With Those lights, You could Power a Small Vegas.

 Well hello, out there, cyberspace. I read a little blurb that said to get readers, you need to make posts for more than once a week. The best results are daily. To that I say....mmmmnope, have better things to do. So anywho, I had a really good Veterans Day weekend. Equal parts manual labor, fun, and making an indelible impression on others. So I just got back from seeing Trans- Siberian Orchestra, as a bit of family fun. I have to say, I was impressed. More like blown away by the power of it. And by blown away, I mean just that. Using some calculations I made up on the fly, and a basis of electricity consumption that has no root in any reality whatsoever, I figured that the power used to produce this show with all the effects could have powered a small city for something like six months. It was that intense. There were lights as big as me, lights across the stage, and lights in the air. Bear in mind, that they set this up constantly. So all of this stuff is portable. Thats not even the best part. Most bands wait to release phosphorus and smoke and fire as the grand finale. Nope. These guys did it in a midshow song. And it just got bigger from there. The stage was dominated by three pairs of triangles made up of trusses, one inside the other. These triangles could raise, lower, tilt, all independent of each other. At various times they were used to simulate a vauge Christmas tree, the mouth of a beast, and free floating light platforms. ( Hey, they can't all be something ) Easily the coolest part however was a system of trusses that allowed the band members to walk in the air over the audience. It was high up, and you thought that all the lights were attached to it. Nope. It lowered down and allowed them to walk on it, and then it raised itself up a little bit so as to have them suspended in space.  There was also fire, and let me point out that this is the only band that I encountered that used fire as a percussive instrument. At one point, there was fire on the stage, but I felt really hot...only to see that there was fire( planned) behind me. It was neat. The only qualm I had was that I sat on a floding chair for the entire show, and the arena was hot. I will write more( hopefully) later as I am currently being sked to vacate the premise of the computer.
Have a good week, and you stay classy now.

Oh God, I'm becoming commercialized.

While writing this, I realized one thing- my blog is increasingly only movie reviews. Part of me is like GASP! I  must change this, so as to not conform to the other thousands of bloggers out there! ( Picture it in a really breathy voice) and the other is like Eh, screw it, just write the review. Much obliged, apathy. Much obliged.
           I just got back from watching Real Steel, staring Hugh Jackman. I wanted to see this movie for a long time, and it was worth it. Even though this ground has been trampled to death, I just want to rehash some of the key points.
Hugh Jackman is an ass for the first third of the movie. Like, if he wasn't a boxer and I wasn't a pacifist wimp, I'd beat him up. That bad. The kind of guy who seems nice but if you spend more than 24 hours in his company, he's an ass. However, the movie does a really good job of portraying the underdog, both as robots and humans. Its clear that he's supposed to be a likeable underdog, even when he is an ass.
The kid, Dakota Goyo was superbly cast. This is one of the first movies that I said to myself " Hmm, I could see this guy as his father, and this kid as his own. "
The technical design and art were awesome. I loved the visuals. The music wasn't too bad either. Scratch that, the music was great. I found myslef listening to the music to the fight scene and it transformed that scene into something even better. ( Thank you Grooveshark)
Now, I went to see this with my best friend, who convienently went to transformers three with me. Note to self: pick something other than robot movies to watch with this guy.
He pointed out it was very similar to that movie, as in we had to sit through an hour and a half to watch robots pummel each other.

I didn't like a few things in this movie. Hugh Jackman takes so long to find love, that I nearly gave up on him. I didn't like the smug, prissy arsitocratich Witch with a captial B who owned Zeus, the hoity-toity all powerful reigning champion. She is just plain straight up mean. I did not like the anger Jackman displayed at the son for a while, and I  was not happy by a montage that made up part of the closing scene. Instead of all five brutally trying bouts, it was round one, roundtwo/three/four and then five. Didn't work for me. Everyone kept drawing comparisons to Rocky, but as I have never seen the movie, I can't compare.


On a related note, last night I watched Cool Hand Luke, you know, one of those classic movies that you never get around to watch. Well, I did, and for the first part, I couldn't get what the fuss was about. About midway through, when the famous egg-eating contest is held, then the movie really started tickin'. I didn't like how long it took Luke to escape, and I didn't like the casual cruelty of the Captain at the end, when he takes him to the prison hospital, and it is almost certain he dies. I liked all the truths being spoken by Paul Newman, such as " Calling it a job don't make it right." I can see why he is such an icon. Maybe some of the reasons I didn't like it was because of the testosterone fueled extravaganza that modern movies have become.  Certainly riveting though.


Overall, both movies get an A-. Real Steel was a Rocky'/Rockem' Sockem' Robots mashup, but all the same it had a poignant heart rarely found in movies these days. Cool Hand Luke needs more incubation in the mind to fully appreciate it, but I have no doubt that it will be like a fine wine- getting better with age.

The Ides of March in Amherst.

