Reflections of Mom.

There are a few things that I've wanted to expunge from my mind to the blank screen before me within the last day.  So I will attempt to begin.

 

My mother's birthday would have been yesterday.   It's been 6 years November since she's passed.   To this day, there are times when I know she's gone and I get extremely depressed, yet there are other times where I forget she's gone and think to myself, "I have to call mom and see if she's heard such and such."   I remember the most recent incident of this was when the Ultimate Warrior passed away this past spring after being on WWE Raw the day before and inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame over the weekend.  That was such a shock to me and knowing how much Mom loved watching wrestling, I couldn't imagine what her thoughts would be.  I remember actually getting ready to dial her number before it hit me that she wasn't there to tell.  

 

There are still times I go to my Dad's and occasionally get in my head that Mom is just out with Grandma somewhere or is downstairs or something.   Time can be a pain in the ass sometimes.   I can't remember my Mom's voice anymore.   It would take .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second to recognize it if i heard it again, but for the life of me, I can't hear it in my head the exact way i know it was.   That kills me, I hate that.   I can only remember dreaming of her once since she's passed, it was great...until I woke up and reality set in again.   I know her voice was 100 percent accurate in that dream, because i know it's buried in my subconscious forever.

 

There are a million conversations I want to have with her still.   I want to talk about Hannibal, because i know she would have loved that show.  She always enjoyed those creepy shows and movies.   I wish i could have found out what she thought about Lost's finale.  I'd try to get her interested in Person of Interest, I would have talked wrestling with her, because i know she still watched it, even years after my brother David had lost interest.  He was into it when he'd gotten into his car accident, so Mom recorded all of the WWE programming when he was in the hospital those months and then got herself hooked.   I couldn't believe it the first time she asked me if i watched wrestling this week.   I remember saying, "Mom, why the hell are you watching wrestling?  You used to get on Dan and I for watching wrestling when we were teenagers."  Then she explained the reason re: David.   At this point,  I had long given up watching wrestling and didn't really start up until 1997.   Once I started watching again, we shared that bond for quite awhile and i know she really enjoyed that.   My fascination with wrestling waned off and on from 1997-2008, but hers never did.   I guess she enjoyed the soap opera aspect of the storylines I guess. 

 

I miss silly things like the inevitable argument my Mom and Dad would have driving the 8 blocks or so to my Grandma's house every holiday.  Usually over whether Dad remembered to lock the door when we left.  They never fought for real, as far as I know.  I never saw it if they did.

I remember making my Mom really laugh every Christmas when we'd get together by sarcastically proclaiming, "Christmas was ruined." over some trivial event.   She would laugh so loud over silly things I'd say.

 

I miss the tradition I started in the early 90s and kept going up almost until she passed, when I would invite Mom and Dad over on Super Bowl Sunday and get some KFC and we'd watch the game.  Mom would want to watch the commercials and Dad would want to watch the game, and each of them would talk over the parts that the other wanted to see, without fail for the entire event.

 

I miss Mom's desire to make us some sugary goodies while we had Going to Grandma's practice downstairs, so it was waiting for us when we got done.   I know Jim Duede misses that too, he'd mentioned that fond memory when practicing at my parents' house.   I appreciate the fact that every Tuesday night for YEARS and YEARS, she put up with us having band practice in that basement (Sump Pump Studios) while she put up with our learning how to play music from scratch until we became "good".  Her sitting in her chair, watching all of her TV shows with only Closed Captioning on because there was NO way she was going to hear it.

 

I miss talking about countless movies that I want her to watch because i know she'd like them.  I miss those phone conversations about nothing that would last at LEAST an hour.   I hate the fact that her disease stole that from me the last 6-7 months she was alive and couldn't talk above a whisper, i think THAT's part of the reason i can't remember her voice 100%.  

 

I admire her for all the shit that she beat in her life, Lupus, Breast Cancer, all the other cancers that went in remission.   I fucking hate myself for being naïve, thinking that she could beat the last one, and not being prepared for when she couldn't.  Even up to when she was in hospice.  I hate myself for not being there at Hospice when she finally passed on because I thought Dad and I could run home for a few hours and try to get some sleep before going back to Hospice after being there up all night.   I have a tough time knowing that when I came back to Hospice that I was the one that noticed she was gone, even before the nurses.   I hate the fact that I know that when you die that your eyelids won't stay closed.

 

(I'm getting this all out now on "paper" because I'm tired of it in only my brain so forgive the tone and jumping around emotionally)

 

I think of her and remember all the things she enjoyed and things that i think of when I think about her and things she enjoyed and other things we used to share, and I'm going to make a laundry list of things in no order whatsoever.

 

Shields and Yarnell (some mime duo from the 70s that used to be on all these variety shows I'd watch with her)

Captain and Tenille

Helen Reddy

Carole King

Quantum Leap

St. Elsewhere

The Jeffersons

Soap

Dallas

Falcon Crest

Knots Landing

Dynasty

Atari (Missile Command, Pac-man and Atlantis(the holy grail of Atari games.  if you mentioned Atari, Atlantis was brought up even 20 years later, saying how much she loved that game)

INtendo (mom could never say the first N)

garage sales

her babysitting in the early 80s

badminton (pronounced badmitton)

indanola instead of Indianola

"Around Robin Hood's barn"

"Two farts in a skillet"  ex. "You two are just running around like two farts in a skillet!"

humming melodies with partial lyrics

canasta

oh hell (card game that I don't remember the rules)

Larry Bird

Magic Johnson

wrestling

family feud

Huey Lewis and the News

Hall and Oates

The Alan Parsons Project

TV guide

Entertainment Tonight

 

I guess for now I've gotten most of this out of my system. 

 

I miss her everyday.  The thing I guess I really regret the most now is that my Mom won't get to meet and know my new wife.  I know she would love her.  I know that Moco would have loved her back.  I imagine how proud she would be seeing me so happy.  I really wish I could change that, more than anything. 

 

Happy Birthday, Mom.

