Movie Reviews: John Wick Chapter 2

John Wick Chapter 2
directed by Chad Stahelski
Rinse, Wash, Repeat. 

There is a line in Tolkien's Silmarillion in which Feanor, among the greatest and most tragic of the elven heroes, insults Melkor, the Big Bad (Satan analogue) of Tolkien's Universe. Then hate overcame Feanor's fear, and he cursed Melkor and bade him be gone, saying "Get thee gone from my gate, thou jail-crow of Mandos!" And he shut the doors of his house in the face of the mightiest of all the dwellers in Arda. Insulting the Devil to his face isn't really a wise thing to do. Feanor finds this out the hard way though since he is a total jerk it's unclear as to whether he really learned anything even when he died. The point is that when you insult or attack people whose capacities and capabilities you do not know, you might discover there are some people you really should have left the f*** alone. That truism made the first John Wick movie an entertaining spectacle. The title character, an extremely skilled and feared retired assassin, was processing his wife's death when an idiot made the mistake of stealing his car and killing his dog.

The running joke throughout the film was that everyone was incredulous that anyone would willingly get on John Wick's bad side. As one criminal said we aren't scared of him because he's the Boogeyman. We're scared of him because that's who we send to kill the Boogeyman! We saw in great detail why upsetting John Wick was a very bad idea. Reeves is to say the least, a minimalist actor, so the role of a quiet man struggling with grief and anger in equal measure was almost tailor made for him. 

Ypsilanti Turkey Memorial

There was a local wild turkey that became a bit of a celebrity. This turkey, for reasons that shall forever be unknown, decided to hang around a busy intersection and hassle drivers, pedestrians and cyclists. This went on for quite some time. Animal control personnel attempted to remove the turkey but failed. Perhaps they didn't try hard enough. The turkey got so comfortable with people and cars that it actually started walking in traffic, causing slowdowns and delays. Lots of people thought this was cute. They uploaded videos, started Facebook groups, and twitter accounts. Well the reason that we attempt to keep animals and children away from traffic is that they are often too stupid to recognize the danger that massive swiftly moving hunks of metal pose to living creatures. The turkey was no different. It was recently hit by a car and later euthanized.

People had a memorial ceremony for the turkey.

Jimmy Fallon and Celine Dion Do Musical Impressions

I don't watch a lot of television. And I'm not really a Fallon or Dion fan. So even though this was an old bit it was new to me when I ran across it on Facebook a few weeks back. I thought it was funny enough. It's amusing to see how professional singers interpret other professionals' signature cadences and moves. I don't follow Cher or Rihanna but it seems to me that Dion did a passable imitation of them both.

Justine Damond Shooting

One of the most predictable occurrences in life is that many people simply do not understand or empathize with certain situations until it happens to them. People who privately sneer at "checkerboard" babies may change their tune when their child marries someone of a different race and they receive mixed grandchildren. People who make gay jokes often stop when their brother or sister comes out to them over Thanksgiving dinner. And people who support lifetime limits on insurance or medical settlements start singing a different tune when a drunk driver leaves them either paralyzed or in unending pain for the rest of their life, but the insurance company only provides a piddling payout that will be spent in less than a year. When people who look a certain way have problems with heroin or prescription pill addiction the media depicts them as sympathetic fellow citizens who need help and understanding. They certainly aren't subhuman inner city junkies who need to be locked up en masse. This is unfortunately the way that some people are built. Many of us can't empathize with those in pain unless those people look like us or are us. The latest example of this is taking place in the media reactions to the Justine Damond shooting. Justine Damond was a Caucasian Australian woman who called the Minneapolis Police Department to report what she thought was a possible sexual assault in the area.

As Damond was either talking to or approaching the police, possibly leaning through the driver's window or close to the driver's window, the passenger in the police car, Officer Mohammad Noor, a Somali-American, shot her through the driver's door, killing her. Supposedly both police officers had their body cameras off, which was against policy. More information is coming out on Noor and some previous complaints about him or issues that he has.

