Commenting to a post.

It has been brought to my attention that folks have not been able to leave a comment on a post without having a google account. I have now changed that feature so any and all interested parties can leave their comment on the blog. Sorry for the inconvenience! Hope to begin hearing from everyone soon.

- Changing of the Guard -

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BHO the new JFK?

In Obama: A President Like My Father, Caroline Kennedy comes out of the woodwork and makes 'above the fold' news by not only endorsing Obama but equating him to her father. Many have attempted to draw parallels to the beloved immortal leader over time but never before has a member of the family drawn such direct comparisons and actively worked to persuade the public. Most importantly, Caroline is not alone. Uncle Ted, the red-eyed scotch drinker and senior Senator from Massachusetts, has also stepped forward and embraced Obama as the heir to the Kennedy legacy. He may no longer carry the weight as he or his name once did, but I would argue that in this instance he and his niece are making history and it will most certainly resonate within the base of the party. Any mention of JFK gets the yellow dog's attention.

Now whether or not Obama is the new JFK is certainly up for debate. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth. But what is important is the obvious and blatant changing of the guard - the old guard loyal Democrats. For the past two decades the Clinton machine has owned and manipulated the base of the Democrat party, always with the support and enthusiasm of the old guard in Congress (Moynahan, Byrd, Leahy, Kennedy, and so many others). With Obama, many of that group are finally deciding that enough is enough and are willing to take chances with a fresh face to finally bring an end to the Clinton era. While I do not support Obama for a host of reasons, I must admit that this excites me. I agree, enough IS enough!

In Memorium: President Gordon B. Hinckley

1910 - 2008

Tonight we thirteen plus million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mourn the loss of our dear president and prophet. He has been the only president I have known in my eight year membership in the church. I will forever remember his humor and wit, but above all his love for our Savior Jesus Christ and how he lived each day as a teacher and exemplar for the rest of us. I give thanks to God for the blessing of having him touch my life. He will truly be missed.

Below is an article taken from the Salt Lake Tribune by Peggy Fletcher Stack eulogizing this inspiring global leader.

President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died this evening. He was 97.

Hinckley's life spanned the 20th century, a time marked by LDS global outreach and technological advances. He saw his church evolve from a tiny sect in the Intermountain West to a respected religious movement with more than 13 million members worldwide. He embraced each new communication device, from radio to satellite to YouTube, as a chance to spread the Mormon word.

He began his career in the 1930s as a missionary defending the faith on a soapbox in London's Hyde Park and lived to see the country's first viable Mormon candidate for president. Through it all, Hinckley worked tirelessly to gain acceptance for his church on the world's stage. "We are not a weird people," Hinckley told Mike Wallace in a 1995 "60 Minutes" interview.

With the shrewdness of a politician, Hinckley downplayed the more controversial aspects of LDS history. He welcomed the world to Utah for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, promising everyone they could get a drink here and accepted one of America's highest honors - the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He highlighted Mormon commonality with other Christians, forging alliances with other faith groups while scolding LDS Church members for being too clannish, self-righteous and unfriendly to their neighbors.

"This church has grown into a great worldwide organization affecting for good the lives of people in more than 140 nations," Hinckley told The New York Times in 1995. "You can't, you don't, build out of pessimism or cynicism. You look with optimism, work with faith, and things happen."

Even as he looked outward, Hinckley energized the faithful with his forward-thinking proposals.

He undertook the most ambitious building program in the church's history, including the massive Conference Center near Temple Square and 83 temples - that's almost twice as many as were constructed in the in the previous 165 years of LDS history. He created a plan to help returned missionaries in Third World countries get an education. He revitalized missionary work, worked on the retention of new converts, sent apostles to live in far-flung regions for the first time in Mormon history, and replaced many paid positions with volunteers. Hinckley also remodeled the image of a Mormon leader.

When he became the church's 15th president in March 1995 at 84 years old, Hinckley essentially had been leading the church for more than a decade due to the frail health of his predecessors. He was determined to defy the view of LDS presidents as feeble, secretive and quaintly parochial. He dazzled people - members and outsiders alike - with his encyclopedic memory and almost superhuman work ethic. During his nearly 13 years as president, Hinckley gave more than 2,000 speeches, visited more than 150 countries, and greeted hundreds of diplomats and ambassadors. He was interviewed by journalists from nearly every major American newspaper, charming many with his folksy wisdom and self-deprecating humor.

