StumpTown Blog

This movie was really an excellent opportunity for Hollywood to do two of the things they love the most. 1. Attack George Bush and American foreign policy and 2. blow stuff up. What happens other than that is just window dressing. So, if you think our role in Iraq may lead to chaos and fascism at home and for our neighbors, and you like to see large buildings blown up in dramatic fashion, and you loved Demi’s “GI Jane” look and were sorry it didn’t catch on, and finally you really dig guys who dress and talk like the 3 musketeers even in modern times, then this is the movie for you. Spoiler-free plot synopsis: In the near future, the American wars in the Middle East have led to wide-spread civil unrest on the home front, apparently resulting in anarchy. Reacting to that, England has embraced fascism, or as is often the case, the fascist leaders have embraced fascism; the rest of the country has embraced being oppressed. In the middle of all this, a single individual has taken it upon ...

For my scoring and philosophy concerning movies and movie reviews, check out my earlier Movie related posts, especially the recent review of North Country below. Spoiler-free plot synopsis: Super…spy? Agent? …actually, I’m not sure what he is exactly, but he’s Tom Cruise and that’s pretty much all you need to know. He’s not super-human, but no human could the things his character Ethan Hunt does in these movies. In this movie he tries on the never-before-seen action movie premise of trying to save the love of his life and the rest of the free world from a very bad man whose agenda above all else appears to be being bad…especially to Tom Cruise. Even as action movie plots go, this one is pretty basic. Since, action movies basically all follow the same general formula (bad guy tries to kill good guy…and all of man kind, good guy fights back against impossible odds…a fracas ensues), they tend to try to spice up their stories with either twists or layers. A twist is when you thought a goo...

I hate spoilers. I don’t want to know anything about any tv show, book, movie or sporting event until I’m watching it unfold before my eyes. This has proved to be one of the only downsides to owning Tivo. By the way, if you don’t own Tivo, you might as well just throw a brick through your TV and put yourself out of your misery. And I’m not talking about a “dvr” I’m talking about Tivo. There is no substitute. I will not argue about this. Just accept it. Anyway, now I watch almost nothing “live” on TV. The only problem with that is that sometimes I fall behind on a popular show like 24 or Lost and then have to constantly guard against anyone who might talk or write about what happened in some episode I haven’t seen yet. My brothers and wife openly mock how turbo I am about this, but in my mind, as with most things, I’m right and they’re the crazy ones. I admit it, I am hung up about spoilers more than most, but I’m not alone here by any means. Why then, do movie critics write movie revie...

My good friend Jennifer Davis keeps adding to my list of annoying things people say and it inspired me to add a few more here. It's late, though, so I will be brief...or at least briefer than usual. 1. "more Unique" - according to Webster, the word Unique means: "Being the only one of its kind". If it is a one of a kind, how can something be more unique or the most unique? Can something be more one of a kind than something else? Of course not. Something is either unique or not, there are no degrees. Try "unusual" or "exceptional". 2. 110% - I understand that mathematically, there is a use for this expression as in "the cost of going to a movie has increased 110% since I was in college." Or the gas bill for my H2 is roughly 110% of my annual income. However, this should never be used to describe effort as in "he gave 110%, but still could not eat as many hotdogs as the petite Asian woman who dips the hotdog buns in water before ...

I travel a fair amount. No more than most and less than many, but it has given me time to observe and reflect on various aspects of travel. So, periodically I will post some of my observations and travel experiences to this site so that you may benefit from my time on the road, in the air and on the rail. Is that for my benefit? I ride Portland's MAX light rail train nearly every working day. It has provided me with a tremendous amount of insight into humanity which include things like: people are smelly as well as the following: There is always at least one person who believes that everyone should hear what they have to say even as they prop up the pretense that they are having a "private" conversation with another person. This often leaves me asking, "is this conversation for my benefit, because if it is, I want my money back." As with most of my travel observations, if you don't know what I'm talking about, there is a pretty good chance I'm talkin...

Is it possible to have big news within the first week you have a blog? It is if you're already starting another one. I have decided to put all my sports ramblings in one place and seperate it from what I talk about here. So, now you can click on the link that says StumpTown Sports and go to my blog about sports. If blogging can be addicting, I may need to go ahead and seek help now.

I have a problem. I understand that making a statement like that is the "first step." Toward what I'm not sure, but it is the first step and we're often told that the first step is the most important. Of course, unless it is a very short journey, that second step is fairly important as well. Unfortunately, while I know that admitting you have a problem is the first step, I have no idea what the second step is. Since, no one has imparted this wisdom to me, I will simply add some of my own and say that the second step is "embrace it." That's right, admit you have a problem and then get in there and make that problem all that it can be. So far, this approach has served me well with fantasy sports, general sports addiction, overcompetitiveness, Pepsi addiction and many other problems that I have over time admitted (step one) and embraced (step two). As it turns out, embracing a problem tends to leave little additional time to seek out step 3 or 4, so I'l...

My youngest brother Enoch is in town which is great for a number of reasons (I like hangin out with him, my kids love him, he motivates me to play ball, and I could go on and on) but for this post, the most relevant reason I'm glad to have Enoch around is that I get to watch more movies. In my house, we can either watch movies upstairs in the living room or downstairs in the basement. After moving into my current house I took over the family room in the basement. The "family" moniker was removed and the room is now known as "man room." It's not just a place for men, but it was created by a man....Me and on occasion, manly stuff happens down there like football games, pool, darts (the sharp kind), wolverine wrestling, bare-knuckle boxing, flatulence, hysterical laughter about flatulence, lying about how great we are or once were at _____ (fill in any activity here), etc. You know, that kind of stuff. The Man room houses the home theater. The living room boast...

I saw two movies this last year that I had never heard of before seeing them and have been thinking about them ever since. When a movie sticks with you like that, and not because you resent the 2 hours of your life it stole away, then chances are it was worth seeing. These two certainly were. They are both odd and not for everyone, but check them out if you're tired of movies with huge effects and even bigger holes in the story line and character development. Everything Is Illuminated: This movie stars Frodo from Lord of the Rings. This time around, he wears shoes and shows up as a Jewish kid with a strange compulsion to collect and organize who heads off to the Ukraine to find out who his family was. Along the way he meets the most interesting tourguide family you can imagine and they all find more than they were looking for. It is very well written and unlike most modern movies, it takes its time. That's not just a movie nerd's way of saying "slow", but it lets ...

One of the things I like about sports is the way you can delude yourself into believing that somehow your life is connected to what is going on in a game. There's direct ways like fantasy sports and gambling and more subtle ways like refering to your team as "we", but there is also the glory of the sports opinion. Everyone has an opinion about sports and why not, it is just a bunch of games played by grown men. It's not life and death (unless you're talking about the crazy fans of World Cup soccer) and there are rarely important moral principles involved, so why not spout off about it. Even better, by making bold and brash predictions you can actually begin to believe the lie that the outcome of a game or success of a player is somehow connected to you. If you said this team will win and they do, you get to strut around as if their victory was somehow influenced by your prediction. And no matter how much you know deep down that this is all silliness, there...

This is Me. I'm not always in a suit, but it was the easiest picture I could find to post.

I'm blogging. Or rather, I'm about to be...I think. This is my first entrance into the arena, but as anyone who knows me knows, I have lots to say. It's not all worth saying, but with a blog, people can choose to tune me out without me having to shut up so it seems like a win/win. Anyway, .... Here we go....