Music and Spirituality | Fr. Basil Cole, O.P.

The Ignatius Insight just published an article from Fr. Basil Cole Music and Spirituality | Fr. Basil Cole, O.P. | Ignatius Insight | Ignatius Insight that is very insightful and very much needed in this Society Gone Madd!  I've read his book Music and Morals which really helped me, he is just awesome.  Now he connects Music and Spirituality to the tune of St Thomas Aquinas - my favorite saint.  Part of spirituality is using your mind, but people today seem to believe whatever they feel is ok.  When music (or any of the arts, I believe) causes feeling a certain way for a prolonged period of time it is bound to have it's effects.  Please consider reading the article (which I think can be applied to all forms of the arts), it may change your life, like his book Music and Morals did mine. 

Speed Racer review

We saw the movie Speed Racer this weekend and it was actually pretty good.  It wasn't as good as the original series in the 1960's but it definitely could have been worse.  It had a relatively good story with the message that cheaters never prosper.  My children (boys 11 & 9) liked it and as I am sure, as most kids, liked the action and didn't care about the story which was kind of confusing at the beginning because they went back to the past, forward to the future, to the present, future, present, past, future, etc.  Boy it got confusing at times, probably too confusing for my 9 year old.  The racing was kind of strange to me, the cars were constantly going sideways, "drifting", and constantly spinning around bouncing and crashing into each other with little or no damage.  But that's what my kids liked.

Get your kids away form the terrible cartoons of this age and get the original version on DVD for them to watch.  The 5 seasons of the original Speed Racer TV series are available here.

     

                      

If you haven't caught the newest in the Speed Racer series, they have been showing Speed Racer - The Next Generation on TV and it is actually pretty good also.  They already have it on DVD if you want to check it out.

Get Smart

I haven't seen the movie Get Smart yet but the trailer doesn't make the movie seem like it's going to be very good.  Most of the time you usually can tell from the trailer if it's going to be something worth watching.  I am sure I will see it when I can rent it on DVD or maybe I'll wait until it is on TV.

I love the original Get Smart on TV in the late 60's.  Don Adams and Barbara Feldon are definitely hard to top, they were the best.  But for some reason none of the Get Smart movies were very good.  I've heard it said that it was partly because Edward Platt, the Chief, died and there wasn't anyone as good as a straight man for the show.  That's a very good possible reason and also a show more than a half hour may just be too much.  Plus in the first movie, The Nude Bomb, 99 wasn't in it either which didn't help the chemistry. 

When I heard Steve Carell would be playing Maxwell Smart, I thought he would be great for the part.  From the trailer, he looks ok, but the content and delivery of the lines are just plain terrible.  It is sad that such a bad job was done with the great character created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.  Maybe this will be one of those times the trailer will be misleading and it actually will be a good movie.  I will let you know after I see it on DVD or TV.

Some great information is available on this Get Smart Fan Page.

Heath Ledger and Acting Parts

I heard on the news this morning that he had trouble sleeping after playing the Joker character in the latest Batman movie. I also heard that Jack Nicholson told him to be careful in playing the part.

That makes me ask the question of how actors are able to get into their characters and the effect it has on them personally. It seems they may need to learn to separate fantasy from their own life. There are so many couples in hollywood that think they fall in love playing love interests in the movies. They get married in real life and get divorced so quickly because they are living in the fantasy of the parts they are playing and not real life.

Fox News article Jack Nicholson Says He 'Warned' Heath Ledger
NY Daily News article Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger on 'Joker' role
KUTV story Heath Ledger Was Reportedly 'Warned' By Jack Nicholson

Broken Trail

I know this TV movie has been out for a while but I didn't see it until this past holiday season and I am glad I finally did. It is a really good story and seems to be more realistic than most of the Westerns that have been made. The acting was superb and the scenery excellent. A reality I noticed was that the head of the brothel was a woman and was the one exploiting the Chinese women and the men were the ones who cared about them. I think that happens more often than others hurting particular people. Just like it was blacks in Africa who sold other blacks into the slave trade. Women made money exploiting other women by prostitution. I'm sure it happens with all other groups. You know your own, so so you know the weaknesses to exploit.

Sound of Music

Believe it or not I finally saw the movie Sound of Music this past weekend. I have HD TV on my computer now and decided to watch things I normally don't watch just because it looks so good. I started to watch the Sound of Music and right at the beginning I could tell iti actually had a very good story to it. Over the years I have caught about ten or fifteen minutes in the middle and about the same amount three quarters into the movie. Now I have seen the whoole thing and was very pleasantly surprised at what a great movie it is. I 've always liked Andy Williams version of the song "My Favorite Things" and never knew it came from that movie.

It really makes me wonder how in such a short amount of time television and movies has gotten so bad. Although I do see some signs of improvement, it is going to take a while to get back to Hollywood doing mainly good movies, if they ever do.

Writers are a dime a dozen

I rarely watch the Tonight Show but since he is going back on the air when the writers are still on strike, I thought I'd support him. The show was actually pretty good! The only difference I noticed was that the show was actually better the the last times I have watched it. I always used to watch it when Johnny was on, but ever since Jay took over, it just wasn't as good. But this wasn't that bad.

Shows should just hire the best writers they can find and write a contract that satisfies that writer and forget about the union. Unions have destroyed America. I think that's part of the reason we have this lowest common denominator thing happening in movies and television.

Hulu

Yesterday I got approved for the Hulu public beta and I got my first look at the site last night. Hulu is a site that offers free viewing of films and TV shows produced by NBC and Fox television. I was pretty happy and surprised by the content. I liked the fact that there was a lot of old shows available, WKRP, Emergency!, Bob Newhart, the original Battestar Galactica, and many more including a lot of new shows, Monk, Are you smarter than a 5th Grader etc.

I watched the first episode of WRKP and the second episode of Emergency! and was surprised at the difference in the quality of the writing of the shows from that time period. The writing for most shows currently on TV isn't very good.

That made me think about the writers strike and the Internet. I believe I heard recently that only about 60% of the writers are union anyway. I think the best option for them is to ditch the union and do your own contract.

The music industry has done that and still does. The musician/artist makes a contract with the record company and that's it, no union to tell you what to do. I know many an artist got screwed by the record company but that is there own fault, they messed up. The writers should cover themselves and forget about some mob union boss to do their bidding.

Bella - the movie

If you haven't seen the movie Bella, it comes highly recommended. Here you can hear Michael Medved's review or download it here. It has received many rewards. We need more movies like this. So please support this great movie so Hollywood gets the message that we want good movies and not the trash they have been releasing. Another review from Decent Films Guide offers another view.

What Black Men Think Movie

Listening to Michael Medved today he had on the producer of this movie "What Black Men Think" and it was a great interview and sounds like a great movie. Sounds like someone is willing to actually tell the truth and not have an agenda like Hollywood does. We need more movie made like this, maybe Hollywood will start putting something good out again.