Movie Review Round-Up #2 - So Many Movies I Can't Come Up With a Witty Title

I've had the opportunity to watch a lot of movies lately, and they've come from different sources - Netflix, Redbox, and even a couple new releases in several of our favorite local theaters. I have to say that it's rather amazing to me how delivery of material like this has changed over the course of my lifetime. I've witnessed first-hand the creation, boom, and subsequent decline of traditional, brick and mortar businesses geared towards movie rentals. With things like digital downloads through streaming services and vending machines that are capable of pushing out Blu-ray discs, movies are as accessible as they've ever been. I don't know that we'll ever see a day when going to a theater is passé, however it should be clear to Hollywood now more so than ever before that people aren't going to willingly drive to a cinema and plunk down their $10 to see a movie just because it's new or starring a beloved actor (yes, I'm pointing at you Lone Ranger). Why should they when they can just wait a few weeks or months and see the same film for $1.50 in the comfort of their own home? It's a marvelous time to be a fan of movies, is what I'm getting at. Here's my take on some recent selections.

Man of Steel

 It was going to take some doing in order for Warner Brothers and the Superman film franchise to recover from the disaster that was Bryan Singer's attempt at rebooting the series with 2006's Superman Returns. That film was filled with nostalgia and made every attempt to recapture the feel of the days when Christopher Reeve donned the signature costume that's as iconic as any superhero garb, and that was a major factor in its failure - that and the fact that Brandon Routh has the personality of a sheet of plain, white copier paper. How then can a character as beloved as Superman return to prominence? By including a creative mind like that of director Zack Snyder with a story that takes the "big, blue boy scout" in a more gritty and much darker direction than has ever been put on film before.

 Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill as the hero so incredible he carries three names - Superman, Clark Kent and Kal-El. He's surrounded by the characters you would expect to see; Lois Lane (Amy Adams), Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner), Martha Kent (Diane Lane), as well as his doomed parents Jor-El (Russel Crowe) and Lara-El (Ayelet Zurer). Michael Shannon appears as the villainous General Zod, an oddly adored character (mostly for having said "Kneel before Zod!") which was played previously by Terence Stamp in Superman II.

The story is more or less what you'd expect to see out of a film that's supposed to serve as a jumping-on point for new and old fans alike. You have Supe's origin story, now told with vastly more detail than has been laid out before. Personally speaking, I was very impressed with scenes depicting the struggle between Jor-El and General Zod on Krypton - I probably could've watched an entire movie about their conflict, the imprisonment of Zod and his forces in the Phantom Zone, and Krypton's cataclysmic end. Details regarding Kal-El's arrival on Earth and his upbringing by the Kents is told through flashbacks as we meet Clark fully grown, a man who's spent his life attempting to hide his abilities from humanity for fear of what revealing himself might mean. Clark finally accepts his destiny as Earth's savior when Zod escapes and locates the son of the man responsible for his banishment.

This is the sort of Superman film a modern audience needs. Plenty of action, solid writing, a quality cast, and the vision of a director who can make a potentially bland character into an identifiable hero who has flaws just like everyone else. Audiences got their fill of Superman engaged in a battle of wits as that formula didn't exactly lead to a remarkable product in Superman Returns; rather, this time around we see the full impact of what would happen if a group of beings who are essentially God-like in their combined powers and resiliency brought conflict to our world. It's a no-holds-barred final act that's as fulfilling as could be, but it has one major flaw in my opinion.

Throughout the whole of the film, we're shown how Jonathan Kent tried to inundate his found son with the responsibility his powers brought. Pa Kent knew Clark had a chance to be a hero or a villain, hence why he tried to show him how to appreciate humanity for all its weaknesses. I can't help but compare the battle between Zod & Superman in Man of Steel to that in Superman II. Reason being, in the older film Superman shows great concern over the fact that a trio of evil Kryptonians are about to lay waste to all of Metropolis which is why he draws them away from civilization. In Man of Steel, Superman doesn't seem too concerned about the fact that the fight he's engaged in is going to wreck a good part of the city, maiming or killing God only knows how many bystanders in the process. There will always be causalities of war, sure, but this is a little too egregious of an oversight to ignore.

Still, I enjoyed this and I hope the momentum this film will generate puts Superman back on track. Unfortunately I don't think it will be able to kick start a movement towards a Justice League motion picture; there's no sense of organization to the DC Comics characters as it relates to their inclusion in a potential epic mash-up, which is exactly what MARVEL was able to do with their heroes leading up to The Avengers. Something that big has to fit logically inside a greater body of work and right now there's nothing to tie these various characters together.

/5 Superman Underoos


A Good Day to Die Hard

When you get to the fifth movie in a franchise, you're either talking about a series with enough story left to tell that it requires more sequels or one that makes barely enough money to still be considered a bankable hit. The Die Hard series definitively falls into the latter category.

A Good Day to Die Hard stars Bruce Willis as aging New York cop turned avid terrorist hunter John McClane. This time out he's on the way to Russia in order to help his son Jack (Jai Courtney) who's somehow managed to get himself involved with the doings of ne'er-do-wells who either want or have nuclear weapons. As it turns out, John's son is actually a CIA operative who hasn't exactly had a superlative relationship with his father. The two attempt to patch things up whilst shooting at people and surviving repeated calamitous incidents involving jumps out of windows from ridiculously high elevations.

I was 8 years old when the first Die Hard film was released. I'll be 33 in a few weeks, which means this series has been going on for the bulk of my life. That's rather amazing to consider, especially now that this franchise has continued even though the movies are more or less paint-by-number. McClane inevitably gets thrust into a situation where he has to protect or defend a person or resource, gets bloodied in the process, but ultimately prevails. The only real differences are the person/thing to be protected and the villain he's facing, although even those have been fairly predictable as John seems to have a thing for Germans and Russians.

This is the sort of movie you watch because you're a fan of the players involved or of the series itself. I still watch them because I have always thought Willis' performance in the original Die Hard was one of the best anti-heroes ever and I hold onto hope that that McClane is still out there, even though I think the best of him got used up way back during Die Hard With a Vengeance. That was the third film in the series and would've been a very suitable conclusion in my mind. It seems as though we're in for at least one more go-round with McClane as the sixth film to be titled Die Hardest has already been announced.

/5 Hans Gruber death faces




The Expendables 2

Speaking of movies that get made simply because of the fact someone out there still cares about our community of aging action stars from the 1980s & 90s, The Expendables 2 is here to show us all that just because you're drawing Social Security doesn't mean you can't use machine guns and save the world.

Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jean Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, and the guy from those awesome Old Spice commercials - they're all here, and so is Thor's brother. No, not Loki, Chris Hemsworth's brother Liam (who didn't have much of a career prior to dating Miley Cyrus; apparently he got the better end of that deal). It's a huge cast, needless to say, and while it's a wet dream for people who still fawn over these actors it's really an attempt to grasp at straws for relevancy.

This is like seeing an aged professional wrestler (leave it to me to make a pro wrestling reference), popular in his day who should've been long-retired but hasn't because he either needs the work or still loves the business, having matches on cards that draw fans in the dozens instead of thousands. There's nothing about this that's redeeming. I watched Expendables 2 and I kept hoping for something truly awesome to happen but as it went on it became more farcical and genuinely depressing.

Time to hang up your ammo belts, boys - we'll always have Terminator 2 and Demolition Man to remind us of how awesome you are.

/5 Chuck Norris beards





Cloud Atlas

Every so often a movie comes around that attempts to make profound statements regarding how we, as human beings who exist for a mere moment in the grand scheme of things, could possibly be so intertwined with one another that a perception like love stands to span multiple lifetimes. Could an emotion be so strong as to leap through time, from one body to another, unbeknownst to those experiencing it? This is the underlying notion behind Cloud Atlas, a movie so esoteric that it could also be labeled pretentious.

Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, and Hugo Weaving all star in this picture as multiple characters who find each other, albeit in several different lifetimes. Beginning in the Colonial era and moving on through time into the future where mankind has abandoned Earth, the plot of Cloud Atlas centers around how love and kindness can be the ultimate trigger of change in our world as this is a recurring theme explored by every iteration of the souls of these characters.

Cloud Atlas reminds me very much of The Red Violin, a film which follows the history of a cherished violin as it is passed from one owner to another throughout several hundred years. They both are movies that attempt to show how a singular event, ideal or object can flow through generations, involving a multitude of players who may or may not know of each other or how their motivations may ultimately affect the world around them. I think The Red Violin is a better movie, if for no other reason than the fact that it doesn't have the sort of overwhelming agenda that Cloud Atlas does.

This doesn't strike me as the kind of movie casual audiences are going to be able to grasp or even care to watch, for that matter. There are a lot of moving pieces here, none of which are lined up congruently as the pacing has us jumping around from one timeline to another. It is, however, a well-acted piece and the cinematography is fantastic as are the special effects. (Side note: There are a LOT of rather disturbing prosthetic noses and eye make-ups in this movie.) In essence, it's more of a technical achievement than anything else.

/5 Asian Hugo Weavings



Despicable Me 2

Animated films have come a long way since I was a child. Back then cartoons were for kids and adults were shamed for watching them. Now studios realize that adults are the ones taking their children to the movies, so why not make those movies appealing to the child and the adult thereby doubling your audience in the process? Pixar, Dreamworks, Universal, and all the rest have realized this, which is why I have no qualms about having gone to see Despicable Me 2 the week it opened.

DM2 picks up where the first left off. Gru (Steve Carell) has made the transition into life as the adoptive father of 3 little girls - Margo, Edith and Agnes - and is now a former super-villain, having given up his old ways for the sake of being a family man. He finds himself unwillingly recruited into the role of a crime fighter when Lucy (Kristen Wiig), a member of the appropriately named Anti-Villain League, comes to ask for his assistance in a not-so-subtle manner. The two of them must find out who has hijacked a quantity of PX-41, a substance capable of mutating ordinary beings into ravenous monsters, before this new criminal mastermind can unleash their fiendish plot on mankind.

This is a a movie with a lot of heart as Gru's transformation into a hero is perfectly facilitated by the presence of his daughters. They are his world and he would do anything for them, and that's a fantastic message to send out these days when so many children and adults could use a good parental role model.

Steve Carell is brilliant in just about anything he does and Kristen Wiig makes for a great addition to the cast as she has a core understanding of comedic delivery. I certainly hope we get a third movie out of this series as there's definitely room to grow here. Is GM2 better than the original, though? That's a tough call as I found both films entertaining - I am somewhat inclined to say the original is slightly funnier than GM2 but that's really splitting hairs for the sake of doing so.

/5 Fluffy Unicorns


Oz the Great and Powerful

The Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved films of all time, and rightfully so. It was a technical marvel in its era and the performance of Judy Garland is one that can truly never be forgotten. An attempt to recapture that same magic with a prequel is a tough challenge but director Sam Raimi has given it his best with Oz the Great and Powerful.

Everyone knows by now how Dorothy winds up in the land of Oz - she and her family's home are swept away from rural Kansas by a horrible twister which transports her and her dog Toto to a land of munchkins, witches, and wizards. In this same manner does Oscar "Oz" Diggs (James Franco), a small time traveling carnival magician and con man, find himself getting whisked away, albeit in a different vehicle (a hot air balloon). As it turns out, his arrival in Oz was expected as a prophecy foretold of his coming - unfortunately for him, whoever wrote the prophecy left some big expectations as the people of Oz had been longing for the great wizard they'd been promised. Oz must determine what he's to do in this new world and which witch is the witch he should be trusting.

I will be completely upfront with you in admitting that I am not a big fan of James Franco. I have yet to see a piece of work from him that has struck me as being tremendously worthy of praise as everything I've seen of him comes off as an actor who's trying not to look like he's acting. Maybe that's just me - regardless, I think the role of Oz probably could've gone to half a dozen other leading men in his age range and the end result been better. He's not necessarily bad here, it's just that a more vivid personality might have been a better option than him. (Sam Raimi has his favorite recurring partners, of which Franco is apparently one, which is why Bruce Campbell and Sam's own brother Ted still get work.)

Franco had the good fortune to be stood up next to three beautiful actresses in the form of Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis, and Michelle Williams, each of who play the infamous witches of Oz (Weisz & Kunis being wicked, and Williams being good). I can't not point out that it's almost impossible for me to see Mila Kunis and not immediately put Meg Griffin's face over her own. I've clearly watched too much Family Guy in my life for that to be happening to me.

All in all, Oz the Great and Powerful is an entertaining movie and definitely capable when it comes to fleshing out the back story as to how Oz came to be how it is when Dorothy arrives. There are a couple little tributes here and there to the future of Oz, as you might expect, and I almost wish there had been more of them.

 /5 Stoned James Franco Faces

The Darndest Things Happen Inside a Movie Theater

My wife and I recently went to one of our favorite movie theaters, that being the Columbiana Grande Stadium 14, to see Man of Steel. Columbiana Grande is a state-of-the-art theater equipped with all the modern amenities theater-goers expect nowadays, including digital projection, 3D systems, online ticketing, and just about every snack food you can think of up to and including mini corn dogs by Nathan's. (They're amazing, quite frankly - get it, corn dog, hot dog, frankfurter, frank? The jokes aren't as funny when I have to explain them.) I would go there more often than we do as I've always enjoyed the cinema, however the fact that it's about an hour's drive from where we live makes trips that frequent illogical considering the price of fuel and whatnot. Unfortunately we're not blessed with a local movie theater; there was a small, 4-screen theater in Orangeburg but it closed last year, so now our only alternative for new releases is to drive to Columbia or Lexington. Aside from the exorbitant prices for tickets and refreshments, I find that the only unpleasant (albeit sometimes entertaining) thing about going to the movies is the fact that there are other people in the theater besides just my wife and I.

Typically, we tend to wait a few weeks after they've debuted to see new movies in order to allow for the initial hubbub about the thing to die down. In the case of Man of Steel, we went after only a week's passing which wasn't so bad in all honesty. Don't get me wrong, the house was nearly packed but we arrived early enough that getting a good seat wasn't a challenge. A "good seat" for us is either a spot on the end of a row or, better yet, a loveseat row (that being a row made up of only 2 seats). There are only a few of these loveseat rows within certain theaters at Columbiana Grande, hence why early arrival is necessary if you hope to get one of them. We even have a preference when it comes to which loveseat we take. One of the loveseats is situated directly above the theater's entrance, meaning you not only get a nice, semi-private section to yourselves but you also get the added benefit of a shelf upon which you may rest your snack, beverage, cell phone or what have you. Beware, though, as this shelf can be treacherous!

Case in point, for our Man of Steel screening we both got a tray of nachos. The nachos come in a bag, which is both good and bad; good in that you get a consistent, sanitary serving but bad in that you have to get the chips into the tray yourself while sitting elbow to elbow with God only knows who. I make it sound like you're having to replicate the scene from Mission: Impossible where Tom Cruise is dangling from the ceiling like a fish on a hook even though it's about as simple as can be. I'm always cautious about bag opening, though, because I'm prone to yanking them open too forcefully and sending the contents flying in every direction. Instead of having to use my lap as a staging area for my nachos, I made good use of the shelf by carefully positioning the tray in a safe zone (i.e., far enough back from the edge so that the tray wouldn't fall over thereby dousing some unsuspecting theater patron with molten cheesy goodness), popped open the bag of nachos and arranged them in my tray. Unfortunately, I may have been too eager to get to my nachos as I sent one chip flying off the shelf - fortunately, there wasn't anyone coming into the theater at that moment, so I didn't have to go through that embarrassment.

