The Dark Knight

Absolutely as good as advertised. Wow. We went to see The Dark Knight last night on IMAX and the film was just ridiculously good. The opening shot over "Gotham" was in IMAX and the crowd just gasped when it popped on the screen. The acting was great. The direction was great. The actions sequences were stunning. This is everything a superhero movie should be. To me it has redefined how one should approach making movies about superheroes. Coupled with Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan has crafted the two finest comic book adaptations that I can think of and I can only hope a third is on the way. Wow.

short stories

I'm kind of a sucker for short stories. I used to love those reading books we had in elementary school, with all of those stories from a variety of authors. I would read way ahead and usually finish everything there was well before we went through things as a class. It had nothing to do with trying to be smart, rather I just love a good story and for some reason, if you can tell a good story in a small number of pages, you've got my respect. I think it may have all started with Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", and if you haven't read it, google it now, immediately, and read it. Dark, nasty, crazy...it's all those things wrapped up in a great short story.

Anyway, it's summer and I typically enjoy using some of my time off from seminary to head to my local library and pick up some books. I usually try to find at least one book of short stories just to see if I can find a gem. I've exhausted my supply of Stephen King short story collections (and the man can write a great short story), so I've just grabbed what looked mildly interesting and gone from there. I picked up two books/collections this week; 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill and Presence by Arthur Miller. I like a good suspense/horror short story so I grabbed Hill's book and I've always loved The Crucible and Death of a Salesman so discovering that Miller had written some short stories piqued my interest. I finished Hill's book today and I have to give a little credit where it's due before I start Miller's.

There is a story within called "Pop Art" that is really just a wonderful little tale, a joy to read, genuinely touching, and weird all at the same time. The basic premise is a first person narrative where the main character is a middle school aged boy who's best friend is an inflatable boy named Art. He's a real live boy who happens to be inflatable. It sounds ridiculous but is just a good story. Obviously you just have to go with the weird plot but it unfolds like a strange Wes Anderson movie (like there's another kind); humor, heart, and weirdness all rolled up into one. The other stories were all rather good (some a bit gory and some ended better than others) but this one was great, in my humble opinion that is. I am very glad that I came across it and recommend it to anyone, even those who don't like horror as there is nothing particularly horror oriented in this story.

I'm looking forward to Miller's book now. Should be an interesting read.

I've been reading East of Eden and am about halfway through. Absolutely brilliant, which I assumed based on my prior Steinbeck experiences, and enthralling, but I had to set it down for a few days. It is just so, for lack of a better word, heavy. The emotion, atmosphere, everything is just heavy and I find myself tired after reading in it, getting so caught up in the story. I found a good stopping point and thought I'd go with a little lighter fair before finishing.

great rock and roll

I love the Black Crowes. For the most part, they have represented, to me, what is great about real, raw Rock and Roll for the better part of 15 years now. They've had some foul balls along the way, but these guys do what they do really well and they just get the essence of great rock and roll; great riffs, loud guitars, and a great front man (not to mention a brilliant drummer in Steve Gorman).

One of my biggest disappointments was not getting to see them as they toured with Jimmy Page in 1999. I had fourth row seats to the Tampa show and that leg of the tour was canceled after Jimmy injured his back. I stumbled across this video of Jimmy and the Crowes kicking "In My Time of Dying". Being a big Zeppelin fan, I don't say lightly that the Crowes do justice to Zep's great songs. Do yourself a favor and take about 10 minutes to listen to great rock and roll (you can listen and watch a second time and marvel at the ridiculous drumming of Gorman too).

complicity

This is a bit after the fact, but I was watching a SportsCenter broadcast about Barry Bonds inability to be signed with a new team and how he may very well be done in baseball. Then the pundits went on to pontificate as to how Bonds had brought this on himself, blah, blah, blah.

Now, before going any further, let me be clear; I am not a fan of Barry Bonds. I never really was. Always respected his ability on the field, always thought he was kind of a jerk off the field. I am not defending any criminal action on his part or the part of others in baseball.

That being said, there's this little word that keeps creeping into my mind...complicity, the act of participating in some kind of offense or crime, assisting in some way with a criminal activity. I've been thinking since all of this steroids stuff broke a couple of years ago how complicit I and most of us baseball fans probably are in all of this mess. Let's step back a bit.

It's 1998 and suddenly Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are in a heated battle for the National League (and Major League) lead for home runs. It seems by the All Star Break that one or both might very well have a shot at breaking Roger Maris' long time standing record of 61 home runs in a season. We've been waiting for this for sometime. Guys like Cecil Fielder flirted with the 50 homerun barrier and even that guy named Matt Williams might have made a run at that record had the 1994 season not been shortened by a strike. And then Sammy and Mark c0me along and we all sit and look at the papers day after day, looking at their side by side comparisons with Maris, the pace, the projections. We love it.

I remember where I was when McGwire broke Maris' record in 1998; sitting in the living room of my apartment in Ohio. I remember what I did immediately after he hit it, I called my dad. We celebrated, talked about all kinds of dumb stuff, we loved the moment and a good chunk of America did the same. Mark and Sammy had a good repoire and soon Sammy passed the barrier as well. In fact Mark ended the season with 70 home runs. Sammy with 66. Never mind that until that point Mark had not hit more than 52. Sammy, never more than 40. We just bought into it, because let's face it, homeruns are fun and offense is too and MLB had a heck of a time digging itself out of the 1994 strike hole. 1998 returned MLB to its previous glory, bringing families together around the TV to watch one of the most significant records fall. Was anyone rooting against these guys? Was anyone talking about steroids then?

