Needs a Bulldozer to Handle the Burial

Posted on 28/10/2014 by Grumpa Joe

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Yesterday, Peg and I opened the 2014-15 movie season. We miss seeing good films, and finally, Hollywood has put out some good stuff. We also like to go when the prices are less than five bucks, the crowds nonexistent, and the showtimes are early. Our friends told us to go see Gone Girl, and The Judge, but the show times for both were late in the afternoon, and we ruled them out. Even though my buddy told me that he hated the actors in Gone Girl the story carried his interest. We’ll see Gone Girl on another day.

The film that met our requirements was The Equalizer with Denzel Washington.   This film is pure fantasy, super-hero, super-man, one man against an army, type of story that kept me riveted to my seat. Denzel is one of my favorite actors, and always has been. He chooses his roles wisely and does outstanding work in depicting the characters he plays. Don’t ask me to name any of the other cast members because I didn’t recognize any of them. All I can say is they chose a mean, bad-ass looking bunch to play the Russian villains.

This is one super-hero movie in which the super-guy, Denzel, actually gets nicked by some bullets. Most super-hero films leave the hero totally unscathed by  the hundreds of bullets flying past his head. The early part of the film begins slowly with a very good character development and a story that would have satisfied me even if it had stayed boring. About a third of the way through, however, things begin to heat up and the body count begins to rise. Clearly, this is not a film produced by gun control advocates. If it were, there wouldn’t have been a single gun shown in the film. Instead, the author, producer, and director chose to use every type of automatic weapon known to man to tell the story. Yet, there were still very many bodies turned lifeless by methods other than speeding bullets like twisted broken necks, knives, corkscrews, and some more. By the end of the story the author needed a mass grave, and a bulldozer to handle the burial.

Given the climate of our political world today, I actually believe that Black Ops characters like Robert Mc Call (Denzel Washington) may actually exist in the real world. If they do, I do not want to know any of them. I am completely satisfied knowing they exist to protect us from worldly harm.

In some ways the film was a comedy, because of all the Mac Gyver type situations the hero had to work his way through. Some were so predictable I laughed out loud before they happened. I loved this film, and will see it again someday after it becomes available on disc at the library.

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Imagine the World Without Her

Posted on 15/07/2014 by Grumpa Joe

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Last Friday, Peggy and I experienced sticker shock by going to the movies. I needed to see the documentary film “America,” produced by Dinesh D’Souza.

“That’ll be sixteen dollars please.”

“What? Do you see this white hair? What happened to the five dollar tickets?”

“This is Friday sir we charge the weekend rates. The five dollar ticket is for Monday through Thursday.”

I quit fighting, paid the money, and went to get Peg her bag of pop-corn. I buy a small bag because she eats one or two handfuls and then quits. I end up eating the rest.  “Six dollars please.”

“What? Would you repeat that I don’t think I heard correctly, I thought I heard you say six dollars.”

“It is six dollars sir.” During the week, I scream at an outrageous price of four-seventy-five for the same bag, and now they want six. Oh well that is capitalism at its finest.

We were the first ones in the theater and chose seats in the second row center. That makes it easy for me to sneak out for a whiz if I need to go. We sat and began watching trailers for new films to come. Peg and I shared the pop-corn. About mid-way through the third trailer, I had to fidget and eased my grip on the pop corn. PLOP! It fell to the floor. I saw my six bucks fly off with wings on it. Luckily I saved enough by carefully picking up the bag; Peg’s few handfuls saved.

The movie America, is an excellent expose of Progressivism and D’Souza points out the background for the Progressivist movement. In a nut shell, liberals hate colonialism, and that hatred permeates our society with arguments based on the premise that colonialism is theft. He briefly mentions that Obama’s father hated colonialism because his home country of Kenya was a British colony. Obama senior served as advisor to Jomo Kenyatta who ruled Kenya after breaking away from Britain. Unfortunately for Barack senior, Kenyata quickly saw through Obama’s scheme and fired him. (Evidently the Kenyans are much smarter than Americans.)

Here are some of the progressive arguments:

1. America stole the land from the native Indians.

2. Americans prospered on the labor stolen from slaves.

3. America stole land from Mexico.

4. America thrives on capitalism which steals from the average person to make business owners filthy rich.

5. America based its foreign policy on stealing resources (oil) from the mid-east.

The film very expertly examines the basis for each of these arguments then turns to debate each with sound facts. I have used many of the same arguments deduced from the faint knowledge of history that I have and some common sense. The problem is that the liberals teach their arguments in high school and college, and a Howard Zinn textbook is now used by fifth grade teachers. Zinn is most notorious for writing history textbooks that explain history from the viewpoint of the common man. Zinn does not offer a second viewpoint in his books, so our kids learn history from the viewpoint of socialism. In the film, a colleague of Zinn from the same school absolutely refutes Zinn’s perspective of history. (I wondered why this guy didn’t speak up about Zinn to University leaders. It must be the mindset of college professors to leave each other alone under First Amendment rights.)

During his defense of stealing land from Mexico, Dinesh interviews a young man of Mexican descent who lives in the U.S. on land purportedly stolen from his ancestors. The man loves America and has no desire for his state to be returned to Mexico. In fact he argued that the current Mexicans are upset that the U.S. gave back half of the land they conquered during the Mexican-American War of 1846 and paid the Mexicans for the other half. Had the U.S. kept all the land native Mexicans would have the same outcome.

