Lincoln: The BiWOWgraphy

Preface: I'm a huge history, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Steven Spielberg fan. This film attempts to let you in on the part of history when the 13th Amendment passed. It abolished slavery and ended forced servitude in America and her holding. The story focuses heavily on Abraham Lincoln, as well it should. DDL does just an amazing job with an incredibly complex character. The cast is star studded besides DDL featuring: Sally Field, David Strathairn (Bourne Ultimatum Guy), Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, and Jackie Earle Haley. Some of the actors seem tragically underused, but the story if paramount here. How does a President pass an Amendment that isn't necessarily popular? 2/3 of the vote of the House of Congress is no joke and this shows the shady dealings of how this happens even in 1865. The Civil War is shown as it comes to an inevitable end after the South is attacked from the sea and land as Richmond is within striking distance. Lincoln needs to seal the deal to ensure slavery isn't re-enacted once the South is re-instated. Tommy Lee Jones is the strongest voice of pro-abolitionist sentiment and is an angry, old, silver tongued genius. They sprinkle in Lincoln's troubled marriage and family life due to the enormous toll and time the war, etc. takes on Old Abe. It really brings the time together and makes you feel a part of January of 1865. Superb acting, a very interesting and excellent story, and the standard amazing directing of Spielberg bring home a great film. Bottom Line: 9.1 out of 10. Just a superb film throughout showing us a amazing part of our proud history. Fans of history, great acting, and either Spielberg or Daniel Day-Lewis should run out and see this ASAP.

The Lakers Coaching Carousel of Hell

I wish I got to this earlier, but I wasn't surprised Mike Brown was shit-canned, just in the confusing manner in which it all went down. Brown's team ran a stupid offense considering your pieces are strong enough to not need a special system, especially one that renders spectacular play-maker and facilitator Steve Nash useless. That team can't lose games this early as badly as they did. They have a two year window to make championships return to L.A. and that's it. Knowing they took off the kid gloves and sent Brown packing (Sidenote: This should have happened to Spolestra 4 years ago) you'd think they would do all things possible to make a championship as likely as possible... So they sign injured Mike D'Antoni instead of Phil Jackson? I found it especially strange THE LAKERS seemed confused that they fired Brown and had no contingency plan in place. It makes NO sense to START your coaching hunt only AFTER firing your current coach? The mad scramble that ensued left only two real choices who didn't have anything else going on, Jackson & D'Antoni. The rumor about interviewing Mike Dunleavy was insulting to all parties involved. Jackson was the obvious choice the minute he said he'd be in to coach. Whatever you have to throw him for compensation you do. You're all-in with this team, so bringing in D'Antoni made no sense. I'm not destroying Mike D'Antoni. I liked his teams and his style, but he's not Phil Jackson, NOBODY is Phil Jackson. Nobody has coached in the modern era like Phil Jackson. Whatever he wanted, he should have gotten. If it was to sucker punch Kobe everytime he made some dipshit face at a teammate or in anger, that should have been written in. ANYTHING to bring Phil Jackson in. Now poor Mike D has to constantly watch his back and sweat for an entire season that will be a failure if they don't bring the trophy back to L.A. I'm surprised he was OK with it knowing how awful this is going to be on him. May God have mercy on his soul for the press will not.

Skyfall

Our 23rd Bond film (I think) re-unites Daniel Craig with Judi Dench and bring in Ralph Fiennes, Javier Bardem, and a few other newcomers to the party. Craig is an aging, but still badass and effective Bond who is getting to the point where his field work/age is being questioned, just like Dench's M character. The plot is an unknown man with unknown associates steal the hard drive containing Britain's secret agents undercover in various terrorist organizations. Bardem is away for too long in this film, but dominates his time on screen. Craig and Dench are excellent, pretty standard though. This film delves into Bond's childhood more than any previous Bond I've seen. It's much darker and almost void of the cheeky Bond humor except a few playful exchanges to Naomie Harris' Eve character and Q. It's similar to the other Craig Bond films, strong in action and intensity. I was a big fan. It's hard to talk about it very much without dropping mad spoilers, so I'm done. Bottom Line: 8.3 out of 10. High marks, but Bardem is sensational and the rest of the cast keeps up. Really unique story, good song by Adele, beautiful random women, it's a strong showing.