I find it ironic how every time a major story breaks where lives are lost, the news media tell us a lot about the suspects but little about the victims.
We know more about the two sniper suspects, John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, than the 13 people the two shot during their three-week killing spree that left ten dead last month.
If you picked up a copy of Time or Newsweek over the past month that investigated the shootings, you’ll find cover stories about the suspects to be anywhere from four to ten pages. The victims, on the other hand, got barely so much as a paragraph with a portrait beside it.
After conducting a search typing in “sniper victims” on CNN’s website a few weeks ago, I found a large list of stories about the shootings but very few “people” stories about the victims and if there were any, I didn’t have time to browse through all of them.
When “20/20” ran an hour-long special segment last month about the shootings before we even knew who was behind the killings, the reporters donated almost a full hour to the events going on in the Maryland and Washington area. A story about the lives the snipers took, however, didn’t run until the last five or ten minutes of the program.
I thought about one of the sniper victims the other day as I washed my car at a self-serve car wash. The woman who was shot was also vacuuming the inside of her car as well.
I realized at that point, while I didn’t know any of the victims personally, I do share a common bond with all of them. It’s not just me; society shares the same bond. Though we may not realize it at the time, we do have a lot in common with the 13 people shot. As much as we did with the ones who perished on Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the passengers and crews aboard those four planes at the hands of terrorists.
The people who perished on 9/11 were doing something we go out and do every day. Many of them were going to work when the catastrophes occurred. Others were traveling; some may have even been visiting the WTC in New York for the first time.
The 13 sniper victims had no connection to each other. They were all male and female and were a mix of nationalities; white, African American, Indian, Hispanic.
According to the Oct. 21, 2002 issue of Time and the Nov. 4, 2002 of Newsweek, James Martin, 55, a civil war enthusiast and father of an 11-year-old son, was a program analyst at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. His office adopted a local school where Martin judged science fairs and delivered computers. He was the first to be cut down just across the street from a police station the night of Oct. 2.
James “Sonny” Buchanan was mowing the lawn for a friend when a bullet struck him down at age 39. He was a landscaper who loved educating people about plants. During the holidays when people brought him used Christmas trees, Buchanan would offer them gardening lessons and fresh seeds.
Premkumar Walekar, 54, moved to the United States when he was 18. Working as a cab driver, he sent money home to help his family immigrate. On one of his cab windows were two American flags.
Sarah Ramos, 34, studied law in El Salvador, who not only worked as a housekeeper and babysitter but also had time to devote to raising her seven-year-old son.
Lori Lewis Rivera, 25, wrote “professional nanny” on her checks; a vocation she was proud of and had dreamed of becoming since she was a young girl in Idaho.
Pascal Charlot, 72, was known for always having a tape measure in hand who could be counted on to mend a doorjamb. Charlot, a retired handyman and father of five who took care of his wife who had Alzheimer’s, enjoyed sitting on the porch and tending to tomatoes in his vegetable garden.
Dean Harold Meyers, 53, fought for his country in Vietnam, and worked for an architectural engineering company for twenty years. Friends said Meyers was planning to retire in the country where he owned several acres of land.
Ken Bridges, 53, a father of six, received his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He co-founded an organization devoted to the economic development of African Americans.
At 47, Linda Franklin, wife, mother of two, and an FBI analyst, was not only a cancer survivor. She was also looking forward to moving into her new home with her husband.
Conrad E. Johnson would be the last one-shot Oct. 22 before the capture of Muhammad and Malvo the night of Oct. 23.
Johnson, a married father of two, worked as a bus driver in Maryland for ten years.
These people were no more different than you or I. Most of them were parents. Some moved to America in search of a better life. Most of them were out earning a living when they were struck down by random, senseless violence.
They did exactly what we do and take for granted every day. Mowing the lawn. Filling the car up with gas. Buying groceries. Waiting for the bus. Cleaning the car. Traveling on business. Dining at a restaurant. Buying a home.
Cast & Credits: Greg Kinnear (Bob Crane), Willem Dafoe (John Carpenter), Rita Wilson (Anne Crane), Maria Bello (Patricia Olson/Patrica Crane/Sigrid Valdis), Ron Leibman (Lenny), Bruce Solomon (Edward H. Feldman), Michael E. Rodgers (Richard Dawson), Kurt Fuller (Werner Klemperer), Christopher Neiman (Robert Clary), Lyle Kanouse (John Banner), Donnamarie Recco (Melissa/Mistress Victoria), Ed Begley Jr. (Mel Rosen), Michael McKean (Video Executive). Focus Features presents a film directed by Paul Schrader. Screenplay written by Michael Gerbosi based on the book, The Murder of Bob Crane, by Robert Graysmith.
