1. Given the similarities between Krall and the Green Goblin, what the Federation really needed to defeat Krall was your friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man. Could have saved a lot of lives and resources (I’m just sayin’).
2. An old Federation Starship can apparently be hot-wired from beneath the conn console, though the original crew must not have grown up in the right ‘hood and/or was never taught the trick.
3. If a Federation Starship is lost in deep space, they can at least fulfill the Prime Directive by becoming a decent pirate radio station.
4. Really bad rock n’ roll is, indeed, ruinous in ways we never imagined. When our parents told us it would “rot our brains” they were, apparently, just scratching the surface.
5. The U.S.S. Enterprise has more lives than your average, proverbial cat. At what point do Federation tax-payers revolt?! “How many times to we have to rebuild this thing?!!!” And, at what point does the Federation decide that sending the (seventh) multi-trillion dollar Enterprise into the Nebula, out of contact of civilization, for a sketchy, unsubstantiated rescue mission of a small, unidentified crew of alien beings is NOT a great use of resources?!
6. The Federation has no lack of naive, altruistic young people willing to lay down their lives needlessly. Seriously, the Enterprise takes more damage and incurs more loss of life (of non-Bridge personnel) than a 1970 Ford Pinto with a suitcase of wired C4 in the back hatch. Why would you accept an assignment on the Enterprise unless you’re assigned to the bridge? Captain Kirk and the bridge crew always beat Spock’s (unemotionally) stated, impossible odds but the eternal throng of “Red-shirted Engineer’s Mate #6” and his compatriots never do. But they STILL find beautiful young people willing to fill the crew.
(Considering both #5 and #6, maybe the future really does belong to Hillary and the liberals. Sorry, Donald.)
If you had to pick the worst movie in history, which one would get the dubious honor?
There are so many movies that could get the honor. I don’t know about the worst movie of all time, but I do know the one movie that I have loathed since I sat through it at the Barrington Discount Theatres in college. As a poor college student, even the discounted $2.00 ticket price was a lot to spend on entertainment. The biggest waste of $2.00 was spent to watch what I consider the worst movie I’ve ever seen: Sweet Dreams, the 1985 biographical story of female country crooner Patsy Cline. When I think of the phrase “two hours of my life I’ll never get back,” this is the movie that comes to mind. Only, the two hours felt like an entire lifetime of torture – so I feel like I should be credited extra for having to endure such a horrific movie. And, to quote a much better movie from the 1980s: “TWO DOLLARS I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!”
While there are movies that I think are better movies for this reason or that, Casablanca remains my favorite movie of all time. There are so many iconic moments and memorable lines, but this lesser known moment from the film never fails to stir my heart.
Speaking of being captivated. Taylor has been pursuing Wendy and me to watch the movie Juno, and she caught us at just the right time last night. We sat down for a family film night to watch the movie together (it was Taylor’s 5th time watching it). Wendy and I were certainly captivated by this wonderful movie and lay in bed late into the night talking about it and along with various tangential life conversations it prompted (which, in turn, made the tornado siren at 5 a.m. seem awfully early!).
Wendy put it best when she said that it was one of the most life affirming movies we’ve seen. Not because it presents life in an ideal, Hollywood dreamworld – but because it affirms the beauty of life in the midst of a messy world of blessedly imperfect people and relationships.
Wayfarer 