At least my spillage was minor and didn't involve liquid...

I think everyone who's been to a movie lately realizes how big beverage servings have become. This isn't a new trend, though, seeing as how the same is true of cups you get at any fast food restaurant. I got a large soda before we went in to see Man of Steel - I don't remember how much it cost but it came with free refills which is why after the movie was over I decided to get my cup topped off. One more for the road, as it were. I didn't drink all of the refill (the cup barely fit into the holder in my truck) so when we got home I brought the cup into the house and left it on the kitchen counter. The following morning I took the top off the cup and looked down into the murky, now severely watered down and totally devoid of carbonation left-over Coke. I couldn't help but wonder how much fluid that was as I poured it down the drain. I got out one of our measuring cups (a 1 cup/8 fluid ounce measuring cup) and used water to calculate how many cups my movie theater cup would hold. Turns out this behemoth, without ice and filled to the brim, can hold 6 cups or 48 ounces of fluid. That's the equivalent of 4 cans of soda. And people wonder why things like diabetes and obesity are so prevalent nowadays.

I wrote all that to say this - two people dropped their beverages during the movie, one who was near the front of the theater and another who happened to be sitting directly behind us in a loveseat row. I didn't freak out when I heard the cup hit the floor, thereby jettisoning its contents in a deluge, even though I had a bad feeling my feet were about to get wet. I can honestly say we never felt or saw as much as a dribble of cola on our row, which I can only attribute to some sort of containment apparatus separating the upper and lower rows. There's the off chance that the folks sitting behind us may have expertly deployed whatever napkins they had to try and sop up the spill. (Hopefully the victims of the other spill were as lucky as we were.) Whatever the case, I'm just glad I didn't walk out of that theater with shoes left sticky from almost half a gallon of soda.

The topic of children and movie theaters is a touchy subject. As a theater owner/operator, you can't not allow someone who is capable of buying a ticket into your establishment (a justifiable exception being people who are under the influence or who might pose a danger to themselves and others). Doing so would be contrary to everything for which our capitalistic society stands. This is why business people and theater patrons alike have to hope that parents and their children don't do anything while watching a movie that would inspire violence. I can't tell you how many times I've had a perfectly good cinematic experience get ruined by some kid or their parental unit(s). At this point, it's almost like an understood, expected casualty of war. You know when you buy your ticket that there's a chance you're going to walk out of that theater having thought about whether or not you could justifiably gut-punch a child or otherwise wish a plague of boils upon their mom & dad for having brought them out of the house in the first place.

Personally, I think parents have to know their child before making the decision to bring them to a theater. This means realizing that kids of a certain age shouldn't be in a theater, period, specifically babies or any child so immature that they stand to have an emotional outburst during the picture. Not only is this a potential distraction to others inside the theater but what are you, as a parent, getting out of going to the movies if you have to spend 20-30 minutes in the lobby trying to satiate Junior's shivering fits? It doesn't make sense from either point of view, is what I'm getting at.

Older kids who are either undisciplined or just plain unsupervised is a different matter entirely. Babies can't help that they're babies but kids who are old enough to know better and act-out anyway should be dealt with in a way that is efficient and effective. In an ideal world, they'd get one warning then out comes the duct tape (the stuff is truly limitless in its use). In reality, we're left having to wonder why their parents aren't doing their jobs. Theater etiquette should be taught at an early age, and refresher courses should be offered to adults seeing as how there are a lot of people out there who have no idea what it means to observe courtesy towards others while watching a movie.

I'm not attempting to say that I was a perfect child or that I never did anything to disrupt the moving-going experience of someone else. Sure, I acted out as a child while at the movies and even in church. You want to know what happened to me when I did? Grandpa's finger meeting the back of my skull in a flicking motion that was, in all honesty, like getting hit with a Louisville Slugger. It hurt and I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I'm a grown man and I know that if he hadn't cared enough to direct my behavior I might be in a very different position right now. My point being that children should be loved and nurtured but that they also need discipline in some form or another. How would the world be different right now if the word discipline had never become unjustifiably synonymous with abuse, we'll never know.

There's that pesky soap box again, always getting underneath me when I'm trying to write...

I just spent three paragraphs harping on why kids and movie theaters don't mix, whereas I could write a piece the size of a senior thesis as to why a lot of adults shouldn't ever be allowed to set foot inside a theater. Seeing as how the length of this blog entry is getting out of hand, instead of charging a multi-pronged assault on those theater patrons who are old enough to know but too ignorant to do so, I'll focus on one aspect of their behavior which is consistently and persistently disruptive, that being the usage of cellular phones.

Movie theater chains have done what they can, for the most part, through signage and various pre-movie public service announcement campaigns in an attempt to dissuade customers from whipping out their phone during a screening. (Not only have they made a point to state how annoying it is for someone to engage in a conversation during a movie, they've also gone so far as to tie in visibly using a phone to potential copyright infringement. Plus, they tack on the incredibly intimidating and overly emphatic seal of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, just for good measure.) The only problem with this strategy is that it trusts people to police themselves when people are, pardon my French, assholes by in large meaning they don't care about ruining the experience of someone else. They've apparently never been distracted from a pivotal scene in a movie by the veritable spotlight that blasts upwards out of someone's lap into the darkness of the theater after they've activated the screen of their phone. I see this happen all the time and I'm never sure what's going on; that could be someone checking their Twitter feed or it could be the people of Gotham City sending out a distress signal to Batman. The bottom line here, in my opinion, is that if you're so important that you can't be separated from your phone for 2 or 3 hours you probably have no business being in a theater. By all means, stay home - the world may need you at a moment's notice!

Even with my musings and complaints about how people can affect a night at the theater, I must admit there's something about the communal experience of taking in a film together as a group (or mob, as is sometimes the case). The shared reactions and emotions are quite the thing to behold. I guess you could say that it's part of the magic of the movies. All I know for sure is that I'm glad I don't have to go to the movies by myself anymore, thanks to the cute little blonde girl I call my wife being by my side. I never do get tired of how it feels when she squeezes my hand during a tense moment of a film. It reminds me that she's there, it reminds me that we're together, and it reminds me that we'll always be connected.

Myrtle Beach Vacation 2013

My wife Jill and I have created many unique traditions for our little familial unit since we got together, but we've adopted another from her family and quite frankly it's become something that gives me a reason to look forward to summer each year. (Why else would I look forward to summer? This is South Carolina - it's 117° in the shade and there are mosquitoes the size of humming birds.) Jill's family has been making annual visits to Pirateland Family Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach, SC for more than 30 years, meaning they've been vacationing there at least as long as she's been alive. She and I have been a part of these trips as a couple since 2009 - that first experience was a real eye-opener for me as it was my first camping trip. I have to say that prior to that I wasn't sold on the concept of camping but it's apparently rubbed off on me well enough as we've been doing it ever since and we've even discussed buying a camper of our own (we've agreed that while it would be a nice piece of equipment to add to our garage, we don't quite need to go down that road just yet). Pirateland makes for a great get-away and excursions like this are a fine example of how family ties get a bit tighter thanks to things like sharing meals and a whole lot of laughter.