“I’m a likable guy.”
So says actor Bob Crane; as played by Greg Kinnear ("Sabrina" - 1995), in the opening moments of "Auto Focus"; director Paul Schrader’s luridly, grim depressing look at the television star’s personal life that may have led to his grisly murder in an Arizona motel in 1978.
The “likable guy” persona Kinnear’s Bob Crane projects are what ultimately won me over despite the character’s voracious sexual appetite for women that ultimately takes a toll on both his personal and professional life.
The real-life Crane, up until his death, reportedly made home videos of himself having sex with the women he and his gifted video/sound technician, John “Carpy” Carpenter, picked up at a number of topless dance clubs in the mid ‘60s and ‘70s. The two met on the set of "Hogan’s Heroes" (1965-1971); Crane’s first and only hit television show.
“Carpy”, as Kinnear’s Crane likes to call him, is played by Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man - 2002); who once again shows us how good he is at playing sleazily attractive villains. Seeing the two together throughout the film, I could call them, “The Odd Couple”, or, to be even more precise, the sick perverted couple.
I found it amazing that after all the information screenwriter Michael Girbosi provides us about the Carpenter character he is still a mystery or enigma. In real life, Carpenter was fingered as the prime suspect in Crane’s death. He was finally going to stand trial for the actor’s murder when he died in 1998. Auto Focus points no fingers and makes no assumptions as to who committed the crime and leaves the case as it still stands today, unsolved.
At worst, Dafoe’s “Carpy” is the devil incarnate; a smilingly rich money making voyeur always seen with an alcoholic beverage in one hand and an innovative new piece of video technology in the other. He is always ready to shoot both his and Crane’s latest sexual escapade to add to their private home video libraries.
Their motto is “A day without sex is a day wasted.”
From the beginning, Kinnear portrays Crane as a man we would probably love to get to know. Perhaps even invite him and his family over for dinner. He is an every-man who sports the nice clean cut clothes, lives in an upscale home and raises three kids with his first wife, Anne (Rita Wilson). While working as a disc jockey in California waiting for a big acting gig he hopes will make him the next Jack Lemmon.
Hard to believe this man who attended Sunday mass and reportedly a devout Catholic was also the same person who kept graphic pornographic magazines in the garage hidden from his wife.
“I’m a photographer,” he tells Anne of his reason for having them.
"Auto Focus" is adapted from author Robert Graysmith’s book, “The Murder of Bob Crane. ”Director Schrader and screenwriter Gerbosi provide a no-holds-barred look at the self-destructive way the star ran his life. Neither Schrader nor Gerbosi offer any excuses for the character’s behavior. Neither for that matter, does Kinnear’s Crane, who throughout the film, tells everyone from his family to his agent (Ron Liebman) that what he does is “normal.” Not once does he ever apologize. He is just as bad as the ones addicted to drugs, alcohol, or food who repeatedly admit they don’t have a problem.
Most people will likely look at this guy who had everything and went from being a TV icon and American hero to suggesting to Carpenter that the two go into business shooting pornographic movies makes for a compelling portrait of a real loser. Is Crane pathetic? Yes. The actor’s downfall, however, is more than that. It’s sad. I really couldn’t help but feel just a shred of sympathy for him.
The most heart wrenching scene is when the star, reduced to making an appearance on a cooking show, comments live about how large a woman’s breasts are who is sitting in the front row. Crane is a modern day Dr. Jekyll who can no longer keep his Mr. Hyde in check. By the end, even the smile is gone.
“You’re the only friend I’ve got,” he tells Carpenter.
This all boils down to the question how should we remember the star of Hogan’s Heroes; a question the press often asked members of Crane’s family since his untimely death.
Perhaps the most honest thing that can be said about him after watching Auto Focus is that Bob Crane was a fatalistically flawed human being whose inner demons tragically landed him in with the wrong Hollywood crowd.
I do not need to see “Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones: The IMAX Experience” to review it. I can already give you my negative assessment of the "The IMAX experience" without seeing it.
My reaction is all based on the various tidbits I picked up off such websites as theforce.net and comingsoon.net the past couple months.
The unexpected news that Clones was coming to IMAX theaters was like having someone say, "Wait before you start cheering. I have good news and bad news."
The good news is obvious, but I'll say it anyway for the record. For the first time, a Star Wars movie is getting the BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG SCREEN treatment in IMAX theaters across the country beginning Nov. 1 through Nov. 26; 12 days before the theatrical version debuts on video and digital video disc (DVD) Nov. 12. Screenings will begin at midnight.
