Review of GREEN LANTERN: A mis-focused but fun movie!

Maybe I should disclaimer this by admitting that before going to see the movie, that I bought a Kilowog action figure just so I could have a Green Lantern power ring to wear while watching this flick. Well, that and to also have an action figure of Kilowog to pose on my desk, 'cuz he's my favorite member of the Green Lantern Corps.

But I don't think that would be enough to subjectively color my perception of this movie when I say that I for one enjoyed the heck out of Green Lantern: the live-action adaptation of one of the most classic and revered superheroes in the DC Comics stable, which opens today. But I would also have to admit that this movie is far from perfect, or what it should be at a minimum.

Green Lantern is mis-focused far too much for the film that it should be: about a high concept cosmic mythology. Thor pulled that trick off beautifully when it opened last month. Unfortunately the high concept mythos is there in Green Lantern but doesn't get played up nearly as much as it ought to be. The scenes on Oa, and our glimpses of the Corps and of the Guardians of the Universe and the bits about how green is the color of willpower and yellow is the color of fear, etc... I loved that stuff!! Heck, I could have sat for the entire 114 minutes of this film's running time with nary a glimpse of Earth...

...because we get Earth too dang much in this movie about Green Lantern. That's my biggest beef with this film. And it's sadly ironic: that for a story about choosing to be fearless, director Martin Campbell (who also directed Casino Royale a few years ago for the James Bond franchise) and his crew were afraid to let their baby take off and soar out into the larger universe where Green Lantern belongs.

Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, the human entrusted with the Green Lantern ring by the dying Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison, perhaps best known for playing Jango Fett and his zillions of clones in the Star Wars prequels) pulls off the role admirably, if also with a touch of clunkiness. The thing about Jordan's fear after the freak accidental death of his father, resonated with me with all the grace of a rusted cowbell. It was definitely something that could have benefitted from some rewrite and better editing (or being excised completely). Come to think of it, quite a bit of this film could have been edited away and it would have felt much slicker. I also liked Blake Lively as Jordan's girl/boss Carol Ferris. Tim Robbins also appears as a United States senator and Angela Bassett plays Amanda Waller (a DC Comics character and I'm wondering if Waller's turning up here is helping to set things up for the Justice League movie I'm hearing whispers about, much as Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury has been crashing almost all the Marvel movies of late).

But by far the worst of the human characters, and the single most distracting element of Green Lantern, is Hector Hammond, played by Peter Sarsgaard. I don't necessarily blame Sarsgaard himself but... well, there's no way around it: Hector Hammond sucks. He's a character more at home in a David Cronenburg film than in a blockbuster comic book adaptation. But that Sarsgaard plays him like he's channeling Seth Brundle from The Fly doesn't help matters any. At best Hector Hammond comes across as just too powerful for his own good and at worst, like Rick Moranis' nerdy accountant in Ghostbusters after becoming the Key Master. Too much crap like this and not nearly enough of the Green Lantern legendarium...

...but when we do get pure-D Corps, the movie is an absolute hoot to behold. Michael Clarke Duncan is firing on all cylinders as Kilowog, the Green Lanterns' drill instructor. And for Sinestro, I really can't see any better than Mark Strong as the Corps' respected warrior, soon to become worst enemy. That doesn't happen in this film, but the setup is there (stick around during the credits). I'm looking forward to seeing Sinestro going full-tilt against the Guardians in the sequel (which, based on this film I do believe is merited).

The special effects in Green Lantern are CGI intensive, and at times a bit cartoony... but given that this is a Green Lantern movie, I can forgive that and even say that it's about what I expected. James Newton Howard turns in a fine score. Conceptually, the scale of this film is vast. It's just not exploited to the fullest hilt. As I said, Thor made it work and there's no reason why it can't in a Green Lantern movie. Maybe in the follow-up we'll see Hal Jordan hanging around on Oa more and on Earth less (and speaking of Oa, I thought the Guardians were handled magnificently: elder beyond reason and yet a vital and breathing component of the Green Lanterns' realm).

Green Lantern isn't the best superhero movie that I've seen, and it's somewhat frustrating that it's not the film that it could and should have been. But neither is it the train wreck or the bomb that I'm seeing too many other critics panning it as. I went in to see it braced for anything. Coming out, I realized that it is what it is: a fun summer popcorn flick. I won't say that I'm gonna give it my highest recommendation, but I will say that Green Lantern is worth considering plunking down some coin at the box office to see.

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Ya see, THIS is where wacko environmentalism is taking us...

Japanese researchers have announced that they have created a meat substitute... manufactured from human excrement.

The laboratory sample is even labeled... may the Lord forgive me for ever having to write this... "SHIT BURGER".

Darn. This stuff makes Soylent Green sound downright palatable!

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RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK came out thirty years ago this week

In 1973, around the same time that he was putting ideas together for what would become the Star Wars saga, George Lucas came up with a rough outline for "The Adventures of Indiana Smith". Nothing came of it until a few years later, when Lucas was vacationing in Hawaii... and happened to run into fellow director Steven Spielberg building a sandcastle on the beach in Maui. It was Spielberg who suggested changing the name from "Smith", and Lucas thought up "Jones" instead.

Four years later, their new hero swashbuckled onto movie screens and forever into popular culture...

Raiders of the Lost Ark came out thirty years ago this week, on June 12th 1981.

Incidentally, this is my all time most personal favorite movie! I could literally watch it all day, all week, and not get tired of it. No other film ever influenced my life more. Raiders of the Lost Ark is what ignited my love and passion for history. I still remember pulling down the "A" volume of the World Book Encyclopedia as a seven-year old on the day after I saw this movie, so I could read up about the real Ark of the Covenant. And that led me to going all through our family Bible to read even more (guess you could say that the Ark was my very first research project).

Anyway... Happy Thirtieth Anniversary to Raiders of the Lost Ark and to everyone who made this movie happen!

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Chris sees SUPER 8 and struggles to understand why he's so madly in love with it

The most singularly consistent quality possessed by Super 8 that I've heard from friends who have seen the film is that it is like a Rorschach test: different people are going to see different things in this movie. And always those friends pick a movie from Steven Spielberg's long career to describe Super 8: a film executive produced by Spielberg and written and directed by J.J. Abrams.

"It reminded me of E.T." "It was as scary as Jaws and Jurassic Park!" "Didn't you get a Close Encounters vibe?"

Yes to all of those and more. But having seen this movie two days ago and with it getting better and better the more that I think about it, I've come to the conclusion that I absolutely love Super 8 because, to me anyway, it gave me a feeling that I haven't felt watching a movie in a theater ever since The Goonies in the summer of 1985.

This is definitely a J.J. Abrams/Bad Robot movie. But it is also a film that has Steven Spielberg's handiwork all over it... and it is a beautiful thing to watch this story unfold and work its magic. When I saw that Amblin Entertainment logo, the one with Elliot and E.T. flying in silhouette, my inner geek started jazzing up like it hasn't in way too long. Because, this is a movie that many of us wondered if Spielberg was even capable of pulling off again.

Let me explain that. I met Steven Spielberg once. It was at the National Boy Scout Jamboree in 1989. Spielberg was there to inaugurate the Cinematography merit badge, and he also produced the jamboree's opening night show. I was our council's media correspondent: sending reports to newspapers back home and such. There was a press conference with Spielberg and we got to talk with him and... the guy was just a big kid. He even wore his Boy Scout uniform complete with Eagle Scout badge! And there was this light in his eyes as he talked about what was coming up with the Back to the Future trilogy and then how he first got into filmmaking. It was really quite something: the most successful movie director of our generation, bouncing up and down and off the walls like a kid in a candy store... and could anyone really blame him?