 

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My 2014 Oscar Picks

My 2014 Oscar Picks


Best Original Screenplay: American Hustle
Best Adapted Screenplay: Captain Phillips 
Best Visual Effects: Gravity
Best Production Design:  12 Years a Slave
Best Original Score: Gravity  (I really loved this soundtrack every time I've watched the movie, I remember really liking the "Her" score, as well,  but they haven't released it officially for me to listen to it again, so Gravity gets my vote.)

Best Film Editing: Gravity 
Best Directing: Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity)
Best Costume Design: American Hustle
Best Cinematography: Phedon Papamichael (Nebraska)
Best Animated Feature: The Croods
Best Actress in a Supporting Role:  June Squibb (Nebraska)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)  (this was difficult for me because Jared Leto was awesome in Dallas Buyers Club and will probably win.  But the fact that Barkhad had never acted in a movie before and held his own with Tom Hanks pushed it over the top for me. He was great.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Amy Adams (American Hustle)
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
Best Picture: Gravity 

(I have seen every movie nominated for Best Picture except for, Philomena, which I wanted to see, but did not make it to.   This is a tough list to pick just one out of all of these great movies.  Most years I can easily pick out what I thought was the best movie.      I also know that this movie has been somewhat polarizing to a lot of my friends who've see it.  Some love it, some didn't like it at all.  It certainly does not have as strong of script or performances of some of the other nominees, which is why its screenplay was not nominated.    I picked it, because out of all the other movies, THIS one was the one that grabbed me and made me forget I was in a theater.  The special effects and directing are mind blowing to me.   My heart raced, and i felt like I was a little kid again watching something I'd never seen before.  A pure visceral experience that I loved every minute of.
Well that's it, my 2014 Oscar picks.   They are not the same as what I think WILL win, in some cases, but that's the fun of watching. 
See you at the movies.

The Beatles

My thoughts on The Beatles in honor of the 50 year anniversary of their first U.S. appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.

Growing up in a small town in Iowa, music had always been a part of my life.   Sometimes it was my mother humming songs always puttering around the house, sometimes along with the radio, sometimes just with a melody running though her head. Other times, she would play songs on this old chord organ we used to have.  My mother and father also had a lot of vinyl records, lots of Elvis (my dad's favorite) and other artists from the 50's and 60's.    One of these albums was called, "Sing a Song With The Beatles".   You weren't REALLY singing along with The Beatles.   Instead, what you got were instrumental versions of early Beatles songs with an organ playing over the parts where you were supposed to sing.

My brother, Dan and I used to listen to this record growing up and around the time we started our own musical career, we actually recorded a version of this album with some friends of ours.  I believe it was during allergy season and we called ourselves,  The Religious Underground Basement Dwellers With Allergies.  It featured Dan, myself and our friends John Lingle and Chris Wysong.   I have no recollection of why or how we came up with that band name, I can kind of piece all of it together but I don't remember why the word  "Religious" was in there.   It wasn't good by any means, but I remember it being a lot of fun.   I remember singing in a horribly overdone,  British accent, way more prominent than The Beatles themselves, ever used.   I remember us all taking turns on vocals and I remember lots and lots of laughing....along with unnecessary profanity (usually by, yours truly).  "I'm in love with you and I feel fucking fine"   I do remember "All My Loving" was my "shining" moment.

The Beatles became a big influence in Dan and I's music career, not so much in songwriting, but i think the fact that they were having fun, creating their own music, and also coming up with creative ways to make music.   From the beginning, Dan and I always wanted to write our own music and lyrics.  Looking back I don't know if that was rare or not, we were the only people we knew in our town, along with our friend John and Eric, who were in an actual band.   The fact that none of us played our respective instruments when we started and the fact that all 4 of us to this day still create music, is testimony how serious we all were about making music. 

I know some of us had different books about The Beatles.   Biographies, recording session notes, chord books.  I loved the movies, all the records, anything Beatle related I took a HUGE interest in.   John was my favorite, he was the funniest to me.   But honestly those 4 guys together, especially in the beginning were something special and the world knew that right away.

 I envied the way they decided to just stop touring (because they couldn't hear themselves over the crowd) and focus on recording and creating music the rest of their time together.   A feat that is just MINDBLOWING to me.   I can't imagine ANYONE doing that today and being successful, since touring seems to be the main money makers for bands anymore.   In the book I had of the Beatles recording sessions, which were notes taken in the studio of dates and what songs were worked on what days, I was amazed to see that even though they did not tour anymore, they were in the Abbey Road studios almost every day working on something when they were together.  Aside from holidays usually,  and time when they would take a few weeks off for vacation.

I remember in an interview, John Lennon saying he saw Elvis on TV and say, "That's a pretty good job" and knew he wanted to be a musician.  Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley from Kiss, both have said they saw The Beatles on TV and knew instantly they wanted to be musicians.   And I'm positive someone saw Kiss and said the same thing and then so on and so forth.

I was 10 years old when John Lennon was shot, I remember it only vaguely.   I mainly remember my cousin having a shirt with John Lennon 1940-1980 on it.     Years later watching the footage of the people so shaken up and brought to tears by his death; I'm glad I didn't know much about him yet because it probably would have really disturbed me at that age.     (interesting(?) side note: I did come up with an outline of a screenplay once in my early 20's about two losers who died without doing anything substantial and being selfish in their lives were told they were going to Hell unless they did one good deed.   My idea for the good deed was them going back and trying to save John Lennon from getting shot.   It was going to be animated, and John Goodman was going to be the voice of God.   Anyway, that will never come to fruition, but I would still like to write it).

I've also always had the dream project in my mind to cover the entire "White Album".  My brother and I have talked about it since we were teenagers.    I also have great memories of my ex wife and I, when we were dating, driving on road trips listening to our Beatles CDs and singing along to all the songs. I, insisting to be John, and she would be Paul. and we'd not fight over George and Ringo's songs so much.  I think we probably both sang each others parts constantly.  The specifics of the memories now gradually fading like the ink on an old t-shirt.  

The Beatles have always been a part of my life since my teens, and while there may be times I don't hear them for some time, once you hear that "one" song again, you just want to fire up that whole catalog and sing along with all of them.   They are just that infectious and melodic and wonderful.

I've read something about it somewhere once about this and I think it does bear some merit, that the U.S. was in so much shock about JFK's assassination still that we, as a nation, needed something to heal us. And I do think seeing The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show those 2 and 1/2 months later did help do that.  Maybe that's part of the reason they connected with so many people and made them happy when they needed to be happy again.   

