Tonight I went to THE LAST CIRCUS

This is without a doubt THE most whacked, demented, torn-up, psychotic movie that I've watched in a really long time...

The Last Circus (original title Balada Triste de Trompeta) is a 2010 Spanish film written and directed by Álex de la Iglesia. Covering four decades stretching from the Spanish Civil War on through the early 1970s, The Last Circus is the story of a love triangle between two circus clowns and the acrobat each lusts after.

So what's it like? Imagine that Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro collaborated on a movie together. That is the best I can describe The Last Circus.

Here's the trailer...

I think I needed something this off-kilter and screwball ultra-violent right now. With a healthy dash of historical drama thrown in for good measure. This kind of movie appeals to that visceral "id" creature within me. I wound up ordering the Blu-ray based on the trailer and good word-of-mouth alone: in retrospect, definitely a good purchase! Looking forward to showing The Last Circus to some of my friends :-)

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Interesting tidbits about Leap Year

Today is February 29th, which only comes about every four years because of Leap Year. And if you wanna know why exactly we have that, The Christian Science Monitor's website has a rather informative article about the Gregorian Calendar and how it came about.

(I learned some new stuff reading that. Like: because of a deal brokered by Saint Patrick, today is the one day during four whole years that the lady gets to propose to her man! And if the dude says "no" he's obliged to give her a new dress and some gloves.)

And over at io9.com there's the strange but true tale of how there was once a February 30th.

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New trailer for THE AVENGERS

This is looking to be the most fun of the comic book movies set for this summer...

As jazzed as I am about The Dark Knight Rises, the more that I see of The Avengers, the more it's looking like the superhero movie that we always dreamed as kids of seeing but thought we'd never get to have.

The Avengers assemble on May 4th.

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Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees, has passed away

The sad news is breaking this afternoon that Davy Jones, lead singer of The Monkees, has died of a heart attack at the age of 66.

I have never quite figured out exactly what The Monkees were supposed to be. Where they actors who could sing? Were they singers who could act?

Whatever they were, they were always entertaining, extremely funny... and waaaay more talented than a bunch of "performers" that I could pick out of today's pop culture.

Jones leaves behind a wife and four children, and millions of fans across five decades. Thoughts and prayers going out to his family this afternoon.

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My girlfriend burns up the dance floor with two hot routines!

From Saturday night, here is Kristen doing an Argentine Tango...

Later on, she performed a Bolero (one of the tougher ballroom dances to do, I'm told)...

And yes, your friend and intrepid blogger has taken up some ballroom dancing as well. Maybe someday soon there will even be photo/video documentation of it. If you're good. And if I'm good :-P

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I don't care what the pundits are saying...

...but for The Artist winning ALL that Oscar bling last night, including Best Picture, that makes yesterday evening's Academy Awards the best in years.

If only Uggie had been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, then it would have been spot-on perfect.

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STAR WARS EPISODE I in 3D gave Chris a splitting headache!

So yesterday evening, my lifelong best friend Chad and I met up in Durham to do something we had never done before. For all the things we've done together, we had yet to see a Star Wars movie together in the theater.

Okay, we've done that now. I'm thankful that we got to fix that. But that's the only good thing that came out of last night's screening of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D(?!?).

Yeah, a Star Wars movie in 3D. I know, it looks good on paper, buuuuut...

Now I have to be honest: there are some parts of the movie that look far better in 3D than they deserve to be. The podrace sequence, f'rinstance. But I'm inclined to believe that's only because it's already moving so fast that your eyeballs are being vicariously assaulted before your gray matter gets time to register the sensation. Unfortunately a movie consumed with things like boardroom meetings and bureaucratic theatrics makes the 3D a tedious thing to sit through. That's when the 3D works at all.

Because there are loads of times during Star Wars Episode I's 3D edition that the 3D isn't there to begin with! Trust me folks, I took off my 3D specs a number of times during the second half or so of the movie and, I couldn't tell ANY difference at all between the 3D conversion and the 2D original that I have seen about 9 times already on the big screen. And then there is what was likely the most significant reason why my visual cortex felt burnt afterward: the schizoid use of 2D and 3D elements simultaneously. I saw plenty of that during the Coruscant scenes in particular before giving up and letting myself just watch the darn thing.

The Phantom Menace in 3D adds nothing particularly enjoyable to the experience of watching a Star Wars movie in theaters... and that's something that I've never had happen to be before, in over thirty years of going to see Star Wars flicks at a cinema. Taking a movie shot in standard 2D and converting it into 3D has proven time and time again to be an expensive and glorious mess. I had hoped, sincerely hoped, that Star Wars Episode I would be the breakthrough movie that put an end to the never-ending parade of 3D post-production disaster. Heck, we've known this was coming for years before Avatar ever came out. In Industrial Light and Magic did I trust.

But no, I cannot recommend Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D. Neither can I see myself going to any of the other Star Wars movies set to be released in 3D, one a year for the next five years.

Now if George Lucas wants to produce a new Star Wars film trilogy, and actually shoot them in true honest-to-goodness stereo camera setup THREE DIMENSIONS, I'll gladly see those in the theaters a dozen times over. But turning 2D into 3D?

