Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monestary in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropeed out and devoted my life to being bad.

That quote is from Snowcrash, one of my favorite books. I'm not sure how universal that it is, but it certainly applies to me. I've thought about that quote a lot over the last two weeks as I totally overdosed on watching The Olympics. You see, one of the key thoughts I had watching these Olympics is the realization that there is no way I will be able to compete in the Olympics, ever. It used to be just like that quote, if I picked some out of the way sport, and gave it everything I had, I could get good enough to compete in the Olympics. Now I understand that that won't happen. I'm an athletic guy, and I have lots of the requisite skills for high level, high pressure sports, but my ship has sailed. I've let too much time pass, I'm beyond the point where I could specialize to that degree (or I've just now started to think realistically, you decide.)

Anyway, my ego aside, I've had a fantastic time watching the Olympics. I upgraded my TiVo just before the games started so it had some disgusting recording capacity and it's been recording Olympics just about 24 hours a day. I fast forward through most of that, but stop and watch little bits of anything that looks interesting. As a side effect of this (and a goal) I watched at least a little bit of almost every sport there is.

Don't believe me? Try to throw me a curve ball: Badmitton? Table Tennis? Equestrian? Yep. Diving - alone or with a partner, got 'em both. Beating people up? Yeah, all of them: Judo, TaeKwonDo, Boxing, Wrestling (2 kinds), and Fencing. Sports with boats? Uh-huh, Whitewater and Flatwater, Canoe and Kayak, Sailing in boats and on boards, a bunch of different kinds of Rowing. Cycling? Road, Oval, and Mountain. Throw in some Shotgun, Air Rifle, and Air Pistol Shooting - along with Archery. Then there's all the ball sports: Soccer, Basketball, Volleyball - beach and indoor, Handball, Field Hockey, Softball, Baseball, Water Polo, and Tennis. What about swimming? Check. Synchronized Swimming? That too. I saw people run very fast, and jump over things, and throw heavy things a long way. But I also watched people grit it out in the Marathon and the Triathlon. Then some Weightlifting. A little bit of Rythmic Gymnastics, and a lot of the regular variaty rounds out the list. But I said "almost every sport." What's missing? The Modern Pentathlon escaped me, which is unfortunate because it sounds like a really interesting event. Any sport that combines Shooting, Fencing, Swimming, Riding and Running just sounds cool.

After watching all those events I have one main takeaway. (This is tainted by my love for team sports - they make more sense to me then races, even team races like rowing.) I thought the US Women's performance in the team sports was amazing: They got gold medals in Soccer and Basketball. Misty May and Kerri Walsh won on the beach without losing a single game. They got a bronze in Water Polo, and made it to the Semi's in Volleyball. Then let's not forget the ridiculously dominant Softball team, which outscored their oponents 51-1.

This is a great achievement for all the women involved. They played excellently, and showed that they had more then individual talent. Every game I watched showed that they really were teams, which is requisite to be a world champion (evidence: see the Men's Basketball team) and also something sacred in the world of team sports. You have to credit the players for working for that, and their coaches for making it happen.

But the whole thing has more important connotations for me. I think it's a great testimant to all the hard work we've done in the US to encourage women's sports. It's been a full court press too, from Title IX to changing person to person attitudes towards women athletes. We still have a long way to go, but this is a good time to reflect on the amazing progress we've had. Think about it, there are some professional sports leagues for women now. The most obvious is the WNBA, then the WUSA was around for a while and is now trying to make a comeback, then there's some scattered Softball leagues and of course Beach Volleyball has a pro tour. These leagues allow these women to be athletes full time.

If anyone doubts what the results of these changing attitudes and the opportunities created by Title IX and the pro leagues, they need only look at how the US Women fared in international competition in Athens. The really exciting thing is other countries in the world are benefiting from this as well. The overall quality of women's sports rises every year. I can't wait to see what happens in four years in Beijing.

You know, this is going to change everything.
Promise?

There are lots of great quotable lines in Jerry Maguire (Show me the money, I love black people, you complete me, you had me at hello, a real man wouldn't shoplift the pootie from a single mom, did you know bees and dogs can smell fear? - among others.) But that line above rings most true. There's truth in that statement, the scene is superbly acted, and it's a pivotal moment for both characters.

