Sanctum Movie Review

Let me make this clear. I hate 3D. Since the idea started to come back I have only seen two movies that were actually worth seeing in 3D. Those two are Avatar and Tron: Legacy. Both were designed and built for the specific use of 3D. Sanctum is very similar. It was shot using the same technology that James Cameron used while making Avatar. It also doesn't take advantage of it's 3D to shower us with cheap parlor tricks like a tongue shooting out into the audience. In Sanctum, it is used as a way to show us depth and perspective. There were a couple of moments I even started to get a little dizzy. To be clear, that's a good thing. At times, I felt as though I was in the cave with them.

Now the big question. Is it any good? There were definitely moments where I was sitting on the edge of my seat and my heart was racing. There were also moments where I found myself confused because of a continuity error. A complaint I heard from a few people at the screening was that the characters weren't really developed much. That's true. There is a woman that comes across as the ditzy girlfriend of the man who is paying for the operation. Despite her apparent ignorance she shows some serious knowledge of climbing and exploring. So which is she? The dumb girlfriend or an actual asset to the operation? One of the explorers is forced to dive when the cave begins to flood even though he has apparently retired from diving. This seems like a shock to the characters but they never explained to us why he retired. With the characters I had a constant feeling like I missed something.

Overall I think it's a pretty exciting film. The basic premise is that a group of explorers get trapped deep inside of a cave during a tsunami. The rain from the storm begins to flood the cave leaving them one option. Strap on the diving gear and boldly go where no other human has ever gone before. The group chooses to travel into unexplored territory and try to find where the water reaches the ocean. They have absolutely no idea how long that will take but they have their fingers crossed as they continue to trek into the abyss.

Knowing that the film is loosely based on a true story made me much more interested in it (although I did read that it is very very loosely based on the real story). In fact, the screenwriter is the person who lived through the actual events. I enjoyed it but it definitely wasn't a perfect movie. I also think the 3D was well done and actually adds to the experience unlike nearly every other 3D movie out there. If you have any interest in seeing this movie, it is absolutely worth seeing it in a theater. It won't be nearly as cool on your TV at home when it comes out on DVD.

Maybe now isn't the time

I was just reading a report from Egypt about the reporters who were attacked today during the demonstrations. The general assumption is that President Mubarak is behind the attacks and that he may have paid his supporters to stop the international media. It certainly could be true. Anderson Cooper said that he was attacked by pro Mubarak demonstrators in Cairo's main square today. Were they paid or unleashed by Mubarak himself? I don't know about that.

Where is the benefit of having his supporters attack the media? Maybe it will stop them from their reports in that moment but it will only make them martyrs of the struggle. The international community will end up with an even more negative view of the Mubarak empire. I doubt he sent them out on a mission himself. Angry citizens don't need a leader to put any more fuel on the fire.

Sure, the media hasn't been kind to Mubarak but that's because the big story is about the people. It's not about him. That's not to say that it's a media bias issue. The media operates like every other business in the world. It's all about the money. Bigger ratings equal bigger advertising revenues. No one is going to watch a news report in support of Mubarak but they are coming to CNN in droves to see coverage of the protests.

Don't take that the wrong way. I'm in no way defending the Egyptian president, however, I don't know anything about him and I don't think it's appropriate for me to judge him. I feel that everyone else in the world should have the same stance. It's easy to judge because the masses are against him but do we, as non Egyptians, really know what's going on in the country? No. We don't.

The people of Egypt are making sure that their voices are heard. I commend them and think it's one of the most incredible moments of my life. To think that a group of people have the power to speak up and virtually overthrow their government is absolutely incredible. You will never see that happen in the United States.

I don't agree with the attacks on members of the press but I also understand it. These people don't want us involved. This is their moment. Not ours. Maybe it's best to get a couple of good camera shots from the crowd then step back and watch from a distance.

The Future Is Here

About 13 years ago a game was invented for Nintendo 64 called "1080 Snowboarding." At the time the Winter X Games were only a couple of years old and snowboarding was just hitting the mainstream. The 1080, or 3 full spins, was an unheard of trick. The 900 was the big deal at the time. In fact, I'm watching the Winter X Games right now and the announcers just said that they think one of the female half pipe competitors has a 1080 in her bag of tricks. It appears as though the trick is still a myth in the female world.

Who would have thought at the time that just a few short years later we'd be talking about people turning 1620's (4 1/2 spins) during big air competitions. To my knowledge no snowboarder has hit the 1620 realm but I've been watching skiers do it all night long. The evolution of this sport blows my mind. I've been snowboarding since I was 15 years old. For the record, that means I've been snowboarding for 15 years. For half of my life I've spent a good amount of my weekends on the mountain. Even after all of those years I still don't do tricks. I'll hop over a jump from time to time but that's about as far as I go. I can't even fathom getting enough speed and hitting a jump at the right angle in order to launch myself into the air and spin more than 3 times. It's absolute insanity.

