The heroes of this movie are those who sit through it. I was amazed and appalled at how uncompelling this film is. I’m a history buff and a WWII nerd. I knew about the Officers’ Plot and think it is a great story to be told. Despite the bad buzz, I was more than willing to give the benefit of doubt to this movie. I found nothing to recommend. The acting is mediocre. Cruise is out of place and unsympathetic. The script is dull. The cinematography was OK, but nothing visually exciting. The aftermath was skipped and that may be the most interesting part of the story. Hitler was never the same after this incident. His paranoia and mistrust of the Wehrmacht General staff only grew and any influence they may have had was gone. The ruthless extermination of anyone connected to the plot was glossed over. Irwin Rommel, The Desert Fox and a national hero, was implicated and forced to commit suicide to save his family. Not even mentioned. I didn’t think this film was apologetic of the Nazi regime as some have criticized, it is just bad. I got no feeling of the director’s vision and I’m left with unanswered questions. I know why some folks wanted to kill Hitler, I don’t know why they made this movie.
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Saying “Klaatu barada nikto” didn’t make this movie stop no matter how many time I said it to myself and Gort couldn’t put me out of my misery despite my violent thoughts. Remakes are evidence of the cynicism inherent in the film industry. If an old movie did well a generation (or two) ago, then why not retread it for a new audience. Put in some glitzy effects, cast a big name star and you’ll have a box office hit. No need to come up with something new. If they had simply reshot the 1951 classic, they might have had a good movie. The 2008 version, (very, very loosely based on the original SCI-FI epic) is not anywhere near as compelling. Keanu Reeves is not Michael Rennie by any stretch of the imagination. He’s Neo here to save the Earth from us horrible humans, but without the kung-fu. The message is not presented with any degree of subtlety. There’s is the obligatory evil U.S. Government and kill crazy military, naturally. Jennifer Connelly gives a good performance and is as lovely as ever, still that doesn’t carry this picture. The child here is annoying, unlike the innocent boy who takes the ‘stranger in a strange land’ around in the original. The special effects are decent, but that doens’t make up for the convoluted script . Go to Walmart and get a $5 copy of the 1951 movie. You’ll not be disappointed.
I haven’t been into comics since high school and never did read The Punisher even then, but I was familiar with the story line of the vigilante whose family is murdered and he sets about avenging them. Ray Stevenson plays Frank Castle and I wasn’t aware of him before this. He apparently is a star in the HBO series Rome which is pretty popular, but I don’t pay for HBO and have never seen an episode. He’s very cool in this film and plays the dark brooding vigilante well. He’s as cold blooded as they come and the massive graphic violence he doles out on screen is rather surprising in this day of political correctness. The gunplay is realistic and Stevenson obviously had training from pros for this part. His use of the M-16 was textbook and the techniques familiar to any SWAT or military ‘operator’. His penchant for Baretta 93R’s was a bit over the top, but it is a film based on a comic book. The supporting characters are well played and the bad guys are classic comic book villains with an evil and black humor bent. This is a niche movie that appeals to a limited comic/action/testosterone heavy audience, but if any of that is your thing, then you’ll not be punished seeing this flick. (Your significant-other may be though. You may have to endure Four Christmases to make up for it and that would be punishment indeed!)
the amazing drobo click for larger image
I finally got myself a drobo. It’s a unique storage device that adds unlimited capacity and data redundancy in a very simple product. They market it as a ‘data robot’ and thus the name drobo. It’s a USB 2.0 or firewire 800/400 (that’s ieee1394 or ilink to some people) external drive enclosure that will hold up to 4 sata drives of any capacity. Some geeks love to set up RAID arrays and will argue whether RAID 5 or Raid 10 is best. I’d rather not have to worry about striped and/or mirrored arrays where you must use disks of the same size (and usually exact brand and model or you are likely to have problems). The drobo eliminates all the hassle. You just slide in two or more drives of any capacity and connect the USB or firewire cable. There is a simple software application that gives you the drobo dashboard. You first decide how you want to format the drives. NTFS is best for windows user, but Mac and linux users have their options too. In a couple of minutes the drives are formatted and you have one large volume that you can map as any available drive letter and name whatever you want (Mine is the X: drive named drobo). Now I can dump anything I want on that drive and it is safe from system crashes and hard drive failures on my computer and even more importantly on the drobo itself. the drobo uses a proprietary sytem (it’s not RAID!) that allows the drobo to rebuild itself when a drive fails with no loss of data. All your precious pictures, music, video, even your memoirs are protected against drive failures. The cost of this is reduced capacity of all the drives. You can figure about a third of the total capacity is lost to this redundancy. A small price figuratively and literally when you look at hard drives these days.
