Tag Archives: Queen Elizabeth I

The Torturous Career of Daniel Craig

3 Jul

My wife loves Daniel Craig. She talks about how good-looking he is and about how he is her favorite actor. I respond with my admiration for the acting abilities and other aspects of Olivia Wilde. However, I also respond by talking about Daniel’s acting abilities.Daniel Craig

All actors have a specialty within their craft. Some can disappear into a character. Others are better in action sequences. Some work better in the brooding role of an art house film. Others are better at comedy than at drama. A few can do both. Obviously, actors are versatile, but they still have some things that they are better at doing.

Daniel Craig has been in historical dramas, spy thrillers, westerns and many other types of films. However, his specialty is playing a tortured person. I am not talking about having a tortured soul of someone who has had a life of misfortune. I am talking about someone who is getting flayed, beaten, whipped and any other torturous act that comes to mind.

He must be good at playing a tortured person because there is a recurring theme to his movies. Daniel Craig is always finding himself in these situations.

I first remember seeing Daniel in Elizabeth, the 1998 movie about the early reign of Elizabeth I. Many powerful people did not want her on the throne, and Daniel Craig was sent to stir up rebellion and assassinate her. He was not very good at his job because he got caught. In one of the films most dramatic scenes, Geoffrey Rush has Daniel hung from the rafters with blood dripping to the floor. He is being tortured until he spills the beans on the other conspirators.

He ended up talking, and Elizabeth’s reign is saved.

Daniel continued acting in some forgettable movies until he hit the big time in 2006. That is when he debuted as James Bond in Casino Royale. Honestly, I never thought any Bond movie could be as good as Goldfinger, but this may be the best of the bunch. It definitely pumped new life into an old franchise.

It also showed Daniel at his best. Not when he was chasing bad guys. Not when he was wooing a woman. It happened when he was being tortured by the villain. This was a great scene because of its simplicity. In most movies, a torture scene involves a bunch of elaborate ways to hurt someone and get them to talk. In this case, the bad guy says:

You know, I never understood all these elaborate tortures. It’s the simplest thing… to cause more pain than a man can possibly endure.Torture

Then, he hit Daniel in a place that made every guy in the theater cringe.

With his career in high gear, Daniel had his choice of roles. There were a few missteps. Then, he delved into a genre that I love but that Hollywood deems risky. In 2011, he made a western but not just any western. This one was called Cowboys & Aliens and also starred Olivia Wilde. In our house, this may have been the best movie ever made. That is mostly due to the scene where Olivia Wilde walks out of the fire.Olivia

It is also a movie where Daniel went back to his comfort zone. In a flashback scene, he gets abducted onto an alien spaceship and gets tortured. More accurately, they are going to experiment on him, but that seems like torture to me.

Once again, Daniel shows his acting chops by struggling and sweating as someone tries to cause him great pain.

That same year, Daniel starred in a greatly anticipated movie called The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Based on the book and the foreign film, which was better than this one, he plays a disgraced journalists who is hired to solve an old mystery. He gets help from a young computer hacker who has a ton of issues along with a tattoo of a dragon.

Many people criticize the book and the movie for its apparent hatred toward women. It is true that violence and disregard for women is all over the place. In the most famous scene, the title character is brutally raped while handcuffed to the bed.

However, not all of the violence is directed toward women. As Daniel closes in on the culprit, he finds himself bound in the serial killers basement of horrors. As Daniel hangs by chains, the bad guy suffocates him and runs knife blades across his chest. It is obvious that this guy is going to do things to Daniel that Geoffrey Rush, the Bond villain and the alien would never dream of doing. Luckily for Daniel, the bad guy ended up looking like this.Dead

Obviously, Daniel Craig is a successful actor who has obtained on of the iconic roles in movie history. He has also tried his hand at other genres. However, he has also tended to revert back to his comfort zone, and that seems to be in the torture chamber.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

National Geographic Revisited

1 Oct

A few years ago, I received a copy of National Geographic for my birthday. Not a subscription, which I have since received, but one copy of a National Geographic. Specifically, it is the edition from November 1968, the month I was born.

No, it does not record the birth of a very important person.

I think that I am supposed to preserve it, but it is too interesting to place in a plastic covering. Reading old copies of National Geographic, and other publications, is like taking a ride in Mr. Peabody’s WABAC Machine. The articles are interesting because they provide a view from the past that can be compared to the view of the present.

One article is about Queensland, “Young Titan of Australia’s Tropic North”. I wonder if Queensland became what they thought it would become.

Another article follows the Natchez Trace, a protected parkway from Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi. I have driven it several times and can report that the speed limit has not increased in the past 40-something years. It also contains some cool pictures of Nashville from that time. The Municipal Auditorium, once the city’s premiere concert venue, is shown in all of its glory. Now, it can be rented by almost anyone for any event. It is a shell of its former self.

There is also a picture from the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, the radio show that turned Nashville into Music City. At the time, the show aired from the Ryman Auditorium. The importance of the Opry has faded, but the Ryman has been refurbished and holds some awesome concerts.

The world of Queen Elizabeth I is explored in the next article. I can’t figure out if it is about her or her surroundings.

The last article is called “Our Friend From the Sea” and is about a family in New Jersey that semi-adopts a seal. It’s a different version of Jersey Shore.