"Treat me well," he would say with a sly grin. "I'm just an old man."

Yet even in his 90s, the figure Mormons consider a "prophet, seer and revelator" rarely thought like an old man.

"His keen intellect and thirst to understand how everything works resulted in a storehouse of knowledge that will be nearly irreplaceable," said Elder Marlin Jensen, the church's official historian. "I believe he was a true prophet but it didn't hurt that he was a genius, too."

Roots of leadership

Throughout childhood, Hinckley split his time between a Salt Lake City home and a farm in East Millcreek, where he learned to work the land, love the trees and grow his Mormon faith.

It was there where he had his first spiritual experience. He was about 5 years old and suffering from a painful earache.

"My mother prepared a bag of table salt and put it on the stove to warm," he said in 2000. "My father softly put his hands upon my head and gave me a blessing, rebuking the pain and the illness by authority of the holy priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ. He then took me tenderly in his arms and placed the bag of warm salt at my ear. The pain subsided and left."

Cradled in his father's arms, Hinckley drifted off to sleep, his father's words lingering in his mind.

"That is the earliest remembrance I have of the exercise of the authority of the priesthood in the name of the Lord," he said.

While the Hinckley home was awash in Mormon practices, it was also a place of learning. The five children (as well as several half-siblings) read Harvard classics around the kitchen table, where Hinckley became a devotee of Milton, Shakespeare, Kipling and especially Charles Dickens.

Such wide-ranging reading was unusual for a homespun Mormon family, but it provided the wellspring of education to which Hinckley would return again and again in his career. It allowed him to speak "non-Mormon" fluently. In 1998, Hinckley wrote a small volume, Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes, in which he drew on many childhood experiences without a single use of uniquely LDS language or beliefs.

To the faithful, Hinckley spoke in simple, imperative sentences like a grandfather - stern when condemning abuse, pornography or racism, gentle when encouraging faith and devotion. No grand theology, no fancy wordplay. Just no-nonsense advice.

"For the most part we are a happy people," he said at the 1998 Semi-Annual General Conference. "We're mindful of and continue to pray for those who are experiencing hardship due to natural or man-caused calamity. But even those among our number who are bowed down with sorrow and pain, go forward in faith with the certain assurance that God lives and is watching over his children."

Hinckley told Jensen he had no particular system for crafting his speeches.

"I just keep reading and clipping things and putting them in a drawer," the Mormon prophet said. "Then, when I have a talk to give, I go to the drawer and whatever is on top is what they get."

Such humor belies the truth, Jensen said. "Few have ever been as eloquent and inspiring in their speaking as he. He could relate and connect with everyone - old and young, rich and poor, educated and unlearned."

Building a career

Hinckley's two-year mission to England at the height of the Great Depression was an education in itself. He learned how to deflect antagonistic questions and discovered what would become his life's work - using the printed word, and later the airwaves, to promote the faith.

In 1933, few Britons were joining the American church, and many heaped insults and ridicule on its young representatives. Mormon missionaries would preach from portable podiums in London's Hyde Park while onlookers challenged them to verbal duels.

"We learned to speak quickly on our feet. And Elder Hinckley was the best of the bunch," the late Wendell Ashton, one of Hinckley's missionary companions, told LDS Apostle Jeffrey Holland.

The missionaries had no set oral presentation or prepared materials to distribute other than a few pamphlets and the faith's scripture, The Book of Mormon.

"Our conversion rate was terrible," said Ashton, former publisher of the church-owned Deseret Morning News. "We would just knock on doors and try to teach people, and it wasn't a good method."

At the end of his mission, Hinckley complained about the lack of aids to his mission president, who ordered him to report immediately back to LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake City, rather than tour the Holy Land as he had planned. When Hinckley had given his report, LDS President Heber J. Grant hired him on the spot.

