Category Archives: Movies
The Bond Films: Connery
(To clarify a point from the last post on this: I watch these when I’m on the treadmill, but that watching is spread over multiple nights. I’m getting better, but a half hour is about my limit on the hamster wheel.)
I’m about to commit an act of blasphemy. Sean Connery was not the ideal embodiment of James Bond, even if such a thing could be said to exist.
Connery was, however, perfect for the movies that the Bond Films became. Watching them in a short time span really drives home that point. The movies evolved to better suit Connery’s performance: his dry wit, his confidence, his skill in making the most ridiculous action scenes believable. The man and the movies became inseparable, which is why they struggled to find a voice once he was gone.
The Connery years simply had style. That’s all there is to it. The rhythms of the movies — jazzy score, solid action, beautiful girls, sexual politics, gadgets — were a rhythm the series would lose after Connery left and never recover. The recent films quit trying and went with a different aesthetic, which is probably wise. The Connery films simply wouldn’t work today. When you watch them, you instantly know when they were made: the inventive 60’s when the Hayes Code was collapsing and film-makers were stretching their wings.
Going film by film:
Dr. No, which I rate 8/10 and IMBD rates as the fourth best of the series is probably the most true to the Bond of the novels. I like it because it is built around a spy adventure, rather than action sequences. Bond kills in cold blood and is focused tightly on the mission. The sex and drinking are a manifestation of his nature, not a distraction from it.
Everyone talks about Ursula Andress as the ultimate Bond Girl. Well, fair enough. But I always preferred Zena Marshall as the beautiful traitorous Miss Taro. And she is at the center of one of the most interesting sequences in the film. A remarkable thing about the 60’s Bond movies was just how coldly Bond and his opponents used sex as a weapon. There is a sequence where Taro invites Bond to her house for a liason so that No’s gangsters can kill him on the way. Once he gets there, they have sex twice — her to delay him long enough for another attempt on his life; him … well just to have some fun before he turns her in. It’s almost jarring. You would almost never see this today.
From Russia with Love, which I rate a 9 and IMDB rates as the third best Bond, is what every Bond film should be. It has a great spy story, a gorgeous Bond girl in Daniela Bianchi and not one, but two awesome villans in Robert Shaw and Lotte Lenya. It adheres close to the novel, has dynamite action scenes and more tension than the entire Moore years combined. The final fights between Bond and Grant and Bond and Klebb are visceral in a way later films would try and fail to reproduce. If I ever took over the Bond series, I would tell everyone to watch From Russia with Love for inspiration.
Russia also continues the theme of using sex as a weapon. SPECTRE tries to use Romanova as bait for Bond and he cooperates because … well mainly because Daniela Bianchi is so beautiful.
By the end of Russia, all the pieces of the next decade are in place. Lois Maxwell and Bernard Lee show up i No. Desmond Llewelyn first appears here. SPECTRE is an established villain. The great music and action rhythms and glamorous Bond girls are ready to become a staple. It would all come together the next time out.
Goldfinger, which rates as the second best Bond movie and which Ebert included in his great movies is a step down, I think, even though it’s the film were all the elements finally came together. I rate it a 8/10. I’m not dissing it; it’s great. And I won’t argue with people who think this, rather than Russia was the pinnacle of the Connery era if not the entire series. It has a great score, an iconic villan, great action scenes, even a dazzling theme song from Shirley Bassey. It has the style I referenced above, which is something the later films lacked. Honor Blackman was never one of my favorite Bond Girls, even if she was the most infamous. And again, we see he naked sexual politics of the early films — Bond saves the world by seducing Goldfinger’s henchwoman.
So why do I rate it below Russia? Well, it’s praising with faint damnation. It’s not that I dislike Goldfinger, I just like Russia more.
Thunderball: IMDB ranks this as the 7th best Bond film and I gave it an 8. A step down from Goldfinger, it still has its pleasures. SPECTRE is in full flower, not as faceless enemy but as a fully realized organization. The underwater battle scene is still thrilling after four decades and Claudine Auger and Luciana Paluzzi are two of my all-time favorite Bond girls.
As before, the use of sex as a weapon is front and center in the tryst between the villainous Volpe and Bond. As with No, she’s delaying him for the bad guys to arrive; he’s having fun and maybe hoping to flip her against SPECTRE. He clearly knows who she is and doesn’t care because she’s hot.
