I’m a liberal (or progressive, if you prefer the term). I’ve always had mixed feelings about gun ownership. As a child, I enjoyed playing with cap guns, and a macho, caveman corner of my personality has always liked the idea of wielding a weapon. But, the rational pragmatist in me has never been able to actually justify owning a gun.

Every so often I’ll get the urge to buy a gun for defense purposes. But when I start to reflect on it, I realize that I can’t really envision a situation where I’d need to use it. I mean, sure- I can picture a home break-in, where I’d run to the closet and open my gun safe and pull out a hand gun… but such scenarios feel like the boyhood daydreams of fighting a terrorist (and/or ninja) takeover of my high school. Even if it were to happen, it seems like something that would always play out better in my head than it would in real life.

I’m not a paranoid person. I enjoy reading the masturbatory rants of the folks who contribute to forums about the upcoming collapse of society, or post survivalist or “prepper” videos on youtube, or fret about “Peak Oil”. But I take all these things with more than a grain of salt. For the most part they are unsupported (or poorly supported) fears mixed with outright delusions.

But a couple things happened this week that did finally tip me over the edge and seriously consider a gun purchase: I watched the Republican Presidential Debates, and I heard Obama’s Address to Congress.

As someone who was recently unemployed for well over a year, and who saw his father get laid off during the tail end of that period, I now know firsthand the deep despair that fills someone who can’t get a foothold in this economy. If I hadn’t had the support of my family and friends, I may well have ended up homeless (and that’s within months of receiving a law degree).

Multiply that anxiety by the 14 million unemployed folks in this country, and the countless underemployed, and it’s not hard to see that there are a lot of scared and angry people out there.

Other countries– large, stable countries– have begun to see riots. Without an immediate reversal in course, it is only a matter of time before we see riots in the U.S. –which brings me back to the debates, and the President’s speech.

All of the front-running Republicans have decided that the path to economic recovery is a return to the laissez faire system of government– the same philosophy that was in place when America’s working class was at its weakest, poorest, and most abused. This isn’t a big surprise. As other, well respected, authors have noted, almost all modern Republican policies can be traced back to a singular goal: the creation of cheap labor. That’s all well and good, unless you are the labor. And, in case you didn’t know: 99% of us are the labor.

The President’s speech the next day didn’t make me feel any better. Don’t get me wrong, I think it was a terrific speech- or at least it would have been if he had given it two years ago when it might have done some good. But it’s too late in the game for half-measures. Even if the President got everything that he asked for (he won’t), it still wouldn’t make a significant dent in the unemployment crisis.

So I spent the next few days thinking about the state of nation, and imaging what America is going to look like in a few years. If Obama stays in power without a liberal Congress, things will be much the same for years to come: political gridlock and slowly worsening conditions for the middle class.

If the Republicans take back the executive branch, then political gridlock is the best we can hope for. If they’re able to get traction with their radical fiscal policies, they’ll keep feeding our money to corporations, banks and the ultra-wealthy. The middle class will shrink. More of us will fall into poverty, and with fewer people buying any products, even the large corporations will start to buckle and fail.

With more unemployment, more disparity between the haves and have-nots, and no clear path to prosperity in sight, I can no longer pretend that the U.S. is the stable and secure place I always knew it to be.

It is no longer unreasonable to think that things may go from bad to much, much worse. I’m not saying that an economic collapse will happen, or even that it it is likely to happen. Nor can I begin to predict the severity or duration of any crash that might occur. But in the current political climate it feels foolhardy to ignore the possibility that something very bad is on the horizon.

If you’re skeptically minded, you may be thinking that I’m being alarmist or that my anxiety is premature. You’re right of course. But there’s logic behind my madness. History is rife with examples giant social upheavals that happen with very little notice. Most recently, Egypt taught us that lesson anew. That country went from protests to revolution in a span of days.