The sour news is Attack of the Clones: The IMAX Experience, like director Ron Howard's biographical epic, “Apollo 13” (1995), before it and released on IMAX screens last month, will run 20 minutes shorter than the 143-minute version audiences and fans saw last summer. “Apollo 13”, which has a 140-minute running time on video and DVD also had 20 minutes cut for its IMAX presentation according to a 9/20/02 review by film critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times.
I suppose I should not blame the filmmakers. It is a known fact movies shown on IMAX projectors can only run 120 minutes or less. Hence the reason Disney does not have problems releasing films like “Fantasia 2000” and making such animated classics as Beauty and the Beast exclusive only to IMAX theaters. About everything in Mickey Mouse's video library run under the 90-minute mark. And as a result of the limited box office success of “Fantasia 2000” (1999) and “Beauty and the Beast” (1991), “The Lion King” (1994) will debut on IMAX screens Dec. 25 followed by “Aladdin” (1992) in 2004 before they head to DVD.
An IMAX print, as opposed to a theatrical one, is 58 inches in diameter and weighs 390 pounds according to an Oct. 11, 2002 feature story on Starwars.com called "Making It BIG: Episode II - The IMAX Experience" with the projector itself weighing in at two tons.
"It's the limit now," said Brian Bonnick, Vice President of Technology for IMAX Corporation who was quoted in the 10/11/02 online feature story. "We are actively developing a 150-minute solution that would be employed as an upgrade to the theaters in the future."
I have already seen Attack of the Clones, the theatrical version twice this summer. I would have loved to view it again just to see how it looks on an IMAX screen. The same would have gone for “Apollo 13”. But not at the cost of leaving scenes on the cutting room floor. I have browsed through the script of Clones and found a number of scenes cut (20 minutes of deleted footage appears on the Clones DVD).
I would have been happy if Episode II had run close to three hours which I think it should have (theater owners prefer to have films clock in or under a two-hour time frame so they can have more showings and thus make more money). I will get a three-hour epic when creator/director/screenwriter George Lucas re-edits episodes 1 through 6 for a special DVD edition due out before 2010. The as yet to-be-titled and reportedly final Star Wars prequel, Episode 3, is scheduled to open in theaters May 2005.
Or maybe I'll just wait for the folks at IMAX to come up with that "150-minute solution" so the father of Star Wars can show the entire series on a much larger screen. Now there's an IMAX experience I wouldn't mind sitting through!
So why should I pay to see an edited two-hour version of Clones at an IMAX theater when I'll be able to either rent or purchase the complete 143-minute theatrical version 12 days from now and enjoy the film in the privacy of my own home?
Is it so I can see a recklessly jealous teenager and love-struck Jedi apprentice, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), and his adopted father figure, Ben Kenobi (Ewan MacGregor), go after an assassin while on a high-flying, high-speed chase throughout the night skies of Coruscant? Or see the vast dark blue oceans of an alien water world where armies are being cloned to look like bounty hunter Boba Fett from episodes 4 through 6 (“Star Wars” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), “Return of the Jedi” - 1983) and who are a prelude to the Empire's stormtroopers?
Is it to see ships like the Slave 1 and a Jedi Starfighter do battle in an asteroid field? How about watching hundreds of Jedi Knights fight off battle droids and animated monsters inspired by special effects guru Ray Harryhausen who worked on such fantasy films as the Sinbad pictures and “Mysterious Island” (1961) in the 1950s and '60s? Perhaps it's to see a digitally enhanced, lightsaber welding Yoda throw down his wooden cane and do battle with bad guy Count Dooku (Christopher Lee).
I am willing to good bet those scenes aren't what's going to wind up on the cutting room floor.
The editing will "maintain the integrity of the story" said a Lucasfilm spokesperson according to a brief 9/16/02 article on theforce.net called "IMAX Clones Is Bigger But Shorter."
What will likely be sacrificed are those scenes that made fans moan and groan like the romantic subplot between Anakin and Padme (Natalie Portman) that some said slowed down the film's pacing. Perhaps the much-loathed digital character, Jar Jar Binks, who's barely in the film at all, won't even be seen until the final 30 minutes or so.
That alone will probably be enough to win fans over much the way some were won over by "The Phantom Edit"; an abbreviated version that appeared on the Internet shortly after Episode I: The Phantom Menace's debut that was shorter than the original 1999 theatrical 133-minute version. Some said the condensed version, which cuts a lot of the movie's silliness and several scenes featuring Jar Jar Binks, is better. (Lucas did not endorse the version which was done by someone without Lucasfilm’s permission).