Whatever the reason, I truly believe the landscape of music would not be the same without The Beatles.  I know my landscape would not be as full and rich without them in my youth.

Birdman of Alcatraz, my ass!!!

So I watched "Birdman Of Alcatraz" last night with my father.  A few things....Burt Lancaster: great.  Directed by John Frankenheimer: cool. Telly Savalas: sweet.   

My issue? The movie is 143 minutes long, no problem there.  However, in that 2hrs 23min. I think Lancaster spends 20-30 min total on Alcatraz at the end of the movie and when he's there, he's not allowed to keep any birds!!!  He has all his birds at Leavenworth which is where the rest of the running time is spent.  Blatant false advertising.  I really don't understand why it was called that. Even though the movie was really good, this fact bothers me like an itch inside a cast on a broken arm. 

Fetal Pig - In Your Head- live last November

Live performance of "In Your Head" from our Autopia album available on ITunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting.  This song has always been my favorite to play.
For followers who don't know me personally, I'm on the drums.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/autopia/id500717397

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_srch_drd_B0076ZG09C?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=Fetal%20Pig&index=digital-music&search-type=ss

http://fetalpig.bandcamp.com/

Finally Lucifer's work can be done.....in blog form.

I want this for my turntable.

NCIS: The CBS procedural crime drama equivalent of a Three Stooges episode or a Burt Reynolds/Dom DeLuise movie.

My Picks for the top 30 movies 2000-2012 day 6. THE END.

Well this is it, the last of my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012. Picks # 5-1.   I hope you've enjoyed it, and you want to check some out you may not have seen. 

5. The Harry Potter Series-(2001-2011) J.K. Rowling's fantasy novels brought to life in 8 great films.  The fact that all 8 movies were all outstanding with no dip in quality, is no small feat.  One of the most popular children's/young adult book series ever, brought to life by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, respectfully.  This was also the first movie that any of them had been in.  It's funny going back and watching the early movies after the later movies and seeing how young they all were. 

Other actors involved are Robbie Coltrane, Richard Harris (as Professor Dumbledore in the first two movies, until he passed away), Dame Maggie Smith, Gary Oldman, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, wonderful as Professor Snape, and Ralph Fiennes as the main antagonist, Voldemort.

I'm not going to summarize each and every film.  I enjoyed every one of them but I will say that the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is my personal favorite, followed closely by the second, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.   I also believe that these movies are every bit as classic as the Lord of The Rings films are.  It has a great epic story as well, and the achievement in film that the quality of the 8 films never diminished, and that is to be commended. 

Of all the great actors in this movie, Emma Watson's performance of Hermione Granger was always one of my favorites, and of course, Alan Rickman, who will always hold a place dear in my heart after his performance in Die Hard, was brilliant.



4. Shutter Island-(2010) Martin Scorsese's noir-ish psychological thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  Taking place in 1954, DiCaprio stars as U.S. Marshall Edward "Teddy" Daniels,  investigating the disappearance of a woman from a psychiatric facility for the criminally insane located on Shutter Island, located in Boston Harbor.  This is a movie that has a very intricate plot, it messes with your head, which I always enjoy.  lol .  Once you've seen it and put all the pieces together, I suggest going back and watching it again and you will catch little looks that meant one thing the first time you saw it and something else the second time.   I loved this movie, it had a great look, a great story and great performances.  It may be my favorite Scorsese/DiCaprio matchup out of the five pictures they've done together to date.


3. Inception-(2010) Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller about a group of thieves able to interact in other people's dreams and steal corporate secrets from a subject, for a price.  Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dominick Cobb, a man who has been on the run from a murder charge in the United States of his wife.  While Cobb is working in other people's dreams, his subconscious places his dead wife in many of them, which usually endangers the job he is on.   He takes a job from a Japanese businessman who says he can get Cobb's murder charge to disappear so he can return to the states and see his children again.  The job is for them to place an idea in a subject's dream and make him think it is his OWN idea.  This is called Inception, which is said to be impossible by the other members of Cobb's team.  Desperately wanting to return home, Cobb agrees to the job.  

This movie was one I absolutely loved, it had a complicated, yet interesting plot. It makes you really pay attention to the story, you have to keep track of dreams within dreams within dreams.  Ground breaking special effects.  Two highlights are a city landscape that rolls up like a carpet, and a zero-gravity fight sequence with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  A movie that encourages multiple viewings so you can catch little things you didn't the first time.   Very, very, cool movie.   With this and Shutter Island, DiCaprio starred in both of my favorite picks of 2010.  Both of these films, really made me take notice of him as a great actor.


2.The Dark Knight-(2008) Christopher Nolan's 3rd movie on this list.  This is the sequel to Batman Begins, which was another great movie by Nolan.  This movie, however, is miles above it, for one simple reason: Heath Ledger's absofreakinglutely BRILLIANT, portrayal of The Joker.  I will be the first to admit, the second I heard Heath Ledger was going to play The Joker, one of the greatest villains of ALL-TIME, I thought everyone was nuts.  The guy from a Knight's Tale??  You've got to be shitting me, this movie is going to suck.  

I've never been more wrong in my life.   This was one of the best acting performances I'd seen in years.  He knocked it out of the park, and unfortunately as everyone knows, he died before the movie ever came out, which was just horrible.   He ended up winning the Academy Award posthumously that year, which was definitely deserved.   I would have liked to seen what else his career would have brought after this.

This is Christian Bale's 2nd portrayal as Batman, and this was by far the best Batman movie out of any of the previously filmed Batman movies.   It's flat out one of the best action movies ever. Great action sequences, set pieces and even story are all at the top of their form in this movie.  I just watched this again last night, (yes it was already on the list before that), and it still held my attention just as much as it did 5 and a half years ago.   Unfortunately, I did not enjoy the following sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, near as much.   There were things that were really good in that one, but things that also bothered me, and in the end it just wasn't as good as Batman Begins or The Dark Knight.



