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football / movies / Thursday / video — Comments Off
6
Dec 12

The there-ness of it

What I’ll be doing next May:

I don’t think he’s Kahn. I think he’s Gary Mitchell even less. That’s part of the fun at this point, but you don’t even want to allow yourself that much fun. You know, eventually, you’re going to find out who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing. There will be one too many teasers, or interviews. Someone will see it and write it online. Best not to suspend disbelief at all, then, right?

That shot of the ship stumbling into the water is impressive, though.

My high school was in the state championship football game tonight at Jordan-Hare. I don’t follow them at all — haven’t been to a game since my senior year — but they’ve had a great season. They came into the night 14-0. Their defense hadn’t allowed more than two scores in any one game all season.

The head coach struggled and stammered his way through an embarrassing health class my sophomore year.

They apparently lost their quarterback at the start of the season. The kid calling plays is really a defensive player; still, he’s done well.

Despite a handful of NFL players and more than their share of kids making big college teams this was the first time my school has been in the big game. They let the kids check out early to make the trip to the game. And they’re letting them check in late tomorrow if they made the trip.

They played one of the state’s powerhouses, and they were in rhythm tonight. My school was badly beaten.

They were showing the net yards on the scoreboard. My alma mater broke 100 yards three times. They’d get over and then there was a penalty, moving them back. They’d get over and then turn over the ball. They’d get over and then suffer a sack. This was in the third quarter, when it had become clear that everything was going right for one team and wrong for the other.

The student body cheers, apparently, haven’t changed. The band is not as good as I remember.

One of the players, after the game, said “We had good chemistry on this team … We laughed. We had fun. Now we’re crying, but we did it all.”

But, hey, they made it there. Played on one of the big fields, saw themselves on the big HD screen, got a runners-up trophy for the big display case, met Bo Jackson — the most famous alumni — and dressed in the same locker room he once used. They made it there.

“It was a good season.”

collarbone / iPhone / movies / music / photo / Samford / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
28
Nov 12

Where I complain about feeling bad, and also, Meat Loaf

I worked with students. I had a critique meeting with the newspaper staff. We discussed how we managed to leave an entire question, ‘Why?’ out of a story.

But at least we managed to reference something from 1939 in that piece which didn’t really matter much at all to the story today. Z has now happened, which was a logical conclusion of X, which brought about Y. And now here’s a tale of B, C and D.

That’s the way of it sometimes.

I told one funny story. I worked on this for much of the afternoon:

I had a headache and various other aches. This hurt and that hurt and my shoulder was bothering me for no reason at all and my collar bone was weird and on and on. Pretty rough for most of the day. By the evening I was in a foul mood of my own creation and for no good or real reason.

So I watched Memorial Day, which was what a movie that’s not trying to be a movie might look like.

This is interesting. Here is the trailer from the movie’s distributor:

And here is the trailer, YouTube says, “From the actual filmmakers. Not the distributors.”

I wonder what brought that on. Which of these movies would you rather see?

If you like the Cromwells, this movie is worth seeing. Everyone else is just holding serve, but that’s OK. When your film is about a flashback within a flashback the leads are running the show anyway.

I watched the Jackson Browne DVD, Going Home, but it didn’t fit my mood.

So I soothed myself with Meat Loaf:

Tomorrow will be better. Has to be more delightful than this one.

movies / photo / Storify / Thursday / Twitter — Comments Off
15
Nov 12

The last Twilight Twitter fest

Thankfully these dreadful, dreadful movies are behind us. To sum up: somewhere along the way The Yankee started reading these books. She wanted to see the first movie. Figuring I owed her a movie for some horrible thing I made her watch I went along. I made fun of it on Twitter because it was just horrible and over the years this has been an event, making fun of the movies with a running commentary from inside the theater.

It has become a minor hit and, lucky you, I’ve archived them all. That includes the last installment. We saw it tonight, before most of the country, apparently. (I spoiled nothing below.)

The first movie is at the top. If you want to skip to the most recent movie Storify will continue to load as you scroll. Just do a word search for “And now, the fifth bad movie” and you’ll find yourself at the beginning of my last Twilight commentary.