Call it "The Clone Edit" for those who embrace Episode II - The IMAX Experience. I will not be surprised if after seeing the shorter version if some say it is as good as “The Empire Strikes Back”. The fact it will run 20 minutes shorter will not be enough to keep fans away from the box office. It is "the IMAX experience" they want to visually witness; special effects eye candy. Who cares about story content?
Well, I do actually.
I am not against releasing theatrical movies in IMAX format so long as everything that was in the original print is included in the IMAX presentation.
As one friend of mine told me, if the film wasn't made to be shown on an IMAX projector to begin with, then it shouldn't be shown in that format at all.
Perhaps at the beginning of each showing for IMAX's Clones, a statement should come up on a black screen whenever R rated movies are shown on network television that says, "This movie has been edited to fit the time frame allotted."
The most blatant form of censorship went on display last month at New York’s Rockerfeller Center a week after the televised memorial services for the victims lost on Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a field in Pennsylvania.
A bronze statue was draped in cloth and curtained off because of complaints from onlookers who said the image was too disturbing according to a Sept. 18 article by the Associated Press.
The bronze sculpture, called “Tumbling Woman”, was made by artist Eric Fischl which featured a naked female with her arms and legs extended outward as she is falling to her death from the World Trade Center, her head, and shoulders, hitting the pavement first.
The artist’s work, according to writer Katherine Roth’s 9/18/02 article by the Associated Press, was “designed as a memorial to those who jumped or fell to their death from the World Trade Center.”
I admit the sculpture’s image caught me off guard when I first saw pictures of it on several websites. My first impression was the same as those upset by its appearance. I thought it was unnecessary to depict someone approaching the final stages of his or her doom before lying violently to rest on earth.
Then after looking at the photos for a moment, the work was not that disturbing at all.
I found the piece to represent the desperate situation those poor souls were in after the first plane hit the upper floors of the first tower. We know now most of the victims were trapped, and that the plane’s impact wrecked any chances of getting down alive. The decision they made was either burn to death or jump. Those, for me, are the lasting most heartbreaking images of 9/11. Not when the buildings collapsed.
According to Roth’s article, “some onlookers said there is a need for art that captures the horror of Sept. 11.”
“I don’t think that it’s done in bad taste,” said Christine Defonces who was quoted in Roth’s AP story. “It’s an artist’s reaction to what happened.”
The sculpture was not meant to hurt anybody,” Fischl said in a statement according to Roth’s column. “It was a sincere expression of deepest sympathy for the vulnerability of the human condition. Both specifically towards the victims of Sept. 11 and towards humanity in general.”
Fischl’s comment, however, was not enough to curtail the complaints.
“I don’t think it dignifies their deaths,” said Paul Labb according to the same story. “It is not art. It is very disrupting when you see it.”
“It’s awful,” said a security guard who was quoted by New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser in her column that was also discussed in a September 19, 2002, editorial by the New York Sun.
According to the New York Sun’s editorial, Peyser quoted a security guard who “felt as if he were being dragged against his will back to the terrible day when he actually watched human beings fall from the sky.”
I would love to ask those same people, including Ms. Peyser, who in her column at the Post according to the Sun’s editorial called Fischl’s work “a violently disturbing sculpture”, a few questions.
I wonder if Peyser and those who complained are the same people who stop or slow down on the interstate whenever there is a car accident to see if there are any dead bodies to look at?
I have read several unsettling news accounts describing the horrors of 9/11.
If Mr. Fischl had sculpted such things as a severed hand with $40 dollars in it or a few passenger seats with only the torsos strapped in or images of body parts strewn all over the rooftops of neighboring buildings, would Peyser and her entourage reacted in the same way?
Last September, Hollywood paused, albeit briefly, debating when the public would be comfortable to see violent war movies and films with terrorist themed plots again after 9/11. So much for the long wait.
Some of the most blood drenched films released this year that have either hit the $100 million mark or close to it were pictures about war (“Black Hawk Down”, “We Were Soldiers”) and Irish gangsters (“Road to Perdition”). “Black Hawk Down” and “We Were Soldiers” did not spare audiences the grisly shots of American military service members being blown apart by guns and grenades. Nor for that matter did “Pearl Harbor” (2001) and “Saving Private Ryan” (1998).
I did not hear anyone complain about how graphically offensive or tasteless those movies were which do, in effect, depict what really happened on the battlefield. Their message was war is Hell.
What happened on 9/11 was Hell and Eric Fischl’s “Tumbling Woman” had something to say about what America witnessed that day. Yet some people refuse to accept it.
It is because images of victims falling to their deaths brought home to those civilians who complained about the artist’s work, a grim reality they still refuse to face.
The fact is art, whether it be a painting or statue, movies, television shows, music, literature, ballet, or a play are not just forms of entertainment. It is all art. Even “The Jerry Springer Show” as much as I hate to admit it. They are made to illicit a response from the viewer, listener, or reader. He or she can decide if they like it or do not.