Drobo has 4 bays and accepts any sized sata drive
I had a 250gb, a 320gb, and a new 1terabyte drive on hand and slid them in. This is not the most efficient combination since the available storage is less than 500gb overall due to the difference in sizes and how the data is spread over all the drives so that the failure of any drive allows all the data to be recovered from the other two. The drobo is smart. It’ll tell you when a drive is getting full or is in danger of crashing. Just slide out the smallest drive and add a bigger one. The drobo will rebuild all the data with no muss or fuss. This is a great data protection and back up solution for anyone who has important information on their computer(s). Keep in mind that while drobo will guard your data at home or office, it can’t protect against fire, flood, earthquake or even thieves. A comprehensive data storage and protection system has to incorporate some sort of off site storage plan. This could be an external drive with your critical data that you take to work, or a dvd your burn and send to your mother, brother, or friend. There are online solutions like carbonite or amazon’s S3 service. Microsoft has Windows Live (http://home.live.com) and you get 25gb of free storage and a number of other interesting services as well. However you choose to do it, you need to have multiple copies of important data in more than one place or you are only one act of God away from lost data. Drobo is pricey compared to simple external hard drives. I have a small forest of drives next to my computer for storage and back-ups. The drobo will be replacing most of them due to its set and forget ease of use. I can use a free app like SyncToy from Microsoft and set up folders on the drobo that mirror folders and files on my desktop and laptop machines. SyncToy will copy any changes and keep the folders synched. Check out the drobo and see if it fits into your back-up and storage plan. www.drobo.com
Action movies should be full of action. The bad guys are bad and the good guy is good. Expectations were not high for this film and I wasn’t disappointed. Jason Statham is the little big man who can’t be stopped no matter what impossible situation he’s forced into. He out MacGyvers MacGyver. There are highly choreographed fight scenes that would impress the best of Hong Kong in its prime. The over the top and impossible driving exploits are campy and reminiscent of Smokey and the Bandit (Jason Statham doesn’t wear a rug, however). There will be no Oscar nominations coming out of this, but if you like cars, guns and fights, then you’ll be happy with this latest installment of the Transporter. It is certainly a guy thing.
How many dysfunctional family holiday films have to be made? Apparently at least one each year. Get a bunch of well known Hollywood names (plus a couple country music stars) and it’ll make money, or so you hope. Maybe big meals and our own dysfunctional families make us stupid enough to keep going to these mediocre (at best) movies, or maybe these pathetic characters make us feel better about ourselves in comparison. I don’t know. Maybe my expectations are too high. There were a number of people in the theater who giggled at every every cliche situation and tittered at every sexual innuendo, so perhaps Hollywood is giving the masses what they want. I like Vince Vaughn and he is wasted in this setting. The out takes have to be funnier than what is left in the movie. When baby puke is the funniest thing in your film, you might want to go back to the story board. I was disappointed by the lack of anything new or innovative in the entire movie. You’ll laugh more at your own family stories than this movie.
A bad western is not that unusual I suppose. A classic genre that is full of cliche’s and archetypes, but you know that in the beginning and expect it and, hopefully, something more comes out. Ed Harris tries, but I just didn’t see it. A gunfighter who reads Emerson is ‘deep’ I guess, yet nothing else fills out the character. This is Harris’ second project as director/actor and I can tell he’s a minimalist like Eastwood. Maybe another take or two would have helped. He has a good eye and the picture looks great, while the attention to detail in costume and language is impressive. Even I might swoon over Viggo Mortensen’s character. As the loyal to a fault sidekick, he is the most complete character and you can’t help but like him. Zellwegger is annoying, as usual, and very out of place in this film. Jeremy Irons is classical in his antagonist role. He’s so bad, he’s good. There was just not enough holding it together in the end. Some interesting and wonderful vignettes and tableau’s, but not a complete movie worthy of the wealth of talent available from Harris, Mortensen and Irons.