Okay, so I realized that I had not written in this blog in a while, and also realized I wanted to procrastinate. So, here is my recap of my Weekend at Amherst and the Ides of March that I recently saw. Both were quite excellent, but in different ways.
So I got to hang out with Zach Durand this weekend at UMASS Amherst. For those of you who know me, you know how much of an influence Zach has had on me. This was an awesome experience. I realized something- he is not much different than me. I put him on a pedestal, and, to a lesser degree, college ( COLLEGE!) and going there was gratifying to see that we have a lot in common, and pedestals are not needed. We got in, went to Southwest dining hall, met Chapman( Great dude, knew him for like 10 minutes) and then went back to the frat house he lived at. A party was starting to go on, but neither of us liked that stuff, so we built a fire ( YEAH BOY SCOUTING!) and just chilled. Then we went to see the movie- more later- and came back to the party. We went and checked up on someone who got into a fracas, and it was intense, but in the vaguely unsettleing way. Seeing how people cared for each other, and the possibility to get hurt was magnified by many things made me swear to myself right then and there- I am becoming an EMT to help my friends out when they are in need. No greater test of friendship there can be. Then we hung out some more and we watched Stripes. If you have not seen this Bill Murray flick, get up and go watch it. NOW. I'll wait, seeing I was you a few hours ago. Then we went to bed at 3:00, woke up at 10:30 and had breakfast with the best darn homefries I ever had. Pretty good if I do say so myself.
                                                      Now for the movie. It was good, for a last minute pic of what to go see to avoid the party. I had heard a lot about it, and George Clooney and Ryan Gosling were expertly cast. This was a way more expressive movie than I am used to. A lot of the shots were of characters or objects, and the camera just focuses on the realization dawning on the fact as the music played. I particuarly loved the shot of Ryan Gosling breaking down in a car with rain pouring down the windshield. Half his face is clear, but they eyes are overshadowed by the pounding rain. I think the ideas present in this movie were superb. What use is loyalty when loyalty can be traded and downgraded? How do we maintain optimisim in the system when we see the compromises and nitty gritty of the way the system is in place? I love the part when Ryan Goslings character is suckerpunched by his boss. All I could think of was his advice given not five minutes earlier to an intern- " When you screw up, you lose the right to play. Permanantly" Its great, because he himself does not heed this advice that he gave out in a dark time. He cannont comprehent that he is booted off becasue of hubris, and ego. The end leaves a bit to be desired, too much like the "Does the top keep spinning, or not?" ending of Inception? But overall, the characters are superb. I love the jaded newspaper reporter who plys them for information, acting all buddy buddy. BUt when the crap hits the fan, she says " We were never friends. You give me information so I write nice things about you. Don't delude yourself further" But one of the last things she says to Ryan Gosling's charater is "C'mon, arn't we friends? Haven't we always been friends?" I think this movie was superbly done. I would welcome any other George Clooney directed movie such as this one.

Peace out, now I got to go do work to the sounds of Sandstorm.
Sounds exciting.
Ben

A Weekend at Savage's

  Hey guys, even though its Thursday,  I want to talk about my weekend. It was, in a few words, mindblowingly awesome. Started off on Friday... I won Homecoming King. I WON HOMECOMING KING!!!! Now, I know that this is tooting my own horn, but here's the thing- I fully did not expect to get it. I convinced myself that others were better suited for it, and I had no chance of doing it. I was shocked by it, and ( long time readers may know) I struggled with the idea of acceptance by others. This was a major coup for me. I still am happy. And the OTHER thing that happened was that Saturday night I went up to my home ( WTCSR,people, c'mon!) and took part in a deep and meaningful ceremony. I obtained the rank of Vigil in the Order of the Arrow.This is equivilant to the Eagle award in normal Boy Scouts. For those of you who know the ceremony, you can attest to it. For those of you who don't know, I'm not telling you. Incidentally, that would be most of you. That experience changed me as a person, I feel like. I can attest that I am a different person. Its interseting how little we take time to appreciate the little things in life. I am going to try and fill this blog up more later. For now, signing off.

What I remember.

                            I don't remember much. I remember waking up and heading to school like any other day. I had a good day, I was still adjusting to second grade. I remember being really happy as I got on the bus. I had a great day. Everyone was yelling and talking. In retrospect, the teachers did a superb job of keeping us in the dark. We didn't get any inkling of what went wrong. The first thing that was up was my mom was home. In those days, she had one day off, a Thursday. This was Tuesday or Wendsday. I remember looking out the bus window and seeing her with my brother by  my side, holding his hand. She looked so scared- again, in retrospect. I got off the bus, laughing and joking. I remember I said to her,
"Why are you here? It isn't Thursday." She had tears down her face.  She said " Oh, honey, there was this awful plane crash. They flew a plane into a tower" My mind automatically associated that with her tower. Woudl she be let off of work and be able to play with me?  Of the next few days, I remember dawning horror. Hugs. Lots of hugs, and I think I was hudled in a ball the next day when they brougth counselors into the school to talk with us. We were in the talk circle and they just sat down and tried to talk to us.  I had a vauge concept of 'bad men' doing this and we were going to get the bad men. 

