on a long running gag about having Matt Damon on the show.  And that’s exactly what he should be doing.

The hotshot young host says there will never be another king of late night like Carson.  He might be right.  But someone is going to be the new top dog.  That just might be him.

Musberger Mess                                                                                                          

It never ceases to astound me with all the REAL problems that exist in the world of the media when so much energy gets spent on a non-problem.  Like the tempest in a tea pot that erupted over comments made by ESPN sports commentator Brent Musberger.

In case you somehow missed all this let me offer a quick summary.  During the college football national championship game between Alabama and Notre Dame, where Musberger was one of the broadcast team, there came a moment when the camera found the family of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarren.  Sitting with the family was McCarren’s girlfriend, Katherine Webb, who also happens to be the current Miss Alabama.  Musberger commented on how good looking she was, noted that quarterbacks always seem to get the good looking girlfriends and recommended that young men should polish their football passing skills so they could get such good looking girlfriends too.  The whole thing took just over 30 seconds.  And the Mrs. Grundys of the Twitterverse promptly lost their minds.  ESPN displayed a complete lack of guts and apologized.

My question is - for what?

Let’s review the facts.  Miss Webb is by pretty much any contemporary standard a beautiful young woman.  And at least based on my experience quarterbacks DO tend to have good looking girlfriends.  Add to this the fact that not Miss Webb, her father OR her boyfriend were offended in any way shape or form.  They’ve all said so publicly.

Let’s also remember one other fact.  TV is about the picture.  And when a game gets as far out of hand as that did the director starts looking for other stories.  So there was exactly ZERO chance that they weren’t going to show the beauty queen girlfriend.

Did Musberger do anything wrong?  Yeah, he’s a 73 year man who came off as a little bit hummina, hummina, hummina because he went on past the first obvious comment.  He should be a little embarrassed.  His network should have said nothing.  And all those self appointed guardians of public morality, all the Mrs. Grundys of the world?  They need to go find something serious to worry about.

When The News Is The News

As a general rule there is one story that no news organization ever wants to have to report.  It’s the story when the news organization itself becomes the story.  Unless it’s crowing that you’ve won a Pulitzer Prize news organizations don’t want to be in the news.  Let’s face it, they know as well as we do that the vast majority of the news is when something bad happens.  And the mythology of the news biz is that all the bad stuff happens outside the newsroom.

That strange noise you just heard was every single person who has EVER worked in a newsroom snorting in derision at that last thought.

Never the less the Journal News, a newspaper serving the lower Hudson Valley, recently became the story when they ran article and accompanying map that showed the names and addresses of everyone in their region that had a legally registered gun.  Needless to say those folk did not appreciate the attention.  In fact some folks went so far as to threaten violence against the newspaper resulting in the paper hiring, ironically, armed guards to protect their building.

So what’s really the issue here?  Let’s review the facts.  The story ran shortly following the tragedy in Newtown.  In a time when gun violence, gun ownership, and gun regulation are major topics the question of how many legal guns are in the paper’s readership area is legitimate news.  The information they published was legally obtained from public records.
All of which has been met with a certain level of hysteria.  There are claims that gun owners were treated like sexual predators which seems a stretch to me or that they will be targeted by burglars.  White Plains police note that no such pattern has emerged.

So what then to say about the Journal News story?  I’m not sure I see the news value of printing the names of people involved in a perfectly legal activity.  There is a question of privacy.  While there may be a right to know about total numbers of guns or even areas of especially high concentrations the individual owners names strike me as an especially poor editorial decision.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Book Review - The Complete Sherlock Holmes (e-book)

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume 1 - This is part of Barnes & Noble's Classic Series which offers great works of the past at low to no cost.  I snagged this at one point when it was available for free, I see it's now $3.99.  Still a deal if you're a fan or want to see where the great detective began.  This collection offers 3 novels (you'll see they claim four novels but there are only 4 Holmes novels.  "The Valley of Fear" is the other and it's not here.  I think they're including the multi-part story of "A Scandal in Bohemia" as the fourth) and 56 other stories including all of his most famous cases.