Watching Jerry Maguire again reminded my why this movie is on my short list when people ask what my favorite movie is (this is a non-trivial question for me.) It's funny and sweet and real, and just plain good. If you've never seen you need to and if you have you may want to give it another go just for fun. I never get tired of watching it - it's one of the most used DVD's in my collection.

Since you want to die, I shall assist you.

Hero has had a terribly hard time getting to the US. It released in Hong Kong way back in December of 2002, and has had a US release date bumped around pretty much since then. It finally showed up in theaters last night.

I hosted a movie night for it, and I think it was my worst recieved movie night movie ever (I've don't around 20 movie nights too.) How did this happen, you ask. It was loved by the criticts: Ebert gave it 3.5 stars and Rotten Tomatoes has it at 94%. Everyone talked about how gorgeous it is, and how artful the fight sequnces are. What they didn't talk about is how much the story in unamerican. This comes out in two important ways.

The structure and flow of the movie are still very rooten in classic Hong Kong kung fu movies. The dialog is choppy, and to the point. The subtitles didn't flow. This creates lots of unintentional funny moments from the ridculousness of the dialog. These moments distract from the serious story and the beauty onscreen.

The bigger way is the whole story is a very Chinese story, and one that's not going to jive with most Americans. This is based on a Chinese fable about ancient China before it was unified, and has a lot of sacrifice for the greater good themes to it. I'm not going to go into it too much since I don't want to provide spoilers, but lets just say a movie with this ending and themes would never, ever be made in Hollywood.

All of that said, I really liked it. The actors involved are amazing and telented in their martial arts abilities. The scenery was spectacular. The way they kept changing color tones for the scenes as they were repeated with a new viewpoint was great. The art direction in this film deserves some awards. Any I like exploring some of the differences in Asian culture.

I think it's most telling to put this film next to The Last Samaurai. They both have similar themes, and similar situations the characters put themselves in the end. The Asian version stays true to the themes and philosophies of the movie, but in the Hollywood rendition it doesn't have the courage and chickens out with a Hollywood ending.

Just like Hero could never be made in Hollywood, The Last Samurai could never have been made in Asia. If you want to see the locals take on their philosophy, this is a great choice. And it's not hard to look at either.

Don't tease me about my hobbies, I don't tease you about being an asshole.

Somehow I didn't really watch Scrubs for it's first few seasons, but I started watching it off and on this year and found I really enjoy it. Enjoying Zack Braff on the show, and hearing good things about his first movie effort, I was excited to go see Garden State.

And I wasn't disappointed. Garden State was a fun movie, although I must caution you that the trailers don't really capture the true mood of the film. The trailers just make it look quirky and funny, when in reality it's much more quirky and darkly serious. It's funny, but more as a way to take the edge off the seriousness. And I think it's only funny if you enjoy quirkiness and randomness, which is prevalent here.

There are times when it's a little over the top, sort of reveling in it's quirkiness. Overall I think it says that Zack Braff has a great career ahead of him in front and behind the camera. Making a movie this good on a tight budget on your first outing is rare. I look forward to his future efforts, where they'll perhaps be more polished.

This movie also adds to my frustration about the Star Wars prequels. Every time I see one of the actors from Star Wars in another movie actually doing a good job acting, it reminds me that all the main characters in Star Wars are excellent actors (there is abundant evidence for this, I might do a write up some time) they just get hamstrung by Lucas' total inability to direct actors and his crappy scripts. This rant came from Natalie Portman doing an excellent acting job in Garden State - I suspect as Episode three approaches in the next year rants like this will appear more and more.

Well, I guess it's ok if you wrote that he was shot because he had rabies.

My friends group has mostly given up on our old regular Monday night Trivia Night at a local bar in Redmond. It was pretty awful, sort of validating us giving up on the event. There's a rotating host now and the woman didn't seem to know anything about the typical format or questions asked at the trivia nights.

