The Peanuts Movie

There's no new ground broken in The Peanuts Movie.  Ordinarily, that's a criticism, but for me (and I would imagine most Peanuts fans), it was completely welcome.  I knew going in what I was going to see:  a kid who feels that he can't get anything right and has that feeling confirmed over and over again.   Kites won't leave the ground when Charlie tries to fly them.  Baseballs that he throws are hit back at him so hard that his clothes wind up scattered around the mound.  Charlie can't even pick out a normal Christmas tree without fouling it up.

Charlie's problems continue in The Peanuts Movie, and chief among them is shyness.  The little red-haired girl (she's still not given a name) moves in across the street and is in Charlie's class, but he can't work up the nerve to spit out a syllable in her direction.  How will he get her attention?  The film builds to that by the end, and in between Snoopy has some airborne adventures trying to rescue his love Fifi from the red baron.

It's really refreshing to see something like Peanuts brought back and not be messed with.  I was nervous heading in to see what might change, but really, the style and message of Peanuts is not altered at all.  The voices sound really similar to the Christmas special, and it was good to see that Peanuts was not really modernized (Charlie Brown's still using that blasted fountain pen, Snoopy's still plucking away at his typewriter).  I had a pretty goofy grin going during The Peanuts Movie.  For once, something I loved didn't change, and that was just fine with me.

Books: Ready Player One (Ernest Cline)

I ripped through Ready Player One quickly on my Nook.  It's a fast read, but the premise is also fascinating.  Set about 50 years from now in a dystopian USA, Wade Wells escapes from his grim reality by plugging into the OASIS, which is basically the ultimate virtual reality experience.  Users can go to custom-created worlds and their avatars don't have to resemble them whatsoever. 

The creator of OASIS, James Halliday, created an Easter Egg hunt in the Oasis.  Trouble is, he made it so difficult that no one is able to get anywhere for long stretches of time.  Wade's mission is to be the first to complete the hunt, since the winner gets a cash prize beyond their wildest dreams.  An evil corporation is complicating things, however, by trying to game the system by hiring Halliday nerds and find the egg, which Wade fears will mean the end of OASIS as he and the world know it.

Ready Player One is set to be adapted as a film in 2017 by Steven Spielberg, and I'll be really curious as to how much of the book is kept.  While it's a quick read, I can imagine the film bogging down a bit in the details of the quest.  I did love the format, though.  I was never all that talented at role playing video games and lacked the patience to play them, but Cline's very visual style captured my imagination throughout.  As good science fiction will do, the book also provokes thought about the future while entertaining. 

 

On The Trail

Hart Park, 6 AM
Can see my breath but short sleeving it
Go ahead black cat cross my path
Rather you than the train

Calves start tight
Hit the first bridge
Smell the breakfast food from the village

Others out here too
Runners, walkers, strollers, workers
Enjoying morning peace

Legs are pumping now
Music in my earbuds
Looping around the pool and Landing
Imagining it on a busy day


Got to keep the breathing steady
Legs are only part
Lungs are at the heart

Downhill a little
Let the legs relax
Pick up the pace on the homestretch

Passing tennis courts, baseball fields
Maybe a couple loops on the running track
I've got a burst now
Looking forward now, not back





 

Catching Up

Quick takes on things seen recently...


While We're Young:

A film about what happens when people try to act younger then they are.  Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play Josh and Cornelia.  After the couple they normally hang out with has a baby, Josh and Cornelia begin hanging out with a couple in their twenties.  I didn't find While We're Young entertaining at all.  The film tries to comment on life in the present moment but comes off kind of preachy and pretentious.  The film is best when it stays with the theme of "40s vs 20s", as opposed to a subplot that questions what a documentary should be.  Either way, this one was just so-so for me (although Sarah liked it a bit more than I did).

Furious 7:

I don't think I have to go into the story too much.  This film was just a blast to watch.  The stunts were pretty amazing (cars...dropping from a plane!), and I think an action movie needs a good villain, which Furious 7 has.  The tribute to Paul Walker was touching.  We saw it on a regular screen, and I can only imagine how great it would be in IMAX form.

A Coffee In Berlin (Netflix):
(In German w/subtitles)

This one was recommended by my brother.  Filmed in black and white, it's a story about a guy who can't seem to get things right.  His girlfriend breaks up with him, loses his license because of a DUI (and the agent hearing his reinstatement case is in no mood to give it back), is pretty much broke, and to top it all off,  he can't seem to get a cup of coffee.  The film has a wry sense of humor and I enjoyed it quite a bit.







