My Big Mouth

Be Gone, bin Laden

2011-05-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

photo courtesy of Michael Yon

It is rarely appropriate to rejoice an individual's death. To lose a positively contributing member of society is lamentable, always, but inevitable. And when a rotten person dies, it may end the suffering of others, but that they have lost the opportunity to turn themselves to light before their death is a tragedy.

Osama bin Laden, however, was a pitch black stain on the world. He did more to damage the reputation of Islam than did any other believer, but, more and worse, he cast a shadow over the entire institution of religious devotion. It is because of the supremely evil actions of people like him that the secular world grimaces at the determinedly devout. How often do we hear that religion has been a greater cause of human suffering than anything else in our history? We have mosters like bin Laden to thank for that.

I am devout. I am not Muslim, I am Christian, but I respect profoundly the intrinsically peaceful and selfless tenets of Islam that mirror the best of what Christianity has to offer. Bin Laden perverted the religious fervor of many Muslims, and twisted love into hate. He built a fortress of corruption upon a deeply tainted perspective of man's relationship to God. Surely by his actions he became a servant of the Destroyer. He was evil more for those lives he broke than those he helped end.

We should all lift our heads in a unified satisfaction that his life has been ended at the hands of his enemies, and that he has no more power to personally contribute to the abominations of this world. Now, finally, he will meet his God, whose name he so so abused with his time upon the Earth.

Final Cut on 2190

2011-04-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

First, here's a thing you should watch:

Now I'm going to ask you to go take a look at my post about Final Cut on my new blog. You can read a bit about it's history and why it's important, as well as why I think students should submit their work to festivals.

Or, if you really, REALLY don't want to go check out my new blog (which is, incidentally, a lot prettier than this one), then here are some Final Cut links that you might/should care about:

Get your tickets here (or at the HFAC ticket office)

The Facebook Event

The Website

Also, you may have some deep thoughts you'd like to share about that video I included at the beginning of this post. (transparent request for comments [good ones])

2190: A Brand New Blog

2011-04-04T10:41:00.000-07:00

Like it? I designed it myself. Booyah.

I'm finally going live today with a new blog I've been working on. I'm calling it 2190 (say it in two numbers: "twentyone ninety"), and it's about, for lack of a better or more succinct description, film studenting. For a better and longer description of what it's all about, go check out the first post. I'll be updating it every Wednesday at noon, starting THIS Wednesday at noon, so...look forward to that.

I'll still be using this blog for everything else. I'll be talking about my life, my opinions, my experiences--sharing whatever about whatever, whenever. I'm not interested in making this a disciplined and focused blog. I need at least one public repository to use for the unrestrained dumping of the contents of my mind.

That said, I DO want to get into the more disciplined world of blogging, so I figured I'd have to start another one that I could actually follow through with. Those of you who have followed my sad efforts at blogging up to this point probably faintly (maybe) remember my past attempts at starting new blogs. I'll ask you not to talk about them. They'll stay hidden in the ether of ambiguity for the foreseeable future.

But I'm pretty excited about 2190. I have a lot to say on the subjects I'll be tackling. Here's what I'd love from you: if you find value in my new blog, follow it. And then share it with other people you think might be interested. And, as always, I'm interested in conversation. As much as I want to write about some things, I also want to know what my readers have to say, or want to talk about.

The same goes, of course, for this blog, now and always. If you ever have a thought bubble up into your frontal lobe, let it out through your fingers in the comments.

Harvey Milk

2011-04-02T15:13:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts after watching The Times of Harvey Milk. (A transcription of my response to the film in Documentary History.)

Homosexuality is about the most complex and difficult subject around right now. There seem to be two opposing camps, on completely different sides of this dividing line of "right and wrong." I say "seem" because I think that many, many people find themselves somewhere in the middle. Some are lost, some are resolute. But the people who see themselves as standing firmly on one "side," in one "camp," are wrong. It isn't simple enough of an issue.

This documentary mapped the progress of a movement that is important, but that is not without its flaws. I'm speaking of the movement itself, which, in an effort to gain momentum, strength, and legitimacy, so often ignores or even shuns some of the objections that are leveled against it. This film, though earnest and significant, did not manage to avoid this problem: Harvey Milk was a hero; the things he fought for were Right and Good; those who opposed him were deeply and profoundly Wrong; his primary enemy was evil.

It is a testament to the power of martyrdom that these assertions will go unchallenged by the film's audiences. It's hard to argue with a dead guy, especially one who was killed for his beliefs. It's ironic that in murdering his perceived enemy, Dan White accomplished the very thing his "nemesis" could never have done on his own. White inadvertently immortalized Harvey Milk.

I'm not being cynical, just frank. I believe that much of what Milk did was good for society. Homosexuals are not evil. They do not, by their natures, deserve violence or hate. They are people, just like all other people, with all of their problems. I think Harvey Milk was a good man, who courageously served and fought for what he believed, and, in large measure, for the down-trodden of his era.

We're in an interesting age now, though. It seems almost impossible to be seen as anything but a close-minded, hate-filled bigot if you still think homosexuality is wrong and say so. If you still find the idea of same-sex marriage fundamentally problematic. I do think some people are "born that way." I don't know and don't care how many or how often, or even why. I still think it's an issue. Lots of people are born with unfortunate things to deal with. And I'm not going to say we should reach out and love them anyway--I am going to say we all ought to love each other, no matter what. This isn't about accepting homosexuals or homosexuality, it is about accepting people, deep disagreements notwithstanding.

To be honest, my real fear is that the friends that I have, and the friends that I will make in the future, who are homosexual or advocate it, will not be able to accept my conviction that homosexuality, as a practice, is still wrong, no matter how good the person, or how difficult the life.

Please feel free to share YOUR thoughts. I'd like this to be a conversation, rather than a rant or diatribe.

Thank You, World

2011-04-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

Today, it was announced at Sarah Jessica Parker's Florida estate that I, Jordan Petersen, will be President of the Universe from today, the 1st day of April, until Sol explodes or an installment of Sex and the City receives an Academy Award for Best Picture--whichever comes first--at which time a new President of the Universe will be chosen (i.e. never).

The announcement should come as no surprise to those who know me well. I've always had an aptitude for ruling over other people, and the development that I will now be ruling over everyone seems only natural and fitting.

I recognize that the title "President of the Universe" is a bit misleading, since I will technically only be presiding over the humans of Earth. But should extra-terrestrial humans make contact with me (via my cellular telephone, my Shreck(TM)-shaped mailbox, or my fax machine), I will happily preside over them as well.

While I'm very happy to fill this role, and gratefully willing to spread the word, I understand that there are some people who may be disappointed by this news. To them, I offer the sincere hope that they perish quickly and ignominiously at the hands of foul-smelling, hideous people.

Please check this blog at least once every week for instructions on how to live your life better than you would have without me.

Libya

2011-03-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

Our ~~war~~ focused military engagement with Libya is over oil.
This is what happened. The country started to fall apart, thanks in no small measure to a terrible regime that suppressed and killed its own people, who then justifiably rebelled. But a broken country yields no commodities. And guess who depends on Libya for oil? Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, and Greece, among others. So when Libya started cracking, guess who came knocking on our door for help?

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm glad we're there. Our involvement will, I am hopeful, leave Libya's people much better off in the long run. But if not for oil, we wouldn't be there. The clear-thinking among us have asked quite simply, "Why Libya?" It is certainly not the only nation ruled by a horrible regime. There are plenty of other places with as dire need for military assistance (read: most of Africa). It's a simple answer. It almost always comes down to what we need, or, in this case, what Europe needs.

And I say fine. Can YOU come up with a better reason to go to war? Think about it. Oil makes the world go round, in an almost literal sense. Without it, we're toast. We need stable governments piping the stuff to us, or we'll die. I mean that literally, since economic collapse leads to all sorts of hazardous circumstances, like rioting, looting, anarchy and starvation. Going to war over oil is sort of like the old tribal wars over water in desert nations. Without it, we die.

European governments are suddenly supportive and encouraging of our military actions, and surprisingly few people seem to point out why that might be. It's as though everyone is content to assume we're simply in it for the Libyans. Wouldn't it be great if we were? Wouldn't it rock if we went to bat for every country, great or small, that needed us? I think it would be great.

But that's not the world we live in. We go to war for oil (justifiably), but won't and probably can't (politically) admit it. And right now, I'm troubled by the whole system. I'm frustrated by the administration's refusal to fess up to the real motivations for this conflict, and I'm frustrated by the rest of us, who don't care enough to read enough about this stuff to come up with opinions that aren't fed to us by the mainstream media, which is itself little more than a terrible, uncomfortable, never-ending joke.

All I'm saying (and I'll readily acknowledge that I'm not saying it well) is that our government has a terrible relationship with its citizens. And while the relationship is maintained stubbornly by both sides, when it comes right down to it, the citizens shoulder most of the blame, since our democratic government is mostly just a slightly distorted reflection of ourselves. This system is the result of our labors alone (or lack thereof), and maybe what I hope for most is that we wake up and realize we're doing a crap job, and get to work on something better.

Minus the Y

2011-03-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

I got an email Wednesday of last week.

Hello! Your decision letter has been mailed within the past few days. If you do not receive it by March 16th, please let Jen Healey (jahealey@bu.edu) know and we’ll make the appropriate arrangements. Please note that we cannot email admission decisions or give our decisions over the phone.

I guess that's kinda funny, from a certain angle. Especially considering that I wasn't expecting to find out until the end of this month. "Now," thought I, "I get to check my mail with ever-increasing anxiety until the 16th."

But the very next day, I missed a phonecall from John Bernstein. He left a charming and unexpectedly lengthy voicemail, expressing his regret for having missed me when I visited his school. And oh, by the way, "we have, of course, accepted you into our program."

All the way up until about last September, I had decided I was going to hold off on grad school until...oh, who knew? But last semester, I became overwhelmed with a desire to go back to Boston, and subsequently became fixated on East Coast screenwriting programs. I found out BU had one of the best. So I flew myself out before Thanksgiving, visited the school, and decided I would certainly at least apply.

BU was the only school to which I applied. It was Boston or bust, as far as I was concerned. And, as time went by, and I worked on my application, I thought that if I was accepted, I might go or I might not. After all, most of the people I love are right here in Utah. Why leave now? Why not wait? I would decide, I decided, later.

Minutes after listening to that voicemail from Professor Bernstein, the answer quietly came.

Have you ever been to Boston in the Fall? It's lovely.

Best Picture: The Social Network

2011-03-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

You probably know by now that I think The Social Network should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture this year. Or maybe you do. You might assume I would say that about Inception, especially if you've read either this or this. But the film I personally loved the best, and the one that I strongly believe ought to have won the Oscar for being the best, don't have to be the same film.

I'll try not to belabor this point, but Network was the RIGHT film, at the RIGHT time, made by the RIGHT people, and in the RIGHT way. It was, I will argue, a vastly more important film, culturally speaking, than was Inception. This isn't a conversation about Inception, though, so that's all I'll say about it.

I should admit right now that I haven't seen The King's Speech. I want to. I plan to. I'm certain (read: no doubt) I'll love it. But the fact is that it doesn't matter how good it was, how perfectly crafted, how brilliantly acted, how expertly written and directed--it can't even approach the broad significance of the film that should have won. It could be reasonably postulated that Facebook has reached the pinnacle of its pertinence. Facebook matters more right now than it ever has, and possibly more than it ever will. That's why The Social Network's timing was perfect.

Here's an interesting fact: Aaron Sorkin (one of the best writers living) didn't have a Facebook account until he started writing a movie about Facebook. What might we then surmise about the Academy? We should at least wonder how many of them have Facebook accounts. The Academy is, demographically speaking, a bit older. A bit less wowed by things like computers and "the Twitter."

Certainly this isn't true for all of them, or maybe even most, but it's true for enough of them to have skewed the collective opinion of Fincher's nearly perfect film negatively--think dismissive, uneasy, uncomprehending. The film that got picked? The safer choice. I'm not cutting it down--like I said before, I'm sure it's wonderful. But it CANNOT be as important, or as perfect (all things considered) as the Facebook movie.

I haven't said much about the film specifically. That's because you can read my review of it here. And I'll be sure to publicly record my thoughts somewhere when I finally get around to seeing the film that did win.

Do you agree with any of what I'm saying? Disagree? How much do you even care? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

To-do lists

2011-02-28T12:06:00.000-08:00

Man I love lists. I think human brains work in lists. Think about it. You're making a list of things you make lists for aren't you?

Last night I made a reasonably long list of things I need to get done within the next day or so. I went over it and figured out which things I wanted to get done TODAY, and which things could wait till later. Cutting edge stuff.

Then I left the list at home.

So here I am, sitting at work, trying to remember some of the things I wrote down, and getting trapped into doing incidental things that feel productive, but probably aren't nearly as urgent as the things I wrote down last night, only a tiny handful of which I can actually remember right now.

In other news, the Oscars were cool. Talk about lists.

First, the list of nominees. I don't think this list is representative of ALL the worthwhile films of the year, but it's a good start. And certainly there are some stinkers on there, but at least we won't see any stupid, boring, hackneyed animated cartoon bears among them. So some things are still right with the world.

And then there's the list of winners. In every invested person's mind, this particular list is actually a composite of several lists: the wins that make us happy; the wins that we can live with; and the wins that are actually losses in the long run. I won't go into great detail, but here are some of my thoughts.

First of all, I haven't seen The King's Speech. I plan to, certainly, since everything I've heard seems to indicate that it deserved its recognition.

According to my Top Ten list on Rhombus, I guess I should be upset that Inception didn't win, but I feel the same way this year that I feel every year. The Academy Award for Best Picture, and the highest (or one of) grossing film shouldn't necessarily be the same film. Sometimes they are, but I tend to think it's fair to spread the love a bit. Inception didn't need a Best Picture win. It was almost everyone's favorite film (or one of) anyway. King's Speech was a smaller film, and had a whole lot more to gain from a win like that.

I haven't seen Inside Job, but I wanted to strangle the life out of Charles Ferguson for being a smug, sniveling, finger-pointing piece of poop. His was the only acceptance "speech" that inspired thoughts of violent regurgitation.

At the risk of giving the impression that I simply didn't watch any films last year, I'll admit that I have not seen, nor do I have any intention of seeing, Black Swan. I respect the amount of attention it's getting, and I am quite comfortable admitting that Aronofsky is a virtuosic filmmaker, but it's not my kind of film, owing to some of the content to which I'd prefer not to be exposed. However, there would have been an outcry if Natalie Portman hadn't won Best Actress, and her acceptance was gracious and sincere. I also whole-heartedly support her succinct description of motherhood as her "most important role."

The most bitter disappointment for me was 127 Hours total lockout. It didn't win anything. Not even Best Editing, which it deserved so far above any of the other nominations it was almost a joke. But oh well.

Overall, I would say last year was more exciting. But I still love the Oscars. I'll continue to watch them every year, given the opportunity. It's like the Superbowl of the arts. It's possibly the most important award show in the world (at least according to the Academy.) And despite what any embittered film-enthusiast/wannabe says, they are still incredibly relevant. Pay attention to those nominations, if nothing else. Those lists aren't shabby.

Quiet Dignity

2011-02-27T10:00:00.000-08:00

For the past four years (ish), I've been wanting to start a comedy group. Not an improv group or any kind of performance thing--more of a YouTube comedy thing, though that specificity didn't float to the top until the desire had been incubating in my soul for a few years.

I tried, a couple of times, to pull a few people together. But the effort was always drowned in more important things. And of course laziness gets in the way. And procrastination. Looking back, starting something like that when I first thought of it would have been impossible for me, at my then-levels of experience, work-ethic, and social connections. But still I dreamed.

I was about to continue this story, and then I realized how boring it was getting. So fast forward to a few months ago, when I finally sent the fateful email to a select number of people, and we got to work. I realized that if I didn't put some serious effort into this dream of mine, surrounded as I am by incredibly funny and talented people, and resources everywhere...well, I'd kill myself. Because what a waste.

The name "Quiet Dignity" was John Forbyn's lasting contribution to the group, before he left due to a crippling shortage of time. I still think the name of the group is perfect. We've lost a couple people, gained a few others. We're trying to film stuff as often as every weekend, but that ends up being every other week if we're lucky.

Anyway, we went live with the YouTube channel almost two weeks ago. We'll be updating it regularly. Go us.

Here's the weird part (you didn't know there was a weird part, but now you do)--once you really try to start something like this, you become very familiar with the "industry" you're getting into. One of the MVPs of our group is also involved in another, very similar group, and they're better organized, better connected, and have a little bit more time for it. We're trying not to compete, and we shouldn't REALLY need to, but...c'mon. It's a little weird. It feels a little like a competition. What will differentiate between the two channels? Will either suffer because of the other?

It won't matter much in the long run. Mostly I think it's awesome to find out I'm surrounded by like-minded people. It's SO awesome that stuff like this (and this, and this) is coming out of Provo, Utah.

There's a joke in this post, by the way. The joke is that it is quite dull, and it's all about a really bizarre comedy channel on YouTube.

Ha.

26

2011-02-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

25 was a good year. I worried about it a little at first. No longer, I thought, could I claim to be in my early twenties. What horror. But then an attractive girl said to me, "25 is hot." And then it was OK.

26, though? What's special about turning 26? Nothing. It's just older than 25, and fast approaching late-twenties. And in Provo, unmarried, 26 starts to feel downright deviant. I apologize, Provo, for not being married. Trust that I find myself feeling a modicum of guilt for taking 19 to 22-yr-old girls on dates. I confess that I do my best not to think about how old they were when I was graduating from high school. Or how recently they graduated from high school. Let's just not think about high school.

Anyway. 26.

To soften the blow, I've managed to prolong my birthday celebrations to last a whole week. My birthday was on the 20th, which fell on a Sunday this year. So, the day before, I rounded up a few of my closest friends--people I've known for at least a couple of years--and went out to dinner. Then a few of us headed back to my place to watch Star Trek (a fantastically entertaining movie that holds up surprisingly well under multiple rewatchings).

The next day, my dear mother had organized a little get-together up at her place in Midvale. Again, close friends, some relatives, some of my mom's neighbors and church-folk. Cupcakes. It was pleasant to perfection. Exactly what a Sunday birthday ought to be.

In the meantime, an astounding number of people engaged in birthday well-wishing on my Facebook wall. I even got a few longer form emails. If you were one of the people who contributed to that veritable deluge of digital love, let me say, formally, Thank You. Way to make a guy feel special.

And now it's today. Over a week ago, I created a Facebook event dedicated to the fact that one of my best friends and current roommate, Daniel Ray Atwood, has his birthday on the 26th. Since this is likely the last opportunity we'll have to do so, throwing a combined birthday party seemed like a grand idea. I guess we'll find out soon if we were right. I should say that I expect it to be a fantastic party. Our current apartment has a pretty good track record for this sort of thing.

But regardless, it's become clear over the past week that I've got nothing to worry about. I'm living through the best years of my life up to this point. I'm surrounded by some of the best people I've ever met. I have a wonderful family and more wonderful friends than I know what to do with. My day-to-day endeavors are almost always exciting and satisfying. My future is, if not totally clear, certainly bright.

So when people start showing up to party tonight, I won't be trying to distract myself from the prospect of arriving at a less comfortable age, I'll be celebrating the myriad of phenomenal individuals that make my life as joyful as it is.

407 Days

2011-02-24T18:51:00.000-08:00

I see at least two possible perspectives:

I have successfully avoided blogging for four hundred and seven days, thereby curing myself of a terrible habit, and now I'm coming back to the activity on my own terms in a healthy, sustained way.
Like so many "bloggers," I simply gave up on blogging for over a year. Mostly due to laziness.

Adopting the first one seems dishonest, so why not split the difference? If you ask "how" I'll tell you not to bother me with the details.

Moving on.

Why am I back, then, blogging? Blogging. What a word. Is there a person alive who isn't a little (at least just a little) embarrassed by that term, by it's connotation? There are work-arounds, of course: "I'm updating my website" ... "I'm working with social media" ... "I'm tailoring my online image" ... "I'm trying to stay connected to my friends and family" ...

Well, I'm not doing any of those things. I'm blogging. I'm here to blog. I'm conscious of the fact that much of my motivation for this is a sincere belief that there are people out there who actually want to hear what I have to say more often than they see me in real life. I'm aware of the narcissistic nature of this whole enterprise.

It doesn't bother me. At least not right now. Once in a while I want to ramble with a keyboard, and this is the perfect way to do it. And once in a while people tell me, "Hey, I read your blog," and guess what? That feels awesome.

I'll try to at least be consistent about updating. I promise never more than once a day, because that can be incredibly irritating.

And one last thing: please comment. Anything really. Just type out a thing and hit "comment." It's just so cool to have comments. You know.

SFA Presents...