She had many poor questions, but the absolute worst was when she asked about Old Yeller. She asked what kind of dog he was, and how he died. The terrible part of this is what answers she gave. She claimed Old Yeller was a mutt, and didn't accept yellow lab as an answer, which was annoying. But the worst was when she claimed he died of rabies. Eventually under protest she allowed "he was shot because he had rabies."

Between you and me I'm thinking the shotgun had a much bigger part in the cause of death then the rabies did...

I do this for a living.

Spoiler Warning

I watched Collateral this week, which I really enjoyed. This movie has such wonderful pacing, and isn't afraid to just hang out and let a mood develop. This is the kind of movie you wouldn't expect to be a great theater movie (as opposed to DVD.) But it turns out the big screen helps you be immersed in the pacing. I suspect if you watched it at home the distractions around the home would grab your attention in the slow moments. Also, the sound and music is fantastic in setting the moods and being part of the story. The immersive sound experience in the theater really adds to this too. Unless you have an excellent home theater setup I highly recommend catching this in a theater.

Except the movie has one big flaw. The ending is terrible. The whole situation actually reminded me really strongly of Heat. They're both well paced movies that have a great sense of LA, and bad endings. The key to each of them is the movies set up important premises with their characters, then invalidate them in the ending.

In Collateral, it's clearly setup that Tom Cruise is a badass and could kill Jamie Fox without really trying. When Jamie Fox chooses to follow Tom to his last hit, he should not be expecting to live through that encounter. Hollywood wouldn't allow that though, Jamie can't die in this film. But the movie does give itself a way out. Tom completely underestimates Jamie in a confrontation in the office building, which could have been hit fatal flaw. But no, they had to build drama for a silly subway moment.

Heat was slightly different. In Heat the movie clearly sets up that Deniro needs to be able to walk away from everything in his life for 30 seconds flat when things get tight. The deal the movie makes is if he's willing to do that he'll get away, and we as the audience buy into that. So as the end comes around he's presented with a string of choices. He can't let the work stuff go. He decides to work the one final job, then decides he has to go after the people who crossed him. In the end he knows he should leave Waingro alone, but can't do it. That's ok - he's good enough to pull it off, but it forces him to test his 30 seconds theory. This leads to a spectacularly bad ending. When I watch this movie at home I literally press stop after he makes that choice and jumps over the ivy covered wall. My ending is: "he gets away."

In this same vein The Last Samurai had a similar ending. The movie sets up a choice for Tom Cruise. He knows going into battle will cause his death, and still chooses to because of he believes in what the Samurai believe in. The movie invalidates itself when it doesn't make Tom pay for this choice.

These kinds of things are what bad endings are made of. Movies have themes, and when the endings go against those themes it just doesn't jive. These are the most obnoxious movies, and they're even worse when they're attached to good films - like the three I've mentioned here.

Hello Royal Ugly Dudes!

There's some things you have to know about Matty H. He's one of the few people I know that can give me a run for my money on being a movie nut (especially one who also likes typical Hollywood fare.) And he's also one of the only people I know that shames my movie quoting abilities. We've been good friends for many years now, and movies have always been a foundation of our friendship. This site is even named for an inside joke we had.

Anyway, Matty came to visit this weekend - and as typically happens when we're together many movies were watched. Lots of them I only saw parts of, as we'd watch a little bit before bed time, or during a free hour in the middle of the day (this is when I really enjoy my obscenely large movie collection.) Instead of giving full thoughts on all of them, I'll just do blurbs:

Minority Report - Matty recently called I, Robot "what Minority Report should have been." I'm not sure I agree with that analysis, since I think they're very different movies (only a true sci-fi nerd can make a case for that, guilty as charged.) I liked both of them, and do see a lot of similarities. I think Minority Report had a great world concept, but could have used some slightly less eccentric supporting characters and a little more smarts. I mean, seriously, they can't turn off his access to police headquarters? When he does the eye scan to get in doors shouldn't it lock the door and call Big Guys with Guns (tm)? The redeeming scene is the excellent chase through the mall with the pre-cog.

Batman: The Animated Series - This is one of my all time favorite cartoons, and I'm thrilled they're sold on DVD now. The art is fantastic, and most importantly, they get Batman. The writing suffers from it being a kid show from time to time with silly one liners. But if you get past that this is easily the best movie/tv version of Batman ever made.

