REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

The first in a multipart blog series inviting you to watch those forgotten movies from the 1980's and 1990's.....

Hollywood continues to undergo rapid changes at the weekend box office, noting that certain genre pictures are performing well with audiences worldwide, while other genres are underperforming. The current underperforming underdog is the serious adult films genre (not porno). Films such as "Duplicity," "State of Play," "The Soloist," and "The International" all underperformed at the box office. There are 2 problems with the adult genre films, the first is that major stars, writers, and directors all line up for these projects, all while little Oscars dance in their heads. It's not that major talent should not do adult films, it is just that they end up costing too much and making too little back at the box office. Also a given is that most of these adult genre films are playing well outside of the traditional 4th quarter serious Academy Award film period. But none of that is the real problem, the 2nd problem is that the 4 films above are simply not very good films, adult films or not.

Especially not when you compare the 2009 adult genre films with the adult genre pictures of the 198o's and 1990's. The pedigree of the 1980/90's are such incredible films as "Dangerous Liaisons", "Fatal Attraction," "Wall Street," and another fantastic film, "Reversal of Fortune." This 1990 film featured an Oscar winning performance from Jeremy Irons as Claus von Bulow, Glenn Close as Sunny von Bulow (who died in late 2008 after being in a coma for nearly 28 years: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/nyregion/07vonbulow.html), and the late Ron Silver as lawyer Alan Dershowitz. "Reversal of Fortune" was a brilliant legal film showing the "good" side of the legal system. Look for surprise performances by a young Felicity Huffman, a young Christine Baranski, and even a cameo by Julie Haggerty and the late, great Uta Hagen.

"Reversal of Fortune" was one of the Holy Trinity of film roles for Glenn Close followed with "Dangerous Liaisons" and "Fatal Attraction." Jeremy Irons also had some amazing films at the time, including another favorite adult genre film of mine called "Damages". (Glenn Close later starred in a great TV show of the same name, but of course, it was completely different from the Jeremy Irons film).

As I have said before, it is worth going back to see movies you may not have seen in 10-20 years. It will surprise you how well they hold up over time.

UPDATE: Someone at Entertainment Weekly reads this blog: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20283201,00.html

THE CHANGING SUNDAY MORNING NEWS TALK SHOWS

For me, Sunday mornings always started with Tim Russert and MEET THE PRESS.  Mr. Russert always got the A list guests and used Sundays to set the political tone for the week in Washington.  Mr. Russert was well respected and fantastic interviewer.  He pushed, he prodded, sometimes not hard enough for my liking, but I do understand that you can nibble, but it is always unwise to fully bite the hand that feeds you.  I mourned his passing in 2008.

And with his passing, Sundays morning became an open field for the Sunday Morning Political News Shows.  Now I watch both MEET THE PRESS with David Gregory and THIS WEEK with George Stephanopoulos.  I like David Gregory.  He a bit acerbic and curt, but he does dig with guests.  His interview style is still evolving, and I will stick with MTP for a while.  I do like George Stephanopoulos alot.  The style of his show is much more of a news/entertainment show.  He does an In Memoriam segment and a Sunday Funny's (a best of clip show of the late night talk show commentary and jokes).  He is really lining up the A list guests.  In Washington, it is really who you can get an interview with on that Sunday.  Mr. Stephanopoulos is getting more confident, bolder, and more confrontational in his interviews, and I like that.

The real sorrow was NBC not paying Tom Brokaw however much money he wanted to stay on and host MTP.  Of anyone, only Mr. Brokaw could claim the mantle that Tim Russert left behind.  I also saw that Mr. Brokaw felt more free to challenge guests than he ever could hosting NBC's Nightly News.  The MTP format seemed to free up his interviewing style a bit more. 

Sunday's continue to be interesting, but long term, I see Mr. Stephanopoulos taking over the Sunday morning Political News lead.  Too bad, it was NBC's to lose by not keeping Mr. Brokaw.

HURRICANE WILMA

While I have gone on and on about all the great things I will miss about Miami, it's important to remember that there is a price for living in paradise.  One of the things I will not miss about Miami is hurricane season.  After going through the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California (a 6.7 on the Richter scale.  Side Note - after an extreme earthquake period in Indonesia in 2008, the western seaboard of the United States has been very geologically active lately), and Hurricane Wilma in October 2005, I have survived 2 huge natural disasters.  And believe me when I say, I hope that's the last one I have to go through.