The James Bond movie franchise is once again on a roll. Daniel Craig has taken over the role and plays a much darker and deadly Bond than we have ever seen before. Some might think he is closer to Ian Fleming’s book Bond, but I’d say it’s more in line with the trend in super hero like action we seem to expect from our protagonists these days. Any good agent has to be able to fight multiple opponents by hand or gun and, after a bit of punishment, ultimately prevail. By land, sea, or air (and in this case all three) there will be chases and fast paced action that must try to outdo the last episode. Quantum picks up where Casino Royale left off and is full speed ahead from the start. Where Casino Royale had a bit more plot and story to introduce the new Bond, Quantum just lets Craig loose and he takes us for a ride. His cold blooded character is still surprisingly charismatic and I can’t help but like the way the franchise is moving. I like the action. The story isn’t the deepest, nor the villain(s) the most megalomaniacal, but Bond is back and he’s always fun to watch.
I’m an Anglophile. I love British humor. I love the language and the accents. Guy Ritchie may have made a mistake marrying Madonna, but he has made a good, smart, funny and very entertaining film. The acting is great, the plot twisted and the dialog clever and understated in that English style. It’s refreshing to see crooks in other countries and how they do all the gangster/criminal things in their country. We could use more of this cultural exchange. Unfortunately, this movie probably won’t be around long and that’s too bad. Give it a chance. Guy may not get enough out of the divorce and needs our support.
2008 Awards and CQB
On October 11th SCI-Fayette held its second Law Enforcement Invitational PPC shoot. 30+ participants fired a 48 round PPC course from 7 to 25 yards. Most shooters came from the prison ranks, but a number of other state prisons were represented and local law enforcement agencies. The match was well run by Sgt. Curt Shaffer and other members of the Fayette Combat Shooters team. This year I chose to use my Wilson combat CQB model 1911 in .45ACP. The five inch barrel and sight radius, I thought, would give better results than the stock four inch S&W 686 I used at the Beaver County match the prior month. The results weren’t too bad. I earned 1st place in single man Marksman class and my partner, Stephen Longstreth, and I took second in the two man Expert class. Stephen would have walked away with overall high score and given us first place in Expert had he not given away 60 points by shooting the left hand barricade with his right hand. That’s a big no-no in PPC where part of the test is shooting with either hand.
So, I can’t complain about the outcome. I have a couple more placques for the wall. The real winners and the reason for the match was to raise money for our co-workers in the military who have been deployed this year to foreign soil. We will use the funds raised to send care packages this holiday season. Good fun for a good cause! I look forward to next year’s match.
Eagle Eye isn’t a bad action movie. The story becomes predictably predictable and the only suspense is on how they will exactly figure out how to stop the computer run amuck. The action is fun and keeps you entertained. Billy Bob Thorton is always interesting to watch. I get tired of retreading the Gov’t supercomputer taking over theme and wish someone would explore other areas of technology contributing to the fall of Man. Call it Proteus, Colossus, Hal 9000, The Tabernacle, WOPR, SKYNET, Deep Thought, or The Matrix, everyone knows a computer is going to take over the world some day.
You would think two iconic actors would not allow themselves to be part of a less than stellar production, but you’d be wrong. I suppose if someone delivered a dump truck of money at your door, you’d find some merit in their proposal. This film could have been a winner had the story been a bit more original and not so obvious with the plot twists. Pacino and Deniro do work well together. Their early scenes make you understand why they are the best of their breed. They take the craft seriously. But the story goes over the top and no amount of suspended disbelief can make the plot work. Maybe the director and writer had a greater vision and the producers forced them to make another formulaic psycho-drama, no one is confessing yet. You may not be as disappointed as me if you concentrate on the actors and not the story, but overall this movie fails.