1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-(2004) So here it is, finally, my favorite movie of the last 13 years.  Michael Gondry's science fiction love story, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as a couple who have had a horrible break up after a 2 year relationship.   The movie starts out on a train, with what looks like their first meeting, they strike up a conversation and you think you've seen how they first got together.   It turns out, they've already met before and neither of them remember one another.  

Carrey's character, Joel, finds out Winslet's character, Clementine, has had a procedure done at a company called Lacuna, Inc.  that has erased Joel from her memory, after a horrible fight because it was too painful to keep remembering.   Joel finds this out and is devastated and pissed and decides to have it done too.   The doctors tell them they will come to his home after he has taken a sedative that night and erase every trace of Clementine from his mind. His home, already having any reminder of her or their relationship removed previously, per their instructions.

The majority of the movie takes place in Joel's mind.  The technicians from Lacuna, Inc. show up at Joel's house, connect a computer up to his brain, and begin erasing his memories of Clementine in reverse.   So it starts with the end of their relationship where they were yelling and fighting constantly, which Joel doesn't mind losing those memories.  However, when he gets to a nice memory of the relationship when they were happy, he realizes how much he did love her, he immediately regrets his decision and tries to figure out a way to keep the memories and remember the girl he did love.   He tries putting memories of her in other memories of his life that she was never a part of, like in his childhood before he had ever met her.   Which does initially confuse the technicians doing the memory wipe, however, they are able to find the moved memories and continue. 

Joel ends up having conversations in his mind with Clementine, letting her know what is happening and telling her things he always wanted to, desperately trying to keep her in his memory. 
There are other parts of the plot I'm not going to ruin, but you should really see for yourself.

The special effects are very original, such as, watching things erase and disappear, buildings crumble in the background of scenes as Carrey's character is reliving them and they are being wiped as he's in them.   This is an awesome piece of acting by Jim Carrey and I wish he would do some more dramatic parts once in awhile.   I know he is grating as hell to some people, but his character is subdued and nothing like any of his other characters.   Kate Winslet's portrayal is great too, she earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination and the film won the Best Original Screenplay that year.

I love the cinematography. The story is clever, and I can connect with the characters. I love the fact that the two main characters seemed like real people; damaged and sad, looking for something they each lacked in their life...each other.  Also it has a GREAT haunting soundtrack by Jon Brion.  Sometimes a movie connects with you on every level, and for me it was this film..   I sometimes saw parts of myself in Jim Carrey's character in this film, sad and sometimes withdrawn, not knowing how to relate, which is probably why this hits me as hard as it does.



Well, there's the list.  I hope you enjoyed it, those who stuck around for the full list, and maybe will seek out some of these films you haven't seen.   Feel free to comment on any of the lists if you are so inclined with thoughts, arguments or the like.  =).

See you at the movies,
Jeff.

A shot I took that I really like.

My Picks for the top 30 movies 2000-2012 day 5

 Well since I'd done my top 15 movies of the past year, I decided I would give my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012. Picks # 10-6.

10. Source Code-(2011) Science fiction thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Army helicopter pilot Captain Colter Stevens, last aware of being on a mission in Afghanistan, wakes up on a commuter train to Chicago, at 7:40 am. To the world around him—including his traveling partner Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) and the bathroom mirror—he appears to be Sean Fentress, a school teacher. As he comes to grips with this revelation, the train explodes, killing everyone aboard.
Stevens regains consciousness inside a dingy dim cockpit, leaking oil. Communicating through a video screen, Air Force Captain Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) verifies Stevens' identity, and insists he stay "on mission" to find the bomber before another larger "dirty bomb" hits downtown Chicago in six hours. Inside the "Source Code" experimental device designed by scientist Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), he experiences the last eight minutes of another compatible person's life within an alternative timeline.   (I cut and pasted that synopsis from Wikipedia, because it was much easier that trying to figure out how to explain it myself.)

I am a sucker for alternate universe/time travel stories/movies, and I really enjoyed this film.   Glylenhaal is really good in this as a soldier trying to prevent something horrible from happening, bus getting frustrated because he has only 8 minutes to find the bomber, before the bomb in the train goes off and kills everyone on the train,  then he has to start all over again, like a crazy mini version of Groundhog's Day.   After awhile he begins to try to save the people on the train, although he's told that they've already died and cannot be saved. 

It's story reminded me a little of the movie, Deja Vu, with Denzel Washington, with it's story of time travel and trying to prevent another terrorist attack, and also trying to save someone that's already been killed.  
I will not say anything else as not to spoil the movie, but it's definitely worth checking out.



9. Constantine-(2005) A supernatural thriller starring Keanu Reeves based on DC comic character John Constantine.  Constantine was born with the powers to see angels and demons, as a teenager he tried to kill himself because he cannot deal with his visions.   He is brought back to life but during the two minutes he was dead, he was in hell.   Knowing what his future holds for him, he tasks himself with returning demons to hell to get in good with God so he will be allowed into Heaven.   He is told by the angel Gabriel, that he'll never be allowed into heaven because his motives are selfish.  He is also told by a demon that when he dies, all of Hell is waiting for him, and that his is the only soul that Satan himself would come to get.   He also has recently found out he has lung cancer and has very little time left.
Constantine takes on the case of a police officer trying to find out the truth about her twin sister's suicide.  It ends up involving the Spear of Destiny, and the son of Satan attempting to take over the Earth.   I really enjoyed this movie, I thought the story was very interesting and I enjoyed the special effects as well.   It's always a movie I recommend, yet no one I know has ever told me they've seen it.   Fans of the comic lamented the casting of Reeves, since the comic portrays Constantine as a blond Brit.  Sting was the original model for the character, in fact.  Overall, not really having any baggage myself from the comic, having not read any before the movie, I was able to take it as it was.

Notable mention, Tilda Swinton portrays the androgynous angel, Gabriel and did a great job in my opinion.  One of my favorite character actors, Peter Stormare, plays Satan, and I love his portrayal, even though it is a tiny part.



