Monthly Archives: January 2008

Jan 26 2008
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movies

Playing Favorites: 2007′s Best Movies

Here are my picks (in no particular order):

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Potter movies are turning into a fine franchise and this one was probably my second favorite of the whole bunch. I find myself looking forward to them, even though I’ve read all the books and know the story. Imelda Staunton was deliciously wicked.

No Country for Old Men: Some smarty pants movie reviewer (probably David Bianculli?) said that none of the recent slew of Iraq war movies spoke to the dark times we’re in as well as this picture. I have to agree. It’s an unrelenting character study of evil.

The Bourne Ultimatum: Typically the heros in these kinds of movies kill with impunity, never giving a second thought to their actions. Everything is justified (presumably) because the bad guys are just that bad. This one breaks the mold, with its The-Bad-Guys-Are-Us plot.

3:10 to Yuma: In the old Westerns, the good guy was the good guy because he was the most dynamic, driven personality in town. 3:10 to Yuma is just like that, but now the chrisma extends to the bad guy, too.

The Lives of Others: There was lots to like here, from the stazi officer’s gentle seduction as he monitors the writer’s life, to the crazy paranoia in the stazi ranks (the lunch room scene was fabulous). I’m so glad they skipped the big romantic ending and opted instead for the much subtler book dedication ending.

28 Weeks Later: Good, tense, horror. I like that it didn’t depend on buckets of blood, but relied more on the psychology of guilt and betrayal for its tension. I wish zombie Dad hadn’t kept coming back, but this flaw wasn’t enough to lessen the movie for me.

Juno: Teen pregenancy is becoming its own little sub-catagory under the coming-of-age genre. I loved the snappy dialogue, the quirky characters, even the feel good ending.

That’s it. But there are a lot of movies I haven’t had time to see. My Netflix queue is packed with a ton of good stuff from 2007, including There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, American Gangster, and Gone Baby Gone.

In 2008, I have to get out to more movies!

Jan 21 2008
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family

2007 in Review

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the Smilebox Holly created over at HollyHuckeba.com. It covers all our family trips and big events from 2007. 

You’ll find some great pictures I haven’t posted online.

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Jan 20 2008
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family

When Opposing Teams Pray

1-12-2008 019 (portrait crop)

Hard to say if Aaron is looking for celestial intervention, but his opponent clearly has his hands clasped together. If one is praying for the ball to drop, the other is not.

Being omnipotent has to be a tough job.

I posted a few more pictures of Aaron playing basketball earlier today.

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Jan 13 2008
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family

MTV Cribs Goes Coast Guard

MTV Cribs is the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous for my son’s generation. Here he and a friend (roommate) do a little reality TV improv.

Despite all the fancy new electronics, barracks life doesn’t seem to have changed that much in the twenty five years since I was in the service.

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Jan 11 2008
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books

Shoot the Buffalo

Although I rarely read fiction these days, I do read a little, especially if it’s good.

Shoot the Buffalo, Matt Briggs latest novel, is my kind of fiction. A coming of age story set in the dark woods of the Pacific Northwest, it features some of the saddest, yet most oddly compelling characters I’ve read in a long while.

I seek out coming of age stories. The best memoir is written to read like fiction, so all the coming of age stories I read actually count as research toward my own on-going memoir project. One of the inherent problems of writing this kind of story is that something big has to happen to your main character, but not so big as to prevent a minor from rising to the challenge and overcoming in a way that’s believable and (hopefully) compelling to read.

In American literature, this sort of story often presents itself as a Hero’s Quest, typically a redemptive story where the hero overcomes some great adversary. But it’s not always so cut and dry. In This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff’s well-known coming of age memoir, a no-account stepfather is young Wolff’s big challenge. In a stunning act of guile, Wolff manages to (literally) reinvent himself, escaping to a prep school in the Northeast. Wolff’s use of deceit to overcome his situation has always made the story stand out for me. There is nothing more poignant then a child trying to cope with grown up issues the best he can, especially if that child is saddled with lousy parents. For a boy in this situation, the most believable thing to do is make a poor choice.

Shoot the Buffalo deals with the guilt a boy feels after he leads his siblings into the woods in search of their parents and his little sister dies of exposure. What struck me was the clever way Briggs uses the story’s structure and setting to move the main character from childhood guilt and confusion to a believable resolution as a young man.

It’s fiction, but it feels real. It’s just a genuine story about a hard childhood.

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