Parks and Recreation

Parks and Rec continues to get stronger. Great ensemble cast that's happy to stay together headlined by Nic Swardson and Amy Poehler. The show keeps expanding and keeps getting better. Ron Swanson is unquestionably one of the best television characters ever as the ultimate man's man. He likes meat wrapped in meat. I don't think I've slurped this show yet, but it's a must see. Aziz Ansari, Rashida Jones, and Rob Lowe round out the people you know, but the unknowns are great. They play hilarious roles to perfection and make simple ideas HILARIOUS. If you have not joined this revolution, I highly recommend it. I'd be amazed if you don't enjoy this show. Very reasonably priced at Target, or Netflix the shit out of it. Great comedy.

Selfish Feel Good Post

I recently had the pleasure/privilege to go to two weddings of a couple of my great high school friends. The marriages were AWESOME, but selfishly the best part for me was to reunite with the friends you grew up with. As we walk through life and get older, you hopefully meet new people, make some new friends, etc, but something has to be said for the people that have known you since before South Park started. There's SO much love and comfort to be found within that group for me it's just amazing. It doesn't matter how much money you make, what you do for a living, how long it's been since you've seen them last, you just feel at home. I hope other people have been so blessed to have great people that have been with them since Kindergarten, or whenever that simply love you for who you are. Whenever I hear people complain about small town gossip I try to remember the beauty of living in a small town where people CARE enough to know how things are going. I was so honered when one of the parents simply said "You guys were the best class ever". I truly believed in those words in the sense that we've all had each other's back, or however you want to say it, since forever, and still do to this day. The other part of that was how close our parent's all became through our sports and other involvements. No parent ever worried when you went to someone's house because they knew each other and knew the care you would be provided with. We resisted drinking, etc all throughout high school for the most part, just a rare feat in WI. We accomplished great things in sports, but made great strides as people too. This is just shamelessly trying to express the overwhelmingly warm and comforting feeling that was the last two Saturday's. It's so hard to put in words. It's just a beautiful thing.

Our Country Sucking

I don't care which side of the political fence you reside on, this has been a BRUTAL stretch for everyone. Negative doesn't begin to talk about how ugly things have gotten. On 9/11 I was reminded of a horrific event that actually brought us together as a nation. We got behind something, the United States of America. We all want more money in our pockets at the end of the day. We all want less national debt and to feel safe and secure at home. Why are the simplicities that bring us together naturally as human beings is completely overshadowed by how we are forced into one of two political parties that form a giant wedge between us. There are substantial things that differentiate people into Republicans and Democrats, but the utter failure to even attempt to work together on basic things is painful. Neither party is infaliable and their hatred for each other is awful and embarassing. I'd like to get united behind something and if tragedy no longer works, let's figure something else out. United we stand, divided we fall. Such a simple saying that keeps ringing true.

Salvador

Going based on the 1001 Moves You Must See Before You Die book, I watched Salvador and was VERY impressed. Oliver Stone directed, James Woods and Jim Belushi and the most notable stars, though you'll see some familiar faces throughout. Stone shows his contempt for our government's involvement in foreign affairs throughout, but he certainly has a point. The story of El Salvador is one I was not familiar with at all, but through this you see a run of the mill(sadly)puppet government we back and put in place because they hated communism. They terrorize their own people, commit acts of genocide, and run their country into the ground. Woods is just outstanding as the sleazy/skeezy and disgraced journalist Richard Boyle. He scratches and claws a gig to El Salvador to document yet another uprising. It shows the crazy life of the photojournalist during war. There's a handful of these war horses that all know each other and follow these bloody wars. It's a real strange fraturnity of insanity. Boyle boozes and slides by, until things get really ugly. It becomes an hour long punch in the stomach when the war torn country slides deeper into violent insurrection. It's just painful and horrific imaginery and events are throw at you, then moved away from so casually it's tragic. I really, for some reason, like the movie throughout. Bottom Line: 8.6 out of 10. Probably too high of a score, but I was very enthralled by this film. Woods is phenomenal and Stone's directing is fantastic. Really this movie should be seen if for no other reason than it's an interesting story people from my generation wouldn't know about as Reagan's support of various Central American dictators that created a decade-long kick in the bags for our global reputation.

Football Madness: Guilty

I'm playing in four fantasy leagues currently and co-chair (AKA I am the voice of wisdom and drafted the team) to one of my brother's teams. I'm amazed at how much "water cooler" conversation is purely football related. I've been asked a LOT about all kinds of players, my feelings and thoughts on a HUGE variety of things, all related to FANTASY football. Nobody asks me about who I think is going to win the AFC East, or anything related to real football, but what round to draft Jimmy Graham or Rob Gronkowski has been brought up a few times. Gambling on individual games has been replaced by trying to run your own team of skill players. Outsmarting your friends in a competitive environment is always fun, but I'm still astounded at the popularity of fantasy football. Work leagues, friend leagues, random people leagues, auction, points per reception, TD only, 10 people, 12 people, 14 people, CRAZINESS. Football naturally has dominated fantasy sports due to the fact it's one game/week per team. Baseball is too long and time consuming, basketball isn't popular enough and is also time consuming. NASCAR and golf are easy and WAYYY more popular than I expected.

Where do fantasy sports go from here? Do they keep becoming more specific and adding new folds into the mix, or will the juggernaut subside at all? I have no clue where this blog is going, so I can't possibly answer that question, but I am VERY interested in it. I normally donate my money to the fantasy monster, but I'm all too willing every year to jump in on a multitude of leagues. I've bought into fantasy everything, I'm just curious as to what's keeping everyone out? Could we play fantasy muciscians? Touring + album sales + MP 3 sales or some equation. Celebrity death pools? There's something for everyone, GET INTO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No idea where this one came from.