I do not have a problem when people voice their opinions about something they dislike. What makes this country great is freedom of speech. People can voice their likes and dislikes on various issues without being thrown in prison. Not everyone, however, shares the same opinion.
What I will not stand for is when a small group of people protest so much so that a decision is made to pull one’s work from display for the good of all society.
There are no winners when that happens, only losers. And last month, the losers were the patrons at Rockerfeller Center, who unlike Ms. Peyser and those psychologically troubled after seeing Fischl’s work, were denied the chance to view a thought-provoking sculpture and form their own opinion.
I have heard the September 11 terrorist attacks gave Americans the chance to pause a moment and look back on how they have been living their lives and consider making an attitude adjustment.
According to a poll in the Nov. 19, 2001, issue of Time because of the attacks, 62 percent felt the need to spend more time with family members while 55 percent of those said they now have a greater focus or purpose in life. Another 21 percent said they attend religious services more often while 66 percent said they told a family member they loved them.
As to how the terrorist attacks defined a generation, 69 percent said it will have the same effect as the JFK assassination.
Here we are now a year later. I seriously doubt those figures are the same other than the one referencing the events of Nov. 22, 1963. Chances are the percentages are lower now or for that matter, non-existent.
The day after the attacks, a friend of mine with no law enforcement experience whatsoever told me he was considering looking into a job as a sky marshal.
Today, he still works for the apartment industry.
Which brings me to the question, why does it take a major catastrophe to force one to reconsider their lifestyle or for that matter, accept God? Unfortunately, that is the way people have always been.
Truth is we have become so self-absorbed in our daily lives that the thought we may not come home after work does not cross our minds until we either lose someone close to us or witness the atrocities like those of 9/ 11. Or get the grim news from our doctor that we have some terminal disease and will be dead in six months.
In those cases, we either look back wishing we had done something to prevent the inevitable or provided we have been granted a reprieve as some people saw with 9/11 who were not directly affected by the events, they look to make changes in their personal lives.
It is more than what the piece-of-shit zealot hijackers gave the passengers and crews on board those four planes or the hundreds stranded on or above the fire floors of the first tower as the fires raged below who had no way down and debated on the best way to go.
All they were doing was either going to work or traveling. Chances are the thought they would be victims of a terrorist attack never, ever once crossed their minds!
9/11 taught me two things. The same lesson I should have gotten after watching or reading about the souls lost in Oklahoma City at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building or on TWA Flight 800 and the untimely losses of Princess Diana and JFK Jr.
The lesson 9/11 drove home is how mortal we all are and how precious life is.
The second is that history has a funny way of repeating itself; albeit tragically. “Study the past” were the words I saw in a clip from Oliver Stone’s “JFK” (1991). Well, it is now clear this country does not learn from history’s mistakes.
Last month, I heard on the news what books and movies have been saying for decades about how Pearl Harbor started. The recovery of a Japanese sub sunk by an American destroyer shortly before the attack and the fact the incident was ignored in the military that December morning recalls how arrogant this country was at thinking an attack by foreign invaders was impossible.
Nothing has changed.
Several warning signals went up prior to 9/11 practically going back to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. The fact terrorism had finally reached American soil, however, went unnoticed. We lazily slept through the next eight years barely opening our eyes to the embassy bombings in East Africa and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole.
On Sept. 10, 2001, Americans had no idea who or what the Taliban was, nor did we care about the impending threat Osama bin Laden and his elaborate Al-Qaeda terrorist network presented no matter how many times they were mentioned by the press. We foolishly believed the dream he and his organization would only continue to target Americans and innocent civilians abroad and never within the confines of our own country.
Then at 8:46 a.m. last September, we awoke to a nightmare hoping this was something out of a Hollywood movie like “The Siege” (1998) or “The Towering Inferno” (1974).
One year later, bin Laden is still at large (with no idea if he is dead or alive) and Al-Qaeda is still strong, even if they have been driven underground. The recent apprehension of four men in the United States believed to be linked to bin Laden’s organization with blueprints of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and Disney World signifies 9/11 could only be a beginning unless we continue to be alert of our surroundings.
The two lessons we should all gain from Sept. 11 is that life is short, whether you live to be 20 or 120. We should attempt to make the most of our time while we are here and live it the best we can, preferably in a positive than a negative way.
The other is to learn from history’s mistakes. Our government and law enforcement agencies need to stop pointing fingers at who dropped the ball 9/11 and do everything possible to keep it from happening again. “Those who don’t learn from history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them” so the saying goes.
