[Edit: I wrote this last week, but was busy with work and didn’t notice that I forgot to publish it. Sorry about that.]

I was seven years old when “Raiders of the Lost Ark” hit theaters. I still remember the shock and mild nausea I felt when the big bald guy splattered across the airplane canopy. Good times.

I’ve discussed at length the trilogy trap that the Indiana Jones series represents. And now, almost three decades later (Yikes, am I that old?!) Dr. Jones is following Rocky and Rambo in a sad new trend.

Studio Exec: We’re hemorrhaging dollars here, boys. We need a real hit! What have you got?

Pitch Man: How about this? Will Farrel plays an obnoxious, offensive, stupid <insert sports profession>?

Studio Exec: We’ve already got two of those in production!

Pitch Man: Drug addled, sex crazed, wise cracking teenagers make fools of <insert hard working, grown ups and/or parents>?

Studio Exec: The lawyers are still working on the last one.

Casting Director: She said she was 18, I swear!

Studio Exec: Shut up! I thought I fired you already.

Pitch Man: How about cute yet irreverent CGI animals? You know, with fart jokes for the kids.

Studio Exec: One in theaters, two on the drawing board, and four straight to DVD this month! No, what we need is a real block buster, like back in the good ol’ days.

Pitch Man: What I wouldn’t give for another Rocky or Indiana Jones.

Studio Exec: Perfect! Are those guys still alive?

Casting Director: Clinically? Yes.

And so, good ol’ Indy was back, cracking his whip, dusting off his fedora, and slathering on the Bengay between takes.

Was there lots of action? Of course. Was there clever humor throughout? Clever-ish. Was the movie fun? Yyyeah. I’d say so. Then why I’m I so reluctant to to say I liked it?

Honestly, the formulaic script was a little too predictable. And maybe it’s been too long since I sat down to watch the old… er… young Indy, but in this new one the suspension of disbelief was off the charts. They drive a truck off a cliff, into a tree, and the tree bends over and sets them gently down, as if Bugs Bunny were behind the wheel. C’mon!

And then there’s the over-arching premise. Remember how everyone hated Temple of Doom? Remember how stupid all the voodoo, oogy-boogy crap was in that one? Well, this one’s worse. I’m hesitant to spoil it for you, but I feel you must be warned. This one is about aliens. And I don’t mean the kind that you underpay to clean your house or mow your grass. Yep. Straight up, Roswell conspiracy, big-black-almond-shaped-eyed, gray skinned, flying saucer aliens.

There I said it. It’s out there in the open, drawing flies like the pile of poop it is. I wanted so much to like this movie and there are parts of it that stir that seven-year-old kid in me. But the rest of the movie makes the 34-year-old guy in me really mad that they’ve done this to Dr. Jones. And just for that, two grins!

Since I have so vocally endorsed Ben Stein’s documentary on the subject, and for reasons of full disclosure, I think it’s important that I spend a few minutes discussing Intelligent Design and my personal beliefs.

I) I am a “fundamentalist” Christian.

That is to say, I believe in a strict interpretation of the Christian Bible. I put my eternal faith in, and strive to live according the will of, the God of the ancient Israelites and in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This also means that I believe in the literal, Biblical account of creation in six days. In other words, I am a “strict creationist.”

II) I believe in the intelligent design of the Universe, but not in Intelligent Design.

Yes, I believe that God created the Universe. However, this is not the same thing as what is commonly referred to as Intelligent Design (or ID). Because I am a strict creationist, when it comes to picking nits, I must disagree with many IDers (several of whom I have met and debated in person) who teach what I call Christian evolution. Christan evolution differs from Darwinian evolution only by the idea that, instead of random mutation, God was the origin of life and “directed” the evolution of all species from a common ancestor.

III) I do not believe that anyone should be forced to conform to my beliefs.

