Swagger

In the non-fiction department, author Lisa Bloom brings us Swagger, a book about raising young boys in modern society here in the U.S. (and places that think we’re cool and want to imitate us).

The result is nothing short of a horror story. The book is an endless parade of anecdotes and statistics that illustrate the positively horrifying trends in our society today in the areas of education and what is viewed as cool, and provides some pretty solid advice on how to help your young boys navigate the extensive maze of pitfalls and grow into productive and decent young men. If you have a young boy, read this. Please. Sure, there may be some stuff that doesn’t apply or things that you’re already doing. I was very pleased that we are doing many of the things suggested here and have independently verified the positive results in our own son’s life, but I guess I’ve been a bit sheltered in that I had no idea just how challenging of a world that our kids are growing up in.

The bits on education alone are startling. Internationally, the U.S. really only leads in one specific area, and it is completely and totally the wrong one. Our kids are thoroughly convinced of their own awesomeness and the awesomeness of the U.S. They truly and honestly believe, in large numbers, that they are brilliant at math and reading/writing even though we are routinely trounced by MANY other countries and sit down near the bottom score-wise among developed countries. Celebrity is now THE objective. Reading is uncool. And intense misogyny and violence are now cool. Illiteracy out of high school is unbelievably high. Think about that for a moment. A large number of people GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL illiterate. How can that possibly happen in this day and age, and in this self-professed best-country-ever-double-stamps-no-take-backs-ever-infinity?! The reasoning at its core is a set of grossly misaligned priorities. As a country (and for those following in our footsteps), we’ll pay a dear price for this. Anyway, get it and read it. I’m going to try something new here and say that this isn’t an optional recommendation. I command you, read it. (well, the percentage of you that can actually read anyway)

Music and Movies

What to say about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers…

They’re still really really good. We picked up Mojo prior to a bit of a road trip and it was perfect listening for a long drive. They have a sound that, over the years, seems to be distinctly theirs and the miles ticked away quickly set to the rhythms of Petty and crew jammin’ away. On a related note, I picked up a fresh digital copy of my long-lost cassette of Full Moon Fever and quickly remembered how excellent that one was as well. If you likes you some Petty, I’d recommend picking this up. It’s pretty groovy stuff.

I’ll start this out with a disclaimer. I’m not the world’s biggest Katherine Heigl fan. I’m not quite sure what it is, but there’s an air about her that I just don’t care for.

That aside, I sat through a viewing of One For The Money (based on a book by the same name), which was not only acted in, but also executive produced (whatever that means) by Heigl.

I am not the demographic for this film. They did make an honest effort with a PG-13 rendition of Heigl handcuffed naked in a bathtub, but as mentioned above, there’s just something about her that kills that sort of thing for me too.

My peculiar hang-ups aside (easy to go off on a tangent there apparently), let’s say you’re the world’s biggest Heigl fan, what can you expect here?! This is a formula whodunit at its most formulaic. We have Stephanie Plum (Heigl) who, we’re to believe, is from the Bronx. She’s down on her luck, just got fired, and lacking options starts doing contract work for her cousin Vinny (Patrick Fischler) who is a bail bondsman. Yes, you’re following correctly, she is to be a bounty hunter. Her prime suspect is an ex-cop named a stereotypically Bronxian Joe Morelli (Jason O’Mara) who may or may not have been framed and who apparently had a sexual relationship with Stephanie in the past that turned south, so there’s the crime bit and also the jilted lover seeks revenge bit. He, being an ex-cop, doesn’t want to come in quietly, and she, being largely inept, doesn’t have much means to make him. Can they work through their past history and ultimately prove his innocence? Or did he perhaps actually do it?! I’ve got chills.

Overall, I just didn’t find anything here that was that great. Heigl does voice over throughout, the accent seemed like someone trying to do an accent, all of the typical checkboxes get ticked along the way, and eventually the credits roll. If you’re a Heigl fan, watch it I guess. If not, I wouldn’t bother.

