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I prepared this short video with WNYC's Uncommon Economic Indicators in mind. What do you think? Be fair, but please—as Elvis sings—don't be cruel.



Source (approximately 00:59)

Two Movies, Two Days

I think two movies may close in two days. Both are worthwhile.

I recently saw the revival of Z (1969) at the Film Forum. A fact-based story (like The Haunting in Connecticut!) revolving around a political assassination, Z still pulses with vitality forty years after its release. The story becomes more involving as it unfolds, practically inviting additional research into the real-life basis for the movie. Director Costa-Gravas...Wait! It's been held over through March 31! So now you've got more time to prepare for...

Watchmen in IMAX at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square! That exclamation mark might be overdoing it at bit, because Watchmen isn't that great a movie. However, I've come up with a theory: One's enjoyment of Watchmen is enhanced if one has read the book and if one sees it in IMAX. The book (originally a series of comic books) is a great example of how absorbing graphic fiction can be; the movie, which omits story elements, doesn't match the book when it comes to inventiveness, but it largely works well as a realization of some interesting aspects of the book. The IMAX format yields some gripping visuals (though at one of last night's screenings some sort of debris seemed to mar the projections for several minutes) and the action sequences add life to the static panels. Some of the dialogue is laughable or just unsubtle—especially toward the end—but lots of the more interesting and more important themes of the original (which has its own finale issues) do come through.

Back to Z: Here's an interview between Costas-Gravas and Leonard Lopate on WNYC.



Source (3:31)

THANKSGIVING CARTOONS AND PHOTOS!

Could the balloon inflation before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade be any more photogenic?

Here are the winners of WNYC's Cartoon Cornucopia Contest. Compare with the Anti-Cornucopia Contest.



Photo: David Marc Fischer

CARTOON CAPTION/ANTI-CAPTION CONTESTS CONTINUE!

Before sharing the latest in caption/anti-caption contest winners, losers, and nominees, here's a message from Chrys Wu, who's got the enviable job title of Editorial Curator at WNYC:

The New Yorker's cartoon editor, Bob Mankoff, is looking for a few good Thanksgiving-themed New Yorker-style cartoons and I thought you and your readers might be interested in entering the contest.

Make a drawing, give it a caption, and submit it to <http://www.flickr.com/groups/cartooncontest/> on
flickr. Mankoff will choose his favorites and discuss
them on "The Leonard Lopate Show" on WNYC on the day
before Thanksgiving, Wednesday, Nov. 21.

Submission deadline is Nov. 14 at noon.

For more information, please see:
<http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2007/11/21>

And, of course, Dan Radosh has started his own anti-contest for the worst Thanksgiving cartoon possible.


So. The big contest news is that New Jersey has broken its dry spell to become the third double-digit state in the Cartoon Caption Contest, thanks to Caption Contest 116 (Gahan Wilson's alien cartoonists):

"On what planet do you imagine this would be funny?"
Eva Liane Foster (Princeton, NJ)

That's the first New Jersey winner since Caption Contest 88, and the first from Princeton!

The nominees in Caption Contest 118 (Paul Noth's angels on eggs) are

"Why did you think angels had wings?"
Sonya Erickson (Denver, CO)

"It's not the tedium. It's the uncertainty."
Hope Witte (Chevy Chase, MD)

"I always figured Hell would be less ironic."
Ben Snyder (Charlottesville, VA)

My loser:

"When I feel blue, I simply remind myself that it's much worse for the penguins."

And in Anti-Caption Contest 119 (Danny Shanahan's man in crib), the winner is

There once was a man like an infant?He was a real jerk and skinflint?I put him in bed, oh bed bed bed bed,?bed bed bed bed bed bed infant.
jdt

My loser:

"I can't believe that, after the horrible things this man did to me and our children, and the millions of lives he destroyed in every corner of the planet, he can still, somehow, sleep like a baby. But now he must die!"

Caption Contest 120 is here. Anti-Caption Contest 120 is here.


THE STANDINGS

Here is the current New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest breakdown by state. You can find it all mapped out here.

20 California

17 New York (15 from the Big Apple)

10 New Jersey

6 Massachusetts
6 Pennsylvania

4 Connecticut (two from New Haven, two not)
4 Illinois (three from Chicago, one from Lake Bluff)
4 Maryland (none named Mary)

3 Georgia (includes two-time winner Carl Gables)
3 Minnesota (Minneapolis 2, St. Paul 1)
3 North Carolina
3 Ohio
3 Texas
3 Virginia

2 District of Columbia
2 Mississippi
2 Missouri
2 New Hampshire
2 Oregon (both named Eric, both from Portland)
2 Rhode Island
2 Utah
2 Vermont

1 Alabama
1 Alaska
1 Arizona
1 Florida
1 Iowa
1 Kentucky
1 Michigan
1 Nevada
1 New Mexico
1 Oklahoma
1 Washington

Map Introduction

Thanks to Andriy Bidochko for Map Builder.

Image by David Marc Fischer using Samsung cameraphone