Movie: A-Team

All right, yes, A-Team was a cheesy 80's TV show, and, yes, this is another display of Hollywood's lack of originality, but that does not mean this will be a bad movie. Think about. We have seen a number of pretty decent 80's remakes. None of them brilliant examples of filmmaking I'll grant you, but they were still fairly entertaining. We've had in recent years The Dukes of Hazard and Starsky and Hutch, and, if you want to go back a little farther, The Brady Bunch movie was good enough to get a sequel. These movies understood just how ridiculous these shows were and just had fun with it. So I don't know this could be pretty funny.

Dow Below 10K

AHHH! It wasn't but a month ago that we had finally reached above 11000. Ah happy days have come and gone. We haven't closed below 10K since February and today it happened. There was an initial rally at the beginning of the day when the market received the best new home sales report since 2008. The damn euro is what drug us down. Apparently China freaked everyone out when they said that they would be reevaluating their euro bond holdings what with the every growing Greek deficits. Come on!

Bare Feet

Okay so I was watching the Bryant Gumbel HBO sports show, and they had this story about running barefoot. These guys had been studying indigenous Mexican tribes that could run at top speeds for these HUGE distances having lived their whole lives without shoes. Another group was studying those tribes in African that seem to produce the worlds top Olympic runners, and this group too saw barefoot as a contributing factor to the amazing performance.

When you run barefoot, they noticed that the front ball of the foot actually touches down first, as opposed to with shoes where you're foot hits the ground at the heel. By landing on the front first you actually cause less shock to your legs. You always hear about how careful you have to be and how it can tear you up, but this theory suggests that running is natural thing we were built to do. To be true, there is still a lot of controversy about this. Some people don't have the ideal foot structure and need that shoe support.

If you do want to try a more natural running style, I would suggest the Vibram Five Finger. They're pretty cool little deals. You get as close to the barefoot experience without risking stepping on glass or tiny rocks or any of the other inconveniences of the ground. I would not recommend wearing these into the weight room, though. It always hurts to drop a weight on your foot, but the protection of a real shoe helps.

Law and Order Cancelled

NBC's cancelling Law and Order, the original. Ah I loved that show. I used to watch that all the time when I was little. John McCoy was freaking amazing! He's character was probably the greatest orator like ever. The show actually inspired me to make be a lawyer when I grew up, but then I learned how much reading was involved. That was kind of a deal breaker.

That's too bad their getting rid of it, but it's probably time for it. McCoy's gone, and Jerry Orbach's gone. They've been going for 20 seasons. That's pretty wild. They are going to air the final episode Monday, May 24 at 10/9c on NBC.

Movie: Wall Street Money Never Sleeps

As the designated CBPA writter for these blogs and a lover of films, I feel it is my duty to highlight the return of greed incarna, Gordon Gekko. It's been 23 years (both in life and the movie world) but he's back. Now I haven't had the opportunity to read any reviews yet but something looks a little off with Douglas's portrayal this time around. Gekko seems affected by his infamy. He is no longer a heartless, cruelly real character and more of a legend; a legend of heartless acts to be sure, but separated from reality now. In that disconnect he loses his ability to harm us. Like the boogie man, we fear him, but we do so laughingly.

But, to be fair, I am basing this entirely off the trailer, which, as Avatar proved, can not always be a good representation. I suggest you go out and see, and we'll find out.

Movie: Harry Brown

I've been reading a lot about this one laterly. Michael Caine is supposed to just do an amazing job with it all. In truth this is becoming quite the recurring plot line for films, and this one has all the necessary elements.

Caine's character is a heavy drinking, former Korea vet who's wife has recently died and who has little time left himself. The neighborhood he has lived all of his life has gone to hell, and it's time to blow away all those punk kids. We saw it recently in Grand Torino with Clint Eastwood and Edge of Darkness with Mel Gibson, but can forget in this Charles Bronson's Death Wish series.

This however is supposed to a somewhat frailer, more human hero. Caine is not the hard-ass you have with Eastwood or Gibson or Bronson. He's not a pansy about it. He can be stern and the violence is not unnatural to him in the protrayal. He's just ... English. There is a gentlemen quality in his aggression and hostility.

But it's not just this. He's age and health really have an effect. Often in these stories the hero will find moments of strength for the sake of the fight and only be effected during the inbetweens and final climax. Here Caine is struck with a shortness of breath in the chase sequence. He is a real and human as you can get.

Brother's Graduation

My little brother graduate from high school today. Class of 2010 with like 230 kids. That's a lot more than we had with 180 (we had a really high drop out rate). It was good. The grandparents, aunts and uncles were there. For the senior video they set the pictures to a song his drumline performed.

The key speaker was not too great. He tried some really creative stuff but didn't put enough planning into it unfortunately to effectively execute. The students did really well though. For some reason there were two student body Co-President addresses (got to love small town politics), but both did really well with it.

Of course then there are all the different parties to go to; living two days with hors d'oeuvres as your meals. It's fun though seeing everybody smiling and hugging catching up again. Most of the folks from my year are still back in Lawrence so that was a little awkward, but all and all I really like this time of year.

Year 2 Done!

Finished! Packed up everything the other day and packed it into the Nissan. It's pretty sad when you can fit your life into a tiny, white Nissan. But hey back in Kansas now. I got to tell you the weather is a lot better. You got to love it. Okay so the other day there was a big tornado scare, but those come and go, man. Today is absolutely beautiful. No more spring hail storms or dreary skies. It's going to be a good summer.