More Random Than A Nic Cage Performance

Put the bunny...down...

A potpourri of catching-up thoughts:

-- New Hampshire primary today. Obama seems to be surging, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Clinton do better than expected; despite what the pundits are saying, I think her "emotional" displays yesterday might rebound to her benefit. No matter what happens, though, one thing is certain: John McCain's going to come out a huge, huge winner. He's such a Maverick!

--Looks like Christine Lahti will have plenty of time for a bathroom break this year.

--About Hillary Clinton's supposed "gaffe" yesterday: I don't get it.



1) She didn't cry! She just got a little choked up. 2) Why are people reading this as a sign of weakness? I think it's a sign of strength, that she can feel that committed and passionate, and not be afraid to show it in public. I mean, isn't the knock on her that she's too controlled, and now people are jumping on her for not being controlled enough? Geez, she was showing honest emotion, and while I liked her anyway, it made me like her a whole lot more (and I thought it was interesting that it happened the same day as the Tweety standoff--wait, you mean people can be strong and funny and vulnerable? But where's our false binary??).

--In the previous post's comments section, Jonathan Lapper asks where my post on the OSU-LSU game is. Meh. I didn't see much of the game, and found the pairing profoundly uninteresting. As someone (Michael Berube?) said of Ward Churchill and David Horowitz, couldn't they both lose? After two championship games in a row where he seemed slightly befuddled, I will say this of Jim Tressel: nice guy, good recruiter, good strategist, horrible in-game coach. For the second year in a row, Tressel showed himself incapable of making adjustments when things didn't go OSU's way-- if the Buckeyes don't bully their way to a big (and ten points is not big) early lead, he doesn't seem to know what to do. That said, I'd much rather have him as my coach than Les Miles, whose classless, belligerent, "us-against-the-world" postgame speech came off like he was auditioning for the lead in a remake of Billy Jack.

--Speaking of Jonathan, he has a very interesting blog post up about "good" and "bad" movies, taste, and our responses to questions of canon. It's an interesting discussion, and it has me thinking: what counts as a "bad" movie these days? In an age when both popular and academic writing on film is reclaiming forgotten or dismissed texts as fun, important, "campy," "subversive," etc., is there such a thing as a truly bad movie? And what are our criteria? Form and technique? Narrative? Ideology? Box office success or failure? Awards? Personal desires?