Let’s start the week with a salute to a company that’s doing the right thing. Between its Florida and Missouri operations, Isle of Capri Casinos employs some 170 citizens of Haiti. Their salaries go to support family members on the recently earthquake-stricken island. While some casino companies that shall remain nameless pay lip service to their workers, then give them a royal shafting, Isle has shown it’s made of better stuff. It’s encouraged executives to donate to earthquake-relief funds and even paid round-trip airfares so that 14 Isle employees could return to Haiti and be with their families.
While some of the credit for this goes to CEO James Perry and COO Virginia McDowell, who ran a classy operation at Argosy Gaming back in the day, it’s also the continuation of a philanthropic Isle tradition. S&G applauds Isle’s humanitarian sensibility.
Irony is dead. That’s all I can conclude after reading a few pages of Internet rants about the triumph of Kathryn Bigelow‘s The Hurt Locker, a studiously apolitical film, over James Cameron‘s Avatar is another instance of Hollywood’s liberal (read: Jewish) tendencies. The radical-leftist ideology of Avatar seems to have flown straight through the noggins of those individuals who cite its $3 billion gross — even as the film itself mounts a frontal assault on capitalism — as an ipso facto metric of merit. (Would that make the most recent Transformers picture the year’s second-best film?)
Besides, films buffs who have been fans of Bigelow since 1987’s cult classic Near Dark (or, in my case, 1989’s Blue Steel) must be right chuffed to see her return from six years in the wilderness with a masterpiece in tow, thanks in no small part to Mark Boal‘s screenplay. Speaking as the Last Person in America to See Avatar, I enjoyed it quite a bit … and will have to do another “Blast from the Past” about the time that Cameron briefly went into partnership with — wait for it — Gary Loveman. True story.
Extended metaphors are dangerous things. So my hat is off to Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) for pulling off a pair of them in his Golden Globes and Academy Awards acceptance speeches. Professional writers could learn a thing from that man’s eloquence. Good thing he received his award early in the 3.5-hour-plus marathon. Otherwise, one might have been too mind-numbed to notice his adept way with words.
Harrah’s is currently looking at acquiring some of the land freed up for development by collapsed buildings in order to open up Harrah’s Port-Au-Prince, featuring low limit gambling for the discerning Haitian who makes $200 a year, and special “Voodoo Slots” that pay off in food.
And by the way, if “Avatar” has won Best Picture, the entire Academy should have been taken out and shot. But I think your “Jewish” remark is a little…well, how shall I put it gently…insensitive, idiotic, and incorrect.
Dear Keith: I apologize. Speaking as someone who receives e-mails referring to “[Steve] Wynn the Jew,” I know that anti-Semitism is alive, well [sic] & socially acceptable in 2010 America. I was reacting to the number of posters on Yahoo! (aptly named) who made pejorative references to Judaism in the course of grousing about the Academy Awards.
I can’t even imagine how much worse the vitriol would have been had the Coen Brothers pulled off the longest of long shots and won Best Picture for “A Serious Man” (which I saw last week — and that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back).