I have a feeling though those thoughts will only last a brief time; about as long as it took for my friend who told me weeks after the attacks that he was just thinking aloud when considering a career change.
What is going to last a great while longer is that 9/11 will go down as being our generation’s JFK assassination. It will be a chance for authors, Hollywood filmmakers, historians, and conspiracy theorists to churn out hundreds of books, blockbuster movies, documentaries, and outlandish ideas on the Internet (making the one-dollar bill resemble the destruction of the twin towers and the Pentagon, for example) over the next few decades.
Years from now, I would like to one day hear my young nephew ask me if the events of 9/11 made me reconsider how I had been living my life up until then and if it made this country better, if not stronger and more patriotic.
Instead, something tells me the question he and other kids will ask their parents and relatives one day after reading about it in their history classes is “Where were you Sept. 11, 2001, when you learned America was attacked?”
The familiar mechanical raspy breathing I am hearing isn’t coming from me every time I do the exercise bike for 30 minutes. It’s the sound of a fallen Jedi Knight named Anakin Skywalker now turned Darth Vader.
What is this madness and sudden familiarity coming over me?
Every day, I read of people across the country camping out in front of various theaters. Do they know something I don’t? Is this the Second Coming of Christ?
Ask any die-hard Star Wars fan what they are doing. Chances are they’ll tell you that camping out in front of a theater waiting to buy advance tickets for “Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones” (2002) is a lot like waiting for Jesus Christ to make his grand entrance.
On May 16, thousands, no, millions of people across the country will come flocking to see one of the most anticipated sequels of the summer. The difference is it will be millions minus one. I won’t be one of those people waiting in line.
Yes, I am a Star Wars fan, but my interest only goes as far as the original trilogy. I grew up on those movies and the toys. I saw all three Star Wars films when they were re-released in 1997 in celebration of the original’s 20th anniversary. I thought I was in Heaven when I learned in 1995 that Lucasfilm had once again awarded Kenner, now named Hasbro, the license to produce Star Wars figures and toys from not just the original trilogy but from the new set of films as well. I saw it as a chance for me relive my days as a kid.
I, like most everyone else, was excited as the days grew closer for the big screen debut of “Star Wars - Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” in May 1999. I was one of those people who stood in line three years ago at the United Artists Galaxy 9 theater in Garland to get advance tickets for myself and a group of coworkers opening day. If I remember correctly, I waited in line for close to three hours.
There was a reason I was excited about the wait. The reason was because this marked the first time in over twenty years a new Star Wars movie was being released. It was also the first time in over 20 years that director/screenwriter/creator George Lucas was back behind the camera.
I have seen all four trailers for Episode II on either the big screen or the Internet. I was also one among hundreds who clogged up various Star Wars related websites back in February this year to see exclusive photos of new “Clones” toys that Hasbro and LEGO unveiled at the New York Toy Fair. All of which will be fully stocked on toy shelves come midnight April 23, the day before this issue goes to press.
The excitement, however, this time is just not there. Truth be told, Episode II is not the first movie of 2002 I am most interested in seeing. It’s number three on my list. “Spider-man” is the first followed by “Road to Perdition” starring Tom Hanks as a gangster and Paul Newman in what will supposedly be the screen legend’s final appearance.
I can’t really peg down the reason I am not so pumped up this time around. Perhaps it is because the people I got tickets for back in ’99 when we went as a group are no longer around. Perhaps it’s the news that Episode II is already being prepared to come out on video/DVD near the end of October or November this year. Maybe it’s the fact come April 23-24, you can buy not just the hardcover books of the script and novelization almost a month before the film comes out but the comic book adaptation as well.
Or maybe it’s because I have become rather disenfranchised with the Star Wars toy line. The folks at Hasbro have milked everything they could when it comes to new toy products from the original trilogy that there’s extraordinarily little left to release.
How many variations of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Darth Vader can Hasbro make? I know, I know. As the saying went in the original Star Trek movies, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Hasbro must appeal to the young masses and not finicky toy collectors like me.
I don’t need another Darth Vader. (You listening Hasbro???) I want them to make more obscure characters they never did before with the original toy line from the ‘70s and ‘80s like Admiral Ozzel or a Major Derlin. Yes, I know most of you readers have no idea about whom I am talking about. Just ask those fans standing in line at the theaters who those characters are and they will be more than happy to tell you.
I’d like to see more 12-inch figures from what Hasbro now calls “the classic line” from the original movies than those from the new ones. You folks at Hasbro reading this????
While we’re on the subject, you folks at LEGO could also make some improvements as well. Stop catering to the ages 7-12 crowd!!! All right, that’s being selfish. Ok. You can cater to the little ones but give older builders like me some enjoyment as well and by that, I don’t mean coming out with ultimate collector sets of head busts of Darth Maul and a 14-inch Yoda with 1,000 plus bricks!!!