Who'da thunk that I'd leave a Star Wars movie... any Star Wars movie... cringing about having watched a steaming pile of bantha poodoo.

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America: Death by inconsistency

Louisiana College, a private Baptist school, is suing the federal government over the requirement that religious-affiliated hospitals and organizations must fund contraceptives as part of health care, even in spite of strong beliefs against such measures. Louisiana College and other religious organizations are quick to note that Obama's "healthcare" mandate violates their constitutional rights.

Doug Powers notes that the mainstream media is giving President Obama a "free ride" about the ridiculous price of gasoline, when it blamed George W. Bush for it at every opportunity.

(Longtime readers will know that I have never been a fan of either Obama or Bush. They're the two worst Presidents in American history, in my book...)

I juxtapose these two seemingly unrelated items before you, good readers, because I remember plenty of times during Bush's presidency when too many Christians simply "rolled over and took it" when he and his administration violated the Constitution. Not only that, but practically sang praises to the man (and even praying to Bush in at least one instance). So too, do I know fully well how many if not most of the "mainstream press" have a significant bias toward the Democrat party and for what are considered "liberal" causes.

Every day, bit by bit, I watch America die before my eyes because we the people will valiantly fight for what's right when it is in our favor but will feign ignorance and indifference when it is not. Who knows: we may not have this ObamaCare crap if a lot of us had chosen to take a stand against certain politicians during the past decade.

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All kinds of Popcorn Sutton goodness!

There's just no stopping the legend of Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton!

First thing's first: the Third Annual Popcorn Sutton Tribute is set for August 3-4, once again in beautiful Maggie Valley, North Carolina! That's right this year it's gonna be a two day event! I'm currently planning to be there for all of it.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if next year's is a three-day extravaganza, given how Popcorn's life and times continues to gain legions of admirers. And there are gonna be even more after this article in The New York Times about Popcorn's life and likker. There's a terrific photo of Mrs. Pam Sutton holding a jar of Popcorn's original moonshine.

Meanwhile, attorney Will Cheek notes that three years after his passing, Popcorn has achieved a victory of sorts. Namely, that distilling liquor is now legal in Cocke County, Tennessee (where Popcorn lived).

And though it's nearly a year old, I'm led to direct y'all's attention to Arianna Armstrong's essay "Portrait of a Moonshiner", which is packed with a bunch of biographical information about Popcorn Sutton that I didn't know previously (like how Popcorn's father's name was Vader Sutton, and how Popcorn would use his daughter's baby bathtub to mix the ingredients for his likker).

At the rate things are going, it wouldn't surprise me if Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey was soon just as big a household name as Jack Daniel's and Jim Beam. Hey, non-drinker though I be, I'd be totally fine with that :-)

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A late night's ponderance

Government is force. Government is not law. And government can certainly never be force of law.

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It was Professor Plum, in the kitchen, with the wrench

So about thirty years after I initially learned about it, this past weekend I finally played my very first game of Clue.

Up 'til now, my only real exposure to the Clue franchise was the 1985 film, which had three different endings. I got introduced to that back in college, by roomie/now filmmaking partner "Weird" Ed Woody. I told him then that Clue was always a game that I'd wanted to try but never had the chance.

That finally came on Sunday afternoon. It was raining hard in Norfolk (while everyone back home was getting snowed hard upon) and instead of going out, the four of us opted to stay in and watch movies, play games and such. And so it was that Clue was brought out.

I didn't know anything about the actual rules, but I quickly was brought up to speed. For my piece I chose Mrs. Peacock, only because she was already on the side of the board that I was sitting on.

And I didn't win. That honor belonged to our friend Grace. But I had a heck of a fun time! Lord willing we have some children ('cuz Clue needs 3-6 players) I'm definitely gonna invest in a copy of this game.

So that's one more thing scratched off my "Must Do Before I Die" list. Now if I can only see a real tornado. And live long enough to see Elon's basketball team go to the NCAA Tournament...

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Today is the first day of Lent

The last time I seriously gave anything up for Lent, it was 2006, when I stopped blogging for the entire 40-some days of the period. As much as I came back refreshed and invigorated, I don't know if I could do that again.

But Lent was something that I was feeling led to observe this year, for a number of reasons. So at the suggestion of some friends, I am choosing to give up video games and root beer.

The video games, I'm not worried about. It's only the seriously narrative-based games that I seem to indulge myself in, and the last time I did that was Batman: Arkham City. Though I'm curious as to how long I can go without the original StarCraft (which I plan to elaborate upon in the near future).

It's the root beer which I'm cautious about.

It's like this: I don't drink soft drinks hardly ever. At home, I'm a true southern-bred boy, drinking good ol'-fashioned sweet tea. Whenever I go out to eat or to a movie, I drink root beer. If root beer isn't available, I go for some other soft drink. Because no restaurant or movie theater seems to ever do tea the way it's supposed to be.

Knowing this, my girlfriend Kristen keeps her fridge well-stocked with A&W Root Beer whenever I'm dropping by. And I usually wind up drinking more of the stuff than I'd intended. Because, well, root beer is delicious!

