A hockey game, and clarification on a few points

Awesome weekend!

There were many good things about it:
1. The weather was lovely, if somewhat windy.
2. I finally got to take my new bike out!  K and I went out riding twice.
3. My kids cleaned up at their races yesterday.
4. T took me out dancing on Friday night, which was so much fun!  I hadn't done that since my high school reunion, and it desperately needed to happen.
5. T also took me to see that last Blues game of the season (which they won, and the night included a baby-faced T.J. Oshie scoring one of their two goals from his knees).  T got a gazillion (okay, actually maybe 10 or 12?) lottery tickets to win a ride on the Zamboni, which was a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity.  And he won!  Which really meant that I won!  I guess T was not as excited about the prospect of blazing around the ice at approximately 1.5 miles per hour as I was.  Apparently there will be pictures, and I'll post them if I can find them.

Point of clarification #1: Zamboni vs. Olympia

Zamboni is a brand name.  A Zamboni is the ice resurfacing machine produced by Frank J. Zamboni & Co., not to be confused with the Olympia, which is the ice resurfacing machine produced by Resurfice Corporation.  Predictably, the two manufacturers are not crazy about each other.

Technically, I rode on an Olympia, but as the lady explaining it said, "If you called it that, no one would know what you were talking about."  And she's right; for most people, zamboni (little z) = that thing that drives around on the ice at hockey games.  Turns out, they've branded themselves just like Xerox or Kleenex, and their name has become synonymous with the product itself, regardless of the manufacturer.  Now you know, and can wow people with your extensive useless knowledge.

Point of clarification #2: T vs. T

This could get confusing, so let's clear something up: there are two Ts.  The first is my dad; most recently we went to see The Last Lions together, though he's had a fairly prominent place on this here thingamajig since I started it.  (His life's accomplishment, I'm sure.)  Then there's also T who took me out to Of Gods and Men/dancing/hockey game.  Two different Ts.

I can see how my inclination towards anonymity can make that confusing in this format.  But a mix-up could be awkward, so let's try to keep them straight, shall we?  I'll try to say "Dad" at least occasionally, when he's the one I'm talking about.  And if you would do me a favor and use your best judgment based on the circumstances, I think we can manage.  I'm trusting you here, stalwart readers.  I hope you're up to the task.

The Song I'm Loving Today

This Is the Life (Amy MacDonald)

I first heard this song on one of those Starbuck's CDs with collections of coffee-shop-appropriate songs by different artists.  Overall I'd give the CD a middling rating, but I fell in love with this song - which is great for singing along to!

I think what I like about it is the contrast between the lighthearted, party-life theme of the verses and  the darker "where are you going?" chorus and musical structure.  Amy MacDonald is Scottish, so a lot of her music has an appropriately minor sound to it, even if it's offset by a pop-type beat.



Oh the wind whistles down
The cold dark street tonight,
And the people they were dancing to the music vibe
And the boys chase the girls with the curls in their hair
While the shy tormented just sit way over there
And the songs they get louder,
Each one better than before.

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life,
And you wake up in the morning and you're head feels twice the size.
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life,
And you wake up in the morning and you're head feels twice the size.
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?
Where you gonna sleep tonight?

So you're heading down the road in your taxi for four,
And you're waiting outside Jimmy's front door
But nobody's in and nobody's home 'til four.
So you're sitting there with nothing to do
Talking about Robert Riger and his motley crew,
And where you're gonna go and where you're gonna sleep tonight.

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life,
And you wake up in the morning and you're head feels twice the size.
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight? (x2)

Where you gonna sleep tonight?

And you're singing the songs
Thinking this is the life,
And you wake up in the morning and you're head feels twice the size.
Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna sleep tonight? (x4)

Where you gonna sleep tonight?

What I Watched -- Bhutto

Last night L and I went to the Missouri History Museum's community cinema to see Bhutto, a film about the life of Pakistan's former prime minister.

This movie is a biography of both the woman and the country, beginning with Pakistan's partition from India in 1947, and Benazir's birth shortly thereafter. 

The history of Pakistan is short but thorny.  The country has suffered through most of the afflictions that accompany political power struggle: poverty, lack of education, political instability, disenfranchisement.