That was the Steven Spielberg that gave us E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial and Gremlins and Goonies, and later on Jurassic Park.

And then, Spielberg made Schindler's List.

He hasn't been the same as a filmmaker since. And I don't know how anybody could really blame him. Now, he did not get "worse" by any stretch of the measure. There was no decline in his creativity or artistic execution. But doing Schindler's List... and I don't know of any other way to put it... scarred the man. Broke something inside. It frightened that sparkly-eyed kid and made him run away. I thought that I could see that kid coming back when A.I.: Artificial Intelligence came out ten years ago... except for that ending. Spielberg before Schindler's List would have found an entirely different ending for that film. Spielberg after Schindler's List however...

...Well, as I said: nobody can blame him. And I'm not going to demand that Spielberg not grow as an artist. This, the man has certainly done, often literally right before our eyes. He should grow into his own, as each of us must with our lives.

But I gotta tell you: when I heard about how Spielberg was scouting locations in Poland for Schindler's List and how he found a gray puddle of debris near one of the death camps, and casually put his hand into it before realizing that those were the ashes of human bones...

...Just reading that, I knew that this most celebrated of American filmmakers had been made to lose a lot of innocence. And that nothing would be the same for him again.

Not I, or anyone else, should ask Spielberg to go back to "the way things were". We don't have the right and, I don't know how that's even possible.

But even so, just the same: I have missed the old Steven Spielberg. The man who made us believe that childhood friendship would always triumph over the bad guys, whether they be government agents or hostile creatures or both. The man who let everyone else know what those of us who grew up in the late Seventies on through the Nineties already knew: that there was always an adventure awaiting, right around the corner or down the street or even in the dark recesses of our own home.

Super 8 is a J.J. Abrams movie. But this is also a Steven Spielberg film. The kind that we haven't gotten in way, way too long.

Super 8 is a homage and a tribute to everything that we loved about Spielberg's movies back in the day. If there was one word that I would have to use to describe the tonal quality of this film, it would be "innocence". Joe and Charles and their friends: here we've a bunch of middle-school kids who spend their time making zombie horror films with Super 8 cameras and jury-rigged lights and audio and lots of schlocky make-up. They share a dream. Kids at that age, they can do anything and they know it and don't get in their way! For Joe Lamb (played by Joel Courtney) this is more than a collaboration with friends: it's how he loses himself from the grief of his mother, who dies in a work-related accident at the beginning of the film. For Charles Kaznyk (Riley Griffiths, who seems to steal the scene every time he's on-camera) it's about showing up older teenagers in a film competition. And for both it is a feeling of affection toward Alice Dainard (wonderfully played by Elle Fanning), for whom this Super 8 project is a brief escape from her hated father. Then there is pyrotechnician/pyromaniac Carey (Ryan Lee) and Preston (Zach Mills) and Martin (Gabriel Basso). And they all wind up at a train station on the edge of town late one night to shoot a scene (and also hopefully, as Charles is constantly demanding, "PRODUCTION VALUE!").

And by that point, I was so involved with these kids and their good-natured plot that I didn't remember that Super 8 is a movie about something going horribly wrong in a small Ohio steel-mill town. Indeed, it comes almost as complete surprise when an Air Force train speeding past the station hits a truck and derails, in what has to be the most spectacular train wreck in cinematic history.

And then...

No, I'm gonna hold off on saying much more. I only saw one trailer in the past several months leading up to Super 8's release. I went in with a mind totally innocent to what I was about to witness.

And so should you.

This is a movie that they just don't make anymore. And I keep thinking back to the scene in Joe's bedroom, when Alice sneaks out to see him and comes in through his window. That scene, too many movies in this day and age would have had it turning into something far too more between a boy and a girl on the verge of young adulthood. Super 8 takes the high ground without being pretentious about it. I thought that scene was incredibly sweet and tender and pure.

Wow. Just now realizing how much I've written about Super 8. Even though I don't know how much of this could sincerely be called a "review".

This is the kind of movie that I grew up wanting to make. And now that I'm a little older and have seen J.J. Abrams do it, and that it is possible to do it... well, maybe that has reinvigorated me. It certainly has made me respect Abrams all the more, and the man already had that between Cloverfield and Lost and 2009's Star Trek: still the finest re-launch of a franchise that I know of. And no doubt, Super 8 is going to inspire a lot of kids out there.

Just as Spielberg inspired us and still inspires us to this day.

Super 8, I cannot possibly more urge this blog's readers to see this movie. DON'T wait until the DVD and Blu-ray release. Absolutely do not watch it for the first time in streaming video on a teeny tiny monitor screen. If you can at all, you owe it to yourself to see this movie right now, on a big screen, with lots of other moviegoers around you. And preferably, in the company of good friends. I saw it with one on Sunday afternoon and I'm looking forward to seeing it with another this coming Friday (along with Green Lantern). Yes, this is a movie to see and celebrate with friendship, just like we did with The Goonies.

One last thing: does this movie have "PRODUCTION VALUE!!"?

Oh yeah. Big time. You'll see :-)

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DUKE NUKEM FOREVER is out TODAY!

Yes, it really is! I even went out late yesterday evening along with good friend/fellow blogger and Eagle Scout Steven Glaspie to be at the local GameStop for the midnight release, just to behold it with our own eyes.

But that wound up not being good enough. I had to have some tactile sensation of it as well, so I bought a copy of the standard edition.

And though I hadn't planned on it, I wound up shooting and then editing together a lil' film to document the event for posterity. This is the first time that I've ever put together a movie with an iOS device. May this be the first of many more to come :-)

Anyhoo, here is... Vaporware Nevermore!

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Creepy, and all too true...

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"A Good Man Goes To War": DOCTOR WHO mid-season finale pulped my poor brain!

The last episode of Doctor Who until September aired just over an hour ago on BBC America. Titled "A Good Man Goes To War" and...

GREAT GOOGLEDY MOOBELY that was six scoops of crazy with sprinkles on top!

This show, might be finally coming into its fullest potential after nearly half a century since it premiered. This one hour of Doctor Who had more mythology packed into it than any episode in recent memory. Hey, it even had the classic Cybermen: as in the Mondas originals, not those stoopid Cybus Industries brand-name losers from the other universe.

And then, the real intensity got poured on and ratcheted up a notch or twenty.

Sooo now we know more about River Song than we've ever learned about her to date. But I get the feeling there's way more to her... and I even have a pretty neat theory about it. Don't wanna say too much in case some reading this haven't seen this episode, but here's a hint: the 1996 television movie.

I'm gonna have to watch this episode again just to adequately absorb it all (the Nazgul-ish Headless Monks were definitely "hide behind the sofa" material :-) But "A Good Man Goes To War" is such a rollickin' excellent episode that it will certainly tide us over until Doctor Who returns in late summer with "Let's Kill Hitler". In the meantime, I give this episode an unprecedented SIX Sonic Screwdrivers!

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On wars and monuments and such...

I hadn't wanted to revisit the issue of the Confederate Soldiers Monument in my hometown of Reidsville this soon. But earlier this morning I was led to consider something, and I think it's worth sharing and asking others to ponder it also...

I have visited many historic battlefields, and cemeteries, and locations of monuments. Both in my own country and also abroad.

I have seen many memorials honoring soldiers who fought in war.

But I have yet to see a single memorial honoring any war.

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Les Misérables: Women steal 75 deodorant sticks, as pet cemeteries ordered to stop burying humans

In the state of New York a government agency is ordering pet cemeteries to cease and desist with interring the cremated remains of human pet owners with their beloved dogs and cats.