I’m not saying that the U.S. is poised for such a revolution, of course- but I am saying that things could turn ugly here, very quickly. With the proper trigger, massive protests could form. If handled poorly, those protests could easily turn to riots. If it can happen in the U.K., it can certainly happen here. And how big could those riots be? And how long might they last? And by the time we’ve figured out the answers to those questions, will it be too late to prepare?

And so, for the first time in my life, I found myself in a gun shop, talking to the proprietor about a good beginner’s firearm for someone who is interested in home defense.

If you’ve never been to a large gun shop (and I’m sure many progressives have not), I strongly recommend that you step inside. For my part, I found the place unsettling. For the first time in my life I held a working firearm, but I didn’t feel any safer– quite the contrary, as a matter of fact.

The thing about being a liberal in a gun shop is that you are privy to a lot of conversations that you wouldn’t otherwise hear. It was rather like walking into a Tea Party convention.

The shop I went to was near my home in North Carolina. When the gruff man behind the counter found out that I was from Massachusetts, he openly mocked it for being a “socialist” state. Moments later, I overheard a woman loudly ranting about how Obama’s job plan was “destroying the country” with more spending. She was interested in buying some gold coins for when the economy collapsed.

To be fair, most folks were just there to talk about guns, and play with guns, and buy new gadgets to affix to their guns. Their comfort and knowledge of firearms made me feel nervous. I was in store full of 50+ people who didn’t feel at all shy about expressing their distain for liberals and “socialists”. All of them, I’m convinced, would have had no trouble gunning me down in an honest firefight.

I went into that store to buy a gun to protect my family in the event of a riot. I walked out feeling very nervous that if their actually was major social upheaval in the United States, a lot of angry conservatives would have no problem forming an organized militia, and they wouldn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for the scores of unarmed “socialist” progressives out there.

Now I find myself wishing that liberals would flock to gun shops en masse so that they can see the world I caught a glimpse of, and so that they could interact with the same folks I did, and maybe engage in some lively political discussion. These gun shops are factories for unchecked Tea-Party-style nonsense. It means that a lot of angry and armed folks are spending their days amplifying each other’s misunderstanding and distrust of the rest of us.

And also- (and I realize that this part is just pure paranoia)– I’d like to know that if things ever really degrade, there would be a whole lot of armed liberals out there to keep the armed conservatives in check. Or at the very least, I’d like enough of them to lay down sufficient cover fire for me while I run from Whole Foods back to my Prius.

I’ve never quite understood the appeal of twitter, but occasionally a tweet does find its way onto my computer screen.

Your standard tweet looks a bit like:

I was just at #McDonalds where I saw @Madonna killing a guy!

The ‘#’ tags McDonald’s as a relevant topic of the post. The ‘@’ assures that the tweet will be attached to Modanna’s tweet account.

The ‘#’s and ‘@’s are finding there way into facebook status messages and a host of other nooks and crannies where they don’t really belong. It’s not really a big deal- as they are only approximately as annoying as emoticons ;)

But it did occur to me today that they are needless distractions.. Why not keep the ‘#’s and ‘@’s in the input of a tweet, but just eliminator them in the output- and replace them with stylistic changes or color changes.

I was just at McDonalds where I saw Madonna killing a guy!

Wouldn’t that be nicer?

If you’ve watched the trailer of the new documentary ‘Buck’ and it strikes you as even a somewhat interesting topic, you’ll love the film. The feature length documentary that follows Buck and his family around the country putting on horse training trials is just the sort of story you would expect: heartwarming, emotional, honest and, at times, difficult to watch.

There are many parallels made between horse rearing and parenting, and throughout the film we get to see Buck interact quite a bit with his teenage daughter who frequently accompanies him on his trips. We also get to delve into Buck’s childhood a bit, and relive some of his memories about being raised by an abusive, alcoholic father until he was rescued and placed in with a foster family.

One of the more interesting plot points (if a documentary can have a plot) deals with one problematic horse that is trucked into one of Buck’s trials. After a few minutes, Buck describes this horse as, “being as close to a predator as I’ve ever seen.” Which seems like an exaggeration at first, until a few minutes later where the horse begins lunging violently at people while attempting to bite them over the fence.