Powerful leaders often make powerful countries, and Pakistan - largely because of its armed conflict with India - has become one.  But powerful leaders are often despotic and unstable, and Pakistan suffered that fate as well.  I'll spare you all most of the political history, save to say that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father, served as president then prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s, and was the founder of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Zulfikar Bhutto was eventually accused of rigging elections, and a military coup installed General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq as "Chief Martial Law Administrator," though he eventually took over as president of Pakistan.  The head of the Bhutto clan was arrested on charges of masterminding a murder, and was hanged in 1979.

So there's some Pakistani history, although take it with a grain of salt.  My knowledge is limited extremely limited.

Back to Benazir.  She spent a lot of time abroad beginning in her teens and early in her father's political career.  She attended Harvard and Oxford Universities, and was progressive by the standards of her home country, both politically and socially.  She came home to assist her father, but lived in exile for some time after his death.  She took over as the leader of the PPP, and was elected prime minister in 1988, making her the youngest person and first female leader elected as PM of a Muslim country.  She was reelected five years later.

The movie lauds her as a tireless worker for democracy, and she is to be commended for that.  She modernized the country, supported women, and sought to improve living conditions.  But my biggest criticism of the film is that it completely glosses over the allegations of corruption leveled against her and her family (and unfortunately her most lasting legacy).  [Note to the filmmakers: even if your final point is going to be that the allegations were baseless, at least address them!]  There is a brief interview with Benazir's niece, who admits that there was some corruption, but implies that it was not as extensive as people claimed.  And then the film just moves right on to something else.  That seems like a cheap ploy to allow the filmmaker to blow past the question of corruption without really digging in.

Keeping track of all the allegations, indictments, convictions, exonerations, withdrawals of charges, sentences, and vacated findings surrounding the Bhutto/Zardari clan is a mind-boggling exercise.  Benazir Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari (nicknamed Mr. Ten Percent, for kickbacks taken when he was brokering government deals; now the current Pakistani president, who took over when Pervez Musharraf was forced to resign) served three years in jail for extortion in the early 1990s, and another eight years beginning in the late 90s on a variety of charges including corruption and conspiracy to commit murder (of Benazir's brother).  The New York Times wrote an in-depth report detailing its findings about abuses during the Bhutto administration. Bhutto maintained her claims of innocence until her death.  The web of people, allegations, and money is so tangled, and the walls surrounding it so opaque, that probably no one will ever know what really happened.

On the other hand, the film portrays Benazir as a woman trying, and sometimes failing, to make her way in a man's world; even after Bhutto was elected prime minister, she was allegedly shut out of the President-military dyad, leaving her as a figurehead only.  (Triads are famously unstable sociological arrangements.

Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007, and was assassinated three months later while leaving a political rally.  Accusations and claims of responsibility for her death have been flying ever since.

Bottom line: as per usual where politics is concerned, I'd guess that neither side in this debate is entirely right or entirely wrong.  The movie is interesting within its limited scope, but there's a huge part of this complicated story that was left out.

What I Watched -- Crazy Heart

It's hard to believe Jeff Bridges hadn't won an Oscar before Crazy Heart.  He's a fabulous actor, with notches on his belt prior to this one including The Last Picture Show, Bad Company, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, the geek-cult classic Tron (not a best actor-worthy role, but a popular one), The Fabulous Baker Boys (also starring his brother Beau), The Fisher King, Fearless, the oh-so-fantastic and immensely under-appreciated Wild Bill, the thoroughly appreciated The Big Lebowski, K-Pax (never heard of it?  Not surprising, but he apparently handles his supporting actor role pretty well), Seabiscuit (another supporting role), and Iron Man (again, not Oscar material for acting, but a huge hit nonetheless).  That's a lot of movies, but nary a statuette for the actor.

Enter Crazy Heart.  The movie, based on a 1987 book by Thomas Cobb, has at its core a grizzled and bitter old country singer who's a stereotype in every sense: Bad Blake is a washed-up-in-bourbon has-been who's lost his lyrical magic and most of his fans.  He drives himself from gig to gig in his beater of a truck, and even finds himself the opening act for his former protegee Tommy Sweet, played by Colin Farrell. 

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Jean, a single mom and aspiring journalist who scores (pun intended) an interview with Bridges' Bad Blake.  Gyllenhaal's characters seem to shine when they are, perhaps against their better judgment, entangled with a tangled male lead; witness Stranger Than Fiction, and even The Dark Knight and Secretary, in their own ways.  In Crazy Heart, Gyllenhaal plays Jean in the conflicted way you might really imagine a single mom - she loves this man, but knows that his drinking and lifestyle aren't for her and her son.  Yes, she's a stereotype too.

