A lot of criticism was leveled at Tom Cruise for his performance in Valkyrie. He plays a German soldier who decides he should kill Hitler. The critics found cause for criticism because he doesn’t speak with a German accent. My problem with that criticism is that no one speaks with a German accent in the movie. Most of them speak with British accents because, wait for it, they’re British actors. I always find it weird anyway when actors put accents on their English when they’re supposed to be speaking in their native language. It isn’t needed. If a Russian, for example, is supposed to be speaking in English to an American he should probably have a Russian accent but why should he have a Russian accent if he’s supposed to be speaking in Russian anyway? If the filmmakers decide to do that then it just sounds like two Russians speaking to each other in English. Why would they do that?
On to a completely different topic, writing. I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a writer. It’s weird because I don’t think of myself as a writer but still I’m writing this aren’t I? For me writing isn’t about the status of being a writer. It’s that once you become a writer you can get to a lot of people. It’s tough to call yourself a writer if you’re only writing for 14 of your friends. With such a fickle thing as writing, I think it doesn’t matter if you have written something, how much you get paid or how good it is. I think it matters who sees it and who reads it.
I’m going to comment on the NBA playoffs a little bit. First off, the Nuggets are way better than I though. I still have an issue with how crazy they are and I don’t know how they’ll react once they lose their footing a little bit. They’ve never been down in a series and come back; they haven’t proven themselves as a team that can deal with adversity. I’ll be curious to see what happens if they go down 2-0 in these first games and if Chauncey Billups can get them together.
I predicted that the Hornets would go all the way to the conference finals and instead they decided to suck. All I can say in my defense is that I didn’t realize how badly injured they were. But it wasn’t just they were injured, they don’t seem to like each other or trust their coach.
Some of my picks were made simply to try and jinx teams, I hate San Antonio so I picked them to beat Dallas, I hate the Celtics so I picked them to go to beat Orlando. My Finals pick still stands and I still think Cleveland will win it all. Lebron is simply too good.
The Bee's Knees 