The interesting thing about this particular horse is that he was never abused, as one might assume. He was actually coddled and spoiled. His mother died during his birth, making him an orphan. His owner bottle-fed him and basically raised him inside her house during his first winter. He was even potty trained when he was young.

One might assume that a horse raised like that would be extremely gentle, but it turned out to be just the opposite. He was vicious, with absolutely no respect for anyone, and ends up attacking multiple people in the film.

Buck manages this horse in the short-term by roping his hind leg and offering up some strict discipline. Even so, when the stud successfully attacks another professional handler the next day, it becomes sadly apparent that there are some animals even a professional like Buck can’t fix. It turns out that even horses that were abused are easier to work with than horses that were simply never disciplined at all — spoiled horses have no respect for handlers, and no reason to want to listen.

The film also delves into a couple discussions about the sheer joy of riding, something I hadn’t before heard discussed so lucidly. Several of the folks who were interviewed said that riding, once you know what you’re doing, is like having the horse become an extension of your own body. Riding seems so natural that it becomes practically addictive.

While not much of the footage is action packed, it’s certainly compelling, and there is a lot of wisdom to be shared. If you have any interest in rural living, animal husbandry, psychology, or parenting, Buck is a must-see.

I’m giving this movie my highest rating, and I’ll tell you why:

Partly, I feel the need to compensate for the unjustly low reviews it’s gotten elsewhere, but mostly because it’s funny. It’s really funny. And most importantly it’s smart funny- which is shocking when you consider that the flimsy plot looked like it couldn’t possibly be a vehicle for intelligent humor.

Sometimes you see a movie trailer and you just know that a film is going to be awful. That’s how I felt when I was forced to sit through the Bad Teacher trailer three times over the past couple of weeks.

In the trailer, the theme looked weak, and the premise wasn’t really explained. There was some good dialogue and delivery- but these days you have to assume that they’re just showing you the best (and perhaps the only) good moments in the entire film.

Early this week, I took a look at the reviews: Rotten Tomatoes had Bad Teacher rated well below 50%. That was all the evidence I needed to skip it entirely, or possibly catch it on cable somewhere down the line.

Then something odd happened: NPR gave it a glowing review. That seemed backwards to me. NPR generally saves its glowing reviews for artsy independent films that my girlfriend wants to make me see. NPR doesn’t like goofball comedies- particularly not ones as bad as Bad Teacher promised to be.

So, I decided to go have a look for myself, and I’m glad I did.

I can understand why other reviewers panned the film: the plot is thin, the character development seems forced, and almost every scene of the film is derivative of other comedies. One scene even sank so low as to include bathroom humor, which is usually a deal-breaker for me.

So, how can a film that sounds so shallow and awful be getting such a good review here?

Because it’s funny. I can’t stress that enough. This is a really funny movie.

The entire (amazing) cast displays perfect comic timing and delivery throughout. They clearly had fun making this movie, and their performances made the already witty dialogue truly shine.

Cameron Diaz does a fine job in the lead- surprisingly at her very best when she’s being hilariously cruel- a side of her which we haven’t seen very often before, but which the this movie milks (successfully) as it’s primary gag.

A special nod has to be given to Phyllis Smith, who you probably already know as “Phyllis from The Office”. Now, I’ve always been a fan of The Office, and Phyllis has given me a few laughs… but like most of the actors on that show, her performance is so understated and genuine that it’s easy to forget that character isn’t her real personality.

When her new character “Lynn Davies” showed up on screen in Bad Teacher, I was expected an excellent but predictable rehashing of her character from The Office- but I was wrong. Phyllis Smith delivered a masterful performance. She was just as understated as her Office character, but with a subtle but undeniable new essence. Though Lynn Davies’ defining attribute is her meekness, somehow she steals the show whenever she’s on screen.