One last thing. There’s is apparently some debate over whether Bond deliberately turned Volpe into the path of the bullet when her henchman try to shoot him. To me, this isn’t even a question. He spots the gun, turns her into it, then casually lays her dead body in a chair. There’s no shock or sadness from him at all. It’s obvious it was deliberate. And utterly consistent with his character.
You Only Live Twice: IMDB ranks this as the 8th best Bond, I give it an 8. What amuses me is that the plot of the film — which is the first to basically ignore the book — is utterly absurd. The idea that SPECTRE could put together its own space program AND keep it quiet is pure silliness. But the movie forges ahead with such confidence and style in its ridiculous plot that I don’t mind at all. It remains one of my favorites, even if it doomed future films by raising the bar on silly plots.
(Ignoring Fleming’s novel would create problems down the road for The Man With The Golden Gun. But I’ll address that when the time comes.)
Diamonds are Forever: IMDB ranks this 13th, I give it a 7.0. I like it more than it deserves, probably because I like Lana Wood and Jill St. John more than I should. But it has other highlights as well, notably Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint. I read some review that described them as terrible villains, but I found them wonderfully menacing.
Interesting point about Kidd and Wint. In the novel, they are explicitly gay. This is hinted at in the movie, but even those hints were excised on TV. Back then, people objected to the portrayal of homosexuality. If it aired now, people would object to the portrayal of homosexuals as villains.
As a sendoff to Connery, it’s serviceable. And the ridiculous moon buggy chase demonstrates perfectly why Connery was so well-suited to the movies. Put any other actor in that scene and we’d be laughing. Put Connery in it and … it works.
The Bond Films: Lazenby
It’s gotten too quiet around here. I need to find something to blog on. The Shakespeare Project is still going but I’ve gotten pre-occupied with the Millenium trilogy (which I’ll post on) so haven’t finished Labours yet.
However, my wife recently bought a treadmill so I can get my sorry ass into shape. I’m using it every night but I get terminally bored with exercise, so I usually drag down a computer and pop in a movie. And, right now, I’m going through the Bond films. So I though I’d put up a post on them. Actually, a series of six posts, one for each of the six bonds (Connery, Lazeby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan, Craig).
I’m under no illusions that Bond films are art or “feeelm”. But they’re enjoyable. I think Roger Ebert put it best in his review of The World is Not Enough: Bond films are like wine. Some years they’re good, some years they’re not so good but you can always get drunk on them (actually, I’m not sure that’s quite what Ebert meant). You judge them as they are — for coolness, for Bond, for Bond girls, for action sequences. I don’t think they have any deeper meaning; that’s the fun.
I’ll dive right in with the Lazenby “era” since it’s short (one film) and I’m watching them in order so need to watch Diamonds are Forever before talking about Connery.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is criminally under-rated (IMDB has it at 6.8, #9 among Bond films), mostly because Lazenby is criminally under-rated. He’s no Connery, true. But he’s utterly competent, comfortable in the action scenes and makes the finale one of the best scenes in the series. The story is very good, mostly because it sticks closely to Fleming’s solid novel (which I’ve read) and because of Diana Rigg’s excellent performance. Actually, Rigg is essential to the movie, which drags quite a bit whenever she is not on screen. The way she deals with Blofeld is marvelous and watching her tangle with his thugs makes one wish she’d been in a slightly different role — one that would have seen her as a sidekick in multiple bond movies.
Actually, I want to explore that last point. SPECTRE only made one appearance in the novels before Bond basically destroyed it. Most of the actions of SPECTRE were, in the novelizations, done by SMERSH. I’m guessing the producers felt that making SMERSH the primary enemy would make the films feel like anti-Communist propaganda. But the decision to move SPECTRE up to the point where it dominated the first seven films was a wise one, giving Bond a recurring enemy that the Moore years sadly lacked and the Craig years are trying to re-create.
How might the films have been different if Tracy had been introduced earlier, being a recurring Bond Girl as Sylvia Tranch was intended to be? Their eventual romance and her death in Service would have been elevated to an epic tragedy.