An evening at the theater with Lee Camp

This evening here in big ole Bozeman, Montana at the legendary Equinox Theater, we enjoyed the comedy and political observation of the very funny Lee Camp (leecamp.net).

The guy is gaining a following via his activity on Facebook, his Moment of Clarity series of rants, and he also has a book and some comedy albums out as well (fair warning: explicit language).

He is, in short, a very funny guy who is well read and has a keen perspective on the global village we’re all partaking in these days, from corporatization of government and the resulting corruption to consumerism to the gross negligence we see with childhood obesity and the education system. He can take these very serious subjects and not only make them funny, but give you the sense that it’s not entirely hopeless. There just may be something that we can all do to make things better, while laughing about it along the way of course. If you get the opportunity and he’s in a city near you, I’d strongly recommend checking him out. Also look him up online.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the opening by Katie Goodman of Bozeman’s own Broad Comedy troupe (since all grown up and relocated to NYC). She is also hilarious and puts on a terrific show, so keep an eye out for her as well.

Old school epidemic flick

This film predates my birth by a few years coming out clear back in 1971. The only wear that it’s really worse for though is a bit of tech. The computers are a bit old, but fortunately for The Andromeda Strain, the story holds up pretty well and the acting was pretty good here.

This movie, based on the Michael Crichton book of the same name, follows the actions of a group of specialists after the return of a satellite doesn’t go quite as planned. The recovery crew rolls into the town of Piedmont, New Mexico, finds that the residents appear to all be dead, and are shortly thereafter not heard from again themselves. A secondary recovery crew heads in a bit more cautiously, retrieves the fallen satellite, then begins the painstaking process of figuring out just what sort of organism it brought back from the depths of space. Whatever it is seems to spread very easily and is very quickly lethal. The confusion is compounded by the survival of two residents, an old drunk and a hungry and upset baby.

The pacing and the tension are kept up well, and hokey 70’s feel aside, it was a pretty good flick. I’d recommend it.

And now for something different

You really need to go to this guy’s site to appreciate what’s going on here. This is Rex Rosenberg from Kansas standing next to his ChewBaru, a 1995 hail-damaged Subaru decorated with all manner of dental-related paraphernalia, including used tubes of toothpaste, dentures, uppers, lowers, casts, retainers, actual teeth, and many assorted dental tools and toothbrushes and such (and I’d best mention the wallpaper made from old dental catalogs).

We saw this beauty and talked briefly to Rex while he was enjoying the farmer’s market here in Bozeman, Montana, on his way west. He enjoyed talking with people and getting their reactions to his arguably disturbing creation, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy.

For those who are curious, he claims no degradation in gas mileage, and no discernable increase in wind noise either.

Rain and movies

We had a fairly lovely week followed by a rather dreary weekend during which outdoor work and/or play just wasn’t very appealing. So… we rented a batch of movies.


First on the list was The Woman In Black (alternate title: Harry Potter grows up, becomes a muggle, and makes a living dealing in scary real estate).

I’ll quickly add a disclaimer here. I do not routinely watch scary movies, so when I do, the bar doesn’t have to be set very high to provide a suitable experience for me. I wouldn’t personally describe this as terrifying, but it definitely gave me some good jolts (even when I knew they were coming), and I was surprised (likely due to my lack of de-sensitivity) that this was rated PG-13. I feel very comfortable saying that my kids would not have done very well watching this.

So…the movie. Arthur Kipps (Radcliffe) is a young employee at a law firm who has been dealing with personal tragedy. The firm is understanding, but, he’d best start performing. He’s assigned the final paperwork of the Eel Marsh House after the demise of its owner. He travels there to a village in the daily throes of recurring personal tragedies and begins piecing together the history of the house and its occupants.

Most of the mood is in the music and the minimalist approach where you’re allowed to use your imagination, a style that was not lost on me anyway. Complaints I’ve heard were that “it just wasn’t scary”, and so your mileage may vary. I for one found it scary (there, I said it), I thought Radcliffe’s character was engaging, and I had a fun (if nerve-wracking) time.


