Dollyrots on "The Price is Right"

One of the bands I follow around in Los Angeles. Pretty cool.

A movie review: Blind Side

"Blind Side." Okay, this movie starts off with one of the most painful moments in NFL history: Joe Theismann's broken leg video. Oh mercy.

This is a true story about Michael Oher who currently plays for the Baltimore Ravens. It shows how sometimes a person's outcome is driven by chance encounters. Who knows how much of this story is true, but Michael Oher got into a solid Christian school because someone he was staying with cared enough to look after his well-being. Michael Oher is camped out on the family couch. The guy wants to get his son into the solid Christian school, but also cares enough to make sure that there is a packaged deal with Michael. Now the guy's wife eventually forces Michael out of the house. You can question whether or not the guy is stand up or not for caving into his wife, but this single move creates other opportunities for Michael. Now this is only perhaps five minutes of the movie, but I think it is an important part to remember. He soon is taken in by a white family. His teachers at the largely white school take him under their wings. Random events.

To me, this movie is similar to Precious in many ways. Blind Side has a more happy ending, but it still points out to one single fact: there are so many people who simply don't get the chance.

Queen Kwong, The Monthlies and Obi Best @ Spaceland

Off to Spaceland I went to see Queen Kwong. This is one of those bands that I keep tabs on. The last time I saw them was back in May 09 so it was definitely time to check them out again. The set started off with Carre (the ‘e’ has that backwards ` -- sorry, I don’t know the appropriate word description – but I don’t know how to type that letter on my keyboard) Callaway going solo and then her two bandmates going on stage moments later. A fabulous set, I loved every minute of it. I will have to check out this band more than once every six months.

Observations: At one point, I swear, Carre was emotionally tied to her guitar, tender touches. And the door guy and ticket lady came inside the venue at times to listen to her set.

Comment made: I’m either getting taller or this microphone stand is shrinking.

Apology: So I had a short conversation with the ex-roommate of Carre. Sorry, I’m not one who can carry on long conversations, didn’t mean to be rude.

Twitter: I catch Carre's tweets every so often via myspace. Fun to read.








Next up were The Monthlies, another band I head out to see. I noticed a violinist tuning on stage. Yes, I love strings in bands and so I couldn't wait for their set to start. Anyways, their set was great, as always. I invited a friend to come out. He didn’t make it in time to catch Queen Kwong, but he did arrive in time to see The Monthlies. He really liked them at all.

Observations: The violinist joined the band for their last song. They seemed to have some technical difficulties. One of their friends kept on going up to the stage, fiddling with Jana’s (guitar) sound equipment. It was also Jana’s birthday.

Comment made: We’ll play faster songs till the end.







The final band of the night was Obi Best. I’d call them an experimental band. At times, they were using three keyboards/synthesizers.

Observations: For one song, they had a Boy’s Choir. Okay, really just four guys. At one point, one of the band members noticed a spider. The lead singer went over and held the spider thread and moved the spider to the edge of the stage, doing this all calm – contrast this with the band member who didn’t want the spider anywhere near her. At the end of their set, the lead singer said, “Thank You and Good Night,” and then they all left the stage. I was thinking that this was rather sudden. An encore was demanded and so they came out to one last song.

Comment made: The economy stinks now. Don’t you wish instead of using currency, we could replace it with class?



If you keep up with my columns on intraffik, you may know that I wrote something up previously on Queen Kwong and The Monthlies over on that site. Check out those two columns if you haven’t already read them -- if you've already read them, feel free to re-read them.

A Movie Review: Avatar

"Avatar." Okay, so I'm going contrarian here. This movie is over-rated. I felt like I was watching a movie dedicated to the Ewoks. Now I'm not going to say that this is a movie not to see. It was quite the spectacle. And it kept my attention. But like the Ewoks in "Return of the Jedi," I always find it skeptical to see a technologically inferior culture being able to destroy a highly sophisticated one. I'm always thinking when watching these sort of scenes, doubtful that this could be accomplished.

A movie review: Precious

"Precious"

FYI: Spoilers

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) is about a black teenager who lives in Harlem. At the beginning of the movie you learn that her mother is on welfare and doesn’t like Precious. There is a reason for this, which comes up later in the movie. You learn she also has a child, but the child isn’t seen. And you also learn that she is pregnant again with her second child. She is offered a chance to go to an alternative school. She decides to take it even though her mother would prefer (demands) that she gets on welfare.