But what really makes this special is the attention to detail and use of the e-book format to help you get the most out of the book.  It includes great back story about Arthur Conan Doyle and the journey he took with his most famous character.  Conan Doyle didn't think much of the fame (and fortune) that Holmes brought him.  There was other writing that he thought much more important.  At one point to try and get out of having to write any more he began asking for more and more exorbitant fees from his publisher.  The publisher being no fool gave him whatever he wanted.  In its day the Holmes stories were pop super-events.

Even beyond that are the footnotes, each with a hyperlink that allows you to quickly leap from an obscure term (that had been well known in Conan Doyle's time) and then back to the action.  It fills in the gaps that sometimes occur when terminology is used that is utterly alien to the 21st Century reader.

I've been a fan of the Holmes stories for years.  It's interesting to see the liberties that TV and movie versions have taken with the character.  Some of which I don't mind and some of which are just silly.  If you love detective stories and you've never delved into the Great Detective this would be a great addition for you.  If you already know the scions of 221B Baker St London this would still be a great addition to your collection.  Volume 1 contains "A Study In Scarlet", "The Sign of Four", "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes", "The Hound of the Baskervilles".  Volume 2 contains "The Return of Sherlock Holmes".

Rating - ***** Put It In Your Library

Book Review - The Last Temptation of Clarence Odbody

The Last Temptation of Clarence Odbody by John Jughead Pierson (2011) - Pierson is a musician, writer and theater owner.  His writing as a playwright are done under the name Ian Pierce.  He was also a founding member of the punk band Screeching Weasel.  His other book is a semi-factual telling of the history of the band.

In this one Pierson does something very, very brave.  He takes the character of the angel from the classic movie "It's A Wonderful Life" and does a little alternate history with his story.  What if Clarence doesn't save George Bailey that cold and lonely night on the bridge in Bedford Falls?  What would happen then?

From that beginning Pierson weaves a fascinating tale of the Bailey children, of Mary, of the vile old man Henry Potter and all the other characters that have become icons in our culture.  My first reaction was one of shock but the movie is based on a much darker original short story ("The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern).  Once you step into the world that Pierson creates you are rewarded with some solid writing and story telling.  Things are tough for the children who must deal with abandonment issues especially Zuzu.  Potter eventually is taken down but many of George's family and friends will fall along the way as well.  And through it all wanders Clarence.  Ejected from heaven for his failure he wanders the world wondering if he had done the right thing and occasionally bumping into people from Bedford Falls.

Clarence is confronted at the critical moment by another angel who questions if saving Bailey is the best thing to do.  Consistent with the movie Clarence isn't too bright and let's himself be argued into not fulfilling his task.  It's a fascinating concept but it also leads to my greatest disappointment with the book.  The ending is very unsatisfying for me.  We never discover who the angel is or what exactly went on in that moment.  Plus the end includes five excerpts from conversations that are just left dangling.  We aren't told who is involved (I guess it's assumed we'll figure it out but I only came up with ideas for three) and they don't seem to resolve anything.

After such a wonderful job working with his characters (he creates a story for a character who only appears in the background of the movie.  Potter's bodyguard is always there behind the chair of the venal old man.  Pierson creates a story for him but curiously uses the name of the actor who played him, Frank Hagney, as the characters name as well.  No idea why, would love to hear an explanation.  Particularly since Hagney is portrayed as a very bad man) to be left with such an inconclusive ending strikes me as very sad.  This is a fascinating and well written effort.  To fall at the final hurdle is a let down.

I snagged this while it was being offered for free, I see it's back up to $9.99.  Not sure I can recommend it at that price.  Otherwise well worth your time.

Rating - *** Worth A Look

Movie Review - Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - (2011) - Some movies have wonderful intricate plots.  And some don't.  This is a movie about people, about character and not about any particularly complex story line.  A bunch of old people from England are (mostly) looking for something different and cheap in retirement.  They end up in a hotel in India that isn't quite as wonderful as the brochure indicates.  In fact it is in the middle of what appears to be a doomed upgrade by a young, enthusiastic but not particularly realistic young man.  Along the way a variety of dreams will be fulfilled and everyone will learn a little about themselves.