Jason Segel, playing gym teacher “Russell Gettis” is another perfect example of how the acting in this movie elevated the film from mediocrity to something special. The script did a very good job of making Russell charming, witty and likable, but Segel’s performance gives the character a depth and vulnerability that exist independent of the dialog.

Justin Timberlake was clearly having fun playing the ridiculous “Scott Delacorte”. His performance here had the same flavor that has made him a beloved feature on Saturday Night Live in recent years. He clearly delights in playing characters that are the antithesis of his natural charm, charisma, and sex appeal. There is an unspoken self-deprecation in everything Timberlake does in this film, stemming from the fact that he is a sex icon having been given a role that most casting directors would have handed to any of the hundreds of popular actors that have been typecasts as nerds.

If there is a weak point in the cast of characters, it would have to be “Amy Squirrel”, the film’s antagonist. Amy is played by Lucy Punch, who, like everyone else in the film, does a fantastic job. My complaint here isn’t the acting- it’s the character herself. Amy starts off with lots of solid dialogue, and for the first half of the film elicits her fair share of the laughs. Somewhere in the middle of the film, the writers (Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg) stopped feeding her good lines, and turned her into an over-the-top caricature, whose primary purpose was to move the plot along. This is my only real complaint about the movie.

There were lots of structural problems with the film: the character development, the character motivations, the narrative flow- and most of the critics out there can easily point to the flaws to justify the poor ratings they’ve given. But I assert that Bad Teacher cannot be judge by the standard criteria.

Like a house built on a poor foundation, you expect this movie to topple over at any moment… but that collapse never comes. The film would easily be exposed as mindless fluff if ever the humor were to run out. But the humor doesn’t run out. The laugh lines are plentiful and evenly distributed throughout the film. I even found the bathroom humor funny- and I never find bathroom humor funny.

This movie is never going to be a classic- it wasn’t supposed to be. But it is very fun, and funny enough that I look forward to rewatching it in the future. It’s not fantastic, but it is very good, and deserves far better ratings than the ones it’s been getting so far. I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a good laugh.

So, I was standing there trying to figure out how to kill a black bear with a pocket knife.

The game is usually fair, and in a combat round you tend to be given weapons equal to the task at hand. The knife was part of a multi-tool, and though the blade was sharp, it was also short, and the odd shape of it felt uncomfortable in my hand.

I suppose I should have felt lucky to be holding the knife at all. When this round began, I thought there was nothing. The ground was a coarse yellow sand, and only half an inch of the stainless steel contraption was unburied. If the sun hadn’t glinted off the metal just so, I never would have seen it. Of course, even the position of the sun was precisely controlled, so in all likelihood the reflection was designed to find my eyes.

The bear made a noise that sounded somewhere between a roar and a sneeze. It didn’t seem particularly aggressive to me, but, then, I didn’t have much experience with bears.

I took a moment to glance down and find out what they had me in. The fabric had felt light and breezy, so I wasn’t surprised to see that it was a fine white linen. It seemed like it might have been a toga, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the bear long enough to figure out the mechanics of the outfit. I could see that I had a snug leather belt around my waist, though, and the fabric draped skirt-like well above the ankles, so I didn’t have to worry about tripping over it.

I still had canvas sneakers on, which was nice. Sandals would have been better suited to the outfit, but generally the game let me keep whatever footwear I brought with me from the previous level. I’d acquired the canvas sneakers in an earlier round, when in a moment of desperation I’d knocked a teenage kid off his bicycle and bludgeoned him with a rock. It was horribly traumatic for both of us, but probably more so for me, since I was the only one that actually existed.

That was one of the only rules I knew for sure: no matter how lifelike the characters seemed, they weren’t real.

They had done little work on the scenery, this time. I seemed to be in a tiny oval arena, but they hadn’t bothered to create any seating. Outside the low walls of the sandy pit was just the dull white color of empty space, which seamlessly blended into a blue, sunny sky.

