Everyday I surf the net, and amongst my many stops is the BBC website. However more recently I have started to use the RSS feed option that comes with my web browser, and one thing that stands out to me, is the fact that we as a species are not very nice to each other. Everyday I read about someone being killed or hurt, and more often then not it is an innocent victim. What surprises me though is the fact that for the most part I no longer care or worry that this is happening. Does this make me a bad person? I don't know. What I do know is that this sort of thing has been going on for centuries, and it is never going to stop. I know this, because of a single fact. This fact is that no one really cares for anyone outside their 'monkeyspere' (
http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html).
Another thing that has been bothering me recently is hollywoods insensitivity to source material. Now I understand that most of the time it is a question of budget, but sometimes I have also heard the excuse that they were trying to make it more realistic. What bothers me about this is that more often than not the source material is a piece of fiction, so it does not make sense to me why if the author of the source did not feel to 'make it more realistic', hollywood felt it had to. An example of this that comes to mind is the absence of web shooters from the spiderman movies. It turns out that it was kept from the final cut because the director felt that it did not make sense that a guy with the genius to make synthetic spiderwebs equivalently as strong as the real thing would have such a crappy life. Now firstly, having the web shooters would not have made the movie any better or worse, but it would have kept true to the source material and perhaps added an extra dimension to the fight scences. Secondly, I think it is close minded to think that smart people could not have the same problems as everyone else. Spiderman did well as a comic book because it 'spoke' to the reader through the emotions expressed by the characters. A more current example is the ongoing debate on the casting for 'The Last Airbender'. For those who do not know, 'The Last Airbender' was a cartoon that ran in 2005. It was about war, opression and a young boy who had been given the task of freeing the world from said oppressors. The cartoon had an Asian setting, and even though the characters looked Asian their voices were American. So the current debate is on the fact that all but one of the lead roles is played by a caucasian, and that the one asian that does have a lead role is a part of the opressing race. I feel that the film should be recast, not because I am a racist - as someone has already suggested - but because I think it would be different and more importantly it would better reflect the source material. Besides at the moment the current cast consists of new actors to the industry, who judging from their past record have not done anything that note worthy (apart from Dev Patel of 'Slumdog Millionaire' fame).
Now for something different.....Is this the end of the reign of Federa? It would seem the world number one Nadal, has solidified his place with his win at the Australian open. Just like Wimbeldon, this final was another 4 hour epic feature between two titans. Like many I was hoping Federa would win his 14th tournament to equal Sampras, and I thought it would not be a problem after Nadal's 5 hour game just 2 days earlier, but surprisingly Nadal was able to keep up despite the pain of fatigue that he was surely feeling at times. On paper Nadal is a better player, but Federa has had such an amazing career he is undisputably one of the greatest players ever. I just hope he has enough energy and drive left to make history. I don't have any one player that I can say I am a fan of, but I am always rooting for the underdog, it just so happens that between these two it is Federa. Here's looking towards the French open, maybe this will be Federa's year again.
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