Saturday I joined 3 corrections officers from my prison to make a 4 man team to participate in the 15th annual Beaver County Law Enforcement Invitational. There were many local agencies, civilians and Feds like the FBI and Marshal Service represented. It was a standard police pistol combat match. We shot the course three times, one for each event: single, two-man and four-man teams. Each course was 60 rounds on B-27 targets. For an IDPA and IPSC shooter it was a humbling experience. You only shoot 12 rounds at 7 yards and the rest of the course is shot at 25 and 50 yards. Most modern agency qualifications don’t go beyond 15 yards any more. To make it more difficult any hit outside the 7 ring counted as 0 points. Oh, you had left hand and right shooting from the barricades, prone sitting and kneeling strings too. It was tough.
I used my 4 inch S&W 686 and some generic Remington .38 special loads that ran around 755fps. I was holding on the shoulder line at 50 yards to try to drop rounds in the scoring zone. When you can’t see any hits you tend to focus on sight alignment and trigger control. I didn’t prepare properly and didn’t have a good barricade plan. I tried a couple of different holds and even single action fire, but found my double action pull was more consistent for me. (something Mas Ayoob has told me before) You shoot the course 3 times straight through and 180 double action trigger pulls in a half hour added a certain hand/finger fatigue factor into the mix. That may sound wimpy to some, but I use the Ayoob crush grip when I shoot and Mas will tell you that unless molten rubber or sap is oozing between your fingers, then you’re probably not squeezing hard enough.
So, when all was said and done my officers and I managed to bring a Bronze medal home in Marksman class of the 4-man team event. My teammates don’t shoot in competition as much as I do and performance anxiety effected them more than me. One told me he couldn’t sleep the night before and they had no prematch routine or rituals to help reduce stress. I’m sure on our home turf any of them could shoot the same course and score 100 points higher than they did this Saturday, but that’s one reason to shoot these matches, you always learn something. It was good to shoot at 50 yards where all your fundamentals have to be good to get those hits. If nothing else you learn your or your equipment’s limitations and like Dirty Harry said, “a man’s got to know his limitations!”
Finally, the string of bad movies is broken. The Coen brothers once again put together a farce that entertains. The cast of characters is rich and eclectic. They are all unlikeable, yet captivating in their unpleasantness. McDormand, Clooney, Malkovich and Swinton are excellent. The dialog is smart, the story whimsical, but they play it straight and it is quite funny. Brad Pitt is the weakest link, but doesn’t bring down the entire production. I don’t like spoilers, so I won’t give specific examples. Just believe me when I say you won’t look at your local home improvement store in the same light again. I don’t know why good movies are so rare. I think they have earned the luxury of control by their prior successes. They don’t have to play to the lowest common denominator to try to make money. Maybe they have respect for their art and the audience. Maybe a good story and interesting characters is too simple. Whatever the reason may be, I hope the Coens keep making the movies they want. Then I know at least once in awhile I’ll be able to see a really enjoyable movie.
The Chang brothers made a Thai film in 1999 that won some international acclaim for its directing and visual style. It was the story of a deaf-mute hitman. It was called Bangkok Dangerous. Why would you remake this film in 2008? Obviously, to try to break into the bank of big name western studio productions. Big name stars and distribution channels on a global level. But what about the movie? Nic Cage isn’t playing a deaf-mute. but you wish he were. Ooooh! I’m a hitman. I’m cold and aloof and don’t care about anyone. But wait! Now I fall for the deaf-mute cashier in a pharmacy?? At least there’s no language barrier. The girl emotes more as a deaf-mute than Cage does in this picture. I had a real problem with the cinematography too. It was dark and the color was washed out like the red hues were toned way down. It was so bad that I actually left one theater and asked for my money back (I got a free pass) because I thought the print or projector was bad. I saw it at another theater and it was the same, so I guess it was supposed to be that dark and colorless…like the soul of a hitman? I don’t know. Bangkok is a pretty place, but the only danger is to your wallet and your time.
This is three bad action movies in a row and I’m really disgusted with the whole industry. It’s my own fault. By going to these they make enough money to churn out more crap. It’s too late for me, but save yourself the money and show them you’ll only pay for really original and well made films.
