If J.K. Simmons doesn’t get an Oscar, he wuz robbed. Not sure about the lead, Miles Teller. I’m still turning over his performance in my head. Which means it was probably better. Less showy, more subtle – there are layers there. Which the awards ceremonies rarely reward.
Excellent movie. It had me squirming and sitting up in my seat at the appropriate moments.
That said, yeah, Buddy Rich is no drummer’s role model. And I mean no. None. No one gets that far with BR as their goal. Though J.K. Simmons’ role is closer to BR than Miles Teller’s. Perhaps the filmmaker thought that BR was the only jazz drummer most audiences would be familiar with and used him as a marker? That’s what I thought while I was sitting there.
Generally young musicians don’t go into jazz because they’re looking for R. Lee Ermey to guide them. They’re a bit more free-spirit-ed, and more likely to bail out and go play somewhere else…
Honestly, and this is what’s important, the movie moved fast enough that I didn’t stop to think about it until I got out. And I’ve been thinking about it non-stop since I left the theater. That’s a recommendation for a good movie.
At that stage in a young drummer’s life, they’re imitating everyone. Jo Jones, Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Max Roach, Tain Watts, Billy Cobham, Steve Gadd. Maybe I’m just listing my influences. Perhaps a missed opportunity to show the immersion into other peoples’ styles, until you emerge with one of your own.
However, in the service of a 107 minute movie that had me on the edge of my seat for lots of it, and the only movie about drumming most people will ever see, then that’s more than acceptable movie shorthand.
Five stars. Two Oscar-worthy performances, great suspense movie cinematography, well-used in a movie about musicians, for crissakes!, great story, a fast-mover. If you ever thought about being a musician, go see it. Or even if you didn’t.
And it looks not unlike a snowy mountain on earth. Millions, perhaps billions, of these impacted earth in the early solar system and donated that snow to our planet.
No humans necessary at the destination (cough, asteroid return). It seems to be enough for humans to build the robots and analyse the data sent back by the robots. How much would this mission have cost if humans went?
In other news, the on-site doctor at the scientific facility near me, where something north of 40% of the workforce has a Ph.D, has sent out two emails now encouraging us to get a flu shot because we wouldn't want the symptoms of the flu (which you might get) with the symptoms of Ebola (which you will not get). Sigh. Continually advancing the theme of people can be really smart, and amazing, and really kinda not.
I give it six months [1] before Amazon launches Amazon Purse [2]. Then Microsoft with Windows OLPv3.1 [3].
[1] one Friedman unit in warfare, but an eternity in internet time
[2] Pay and Wallet have been taken
[3] On Line Pay
Nurse who attended ebola patient gets on a commercial flight with a fever. CDC tells her it's okay. The hospital she worked for fails at even basic PPE measures, as does the county health department, who send unprotected LEOs and others to quarantined apartment. MSF doctor returning from attending ebola patients takes NYC subway and goes bowling. MIT CS graduate sends username and password in email.
These are the smart people. We are basically jumped-up savannah primates, instinct tops intelligence every time, and our brain makes up stories to justify the stupid things our bodies do after the fact.
The way evolution works is to make things just good enough to be better than the rest (it should be called survival-of-the-just-a-little-bit-fitter), but absolutely no more, because 2nd law of thermodynamics. It takes energy. So we are just exactly as smart as we need to be, and not even a little bit more.
Yep, still doomed.
Phantom read
There’s phantom ring – you imagine that your phone is vibrating. There must be some name for the phenomenon of phantom read. You glance at the subject line of a complex technical email on your phone, and you think that you’ve read it. But you haven’t really.