Then in 2001, Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs. That's right 73. This guy hadn't hit more than 49 in a season previously but we didn't care. He kept parking them in McCovey Cove and we loved it. We ate it up. He was as dominant a player as there was in the 90's but evidently he still had something left for us, 73 home runs.

And then, lo and behold, Barry may have used steroids. Mark and Sammy too. Oh yeah, and those 40+ homerun years of Rafael Palmeiro 1998-2001, possibly steroids too. Wow. Really? Odd how all of these guys had these surges in power right around the same time. Even stranger still how Major League Baseball basically had no effective steroid policy during this time period, even though other major sports were already testing for it (and the Olympics for that matter). Amazing how it seems that so many turned a blind eye to these things as we were caught up in the fervor of broken records, big offense, and forearms the size of tree trunks.

Now, you and I, MLB for that matter, are not directly responsible for these and other idiots taking steroids, HGH, or any other drug. But let's face facts. MLB didn't have a policy on these things because to do so would have harmed ratings and income. They needed this surge of excitement and looked the other way when it became very apparent that some of these men might actually explode from the sheer amount of muscle contained in their skin. And we fans weren't much better. We got swept up in the momentum, in the press, in the excitement. And that's not necessarily totally wrong but it frustrates me now to see all of us turning our nose up at these same players, looking down in judgment upon them.

I did not make Barry Bonds do what he did. I did not cause him to commit a crime. I did not cause him to use steroids (and by the way he has yet to be convicted of using them, though it seems obvious that he did). But if I get carried away in the hubbub surrounding his situation. If I buy tickets, tune into his games, listen to SportsCenter tout his accomplishments (which is all they did until a few seasons ago), then I am somewhat complicit in all of this. We should be careful before we judge to harshly these guys who gave us what most of us wanted.

a long time off

Wow. Literally months since I last posted anything here. Makes me a little sad as a lot of different things have gone on about which I wished to record here but just didn't have time and/or motivation. Sad but oh well. Lots of things to put forth here but I'll begin with important stuff like movies. Here's what I've seen so far this summer and what I've thought of it. A disclaimer up front, one of the movies is very violent and very dark and I will give it a rather glowing review anyway. This is not representative of my view on violence but more of a sense of respect for how well the film was made.

1. Indiana Jones (A-) - Good movie, just about what I want in summer fare and with good ole Harrison Ford back in the hat, how could you go wrong? Plus I really enjoy Shia Lebouf and he does just fine as a wannabe James Dean. Sure the ending is bizarre and ridiculous and yes, stumbling into a nuclear testing site and saving yourself via a refrigerator borders on absolute lunacy, but have you seen the first three? It's not like the break from reality just started in the fourth movie.

2. The Strangers (B+) - Another good movie (this is the violent/dark one I mentioned earlier, definitely better to be viewed by mature audiences), that really shows what you can do with just six people in the cast and a single location in which to shoot. Too many thrillers these days go for the easy scare or thrill but this one really took its time, and the ending didn't drag on very long which is good. Best scene: Liv Tyler gets a drink of water and out of the darkness in the background, a man in a burlap mask looms into view, just barely. The whole audience gasped. Great stuff. Hitchcock would have been impressed.

3. The Happening (C) - Average stuff, especially for Shamalamadingdong. I love the man's work, even Lady in the Water, but this honestly was not a good movie, sadly enough. Opening sequence in Central Park was great. The sequence in the old lady's house near the end was really cool too. The dialogue was terrible and the acting bordered on non-existent. I kept thinking that M. Night was fooling with us, making a dark comedy, but it just never happened. At one point I actually thought Mark Wahlberg would have a conversation with a plant, that's how weird things got, and this was not a good thing.

4. The Incredible Hulk (B) - An improvement over the last one definitely. I think Edward Norton helped and this time the Hulk gets a real bad guy, not just the US military, so that makes the last 30 minutes very entertaining. I'll be interested to see if the Justice League really comes together around this (with Robert Downey's appearance at the end bringing Iron Man into the mix).

5. Prince Caspian (B) - Better than average but it seems as though the focus was basically just having really big battles. Just read the book and some interesting stuff was left out. I realize that talking lions aren't a big box office pull, but there's some interesting food for thought from Aslan in the book that just gets left out in the cold here. Overall, entertaining, but I had hoped for a little bit more, maybe a bit of theological stuff.

and the best (so far) for last
6. Wall-E (A) - Wow. Really good film. If you can go 30-45 minutes basically without dialogue at the opening of a movie and still keep adults AND children involved, you've done something very well. Saw this opening day in the morning with my family so the theatre consisted of me, my wife, my 4 year old girl, 2 year old son, and 200 summer camp kids. Everybody laughed and had a good time and applauded at the end. I love Pixar. Interesting side story to this, I got in line to get some popcorn and ended up behind about 30 boys. Their leader told me to go on ahead of the group so when I got up to the front, I apologized to the kid at the front of the line (looked about 11 or 12) and explained what had happened (I hate it when people do that to our youth when we're out somewhere without asking or even acknowledging the kids). He said no problem. Then I heard him say to himself, "Oh crud. Mom didn't give me enough for a popcorn and a coke." Then he turned and asked his friend if he had 50 cents. The friend did not and I could hear the despair in the young man's sigh as he wrestled with which to get. So, being so wealthy, I pulled out a George Washington and laid it on my friend and told him to make sure to get butter on the popcorn. His response was, "Wow. Thanks Mister!" I love that.

T-minus 14 days until I go to see The Dark Knight on IMAX. Yeah baby!