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Syriana left me deeply mixed. That review feels like a cop-out, but it’s all I can do a few days later. The story stretched, badly. The movie didn’t drag, but its efforts were too blatant somehow. Yet some of the characters were compelling, and I am glad I saw the movie simply to get visuals of the oil infrastructure and some snapshots of the Middle East. The combination of desert and modern infrastructure pictured made Las Vegas seem environmentally sound by comparison.

A Metacritic score of 76 means I’m on the lower side of the interest curve on this one.

Side note: I find it very difficult to watch films where young children die as part of the plot. I don’t think I was callous before becoming a parent, but now I can’t face such scenes with any dispassion.

Simple means launching something… it certainly does. Del.icio.us wasn’t working at this second, but a useful kick-in-the-ass post worth recording here instead.

I didn’t know Mike, my friend and colleague from CNET Networks was blogging over at 37Signals until I read it on Matt’s post. Sigh… can’t ever keep up.

I have several Tintin books, so this BBC Faces of the Week magazine piece caught my eye via a promo while I was looking for Cristiano Ronaldo photos. I hope Steven Spielberg, who has owned an option on a live-action film of the character/books since 1982, gets around to trying his hand at making this movie (or movies). Spielberg has enough extra money lying around, though that has been the case for a while. I hope he feels interested in something a bit lighter than Munich.

The boy, who’s learning to read, is loving Tintin… mostly for the pictures and visual jokes, but the language isn’t too far beyond him, either. And Snowy never hurts the youth appeal.

I usually link to the official author or publisher’s site for books I’ve read, but for The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon, I’ll use Wikipedia. (Go there for quick plot summary, if you don’t know the basic thread.) After all, I had the pleasure of reading a 1959 first edition from McGraw-Hill, which no longer publishes such fiction. This copy will remain on the shelf.

I saw the original movie (1962) several years ago, and I liked the thriller in black and white. The book is remarkably adroit, and quite a bit deeper. Maybe that should not be a surprise; all good books should exploit the range that print pages offer. But if you think about the kind of book that turns into a movie now (see: Michael Crichton), I find Candidate a remarkable book in many ways. I’m going to have to look around for Condon’s other novels.

About the movie… the 1962 version garnered a 94 on Metacritic for the video release. Much more can be found on the film’s IMDB page. The 2004 version received a 76 on Metacritic, which probably isn’t too bad for a remake. Jonathan Demme as director is a good sign as far as I’m concerned, though I’ve never seen this version.

The original movie was the first time I ever learned that Angela Lansbury had a real acting career before Murder, She Wrote on TV. Sue me… that’s just a sign of when I grew up. But what a rip-roaring character, both on screen and in the pages.

Manchuria really must have been a more resonant term in 1959, when the tensions of McCarthy-ism (a driving force in this book, under a different name) made anything remotely Communist a bogeyman for scaring more than just the children. The book leads into the 1960 election, so it’s told as if it were current events, not history. Candidate sparks now, but I think the flint edge must have been even sharper when first published.

A worthy read.

During a cold, quiet afternoon in Brooklyn nine days ago, I picked up The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I read the entire series a long time ago, and this thin volume didn’t seem like it could contain all that I remember of this start to the fabulous tales of Narnia. I dashed through it all the same.

The book is written for young adults, and as such, I almost wish I hadn’t read it again. It remains a wonderful tale, and I certainly plan to see the current movie, but the color and depth of my childhood reading (and memory) left me surprised at how simple the language is, and how short the book. It’s abrupt and quick and hardly seems to paint the whole world which still echoed in my head from long ago. Maybe I shouldn’t see the movie, either… but I probably will.

Nothing is as simple as a boyhood hero.

I skimmed through Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Aston Villa this afternoon, and in extra time, Cristiano Ronaldo almost turned his usual cheeky footwork in a masterpiece. Man U was already winning 2-0 when in the 93rd minute Ronaldo ran through a few stepovers before crossing the ball from his right foot by kicking behind his left leg. This dance step put a perfect ball to Ruud van Nistelrooy’s head inside the six. Although Ruud failed to live up to his high finishing standards, and the cross was all for naught, the should-have-been-an-assist moment was remarkable. Yet it was only on the replay from a different angle that it became clear just how outrageous the move was. I searched the English sites I usually avoid (so my TiVoed games are still new to me) in vain, looking for a picture of the move. Wow.

Tomorrow… go Arsenal. Time to make a stand, reverse the two straight losses, and disrupt the Chelsea juggernaut. If the Gunners fail to beat Chelsea at home, this might have been the last important match at Highbury before Arsenal moves to its new stadium next season.

So Jeremy Zawodny poses an interesting take on online backup, with a great analogy which he hopes might be true. The comments seem to say otherwise, with knowing advice. Fred Wilson recommends two services, including one he depends on personally. His readers, too, have potentially useful comments on the situation.

The problem? None of the four or five solutions I just reviewed via these posts are for Mac OS X. Yes, I know about .Mac, but there are notable problems with that solution, starting with terrible online documentation. Even in the PDF (PDF?!?!!), I couldn’t find any explicit details about Backup 3 that would tell me how many gigabytes are available, nor any discussion about bandwidth limits, if any. I believe there is a single digit gigabyte limit on many/all of these services. I understand that, but part of the appeal of backup is… not thinking about it. I don’t want to have to consider which files to backup. I would hope that .Mac is remarkably simple, matching the brand promise and the target audience, but would it kill them to provide actual services details on the website in easy-to-understand HTML? Until that problem is rectified, I won’t even consider the more important issue of space limitations.

Maybe I’m in the minority. I am willing to pay a reasonable amount for a solution, since I know I’m living on borrowed time here.

Thoughts? Of course, I don’t have comments or trackbacks enabled, so hard for anyone to share the ideas/services I’m missing, but let me know via email at jbr at this domain.

Sujal reminds me about SuperDuper, which I had previously noted. Compelling review here. Still not an online solution, which means I have to (a) buy and (b) rely on an external drive… but the app is less than $30, and storage costs continue to drop. I’ll take this step over the holidays. And keep hoping for that perfect backup in the cloud solution.

The Ludlum novel, The Apocalypse Watch, was written by Robert Ludlum (earlier musings) , and it has all the usual pace, plot, and global conspiracy. I needed another “cleanse the palate” read a couple of weeks ago, and found this hardcover on the shelf while culling some titles to make room for more in the future. This book now goes on to a new home. Verdict: a quick covert action thriller, but not worth its space on the shelf long-term.

One note on the villains… published in 1995, Apocalypse Watch employs a neo-Nazi group as its global bogeyman, which seems mildly old-fashioned in the post 9/11 world. Recall how the Mel Gibson/Danny Glover movie Lethal Weapon 2 used apartheid-era South Africans as the villains of choice in 1989? Very politically correct villain, in that few potential viewers would be offended or identify with those being pursued, killed, and otherwise brought to heel. I’m interested in catching Syriana at theaters in part because it seems partisan, or at least unafraid to take a side. That doesn’t mean the movie is any good, of course.

I’m not sure why Dave Winer was poking around the top ten most common last names in the United States, but I was pleased to see that Roberts did not make the cut. Roberts is only 43rd on the list.