movies

so i just finished that last post, but nellie is still photoshopping our christmas card, so ill keep on writing. a bunch of movies are coming out in time for christmas, along with all of the oscar hopefuls, so here are some quick thoughts:

before i get anywhere though, ghost town comes out on video on dec. 28th. everything about this movie has been strange and upsetting. it didnt do well in the box office even though its hands down the funniest movie of the year and possibly the funniest movie ever. not sure why they are releasing the dvd on the 28th. perfect timing. it will come out during that week after christmas when people are shopping like crazy and everyone is thinking about a great dvd they can by a loved one. regardless of the poor timing, do yourself a favor and go out and buy it. its the best movie you havnt seen. dont even rent it. its worth the $20.

another quick movie comment. rotten tomatoes created a list of its 25 best christmas movies. there were a couple problems with the list. somehow 'its a wonderful life' wasnt number 1. i dont know how thats possible. i know its cliche to say that is the best christmas movie, but it really is. nellie by the way doesnt like that movie. i just found that out the other day. thats necessary pre marriage info that one needs. not that it would have been a deal breaker, but it was really a struggle for me when i found out.

but my other complaint with the movie, besides die hard being number 3 on the list (which makes no sense to me. what makes you think more of christmas than die hard and gremlins - also on the list) was the fact that 'love actually' wasnt on the list. thats another fantastic movie. one of the best feel good movies. everything works out for everybody. its almost over the top in the way it all works out, but its so feel good that you dont mind at all. find that one on a cable channel and tivo it. its great.

holiday stuff:


valkyrie: in commenting about how he wasnt going to go see this movie, my friend dave mentioned how the previews and the design look a lot like the oceans 11 movies. and its true. they have that red line that travels through some gray background, and they make it look all hip. which is fine and understandable. assassinating hitler is really hip. i bet it was totally the thing to do back in the day. but what about that eye patch? when was the last time anyone not a pirate successfully pulled off the eye patch? i know that they are trying to base this off the true story, but we all know that everything in the movie wont be exactly how it went. couldnt this have been a part that they altered from the original story? i havnt seen it, but is the eye patch that integral to the story? surely they cant take themselves seriously with that thing, so i dont know how i can.

not sure if we will see it. probably wont take nellie to go see it, but if the family is going over the holidays, then i would go. otherwise, i doubt it.

marley and me: you know who likes animal movies? ron. that was always a running joke in our house growing up. whenever my dad went to rent a video, we always had to make sure someone went with him, otherwise he would come home with some movie that starred, or co-starred an animal. lets be honest though, who doesnt love a good animal movie? nellie loves them. thats why she's getting the beethoven trilogy for christmas. along with ed.

same as above on seeing this one. i actually wouldnt mind it, but wont go unless its some holiday family outing.

yes man and seven pounds: ive seen the trailers for both of these movies and one movie i feel like i know already what happens and the other i have no idea what is even going on; and i dont think thats a good thing for either one.

yes man: not entirely sure. jim carrey always says no and is negative. starts saying yes. realizes that he enjoys it and really 'starts living life.' it probably gets out of control. he hurts people somehow. in the end there is some moral about saying yes to more things and enjoying life. i dont know. this movie probably isnt terrible and probably has some funny moments, i dont see how this one couldnt wait until dvd though.

seven pounds: um. not sure what the heck is going on. will smith trying to be dramatic and the movie trying to be deeper than it really is. maybe its powerful and heartfelt, but it cant be a good sign when they wont tell you anything about the story and critics havnt been very kind in their reviews. i enjoy a lot of what will smith does, but i think ill pass.

the spirit: i thought from the previews that this would for sure be rated r. somehow its not though and its only pg-13. looks visually stimulating and thats about it. i cant see myself seeing this unless many people tell me its great and that i need to go, which i also cant see happening.

oscar stuff:

benjamin button: nellie and i will go see this one. nellie has wanted to ever since she saw the trailer. it does look great. seems like a great story. plus it has such a nice, inspirational soundtrack. watch the preview. youll be humming the music to yourself and fantasizing that you are as cool as brad pitt and that you too are riding on some motorcycle in the middle of somewhere really cool on your way to do something even cooler. i know im not the only one that does this. nellie does it too. she told me. im pretty sure though that in her fantasy, brad is also on the bike. thats not true. its eric bana. she loves that chump.