8. District 9-(2009) A science fiction/action film about an alien race, who crashes on Earth in South Africa, malnourished and near death, rescued, then forced to live in slums.  The story is told in a documentary style at the beginning, following around goofy bureaucrat, Wikus van de Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley-his first time professionally acting in anything.   Wikus starts off as a pretty unlikeable character, insulting and degrading the alien race, while trying to relocate them from the slums they live in to an even worse place to live with smaller living quarters.   After something happens to Wikus, that I won't spoil, he starts to become more and more sympathetic until you really start to like him.  Sharlto Copley was brilliant in this and the fact he'd never acted before, just shows how talented he really is.

The movie cost $30 million to make and it looks EASILY to have cost about 5 times more than that.  The special effects, from the weaponry, to the spaceships and lastly the Aliens look absolutely terrific.  Great detail on each and every one.  I also love how the movie switches from the documentary style it started in and then abandons it seamlessly I thought.



7. Inglourious Basterds-(2009) Quentin Tarantino's epic WWII tale.   The movie was promoted as being about a group of Jewish soldiers going into Germany with the sole purpose of killing as many Nazis as they can.   While they are a part of the movie, the movie has much more interesting aspects.   They involve charismatic yet ruthlessly vicious Nazi Colonel, Hans Linda nicknamed the "Jew Hunter"; a young jewish girl whom is spared by Linda after killing her entire family at the beginning of the movie hiding in the floorboards, a German actress helping the "Basterds" led by Brad Pitt's character, Aldo Raine,in a plan to kill Joseph Goebbels, which ultimately ends up involving in a twist of fate, killing Hitler, himself.

There are so many great scenes in this movie:  The opening scene at the farm, a scene with the Jewish girl, now living under an alias, having lunch with Goebbels about having his film shown at the movie theater she now runs, when she is suddenly face to face with the man who murdered her entire family, where she, along with the audience, wonders if he will recognize her or already does and is just fucking with her.    A great scene with Michael Fassbender's British lieutenant, posing as a German soldier in a room filled with Nazi officers is probably my favorite.   Great dialogue, great scenes, and an absolutely BRILLIANT performance by Austrian-German actor, Christoph Waltz, which he won the Academy Award for, which he definitely deserved.  



6. Silver Linings Playbook-(2012)-David O. Russell's romantic comedy starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as a man with bipolar disorder and a woman who is still mourning the loss of her husband.    Bradley Cooper plays Pat Solitano Jr. who, at the beginning of the movie is being released from a mental health facility into the care of his parents, after catching his wife cheating on him with another man and nearly beating him to death.  He goes to his friend's house for dinner and meet his friend's sister-in-law, Tiffany.   They end up bonding over their damaged personalities and strike up a friendship.  Pat wants Tiffany to deliver a letter to his ex, who has filed a restraining order since his violent outburst and has moved.  Tiffany agrees if he will be her dance partner at a dance competition.  Pat goes along, because he thinks if his ex she's him at the dance competition she will see he has changed.

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence both play their best roles to date in this.  Robert DeNiro also plays Bradley Cooper's father, Pat Solitano Sr, who obsession with the Philadephia Eagles is another plot point.  DeNiro hasn't been this good in years.  I really liked him in this.  It is a romantic comedy/drama but it is not done sappy like most of them.  Not that there's anything wrong with some of them, if they are done well.

This was a close pick for me for Best Picture last year, but i had chosen Argo over this, by the slightest of margins.



OK, up next.  my last 5 picks.  hopefully SOMEONE is reading this, this is taking a long time each day to work on this.   =)

My Picks for the top 30 movies 2000-2012 day 4

Well since I'd done my top 15 movies of the past year, I decided I would give my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012. Picks # 15-11.

15. Taken-(2008)- Action thriller starring Liam Neeson as a retired CIA operative whose daughter is kidnapped by Albanian sex traffickers while on vacation with her friend in Paris.   Neeson, hears his daughter being kidnapped while on the phone with her.   He immediately tells her to hide under the bed, and as soon as she's capture to leave the phone on and shout out every detail she can about the kidnappers.  In a great scene,the kidnapper finds the phone on the floor and hears Liam Neeson on the other end telling him if he lets her go, he will not follow him.  If not, he will hunt him down and kill him.   The kidnapper tells him, "Good luck" and hangs up.  Needless to say for the rest of the movie, you see Liam Neeson kick all forms of ass trying to save his daughter.  I've always liked Liam Neeson, ever since I'd seen him as Patrick's Swayze's hillbilly(?!?!?!) cousin in 1989's Next of Kin, and as the title character in Sam Raimi's, Darkman.   He does a great job here as a frantic father desperately trying to find his daughter before she's taken out of the country by some slimeball and never seen again.    I will tell you two bits of advice, although the theatrical version was pretty violent for PG-13, search out the unrated version; it changes one major scene especially, and I think it's the superior version.   Secondly, they made a sequel to this in 2012, avoid it at all costs, it is bad, bad, bad inferior piece of crap.


14. Watchmen-(2009) Based on the 1987 comic by perennially annoyed comicbook icon, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Watchmen was a comic that I was a huge fan of growing up and I still pull out my old copy and read it every few years.   The story is about "forcibly retired" superheroes that takes place in an alternate universe in the year 1985, where Nixon is still president after the United States win the Vietnam War.   The superheroes have been ordered decommissioned in 1977.  One former hero, The Comedian, who still works for the government, is murdered at the beginning of the movie.   Another hero, Rorschach, who is still operating on his own as a vigilante after the superheroes have been banned, initially thinks the Watchmen, the former superhero group that The Comedian and Rorschach were members of, are being targeted for termination.  So he tries to enlist the help of former members of the Watchmen to find out who murdered The Comedian.  They end up finding a more diabolical plot is at hand.  

The story is very complicated and clever one.   Director Zack Snyder (300, Man of Steel) does a great job of faithfully recreating the comic, aside from the ending which really pissed off a lot of fans of the comic.   I didn't find it that bad at all and I really enjoyed a lot of the scenes in the rest of the movie faithfully recreated visually from the comics.   Jackie Earle Haley was great as Rorschach also.
There are several versions of this, I believe the Watchmen Ultimate Cut is the one you should seek out.