Anyway, Service is one I really like and I rate it an 8. It would be a 9 but … really … Telly Savalas? Ilse Steppat was awesome as Bunt, bringing the fierceness of Rosa Klebb. Her early death prevented her from reprising the role. But Savalas really didn’t do it for me.
Se7en
Roger Ebert just added Se7en to his list of Great Movies.
While I liked the movie and own it on DVD, I would hesitate to call it “great”. Spoiler warning!
The movie is wonderful atmospheric, has some great acting and, for the first 75%, is tense and interesting. It’s certainly more intelligent than your typical crime movie.
The problem, for me, has always been the final act. For my money, it is not the logical conclusion of the story but a derailment. I know the shocking endings “feels right” to a lot of people but it thinks wrong to me. The whole point of John Doe’s killing was to punish people according to the sin they had committed. But Tracy had committed no sin, certainly not one worthy of beheading. Her killing is simply unearned viciousness.
What would have made more sense in the context of the film was for Doe to pretend he had killed her. The scene plays out as scripted, with Doe being punished for his envy and Mills being punished for his wrath. Even better, the head could have been that of the model killed earlier for the sin of pride. With the blood and gore, it could easily have been mistaken for Tracy’s. This adds another layer of planning to Doe and another level of vengeance.
No one ever agrees with me on that, of course. I may be the only person who has ever seen the film who didn’t like the ending. But … it’s my blog.
Incidentally, Se7en did give rise to one of my movie cliches:
Black Hat Database: The government collects and stores amazing amounts of obscure information about its citizens, which is part of a large, user-friendly, perfectly efficient database. This database never gives incorrect information or comes up empty, unless the bad guys have “wiped” the relevant records. Enemy of the State is a perfect example. Se7en is probably the worst example as the detectives find a killer through — of all things — a secret federal database that catalogues the checkout of library books.
The Best Sci-Fi
I just stumbled upon this list, compiled last year, of the best 25 sci-fi/fantasy movies of all time. Considering that I just said that 2009 had four great entries into the genre, I thought I’d lay out my thoughts.
IMDB Ratings
When I talk about movies on this site, I usually reference the ratings I give them on IMDB. I thought I’d put up a post about how those ratings come about.
Ratings tend to be personal. I’m trying to be objective but sometimes a great movie just doesn’t grab me and sometimes a modest movie does. I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that Citizen Kane is probably “better” than Lord of the Rings. So why do I rate the latter a 10 and the former a 9? Because I do, that’s why. Or to be blunt, because I would rather watch the latter than the former even though Citizen is a great movie and I’ve watched it many times.
I tend to be kind of a harsh grader and have become harsher as I’ve gotten older. Many fine films end up with 7’s or 8’s which makes the few 10’s I give out look even more ridiculous. I’ve also been rating movies for 15 years and some inconsistencies have cropped up. So … sue me. When I mention a film on the blog, I’ll usually reconsider the rating. But I can’t promise to be consistent. Roger Ebert complains all the time about people wondering how he can rate movie X as four stars and movie Y as 3.5 stars. I didn’t understand why he did that until I started rating movies myself. Consistency is difficult and ultimately futile. We rate how we rate. Let IMDB toss the outliers.
My general rule of thumb on IMDB ratings (with examples) is listed below.
10 – Perfection in film. The list of films I have given a rating of 10 are: Das Boot, 2001, Apollo 13, Grave of the Fireflies, Lawrence of Arabia, Master and Commander, Psycho, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ran, Schindler’s List, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings. Yeah, that’s a pretty “guy”-oriented list. I have testicles.
9 – Should be seen by everyone. I probably own it on DVD. This gets more interesting. A “10” rating means something to me. “9” ratings are where you will find the more traditional great movies, from the wonderful World of Apu to the touching Before Sunrise to the hilarious Blazing Saddles to Branagh’s fantastic Hamlet to the wonderfully weird City of Lost Children to the erotic Sex and Lucia to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
8 – Very good, if you’re into that sort of thing. Probably own it on DVD. A lot of great movies end up here too if they don’t stick in my brain. You’ll see almost all of the top movies of any year end up as 8’s. A few random examples: Grizzly Man, Henry V, Kingdom of Heaven, North by Northwest, Lust Caution, The X-files movie, Yojimbo.
