Random rants or posts by a Brown Guy who is not always Angry. Usually about politics, sports or games but every now and then comes along a post completely off the wall.
It was not until maybe an hour ago that I completely understood the meaning of the newly released film called Invictus. Thanks to a good friend of mine, who for the sake of this post we will call Cindy Murray, for pointing out the fact that was the title of a poem that Nelson Mendela had written down on a scrap of paper while he was imprisoned.
This is a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley. It was written in 1875 and first published in 1888 in Henley’s Book of Verses and although it was initially untitled, the name Invictus was given to it by Arthur Quiller-Couch when he published The Oxford Book of English Verse in 1900.
In the movie, Nelson Mendela gives this hand-written poem to the captain of the Springbok although it has been claimed that he actually gave the captain with an extract from Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech from 1910 that he gave in Paris – both of which are provided below.
Invictus:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
As the great Lou Gehrig famously said on this day 70 years ago, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” I probably wouldn’t go that far but I’ll continue to ride my little lucky streak as far as it will take me.
Twitter has been really, really good to me. I started using this about two years ago but I didn’t start using it full-time until about late last year. More recently as Twitter has become mainstream, bigger companies and corporations have started running PR contests and giveaways to get more followers and just get more publicity.
I should start off by saying that I have not had any help by another person in getting these answers and/or submitting them for me. It has mostly been a good combination of TweetDeck, Firefox and Google which have allowed me to succeed so far.
Here are my winnings so far (in order I won them, starting with the earliest):
[May 12, 2009]
1. The first thing I ever won on Twitter was a $10 Gift Certificate courtesy of @BaskinRobbins which was doing its 88 cent promotion Soft Serve promotion with a contest daily or twice a day. The question that I answered correctly figured to be a sports one and was
“What was the horse’s name that won the Kentucky derby in 1988?”
I would like to be able to say that I knew that off the top of my head that the winner was Winning Colors but let’s just leave it at a search engine helping me figure that one out.
[May 14, 2009]
2. Two days later, Angels and Demons movie account (@AandDMovie) ran a contest asking:
“What cam number are you looking at on AltarsOfScience.com?”
Wow, this certainly came out of nowhere! A fantastic new trailer for a documentary about greatest boxer of all-time Muhammad Ali called Facing Ali has debuted on Apple today. I had heard about some documentary but hadn’t heard of this at all until tonight and it looks simply looks amazing. I think Ali’s life story is a the most remarkable sports story out there and this documentary looks like it will be an unforgettable look at one of the greatest athletes ever.
Three-time World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali defeated almost every top fighter of the golden age of boxing and symbolized the sport for generations of fans. Now, ten of his acclaimed rivals pay tribute to perhaps the world’s most beloved and inspiring athlete in Pete McCormack’s Facing Ali.
This documentary includes appearances by George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Earnie Shavers, George Chuvalo, Sir Henry Cooper, and Joe Frazier, among many others. Lionsgate is distributing Facing Ali with SpikeTV, but hasn’t set a theatrical release date for this yet.
It claims to change the way you see Muhammad Ali forever. I am not sure it will do that for me since I have followed and watched a lot of his old fights but it can certainly open the eyes of a lot of the younger Americans here about why he is considered the greatest of all-time.
I originally saw the clip on FIRST SHOWING.NET, so make sure the check out the entire article over there.
As if the X-Men Origins film wasn’t getting enough promotion for the movie as it was, now they came out with this brilliant advertisement. Whoever thought of this one, definitely deserves a raise or a couple of claws or something.
I had been looking for this video online ever since I watched it on TNT during one of the basketball playoff games and finally found it tonight. Also, there is an entire Inside The NBA clip that I have attached after the break.
So I guess it is safe to say I have been on a movie watching rampage recently – more specifically watching the movies that not only were nominated for Best Motion Picture but actually ended up winning the award like this year’s Slumdog Millionaire (rated 8.5/10).
First let me get out of the way that I have not seen either of The Godfather films that won the award and I have only seen three movies in the stretch of 20 years spanning from 1969 to 1988. However, I have seen nine of the 10 that won from 1959-1968 and 1999-2008 as well as a total 30 of the past 50 award winners. I am sure as I watch more of these films the list will continue to change and hopefully the next time I post a list like this, I’ll have watched the other 20 that are left off.
When I first started to think about ranking them, I did not want to give too many films a perfect score as that leaves very little wiggle room to adjust for a following movie if it exceeds expectations or sets the bar even higher. I don’t think I had much of a problem with that as I watched the movies with The Departed being the only one getting a perfect 10/10 and only one other scored above a 9.0 which was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at 9.5.
The more I watch the older movies, the bigger fan I become of them. As of now, 12 of the top 22 movies that I have rated were produced in 1989 or earlier… that is 20 years is old at the earliest. Two of those movies I have even ranked in my top 6 (Annie Hall and Driving Miss Daisy) which both got a solid 9.0 out of 10.
Take a look through the list of those that I have seen and let me know what you think. Also, to view the list by year, look after the break, and let me know which ones I should see next from the list. Currently I have Chicago and The French Connection lined up before I hit the weekend.