Theocracies are very dangerous and ultimately they fail to produce real believers. If you force someone to live according to your religion, that someone is very unlikely to accept that religion at a heart and soul level, especially a “free will” religion like Christianity.

IV) I do not believe that my view of creation is “scientific” in the strictest sense.

I freely admit that my “strict Genesis” belief is not scientific. That is to say it can not be observed, tested, or reproduced. It is a faith-based stance. That does not mean it is based solely emotions or feelings. I must examine my faith in light of the available evidence. If I find evidence that contradicts my faith, it is my responsibility to question my faith and examine the validity of the evidence. As yet, I have not found any evidence that has caused me to abandon my faith.

V) When it comes to academics, I think a healthy dose of agnosticism is in order.

I am a strict creationist and have to admit this requires faith. If you are an Christian evolutionist, your must admit it requires faith. If you are a Darwinist, you need to admit that it requires faith. (No one can observe, test or reproduce macro evolution any more than I can creation. Does this mean that macro evolution is not “scientific”? Hmm.) Thus, I think we need to teach students that there are many different theories, none of which can be proven. Then we explain the evidence and let them form their own opinions. Right now that is not happening. And that is why I think everyone should go see Expelled.

The movie is not about proving or disproving any particular theory. It is about the fact that, currently, our scientific and academic cultures have become so entrenched in Darwinism (and the resultant antitheism) it has created “Darwin Fundamentalist,” people so devoted to their faith that any one who questions Darwin is professionally crucified. If you think this sounds far fetched or over stated, you really need to see the movie.

Thanks to the Vaughn and Michael (the two guys with whom I traveled to Midland, Texas, and performed on stage at a conference there) I was able to see Ben Stein’s Expelled on opening weekend. The movie screened at one theater in the Midland/Odessa area and both guys were willing to make the 20 minute drive to the theater and watch it with me.

Even better news is that Expelled cracked the top ten for last weekend’s box office receipts pulling in about $3 million. There hasn’t been a peep in the news about it, but, seriously, did anyone expect that there would be?

The movie is spectacular! If you are (or have or know) a student in high school or college, or if you consider yourself “educated,” you really need to see this movie. Ben comes off as the Anti Michael Moore. There are no ambush interviews, no pulling quotes out of context, no tricky re-editing to put words into someone’s mouth. Ben asks simple questions in a very non-confrontational way giving antitheists the rope and allowing them to hang themselves.

This one is a must see, a must own, and a must share.

This weekend, I’m going to be in Midland, Texas, performing with a couple other guys from Stage Right Theatre. We’re the entertainment for a conference there. And that’s all cool and stuff, but it means I’m going to miss out of some things here at home.

The one I’m most bummed about is the opening night of Ben Stein’s “Expelled”.

In a scientific world gone mad, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is the controversial documentary that will chronicle Ben Stein’s confrontation with the Neo-Darwinian machine, exposing widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination in his heroic quest to bring back freedom in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms, with the help of the world’s top scientists, educators and thinkers.

Basically, this film will expose how academia’s elite antitheists have so overrun out universities and research facilities that it is now pretty much impossible for a scientist to make a living if he lets slip that he believes in any god other than Darwin.

I will see the show. I was just hoping to see it opening night. That’s the best way to make sure a movie like this gets some traction. If it has a bad opening weekend, it won’t last as long in theaters. That’s just how theaters work.

So check it out. Watch the trailer. Read the blog. Find a theater near you that’s screening the flick. And most importantly GO SEE IT!

What’s this?! A review of a movie that’s still in theaters?! Can’t be!

Yep. Tammy and I made a trip to the Movie Tavern for the opening night of Leatherheads.

I should start off by saying that I have never liked George Clooney and Renee Zellweger. They are not actors according to my definition of the word. They are warm bodies that are able to speak words someone else has written. Actors, by contrast, are able to portray a character other than themselves in a convincing manner. (See Depp, Hanks, etc.) Clooney and Zellweger make obscene amounts of money by playing Clooney and Zellweger, just with different costumes. And even though I’m a huge fan of The Office, I’d have to say that John Krasinski portrayed very much the same guy as a 1920’s college football star as he does as a 2008 sales rep for Dunder Mifflin.

