Time for Love Dr. Jones

The Summer movie season is upon us.  Yesterday I made my first of what is sure to be many trips to the theatre in the next few months to catch the newest installment in the Indiana Jones saga "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."   I think it should be possible to give a pretty accurate review of the film without giving away too many spoilers.   this newest installment is a great amount of fun.   If you have enjoyed the other films in the series (especially Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade) I struggle to see how you could be disappointed with Harrison Ford's most recent outing as everyone's favourite fedora wearing and bull whip carrying archeologist.   Just no this before you walk in.   You are not going to see Citizen Kane or some other equally high brow film.   As they have always been, this movie is a celebration of the pulp roots and conventions that inspired the character and his universe in the first place.  

 

It is weird how wonderfully refreshing the movie feels.   Set in 1957 at the beginnings of the cold war allows for the sinister agents of the KGB to take place of the Nazi's as Indy's enemy this time around.   A great turn by Kate Blanchett is put in as KGB paranormal weapons expert Irina Spalko.   She is everything that a great pulp villain should be.   She is ruthless, cunning and can hold her own in her many extended stunt sequences.    While Kate Blanchett is usually a dependable good performer where ever she appears, Shia LaBeouf I will say more then exceeded my admittedly low expectations for him.  I think this was one of the first performances I have seen by him that I really liked.  Even though I wanted to dislike him so much after he appears dressed identical to Marlon Brando in "The Wild Ones."

I suppose the best way to sum up this movie would be to call it a collection of really great scenes and moments that just fall shy of creating a satisfying whole.   The writing is very funny.  i found myself laughing constantly at the number of winking tongue in cheek jokes that fly through out the movie.   If you are a fan of the other three Indy films be certain to keep your eyes open as this might be one of the most self referential movies I have ever seen.   The movie looks great, due to the always stellar effects work of ILM.  

 

I would highly recommend this film.  Just know going in that you shouldn't try to make too much sense of the plot.   However, I think like any Indian Jones movie the fun here is not the end point of the plot that the characters are trying to reach, but how much fun you will have watching them get to that point.

Now Broadcasting...

Do you love reading all about me on my blog?  Ever find yourself wishing that you could hear my silky golden voice on a regular basis?  Well get excited then folks.  I have been selected to be one of the co-hosts of my Team Fortress 2 Clan's new podcast "The Fortcast".   We hope to begin recording this week so hopefully we should have our first episode together really soon!

Just Some Random Thoughts

So I've had a good bit of time to be alone with my thoughts this past weekend.  (I guess that is one good thing about having a 4 hour car ride.)  As I was on my way on my trip this weekend I started to think about how my life has been going.  It was great to take a vacation, and just get away from real life for awhile.  It was worth it.  I've come back feeling well rested and relaxed.  I can't help but feel as if I am a very lucky and blessed man.  I have so many things in my life to be thankful for.  I just wanted to make sure that everyone out there knows how aware of the blessings that I have.  So to all my family and friends and friends who are family let me say thank you!  Much love to all of you!

TF2F LAN '08

So I've returned from my weekend jaunt to the great white North for my clan's LAN party.  What a great time.  I had so much fun this past weekend.  (There are pictures.)   I was so nice to be able to put faces to names of a lot of the folks that I have spent the last few months playing with online.   This is a really great community of people and I am very glad to call them friends.

Yes, we called each other by our screen names all weekend.

Fail!

So I really really can't play Soldier.  Really really can't.

.theButterFly has landed

I'm here in Windsor.  Let the nerddom begin.

Oh! Canada

Well folks, this morning I leave for Windsor Ontario to attend my Team Fortress 2 Clan's first LAN party.  Yep, I am driving 5 hours to play video games!  Awesome!  I'll try to throw some updates up over the course of the weekend.

New Bad A$$ Desktop!

I was bored this weekend.  So I made a new desktop background for my computer.  It's not finished yet, but Finch is going to help me.  The best part?  It matches the blue lighting on my mouse and keyboard.  It's hot.  i might need to make a red one to match my mouse at work too. (I am SUCH a nerd.)

Wow!

My parents tore out all the bushes in front of their house.  It looks so weird now.

A Fun Silly Little game

I just StumbleUponed this little flash game.  It's kind of fun.

#1 and #2

In this month's issue of American Style Magazine both of my home towns placed highly among their reader poll of the best Large, Mid-sized and Small Cities in America for art.  Chicago of course the perpetual "second city" came in second only to NYC in the large city category.   The big surprise though ladies and gents... Buffalo N.Y. jumped an impressive 13 places to rank #1 in the Mid-sized City category!  Go Buffalo!

In Case You Wanted to Buy Me Things

You should check out this website!  They have DVD's of all sorts of old school cartoons.  You should buy me something from here.

Scare Crow

Another Dark Knight pic.  Look closely...think we'll be seeing Jonathan Craine again sooner then we thought?

Two Face

A friend just leaked me this pic from the new Dark Knight film.

Some updates...

• Weather in Chicago has been fantastic!  This is the best time of the year to be living in my fair city.  The flowers and trees are coming back to life, attractive people are out walking around looking hot.
• I got a new hat.  I love it.  Others not so much.  However, I feel there are very few folks that can pull off a pith helmet.   I believe myself to be one of those lucky folks.
• I'll be moving soon.  Me and Finch have decided to move in together. This past weekend we went out and looked at a few places and settled upon a nice affordable little two bed room place in Roger's Park.  We move in July!

Today's lesson...

AVOID GETTING SHOT BY A POLICE OFFICER.

 

(Brought to you by the good folks at www.wikihow.com)

Today's How To...

use a WIC Check.

(I subscribe to a Google feed that provides me with these every day.)