Meanwhile in Fort Pierce, Florida (I happen to have lots of family there) two women were taped by video surveillance at a Winn Dixie supermarket stealing seventy-five sticks of deodorant. Police figure the ladies will try to sell the deodorant to convenience stores.

Not the craziest stories that I've heard lately, but certainly worth passing along for your mirth and merriment :-P

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Make Super 8-ish movies with your iOS gizmo!

As of this evening I haven't seen Super 8, but some of the coolest cats that I have the honor of personally knowing seem to be completely losing their minds about how incredible it must be. I'm gonna be catching it Sunday afternoon with friends and am really looking forward to it :-)

But in the meantime, thought I'd turn y'all's attention to 8mm Vintage Camera, a sa-weeet lil' app from Nexvio for Apple iOS devices that are camera equipped (doesn't matter if it's an iPhone, iPod touch or the newest iPad). 8mm Vintage Camera turns your newfangled Apple contraption into an old-school 8mm movie camera with all the fixins. Select from different lenses, various types of film stock, and you can even give it a classic camera frame jitter effect. I've had this app for a few weeks now and it has definitely become one of my favorites. Indeed, all kinds of fun ideas have crept into mind since I started playing with it!

8mm Vintage Camera is $1.99 on the App Store, and the current version (1.1) is a tiny 2.7 MB download. Click here to get to it on iTunes. You'll thank me that you did :-)

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TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL is finally coming to theaters near you!

I have been waiting more than a YEAR to make this post...

It was April of last year that I caught Tucker & Dale vs. Evil at the first ActionFest film festival in Asheville (slash here for my review of it then). And it was almost one year ago that I ranted about how this movie SCREAMS for distribution! Heck it should have come out last summer: no doubt it would have been the sleeper hit of 2010!

Well, all these very long months later, Magnet Releasing has picked up the film! It will be released theatrically on September 30th and in video on demand on August 26th.

If I might make a suggestion: don't see Tucker & Dale vs. Evil on your teeny tiny monitor at first! This movie deserves to be first beheld on the big screen! I caught it at a midnight showing and it was a crazy good time had by all!

Mash down here for more about the release. Thanks to Drew McComber and "Weird" Ed Woody for passing along the great news.

And hurray to Magnet Releasing for bringing Tucker & Dale vs. Evil to the masses!! :-)

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A monument to brave duty in a broken world

My original plan for this day was to head out around lunch to grab a spot at the back of the chamber and do live blogging of this afternoon's meeting of Reidsville City Council. Agenda Item #5 was public comments on how to proceed with the Confederate Soldiers Monument, which was greatly damaged in an unfortunate vehicular accident on May 23rd. So I was going to be there and blog/tweet during the session.

In the end however, I chose not to attend, for a number of reasons. There was already going to be quite a large crowd in attendance with limited space available, and since I don't live in the city limits proper I didn't think it was going to be fair. Citizen journalist though I am, I'm also a citizen who's already publicly stated that the monument should be restored. There were a number of associates who had more reason to be there than I, and I greatly appreciate the reports that they have sent to me.

The biggest reason why I didn't go however, is that in my mind, at this time there is no "controversy" about the monument. It was damaged in an accident, the driver's insurance will certainly pay to have it repaired (as happens countless times across the country each and every day). Did I have a reason to be there as an independent journalist of some repute (hopefully good)?

It began dawning on me yesterday evening that I should just steer clear of this meeting, to not "dignify" a non-issue with attention, and be content to give Mayor James Festerman and the city council the benefit of the doubt and trust them to do the right thing. As of this writing, I'm still counting on them to do that by letting the monument be repaired. Besides, I know that at least one of the Reidsville City Council members is a regular reader of this blog, so my thoughts and observances are going to be considered even if they aren't in the official record.

I'm thankful for those who came to speak in favor of the monument. And I think that I did the right thing in being an absent presence of publick reporterage on this occasion. But based on what I'm hearing this afternoon, I'm gonna keep a really hairy eyeball on this... and if Mayor Festerman and council doesn't do right, I'm gonna be on them like white on rice!

Here's to hoping them to do the right thing, however. The Confederate Soldiers Monument (shown before the accident), contrary to what some speakers at today's meeting asserted, is not a monument to a lost cause. It is not a monument to a slavery. It is absolutely NOT a monument to racism!

You want to know what that's a monument to?

It is a monument to nearly two thousand men of Rockingham County - more than most other counties in the state which sent the most soldiers to serve in the Confederate army - who arose to the task of defending their families and their communities in a conflict that certainly not one of them had wanted to see in their lifetime or the lifetime of their children.

It is a monument to men who lived in unenviable times and had to cope with those times per an all too natural wisdom that it can not be said a century and a half later has appreciably deepened in clarity... by any of us under the sun.

It is a monument to men who went to fight in a war that was clearly unfortunate... but only the most ignorant or the most foolish would call it a war with any side that was clearly evil.

It is a monument to men who were only doing what they knew best to do in this fallen world, not out of hate but out of love.

It is a monument to men who did what they did, out of duty to God as best that they understood that duty.

Who are we, who are any of us, to presume that we know better or that we would have done otherwise?

Because as far as this writer is concerned, the men who went out from their farms in Rockingham County, were fighting as much for the freedom that we have today... including the freedom to never have to make the choices that they were forced to make... as they were fighting for their own families and friends and communities.

Nearly two thousand men in Rockingham County served in the army of the Confederate States of America. More than six hundred never came home. That too, is a higher percentage than this county's fair share of participation in the Civil War. Either across the state or across the states of the Confederacy.

If none of that is worth remembering, honoring and even celebrating, then... I honestly don't know what would be.

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Department of Education sends SWAT-like team (with GUNS) to man's house over wife's unpaid student loans

In a saner age and a better reality, most of us would have never even imagined a headline like that. Today, we know better...

(Perhaps this is part of the reason why the Department of Education was buying up shotguns a year ago?)

Herein lies the tale of one Kenneth Wright of Stockton, California... who yesterday morning was rudely awakened at around 6 a.m. local time by at least a dozen armed officers in SWAT gear. Wright was held in handcuffs in a police car for six hours and his three children (ages 3, 7 and 11) put in another police car.

Why?

Because his estranged wife - who no longer lives at Kenneth's address - was in default of her student loans.

No joke folks: this man's house was raided by gun-totin' thugs on orders from the United States Department of Education...

Mash down here for more about Kenneth Wright at the Daily Mail website. According to an update on Michelle Malkin's site these were not actually SWAT team members that raided Wright's house but "...rather federal agents with the Office of the Inspector General, a 'semi-independent branch of the U.S. Department of Education' that investigates things like student aid fraud."

There you have it: the Department of Education has a highly-armed strike force at its beck and call.

Anyone else reading this and like me, can't help but wonder: "What the hell has happened to our country?!?"

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Dale Price is one kewl dad!

Y'know, Rain Price might have endured twinges of embarrassment because of his father's antics all this past school year, but these are gonna be some cherished memories as he gets older. Heck, from the sound of this fun-loving family, it wouldn't surprise me if this became a generational tradition! :-)

Stay-at-home dad Dale Price in Salt Lake City, Utah thought it would be funny to wave goodbye to Rain as his son boarded the bus at the beginning of his sophomore year of high school. And Dale Price kept waving at the bus, every single morning that his son boarded it for the past 180 days of school.

But Dale Price also made sure to liven things up by wearing a different costume each and every one of those mornings! In the ensuing months Price dressed up as a Star Trek fan, as a bride in a wedding dress, as an ice fisherman (when it snowed), as Michael Jackson, as Lady Gaga, and he even sat on a toilet while holding a newspaper for one morning's bus arrival. On the final day he donned full pirate getup (including a "peg leg" in place of his usual prosthetic).