Aside from that, I really enjoyed the movie. It was superbly directed and shot. Everything outside of the three main actors was very convincing for a period piece. It was laugh-out-loud funny throughout and still had a good message. One thing that I really appreciated about it was how clean it was… right up until the “you can’t say that on the radio” bit near the end, a gag that was contrived and unnecessary.

Much like watching a superhero flick, when you watch a period comedy like this one, you have to allow a certain amount of suspended disbelief. This is not a historical documentary. If you’re the type to stand up in the theater and shout that the NFL didn’t have a commissioner until 1941, then you’d better watch something else.

Over all this is a fun show and I’d be willing to watch it with the kids in my youth group. Maybe not “family-friendly” but well inside the safety of PG-13. I give it three grins.

I may have mentioned before that I have had “issues” with TiVo. I may have mentioned that TiVo’s customer support is based somewhere in the fourth level of hell and staffed by demons who usually speak English, but not always. I may have mentioned that I would really really really love to have a DVR to record my favorite shows but I’ve given up on that impossible dream after two, yes two, attempts at buying a TiVo, each of which made a root canal look like winning the lottery.

I may have mentioned before that I can get kind of carried away with weird analogies when I’m trying to tell a story and get side tracked on barely related topics.

So anyway, I’ve been using NetFlix as my poor-man’s TiVo for a while now. I’ve caught up with all the available Office DVD’s and most of Monk. Unfortunately that still leaves me about two years behind what is currently being aired. But I’m not bitter… much.

Well, today all that changed. I stumbled across a link to Hulu. At first I thought it was just another YouTube knock off. They had some great SNL clips, really impressive video quality and, oddly enough, the clips were from the show that aired just a few days ago. Then I saw a link at the top of the page. “Browse TV”. Hmm. What could that mean.

Hulu hosts TV shows, on demand, over the interweb, for freeee!! They have the most recent episode of The Office! All of seasons 3 and 4!! GLEEEE!!! There are commercials, but they are tiny web commercials and only one per break! I can deal with that!! Oh, this may change my life forever. It also may completely ruin my career and get me fired for watching TV during business hours.

I guess that last part could be looked upon as a “con” rather than a “pro”, huh?

[Edit: Ok. I lied. I misread the listings. They don’t actually have all of season 3 of The Office, but they do have all of season 4. They have “clips” from season 3. Not as cool, but still, enough to be excited about.]

When Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End (hereto after referred to as PotC3) came out, the reviews I heard were less than complimentary and several people told me to be sure and watch the previous installment first or it wouldn’t make any sense.

That saddened me because Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (or PotC1) was really awesome and served to reinforce my admiration for Johnny Depp’s acting prowess. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (PotC2) on opening day and thought it was not bad for an “act 2” movie, hoping the final chapter would salvage the franchise.

See, “act 2” movies are often the worst installments. In classical theater, act 1 introduces the story and characters and sets up some conflict. In act 2, the conflict reaches it’s worst, leaving the protagonist at his worst. And in act 3, it all works out and the protagonist saves the day. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

Star Wars IV (actually the first one released) told us that Darth Vader was bad, Luke was good, and the Force will be with you. But in Star Wars V (The Empire Strikes Back) Han gets frozen, Luke loses his hand, and Darth comes out on top. Oh no! Then, in Star Wars VI (Return of the Jedi) Luke kicks butt, Darth turns into Dad, and the good guys get all “crunk” at a little fuzzy people party.

Think about it. Raiders of the Lost Ark: Awesome. Temple of Doom: Crap. Holy Grail: Even awesomer.

Then again, there are those trilogies that should never have been trilogies in the first place. The first movie was pretty good and made enough money that Hollywood got drunk on it and decided to go for more, but like most decisions made while drunk, it ends poorly. There are too many of those to count!