2010-01-12T15:24:00.001-08:00

This Friday marks our first big push into the world. Watch this:

We'll be hosting our first "big deal" screening in the Wilk on BYU campus at 7pm. I'm a little bit excited for it, because it represents the sum of our efforts up to now to try and become legitimized as an organization. This is a long and arduous process, as anyone knows who has tried to start up a club or business of any kind.

A little while ago, I published an article on Rhombus discussing the way I feel about the beginnings of this organization, and my involvement therein. We might see the first real fruit of what we're trying to do this Friday night. We all (the other people I'm working with) have our fingers crossed pretty tightly.

I think it'll go well. I think we'll pack the room we reserved, which only seats about a hundred and twenty people. And I think we'll move on to bigger spaces and fill them in the future as well.

I'm passionate about this stuff. I'm not getting paid, and I'm not getting any kind of academic credit. Neither is anyone else who is working with me. But we all care quite a lot about screening student films--about getting the hard, quality work of our peers out to the general public. Films need to be seen to matter. And we want the films the talented students in our program make to matter.

If you've got half a second, check out the SFA's official blog (updated weekly by Lauren Laws, bless her): byuSFA.blogspot.com - you can keep up with what we're doing by following that blog. That's an important note, considering how infrequently I post here (SORRY! ...sort of.)

***OH! And if you have any films that you want the SFA to screen in the future, upload them onto Vimeo, and send the link here: sfa.council@gmail.com

Frustration^3

2009-11-23T16:28:00.000-08:00

I get frustrated when people get frustrated over the things I'm frustrated about.

Let me explain.

I say I don't like something, or something bothers me, and then someone else is upset or offended that I feel that way. That sucks. I'll dislike what I want to dislike. And I'll be as convinced as I want to be that I'm right.

I'm thinking mainly of the fact that certain people (who I love, but sometimes frustrate me--if you're reading this, you know who you are) are offended that I openly and rigidly state that New Moon is a bad movie. It's not well-acted, designed, shot, directed, edited, or written. Those things are true. You can disagree all you want, and that's fine. But don't be offended when I won't concede that this film might be "good" by some other definition. I don't think that it's good in any way, and I will not be upset if you disagree. I promise.

The thing is, it's at least possible that those who take offense at my opinions are more or less acting, ironically, defensively. They know it's a bad film, and they're ashamed to like it. I say, DON'T BE ASHAMED. I like some bad movies, and I don't care if people think I have poor taste because of it. You can still be a good, useful, intelligent human being and like a really terrible movie here and there. It's OK. But don't be upset when I frankly state that the movie you love sucks, because I'm certainly not upset about it.

In other news...

...well, no. That's actually all I really wanted to say.

Oh, but before I go, I need to mention how awesome and cool YNAB is. I've never used any other budgeting software because everything else I've seen looks too complicated and expensive. Yes, both. But since I've started using YNAB, I'm at least a little bit smarter with my money. And I found out that a little bit smarter goes a long way with cash. I'm mainly writing this for a chance to get the newest version for free, I'll be honest. But it's also a product I feel like I can honestly and enthusiastically endorse. Here, again (in case you missed it) is the link: YNAB (You Need a Budget)

Sometimes, you just gotta

2009-11-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

BLOG.

Listen. I'm sorry. Not for the fact that I haven't blogged in a million years (six weeks), but that I don't really have anything to say right now. Just a desire to say it.

My life is absurdly, profoundly, obscenely busy, and I'm barely keeping up with the weekly commitment I've made to Rhombus. Poor them. Because I'm awesome.

I DO have good news. A week and a half ago, we finished shooting "One Item or Less." That means that it's at least possible it will be done (meaning ready to SCREEN) in December. That's the goal. And if not that, then January. JANUARY. I'm not sure how, um...good...it is, but I think that it will be engaging to some degree. The footage is really pretty, and some of the concepts we've come up with for sound design and transitions are very, for lack of a better word, neat.

Can I say how incredible this has all been? By the way? Writing a screenplay, organizing a crew, taking the script through pre-visualization and pre-production, casting it, finding a place to shoot it, getting everything pulled together...and then shooting it! It's quite wonderful. And completely, consumingly addictive. I want to do this forever.

I would talk a little bit about the films I've seen recently, but why? You can read my reviews on Rhombus.

What WON'T be on Rhombus is that I watched (with a group of very attractive people) Nacho Libre again last night. If you haven't seen it, fix that. And if you have seen it, but only once, and you didn't like it too well, then watch it again. If you have seen it at least twice...it's pretty great, isn't it? Jared Hess is the man.

And speaking of him, Gentlemen Broncos comes out this weekend in Salt Lake, at the Broadway Theater. That's the most important information I have to share, assuming you didn't already know it. Critics almost universally hate it, and I can't wait to see it.

Anyway.

On a parting, unrelated note, I (and I'll provide no context for this statement at all) love girls. Women. Female human beings. They're awesome.

That is all.

Rhombus

2009-09-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

Friends, family, people who I don't know but are no less beautiful for it,

I have just agreed to start writing for a new online magazine called Rhombus. It's local--BYU students run it. It's also striving desperately to replace another local publication called Square Magazine, which was a little bit like Watchtower, left at your door, only vaguely interesting, and suffocatingly self-aggrandizing.

I have a review of the film 9 posted as of yesterday, so go check it out.

The sad part of this tale is that I probably won't be spending much time at all posting on this here blog as long as I'm writing for Rhombus. I want to see that online magazine succeed, so I'll be focusing all of my efforts and sweet skeeels in marketing toward getting that title out there.

Every once in a while, I'll probably throw up a post about something Rhombus probably doesn't care about. But my reviews, and my political views, and my thoughts about important things (of which I have SO many), have now all found themselves a new home.

So go there. And read my review. And then read other stuff too. Cause they got pretty good writers over there, and other pretty cool stuff.

One Item or Less

2009-09-07T15:12:00.001-07:00

It's official, I'm making a movie.

Last Thursday, I and my fledgling crew had our first production meeting for the short film "One Item or Less." I wrote the screenplay, and I'm going to direct the film. Wyatt Strain will be producing, and A. Todd Smith is my cinematographer, which means this little movie's gonna be PRETTY.

Here's the short synopsis I wrote for IndieGoGo, and which I don't feel like rewriting. Ever. (Do you know how difficult it is to write a decent synopsis? I'll tell you: very.)

A mysterious caller gives a man a choice. What one thing would he save if his house was burned to the ground? It is an important question because the caller has promised to do just that.

And the tagline: "What one thing is more important than anything else?"

How cool is that? Right? Eh...? EH? (I'll tell you...)

Here are three links that are important:

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

IndieGoGo Page

This little film, as insignificant as it is in the grand scheme of anything, is nevertheless a bit of a big deal for me. I've never directed anything beyond the one to three minute exercises we do in our film classes. In other words, I don't know what I'm doing. All I've got is about fifteen hundred pounds of theory packed into my skull and an absurd belief in my own abilities. It's bound to turn out badly, but if I can create a short film that even some people enjoy, then I will feel encouraged to continue on in my aspirations to become a bona fide director. If not...I suppose I'll...well, I'll probably keep trying.

"Never give up! NEVER surrender!" (Name that film and you get a candy bar. It's true--just ask Kelsie. Right Kelsie? How was your Reeses?)

Mudbison

2009-09-04T12:12:00.000-07:00

I'm not huge into the local music scene. Let's be honest with each other. Most of the local bands in Provo are...not very good. Certainly, there has occasionally passed through some very talented artists, but there seems to be an overall aesthetic of drab unoriginality to most of what passes for homegrown music here. Everybody is an acoustic-guitar-playing, Jack Johnson wannabe. Or they're...I don't know, Relient K? I mean, I have nothing against Relient K, but you really only need one of them. And the same goes for Mr. Johnson.

Anyway, there's one band that blows me away. Well, two, but one of them isn't quite local anymore. These two bands are RuRu (Isaac Russell), and Mudbison (Spencer Russell). These boys are TALENTED. I'm not talking clever or charismatic--they have serious talent. They are musicians of the highest order and songwriters to be reckoned with.

Isaac has gotten himself signed with a major label, and no longer qualifies to be considered part of the local scene.

But Spencer (of Mudbison) is just getting warmed up. You can still see him locally on a pretty regular basis. I tell you this with some urgency, noting that they probably won't stick around small time for long.

Here's an important article.

And here's a sweet song (which also happens to be a Youtube video):

I'll admit that the reason I know about these guys is because they are the sons of one of my favorite (FAVORITE) professors, Tom Russell, who teaches many important film classes.

Mudbison is a big deal. Go see them, if you can, on the 25th of this month at the Velour. They're wonderful.

NEW!

2009-08-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

First, here's a quick review of a movie I saw last November (the Third in my Netflixing series.) No, hang on, even before that, I feel like I should admit that I won't be reviewing every movie that has come into my house from that intrusively marketed company (I really feel like once I sign up for the service, I should stop getting pop-up advertisements for it). I'll just go over the good to great ones I missed.

Shotgun Stories. I really, really enjoyed this one. It's naturalistic and slow, which is something that's very difficult to pull off well. The characters are all southern, white trash types. They hold dead end jobs or no jobs at all, and they barely get along with each other. But the story is powerful, and the themes it illustrates are extremely meaningful and complex.

On the outside, it's about a family feud, hence the title. But it ends up being about transcending the baser instincts of revenge and pride. The ending is beautiful. I recommend this film. It's not for everyone, being as slow as it is. And it's definitely gritty and heavy. There's not a lot of joy in this film. But I still, very highly, recommend this film.

So what's "NEW": I'm going to only be posting once every week in the coming months. School started and I no longer have time to just blog away all the time (much as I love it). So that means cutbacks, people. Don't blame me. Blame life.

Books (also J names)

2009-08-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

This is a movie/media blog (which technically encompasses books as well, but...), so here's a movie review:

Julie and Julia is both a book and a movie. You probably knew about the movie. And the book. Probably. But MORE probably, you knew about the movie, cause it's out in theaters right now, and that's where I saw it on Wednesday night.

I'm beginning to suspect that Meryl Streep is mentoring Amy Adams. It's a good match--they're both absolutely brilliant actresses, but very different in style and range. I think Streep can probably do anything, and Amy Adams has this ability to cause every single person in the world to fall in love with her, and believe completely in her sweetness. She gets her audiences thinking, "Well, if she's really that wonderful, then I guess the world can't be that bad after all." (It is--but she certainly makes it better.)

All I need to say to qualify my deep approval for this endearing film about French cooking is that it was adapted and directed by Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally). Also, not for the sake of redundance but in spite of it, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep are really, really grand (see: Doubt).

But this post is really about books.

I went walking through the library today (BYU has one of the largest and most awesome libraries this side of anywwhere), shopping for a new stockpile. I like to have two or three books out at a time so that if I finish one, I can go ahead and just start on another that same day or the next. Or, if I don't end up liking one of them, I can switch with terrible swiftness.

I just finished the 2nd book in the Rigante series by David Gemmell (whom I love), and now it's time for a change of scenery. So I went through my Goodreads account and picked out a handful of titles that sounded good--"No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy (an author I've been meaning to read for over a year now), "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick, and "Embraced by the Light," which is an I-died-and-came-back book by Bettie J. Eadie (and Curtis Taylor, who happens to be the father of one of my very good friends.)

Libraries are magnificent structures. They are deep repositories of human knowledge, collected, refined, and utilized over the thousands of years of our recorded history. Granted, the vast bulk of it all has been written, printed, and distributed within the past few hundred years, but even so, all of the words we write and the thoughts we think are at least subtley influenced by the countless generations that have spanned the preceding millenia. Walk into a library, and you have entered a sacred place where knowledge and understanding have been worshipped since recorded time began.

There is a trend, in the rush to modernization, toward perfect efficiency and absolute convenience. In a digital age, we welcome the steady decline of wasted paper that creates mounds of transiently useful printed material. We think, all of us, even if we forever refuse to admit it, that hard copied, flesh and blood books will eventually die out. To look out over the world at production management and streamlined industry, the printing, sale, and reading of actual, physical books does seem to be an increasingly dated artifact of an older society. We'll keep them around for a while as a memory. We'll put them on shelves and never read them (much like we do already). The ones people actually read will go into museums before they've had a chance to turn to dust, a right to which all living things are ultimately entitled.

We know they'll die. We know it. Things like the Kindle are a meager beginning to what our immediate future surely holds. Eventually, a la the iPhone, we will all purchase some brand of some device that really does do it all, including store every book we could ever read or possess in a lifetime.

And why not? It's more efficient that way. Cheaper. More sure. Once something gets saved digitally and globally, it's forever. The data of our public consciousness is backed up and then backed up again. The words of this blog might not ever really die--who knows?

In this line of thinking, however, lies our greatest misunderstanding about ourselves. We built computers to increase our productivity, and thank the heavens for it. But we are not like what we've built. We have not created computers in our own image, we have created them in the likeness of machines, without aspirations, dreams, or comprehensions. Once we built them, however, we somehow began to worship their god: Efficiency. Not all of us, but an ever-expanding number of us. And even those who do not bow to this god believe in its existence and omnipotence. The older generations meekly accept that this god will one day cow the world. "Every knee shall bow...even if I don't, my kids, or their kids, will."

Maybe. But it will be a false god, and will only shrink and diminish us. We are physical creatures. Efficiency can be a virtue, like fire, but it must be used, not worshipped. Our bodies must be in motion, and our hands must be at work, no matter the power and utility of our machines, or we will die by becoming less than what we've built.

Pull a book from a shelf. Open it. Read it. Turn its pages and let it speak to you as only it can. Have you ever noticed how silent the words on a screen are? Those words are not meant for hands. They are aritifices, illusions, unfiltered information. They have they're use (as I, sitting here and typing my thoughts, obviously believe), but they are more limiting than we usually realize.

Reading a book is somewhat sedentary, but it is natural and powerful. When we read something projected into our eyes, nothing else moves. Our bodies are captive. The orbs in our heads flick back and forth almost imperceptibly, but our flesh is motionless. What happens after several hours in front of a screen? You fidget. Your body shifts, stretches, writhes. These are the motions of attempted escape.

Of course it is far from impossible to read too much, whether it be from a computer or from bound sheets of paper--either way, an excess of physical inactivity is supremely unhealthy. But books are better for your soul, and by that I mean the combination of body and spirit (or mind, if that suits you). We are dual, composite creations. Books are good, and not only because they have assisted us in our intellectual evolution--not just as a stepping stone toward perfect efficiency. They must endure because we need them in order to remember who we are.

It's nothing new to say that we've lost as much wisdom as we've gained knowledge. We know so much, but the stature of our minds seems to be shrinking. How much of what afflicts us as modernized human beings could be amelioratedo mended by the simple action of picking up a book in your hands? And opening the cover. And turning the pages....

And reading.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime

2009-08-24T15:06:00.000-07:00

In English: I've Loved You So Long.

This is a movie most of you probably haven't heard of. It's French, so made and so written. And it's a bit of an arty film about two sisters who are reunited after 15 years.

And it's excellent. They marketed this film brilliantly:

That is the face of Kristin Scott Thomas. She is wonderful in basically every way. There is not, to my knowledge, a more elegant, beautiful, and supremely talented actress alive--she sells the film better than anything else could have.

I don't want to give too much of the plot away, because it's much better unraveled slowly, carefully, with the artistic precision intended by the filmmakers. It is a story about immense pain and suffering that took place in the past--outside of the frame. But the past events, even cloaked in mystery for so much of the film, provide a profoundly dynamic and compelling foundation for everything that happens within the story we see.

The acting was all-around incredible. There wasn't a weak spot in the cast. But, of course, Thomas steals the show with the impenetrable depth behind her eyes. You may never have seen anyone communicate so much with so little expression. Her performance is understated to a degree that is extremely rare in today's Oscar-grabbing climate.

In order to truly impress me, however, a film must display humanity with grace and power. That means believable, redeemable characters. I have little patience for "bad guys" in films. I understand their utility in melodrama, but the truth is that most of us don't know many truly bad people. And no one in this film is bad. Some of them are weak, but only sometimes. Some of them are wrong, but not always. There's intolerance, but only temporarily. Most of all, there is love, in abundance and in all shades. And the love carries the story and the characters. By the end, the message is clear: Terrible tragedies visit the best of us, and it is only love and compassion of others that can help us through. We need other people, and sometimes desperately.

I'll Garden YOUR State!

2009-08-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

Why do I always feel compelled to mess with titles that way? I think that somewhere, deep down, I'm afraid that someone will think I'm being pretentious by giving one of my dumb little movie review blog posts the same title as the actual movie. Plus, I love messing with words.

Garden State (Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard) was the second DVD I ever got in the mail from Netflix. It was one of those movies that had been roundly recommended by a lot of people whose opinions I respect. It seemed like this was the Generation Y movie to see. Edgy, emotional, touching, funny...you know. The kind of movie kids like me could connect to.

When asked if there was anything in it that would seriously offend me, my friends would respond that it had a lot of language, but nothing else to speak of.

Ironically, that was my primary problem with this film. It's about a TV actor who returns home for his mother's funeral after nine years of being away. He reconnects with old friends, meets a girl...etc. The acting is good, and the writing is quirky and unique. So it mostly works OK.

But the whole thing is absurdly self-conscious in that "look how deep I am" way that makes you cringe. It moves slowly and thoughtfully, but never misses an opportunity to point out its own thoughtfulness. This core problem with the film, its story, and the way its told, is unexpectedly illustrated by the sheer number of F-bombs shot through the dialog. By the end, the way the characters have expressed themselves feels much less like real life and much more like a smug, inexperienced new writer.

So the film was OK. It didn't leave much with me other than mild irritation and a slight haze of sadness.

Here's an alternative: Elizabethtown (Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst). I know, weird that I'd offer an alternative. Well, it's good, and it's a very similar movie. Guy goes back home after the death of his father, reconnects with people, meets a girl yadda yadda yadda. But it's a more effective comedy, has better feel-good moments, and, as far as I'm concerned, pulls off quirkiness in a much more satisfying way. I really enjoyed it. A lot. I wouldn't call it a GREAT movie, but I would certainly say it's worth watching. There are scenes that will stick with you for quite some time.

But there's another problem with both of these movies, both of them written and directed by men (Zach Braff and Cameron Crowe). It's the story of boy meets girl, girl saves boy. This dynamic, the way these kinds of stories are so often told, is this: one day, a guy will meet this perfect girl who will save him from all of his problems. The romance is grand and mystical, and the ending is much like a fairy tale, except with the girl in the shining armor (not that there's anything wrong with girls wearing shining armor).

I realize neither of these stories rigidly stick to this model, but that underlying theme is predominant. People who consume and accept these kinds of stories are damaged by them. Men gain an impossible, idealistic expectation that they will one day meet the girl of their dreams who will make everything better somehow, and women are presented with examples that they cannot possibly match. The whole system is based on fantasy--particularly the fantasy of the writer/director.

But we can't judge these guys too harshly. They are simply working with and expressing themselves through a model that society gave them. And it's a nice story. It does feel good. I would simply suggest that as you see films like these, you notice and understand the dramatic difference between what they're telling you, and what real life is really like.

By the way, if you agree or disaggree with me in any way, I would love some feedback in the comment section. Don't be shy. Comments are like pizza, in that I like them both a whole lot.

Holla fo Olla

2009-08-19T15:45:00.000-07:00

I have some friends who are working on a "no budget" feature. That means that they're making a film (of the comedy-action variety) for no money whatsoever. These guys are pretty talented film students, so I'm confident that the end product will be pretty entertaining.

Today, they showed me this:

There, now you are among the first handful of people to see this first manifestation of their efforts. It's sort of an amorphous, viral marketing video sort of thing. It's place in and connection to the film they are making probably won't be clear for quite some time, but I think it's pretty fantastic all by itself. Also, I'm basically certain Bil (the muscly man in the video) doesn't eat Easy Mac.

Ode to Regina Spektor

2009-08-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about Regina Spektor, because I love her, and decided to therefore mention a very neat preview of this film that's been out for a little while now bearing the hip title (500) Days of Summer. [In my mind, that title would fit well for a sequel to 300. But my opinion doesn't matter. I DON'T MATTER!!! ("I matter plenty." - The first person who can name that movie gets a treat!)] The music for the trailer is the song "Us" by Regina. It's not my favorite song by her, but I do like it very much.

As of now, if the speakers on your computer are on and functional, you should be hearing this very song. If you wait around a while, you should also hear other songs that I like very much by this very same talented artist. (I'm trying to increase my use of the word "very," because it's a very, very important word.)

I am a terrible person. In other, less self-deprecating terms, I don't buy music very often (and now secret record-label police are going to hunt me down and stick ice picks into my ears--a fate I admittedly deserve.) I don't download a lot of music, but I do get it, and a lot of it, from friends.

The only reason I'm sharing this crime with you is so that you understand the weight of what I'm about to say.