The bear seemed to be losing interest in me, if it had had any to begin with. It backed away slowly and started sniffing the wall at the perimeter of the sand pit. From the way the wall caught the sun, it seemed to be made of some sort of painted sheet metal or plastic, and something about it reminded me of a hockey rink.

I slowly moved backwards to the opposite side of the sand pit until I could feel the wall at my back. It was smooth and warm to the touch. I let my fingers drag along the surface while I walked a few feet, feeling for a seam. There was none. Without a seam, there was no panel to ply loose, and no easy exit- unless I found a hidden door. But I had a feeling I wasn’t meant to leave this space.

I was finally far enough away from the bear to examine the pocket knife. It was the sort that unfolded into a pair of pliers. I could see a can opener attachment and small Philips head screwdriver. Nestled in the handle next to the knife blade was a file that looked like it might work on metal.

I wondered which of the tools I would be expected to use. If this was puzzle challenge instead of a combat round, then any or all of the pocket knife extensions could come in to play. The game always gave you the tool you needed for the job. At least, that’s the way it had worked so far. But it was always getting more difficult- physically, mentally… and in other ways, too.

The first round of the game had been just a hammer and a nail.

The second round had been a hammer and a baby.

The bear made a loud snort on the far side of the arena, and stood on its hind legs. It sniffed the air for a moment then returned to all fours. I eyed it careful for a minute while it wandered about slowly. It seemed almost bored. Bored was better than angry.

The wall was only about four feet high. I estimated that I could probably climb over it without too much trouble, if the game would allow it. But the game did not usually allow for such things. There were an inexhaustible number of ways it could stop me. The wall might have a top edge that was razor sharp, or perhaps there was some sort of invisible force field above it. That would be a lazy solution to keep me in place, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

I considered taking a running leap to vault out of the arena, but it occurred to me that such a move might trigger the bear to charge, whether out of its natural instincts, or some hardwired condition of the game.

Escaping the arena was futile anyway. Even if I could get out, there was likely just an infinite ocean of sand on the outside. I might wander around until I died of dehydration, if they let me. Most likely they’d just let me stumble about for a while and then put the bear pit right in front of me. This would go on for weeks or months until I finally fought the thing. That’s assuming I was supposed to be fighting it. I still couldn’t be sure.

The bear sauntered around the pit, less concerned about keeping his distance than I was. I circled the pit and kept as far from the animal as possible. Gripping the knife hard, I felt the awkward metal hilt dig into my flesh. The rough sand made for unsure footing, and the muscles in my legs were fatiguing quickly.

If I was supposed to kill the bear, I figured I should do it now, before my legs got too tired, and before I had the chance to think about it too much. Still, the mechanics of the attack had to be worked out. I figured my best shot was to lodge the small blade in the bear’s throat- it was the only vulnerable spot I could think of. But just now, it was not looking particularly vulnerable.

I took a step forward, and even though the bear remained relatively placid, I found that my feet did not want to carry me any closer. What if I did lodge the knife in the bear’s throat? Would that be enough? I imagined that even if I got a good strike in, the bear could still tear me apart before it bled out. Then I tried hard to stop imagining that.

I noticed that I had started shaking. I hadn’t realized how afraid I was. As an abstract concept, bears had never scared me. Even seeing one up close in a zoo hadn’t even aroused the faintest stirrings of fear. But now, mere feet away from the thing, I felt raw terror creeping in.

It had been the same with the wolves in an early level. But I’d had a samurai sword then, and some sort of plate armor. Now I felt naked, and the blade I was holding might as well have been made of plastic for all the good I thought it would do.

I closed my eyes and silently repeated my mantra: “It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real.”

I opened my eyes and took another step forward. It sure felt real.

The bear wasn’t looking at me, even though I was only two large strides away from it. It occurred to me that perhaps they’d given me a blind bear, or maybe just an extraordinarily stupid one. That would have made it fair, right? The game is usually fair.

I took another step. My canvas shoes sank strangely in the sand. This was not good footing for a fight.

Before I could think about anything, I stepped again, closing the distance between me and the bear. Still, it didn’t even acknowledge me.