Almost Famous - I felt compelled to watch this after they played Tiny Dancer at Kell's Friday night. Unfortunately I fell asleep just after Kate Hudson did her explanation of what a Band Aid is. I'm reminded of how much I like this movie and will be watching the whole thing again soon.

The Good Girl - This is one of the few movies I've bought before I'd seen it ($7.00 in the previously viewed bin at Hollywood Video - I figured why not.) This is a slow and fairly disturbing movie. The kind of thing that's just a train wreck in slow motion. These are good sometimes if they really get me to attach to the characters, but this one didn't. The "Get in your corner" scene with Bubba is one of the more disturbing things I've seen recently.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure - I own this one because it was on sale at Fred Meyer for $6.50 (you'd be surprised how many movies I own due to circumstances like that.) This is a gem: spectacularly bad, and infinitely quotable. It was perfect for a Sunday afternoon when I was exhausted from a long weekend and just waiting for it to be time to take Matty to the airport.

So there it is, the weekend in movies. Don't worry though, we actually went out and had fun as well - the movies just fill the natural down time.

Well, gravity will be on our side!

My good friend Matty H came into town for the weekend, and in order to spend more time with him I took Friday off work. We were talking on Thursday about things we wanted to do for the weekend, and my big suggestion was a trip to Wild Waves, the local water park. I've been wanting to go all summer, but was always hesitant to go on a nice weekend day, since the crowds can be a bit oppressive. But here was an opportunity to go on a weekday, when it wouldn't be as crowded.

If you've never been to Wild Waves it's an interesting place. First of all, it took someone some guts to build a water part near Seattle (there's also a small amusement park there too, but the two are sort of considered separate destinations.) The place is pretty much only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day and has plenty of not so good days in between to contend with. We woke up and found that Friday was one of those not so good days. It was raining (hard too!) and kind of cold. Matt was a little skeptic, but my enthusiasm kept him going. I just gave him some of my cold water rafting gear, and we set off. It was a bit cold, but not too bad. The cool thing is the place was empty, I think we waited for one ride once, for about two minutes...

It's also got a distinctly local feel to it. It's not like the big amusement/theme parks, where everything is polished and over the top. It's basic, there are no themes, just rides. It's not the kind of place you see tourists at, tourists don't really even know it exists (and even if they did there are plenty of places to go to offer more vacation fun around here.)

But that's part of the charm. And in the end, the rides are pretty fun. They're not crazy fun, but certainly do offer a good experience. We hit my old time favorite, a ride with a succession of pools and drops you ride an tube down, plus the classic green water slides, the quick cannon ball slides, and the truly scary big drop speed slides.

But we had the most fun at a new ride they opened two years ago. It's a set of water slides that don't look like they'll be all that cool from the outside, but ended up being a blast. The key is you ride tubes down them, so they're super fast. And they have two person tubes to ride. As we were walking over to get a tube (you have to carry your own to the top) we were talking about taking a double, but unsure if that would be ok. See, we're both big guys, and wondered if there was some kind of rule about that. But there were no signs talking about it (the only rule was exactly two people had to ride in a two person tube.) And just as we were talking about it a couple came out in a two person tube and they were each bigger then we were, so we figured we were good to go.

And wow was it fun. We *flew* down that slide, coming close to flipping over several times. It was so fun we did it four times in a row. We came back at the end of the day to do it one last time. At the top of the ride the lifeguard on duty looked like he was about 16 plus two days, and we had the best conversation of the day:

Lifeguard: Just so you guys know, there's a weight limit.
Matt: This is our fifth time.
Lifeguard: Well, I don't want to get in trouble.
Me: Ok, what's the weight limit?
Lifeguard: 300 pounds.
Matt: Well, I don't weigh 300 pounds.
Me: I don't weight 300 pounds.
Matt: There go you, see ya!

And we took off for a great last ride. It was a fun day, and I'm now spoiled for the next time I go, when I'll presumably have to actually wait in line.

Note: Matt and my combined weight is 465 pounds...

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