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that still don't consider these people to be athletes. Those people need to check their egos at the door and get over it. If we call race car drivers, golfers and poker players athletes, these skiers and snowboarders are clearly at a higher level. Jimmie Johnson may be able to win 5 Nascar championships in a row but I'd like to see him strap a slab of wood on his feet and launch his body into the air. It's a lot different than sitting on his butt in a car for a few hours while driving in a circle. Sorry. It's not a circle, it's an oval.

Is social media dying?

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to blog every single day. I was pretty good about it for a while, but clearly I've slacked a bit. Truth is, I have been having internet problems at home. For some reason I can't seem to get my service to work. Thankfully I have a neighbor that doesn't use a password to protect their signal and I can steal theirs.

I work in the media and I have a lot of friends that work in the same, or similar, fields. They hold positions in TV, radio, PR and Marketing. All of these require a lot of work on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. I've always been a firm believer that those above my head put way too much emphasis on them. I think they overestimate how many people actually use them for information. A few of my friends and I got to talking the other night about these sites. Our final summation is that Facebook has hit its peak and isn't getting any higher.

I look to people like my brother and sister for examples in my argument. My brother is currently a senior in college and my sister is almost done with her first year of dental school. Both of them are in the demographic which Facebook was created for yet neither of them seems to have any interest in using it. Sure, they both have accounts and from time to time they update them. I spent about an hour looking for recent pictures of my brother on his page and came up nearly empty. He's a college senior that is most likely doing stupid things that are totally camera worthy, but there are no pictures of him from the last six months. My sister on the other hand uses Facebook in a much more conservative manner. She removed most of her pictures and updates because she didn't want to be judged by them in her dental school world. I thought she was overreacting, but I can see her point.

My sister told me that her interest in it is fading fast. She uses it more as an email address. There are a lot of people that she is friends with on Facebook that she doesn't have contact info for. With Facebook she doesn't need it. Who needs an address book when you can just type someone's name into a site. I thought about my own usage and realized I do the same thing. I post status updates from time to time that I hope will create some form of debate that I can use on my radio show. I'll also post pictures if I was out with a group of friends that way all of them can have a copy. I could email them but it would take forever. A simple photo gallery is much easier to piece together.

I saw some statistics for Facebook usage but I think they're a little off. It said that there were about 45 million users in the U.S. between the ages of 18-24. According to the census estimates, there are only about 20 million people between the ages of 20-24 in the United States. Clearly something doesn't make sense here. Then again, there are a lot of people that have multiple accounts. You may be saying to yourself that I'm a conspiracy theorist. I can assure you that my boss has actually asked me to create different accounts so as to help boost our station's statistics. I know for a fact that other people do this. Let's also not forget that there are many pages that are inactive. I still have 2 myspace accounts that I never deleted but haven't checked in 3 years. Technically, I still count as a myspace user. 2 actually.

The biggest area of growth for Facebook appears to be with women in the 35-54 age group. Otherwise known as stay at home moms who would rather kill time on the computer than dusting book shelves. This will be problematic for Facebook. As we all know, the younger demos create a fad and the older demos kill it. Once the older age groups grab on to something, the younger groups run for the hills and find a new place to hang.

The big question now is, where are people going? That's a different post for a different day.

No Strings Attached Movie Review

It hurts me to say this, but I think Ashton Kutcher is the star of the first good movie of 2011. Though, that's not really saying much. I went into this movie with very low expectations. Actually, the only reason I wanted to see it is because I think Natalie Portman is a goddess. I have to put my love for her aside in order to give you a non biased review. If this one stays in theaters long enough, it could be a good date movie around Valentine's Day.

Kutcher and Portman first meet when they are at a summer camp when they're about 12 years old. They run into each other again at a frat party in college about 10 years later. Once again they part ways only to meet yet again about 5 years later. Each time there is a connection but neither of them really knows what to do with it. Kutcher has just gotten out of a weird relationship and Portman doesn't believe in love. After a drunken night they decide to be "friends with benefits." A few simple ground rules are laid out but eventually the hook ups aren't enough and they have to make a decision.

Look, it's not going to win any Academy Awards. Far from it. It's not even all that original. There's only so much you can do with a romantic comedy. Where it did succeed was the reality of it. Sure a movie like Serendipity is cute and fun but it's not realistic. In No Strings Attached, I found resemblances to my friends and situations they had been in at some point in their lives.

Ashton Kutcher is very warm, charming and very likable. It might be hard to believe but he almost steals the spotlight from Natalie Portman. She's wonderful as well. In addition to them, the supporting cast was great. It features appearances by Kevin Kline, Cary Elwes, Ludacris, Greta Gerwig, Lake Bell and Olivia Thirlby.

Between it's themes and language, it's definitely designed for the 18-35 crowd. As I was walking out of the theater I heard both the males and females saying good things about it so it seems to work for both. You don't need to rush out to see this one but if you're looking for a good date movie this might be right up your alley.

Were my parents actually right?