I BOUGHT Regina Spektors latest album, "Far," for full price, off of Amazon.com. It's important to me that I adequately communicate how much I love and appreciate this wonderful woman and her wonderful music.

This is one of my favorite tracks off "Far." The video's not quite so compelling, but listen to the words. (Also, you might want to pause the music player at the bottom of this page before you hit play. I'm just sayin.)

The song is called "Laughing With," and it so beautifully captures the bredth and depth of human suffering with a simplicity and poignancy that is remarkable. And, somehow, throughout, stays light and happy. There are few songs with so rich a perception of God's personality.

And, to close out my ode to Ms. Spektor, here is a VERY awesome video that you've probably seen before. I show this to the film class I TA every semester. They love it, and so do I.

Avatar...DONE!

2009-08-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

This girl named Laura, who is now spending a small portion of her life in a facility that is training her to become an unstoppable, Russian-speaking missionary, was obsessed with this show called "Avatar: The Last Airbender." She persuasively insisted that I give it a try.

So I did.

Thanks to Netflix, I have now finished all three seasons of this enormously enjoyable cartoon. And let me tell you something about this cartoon--it is ENORMOUSLY enjoyable.

I have friends who hate anime, and I sympathize with them, because, and let's be honest, what's NOT to hate about anime? My exceptions are very limited: anything by Hayao Miyazaki (I definitely had to look that up)--Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, and so on--and now, beautifully, Avatar.

Of course, Avatar isn't really anime. It's an American-made, anime-loving cartoon. It's influences (this from our beloved Wikipedia) are East and South Asian, and Western animation, so it ends up being more interesting and culture-rich than any of them.

I can't even really tell you why I loved it so much. The animation is great, I suppose. It's beautiful and exciting. But the writing is often corny, the humor almost unendurably silly, and most of the dramatic dialog is definitively on-the-nose. It's moralistic, and the characters barely escape being flat.

But the story is fantastic. It's not so crazy that you never know what's coming next, but it's deeply imaginative and moves along at a really excellent pace. Each subplot is satisfyingly fun or touching, depending, and the overall story arch--the one that stretches over all three seasons--is really, really cool.

And the characters are actually quite lovable, once you've got half a dozen episodes under your belt. And the humor succeeds just often enough at being incredibly funny.

Crap, everyone, I love this show. I couldn't wait to dig into each disc as it got mailed to my apartment. If I had to go a couple of days without seeing it, I felt like dying. But here's the best part, now that it's over, I'm OK. I'm happy with it. There's no enduring ache that there are no more episodes to watch. The story is finished, everything happened that needed to happen, and I'm satisfied. It's a great feeling.

Want to know what the show's actually about? Well I won't tell you. You can find out more about it here, or buy it here (if you have Netflix, you can watch the whole first season online), or get excited about the movie adaptation Shyamalan is doing here.

Man, I wish I could bend stuff.

Netflixing

2009-08-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

I have a subscription to Netflix and I love it.

I use the $14/month plan, which is the 2-at-a-time unlimited deal, along with access to the "Instant" library of movies and TV you can watch online. I might downgrade to the 1-at-a-time plan come Fall semester, as I will no longer have time to breathe, let alone watch a movies two or three times per week, but I digress.

I looked over my rental history, and discovered that within the past eleven (almost) months, I've had just shy of 100 DVDs mailed to my apartment. Now, that number has been somewhat bolstered by multi-disc seasons of TV on DVD, but it's still an impressive figure. And that's not counting the films I've seen in the theaters or on my computer (via that "Instant" library I just mentioned).

Point is: I've got a lot of fuel to burn. So what I'm going to do is go through that list and, one by one, pass along a short review.

Here's my first.

The date is roughly the 22nd of September, and it is the first of many syndicated movie nights. My friend Jon had a very sweet big screen, HD TV, and the surround sound system it deserved. So we decided to set up movie nights where the attendees would be expected to sit quietly as the movie played, respecting the art as much as enjoying each other's company.

There Will Be Blood was our maiden voyage. I think there might have been four of us. Or three. A slow start to a long tradition.

But the film was pretty incredible. Daniel Day-Lewis was often described as a tour de force, and it was true, absolutely. The man devoured us whole from the screen. He was a self-described oil man, but really, he was a typhoon.

I probably don't need to fill you in on the plot because it was nominated for eight Oscars and won two of them the same year No Country for Old Men came out (a film that will get a much broader treatment sometime on this blog in due futurity.) But if you don't know, it was about a man named Daniel Plainview and his hand in the oil industry when it was still very young.

The performances were nothing short of spectacular, which Daniel Day-Lewis won the Oscar for Best Actor. And the cinematography was supernaturally good. The film was stunning every second, and for that it also won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

After all that, however, I don't feel like I can fully endorse this film because it was perhaps one of the more depressing films I've seen. The culminating moment between the two most important and powerful characters unfolded with such depravity, brutality, and raw human rage that I felt personally injured when it was over. The film wasn't rated R for anything graphically depicted. It was for the hate so meticulously painted on the screen.

To say that I wasn't moved, that this film didn't leave a lasting impression upon me, would be utterly disingenuous. I can't help but admire this kind of craftsmanship and artistry. But it was a dark, dark film. You might hear people quote it--"I - drink - your - MILKSHAKE!"--and laugh. I've joined in. But that laughter, I believe, very often hides the troubling aftermath of this film in the minds of those who watched it. It's sort of the same as laughing at cancer. It's an ugly thing. Humor is a coping mechanism.

***PS: There is a new post on my new blog - That Hideous Strength

Check It Out

2009-08-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

I just started a new blog. I mentioned that this one will now be entirely dedicated to movies and TV. Well, you knew I would, and I did: I now have a political blog titled "That Hideous Strength." If you want to know what the title means, well, you'll just have to check it out :-)

Locker Demons

2009-08-07T17:29:00.001-07:00

When I go back through old posts to figure out when and where I said stuff, I'm sure this post's title will be really helpful. But what's done is done (as I refuse to click on the field one inch above where I'm typing to simply change it).

Two short pieces of news:

1. The "Only Good Movies Blog" recently linked to my review of The Pianist in a list of films they called "75 War Movies to See Before You Die." I have no idea how they came accross my humble blog, but there you go. I'm pleased.

2. I started a new blog called "That Hideous Strength." Its purpose is to fulfill my insatiable desire to blog about politics without alienating those of you who would prefer never to think about the subject. I haven't posted in it yet, but when I do, you can put money on my letting you know.

[gonna try these new things called section breaks]

OK, I've seen two movies since my last post.

Angels and Demons was just about as good as I hoped it would be. My hopes weren't outrageously high, but I'd heard good things, such as, "It was way better than Da Vinci Code," and "I really enjoyed this one, as opposed to the first one...what was it called?" and "The Da Vinci Code sucked." The last wasn't really praise for Angels, I recognize, but I included it because as far as word-of-mouth goes, that's about as true as it gets.

I mostly hated the "first" one because it was anti-Catholic propaganda. And while I am not Catholic, I very much respect the church. And I will not tolerate film that is designed to specifically tear down a Church or any other benevolent institution. I hate it when people make and watch anti-Mormon filth, and it would therefore be hypocritical of me to endorse something like the Code.

But Angels and Demons was NOT anti-Catholic, or anti-religious. In fact, it was only with that assurance that I consented to see it. As it turns out, many of the most dignified, respectable, good people in this film are deeply, devoutly religious. The film turned out to be one of the more powerful advocates for the cooperation of religion and science that I've seen. As such, it can't help but win my respect.

But I'll put aside my feverish biases for a moment and focus instead on the quality of the film as a film, and not a piece of propaganda. As entertainment, it also far surpassed its cumbersome predecessor. The acting was better, the characters were richer, but most of all, it was paced FAR better. It wasn't and didn't need to be an adrenaline driven thriller, but it did need to be compelling, and those bones it had in spades.

The plot was servicable. I won't say anything about it because I think that the twists are half the fun. Suffice it to say that nothing really turns out to be what they set it up to be, and they pull it off rather well. If you've read the book, of course there won't be any surprises. But the film stands on its own just fine. I would know--I haven't read the book.

[see, section breaks are super-def-way cool]

Last night, I saw the best film about the war in Iraq that I've seen yet. And, I would bet, the best that's been made up to this point.

The Hurt Locker was not about the politics of the war. Not at all. It was about the war itself. Jeremy Renner played the protagonist, and did it with a style that helps men understand that they'll never be that tough. He's the real deal, the "wild man," hardcore, crazy, unstoppable. Here's his secret: he's addicted to war.

The film was powerful on many levels. On the surface, it was a gripping war movie, with all of the action and suspense any war movie merits. But the deeper you go, the sadder it gets. We all understand, at least academically, that war brings out the best and worst in men. What we don't as often consider (though we also probably understand it), is that it brings out the best and worst in every man. What the Locker shows us in its main character is a man who men instinctively wish they were. Tough, committed, capable, and instinctively generous. He's a leader, and he knows it. He doesn't have to spend time proving it, he just leads.

But he's also deeply flawed. He takes on danger not because he has to, but because he wants to. At the very beginning, the words, "war is a drug" are effectively burned into the minds of the audience. The rest of the film illustrates that principle. By the end, it's almost not about the war in Iraq at all. It's about someone we've come to love succumbing to a destructive addiction.

CJ7 and the Reformation of a Blog

2009-08-05T12:54:00.000-07:00

You probably didn't notice, but that's OK. I forgive you. I'll point it out to you in a minute.

CJ7 is a good movie. In a spasmodic fit of enthusiasm, I gave it five stars on Netflix directly after finishing it. What I'm saying is that it was good, but maybe not, objectively, five-stars good.

But who's being objective? I certainly never am. So, YEAH. It's five-stars good. And I won't say much about it except that it's from China, and it's touching and funny and ridiculous and stupid in all the right ways.

The short: A father finds what turns out to be an alien artifact and gives it to his son. Said artifact turns into a super-high-tech-weird-futuristic toy dog, which delivers a great performance as an overwhelmingly serviceable plot-device.

The skinny: All of the acting was superb, especially from Dicky, played by the 10-yr-old Jiao Xu, who has a far cooler name than I do. The special effects were as good as they needed to be to keep the film entertaining, and the little alien toy dog was way less annoying than it should have been. And near the end, I cried. Everybody's gonna start to think I only review movies that make me cry well it's NOT TRUE! Remember my review of Transformers 2? Neither do I, but I definitely didn't cry during that film. I wanted to (for entirely different reasons) but I didn't.

Anyway.

The thing you probably didn't notice is that my blog changed. Not dramatically, but definitely. And more so in spirit than in style.

This blog will now focus almost exclusively on the making and watching of movies and TV. Which means it will mostly be reviews, but if there are other film-related things I feel like talking about, I won't hold back.

That doesn't mean that I won't talk about other things every once in a while. I might even do so often, but there will now, and this I promise, always be something about movies (or TV) in my posts.

I'm stepping this blog away from politics, for the most part. And from other miscelaneous, non-film-related (but still usually awesome) junk. Things might change down the road, but for now, I'm attempting an exercise in consistency. I decided that it's time for my blog to grow up and become a describable entity.

...now leaving Neverland...

The Pianist, TRON, JCVD, and...

2009-07-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be long and full of many delicious things. Two things are responsible:

1. I forgot to post on Monday (my deepest apologies), but I had stuff to post on Monday, so I'm making up for it.

2. I'm leaving for northern California tomorrow night and won't be back until Tuesday. If I can post, I will, but it's at least as unlikely as it is possible. So this post will hopefully hold you over until next week.

First off, I felt extremely compelled to discuss my recent experience with a very great film. This is what I was primarily going to talk about on Monday: The Pianist. I had this film from Netflix for a few days before I got around to watching it, and I ultimately decided Sunday afternoon was a good spot. See, it's a Holocaust film, and I consider the subject matter somewhat sacred.

If Sundays are for emotional experiences, then it was a good decision. I cried almost all the way through. I'm not the sobbing sort, as I've mentioned before, but I'm sure my eyes weren't totally dry from about ten minutes in to about thirty minutes after.

And here's the thing--cheap sentimentality doesn't work at all for me. What's remarkable about this film is that the deep sadness it invokes is absolutely earned, and absolutely real. A great film will stand you next to its characters and help you live through them vicariously, and it will make sure that those experiences are genuine, realistic, and powerfully meaningful.

I don't want to summarize this film beyond telling you its about a pianist who lived through the Holocaust in Warsaw.

Lately, I've been obsessed with WWII, the Holocaust, and Nazi Germany. The primary impetus for this obsession has been the fact that I'm right in the middle of reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a book which I very much recommend, and which I'll probably talk much more about later.

For now, I'll move on...

...to TRON! As it turns out, there's a new film coming out next year called Tron Legacy. I've heard rumors about this for a while, but yesterday, finally, I watched the preview. Oh man oh man oh man. Seriously, you must watch this trailer, just for the sheer NEWness of what this film is going to be, visually. Very, very slick. I haven't seen the original TRON for years and years, but the film definitely left its indelible mark upon my young mind. And it is exactly the kind that deserves some heavy modernization.

Gosh golly, everyone...TRON! Ha.

Here's one more film review before I move on to the final, mystery topic of this here exhaustive post.

I recently watched JCVD, which is about, you [may or may not have] guessed it! Jean-Claude Van Damme. I saw a trailer for this film maybe a year ago, and I was immediately intrigued. I'm not a huge fan of this B-list action star, but the film was clearly not typical Van Damme.

What it really is: a post-modern story about the man himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme playing Jean Claude Van Damme. And where do we find Msr. Van Damme? Fighting custody battles in court. Knee deep in legal debt. Struggling to find real work in legitimate films.

And...caught up in an amateurish but brutal hostage situation inside of a post office.

The film is funny, scary, and unexpectedly, profoundly moving. By the end, you cannot help but fall in love with the man--in all of his dignity, shame, strength and weakness--as a real person. There is a monologue somewhere about halfway through the film in which our 'hero' describes, in a surprisingly personal way, his life. The man, not the actor, is moved to tears by what he has to say. They are tears of regret, of confusion, of lonliness, and, finally, tears of an overwhelming sense of love and comradery with people and the person who comprises them.

I loved it. I was pretty sure I'd enjoy the film, but I loved it.

**As an aside, I'm not going to talk much about ratings. Some of the films I have reviewed and will review are rated R, and I've spend some time in the past talking about the reasons for such ratings, or the reasons I chose to see the film. From now on, I'll provide links to descriptions, reviews, or trailers for films, and the rating will be apparent, but I won't promise to discuss in any detail the motivation behind those ratings. I believe very strongly that the choice of which movies we should and should not watch is personal and very important. Just because I have chosen to watch a particular film does not mean that I believe everyone should watch it. And there are certainly plenty of films close and respected friends choose to see that I choose to avoid. My only constant and unchanging advice is that you research the films about which you feel at all unsure. If the R rating is a problem for you, that should be your first consideration, and I won't put forth a lot of effort to justify any particular movie. K, end of aside.**

The last item on today's overly long dispatch is mostly a link. The post to which I just linked is an abstract and commentary on an article entitled: Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man.

This article is not a joke. It was published by the New York Times under "Science." For those of you who actively fear a cyborg revolution, well...here's some more fuel.

It's not that I don't think we already have enough to worry about. Obama proves every day that he is more willing and able than most other forces to ruin our lives, and there exist entire nations dominated by people who are passionately convinced that the eradication of America and those who live therein would be a great blessing to the world. Also, there's disease, famine, poverty, hopelessly corrupt governments, and astonishing, endless human stupidity and ignorancce.

In short, we're just about primed to be taken over by computers.

Really, though, read the article and the post. They're very interesting. (All humans must be warned.)

Sixth Month Anticipation

2009-07-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

I see most previews before anyone else. All you have to do is watch for them online, but most people aren't nearly as obsessive as I am about it.

When it comes down to it, I'm not sure why I do that. Inevitably, I end up dealing with the pain of anticipation to a much greater degree than most other people. It could easily be considered a form of self-abuse.

Such is life. I'm not going to change any time soon. Instead, I'll try to drag you down with me.

Denzel Washington is wonderful. We all know this. I've either liked or loved pretty much every film in which he's been at all involved.

So how could I not go a little bit nuts when I find out that he's going to be a post-apocolyptic action hero in his next film? In my world, there are few things over which to get more excited. And I hope that your world is at least a little bit like mine.

Here are some facts about the film:

- It is called The Book of Eli.

- It also stars Gary Oldman, who is awesome.

- It was written by Gary Whitta, who apparently has no other writing credits, which is either a very good sign, or a very bad one. It's a good sign if it means that the script was just so good that it didn't matter that he had nothing else in his portfolio. Seriously, his IMDB page has got nothing.

- It's being directed by a pair of brothers--the Hughes--who's only other notable film was From Hell, which received lukewarm ratings.

- You can watch a high-def preview here.

- For those of you too lazy or slow (meaning your Internet connection) to watch it in HD, here's an embedded YouTube trailer:

Reagan on Healthcare

2009-07-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

This is a lazy post day. I just wanted to share something I listened to yesterday. It looks like a video, but it isn't. It's just a recording of Ronald Reagan talking about nationalized (socialized) medicine. It's pretty powerful stuff. For some reason, you don't hear politicians talking like this much anymore. Reagan says it strong and says it straight. And he's right. I really recommend listening to the whole thing.

I'll Never Be an Astronaut

2009-07-20T13:27:00.001-07:00

Not because I'm unimportant, not a pilot, not athletic, and have no stake in or possibility of entering our or any other space program (though all of those things are true.)

But because we don't go there anymore.

When I was little, space was the great, mysterious beyond. It's where dreams and nightmares both were born. Here's the thing, though--it still is. It's still mysterious and great. It is still, and will always be, the ultimately unconquerable frontier.

Today is the anniversary of the first time we landed on the Moon. It was a big day, though most of us probably didn't recognize the anniversary. I didn't, until a little bit ago.

The fact that so many of us are unaware is proof enough that we have abandoned our extra-terrestrial aspirations. In my estimation, this is one of the primary things that marks a society in decline. We don't have time anymore. We don't have resources. Our goals are more complex and frightening. Nope. We don't have the heart for it. We used to, but we lost it somewhere in the last few decades.

The inspiration for my sad diatribe is an article by Charles Krauthammer called "The Moon We Left Behind." Please read it, and do it in honor of one of our greatest and most noble achievements.

A Day Late, and Still Sexy (The Harry Potter Review)

2009-07-18T13:52:00.000-07:00

Not me. I'm only sexy when I'm on time.

I didn't see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on Tuesday night at midnight. I would have, but the 17 showings in my favorite theater were all sold out.

So I went Wednesday at midnight.

It was good. Not as good as the fifth, but good. I was entertained throughout, and there was more and better humor from start to finish in this one, which was wholly unexpected. Harry Potter humor is only occasionally funny in my experience, but somehow, in the sixth installment, they hit it almost every time.

The acting was, of course, phenomenal. That's due mainly to the cast. Virtually every major British actor has made an appearance in these movies, and it shows. The collection of talent is immense. And each of the "child" actors are improving remarkably. Even Daniel Radcliffe was marginally less annoying this time around, which is saying a lot. As an aside, I don't believe he's an actor that will go very far beyond this franchise. That's my prediction--we'll see what it's worth in five or ten years.

Here's a fascinating addendum: Draco Malfoy has become, in my sophisticated opinion, a more sympathetic, dynamic character than Harry Potter himself (that, on the other hand, isn 't saying much at all). Tom Felton has given the character the very complexity, depth, and inner turmoil that Harry Potter's character frustratingly lacks. I would never want to work with Radcliffe, but if I was in the position to do so, I would cast Tom Felton in significant roles in the future and expect (and get) great things.

All that said, the film is slow. Not unbearably, or unredeemably, but very definitely slow. I'm certain the film could have been thirty minutes shorter and remained virtually unchanged. But this is what I think happened: Half Blood Prince was beautiful. It's at least possible that the filmmakers couldn't bear to cut more out than they did. In fact, you got that feeling. This shot could have been shorter, but look how pretty it is! We can't let go of it and move on quick enough. So the dialog scenes drag. The moments of contemplation stretch. The problem isn't terribly uncommon, but it is a little frustrating. When you start a movie at midnight, you prefer to get home before 3am. And you should never stop to wonder halfway through when it is eventually going to end.

But let me reiterate this point--I did really enjoy the film. Go see the new Harry Potter flick. It's worth it.

Or, if you've seen it already, share your thoughts. [That was a plug for comments]

He's Come to Save the Day

2009-07-15T08:44:00.000-07:00

As a rule, I hate JibJab. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but it seems like the only people who get a kick out of it are those with severely underdeveloped senses of humor.

"Look, it's my face (or my friend's face) doing something I (or my friend) didn't actually do! OMG LOL Random!"