My boyfriend at the time and I were on a pre-planned weekend trip to New York City.  We saw the hurricane was coming and decided to go anyway.  It was supposed to hit Miami over the weekend.  We figured we'd ride out the hurricane in NYC and go back down to Miami a day or 2 after it hit.  Over the weekend, the hurricane slowed down and we were scheduled to return to Miami from NYC that Sunday.  We literally just made it into MIA.  The airport was shut down a few hours later.  We had hurricane supplies and at the time Wilma was forecast to be a Category 1, maybe reaching Category 2, a minor hurricane (not that any hurricane is "minor" - even a Category 1 can kill you).  

We went to bed, and then right around midnight, the hurricane arrived.  And boy, did it arrive.  What woke me up was a series of loud BOOMs, followed by a burst of sparks.  It was the transformers exploding as the wires were ripped out during the hurricane.  You know, I am a junior architectural hobbiest.  And I think that the buildings and cities that man has made are incredibly impressive, but all of mankind's architectural achievements are seen in an entire different perspective compared to the fury of nature.  The hurricane continued throughout the night and into the morning.  We lost electricity that evening and the next day.  No electricity, no nothing:  no elevators - so we had to walk up and down 15 flights of stairs, no air conditioning, no cable, no internet, no lights.  It was like living in Lincoln's time, we were reading by candlelight.  There was literally nothing to do other than read, sleep, and eat.  It was like the Stone Age.  If terrorists really want to strike at the U.S., hit the electrical grid.  It will do far more damage.  This hurricane was as close as I have been to a state of anarchy.  There are no police, no street lights, no traffic, no rules, no law, no calling 911, no phones, no ATM's, no pumping gas.  It's pretty much you, out there, on your own.  Very scary.  And what was even scarier was that it only took 1 day to go from civilization to the 1800's.

Fortunately there is no sad ending to this story.  We only lost power for 22 hours and it was back on again.  We were able to shower, turn on the A/C (it was October, so it wasn't too humid), and we hosted a DVD night every night at my condo.  We had friends over who had no electricity to shower, make them a hot meal, and recharge their cell phones.  Every night my boyfriend and I would sit on my balcony and watch the City of Miami Beach slowly restore electricity to different parts of the city.  The hotels along the beach went up first, then Lincoln Road, etc.  The business were up and running first and then the residential parts of the city.  It took FPL 2 weeks to get the whole city back up.

Hurricane Wilma was a huge Category 3 hurricane that covered the entire lower part of the state as it passed over us.  It was incredibly powerful, awe inspiring and scary all at once.  Give me a hurricane over an earthquake any day.  At least with hurricanes, you have 3 days notice.  And earthquake just hits without any notice.

Here's why more people die after a hurricane than during.  This is from Hurricane Fay (also a Category 1) in August 2008:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72i0Z42ru-o

A NEW KIND OF PROFESSIONALISM

Office politics.  Where there is an office, there is office politics.  Alliances are formed, gossip is passed, status is determined by who knows what when and before whom.  It is important who you play the game with and find out who is playing the game with you.  You are not very bright if you think you can avoid it, or that by indicating that you are not playing, that the game should not be played on you.....that's just being naive.

I mean what I say when I say that 5 years has changed me both personally and professionally.  The return trip to Los Angeles will be different.  I will try as much as possible to stay above office politics.  I do not want to know the latest gossip.  What I really want to do is work.  I do not want to spend the majority of my day in meetings with other divisions.  The more time I spend in meetings the less time I have to work on projects for upper management.  Let everyone else crawl, scratch and claw.  I intend to spend my work days preparing executives for business trips, educating myself on the rest of the world, developing at least 1 strategic initiative, watching CNBC, and apologizing whenever I inevitably screw up.  I do not want to point fingers, shift blame or deflect.  My intention is to be seen and not heard.  I want a calm office environment, where the phone is not constantly ringing.  I want brief 15 minute meetings with top management once a week to work on and prioritize projects.

I want my work to speak for itself.  I do not want to join the guessing game of who will and who will not be given an invitation to an executive house party.  If I am invited, excellent, I will attend.  If not, I will not posture and ridicule and scorn and be bitter about why not me.

I have no less passion for the international television business.  I still love TV and film, even more so now in appreciating the creative and the executive talent that stands behind it all.  But this is a job.  A job I take very seriously and intend contine to live up to the highest ethical, moral, and professional standards.  Yes, there will be mistakes, and I am willing to make some and then apologize for them.