I am glad this is over, though it was amusing to make fun of it and, as always, nice to make so many people laugh.

books / history / iPhone / movies / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
24
Oct 12

Mussolini at Chick-fil-A

Had dinner at Chick-fil-A tonight. Took a piece of paper to give to one of the guys I often see working there. He always asks me what I’m reading. We’ve talked about the various things we enjoy. I read a lot of history. He said he reads a lot about the Revolutionary War period.

So I’d promised I’d bring him a list of things that I’ve read. I spent a few minutes in my library one day last week writing down names and titles. I pulled images from Amazon to put over the names of the books. I gave it to him tonight. He was happy, smiling, pleased, thanked me.

But then I wondered: Maybe he doesn’t really read about this period. Maybe he was just being nice. Now, maybe, he’s wondering why some guy brings him this piece of paper.

So I got my food, found a table and continued reading Jonathan Alter’s The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope — which is good, if you like Alter or Roosevelt. Alter is a fine writer, but he’s a Roosevelt apologist and, really, there’s been enough of that. But I did learn about Roosevelt’s role in contributing re-writes to Gabriel Over the White House, a movie meant to “prepare” the American constituency for a dictator who, ultimately, executes his enemies in the shadows of the Statue of Liberty. This was actually produced and put in theaters. There’s some of that about 62 minutes in and then you’ll see a Star Chamber immediately thereafter. Roosevelt wrote to William Randolph Hearst, who produced the film, that he thought it would be “helpful.”

You can watch the full movie here:

The Library of Congress says about the film, “The good news: he reduces unemployment, lifts the country out of the Depression, battles gangsters and Congress, and brings about world peace. The bad news: he’s Mussolini.”

Happily we didn’t go down those roads, but then again, in 1933 with the Depression on, people in the U.S. thought a lot about Mussolini. Il Duce was in the midst of his successful years. He was winning people over as a dictator with public works, improved jobs, public transport and more. It’d be a few more years until everyone turned on the guy. In 1933 desperate people looked at him and thought, Why not?

So anyway, I’m sitting there, trying to wrap up this book so I can move on to the next thing, and these two ladies sitting nearby are discussing the music they’ll perform in their church choir’s Christmas performance.

They’re flipping through three-ring binders. As it often happens when music people discuss music things there was a bit of singing. The lady on the right was pointing out parts to the one on the left.

A guy comes up, a contractor of some sort based on his clothes, and he says “You sure make that beautiful song beautiful.”

She did have a nice voice.

collarbone / Friday / iPhone / movies / video — Comments Off
19
Oct 12

Autumn breezes

Not the best day today. Tried to ride my stationary bike a little, but there was nothing gratifying about it. I don’t think that did it, but I felt pretty lousy for the rest of the day thereafter. My shoulder I mean, hurt in ways it hasn’t for a while.

So I guess I’m in the good days and bad days phase? OK, fine. I missed the scar tissue sequence that I was promised was such a joy. My therapy was unexciting, but not horrible as promised. I have more good days than bad. I can deal with all that.

If I just sit very still.

Shot this video late in the afternoon. Didn’t come out quite as I’d hoped. The way the sun was dancing in the leaves was beautiful, and I didn’t quite capture it. But this is still pretty nice:

I dozed off in my chair this evening. I’ll blame the medication. Had dinner and found myself wide awake. Great. Another one of those nights.

So I watched Valkyrie. It wasn’t that great. IMDB notes:

David Bamber (Adolf Hitler) is the only non-German cast member who speaks with a German accent. The filmmakers felt that audiences would be distracted by Hitler speaking in Bamber’s natural British accent.

Because everyone else speaking in their native, non-German accented English was perfectly normal sounding. At least five of the generals, for example, were played by English actors.

I’m on a two-movie streak right now. Previously I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which had both Gary Oldman and Colin Firth and refused to go anywhere. Maybe the point was: The spy game isn’t as exciting as movies suggest. And here’s a guy that’s been killed most brutually.

So I guess the next movie I TiVo should be an obvious winner. Or maybe I should just stick with watching the leaves.