But somehow, stereotypes and all, this movie works.  Bridges and Gyllenhaal are superbly convincing in their portrayals, and the music is sadly perfect.

Bottom line: a talented actor with a well-deserved Oscar + a good supporting cast - stereotypes + great original music = a movie worth watching.

Quote of the Day

Where are the hopes?  Where are the dreams?
My Cinderella story scene?
When do you think they'll finally see?

That you're not, not, not gonna get any better,
You won't, won't, won't, you won't get rid of me, never.
Like it or not, even though she's a lot like me,
We're not the same.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a lot to handle,
You don't know trouble, I'm a hell of a scandal.
Me, I'm a scene, I'm a drama queen,
I'm the best damn thing that your eyes have ever seen.
  -- Avril Lavigne, The Best Damn Thing

[I feel like there are going to be questions about this one, so I'll try to head them off at the pass: sure, I suppose I could have made this the song I'm loving today.  But I'm not crazy about the whole thing, though I do - against my better judgment - love Avril Lavigne.  (Go ahead, judge me.)  I like some of the melody of this particular song, and mostly I love the awesomeness that she sees in herself and so unabashedly expresses, despite her flaws.  Girls need cheerleaders, even if they come in the form of twenty-somethings still suffering from teen angst with pink streaks in their hair.  So there.]

What I Watched -- Of Gods and Men

Wow this movie is intense, and it's based on a true story, the real end of which we will probably never know.  There's also a book about the incident.

It's the story of nine French Roman Catholic monks who've dedicated themselves to God and a small monastery in Algeria, although I don't think the country is ever mentioned in the movie.  They live simply and serenely, carrying out their daily tasks with a ritualism and dignity that is to be admired.  They have very little, and give virtually all that they have to the Muslim townspeople, who have even less.  The monks and villagers live together in peace, despite their ideological differences.

The trouble begins for the monks when Muslim extremists fighting in the Algerian civil war draw closer to their little monastery, bringing intolerance and inspiring fear among the locals.  The monks must decide whether to stay or go.  If they stay, their lives are at great risk, but they will be there to support their town and answer their calling until the last.  If they go, they can carry on their work back home in France, but they'll abandon the villagers to the rebel forces.

Do they make the right choice?  I'm still wondering.  It takes a good movie to make me do that.

A few comments about the film, rather than the story:

The pace is slow, slow, slow; it's set mostly in a monastery, where everything is calm and deliberate.  That slowness and silence increase the tension, because you're constantly expecting something bad to happen to one of the men.  And bad things do happen, but not in the way I anticipated.  A surprise bonus of the slowness: if you speak even a little French, you can understand some of the movie without having to read the subtitles!

The movie is almost entirely, and probably consciously, politics-free.  I'm okay with that, because politics is not my thing.  But I'm thinking specifically of the fact that these are French monks living in an African country.  Colonization, anyone?  Likely that was left out because there's easily enough material on that subject to make an entirely separate movie (or four).  There just wasn't time for it in this one, which already runs at 120 minutes.

There are two incredibly powerful scenes. One occurs when the monks are in their chapel at prayer.  As a rebel helicopter draws near, they all stand, embracing shoulder-to-shoulder, and begin to sing.  The sound of their song is nearly drowned out by the rotor blades, but they remain, together.

The second is a dinner scene.  The monks have a simple diet, eating what they grow and cook themselves; one night, Brother Luc brings out wine for them to share.  He puts in an audiotape of the theme from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which is a brilliant soundtrack over which to watch the monk's faces, each one individually as he comes to realize the impact of his decision. The brothers face their enemy and their consciences with strength and resolve.  Finally.

Make no mistake, religion features prominently in this movie; it is about monks, after all.  However, with the exception of a few villagers' statements about le coran and some lines near the end about the brothers, most of it is not the self righteous, hit-you-over-the-head-with-politics type of religion.  It's just that these guys happen to be monks.  They pray a lot, they struggle with their faith, they ask God for help, and they do so without being sanctimonious about it.  They accept without question or judgment the faiths of others.  You learn all you need to know about the brothers' beliefs just by watching their interactions with the local townspeople.


If you're looking for a movie about a strong character, this isn't for you.  A few monks stand out as being a bit more developed than the others - Dom Christian (Lambert Wilson), the abbot; Brother Luc (Michael Lonsdale), the doctor; Brother Christophe (Olivier Rabourdin), the conflicted one - but this is really a movie about all of them together, the strength they find in each other, rather than about any of them individually.

