Movie: Drive

Look at that cast!!! You got some real iconic figures in the male supporting roles: Albert Brooks taking a turn from his usual comedic path towards what looks to be a pretty well performed dramatic role, Bryan Cranson (Breaking Bad), and Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy). But then you see the phenomenal actresses in the female supporting roles: Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) and Carey Mulligan (An Education). While these women have had limited commercial debuts, their work has been inspiring.

Then to top it all off, you have Ryan f*king Gosling. The dude is undeniably the best young actor alive. He has a remarkable capability for assuming the most complex and enduring of characters. Nothing about his protrayals contain the melodrama and pretentious that seem to trouble so many of his peers with equally complex roles. He is unable to understand his characters, and in doing so does not over-inflate or under-deliver on them but presents them in their natural state.

Plus this movie just looks really bad ass!

Swiss Fight to Ban Powerpoint

One of the issues with third parties is they are often formed entirely around a narrow and singular cause. Not only does this make it difficult to establish appeal to the wider base, but once the party's cause is accomplished there often remains little to keep it united.

One such party in Switzerland however seems to be gaining a great deal of recognition for its unique cause. The Anti-PowerPoint Party is of course united under the cause of putting an end to PowerPoint presentations and the terrible boredom they inflict on citizens.

According to the founder, Matthias Poehm, 350 billion euros could be saved on the global scale if PowerPoint were to be eliminated. And think of it: no more will entire departments of staff be dragged into watching bullet points zip across the screen and frames come spinning towards them in a nausiating

Movie: Money Ball

I was thinking the other day about why baseball seems to have declined from its former glory in the hearts of Americans. It is said to be the national pastime, but I think its fairly clear that football and basketball have fairly well eclipsed it. Baseball is openly mocked for being way too long and boring (that's seems to be more of a faulty change in our society towards the microwave, immediate satisfaction mind set than a fault in the game).

One thought occured to me that perhaps to some degree it may be that our generation just hasn't had an iconic baseball for us to connect with. We were all too young to connect with films like Field of Dreams (1989), Major League (1989), or For the Love of the Game (1999) and WAY too young for The Natural (1984). There were a lot of kitchie baseball movies for us with monkeys and dogs and angels, but even as a kid you can't take that seriously. Most of all of our best sports movies were either basketball or football movies.

This here though takes a turn. It looks to be very inspiring (good underdog story against all odds), and, while Jonah Hill usually dabbles in the most immature of comedy, I get the vibe he has the ability to do this role real justice.