But for the next forty days, I'm going off the stuff.

We'll see if I can do this. Hey, if Kristen could be completely off chocolate for Lent one year (I'm still hoping pictures will show up of this 'cuz my mind refuses to acknowledge it) then going without root beer should be easy enough :-)

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Girl expelled from school for borrowing asthma inhaler

Alyssa McKinney has learned a valuable lesson courtesy of Lewis-Palmer Middle School in Monument, Colorado (and its primary asshole Superintendent of Schools John Borman)...

“The lesson that I learned from this is not to help people, because helping people is just going to get yourself in trouble,” McKinney said.

McKinney's classmate Breana Crites was having an asthma attack during a gym class last month. Alyssa McKinney let Crites borrow her asthma inhaler. It might have saved Breana Crites' life, or at the very least kept her from being hospitalized.

But for that act of Good Samaritanship, Alyssa was placed on ten days' suspension (with the possibility of expulsion if the school "administration" judges she makes one measly further "mistake) and Crites was expelled for the rest of the year.

Read all about it here.

Superintendent John Borman had this to say...

“I think absolutely the suspension was appropriate.”

People like Bastardorman are going to be the destruction of whatever good is left in this country. A person's life was very likely at stake and this soulless automaton doesn't give a damn. All that matters is absolute obedience to The Rules and those who decree them.

They'll still be insisting "But we were only following orders" right up to the moment that they're thrown against the wall.

Tip o' the hat to Scott Bradford for directing our attention to this latest instance of public education insanity.

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Saturday night, I beheld THE TREE OF LIFE

During this past weekend in Norfolk a friend showed us some movies that I haven't seen yet. Drive is excellent! David Cronenberg's 1983 horror entry Videodrome... hmmmm, interesting. Saw some foreshadowing of our Internet culture there. And for my own part I brought along Hobo With A Shotgun.

It's The Tree of Life that I haven't been able to stop thinking about for the past 48 hours.

It's up for Best Picture during the Oscars this coming Sunday night (along with The Artist - a movie I've seen twice in theaters, this is the second Best Picture nominee this year that I've caught). And I can understand why. It's jaw-droppingly beautiful to oggle and admire. Writer/director Terrence Malick was able to woo Douglas Trumbull himself to come out of retirement to do the visuals for The Tree of Life. Trumbull was the genius who pulled off those still-incredible effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Coincidentally, it took me more than 15 years to finally "understand" 2001. It might take just as long to wrap my brain around The Tree of Life. Because like 2001, The Tree of Life is the kind of movie that you can watch with your eyes, ears and mind wide-open but when you wake up the next morning you're going to forget what exactly it is that you spent all that time paying attention to.

I need to watch this again. I'll probably be buying the Blu-ray of it soon. As much as my gray matter felt pulped and spindled after watching The Tree of Life (our host put on Drive afterward and that provided some much needed mental refreshment) I want to say that there was a poignant, haunting beauty in this movie. I would even say that after the events of my own life of late (my mother's passing, coming to terms with bipolar disorder, recovering from a divorce among other things) that watching The Tree of Life was... a healing experience, in ways I can't figure out quite how just yet.

I can't think of a cinematic paraphrase of the Book of Job. But that's what The Tree of Life (which quotes from Job at its beginning) is becoming to me. A movie that dares to ask God "Why?"... and gives us His answer.

So I'll recommend The Tree of Life to this blog's readers. And I'd be interested to know what others think of it too.

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Fiftieth anniversary of John Glenn's orbital spaceflight

Fifty years ago today, on February 20th 1962, John Glenn flew inside a Mercury space capsule christened Friendship 7 atop an Atlas LV-3B rocket, taking off from Cape Canaveral and into the history books...

It was the first orbital flight around the Earth by an American. Glenn made three orbits over the course of nearly five hours, before safely splashing down in the Atlantic.

Just think: it was only seven and a half years after Glenn's flight that we were walking on the moon.

How come we can't do cool stuff like that anymore? I mean, we use to make it look so easy...

I met John Glenn on Halloween Night in 1988. He came to my high school to campaign for the incumbent congressman from our district. Wish I'd gotten a photo of he and I together, but I do still have his autograph.

Anyway, here's wishing John Glenn a very happy anniversary of his pioneering flight! And hey, he's still looking in good shape at 90! I bet he'd be up for a trip to the International Space Station (if his lovely wife of 70 years will let him :-)

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Just blew back into town...

...after four days in beautiful and historic Norfolk, Virginia!

Seems like the only thing that I missed was the ONLY snow my area has had this entire winter!!

Ahhh well, after the past few years' worth of ice and blizzard, a little respite may be a good thing.

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Classic SESAME STREET: "What time is it?"

Been a few months since I posted a classic clip from Sesame Street. I figure it's time for another great Bert and Ernie sketch :-)

This one is definitely from way back. For one thing you can hear Mr. Hooper (the actor who played him passed away in 1982) and for another, there's no way that a sketch like this would be broadcast on Sesame Street today. Ahhh those were the days...

So here is Bert and Ernie in "What Time Is It?"

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