At 24, Hinckley took over the newly created Church Radio, Publicity and Mission Literature Committee and would spend much of the next five decades thinking of new ways to get the church and its message into the American consciousness.

He wrote and edited scripts and supervised production for a radio series, "Fullness of Times," which featured 39 half-hour dramatizations of church history. He persuaded Mormon leaders to sponsor an exhibit at the 1938 World's Fair in San Francisco, including a scale model of the famed Mormon Tabernacle on Temple Square and daily organ recitals. He produced a similar exhibit for the centennial of the 1849 discovery of gold in California, with a replica of a cabin occupied by members of the Mormon Battalion.

Told in heroic detail, the Mormon story was repeated over and over as a way to attract potential converts - or at least to correct what Hinckley saw as public misconceptions of LDS teachings.

With his help, the church built a vast media empire, including radio and televisions stations. It had produced award-winning TV spots and ads for the church in Reader's Digest magazine. It had satellite technology at every wardhouse on the planet and could beam the sermons around the world.

Hinckley began his globe-trotting duties after he was named an apostle on Oct. 5, 1961.

While on speaking assignments, he was always available to comfort members in need. He was in Tonga when a boatload of Mormons drowned. He was in South America when a devastating earthquake hit Peru. He was in South Korea when there were gunshots in the streets.

As the decades passed, Hinckley shouldered more and more of the church's bureaucratic burdens.

Taking the lead

In 1981, President Spencer W. Kimball was weakened by brain surgery and his two aged counselors in the governing First Presidency were scarcely more capable of managing the church's affairs. So Kimball took the unusual move of bringing Hinckley, then an apostle, into the First Presidency as a third counselor.

From that day forward, Hinckley took on nearly the entire responsibility of leading the church, all the while seeming to be but a dutiful soldier bravely serving his general. After Kimball's death, Hinckley would help the enfeebled President Ezra Taft Benson in much the same way.

When Hinckley ascended to the church presidency in 1995, then, he was better prepared for the office than any man before him. He knew the church's system and programs intimately because he had designed many of them, much as he built his own home as a young man.

Architect, engineer, electrician, roofer, carpenter, brick layer and plumber all in one, Hinckley often boasted that he hammered every nail in the home - and never a one on Sunday. Over time, he planted more than 1,000 trees on his East Millcreek acreage.

"There is something in me that makes me plant trees each spring," he said in 2003. "They are very small now, but in 20 years they will be magnificent."

Designing spaces, ripping out walls, planting seeds for the future - this is what Hinckley did for the church, its people and programs.

Hinckley conceived and directed the transformation of the grand old Hotel Utah into an office building for church employees. After awakening from a dream, he sketched a temple that would be built atop a commercial building in Hong Kong. He remembered tiny details - when a certain chapel's roof was last replaced, or the name of someone he met years earlier. He instituted smaller, less expensive temples to serve members in remote areas.

For the first time in its history, the church launched a humanitarian service department that spent millions of dollars in emergency relief for people outside the faith. Hinckley also created a Perpetual Education Fund to help returned missionaries in Third World countries go to college.

And no one took a stronger lead in the church's political efforts.

He built alliances with other Christian denominations to oppose same-sex marriages and defend religious liberties. In 1998, Hinckley announced a "Proclamation on the Family," which laid out the church's support for the sanctity of marriage, the significance of family and the importance of chastity.

That became the theological foundation for the church's opposition to any effort to promote same-sex marriage. In 2000, the LDS Church defended the Boy Scouts' right to exclude gays from leadership positions, and the church and its members in Alaska and Hawaii gave time and well over $1 million to thwart same-sex marriage initiatives; in 1999, members in California helped finance the push for a Protection of Marriage Act on that state's ballot.

"What's a church for if it isn't to fight for values, to take a stand and face up to these moral issues?" Hinckley said in a February 2000 interview with The Salt Lake Tribune.

Mormon rock star

When Hinckley became president in 1995, the man who once dreamed of becoming a reporter had come full circle. He seemed to thrive on media attention, bantering with journalists and honing his skills at artfully dodging questions.