All of those things are interesting but in no way compare to the advertisements. I find it interesting to look at products of the past because they are remnants of my childhood. However, many of them are also extinct.

The back cover urges us to “Fly the Friendly Skies of United”.

There is an automatic Polaroid that costs $160. Wait, $160 in 1968? The thing should take the photographs itself.

The Zenith 9-Band Trans-Oceanic Radio is one of my favorites. It is “powered to tune in the world, and FM, too.”

Oldsmobile advertises itself as Youngmobile.

There is a Toshiba transistor radio. I find this interesting because Toshiba made televisions in my town for years. Like most industry in my town, it is gone.

And, my family had a Honeywell movie projector to show “home movies in a new light”.

Another ad tells us to keep Kodak film around the house. Does Kodak still exist?

Magnavox televisions were like pieces of furniture with small screens.

The Dodge Polara was a popular car. It had standard foam-padded seats, carpeting and concealed windshield wipers. Dodge also sponsored the American Football League.

The best advertisement celebrates the 200th anniversary of Encyclopedia Britannica. Remember when we actually looked through encyclopedias to find out stuff?

Now, we blog about encyclopedias and other things that used to be.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Listeria

11 Jul

I was at the pharmacy buying legal drugs and had to wait the required 20 minutes for them to fill my prescription. There were five druggists and one customer, so I’m not sure why it should take that long. Maybe, they were sampling their merchandise. Anyway, I entertained myself by looking at greeting cards; checking out the new wave of condoms; and, in the end, heading over to the magazine stand. There, in the middle of the too-much-about-celebrities and the too-little-about-sports, I found TIME: The 100 Most Influential People of All Time.

I know what these “list” magazines are. They are a way for magazines to make some extra money and maybe get new subscribers. They are pointless because the lists are totally subjective, and there is no way of knowing how they came up with the names. Besides, what makes 100 so special anyway? It’s just a round number. Despite all of that, I am a sucker for these types of things. I even bought Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and made sure I had all of the songs on my iPod. This, despite the fact that “Like a ROLLING STONE” by Bob Dylan was ranked Numero Uno, and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The ROLLING STONES came in second. Talk about subjective lists with self-promotion.

As you can probably imagine, I bought the history list, too. I am a historian who likes lists. What can I say? Now, I’m not going to go through the entire list, but a few things stood put to me.

1. There are a few people on the list who are subject to speculation in their actual existence. There’s Abraham, Jesus Christ, Confucius. Heck, some people even doubt the reality of William Shakespeare. Yet, they are on the list. Let me set this straight. I am not saying that they did not exist. They, or the inspiration for them, probably did. Also, there is no doubt of the impact that they and their followers have had on the world. I only think it is interesting that the list includes people who may not have actually been people.

2. There are four U.S. presidents on the list – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. I have already written about what I think of our presidents, so I won’t go into great detail. However, this brings some thoughts to mind. First, these four did a great job and left an impact on the world. Second, the other forty haven’t done much. I mean, these guys are always called “the leader of the free world” and are said to hold “the most powerful office in the world”. If that’s true, then why are there not more on the list?

I’ll tell you why. None of that is really true. There are a lot of leaders of “the free world”, and the presidency is not even supposed to be “the most powerful office” in the United States. The three branches – executive, legislative and judicial – are equal. It’s a team effort, and the president is supposed to run the day-to-day operations. Obviously, this job description has been skewed through the years by the people in office (definitely by the four on the list), but the fact remains that the presidency is supposed be no more powerful or influential than the other areas of government.

3. One of the presidents, Roosevelt is on the list along with Winston Churchill. Undoubtedly, they made it because of their efforts against Adolph Hitler (who is also on the list) during World War II. In my opinion, all three of those people deserve their listing. I’m sure a lot of people object to Hitler’s presence, but the list is about influence, not humanity. He started a war that shaped the rest of the 20th Century – from technology to the Cold War.

Mentioning the Cold War leads me to the issue with this grouping. Where is Joseph Stalin? He was one of the Big Three who fought against Nazi Germany. In fact his nation was actually invaded by German troops. Want to know an interesting statistic? More Soviet women died in combat than American men. On top of that, his policies shaped the 20th Century as well.

4. I also find it interesting that my area of historical study, the American West, is also included. I just can’t figure out why. Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and Sacagawea make the list for their journey through the Louisiana Territory. It’s important for the United States, but I am not sure about its influence on the world. First, someone had already made the trek through Canada. Second, most of their travels went through lands already ventured into by Europeans. Third, Native Americans had been there for a long time.

Speaking – actually, writing – of Native Americans. Sitting Bull is on the list. This is one of my favorite people from history, and I will visit the Battle of Little Big Horn, the site of his greatest victory, in a few weeks. However, I don’t see how the killing of George Custer makes him one of the top 100. Sitting Bull didn’t even lead forces into battle because he was recovering from the Sun Dance. He is tattoo worthy, though.

As written earlier, I will not go through the entire list, but I will mention my favorites from each category.

In “Beacon of Spirits”, I like the inclusion of Socrates and Plato.

“Explorers and Visionaries” has Charles Darwin and Alexander Graham Bell, with whom I share a last name. Unfortunately, we are not related.

Queen Elizabeth I and Simon Bolivar are listed under “Leaders of the People”.

“Architects of Culture” includes Michelangelo and Louis Armstrong.

That’s it. If you were on the committee, then who would you put on the list?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,