The only question now is how long do I wait to ask upper management to pay for my Berlitz Arabic language classes?  I need a groundswell of support from other managers to let the President of the division know so that he has time to think about and prepare an answer prior to my asking him.  I want to get myself established a bit and feel out how the office culture has changed, get a few projects successfully completed under my belt and then ask.  I should not wait more than 6 months before asking.  Literally, the day I begin work in Los Angeles, I need to begin working on the next step in my career.  For me, I would very much like the option of working in international television in the Middle East (more specifically Abu Dhabi or Dubai).  I would consider it a cherry on what has already been a great hot fudge sundae of a career.  I love Haagen Dazs ice cream.

CUBA & FLORIDA

The United States should lift its trade embargo with the island nation of Cuba.  On the most basic level, in this economic recession, the more trading partners the U.S. has, the better for our economy overall.  The real benefactor with the most to gain, and which could jolt the state out of its current dire economic malaise, is the State of Florida.  I love this state and would love to see Florida have a new economic renaissance due to Cuba.

1.  The trade embargo has not worked.  Fidel Castro has successfully handed over power to his brother and there has been, and will be, no "democratic" uprising in Cuba.  The trade embargo has hurt families more than it has helped the U.S.  We have more to gain from engaging Cuba than from ignoring it.  This is 40 years of a failed diplomatic policy.

2.  Cuba is the last virgin island in the Caribbean.  It is ripe for development in every way:  restaurants, hotels, tourism, casinos, air travel, cruises, real estate, television, trade, factories......there are hundreds of American industries and small businesses that could stand to gain billions of dollars in revenue from Cuba.  Again, the State of Florida is the gateway to most of the Caribbean for Americans, and it could spur revenue growth for the state.  Governor Charlie Crist and our U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives should be working full time petitioning the Obama Administration for lifting the trade embargo.

3.  I really want to go on vacation there.  Cuba is stuck in the 1950's.  While I would only want to go for 3-4 days, the fact that I would need to leave the U.S. and could get arrested for trying to enter Cuba from another country is the most insane thing I have ever heard. 

Cuba Libre - and by that I mean I want to actually enjoy a Cuba Libre drink on a balmy, breezy summer night in Havana. 

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD 20/40

The first time I moved to Los Angeles, I was 21 years old, newly out of college and hungry to begin my career in the entertainment industry.  I wanted to achieve, prove myself, grow up and succeed in my career.  While there were mishaps along the way, I not only survived in LA, I thrived.

But LA as I approach 40 (I'm 38) is a completely different ballgame (I know, a sports reference...).  When I was in my early 20's, I could go out on any or even mulitple weeknights, get drunk until 2AM and still have a productive day at work.  Those days are gone and they are not coming back.  While I can go out for dinner or 1 drink.  Monday through Thursday nights are all "school" nights.  I have to be at my best and at the top of my game every work day.  The people I work with are smart, so as a senior manager, fighting a hangover at work puts me at a huge disadvantage.  Plus I take being senior management very seriously.  Previously I had a reputation at work for being a "party boy".  My work spoke for itself, but the party boy image is not a good one.  It means you don't take your work seriously, you take your nighttime partying seriously.  Fortunately it's not like I'm surpressing any urges.  My age has long since dictated that party nights and work intensive days do not go well together.  Lesson learned long ago.

A lot of time has passed in the 5 years since I have left LA.  All of my friends are now approaching or in their 40's.  We have all grown up.  I am really looking forward to reconnecting with old friends after 5 years and seeing how their lives have changed.  The friends I have in LA are people I have been friends with for over 15 years now.  But I also want to make some new friends in LA.

And the city of LA is different after 5 years.  This time I am going to have a very different life in Los Angeles.  I'm excited about all the new possibilities.

MIA TO LAX

And here I go again.....from being born in Malden to Everett to Andover to Amesbury (high school) to Amherst (college at UMass) - all in Massachusetts.  Then Amherst to Los Angeles for 11 1/2 years (minus the 8 months living and working in London) to Miami Beach.  And now Miami Beach back to Los Angeles.  I was very fortunate in these economic conditions to be promoted to Vice President of Warner Bros. International Television.  

