BIG Bad Parents
Why is the BIG question as to the abrupt exit of Keith Olberman from MSNBC‘s extremely popular show, COUNTDOWN with Keith Olberman. There can be no doubt that his 8pm time slot was by far the most watched and was so proven in survey results time after time. Is this media fickleness? NO!
Is this a good business decision? DOUBTFUL! He has two years left in his contract at a salary of roughly $7M per year, so clearly paying someone NOT to work is not good business. I wouldn’t mind being fired if I could get paid $7M per year and not work, but that’s another story all together.
Word on the street is that COMCAST didn’t like his defiance, his independence – I guess they were strict parents. Oh and yes they are the parents because COMCAST acquired NBC and along with it of course, MSNBC. What a shame! Censorship in any newscast whether it be from a mainstream network anchor or a broadcast personality with a view is a terrible thing.
It’s one of the reasons my husband and I never watch movies on certain channels because not only are they broken up irreverently with commercials they are also edited to eliminate any offensive or deemed to be offensive words. In other words, no pun intended, and actually in those words – somebody in some office high in the sky is deciding what I can and cannot watch or hear! Mmmmm if my memory serves me right, that has always been the forerunner of a dictatorship in the making.
The web is full of news today about this very sad event, you can find thousands of comments on Twitter, most lamenting this terrible turn of events. I hope there is a backlash, that there is some Peter Finch in all of us.
For me, it would be hard not to continue to watch MSNBC because I really do like Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews and Lawrence O’Donnell. So I have to think about how to let the mega media company know I’m not happy with their actions. I know we all think what can I do and I’m only one person so it won’t count but we also know that if all of us one persons do something, somebody will take notice! For years I had ABC News as my home page on my computer but recently abandoned it because I couldn’t click on any article without activating some horrifically loud commercial about something I didn’t want to hear AND the mute button was never visible, I would have to exit that screen if I could find which one of their stupid pop up ads was talking. I wonder what thinktank came up with that brainstorm?
What can we do? Write to the corporation? Write to the sponsors of MSNBC – YES ! “Follow the money” – you remember those famous words uttered over and over again by Deep Throat – that’s where it hurts, that’s what gets their attention; Money talks, everything else walks. Check out the blog later, I will try to compile a list of sponsors that may be less than pleased by this stupid act of parental control.
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
Pbenjay's Blog 
The King’s Speech or Rather the Lack Thereof
Posted in From My Point of View - Personal commentary on Movies and Books, tagged British Empire Exhibition, Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, George VI of the United Kingdom, Guy Pearce, Jesse Eisenberg, King's Speech, Mark Zuckerberg on January 22, 2011| 2 Comments »
The King's Speech
Saw the highly acclaimed movie, The King’s Speech last night, and even as I write this, I’m not sure what I’m going to say about it. Well let me begin with this; I didn’t think it was as good as I expected it to be. Of course that could be the age-old problem of way too much hype in the media and from your friends before you actually see it. I don’t know what I expected, I just know I didn’t get it.
There were at least two story lines that I thought should have been played out a little more; I know the movie was about Albert BUT really…the whole Wallis Simpson/Duke of Windsor thing could have gotten a few more scenes. It was only in the remarks made by the other characters that were telling about the affair and the effects of it upon the royal family and the nation. Funny thing about it is that growing up and never having read anything about the abdication of King Edward, but knowing about somehow, I always thought of it as some romantic love affair, truly l’affaire de couer. And I guess it was truly a love affair since after all the man DID give away his throne for the divorced and married Wallis. In this movie, however, even with such minimal scenes devoted to it, the relationship seemed sordid, unhealthy and foolish.
The other area where I think the audience was left wondering was in the repeated attempts of the Duke of York to deliver a speech or address an audience. In the fist moments of the film, we see the agonizing efforts of the young Albert fiercely trying to talk into the wireless in his futile attempts to deliver an address to a large crowd at the British Empire Exhibition. This is the first of many painful public humiliations we are witness to during the movie. Each time we are only treated to a beginning line or two and then the scene changes. I do understand that his abortive attempts and gaping silences are enough for us to get the idea that his stammering is excruciating to him, his family and his subjects. BUT – how did he get through those speeches? In some of the scenes it is clear that his throat is almost paralyzed and his tongue completely tied. So what happened? I kind of thought in the first scene that his wife was going to jump out of her seat and take over for him! Well that was before I saw the rest of the movie which consistently reminded the viewer of the strict adherence to protocol the royal family so intensely clung.
And now the good part; Colin Firth is magnificent! His portrayal of the stuttering, stammering, frail, sickly boy grown up into a shy, withdrawing and self-deprecating younger brother to the soon-to-be-king is flawless. He embodies the character, completely. Firth’s ability to go from silence into rage is remarkable as his ability to put himself on-screen rolling about on the floor, flapping his lips, waggling his head and jumping up and down with Geoffrey Rush – the two of them looked like monkeys playing, lol.
Colin’s performance clearly puts him high up in the Best Actor category. Quite frankly, I don’t know who could beat him. A few month’s ago, I wrote a review about The Social Network and I praised Jesse Eisenberg‘s performance as Mark Zuckerberg as nothing less than superbly wonderful (see prior blog: The Social Network). And it was and he surely should be nominated for Best Actor but in my opinion he shouldn’t win because as good as he was, Colin was better and had the more difficult role.
Geoffrey Rush will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor as well he should be; I hope he wins. And certainly NOT to be overlooked is the cinematography, the lighting was so exquisitely natural you forget that it’s lighting.
Final Thoughts: Guy Pearce was smooth and handsome as the Duke of Windsor, unfortunately he was completely obsessed (as portrayed in this movie) with a woman of a questionable background so I no longer think of him as a hopeless romantic but rather a weak spoiled rich boy lacking in character and morals NOT to mention that although it was not greatly emphasized in the movie – he and his Duchess cavorted with the likes of Hitler and that certainly does not put him in any good light. And as an added piece of reality, I had the good fortune to attend the Sotheby’s auction of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and from the look of his clothes he was not only a dandy, he was tiny one at that.
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