Here's the story about Dale Price's wacky outfits and if you wanna see even more, his family documented his prank with photos on a blog called Wave At The Bus.

Dale Price, you're a good man! I might have to steal this idea from you if Lord willing I ever have children :-P

Thanks to good friend Kristen for finding such a great story!

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Chris raves that X-MEN: FIRST CLASS is ALMOST the perfect comic book movie!

So we caught X-Men: First Class late on Saturday night and my synapses have had time to mull things over about this movie, which I absolutely loved...

BUT...

I'm going to get this off my chest from the getgo because it bugs me more than anything else about this movie: the cameo appearance by Wolverine (played by an uncredited Hugh Jackman) is THE WORST thing that I've ever witnessed in a comic book motion picture of this caliber.

Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are going around the world looking for mutants that Xavier has located using the first version of Cerebro. Their search brings them to a bar and Logan, who promptly drops the F-bomb on them before resuming his beer guzzlin' and cigar chompin'.

Look, I understand that the Comics Code Authority ain't what it used to be, and that Wolverine is supposed to be the biggest hardcase of them all, but still: this is an X-Men movie. And to include that line by Wolverine is immature and juvenile and... it's worse than that even. It's disrespectful of the source material of the X-Men comic books that have been published since the early Sixties. I hate this kind of thing, though I'm sure those responsible think themselves "cute" and "clever" for throwing it in there.

Hey guys, there is a time and a place for everything. Including harsh language that most parents still wouldn't want their kids to hear in what is being marketed as a blockbuster movie with bunches of toy tie-ins. It's worse than un-necessary. If you wanted to give Wolverine a fleeting appearance, he could have just been made to give Charles and Erik a surly "Scram, bub" and that would have made everyone happy.

But as it is, it should have been left on the cutting room floor or at least re-dubbed with something more innocuous...

...because it totally jerked me out of the illusion that what I was watching was what X-Men: First Class otherwise very much is: the X-Men movie that we always dreamed of seeing but thought we'd never actually get.

Now I enjoy the 2000 X-Men movie also. But in retrospect X-Men is very much from the "transitional" phase that filmmaking was in at that time: trying to figure out how to give all comic book cinematic adaptations the respect that at that point was the exception more than the rule (see Superman: The Movie for what I mean by this).

X-Men: First Class takes everything that we've learned over the past decade about how to properly project comic books onto the big screen, and then raises the bar big-time. It doesn't "diss" its roots, but it doesn't apologize for breaking free from its cage to become its own animal. And bearing that in mind, I absolutely must tip my hat to what director Matthew Vaughn and his crew have pulled off with this movie.

Now here's the thing where X-Men: First Class most impressed me: the story proper is set in 1962, building up to what history remembers as the Cuban Missile Crisis. But before we get there we see some circa World War II stuff that revisits young Erik Lehnsherr's internment in the concentration camp (first seen in X-Men), intercut with ten-year old Charles Xavier encountering the cold and hungry adolescent mutant Raven trying to steal food from the Xavier mansion. Xavier takes Raven in and promises to take care of her. Juxtaposed against that we witness "Dr. Schmidt" - AKA Sebastian Shaw - threatening to kill Erik's mother unless the boy can move a Nazi coin just as he bent the steel gates of the deathcamp.

Two young men, each set apart from humanity because of God or genetic chance. Both in their own way marked by the extremities of the species that mutation has divorced them from: Charles Xavier who is kind and shows kindness, while Erik Lehnsherr is given cruelty and made to realize that the only way for the world to make sense is to force it to.

I had misgivings about how X-Men: First Class was going to work with a setting now half a century removed from where we are today. But having seen it I think that Vaughn - along with co-writers Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman - did it right. They played up the very real uncertainty that was amok in the world of fifty years ago and cranked it up a dozen notches by throwing in the threat of mutants arising to supplant homo sapien. The result? A brilliant piece of revisionist history that plays out better than many docudramas I've seen of the period!

But that's just the background for the real story here: the biggest reason why I feel that X-Men: First Class is the superior film to 2000's X-Men: how this film portrays Professor Xavier and Magneto (played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, respectively). Whereas Patrick Stewart's take on Xavier was as an "elder statesman" type with a lifetime of wisdom to guide him and his charges, McAvoy's Xavier is very much a green lad bursting with virtue and ideas... but also lacking the self-discipline that Xavier comes to be renowned for. Heck, this young Xavier is a party animal who loves to chug beer and woo sexy women. But in time Xavier comes to understand that - you will excuse the blatant borrowing from another Marvel character - that with great power comes great responsibility. And it is with relishing delight that we watch Xavier come to grips with the task that fate has set before him.

But as much as I really applauded James McAvoy's take on Xavier, I am even wildly more enthralled by what Michael Fassbender did with Erik Lehnsherr: the man better known to the world as Magneto. THIS is the Magneto that I wanted to see in the 2000 movie. Ian McKellan, okay: he brought the necessary seniority and gravitas to the role. But McKellan's portrayal of Magneto lacked what in my mind is the character's most defining quality: his rage at the world of baseline humanity. And that kept us from ever seeing McKellan's Magneto turned on full-tilt against all mankind.

Not so with Fassbender's rendition of this classic villain. In this performance we get to see him become what longtime fans of the X-Men comics know what Magneto truly is: a force of nature as destructive as any hurricane or earthquake. Worse than a force of nature, even. Earthquakes and hurricanes aren't bent on genocide, after all...

It's the dynamic between Charles and Erik that is the soul of X-Men: First Class. But providing the heart is all the mutant-on-mutant action that we've come to expect and demand from a movie emblazoned with "X-"! Kevin Bacon is already one of the best supervillains I've seen in a movie, with his portrayal of Sebastian Shaw (another stroke of brilliance, if you ask me: Shaw has always been a very cool character and it's good to see him get some time in the cinematic limelight at last). January Jones (probably best known for her work on AMC's Mad Men) is hitting on all the right notes as Emma Frost. The rest of the cast is a terrific ensemble, particularly Rose Byrne as the young Moira McTaggert and Jennifer Lawrence as the older Raven/Mystique (look for a cameo by Rebecca Romijn as Mystique's appearance from the previous movies). But I'm especially impressed by Nicholas Hoult's portrayal of the young Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy, AKA Beast. Hoult is spot-on the Hank McCoy that we've all come to know and love... except that not once does he ever say "By my stars and garters!"!! Color me disappointed. But here's hoping that this gets remedied in a follow-up movie. Hey, there'd better be another X-Men movie after this one: it took them eleven years to finally get Magneto's costume right! I don't want it to just be limited to a few seconds at the end of this movie.

I'm not gonna say anything else about it, 'cuz X-Men: First Class really is a movie you deserve going in to see fairly cold, as I did. I didn't know what to honestly expect and in fact, I was braced for a letdown. Happily, I could not have been more wrong. Apart from that one issue with some horridly inappropriate language, this is certainly the X-Men movie that I had no idea I was aching to see for all this time. Highly recommended!

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An open letter to James Festerman, Mayor of Reidsville

Dear James Festerman:

All you have to do at this week's Reidsville City Council meeting is to announce that the driver was insured like all other drivers on the road, that his insurance company will pick up the tab for repairing the Confederate Soldiers Monument just like any other incident involving an auto accident, that said funds will go to repairing the monument, and that council will then proceed to new business.

That is all that needs to happen. That is all that should happen.

Think about it.