Looking back at that paragraph I realize that it falls far short of the delight that I found in this movie.  Start with a brilliant cast - Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup and Celia Imrie for the English characters and Dev Patel, Tina Desae, Sid Makkar and Linette Dubey in the principal Indian roles.  Fill in around them with fabulous scenery and a solid supporting cast in both England and India and you're off and running.  I said this is a movie about people and these are real, breathing people with quirks and flaws and stories.  It is charming and human and just generally wonderful.

I love watching fine actors really showing off the art and craft.  This is a movie that lets them do just that.  Looking for a warm and wonderful story about people that you will come to care about?  Then find a couple hours for "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel".

Rating - **** Recommended

Rock Can Kill You, College Bowl Games and The Great Experiment Fails

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of December 31, 2012



My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

The Great Experiment Fails                                                                                   

I’m not sure there’s another aspect of our relationship with media that continues to struggle more in the transition to the digital age than how we get our news.  Once the printing press started making print materials easier to produce something very much like our modern newspapers came into being.  For centuries this was the primary way, beyond word of mouth, that most people found out about what was happening in the larger world.  As the years went by the newspaper got bigger and offered more and more news.  Not just the local but the national and the international.  Feature stories, sports stories and my personal favorite - the funnies.  I remember waiting till my Dad got home from work because he always brought home the afternoon paper.  I could lay it out on the living room floor and read about all kinds of things.

I’ve talked before about the challenges facing newspapers, magazines, radio and TV news before.  Studies I’ve seen say that there is still a desire for that kind of information.  At the same time people are expecting a different approach that makes use of the technology that has become a larger and larger part of our lives.  Finding the way forward through all those questions has been a challenge.

You had to wonder if Rupert Murdoch had dealt himself the winning hand in February of 2011 when he launched “The Daily”.  The Daily was intended to be the newspaper of the future.  In its initial form it was for the iPad only and was designed to make use of the multi-media abilities of the world’s first successful tablet computer.  Murdoch’s News Corporation would seem to have been just the kind of organization to make it work.  Long history in the journalism field (admittedly not all of it of the highest calibre) and the deep pockets to fund it till it got rolling.  Turns out that became the problem.  It never got rolling.  Which is why they pulled the plug on The Daily December 15.

So the journey will continue into the new year.  How do we want our news delivered?  What business model can be found to make it work and show a profit?

As we watch the launch of a new leadership right here at our hometown newspaper we’ll have to see if there’s some bright business person out there with the idea to launch the next generation of the news.

College Bowl Games                                                                                                          

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, college bowl season was something special.  The college bowl games were the icing on the cake, the tinsel on the Christmas tree, the great way to kick off the New Year by watching the kickoffs of some of the best college football teams in the land.  Those days are dead, dead as a doornail, dead as Marley’s ghost.  What we have in its place is just about as welcome as a visit from Scrooge’s late partner as well.

As is my custom let me be clear - I am not a great college football fan.  I didn’t attend a college with a great football tradition.  I watch one game a year - the Army/Navy game.  Attending that game in person is on my bucket list.  Outside of that I have no use for the college game.  But back in the day I watched a great many of those bowl games.  They were an event back in the day.

Not so much today.

Here’s a quiz for you.  How many bowl games are scheduled for the 2012-13 football bowl season?  10? 20?  Not there yet.  25.  Nope.  30.  Nope.  35 bowl games between December 15 and the so called National Championship on January 7.  Among them you will find such luminaries as the Beef O’Brady bowl, the Kraft Fight Hunger bowl, the Famous Idaho Potato bowl, the Military bowl not to be confused with the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces bowl, the Buffalo Wild Wings bowl, the Belk bowl, the Franklin American Mortgage Music City bowl and the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia bowl.  But all of this leads up to the big game, the National Championship, right?  So you’d expect the bowls to slowly crescendo right?  So explain to me why the last bowl game before the big one is the GoDaddy.com bowl featuring Arkansas State against Kent State.  Other than folks with bets on the game and alumni who watches these games?  I have a friend who is a huge college football fan.  The rule is don’t call on Saturday during football season.  You can visit as long as you sit down and watch the game.  He probably watches all them too.  I just can’t imagine why.