You start to learn about Precious throughout the movie. Her father (her mother’s boyfriend) rapes Precious and this is why she is pregnant. You learn later in the movie that she was abused starting at a very early age. This is the twisted reason why her mother hates Precious. The mother (Mo’Nique) is angry that her lover has chosen Precious over her. Of course, the mother doesn’t realize that she’s dating a pedophile. But honestly, the scene where this is revealed is raw and amazing. Her first child has Down syndrome. The child stays with the grandmother and only comes to the house when the welfare lady comes to check up on the family. Precious’ life is a mess.

Even though her life is a mess and appears hopeless, she does have some luck come her way. She comes into contact with a sympathetic welfare worker, Ms. Weiss (Mariah Carey). She also finds a teacher, Ms. Rain, (Paula Patton) at the alternative school who believes in Precious.

And then you get punched in the gut when you learn that Precious is infected with the HIV virus – her father/abuser dies from HIV, which is how she learns about the possibility that she might have the virus.

My thoughts: there is some amazing acting in this movie. And the storyline is gut wrenching. You just hope throughout the movie that her lot in life improves. But then in the back of my mind I had this thought: let’s say there are kids out there in her situation, there is no way that there are enough Ms. Weisses and Ms. Rains out there to help all the kids in the same situation as Precious. And so thinking it in that way, perhaps this movie is extremely depressing and perhaps totally a one in a million sort of moment, which therefore makes this movie so unrealistic.

Anyways, there is an interesting article in the LA Times that shines a light on this movie from the angle of race. I can see the point, but don’t agree. See link for article.

A Movie Review: Up in the Air

"Up in the Air." This movie is technically about a guy who goes around and fires people because their bosses don't have the guts to do it themselves. I have to say I saw the movie in a different light. To me, this is a movie about relationships or lack of relationships. You have Ryan Bingham who lacks relationships. He is constantly traveling across the nation. His goal in life is to reach 10 million frequent flier miles. He has limited contact with his family. When he travels to Wisconsin for his sister's wedding, I got the distinct feeling that the family wasn't totally comfortable around him and perhaps even disdained him. On the other hand, his co-worker, Natalie Keener wants to have both a corporate career and still keep her relationships alive. Viewed from this angle, you even can say that the moments in the movie where they must fire people is about a relationship. The relationship between the corporation and the employees they are firing. The bosses are unable to face the people they must let go, some of whom have spent years with the company. The point of the movie, I believe, is that relationships are important. Even Ryan Bingham begins to understand this when he meets Alex Goran on one of his travels. They start to have a sexual relationship. Alex and Ryan have a connection, because both want to have a sexual relationship without the connections. Ryan begins to fall for her and decides to chase after her. But he finds out that she is married. Even Alex, the person who claims that she wants a disconnection relationship, actually feels the need for one.

A Movie Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

"Fantastic Mr. Fox". An enjoyable film about a family of foxes and their other critter friends. The family decides to move into a more dangerous neighborhood -- actually, the father decides. He's having a mid-life crisis and therefore develops a rather selfish desire to prove himself again, leading his family into danger. His actions lead to not only life threatening issues for his family, but for his friends, as well. Somehow he's able to get everyone out of trouble, but the question is has he learned anything? Probably not, because he's a fox, a wild animal.

A Movie Review: 2012

"2012". I don't know about this film. I enjoyed the ride. But during the movie, I couldn't help but think that certain parts were just stupid. Prime example, end of the movie, they head to Africa. Why? Africa is the new Himalayas. Wouldn't you want to go somewhere other than an area that will soon be covered in snow and freezing weather? On the other hand, Africa wasn't destroyed by water, but it did have this massive land movement so wouldn't millions be dead and tens of millions dying. There isn't anything you can do to help them so why head in that direction. Why not just hang out on the arks until better land areas unflood. Then there was the whole Russian plane. They fly over Hawaii, but China is 1,000 miles off course? There was some interesting conflict, which I wish was played out better: pragmatism versus idealism. Both were right in many ways, but it just didn't get played out very well I thought.

Open Hand and Year Long Disaster @ Spaceland

So I might post something up on this night on Intraffik.com so I'll keep this very brief.

I headed off to Spaceland. A friend is back in California from South Korea and we headed out to Spaceland to celebrate.

First band I saw was Open Hand.





Second band up was Year Long Disaster. The bass player spent most of the set in this stance.





Check out intraffik.com in a few weeks. I may have a longer article up over there.