This one had the beginnings of a disaster. Unbeknownst to me, this was directed by McG, and had I known that, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with This Means War because the same guy did the Charlie’s Angels movies. I’ll allow that a very precise demographic probably liked those, but personally I thought they were way cheezy and utter rubbish.

War started off that way. The opening sequence is quite cheezy, I was immediately filled with dread, and I thought wow…what a waste of actors I so far had liked. Fortunately it picked up considerably.

Best friends…bffs really…FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) are two of the CIA’s finest operatives whose cheezy intro sets up a revenge scenario by a bad guy later in the film. This backstory is VERY minor. Through some crazy coincidences, they both (unbeknownst to each other, but totally knownst to us) end up dating Lauren (Reese Witherspoon). Once FDR and Tuck realize this, they establish some basic ground rules and then it’s basically a game of let the best man win. Whoever she ultimately chooses, no hard feelings. We’ve all been there. They then proceed to misappropriate all manner of government resources to spy on and/or sabotage each other’s efforts while both solidifying their relationships with Lauren.

The result was a pretty fun film. We enjoyed this one as a family. The violence is kept to a minimum, and the sex-related stuff isn’t much more extensive than an episode of Big Bang Theory. The acting and dialog was more than sufficient for the premise, and I’d recommend it if you like a good action/romance/comedy.


John Carter suffered from marketing problems. And perhaps overused source material. This film is based on the book A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published back in 1917. Back in the day, it had some things going for it, like people not actually knowing for certain that there wasn’t life on Mars (which, yeah, seems so “duh” now, but with the many other sci-fi goings on, this seems like a minor quibble).

At any rate, elements of this story show up in some rather famous other movies (say, Avatar, and Star Wars). It is in many ways a quintessential interplanetary adventure/romance movie. John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is a decorated cavalry man from Virginia who has suffered much personal tragedy and who is basically living out his existence hoping to find and get rich off of a hefty gold strike some day. He no longer wants anything to do with taking up anyone else’s idea of a noble cause. Through a series of unfortunate events, he finds himself transported to the surface of Mars. Events unfold which draw Carter into a civil war on another planet.

We (again, as a family) really enjoyed this one as well. It’s set on a pretty grand scale, the action was regular and exciting, character development was pretty good. If anything, parts of the movie could’ve been stretched out. They capped this at just over 2 hours, but it could’ve been another LotR type at around 3. If you like epic adventures, give this one a look.


I had zero expectations going into Machine Gun Preacher. No real idea what it as about or anything of that sort. Just expected a mediocre action flick I suppose.
The result was better than expected, but overall a pretty depressing story. Turns out in a fresh take on 300, Gerard Butler, preacher, kicks a dude in the chest, yells “THIS! IS! SPARTA!” and then blazes away on the guy with his machine gun! No? Ok, I’ll try this again, but my next attempt won’t sound near as exciting.

This is the non-documentary story of Sam Childers (a real person, played here by Gerard Butler) who is a drug using hillbilly biker dude who has anger management and law enforcement problems. He gets out of prison and over time, through the encouragement of his reformed ex-stripper-wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) discovers God and a higher calling. He needs to get involved and go help out over in Africa (I think he starts out in Uganda). And sure, he’s helping people in serious need of help, but he catches wind of much bigger problems up in southern Sudan, and it’s there that he feels his strongest calling. He then perseveres with the process of setting up an orphanage to provide refuge for kids away from the ravages of war. Needless to say, this is not a light topic for discussion. His burning passion to save these children very nearly destroys his own family (already on the edge from his aforementioned drug issues). The do an effective job of portraying some of the ravages of war, and it’s quite a sad tale, if a bit inspirational about the effectiveness of one dedicated man.

Say hi to your mother for me

While Wahlberg’s stuff will typically never be competing for best picture at the Academy Awards, he tends to turn in some pretty good action. Here in Contraband, that continues.