Bottom line: be prepared for it, but see it.

And then:
T took me out to dinner after the movie.  We went to Fleming's, since it was close to the theater and neither of us had ever been there.  We split the Cajun barbecue shrimp as an appetizer, and I had the New Zealand lamb chops (in honor of Dad's recent trip) with chipotle mac and cheese.  And for dessert?  Key lime pie.  Tasty indeed.


We didn't get there until around 9:00, and I was a little surprised, given the hour, to see that the place was packed.  By the time we left, it had largely emptied out though.  Our server, Todd, was nice, chit-chatty, and has his own business cards.  How often do you see that with servers?

What I Watched -- Love & Other Drugs

Working within the framework of a romantic dramedy, I'm going to go ahead and say it: this movie was one of the better ones I've seen.

The comedy is faced-paced and witty, the drama is heavy, and the romance is bewitching, though too much for real life, and of course predictable.  Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal have great chemistry as Maggie and Jamie.  She's a basketcase sick girl who pushes everyone away.  He's a playboy drug rep who's still not quite sure what he's going to make of himself.  But they work together, and they somehow manage to hold together this movie that has a lot going on.  Lots of characters, lots of subplots, lots of social commentary.  It's not all necessary, but it's there, so we have to deal with it.

Bottom line: not intellectually challenging, but good for what it is.  One of the better movies of its genre that I've seen in a while.

What I Watched -- Intimate Strangers

I saw Intimate Strangers sitting on the "just returned" shelf at the library, and it looks interesting.  It wasn't really.

An unassuming woman walks into a psychiatrists office and spills her guts about the problems with her marriage, including a lack of - you guessed it - intimacy.  Turns out, though, that he's not a psychiatrist; he's a tax lawyer.  Oops, wrong office.

Turns out, that doesn't matter.  As she continues to confide in him, a sort of codependence develops.  And the whole thing turns into an odd French intellectual porn.  Or maybe it's intellectual French porn.  I'm not sure.  There's no sex, but there's a lot of talking about and thinking about and pining for it.  The movie is decidedly and unapologetically and Frenchly sexual, but in sort of an awkward, nerdy way.

Sure, I suppose there's some interesting character development; you see how they change each others' lives.  But I've seen more interesting ones.

Bottom line: unless you're into weird French stuff, probably not worth the investment.  Read a good book instead of the subtitles.

Kilkenny's

L and I finally managed to get together, after two weeks or so of trying to find a time that would work for both of us.  And we had a plan: J. Buck's for drinks!  It was opening day for the Cardinals, so I figured there would be lots of revelers, and boy was I disappointed.

Not in the overall lack of people at the bar, but in the mood.  Rather than find red-clad baseball fans, I found an overwhelming number of Washington University alumni.  Bar closed for a private event.  Boo hiss.

We were left to wander the streets of Clayton, and found ourselves at Kilkenny's.  And frankly, my Smithwick's was probably just as satisfying as a whiskey sour would have been anyway, so take that, J. Buck's!

What I Watched -- The Last Lions

Yesterday Dad took me to see The Last Lions, and it was fantastic.  It's a family drama set in the animal kingdom: the story of a lioness and her cubs struggling to find a home in the Okavango Delta which is ever more pressured due to the disappearing habitat surrounding it.  You can watch the preview here (and 10 cents will be donated to big cat conservation in Botswana).  "The cubs' lives have been a litany of narrow escapes, a long line of enemies out to get them - a strange way to start life for the kind of the beasts."

The film is narrated by Jeremy Irons (who also voiced Scar in The Lion King), whose thick accent brought a certain gravity to the film, though there were a couple lines I thought were a tad overdone.  There is a lot of anthropomorphizing, and thought it fits with the footage and really draws you into the story, I wonder if the movie would have been just as powerful without it.

The scenery and camerawork are incredible, the natural soundtrack evocative.  The subwoofers in the theater really brought to life the deep, hollow calls of the lions.  The overlaid musical tracks aren't bad either.

Beware, however: there are a few scenes that are horrifying to our delicate animal sensibilities. 

Bottom line: "Africa is as dispassionate about great victory as it is about loss." That certainly appears to be true.  Thankfully, it's not at all true of the film.  When can I go back to Africa?