Pirateland Family Camping Resort

I have to be honest with you about this. When we go to Pirateland, we're staying in a "campground" but we aren't really "camping". Camping, to me, implies sleeping in a tent out in the wilderness without much more than a backpack and a compass to sustain yourself. What we're doing is essentially staying in a condo that at one point in its life happened to have been a traditional tag-along style camper.

A friend of Jill's family owns what's referred to as a permanent site and these tremendously generous folks are kind enough to let us use it for our annual trip to Myrtle Beach. In case you didn't know, a permanent site is a plot of land in a section of the campground where people have taken actual campers, moored them into a foundation, then modified them so that in many cases they don't even resemble campers anymore. For example, the camper we make use of still has the overall shape of a camper, however it has added features such as a porch, living room, expanded bedrooms, full bath, and even a laundry/utility closet. It's not a huge amount of space (especially not vertically speaking; I have to remember to duck when going through certain doors else I wind up concussing myself) but it's more than adequate for the two of us.

The campground itself is almost like a carnival environment in that you have all these nomadic people who've traveled from far & wide then congregated together for the sake of seeking rest and relaxation (amongst other things). Personally, I love checking out all the various campers that people bring onto the grounds as I find these porta-houses and their associated technologies to be quite interesting. Recreational vehicles and motor homes are the most intriguing as some of these things are palatial in what they have to offer in terms of amenities. I've jokingly told my wife that when we're old and retired (assuming we get old and can be retired, that is) we're going to sell off everything and buy a RV then spend our waking years traveling around. Hopefully by then RVs will be equipped with guidance systems; I'm not sure how well I'll be able to drive one of those behemoths when I'm in my latter years.

Pirateland is one of several campgrounds in Myrtle Beach which are adjacent to one another - I've never been to any of those so I have nothing to contrast the kind of things that they may or may not have to offer with Pirateland. Be that as it may, Pirateland isn't too dissimilar from a hotel when it comes to offered services. There's a laundromat, a store, WiFi, several pools, and even a restaurant in the form of a food truck (Hog Heaven BBQ). I still enjoy staying in hotels but I will say that our set up within Pirateland affords us a level of privacy and serenity not found in most resorts. There's just something about being near an inlet nestled amongst a bunch of live oak trees that's particularly satisfying.

2013 Annual Truesdale Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Challenge Championship

To make a long story short, the 2013 Annual Truesdale Myrtle Beach Putt-Putt Challenge Championship did not go my way. Very much the opposite, as a matter of fact, seeing as how Jill more or less took me to the wood shed this year.

The 2013 ATMBPPCC went 4 rounds, with my wife coming out on top 3-1 in our best 3-out-of-5 scenario. We played at some of the most challenging courses we've encountered yet, and I think that added a lot to the overall competitiveness of the event.

Round 1 was held at the Castle course of Adventure Falls Golf (the Surfside location; there's another Adventure Falls towards North Myrtle). This is an older facility but one that is certainly well maintained and deceptively challenging. The first hole nearly threw both Jill and myself for a loop but we managed to recover and finish the round with a final score of Jill 44 to my 45, 7 and 8 over par respectively (every hole was a par 2; I have no idea who set that up but I believe they were a sadist).

Round 2 saw play shift to the Viking course of Dragon's Lair Fantasy Golf, a facility I've wanted to play at for years but never had previously. This proved to be my lone victory in the 2013 ATMBPPCC as I managed to squeak out a win over Jill despite the fact that the final score was a tie at 43 all (43 also being even par for that course). ATMBPPCC rules state that in the event of a tie the player with the most holes in one for that round shall be declared the winner. I had 1 hole in one (hole #10), thereby making me the winner.

Round 3 truly was a test of our physical conditioning as the atmospheric conditions began to wreak havoc on the both of us. For this round, we played the Dunn's River Falls course at Runaway Bay Miniature Golf, which is attached to the Tupelo Bay Golf Center. The heat and humidity common to summers here in South Carolina was in full force this day - I'm not ashamed to admit that I had perspired through my clothing so much that at the end of the round the sweat stain on my pants looked as though I'd urinated on myself. Jill bested me this round by a score of 41-44 (both of us were over for the round as par there is 39). We retired back to our camper after this round, needless to say, for showers and a fresh set of clothes.

Me, prior to losing 20 lbs. of water weight at Dunn's River Falls

The fourth and final round of the 2013 ATMBPPCC was held at Gilligan's Island Funland Miniature Golf. The Minnow course proved to be my undoing as I couldn't keep pace with Jill on the back 9. The 14th hole was particularly troublesome as it was there that I went from having a two-stroke lead to a two-stroke deficit. The final tally was 48-49, with both of us doing particularly well against the course as 54 is par at the Minnow.

It was all over but the crying at that point. I humbly submitted my congratulations to Jill on having defended her title, the first successful defense and retention of the ATMBPPCC trophy in its history.

Jill with the ATMBPPCC trophy

Random Acts of Fun and Hilarity

Food, Food, and MORE FOOD - Vacation, for a lot of people, is an excuse to let go of their diet and eat whatever they want. For me, it's just another day. I definitely need to be watching what I eat but I don't, and with that in mind came a consumption of mass quantities during our trip to Myrtle Beach. Every day while we're camping begins with a healthy portion of bacon, sausage, country ham, eggs, and crock pot grits (sometimes waffles, too, but they're not an every day offering). Several ladies in the family prepare these meals and they are always amazing - the meals and the ladies, I mean. Lunches are random in that they can be anything from buffalo chicken salad at Sweet Carolina's to a caramel mocha Rockuccino from the KISS Koffee House. Supper tends to be a family affair as well seeing as how one or two couples out of the gathering will handle cooking duties for the evening and provide enough vittles for the whole gang. Is it any wonder my clothes aren't fitting that well right now?

A typical breakfast during our annual Myrtle Beach trips

The New House of Blues Menu Blows - I have a long relationship with the House of Blues. I started going there for concerts around 2000 while I was a student at Francis Marion University (FMU and HOB are separated by roughly an hour's drive). It wasn't long after that that I found out about their Pass the Line program, whereby patrons of the HOB restaurant get early access to the concert hall. All you had to do was buy an entrée and you got in before the rest of the crowd; trick was, you still had to get there early enough to be at the front of the Pass the Line line. (HOB later debuted a program they called Crash the Barricade, which was similar to Pass the Line except you got treated to a buffet line with burgers, hot dogs, and the like. I never did this as I saw early on that folks in this line never got in as early as those of us in Pass the Line.) Seeing as how I went to hundreds of concerts at HOB, I became well-versed with their menu and I had several favorite items. Main among them were the catfish nuggets appetizer, buffalo chicken tenders, jambolaya, and the banana bread pudding (which was absolutely amazing). Unfortunately, sometime in the past two or three years someone within HOB's administration decided it was time to monkey with the menu in an apparent effort to fix what wasn't broken. They brought in Aaron Sanchez of Food Network fame and he redid the entire thing, removing all of our favorites in the process. I will say that we've eaten there twice since the changes were made and while the food is not bad it is not what we remember. I truly hope someday the old menu comes back but I'm not holding my breath on that.