Once upon a time these games were special.

Today let’s just call them all the Irrelevant Football Cash Bowls and move on.

Rock Can Kill You

The New Year is always a time for me to sit back and re-assess my life.  Time to take a look at the goals I want to set for myself.  Plus a time to look at the things I’ve managed to tick off my Bucket List along the way.  This past year for example I finally managed to go to Europe for the first time.  I hope it won’t be the last but I can at least say I’ve done it.

Along the way there are also some things that you just have to admit you’re not ever going to do.  I am never going to play second base for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Or any other professional baseball team but my goal was always the Pirates.  For a lot of us on that dream list included singing or playing with a rock band.  The good news is that as Baby Boomer rockers continue to play well into their geezerhood there may still be hope for me on this one.  A recent academic study out of the United Kingdom may make me re-consider however.

The study was done by the British Health Department and the folks at Liverpool John Moores University.  They studied rock stars from Elvis Presley to the Arctic Monkeys (I looked them up, current English indie rock group).  What they discovered is not surprising and yet a little daunting all at the same time.

Over fourteen hundred stars from rock, punk, pop, R&B, rap, electronica and New Age who worked between 1956 and 2006.  Of that number 137 or just over 9% have died which is a higher percentage of the overall age demographic.  That’s right being a rock star is bad for your health.  Curiously North American music stars seem to live longer than their English cousins, 45.2 years versus 39.6.

Speaking of ages the study debunks the popular 27 year old myth.  While Joplin, Hendricks, Morrison, Cobain and Winehouse all died at that age they are the exception rather than the rule.

The other thing the study saw was that solo acts tend to die younger than members of groups.  It could be that having some support from your band mates make a difference.

Guess it’s true, you can get by, with a little help from your friends.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

Technology for Christmas, Mail Privacy, RIP Mr Food

 "The View From the Phlipside" is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY.  It can be heard Tuesday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM.  The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program.  Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice.  WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed.  You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com.  Copyright 2012 by Jay Phillippi.  All Rights Reserved.  You like what you see?  Drop me a line and we can talk.

Program scripts from week of December 3, 2012



My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside. 

Technology for Christmas                                                                                   

I have to admit that the Great American Activity this time of year is something that I absolutely can not abide.  I’m just going to put it out there and I’ll deal with whatever backlash is headed my way.

I hate Christmas shopping.

Don’t get me wrong.  I really enjoy shopping.  In fact my wife and I trade the traditional gender stereotypes when it comes to shopping.  She likes to go in, get what she wants and get out which is the traditional “male” shopping style.  I enjoy window shopping, comparing prices and features and just generally making a project out of it.  Except at Christmas.  You see I hate crowds.  You are all lovely people I am sure.  But when we all get together in a bunch our less desirable personality traits begin to emerge.  Plus there’s the added problem that when that many people all show up at the mall then you end up parking somewhere near Rochester.  Which means I end up having no idea where I parked the car.  Which just adds to the overall level of frustration.

So I think what is being tried at the Mall of the Americas in Minneapolis is a really cool idea.  The super mall has a parking lot with over twelve thousand spaces.  Now they have a text based system that will not only remind you of where the car is parked but also can answer any question you may have about what’s going on at the mall, all done in real time.  You start by texting your location before you leave your car (all the instructions are posted throughout the parking lot.)  Then later in your shopping adventure (and if you’ve never been to the Mall of the Americas let me assure you that shopping there is an adventure.  That place is enormous) you will get a text message with the location of your car.  All provided by actual live customer service reps right there at the mall itself.