 

Whiplash and Top Movies So Far

 

In Whiplash, Miles Teller plays Andrew, a young drummer attending the prestigious Shaffer music school.  Teller has a love for drumming and knows he has to practice hard to stay ahead of the competition.  He's interrupted one day during a practice session by Terrance Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the leader of the JVC Studio Band, and this begins a very volatile relationship between the two.

Fletcher initially tries to learn a little bit about Andrew, which leads Andrew to believe Fletcher's not so bad.  Andrew soon finds outthat Fletcher's way of bringing out excellence is to bully his students into fearing him.  He berates them and doesn't stop at verbal abuse, as he throws things at various members and at one point slaps Andrew, who's not "on Fletcher's tempo".  I watched the film with a pretty full theater and heard the gasps as Fletcher's antics escalate.  I was surprised that no one walked out, but I think at this stage everyone knew what they were getting into. 


I also think that in many ways, Whiplash is the antithesis of Dead Poets Society.  In Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams plays John Keating, who is brought in to take over a literature class.  He quickly dispenses with the conventional way of teaching literature and seeks to get the best out of students by making them see other points of view.  His method is to make the literature come alive and make students see that they can succeed and love the subject matter.

J.K. Simmons plays Terrance Fletcher, a man from whom Keating would probably run screaming.  There's little reverence on Fletcher's part for the music being played; it's all material to be memorized and performed as precisely as possible.  The drums are a cog in the machine, and playing them requires endurance and practice (oh, and plenty of Band-Aids). 

DPS revolves around the magic that Keating creates in dissecting literature.  Whiplash is very physical and punishing.  Even when practicing, Andrew looks like he's at war with his drum kit.  Blood is spilled from wounds opened, and being in Fletcher's group is a test of endurance.  There are a lot of stare-offs between Andrew and Fletcher, and Teller's eyes do a lot of work in the film, both when he's battling the drums and when dealing with Fletcher. 

I didn't leave the theater uplifted as I did with Dead Poets Society, and that's really not a spoiler.   Whiplash is all about the limits one can withstand mentally and emotionally, and it tests the audience just as much as some of the characters are tested.


Movie Standings So Far*

1.   American Sniper

2.   Whiplash

3.   Top Five- Chris Rock's latest comedy.  Word to the wise- this is a hard R rated movie, which I wasn't aware of going in.

4.  22 Jump Street: Really enjoyed Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum.  They even made the obligatory sequel jokes pretty clever.

5.  Fargo:  I bought the first season of the TV show and thought I should watch the movie first.  It was good enough,  although by the end the whole accent thing seemed a little overdone.

6.  Guardians Of The Galaxy:  Wished I had seen it on the big screen.  We don't have a small screen, but some of the visuals seemed a little cheesy.  Still a fun adventure, though.

7.  Alive Inside:  Documentary on how music can bring those with dementia to life by stimulating memories.  The filmmaker programs personalized iPods for residents of memory care communities, and seeing those afflicted light up was a joy.  Working in the senior living industry, I didn't feel that I learned a whole lot, but I'm glad the film's out there.

8.  Love Is Strange:  Alfred Molina and John Lithgow play George and Ben.  After nearly 40 years of being together, they're finally able to marry.  After they do, George is fired by the church that employs him.  They have to sell their apartment, and in the meantime, George lives with two cops who love to party, and Ben moves in with family.  As much as I like Molina and Lithgow, they're not together enough (which I suppose is the point), and the other people in this movie are insufferable.  Kind of a let down for me, as I'd heard good things about the film.

9.  Zodiac: 2007 film about the hunt for San Francisco's Zodiac killer.  Very deliberately paced movie in which Jake Gyllenhaal's cartoonist character looks crazy to others quite a few times.


*Only films that I saw for the first time are listed.

 

YouTube Playlist- 1/26/15

Notes on the playlist:



Back In Your Arms Again:  The first track from The Mavericks' In Time.  Sarah and I are excited to see The Mavericks when they come to town in April!



She Treats Me Well:  I'm kind of obsessed with this Ben Howard song right now.  Love the mood that the vocals and guitar sets.



Behind The Lines: It was Phil Collins' birthday last Friday.  I think I like more of his deep cuts than his hits, and this one was actually a redone Genesis tune.



Destination:  One of my absolute favorite songs from last year and a highlight at Nickel Creek's show at the Riverside.  Sara Watkins really stood out during the show.


Trapped Under The Ice:  Cadillac Sky opened for Mumford and Sons at The Riverside theater in 2010 and really rocked the place.  Sad to say they're not around anymore, but they left behind some great songs.