He repeatedly mentioned that Mormons were just ordinary people, trying to live simple, moral lives. He downplayed controversial aspects of the church's history, especially polygamy.

"It was a very limited practice, carefully safeguarded. In 1890, that practice was discontinued," Hinckley told CNN interviewer Larry King. "That's 118 years ago. It's behind us."

While that didn't satisfy critics who argued that the church continued sanctioning polygamous marriages into the early decades of the 20th century and that it's still part of the church's scriptures, it went a long way toward eliminating Mormonism's image as strange and foreign.

Hinckley also took his message of normalcy to other countries as he dedicated temples there. He launched a series of "cultural nights" where members in the region could gather in giant stadiums to show off their unique traditions and talents. Such giant public events helped mute the suspicion of this American church.

It also elevated Hinckley in the eyes of local members.

When Hinckley entered those arenas - or, indeed, in any large gathering of the faithful - the crowd instinctively stood up and grew suddenly silent.

Yet such hero worship had its downside. He could never take a stroll on Salt Lake City's Main Street Plaza or a city park without being besieged. As he recovered from his 2006 surgery in a Salt Lake hospital, he was virtually imprisoned in his room to protect him from well-meaning intrusions.

To the end, Hinckley faced head on the seduction of veneration.

"Adulation is a disease I fight every day," Hinckley said.

On the homefront

Though he was constantly looking beyond the Wasatch Mountains, Hinckley never lost sight of the importance of Salt Lake City as the church's headquarters. He built goodwill by opening the Tabernacle on Temple Square to interfaith groups, by creating an Inner City Mission to help people find their way out of poverty, illness and addiction, and by contributing to the restoration of the Catholic Cathedral of the Madeleine and Westminster College of Salt Lake City.

In February 2004, as his wife Marjorie lay dying, Hinckley's secretary called homeless advocate Pamela Atkinson to say the president "was very concerned with the very cold weather we were having." He wondered how they were managing and wanted to give some of his own money to Atkinson to help them, Atkinson said.

"That was the third time Hinckley did this," she recalled. "Here's a man who is a leader of a worldwide church, his wife is not well, and he thinks about homeless people and how he can help. I was taken aback and in awe."

For all his sensitivity to outsiders, though, Hinckley sometimes charged ahead without anticipating the anger his actions might generate.

The prime example was in 1997, when the LDS Church bought a block of Main Street from Salt Lake City to extend its headquarters, closing it to traffic and eliminating free expression there.

The move was opposed by many residents, some of whom joined a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. As the suit progressed through the courts, various groups emerged, notably the Alliance for Unity, to try to salve the hurt on both sides.

Then came the 2002 Winter Olympics. Hinckley promised the church would not use the occasion to proselytize and instructed his missionaries in Utah to stand down. Mormon volunteers even took a class in how to break the habit of preaching the Mormon gospel. Utahns from every religious group worked shoulder to shoulder in hopes that Salt Lake would take its place as a worldly, welcoming city.

During the Games, President George W. and Laura Bush, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, German President Johannes Rau and many other national and international dignitaries all paid courtesy calls on Hinckley.

He watched most of the 2002 Olympic events on TV and was especially wowed by the half-pipe snowboard gyrotechnics. What could be more American - and normal - than that?

Travel Story : Tips for you learned the hard way.

I thought I'd visit a common phobia that I have run into a time or two with Americans: travelling abroad. Now I'm sure you're not one of these people, but you can't honestly say that you haven't met that bone-headed patriot that says, "Why would I ever leave America?" or "This is God's country...why would I ever need to go anywhere else?" or upon hearing something awful from overseas someone uttering the all too famous, "That's why you'll never catch me leaving this country." All of these and more are common reactions to the idea of travelling, even in this 21st century.

Most of you know that I have had the opportunity to do quite a bit of travelling. Most of my experiences and adventures brought fond and unforgettable memories. But it wouldn't be like me not to tell you a unique travel story; a story of a memory unforgettable but for all the wrong reasons. For those of you apprehensive of going abroad...STOP reading now. It is not my intention to keep my dear friends and family from seeing this miraculous world of ours. Go! Travel on! My intention here is to pass forward wisdom gained.