Usually in these cases, the trilogy goes places that the first movie never intended and you end up with something like Highlander. It starts of as a cool movie about immortals having sword fights in back allies and ends up as some retarded alien, tree-hugger, psuedo-sci-fi mess. The Matrix was this whole mind bending, nothing-is-was-it-seems riddle with some amazing fight scenes thrown in. The Matrix Reloaded was … well … confusing, contrived crap. And don’t get me started on Back to the Future.

Anyway, back to the pirates. I had high hopes that this would be the “classical” trilogy and not the “Hollywood gets greedy” variety. But my hopes were dashed.

In PotC1, Depp plays the best pirate to ever grace the silver screen. Legolas (a.k.a. Orlando Bloom) plays the good-hearted hero who becomes a bad guy in order to do good things. And the other Natalie Portman (a.k.a. Keira Knightley) plays the spoiled rich girl who thinks pirates are cool until she’s kidnapped by some. The bad guys, led by Captain Barbossa (the second best pirate portrayal ever), are cursed and zombiefied. This makes all the fight scenes with them kind of pointless, but it the fights are so good I can forgive them for that. In the end, the bad pirate (redundant?) gets killed, the good pirate (oxymoronic?) gets away, and the good guy gets the girl. Top notch special effects. Top notch acting. Top notch action. Top notch movie! Four grins!!

In PotC2, things start to get a little weird. The good/bad guy, Edward Scissor-Hands, has a curse of his own. Mr. “Ends Justify the Means” is forced to do even worse things for an even worse bad guy but for even better reasons. And Not-Queen-Amidala gets all women’s lib having apparently burned her corset and learned to sword fight better than 95% of the pirates in the movie. Good guy goes to hell to save his dear papa from Mr. Icky Squid Face. The cool zombie bad guy crew is replaced with the creepy sushi bad guy crew that is still arguably undead. We’re stuck with the good guy’s good-guy status in question, the girl possibly falling for the good/bad guy, the good/bad guy eaten by a very ugly monster, and in the last 30 seconds of the movie, the old bad guy who died in the first movie is now somehow alive again and going to save the day. What the…?? Two grins for you!

Now it’s up to PotC3 to bail us out of this mess. The good elf is good again, even though he’s teamed up with the old dead bad guy who’s now alive and good… I think. With the help of Creepy Voodoo Lady, they all go sailing over the edge of the world (a la Erik the Viking, 1989) to rescue the good/bad guy from real hell (not the squid-face hell from the episode 2). Then there’s all these pirates from all over the world who make the Ms. Women’s Lib their Pirate President of the World. (I only wish I was making this up.) Mr. Icky Squid Face is back with his sushi crew but now he has a tender side (aww) and there’s some kind of love story going on with him and Creepy Voodoo Lady. A gazillion ships show up to sink the pirate fleet. (So that makes them the good guys, right? Wrong!) Then just before all hope is lost, someone flushes the ocean and there’s an epic tidy-bowl battle. *pant pant*

After the first two hours, you think (or hope) the movie is about to be over. The problem is it “ends” for another hour!! I would love to spoil the ending for you, but it was too confusing and unbelievable for me to retell. I think I’m just going to pretend that Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl is just one movie and the ugly rumors of a trilogy are just a bad dream.

Charlton Heston died Saturday. Reports say he died at home with his wife by his side. Cause of death is still undetermined, but he was suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Besides starring in some of the most iconic roles Hollywood has ever produced, Heston was an outspoken Christian and Republican (beginning in the 1980’s). He served as president of the NRA for five years where he made famous the phrase, “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands.”

Eric Meyer (web standards guru) posted to Twitter, “So I guess we can have Charlton Heston’s gun now” Crass, sure. Funny, absolutely!

