Cecily and I saw this last night as a double feature (paired with Iron Man 2) at The Family Drive In Theatre in Stephens City Virginia. Short and simple — great movie. The plot was intriguing and somewhat surprising (not like EUREKA! but Oooooh … interesting). Had all the appropriate elements, but most importantly, it kept me interested.
Summary: a young boy growing up in a village of dragon-slaying Vikings is neither strong enough to slay a dragon, nor eager to do so. In fact, he befriends one, and eventually is able to reveal things to both the dragons and the Vikings that neither knew.
Good date film, good kids film, and good manly man film as long as you don’t tell anyone how much you love it (and I loved it!). 
That is good stuff!
Out of respect for the current state of the economy
In January of 2008, I very adamantly stated that there was not really a recession. It simply happened to be the case that everyone started freaking out, so the hot catch phrase “this economy” was splattered all over the new like cricket guts. (Ok not my best poetry, but I wanted to talk about cricket guts.)
Anyway, that made people think “Oh god oh god we’re all going to die,” so they stopped spending money. Bam–recession! Ok so we were a month into it at that point, but I still believe what I was saying. It really is nothing more than a self fulfilling prophecy.
Ultimate point? Worrying about having a recession is what pushed us into a recession. Self fulfilling prophecy …
Well, oil had a big part of it too, but my fingers don’t feel like walking through that tonight.
So anyway, Cecily (my wife) and I watched the Oscars or Academy Awards (some award show whose only point is to show off how little substance one can have in one’s life) a few nights ago … I guess more like a few weeks ago now. At any rate, some actress or singer or otherwise overly adored young lady (old lady?) was being interviewed about something or other, and the topic of her relatively plain dress came up. So, quite politically, she said that many of that community were scaling back this year out of respect for the current economy — not to flaunt their wealth in the face of many doing without.
So my first reaction, of course, was that just saying that was flaunting. Fact is, those of us without money don’t care how much you spend on your dress. It really doesn’t matter. I’m not going to watch the television and see some rich actress dressing down and think “Yeah, wow things are really getting better.”
Fact is, that “plain ole dress” still probably cost more than I make a week.
Frankly, again, I really don’t care. Wear what you want.
Astonishingly, Cecily totally one-upped me by making a point I hadn’t even considered.
“Now is the time you SHOULD be spending.” If YOU who HAVE the money SPEND, those of us WITHOUT money (most likely the ones making the dresses, pumping out fabric in factories, etc.) benefit, and bam now we have money to send to DirecTV so that we can waste our time watching dumbass awards shows.
I digress, of course, but there is your case in point. Spend the damn money people! The economy is just the same as it has been, just a percentage of people don’t have jobs, probably because people aren’t buying expensive hand made dresses, right?
Anyway, on a side note, the dumbass leader of the MPAA challenged Mr. Obama to create a cabinet position for the Arts … Is it just me or does this guy have the same idea factory that comes up with ad campaigns for eBay?
Ok ranting complete …
Posted in Commentary