The now extinct catfish fingers/nuggets appetizer from HOB

HOB's banana bread pudding - I can't tell you how depressing it is to know that I'll never eat this again

C4W Explosive Wrestling - I don't get to attend as many independent professional wrestling events as I'd like, but I do try to keep my ear to the ground when it comes to the industry as it relates to local wrestlers and promotions. C4W is a federation I'd been following loosely online via their Facebook page as I'd never had a chance to see one of their shows live previously. They ran a card the Saturday we got into Myrtle Beach which is why I took the opportunity to check them out. I will say this, to get off on a positive note; C4W has a great venue and set up as they're part of a sports complex called the X Gym. Their staging and ring all looked good, so from a presentation standpoint C4W has what a lot of other indies don't. Other than that, I have nothing particularly positive to say about C4W. Yes, I am a wrestling snob - I've been around enough good wrestling to know bad wrestling when I see it and C4W is mostly bad. To me, they are an example of what happens when an indie promotion with limited talent tries too hard to replicate what WWE does with a show like Monday Night Raw. You wind up with overly intricate storylines and "wrestlers" trying to emulate what they saw on TV. What boggles my mind the most about this show, though, is the fact that it drew a big crowd - as in probably between 100-150 people. I have no way of knowing how many were paying admission (some weren't; I saw the girl at the gate marking off names from a list) but it was an insane amount of people for a show that poor.

This is all you need to see to know C4W's quality - kick pads over Vans instead of boots

Teazers Pole Fitness & Dance Studio - Men have won the battle of the sexes. You know how I know we've won? Because pole dancing is now considered a legitimate form of exercise. While I was at the C4W show, I noticed a section within the X Gym that had a sign promoting "Pole Fitness". I wanted to give this the benefit of the doubt as being an honest gimmick like Zumba but did a little research on the matter (You guessed it, I Googled something!) and it turns out this is a business operating within the X Gym called Teazers Pole Fitness & Dance Studio. I guess it would've been too obvious if they'd called it Myrtle Beach Stripper School.

MagiQuest - After Jill & I had completed round 2 of the 2013 ATMBPPCC at Dragon's Lair, we were planning to spend some time walking around Broadway at the Beach which is a huge outdoor shopping and entertainment district. You can find everything at Broadway from the Hard Rock Cafe to Build-A-Bear, from Ripley's Aquarium to an Imax theater. We've checked out most of the offerings at Broadway but one we'd never tried previously is MagiQuest, a live-action role playing game. The concept is that you create your own character (I'm Red Beard and Jill is Lady Night Owl) that exists in a magical realm (think Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings) and you go about accomplishing tasks and missions in order to develop your character's abilities. It's a lot like RPG video games in that you're building up skills and resources with the ultimate goal being to become a Master Magi. You get a wand, which you can also customize, and you basically run around with a bunch of kids trying to slay dragons and other random baddies. I wasn't sure if it was going to be corny or not when we first went in but we wound up having a lot of fun with it so I'm glad we took the time to check it out.

An Octogenarian on a Trike - I bear no shame in admitting that I have the worst sense of balance in the history of mankind. Seriously, I can be standing still and lose my balance. As such, riding a traditional bicycle is not all that easy for me. This is why I purchased a Schwinn Meridian earlier this year; it's more or less a tricycle for adults, and I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it so far. The only issue I have with it is that it has no gears so hills can be challenging. Jill & I decided it would be fun to take our bikes to the beach this year as the campground makes for a great place to ride. Little did I know that my trike would inspire Jill's 80-something year old Grandfather to jump on it and go for a ride himself! Well, "jump on" might have been too extreme as he needed a little assistance in mounting up but once he got going he was fine. I can't tell you how many laughs seeing him on my trike generated; it was a great moment and a fine example of why it pays to always have a camera handy.

Myrtle Manor, aka the Farcical Nature of Reality TV - Myrtle Beach has never had an issue with maintaining its visibility as a tourist destination. Try as local government has to bolster its popularity by giving the area a more wholesome presence, the fact remains that there are parts of Myrtle Beach which will always be synonymous with booze, partying, and loose morals. When it came to pass that the cable TV network TLC (which I think should be legally required to change its name; it may still be "TLC" but I don't think their current line-up is indicative of a moniker like The Learning Channel) announced a show called Myrtle Manor to be filmed in a Myrtle Beach trailer park, there weren't too many happy elected officials. Be that as it may, the show went on and it featured an assembled cast of random miscreants who were intended to represent trailer park stereotypes. It was something of a hit in its first season as another batch of episodes has been ordered. We couldn't not see this place for ourselves which is why we sought out Patrick's Mobile Home Park, the trailer park where Myrtle Manor is filmed. Myrtle Manor doesn't make up the whole of the park, rather a rear corner of the property. In case you're a fan of the series and had any delusions that what you see there is real, I can tell you that Myrtle Manor looked deserted. It had the appearance of an abandoned movie set, which is more or less what it is at this point in time - a facade meant to serve as a location for a scripted series of events.

Medieval Times - I remember the first time I took my then-girlfriend, now-wife to Medieval Times. She had a strawberry daiquiri in the lounge while we were waiting to be seated and it turned her cheeks a bright shade of pink. I swear, she's let me drag her to so many weird venues for wrestling and shows like this that I'm surprised she goes along with any of my ideas any more. Regardless, going to Medieval Times has become a tradition for us as we've been every year since then. The show has changed significantly from what it was when we first started going but what's remained the same is the quality of the entertainment and the meal you receive during the performance. It's not a cheap night out but I think you get your money's worth.

Homophones Are Fun - One of my favorite moments of the entire week happened when we went to the MT box office to purchase our tickets. We've been to the arena so many times that there are only a couple knights we haven't had the opportunity to cheer for, and this being the case we wanted to see if it was possible to get into one of those sections. Generally speaking, seating is first come-first served meaning you won't know which area you'll be seated in until you go through the line. While we were purchasing our tickets the lady behind the counter asked Jill "Which night would you like?" Jill's response was, "WE GET TO PICK WHICH KNIGHT WE WANT?!" I cannot duplicate with text the excitement in her tone of voice when she said that and I only wish I'd had a video camera on her when she did. Of course, the lady at the counter meant which evening's show would we like to attend, not which knight's section in which we wanted to be seated. Epic blonde moment is epic.

We've been back home for a few days now. One thing that I realized immediately when we got back to our house is how much bigger our place seemed after having lived in a camper for a week. Our house isn't huge by any means but man did it ever seem gigantic when we returned! While the camper may be small, it's become a beloved part of our life together. I guess that sentiment plays into the old saying "Home is where the heart is". We've built a lot of memories during these trips of ours to Myrtle Beach and I certainly hope they continue on for decades to come.

My Check-Up & Sleep Study Results

UPDATE - 6/24/2013: My wife & I were on vacation in Myrtle Beach last week and while we were gone we had our mail held. Suffice to say we had a full box when we returned on Saturday. One piece of said mail was a statement from my insurance provider as to how much my sleep study cost and how much they were going to pay. The total bill from Lexington Medical Center and Lexington Sleep Solutions was $5,280. All I'll say is that than God I have some form of insurance because that's an insane amount of money for a medical procedure that involved no surgery or extended care.

Last month, I posted a blog entry wherein I went into great detail regarding the ordeal that was my sleep study experience. I'm not going to rehash any of that seeing as how pretty much everything relevant to my take on what happened that fateful evening has already been documented there, however I will take the opportunity to reiterate the fact that unless it is absolutely medically necessary I would never recommend someone willingly go through that. (It's a wretched thing and the technology behind it seems incredibly archaic compared to what's out there these days.) It's been a couple weeks since then and I've had a chance to revisit my physician in order to talk about the results of the sleep study as well as the blood work I had done during my initial consultation.

The short version of this is for me to say that I'm apparently mostly healthy, except for when it comes to how I sleep. Here's the long version.

Lexington Sleep Solutions called me roughly a week ago to let me know that the doctors there had been able to interpret the data from my sleep study and that they wanted me to come back in to discuss the results. This was news to me as I had been under the impression that I'd be able to return to my physician in order to see what the next steps would be as I'd asked that the results be sent to her office. I continued the conversation with the person I spoke to from LSS and they said the results had been sent to my physician; she went on to answer some of my questions about the study, particularly whether or not it looked as if I would need to begin using a CPAP machine.