...

But, this is from JibJab--by way of self-promotion--and it's actually very funny. Please keep in mind, creating something this sophisticated is not a service Jib-Jab offers to its typical users.

Activism and Hot Friends

2009-07-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

I hope to eventually be largely responsible for devastatingly attractive children.

Daniel and Kristin are two people with whom I played matchmaker some time ago. Their relationship has budded nicely, I think, and they'll both be very uncomfortable that I injected this information into the unpredictably visible medium of the Internet. But so things go. I'm happy about it and decided to say something.

They recently had a bunch of modeling pictures done for free (a photographer-friend wanted some practice), and the results are so hot they're almost a joke. I would link to some examples, but Daniel's busy photoshopping some of his favorites, and hasn't posted any of them online.

So, yeah, anyway. There's that.

AND, I recently discovered a new website called "The People Decide." Check it out. You can either Google it, or click here. The concept of the website is to get people to be more aware of what kinds of things Congress is doing. What bills they're voting on, and how all of the different representatives in each state are voting. The ultimate goal is to eventually establish whether or not the elected officials of the country are actually representing their constituents.

Of course, the only way this site will ever reach its full potential is if an ENORMOUS number of people start to utilize it. There are a good number already, but it's still new, and it looks as though the number of subscribers is still the barest fraction of what it really needs to be. So I heartily, strongly, actively suggest that you visit the site and look around. Sign up. Vote. It's pretty quick, extremely easy, and definitely qualifies as good citizenship.

Most emphatically, I mean that last part. So many of us are at least concerned about the state of the country, the problems we face domestically and internationally, and the bloated and corrupt government. But what can we do? That's always the concluding, despairing question--posed both by the people at the wrong end of my verbose political diatribes, and myself, at the end of the day.

To get informed is an important and necessary start. It's something in place of the typical nothing that we do as modern, lethargic, ignorant, seemingly helpless citizens of this country. But it's not enough. We must be ACTIVE. We've got to vote, obviously, and we've got to be informed enough to do so. But what about the other three hundred and sixty four days out of the year? Do this. Of course there are other ways to get involved, but that website could be one of the simplest, quickest, and most effective ways of becoming politically active.

Clearly, the title of this post vs. it's contents were a little backward, but oh well. If that bothers you a lot, you'll hate me for this--here's something that wasn't even mentioned in the title:

Another plug for my "dumber" blog! You should visit it (Lasers, Bagels, and Other Abstractions), and click on only one of the links. Please trust me, and ONLY CLICK ON ONE OF THE LINKS you find there.

Okgoodbyenow.

After a Break, I Say This

2009-07-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

Any and all of you who keep up with this here blog I made (using software that transforms blog-making into a process which would bore a reasonably intelligent toddler) know that I shy away from talking much about my personal life.

But I recently discovered that I'm crazy.

In light of this discovery, I want to share some experiences from the past few days, not because they're important, or exciting...or at all meaningful to anyone who isn't, specifically, me. But because I'm at least a little bit convinced that telling all of my (several) readers about what's going on in Jordan Petersen's life will be fun for me.

Also, I have evidence of me = crazy. Here's the story.

I produced this film called Spit, as most of you know. It's an advanced student short film that is now finished shooting, and is in the process of editing. Anyway, on Wednesday, I, the other producer, and the director went through all of the art for the film to see what should go where, what we wanted to keep, and what should get thrown away.

In a moment of supreme ~~obsessive compulsiveness~~ selflessness, I offered to take a bag full of playing cards (about 20 pounds worth) home and sort them into full decks. I got home a little before 9pm and then got straight to work. Why? Because I was eager. I couldn't wait to get started on this Herculean task of exquisite tedium.

A couple of my friends who I very much love came over to just hang out, goof around, and pretend to do homework while I plowed through about seventy decks of unsorted playing cards.

It was after midnight the first time I paused to check what time it was. That was weird. But it was weirder when it was after two.

And then at about four o'clock in the morning, we all decided to go to Ihop. No, I had not developed multiple personalities disorder by then--my two good friends were still with me. Why? Because they're just cool people. And that's what cool people do.

After a hearty breakfast, I took my devotees home so they could sleep for a several hours before they each had to get up for work in the morning. Then I went home and finished the task to which I had so insanely committed myself. It was after 7am when I finally finished.

Then I saw to the laundry I had started the previous evening, studied my scriptures, made my lunch, and arrived for work on the sixth floor of the BYU library at about 8:30am.

This was yesterday. My faculties were comparable to someone who had been drinking heavily, so I don't remember much about the day. I do know I didn't sleep until 7pm, when I was with one friend waiting for another friend to show up at my apartment. In the middle of a conversation of which I remember nothing, I blacked out for about fifteen minutes and then woke up when friend dos showed up.

Here's what I learned. We've all been duped into sleeping for EIGHT WHOLE HOURS every day! You only need like 15 minutes every thirty or so hours to ~~survive~~ feel GREAT!

Don't worry, I did eventually get to bed around 12:30 and slept for over ten hours. Now it's today and all's back to normal. Well, except for my concern over the mentality that would allow me to work for over seven hours without pausing to sort out over seventy decks of face cards.

17 Again

2009-06-29T10:16:00.001-07:00

Everybody's always hatin'.

Yes, I've been made fun of a lot for saying things like, "Wow, Zac Efron turns out to be a really good actor!"

But he is. And 17 Again was a downright entertaining film. The cast was great, the writing was almost never dull, and the story was surprisingly satisfying.

I'll admit that this isn't the kind of movie I normally pay any attention to at all, but, well...I blogged recently about this person that always gives golden recommendations. Here's to another spot-on suggestion.

For a better review, go here.

And for a beautifully awesome video I just posted, go here.

On a parting note, I hope that you take a few seconds to click on the links in my posts. I try to make them pertinent and cool, for the edifying pleasure of all of my readers, so.... Anyway, just a thought.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

2009-06-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

AAAAAHHAhahahahahahahaha...!!!

*gasp*

HhhhaahaHAAHAHAHAHhaahahaha

hahaha

HAA...

ha.

I wanted to write a review, I really did, but--pffffaahhahahahahahHAHAHAahahaHAHAHAHAHAahahahaHAHAHAHAhaahaaaaa...

*sigh*

K, just go read this: Roger Ebert's Review.

Knowing

2009-06-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

I avoided Knowing because of Rotten Tomatoes. Well, turns out that lovely, useful aggregate of movie reviews isn't always lovely or useful.

Roger Ebert, on the other hand, is much more dependable. Not that I always agree with him, but he's not the fickle masses. He's an extremely intelligent critic--biased, unique, and personal. And, I often do agree with him. About a week ago, he posted a list of movies to which he gave 3 1/2 or 4 star reviews. Can you guess one of the films that received four stars from this particular critic?

His review was downright glowing. So, of course, I reconsidered. Watched it this past Saturday night.

I loved it. There were minor issues with the writing, but nothing too terrible. And there were some plot holes and assumptions that could have been annoying if I'd strained at them. But what dwarfed all of that was how incredibly ambitious this film was. This ambition that so impressed me manifested itself in two ways:

1) The story. This narrative was willing to go places and say things that I don't normally expect filmmakers to have the guts to go. It had BIG things to show, and it didn't pull punches. Any film that tackles the apocalypse, God, faith, and aliens all in the same text deserves at least a modicum of respect.

2) The special effects. This was a gorgeously shot film, and the bangs were sophisticated, thrilling, and moving. I was constantly surprised by where the really explosive effects were placed. It didn't open with some thrilling sequence, and never did the film rely on the bells and whistles of FX to arbitrarily spice up an inherently dull sequence. Nor were the grandest and most overwhelming sequences reserved for the climax, which was shocking. The story was finished before we got to see the stuff that probably took the longest for those industry computers to render--one of the most spectacular special effects sequences I've ever seen was reserved for the denouement. Ambitious and risky. Phew.

The performances were all better-than-necessary. We don't typically expect really profound acting from our crazy sci-fi thriller/disaster movies. But this one was a whole lot more emotionally spot-on than it should have been.

I guess I can best sum up my experience by saying I'm convinced once again that one of the most pleasant ways to receive a film is to go in with low expectations and be proven wrong on almost every point. So go ahead, read some of the reviews that caused Rotten Tomatoes to squeeze out a shameful 14% for this movie. Then go watch it. It's pretty grand.

Home Movies

2009-06-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

Last night, I became reacquainted with Home Movies, one of the greatest achievements of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, which is something I haven't watched for years.

I borrowed the first season from a friend, but here, for your glorious viewing pleasure, is one of my favorite episodes from a later season. If you have twenty minutes, DEFINITELY watch the whole thing.

From an Iranian

2009-06-17T11:10:00.000-07:00

What follows is important. I want to make reading the whole thing as easy as possible, so I'm going to paste it all below.

Here, also, are some important links.

- Photos of the protests and riots.

- A Washington Post article about Obama's reaction to the situation in Iran.

- An NY Times article on the frightening possibility of what's going on under the surface.

Now, from Tehran:

I left my home in Tajrish along with my family at 3 p.m. We went down Valiast Street which is the main northern-southern avenue in Tehran and entered the Evin Exp'way which leads to Enghelab Street. We knew that people are supposed to gather in Enghelab Sq. (Revolution Sq.) at 4 and march toward Azadi Sq. (Freedom Sq.). From Gisha Bridge onwards, we saw people walking down. Cars were blowing their horns and people were showing victory sign. We went to Navvab Street and parked our car at the end of the street. Then we took a taxi to bring us back to the Enghelab Street. On our way, near Jomhouri Sq. (Republic Sq.), I saw a group of about 20 militia with long beards and batons on motorbikes. My hand was out of the car window with a little green ribbon (the sign of reformists) around my finger. One of the militia told me to throw that ribbon away. I showed him a finger. All of a sudden, about 15 people attacked me inside the car. They beat me with their batons and wanted to pull me out. My wife and my daughter who were sitting in the back seat cried and hold me tight. I also hold myself tight on the chair. They wanted to shatter the car windows. The driver went out and explained that he is a taxi and we are his passengers and he has no fault. After about 5 minutes,they left. My elbow hurts severely. Then, a young man from their group came and kissed my elbow! I told him: You know, I don't hate you. I am like you with the only difference that I know more and you are ignorant. He apologized and left. We joined the crowd in Enghelab Street.

Read carefully: What I saw today was the most elegant scene I had ever witnessed in my life. The huge number of people were marching hand in hand in full peace. Silence. Silence was everywhere. There was no slogan. No violence. Hands were up in victory sign with green ribbons. People carried placards which read: Silence. Old and young, man and woman of all social groups were marching cheerfully. This was a magnificent show of solidarity. Enghelab Street which is the widest avenue in Tehran was full of people. I was told that the march has begun in Ferdowsi Sq. and the end of the march was now in Imam Hossein Sq. to the further east of Tehran while on the other end people had already gathered in Azadi Sq. The length of this street is about 6 kilometers. The estimate is about 2 million people. On the way, we passed a police department and a militia (Baseej) base. In both places, the doors were closed and we could see fully-armed riot police and militia watching the people from behind the fences. Near Sharif University of Technology where the students had chased away Ahmadinejad a few days ago, Mirhossein Mousavi (the reformist elect president) and Karrubi (the other reformist candidate spoke to people for a few minutes which was received by cries of praise and applause. I felt proud to find myself among such a huge number of passionate people who were showing the most reasonable act of protest. Frankly, I didn't expect such a political maturity from emotional Iranians who easily get excited. My family and I had put stickers on our mouths to represent the suppression. Placards that people carried were different; from poems by the national poet Ahmad Shamlu to light-hearted slogans against Ahmadinejad. Examples include: " To slaughter us/ why did you need to invite us / to such an elegant party" (Poem by Shamlu). " Hello! Hello! 999? / Our votes were stolen" or " The Miracle of the Third Millenium: 2 x 2 = 24 millions" (alluding to the claim by Government that Ahmadinejad obtained 24 million votes) , "Where is my vote?" , " Give me back my vote" and many other. We arrived in Azadi Square where the entire square was full of population. It is said that around 500,000 people can be accommodated in this huge square and it was full. Suddenly we saw smoke from Jenah Freeway and heard the gunshot. People were scared at first but then went forward. I just heard the gunshots but my sister who had been on the scene at that part told me later that she saw 4 militia came out from a house and shot a girl. Then they shot a young boy in his eye and the bullet came out of his ear. She said that 4 people were shot. At least one person dead has been confirmed. People arrested one of the Baseeji militia but the three others ran away when they ran out of bullet. At around 8 we went back on foot. On the way back people were still in the street and were chanting Allah Akbar (God is Great). I was coming home at around 2 a.m. In parkway, I saw about ten buses full of armed riot police parked on the side of the street. Then I saw scattered militia in civil clothes with clubs in hand patroling the empty streets. In Tajrish Square, I saw a very young boy (around 16) with a club who was looking at the cars to see if he can find something to attack. I don't know how and under what teachings can young boys change into militia. I came home. Tomorrow, people will gather again in Valiasr Square for another peaceful march toward the IRIB building which controls all the media and which spreads filthy lies. The day before Yesterday, Ahmadinejad had hold his victory ceremony. Government buses had transported all his supporters from nearby cities. There was full coverage of that ceremony where fruit juice and cake was plenty. A maximum of 100,000 had gathered to hear his speech. These included all the militia and the soldiers and all supporters he could gather by the use of free TV publicity. Today, at least 2 million came only relying on word of mouth while reformists have no newspaper, no radio, no TV. All their internet sites are filtered as well as social networks such as facebook. Text messaging and mobile communication was also cut off during the demonstration. Since yesterday, the Iranian TV was announcing that there is no license for any gathering and riot police will severely punish anybody who may demonstrates. Ahmadinejad called the opposition as a bunch of insignificant dirt who try to make the taste of victory bitter to the nation. He also called the western leaders as a bunch of "filthy homosexuals". All these disgusting remarks was today answered by that largest demonstration ever. Older people compared the demonstration of today with the Ashura Demonstration of 1979 which marks the downfall of the Shah regime and even said that it outnumbered that event. The militia burnt a house themselves to find the excuse to commit violence. People neutralized their tactic to a large degree by their solidarity, their wisdom and their denial to engage in any violent act. I feel sad for the loss of those young girls and boys. It is said that they also killed 3 students last night in their attack at Tehran University residence halls. I heard that a number of professors of Sharif University and AmirKabir University (Tehran Polytechnic) have resigned. Democracy is a long way ahead. I may not be alive to see that day. With eyes full of tear in these early hours of Tuesday 16th June 2009, I glorify the courage and bravery of those martyrs and I hope that their blood will make every one of us more committed to freedom, to democracy and to human rights. Viva Freedom, Viva Democracy, Viva Iran

p.s.: If you find this report of any value, please share it with as many people as possible. Facebook is filtered and internet is very slow in Iran. Please somebody put this on facebook.

These are weighty days. Please pay attention. Please stay aware.

Iran Making History

2009-06-15T18:03:00.000-07:00

You may not have heard quite yet. I'm sure you will.

Iran had its elections three days ago, on the 12th. The term "elections," here has an unfair connotation, because instead of letting the democratic process run its course, the sitting government staged a massive farce to keep Ahmadinejad and his crew in power. The Iranians turned out in better numbers than we probably muster here in America to exercise their democratic freedoms--to vote. And then their votes were thrown away.

The sitting government is run by extremists. Their policies are violent, tyrannical, selfish, and disinterested in the welfare of their people. I've spoken out before against Iran, and I made it clear that the problem rests with its leaders. It is now clear that the citizens of that country agree with me.

Thousands upon thousands of people are protesting in the streets. Why? Because they voted against the sitting government. They voted for change, just as we did (thanks to an overwhelmingly effective Obama campaign) several months ago. The difference? We got who we voted for.

This is an extremely important moment in the history of the Middle East. How all of this plays out will set big things in motion, for better or for worse.

Read this article. I don't have the facts or time to adequately describe what has happened this weekend, but it's vital that we all become aware.

A Post about YouTube

2009-06-12T11:00:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to a blog that I rarely read [insert gasps of shock here] called Studio Daily. It's often much too technical to be of any real use to me, but some things occasionally slip through that I find fascinating and/or informative.

HERE'S ONE FOR YA:

24 HOURS of video added to YouTube every MINUTE.

I encourage you to read the post to which I linked.

Now, some thoughts.

First of all, I can't accept that more than fifteen seconds, on average, of that material is something ANYONE should or would want to watch. My coworker/friend/fellow film student and I were tossing out possible common tags for all of this bilge that gets saved somewhere in a warehouse full of harddrives.

First one - "cat sleeping"
[A YouTube search yields over 13 thousand results.]

Next - "ball rolling"
[Nearly 32 thousand results]

Here, my dear friends, is one of the top hits:

What does this mean? It means that at least 30 thousand people should probably be beaten to death.

On the Sunset Strip

2009-06-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

I recently finished a TV show. No, I didn't finish making a TV show, I finished watching one. The title of this blog is only obscure enough to hide the identity of the show from those who have never heard of it, so here's the big reveal:

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

It was probably the smartest show I've ever watched. A friend recommended it to me--let me stop there and elaborate.

I take recommendations only occasionally. I, like everyone, have a busy life. I work and play and work and sometimes sleep. I don't like to waste my time reading bad books or watching mediocre (or bad) TV shows, or seeing tasteless films. People recommend stuff to me all the time. Often, I take those recommendations with a sincere grain of salt. I care that people love the things they see, but... Anyway. You get the point.

But I have a friend who consistently recommends good things. Movies and TV, specifically. She speaks, I listen. And so it was that in a totally unrelated conversation, she mentioned this show that was too smart and too inside to stay on the air. She was right. It was so smart it made my head spin. And so inside that I couldn't believe it stayed on the air for as long as it did (by "inside," I mean there were constant entertainment-industry references.)

AND (here's the real surprise) it was meaningful, and resonant, and heart-warming, and incredibly, unbelievably compassionate to both its characters and the audience. It took me about a week to burn through the only 22 episodes of this show there will ever be.

The show is liberal. It has to be--almost every shred of entertainment media these days is. But it was also superbly thoughtful. It represented the issues it tackled fairly, honestly, and thoroughly. There were NO straw men, which is, as I think about it, probably the most remarkable thing I've seen in anything remotely political for...well, I can't remember.

Oh hey, wanna know what the show's about? Short answer: It's 30 Rock, but an hour long, smarter, and more of a drama than a comedy. Don't know what 30 Rock is? Long(er) answer: A show about a show like SNL, but fictional. It's about the writers, producers, and actors in that show, with very little shown from the (fictional) show itself.

So there you go. I can't give a higher recommendation to a TV show. If you watch it, and it ends up being too esoteric, that's fine. You not liking it will in no way diminish my esteem for this incredible televised accomplishment.

Oh Yeah! That Terminator Movie

2009-06-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

I realized with sudden horror today that I have completely neglected to post a post-watch review of Terminator Salvation.

Humph.

When a movie gets 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, I necessarily go into it with low expectations. It was hugely disappointing to discover, one week early, that the film was getting such bad reviews. My worst fears, it seemed, were actualizing themselves in the most anti-climactic way.

Still, finding out the film won't be much good before actually going to see it is better than the bitter agony I was sure to sustain without the warning.

Conclusion? Well...I guess it wasn't that bad.

Crap! What was the point? It was supposed to be GREAT. What does it matter if it wasn't "that bad," which, incidentally, is about the language this film evoked from the most positive of its many reviews. What a complete waste.

I gave McG a chance. Sure, the only memorable thing he had directed before this project was Charlie's Angels (and Full Throttle...yep), but give the guy a break, right? I mean, Hollywood is tough stuff. It's hard to get good material as a commercial director.

He even said this to Bale. [I paraphrase] "This is my big break. C'mon, let me prove myself, Christian. I can DO this! Trust me..."

Well, he did. And since Christian Bale trusted him, so did a gaggle of other talented actors and filmmakers. Jonathan Nolan wrote a script that could have been made to sing, I believe, in better hands. But it was in McG's talentless hands that it was given life. And so people say it was poorly written. It wasn't. Sure, the writing could have been better, but it could have been much, MUCH worse. (See: Wolverine)

So how do I know? You can know that a film was directed poorly when the following things are true: The cinematography was beautiful; the cast was enormously talented; the writing was good enough to keep the audience from laughing at the wrong places; there was no shortage of cash (never once you cross that magical $100M mark); the movie still sort of sucked.

The thing that was so wrong with this film was the same thing that was so incredibly, brilliantly right with Star Trek. Pacing. The highs, lows, and emotional tone of each scene need to fit together in a somewhat mystical way to make the whole machine of the film...work. In the new Trek film, the audience was never lost. The emotional and kinetic tone and speed of the film was pretty much perfect all the way through. It worked as the ideal thrill-ride.

