What is...

...this!

i want one. Now. Seriously. Where must i steal one?

Gran Cinema

Went out with Will and Marc last night from school. We took in the critically acclaimed (and for once, correctly) Gran Torino, starring Clint Eastwood and directed by the same. If you liked Million Dollar Baby, you'll love this film. If you didn't like Million Dollar Baby because it was too dark or sad, you'll still love Gran Torino.

i know that every film out there now claims to be a moving story of redemption, but it could not be more true of any other movie. The movie tackles what it means to come to terms with a lifetime of mistakes and regret and make a few good choices before it's all over. Along the way, it tackles in a meaningful and realistic way, issues of racism, cultural boundaries and customs, morals, parenting, war, faith, and love.

Largely, this is a movie made up of relationships, much like Million Dollar Baby. What's interesting is that while Clint Eastwood is a part of almost every relationship, there are so many of them and they all contribute to an amazing picture. His relationship with his now deceased wife, his petty adult children and their even pettier children. His relationship with the Hmong neighbors, particularly their son, and also with his wife's young just-out-of seminary priest. Even his relationships with his old dog and beautiful, mint condition, 1972 Gran Torino come into play.

It's one of the best movies i've ever seen, and i highly recommend it. There is strong language and a great deal of racial epitaphs, but there is no sexuality or gratuitous violence. In fact, the violence is greatly downplayed and most of the movie is about the good and decent relationship forged between Clint and his neighbors. Only about 10% of the movie is as dark as the preview.

Good previews before the movie: Taken, The International. Also, The Soloist looks phenomenal, absolutely fantastic.

Sweet predictability

You know how comforting it is to go to McDonald's sometimes? You know it's not gourmet, it's not home cooking, it's not good for you... but you know exactly what it will taste like and where the bathroom is and you always think it'll be better than it is.

That's what the Daily Show is for me. It's familiar. It's always the same. It's slightly stale. It's not the best out there, but it'll do. And i know... what to expect.

i watched the coronation today and i knew as i watched it precisely which things John Stewart would make fun of, which ones he wouldn't, and how he would do it. It was cake.

i knew he'd poke fun at how Rick Warren said Obama's kids' names. i knew he'd poke fun at the Reverend's closing prayer, but in a cute soft way. i knew he'd make fun of Cheyney in a wheelchair. And i knew he wouldn't make fun of Obama's complete inability to get through his oath of office, despite 8 years of making fun of Bush's blunders.

Then finally... i was surprised... slightly. i noticed that Obama's speech was largely exactly the same as dozens of speeches Bush gave. Not the same ideas... but many were the exact same words. So John did manage to put together a montage of the clips. i'll hopefully have that soon as a link. i'd rather not do the work myself.

Ah, predictability... feels like home.

Identity v. Unity

So, i'm struggling today, on this the day of President Barack Obama's coronation... er... inauguration as the 44th president of the United States of America. First of all, why does 1/2 + 1/2 = 1/2 suddenly? No one is half a person. Is a person who is half black only/all black if it makes them historically relevant and more electable? i could just imagine how difficult it would have been if his father's last name had been Guzenberg or Raphael or Wong to claim (or for his campaigners) to label him only as black.

This brings me to the problem i have with all the fuzzy math. How can we ever have racial harmony, let alone equality, if we still conform to labels? These are labels that don't only mean nothing in light of (now) very old genetic research, but which don't mean anything on the surface with a "white" and "black" parent.

i just finished watching Huckleberry Finn (1974) this weekend. At one point, Jim, Huck's escaping slave friend, begins to bleed and Huck says, "Jim, your blood is red just like mine!" Jim answers, "Huck, you didn't know that?" i think Morgan Freeman said it best when asked how to get rid of racism in an interview on 60 Minutes...

"Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."

i don't think that necessarily ignoring race is the best way to truly bring about unity or equality, but i think a start would be to all start making a concerted and clear effort to recognize it as a human construction that has been just as damaging as any man-made barrier or written law. Until people start saying, "i'm a person, i'm a citizen, i'm a human being with the same blood running through my veins, standing on the same earth created by someone who loves me because i am made in the very image of the divine," this country will move toward divisiveness every day, and away from the unity we so desperately need.

i think there's a good chance Barack Obama understands this far better than most of those who support or campaigned for him. i hope that in his position as influential leader, he can bring some change to the way we think and uphold racial barriers through labels and rhetoric.

Bogart

i took a movie actor quiz and it said i'm most like Bogart. Makes my day.

I wanna watch The Watchmen

So, many of you read my previous post on how spectacular the preview for The Watchmen was and how badly it made me want to see it. Well, i didn't know much about it before apart from some basic snipits in the super hero world.

However, as i told you a few weeks ago, i've joined a book group that is reading graphic novels, and our second one for the month of February (just prior to the movie's release in early March) is The Watchmen. Even with all my studying and classwork, i've nearly devoured it. It's a massively huge and detailed novel, which made the top 100 list of Time's best novels of the 20th century. It's phenomenal.

i've now seen more previews and behind the scenes footage and interviews. It probably has more detail than any movie ever made, including Titanic. In fact, it's like Titanic times 10. Why? Titanic's director only had one time period, one specific to a couple of weeks on a location as small as (yes, small) as the Titanic. The Watchmen spans 1938 to the late 1980's and is global in its scope. (It also includes Mars and other dimensions)

Also, some very exciting actors have joined the project, including Billy Crudup (Almost Famous, Sleepers, Mission Impossible III) and a personal favorite of mine, Carla Gugino (Snake Eyes, Sin City, American Gangster, Righteous Kill, The Unborn). i'm also interested to see how stars who most recently have played in chick flicks, Malin Akerman (The Proposal, 27 Dresses, Shotgun Love Dolls) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Grey's Anatomy, PS I Love You) will do as action heroes, but the previews sure give me some optimism.