I asked the question even though I already knew the answer. "Yes, they are recommending that you begin treatment with CPAP." My next biggest question was did I actually stop breathing during the study? (That's what I've been concerned about since I got put on this path, whether or not I'm potentially in respiratory distress while I'm sleeping.) She told me that I did not stop breathing (this echoed what the technician who oversaw my sleep study said when I asked him the same question) however my oxygen levels weren't as high as they should be - mine were around 88% at certain points and nominal is between 98-90%. The LSS representative went on to say that they would be referring me to a medical equipment vendor that would be able to go about assisting me in obtaining a machine. I wasn't ready to go down that road yet as I wanted to see the results of the study myself. I told her as much and said that I'd look into scheduling a follow-up with my physician.

A few things to keep in mind from this initial conversation:

1) They want me to come back, several times - repeat business, in other words
2) They recommended me for a machine - this was a foregone conclusion in my mind
3) I've been told by 2 individuals employed by LSS that I did not stop breathing - 2, count 'em, TWO
4) They were going to send me to a specific vendor for the CPAP machine - keeping the money all in the family, as it were

I point those things out because if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know how I am - I'm not bashful about admitting that I constantly look for ulterior motives in everything that I encounter. I've been around enough hustlers in my day to know that they're there, even though nowadays they've gotten exceedingly skilled at operating as legitimate entities. Bankers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, etc. To quote Harry Dresden (from author Jim Butcher's excellent series, The Dresden Files), one of my favorite literary protagonists, "Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face."

That said, I went in Wednesday (June 12) for a follow-up with my physician. (Remember how I mentioned that LSS told me my sleep study results had been sent to my doctor? Turns out they hadn't been when I set up my appointment; a nurse had to request them on my behalf.) I have to say that going into my appointment I was more nervous about the results of my blood work than I was about that of my sleep study seeing as how I thought I had a good grasp of what was going on there. I suffer from White Coat Syndrome, that being an automatic sense of anxiety related to doctors, doctor's offices, and everything therein. I probably have high hypertension anyway (runs in the family, just like the red hair and freckles) but the WCS doesn't help matters as I know they're going to tell me I'm fat and that my blood pressure is elevated. I guess it comes from never having had many positive or reenforcing experiences in that kind of setting.

My appointment was for 10 AM and we (as in my wife & I - yes, she came with me) got to the office just in time as we encountered some unexpected construction on the way there. It's not logical that I think this way but I've always believed that if you have an appointment for a certain event, said event should happen at that specific moment in time or at least in a reasonable approximate time frame. You can probably guess where I'm going with this; I wasn't taken into an examination room until almost 10:30. The optimist in me was thinking we'd be out of there by 10:45 but that wound up being an unrealistic expectation.

Sure enough, the nurse taking my vital information confirmed that I'm still fat and my blood pressure is high.

My physician went over the results of my sleep study. She caught us completely off guard by telling us that I did, in fact, have several apneas during the test. This was in stark contrast to what both the technician and the other representative from LSS had told me. Suffice to say that my wife and I were shocked - neither of us are particularly good at hiding our emotions in terms of our expression and I gather we did an especially poor job of that in this moment seeing as how my physician seemed set aback by our reactions. It's not quite like being told you're cancer free by one doctor only to then be told you have a terminal case by another, but be that as it may the shock was real.

From there we talked about my blood work. Like I mentioned earlier in this entry, my blood work was what I was truly concerned about. For one, the sample had been drawn without my knowing of it in advance so I naturally assumed my having not fasted prior to the test would have affected its outcome. I was surprised again, this time by some good news. My blood work came back spotless - no issues of any kind. No signs of diabetes, cholesterol issues, or anything else for that matter. I was half expecting her to tell me I had 8 weeks to live by that point in time. In the grand scheme of things, I'm very happy that my levels were good as that's a real sense of your overall health. I'm grateful to know that all this clean living I've been doing for years - other than my gravy addiction, that is - has paid off in that regard.

My physician wrote me a prescription for a CPAP/BiPAP machine, a sleep aid, and something for my blood pressure. (She also said I should take a cruise as my vitamin D levels were lower than they should've been - if only I could turn in a booking confirmation from Carnival to my insurance company without them laughing at me...) We discussed my having been generally uncomfortable wearing the CPAP mask, which is where the recommendation for the sleeping pill came from. I don't like that idea, seeing as how I've never wanted to get on a medication that might possibly lead to a dependence, but she's assured me that it's mild and that it will help me to relax while wearing the mask. I have an appointment to she her again in 3 months, so we'll see where I stand then with these changes to my lifestyle.

I was given a copy of the report from my sleep study to take with me. It goes without saying that this has made for interesting reading seeing as how there are a whole slew of $25 medical terms used within it, the meanings of which I didn't know. ("Titration", for example, which is an analysis of a component's concentration - oxygen, in this case - in a given sample.) I spent some time going over them, as well as the report as a whole. While I'm not a doctor I am kind of smart, I'm rather fond of numbers, and this document is filled with them. Here's a breakdown of the statistics.

Length of sleep study - 411.5 minutes (approximately 7 hours)
Actual time spent asleep - 338.5 minutes (around 5.5 hours)
Time to sleep onset - 27 minutes
Time to REM sleep onset - 198 minutes (3 hours, 18 minutes)
Apnea-hypopnea ratio prior to CPAP treatment - 0/95
Apnea-hypopnea ratio after CPAP treatment 6/21

Two things stick out to me immediately:

1) The reported length of time I was asleep

I'm splitting hairs with this but I really don't believe that I slept that much during the sleep study. Here again is a reason why it would've been great to have had a visible clock in that room I was cooped up inside of as it would've served as a point of reference for my documentation purposes, if nothing else. I'm sure there's a brainwave pattern they're looking for from the data being collected by way of the wires that were on my head which indicated I was "asleep", so I probably don't have a leg to stand on here in trying to argue my point. (How do they know my brainwaves are like everyone else's? It's conceivable what signifies sleep in the minds of others might mean I want a steak burrito with extra guacamole in mine.) It did not seem like I received the amount of sleep that the report states. (Are you asleep if you're conscious enough to be able to have an internal dialogue about how you wish the walls were thicker so that you wouldn't be bothered by the guy in the next room sawing down redwoods?) I certainly didn't feel rested the next morning, and I'm sure that could be used against me seeing as how it would be fodder for the diagnosis that I don't sleep all that well anyway because of the apneas and hypopneas.

2) The comparison of my apnea/hypopnea ratio with and without CPAP treatment

I don't believe I've taken the time to define either of these terms. An apnea is a suspension of external breathing, whereas a hypopnea is an episode of overly shallow breathing. With that in mind, see if you can follow along with my logic here and why I don't see how CPAP helped me.

Prior to CPAP treatment

0 apneas, 95 hypopneas

With CPAP treatment

6 apneas, 21 hypopneas

Again, I'm not a doctor but the fact that I didn't have any apneas initially then had apneas during the period of sleep where I was receiving CPAP treatment doesn't give me a shred of confidence that this machine is beneficial to me. It's supposed to prevent apneas from happening, not cause them.

I did a bit of research (you know what that means - I Googled something!) and I found a study published in 2007 by the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine (which is the official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine) titled Central Sleep Apnea on Commencement of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure in Patients with a Primary Diagnosis of Obstructive Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea (you can see the report for yourself here). There's a lot of medical jargon to it, as you might expect, which is why I won't bore you with a synopsis. Here's the important part, the conclusion.