While it will be nice to be back in LA, I am depressed about leaving Miami Beach.  It is nothing but an understatement to say that I truly love Miami Beach.  I have had the best time living in Miami Beach for so many reasons.....the morning swims in the Atlantic Ocean, walking to the beach every weekend, actually, walking everywhere on the weekends since I don't drink and drive.  Pitchers of daquiris from the Palace at 12th Street Beach.  12th St. Beach has been great to me.  I have made a great group of friends both here in Miami and in New York City.  After a decade of seeing my parents twice a year, it has been great having them only 2 hours away in Florida.  Europe is a closer flight, New York is just 2 1/2 short hours away.  I love the State of Florida as well - Fort Lauderdale, Key West, Tampa, Fort Myers, Cape Canaveral and the Space Shuttle launches, Orlando..... I was able to visit Boston and see my grandparents and extended family more often than living in LA.  Buying my first piece of real estate, getting my MBA the equally beautiful University of Miami.  Miami Beach is such a beautiful city.  Truly America's Riveria.

WHY I LOVE THE BIG BANG THEORY

Sheldon when receiving a holiday gift from Penny: "You bought me a present? Why would you do such a thing? I know you think you're being generous, but the foundation of gift giving is reciprocity. You haven't given me a gift. You've given me an obligation. The essence of the custom is that I now have to go out and purchase for you a gift of commensurate value and representing the same perceived level of friendship as that represented by the gift you've given me. Ah, it's no wonder suicide rates skyrocket this time of year. Oh, I brought this on myself by being such an endearing and important part of your life."

BBT is the funniest show on television.

GAY KIDS RAISED ON TV

No, the title doesn't mean what you think it does. Rather, I am starting to notice an emerging trend on TV shows, where one of the kids in a TV family is gay. For example, both Connor Paolo's character of Eric van der Woodsen on GOSSIP GIRL and Keir Gilchrist's character of Marshall on UNITED STATES OF TARA are both gay teenagers. (So far, both are boys, although there have been lesbian storylines on TV shows before, I just can't think of any). Another example is the Luke & Noah gay boyfriend storyline on AS THE WORLD TURNS. What I like about all these shows is that each of these characters is not a major character on the show. Their storylines focus on their individual struggles as regular teenage kids who just happen to be gay. They are going through their own dating issues, and acceptance issues. All without being the central storyline or focus and merely adding shading to a typical teenage experience. Their families support them, but in a realistic way. There is never an episode where they pander and have "the talk" about being gay. The writer/producers on the these shows just introduce them as gay in an overt, but not offensive way.

It amazes me that Hollywood writers do such of good job of capturing mainstream American society so accurately. It is writers who first started writing about the recession into their storylines and characters lives, whether on a comedy or drama. For people who write from their home offices in front of a computer all day, live in Los Angeles, and can very easy get caught up in the Hollywood lifestyle, most writers remain amazingly grounded to the society they are writing about.

UPDATE:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/fashion/12gayidol.html?8dpc

SAVING HUMMER

There was a title I never thought I would write. Full disclosure, I really like Hummers. My Dad has one and I love it. I even offered to buy it from him once and he turned me down flat (that looked like a good move for me when gas hit its highs in Summer 2008 and my Dad stopped driving the Hummer all together. It's back in operation now with gas at $2). Despite their terribly wasteful gas mileage, Hummer's are a great car. However, in a world where we will shortly be returning to $5 gas, at 10-12 MPG, and with GM desperately trying to save itself, the Hummer brand is on the chopping block. But there is a way to save the Hummer, and maybe GM along with it.

While studying for my MBA at UM, we did more analysis and reading about the automotive industry than almost any other industry. We studied everything from Porsche to Ford to Saturn, and I hated every minute of it. I wanted to study the companies of the future, not a legacy manufacturing business that was headed for the dustbin. Talk about a broken business model. I think of the automotive industry the same way I think about the newspaper industry - it's a business forever stuck in the early 20th century, with no hope of redoing itself for the 21st century. In fairness to the automotive industry, my last MBA class was a Marketing class where our class was broken up into respective groups to start and run an online simulation of our very own automotive company. We spend 6-7 hours each week deciding on how many dealerships to open, how to set up our factory and product lines, which kind of cars to produce, at what quantity, and how to arrange our financing. All in all the simulation was fascinating, but regardless, the automotive industry is still fucked. I still hated the business and I still don't see how they can make any money. My thought was the only way the automotive industry would ever survive is to be bought out by Boeing or EADS and who would convert cars into mini-airplanes for consumer use to ease traffic congestion(I know, my Back To The Future pipe dream).

"You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out." - Warren Buffett said it best. And with the financial crisis, it was perfectly obvious that the GM and Chrysler left their speedos on the beach a while ago and had been swimming naked for so long, that their skin was all wrinkled. (Bad metaphor, I know, but you get the point). I admire the Obama Administration for attempting a rescue, but the automotive industry needs a full teardown, instead of a modest remodeling.

