Drunken Pumpkin

DailyTech.com

The headline reads:

NIST Creates Perpetual Motion … But Only for 10 Seconds

Codeine . . . bourbon.

Died December 12, 1968

I’ve never felt better.

Died December 12, 1939

A letter from Mr. Pratchett containing the revelation can be found here.

Terry Pratchett is a British best-selling author, best known for his Discworld series of novels, as well has having won numerous awards for children’s books.

Yeah, it’s been a while, but a promise is a promise.

I may have been a little hasty when saying that the movie business seemed to forget that Will Smith isn’t white. I can only come up with a couple movies where he’s clearly played what is traditionally a white character: Wild Wild West and I Am Legend.

Jim West was a white guy. Originally West was played by Robert Conrad on the TV Show (now available on DVD, I might add), and compounded by the fact that West was supposed to be the first member of the US Secret Service, he should have been white, if for no other reason than continuity. On the other hand, how can you cite a film for an anachronism when it has a giant mechanical spider in it? Seriously, that’s a little like complaining that Bugs Bunny doesn’t run the way a rabbit should, while ignoring the fact that he talks.

Then we have the forthcoming I Am Legend. Again, the character of Robert Neville has historically been played by white guys: Vincent Price (Last Man on Earth) and Charlton Heston (Omega Man). Maybe it’s the fact that as I’m white and reading a book by a white guy (Richard Matheson, in this case) I tend to make the main character match my race. I’m not completely certain that Neville’s race is ever brought up, but he always struck me as being a white guy. However, we come back to the problem of realism in cinema, what the hell does it matter in a vampire movie what race the hero is?

Maybe I only noticed this because they pick Will Smith to play the white guys. If it had been some random black guy I might have paused, especially over Jim West, and thought it odd. But since Will Smith is a fairly good actor that brings his own style to things I was a little confused by him being in these roles. I like what he did with the character of Jim West, he added some nice comic relief, but I really hope he doesn’t feel the need to do that with Legend. It is not a funny book. It should not be a funny movie. Omega Man was enough of a tragedy, but that’s almost certainly because Heston’s terrrible actor, Matheson’s book doesn’t need another bad movie made from it.

Tune in next time when I make a statement that I can actually back up…No, probably not.