"CSA (central sleep apnea) on commencing CPAP amongst patients with a primary diagnosis of OSAH (obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea) appears to be relatively common. Male sex and past history of cardiac disease are potential risk factors. These patients seem to have more disturbed sleep on their baseline studies, are prescribed somewhat higher CPAP pressures and may become long-term CPAP failures."

So where am I going from here? I am pleased that my blood work was in good standing. That shows me that the exercise I'm getting and the things I'm eating are sufficient to keeping me in good health. I'm planning on checking around to see if I can rent a CPAP machine, although if it turns out that my insurance will pay for the whole thing I may wind up going ahead and purchasing one. I'm willing to try it for the sake of satiating my wife and my physician, even though I don't believe it's going to help me in the long run. Of course, I'm going to start taking the medication for my blood pressure immediately. I guess I'm lucky that that's all I have to concern myself with as of right now. We'll see where we stand in September as that's when I'm scheduled to see my physician again.

Movie Review Round-Up - A Furiously Tangled Trek Into the Oblivion of Iron Man 3

It's summer time which means it's also movie time, and for that reason it's one of my favorite times of year. I could do without the heat and humidity seeing as how it tends to turn me from being a big, hairy beast into a big, hairy sweaty beast with questionable hygiene. It's 138 degrees outside this time of year and there are bugs whereas in any given theater it's 70 degrees and there are nachos readily available. Sure, there are annoying little kids and their unqualified and ineffective parents to deal with (sadly I've had experiences in theaters that have left me questioning how some adults have lived as long as they have and wanting to punch a child), but is it any wonder why I'd sooner stay inside and watch movies?

Star Trek Into Darkness

Picking up where JJ Abrams' reboot of the classic Star Trek mythology left off, Into Darkness sees Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and their cohorts plunged into battle with a foe that is both mysterious and familiar. Through perceived acts of terror, this villain reveals that Star Fleet has realized a threat exists in the form of the Klingons and that scientific exploration is no longer the sole purpose of their operations.

Pine and Quinto are the obvious headliners of this movie but for my money Benedict Cumberbatch is the true star. His portrayal of Khan is absolutely brilliant - he has an amazing voice, which is a lot like that of Jeremy Irons only somehow more visceral in its delivery. Like all great villains, he has charisma to rival that of his protagonist counterparts. Combine that with the fact that his character's back story involves a legitimate effort at revenge and you can see why there are points in this that I was genuinely pulling for Khan instead of the crew of the Enterprise.

Longtime Trek fans will quickly realize that the plot of Into Darkness is something of a re-hashing of 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This take on Khan is more relevant to today's audiences as the concept of a character seeking vengeance on an assumed political or government entity is certainly identifiable.

One of few issues I have with the movie is the finale of Into Darkness in that it tidies up a bit too well. There was an effort to send everyone home happy here, or so it seems. That and the fact that there are still parts of the Enterprise's interior that look altogether too much like a boiler room are all that bothered me. I'm looking forward to seeing where this new Trek is headed, even though it may be a while before we see another one since Abrams' focus is now on a different universe, one far, far away from this.

/5 Tribles

Iron Man 3

The world has changed for Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) since his encounter with other-worldly beings in The Avengers. He's a man so distraught with fear over being unable to protect the one person he cares for more than life itself (Pepper Potts/Gwyneth Paltrow), he's dedicated his every waking moment to advancing his Iron Man armory by building dozens of specialized configurations. Try as he might to use what he knows to satiate his fears, they're realized when Stark encounters an international terrorist known as the Mandarin.

I don't get Stark as a haunted man who's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, even though it's a topical subject that's gotten a lot of attention now that so many members of our Armed Forces are returning home from combat with symptoms of PTSD. Downey is still the only person I ever want to see play Tony Stark, I just think the well is running dry on Iron Man now that he's done his job in serving as a conduit for The Avengers to assemble. What's more, the relationships that exist between these characters doesn't feel as fluid as it has in the past.

I hate to say this - IM3 is my least favorite of the Iron Man franchise. There was a lot of fanfare about Shane Black (who's best known for having created the Lethal Weapon series) coming aboard to take the helm once Jon Favreau decided not to return as director after having lead the first two films, but I don't think Black's writing or directorial style have improved matters. If anything, he's managed to take the canon a few steps backwards. IM3 has too many moving parts that aren't that interesting. This is particularly disappointing because there's a decent chance this is the last dedicated Iron Man film starring Downey, Jr.

/5 Shellheads

Tangled


Tangled is Disney's interpretation of the Grimm fairy tale Rapunzel, and like many of the Disney translations this story has been modified to make it more consumable for younger audiences. By that I mean it has a happier ending where evil has been vanquished and good prevails, as opposed to almost everyone involved dying a horribly tragic death. But what else should we expect? This is Disney, after all.

Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) is in her late teens here and, like most girls her age, she's beginning to feel the urge to strike out on her own. In Rapunzel's case, her need is more legitimate than most seeing as how she's been held captive under the pretense that the outside world is a terribly dangerous place by the woman she thinks is her mother, Gothel (Donna Murphy), in a tower where the only other being she has contact with is her pet chameleon Pascal. Her desire to flee is enabled when a bungling burglar (Flynn Rider/Zachary Levi) finds his way into the tower. He inadvertently sets off a series of events that not only gets Rapunzel out of the tower but reveals her true identity as well.

I think a lot of people are under the impression that Disney and Pixar are the same entity but in watching Tangled I can tell you that a number of differences can be spotted. The style of animation, most notably, but what stands out the most is the writing. I'm of the opinion that Pixar's films are some of the best written movies, animated or otherwise, you'll ever see. I'm not saying that material like Tangled isn't penned well but the fact that this is an adaptation versus a novel concept does hurt it somewhat as there's already a "tower" in place from the start which confines where these characters can go.

There's not an overwhelming sense of star power here, and I appreciate that. It seems like a lot of A-list Hollywood talent do an animated feature for the heck of it. Here, you have a main character voiced by Mandy Moore, a singer and actress who's more than capable of handling the musical elements while also breathing life into Rapunzel. Zachary Levi does a great job with Rider as he's not only the comedic center of the film but also a character with a number of dramatic scenes as well. Donna Murphy is yet another evil pseudo-mother in the annals of Disney mythology; she doesn't have that much to hang her hat on as the character isn't as involved as some of their other villainous matriarchs have been.

This may seem odd but my two favorite characters from Tangled are ones that have no actual lines: Pascal the chameleon and Maximus the horse. Seriously, they're fantastic - I'd probably watch an "Adventures of Pascal & Maximus" if it ever happened.

 /5 Frying Pans

Fast & Furious 6


I have to apologize to anyone who's a fan of this series because I don't particularly see the need to spend a whole lot of time reviewing this movie. When you are talking about a franchise that's on it's sixth iteration, it stands to reason that the movies have become paint-by-number in terms of their assembly and that's exactly the case here. There are criminals, there are cops, there are fast cars, and a whole heaping helping of absurdity to tie it together.

Vin Diesel and essentially all the other original members of the Fast & Furious cast have returned. Their characters have more or less sunk into lives of hiding in order to stave off heat from various international crime fighting organizations, but as it turns out it's those same groups that were hunting them that now need their help. There's a new bad guy in town, one with a similar penchant for being fast and furious about it, and there's apparently no better team to throw at this new threat than an aging group of street racers.

I'm one to talk when it comes to criticizing movies and TV shows where an ability to suspend what's plausible in this realm of existence is necessary, seeing as how that's more or less everything that I watch. Be that as it may, Fast & Furious 6 has a number of scenes where you have to take everything you've ever learned about physics and the durability of the human body and throw it out the window. More than that, you have to take it and light it on fire with kerosene - it's that crazy, and it's that distracting. For example, if Fast & Furious 6 is to be believed, there exists a runway somewhere in Europe that is approximately 300 miles long.

