The Wire creator David Simon rants about New York City:

I mean, here is a fact… an honest to God fact: last year, there were more corpses on the three Law & Order franchises, which were all set in Manhattan… there were more dead people shown on that show than there were actual homicides in Manhattan.

Obama loves The Wire, although he missed last night’s premiere because he was, you know, campaigning. Someone should ask him what his thoughts are on Hamsterdam.

The original script for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood is on the film’s “For Your Consideration” page (click on “Script” at the right end of the menu). It differs slightly from what’s on screen, but is structurally the same. What did I think of the movie? The first two hours are excellent, with great acting, a well-used score, and deliberate cinematography – but structurally, the film falters in its final half hour. The final minutes, however, are exhilirating, over-the-top, and fitting at the same time.

If you’re still on the fence about the ending of No Country for Old Men , read this interesting take, which I think captures what the ending is trying to do very well. Of course, it doesn’t settle the issue of whether the ending works within the context of the rest of the film, but I think some films work better on subsequent viewings, and I’m looking forward to seeing NCFOM again. (via scanners)

Once again, the always compelling electoral-vote.com comes alive to cover aggregate polling of the 2008 election season. I’m interested in how some polls may shift now that Obama/Huckabee have taken Iowa. (thx, jonmay)

Multiple people have sent me this semi-critical article by Mark Bowden on The Wire , which starts it fifth and final season on HBO this week. Bowden respects the show and its verisimilitude, but takes on David Simon for letting his personal anger get in the way of “accuracy and evenhandedness.” I don’t buy the argument that the show’s bleakness is exaggerated, although I do think the show has become more didactic in its later seasons. I also dismiss the argument, which I’ve seen elsewhere, that the show merely serves to comfort the guilt of liberal viewers – one might as well make the same argument about any great work of social realism. Thoughts?

It’s only fair I give Huckabee some space as well. Can anyone give me an explanation of this line from his Iowa caucus victory speech last night?

Now, ladies and gentlemen, for the same reason that our founding fathers and those before us saw what was behind us and gave it their best, I ask you to join me across Iowa and the rest of America to look out there in front of us and not to hate those, but to look behind us and to love them so much that we will do whatever it takes to make America a better country, to give our kids a better future, to give this world a better leader.

Here’s the audio clip, with credit to Air America’s Rachel Maddow for highlighting this line.

Charles Peters:

People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements… Since most of Obama’s legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there – and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously.

He goes onto cite several examples from Obama’s history, and ends by calling for more legislative coverage of all candidates. (Zephyr Teachout has been pushing for this as well.)

Today is Obama-love day.

David Cross defends his appearance in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.

I have not seen the movie so I can’t really comment to whether it’s an “evil” or “dangerous” “piece of shit” or not. The reason I haven’t seen the movie is because I am not eight years old.

(via fimoculous)

An interesting blog post on “film history fakelore”, myths about the history of movies that lead to lazy and clichéd writing. Some examples:

-Moviegoers in the 1890s were panicked by the train’s approach in the Lumière film L’Arrivé d’un Train.

-Jaws was the first summer blockbuster and its success killed the more authentic auteur cinema of everyone’s beloved early 1970s.

I’d like to see an analysis of each of the myths mentioned in the post. (via ebert)

The winter solstice illumination of the Newgrange megalith in Ireland – which I wrote about exactly two years ago -- was streamed live on the Web this morning. Here is a YouTube video of it, if you don’t mind the commentary.

The trailer for Grass Roots, a documentary about the Nevada marijuana legalization campaign for which I ran the Internet operations in 2006. The film’s distribution plans are still unknown to me. Can you spot crazymonk? I have two appearances in the trailer, and probably only a few lines in the film.

Ebert picks his top ten films of 2007. Juno , which I haven’t seen yet, is #1. I’ve seen only No Country for Old Men (#2) and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (#3) so far. Damn small cities.

Variety is reporting that new episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will be returning to Comedy Central on January 7th, 2008.

[T]he shows will try to work around the missing writers (and the guild rules that bar anything that’s traditionally the domain of scribes) by relying heavily on pretaped segments from the field.

(via aicn)

Twist Marketing asked twelve “marketing types” for their favorite video from 2007 -- most are of the marketing/persuasive type. I had seen some of these, but it was still a good diversion. I have to give credit to those Dove commercials. (via joho)

A new Neal Stephenson interview has been published, conducted in 2006 but still the most recent one out there. Unfortunately, it’s part of Tomorrow through the Past: Neal Stephenson and the Project of Global Modernization, an academic book going for $80 on Amazon. Dr. Jonathan Lewis, the author and an English professor at UNCP, also studies the works of David Foster Wallace:

“I am looking at Wallace and Stephenson and how their storytelling techniques have been influenced by the Web,” Dr. Lewis said. “It is a style with multi-threaded stories that may be moving at different speeds in a way that is similar to the way people use the Web.”

Sounds interesting, but I always thought Infinite Jest ‘s multi-threaded narrative was more influenced by Tom Clancy (and fractals) than the Web.

Update: I was able to read the interview thanks to a library and a friend. Nothing revelatory, but we’re currently in a Stephenson void so it was good to read something. The best line, in reference to why his old pen name books have been republished with his real name:

[The] perception of secrecy or furtiveness tends to make people behave irrationally.

Amazing photo and video of volcanic eruptions on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons. The big one is Tvashtar, with a plume that is almost 200 miles high. (via badastronomy and kottke)

The New York Times tries to figure out why Italians are the unhappiest people in Europe. There’s a reason my parents hightailed it out of Italy nearly 40 years ago, and evidently the country is still struggling with politics and economics. (via sicily guide)