Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
A Sports' Writer's Take On Movies, Traveling, And Getting Old
Joe Posnanski gives Up In The Air two thumbs up. Here are my two favorite paragraphs:
"I have not seen a great movie in a long time. It seems like I used to see great movies constantly — every few weeks, at least. Good movies were great. Mediocre movies could be great too. Maybe it is because my expectations were different. Maybe it’s because i was different. I could get lost in a movie when I was younger. It didn’t have to be brilliantly acted or snappily written or even plausible … as long as it had something real about it, something that could take me from here to there … I would go. I could go. Maybe that’s a child’s gift. I could disappear. The bright lights when the movie ended were blinding...
When Up in the Air ended, I wanted to sit there for a while and think about it. Maybe it was because I travel so much. Maybe it seemed well written. Maybe I like George Clooney. Whatever, this was an old feeling — the feeling I used to have about movies when I was a kid. I think the movie was great, truly great, but I’m not sure about that. In my younger, movie-loving days, it did not matter if the movie was “good” or “bad” or “OK” or any of the places in between. All that mattered was the feeling when it was over."
Read the whole post.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Questions About Terminator Salvation
My dad (Pete) and I watched Terminator Salvation last week. We both enjoyed it. (Dad only slept through twenty minutes of it.)
Neither of us had watched the earlier Terminators in a few years. We are not Terminator junkies. I think both of us saw the second one before we saw the first one. I don't remember ever seeing Terminator 3, so maybe that holds the answers to our questions. So as much as we enjoyed it, we were both dumbfounded by it.
How in the world can Skynet "the machines" create a Terminator out of the murderer Marcus, get him to do everything they want, then have him turn? Don't you think "the machines" would have been able to predict him turning? Don't you think they would have known to immediately kill Connor's father Kyle Reese? Why would they allow any humans to survive? And what is the point of the whole movie series. We know the end. John Connor saves the human race from the machines. He even sends his own father back to procreate with his mother. (Think about this for a minute. He chooses his own father.) He wins. He is destined to win. The audio tapes his mother leaves him ensures him of his future. (And as my dad pointed out, cassette tapes don't last that long.) I get this idea that "There is no fate, but what we make." But shouldn't there be some type of Back to the Future moment where John Connor's picture fades or his tapes become blank or disappear.
Maybe the point is to trust your instincts. Maybe the point is you need some type of faith to achieve success in life. Those are good messages, but probably, the big point is not to take Hollywood movies too seriously, especially if they are about time travel.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
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