But Terminator loses its audience over and over again. The emotional tone almost never seems quite right. Why is he yelling so loud right now? Why do they seem like they're not sure what's going on? Wait, she loves him?

Everything is arbitrary. One scene tacked on right after the other. By the end, I noticed something very tragic: I didn't care at all. That, my good friends, is the kiss of death for any film.

As for McG, I think I've got him pegged. He's the poor man's Michael Bay. As for the magnitude of that insult...well, you either get it or you don't, I suppose.

Anyway, if any of YOU saw it, let me know what you thought.

Dragged Up (Plus, a Blogging Plan)

2009-06-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

Two short reviews:

1. Up was grand. The opening sequence was sheer, unmitigated brilliance, and the rest of it was warm, funny, entertaining, and memorable. Pixar is what every other multi-billion dollar production company should be: Endlessly talented, good-hearted, and shamelessly unsatisfied with anything less than greatness. Pixar will fill my children's shelves with great works of cinematic art.

Go see Up. It hasn't been, and still is not fair to think of this film as a "for kids" movie. You know the kind. Movies with talking animals and formulaic, predictable plots. Preachy, stupid movies that are immediately forgettable and probably make the kids to whom they speak dumber with each viewing. Up, in true Pixar form, is a movie "the whole family can enjoy." It's about an old man who attaches tens of thousands of balloons to his house and floats to South America. And it has a fat little boy trying to earn merit badges. There are, in short, no reasons not to see this film.

2. I went to see Drag Me to Hell last night. I'm not a horror movie kind of person. The genre is typically replete with the kind of pornographic violence and gratuitous sex that mature adults (one of which I hope to eventually become) should routinely and gleefully avoid. But then it was rated PG-13, which means that the sex and violence would necessarily be truncated at least to some degree, and then it got over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. And it starred Alison Lohman (Matchstick Men, Big Fish, White Oleander), who I sort of love very much.

So I saw it. And it was silly. And stupid. And gross. And really, really fun. Of course, it helps to have a delightful, attractive girl clinging to you during the scary parts. But even if I hadn't been fortunate enough to be in that particular circumstance, I'm sure I would have had a good time.

ALRIGHT.

As far as this lil' blog goes, I think I've decided, finally, how I want this thing to run (this may not mean much--I have a bad habit of gross inconsistency when it comes to blogging, but...anyway).

There will be a new post every Monday and Friday for sure. Wednesdays will be up in the air. I may or may not post. But you can put money on Mondays and Fridays (please do not use actual money).

Also, I update Lasers, Bagels, and Other Abstractions fairly regularly, so check that one out when you get a chance. It's fun, I promise. I refuse to set a schedule for it, though, since I think that would fly in the face of its principles (yes, it has its own.)

Go, Mitt, Go

2009-06-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

I still love Mitt Romney. I'm hoping to death that he runs for president again. That way, I'll have someone I can confidently vote for.

Watch this, it's good:

Israel, I'm still on your side

2009-06-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

If you know all about the United States' relationship with Israel, and their role in the Middle East conflict, skip the next two paragraphs.

America and Israel are powerful allies. Both countries maintain a strong political and moral stance of freedom, tolerance, and power. Israel may best be thought of as the "America of the Middle East." They are the most powerful, most free, and most hated country in that part of the world. In fact, they are fast becoming one of the most hated countries (right behind America) in the entire world. It is now progressively acceptable to hate Jews again--at least, as long as they're from Israel. Why? Because when people scream loud enough and long enough, they can gain false legitimacy. So the nations surrounding Israel publish, uniformly, hateful lies about her, and eventually the rest of the world starts to believe them. So we think, somehow, someway, Israel must be doing something wrong. Else why all the sound and fury?

But America has been different. We've stood by them, rejecting the lies of their barbaric neighbors and helping Israel to protect herself from her enemies. Israel is a nation that is constantly, precariously close to total extinction. Not a few of their neighbors are openly in favor of violently disposing of every Jew in the Middle East. So Israel has had to maintain an incredibly powerful military to strike fear into the hearts of its blood-frenzied enemies. If not for that military force, we would no longer be speaking of Israel in the present tense.

I said America has been different. Unfortunately, the liberal party now runs the show, and they have been chafing under our support of Israel for quite some time. What do we say now?

First of all, Obama has finally gotten around to announcing that we will no longer be selling weapons and military equipment to Israel. How nice of us. Maybe now they'll learn to stop being so...defensive all the time. If there's one thing wrong with Israel it's that it has too many weapons. It makes terrorist organizations like Hezbollah so much less effective at killing Jews. Whatever we can do to change the dynamic a little... I mean, we don't want to be enablers, right? Put down your guns, you stupid Jews--er--Israelites! How is it that they still don't understand: the only reason Iran and Palestine and Egypt and Lebanon and Syria want to kill them is because the silly Jews keep trying to protect themselves from complete annihilation?

But it gets better.

The U.S. State Department demands that Israel limit Jewish growth in these areas of Jerusalem, “whose status remains to be determined” in negotiations.

Well. I don't even know where to start. First of all, what does "whose status remains to be determined" mean? Easy. That's softspeak for: "land we want to be able to give to your blood-thirsty neighbors sometime in the future."

Secondly, who is demanding this? I'm sorry, the U.S. State Department? What are we, their parents? Here's where Israel proves it's government is now, officially, much smarter than ours:

Israeli Government Press Director Daniel Seamen reacted to this Obama administration statement by saying: “I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews should live in Jerusalem.”

This is what is happening. We are playing parent right now. We shouldn't be--we should be playing spouse to Israel, disciplining the manic, violent, unreasonable neighboring governments. But we're playing parent to all of them. Israel is the mature, sober, even-tempered child. Iran (representing all of the other children) is the spoiled, unmannered, sadistic nightmare child who throws tantrums often and quite effectively. Iran will not behave. When we try to settle an argument between Israel and the Arab nations, promises are made and Israel keeps them. Then Hezbollah sends more bombs. Rinse, repeat. What is our reaction? We default on getting Israel to make concessions. We've stopped expecting the other countries to follow through or agree to anything, so we demand that Israel do it all. Whatever the brat wants--give it to 'em. We can't handle this, Israel, just give us more of your land. Reduce your military. Stop breeding. Stop existing, for heaven's sake, can't you see how it angers the other children?

Israel will only stomach so much of this. It's almost certain that they've given up on us as allies. They'll survive by violence or be destroyed--all within the next handful of years--and we've earned a nice fat helping of blame.

I'm a little sick to my stomach right now, if you'll excuse me.

***It's been brought to my attention that I failed to provide sources at first publishing this post. I normally never pull quotes without citing the source (via hotlink), but this time I forgot before I published, and I want to formally apologize. However, I will not be citing the sources of all of my opinions, nor will I typically spend a lot of effort defending the things I believe. If anything in this or any other post on my blog offends you, I make no apology, though you are, of course and as always, free to ignore anything I say.

I LIKE Cheney

2009-05-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

I had a bunch of other posts in the works---all saved as drafts, so you'll see them soon enough. But today, my attention was completely caught in Dick Cheney's speech. This, my friends, is a good man with a bad name. There is no need for me to go into all of the terrible things people have said about him. He was one of the most universally hated men in this country for the last several years. On my own campus, BYU in UTAH (the only all-red state in the Union), there was an enraged outcry and protests when he was selected as the commencement speaker at graduation.

But say what you will about Dick Cheney, he does not care what people think about him. He speaks his mind more straightforwardly than any other politician I know of, and is less afraid of the consequences when people disagree with what he has to say. This total disregard for the opinions of other is actually the single strongest evidence that he's honest. I feel like I'm getting to know one of the only adults in politics.

So, you can find the entire transcript of the speech here, and I cannot recommend strongly enough that you read the entire thing. This is one of those rare speeches to which every American should be exposed. This is NON-PARTISAN stuff. Sure, Republicans are going to mostly agree with it, and Democrats are going to mostly be enraged by it, but it is not playing to any political base. Cheney is Cheney. Most people don't like him and he doesn't care.

These are some excerpts--I share them not to give you the most important highlights of the speech, but to try to convince you to read the whole thing:

When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan, and in reversing his plan to release incendiary photos, he deserves our support. And when he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer. The point is not to look backward. Now and for years to come, a lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.

...

So we’re left to draw one of two conclusions – and here is the great dividing line in our current debate over national security. You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked, and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event – coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort. Whichever conclusion you arrive at, it will shape your entire view of the last seven years, and of the policies necessary to protect America for years to come.

...

By presidential decision, last month we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know. We’re informed, as well, that there was much agonizing over this decision.

Yet somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.

Over on the left wing of the president’s party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they’re after would be heard before a so-called “Truth Commission.” Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense, and political opponents as criminals. It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.

...

In the category of euphemism, the prizewinning entry would be a recent editorial in a familiar newspaper that referred to terrorists we’ve captured as, quote, “abducted.” Here we have ruthless enemies of this country, stopped in their tracks by brave operatives in the service of America, and a major editorial page makes them sound like they were kidnap victims, picked up at random on their way to the movies.

...

The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today. List all the things that make us a force for good in the world – for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences – and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America. If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along. Instead the terrorists see just what they were hoping for – our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

And there is much, much more.

I Want a Pet Like That

2009-05-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

I discovered this animated short today, and I felt compelled to share. It's trippy and very cool. And the sound design is pretty incredible, it being a student film and all.

This one time... from nelson boles on Vimeo.

PS I found it on this blog, which is one that I follow pretty closely.

Congrats, Gov'na

2009-05-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that Utah Governor Huntsman has been chosen by Obama to be the new ambassador to China.

I have little time and several thoughts.

First of all, I don't know a lot about Huntsman, but I've heard he's not a bad guy, and a pretty good governor. He might be a little left of where I consider myself to be, but I digress. He's also Mormon, which, naturally, I find palatable.

There are also rumors aplenty that he was set to be the strongest GOP (Grand Old Party, or Republican) candidate for the 2012 presidential run.

Anyway, read this article first. It backs up my first impression, which was that Obama picked him to knock out one of his most dangerous opponents when it comes time to run for reelection. It also makes him look bipartisan--you see, conservatives are supposed to now say, "Oh goody, our dear President has picked one of us for an important position." I'm not buying that angle. But you can decide for yourself...

...after you read this article as well. Some really good thoughts on all this. Regardless of what conclusion you reach about any of it, it's an extremely important development, both politically and internationally.

Do the right thing, Coloradians

2009-05-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

I've decided that I like Ryan Frazier. You should watch this video.

BUT FIRST: Several disclaimers. The two hosts are incredibly, obnoxiously annoying. You also have to sit through a 15-30 second commercial. The interview (i.e. the reason I'm asking you to watch this video) doesn't start until about a third of the way through.

OK. Now watch.

Please People Our Planet

2009-05-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

This is a very good article. Here is an excerpt that should motivate you to do so:

Population alarmists have long enjoyed the freedom to project their fears onto whatever cause is uppermost in the progressive mind. Then it was war. Today it is the environment, which, we are told, human beings are ruining. This will be shown to have been as false as the earlier warnings, but not before our environmental scares have done much harm to a fragile economy (at the rate things are going with Obama). All previous scares were based on faulty premises, and the latest one, based on “science,” will be no different.

Oh, and an important note about this blog. I'm still debating whether to schedule unpublished posts to be published on Sundays to keep the ball rolling. If you don't see a post on Sunday, it's because I didn't. I typically don't do much of anything online on Sundays anyway. Just an FYI.

The Price of Health Care

2009-05-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

You've heard about Universal Health Care. If you're clever, you want it but worry that it cannot be reasonable done. If you're not, you think one of two things:

A: The only reason we don't have it is because the evil capitalists that run the country prevent the government from doing its job and giving it to us.

B: Universal Health Care is just another word for socialism, and the evil liberals are trying to force the country to swallow something it doesn't want.

Them's the extremes.

The real issue is that the way health care runs right now, there are a lot (a LOT) of people that don't have much of a hope of affording it. And insurance companies have raped the system to the point that even people who are paying for coverage get nailed to the wall on a regular basis. We're in a bad way. Not as bad as most other countries, but we're America, and we're justifiably unhappy with the way things are. (If we're not, it's only because we're ignorant and sheltered.)

Democrats with good intentions (which is most of them) are obsessed with the idea of governmental control of the whole health care system. This is due to the mistaken notion that the government is there to solve everybody's problems, but that's another discussion.

So why not? Couldn't the government just take over and make sure sick people get taken care of? It's a nice thought. The permanent obstacle to that idealistic fix is that the government, bless its little heart, CAN NOT AFFORD IT. In a perfect world, we'd all take care of each other, which is what socialized medicine is. But even assuming we live in the kind of world where socialized health care is a viable solution (sadly, we really, really don't), we STILL can't afford it.

But not being able to afford things has long since stopped preventing people from buying things. When the government decides to spend, who pays for it? Taxpayers? Yeah, but we can only fork over so much before we stop being able to feed ourselves. Thankfully, the bureaucratic administration in charge of taxing us still recognizes this inconvenient detail. So then who else? Let's call it the national credit card. Debt pays for it. Sound counter intuitive? It is. It only works because someone, somewhere, sometime, will have to pay for it. And if we've learned anything about debt it's that it grows. It's immovable and all-powerful, and if it grows large enough, it starts destroying things close to it.

Anyway. Read this. It's written by someone who's clever, and it sheds some light on some very important obscurities. These are things we all should know.

Strange Loops

2009-05-14T02:15:00.000-07:00

This is a post I wrote two months ago and, it appears, failed to publish. Please delight in the following:

I've been reading (little by very little) Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. It's about...hm. How do I summarize? Well, I've been telling people that it's about the nature and source of sentient intelligence, but I'm not sure how useful that summary is. It'll have to do, I guess. Doug's core argument is that intelligence and/or self-awareness is caused by something called "strange loops," and he goes into extensive detail explaining what he means by that.

Escher, for the uninitiated, was an artist that drew things like neverending staircases, waterfalls that feed themselves, "evolutionary" fractals, and hands that draw themselves out of paper. Gödel was the mathematician that, during his time, broke the brains of all the other mathematicians by sort of inventing the mode of thinking that is necessary to understand "strange loops." And then Bach was possibly the most profoundly brilliant musician ever, and somehow his music directly or indirectly illustrates almost all the principles that Doug feels like talking about.

So I've been reading this book, and then today see this xkcd comic:

There should be a little blurb of text that comes up if you leave your mouse over the image, but if it fails to do so, this is what it says: "If you actually do this, what really happens is Douglas Hofstadter appears and talks to you for eight hours about strange loops." I laughed out loud.

Jon's Gonna Hate Nancy, Too

2009-05-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

Nancy Pelosi is a terrible person. Now, I'm not a Democrat, and I'm not a huge fan of the Democratic Party, but even if I was, I would be embarrassed and ashamed of this woman. She's a colossal discredit to the entire Party, and her position as the Speaker of the House of Representatives instills in me a great sense of pity for the House.

On the other hand, I very much like Jon Stewart. He's one of the few remaining liberal comics who's willing to dish out ridicule upon anyone who deserves it, regardless of their political persuasion. He's even laid a couple on Obama, which is essentially sacrilege these days.

And here he is again, proving that humor still matters more than partisan purity--especially on a comedy show. Kudos, Jon.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

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thedailyshow.com

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Hot: Global Warming

2009-05-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

Partisan politics is a perilous environment for actual facts. They tend not to be useful on their own. Anyone using them to push an agenda will not be able to help but massage them a bit to increase their value. I suppose facts, in politics, are like ore. They have to be refined, then sometimes mixed with other things, in order to effectively enter the market of propaganda.

And if the ore can't be refined or altered sufficiently to pay the bills, it's tossed out. So it is with the anti-science debate of Global Warming, which more resembles a popularized religion than a serious scientific issue. Are you a convert? You'd better be--the skeptics are not in favor just about anywhere anymore. It's a rough life for non-believers.

So is our globe warming? Probably. This issue, unfortunately, has been eclipsed by a unilateral condemnation of the perceived culprit: carbon, which also happens to be our most important element. The assumed wisdom is now (and has been for decades) that increased carbon emissions have led and are leading to Global Warming, which will, if left unchecked, surely freeze us to death, burn us to death, dry us out or drown us, depending on which fate seems most terrifying to the public on any given year.

Because carbon has been so successfully made the scapegoat for all our ills, our beloved government has finally gotten itself on the fast track to breaking the economy's spine by, well, outlawing it. How? Everyone is gonna get charged for doing anything that emits carbon. I'm only surprised that we haven't yet been told how many breaths we ought to be taking each minute. Because shoot, if seven billion people are breathing excessively, what is all that extra CO2 doing to our poor atmosphere? I quake.

Anyway, here's an incredibly, incredibly important article to read by a guy who knows a LOT more than pretty much anyone else engaged in this feverish conversation. You are sure to find it deeply enlightening. I don't know how else to emphasize how very much I hope you take the time to read it.

Oh, Politics...

2009-05-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

I can't stand this anymore.

I do a lot of reading, and up to now, it's mostly just been for my own benefit. I like to be informed, to however small a degree, of what's going on around me. I live in a country I love, and I want it to stay the safest, strongest, most prosperous, and most philanthropic nation in the world. It's been that way for generations, and I don't want to have to see that change in my lifetime.

Well what can I do? Like I said, I read a lot. I vote. I even went to a rally recently (you've probably heard something about these so-called Tea Parties). But what else?

I've got this blog that I don't use often enough. Ostensibly, it's supposed to touch occasionally on political issues. But I don't feel comfortable or informed enough to put a lot of what I read into my own words, so what to do?

From now on, I will direct anyone who comes here to one post per day about something I think is pertinent. I'm sure I'll include my own commentary most of the time, but perhaps not always. Anyway, you can feel free to read or ignore these posts, but at least be aware that if it gets tacked onto my blog, I think it's important. I promise not to waste your time.

And don't worry, I'll still post movie reviews whenever they're appropriate and/or necessary, and other cool things as they come. There will simply be a whole lot more political blogging going on from my end as well.

For today, please go here. If you've talked politics with me at all, you'll know that my greatest frustration with the government is fiscal irresponsibility--and I'm not talking about minor mismanagement of funds. No, better to think of the government as a 13-yr-old with a no-limit credit card. Anyway, click on that link and read that short post. It's sobering, but also enlightening. And, I should say, sorry for the bad news.

Star Trek!

2009-05-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

With an exclamation point, it becomes, in some sense, a musical. Don't ask questions, that's just the way the world works.

Of COURSE I saw it. The only remarkable detail is that I didn't see a midnight showing. You can only stomach so many really late nights. I preferred to be awake and alert on first viewing. Plus, it's cheaper. So perhaps not so remarkable a detail after all.

One thing demands to be said first: I am not a big Star Trek fan, or "Trekkie" as they are sometimes designated. I enjoy several of the films, and grew up watching "The Next Generation" occasionally, so I know who Kirk and Picard are, and the name "Enterprise" comes to mind fairly easily when someone mentions the space ship from the franchise. I even know a little bit about the Borg. But for the most part, I don't subscribe to the notion that much of what has been created within that whole universe is very good.

But it has potential. I DO like science fiction. I'm picky, but I love the good stuff. And most of everything I've seen that has the name "Star Trek" attached to it has been abominably disappointing because it turns out that the artists have eyes that are bigger than their abilities. Their concepts were better than their TV shows or their movies, but oh those concepts....

So we turn to J.J. Abrams, the man who decided to start at square one and rebuild a dying empire. If anyone could pull it off, he could.

And he did it. Oh my word, he did it.

The new film is everything I've always wished a Star Trek movie would be. The action is thrilling and beautiful, the special effects are groundbreakingly good, and the pace is perfect for the story in every single well-crafted scene. And happily accompanying these incomparably high production values, the writing is superb and the characters were brilliantly cast and directed.

This is not only Star Trek at its best (which is to say, as it's never been), this is science fiction at its most thrilling. We got a real space adventure, people! I've rarely ever had SO MUCH FUN in a movie.

If you like action and adventure in your movies, see this one. If you're a sci-fi geek, see it. If you're a Star Trek fan, odds are good that you'll love this latest and greatest installment. If you've never seen a Star Trek movie, and have never cared to, there's still a very good chance you'll have a great time watching this one.

OK, everyone, this summer of blockbusters has officially started.

(PS Wolverine sucked. And that's all I'll ever say.)

The Future!

2009-04-09T16:31:00.001-07:00

TED is very cool. If you don't know about it, it's a forum where new ideas are shared among very, very smart people. I've seen a handful of TED talks, and I've always been impressed.

I was recently directed toward this one:

I don't know about you, but...I'm interested.

The Merry Month of May

2009-03-17T18:35:00.001-07:00

It's almost Summer. You know how I know? Blockbusters. And let me tell you, I think we're actually going to get some of the best ones early this year. I refer here, primarily, to the fast-approaching month of May.

