Word: actioneers
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...just me - I mean, me and my infallible film sense - or are action movies getting better while nearly every other genre has gone fallow and flaccid? I'm no special fan of cine-mayhem, but I'm buoyed by the craft and verve of recent entertainments like Iron Man, Speed Racer, Wanted, Hellboy and The Dark Knight. Even so-so entries like The Incredible Hulk and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Billionaire Sexagenarians Trying to Recapture the Glories of Their Middle Years interrupt their meandering with set pieces that are figuratively or literally dynamite - like an old Astaire...
This summer has proved that the action film is where most of the talent has gone: into the technique and technology of pure moviemaking, of getting the viewer's blood racing by blowing stuff up. Handmade art is on the wane; machine art is here to stay. The gentle crafts of acting, of sculpting witty dialogue, of a director's subtle sense of where to lead the camera and the audience may be in decline, but the second-unit guys and stuntmen and CGI wizards are at the top of their game. It's not the highest form...
...meat of fanboy film ardor: cars with guns - the movie's tag line is "Gentlemen, start your weapons" - and cons with girls. Though the picture doesn't deserve to appear on any critic's 10-best list, it observes the minimum standards of modern action films, which is to say it looks smarter, talks sassier and moves faster than almost anything else on the market...
Players may just have to accept the inferior stuff, however, since the ITTF is on a crusade to make table tennis more fan - and viewer - friendly. Releasing fewer toxic fumes into the air is one step. They also want to make the action a little easier to follow. After making its Olympic debut in Seoul in 1988, officials decided it was too hard to follow the fast-flying ball as it zipped from one end of the table to the other, so for the 2000 Games, they increased the regulation ball size to 40mm so even the most glassy-eyed...
...countering the threat it sees in Iran's nuclear program, and on that front, Russian cooperation is essential. If the Israelis are to achieve their objective of forcing Iran to end uranium enrichment through diplomatic coercion, they will need Russian support for escalating U.N. sanctions - a course of action for which Russia has thus far shown little enthusiasm. And if Israel were to opt for trying to destroy Tehran's nuclear facilities through a series of air strikes, then the presence of the sophisticated Russian S-300 missile system in Iran would considerably raise the risk to Israeli pilots. Unfortunately...