Don't worry, they're already working on Fast & Furious 7 which will add Jason Statham to the cast.

/5 Vin Diesels

Oblivion

In the not so distant future, humanity has fled planet Earth as a result of the rock we once called home having been ravaged by an alien race (who went so far as to blow up the moon, just for good measure) that sought to annihilate our species and strip-mine the globe of any useful resources. We were somehow able to overcome the odds and defeat the invaders but we did so at the cost of losing what once was our home world as Earth is too far gone to remain habitable. Now only a few humans remain on Earth, support crews in place to oversee a mining operation to provide fuel for the colonizing effort on one of Saturn's moons (where the survivors of our kind are holed up) and protect it from attacks by alien survivors, now known as Scavs (short for "scavengers").

Tom Cruise leads the cast of Oblivion as he plays Jack, a character who is a mechanic but also a soldier, tasked with maintaining a batch of automated mining platforms and a squadron of airborne drones that protect them from Scav attacks. Imagine Ethan Hunt from the Mission: Impossible series but with more knowledge of engines than international espionage. He's flanked by Victoria (Andrea Riseborough), whose role in the operation is similar to that of technical advisor and overwatch, meaning she's Jack's eyes and ears when he's out in the wasteland.

Visually speaking, Oblivion shares much with director Joseph Kosinski's only other film, that being TRON: Legacy. That's not a complaint as I loved Legacy and I can't wait to see what Kosinski does with the announced sequel to that film.

I don't feel like I can justifiably get into discussing the remainder of the cast because, to put it quite simply, there's a whole lot of ways I could spoil the plot and I don't have enough cleverness within me to skirt the material without blatantly stating what happens. That said, I will tell you that while there are a number of twists to this story the sum of the entire thing is very derivative. There are elements of films like Moon, Terminator, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Independence Day, and a sprinkling of classic Twilight Zone episodes. It's not a bad mix of inspiration as sci-fi goes these days but the more the movie goes on the more imitative it seems to become.

/5 evil super computers

Please Stop Enabling Your Children

This is the time of year where high school and college students are celebrating their victory over the confines of academia through various graduation ceremonies and what have you. Those are great moments in the life of a young person as they signify years of dedication finally paying off in obtaining a diploma or degree. Even though it's been better than a decade since I last walked that aisle as a graduate, I can still remember the feeling of excitement knowing that I had accomplished something awesome brought to me. I earned an honors diploma from Buford High School and I graduated cum laude from Francis Marion University. During commencement, I knew I'd worked hard and I'd earned what I was about to receive. I think that's an important sensation that people in their late teens and early twenties need to experience, especially in today's economy when finding a good job isn't exactly easy. It's proof that a reward comes from sacrifice and dedication, not from merely showing up or doing only what's required to get by.

I've said all that to say this. I'm a little sick of seeing so much hubbub about kids "graduating" from kindergarten, preschool, or even middle school for that matter. (Please, dear readers, enhance your calm and refrain from hurling flaming arrows at my house until the end of the blog. I'm not saying I'm going to back off of my opinion by then, I just want you to read the whole thing because it helps my site statistics.) Why do I feel this way? To be perfectly honest, it's because of the fact that I feel like parents are raising a generation of children who are going to feel entitled to everything and who exist under the notion that everything they do, no matter how insignificant, is a major achievement.

This isn't a new state of mind I've recently adopted, rather it's become exacerbated by recent events. I recall going to a tee-ball game several years ago where no one kept score, everyone got to run the bases, and everyone went home feeling like they were a winner. I thought I'd suffered some sort of psychotic episode and my mind had trapped me in whatever Godforsaken realm it is where Barney the Dinosaur and the Teletubbies exist.

While watching the game, I thought back to when I was a child playing tee-ball for P&M Trucking. I remember the team name well because our uniforms were a distinctive combination of green jerseys and yellow trucker hats - if you didn't know any better you'd have thought we were sponsored by John Deere. I didn't get to play that much, you see, because I was exceptionally good at hitting the tee but not so much the ball. Probably the highlight of my tee-ball career was an attempted base slide - notice I use the word "attempted". Lets just say it was a bad idea, well-intentioned as it were. For one I'd never so much as even practiced such a maneuver before not to mention the fact that we didn't wear full pants, rather these white short-shorts, meaning my posterior was more than a bit sore in the days following that game. We wore the same thing when I played recreational league basketball. Seeing as I was a husky lad they made me look like I was wearing hot pants instead of athletic gear, which I'm sure was quite the sight.

I know we kept score and I know we played as close to a legitimate game of baseball as we could without involving pitching, obviously. We felt good when we won and we felt bad when we lost - the same was true when I played basketball. (True story, I played for a rec league basketball team that lost every single game - our coach even quit on us during the season. What a role model that guy was!) We always got a cold drink and a Little Debbie cake afterwards regardless of how we performed but the point of these past two paragraphs is that we weren't coddled into thinking we had done something remarkable when we hadn't. Quite frankly, I know I'm better off for it.

Why? Having worked to earn something - whether it be a win in a tee-ball game, an honors diploma, a car, or a house - makes you appreciate its value that much more. It's fine to encourage people with gifts or an occasional freebie but the danger there is that after a while it becomes a part of their character to expect things to be given to them. They've so rarely had to exert any effort towards a goal (for that matter they may not even know what the concept of a goal is) that doing so feels unnatural, and then they complain about not getting their way instead of striving to overcome.

It's the same reason why there are signs at national parks stating "DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS"; behavioral science shows us that over time they'll become dependent on a handout and forget their natural capacity to forage for themselves. That's what's going to happen to our society if we keep letting kids think everyone is a winner when it comes to tee-ball, we'll wind up with a culture that doesn't know what to do when life requires them to take action. They'll all be standing around crying, wanting to know why the team mom isn't there to give them a soda and a treat.

I don't mean to say that you, as a parent, shouldn't cheer on your child in everything that they do. (I mention this because, in case you weren't aware, I'm not a parent. My wife & I are trying as we both would love to start a family but we haven't been blessed as of yet with our own little bundle of joy.) Very much the opposite, as a matter of fact. I think parents should do their best to encourage their children towards success. In my mind, that means showing them the value of hard work while giving them the tools to develop character traits like perseverance and determination. I don't think you can do that by instilling in them at a young age the perception that they'll be fine just by virtue of showing up.

I don't believe I've ever told anyone this but one of my biggest inspirations in life after graduating from college was something that Dr. Luther F. Carter, President of Francis Marion University, said to me as he handed me my degree, "You made it this far now lets see what you can do with it." If I had never been pushed to work hard by my parents, I would never have bothered to take honors or advanced placement classes in high school. If I had never taken those classes in high school, I wouldn't have gotten the scholarships that allowed me to go to college without paying a dime for tuition. If I hadn't done my best to get through college, I wouldn't have graduated with honors. If I didn't do any of that, I wouldn't be the director of information technology for an entire county in the state of South Carolina. Not too bad of a record for someone who isn't even 33 years old yet.

In wrapping up this rant, I hope none of this someday comes back to bite me in the rear. It's easy for me to say all these things but the truth of the matter is that parenting doesn't come with an instruction manual. Be that as it may, all of us need to remember that kids deserve to be kids and that we, either as parents or potential parents, should keep in mind that just because we want our children to strive for success whatever that "success" is may be totally different in their eyes than it is ours. Don't push them towards being an accountant if they love working with animals, or try to convince them that engineering is the way to go when they'd sooner be painting. Teach them to be the best that they can be at whatever it is they are best at. That way they might grow to be not just content with their life but successful and happy.