One of them should sound familiar—meaning I already spent an entire post in breathless excitement over its upcoming release. But let me not get ahead of myself.

ONE:

May 1^st – X-Men Origins: Wolverine – If you don't know anything about this movie…well, I don't know what to do for you. I don't want to say much. I just want to tell you (and I am, right now, telling you) to go watch the trailers for this movie. I have a lot of hope—maybe too much—for this movie. As you may or may not know, I have a special place in my heart for X2 (the second X-Men film). I've seen it probably ten times and I think it's just a really wonderful film. There's a chance this one will be better. (And please, don't mention X-Men III in my company.)

TWO:

May 8^th – Star Trek – OK, listen. I know what you're thinking. But stop it. JJ Abrams single-handedly resurrected the coolness of Mission: Impossible several years ago with the third installment, and concurrently ended the franchise. The man is very, very good. In fact, before you make any judgments at all about what you think a new Star Trek movie will be like, I would encourage you to do your homework and go see M:I III. It's a solid film in almost every way, and about as satisfying as action movies come.

And this is the guy who's rebooting the Star Trek franchise. I'm not a trekky (I don't even know if I spelled that right), but I like a couple of the movies, and I think there's real potential for good stories to come out of that whole…universe, I guess. If anyone can capitalize on that potential, it's Abrams. So take a look at the trailers—all of them. It'll be more than worth your time. They are, as I often like to say, super slick.

THREE:

And here I start to tremble.

May 21^st – Terminator Salvation – K, this is the one I've gushed about before. All I'm going to say now is that there's a new trailer up. And it's…well, it does nothing to lessen my crazed anticipation.

FOUR:

May 29^th – Up – If you're not amazed and in love with all things Pixar, you should be. I've devoted several blog posts to them, their films, their favorite kinds of cake...wait. No, mainly their films. So, naturally, I'm just a ittle-bit excited about their new movie. So click on that hyperlink and watch all the trailers and clips. It's going to be very awesome. Again, enough said.

And that's it for May. At least for now. There may or may not be some surprises that month, but these four are the behemoths you really need to know about.

Which means I've done my duty. Because now you know. Because you've made it this far. (I love you.)

Sci-Fi Movies

2009-02-14T12:29:00.000-08:00

This last week, I saw two movies with some striking similarities and extremely important differences.

Let me talk first about The Day After Tomorrow. And let me begin by recommending that you do NOT watch this movie. If you've seen it, don't watch it again. If you haven't, then avoid it at all costs. Unless, of course, you're really in the mood for an MS32K kind of activity. Then go for it.

I won't go into expansive detail about why Tomorrow is despicably awful--instead, I'll summarize a few key points. The worst flaw, perhaps, is it's didacticism. I can't remember having ever seen a more shamelessly preachy film. It's very much like An Inconvenient Truth, but with a higher budget and better special effects. In the end, the Dick Cheney stand-in apologizes to the decimated world for not taking better care of the planet. And then astronauts look out of their space-station window and remark with awe at how clear the air is.... And imagine, it only took the death of billions of people.

But even if you agree with every minute point this film crams down its audience's throat, you still couldn't get past the atrociously bad science. At every turn, they go for drama over realism. My personal favorite scene has our hero (Jake Gyllenhaal, bless his heart) running from...cold. That's right, there's a wave of super-cooled air from the upper atmosphere that is pouring down to the surface of the earth through the eye of a colossal hurricane-blizzard, and it freezes everything in seconds. It's movement is represented by the frosting over of all the surfaces it passes. The climax is when Jake runs down a hall, cold close on his heels, barely making it through a door in time to close it and block out the terrible monster of cold air, thereby saving himself and everyone else in the room.

Who's to blame for the offensive banality of this stuff? Well, probably many people, but let's just point our collective fingers at Roland Emmerich in an attempt to save ourselves from similarly terrible films in the future. His newest film coming up is going to be 2012. Please, do your poor brain a favor and don't go see that one when it comes out. Not only because it will be bad, but because it looks like it's going to be a remake of Tomorrow. Don't believe me? Watch the preview.

But there's another film that deserves at least relatively higher praise: The Day the Earth Stood Still was originally a classic 50's sci-fi that was really quite good. It was well-written and exciting, and they didn't try to pull off too much, special FX-wise, that they couldn't do. Which meant that the film maintains a certain air of respectability, despite it's being a 50's sci-fi.

I was wary when I heard it was being remade, but the previews looked slick and cool, and so I had hopes. But then everyone, everyone told me it was terrible. Here's a direct quote from a film professor I respect:

WARNING: TDTESS is often cringingly, appallingly bad when it's not cloying and self-loathing in a sort of Earth-good-people-bad way--Keanu Reeves is the most exciting thing about it...beware!

You can imagine my hesitation. Well, I finally ended up seeing it a few days ago at the dollar-theater, which is just about the lowest risk you can take with any film.

Surprise! I liked it. I didn't love it, but I was very pleasantly surprised. My professor wasn't wrong about it's Earth-good-people-bad aesthetic, but it wasn't nearly as severe in its underpinning conceit as Tomorrow was. It was actually quite well-written, and much more morally complex than the other film even tried to be. But even better, the science was very good, especially for a modern disaster movie. Typically, I just grit my teeth and endure the stupid, careless, disdainfully bad science that plagues these kinds of films. The worst thing about them is that they make audiences markedly dumber. But this under-appreciated remake made all the right decisions in that department, which is, for me, so very respectable. And it left me feeling really good. And excited in the way that only good science-fiction can accomplish.

I won't say anything else about the film. But know that at least one person with a relatively informed opinion was entertained and pleased by it.

Here's to good science-fiction.

A Tribute to Kristin Pennock

2009-01-29T11:38:00.000-08:00

Who is now probably very embarrassed.

Too bad.

Don't worry, Kristin, this is also very much a tribute to friendship in general.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of running into an old(ish) friend. It had been at least several months since we'd had a real conversation, and MUCH longer since we really talked. What was going to be a mutual update spanning a handful of minutes turned into a two hour conversation in the Tanner building (a very awesome place in its own right, if you don't know).

Prudence dictates that I refrain from describing the details of the conversation, but it should be enough to say I am overwhelmed by how important specific people can turn out to be at certain times of life. Walking away from that building, off to play catchup on the things I had let slide for the couple of hours I had disconnected from the harshness of my typical pace, I remembered that this person has since had the ability to tell me exactly what I need to hear the moment I need to hear it. And I think that's pretty outstanding. And affirming.

So allow me to here reiterate one of my favorite personal philosophies--everyone is in your life for a reason. Good friendships aren't formed by any kind of chance or coincidence. I've seen over and over that each of the people I've grown to care about has met a specific end in my life that no one else could meet. And I know that I've been able to fill the same role for them.

We don't hang out, Kristin and I. Our lives are vastly different, and our paths don't cross very often. But I'm going to go ahead and say that running into each other yesterday was an event catalyzed by something divine.

So thanks, Kristin, for being quite wonderful. And thanks, God, for using the people I know to effectively help me along in this monumentally difficult process of living.

Three Things at Once? Three Things at Once!

2009-01-02T09:31:00.001-08:00

First things first (and this is NOT one of the "Three Things")…("at Once")(?)(!):

2009 showed up a couple of days ago. So, welcome, and I hope we all get along famously.

OK, now on to the first thing (of three):

Anberlin is a feel-good band. Like…vitamins. Devin and I were talking about this the other day, and we decided that Anberlin sort of gets into your system and makes you feel happier about life and living. They have three albums that are all pretty great, and which you may want to consider if you enjoy healthy music. But healthy in a good way. Like drinking a fruit smoothie with real fruit and stuff in it. You know.

Thing Two (non-sentient and not living in a large hat on top of a cat):

I saw Traitor last night. Well, well. How'd I let this one slip by? I remember seeing the trailer and thinking, "Oh cool, another generic espionage movie." But, see, I was thinking in very sarcastic tones (notice the words "cool" and "generic" occupying the same quotation). But here again was this situation where some friends were going to watch it, and I wanted to spend time with said friends, and suddenly here I am, watching this film about which I felt little passion but against which I held nothing. I just hoped I wouldn't be bored.

I wasn't bored. Watch this film. It's one of the best, hands down, films about terrorism and its destructive connection to Islam that I know of. It also happens to be terribly exciting and unpredictable, with great acting, great writing, and all-around solid filmmaking. Why didn't I hear more about this movie?

Oh that's right. Because right now it's a political faux pas to openly point out Islamic jihad as the enemy we're fighting in a film. Don't talk about it. Sure, we're all thinking it. And, yes, it is one of the most difficult and important thing that the world faces right now. But we wouldn't want to offend anyone, you see. Because above and beyond every other right you have in this country, you have the right to take offense, and everyone else has the obligation to prevent you from doing so.

Well, I'm not the kind of person who likes to go around offending people, either. If a film is going to honestly address terrorism, it had better do so maturely and sensitively. And Traitor pulls it off. But do people care? Don't they just want to have a good time when they go see a movie? Probably. So it's a good thing this film is a lot of fun.

I just finished my first Brandon Sanderson novel. Mistborn: The Final Empire. Laugh if you want—such reactions are fair and expected when it comes to modern fantasy novels. The rest of what I'll say will only matter to anyone who cares at all about good fantasy. There are, in my stubbornly obtuse humble opinion, three tiers of readable fantasy. I don't have extensive experience in the genre—I just know that I end up putting down most books that fit into it after about five or ten pages. But I've made it through three authors, now, all of whom I've enjoyed to some degree or another.

During high school, I read the first ten books in The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. By book ten, I hated Robert Jordan (despite the name…or maybe because of it). I hated him because I realized he was something of a hack. He had created a fantasy series that many people had grown to love, and, I think, discovered a dependable way of keeping the money flowing. Never end the story. Just keep writing 800 page monoliths that introduce ever-expanding story lines and endless parades of new characters, and you'll never have to step outside of your luxurious box. Book 10, as I recall, spent the first 200 pages on a recap of the last book, and then the next 500 or so pages covered about two weeks of the story. I vowed to permanently disengage. I haven't read the 11^th book.

More recently, I read a few books by David Gemmell. I won't say much. I think he's probably the best. His novels tore me to pieces. I've rarely read better fiction, let alone fantasy. He blows every other fantasy author I've read out of the water. He's probably even better than Tolkien, when it comes to the sheer skill of storytelling.

And now, just last night, I finished the first of the Mistborn novels. Sanderson's good. He's better than Robert Jordan by kind of a lot. But he's also certainly not as good as Gemmell. I was up last night until 4am reading the last 200 pages of the book, if that says anything. You can go read actual reviews if you want—I just want to point the guy out. Incidentally, Robert Jordan's dead, and his wife has asked Brandon Sanderson to complete the Wheel of Time series, which is kind of a big deal really significant for him. And for fans. I might even finish reading the series now.

Well, that was long. I'm not sure that better things can be said, but at least, yeah, it was long. And that's something.

Best of 2008 (Movies, of course)

2008-12-28T14:43:00.000-08:00

So here it is. Not that you've been waiting for it, but all the same, it is here. I have officially compiled a list of my top 10 favorite films of 2008. Without further ado:

(The ones that hyperlink to my full reviews will not, clearly, have anything written about them here. Because that would be redundant. Redundant...redundant.) (I'm sorry.)

Slumdog Millionaire
The Dark Knight
Wall*E
Hellboy 2 - There's a great story behind Del Toro's involvement with this franchise as it relates to Pan's Labyrinth. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that the first Hellboy was kind of fun, but ultimately forgettable, and this one is a strange, funny, beautiful and moving story that follows the same characters and displays far greater maturity and depth.
Son of Rambow
The Fall
Iron Man - I somehow failed to review this one. I think that when it came out, I wasn't in the habit of posting reviews to this blog. Ah well. I don't think I need to say much about it. It was fantastic, as most of you already know. In no way does it need my endorsement or explanation. If you haven't seen it, you should probably go fix that right away.
Cloverfield - There's so much to say about this movie. From a purely academic standpoint, it was easily one of the most important movies to come out this year. A lot of people hated it. A lot of people (including, obviously, myself) adored it. That's reason enough to take a serious look.
Penelope - This is that one about that girl who's born with a pig nose. I know. There was no way I was going to see this film. And, oh yeah, Christina Ricci was starring. How could I have been duped into this one? Sometimes I'm wrong. And sometimes it takes a happy accident for me to realize it. A couple of good friends (girls, both) were going to see it--for a dollar--so I thought...why not? And I was so, so pleasantly surprised. The cinematography, editing, and writing were all so much better than I could have expected, even if I had been expecting to enjoy it. I really believe that this is one of the hidden gems of this year.
Get Smart

This post is already certainly long enough. But I would feel remiss if I didn't mention the films that almost made it onto this list. Here goes: (in no particular order) The Incredible Hulk, Quantum of Solace, Speed Racer (I'm serious. Yes, really. Stop it.), The Band's Visit, Be Kind Rewind, Ghost Town.

And that's all! Tune in next year for...well, probably more of the same.

*Revision (kind of): I realize, suddenly, shamefully, that The Fall was not, in very fact, released in 2008. No, it was released in (and this is something that I swear I knew) 2006. I saw it this year for the first time, is the thing... Ugh.

Movies, Movies, and, also, FILMS!

2008-12-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

You hate the title of this post. And you ought to. It's terrible.

But I've watched a lot of movies in the past few days. Between yesterday and today:

Moonlight Mile (2002). I saw this film pretty shortly after it came out, and then watched it again within the week. I really loved it back then. So now, older, wiser, a film-student...I was just curious--you know--is this movie actually good, or does it actually, um, suck. Only one way to find out. I won't give any of the plot away; it's better if you go into it blind. Suffice it to say it's a dramedy (maybe more drama than comedy), and it's got Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Susan Sarandon. But yes, it's very good, it turns out.
Baby Mama - I never gave this one a review on this blog, but I very much enjoyed it when I saw it in the theaters. Tina Fey is brilliant, and so is Amy Poehler. And they have, just, fantastic onscreen chemistry. The trailers didn't sell this movie to me, but I trusted Tina, and she delivered.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed - Ben Stein is quite a guy. If you don't know anything about this little indie documentary, I'll try do some painless summarizing (oxymoron, I know). So, Darwinian Evolution, as a scientific theory, has become an establishment. Anyone who questions it's validity, or points out its shortcomings, will be rejected and ostracized by that establishment. This doesn't mean a lot to your basic dude on the street, but to serious scientists interested in serious science (those to whom we owe all of our modern advancements), this is a big deal. It's anti-science. So Ben Stein holds interviews with a good number of people on both sides of the fence--those in- and outside of the establishment, and he tries to help us dudes on the street understand why the issue is so important. I was aware and supportive of the sentiments Ben espouses before I saw this film, but it was still an enlightening 90 minutes. See it.

Because it's Christmas (Eve), it's probably important to talk about Christmasy things. Mainly because I won't be blogging on Christmas Day. At least, that's my hope.

So here my list of essential Christmas films: (I won't encumber them with any kind of a review or commentary.)

And, just for kicks, here are some essential Christmas albums:

(This is surprising) The Christmas Sessions - MercyMe
Sing, Choirs of Angels! - The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
This Good Night is Still Everywhere - Dustin Kensrue
Songs for Christmas - Sufjan Stevens
The Lost Christmas Eve - Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Let It Snow Baby...Let It Reindeer - Relient K

And, of course, I have to finally conclude by saying, "Merry Christmas" (because it's what I'm hoping you will have.)

I'll Eye YOUR Eagle

2008-12-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

OK, so I finally saw Eagle Eye, which I intended to see when it came out because, you know, it had Shia Lebeouf and Michelle Monaghan and a really sweet trailer.

Turns out that it was...kinda fun. It was like an edgier, more serious, less plausible, more politically charged version of Live Free or Die Hard, actually, all told. I'll waste no more effort explaining the comparison. You'll either see it or not.

I like this kid Shia, gotta tell you. Also, Michelle is just a really lovable actress. Strengths. Premise...NSA accidentally invents...Skynet?

Last time I BLAGGED, I talked about not talking about films about which I fail to be passionate. There was only one aspect of this film that struck a chord, and I'll leave it to a better writer than myself to explain. I'll pull one quote:

And at the end, sure enough, we get the Moral: Yes, the government must try to gather intelligence in order to protect the people, but Not This Way.

OSC's review of Eagle Eye is the concluding bit of a rather long article. Feel free to read it all, but them's directions if you want 'em.

Anyway. Yeah. I'll let him do the talking.

Gameshows and Love Stories

2008-12-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

I saw a film last night that blew me away.

I've been accused of being hyperbolic in my descriptions of things I love. This may be true. However, I like to think that there are a lot of things to be passionate about in this world, so why bother fussing about the mediocre things? When I write a review of a film, it'll be a film I either loved or hated. If a film is middling and unremarkable, why talk about it?

"Oh yeah, that was an alright movie. It turned out to be about what I thought it was gonna be about. And the acting was pretty good. I liked the music. It was kinda fun sometimes. And the ending was pleasant. It was kind of slow, but it had its moments--you know--there were a couple of parts that were kind of cool..."

Why?

Instead, let me tell you about Slumdog Millionaire. This is going to sound strange, but I don't know how else to say it. During several lengthy segments of that film, the strength and depth of feeling that I was being pulled through actually caused me to physically tremble.

The concept is so simple. A young man is on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" He's accused of cheating. He's beaten. Tortured. Why won't he confess to having cheated? How could a slumdog possibly know the answers to all the questions?

That's what the rest of the film is about. The answers to the questions are used like touchstones in the history of this young man's life. How did he know the name of the man who invented the revolver? You'll have to see the film to find out. The premise is simple enough, almost, to be trite. But it is not trite. It is grand, beautiful, and deeply moving.

How did they pull it off? This melodrama of melodramas. Must have been the writing, which was flawless and unassuming in its seemingly effortless brilliance. Or maybe the music, which was somehow exactly right for every single second of the film. But it could just as easily have been the cinematography, or the editing, or the production design--all of which were outstanding enough to satisfy the brightest hopes of those who care about such things. Or let's argue for the acting and directing--why else did everyone fall deeply, shamelessly in love with our hero and the love of his life?

All of those things could provide powerful, convincing evidence as for why this film worked so transcendently well. But maybe, above and beneath all of that, there was something else. Someone believed in something better than what we normally see. Through all of the horror we push through, there must be something worth the struggle. It must, must, must be true, and those people responsible for the making of this film not only believed but demanded it. And then they set to work.

I'm trying to remember the last time my heart was filled to overflowing by a film. I can't. I'm sure it will come to me. I certainly won't say that Slumdog Millionaire is the most wonderful film I've ever seen. Because, like I mentioned earlier, I'm trying to avoid reckless hyberboles. I will say, though, that the film I saw last night makes that a tough thing to do.

Another Terminator Movie

2008-12-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Anyone who knows me well knows that I sort of freak out over most (I deliberately don't use the word all) things Terminator. I love all three movies--I think they probably comprise the greatest science-fiction/action trilogy of all time. I think the story is wonderful, and the films are really very, very good. James Cameron, before he sort of dropped out of the industry after Titanic, was the most talented director of action films in the last...well, at least thirty years, but possibly ever. He was responsible for the first two (brilliant pieces of work, both), and the third one, in my not-so-humble opinion, was a fine film as well.

I'm not too hot on the TV series that gracing Fox these days, but it could be worse. I've been watching it because I'm compelled to. That's what obsession does.

But what I'm infinitely MORE excited about is Terminator Salvation. There are two trailers for it on Apple right now--the second one was added today, and it looks pretty wonderful. That's the primary motivation for this post.

A lot of people that are much bigger dorks about the Terminator franchise than I (yes, it's possible...frighteningly possible) are extremely skeptical about whether this film will be any good. Here's why I think it will be great:

1. Christian Bale. The man can't miss. He's been in some of the most solid blockbusters of the last few years, and I can't see him making a bad choice for something like this. He's smart--in the last three years, he's had the lead role in Batman Begins, Rescue Dawn, The Prestige, 3:10 to Yuma, and The Dark Knight. That's three years.

2. Jonathan Nolan and (to a lesser degree) Paul Haggis. Jonathan Nolan is the writing talent behind Memento, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight. Jon is simply a brilliant writer, and he has, to my knowledge, final writing credit on this film. But if that's not good enough, Paul Haggis had the script before him, and he's been behind such little projects as Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Casino Royale, Letters from Iwo Jima, and, most recently, Quantum of Solace, just to name a few. If you can't trust the Terminator franchise in these guys' hands, well...you get the idea.

3. The trailers. Admittedly, you can never fully determine whether a film will be good or bad based solely on its trailer. Everyone has had the experience of being fooled into seeing a terrible film because the trailer made it look slick and sexy. But I'm getting better at being able to see through the bull, and these two trailers look extremely promising.