Kindest regards,
Chris Knight

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Things are threatening to get wacky

Yeah, even more wacky than usual.

I'd better return.

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Lee Shelton presents... WHITE NOISE!

Good friend Lee Shelton IV, who already has proven himself a profound and entertaining blogger, is at it again! This time he's coming at us with White Noise: an old-school style "cartoon blog" thingy drawn entirely on white board...

Mash down here for more madcap mischief from Lee's White Noise. And Lee, it's lookin' great! Can't wait to see what else you come up with :-)

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High school Padawans celebrate ascendance to Jedi Knighthood with cafeteria lightsaber sparring match!

And their mad skillz with the legendary Star Wars weaponry garnered wild applause for Tom Costello and Ryan Angco! Unfortunately while their classmates were thrilled with the mock combat, the principal of Westfield High School in Massachusetts - perhaps seduced by the Dark Side - suspended seniors Tom Costello and Ryan Angco and declared that they wouldn't participate with their classmates at graduation!

But thanks to a groundswell of support from a Facebook group, Principal Raymond K. Broderick has turned back to the Light Side and rescinded the suspensions, so Tom and Ryan get to walk at graduation and get their sheepskins after all.

Here's the story from WHDH and here's the report from WWLP...

This story gives me a new hope that ridiculous "zero tolerance" policies will once and for all be thrown over the railing and into the abyss where they belong! Principal Broderick, my hat's tipped to you for doing the right thing and Tom and Ryan: good luck and God bless you as you graduate and move on to bigger and better things! :-)

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A thought this Wednesday morning...

Christianity should never be about making other people "just like me".

Christianity is best when it is a bold demonstration to others why they shouldn't be like me at all!

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"Twenty-one dollars a day, once a month!"

Alright, sure. Why not? :-)

So I'd been working on something for Memorial Day, for a huge chunk of this past weekend and late into last night and several drafts later, the finished product was nothing like what I had originally envisioned.

And that's perfectly fine. The other things that had been on my heart to convey, those can wait for another day. But I gotta tell y'all: I was really looking forward to closing it out with something decidedly upbeat.

So it didn't make it into the Memorial Day tribute proper. That's fine. I still think this is well worth sharing for... well, lots of reasons! It's a catchy lil' ditty that'll no doubt be stuck in your head the rest of the night! It's a classic cartoon from Walter Lantz Studios (look for cameo appearances by one or two famous characters).

And then there is the sheer weight of its theatrical release date: December 6th, 1941.

Think about that for a moment. This cartoon premiered on the very last day of true American innocence. While audiences were first enjoying this cartoon, the navy of the Empire of Japan was steaming across the Pacific toward Pearl Harbor and the date of infamy.

In every way possible that I can imagine, what you're about to see is a historical document of amazing import. It's like one final glimpse of the America that we once were and haven't been since.

Okay, 'nuff from me. Without further ado, here is... "$21 a Day (Once a Month)"!

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Today is Memorial Day

For the past several days there was something that was percolating in my mind, that I've been struggling to put into words for this occasion.

In the end, I failed. For the time being, anyway. And now I see that in this instance, that my coming up short is the right thing...

Today is not a day to flex my writing skills. Today is not about "me" at all.

Today is the day that we remember those who went and fought and paid the most enormous price that there can be under the sun, so that the rest of us would not have to.

They did not go to fight for glory. They did not go to fight for fame. They did not go to fight so that their names would be immortalized in statue or song or names of great cities.

Too many of them fought and died, alone and in dark places, with only the presence of God to give them comfort and the strength to endure.

They did this, so that their children and the children of people that they could never know in this earthen realm might have just one iota of freedom more than they themselves had been able to know.

Freedom is never free. It only comes at the gravest of costs. And some gave all, so that the rest of us need only maintain the watchful vigilance of sound and grateful mind.

For my own part, the only commentary that I will proffer this day is: Dare we say that we have honored their sacrifice?

            In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

                    -- Lieutenant Colonel John McRae,

                        Canadian Army

                        written near Ypres, Belgium

                        May 3, 1915

For those who gave everything: we remember you.

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A ponderance upon wisdom...

Knowledge to do a thing is good. Wisdom to not do a thing is often far better.

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ALPOCALYPSE... WOW!

We are now just over three weeks away from the Alpocalypse!!!

Y'know, I'm still giggling more than is probably good for one's health about how Weird Al has taken the place of Famine among the Four Horsemen :-P

So many people tried to access "Weird Al" Yankovic's online store yesterday that they crashed the server!

And no wonder...

- Alpocalypse CD/DVD ($13.99)

- Alpocalypse CD ($10.99)

- Alpocalypse Deluxe Package ($29.99)

- Alpocalypse Super Deluxe Package ($99.99)

Most people will probably go for the CD/DVD set, which includes the standard music disc and a DVD containing music videos for ten of the songs. The Deluxe Package includes all that plus a limited edition 18"x24" gallery quality Alpocalypse album art lithograph. And the Super Deluxe Package? It has the CD, the DVD, AND a limited edition SIGNED AND NUMBERED cover art lithograph, and also a "highly limited run 4'x4' Alpocalypse Wall Mural made by Fathead".

Yowza!! C'mon, spring for the Super Deluxe Package. You know that you're lusting for it badly! And it'll be your chance to clear your conscience for all those Weird Al songs that you've been downloading for years without paying for them, you hooligan!!

Here's the track listing for Alpocalypse!

1. "Perform This Way"
2. "CNR"
3. "TMZ"
4. "Skipper Dan"
5. "Polka Face"
6. "Craigslist"
7. "Party In The CIA"
8. "Ringtone"
9. "Another Tattoo"
10. "If That Isn't Love"
11. "Whatever You Like"
12. "Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me"

Well, "Polka Face" is almost certain to be the traditional medley. But I'm wondering which (if any) of these are gonna be an extra-long which Al has been putting on his albums since 1999's Running With Scissors. Five of these are songs that Al has been releasing during the past couple of years as part of the Internet Leaks collection. 'Course we all know the recent events concerning "Perform This Way" (that its video isn't included on the DVD would indicate that it's still in production). And the rest? "Party In The CIA" especially sounds like a lot of fun :-)

Can't wait until June 21st! I'm gonna go ahead and pre-order a copy... but I'm also gonna be at the nearest big box store bright and early just to behold the sight of a new Weird Al album on the shelves ;-)

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New trailer for GEARS OF WAR 3!

And that was the gist of the seven e-mails that I found in my inbox this morning: about the new trailer for Gears of War 3 campaign!

And here it is! Featuring Marcus Fenix! Anya! What seems to be the VERY much alive Adam Fenix! Lambent! King Ravens! Locust Grubs! Underwater combat! More Lambent! The weaselish Chairman Prescott! Big guns! Brumaks! STILL MORE LAMBENT! All set to Black Sabbath's classic 1970 song "War Pigs"!

The story of Marcus, Dom and the rest of Delta Squad arrives at its conclusion on September 20th. And I am stoked about this game like I haven't been for a video game in a long time. The Gears of War franchise really does have a very human heart and soul to it and seeing this chapter of the saga end... well, I've got a lot of high hopes for it :-)

(And I am still wog-boggled amazed by this HAUNTING fan-made Gears of War 3 trailer from last summer, focusing on Augustus Cole and using Johnny Cash's song "Hurt".)

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$3 BILLION of your tax dollars to study Antarctic Jell-O wrestling and shrimp on treadmills

Y'know, I doubt that even if I were smashed drunk and high on acid that I could have ever come up with a headline like that on my own...

