If I could nominate a twosome for the Great, Great Man Award it would be these two gentlemen.
You see, last weekend was Double J’s 7th birthday party. Eddy Zucko and Shoesless Mike were there and decided to play some games with the kids. As I was taking pictures, I decided to slide the setting to the video setting and shoot some video as they just looked like they were having such a great time.
Just two great men.
My dad and I had a different outlook on the game last weekend, in which the 49ers beat the Arizona Cardinals in overtime. He was just gracious for the victory, while I was kind of left with a bad taste in my mouth with how the Cardinals gave the game away. I’ll go line by line and follow his words.
To win is divine. The game was played with enthusiasm and meaning.
I really can’t say anything about that. The 49ers, especially on offense played with tons of enthusiasm. And you can look directly at Frank Gore, who I said last week is one of the only guys who looks supremely upset at how the team is playing. He definitely willed himself to be a difference maker in the game. He was obviously playing hurt, but playing with the kind of motor he played with all last year.
You couldn’t tell from the get go that this was going to be a win, especially since Zona scored first.
You couldn’t tell necessarily, but you could tell very early on that the 49ers were at least going to be competitive. My only worry was that Trent Dilfer wasn’t going to play well enough to stay with Kurt Warner and the Cardinals. He proved me wrong.
What I liked most about the game was that it wasn’t sloppy, there weren’t a lot of penalties, though there were a few dropped passes.
It wasn’t sloppy from an offensive perspective. From a defensive perspective, it was terrible. They gave up nearly 500 yards passing, and gave up a Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half that resulted in a touchdown for Larry Fitzgerald. Who gives up Hail Mary’s except when Doug Flutie is throwing?
This review was originally written on Epinions.com.
In Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, Dustin Hoffman plays Mr. Magorium, who I can only describe as a mix of Doc from Back To The Future and Willy Wonka. He is the owner of a magical toy store, where the toys come to life and it works as well as a daycare as it does as a toy store. Mr. Magorium is zany, yet uplifting. He’s a character with the volume turned up to the highest max. But his character becomes so annoying, that trying to suspend disbelief becomes hard. When the more normal and real characters like Natalie Portman’s Molly Mahony (known simply as Mahony throughout) and Jason Bateman’s Henry Weston appear, the movie becomes digestible again.
The story surrounds the transfer of the toy store from Mr. Magorium, who is over 200 years old and knows that it’s his time to die because he has run out of shoes, to Mahony, who is a classic pianist who is in a creativity rut. She loves the store, but believes that her life needs to be more than just running a toy store. She has to be convinced by Eric, who is played by Zach Mills, and later, negative accountant Henry, that her destiny should be in doing what she loves, not what she’s expected to do.
The movie works for a few reasons. Maybe the most important reason is that writer and director Zach Helm was able to get a film made that is a children’s film through and through. Disney films that are made for kids today don’t always have G ratings. Because of the allure for the box office dollar and drawing adults, most cartoons today are littered with sexual innuendo and adult humor. With this film, it’s a pure G rated film. That’s actually a fantastic accomplishment.
I reviewed this originally on Epinions.com.
I hated the poem Beowulf. Having to read it in college, it made nearly no sense to me, and the language was so hard for me to understand, I still have a bad taste in my mouth today. I planned on avoiding the new movie based on the poem, but a friend was interested in checking it out, and though I was ok with watching American Gangster again, I agreed to relive my horror.
To my surprise, not only was this film animated, but it was also in 3-D. Throughout the movie, I remembered certain things that I didn’t like about the poem, including the naming of a special sword called Hrunting. Why was this sword named, and why was it named Hrunting? I had this question at 18, and I still have it now. But I did remember some of the characters’ names like Hrothgar and his wife, Wealtheow.
The new animated version of Beowulf is directed by Robert Zemeckis. There’s an immense attention to detail when it comes to the animation. Just 19 years ago, he directed Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which was a technological juggernaut for it’s time. And just three years ago, he directed The Polar Express which was magical in it’s animation, even though I was bored to tears by the story. Beowulf is a huge advancement from even The Polar Express. You could say that the difference between the animation in the two films is like the difference in regular television and the high definition signal. And in 3-D, which is the version of the movie I saw, it’s more interesting because the small details pop out even more.