Bourne Legacy: It's not Damon-y

I saw the new Bourne movie last week and I didn't want to post about it until I saw it again because I honestly fell asleep during a part of the beginning, so I felt bad not knowing the full movie. Renner is another Bourne agent that, standard, the CIA tries to kill in Alaska (or somewhere shitty cold because I was asleep). They fail, he gets angry and needs his medication to keep going. The lab they manufacture the chemicals at is attacked by one of the chemists who kills everyone except Rachel Weisz. Renner gets to her house ASAP to recover her so he can get his chemicals and stay smart. That's the premise, he isn't trying to rectify wrongs, or get back his life, so it's not as good of a story right out the gates. Pam Landry is trying to get after the Treadstone/Brownbriar factions in court to get all the secrets out in the open. The bad men try to frame her as a traitor looking at things she doesn't understand above her pay grade. That doesn't go very far, Renner is very good in the action scenes and overall, but he's not Damon. It progresses the story, I do need to watch it again after checking out the Bourne Ultimatum to really get the feel for it.

Bottom line: 7.2 out of 10. It's still good and I feel like I would've enjoyed it more if I didn't miss parts, but it isn't as good as the other Bourne movies, that is apparent.

Expendables 2: MORE EXPENDABLER

You know what you're getting into when you walk into this movie. Old dudes, guns, action, shitty acting & cliches, and explosions. It delivers on all levels. It's pretty entertaining honestly. It's straight forward, fails at humor attempts and drama, but there's a shitload of shooting and SPLOSIONS. I pretty much called the plot out from moment 1, but it's still not disappointing. Again I think Stallone is in the movie WAYYY too much and the other "stars" get underused, Jet Li CRIMINALLY underused. Plot: Stallone (Barney Ross) still owes Bruce Willis (Church) from the first Expendables movie because despite destroying the entire army on the island, he failed Willis' mission. Stallone is to retrieve a box in Eastern Europe, bring it back to America, everyone is equal. Box retrieval turns into an unholy shitshow, craziness ensues, Jean Claude Van Damme= BAD GUY who must die & lose. It panders to a certain audience and I subscribe to being entertained by shameless and crazy violence, call me weird.

Bottom Line: 6.8 out of 10. I was entertained for an hour of this, and that's not too bad. A few cheap laughs hit, lots of sweet violencia. I don't know if you should pay money to see this unless you know you love shameless death and violence, but it's fun.

J. Edgar- J. Edgar SNOOZER more like it

Leo DiCaprio went in search of Oscar hardware doing a difficult biopic on J. Edgar Hoover. The J. stands for John by the way, shocker! Problem being the interesting parts of Hoover's life, spying, cross-dressing, having people killed, etc, are really not enhanced enough to make it interesting. What you end up with is 2.5 hours of an old guy talking like an old guy about his life in a boring way. There's so little interesting it's honestly offensive to think it was a major motion picture. I'd expect this shit from the History channel, minus Eastwide and Di Caprio, Naomi Watts I can see in a History Channel picture, provided it filmed in Australia. I love history and found some solace in hearing what I presume was Hoover's own words about the events he defined in American history. Bottom Line: 5.9 out of 10. Really unimpressive stuff from impressive people. Disappointing and uninteresting to the core.

Total Recall- Colin Ferrell Edition

I never saw the original Total Recall completely, so it's probably better that way. I was actually surprised with the film because it was decent. It gets a little ridiculous, I believe they broke the record for most bullets shot without hitting anyone originally held by Rambo 3, but I lived with it. The story is Colin Ferrell has dreams where he and Jessica Biel (HOT) are trying to escape from something and he's captured and she gets away. His wife, Kate Beckinsale (SO HOT), is an EMT worker who seems like the perfect wife. Ferrell doesn't like his life as a factory worker manufacturing synthetic soldiers and yearns for more. He goes to "Rekall" where they implant whatever memory you want, but the catch is it has to be a lie with no basis in reality. Since Ferrell wants to play a secret agent, but actually is one, it all goes to shit. He's on the run, everyone he knows is trying to kill him and it gets a little ridiculous. There wasn't anything glaring that I screamed bullshit at, but they escape with 30 machine guns firing at them from a glass room somehow and things like that happen a few times and it gets hard to chew. It moves at a nice pace and has plenty of action, so that isn't terrible.

Bottom Line: 6.7 out of 10. It wasn't awful, just nothing special, as you probably could have guessed without ever seeing it. God I love Kate Beckinsale.

Nitro Circus 3D

I wasn't super familiar with Nitro Circus. I knew they were kind of like Jackass, only Travis Pastrana legitimized them and they had more talent. This movie is motorsports porn pretty much. It's just a bunch of jumps, ramps, tricks, on modified big wheels, motorbikes, and other stuff. It's pretty impressive, but it was pretty much a promotional video for their live show in Vegas. I'm betting heavily they are going to try a nationwide tour because that's the only way this made any sense. It a bunch of high jumps with motor vehicles make your dick hard, I've found your film. They aren't as funny or charismatic as Jackass, but they have a lot more talent. I choose Jackass personally, but I'm not a big "motorhead". 3D was kind of cool, but it's not worth paying for, unless motortricks gives you pleasure.

Bottom Line: 6.2 out of 10. It's entertaining, mindless fun, but not worth throwing money at, similar to Jackass 3D.