Things have been quiet around here, and the reason is that Lisa and I are now parents to a beautiful baby girl (so, it isn’t quiet at home, just here on the blog)! Once things settle down and we get some sleep, I’ll get back to posting my random thoughts about random things.
Did CSI: Miami jump the shark?
I’ve never been a huge fan of CSI: Miami. First, I’m a Law and Order fan. There are three things I like about Law and Order: 1) the characters are entertaining and seem real; 2) there isn’t so much drama in the personal lives of the characters, the drama is about the crimes and the cases, not the people (for the most part); and 3) they often make me think, at least a little, about social issues and how justice is carried out in the US.
The CSI franchise, in general, doesn’t have any of this. It seems to me to be more brain candy than Law and Order, with the point being just to show how cool forensics can be. But, then they don’t even do the forensics right. They never wear hair nets, for example. The same people do every single task in the lab, which, for such a large lab, seems unlikely. And, there is lots of personal drama; half the stories are about the characters, not about the crime.
But, CSI: Miami has been my least favorite. Partially, because I think David Caruso’s Horatio Caine is just down right annoying. His one-liners, the attitude with which he gives them, just annoy me. And I think they have even more filler than the other versions. They spend a lot more time showing multiple angles of the crew taking tires off a car for analysis with some high-powered sound track than the others do. Much more fluff. Much more annoying. And I especially hate that nothing gets done in the lab until Caine is there to tell the supposed-expert on whatever technique du jour is going to solve the case how to do their job. Shouldn’t they be going to him with answers, not waiting for his play-by-play on what to do?
But, I wonder if they finally jumped the shark. The last episode Lisa and I watched had these “bullet points”. I’m not sure if they are a permanent feature, but they were sure damn annoying. Little pop-ups, inspired by VH1, complete with sound effects (of a firing gun). And the pop-ups contained facts that didn’t seem to add to the story. Lost is doing something similar with their repeated episodes, but without the sound effects and they are actually informing you on the story. And, it seems that the latest episode of CSI: Miami had even more of the filler I was complaining about above. If you took out all of the filler that just showed the characters pretending to do analysis and just had the bits that actually advance the plot, I bet you could squeeze the episode to a half or third of the total running time.
So, I’ve never been much of a fan, but it seems like CSI: Miami is getting even worse. I just don’t understand why it is the most popular of the three CSIs.
Reel ’em in
With Lisa being pregnant and stuck at home, we’ve been watching a few more movies than normal (at least for me). Some quick-fire thoughts on what we saw the last week.
The Illusionist: Starring Ed Norton, who I actually really enjoyed in The Fight Club, this is probably my favorite of this batch. It tells the story of a magician, Eisenheim, who has seemingly supernatural powers. And his dealings with the would-be emperor of Austria Leopold and Leopold’s would-be bride Sophia, who happens to be a childhood friend of Eisenheim. The movie is a bit slow in places and Norton’s acting is a bit odd. His voice is monotone for most of the movie, which was a bit offputting, but overall, I really enjoyed the story. And, the twist at the end was unexpected, at least for me. Giamatti does a great job as the inspector who’s torn between his ethics in his job and his loyalty to Leopold. The mood of the movie was, I thought, very good.
The Invasion: Another movie I really enjoyed. This is an update of the classic “body snatcher” theme movies, with an update in that the alien invaders are more an intelligent virus than a humanoid species. What I found most interesting was not so much the sci-fi aspect of the movie, but the commentary it made on free will and independence and how those create the human condition, for both good and bad. With free will, we can create, feel and love, but we can also destroy and hate. Is a world in which we can’t do either in some ways better than one where we get the bad with the good? The acting was good, though Kidman felt a little stiff at times. I like Craig (in my opinion, the best Bond I’ve watched) and I think he did a good job here too.
Ratatouille: Yet another movie I enjoyed. The common theme was that I picked movies I thought both Lisa and I would enjoy and that had been reasonably well reviewed. I thought this one was great. The animation was excellent, as always from Pixar. The story was a bit hammy, but was good. The concept of the rat Remy controlling the human Linguini was interesting, but I think it wasn’t grounded in anything real. Ok, so we’re talking about a rat that cooks. You’d think I could suspend my disbelief a bit more. But, there was something about Remy controlling Linguini by pulling his hair I couldn’t buy. Suggesting movements, that I could go for. But out-right control? A little too much. But, overall, I thought it was a nice story, typical of Pixar. Maybe a little too sugar-coated. But, worth the watch.
Ocean’s Thirteen: We just watched this one with Lisa’s parents. First, the most annoying thing: the sound. If I turned the volume down so that the music wasn’t over-bearing, I couldn’t hear the voices. If I turned up the volume so that I could hear the voices, the music just blasted me away. So, I missed some of the dialog as I turned the volume down too much. Regarding the story, this one was ok. Typical of the series, I felt (though I haven’t seen 12). Nothing overly spectacular. It felt like it was just going through the motions. There is never any real tension. You never really feel that there is any chance the crew won’t be successful in their caper. The most interesting thing is some of the insights into Vegas gambling. But, some of it was just over the top, like the drilling machines. I think the first one pushed the tension much more and just made it feel like what they were doing was a tough job. This one, not so much. Definitely, my least favorite of this crop.
Betting on politics
This is pretty cool.
I’m currently reading the book The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. It is about how, if they have the right characteristics, a crowd of individuals is smarter than any individual within the crowd. That is, the crowd is smarter than the people that compose it. This is why, for example, the stock market is so successful, overall.
I haven’t finished the book yet, but one thing that it has already discussed, to illustrate this concept, is the idea of political markets. These are markets, much like the stock market, in which people trade futures on politicians. That is, politicians get valued based on how likely the market deems they will win the election. It turns out that these markets are incredibly accurate in predicting winners. They are even more successful than polls of the very voters who will decide the election. When applied to Hollywood, they are they single most accurate predictor of opening day success for movies.
Slate magazine has collected all of the political markets out there and put them on one page. It is fascinating what they are predicting right now. Right now, Obama stocks are particularly hot, worth $70 to Clinton’s $28 (the price is how much it costs to get $100 back if your candidate wins the election; you get $0 if they win. If your candidate had a 100% chance of winning, it would cost $100 to get a $100 share). On the Republican side, McCain is crushing Huckabee $94.20 to $1.70. If you just ask which party is going to win the general election, a share of the Democratic party is worth $65.80 and the Republican party, $33.70.
It will be interesting to see how these markets continue to play out the rest of the election season. To the extent that they are successful, we may see these kinds of markets more and more in other settings requiring decision making.
I also strongly recommend The Wisdom of Crowds. It is a fascinating subject and really tells us something profound about how we should compose groups that have to make tough decisions. In my post on Presidential experience, I mentioned that I think it is important that Presidents surround themselves with a diverse talent pool, with diverse opinions. The lessons from this book are why I think that.
The image is from the Slate article quoted above.
This I Don’t Believe
Earlier, I posted the essay I sent to NPR’s “This I Believe” series. I heard back yesterday that it wasn’t chosen for the national broadcast. They might still use it in other media, and it is online (well, at least I thought it was supposed to be… I can’t find it right now). Oh well, I knew it was a long shot.