A laundry-folding robot, studying the metabolism of shrimp being exercised on treadmills, and researching wrestling in Jell-O at the South Pole are among the "projects" sponsored by the National Science Foundation which have been funded with THREE BILLION DOLLARS of OUR tax money!

Other stuff that we've paid for through the NSF: "a YouTube rap video, a review of event ticket prices on stubhub.com, a 'robot hoedown and rodeo,'" and "a virtual recreation of the 1964/65 New York World's Fair".

I'm just trying to visualize how exactly a shrimp is put on a treadmill...

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Team Covenant churning out new Monsterpocalypse maps!

I've written tons before on this blog about my mad love for Monsterpocalypse: Privateer Press's awesome game of giant monsters and metropolitan destruction! And if you haven't checked it out yet right now is a great time to give it a looksee. Privateer Press recently announced that the game was moving to a non-collectible format (making it much easier for new players to get into it) and a full-length Monsterpocalypse motion picture from DreamWorks involving Tim Burton is currently in pre-production.

And now those ever-clever folks at Team Covenant have come through with - ta-daaaah! - new Monsterpocalypse playmats! Introduced at MonCon 2011 this past weekend where attendees were treated to the convention-exclusive "Mayhem on Memorial" map (I really wish that I could have made it to MonCon, ahh well hopefully next year :-), the Covenant Maps Campaign brings you a new playmat every sixty days, with the maps designed to inter-relate with each other across a larger Monsterpocalypse story-driven narrative. As the Team Covenant guys put it...

In addition to igniting standard Monsterpocalypse play, each Covenant Map comes with a printed story that acts as the next chapter of a continuous, fictional campaign revolving around the struggles of all of the monsters and factions involved in the game. These stories are epic, and relate directly to the happenings on the past Covenant Map and how those occurrences have led to the current map.

But of course there’s even more to this! Each map not only comes with a story, but also a scenario that is the direct result of that story. This scenario will pick up where the story ends, putting the fictional conflicts onto the map itself, ready to be resolved by YOU, the players. The next chapter of the story, and the map pertaining to it, will then be created based on the results that YOU report.

And 'course, the map itself will no doubt come in handy for years to come! Team Covenant has set up three subscription plans, beginning at $22 and change charged bi-monthly. Looking at the exceedingly high quality of the "Mayhem on Memorial" map, that's a darned good deal! I'm looking forward to unleashing my precious Lords of Cthul upon these new maps :-)

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New area business: Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping

Lately quite a number of good people that I know have decided to start up their own businesses. Here's another one and as always, this blogger is more than happy to direct y'all's attention to it :-)

Based out of nearby Oak Ridge, Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping is a landscaping and lawn servicing company owned by Tammy Marcum Buck, Linda Marcum and Oscar Marcum. Don't have time to mow your lawn? Let the Two Girls do it for you! They can help you wherever you're at in the vicinity of Greensboro, Oak Ridge, Summerfield, Madison and Mayodan etc. And right now they're offering a special: $35 of cutting, weed-eating, trimming and blowing for up to half an acre. They're also offering a 10% discount for elderly and disabled. Two Girls & A Truck Landscaping will give you a free estimate on your landscaping needs and annual contracts are available.

So if your lawn is looking more and more like a bloodthirsty jungle, check out Two Girls & A Truck and hire them to tame it!

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Exciting times for Egyptian archaeology!

Seventeen previously unknown pyramids are among more than four THOUSAND newly discovered sites in Egypt that have been located using infrared imaging by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. One of the locations that is being studied is the real life city of Tanis (AKA the Egyptian city that was consumed by the year-long sandstorm and where Indiana Jones had to foil the Nazi raiders of the lost Ark of the Covenant :-)

Meanwhile, archaeologists at the Great Pyramid outside of Cairo are using a tiny robotic probe to get the first look at the inside of a newly-found chamber within the mighty ancient wonder. Among the images that haven't been seen in 4,500 years: red-colored graffiti that might have been left by workers building the pyramid. There is also evidence that the door to a whole new secret room has been discovered.

Maybe someday such technology will let us get really lucky and help us to find Jimmy Hoffa :-P

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Remembering Aunt Tom

It was in 1935 that Connie Wright approached Samuel Knight to ask if he could have Ora Lee's hand in marriage.

Sam Knight - my great-grandfather - had six sons, and only one daughter: the apple of his eye. But Ora Lee was so synonymous with her half-dozen brothers and also quite the tomboy that she had picked up a nickname that would stick with her throughout her life: "Tom".

"No," Great-Grandpa Knight told Connie: "You can't marry the girl, but I'll let you take any of the boys off my hands!"

Ora Lee Knight was 16 years old when Uncle Connie came a'courting for her to be his bride. Uncle Connie passed away in 1984 and between he and Ora Lee they had 49 years of beautiful marriage that produced four children and a whole posse of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

This past Friday morning, the fine lady who so many of us knew best as "Aunt Tom" departed this earthly realm, to be with the Lord she had faithfully served all her life and to be reunited with her husband and so many others who had gone on before. She would have turned 92 next month.

Aunt Tom, well... she was a character and a half. She was so many things: wife, mother, grandmother, farmgirl, a country cook in the grandest tradition, and active in her church. When she was 65 she went back to school and earned her GED, which was something that we were all so very proud of her for accomplishing. Prior to that she worked for more than twenty years at one of the grocery stores in Reidsville.

Aunt Tom was someone that I saw quite often. Her house sat on the hill right above the road that I live on. It was common to see her mowing her own lawn until recent years. And I would stop by to see how she was doing every so often. A few years ago when I ran for school board, she told me that she was proud of me for running and she gladly let me stick up a couple of signs on her roadside.

And now, she's gone. And I'm only now realizing just how strong a fixture she was in my life and those of so many others. Aunt Tom was a sweet woman and epitomized so much of what I've thought it means to live the loving and humble Christian life. But gone though she may be, she'll never be forgotten.

Until we meet again Aunt Tom, I shall miss you. But I'm so very thankful that God has brought you and Uncle Connie together again :-)

(Very special thanks to Allison Stultz for providing such a great photo of Aunt Tom!)

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THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW ends today

"Our long national nightmare is over."

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Les Misérables: Dude arrested for stealing Sonic Slush makers

Being reported this hour that a guy not far away from here in Lexington, North Carolina has been arrested for stealing two Slush machines from a Sonic Drive-In. He was caught when he attempted to sell them to a recycling center.

According to the Fox 8 report, the slushy makers are valued at $15,000 and George Jensen, Jr. tried to sell them for about $165.

This is the kind of story that ever since finally reading Atlas Shrugged a few months, makes me giggle for all the wrong reasons :-\

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DUKE NUKEM FOREVER is finished! Yes, really...

This has to be a SERIOUS sign that the Apocalypse truly is upon us!

When game studio 3D Realms started work on Duke Nukem Forever in 1996, Bill Clinton was winding down his first term as U.S. President. "Broadband Internet" meant a 56K modem. The first Star Wars prequel was only in pre-production. You could board a commercial airliner without once taking off your shoes. The Simpsons was still consistently funny. Gasoline cost around a dollar a gallon. "Burning a CD" was uncommon vernacular. Pluto was still a planet.

Fifteen years, millions of dollars wasted, multiple changes in graphics engines and a studio takeover later, the game that has come to be called "Duke Nukem Never", "Duke Nukem Whenever", "Duke Nukem If-Ever", "Duke Nukem Not-Ever" and so many other mocking epithets is finally a finished product and has been released to manufacturing!

No, I'm not kidding. Even as you read this, shrink-wrapped boxes of the game are being prepared. Duke Nukem Forever will be published for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PCs on June 10th.