Republicans Fail to Repeal or Replace ObamaCare

The Republicans control the House, the Senate and the Presidency. Democrats can use procedural tricks,Senate tradition and appeals to the judiciary branch to slow down portions of the Republican agenda, but by and large Democrats can't stop anything that Republicans are bound and determined to get. The PPACA was passed without any Republican votes. Republicans swore that once they had the power to repeal it the PPACA or ObamaCare was dead meat. During the Obama Administration, the Republicans voted time and time and time again to kill ObamaCare. Some said they would replace it with something better but just about all of them agreed that ObamaCare had to go. Like yesterday if not before. But a funny thing happened over the years that ObamaCare was the law. A noticeable portion of the Republican constituency found that even as they hated ObamaCare and of course Obama, they loved the PPACA. Many of these people were so stupid that they didn't realize that the PPACA and ObamaCare were the same thing. 

Once Trump won the White House and had Republican majorities in the House and Senate ObamaCare should have been easy to repeal. But we saw this week that when it really came down to it Republicans, at least in the Senate, were people who, as James Brown might have said, just liked talking loud while saying nothing.  At this time the Senate could not bring itself to modify the PPACA or to remove it.

Movie Reviews: Austin Found, Incarnate

Austin Found
directed by Will Raee

This movie is being marketed as a comedy. Well it has comedic elements but it's really not slapstick or anything that would make you constantly laugh out loud. It's more of a satire/slice of life story. It's uneven to say the least but the ending which I obviously won't discuss made the film worthwhile as far as I was concerned. At just over an hour and a half this film doesn't overstay its welcome. This movie works the same side of the street as such films as Fargo, To Die For, Little Miss Sunshine, and Living Dolls. We all have an internal self-image. 
Whether we want to or not we often measure that internal portrait against the reality of who we are and where we are in life. I'm not just talking about money or material success although that is the most obvious metric which comes first to most people's minds. Health, fame, power, status, intimate and familial relationships, and many other things are also important to most people.

Austin, Texas hair stylist Leanne (Linda Cardellini) is a woman who doesn't like where she is in life. Leanne is a former high school cheerleader and beauty queen/prom queen who's now in her late thirties. Leanne often dresses as if she is much younger and still single. She married for money but her decent computer sales husband Don (Jon Daly) won't inherit what Leanne thought he was going to inherit. In fact because of career downturns Don isn't earning the big bucks that he used to bring home. At all. Money is tight. Bank accounts are low. Credit cards are maxed out. Frustrated by this reality Leanne is channeling all of her ambition into her and Don's eleven-year old daughter Patty (Ursula Parker) by forcing  Patty's participation in various talent shows and beauty contests as well as the required or suggested prep classes for those activities. 

Book Reviews: Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor-a visual history commemorating the date that will live in infamy
by Randy Roberts and David Welky

On December 7th, 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. Japan destroyed the best part of the US fleet, the battleships and killed over 2000 US military personnel. It was an almost perfectly executed surprise attack. The Japanese military then went on a rampaging offensive against US and European colonial territories throughout the Pacific, curbstomping Dutch, Brits, Americans, and anyone else who got in its way. The Japanese military simultaneously put an end to the idea of Caucasian military invincibility while creating its own shameful reputation for brutality, criminality and rape. The Allies were reeling from the Japanese blows. The strains faced by the Allies in the Pacific theater would hasten post-war decolonization. It was difficult to talk of European superiority when an Asian power long thought to be second rate had so thoroughly demolished European armies and navies. 

That said, though in attacking the US, Japan showed that it had literally gotten too big for its britches. There's a saying that "You [mess] with the bull, you get the horns". There was tremendous anger in the US establishment and populace about the sneak attack. Ultimately Japan had to learn the hard way that it was no match for the US when it came to a fight. The late comedian Richard Pryor had a bit where he opined that that the Japanese elite were only familiar with Americans from laid back California, snooty Harvard or officious Washington D.C. Pryor said that if the Japanese only knew people like that then yes maybe it made sense that the Japanese would think they could beat them. Pryor said that the Japanese hadn't been to places like Texas, Alabama or Mississippi where there were white folks so dangerous that people had to keep them on leashes. Once those folks got into the game it was lights out for the Japanese.