On Movies and Scripts

I've watched or finished watching several movies in the past several weeks and I've come to a couple of conclusions.

1. A good movie really depends on a good script.
2. When movies add or toss things to get a certain rating it really degrades the movie.

The movies I've seen or completed recently include

1. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
2. Transformers
3. Holes
4. G.I. Joe
5. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

One might expect G.I. Joe and Transformers to be similarly good or bad movies. Both a near future sci-fi action flicks that strain credulity, but whereas the script for Transformers was painfully bad, the script for G.I. Joe was surprisingly tight and well crafted. The action moved neatly, the humor was silly but enjoyable, the storyline was good and managed to both tie up the action neatly and set the stage for a sequel. Quite honestly it was probably the best movie in that genre I've seen in a long time.

Holes and On Her Majesty's Secret Service also illustrate the power of a good script. OHMSS was about as low on techno-gadgets and action as any Bond movie I've seen. (It is unique in many ways such as being the only one with George Lazenby, one of very few where Bond falls in love (gets married even) and in spite of the name, most of the action is renegade work done outside of official business.) But I thought the coherence and overall flow were great. (And I know everybody says Pussy Galore is the best Bond-girl, but Tracy Bond would drive all over her a--. I've found my favorite Bond Girl.)

Holes is one of the best triumphs of script and old fashioned good cinematography over spectacle. The movies weaves together about 4 improbable, almost silly and boring, stories into a single tapestry until they all tie together in the end. The peaks of action are digging holes, eating onions, and mending a leaking roof. But the whole is very delightful. (And unlike a spectacle movie it held up very well to the fact that I began watching it while substitute teaching nearly 18 months ago.)

The last thing I wanted to talk about was when they seem to be blindly seeking a rating. The Half-Blood Prince is one of my favorite Harry Potter books, and I think probably the most terrifying. By rights it probably should have become a PG-13 book. (I've always figured the books are targeted at Harry's age so this one should be for 16 year olds.) But they seemed to tone it down, possibly to maintain the PG rating. Dumbledore's terrors in the cave and his blood curdling "fear" near the end both came across much less intense than in the book, and the battle of Hogwarts was almost completely eliminated.

By contrast Transformers threw in a lot of pointless dirty humor and bad words for no aparent reason other than to get a PG-13 rating. Sure the blonde moved the story forward, but Mom on "minty" brownies spilling all of her son's private business was just crude.

Anyway, if you want my ratings of the movies

Holes was excellent and probably the strongest of them all. 4 1/2 stars.

GI Joe: Well above my expectations 4 stars

Half-Blood Prince: Very exciting, but like most of the Harry Potter films it is to the books as campbells chicken noodle soup is to chicken caserole. The flavor is similar but it really only hints at the notion that there are chicken and noodles there. From book 3 on the films haven't done the plots of the book justice. 3 stars

OHMSS: One of my favorite Bond films yet, but I tend to like that which is different. 3 1/2 stars.

Transformers: Well if you get to stare at Megan Fox and watch giant robots fight, how bad can it really be. (Because that is exactly how bad this is.) 1 1/2 stars.

Fishing With Perry

I doubt it will surprise anyone reading this, but I am not an accomplished fisherman. I'm sure I can count all the fish I've caught in my life on two hands. So many years ago when Perry first asked me to take him fishing we didn't have much luck. In fact after about 5 tries I was starting to wonder if I would ever get him to catch a fish. And at scout camp he finished every part of his fishing merit badge except catching the fish. So I decided it was time to take him to a commercial fishing pond. (You know the ones that are so stocked they guarantee fish.) This little pond was just teaming with Catfish and it wasn't more than 15 minutes before he had one hooked and in the net.


Here you can see him showing off his catch. Looks pretty good doesn't it.

Here he is cleaning the fish. I only knew how to clean trout which is very different than filleting catfish, but the man who ran the pond was very gracious and helped Perry do this part too.

Finally we brought it home to cook it up. I'd never had catfish (the whiskers on the live fish just freaked me out), but I looked up a simple fried catfish recipe and it was fairly easy to fry up. In spite of both of us feeling a bit squeamish at first, it was delicious and made a fine meal for the day the girls were out on their mother daughter camp out. So I'd say the trip was successful.

(We do actually need to catch and release a fish still, but I think I've learned enough about how to catch bluefin at El Dorado park that we should be successful at that.)

Renewing an Old Hobby

Me with my new belt and cell phone holder.

When I was a fairly young boy scout I got a leatherworking kit from my parents. I earned my leatherwork merit badge and took a particular liking to the craft. As a result for years afterward I listed "leatherwork" as one of my hobbies. The problem was that it was a "hobby" that I would often let slide for years at a time. I doubt I did much with the stamps from around the time I turned 16 until I returned from my mission. Then I only made a wallet for my dad because the last one I had made him was too beaten up to use. I think I made one for myself around that time too. Finally I made a clutch purse for Rachel (my first wife) while we were dating this was my masterpiece and between then and this week (nearly 14 years) I had barely touched my tools. I did keep them in the garage and I did help Perry make one project to work on his leatherwork badge. I even dug out the wallet I had made as a scout (the one I'd made myself later was finally wearing out).

So finally this week I decided to take some of my birthday money and get back into leatherwork. The local Tandy Leathercraft store was kind enough to give me wholesale price both for it being my birthday and Perry being a scout. I bought a cell phone case (my cell phone always gets beat up in my pocket with my keys), a belt blank, a belt pattern, and a buckle.

Here is the belt blank after the pattern has been traced and cut in but none of the tooling has been done.

This is what it looks like after it has been tooled extensively. Notice how the leaf really seems to come alive. I think that is my favorite part of leatherwork, watching the picture come alive in low relief.

These two show the belt and the cell phone case after they have been stained. The stain darkens all of the leather, but mostly it raises the contrast on the tooling and makes the pattern come out even more.