Mall of the Americas says it has average over a thousand lost customers every year for a while which is why they added the text service.  Our malls are smaller but I’d bet at Christmas time most of us would consider such a service to be a real gift.

It might even make me a tiny bit less grouchy this time of year.

Mail Privacy                                                                                                          

Privacy is an issue that I’ve talked about many times before on this program.  Privacy covering our personal information, privacy concerning who we are and what we do while we’re online.  The reality is that none of this is particularly easy or clear cut.

For example - we all know that what we post on Facebook or Twitter or any other social media is pretty much public.  There are some ways to control that but the reality is once you put it out there, it’s out there.  Now I would imagine that most of us think that our messages on Facebook are somewhat more private (as compared to posts to our timeline).  And most of us probably presume that our e-mails provide us an even higher level of privacy.

Of course if you follow the news you know that may or may not be true.  E-mails between the former director of the CIA General David Petraeus and his biographer have had massive personal and professional repercussions for Petraeus and the U.S. Intelligence community.

But that required authorization from a court to violate the privacy, right?  Well, it may not be as hard to pull off as we think. For example did you know that if the government wants copies of your e-mails from the last couple months they need to get a court order.  But if they want to see your e-mails that are older than 180 days they don’t need any such thing.  180 days.  So we’re in the first week in December, that would mean anything from this summer and before is pretty much fair game.  

The issue here is that once again the law is trailing real life.  You see we used to store our e-mails on our personal computers.  Now more of us (for example if you use Gmail) keep our e-mail in the Internet “cloud”.  The current law offers limited protection for files stored for more than 180 days on an online server.  There is proposed legislation to change this but at the moment it doesn’t have a great deal of support.

It’s easy to sit back and think that our personal e-mail is part of our private life.  It’s easy to think that we are protected by our Constitutional rights.  Turns out it’s never that simple.

RIP Mr Food

There’s a very special place in the American mythos for the self made man.  We love successful people but our mythology is really built around the person who starts with nothing and makes something out of himself.  It speaks to potential, the American Dream that with a little luck and hard work any of us could be a success.

Two weeks ago we lost one of those great American success stories.  Art Ginsburg passed away back in November.  You probably don’t know that name.  If you do recognize it’s only because of his obituaries.  But you’ve almost surely seen him on TV and maybe even own some of his books.  Art Ginsburg was better known to the world as Mr. Food.

Ginsburg was born in 1931 in Troy New York.  His father was a butcher and that’s what Art grew up to be as well.  The story probably would have ended there except that through a little bit of luck he ended up in the catering business.  His success there led to a local TV station in Schenectady asking him on to do those little drop in bits that are a staple of morning television today.  That grew into a syndicated program that at its peak had 168 affiliates.

Sure there was Julia Child and Graham Kerr but Mr. Food was different.  He had no interest in showing off his arcane knowledge of exotic foods.  Ginsburg was quoted as saying that “...chefs cook for other chefs, I cook for America”.  That meant that he had no problem using canned soups or cake mixes along the way.  The idea was to create good food that didn’t require stuff you couldn’t find in the average American home and to do it quickly and easily.

Along the way Art Ginsburg and his Mr. Food persona became a comfortable and friendly presence.  Maybe you’d start with his stuff and go on to the fancy cooking but you could stay right there with him.  Ginsburg wrote 52 cookbooks that sold over 8 million copies.  He used to record over 200 episodes every year of his show.  He remembered that cooking was about the food we serve our families not a culinary competition.

Along the way he became the great American success story.  And yes, I’ve got to say it,  Oooh, it’s so good.