Contraband starts off with our reformed smuggler Chris Farraday (Wahlberg) working a good honest job doing home security system installations while dealing with being married to Kate Farraday (played by the exquisite Kate Beckinsale…ah Kate…lovely lovely Kate…you still haven’t answered my calls…your penmanship on the restraining order is beautiful…) Ahem. Sorry, lost my train of thought there. Oh, right, and he’s a family man and they have a couple of young kids and they live in New Orleans. (call me Kate!) All is well until Andy, Kate’s idiot brother, botches a smuggling job to the tune of a pretty sizeable chunk of change owed to our bad guy, a Mr. Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi). Though reluctant to do so, yet seeing no other options, Chris steps in to do one last big smuggle in order to save the delicious Kate’s idiot relation. That sets up the movie and the tension and the action, and there are some decent twists along the way for a fairly enjoyable movie.

I enjoyed it for the action/thriller that it was, and my only complaint was not enough screen time for Ms. Beckinsale.

Now for something completely unrelated, some clips of Wahlberg here and here.

Bridesmaids

Just watched Bridesmaids. It’s lewd, it’s crude, and it’s some pretty funny stuff. This is the first wedding movie I’ve seen in a long time that moved me to tears (though to be fair, I’m a real sucker for toilet humor).

This flick is about the engagement and lead-up to the wedding for Lillian (Maya Rudolph) and her eternally unattached maid-of-honor/best-friend-since-childhood Annie (Kristen Wiig). Other bridesmaids are Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Becca (Ellie Kemper) whose relationship to Lillian I didn’t quite catch, and also Helen (Rose Byrne) who is in the same country club as her husband-to-be and Megan (Melissa McCarthy) who is the groom’s sister. There’s a power struggle between maid-of-honor Annie, who is not having the most exciting life up to this point and isn’t terribly wealthy, and Helen, who is a new best friend of Lillian and who is also rather rich. We’re also treated to some fun bits with Officer Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd of The IT Crowd).

There were many funny moments and I was routinely laughing throughout, but for my money, Melissa McCarthy’s Megan stole the show. She was a riot. So, if you enjoyed shows along the lines of 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, this was a hoot. Give it a view.

Funny and serious

Earth (the book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race is put together by the writing staff for The Daily Show on Comedy Central and is a tongue-in-cheek textbook-style format encyclopedia of sorts designed to explain to our future alien overlords just what they’re looking at when they finally arrive on this planet and start scratching their heads, wondering just what the hell we were doing here. If you’re into that sort of humor, this is pretty funny.

Breaking Bad is here to illustrate that sometimes things can be so completely different that they should, by rights, be in separate reviews, but clearly that isn’t happening.

If you remember Hal (Brian Cranston) from Malcolm in the Middle, your first order of business with Breaking Bad is to somehow extricate that character from your brain matter, possibly using a spoon if needed. The character of Walter White (Cranston again) is the polar opposite of the cheerful and misguided goofball from Malcolm. His performance here goes to show his chops as a truly superb actor. Walter is a genius chemist, and since I’m fairly early in the series, I don’t have the full background on the guy, but he’s a Nobel Prize winning chemist who, through events, is relegated to teaching high school chemistry in New Mexico. His meager earnings set the wheels to hell a rollin’ when he learns he has terminal lung cancer. Right around this time he also learns that his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) is pregnant, and they already have a nearly-grown child, Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) at home with cerebral palsy. Feeling cornered with no way to provide for the long-term future of his family once he’s gone, he “break’s bad” by getting into the underground world of producing methamphetamine with a former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Being a chemist, he has quite a knack for making high quality stuff, but his DEA Agent brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) makes for some awkward and tense moments when he’s explaining bits to Walter about some of the new meth they’re seeing crop up.

The show is intense, and so far the acting and character development are great. Definitely not kid friendly, but well worth a watch if you enjoy a good crime thriller.

A bit of light and dark

Let’s start with the dark. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia is an exercise in depression. The film certainly has some artsy scenes, and the concept has a lot of potential, but I personally didn’t care for the execution.