                          I don't think it hit me with the visceral power that it did others. I was still too young to comprehend this. My brother was too young to even rember that much. It still is horrbile for me, but unfortunatly, in the semi- detached way of many natural disasters.  But what struck me, watching the broadcast of the 10th anniversary, is how many multi-national names there were on this list. Not just Americans, but people all over. It is an American Tragedy, but it was also a World Tragedy.

Never Forget, Always Remember.

Looking forward to the Future

  Okay, welcome back y'all, hope you had a great summer. I know I did. This is defiently going to be a rant of the grade-A level.  I was scanning the headlines today, and all I could see was things relating to fear, anger, money. Mostly fear. Now, I know that people have made a lot of fuss about fear in the media. Maybe that's just how our society is shaped now, due to the realities of our world. And I ALSO know that a lot has been made how the current generation of 12-25 year old ( Of which I am a part) will get it in the shorts when they become of age. I also know that parents since time immemorial have said that their children were worst than they are, and children have said that they will do better than their parents. But I am reminded of a proverb.-
"We do not inhabit the earth, we merely inherit it from our grandchildren." Now that seems oxymoronic, but there is a truth at the heart of it. We don't 'own' earth. We are stewards of a land that will belong, and continue to belong, the people coming AFTER us. Kurt Vonnegut ( I think) said " if we continue to live like there is no tommorrow, then there will be no tommorrow." So on behalf of my cerebellum speaking for the entire populace who will not hear this: What happened? Where did we go wrong and why do we keep living as if we can get away scotch free? Each succedding generation will continue to get it in the shorts, until we are really screwed.  When did long term planning fall by the wayside? Planning for the future often is hard and requires difficult concessions to the present. When the King in 1215 Britain signed the Magna Carta, he probably thought it was the end of his rule and of the rule of Kings forever. But that document laid the way for democracy and democratic monarchies. Concessions need to be made today for tommorrow. They are hard choices to make. I have no answers, only indignity. But  at least I am not making the mistake of labeling indignity as progressive thought. All I know is that I THINK current ideas should be changed, not how. If you have any ideas, please enlighten me.

So Many Plot Holes~ But the Robots Make Up for It.

                         Okay, so I'm gonna try to make this quick becasue I have to wake up early tommorrow. I just saw Transformers Three, and while it was not an award winning movie by any means, I enjoyed the escapism it presented. The transformers films are all pretty obvious- opening set up of Sam, Autobots,update, all hell breaks loose,  crisis resolved. This film plot line is no different. Surprisingly, some of the government officials seem helpful- and then they are their usual  jerk selves. The film starts with Sam trying to get a job, aided by his Victoria Secret's model girlfriend, Rosie Huntington-Barre, replacing Megan Fox. The villian isn't very obvious first, as we ar econcerned with the arrival of pieces of the moon which were actually an Autobot spacecraft carrying both a vital technology, and Sentenial Prime, voiced by Lenord Nimoy almost to perfection. Then (SPOILER ALERT) Sentenial turns out to be a major jerk and double crosser. Robotic hell of all sorts breaks loose, and builds Micheal Bay pace to the epic conclusion. Now for the parts I don't like.
                                   In the opening scene, the NEST team headed by Josh Dumanel and Optimus Prime have to go to Chernobyl to recover a part of said moon spacecraft. Forgive me, but isn't Chernobyl the most cliched piece of disaster around? I keep waiting for the Ukranians to stand up and say " Hey, America! Piss off! This was a national tradgedy, not some amusment gimick!" Also, the villian that they fought looked like the Kraken from Pirates of the Caribbean with entierly too much blades. And then every Decepticon thing had this weird tentacle motif, like they were extras in the Predator movies. The colors of the robots were bad, some were just awful, and overall the government types were inconsitent- bitchy/ not bitchy, helpful/not helpful, etc al. I also hated the woman next to me who gasped at literally every plot development/ battle- which meant I heard a gasp at least every five minutes.
                         Now for the types of things I did like. Against what my best friend said, I liked the dialouge. Some of it hit home, like one of the characters  yelling out " Man, why do all the Decepticons get all the good stuff!" I liked the voice- and - character acting, with my favorite being the apperance of Alan Tudyk as a NSA spook/bodyguard. He is one of my favorite actors from my favorite TV show, Firefly and I was glad to see he got to keep his trademark sense of humor intact. Note to Alan: PLEASE DO MORE MOVIES!!!! Also, the appearance of Sam's parents was thankfully kept to a minimum. It added to the story with out making me want to put an ax through their head. Sam's struggle to matter in a job really hit home for me. All in all, a solid B, B- as a movie. Its a typical summer movie- great for escaping reality for a few hours.
Decent. Now I desperatly need to get sleep for camp.