The story follows a great warrior who comes to save King Hrothgar and his men from a killing monster named Grendel, who seems to be annoyed that the men are celebrating in the hall called Heorot. After Grendel tears some of his men to shreds, King Hrothgar closes down the hall to stop the merriment. When Beowulf comes, he requests that the hall be opened back up, to lure the beast back so he can kill it. One of Hrothgar’s men, Unferth, voiced brilliantly by John Malkovich, challenges the tales of heroicism that Beowulf tells. Malkovich is so great, that you wish that Unferth was an even bigger part of the movie than he was. His men sing, while he feigns sleeping, and when Grendel attacks, he has an answer for the ugly monster who looks like an overgrown and shriveled up Smeagol/Gollum. The rest of the film deals with how Beowulf becomes king, and how he figures out how to pacify Grendel’s mother. It ends with a fiery battle with a dragon.
This review was published originally on Epinions.com.
The Black Album was supposed to be his swan song. It was to be the perfect ending. For every song, there was to be a different producer. While it didn’t end up that way, it was still a concept that he thought would put that exclamation point on his career. It ended up being the third best album in his catalog, at least in my opinion. But it didn’t turn out to be his last album.
If his recording career was to ever end, American Gangster might be the best way to go out. When I saw Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa, the sixth and final Rocky, I determined that it was the perfect ending. It was like the perfect bookend to the first film. If someone watched the first film, and then the last, they would still get the entire picture without needed to watch the ones in between. That’s how I feel about this album for Jay-Z. Reasonable Doubt is such a strong album, that anything he puts out gets immediately compared to it. But American Gangster is Jay-Z coming full circle. It’s a mix of his two best albums, being that The Blueprint is arguably is his second best. Some have called the new album, “Reasonable Blueprint”. Whatever it is, it’s definitely a throwback to those two albums, with the soulful beats and the hustler speak.
He decided to record the album after watching an early screening of the Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe flick of the same name. Jay-Z would say that Washington’s Frank Lucas character stirred up feelings inside him that he hasn’t had in years. He would say that the main reason he couldn’t ever create another Reasonable Doubt is because it wouldn’t be true. It wouldn’t be based on true feelings. He wasn’t in that place anymore. But thanks to Frank Lucas, he was back in that space. Being in that space gives the album an honest and grown up feeling. It’s not the same hungry Jay-Z weaving tales of his hustler days, so much as it’s a mature Jay-Z reflecting on the tales of his hustler days. There’s your bookend.
When your team has lost eight games in a row, there aren’t too many things to be thankful for. But I’m going to think of some. But before I do, here’s what my dad had to say about losing to the Rams.
We are the saddest team in the league. It is going to be tough to watch the rest of the year. I even heard Brian say the Niners suck. Wow!! We need someone to make us cheer again. It is probably not going to be Alex Smith, or Trent Dilfer. How about Michael Robinson at QB? The game was full of dropped passes, poor throws, bad tackling. Poor play calling. I think what you have been saying from the beginning (is right). The coaches have no faith in the offense, so they call a run up the middle on 3rd and 10, or an onside kick to make us think that they are pulling out all the stops. Their hearts are weak. Oh were have you gone Joe Dimaggio? Oh Obi Wan were are you?
So in that last part, I think my dad was trying to recreate the scene from Star Wars, where Princess Leia was saying, “Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” Either that, or when C3PO was chastising R2D2.
Ah, how time flies.
Just something like 14 months ago, I was for once, completely on my own. I wasn’t living with my parents, nor Carol, and it was just me, and every other day or so, the boys. It was definitely a struggle. Not so much having to do with the daily life stuff that I once shared with someone else, but more so, just learning how to deal with the silence. I’ll give you an example.