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I arrived in Cape Town, South Africa in the middle of the afternoon after nearly a 22 hr plane ride buried in seat 52C. I was thrilled to finally be on my feet and on my way to experiencing Africa. After being dropped off at my new apartment I was left alone with the only instructions being that if I decided to venture out on my first day that I was NOT to go into the bad part of town. Common sense told me not to argue with that one. Problem was, in what direction was the bad part of town? While completely exhausted, there was no way I was going to hold up inside for a day until my official welcoming the next morning. So I set off to explore. I had read travel books, prepared for certain sights and interests, but did not yet have my rental car or any idea where my apartment was in relation to anything else. I was one lost American. Bad thing is, everyone knew it! I had already broken the one crucial rule: being inconspicuous. I had left the apartment wearing my red OU Sooners baseball cap. (A no no for trying to look like a local. Such caps are purely an American fashion. I should have known better.)

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Just as luck would have it I immediately set out on a path directly into that part of town I was told to avoid. Really, could it be any other way? Anyway, from the stares and whisperings around me I quickly caught on that I might have made the wrong move. But where to go? I twisted and turned and followed the crowds but to no avail. I soon became the only Caucasian in the mix and I must be honest in admitting that I was more than a bit uncomfortable.

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Out of the corner of my eye I saw them coming. Two teenage kids approached asking for money. I had already read that when this occurs you are never to stop, but to keep walking, never make eye contact, and never give them money. I tried all of that but they were good. Begging, pleading, bumping, etc. they weren't budging. I repeatedly told them that I wasn't American and didn't have any money. (When travelling abroad I usually claim to be Canadian - not due to any shame or embarrassment, but because it works. Try it. You will be amazed at the difference in service and hospitality - especially in France.) I quickly grew anxious and they knew they had me spooked. No one else on the street seemed to even see me let alone be persuaded enough to care to help. Instead, these boys essentially directed me further into the darker parts of town, right where they wanted me. Finally, when crowds were beginning to thin down one of them began growing agitated that I was not complying with their demands. He pushed me against a wall, threatening to kill me unless I turned over cash and my cell phone. For some reason I continued to call their bluff and attempted to keep walking, all the while looking for authority figures that might come to my rescue. I kept repeating the mantra of not having anything to give them and asking nicely for them to leave me alone.

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A police sighting spooked them enough to back off for a few minutes. I quickly fled the scene and made an attempt at getting back to a more populated part of town and closer to my apartment. But they caught up with me two blocks over and were back to their old tricks. This time I finally saw what I had been dreading - the flash of a blade. I stood my ground, somehow believing that they could not seriously be threatening my life all for a few dollars and a cell phone. When I refused to give them anything for the final time the thug with the knife made a thrusting gesture, enough for my instincts to kick in and push him away. Sweating, anxious, and truly scared I didn't know what to do but get out of there. They followed me, but I lost them in a crowded outdoor plaza. I retreated to my apartment and spent the rest of the day asking myself why on earth I thought coming to Africa was a good idea.
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I did see those boys again on several occasions, but thankfully never had to endure another incident like this one. I learned my first day lesson quickly and a lesson I now frequently pass on to others - lose the blatant American/tourist image, always seem confident in where you are going by avoiding frequent stops to use a map, cell phone, etc. Carry as little cash as possible and always keep walking.

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Needless to say, my adventures in Cape Town were some of the most fun and memorable three and a half months of my life. There were certainly moments like the story above that I could have lived without, but I wouldn't trade the entire experience for anything.

Currently Reading: An Inconvenient Book

Glenn Beck in rare form for 295 entertaining and persuasive pages. Years of right wing rant pared down to the written word for all mankind to digest and absorb. Bold in scope and vision; saturated in facts; leaving no liberal stone unturned. Place alongside your copy of Michael Savage's Liberalism is a Mental Disorder as you build up your canon of conservative scripture; tools to aid you in your fight against the demented left.

MY MAN MITT!

