Solonor's Inkwell

New Line screws themselves out of more wads o’ cash.

Ok, so that’s my editorial bent on the real headline, which is “New Line Cinemas tells Peter Jackson they’ll make The Hobbit without him.”

Apparently, the drooling morons fine folks a New Line Cinemas have decided that Peter Jackson is so hungry to do “The Hobbit” (and some sort of LOTR prequel) that he’d gladly give up his lawsuit against them over their accounting practices from the first movies. Since he didn’t give up right away, they have decided to tell him that they “won’t be requiring his services.”

‘cuz, ya know, like anyone can make one o’ them hobbit movies, right? Maybe we can get that Alan Smithee guy to do it…

I wasn’t all that sure a Hobbit movie would come off that well even with Jackson. Now, it’s probably going to wind up a direct-to-DVD family film starring the cast of “Friends” or something. Sucketh mucheth.

UPDATE: Dork Tower. ’nuff said.

Friday, we became the last people in the U.S. and A. to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

I don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said. It was gross, offensive, and at one point I feared I’d never be able to breathe again. I was laughing too hard.

Sacha Baron Cohen uses characters like Borat, Bruno and Ali G basically to mess with people. (He’s also one of the reasons Madagascar is so funny and stars as an effete gay Frenchman who reads the French existentialist novel “The Stranger” by Albert Camus and sips macchiato as he races in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.)

Sometimes, especially with Borat, he shines a flashlight on the hidden prejudices of his subjects–getting them to feel secure enough to spew some racist remark or agree with a stereotype. Actually, I didn’t see as much of that in the movie as I expected. There are the infamous rodeo and frat boy scenes, but mostly it’s just a lot of very confused people wondering what the hell this furriner is doing. Which, of course, makes me sit back and assess my own reasons for laughing at some poor, naive schmuck with a bad accent.

I haven’t watched All in the Family in a long time, but the director, John Rich, was on NPR the other day, and they played a clip of the episode where Sammy Davis, Jr., appears. Not to get all “back in my day” on you, but when people start up about how ground breaking Borat or South Park are, I have to say that Archie Bunker is the father of both of them.

Fortunately, Trey Parker agrees:

…it wasn’t until a little bit later that we saw syndicated runs of “All in the Family.” And we were, you know, really, like, “Wow, this, this was

We went to see Flags of Our Fathers last weekend, and it was great. The performances by the three Iwo Jima veterans who were paraded around the country to raise money for the war were all excellent, especially Ryan Phillippe as John Bradley and Adam Beach as Ira Hayes.

I’ve been fascinated with the Ira Hayes story since I was a kid when I first heard the Johnny Cash version of “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” (I’m not too thrilled with this video, but it’s all I could find).

The song was written by Peter La Farge, who was a Native American folk singer in the 50’s and 60’s. His story is almost as compelling, as he fought the same kinds of prejudice to get his career going. Later, his stubborn refusal to bow to either the changing tastes of the public or the folk establishment caused him even more grief. He died young, from a stroke, in 1965.

Peter La Farge bio.