Alright. I'm done advertizing for this film. Mostly I just wanted to vent about how excited I am about it.

Rice that is free.

2008-12-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Two things:

1. You need to have Google Reader. What is it? If you have Gmail, just click on the little blue link that says "Reader" in the upper left-hand corner. All will be explained. You need it because you don't want to have to come visit my blog every day to find out whether or not I have posted. Say you want to be able to ignore my blog completely unless I post something. Well, Google Reader will tell you when I've posted so you don't have to go look for yourself. This will work with any website that has an RSS feed. If you don't know what that is...well anyway, I'm done explaining things for now. I'm really the wrong person to be explaining them anyway. I just barely figured out what some of this stuff is several months ago, and I don't use it that much as it is.

2. I, in fact, use Google Reader. With it, I stay up to date on politics (more or less), movie trailers, my favorite webcomics, my favorite band, and a handful of my friends' blogs.

Today, while I was reading a recebt post on The Fischbowl, I was alerted to a pretty cool site called "FreeRice." Here's what you do: You go to the website and immediately start answering vocab questions. For every question you answer correctly, they donate 20 grains of rice to The United Nations World Food Program.

And they're not messing around with the vocab. There are 60 levels of difficulty, and they escalate as you answer correctly. On level one are words like "liquid" and "dozen" and "awful." On level 60 are words like "champher" and "apodeictic" and "lansquenet." With all of my knowledge and lucky guesses, I could only get up to level 42 ("jambeau" and "horologe" and "picaresque"), but you can start on any level you'd like. It's just that if you start at level 60, you'll probably fail to win any free rice for anyone.

So, fun times. Start a Google Reader account, improve your vocab, and win free rice for hungry people.

On Proposition 8

2008-10-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

I don't support gay marriage. I've had gay friends, and I have nothing against gay people generally, but marriage between people of the same sex is a societal perversion. If this is offensive to anyone, I am sorry that you are offended. But I refuse to be among the silent majority on this issue.

I've recently quoted Orson Scott Card regarding Obama on this blog, and I'm about to do so again. The primary reason for this is that I consider some of his articles to be required reading for people who care about this country. He's not very widely-read--no one is anymore. So I'll do my part to get his words out to a slightly greater number of people. This is how the article starts:

On one extreme, we have the idea that the Constitution is a written document that can only be altered by a deliberately time-consuming process of amendment.
On the other extreme, we have the idea that the Constitution means whatever a group of judges says it means.
The Constitution itself belongs to the first group -- it declares that it can only be changed through the amendment process.

Later, regarding Proposition 8, he says:

In California, if Proposition 8 fails to pass, gay-marriage proponents will claim that this constitutes public approval of gay marriage.
Of course this is not true. Many people who have telephoned people about Prop. 8 have heard the person who answers the phone say, "No gay marriage! I am voting no on Prop. 8!" But when you try to explain that if you don't want gay marriage, you have to vote yes on Prop. 8, they often get confused.
But let's step back a little. There should never have been a Proposition 8.

You can and should read the whole thing here. I hope that many more wise people will begin to offer similar sentiments in the near future, but for now, digest this article. I guarantee it will be the most important thing you read today.

Perceiving Persepolis

2008-10-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

An-EMT has been, more or less, a success. Last Tuesday was the third week running. And what An-EMT it was.

We went with animation. Not specifically because it was animated, but because it was a highly-acclaimed film (95% on Rotten Tomatoes), and it was very different from the film we'd watched the week before (The Fall).

Persepolis is an uncompromisingly great animated film, meaning it was strong both as a film and as cutting edge, high-minded animation. The film is based on an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, and it is French, even though Sister Satrapi is Iranian.

The story is a powerful mix of Iranian history and rich character development, and it's hard to gauge which of the two is more compelling. The historical aspect is so personal that it altogether avoids coming off as didactic. And the character development reaches far beyond the main character and lifts up every significant face in the film. Satrapi revealed each of them with utmost sincerity and affection, and, to no lesser an effect, with incredible skill.

This animated adaptation of what I'm sure must have been a superb graphic novel also does what you always hope an animated film will do: it uses the medium. No transition was wasted; no possibility for visual illustration of theme, idea, attitude or emotion was left unused. The film was able to wander all over the artistic world it built for itself without ever sacrificing efficiency of storytelling or losing the audience.

I could barely contain myself after this film. Because though I can't define this masterpiece as a "feel good" film, it made me laugh, made me sad, made me hope, and made me love. And at the end, I felt very, very good--because I felt like it had just given me something valuable and rare: a uniquely artistic insight into a profound life's experience.

I'm a Conservative, Yo

2008-10-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

I just spent the last hour watching stuff this guy has posted on YouTube. It was time well spent. I know the video below is almost ten minutes long, but you spend three times that watching an episode of The Office. Get on this. It's good stuff.

"I fell..."

2008-10-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

Last night, as I was walking down the long flight of stairs on my trip back home from campus, I took quite a spill. Just one of those foot-too-far slips that brings you down onto the hard, hard concrete. I'm fine. The skin of my forearm took all of the weight as I came down, so all I've got to show for falling down stairs yesterday is a pretty awesome, deep six-inch scrape between my wrist and my elbow. It'll be a sweet scar.

I was on my way home, but not home home, since I was actually on my way to my neighbor's to watch a film called The Fall. Yes yes, I know, soooo ironic--you're very clever for thinking, "Hey, you fell on your way to see a movie called The Fall!" I'm so impressed by your cleverness.

This post isn't about me falling. It's about THE Fall, a magnificently stunning film that I've now seen twice within the space of approximately four days.

First of all: See this film. See it because it's beautiful; see it because it's heartbreaking; see it because it's sweet, funny, moving, and epic. But, most of all, see it because there will never be another film like it. Ever.

The Fall was filmed in about 18 different countries over a period of around four years. None of the locations were altered or enhanced by CGI effects--they are all completely real. The places you will see in this film actually exist. They are awe-inspiring, breathtaking, unbelievable, and you will never forget the journey.

The story: A five year old girl with a broken arm meets a man in his twenties with a broken back. They're both in the hospital, waiting to be well again. Which, for her, means having her arm healed, and, for him, is less certain, since he will likely never walk again.

When she meets him, he offers to tell her an epic story. She, a bottomlessly curious and imaginative little girl, accepts immediately. As he tells the story, we see what she sees in her mind: beauty beyond words.

The actual themes and story of this film are quite good, but not life-changingly so. The film's final strength lies in the delicate, dazzling visual feast, the near perfect score and sound design, and the fact that the story, characters and dialog never once distract by not being good enough. They are all good enough to allow the audience to become fully immersed in the fantasy and glory of the true strengths.

I should also mention that Alexandria is possibly the most enchanting little person I've ever seen on screen. She is perfect. Lee Pace is very, very good as the charming but depressed Roy, but Alexandria steals every frame she's in.

One more time: See this film. It is rated 'R,' but for no good reason. You'll see some blood, but nothing you haven't seen in a hundred comic book movies. This particular movie would have been the best example all year of what a PG-13 film ought to look like. But such is our ratings system.

And finally, here is a link to the trailer. Be sure to watch it in HD if you can. 480p is usually safe.

If You're Wondering About the Economy

2008-09-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

Read this article. Here's an excerpt:

When you, Joe Citizen, spend frivolously and default on your loans, the bank takes your house. When the government spends your tax dollars frivolously, it simply cooks the books to cover its excesses. When the books are left in ashes, the government just takes more of your money, or it prints more money, leaving the money it hasn't already taken from you devalued. Over the last few weeks, we've learned that you now face the prospect of an additional indignity: When your neighbor's bank spends frivolously and defaults on its loans, the government's going to take your money then too, to keep the bank in business.

This, actually, is the primary reason Mitt Romney should have been president. Oh well. The best we can hope for now is...come to think of it, I'm not sure. I don't have much hope left. The best I can do, I guess, is try to not be totally ignorant of what's going on. Good luck to me.

To Mr. Obama

2008-09-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

Orson Scott Card echoes many of my sentiments, but better stated and better informed. I've just pasted the end of his article here, but you can read the rest (and I recommend that you do) here.

Here's the problem.... Back when you were still saying nothing, you looked very promising to people like me, who thought of you as what you claimed to be -- a great conciliator.
But since Hillary took the gloves off and bloodied you at the end of the primary season, you have been forced to take firm positions on issues and to defend yourself against criticism -- you have been forced to let us see who you are.
And who are you?
When you are caught saying something stupid or wrong, you simply deny saying it and accuse those who quote you of taking your words out of context or misrepresenting you. You claim you "always" held the positions you recently switched to.
You claim to be a conciliator, bringing people together, even though you have the most uncompromisingly radical voting record in the Senate and you have openly sneered at people who don't support your radical leftist program.
And when you are flat wrong, as you were on Iraq and the surge, and your opponent was right, you don't have the grace to say, "Congratulations, President Bush and Senator McCain on this great achievement that has saved American lives and brought us victory."
Instead you are churlish and deceptive, claiming that they followed your program only "too late," which is the opposite of the truth -- and you know it.
If we wanted to elect a man who yearns for America's defeat and can never admit to making a mistake, we could have elected John Kerry four years ago.
A lot of us really wanted to elect you as America's first African-American president.
But there are things more important to our future than mere tokenism. You should only be our President if you are the best person for the job, and you clearly are not.
We don't need a president who hasn't the courage to admit that his previous policy failed and openly change his mind -- the way President Bush did when he determined to change strategy and execute the surge.
We saw your true colors when you sneered at white middle-class voters who cling to guns and religion because they're bitter, as if an entire class of "those people" can be analyzed and dismissed in a sentence.
McCain was not my choice for President at the beginning of the campaign a couple of years ago, Mr. Obama. You were. I rooted for you. I voted for you as recently as the North Carolina primary.
Obviously, I have changed my mind. Why?
I learned a little more about McCain. I learned a lot more about you.

Oops

2008-09-16T17:09:00.001-07:00

OK, I just made a huge mistake. I wrote out this huge post, that's rockin' (really, I heard it rock), but I published it on the wrong blog. So instead of trying to figure out how to fix my stupid-person problem, I'm going to just point you to my other blog and beg you to read my AWESOME post:

Lasers, Bagels, and Other Abstractions

The Batman

2008-07-20T12:04:00.001-07:00

What can I say that hasn't already been said? If you've read more than one review for The Dark Knight, then you'll have heard that it's far and away the greatest Batman movie ever made. You'll also have heard that it's one of the best crime dramas ever filmed, and that it's probably going to be easily identified as the best blockbuster 2008 has to offer, which is quite a statement next to films like Iron Man and WALL-E.

All of those things are true. The Dark Knight was one of the most complex, moving, powerful films I've ever seen. It was difficult in a way that no other comic book movie and few movies of any other genre have ever been, and far more rewarding because of it. If I was a crier, I would have wept for the pain and beauty of it all.

The Joker. Again, what new thing can I say? Heath Ledger's death was universally tragic because he was probably the most gifted and dedicated actor of my generation. I'll just tell you that his Joker is not a character. He is an overwhelming and unstoppable force of evil and chaos. Heath Ledger virtually disappeared behind the hideous makeup and a performance that will without question go down as one of the most riveting and revolutionary ever meted out on film. My greatest personal compliment is that he succeeded in making me fearful of his appearances on screen. You don't like this villain. He's entertaining…sort of. More, he's horrifying. Every time he stumbled into view, I cringed at what he might do, which was always unpredictable, and always terrible.

And Batman was always, always several steps behind him. Iron Man satisfied the desire to see a superhero kick butt. The Dark Knight does not. I won't give anything away, but no one is safe. Batman won't die, this we can rely on. Beyond that…the stakes have never been higher. This film will surprise you over and over and over again. There is no great twist at the end because the entire movie is comprised of twists and surprises—some of them, mercifully, quite wonderful. And, of course, some of them not.

I loved this film. I knew I would, but I couldn't know how very MUCH I would. The hype and anticipation were as high as they could possibly be. If this film had been anything less than spectacular, I would have been furious. But it's not. It's more.

I saw it in IMAX—it was worth it. But I'm going to see it again this week. Probably on Thursday, when I don't have work. I need to see this film again. The first time through, it exhausted me. I had to hang on for life as the story progressed and, when it was over, I had probably comprehended barely over half of the film. Only after the second run will I be able to feel I've seen the whole thing.

In summary, hyperbole ceases to have a definition in the context of films like this. No praise is too high, and my praises are not high enough. Thus, I am, in the end, left without words to describe my love for The Dark Knight.

Rambow

2008-07-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

Whenever I sit down to start spilling the contents of my mind onto paper or a computer monitor, I have to be careful. I'm a storyteller at heart. I love stories. I have within me a bottomless well of endless passion for them. But a lot of the stories I want to tell have already been told, and well. This is natural, because when I hear or see a wonderful story wonderfully told, it ignites my passion for storytelling, and long after, I find myself seized with a desire to tell that story myself, or something very like unto it.

So of course, as a child, movies made their mark on me. The stories they told embedded themselves deep into my heart and mind, and I will be influenced by the movies I saw when I was younger more than any I see as an adult. Somehow, and by the very same magic that the film itself represents, Son of Rambow captured that idea perfectly.

Will is a timid dreamer who meets Lee, a child-demon who wreaks havoc on all things "mature" around him. Lee has aspirations to be a filmmaker, and to accomplish his dreams, he has a VHS video-camera. Did I mention they're in the 80's? Well, now I did. When Will ends up at Lee's house, he chances to see First Blood, and he...um...you could say he just sort of explodes. When Lee returns, he finds Will gone. It turns out that Will's comprehensively capable imagination has fashioned him into the son of Rambo, who turns out to be seeking his father's freedom from a terrifying, vicious captor (who turns out to be a creepy looking scarecrow.)

Shortly thereafter, Lee and Will have teamed up to create their film: Son of Rambow. As time goes by, the project accretes additional actors and crew, and becomes a strain on what has become a very meaningful friendship between Lee and Will.

I don't want to say anything else. Every minute of this film is absolutely wonderful. I was so completely, so deeply invested in all of the characters that I couldn't stop my eyes from periodically widening in a futile attempt to take it all in more fully. It was funny (very very funny), gripping, and sentimental in the best possible ways.

Everything about this film was great. I was blown away by the acting of every character, but most of all by Will and Lee--I have never seen better child acting. I believed these kids were real all the way to the end. And I adored them. Seriously, who knew that this kind of performance was possible from that age group? It's a special tribute to the director, who himself must be very well in-touch with his own inner-child.

I was also continually surprised by this film. Within the first fifteen minutes (probably much sooner than that, actually) I had learned not to try and guess what would happen next. Rambow intuitively embodied the unpredictability of the most entertaining children you know. I fell in love with it much the same way I sometimes fall in love with children I meet. In all of its innocent recklessness and unbridled passion for living, Son of Rambow is ultimately a simple but moving story about two friends discovering and then youthfully wielding the magic of filmmaking. How could I not adore this movie?

Science and Religion

2008-06-30T22:49:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading "The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke, the same man who brought us the literary incarnation of "2001: A Space Odyssey," which remains one of my favorite science fictions to date.

Here's the short synopsis (of "City" not "2001"): Humanity, several billion years in the future and after having taken part in a galactic empire, has ultimately confined itself to the only two remaining cities on Earth. Both of these cities are totally isolated from one another by the deserts that cover the rest of the world, and both of them have lasted, virtually unchanged, for a little over one billion years.

The story starts in the first city, Diaspar, where the inhabitants are essentially immortal. The protagonist is, more or less, the first person born in the city for millions of years, and the story follows his actions and how they affect the future fate of the human race.

Like all "hard" sci-fi epics, the less you know beforehand, the more entertaining the read, so I won't give anything else away. But Clarke is good. His worlds are vivid, believable, and endlessly fascinating. I would certainly recommend this novel to any hard sci-fi fan. Note, the distinction I'm making here is significant. "Hard" refers to fiction which is rooted in known reality and theoretical science. "Soft" science fiction, on the other hand, doesn't bother much at all with that sort of tedium and produces things like "Star Trek" and "Star Wars," both of which are more closely related to fantasy and westerns than they are to science fiction, but I digress.

As I've already made clear, I enjoyed the book. It didn't instill the same childlike awe in me that the more famous "2001" did, but it still fascinated and entertained me in ways only good sci-fi can. That said, it suffers from a lamentably typical anti-religious bias that plagues many of the smaller minds in science. I use the word suffer here to describe the very real way in which it diminishes the work. When an author treats science as the only rational faith to which human beings ought to ascribe, he needlessly alienates a significant percentage of his readership. His fiction is no longer honest at that point, it's preachy. No one likes getting preached at. I'm Mormon, and I typically never read Mormon fiction, because many Mormon authors have not learned how to tastefully incorporate their faith into good literature.

Science is not religion. When it is treated as such, both are cheapened and diminished. There's a great little commentary on this topic by Orson Scott Card in what is mostly a review on "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," so I won't go too far into it. What I will say is that believe what you will, it is wrong to openly attack others' systems of belief. Accepting that, one can understand the degree of thoughtlessness and arrogance Clarke displays when he uses, as a major theme and plot device in his story, the "inexplicable insanity" of humanity's obsession with religion. In his fascinating (but still, lest we or he forget, very fictional, and very logically flawed) billion-year distant civilization, mankind has evolved past the primitive compulsion toward religion, and instead has fully embraced the Truth that science so clearly and patiently offers.

This is all quite unfair of me, because Arthur C. Clarke passed away a matter of months ago. My grief over his loss is sincere. He was a great mind and a great author. Perhaps my time would be better spend in soliloquy, but my mind is more consumed with the tragedy of his scientific arrogance. This will ultimately prevent much of his work from reaching the enduring status of work by more sensitive, thoughtful authors. Thank goodness, I suppose, for "2001," and for Stanley Kubrick--without whom Clarke may very well have been forgotten entirely.

Walls and Es

2008-06-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you just have to go do things. Like, for instance, putting down a bunch of Dew and staying up till 2:30am to see Pixar's latest masterpiece, even though you still have to get up at 7am for work.

The last time I stayed up for a midnight showing, it was for 10,000 B.C., and it was only because I was bored. I wanted to get out and do something fun, and I decided that that film would only be entertaining if it was really late anyway. I was right.

My reasoning for catching WALL-E last night was quite different. I wanted to see it more than anything. I have, over the past few years, become a devoted disciple of all things Pixar. This company is making the best family films of our generation--also the best animations, and the best comedies. I say of our generation, but it's possible that I could replace those two words with one word: "ever."

WALL-E had to be good. It was from the same people whose worst film to date (Cars) was still heads and shoulders above every other animation that year without question. I only didn't like it because it wasn't PIXAR good. It was good, just not phenomenally, extravagantly, perfectly wonderful like pretty much everything else they've done. But then they shaped up and put out that Rat movie, and proved that they hadn't lost anything. They're still the best, and they'll continue to break their own records for greatness with each passing year.

This was the promise they made with Ratatoille, and it's the promise they kept with WALL-E.

I won't go over plot details because they're everywhere. The best I can give you is my personal response to this exquisitely touching film. And my response was exactly that: I was touched. I was touched by all of the things they tried and succeeded to do with 97 divine minutes of animation. It lacked nothing in comedy, but if even if it hadn't been funny, it would have been beautiful - the cinematography was stunning beyond words (yes, cinematography can be appropriately used in the context of animation.) And even if it had been neither funny nor beautiful, it would have been touching. When was the last time something "cute" brought tears to your eyes? I'm a hard sell for cute. Most of the time, when something goes for cute, I go for the mental ax, and then whatever it was that was supposed to be "cute" ends up mangled and covered in blood in my mind.

But WALL-E broke my heart. I've, seriously, never seen anything more adorable on screen.

Along the same lines, one of the best kept secrets of this film is what a spectacular character Eve turns out to be. You don't get that from the previews or any of the other promotional stuff. Other reviewers have mentioned it sparingly, but listen, there was no way I could be prepared for how wonderful "she" was. I had no concept of what kind of a character WALL-E's crush would be, so I was blown away by it.

The last surprise was the message. Make no mistake, this is a Green movie. But there is no possible way Pixar could have delivered this particular message with more power, and more taste, than they did. And it worked. Amazingly, it worked. My personal aversion to the latest fashion of environmentalism could have very easily ruined this film for me. But it didn't. Instead, I gave the whole package a nod and just went right on loving this movie with my whole heart.

WALL-E won't even have to blink to get the Oscar for best animated feature this year. But it is also unquestionably the best film to grace the cinema so far this year, and the only other movie that will challenge its position for the rest of the year will be The Dark Knight. That's saying a lot, considering the quality of this summer's blockbusters, and the fact that I'm already sort of planning on Knight becoming one of my top ten favorite films of all time as soon as I see it.

But for now, I'm with the robot. Thus the chorus of adoring praise for this film gains one more voice.