Art Ginsberg, Mr. Food, was 82 years old.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

In Flight Movies

Had the opportunity to go to Germany last week with my 9-5 job.  All that time flying over the Atlantic and free movies is pretty much as good as my life can get.  So I watched the following:

Jumper - (2008)  If you take away all plot logic, character development and don't worry about actually explaining what's going on you end up with Jumpers.  There is a really cool concept here (that some people have an ability to "jump" instantaneously from one place to the next.  If they can visualize it they can jump there) that gets utterly squandered by the script.  An attractive cast that obviously had some fun doing this movie also gets let down by just a really weak story.  Where does this ability come from?  Don't know, never explored.  Is it only the lead character (played by Hayden  Christiansen) or are there more?  Well we know there's at least one other (we meet him) and he seems to imply there are more out there.  But otherwise unexplored.  There is a group of folk (led by Samuel L. Jackson) called the Paladins who are hunting down the jumpers and killing them.  Why?  Small spoiler here because I'm about to tell you EVERYTHING the movie supplies as an answer.  They're religious zealots who have been doing it for years.  Basically a ten word explanation.  That's it.  The movie was clearly aimed at being the first of a "Jumpers" franchise.  They chose to set up the franchise rather than actually make a complete movie.  Tag on a stupid and undeveloped ending and you end up with a silly pointless movie.  The only surprising thing is that the cast has enough fun with the pitiful dregs of a story they're given to make the movie at least fun to watch.

Rating - *** Worth a Look (but only just barely)

Prometheus - (2012)  Let me get this out of the way right off the top.  The movie is visually stunning.  Really impressive. That's pretty much it.  This movie is derivative (you can play a game during it.  See how many ideas and images have been lifted from other movies for this one.  That will give you something to amuse yourself during this drivel), tedious, badly acted, unimaginative, pretentious, and utterly unworthy of the amount of movie spent to make it.  I kept thinking that director Ridley Scott had decided to out do the visual impact of "Blade Runner" and gotten lost in the attempt.  The story certainly did.  A train wreck.

Rating - ** Don't Bother

The Bourne Legacy - (2012) I loved the original Bourne trilogy with Matt Damon.  So I didn't know how this extension of the franchise with Jeremy Renner taking over the lead (not as Jason Bourne but as another product of the secret government program that created him) was going to do.  In the end I liked it, maybe even liked it a lot.  It's a Bourne movie so it's action over in depth thoughtfulness but they all are.  The script gives enough depth to the characters to make them interesting.  If there's a complaint it's that the basic story line is familiar.  An agent of a rogue covert U.S. operation designed to create super soldiers decides he's had enough.  He wants out.  The program can't have that so they decide to eliminate him (and all the other agents in the program as well).  He escapes with the help of a beautiful woman who is drawn into the action against her will.  They survive a series of attempts on their lives, win in the end and fall in love.  If you've seen any of the Bourne films you know this by heart.  It's too bad they didn't decide to mix it up somehow.  The fact that this movie is barely making the break even mark should probably tell the producers to try something different if they ever make another.  The cast is great, the story is predictable, the action is fast and furious.  Two out of three isn't bad for an action picture.

Rating - *** Worth a Look

The Descendants - (2011)  This one made the others worth wading through.  To be honest I probably had the lowest expectations of this George Clooney flick of any I saw on my travels.  Yet it out performed the others by miles.

It's the story of a nice if rather ineffectual guy (Clooney) who is suddenly shoved into a series of high stress situations that only he can handle.  He lives in Hawaii and is part of a family descended from the last king of the islands.  They have a large tract of undeveloped land that they have to decide how to handle.  Sell it and become individually wealthy or try to hang on to some of the last undeveloped land in the islands?  Add to that an accident that results in a massive head injury to his wife forcing him to face decisions about pulling the plug.  He has two daughters in crises of their own, a variety of other family issues and a final complication that I won't give away.  All of them are problems that he has to solve.  No one else.  The movie is filled with heavy, serious issues that could have turned this is a ponderous and dour film.  Instead Clooney, the writers and the director manage to give it a warmly funny grace that is charming.  It never cheats and makes fun of any of the situations but it never lets them overwhelm the humanity of the story either.

I loved this movie even as tears poured down my cheeks as the father, daughters and other family members face the horrible waiting for mom to die after being taken off of life support (I've been in that very situation following my mom's stroke).  The cast is wonderful, the script is deft, the direction is exceptional.  It all works.  This is the one I'll recommend to everyone I meet.

Rating - **** Recommended