(Kinda hilarious when you consider that when work on the game commenced that Microsoft hadn't even announced the first Xbox yet...)

Now, not to be a "Doubting Thomas" type but I still won't be 100% convinced until I see it with my own two eyes. So if there is a midnight release for Duke Nukem Forever I plan on being at the nearest GameStop on the night of June 9th along with good friend and fellow blogger Steven Glaspie. I'm probably not gonna buy the game but after all this time of watching its development I just gotta make sure that I'm not hallucinating its release :-P

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Forever young...

The Knight Shift's eclectic proprietor joins many, many other fans and admirers around the world in wishing Bob Dylan all the best on this, his seventieth birthday!

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Breaking News: Reidsville's Confederate monument smashed to smithereens!

The Confederate Soldiers Monument that has served as the best-known landmark of downtown Reidsville, North Carolina for more than a hundred years is a shattered ruin this morning. The Confederate soldier statue himself? Resting in pieces.

Around 4:30 a.m. today the driver of a van apparently fell asleep at the wheel, sending his vehicle plowing into the monument. The impact was enough to shift the pedestal on its base and toppled the statue. As of this writing an auto shop is working to free the Confederate soldier's head from the hull of the van.

No word yet on what's going to be done with the monument. It would be great to see it restored, given how it's become such a notable figure on the downtown landscape.

Special thanks to Ernie Morris for providing the photo!

EDIT 12:12 p.m. EST: WGHP Fox 8 photojournalist Chris Weaver has posted this pic of the statue on his Facebook page. And there are more photos accompanying the Fox 8 story about the accident...

Okay, 'fess up: who else living around here has Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" running through your head while looking at this?

In all seriousness though: it's great that nobody was injured, and here's hoping that the monument can soon be restored to its former condition.

(And hey, who knows: this could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I mean, it could finally give us Reidsvillians the opportunity to settle once and for all which direction the soldier is supposed to be facing! :-P)

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School board elections need no partisanship

Some legislative representatives of neighboring Forsyth County are seeking to re-introduce partisan elections for that county's school board. Two years ago the General Assembly passed a bill that made elections to the board a matter of no regard to party affiliation.

The measure is being spearheaded by Dale Folwell, one of Forsyth's representatives in the North Carolina House. And his rationale for partisan school board elections?

...lawmaker Dale Folwell said party affiliations noted on the ballot helps voters make their decisions.

Folwell said nonpartisan races attracted fewer votes in the last election in part because those races are at the bottom of the ballot and because candidates had no party affiliation to help voters choose.

"People, when they go to the ballot box, need as much info as they can get," Folwell said Friday.

Knowing what party a candidate belongs to is supposed to be vital information?

sigh...

And this is one of the biggest reasons why this country is so messed up, ladies and gentlemen.

Folwell's argument is basically this: that the citizens of Forsyth County are too LAZY to gauge a candidate's worthiness of being elected, without knowing what party that candidate belongs to.

In other words: the ballot for school board has to be - I know of no other way to put it - "dumbed down" for voters to sufficiently understand enough to participate in its election.

But let's be honest: this has nothing at all to do with serving the best interests of the people of Forsyth County. And it has everything to do with giving one party an edge over another. This has always been the motive of such attempts, regardless of which party has been behind them.

I have said it many times before: the United States can not grow anywhere close to its fullest potential, until we consciously and vigorously abandon blind ideologies and begin instead to return to the arena of true ideas. That politicians want to play partisan games with the realm of education - the pursuit of enlightenment and wisdom - demonstrates that said officials have no sincere interest in education at all!

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Earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, major flooding, mass animal die-offs, weird atmospheric phenomena, hurricane season starting up...

Perhaps it is just me, but real life lately is way, way too much resembling the prologue of the 1980 movie Flash Gordon...

"FLASH! AHHH-AAAAAAAHHH...!!"

Well, at least we've been spared the hot hail so far.

I have a confession to make: Flash Gordon is on my short list of all-time favorite "guilty pleasure" movies. It's a film so exorbitantly bad that it's insanely good! But I doubt that Dino De Laurentiis ever intended this to be a "serious" movie anyway. It's just good clean tongue-in-cheek camp, made even more awesome with that classic soundtrack by Queen! I've also read that Max von Sydow considers this to be one of his favorite movies that he's worked on, because of all the outrageous costumes that he got to wear as Emperor Ming the Merciless.

(And c'mon, Sydow's Ming is one of the greatest film villains in the history of anything. You know it's true :-)

Here's hoping that all the stuff going on lately is just bad coincidence. I'd hate to think that Ming really is out there on Planet Mongo, waiting to see if anybody is noticing his handiwork :-P

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Something that can't be said nearly enough

Hey.

I just want to say, to The Knight Shift's faithful readers and to those who are fortunate(?) to find this blog...

Don't ever stop being thankful for the people that God has put into your life.

And I know that I have said much the same before. But, I wouldn't be led to say it again, if I didn't have to be especially appreciative of that lately.

This week my family went through one ordeal after another. Later today is the funeral for one member who I loved and cherished very dearly. Several days earlier, we almost lost another.

None of us are guaranteed next year, next month, heck not even the next day. Today is the present and that is exactly what it is: a present, a gift from God! And it is one that is priceless beyond all measure. Every moment, every iota of it is too precious to squander on things like indifference, or anger, or lack of forgiveness.

The loved ones in your life, Dear Reader, today I ask you with all my heart: remind them that they are loved. Remind them that you love and appreciate them. Tell them that you thank God that He has blessed you with their presence! And if there is anyone that something has come in between you, well... don't let that stop you either. Because you just never know...

That is all, for now. But in the next few days, I am going to write about Aunt Tom. Because, she was and always will be a character worth remembering :-)

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I heard that Rapture is today...

...and I can't wait to finally load up on plasmids!

Huh? What's that?! You mean... it's not THAT Rapture, but instead the other kind?!?!?

humph...

Dear Mr. Harold Camping: "Would you kindly..." stop with this nonsense? We are told in the Bible that no one but the Father in Heaven knows when the end of days will come. This shouldn't be anything we're meant to be concerned with anyway. In his epistles to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul taught that we are to occupy with the business of living for Christ, and not be swept up in this sort of fear-mongering.

Yes, I look forward also to the return of our Lord and Savior. And I do believe that He is coming again. How? Because I believe that He came the first time. The path that I took to my faith in Christ, it's not one I can honestly wish for anyone to find themselves on, because I couldn't find it within myself to believe without seeing. Indeed, I consider my own faith to be inferior to that of most of those who God has blessed my life with.

In the end, it came down to this: the historical record of the life of Jesus Christ, is something that I cannot deny. He came before and I cannot doubt that He will come again.

And I wish that He would come soon. I do want to be reunited with so many loved ones that have departed already. I long for the reunion and renewal of too many relationships that have gone by the wayside, that I see now will have to await the presence of Christ for that healing.

I don't know the date that He will come. And I am extremely doubtful that He will come this day. But I do know that He will come, in the Father's due time.

Until then, there is much left for us who follow Him. We are to show His love, His light, His life within us to the world around us. We aren't called to a spirit of fear and cowering, but of hope!

I can wait for His arrival. In the meantime, there's plenty to keep ourselves busy with.

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The stranger tale of Blackbeard's skull

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides opened yesterday and I am hearing extremely disparate word about it. The descriptors being most bandied about this movie are that it's "bad" and "rotten", and only a few saying they were entertained... but even those are pretty lukewarm about it. I'm waiting to hear from one of the coolest cats I know, who's seen it and he's supposed to have a review soon. So I may or may not catch it this weekend.