Furious, Horrified, and Saddened

2008-06-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard, the Supreme Court ruled today that the death penalty is unconstitutional in cases of child rape.

I'm trying to picture a conversation between Thomas Jefferson and Justice Anthony Kennedy. Let's just assume that Mr. Kennedy holds fast to his views and says all the same things to Jefferson in such a meeting. I can't imagine that meeting ending without Anthony lying broken and bleeding on the ground.

Since when did the rape of a child under the age of 12 leave its position as one of the most despicable, unforgivable crimes in the minds of EVERY SINGLE RESPECTABLE PERSON in this country? Isn't this America? Don't we bloody our hands in the defense of the rights of those who are unable to defend themselves?

Maybe I'm being unreasonable. Eight-year-old kids ought to be able to stick up for themselves and say, "No!" when a full grown man decides to do the unthinkable.

Or maybe, if that fails for the child, we should have a vote. You see, I have this rock in my hand, and I, along with the vast, vast majority of my fellow Americans, am without this particular sin. Really, I don't mind if I don't get to be the first, just as long as a big, heavy stone does get thrown, and just as long as it hits its mark.

God save America? With legislation like this, the prospect is becoming far less likely.

Got Smart?

2008-06-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

Despite what one of my friends claims as her only explicable reason for not loving Get Smart, Steve Carrell's latest foray into the comedy scene contained next to none of the despicably overused crotch humor all of decent civilization has finally come to despise.

If you haven't heard about this film...well, first of all, I'm surprised. It got plenty of ad-time, and Steve Carrell is currently a comedy darling. You really should have heard of this movie by now. BUT, if you haven't, here's a very brief description: This is a film adaptation of a popular TV comedy of the same name about a secret spy organization built to combat their evil Soviet counterparts. The movie ends up being your typical action comedy, of which there are simply too few.

Let me rephrase. There are far too few good action comedies. Shanghai NOON, Rush Hour (ONE), The Mummy, and, to some degree, the Indiana Jones movies are all great examples, but there really aren't a lot of them. And when they're done well, they're an absolute blast and a half. I think that no other genre (hybrid or no) can satisfy the need for fun quite like it.

And Get Smart was an awful, awful lot of fun. I haven't laughed that hard in a theater in...oh who knows. I laughed, out loud and often. And by the end of the movie, all I could do was smile. And decide to see it again in the near future.

First of all, this is Steve Carrell at his best. He was perfectly cast for this part, and he doesn't succumb to any predictability in filling the role. I was constantly impressed with the uniqueness of his quirky character.

Anne Hathaway was a much tougher sell because I haven't seen The Devil Wears Prada (I do plan on it, I promise), and so I can't claim to have ever enjoyed watching her on screen. Well, she did a fabulous job in this film. I adored her character. She was professional, capable, sexy, uptight and almost completely believable. Shoot, I even bought the chemistry between her and Steve. Awesome work, dudes (who made this movie.)

The rest of the cast worked great as well. There were no terribly weak spots, to speak of. Even the Rock managed to make me believe, for large segments of the film, that he was actually an actor. Good job, big guy. It was hard for him, but he pulled it off. (And he wasn't starring, which was...well, needless to say it was essential for the success of this movie.)

I could go on. I won't. See this movie. Take the kids, even. Sure, it's PG-13, but this is a family film, as far as I'm concerned. It's one which possesses that rare quality of being accessible and satisfying to almost every type of person. So go have a blast.

Classics

2008-06-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

I made a discovery yesterday--or, I guess it would be more accurate to say that I came up with a theory.

It happened while I watched The Mighty Ducks for the first time in...oh...probably fifteen years. So I sat there, really enjoying the movie because, well, DUH it's the Mighty Friggin Ducks! But now I'm a film student.

So what did the film student in me say, you might wonder? (I wondered; you likely did not.) I thought, the cinematography in this movie ain't half bad. And, for an early 90's kids/family movie, the writing could be so MUCH worse than it is.

This is my theory: The movies that endure over the years probably owe a lot to their cinematographers. It's true that the general movie-going crowd probably aren't too focused on the details of composition, angle and focus, but they know when it's good. It just looks good. It feels right and meaningful. That's what good cinematography does--it validates the film.

Of course, it can't compensate for total failures in other areas (I'm thinking of the three recent Star Wars films right now.) But see if you can notice the superior work of an under-respected Director of Photography when you go back to watch some of your favorite classics. They may not be "arty" films, and they may not have been well-received by the critics of their time (or ours), but I'll bet the cinematography is good. Good enough that there are plenty of shots that send little shivers up your spine and make you think, "Man, I love this movie."

HULK SMASH!!!

2008-06-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

Great movie. I mean it, I'm serious. I really, really loved The Incredible Hulk.

Several things you should know about this film if you haven't heard already. First, it wasn't Hulk, the 2003 disaster that convinced everyone that making a Hulk movie was a terrible, terrible mistake. And it wasn't that movie's sequel. Or prequel. Or anything. The Incredible Hulk was it's own wonderful film, and it worked on pretty much every level it occupied.

Also, Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner (who becomes a lovable Hulk when angered...or hungered--don't ask, just watch.) Edward Norton is a brilliant actor, and he puts a life and spirit into this part that I can't imagine anyone else pulling off quite as well.

And as for the rest of the performances...no one was lagging. In fact, I would say that the acting was more solid, overall, in this film than it was in Iron Man. Don't get me wrong, Iron Man was the better film, and Robert Downey Jr. blew my brains out with his spectacular performance, but Hulk was more consistent when it came to all of the supporting roles.

But let's be honest. I loved it because it made me want to tear cars apart and throw giant green men through brick walls when it was over. It made me feel like a little boy again.

Why did this film succeed at doing that when Transformers did NOT? Because it takes great filmmaking to put a hyper-critical member of the audience (such as myself) into those shoes, that's why. Transformers was fast, colorful, loud, and extremely large, but Michael Bay's a bit of a hack. He'll even admit it if you corner him. The guys behind Hulk knew what they were doing. They were working with a strong script, strong actors, and an obviously strong affection for the material. What resulted was a little bit like magic.

And, oh yeah, Tony Stark showed up at the end and made everyone giggle like schoolchildren in his presence. Promises of things to come. Let's hope they're not as empty as the minds of the studio executives. Really...let's hope pretty hard.

Gas Prices are Murdering My Family: How You Can Help

2008-06-13T21:13:00.000-07:00

So, I've stated that this blog will occasionally be about politics. Well, here goes the first politically tinged post. (I have not forgotten that the second "wonderful" movie I mentioned in my last post has yet to receive my long-awaited review...soon, I promise.)

I subscribe to the Power Line Blog (I have been converted whole-heartedly to RSS Feeds and, by extension, Google Reader), and today, I was directed to this site. It's a petition that says this:

"We, therefore, the undersigned citizens of the United States, petition the U.S. Congress to act immediately to lower gasoline prices (and diesel and other fuel prices)* by authorizing the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries."

Over 700,000 people have signed so far, I hear. Sure it's a long shot, but if you're tired of gas stations eating your soul, you should click here and put your name down. At least it's something.

My Feet Are Missing

2008-06-09T07:54:00.000-07:00

Lately, my Saturdays typically involve watching two movies. Usually, I watch the biggest weekend release (Iron Man, Speed Racer, Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones) and then another one later that night, with no particular method of selection. Just get together with a few people (other film kids, usually) and watch something good.

Well, this last Saturday, there was no movie coming out that I was overly enthused about seeing in the theater, so I ended up watching two rented flicks, approximately ten hours apart. Both of them were (are) absolutely wonderful films, and for vastly different reasons--they're also slightly aged and little known, so I figured it would be good to get some fresh words out about both of them.

First of all, I want to say, quickly, that Water Horse is every bit as bad as you're afraid it will be when you watch the previews. I watched that one Friday night against my will. Luckily I had to ho home before it ended, an unexpected mercy. We were supposed to watch Equilibrium that night, but some of the people there were set on the former.

So Saturday morning rolled around and we finally got to sit down and watch Equilibrium. Christian Bale plays something called a Grammaton Cleric, which is basically a specially trained anti-resistance soldier who can do...well, pretty much anything with guns. The setting is post World War III, and the society that has been built up is sort of "1984"-esque, in that the leader of this particular distopia is referred to as "Father," and, oh yeah, people aren't supposed to feel anything. They are required to take a drug every day that inhibits passion of any kind in order to curb humanity's hate and fear (supposedly that which causes war), while also sacrificing love and true friendship. Those who refuse to take the drug are outcasts and form what is then referred to as the resistance.

There's the plot in summary. This is the kind of film that could have been really, really bad if it had been left to the wrong hands. But let me assure you, my dear reader, that they did it right. Christian Bale is phenomenal, and the action sequences are totally mind-blowing. The slow parts don't drag at all, and the drama is affecting beyond what you might expect. The film has it's flaws--I wouldn't call it perfect or even near unto it--but there are so many spectacularly brilliant scenes and sequences that more than make up for any weaknesses. It was so good that I had to exercise an enormous amount of self-control to not watch it again later that day.

It's rated R purely for violence, but the violence is very Matrix-y. In fact, I think The Matrix was bloodier, and as any Mormon Matrix fan will know, there was no legitimate reason for that film's rating.

This is a must see for any action-movie buff. And it's likely that you haven't seen it, because it came out right between the first two Matrix films, and I think had the same sort of flavor. But it's not a knock off, trust me, and in some ways, Christian Bale's hyper-action sci-fi flick is better. Don't get me wrong, I adore the first Neo film, but John Preston the Grammaton Cleric, First Class, is the real deal.

Blue Whistles are for Little Orange Men with Very Red Blood

2008-06-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

I've done it. I've finally figured out what this lil' BLOGE will be about. You might wonder (at least while you're reading this sentence) what conclusions I've reached. Well I'm not telling. You can now read about it in the description section of my BLOGE.

This is what I've been telling people lately (warning: change of subject has occurred): The film program is obnoxious because not only do you have to apply to get into it, you also have to apply to get into the classes you need. Not want, need.

So, essentially, this is how it ends up working out. You apply to get into the college (in this case, BYU). Then, once in the college, you apply to gain access to your particular field of interest (in this case, film). Then, once in the program--into which, by the way, I was only admitted upon my second application--you are required to apply to the classes you have been told you must take to graduate.

I've got this graduation plan, see, that my academic adviser helped me create, which very specifically (and somewhat severely) lists which classes you must take on your chosen track and when. Currently, I'm one semester behind for my next two most important classes, and I've been kind of admitted into them for this coming semester. I'm an alternate. This means that not only have I not been given the assurance that I will be able to take these classes, I've also been denied the luxury of certainty that I will not be able to take these classes. Their advice? Try to arrange a backup schedule just in case you're not admitted. A backup schedule. I'm trying to remind myself why I thought I didn't have time for a minor. At this rate, I'll graduate in 2011, and I'm already, technically, a senior. But, SSHHH. Don't tell anyone. I'm still going around calling myself a junior, like I did last year, and part of the year before. And like I will continue to do for the next two years. No one likes an eternal senior.

I need to put in a word for Mission: Impossible. It's old news (we're now dealing with the measurement of decades, but who's counting), but this is a great movie. For anyone that doesn't like Tom Cruise, I understand you. He's an insufferable person, and Katie Holmes is a foolish little girl for stepping into his demented life. Their poor daughter. BUT, you will go see his movies. People say they don't like Tom Cruise, but theirs will likely be one of the tickets that catapults his films into the $100 million range the first weekend at the box office. Don't hate, people, the guy is a serious, talented actor.

Back to MI. If you haven't seen it, you're over ten years late, but it's not too late, and it never will be. This will be a classic even twenty years from now. So see it. Next time you're at Blockbuster with no clue what you want to see, grab this one first. Then, the following Saturday night (admit it, there's no shame), pick up the third installment--the one that emerged a couple of years ago--because it might be even better than the first. Yes, skip the second. Don't even think about it. Just pretend it's not there, like the 19th floor at Wayside School.

If you have seen the second...listen, I know. I'm sorry. We're both hurting, and we're in the same boat here. I was forced to go see the third movie by a couple of my friends. But at the time, I didn't know who J.J. Abrams was. And I can personally guarantee that John Woo, bless his cinematically adulterous little heart, had absolutely nothing to do with the last film. He came, he devastated M:I 2, and then he left. And then Abrams came and gave us art. Thanks J.J. Now hurry up and see this movie so you can join in my gratitude. The man deserves some respect.

Hoo-RAH for the longest post yet. (The next will be shorter. Maybe.)

Mostly because I haven't posted in a while

2008-05-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

I learned recently that I've been fired. Well anyway, that's what one of my friends told me, her explanation being that she had wasted, collectively, five minutes of her life over the past month checking for new posts, of which there were, clearly, none.

I haven't thought of anything of ground-breaking significance to write about, so I'll have to fall back on something mediocre. Or maybe a disorderly assortment of mediocre things. Yes, that's more likely.

I watched Star Wars: Episode III yesterday for the second time in my life. My opinion of it has remained unchanged. Essentially, it is much like the kind of girl I try very hard not to date: Very pretty, but also very dumb.

Let me be very clear on one point--I do not like George Lucas. I don't care how great he is at telling a story, visually or otherwise. I have a feeling that there are quite a lot of much better people who, with the kind of money and power Lucas has been granted over the years, could do just as well with their own imaginations. Especially if they studied Westerns and Eastern mythology as thoroughly as Lucas has--but that's beside the point.

My problem is the writing. In each of the three new movies, the average-at-best, regrettably-silly-at-worst writing makes the story seem trite and unfortunate at almost every turn.

"The Sith only care about themselves. The Jedi are selfless."

Gee, really? This kind of on-the-nose dialog is exactly what you hope not to see in a 113 million dollar movie. I cringe when I hear that kind of thing in student films. Come ON, George!

To be fair, no one should be condemned for not being able to write well. However, to insist upon exclusive artistic control, as Lucas famously has for this franchise, including writing and directing every line in the script for a movie that meant so much to an entire generation...that, my friends, makes bad writing a shameful, damning sin.

Contrast this with the newest Indiana film. That one was right on par with the old films. Just as corny, just as silly, yes, but also just as fun, just as action packed, and just as witty. Thank you, Spielberg, for possessing some level of professionalism. You know what his big secret probably was? Collaboration. I doubt that word has a place in George Lucas's lexicon. Pity.

On a more personal note, I'm coming closer to finishing the second draft for my as yet still unnamed novel. I was coming to something of a standstill recently, so I decided to start something new. Who knows if the new project will ever go anywhere, but to any writers who find themselves reading this long, pointless post--let me here officially support working on multiple projects. No one should ever devote all of his or her time and energy to ONE novel. 'Cause that novel would end up, inevitably, as a piece of forgettable refuse. Diversity!

I believe I have now fulfilled my self-assigned quota of "a disorderly assortment of mediocre things."

Shameless Promotions (that no one will read...)

2008-04-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

This post was going to be an anti-flaky diatribe (one in which I would make everyone, including myself, feel horribly guilty about not being dependable about anything). Instead, I want to enjoy what I write.

First off, I finally watched Pan's Labyrinth last night. Here's my short review:

The film was brutally beautiful. I put off seeing it for quite a while because of its rating (I don't often watch R-rated movies), waiting to find out if it was worth an exception. After enough research, I decided that it was. I'm glad I did. Let me first make clear that this film well-deserved its rating. I read about its content on KidsinMind.com (which is a great site for careful Mormons such as myself), and was not overly concerned about what I read. Nothing could have prepared me for the way that content was presented, however. It's a relatively bloody film, to be sure, but nothing worse than you'd see in a lot of other movies. What was difficult about this film was how emotionally jarring some of these scenes were. Rather than making me sick, the brutality displayed by some of the characters, one in particular, brought me close to tears. And in the center of all this ugliness--caused in the main by a select few--were characters of such profound goodness and depth that not once could I look away from the stark reality they had to face. The basic idea of transcendence in art is that light is best perceived when surrounded by darkness. Labyrinth is quintessential transcendentalism. We are dragged through the mud (literally, at one point) so that we may see with perfect clarity the beauty of life. This one's going to be with me for a long, long time.

This won't be news to anyone who knows me, but...Thrice is my favorite band. The 3rd and 4rd volumes of "The Alchemy Index" came out yesterday, and I, of course, bought them without a second thought. I've been listening to the first two volumes, Fire and Water, for about six months, waiting in focused anticipation for the other two, Air and Earth, to finally be released. Was it worth the wait? Yes. Let me just say that Dustin Kensrue is one of the most talented singer/songwriters of this generation, and Thrice might turn out to be one of the most important bands of this decade. I won't go into a detailed review of their complex and overwhelming project, but I will say....

Actually, I don't even know what to say. It is such a profound musical accomplishment that I am left speechless. OK, I know what to tell you: No matter who you are, at least one part of the Index will appeal to you. This is, to my knowledge, the most diverse record ever produced. So. Buy it.

That is all.

The fear of boredom

2008-03-31T19:09:00.000-07:00

I go to college, work on films, go to church, sing in a choir, spend time with friends, date (sporadically), watch a LOT of movies, read books, work a great job, and, sometimes, when I'm being very productive, work on my novel or engage in other creative literary enterprises. And still, 90% of the time, I'm either bored or stressed that I'm not doing enough with my life. This is why I'm a film student, which both solves and worsens the problem. If I'm looking to legitimize my life, then it often seems counterintuitive to pick this, of all things, to study in college. However, I'm less confident in film's power to bore than I am in almost anything else. So it appears I'm stuck.

I'm so open now because I can be pretty certain that few people will read this. Look how brave I am.

Scotland Rocks

2008-03-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

Not that I know very much about this cool little country, but what I do know, I love. And what I know is this dude named Joshua Barton, who is one of the most astonishingly great people I've met in the course of my life. He's a mission buddy, and we've kept in touch for a couple of years now. What motivated this post? An email.

Really, this all just boils down to a few moments of reflection on my part on how valuable friendships can be. Defying reason and lacking evidence, the naive boy still believes that my friendship is worth something. This doesn't bother me at all, because his actually is. I would describe Josh Barton's virtues, but I don't have enough time, and besides, I want more to emphasize transcendently uplifting associations, instead of soliloquizing specific people. I have a number of amazing friends, without whom my life would be as good as sunk.

That's all.

To Mayor Bates of the City of Berkeley

2008-02-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

Mayor Bates,

It seems counterintuitive to me that a community would impose sanctions against the very government which allows and even fights for its constituents' freedoms of speech and expression. If Code Pink is allowed and even encouraged to protest according to their ideals and understanding, shouldn't the military be allowed (and, dare I say encouraged?) to promote its agenda within the same community?

I would love to spend a great deal of time describing why I believe your policies to be profoundly ignorant, stubborn and contemptible. Instead, I'll just ask you what you think might happen if every community in this nation chose the same course you have chosen in this matter? If the military finds its numbers diminished by actions such as these to the point that its viability is jeopardized, do you think that our government would (or should) permanently sacrifice our strength of arms and succumb to the hostility of our enemies? I think it would be far more likely that the draft would be reinstated. A volunteer military (which is inherently enabled by recruiting offices) is the strongest and best kind of military. However, a drafted army is better than no army. To come out against recruiting efforts is to show unintentional support for either no military or a drafted one. It's short-sighted and politically selfish.

I also wonder what the reaction will be among those who didn't already hate the Marines. Perhaps those sitting on the line of whether they would volunteer their service to the military and its current policies will be swayed by this sudden shift in positions. You have painted the recruiters as the underdog, which will likely encourage support they might not have otherwise had.

If you've gotten this far, I'll summarize by saying that your actions are both shameful and totally unbefitting a democratic leader in this great nation.

Yes, I'm naming this "First Post"

2008-02-15T17:11:00.000-08:00

So I got this blog, here. I want to say something like, "I told myself I would never do this, but..."
BUT, I don't think that's true. Earlier today, one of my coworkers said, "I've been meaning to start a blog, but..."
And then I said, "Hey, maybe I should do a blog."
And he said, "Yeah, you totally should. It's way easy."
And I said, "Yeah, good idea, I will."
Now here I am. Do I feel dumb? A little. I'm reminded of my opinion of blogs years ago when they were emerging as the next great Internet revolution. I thought to myself, "Do people actually expect anyone to read or care about their stupid online journal?"
Well, no, they don't. I grew up a little since then and figured out why these things are useful. It saves me updating my faraway friends on my life over the phone.
That way, when people ask me, "So what's up with your life these days?" I can reply, with some amount of pride, and perhaps a slightly greater measure of embarrassment, "Oh, just check out my website. Friend." (Because it's likely that I will have forgotten this person's name.)
No, it's not a website, but I'll call it that because I've always been and will probably always be far too lazy to create the real thing for myself.
I'm feeling like this first post is proving to be long-winded and mostly pointless, so I think I'll go ahead and stop.