I was close enough to touch it now. The funky smell of it, and the odd noise of its heavy breathing were all that I could think about.

Its head was down, and now that I was here, I couldn’t figure out the mechanics of actually stabbing it in the throat. I just didn’t have the leverage or the angle to get a good thrust there.

The fur on the bear’s head was a bit thin, and through it I could see the dark skin covering its skull. If the bear remained still and calm, I would be able to land a spectacular downward thrust right there in the crown of its head. If the blade punctured the skull, it would almost certainly mean instant death for the bear.

The game had taught me that when I needed to kill, it was best not to over think things. I had my target. I had my weapon. I had my plan of attack. Best to make quick work of it.

I rotated the knife so the blade pointed downward, then I raised it above my head with both hands.

I took a slow, deep breath, and said my silent prayer. “It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real.”

I plunged the knife down with the full force of my weight, and instantly I realized I had made a terrible mistake.

The tip of the blade found its mark, but rather than crashing through the bone, it slid downward, following the curvature of the bear’s skull, opening a deep cut. The wound would not be fatal, at least not instantly so. But that was not the most pressing problem.

The real horror of my situation became clear moments later when I felt the excruciating sting on the crown of my own head, and felt every nerve scream as a gash opened all the way down to the flesh behind my ear. It was a mirror to the cut I’d given the bear, though the pain was so intense that it took me several seconds to recognize it.

The bear had made an odd sort of yelp when my blade struck. It sounded more surprised than hurt. The animal had stumbled away in fear and confusion, which had been somewhat of a relief until my own wound had appeared. Now my pain was so severe that it was difficult to think at all. But I did have wits enough to command my legs to take me as far from the bear as possible.

My hand went up to my head. There was too much blood. The wound was so raw and painful that touching it hardly made a difference. I felt skin torn loose from the bone beneath, warm matted hair, and blood, and blood, and blood.

I felt light-headed, and wondered if I was going to pass out- but surely the game would not allow such a thing. Death was a possibility. Though what death meant in the game was a mystery to me. Perhaps it would mean waking to the real world, whatever that was.

My hands were shaking so much that I wondered if it was simply adrenaline, or if it was a symptom of some kind of brain damage from the head wound.

“It isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real.”

I noticed with a mixture of relief and surprise that I was still holding the knife in my hand. My first thought was to charge the bear and stab it until it died. My pain had made me fearless. I needed this round to be over. In the next level I would be healed. The game always gave you a fresh start.

I stumbled towards the bear, but my legs were wobbly and gave out beneath me after a few strides. I jumped to my feet again, throwing sand everywhere. My movements were spastic and sluggish. My body was failing. I would not have much time.

I stumbled closer to the bear and wondered if it was in as much pain as I was. I took a moment to be thankful that it was still passive and calm in spite of everything. In fact, even now it seemed not to see me.

I felt dizzy, and as I moved again I lost my balance, falling face first in the sand. I landed strangely and twisted my arm. I felt it bend, then snap. I expected a shot of pain to course through me, but by some miracle there was none. Perhaps the wound on my head had exhausted my ability to feel any other pain, for the torrent of agony that streamed from my scalp was unrelenting.

As I was getting to my knees, a peculiar thing happened. One of bear’s front paws gave out from under the beast, and it fell into the sand roaring and whimpering. A mirror of my own broken arm… but where I held felt no pain, the bear clearly did.

I gazed down at my own arm to look at the break and marvel at the lack of pain, but upon examination, I could see no injury at all. Where I had felt it twist and crack, the arm now looked completely healthy, and was not even the slightest bit tender to the touch.

The rules of this round were starting to become clear. I stood up slowly and made my way over to where the bear making a sad and disturbing sound- somewhat like a howl. The bear did not acknowledge me, and somehow I was confident that he would not, or could not become aware of my presence.

I did not want to press my luck, though, so I only got close enough to confirm the theory that was forming in my foggy mind. I looked at the bear’s head where I had so violently lacerated it. The fur there was wet with blood, but the gash itself was gone.