gran torino: i hope im like clint eastwood when i grow up. i hope i find something that i love and that the older i get the more dominant and good at it i get. the guy is pushing at least 110, yet he still cranks out movies. but he doesnt need to make stuff to establish himself, nor to try to impress his friends. he's already won tons of oscars. he just seems to love it and he's good at it, so he continues to make stuff. unlike seven pounds, i know there is more to this story than what i see in the previews. its clint eastwood so he's for sure tapping into some heavier topics and issues with the movie. he always does, i dont know what they are, but you know it will be thought provoking. he could take 'house bunny' and somehow find a way to discuss some societal issue.

the other rad thing about clint, he does the music for all his movies. rad. who knew such an old dude had such a good ear? i heard that he, like lavell edwards, has perfect pitch.

the wrestler: the sports guy did an article about this show. everything he writes is better than anything i could ever write, especially when he is discussing pop culture and movies. critics are loving this show and it looks like a really interesting story about a terribly messed up 'sport.'

another rated r movie and a bunch of others: revolutionary road, the reader, frost/nixon, slumdog millionaire. they are all getting lots of 'buzz.' ive only heard things about the last two.i guess i shouldnt lump them all together since they are vastly different. everyone raves about slumdog and frost/nixon looks like a legitimately interesting story that i would like to see. im sure the other ones are good as well. they just look like movies that people in hollywood make for other people in hollywood or oscar people and really its only the oscar people that enjoy them. not that its bad to make a movie for your peers, but they definitely seem more like they are geared or made to try and win awards than win over audiences or the masses. not that thats a bad thing necessarily. sometimes when movies are made to try and please the masses then you come up with stuff like this.

doubt: the only reason its not lumped with the other ones is because its rated pg-13. no idea what its about. some catholic priest and he doubts something. or he knows someone that doubts something. there is a nun involved so maybe she is the one that doubts something. or maybe she doubts that he doubts something. or they both doubt the other ones knows they doubt, but they also doubt that as well, leaving room for more doubt. chances of seeing it: doubtful (it actually doesnt look bad. i am pretty intrigued. like phillip seymour hoffman, but i just cant see us actually going to the theaters and watching this show).

rsvp

so society struggles with rsvp'ing. thats probably too much of a blanket statement and generalization. but i think people really do have a problem with it. i feel i can say that because im one of those people and i have a problem with rsvp'ing. but in the past few months i have had a few occasions where i needed people to rsvp and they didnt. and it was somewhat frustrating. yet just last week i realized i did the exact same thing that people do to me when i didnt rsvp. well, i did, but super late. my friends were throwing a birthday party and i was sent an invitation a week in advance and i knew right when i got the invitation email that nellie and i couldnt go. we already had plans that we couldnt get out of that night and we just werent going to be able to go. i knew that as i was reading the email. i could have immediately responded and said that we couldnt go. instead, i waited until the afternoon before the party to rsvp. better late than never i guess. but pretty much worthless at that point. which made me think about rsvp'ing and why people dont.

assumption: you know what they say about assuming things. thats right. somehow it both turns us into donkeys. granted, many times, assumptions with rsvp'ing are valid. like my family assuming that they dont need to rsvp to our wedding. they didnt, it was a valid assumption. i knew they had bought plane flights from seattle or just that they were coming and i could assume they were going to come so we should buy them a plate for the luncheon. but tons of other people didnt rsvp. we had no idea how many people were actually going to show up.

a good rsvp'er is ryan darby. its as though he has planned many events in his day. he'll always respond. we invited him to run a race with us in april, fully knowing that his wife is due to have a baby within a week of the race. we knew he couldnt run, but we still wanted to invite him to let him know that we wished he could run. anyways, of the 10 or so people we sent the email to, he was the only one to respond. the only one.

anyways, there are other reasons people dont rsvp, but while writing this i started getting bored. im realizing that this is probably one of those things that you think about while at work or while waiting for people to rsvp to some sort of event you are trying to put together, but when you place your thoughts onto paper, or a blog, it turns out to be pretty boring and lame thoughts to actually share with other people. really not that important or interesting. so one day, if we are ever stranded on a desert island or on a road trip and we have exhausted all other conversation topics, i suppose we can resume this one. of course, if it ever gets that bad, maybe we should just pull over for snacks, or start swimming instead.