So, here's my idea to save the auto industry. The genesis has to start with changing American and worldwide consumer behavior - no easy task. The auto industry has to eliminate dealerships and all the costs associated with it and move the entire automotive industry to the BTO (Build To Order) model. Americans need to get used to the idea that the dealerships of the 21st century will have a total of 10 cars on it. That's it. You go to the dealership, drive as many of the 10 cars you want and then you order your vehicle, personalized to your exact specifications. You chose the interior and exterior color, audio, video, options, and here's the kicker - what type of fuel you want - hybrid, hydrogen, ethanol, vegetable oil, or electric. And now here's the rub, then you wait a month for your car to be delivered. I know, you wait, but it's OK to wait for a $30,000 purchase. The auto dealer send the car order to the factory and they build it for you. That way the factory line isn't producing cars that no one has said they want. The overhead and costs cut with the BTO model will save the automotive industry.

Same thing with Hummer. If GM wants to save Hummer, they should immediately shut it down, save one factory and convert Hummer into a BTO order only, and make it green. I can think of no better press release than to turn the Hummer, the ultimate in gas consumption into the first BTO vehicle with great gas mileage based on green automotive technology. Hey, you got a better idea? I'd love to hear it.

The NY Times has an interesting article on the Hummer: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/business/31hummer.html?scp=1&sq=hummer&st=cse

GAY MARRIAGE IN IOWA

The Iowa Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in Iowa this week.  Iowa joins Massachusetts and Conneticut as the other 2 states that currently allow gay marriage.  According to the this great article in the New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/us/05marriage.html?hpw a full court press is underway to make gay marriage legal in all 6 New England states.  This state by state battle will hopefully culminate into federally legal marriage laws for gay & lesbian couples in my lifetime.  I certainly hope so.  The fight for equal rights continues forward.  Although there is 1 thing I know for sure, just like all of the other civil rights in this country, this battle will go all the way to the United States Supreme Court to be decided.  And that's the most important court battle of all. I pray that we are ready and victorious.

UPDATE: The Vermont legislature overturned a veto from Governor Jim Douglas' veto making Vermont the 4th state to legalize gay marriage and the first state to do so through the legislative rather than a court process.

Here's a really sad article on gays in Iraq: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/world/middleeast/08gay.html?hp

AFTER 15 YEARS, SAYING GOODBYE TO ER

Last night was the series finale of ER.  I have to admit I shed a little tear for what was truly a seminal show in television history.  When ER debuted in September of 1994, TV was changed forever.  As a viewer, the show was unlike any other show on television.  It was truly groundbreaking television.  I watched ER for 10 of its 15 years on the air, ritualistically every Thursday night at 10PM.  It was one of those classic TV shows, whose audience share (in the 40's) will unlikely be duplicated again.  It was shot unlike another show on TV with long Steadicam tracking shots, great writing (which also included great dialogue), amazing guest stars, the strongest ensemble cast on TV and made most of its cast into stars.  ER was the first 1 hour drama that aired live, twice!  I laughed, but more often I cried every week, but beyond the Emmy's and well deserved accolades, ER means more than that to me.......

I started working at Warner Bros. in 1996, almost a year and half after ER had begun airing.  1994 was the golden age of television at Warner Bros.  At the time, Warner Bros. had the #1 drama series on the air with ER and the #1 sitcom on the air with  FRIENDS.  I was honored that I would be working on these 2 shows in the international marketplace.  Both shows are very special to me.  

I used to walk by the ER soundstage (Stage 11) on the Warner Bros. lot all the time after having lunch at the commissary.  I remember being slightly startled the first couple of times I went to lunch at the commissary and saw all sorts of "bloody" extras having their lunch.  The only time I was actually on the soundstage was when we would hold international press junkets with the cast.  It's during those press junkets that I met George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, Juliana Marguiles and Noah Wylie.  George Clooney used to be part of my own personal studio tour when friends would visit.  You could always count on George Clooney and the cast to be playing basketball in between takes at the basketball court outside the Warner Bros. gym.  Also walking around the lot I would always walk by the exterior set on the other side of the studio lot, where patients would come in from the ambulance bay and on a gurney, slam through the hospital doors and right into the ER.  I remember walking to the Warner Bros. gym at night and seeing New York Street closed off while ER was shooting exterior night scenes.  I remember looking out of my office window one afternoon and seeing a huge explosion and a fireball rise into the sky from the lot.  Armaddeon?  No it was just ER shooting a helicopter explosion from an upcoming episode.  