Even though I’ve been really busy the last few … well … months, I have been watching a lot of movies thanks to NetFlix’s new policy on viewing movies via the web. (It’s virtually free!)

That said, I’m waaay behind on my movie reviews. So here goes.

Now I hope you’ll forgive me for the fact that most of what I’ve watched is older than I am. I’ve enjoyed catching up on the classics. By the way, if you haven’t read about my grin rating system, click to check it out.

Soylent Green
This one is the real thing. Good ol’ cold-war, post-apocalyptic, dystopian entertainment. And Charlton Heston to boot! This one is a must see, right up there with “Planet of the Apes” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.

And speaking of…

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Lacks the big name stars but more than makes up for it in importance. There’s something important about this movie. You can feel it when you watch it.

The Omega Man
I’m eager to see “I Am Legend”. When I heard it was a remake (imagine my un-surprise) of yet another Charlton Heston dystopian flick, I had to check it out! It’s no Soylent Green, but it’s worth watching.

Oh God!
I remember this movie from when I was just a kid. I remember thinking how funny it was to have God portrayed as a tiny, little, old man. As an adult, I still think it’s funny, just not “ha ha” funny. More like “how sad” funny.

Harvey
This quirky little show stars Hollywood’s quirkiest leading man in, most likely, his quirkiest role. Jimmy Stewart shows us that some of the most insane people in the world may actually have a better grasp on reality than most of the sane people that ever lived.

Fahrenheit 451
I dabbled in Ray Bradbury’s work (among others) in high school. I remember it gave me that important feeling you get when you think you “get it”. I’m sure thousands of people got that feeling from Bradbury and Orwell and Huxley and Emerson and Whitman and Thoreau. I’m just grateful that kept on going. I grew beyond non-conformity and transcendentalism and all that bull and learned that life is a lot easier to live when you live in reality. (Even if that requires a little bit of nuttiness a la the above mentioned Harvey.)

Being There
We watched this movie in Honors English class my senior year. (Yes, that’s about the same time I thought I “got it” mentioned above.) All I could remember was that it was really weird. I remember right. It’s entertaining, but only if you have as weird a sense of humor as I do. Think of it as the Nixon era’s “Napoleon Dynamite”.

Frankenstein
Yes, the Frankenstein. 1931. When the horror movie genre was just coming of age. What a great show. Sure it’s campy to our 21st century eyes, but if you look at it in its own era, this movie was brilliance defined.

Bride of Frankenstein
Then again, isn’t it funny that no sooner had horror movies been weened that they started making bad sequels? Ah well. Kids will be kids.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Well, if I’m going to go back to the father of the genre, I might as well check out the great-grand-father while I’m there. Not only is this a silent movie (from 1920) it’s a foreign silent movie (from germany). Now tell me I’m not all dripping with culture! I actually enjoyed this more than “Bride of Frankenstein”!!

Believe it or not there are more, but it’s getting late and this post is far too long. I’ll try not to wait so long before my next movie review post. I’ll try.

Last weekend Tammy and I made the drive to Amarillo. Much of the family was in town and it was good to do some catching up.

We all came to see “Willy Wonka Junior” performed by the Lamplight Youth Theatre on stage at Amarillo’s relatively new theater, the Globe News Center. (The venue is really cool; pretty classy for Amarillo.) But the real attraction was my nephew Caleb Spaw.

Caleb played Augustus Gloop. True, he was the first kid to be consumed by his bad behavior in Wonka’s homicidal factory, but it was still a big honor. He got the part primarily because he was able to pick up the German accent in a snap. Seems he shares some genes with his nutty uncle who also has a knack for accents. (I’m so proud!!)

Caleb sang several songs did a bit of dancing and, most importantly, never dropped his accent! (The girl playing Veruca Salt was only British for two or three of her lines. The rest was decidedly Texan.)

The show was very entertaining and the production was impressive for an all volunteer children’s theater.

In case you’re interested, the rest of the pictures I took can be downloaded in a zip file.