7 – Worth watching. If I had infinite money, I might have a copy. This is probably where the bulk of films I watch end up. Here or 8. I don’t have much time for movies and usually don’t bother with things I don’t think I’ll like. This unfortunately means I miss out on the occasional surprise. But … I figure by the time Abby is off to college, I can catch up by having them beamed directly into my brain. Random examples: Bridget Jones’ Diary, High Fidelity, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Sideways (yeah, I gave it a 7. I know everyone loves it. I merely liked it, mostly because I like Paul Giamatti.)
6 – If I’m flipping channels and see this, I’ll stop and watch. Probably has some decent parts. Random examples: Chicago, Lolita, Transformers, Uncle Buck.
5 – If I’m watching something else and this comes on and I can’t reach the remote… Examples: Lost in Space, Resident Evil, numerous pointless sequels.
4 – I’ll make sure to change channel if this comes on. Addicted to Love, Sleeping with the Enemy, Supergirl. Out of Africa shows up here too. That can’t be right and it isn’t. My only memory of this film is watching it when I was 13 and being bored to hell. I have to watch it again. But this is where films start showing up that I dislike for specific reasons. Addicted to Love‘s astronomically ridiculous opening sequence, Charlie’s Angels over-the-top bullshit, The Life of David Gale’s absurd plot, Erin Brockovich’s glorification of lawsuits and under-carpet-sweeping of her deceptions.
3 – I will risk bodily injury to change the channel. There are few movies that I’ve watched enough of to get here. Dirty Dancing is here but almost certainly doesn’t deserve to be. It’s just that my sister watched it endlessly and I can’t stand the thought of it. Jerry Maguire is a popular movie that I despise. Hannibal was an absolutely revolting movie that had no qualities to redeem its endless series of shocks. Serendipity, despite being liked by my wife and starring two of my favorite actors, just rubbed me the wrong way.
2 – I will throw something at the TV, hoping to smash it to pieces as this film has befouled the TV by its very presence. Here are the movies I have rated a 2: 3 Men and a Baby, Battlefield Earth, Death Becomes Her, Hello Again, Shining Through, Teen Wolf. I could write a whole post on those movies. 3 Men, like Jerry Maguire, is rated lower than it deserves because so many people liked it and tried to convince me it was good. Nothing will make me hate a film more than being told I should like it when I clearly don’t. Battlefield Earth is rated low, but I’ve actually watched it more than once because it’s in the “so bad it’s good” territory. At least, it is when you’ve had enough to drink. Shining Through is an epic miscalculation; I laughed while watching it. Hello Again and Teen Wolf I actually saw in theaters as a kid, although I’ll be damned if I know why. There’s nothing worse than forcing yourself to sit through a movie because you’ve paid for it. Nowadays, I understand the concept of sunk costs and would walk out, even if it meant sitting on a corner for two hours waiting for my mom to pick me up … late as usual. And Death Becomes Her? I never thought I could despise a film with Isabella Rosselini in it, but there you go. I’ll never forget the critic in the Carletonian who said that the only reason to see this movie at the campus theater was because it was free. He was wrong. Two hours of your life is worth something. You could get drunk in two hours. You could get laid in two hours. No piece of shit movie is worth two hours.
1 – I would not show this to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. No movie gets this rating, thankfully.
Anyway, now I have this up for reference. Time to write some more about actual movies.
Friday Linkorama
1999
This quiz for sporcle reminded me of what a truly great year 1999 was for movies. Consider that in one calendar year, we had The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, American Beauty, Eyes Wide Shut, The Green Mile, Toy Story 2, Office Space, Being John Malkovich, Star Wars 1, Boys Don’t Cry, Blair Witch, Virgin Suicides, the Matrix, Talented Mr. Ripley, Dogma, the Iron Giant, The Insider, South Park, Three Kings, Election, the Hurricane. I own six of those on DVD and would probably have the others if money weren’t tight. Probably all of them would place in the top ten most of the last few years.
Even the crap, like the Mummy, 10 Things I Hate About You, Galaxy Quest, Cruel Intentions (a ridiculous film that’s a guilty pleasure), Magnolia, Austin Powers 2, The Bone Collector, Mystery Men, Go, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the play is great; the film … eh) was not too bad.