America, kept me riveted to the screen from beginning to end, and I recommend  everyone see the movie. I especially liked the rock version of the Star Spangled Banner played by Madison Rising. It was a perfect way to end the course.

Yesterday, I sent a letter to each of my high school aged grandkids with a flyer for the film and a twenty-dollar bill. I asked them to take a friend to see America.

D’Souza left me disappointed in one aspect. In his intro to the film he asks us what would the world be like if there was no America? I didn’t see the answer to this question anywhere in the movie. I expected to see a version of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” where we see the outcome of North America had the American Revolution not succeeded. I’ve been thinking about the question ever since, and will write an essay based on my own visions.

 

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As Old As Me

Posted on 27/06/2014 by Grumpa Joe

This week I had the lovely opportunity to spend time with my youngest grand-daughter who is ten. On elf her current activities is Tap Dancing. She is pretty good at it too. I gave her a  treat by watching a movie with her. The movie Care Free with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was a farcical and contrived story written around the dancing and singing abilities of two actor-dancers. Fred Astaire is in my opinion the most talented dancer that ever lived. He is artistic, agile, lithe, powerful, ballet-beautiful, and graceful in his dance moves. Ginger Rogers is equally adept and physically beautiful as well.

Care Free  debuted in 1938 the same year as me. Because of the age the film is in black and white, but the lack of color didn’t obstruct the beauty of the dancing. As I mentioned above the story contrived, but cute. Unlike today’s movies which are usually very strong and poignant based on life stories.

Although this movie is seventy-five years old and the story fanciful, it shows a history of the times, and culture; clothes, cars, homes, etc. are all dated to the era. I particularly enjoyed watching the vintage automobiles, all brand new at the filming scooting around metropolitan areas. The setting for the story is a large city. The characters are all affluent. All of them smoke, all drink, and they typically meet in a country club setting dressed in tuxedos and ballroom gowns. The lady’s hair styles were a hoot, but attractive still.

Jenna and I watched and chuckled throughout the entire film. We loved it, and she got to see tap dancing performed by some of the best dancers of all time, and I got to spend some precious moments with my Jenna Rose.

 

The dance in the clip below is from the movie and is the “Yam. ” The early part of the clip shows the dance sequence and in that last-minute Ginger sings the lyrics to “Yam.”

 

Filed under: Biography, family, Movie Review, Society, Theater, Warm and Fuzzy | 2 Comments »

God Is Not Dead

Posted on 18/04/2014 by Grumpa Joe

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It is Good Friday morning and I awoke to a headline reading “atheist war on Easter.” I didn’t read it. I celebrated an unholy atheist holiday on April first, better known as April Fools Day. What the headline reminded me of is a post I had in mind to write last week but never did. I went to see a wonderful movie “God Is Not Dead.” All my life I have fought to learn new arguments to prove that God does exist. The one thread that remains in my mind is how it all got started. Not even the greatest mind of our time known as Stephen Hawking can out reason that one. Stuff just doesn’t happen out of nothing unless there is a Supreme Entity to seed it.

http://godsnotdeadthemovie.com

I recommend this movie for everyone, even atheists, especially atheists. At first, I didn’t think a movie about the philosophical argument about God could be entertaining and I delayed going. Yet, a voice inside me said “go.” I was glad because the story is intriguing and one sub-plots is comical. I won’t try to explain the story because it would give too much away, but it occurs inside a modern university and shows them feeding our kids bullshit by liberal, arrogant, know-it-all-professors with tenure. In my opinion tenure is an outdated idea in any school. Why do these people hide behind work rules that protect them from being canned. We have First Amendment rights to speak as we chose. Teachers don’t need tenure to protect them further.

The movie is not about tenure, it is about a professor who forces his ideas on students with a threat of a failing grade if they refuse to buy his theme of “God is  Dead.” In doing so, he denies his students from using their God-given brains from using their free will to accept or deny an idea.

What surprised me at the end of the film was a rolling list of lawsuits filed to protect First Amendment rights against the bully tactics of schools and teachers. The number is staggering.

Peg and I have seen many really great films this season, and we commend Hollywood for producing so many good stories with great actors and even better effects, but “God is not Dead” is the best film we have seen. I give it five stars, and recommend everyone see it.

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Another Piece of WWII

Posted on 04/04/2014 by Grumpa Joe

The Thursday night showing at the Stardust theater in Sun City West was “Heaven Knows Mr. Allison,”  starring Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. Filmed in 1957 the story is about a marine who drifts ashore on an island in the Pacific during WWII. He finds it occupied by a nun. The two get to know each other for several weeks before Japanese occupy the island. For some strange reason they leave just as suddenly as they came A few days later they return. The marine kills a soldier in the Japanese camp when the soldier finds him.. The Japanese then begin burning the island to find the enemy.  The marine hides in a cave, but they find him. He is given a choice to come out or a hand grenade. An explosion occurs. It is not a grenade but a bomb. The USA began bombing the island and saved the day.

Peg and I agree that this is the best film we have seen at the Stardust theater. After looking it up, I learned that Ms Kerr received a nomination for best actress and the writers for best adaptation of a movie from another medium.

For some reason fate has made this winter a review of  history for me. It began with “The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell,” followed by a story about a Mitchell B-26, a wonderful book called “Flyboys”, a live performance of “South Pacific” at the Palm theater in Mesa, and now “Heaven Knows Mr. Allison.”

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