Bragging a little...

On my wife that is...

She has a fun swap thing with this woman in Sweden and in exchange for some fun goodies from there, she sent the woman some hand-knitted items and this was her reaction...

Benita's blog

And so it ends...

My friend has a tradition where she posts the first sentence of the first blog of each month in the past year at the beginning of the new year. So here's 2008 at a glance...

January- Suppose you have a football team with 50 players.
February- Recently, Bill Clinton, while stumping for Hillary said that we "may need to slow down the economy to reduce global warming."
March- That's right. Greek is a fun language (note the sarcasm), and so is Latin.
April- No entries
May- I talked to several of you about this blog a week or two ago.
June- Straight from the NY Times, copied and pasted...
July- When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitled them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
August- ...are the last 10 minutes of the Daily Show and the whole thirty minutes of the Colbert Report.
September- i'll transcribe my written notes on Sunday through Wednesday soon, but here is Thursday through Saturday...
October- i like...
November- Mama Mia!
December- It occurred to me today that many of you have not seen my magazine cover album.

This just in...

Good advice from a blog i sometimes read on Christian outreach and community building:

He says to do church right...

"We look at it as relationship building and stop viewing it as information sharing."

For students of all ages...

i read a lot of articles (most forwarded from Ashley) on helpful links for students, whether they be high school, college, or grad. These are the most helpful i have found in the past year...

Sites...
Wikipedia - An online encyclopedia. Without a doubt the best place to START your search about any topic. However, if you are writing a paper, use this only as a STARTING place and use the sources listed at the bottom as resources.
IMDb - The web's best database for info on any movie, character, actor, actress, director, score, producer, tralier, trivia and mistakes! If you can dream it, it's listed on IMDb and nearly every name is a link to an article, much like Wiki.
AddAll - Probably the best tool on the web for locating books. You can search by Author, Title, Publisher, ISBN, etc and it searches 36 of the web's biggest bookstores and lists the results by price, lowest to highest. The listed price INCLUDES shipping and handling so you don't have to do the math. It also includes a link to go directly there and purchase it.
Drop.io - tool which allows private file sharing via web, email, phone or fax up to 100 MB in size. So you can send MP3's and movies and pictures in a snap.
KickYoutube - For those of you who are not content to merely watch youtube videos, but want to download and send them to friends and/or watch them later when your connection is unavailable (like for a class, presentation or retreat). Simply look up your favorite youtube video. When you're on the page to view it, go up to html and insert the word "kick" immediately after the "www." and before the "youtube.com/" (For example, if the video is it will become <http://www.kickyoutube.com/watch?v=ZpBkc2jK-6w> and a bar will appear, letting you choose what format you wish to download it in)
Encalc - A free web based advanced scientific calculator to help you with long mathematical equations.

Applications...
Digsby - Allows you to use one program for AIM, Yahoo messenger, MSN, and more. You install it and sign in as you would with AIM or Yahoo or MSN and then you add accounts like the aforementioned, as well as FaceBook, MySpace, Gmail, etc. You can choose popup alerts that let you know when you've received mail or people wrote on your wall and so on. It's also a much better interface for Facebook chat, since it's similar to AIM or Yahoo.
Mozilla - Much more stable and much less of a memory hog than MS Explorer. If you don't have it, get it.

Also, if you're not using Gmail yet, what are you waiting for? It has the best interface of any webmail program by far, search capabilities for looking through old e-mails that are unparalleled, and a million other useful tools. Google calendar is among the best tools for staying organized and for sharing your schedule with significant others who need that information. Google reader is also one of the best tools for reading all your favorite blogs in one place. In conjunction with Mozilla Firefox, this is the best way to stay organized and efficient, especially if you're lazy or disorganized, but it's great for everyone.

New news...

Happy New Year!

We rung in the new year watching the UNC game. We had Kyle over and one of our favorite college kids. We watched the game and then the ball drop and then tried to find a channel with Katy Perry singing. We apparently missed that. But it's good to see our boys with another win and continuing undefeated. Great way to start the year.

My committee on preparation for ministry asked me the last two years if i was doing anything outside of school to keep up my morale essentially, like a hobby or something. i nearly laughed both times. As if i have that kind of time. Well, i decided to make some, albeit very little.

i've joined a book club. Yep, me. It'll meet once a month from now in January till June and read a book each month. That's doable. Especially since we'll be reading Graphic Novels. We start with American Born Chinese, and next month we'll read The Watchmen (especially exciting in lihgt of the new movie coming out). i'm totally stoked about that. Stay tuned.

Also: Best preview tonight before Valkyerie: X-Men Beginnings: Wolverine.
Defiance also looks spectacularly good. A note: Liev Schreiber will star in both of these films.