MERCY or NO MERCY to Mr. Sardonicus?
In the spirit of foul play YOU will
decide during the "Punishment Poll"
by voting "thumbs up" or "thumbs down"
with your ballot card!
See you AT THE MOVIES! Har har!!!
Posted on 10/02/2008 4:35:04 PM PDT by prolifefirst
Why do corporations tend to be greedy? I suspect it's because their executives are paid millions and millions to maximize profits, minimize salaries and slash benefits that cut into the bottom line. Sometimes this can be taken to comic-opera extremes, as when the (now) convicted thief David Radler was stealing millions from the Sun-Times and actually turned off the escalators to save on electricity. I guess that helps explain why the Ford Motor Co., followed by Chrysler, stole the secret of the intermittent windshield wiper from a little guy named Robert Kearns.
Why bother? Why not just pay the guy royalties? Simple: Because Ford thought it could get away with it. He was only a college professor. They had teams of high-priced lawyers with infinite patience. They risked having the legal fees cost them more than the patent rights, but what the hell. You can't go around encouraging these pipsqueaks.
I know that I sound just like a liberal, but at this point in history I am sick and tired of giant corporations running roughshod over decent people -- cutting their wages, polluting their work environment, denying them health care, forcing them to work unpaid overtime, busting their unions and other crimes we have never heard George Bush denouncing while he was cutting corporate taxes. I am sure lower taxes help corporations to function more profitably. Why is that considered progress, when many workers live in borderline poverty and executives have pissing contests over who has the biggest stock options?
But enough. I have "Flash of Genius" to review. Yes, I am agitated. I am writing during days of economic meltdown, after Wall Street raped Main Street while the Bush ideology held it down. Believe me, I could go on like this all day. But consider the case of Robert Kearns, played here touchingly by Greg Kinnear. He was a professor of engineering, a decent, unremarkable family man, and had a eureka! moment: Why did windshield wipers only go on and off? Why couldn't they reflect existing conditions, as the human eyelid does?
Working in his basement, Kearns put together the first intermittent wiper from off-the-shelf components and tested it in a fish tank. He patented it in 1967. He demonstrated it to Ford, but wouldn't tell them how it worked until he had a deal. After Ford ripped it off and reneged on the deal, he sued in 1982. Thirteen years later, he won $30 million in a settlement where the automakers didn't have to admit deliberate theft.
"Flash of Genius" tells this story in faithful and often moving detail. If it has a handicap, it's that Kearns was not a colorful character, more of a very stubborn man with tunnel vision. He alienates his family, angers his business partner (Dermot Mulroney) and sorely tries the patience of his lawyer (Alan Alda), who he is not afraid to accuse of incompetence. Was his victory worth it? The movie asks us to decide. For Kearns, as depicted in this movie, it was. If he had not been obsessively obstinate, Ford would have been counting its stolen dollars.
The movie covers events taking place from 1953 to 1982. The wiper was hard to perfect. There are some gaps along the way, and we don't get to know his wife (Lauren Graham) and his family very well, nor perhaps does he. He calls his kids his "board of directors," but they mostly resign, only to return loyally in the end. Alda gives the film's strongest performance. Kinnear, often a player of light comedy, does a convincing job of making this quiet, resolute man into a giant slayer.
Todd McCarthy of Variety notices an odd fact: Right to the end, Kearns always drove Fords. He remained loyal. I remember those days. You were a Ford, a Dodge, a Cadillac or a Studebaker family, and that's what you remained. It was nice when sensible wipers were added to the package. Thanks, professor.
They always seem to make movies about evil corporations. I’m waiting for the movie about soulless social workers, attached to some faceless government bureaucracy, allowing children to be abused and killed, until some resolute, crusading citizen forces the government bureaucrats to admit their guilt and initiate reforms and budget cutbacks.
There won’t be a bigger bomb this year, unless Hollywood releases another anti-war movie.
Already done. It was called "Harry's War", was about the IRS, and everyone who starred in it was audited every year for several years thereafter.
Pudge must've been upset that he had to do HIS SHARE for the planet and use his OWN legs to get him upstairs.
How did the Thumbs up controversy turn out?
Flash of Genuis? Sounds more like the rantings of a bitter old man suffering from brain damage.
Sounds like a real boring subject.
Why not cover the man who invented film synched sound back in 1922 and was ripped off by Fox and the others and mocked openly in court as his film was run through Fox's projector (which synched the soundtrack at a different part of the film print and at a different film rate, so it was OUT of synch and off speed).
NO. That would hit too close to home. And too close to Rog's patrons.
Because Ebert is dying of cancer, his newspaper is afraid to edit him. Hence this.
I actually wanted to see this movie, but I refuse to now.
Man, I used to like Ebert.
What a blithering imbecile.
MERCY or NO MERCY to Mr. Sardonicus?
In the spirit of foul play YOU will
decide during the "Punishment Poll"
by voting "thumbs up" or "thumbs down"
with your ballot card!
See you AT THE MOVIES! Har har!!!
Some like some Red Dupes are still Yellow Dog Democrats. "I am because grandpa was!"
This is why George Orwell abandoned Socialism. Because of dunderheaded Western Stalinists who found it difficult to admit any wrong doing under Uncle Joe and the USSR.
There is no reasoning with the unreasonable. They have a whole identity wrapped up in political belief. It would be like losing their religion.
In the 1960’s Bob Kearns taught mechanical engineering at Wayne State University in Detroit, and we EE students had to take statics and dynamics so Kearns was my professor for those two subjects. He seemed to be a reasonable guy from what I can recall 40+ years later.
A few years later, he became City Engineer for Detroit, and if I remember correctly he got into some sort of political fight with the city administration (Democrat, of course) and was fired by Detroit.
Jack
Oliver Stone’s W may give it a run for it’s ability to not make any money!
hahahaha! a most accurate description!
They always seem to make movies about evil corporations. I’m waiting for the movie about soulless social workers, attached to some faceless government bureaucracy, allowing children to be abused and killed, until some resolute, crusading citizen forces the government bureaucrats to admit their guilt and initiate reforms and budget cutbacks.
Never mind the government bureaucracy, I'll settle for someone who crusades against the most powerful corporation in America - the Associated Press. All the newspapers and broadcast journalisms in the country are basically fronts for the Associated Press. They all claim that all journalists are objective. And well they might - those journalists are associates much more than they are competitors. So why would they criticize each other, and challenge each other? It's so much easier to go along and get along - why would they pick a fight with someone else who buys ink by the carload?
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