But more than the stars, memories and sets, I worked on these shows in international television.  In truth, they were easy shows to sell.  Every broadcaster around the world wants the #1 U.S. TV show.  But more than that, honestly, ER helped me buy my home, car, and supported my salary.  Indirectly, but it's true, that without TV from Warner Bros., I might not have any of this.  These were more than shows to me, they were passion projects I would have worked on for free, but fortunately Warner Bros. paid me to work on them.

And bravo to John Wells for such amazing writing and directing all these years. This year, the ER episode that featured the return of George Clooney & Julianna Marguiles was excellent writing and a true ER episode.  The series finale was another excellent episode from John Wells.  As the creative voice of the series, he is one of the most prolific television writers working today.

My fondest memory of ER was when Ewan McGregor was guest starring on a couple of upcoming episodes.  Since he was a big European star, I remember our international publicist, Sally Thoun, taking me with her on the set to meet Ewan McGregor.  It was such an honor, not only to meet an actor who's work I admired in Shallow Grave, but who had just been cast as Anakin Skywalker in the upcoming Star Wars The Phantom Menace.  Another dream come true for me.  Thank you ER for a decade of great television in every way.

WHO IS THE CURRENT GREATEST LIVING ACTOR?

The answer is Daniel Day Lewis. Mr. Lewis is a selective actor, having only done 27 films so far, and if you exclude television, only 19 films. Daniel Day Lewis has 4 Oscar nominations and 2 Oscar wins for Best Actor, which certainly help cement my claim. Watch any of Daniel Day Lewis' films and you will see an intense and consummate actor. Totally devoted to his craft and completely mesmerizing to watch. He has a power on screen that is simply magnetic.

What I like about Zac Efron is in interviews he was quoted many times saying how much he wanted to talk to Leonardo DiCaprio for advice on how to go from teen hearttrob to serious working actor. Mr. DiCaprio has 3 Best Actor nominations himself and is certain to win an Oscar for Best Actor in an upcoming role.  And as much as there could be parallels between Zac & Leo, really, everyone should be asking for the chance to sit down with Daniel Day Lewis on how to really be an actor.  Mr. Day Lewis never repeats himself in his roles, and lately has expanded into singing and dancing by playing the lead in the upcoming Rob Marshall film "Nine".  After "Nine" Day Lewis is working with Martin Scorsese for the second time in "Silence".

Daniel Day Lewis was way ahead in the "straight man playing a gay man on film role" with his performance in 1985's "My Beautiful Launderette".  And here's a little known fact, he is married to Rebecca Miller, the playwright Arthur Miller's daughter.  This exciting actor always gives a riveting performance. 

While there are certainly many other great living actors working today:  Anthony Hopkins, Sean Penn, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., none give quite as an intense an acting performance on film as Daniel Day Lewis.  I wonder if that acting skill would translate on stage?  Can you imagine Mr. Day Lewis in an Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams play on Broadway?  Now that would really be something to see.

DRONES - PRETTY HIGH TECH.

The NY Times has a great article on the use of unmanned ariel drones used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17uav.html?n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/Iraq

Some highlights - the drones cost $4.5 million each and are 27 feet long. The pilots fly missions from the western U.S. (probably Colorado, where the Air Force is based). The fleet currently consists of 195 Predators and 28 Reapers (the new and more heavily armed cousin of the Predators). The drones circle at 16,000 feet - too high for convention gun fire, and largely patrol at night, beaming video to soldiers in the field looking for insurgents & roadside bombs. It takes 17 steps to fire a missle.

The Air Force is clearly not happy with the unmanned drone program. As one of the largest recipients of the defense budget, creating a service fleet that does not require pilots is not a top priority for a military program run by pilots. In fact, the Secretary of the Air Force was terminated in June 2008. The firings were definitely over a "slight" nuclear mishap where armed nuclear warheads where flown across the country and were "missing" for over a week, but it was also from pushback from the drones program, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants to accelerate. The drones are less costly and unmanned (ie - no casualities in crashes) than traditional fighter jets.

Obviously I'm no military expert, but using Air Force trained pilots to fly unmanned ariel drones is counterproductive. It cost upwards of $1.4 million per pilot to train them. What the government should do is release an online "Unmanned Ariel Drone" game for XBox, Wii, PSP3, and use the game to recruit a whole new generation of gamers to operate the unmanned drones and let the Air Force pilots continue to fly.

UPDATE: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/world/asia/04drones.html?scp=10&sq=predator%20drones&st=cse