I want to see more “UCS” sets, as they are called, of an Imperial Walker or a shuttle that directly resemble the Hasbro toys you can put the smaller figures in. Listen to me when I say “Yes, I’m willing to pay the $100 dollar plus price tags!!!”
Come on guys, you got the toy licenses until 2007. Stop giving me reasons why I shouldn’t continue buying your products.
Don’t get me wrong. I am going to see Episode II but it’s not going to be opening day/night. It will be a week later. I hate crowds and I like having enough room to use both armrests. Unless I am on a date with a woman, I hate it when people sit next to me on both sides of my chair.
At this point, the only way I’ll see the film opening day is if I succumb to some foreign invisible substance. Jedi Knights from that “galaxy far, far away” call it “the Dark Side of the Force.”
Here on earth in the year 2002, that “Dark Side of the Force” is called mass marketing, merchandising and a lot of good and bad press.
If you ask any longtime fan of the Dallas Cowboys since the 1970s and, is still one today who Harvey Martin was, chances are they will tell you he was a popular defensive end who posted 125 sacks. The most in the history of the team’s franchise, according to a Dec. 26, 2001, column in the sports section of The Dallas Morning News.
Whereas most people will remember Martin as one of the many great NFL football players of the 1970s and 80s, I will always remember him playing the role of fictional sportswriter Oscar Madison.
I interviewed Harvey Martin very briefly in October 1992 during Alumni Week when I was a student at East Texas State University in Commerce, Texas (now called Texas A&M University-Commerce). He, and another ETSU alum and actor, Don Shook, were doing a one-night performance of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple”.
Martin’s rise to fame began in fall 1972 when he led East Texas State’s football team to the NAIA Division I championship. The following year, he was selected to play for the Dallas Cowboys.
Back in 1992, I was serious about pursuing a lifelong career in journalism. I was a reporter for the college’s newspaper, “The East Texan.” Besides writing and turning in more than five news stories a week (which affected my grades greatly), I would also write reviews of films and sometimes plays.
I wanted to review “The Odd Couple” because other than seeing the film version from the 1960s with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and later the television series in the 1970s with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, I had never seen it done on stage. Besides that, Oscar was my favorite character because he is noticeably short on patience (like me), rarely cleans (I clean at least once a month if that much) and his career was in journalism.
All right, I confess. I clean more than that and do not live in a room full of day-old food and do not leave clean clothes all over the floor.
I remember Martin getting the most laughs that night and he played the role of the sloppy roommate flawlessly though some of the lines and the setting were rewritten so people living in Texas can identify with the characters. Instead of New York, the apartment was someplace in Dallas. Shook’s Felix was still the clean-cut neat freak but instead of being a photographer, he was a meteorologist. Martin’s Oscar was still a sportswriter.
“On our fifth wedding anniversary I took Blanche to a Dallas Mavericks game where she got hit with a basketball,” Martin’s Oscar told Felix when it came to talking about his relationship with his wife. “I still don’t know why she left me.”
Besides writing a review, my editor asked me to get some quotes from the main cast particularly from Martin and Shook since they were both ETSU alumni.
I took that as just being a part of my job. I did not see it as exciting.
I learned more about Martin reading his career highlights in the sports section of The Dallas Morning News and from people who knew him who were interviewed on the local news than I ever did that night I spoke with him. Looking at those highlights, I could tell Martin was at his greatest when he was on the field.
He played in three Superbowl’s with the Cowboys, losing two, and had his own radio talk show on KRLD-AM (1080). The stories I liked most that were discussed by sportscasters and by those who knew him was how the six foot five, 250-pound frame would point at certain players on the opposing teams before game time. It was his way of intimidating the players that eventually earned him the nickname, “Too Mean.”
Then there was that famous incident where Martin walked into the Redskins locker room after Dallas beat them 35-34 in December 1979 with a funeral wreath the opposing team sent to Martin. Martin yelled, “Take this damn thing back to Washington with you,” according to the 12/26/01 front page news story in The Dallas Morning News.
One of the news stations ran an interview of Martin laughing about the incident and recalling about how Cowboys coach Tom Landry made him go and apologize.
I had no idea the Harvey Martin I spoke with that October night was THE Harvey Martin who played with the Dallas Cowboys from 1973 until 1984.
Sadly, it wasn’t until I saw Martin being interviewed by TV reporters in August 1996 talking about the $1,000 fine and seven years’ probation he received on charges of felony cocaine possession that I realized this was the same person I had seen act on stage that night.