pilgrims and indians

i know that thanksgiving has already passed and that we are steamrolling into christmas, but i still wanted to quickly post this. i already showed this to most of my family and im sure other people have already seen this, but its worth a few quick thoughts. this particularly hit home not just because i grew up in claremont, but i went to condit elementary school and participated in this tradition. the two elementary schools are on the same street about a mile away from each other. i cant exactly remember what i dressed up as. i think i was a pilgrim because i feel like i remember 'hosting' the meal and i dont remember walking to the other elementary school. im sure my sister lark would remember, because we were two years apart, so whatever she was, i would have been the same. anyways, there are 6 kids in my family, we all went to condit elementary and thus we all participated in this tradition. pretty cool and also pretty typical of this issue to occur in claremont. its a great and safe community, perfect for growing up. but it is a university town, home to 5 small, liberal arts schools, so you have a lot of nonsense going on as well. anyways, here is the article, with some of my thoughts after:

"For decades, Claremont kindergartners have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as pilgrims and Native Americans and sharing a feast. But on Tuesday, when the youngsters meet for their turkey and songs, they won't be wearing their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests.

Parents in this quiet university town are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent: A simple child's depiction of the traditional (if not wholly accurate) tale of two factions setting aside their differences to give thanks over a shared meal? Or a cartoonish stereotype that would never be allowed of other racial, ethnic or religious groups?

"It's demeaning," Michelle Raheja, the mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School, wrote to her daughter's teacher. "I'm sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation's history." 1

Raheja, whose mother is a Seneca, wrote the letter upon hearing of a four-decade district tradition, where kindergartners at Condit and Mountain View elementary schools take annual turns dressing up and visiting the other school for a Thanksgiving feast. This year, the Mountain View children would have dressed as Native Americans and walked to Condit, whose students would have dressed as Pilgrims.

Raheja, an English professor at UC Riverside who specializes in Native American literature, said she met with teachers and administrators in hopes that the district could hold a public forum to discuss alternatives that celebrate thankfulness without "dehumanizing" her daughter's ancestry.

"There is nothing to be served by dressing up as a racist stereotype," she said. 2

Last week, rumors began to circulate on both campuses that the district was planning to cancel the event, and infuriated parents argued over the matter at a heated school board meeting Thursday. District Supt. David Cash announced at the end of the meeting that the two schools had tentatively decided to hold the event without the costumes, and sent a memo to parents Friday confirming the decision.

Cash and the principals of Condit and Mountain View did not respond to interview requests.

But many parents, who are convinced the decision was made before the board meeting, accused administrators of bowing to political correctness.

Kathleen Lucas, a Condit parent who is of Choctaw heritage, said her son -- now a first-grader -- still wears the vest and feathered headband he made last year to celebrate the holiday.

"My son was so proud," she said. "In his eyes, he thinks that's what it looks like to be Indian."

Among the costume supporters, there is a vein of suspicion that casts Raheja and others opposed to the costumes as agenda-driven elitists. Of the handful of others who spoke with Raheja against the costumes at the board meeting, one teaches at the University of Redlands, one is an instructor at Riverside Community College, and one is a former Pitzer College professor.

Raheja is "using those children as a political platform for herself and her ideas," Constance Garabedian said as her 5-year-old Mountain View kindergartner happily practiced a song about Native Americans in the background. "I'm not a professor and I'm not a historian, but I can put the dots together." 3

The debate is far from over. Some parents plan to send their children to school in costume Tuesday -- doubting that administrators will force them to take them off. The following day, some plan to keep their children home, costing the district attendance funds to punish them for modifying the event.

"She's not going to tell us what we can and cannot wear," said Dena Murphy, whose 5-year-old son attends Mountain View. "We're tired of [district officials] cowing down to people. It's not right." 4

But others hoped that tempers would calm over the long holiday weekend, and the community could come together to have a fruitful discussion about Thanksgiving and its meaning.

"Its always a good thing to think about, critically, how we teach kids, even from very young ages, the message we want them to learn, and the respect for the diversity of the American experiences," said Jennifer Tilton, an assistant professor of race and ethnic studies at the University of Redlands and a Claremont parent who opposes the costumes." 5

1. ok, the first reaction to this quote is that this lady is just ridiculous and her quote is asinine. but ill try and understand the comparison. all involved groups abusing another group. the pilgrims or settler eventually did abuse the indians in various ways for centuries. i dont think any american would ever deny that. just like no american would ever deny how bad slavery was. the nazis and jews, well, thats in a league of its own, but still, it was a group abusing another group, by mass execution.