13. Memento-(2000) Christopher Nolan's film about a man with a condition where he can't create any new memories after an attack where his wife was killed and he was hit in the head.  Using notes, polaroid pictures and tattoos he keeps information to help solve the mystery of his wife's murder.  The movie shows the story from two different timelines.   Color footage is the story told in reverse and the Black and white footage is the story told in chronological order.   The beginning of the film starts with the ending of the story, and when the movie ends, you see both stories connect.    This movie blew me away when I saw it.  This was really an ingenious script, adapted from a story written by Christopher's brother Jonathan.

Guy Pearce is really great in this film and the ending I did not see coming, and it changes your perception of the entire movie, making you want to see it all over again.  It's funny, I just realized that Christopher Nolan has directed 3 of the movies in this list. (the other two are coming in another installment)   I think he's a very talented director and writer, along with his brother who he's written a lot of his scripts with.  Jonathan also created the show, Person of Interest, which in my opinion is the best show on network TV the 3 years its been on.   I will pretty much see anything these two work on, with their track record.



12. ARGO (2012) The 2012 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, directed and starring Ben Affleck, is a great movie, detailing the escape of six U.S. diplomats from Iran during the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis by CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck).    They are being hidden by the Canadian Embassy after the U.S. Embassy is taken over and over 50 Americans are taken hostage after the Shah of Iran is given asylum by Jimmy Carter during the Iranian revolution.

Mendez is at a loss to figure out a way to get them out of Iran safely until he comes up with the idea to portray the 6 as members of a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a film, a space epic in the vein of a B-movie version of Star Wars called, ARGO.   So he has to come up with identities, jobs, a screenplay and details like Argo merchandise to fool the Iranians, so they are allowed to leave.

The movie has been criticized for how accurate some of the details are.  My response is, it's not a documentary, it's a dramatization.   I loved this movie and I was VERY happy it won last year, over Zero Dark Thirty, which I didn't care for. (already mentioned in one of my other reviews).  Great performances by Affleck, Alan Arkin and John Goodman, who play a Hollywood producer and Makeup artist to help Affleck with his ruse, so the movie, ARGO, seems believable to the Iranians.



11. The Lord of the Rings Series (2001-2003)- (I realize this is a bit of a cheat and are actually 3 movies, but there's no way to take them as one single movie so I chose to include all of them.  My list, my rules =) )  Peter Jackson's epic trilogy of J.R.R Tolkien's literary masterpiece.  The fact that these movies, thought by many for YEARS to be unfilmable, were made simultaneously in New Zealand, and that they ended up being as great as they were is amazing to me to this day, 11 years after the last movie. 

Peter Jackson did an amazing job with these 3 movies.  The sets, special effects and all the acting was just phenomenal.   Viggo Mortensen was a personal favorite, Ian McKellen also, but for me, Sean Astin, stole the movie in my opinion.   Andy Serkis as Gollum was also an amazing performance of acting AND CGI.  Absolutely groundbreaking.

With WETA Workshop doing the special effects.  I think that Industrial Light and Magic, may have some serious competition.   I cannot praise the work done on this film enough.   It is just mind blowing to me how 3 movies could be filmed at the same time, have to be edited, released, then reedited to release the directors cuts each year on DVD before the next installment came out.  My ADHD brain would have exploded.  Overall the entire production lasted 8 years. I would have been insane by the end I think.   I commend Peter Jackson's vision and talent, it's a hell of an achievement.

The last film, Return of the King, won all 11 Academy Awards it was nominated for, and I believe it deserved every one of them.  If not for that movie alone, just for the overall achievement in cinema that all three of those movies are.   They will last forever. 


Ok There you go, those are my picks for #15-11.   Stay tuned for #10-6 coming soon.

My Picks for the top 30 movies 2000-2012 day 3

Well since I'd done my top 15 movies of the past year, I decided I would give my picks for the 30 best movies spanning from 2000-2012. Picks # 20-16.

20.  Shaun Of The Dead-(2004). Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's first big screen team up after their classic British television comedy, Spaced.  This is their homage to Zombie movies.  I love Edgar's Wright's visual style and his and Simon Pegg's writing is just flat out hilarious.   It's the story of a shiftless guy who really has no motivation to make anything of himself and just walks through life being content in his rut (in essence a "zombie" himself).  His girlfriend breaks up with him after tiring of his lack of doing anything with his life.   He goes out drinking with his best friend, Ed (played by Nick Frost, also from Spaced, and every other Wright/Pegg collaboration since) trying to get over his depression. Before he goes to bed/passes out, he decides to really start changing his life around and win back his girlfriend.  Unfortunately the next morning when he wakes up, the world has been taken over by zombies.  However, even after a walk to the grocery store, oblivious to all the carnage that is all around him, he doesn't notice until Ed notices a girl in the garden, that they initially believe is just drunk.   Quickly they find out, she is, in fact, NOT so drunk as much as she is dead.  As it ends up turning out, the zombie apocalypse ends up being the very thing that gives his life purpose.   Very, very funny movie, one of my all-time favorites.   All three of the movies that Edgar Wright, Pegg and Frost have been hilarious, and if you can catch Spaced, it's great too, but this is my favorite collaboration..



19. WALL-E (2008)- Pixar's movies are all amazingly well written movies filled with awe-inspiring animation.  WALL-E is probably my favorite out of all the ones released in this 12 year span, although Ratatouille is a VERY close second.  The fact that a good portion of WALL-E has no dialogue, is a testament of how well of storytellers the folks at Pixar actually are.  The movie is a  love story between two robots.  One is the last functioning robot given the task of cleaning up Earth after years of human abuse of it have forced them off of the planet to live in a Space Station. And another robot named EVE who is dropped off on Earth looking for signs of life.  She comes across WALL-E and they end up falling in love..

WALL-E was part of a groups of robots sent to clean up the Earth so humans could finally return home.  But the planet was so bad that the government shut down the program and decommissioned all the robots, aside from WALL-E, who every time he has a mechanical issue, he just fixes himself from parts from all the other decommissioned robots and keeps just doing his job.   He has a pretty happy life living off the little scraps of trash that he's kept and taken to where he stays at night and powers down . Using an Ipod and Magnifier to watch Hello Dolly as if it's a television.   It's fun catching all the little trinkets that Pixar have put in the background of WALL-E's "home".  I'm a sucker for a love story (don't tell anyone) and I have to admit, robots or no, I got choked up in parts of this.   And don't even get me started at the beginning of their movie UP.  Amazing special effects/animation.  Pixar is just a brilliant studio filled with amazing talent, and even as a 43 year old man with no children, I will pretty much see anything they do and don't feel ashamed one bit.