We start on the wedding night of Justine (Kirsten Dunst) who is having a hard time keeping herself together. It’s a lavish affair put together, hosted, and paid for by her sister Clair (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). All of this takes place in the lead-up to the projected very-near-Earth passing of planet Melancholia, a rogue planet whose existence was only recently discovered and whose trajectory isn’t well defined. Will it pass by? Will it ultimately collide?

What I didn’t like. The characters are pretty much set at the beginning, and they then go for broke within that mold. Justine is depressed and nearly unreachable. Her sister Clair is snippy and bitchy. Bro-in-law John is feeling a lack of gratitude from Justine and her husband who doesn’t need much of a mention because he’s a bit player. There are some family conflict segments of little consequence, but nobody really has any kind of cathartic moment or transformation, and it’s hard not to wonder what the point of this exercise was. That said, some of the scenes were moving for the viewer.  I can’t say I’d recommend it.

The unexpected western True Grit now, was another matter. I suppose this is rather obvious being a Coen brothers film and all, but I didn’t expect this to be as light-hearted as it was. The characters were generally charming and there were many amusing moments, and it made for a lot of fun.

The story finds us following the journey of young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a teenage girl who rolls into town to settle the affairs of her murdered father. She sets out to hire a U.S. Marshall to hunt down her father’s killer Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). What she finds is a washed up drunk by the name of Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) who has a bit of a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later, and also draws the interest of LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger with a whole lot of good old Texas swagger. Mattie’s tenacious nature, while at first annoying, tends to endear the other characters to her over the course of the adventure. Though the overall tone has less grit than the title might imply, it was quite an enjoyable movie to watch and I’d recommend checking it out.

The Element

My first exposure to Sir Ken Robinson was in a couple of TED Talks he made. He has made his life’s work studying the way education is provided around the world and looking at the things that work, as well as the things that don’t. Along the way he has had the opportunity to meet and talk with some very interesting people who seemed to thrive and succeed, not because of school, but rather in spite of it. In his book The Element, he talks about people who’ve really found their niche in life and the often very diverse ways that they’ve come to their place in life. Often it’s through great adversity. He discusses as well both areas in which modern education are completely failing their students, as well as models where students can really flourish. The overall tone and message of the book are hopeful.

I’d recommend checking this out. It’s often humorous and provides some good insight into education.

The Swedes are a bit…dark

I found this on Netflix streaming and I’m honestly not sure where else one might find this (I’ve heard rumor that in the U.S. the extended edition is available). I watched the 6-part extended edition consisting of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The whole thing comes out to some 9 hours of story. There is no sugar-coating to be done here. This is a thoroughly brutal story with some of the most horrendous bad guys I’ve seen, and not for either the faint of heart or children under the age of 27. I’ve never read the books, now I want to, but if in typical fashion the books are even better than the movies, I’m a bit nervous about what I might find in there.

These films, in my opinion, were very well done. I’m usually not one for subtitles, but as these were all made in Sweden for the Swedish, it was necessary. Despite the subtitles, they were well worth watching. The character development was excellent. Over the course of the trilogy we find out how Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace, soon to be in Prometheus) came to be the way she is, and we’re treated to some excellent acting in the character of Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). The story reels you in and then it’s pretty much non-stop sitting on the edge of your seat, biting fingernails the whole way. Like any story, you know in your heart that surely the good guys will prevail despite all of the awfulness they’re forced to trudge through, but the bad guys are so equally compelling that it’s not hard to imagine justice not being served. Plus, the whole thing is Swedish, so what if they don’t have our sense of happy endings?!

At any rate, these were excellent movies, well written, well acted, but be warned, they are very tough stuff to watch in a number of places. I’m also curious about the English version with Daniel Craig, as that seems to rate well, though it’s hard to imagine an English adaptation taking on some of the scenes in this one.

They bought a zoo

We Bought A Zoo is based on a true story. Though the original setting was England, we find ourselves in southern California in this family-friendly outing.