I took note as I read that list of dates chronicling Martin’s career in the sports section of the Morning News that his triumphs on the field were almost equal to his downfalls off.
Then again, those ugly tales about the star’s drug and alcohol problems, money troubles and many failed business ventures were not how I wanted to remember Harvey Martin.
Instead, the Harvey Martin I will always remember is the one who was soft spoken when I asked him a couple questions and how I had to keep up with his fast pace as he was in a hurry to get some place else. If I remember correctly, I really had to peer my head up farther back than normal to get a good look at him as he was talking.
When Martin died unexpectedly Dec. 24, 2001, of pancreatic cancer at a still-too-young age of 51, I looked for that October 29, 1992, play review I wrote for The East Texan to read what the athlete had said about returning to the place where his career had all started.
“I liked it a lot,” Martin said. “Lots of times, God has been so good to me, and you can sometimes get in another world, and forget where you’ve come from and what you are all about.”
“Coming back to ETSU, I was thrown back into reality-what I’m about, where my dreams started-and they started right here,” he said. “It was a great time to be back.”
Such is the reason the Sept. 11 attacks happened since law enforcement and government agencies failed to work together sharing whatever information they had about the 9/11 hijackers.
If people don’t communicate with each other, everything else is going to fall apart as well.
Let’s take for example the Spanish class I enrolled in this semester.
Everyone on the first day of class assumed they bought the right set of books for the semester. The textbook was the fifth edition that included the workbook and cassettes. Every student who walked into both the campus bookstore and the one off-site was given this set of textbooks to purchase.
Or so that’s what I and the other students thought. Instead, the instructor told us that first day we need the fourth edition of the Spanish textbook, workbook and the cassettes.
“But that’s what the bookstore downstairs gave us,” said one student who also purchased the fifth edition.
“No,” the instructor said. “You need to tell them your instructor wants you to have the fourth edition.”
It did not take me long to figure someone failed to make sure the course had the required class materials, but it would take even longer to figure out who is to blame. This was like dealing with a bunch of little kids pointing fingers at one another saying the other is responsible for the screw-up. When I asked someone at the campus bookstore if they were going to get the fourth edition in stock, the employee curtly and rudely told me, “No. Teacher ordered the wrong book.”
Considering the irritable mood I was in that day, I regret I didn’t respond back in kind saying, “Ok, but you don’t have to be an asshole about it.” Then to add to my aggravation, I had to stand in a mile long checkout line for 30 minutes with only the fourth edition of the workbook and cassettes in hand but no textbook.
Standing in that line with people who wait until the last minute to buy their books (I have never understood this. I compare it to waiting until the night of April 14th to file taxes), I felt like I was spending time together with a pack of nerds waiting in line to buy advance tickets for the next Star Wars movie.
At least the employees at the off-campus bookstore were more understanding. An employee there told me their manager was going look into getting some of the fourth edition books from another campus bookstore that day, but they didn’t know how soon they would arrive and what time.
At least I knew someone was trying to fulfill a customer’s needs. You’ll notice I said “customer” and not just student’s needs.
This may come as a shock to the administration here but besides us being students, we’re also customers of this institution. And as customers, if we’re not satisfied with the service, in this case being the classes, the instructors or the way things are managed, we have the option to take our business elsewhere.
That’s apparently what one student will do who I ran into the morning of Jan. 17 as I was coming from another class.
She asked me if I was enrolled in the same Spanish course that required the fourth edition.
I said yes and that I haven’t been able to find a fourth edition yet. She said the same thing and added that she is going to drop the class, keep the new books and take the course next semester at another community college.
“A number of students are dropping because they can’t get a hold of the required books,” she told me. “I guess a bunch of us will be in the same class at Richland.”
Sounds logical to me.
As of this writing, both bookstores still have not received the copies of the 4th edition. If you log onto the bookstore’s website to see if the fourth edition is available, you will find they only have the fifth edition. You can, however, order the fourth edition through Amazon.com but it will take a week to receive it.
Perhaps both bookstores will get some by the time this article goes to press Jan. 30th. If they do, what good will it do me or anyone else needing a book between now and then to study for upcoming tests?
I got too many other things on my plate this semester as it is so I’m dropping the class. Like a good customer, I’ll just take my business elsewhere, in this case beginning this September going to a four-year university and taking the classes there.
Granted, I’m not going to enjoy making an hour long drive back and forth five days a week (then again, I don’t like taking these required classes five days a week at the community college either). And to add to that, I’ll be paying higher tuition but at least I won’t have to put up with being caught in the middle of an ongoing battle between a few bookstores who say the teacher ordered the wrong books and an instructor who says just the opposite.