18. Safe House-(2012) A fast paced action movie starring Denzel Washington.
Denzel plays a former CIA agent turned criminal, who after a turn of events in South Africa has to turn himself into the American Consulate to escape people trying to kill him for receiving sensitive files from an MI-6 operative.   He is transported to a Safe House populated solely by a newly promoted CIA agent (Ryan Reynolds), dying to do ANYTHING to escape the boredom that this uneventful location presents day after day.   His wish to have something exciting to do will pretty much start from about the moment he meets Denzel.   Once a group attacks the safe house to kill Denzel the movie does not let up.   Denzel and Reynolds have a great chemistry together and this movie was very good at not letting up with the action until the very end.   This was a tough choice for me between this and Deja Vu, another Denzel movie.   That movie also had a time travel element that I am almost always a sucker for.   I ended up picking this one in the end, I think mainly because the action is pretty much a constant, but it's a hard choice.  My suggestion is to watch them both as a double feature. =)



17. Gran Torino-(2008) Clint Eastwood masterpiece about a Walt Kowalski, a racist, Korean war veteran, who's wife has recently passed away.   He spends most days drinking beer on his porch lamenting how his neighborhood, formerly filled with blue collar, middle-class white people, is now populated by a poor Asian community and now filled with gangs.  He feels no connection to his family and feels as if they are just waiting for him to die to get his possessions.   He also has lung cancer and is seen coughing up blood and tells no one.      His next door neighbors are a Hmong family who have a son who coerced into attempting to steal Walt's prize possession, his Gran Torino.  Walt catches him, and the boy's family, as a penance, talk Walt into making him work off the debt he owes him for shaming his family.   Walt originally objects profusely and verbally mistreats him (along with everyone else in the movie, pretty much) but eventually becomes friends with him and the whole family by the end.   He becomes very protective of the kid and his sister against the street gang that perpetrates some horrific violence against the family. 
This is an excellent movie.  Clint Eastwood has always been one of my favorite actors growing up, and he has turned out to be a hell of a director over the years, just getting better and better.  I cannot believe the Academy Awards completely snubbed this film when it was out.
 

16. Stranger Than Fiction-(2006) Starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Glyllenhaal, and Emma Thompson is a part comedy, part drama and part fantasy.  Ferrell stars at Harold Crick-a by the book(no pun intended) auditor for the IRS who has a daily routine that he never breaks.  Suddenly he wakes one day and hears a female voice (Emma Thompson) narrating his life and events in his head.  That day, on his way home, Harold's watch stops working and he resets it using the time given by a bystander; then the narrator says, "little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death".   Panicked, he tries to find out if he's going crazy, a psychiatrist tells him it could be schizophrenia, but also says if someone actually IS narrating, maybe he should go see a literary expert.      The literary professor (played by Dustin Hoffman) tells him, if he IS,  in fact, in a story, that he needs to find out if it's a "tragedy" or a "comedy"

Harold meets Glyllenhaal's character, Ana Pascal, through his job, as he is supposed to audit her small business.    He insults her inadvertently and is kicked out of her shop.  However, they do eventually begin to fall for each other.   Meanwhile, Harold hears the narrator's voice in an old interview playing on the TV in the literary professor's office.  The professor tells Harold, the narrator is actually Karen Eiffel (Thompson) who apparently only writes stories where the main character dies a tragic death.   I won't spoil the rest of the movie, but it's a very creative, sad story, very smart.

I really liked the chemistry between Ferrell and Glyllenhaal.  Ferrell is not everyone's cup of tea, I realize that, but I really thought he did a great job playing a dramatic role and not being as "abrasive" as his detractors always fault him for.   I highly recommend this for even non-fans of Will Ferrell.
 

There you go, the next five.   Tune in tomorrow for #15-11!

Election Night 2008

This was something I typed up on the eve of the 4 year anniversary of my Mom's death.

 

 

November 5, 2012 at 6:37pm

 

 

4 years ago on election night, my Mom was in hospice for her second night.   I remember going up to hospice around 10pm after most of the polls were in, the nurse calling me, telling me that I  needed to get up there, because she thought she would be gone by morning.   I called my Dad and my brothers I think and told them (it's  kind of a blur), and sat with her and talked a little bit.  I remember  trying to make conversation and telling her the election was tonight. She was weak and for the last 4 or 5 months of her life, she could only talk in  a whisper. I could barely hear her asking me something, but made out something  along the lines of "Who won?"  I thought it an odd question coming from  her, because she never mentioned the election prior to that, and our family was  never really into politics, but I thought she was just making  conversation.  I told her, "Obama." and she kind of gave me a look I didn't understand and drifted off without responding.  I don't remember if we talked much more that night or she fell asleep.  The next two days, I never heard her speak again, just her breathing. until she passed away on Nov. 6th, 2008.    That damn question she asked me for some reason bothered me for two days afterwards, until it finally hit me like a ton of bricks.

I got my knowledge and love for pop  culture/TV, Movies...etc. from my mom, so it suddenly made sense why she had given me that look, It was the look of "That's not the question I was asking when I asked, "Who won, but I'm too tired to ask again and be  clearer."   All of the previous conversations we'd had on the phone recently and basically since I'd moved out of the house always started, "Did you see, "such and such the other night?" and then we'd have a conversation for what  seemed like an hour over what we'd both watched for the past week or  two.
So at this time, she was REALLY into "Dancing  With The Stars"...  I felt horrible that i didn't know what she meant  when she asked, "Who won?"    She couldn't have given a crap about who won the election....all she wanted to know was, who got voted off on  Dancing with the Stars.
Well I couldn't have told her anyway, because  since the elections were that Tuesday, the results show wasn't on until Wednesday and by then it was too late.   So, Mom, I had to do some research, but in answer to that question 4 years ago..."Susan Lucci got voted  off."   I love you, mom.


...and fuck you, Cancer.

The "Siskel" to my "Ebert".