now, i dont think its worth really getting into, but its hard comparing history because while 'history repeats itself,' history is also never the same. you can compare these groups yet at the same time they are so different its not worth comparing. the way the nazis viewed the jews is the result of the brainwashing of a psychologically sick group of dictators. slavery on the american continent is a result of centuries of groups feeling a sense of superiority over another group for whatever reason. doesn't mean its alright, but its been done throughout all of history. sadly, it just extended to the american continent. pilgrims or settlers and indians was unlike anything else in all of history. literally like alien encounters. there are various reasons the two groups clashed with each other.

look, one can make historical comparisons all day long, but just as easily find differences. so while there may be the comparison that all of these groups abused the other groups and that makes it bad to dress children up like the groups; there is also the extreme difference that before any of that started, and unlike the other groups, these two groups lived peaceably with one another. no one is talking about celebrating when one group tried to destroy another group or celebrating that, rather its an extremely unique moment in history when two groups as alien and as foreign to each other as the world has ever known, got together and helped each other survive.

2. so it appears that this is more of the issue then: the costumes. at least thats what the parent seems to indicate. as i recal, the costumes involve construction paper headbands and feathers and maybe a vest made from a brown paper bag. i know that they didnt have construction paper back in the 1600's, and im not trying to be an ignorant american, but didnt indians sort of dress like that? seriously though. did they not wear headbands? with feathers? maybe a vest made of some sort of animal skin? honestly, if im off, id like to know. i dont think its proper to mock any group of people, but i dont think paper bag vest made by a kindergartener is so completely off as a representation of clothing that the indians actually wore. and im being serious. these kids are 5. they dont have much at their disposal.

are people upset that we are remembering them/stereotyping them as people that wear feathers and walk around in a loin cloth? if so, no one is saying that you do it now, just that your ancestors at one point did. if thats their beef then thats just lame. get over it. i mean, im a mormon. people will forever think i have 8 wives. people will always comment about it. you have to hope and assume they know we still dont have many wives. if they do, then you just look at them and get upset that they breathe the same oxygen as you because they are an idiot.

3. this lady is awesome. i dont know her. but you can tell she was just livid about this situation. she's the type of mother that gets so upset about the situation that she makes her child dress up as an indian and then she puts on her own pocohantus outfit to upset the demonstrators even more. the only real upsetting part is that she's probably like 43 and her body shouldnt be allowed anywhere near pocohantus mini-dresses.

4. see 3. especially mini-dress part.

5. i dont really have anything new to say here. again, i think im just missing something here. i dont understand if the issue is the costumes or upset about thanksgiving. if its the costumes, are they really that off? if its upset about thanksgiving or the message these kids are getting at a young age, i dont really understand what harmful message they could be getting this young. they are 5, so all they get out of it is that the pilgrims and indians ate one time together. it was a big feast that included turkey and rice crispy treats for dessert. and then they all got to play on the playground together.

economy solution (?)

the other day i rode the elevator with a random stranger.  for whatever reason he started spouting off to me about the economy.  no 'hello's' or anything, just 'hi im a total stranger and now im going to start talking to you as though we are longtime friends about a random subject.'  anyways, he told me that there was yet another bailout that was happening and that the government should just give every citizen $1,000,000 instead of bailing out all of these businesses.  ive received some email forwards that have proposed this same theory, so this man wasnt the first person to present this idea.  now im no economist, but i just dont think it would work.  it sounds like a great idea to all of us commoners and in an ideal world it could work.  you and i, and other responsible adults would probably be wise and prudent with our $1,000,000.  i know i would pay off all my student loans (pay back debt to the government), we would probably buy a house and pay for all of it or a huge portion of it (and not default on our loan and help the housing market), we would probably make a fun purchase, like a new car (and thus help the economy) and then we would invest a large portion as well (thus helping stocks and other areas that currently could use some investors).  

anyways, like i said, im no economist so i dont even know if every person that received $1,000,000 spent it prudently, if it would even save all the failing businesses.  you would think it would since people could pay off their houses and invest in the economy.  but the bottom line is that we all arent prudent and reasonable, in fact, most arent.  and when the man was telling me about 'his idea,' it made me think of a clip from the chappelle show, which perfectly explains what would really happen if the masses were given a huge chunk of money.  (note:  this clip does come from the chappelle show, therefore the language and content isnt entirely family friendly)

Dave Chappelle-Reparations For Slavery | Funny Jokes at JibJab