I’m not sure that since the kids were born, that I slept completely soundly throughout the night. I’m a light sleeper as it is, so any sort of noise would wake me up. Any sort of worry about the kids would wake me up. Any rumbling of someone running into my room would wake me up. Today, those little things still wake me up, but just less frequently. Since the kids don’t sleep over every night, the noises from above my apartment wake me up, and I’d be ready to go check on them, but then silently just fall back asleep dejectedly once I remember that I’m not living at the house anymore. In a sense, it saddens me to wake up and be ready to protect, and have no one to protect. But it’s also just something that I have to get used to. I’m still not used to it.
My dad and Young Randall were ranting this week. I have added their rants in the comment section below.
Dear Alex,
I’ve been pulling for you bro. And why not? Anyone who is a fan of this franchise understands that it’s tradition starts with the quarterback. I think you understand that. Actually, you might understand that too well. How does one walk in the shoes of John Brodie, Joe Montana, Steve Young, and Jeff Garcia. Ok, maybe Garcia was a stretch. But hey, he had some Pro Bowl years, and married a Playboy Playmate. While I’d bet that Montana banged a few Playmates, he didn’t marry one. Playmates scare Tony Romo and make him go to church.
I get it. There’s pressure. Well, there’s actually pressure coming from our end too. You see, we’ve been able to hold our heads high for many years, being 49ers fans and all. But you get to a point where you can only hold up 5 fingers for so long. There’s only so many times we can name drop Ronnie Lott, Jerry Rice, and Roger Craig to our friends as former 49ers greats, until they tell us to live in the present. It really has been 13 years since Deion Sanders suited up for us. 13 years? Holy cow. The pressure is there. The Cowboys are good again. The Patriots are killing them softly. Even the Steelers are back. But what about us?
Week 16
At the beginning of next year’s draft, Kevin Durham will look at his championship belt one more time and then kiss it before handing it over to our new fantasy football champion, Billy Parker. It’s been a long ride for Billy, but he’s finally finished it. He has won his first title.
Peyton Manning, Anquan Boldin, and Marion Barber came up huge. Earnest Graham was stopped stone cold by 49ers, but he wasn’t needed. And yet, Kevin still had a chance. LDT had a good game, but was taken out early, and with a four point deficit, young Kevin’s last chance was out of the game. It was a great run as champion and now runner up for Kevin. And with LDT as his perennial franchise player now, he’s probably going to be back again very soon. Billy wins 61-57.
In the third place game, the Mexi-CANS put an end to the Rise of the Romo Empire. Romo was unstoppable during the regular season, taunting the other teams. But in the playoffs, he wasn’t the real deal, losing twice to end the season out of the money, and with a very low draft pick. My dad wins 63-50.
It was another fun year and we’ll be back in just 8 short months. Be ready for next year’s draft.
Week 15
This review was originally published at Epinions.com.
The idea for this movie originally started as a joke. The story goes that Jerry Seinfeld was joking when he suggested to Dreamworks decision makers that he had an idea to make a movie about bees, called Bee Movie. The joke was that in the old days, B movies were those that were made on low budgets and wacky plots. The play on the word “Bee” must’ve been funny to Seinfeld. But he was told that the idea was a winner and that he should start writing the script. Thus, Jerry Seinfeld, the screenwriter was born.
I have a bias against Seinfeld, and this might have affected how I received this animated film. I think Seinfeld is a good comic, but I don’t think a lot of his material is very funny. He was on a very smartly written show for a particular audience, but I stayed pretty far away from his show, and still do with reruns today. I just don’t find it very funny. From that standpoint, Seinfeld, the voice actor, grated on my nerves in this one. He voices Barry Bee Benson, a bee who graduates from Bee College and moves on into the real world, which is the same for every bee. Every bee is supposed to work in one part of the hive, which works much like an assembly line. Barry has issues with living such a lifestyle and working the same job for the rest of his life, remembering his father, as the stirrer, working late hours and coming home still stirring invisible honey. Rather than going straight to work, like every other bee, he gets caught out of the hive and meets a human, which is against one of the bee rules. The human, named Vanessa, and voiced by Renee Zellweger vibes with Barry and they create a friendship. Through Vanessa’s friendship, Barry learns that the humans steal the honey from the bees, and sell it for commercial use and goes to court to relieve the bees of being taken advantage of.