Invictus

Went and saw Invictus the other night at the District. Yep, I love the District - holds a special place in my heart - I think from the time I ran out of the theater to get the car in the pouring rain and ATE it on the slick cement between the doors and the fountain they have there. It's a pretty funny story, if you haven't heard it, I'll be happy to tell you in the proper setting, because it's pretty comical - well, I can laugh about it now.

ANYWAY, I knew this story before the movie came out, I remember South Africa shocking the Rugby world and winning the World Cup in 95 over the mighty All Blacks of New Zealand, and the positive effects it had on post-apartheid South Africa. GREAT story, to say the least.

The movie is moving. It is a great story, as mentioned. I really enjoyed it.

BUT, as you may know if you read my reviews, it's rare that I can't find something off about even really good movies and this one definitely had somethings that bugged me. 1) Matt Damon's South African accent - HORRIBLE!!! Very distracting, and just ridiculous. Back in my consulting days, one of my bosses at PwC was South African, so I'm familiar with the accent, and Matt Damon missed it across the board. 2) The production value of the film is oddly poor. I thought maybe it was because it was shot in South Africa, but was then informed that Sector 9 was filmed there and was excellent, so who knows. For some reason it felt like it was shot in the 70's or 80's. Not a huge deal, but still strange. 3) the Soundtrack is ridiculous, and not good ridiculous. Truly lame. If you've spent any time on my blog, you may have seen the poem "Invictus" on the side bar (from whence came the name of the movie, because Mandela in his 27 years of imprisonment found solace in the words of the poem). They tried to make a song out of it and it is just bad, like movie of the week on The WB bad. Not sure why a movie with big name actors, directed (or produced) by Clint Eastwood, has such poor quality? Anyway...

So, overall, despite the aforementioned drawbacks, the movie is really good. I would have liked some more Rugby scenes, but I imagine Rugby is a hard sport to simulate, so there isn't a lot of really good action, but there's enough that when the Springboks win the match with the All Blacks, you get chills - at least I did. It was really awesome. So, I'll recommend this movie. It's not quite as touching as the Blindside, but uplifting in other ways, so I enjoyed it. I'll give it 4.25 out of 5. I don't think anyone will be disappointed if they go see it.

Hopefully, the next review will be of Sherlock Holmes, it looks awesome - Christmas Day!!!

Jazz Games '09

I love going to the Jazz games. Big surprise. I've been to 3 or 4 this season, and I just love it - can't get enough of it (fortunately they've won each game - my feelings might be a LITTLE different if they lost, but I still enjoy going...) By the way, THANK YOU to the people who have invited me to go with them to games, I truly appreciate it :-)

Last night was SUCH a great game!!! The Jazz fell behind early and were down by as many as 15 in the second quarter and fought back to 8 at halftime.

Halftime for this game wasn't nearly as funny as the Memphis game. At the Memphis game, they had two contestants dressed up in those puffy "sumo wrestler" suits and they had to run blue or red balls over to a barrel and deposit them. The contestant with the most balls of his/her color in the barrel won some prize. Little Bear, was in the way trying to slow the contestants down a little, to make it a little more challenging. It's pretty funny (for those of you who haven't seen little bear, he's hilarious). Then, Big Bear decides to get in on the action and lays a hit on the red contestant, and this person was down for the count, while the blue contestant just kept scoring points. The trainers came out and had to assist the red contestant off the court. It was pure comedy. I bet Big Bear was SWEATIN it, thinking he had a lawsuit on his hands. Maybe the contestants had to sign a waiver to participate. I bet the red contestant didn't think he'd be leaving with a concussion!

Anyway, the Jazz came back in the 3rd Quarter and just smacked the Spurs to go up by 10 at the beginning of the 4th quarter - punctuated by this Deron Williams dunk over Tony Parker Just awesome and the place went nuts!!! (I was a little disappointed the place wasn't full, but the roads were pretty crappy - still - the true fans were there ;-) )

The 4th quarter started with SA going back up by 1, yep an 11-0 run, ridiculous. But that is the NBA, anyone can make a significant run at any point in a game. It just made the end of the 4th quarter SUPER exciting, edge of your seat stuff and the Jazz pulled out the win in dramatic fashion, showing some real heart and tenacity. It was just a great game to attend!!!