Why Mitt Romney? If for no other reason than I get to say that I too supported a hard to identify with elitist from Massachusetts for President. The Democrats can't hog that category forever. All kidding aside, the better question one might ask themselves is, 'Why not Mitt Romney?' Surely by now everyone has come to know the talking points that Romney gives when asking for your vote. He resurrected the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics from near financial ruin and internal corruption. He founded and presided over a very successful venture capitalist firm. He rescued Staples, the office supply mega chain, from bankruptcy. He successfully ran for governor of one of the bluest states in the union and did so without selling his soul. And while governor he oversaw legislation requiring all MA citizens to have health insurance - private health insurance. Like governors and businessmen before him, Mitt Romney brings to the table a unique resume of leadership and skills obtained via the private sector - where market driven competition determines success and failure.

Campaigning for the nomination requires any candidate to gravitate towards the base of their party. Mr. Romney has had to no doubt move much further right than he would otherwise feel inclined, but understands that politics is politics. No, he does not have as strong a record when it comes to many of the social conservative issues as does a few of his opponents, and yes he has since changed his positions on many of them. So be it. Let us accept his position changes and more forward. He understands that abortion, homosexual marriage, gun rights, and more are critical issues for certain sectors of our society and has promised to appoint the judges necessary to ensure those views are implemented and preserved. We need not choose a candidate simply because of his previous or even current stance on one or few of these issues. We need not convince ourselves that electing an evangelical Christian is the ONLY option left for the Republican Party. When all things are equal, I go with the candidate that best represents the traditional values of the party (including those already mentioned but not limited to them alone) and not based on religion, race, gender, or ethnicity. And there is no doubt that Mitt Romney is the most well rounded candidate for the GOP.

Take a gander at the records and experience and education of those running for president - on both sides of the aisle. Only Hillary Clinton has an education that arguably equals that of Romney. None equal his business experience. And only Huckabee rivals Romney when it comes to being the executive of a state and yet when examined closely, Huckabee's record is far from flattering and simply far from the traditional positions of the party he now desires to lead. McCain is certainly a war hero and deserves all the praise he receives, yet finds himself in a similar boat with Huckabee when his record is uncovered. With a weakening dollar and sliding economy I again turn to Romney, the only candidate with real world, real on the job training with real results for all to see.

As Mitt Romney has had to come far to the right to fight for the nomination you can bet that he will come racing back to the center, where he feels more comfortable and at home, in order to fight for the win in November. He didn't win and find success in Massachusetts by being a hard line Republican. He didn't find success in the business world or in Salt Lake by refusing to communicate and compromise in order to get the job done. Why would we expect anything different from him as president? He needs to take a moderate running mate from the south and coast into a win in November. Let's put aside our differences are realise what is on the line.

OSCAR NODS AND PREDICATIONS!

Best Picture:

Atonement

No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood
Juno

Michael Clayton

Best Director:
Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)

Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)

Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton)

Jason Reitman (Juno)

Julian Schnabel (Le Scaphandre et le papillon/ The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)

Best Actor: (difficult category this year)

George Clooney (Michael Clayton)

Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)

Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street)

Tommy Lee Jones (In the Valley of Elah)

Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises) - the dark horse

Best Actress:

Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age)

Julie Christie (Away From Her)

Marion Cotillard (La Mome / La Vie en Rose)

Laura Linney (The Savages)

Ellen Page (Juno)

Best Supporting Actor:

Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)

Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)

Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's War)

Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild)

Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)

Best Supporting Actress:

Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There)

Ruby Dee (American Gangster)

Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)

Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone)

Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

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Cinematography: (the one category where each nominee has a legitimate chance)

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Atonement

No Country for Old Men

Le Scaphandre and le Papillon

There Will Be Blood

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Costume Design: (it's always hard to say)

Across the Universe

Atonement

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

La Mome

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

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Original Screenplay:

Juno

Lars and the Real Girl

Michael Clayton

Ratatouille

The Savages

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Adapted Screenplay: (a true toss-up)

Atonement

Away From Her

Le Scaphandre and le Papillon

No Country for Old Men

There Will Be Blood

Those in bold are my predications. While I disagree with many of them, I base my predictions on current industry buzz. Unlike some previous years, I would say there are no shoe-in winners. Atonement, Juno, No Country are clearly the front runners in most categories as of now, but anything can happen. And I intentionally left out the editing and sound categories because...well, who cares. As for original score and best song, your guess is as good as mine.