A Movie Review: Pirate Radio

Pirate Radio. I enjoyed this film. A bit of innocent rebel rousing in the mid-1960s. The movie deals with a period in time where rock music was not allowed over the British airwaves so the music was played off-shore. The movie focuses on Carl, a young man who is sent off to the boat by his mother. This is considered punishment for misbehaving, which is rather odd considering that he is being sent to a ship that blasts illegal music onto the British shore. His bunkmate also finds this interesting and wonders if perhaps Carl's dad is on the boat -- his mother wanting him to reconnect with his father. Indeed his father is on the boat. We also get to follow Carl as he finds his love.

I could see one arguing that this movie has no real storyline or reason to exist. It could be seen as just a collection of random stories, but these stories are so funny and endearing that I say this movie is a must see.

A Movie Review: Invictus

"Invictus." I'm not going to say that this wasn't an important event in South Africa's history. Sports can unite a country. One just has to look at the US hockey victory in the Olympics way back when. I'm just going to say that this movie just didn't seem to express this in the best possible way. There are probably a few reasons for this for me. First, I'm not South African so I felt no real joy for them. Second, I thought the movie took a page out of "Hoosiers" in how it gave us glimpses of strategic moments in the various rugby games, but since I know nothing about rugby it didn't have the same emotional impact as those basketball moments in "Hoosiers." I can't say I'd recommend going out to see "Invictus."

A Movie Review: An Education

"An Education". I heard good things about this movie. A handful of friends were eager to see it. So off I went to catch this movie. I didn't love the movie. I appreciated it, but didn't love it. It was well acted, well directed, well written, nice intrigue. I just didn't get into the subject matter.

A Movie Review: The Road

"The Road"

FYI: Spoilers

I swear this has to be the most depressing movie of the year. I was in dread during the whole movie. I even found the ending depressing even though others might consider it a positive ending. “I am Legend” had a positive ending -- admittedly, not the same type of movie, but whole end of the world as we know it sort of scenario. This movie, the ending is depressing. Even though I was in dread throughout the movie, I couldn't help but wonder if the movie was leaving out the final ending -- that is, the book was even more depressing. So I went to Borders and read the last couple pages of the book. The book ended pretty much the same way. In fact, some of the dialogue was very similar – if not word for word.

I didn’t fully follow how the apocalypse occurred. There was some sort of massive light of some sort or perhaps fire. The majority of animals and plant life died. A number of humans probably died, as well. There were constant earthquakes afterwards, which makes me think that perhaps something was emanating from the earth’s core that was killing off plant life. This resulted in the breakdown of society. Folks were able to live perhaps 7 to 9 years on remaining supplies in grocery stores. I’m making this assumption based on the fact that the boy in the movie looked like a 9 year old. From that point, people turned in three directions. Most took two extremes: suicide or cannibalism. A few others decided to search for a better life – these individuals had to navigate through the gangs that had turned to cannibalism as well as others like them who may not be cannibals, but might not be the most trustworthy.

Roger Ebert has a review that seems contrary to what I saw of the movie. He mentioned that the Boy was born before the devastation. My opinion is the he was born during the devastation. He also indicates that the flashbacks with Woman and Man were also before the devastation and showed a marriage falling apart. I thought the flashbacks were during the devastation. I could be wrong, which would imply that a lot of my theories in the previous paragraph is wrong.

The movie deals with the Man and the Boy traveling to the ocean. They run into three cannibal gangs – what I recall. The first was the most powerful, driving vehicles. The two are nearly captured by this gang, but the Man kills one of the cannibals and they’re able to avoid the others. The second gang is holed up in a house. It looks like they are a family. They store their victims in an underground dungeon. The Man and Boy are trapped in the house, but escape via some fortunate events. They see the third gang from afar as the gang cuts down a woman and a girl. They also run into an elderly man – who I can’t believe has escaped the cannibals for so long. When they make it to the ocean, they run into a thief that steals from them. The two chase down the individual and leave him with nothing. They run into two others, one an archer who decides to kill first and ask questions later. The Man ends up killing the archer.

The Man has lung issues and towards the end of the movie dies. The movie ends with the Boy being found by a Family that had been following them. And you would think this would be uplifting, but I found it depressing. They’re only five, three being children. The gangs are many. How long can one possibly avoid the gangs?

I over-heard someone recently saying that the older we get the fewer friends we have, because we become less trusting of people. I don't know if I agree with that statement, but it is so true in this movie as the Man doesn't trust people while the Boy does.

My one issue with the movie: why is it that only the gangs seem to have guns. I'd think everyone would be armed to the teeth. (Yes, the Man has a gun -- but with only two bullets.)