If I could afford it, I would go to EVERY game. GO JAZZ!!!

2012 - Movie Review

Sometimes, you see a movie that makes you think you should never go to the movies again. This may have been it (or Where the Wild things Are...) This movie was SO dumb. What happened to lots of good movies coming out during the holidays? I am looking forward to Sherlock Holmes, that looks awesome, and Robert Downey Jr. has been nothing short of amazing since his stint in jail for drub possession, or whatever it was. So, that looks like it might redeem the season of garbage movies. Christmas day!

So, I'm really disappointed in John Cusack for doing this retarded movie. I guess it's like the Rock doing kiddie Disney movies almost exclusively now, but Cusack can actually act, so it's not really an apples to apples comparison.

Basically, the Mayan Calendar ends on 12/21/12 signaling the end of the world due to increased activity from the Sun heating up the earth's core and hilarity ensues, like California sinking into the Pacific, a mountain in Africa becoming the highest point on earth and Asia shifting 1500 miles to the East, conveniently enough so Cusack's plane can make landfall after running out of fuel (because they couldn't stop in HI, because it had been reduced to a Volcano again). Blah, Blah, Blah. DUMB. Don't see it in the theaters, MAYBE on Red Box, but it is LOOOOOONG, so be sure to have plenty of Red Bull or something to make it through. 1 out of 5 stars, good luck with this one...

The Blindside -Movie Review

Went and saw the Blindside on Monday night at the District. I'm pretty sure that's my favorite theater around here. It's not super close but for some reason I like it best.

Anyway, I thought this movie looked really good from the previews and it did not disappoint. Honestly, this has to the maybe the first drama I've seen in a while (I'd have to go back and look through my posts here to be sure).

Here's the basic plot (I don't know where the links go, I just cut and pasted from another site)

“A poor, undereducated 344-pound African-American teenager in Memphis, whose father was murdered and whose mother was a crack addict, is shuffled through the public school system, despite his low grade point average and absenteeism. But his tremendous size and quickness attracts the interest of a wealthy white couple who take him in and groom him both athletically and academically to become one of the top high school football prospects in the country.”

The Blind Side movie is based on the true story of football player Michael Oher, whose incredible track was traced in Michael Lewis’ book “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game”.

That isn't a completely accurate assessment of the plot, but I don't think this was the official statement about the movie either. The Touhy's (Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw) take Michael in because he has no place to go, not because of his size or athletic ability. That does become a focus for him and them, but so does academics. They really do make this guy's life 1,000,000 times better than it ever would have been otherwise. In fact at the end they show one of his buddies from the hood has been shot and killed in gang violence - which, it's implied, could have just as easily been Michael if he hadn't been taken in by the Touhy's.

Anyway, I was warned that the movie was really sad and I should be ready to cry. It wasn't that sad. In fact it was actually a really nice story. There was one scene where Sandra Bullock has gone to visit with Michael's actual mother, and she becomes very emotional and Sandra holds her hand that was sad-ish, but not tear worthy. Bottom line is a black kid from the hood of Memphis ended up getting a really great deal from a very giving and caring rich family from the "right side of the tracks" in Memphis and got a much better life out of it. He now plays for the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL - pretty dang cool!

I really liked the movie. At one point it did seem to be dragging a little but that didn't ruin it for me. I'd say 4.5 out of 5 stars. Tim McGraw's hairpiece was VERY distracting it was so bad. Every time he was on screen I couldn't take my eyes off it. He should have just gone bald. I mean the Movie family was WAY more attractive that the actual family (as it should be for the movies ;-) ) so Tim being bald would not have taken away from his role at all.

I'd recommend this movie, maybe the "feel good" movie of the year. :-D

REAL SALT LAKE TAKE THE CUP!

In an amazing, I mean AMAZING turn of events, RSL won the MLS Championship last night.

Kyle Beckerman celebrating the win

They just barely got into the playoffs on the last day - and EVERYTHING fell into place for them that day (including Colorado getting bumped completely :-D ). They had to GO to Columbus in the 2nd leg of their first round matches, and yet they won 3-2 there and 4-2 on aggregate. For those who don't know, in the first round they play a home and away "tie" to determine who moves on by aggregate. RSL won at home 1-0 - the boys were there, I think I posted that pic in my birthday post, and then RSL won in Columbus against the #1 seed (RSL were the 8 seed out of 8!) Next they had to beat Chicago IN Chicago, and did so in miraculous fashion after 90 minutes of scoreless regulation time, 30 minutes of scoreless extra time they won it in Penalty Kicks when Nick Rimando saved 3 straight attempts from Chicago to seal the win! Sean and I watched this together at his house and we were jumping up and down and screaming and loving every second of it, it was pretty funny.