Review: Cloverfield - 6 / 10

The following is my review of Cloverfield. It can also be found at moviefilmreview.com


With bated breath and anticipation the ever growing fan base of J. J. Abrams was strung along for the better part of six months - patiently tolerating tease trailers, gossip, and snippets for his latest work…the mysteriously titled Cloverfield. What is it? Monsters, global warming, nuclear war, the end of the world? Abrams managed to seal the lips of all involved in the production and delivered a modern movie miracle. No one seemed to know the answers and the line at the theater opening night seemed to indicate that the mystery will mean big bucks to Abrams and his team. Genius.

It is always a risky business to take what is primarily an unknown cast and throw them into a big budget film and have it pay off. But Lost has proven that Abrams and his team are just the group to do the trick. With director Matt Reeves at the helm, this movie avoided the other teen thriller cliches by the masterful use of the camera. Remember The Blair Witch Project? I need not say anymore other than to cross that with The Day After Tomorrow and you are somewhat in the ballpark of Cloverfield. While the movie develops around a group of friends who have gathered to say their goodbyes to Rob, played by Michael Stahl-David, the real story teller is Hud, T. J. Miller, Rob’s best friend and the one in charge of the video camera. He makes his way through the crowd, enticing the friends to offer their final goodbyes.

For the first half hour or so the audience is left to feel as if they are watching a home movie of a group of kids they don’t know. How many times have I been forced into watching someone’s wedding video or childhood home movies? At least that torture was free. Because of this, I found it hard to relate; hard to empathise with Rob and his friends as they tearfully say goodbye. After all, this is not my friend or my home movie. And frankly, little is done to convince the audience to think or believe otherwise.

A plot change comes right on time. First its an earthquake, then loud noises, then the electricity flashes. The innocent party is over. Heck, life as they knew it was over. The crowd of kids head for the roof of their high rise to see the mayhem of mid town NYC. Hud remains behind the lens, never putting the camera down as the mysterious disaster takes them from the roof to the streets and beyond. What began as a sad night of goodbyes for Rob turned quickly into a night of survival. Friends get separated, some die, others return to rescue the stranded, and Hud continues on. He is the only reason we get to eavesdrop on the awful scene. And while you never forget that you’re seeing a movie through the lens of a home movie camera and at the mercy of the operator, somewhere along the way you get invested in the group and somehow feel very involved.

These kids become brothers and sisters and the audience is drafted into their group as an extension. Their pain and anguish is very real. The ride is exhilarating and exhausting. And it appears that there is no way out of the inevitable. And so, I give the acting just as much props as the special filming technique. While others may disagree, the ’source’ of the panic and disaster is not the star of the show as it would have been in a Michael Bay or Bruckheimer film. Honestly, ’it’ is over the top, unbelievable and remains mysterious. But I did not care because I believed Rob, Hud, and their friends. They made it very, very real.

And it would not be an Abrams project without there being a built in opening for a sequel.

The Best Films of 2007

1. Atonement
2. No Country for Old Men
3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
4. There Will Be Blood
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
6. Death at a Funeral
7. Charlie Wilson's War
8. Le Scaphandre and le Papillon
9. The Kite Runner
10. Juno

Honorable Mentions:
The Great Debaters
American Gangster
Eastern Promises
Mr. Brooks
Fracture
Zodiac
3:10 to Yuma

Post script: As 'The Lives of Others' won an Oscar in 2006 for best foreign film, it cannot count it in this year's top ten list. But I must say it was no doubt the best film I saw in the theater this year which requires me to once again edit my list from last year.

May 2008 be as generous or more so to us movie nuts!

Here we go again...

Friends, Family, strangers.... it is off to the races once more as I delve into the technological arena of blogging. Many of you have asked that I get back on the web after my year sebatacle from all things technical. And so, here I am. I fully plan to use this space to discuss my passions - politics, religion, traveling, movies, books, friends, etc. Thanks in advance for joining the ride. If there's ever anything you want from me, any requests or debates...just let me know.