The Lost City

trailer:

(2 min)

The lost city, a motive about Cuba but filmmed in Dominica, is simply another must-watch.

Not for Andy García. As a review (“An Elegy for Old Havana, ‘The Lost City’ of Glamour and Music“, 28 Apr 2006) said:

“The Lost City,” Andy Garcia’s ode to the Havana of pre-Communist Cuba, is a romantic epic manqué that swoons across the screen for nearly two and a half hours without saying much, beyond that life sure was peachy before Fidel Castro came to town and ruined everything.

Not for Dustin Hoffman:

Dustin Hoffman appears briefly (and ineffectually) as the gangster Meyer Lansky, a character who has no reason to be in the movie other than to put Mr. Hoffman’s name on the marquee.

Also not for the Godfather:

The film’s best action sequence is a failed raid on the presidential palace. But it pales in comparison to the Cuban section of “The Godfather: Part II,” which “The Lost City” self-consciously echoes. In its unwieldy length and pulpy grandiosity, “The Lost City” also echoes a different “Godfather” film, Part III, in which Mr. Garcia played Michael Corleone’s protégé, Don Vincent. As that movie does, “The Lost City” lunges back and forth between intimate confrontations and historical events in a clumsy effort to fuse personal and social upheaval. But because its characters pontificate in generalities and aphorisms, they’re little more than stick figures with cartoon balloons pasted over their heads.

Just for the (not-yet-listened) soundtrack.

UC Davis Symphony and Chorus: Beethoven 9

(86 min)

UC Davis Symphony and Chorus perform works by Beethoven and Handel:

00:00 Handel: Organ Concerto
13:35 Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

Starbucks Earnings sink 21%

(1)
The coffee shop reported a 21 percent earning drop in Q2.

Recently, Starbucks suffered a loss in housing market, particularly in California and Florida.

But the fundamental problem is a sharp drop-off in customers. In the face of competition, the company has to maintain its differentiation, and thus the premium. But, the chairman Howard Schultz said, its customers were simply not visiting Starbucks at the rate they once did.

(2)
“Fiscal 2008 is a transitional year for Starbucks,” the chairman said. “We will reinvigorate the Starbucks Experience for our customers.” A turnaround plan is expected:

1. Cost cutting, and
2. Addition of a line of fruit smoothie drinks, the start of a broad effort to offer healthier drinks and expand beyond coffee beverages.

But the plan doesn’t seem very consistent with the “reinvigoration” promised. Few months ago, it is expected to be “back to the basic” by introducing “an improved automated espresso machine that grinds coffee for each drink and has a lower height that will allow customers to see baristas making their beverage”.

Is it losing its way? Or as Mr. Schultz said, “Don’t believe the media hype. There’s no coffee war going on. This is about us.” McCafe wouldn’t agree with him.

Madonna’s candy

(Photo: Michael Nagle for The New York Times)

(1)
Wednesday night Madonna performed in New York to promote her new album “Hard candy”. The NY Times reported her faithful fans formed the line outside the theatre two and a half days before the show time.

(2)
Music video of 4 minutes, featuring Justin Timberlake and Timbaland is horrifying, but (or becoz) it is a kind of real.

(4 min)

(3)
Her song “Hung up”, the star offered a message of sympathy, is about the agony of waiting, the report told, as she finished the song, she told the audience: “Anybody who knows me knows how much I hate to wait.”

Aimee Mann: Shed a Little Light

Aimee Mann’s appearance at West Wing season 4:

(5 min)

Aimee Mann: It’s not going to stop

(4 min)

“you’re sure, there is cure.”

There will be blood

(3 min)

Planned to watch There will be blood over a week… but still hanging with West Wing season 4.

Worse. All the encouraging by the NYT critics’ pick (“An American Primitive, Forged in a Crucible of Blood and Oil“, 26 Dec 2007) was gone with one single reader review: “avoid it, if you can”.

Really?

But the film is above all a consummate work of art, one that transcends the historically fraught context of its making, and its pleasures are unapologetically aesthetic. It reveals, excites, disturbs, provokes, but the window it opens is to human consciousness itself.

That ain’t why i have to watch it…

Authors@Google: Jeff Greenwald

Apr 2008

(52 min)

Greenwald talks about travelling and travel writing.

Vice Slang

Mar 2008

(46 min)

Tom Dalzell, author of “Vice Slang” discusses on slang.

Since 1983, Dalzell has devoted “a considerable portion” of his life to the study of American slang, and is recognized as a national expert. He has authored two books on slang, Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang (Merriam-Webster, 1996) and The Slang of Sin (Merriam-Webster, 1998). Dalzell is the senior editor of The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, a two-volume dictionary to be published by Routledge of London in 2005.

The Ten-Cent Plague

Mar 2008

(49 min)

Writer David Hajdu discusses his book “The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America.”