But seeing as how Edward Teach aka Blackbeard the Pirate is a prominent character in this latest chapter of the saga of Captain Jack Sparrow, I thought it'd be fun to reflect on a bit of North Carolina lore about the legendary pirate. Namely: the long-enduring story that Blackbeard's skull is today being used as a wine goblet for a secret society's dark rituals! Yes folks, depending on you believe and who you can get in good with, there is a place here in the Tarheel State where you can swig a healthy-sized libation from the noggin of history's most infamous pirate captain!

Most versions have it that a fraternity or somesuch a few miles away at Chapel Hill is in custody of Blackbeard's silver-encrusted skull. Others say that it's being kept around the Outer Banks. Here is one account of drinking from the skull of Blackbeard, originating from no less an authority that Charles Whedbee: the late respected collector of North Carolina stories.

Drinking wine from Blackbeard's skull. Ehhhh... makes me all the more thankful that I'm pretty much a teetotaler :-P

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First picture of Tom Hardy as Bane in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

The official site for The Dark Knight Rises has gone online and much like the gradual reveal of Heath Ledger's Joker during the lead-up to The Dark Knight a few years ago, the Warner Bros. marketing team has left it to the fans to figure out how to get their first glimpse at the next Batman movie's big villain.

But those industrious folks at ComingSoon.net got to it first. Here's the first official look at Tom Hardy as Bane!

Well, he doesn't have the tubes running to the back of his skull for the Venom drug... but I can definitely dig this being Bane. Hardy looks the part without the mask being "Gimp"-y at all.

Maybe this'll be the final nail in the coffin of the bad memories still lingering from Batman & Robin... :-P

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On God and one's life...

God can do many things with your life... but what He CAN'T do is make a boring story out of it!

(Very special thanks to good friend Kristen, who in more ways than one God used to lead me to that contemplation this week :-)

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Elon University named #1 "Most Beautiful College Campus"!

My beloved alma mater, Elon University, has just been named #1 on the list of 50 Most Beautiful College Campuses by collegiate review website The Best Colleges. Also on the list are Duke University, Wake Forest University and UNC-Chapel Hill (all here in North Carolina), Texas A&M, Ole Miss, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale, and Princeton.

Yowza!

The Best Colleges cited that "this campus not only offers an exceptional education but has been the site of several films... Elon has been named the prettiest campus in the country on multiple occasions, including landing at the top spot in rankings by the Princeton Review and the New York Times. We can't argue, and Elon takes the top spot in our list of the prettiest college campuses."

I have to heartily agree... and I'd do so even if I were not a proud Fighting Christian errrr, "Phoenix" (still getting used to that :-) But Elon is not only a very beautiful place, it also epitomizes everything about what it means to most fully experience the pursuit of higher education: not just in the college years, but for life. Elon was the place where I learned not only much about the world, but much more about myself than I ever had before... and probably even since.

Yeah, I'll recommend it to any prospective students ;-)

Anyhoo, congrats to Elon University on the recognition!

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The teaser and first posters for THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN!

As of this writing I'm in the midst of an emergency that has me... well, occupied, to put it mildly. Can't say enough how thankful my family is for the thoughts and prayers that a lot of people have been sending. And that's all I should say for the time being.

But I've a dire need to post something upbeat. And all two of my readers (okay there's more than that, and this blogger appreciates every one of you who takes time to read The Knight Shift on a regular basis :-) deserve something uber-kewl to tide y'all over until I get back to regular postin'.

So let me preface this by saying thusly, that you heard it here first: this movie will make a billion dollars at the box office. At least.

It was the summer of 1993, during my crazy two-week visit to a good friend in Belgium, that I was introduced to The Adventures of Tintin. And in spite of the sad lack of availability of the Tintin comics on this side of the pond, I most certainly consider myself to be a fan of Tintin: the intrepid young investigative journalist who along with faithful canine sidekick Snowy, has a lot of neat... ummmmmm... well, adventures :-) Tintin is a huge phenomenon all around the world but not in America. Not yet...

I told my friend Bennie in '93 that Tintin would make an awesome movie. I've been waiting for that to happen ever since.

Well, coming this Christmas to movie theaters everywhere, it's The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn. Directed by... Steven Spielberg (it's his first time ever directing a CGI film)! Produced by... Peter Jackson! The screenplay by... Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish! Orchestral score by... John Williams! Starring... Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Cary Elwes, and Daniel Craig! Among many others!

Holy Toledo. Just seeing Spielberg's and Jackson's and Williams' and Moffat's (currently the showrunner of Doctor Who) together like that alone gives me geek cardiac infarction.

Well a few days ago the international and U.S. teaser posters were released. Here's the international poster and courtesy of Ain't It Cool News the site that got it first, here's the AWESOME domestic poster for The Adventures of Tintin...

Click on it to drastically embiggenize.

That is... totally Tintin and Snowy. The darkness and ambiance of this image, is spot-on the world of Tintin.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!! Now behold the first teaser trailer that got released yesterday. Is this not the most GLORIOUS computer-generated animated EVER or what?!?

Can not, can not, CAN NOT wait until Christmas! This is going to be epic on a generational scale.

Okay, that should satisfy y'all until I can get back good 'n proper in the next few days :-)

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When I want more than a wink from God...

For most of the past several months, going back to late summer, I have been... well, pick your terminology: "led to", "compelled to", "reduced to", what have you... crying out to God. Crying metaphorically and quite literally and very tearfully.

I am finally beginning to appreciate that in spite of lamenting His absence so many times, that He has been there all along. And that He has been faithful, even when my own faith has faltered all too often.

And now, I can put it no more clear than this: I can see at last that God has been "winking" at me.

He has let me know that He has heard me. That He knows what I am going through. That He has grieved alongside me, about all the things that I have hurt over.

So, I can't but be thankful that in so many, mostly little ways, that He has been winking at me.

So is it wrong to hope that He could at least give me a clear whisper sometime, and really assure me that He knows that I am doing my best to seek after Him? I mean, at least some indication that I'm doing something right and if not, to tell me what He needs me to do?

Winks from God, when you know what they are, are wonderful. I am greatly comforted by them. But it'd be seriously awesome if He gave me even a little bit of a real hint at what He needs of me.

But then, I am reminded of something else: that I have been a follower of Christ for nearly fifteen years and I should have come to fully realize by now that to follow Christ has never meant a life of comfort and ease and safety. Far from it! If anything, to follow Christ means a lifetime of nearly continuous hardships and trials and sufferings!

Why did I ever think that God would do something to make my journey through this life any more comfortable?

All of this time, I have been hoping and praying that God might bring healing, that He would bring reconciliation, that He would bring restoration of things lost. I had come to earnestly believe that if I just sought Him out "a little harder" that He would make things better. And I guess that I was just kidding myself. But that's not His fault at all, and not even really my own, but I digress...

God doesn't guarantee a safe and sound passage through this world, free of travails and tribulations. But He does assure us, as many times as we need Him to, that He will bring us through to the destination He has prepared for us.

That is probably going to be the most comfort that I will ever find in this lifetime, in regard to things that I wish were otherwise. But I know: I have trusted Him - and not my own effort - to bring me home.

He has brought me this far already.

There is no reason to believe He will not bring me further still :-)

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BEING BIPOLAR: Video Log 9 - Lonely

Making a new video supplement wasn't something that I'd had in mind to do late last night, but... just had some things on my mind that I felt led to share.

This is the first Being Bipolar video that I've made with my iPad. Still playing around with figuring everything out, but that's why the aspect ratio is more vertical than horizontal with this segment. Next time I'll know better :-)

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