Twilight

So I haven't seen the movie, and despite my wife's protests, likely won't before Christ shows up. Still, we're sitting together at the SUU library and looking at reviews. Metacritic.com includes some scathing stuff. Peter Vondar Haar of "Film Threat" quips "Q: When is a vampire not a vampire? A: When it goes out in daylight, sees itself in a mirror, doesn’t drink human blood, and still manages to suck."

Love Your Body, Drop Dead Refreshing!

So here I am, trying to be productive: as I'm waiting for LiveTrace ™ to do its thing, I look for poster contests, something to get my perennially stunted art career going. I go to the first viable link that Google coughs up—which this time, miracle of miracles, happens to be the first link on their main list—and I arrive at a "Love your Body" contest, which, while being clearly out of my purview, since it seems that their winners—(that I can see)—have all been female, nonetheless seems worth investigating. So, as per the instructions in the contest, I attempt to familiarize myself with just what Loving One's Body means. In perusing the offending ads, I chuckled... at this.
And what made me laugh wasn't the clearly sexual overtone of the image; clearly, using an image of a woman as a vessel for liquor, and that too shapely (and therefore not in line with any equitably realistic portrayal of the female body) is offensive, not just to women, but men also (whether they know it or not). But at first read I truly thought that "OFFENSIVE TO WOMEN" was part of the ad. "Offensive to Women. Drop Dead Refreshing." It smacks of the Man Show, of course, but NOW had plastered Offensive all over the ads it deemed (and rightly so) degenerate. I missed it! A case of male insensitivity? or is it just poor visual communication? You decide... (I hope not so much of the former...)

Twice dumbstruck

Twice today I've been dumbstruck by the frightening parallels between declining Book of Mormon civilizations and the global downspiral I'm reading about in the news. The Book of Mormon tells that the ancient societies of this continent began their destruction with elitist notions of fashion, on a number of occasions. I'm interpreting things loosely here, but when Mormon records that pride, in particular that which had to do with the "wearing of costly apparel" preceded a division "into classes" and a subsequent persecution of Christ's apostles, even so much as to attempt to murder them, I see the tell-tale warning regarding our day. According to a study by labor economist Lynn A. Karoly, the income gap in the United States is widening, with, in fact, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

I also just read a remarkable article about the housing crisis in the New York Times dated Monday, April 14th, 2008 (today) that uses fairly circuitous language in placing blame for economic woes. Isn't it clear to everyone that the United States has again placed the world in crisis because of an irresponsible lust for prestige, or at the very least for property? According to the article by Mark Landler, the struggling housing market's effect is rippling across the globe, mostly induced by a lack of consumer confidence, even across the Atlantic. In markets where things were hot, like East Europe and Hong Kong, things are cooling considerably. Yet much of the language lays blame to some economic deus ex machina, the proverbial hand of fate, for the problem. It seemed reminiscent of the peoples of the Book of Mormon, who would reject the wisdom of the prophets and then lament their dead, their starvation, etc. though had they heeded God's direction they would have continued to prosper.

I'd use more references to make the correlation more apparent, but I've lingered long enough and need to get home to my sweetheart and son.

YES! I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT! and, if pigs have learned to fly, Hollywood

It's happened to me again. A few years ago I would spend nearly every weekend at a movie theater, compelled by the power of fast-paced movie trailers and the general buzz of "blockbuster" to believe. Some time last year I didn't think that the upcoming summer would be as incredible; let's face it, after paying decent money to see films like Baby Geniuses and Catwoman in one's lifetime, wouldn't one expect to stumble out of a Saturday morning matinée—it was the "Early Bird" at Cinemark—and feel as though one had been bamboozled? In a major studio somewhere there's a chortling bulbous-nosed, ruddy-complexioned bigwig with a fat cigar who has me to thank for it.

And yet here I sit, enthralled by a series of movies that look to restore my faith in Hollywood. (I know, I know I'm a glutton for punishment—this and other frailties have already been elucidated here in my corner of cyberspace.)

Here's my tentative wish list for this summer

• May 02nd

  Iron Man



• May 23rd

  Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull



• June 13th

  The Incredible Hulk
  OR possibly AND
  The Happening
  



• June 20th

  Get Smart



• June 27th

  Wall-E
  AND most likely NOT
  Wanted
  



• July 4th

  Hancock



• July 11th

  Hellboy II: The Golden Army



• July 18th

  The Dark Knight



• July 25th

  Untitled X-files

Whew!!! Links galore!

At any rate, folks... I'm a gonna' be watchin' movies come May!!!