Movie Night!

While hanging out with my friends Jared and Beth several weeks ago we hit on the great idea of having themed movie nights where we can force people to watch painful (and not so painful) movies from our past. Okay, the goal wasn't really to force people to watch bad movies but to see what movies people would bring when given a theme. The first theme we discussed was Natural Disasters. Beth piped up with Twister, and I put in with Dante's Peak. Then it became a game to see what bad natural disaster movies we could think of (I won't regale you with the list). Other themes discussed were Guilty Childhood Pleasures, Animal Movies, Space. The list went on; I can't remember them all.

I have a tendency to think big ideas, but to never let them come to fruition. For example, my sidewalk board game day. That one hasn't happened yet. However, I was motivated on this one and on the 16th of August Beth, Jared, Trian and I decided that movie night should move forward. Our first challenge was selecting a theme. We let fate play her hand. After creating a long list of themes we rolled a 10-sided dice (d10) and fate revealed our theme.
Theme: Actor/Actress

Bugger it all. That was less than helpful. Which actor/actress? Back to the drawing board. Selecting an actor wasn't difficult, but it did include some challenges. First, you need an actor who has been prolific. This allows for a large selection of films. Second, the actor needs to have done a variety of films. Some people might debate this criteria, but I think it adds to the excitement of the night if you don't know whether you're going to get a drama, an action, a comedy, or something else entirely. Third, we had to be able to agree that we could work with that actor as a theme. Who would you name?

Our list included Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Christopher Walken, and a short list of others. I don't remember all of them. I've lost the list. Another roll of the dice and the theme was...

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN!

Take a moment and think about what you would bring to a Christopher Walken movie fest.

Done? Good.

As part of our movie night we also attempted to guess what the other members of the party would bring. Here's my list:

Trina: "Stepford Wives" or "Wayne's World 2"
Jared: "Wedding Crashers" or "Balls of Fury"
Beth: "Kangaroo Jack" or "Catch Me if You Can"

Here's how it actually broke down:

Me: "Batman Returns." I also brought "A View to a Kill" as a backup.
Trina: "Wayne's World 2"
Jared: "Balls of Fury"
Beth: "Seven Psychopaths"

We only allowed ourselves time for two movies. Both couples have children who get grumpier the later they stay up. And I get grumpier the later I stay up. So, instead of voting on the movie to watch we returned to the power of fate. Fate this time equaled small children. We put the movies in a bag and let the kids draw them out. The first movie was "Wayne's World 2" (I had been about to abbreviate it as WW2, but that doesn't work out well). The second was Batman Returns.

Attention and interest declined during the second movie, but there was a lot more interaction and commentary. It caused a lot of reflection about younger years, differences in the Batman depictions. For example, who was the best Batman. And separately, who was the best Bruce Wayne? Honestly, Christian Bale did a good Batman, but I don't think he did a great Bruce Wayne.

We also discovered via this conversation that Adam West was not the first screen Batman. That honor goes to Lewis Wilson (1943) and then Robert Lowery (1949) before we get to Adam West in 1966.

One of the best parts of the evenings, besides the conversation, was the food. I like to cook when I have friends over. I made pretzels and mustard, my wife made chocolate ice cream; we hauled out our collection of homemade crackers. Jared and Beth brought a bag of butter flavored packing peanuts. (No joke, worst part of the evening right there. Gross).

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I won't. It was a delightful evening and something I look forward to doing again in the future. If you have a great idea for a movie night theme, please comment!

What am I Blogging About?...and Apocalypse Now

When I originally created this blog I intended to talk about my writing projects; I named it Raven's Writings (I have a penchant for ravens). However, it never worked out well. I would blog about my current projects for a short time, but then writing flagged and so did the blog. Besides, in a given week I might only add a scant 4,000 words. That is insufficient to blog about. Predictably updates became fewer and farther between until the blog was forgotten. I attempted to revive it on a couple of occasions to the same disastrous results. This leads me to an uncomfortable question: Can I feasibly devote an entire blog to just writing?

No, no I can't. Not yet.

But if I'm not going to focus on writing, what am I going to focus on? The answer is obvious: nothing. I won't focus on anything, but I will talk about everything. Writing is one-dimension of my life and, to be honest, a small one. I am also a gamer, a martial artist, a teacher, a father, a husband, an entertainer, a dreamer, a cynic. I am many things and the blog should encompass all of them. That should give me plenty to blog about each week.

A few years ago I was in the habitat of sending out lengthy e-mails to my family and a few select friends. These e-mails, two or three times each year, summarized current developments in the several aspects of my life. Time has gone by and those e-mails have stopped, but the premise behind them is still good. This blog will replace those e-mails. However, instead of sending them out to the people who I think will want to hear about them I will just place them so that they are available for anyone who wants to look at them. Consequently, I've renamed the blog "Brendan's Blog" until I can think of something that captures my personality without sounding too pretentious. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

Still, writing will be a major focus of the blog and I've created several static pages that will be updated much more slowly than the weekly posts. They reflect my WIP and include histories, summaries, progress, goals, and an excerpt. I'll add static pages for non-writing material as I find the need. Also, I hope to create a menu bar that will link you to posts sorted by subject. Even so, I am fairly excited about the current look of the blog. It feels more functional than the old blog and it looks modern. The original blog seemed to herald from the days when everyone was making websites on Angelfire and similar sites (I did that too!). Keep an eye out for future changes to improve functionality.

So what can you exactly expect on this blog?

• Health updates.  What am I doing to stay in shape? Is it working?  
• Karate.  What kata have I learned? Did I pass my kyu test? Pictures of injuries I've given/received.
• Gaming.  How is preparations going for next season? What happened in the most recent gaming session? What new board game do I love/hate?
• Improv.  Am I still doing it?  Is Haphazard getting back together or coming together with an all new crew? Do I have any new characters I am working on?
• Food. Have I created a crazy recipe (I have a few in mind)?  What have I barbecued recently?
• School.  Funny moments in class that I can safely share. Insights on teaching. Memorable moments from student papers. 
• Movies. I enjoy nitpicking them, thinking about them, etc. See thoughts on current movies, classic movies, and whatever I happened to stumble upon via Netflix. 
• Stuff.  You know, just stuff.  Those things that you want to put on Facebook, but the idea is too long and you don't really want to ramble on. That kind of stuff. I think a lot of stuff.

Don't worry. I know not everything is for everyone and I will be using labels to make it easy for you to find just the material you are looking for.  Oh, and if you're bored already don't worry about it. Posts will get better.

Apocalypse Now I often spend long hours at my desk. Much of this time is spent grading student papers, answering e-mails, keeping up-to-date, etc. However, I generally take a break during lunch to eat without worrying about work. I often watch a movie during this time. It's a good way to relax between class sessions. The college has a small movie collection that I've been sampling from, but this weekend I decided to start sampling in a more organized fashion. My goal: watch all the fiction movies the library owns. Given that they generally add two or three each month this will be a long, long, long term goal. I started this weekend with the A's. Technically, numbers come first but they only had "12 Angry Men" in that category and I've seen it. So instead, I started with "Apocalypse Now".

The best part for me was finally understanding what Apocalypse Now was about. I have a tendency to maintain a willful ignorance on a lot of subjects. One of these areas is the subject matter of movies and books. I am often acquainted with the title without a real understanding about the plot. Apocalypse Now was one of these. It also opened my eyes to how little I know about the Vietnam War and makes me interested to find out more. War movies are not my typical fare, but I enjoyed Apocalypse Now.

Added bonus: I will now understand things that allude to, parody, etc., this movie.