Then the finals last night! I put together a Facebook event and had 60+ people say they were comingto watch the match...and then the snow hit. The roads were miserable and we ended up with about 25 people or so at Sky Box in South Jordan to watch the game. This time RSL were facing the LA Galaxy as pretty big underdogs. Yet again, RSL played great in regulation and it ended 1-1 after 90 with Robbie Findley getting the tying goal after LA had taken the lead in the first half. After 30 minutes of pretty even play and no scoring in the extra time (though RSL really should have scored right at the last second, but Andy Williams missed a cross in the box that he surely could have put away for the win. I think his legs were really tired.) RSL were off to PK's again! Needless to say, the tension at the Sky Box was palpable! My heart was jumping into my throat! Amazingly, Nick Rimando came up HUGE again and saved 2 PK's while Landon Donovan of LA, the league "MVP" whiffed his attempt up and over the cross bar to miss as well! RSL's guys came up big under a lot of pressure and Robbie Russell, a defender sealed the victory and the championship with a lovely PK into the right corner while the LA keeper dove to the left.

The Sky Box went CRAZY. There is video of the last few PK's and the final victory celebration, but I can't copy it from Facebook for some reason. It's hilarious because it is sheer pandemonium, hugging, yelling, cheering, I think there was even some crying, it was surreal. I wish I could hit rewind and do it all over again, it was that cool.

So, here are some pics, and congrats to RSL!!!! Finally Utah has a professional sports championship!!! (maybe the Jazz will take notice and step up for #2, eh?)

Fish tacos with Ben during the first half. Pretty crappy, but I was starving and they didn't have the bacon-wrapped shrimp. I almost left because of that. SO glad I didn't.

We thought Robbie Findley had scored the game winner late in regulation...

Alas, it was just side-netting and I was like WHAAAAATTTT????

This is during PK's - there wasn't much tension, can you tell???

PURE JOY after the win. I really don't think I've smiled this big in a VERY long time - it was AWESOME!!!! Russ is ALMOST smiling as big, not quite though.

Oh and this is from when I met Nick Rimando last week to get my Nick is my Homeboy t-shirt that you see in the pics above:

Movie Review - Where the wild things are

I think Sean said it best when telling Amy about this movie, "If Griffin had been old enough to realize how depressing this movie was, there would have been three of us wanting to kill ourselves." Worst Movie I've Seen In a LONG Time, 0 Stars, it has NO redeeming qualities, is nothing like the book, and may have scarred two adults for life. Horrible, No Good, Very Bad!!! Not even Red Box quality.

Return to an old favorite

The weather on Saturday was pretty cold. SO, the boys went out goofing around and we ended up at an old favorite - NICKELCADE!

Sean teaching Griff the fine art of Snowmobile racing

Griffin perfecting the art

Nickelcade is pretty fun. $5 lasts FOREVER in my hands, not so long in Griff's. He decided he wanted to play the ticket games. 2 minutes into being in the Nickelcade, his little baggie of Nickels is empty and he has a fistful of tickets. He came running up to me and claimed he found the jackpot ticket machine (this is a holdover term from when we actually did hit the jackpot on a ticket game at 7-Peaks 2 summers ago, for something like 500 tickets on one quarter). His "jackpot" was 130 tickets or something, and he happily jogged off to trade in the tickets for prizes. He came back with a "baby cheetah" stuffed animal, a para-trooper, and a black spider ring. Pretty good haul for $2.50 in nickels :-D

As you're reading this, you're probably thinking, "How fast is the swine flu sweeping the Nickelcade while you're playing games?" We had the exact same thought (the place was pretty busy). Fortunately, they had a Costco-size drum of Germ-X (or the Kirkland equivalent) on the counter and we pretty much bathed in it while we were there, and we're all swine flu-free. Successful trip to the Nickelcade, and we all had fun.