I went through the top 100 films of the year and had decent memories of at least half.
1999 may have been the last great year for movies. I have not seen a year remotely like it since.
Update: On cue, sporcle follows up with best films of the last ten years. Take Lord of the Rings out and I’d take 1999 over the last decade.
2009 In Review
Hey, I’m only a year and a half behind in looking back at 2009 in film. Actually, I think being way behind schedule as I am tends to be good. It gives me a little more perspective, a little less hype. It often turns out that the film most raved about at the time ends up fading to another picture. I think of 1994 when Forrest Gump grabbed all the headlines but The Shawshank Redemption turned out to be the best film.
Anyway, as far as 2009 goes, I saw nine of the ten best picture nominees. They follow with my thoughts and IMDB rating (out of 10). Remember that’s it’s very rare for me to rate a film a 9 or a 10.
Avatar: I wondered if I’d miss the 3D when I bought this on blu-ray. The short answer is no. The film wasn’t very original but was lovely to watch and thrilling. IMDB rating: 8.
The Blind Side: The crowd pleaser of 2009. I’m not unbiased since I read and enjoyed the book. I’d say it’s a little too neat a story, but it’s a real one. And who knew what talent we were wasting with Sandra Bullock? Rating: 7.
District 9: Another one of 2009’s great sci-fi movies. I knew nothing about this film when I rented it and was surprised by how smart and confident it was. I wish we’d get more science fiction like this — a story with ideas. Rating: 8.
An Education: This is in my queue but I have not seen it yet. If it winds up blowing my mind, I’ll let you know.
Inglorious Basterds: You know, I really wanted to love this film. The image composition is fantastic, the acting is good, the dialogue is fun. The opening scene is simply amazing. But the gore and violence are getting to me. Rating: 7, but it might go up in the future.
Precious: I just saw this film last night and am still recovering. It’s harrowing with a bit of inspiration. The suffering by the main character is almost absurd and the movie would completely fall apart were it not held together by two extraordinary acting performances. It’s one of those great films that I never want to see again. Rating: 8.
A Serious Man: I love the Coen brothers and this film was everything that’s good about them. Funny, intriguing and thought-provoking. Rating: 8.
Up: Another movie I wanted to love. The first 15 minutes are incredible. The rest of the movie is good, but not great. Rating: 7.
Up in the Air: Another movie I wanted to like more than I did. Clooney is really a great film-maker, both as an actor and a director. Rating: 7.
The Hurt Locker: I said elsewhere that it’s oscar win was a combination of giving the middle finger to Cameron while saying something about the Iraq War. It’s a good movie, even great at times. But I still don’t see why it won the Oscar. Precious would have been a bolder choice. Rating: 8.
So that’s the Academy. It was a good year for movies, but there was nothing I would call a modern classic.
According to the IMDB users, the best films with 20,000 or more votes were: Inglorious, Up, the Secrets in Their Eyes, Mary and Max, District 9, Avatar, Star Trek, A Prophet, Moon, 500 Days of Summer, the Fantastic Mr. Fox, the Hangover, Coraline, Zombieland, Up in the Air, the Girl with Dragon Tattoo and Watchmen. I’ve seen most of those. Star Trek I’ve talked about — good if a bit flawed. 500 Days of Summer was cute but ultimately forgettable. The Hangover was very funny and Watchmen was spectacular, if somewhat cold. Coraline was quite enjoyable.
I’m not sure what I’d peg as my favorite film of 2009. Star Trek will probably be on my screen more than any other film but it was far from the best film of the year. I would speculate that Inglorious will have the longest legacy. What really stood out about 2009 was the way sci-fi came roaring back, with four great sci-fi films, two of which were nominated for Best Picture.
Because I was fooling around withe IMDB, I decided to see what people rated as the best movies of the last five years. Here’s that list, with the caveat that the 2010 titles will sink with time.
Inception
The Dark Knight
Toy Story 3
The Lives of Others
Wall-E
The Departed
The Prestige
Pan’s Labyrinth
Black Swan
Inglorious Basterds
Three Chris Nolan movies and two PIXAR films. I’m not sure how these will end up rating historically. I would tab Pan’s Labyrinth as the best among those. But looking over that list, they are mostly big pictures that made lots of money. I think Roger Ebert was right — the really artsy pictures that used to make up the classic have migrated to television.