The "Siskel" to my "Ebert"

April 5, 2013 at 8:16pm

 

This was a tribute to my movie buddy Shannon, written shortly after Roger Ebert's passing last year:

 

 

Just a few days ago, my friend Shannon asked me, who i would consider myself, Siskel or Ebert?    Shannon asked me this of course, because we have been fellow movie lovers since we met back in 1998.   I, of course, sarcastic, pitch black/dark humored/shock value A-hole that i am, asked: "Are we talking about pre-brain tumor Siskel or post surgery Siskel?" My reasoning I said was, because before the tumor, Siskel,... in my eyes, was known for not liking many movies unless they were art house, serious films.  I know that wasn't necessarily true, but as a preteen, teen and early 20s, that's what it seemed to me easier to classify his tastes in film as.  Post-brain tumor, I saw Siskel say that "Babe, Pig in the City" was the best movie of 1998 at their Best of the Year program they did annually in Dec or Jan.   I knew Gene was probably not long for this world after that comment, his speech was slower, and, and he did actually die in Feb, 1999.  

I know as callous as that sounds, I loved Gene Siskel and still mourn the man to this day, and I also equally loved Roger Ebert as well and will tremendously miss him the rest of my days.   I have spent the last few years feeling so sorry for Roger Ebert and what he'd had to overcome, but equally feel so proud of what he did after his bout with cancer and never once letting it stop him from doing what he loved to do, talking about and reviewing movies.   Between the both of them they shaped many things about me and my love of film.

I remember watching them on Sneak Previews on public television as a young kid, then "At the Movies", then "Siskel & Ebert At the Movies" and then just "Siskel & Ebert".   I loved the bazillion times I watched them on Letterman together, each time they were on, alternating who would sit next to Dave.  EVERY time they were on, talking over one another, insulting one another, picking at each other, but knowing deep down these two loved one another and if the other wasn't there, their lives would be empty.

My friend Shannon and I go see movies regularly, sometimes once a week, sometimes 2 times a week, sometimes we won't go for a few weeks if we can't find anything we're remotely interested in. But regardless, there's no one I go see movies with more in a year.   My friend Shannon and I went and saw The Matrix in 1999 and came out of the theater, talked about it a few minutes and without any arm-twisting on either side, promptly walked back in, plopped down our money and watched it all over again.

There have been several times when we've went to one movie and gone back in for another.  There was a time last year, when i was really down about something, and we went and saw some movie I can't seem to recall, in the early afternoon.   We went home, talked on the phone later and hearing the deep depression i was still in, asked me if I wanted to go see Safe House with Denzel Washington, because I'd been talking earlier in the day about wanting to see it.   So that night we drove all the way across town to "our" theater and watched ANOTHER movie, because that's how we fuckin' roll.   =)   There are few people who are that nuts about movies like I am.   I didn't know Shannon in 1988, but I'm thinking in that summer I could have probably talked her into a few of my 11 theatrical viewings of Die Hard.   Her seemingly undying hatred now of everything Bruce Willis, notwithstanding.

I'm a little less picky than she is about movies that I want to see, I am pretty much up for anything.  Which would explain how she got me talked into seeing Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters a few months ago.

So in answer to her question, I said without a doubt, I would consider myself Ebert.  In my mind, Ebert seemed like he could almost find something he liked in any movie no matter if he didn't like the movie, itself.  Which is what I do when I come out of a movie, which seems to frustrate Shannon.  She asks me after every movie, what did you think?   Jokingly asking, because she knows 98.99 % of the time I'm going to say "I liked it"  Eh, I like movies.   There have been a few that we've agreed on sucked, but overall It always feels i like everything and that she's picked the movie to death like a buzzard on a bloated prospector's corpse in the middle of the desert.

To me it felt Ebert went into a movie optimistic that the movie would be good, and then adjusted his opinions after the movie if it disappointed him overall.   Siskel seemed like he was pessimistic he was going to like the film and then if it surprised him, he's adjust his opinions afterwards.  These are all my unfounded opinions and I'm sure couldn't be farther from the truth, but in my mind growing up it's how I perceived it.  Roger Ebert and I didn't always agree on movies, (his scathing review and hatred for the movie Blue Velvet is one I would debate him) but i always felt more like him than Siskel.

I had one of those Ebert Video movie companion books from the late 80s, Early 90s, that I absolutely loved and treated almost like my "bible", it was my go to guide for I don't know HOW many years.     I'm sure it's a dog-eared, yellow paged, mess of a book now, but I do still have it packed up somewhere.

I loved you, Roger Ebert, and I will continue to miss you like I have Gene Siskel for almost 15 years now.   You both were two people I wanted to meet and talk about movies for hours, as I'm sure every goofball who's ever sat in a theater, has wanted to do.  I may not have as frequently visited Roger's webpage as much as I've wanted in the last few years, but knowing that he was out there still doing what he loved and getting paid for it, made me happy.   He was an inspiration to many people and will leave a void in more people than he'll probably ever know.

As for my "Siskel", you and I share something that I cherish dearly and wouldn't trade for anything in the world.  I regret the almost 10 years where my life was too busy for us to get together other than maybe 1 movie a year for some of them, for whatever reasons.   I will take the blame for that, and i will do everything in my power to not have that happen again.    I doubt very much that Siskel & Ebert called each other (yes, i realize "Siskel" probably does much of the calling in our relationship ;P ) and talked as much as we do(sometimes 2am in the morning), and/or have the warped conversations that we do, (but in my mind it's fun to pretend they do.)   I appreciate the fact you still want to be my friend, even when i frustrate you to no end. =)   I love you for not only being my "Siskel" but for being there in the times that i needed you to be and will need you to be, hopefully.

I am honored and blessed to have you as my friend and hope for the rest of our days, we'll be in our seats in the darkened theater, you chastising me if I start biting my nails, watching movies and loving every minute of it.

p.s. I think for our next movie, in honor of Ebert's passing, we sit in the "SISKEL AND EBERT" chairs.

p.p.s.  For those not in the know, the "Siskel and Ebert" chairs are those two chairs that separate the stadium seats from the front rows, that let's a handicapped person in a wheelchair sit next to their loved ones.  A loving phrase coined by my friends Jim and Jeff Duede.