When I was growing up I had, what some people would call, sticky fingers. I liked to steal things. I know. Very shocking. I didn't steal anything big like cars, jewelry or panda bears. I stuck with smaller things like candy (keep the fat jokes to yourself), cassette tapes and hearts. OK, I didn't really steal any hearts. My parents busted me once. It was then that they told me stores had to increase prices to make up for the money they lost from my theft. Their point made sense and has stuck in my head to this day. Don't get me wrong. I still continued to steal but I started to feel bad about it. It wasn't until I was almost caught by legitimate authority figures that I decided to stop. I was 16 years old. In retrospect, it was dumb. Did I really need that Firehouse cassingle? No, but I did need that PM Dawn one.

After I gave up stealing I didn't give much thought to that idea of prices increasing because of theft (there has to be a better term for that). It wasn't until I moved to Baltimore about 10 years later that it popped back into my head. I went into a locally owned convenience store near my home to buy some potato chips. The price of the chips was higher than I expected. I paid for them and moved on but the next time I was at the grocery story I compared prices. Sure enough, they were more expensive at the little mom and pop store. A few days later I returned to the convenience store. While I was paying for my chips I asked the woman behind the counter why there were more expensive. She said it's because they always lose money from people stealing things from their store so they had to up the prices. I couldn't believe it. My parents were correct.

You'd be surprised at how similar the health care system is to that little convenience store. Granted, a local hospital will get a hell of a lot more money than the store, but I think you'll get my point. Doctors and hospitals will provide care to anyone that walks through the doors. It doesn't matter who you are, how much money you have or if you have insurance. It's their duty. That doesn't mean their services is free. No matter who you are, how much money you have or if you have insurance you will still be responsible to pay the bill for the treatment you received. And those bills aren't very cheap. Not everyone can afford them and some of those bills go unpaid. In fact, a study done in 2009 linked over 62% of all bankruptcy filings to medical bills. Crazy right? People are filing for bankruptcy because they want to be healthy.

The health care field isn't totally at fault here but it does seem like they charge a little more than they need to. That brings up an interesting idea. Do hospital services cost so much money because they want to rape us for our money or is it because they're just trying to make back some of the lost cash? I was reading an article in the Baltimore Sun that said Mercy Medical Center had $40 million in unpaid bills in 2010. Mercy's chief executive now has the task of figuring in that number while he puts together a budget for the upcoming year. He admitted that much of that lost income will be passed on to the rest of the patients through raised rates.

That sounds oddly familiar. A service is raising the cost of its goods because people are "stealing" from it. I don't think "stealing" is the appropriate term to use here. Someone who gets shot while walking to their car doesn't have a choice in the matter but they still need to pay for the medical treatment. One of the major ideas in the highly discussed federal health care reform law aims to end such increases. It's a central theory. The law wants everyone to be insured. If everyone is insured, hospitals and other health care professionals won't have to worry about their patients not making payments.

While I am in support of it, I understand that the health care reform law isn't a perfect piece of legislation. There never has been a "perfect" piece of legislation. My brain is incapable of understanding why so many people want it abolished. The main goals of the bill would do nothing but help ease the financial burden on patients. How is that a bad thing? Some people say they don't want their tax dollars to pay for another person's insurance. I think that's understandable but they need to look at the numbers. A few extra dollars out of my paycheck will help someone else get medical care that they normally couldn't afford. If they were to get that care without insurance they probably wouldn't be able to pay for it. If they can't pay for it, the medical costs will go up and the next time you or I were to go to the hospital, we'd be screwed by the prices. It's a very give and take relationship. I'd rather give a little to help benefit another person than have the hospitals take a lot out of my wallet.

Going Bowling

The college football bowl season is almost over. I'm writing this while I watch the BCS championship game between Auburn and Oregon. Every year I listen to friends, sportscasters and others talk to me about all of the "big bowl games" that will be happening. Every year I get confused. Why do we get excited for bowl games? The championship game aside, none of the bowls determine anything. Well, that's not totally true. The bowls usually prove that Ohio State sucks and is terribly overrated. At least we have that going for us.

I'll admit that I was looking forward to watching this year's Rose Bowl. Wisconsin against TCU. TCU is one of those smaller schools that never gets much respect from the BCS. I wanted to see what they could do against a bigger school like Wisconsin. As expected, TCU won (I say as expected because the Big Ten is grossly overrated every year). They looked good and they showed the nation that the smaller schools might deserve a little more respect. But other than that, what did it prove? Nothing.

There is virtually no difference between a bowl game and the first game of the season. Maybe if the bowl system was set up so that #1 would play #2, #3 would play #4 etc. it would be a little more interesting. Instead we have bowl games like #15 Nevada playing an unranked Boston College team. Who cares? The only thing that comes from a bowl game is money for the school, however, the fans don't even get to see any of that. The money goes into the athletic departments.

Even though the BCS is a steaming pile of shit, the championship game this year is looking to be pretty exciting. There is only a few minutes left in the first half right now and it's been great so far. I'm not invested in either team but I have a lot more respect for Oregon. Don't ask me why. I think this will be Auburn quarterback, Cam Newton's, final game in college. I believe Auburn only signed him to a one year contract and they won't be able to afford him next year after he won the Heisman this year. Those of you that are thinking, "But they don't pay college players, " clearly missed the joke.