Summer Movie Musings
Ta-Nehisi Coates, in discussing Thor:
I did not find it transcendent (Batman Begins did it on that count.) I thought Asgard looked rather plastic, and the love story was, as always, tacked on. But here is the thing: They kept the train on the tracks. The narrative felt smooth enough that I could just sit back and take in the fight scenes, the effects and laugh at the jokes.
This sounds like meager praise. Except it’s exactly what I ask out of a summer blockbuster, and it’s exactly what I often find missing. It’s shocking how often the train is derailed by distracting characters (robots with gold teeth) preposterous dialouge (“Hold me, Ani. Hold me like you did on the shore of the lake on Naboo”) or the off-screen murder of major character (Cyclops?)
Seriously, this is my case against Michael Bay. It’s not the explosions. It’s not the special effects. It’s not the lack of seriousness. It’s that he can’t keep the train on the tracks. It’s that, as a director, he’s a humorless clutz who can’t get out of the way.
There’s nothing wrong with Independence Day. There’s everything wrong with Armageddon.
The best I can say of Thor is that I was entertained. I think that’s worth something.
My movie time is limited these days, so I don’t have as much time for good trash as I’d like. But my feelings are very much along these lines. I don’t mind dumb movies as long as they’re entertaining. I can suspend belief with the best of them. I loved Inception even thought the plot had some pretty big holes in it.
But there are a huge number of movies these days that play out like trailers for other movies. The second Transformers movie was this in spades — it jumped around with no rhyme or reason, gave you no reason to care about who was shooting who and why, and it’s action scenes were an incomprehensible blur of CGI.
This summer is just going to be awful. Look at the most anticipated movies. Maybe I’ll watch a few. But none of them look fresh or interesting or even watchable.
Weekend Linkorama
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Political Links:
HST Deadline Linkorama
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Sunday Linkorama
Non-political links:
Political links:
The Year Of Smarm
We’re already 20 days into 2011, so it seems pointless to look back over 2010. I thought, however, I’d take a second to look back at what I said last year, throw out some parting thoughts about 2010 and look ahead to 2011.
I was right about the economy improving without jobs. I was a little off on the election — the GOP took the House. Sarah Palin did not begin to fade, although I see her star waning now. My sports predictions weren’t too bad — at least the Colts and Rangers made the final. My foreign policy predictions were way off: Iran seems stronger than ever and Afghanistan is still a mess. But I was right that it would be a so-so year in TV and film. And I was right about science. We saw a fantastic year in science, including several knock-out blows delivered to the anti-vaccine nonsense.
When I look back at 2010, what really crosses me is the sense of smugness so many seemed to radiate. There were so many people making smug smarmy remarks from false confidence. It was a year when people who were wrong about everything loudly and arrogantly talked about how right they were. No one exemplifies this more than the aforementioned Palin, whose every speech drips with condescending sarcasm and arrogant ignorance. But she wasn’t the only one. Bad climate skeptics proclaimed Global Warming to be dead based on incorrect analyses of Climategate and an inability to read declarative English sentences such as “this study on ocean level rise has been withdrawn in favor of studies favoring more ocean level rise”. Tea Party critics dismissed legitimate concerns about the direction of the country, branding the Tea Partiers as racists and extremists. Pro-torture advocates ignored the established record of civil trials and proclaimed civilian justice was a failure in the wake of Ghailani trial. And, in the sports, the Sports Media Twerps were as arrogant, condescending and wrong as ever — ranging from OSU arrogantly asserting that their eight home games proved their toughness to the HOF voters covering up their complicity in the steroid scandal by refusing to vote for suspected users.
It was a frustrating year, but one we could see coming. I said 2009 was the Year of Fantasyland. No one is more smug than the person who is being proven wrong day after day.
2011 is shaping up to be a year of reality. It will be a year when the Tea Party is going to have to actually govern instead of complain. It will be a year when the free markets, free trade and regulatory sanity will be absolutely critical. It will be a year when we have to shrug and grimly put our shoulders to the boulder. I think this will happen. Because I am, at heart, an optimist.
Specific predictions:
Oh well.