Serial, Scribe, American Sniper

I finished the podcast Serial this week and didn't really see what the fuss was about. Serial was a production of the popular radio show This American Life. In it, reporter Sarah Koenig and her team examined the murder case of Adnan Syed, a high-schooler whose ex-girlfriend was murdered. Adnan was convicted and is in prison, but Koenig is determined to find out if he was wrongly convicted. The first few episodes were pretty interesting, but about midway through the series I started getting a bit bored. Funny thing, too, as that sometimes happens when I listened to This American Life.

 

 

Bob Ryan was a heralded sportswriter for the Boston Globe, and last year he released a memoir called Scribe. It's an interesting look at Boston and national sports. I especially enjoyed his account of the Dream Team taking on the world in the 1992 Summer Olympics. Turns out the idea to send pro basketball players wasn't an American plan, but was done to show the rest of the world that international basketball might be played at a higher level if NBA players were involved. In the years following, the international competition improved to the point that a gold medal wasn't a given for the USA. Ryan sounds a little too full of himself a few times, but I'd rather have that than bland storytelling.
 

I still have three Oscar-Nominated films to see, but so far my favorite is American Sniper. The film is about Chris Kyle, a Navy Seal sniper who does several tours in Iraq and in doing so seemingly loses his former self to the war. The film shows him being increasingly obsessed with the war, to the detriment of his family. I thought Bradley Cooper was absolutely excellent in the lead role, going from free-spirited cowboy to family man to sniper. The battle scenes are incredibly tense, and I thought the film did an excellent job of showing how it might be terribly difficult to go back to daily life after serving. 

After writing this, I heard discussion about what was different between book and movie, as there were incidents in the book that were left out of the movie.  This really doesn't detract from the movie for me.  When I walked out, I felt that this was the most important of the Oscar nominees that I'd seen so far (I still have to see Selma and The Imitation Game), because I think any reminder of the costs of voluntarily serving the country is a good thing.  My only real quibble with the film is that I would have liked to see more of what it took for Kyle to re-acclimate to civilian life, as it seems to happen kind of abruptly. 

YouTube Song Mix Week of 1/12

       

Notes on the song mix:

                
Stranger:  From The New Basement Tapes album, featuring Marcus Mumford on vocals.



Hold You In My Arms:  I listened to this last Tuesday (the 13th), our four month wedding anniversary.  I can still hear this echoing in the Historical Society whenever I listen to it!


Small Things:  From Ben Howard's album I Forget Where We Were.  I love Howard's guitar work and the mood it sets.

Burning Down The House:  This video freaked me out as a kid.  Between the images of fire and David Byrne's head superimposed on a freeway, I didn't like watching this video or even hearing the song.  Now the song is one of my favorites, and the video's just goofy.
                            

Songs Of The Week- 1/5/15

A few notes:

• This is a mix of songs that I listened to throughout the week.  Could've been on break at work, while eating breakfast, or while working out.  They're kind of a record for me of the week that was.

• I heard "Use Me" on the radio on a station with a new format and didn't know anything by Bill Withers other than "Lean On Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine".  I couldn't get the hook out of my head all week.

• "The Eye" is the first single off Brandi Carlile's upcoming album The Firewatcher's Daughter.  I'm really looking forward to that in March and hope she comes to Milwaukee this year.

• "Amsterdam Moon" is from the Mavericks' excellent album In Time, which Sarah and I take on road trips because it's a fun listen and a good mix of styles.

• "Electric Feel" is great to listen to when I need a jolt of energy and reminds me of my brother, who introduced me to the song and requested it at our wedding.

A few other things from the past week:

I'd heard that Paul McCartney had written a song for a video game.  When I heard the title, I hoped it wasn't cheesy and overdone.  I hoped wrong.

Trampled By Turtles played New Years Eve in Milwaukee, so I thought I'd give their 2014 release Wild Animals a listen.  The pace is pretty sluggish, and while at first lead singer Dave Simonett's voice reminded me of David Gilmour, in the end I tired of hearing his voice, as it had the same weary tone throughout.

I was really pleasantly surprised by The New Basement Tapes' Lost On The River.  It's a set of songs with lyrics by Bob Dylan but performed by a group with Elvis Costello, Marcus Mumford, Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Taylor Goldsmith and Rhiannon Giddens.  I liked pretty much everything except the Elvis Costello tracks.  It was especially good to hear Mumford in a different light, as Mumford and Sons has such a specific sound, and James has some great moments as well (like the just plain odd "Hidee Hidee Ho #11).  Giddens provides some stunning vocals on Spanish Mary (on this week's mix) and a couple other songs.

Best Songs- 2014