Our central character Benjamin Mee (Damon) is a recent widower with two young kids, and when we come in, they’re struggling. Benjamin is having a difficult time keeping himself together leaving kids Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) a bit lost themselves. Everywhere they look are constant reminders of the wife and mother that was taken from them far too early, so Benjamin decides a change of scenery is required. With adorable daughter Rosie in tow and with the help of a very eager real estate agent, they go house hunting, finally discovering a semi-rural house that seems like the perfect fit. There is, of course, one minor detail. With it comes a zoo that is currently in default and in which the animals are running out of time.

There is a pretty good balance of humor and fun mixed with some pretty heartfelt moments as this broken family tries to pick up the pieces. We all enjoyed the story at our house, and I’d recommend giving it a view. One quick note, Elle Fanning does a pretty good job in Super 8, but don’t expect that here. Her character’s a minor part though, so that helps.

Finally got around to reading this

I’d heard about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for years. It’s a nerd staple, and when it appeared in casual conversation, it seemed like I was the only one who hadn’t read it, and that was quite odd apparently. This in and of itself is a small pinch of irony when we consider the content here. This book is, I think it’s safe to say, VERY odd itself. The author, Mr. Adams, died rather young and one can’t help but wonder if long-time use of hallucinogenics were involved.

The basic setup is this. Our regular everyman Arthur Dent is having a problem. The district where he lives wants to basically use eminent domain to relocate him so that they can demolish hi house so an expressway can proceed through the area where his house currently resides. As you might imagine, he’s rather put out by this turn of events. It is shortly after we learn this that Arthur learns that an alien race has essentially claimed eminent domain over planet Earth and intend to demolish earth so that an intergalactic expressway can be put in. This is how it starts, and then it proceeds to get silly from there.

The humor comes along very regularly and is often very odd. There is a story here, though I found it to be rather non-traditional. It wasn’t terribly long, I enjoyed the read, and intend to finish the 5-book “trilogy” to see what happens next. I’ll be honest, this might not be for everyone, but if you like a little bit of the unusual from time to time, check it out.

This blog post will self destruct…

Just watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and holy crap!

I’m a big fan of Brad Bird’s. The guy seems to really be in his element with this whole “making awesome movies” thing (Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and others).

This is apparently his first live-action outing, and the guy really delivers. There’s not much playing it safe here. In true MI fashion, the tasks are nigh-impossible, the story larger than life, and for action they really put the pedal to the metal. Our story opens with these guys on the trail of a smart and dangerous villain who manages to blow up the Kremlin and pin it on the IMF group. The U.S. government then initiates ghost protocol which essentially disavows the whole lot. They are officially completely and entirely on their own. Their choice is to try to disappear, or to try and clear their names. The story is really good and the action is quite intense. I give full props to Mr. Cruise for doing his own running around on the side of a building work. A solid supporting cast made this a whole lot of fun, and I’d highly recommend a viewing.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

I just finished the final book of the popular “young adult” series The Hunger Games (book for those who don’t know are: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay).

I prefer “young adult” to “teen fiction” as it lets me continue to pretend I’m not slumming it too bad, and hey, the content is rather dark. I digress…

The gist of the story takes place in the distant dystopian future where society as we know it today has long since collapsed, and is now organized into a group of 12 district managed by a central capitol. Due to a failed uprising some 70+ years prior to where we come in, the ruling government has instituted “the hunger games” as a constant reminder of the dangers or revolt by making each provide two young kids (teens), a boy and a girl, each year in a match where they fight to the death, with the lone survivor winning eternal glory and a better life for themselves and their immediate family upon their return home. Cheery stuff it ain’t.

The books read pretty quick. They’re not overly large (there are no Harry Potter book five’s here), but the character development is pretty solid for the main characters, and the situations and action are pretty imaginative stuff. I have yet to see the first movie but will be interested to compare. Overall, I’d recommend giving these a read if the basic premise sounds good to you.