Suspicions confirmed, I knew what I had to do next. Looking down, I saw that the knife was gone. For a moment, I thought it was a cruel twist in the game, but then I realized that I’d simply dropped it when I had stumbled.

In moments, I had fished the blade out of the sand, and was holding it loosely in my hand. I was fairly certain about what I needed to do, but I thought I better perform one last test, just to be sure. Also, I wanted to find out if it was going to hurt.

I held the blade against the palm of my hand, and I was about to give it a healthy slice, but at the last moment I realized that I wouldn’t be able to be certain if it worked or not. I moved to knife to the bridge of my nose, and, staring at the bear, I cut.

The cut wasn’t too deep, but I should have been in agony… well, more agony than the head gash was accounting for. Instead I felt nothing, even as the blood gushed from the wound. But few seconds later the bear bellowed pathetically as a mirror cut appeared on its face, as if carved out by some invisible knife.

I moved my hand up to my nose. There was blood, wet and sticky, but the cut I had just made was gone. That was it then. The results were in.

I took a moment to consider the poor bear, confused and in pain. I was likewise suffering, but knowing that my torment (this torment, anyway) was almost at an end gave me a sense of tranquility. What was the kindest way to end the bear? The neck or the heart?

I considered the knife for a long while and decided that I probably couldn’t thrust it into my breast with any great ease. Was there bone or merely cartilage over the heart? If I ever knew the finer points of anatomy, the game wasn’t letting me remember them- or perhaps it was just the pain from my head that was dulling my mind.

The neck would have to do, I supposed. I raised the blade slowly, trying not to think about the insanity of what I was doing. As the steel touched my throat, I felt warmth of the metal, and its hardness. But even as its tip punctured my skin, I felt no pain.

I made quick work of it- cutting deeply and opening the arteries in my throat. The sheer volume of blood was shocking, but even as it found its way into my lungs, and caused me to choke, I felt no pain except from the cut on my head- the cut I had intended for the bear.

Some few seconds later I felt the flesh of my neck mend itself, while simultaneously the bear began to roar and squeal and gurgle. I did not enjoy watching it thrash about and die. I regretted that I had not thought of a quicker and less painful way to dispose of it.

It was still twitching a making gargling noises a minute later, and I was wishing it dead now for selfish reasons. The pain from my head wound was unbearable, and I needed this round to be over. I was contemplating stabbing myself in the heart to speed the process, when finally the animal was still.

There was as sudden and absolute silence as all the ambient noise from the level suddenly ceased. When the game was resetting between levels, you couldn’t even hear the blood flowing through your ears.

The world dissolved away, as it always did, leaving me in an ocean of white, while the game conjured up some new horror for me.

“Fourty-Four” said a voice from no place in particular. There was always a voice announcing the beginning of a new round. I was trying to figure out if it was the same voice every time, but no matter how much I focused, I couldn’t actually discern any characteristics of the voice at all. I couldn’t even tell you if it was male or female. It was a soundless voice, like when you’re thinking words in your own head.

I was waiting for the next level to solidify around me, but many long seconds went by with no sign of scenery. I was standing in an empty, infinite white space.

I wondered if there was a glitch in the game. A moment of panic seized me. What if no one was monitoring the game? I could be stuck in this limbo for years- centuries even! My pulse was raising, and I started running aimlessly in a misguided attempt to jar the game back into a working state.

I only made it three steps before I slammed into something solid. Pain shot through my face, which had taken a good share of the impact, but after a moment, the mild throbbing injury reminded me that my bleeding head gash was now a thing of the past.

I ran a trembling hand through my hair and felt not even a trace of dried blood. I looked down to see if my clothes were still soaked in blood, and was momentarily surprised when I realized that I was no longer wearing the white linen toga.

My outfit was a simple white t-shirt and a pair of green shorts. My grey canvas sneakers were still with me, and they didn’t even have a trace of sand on them. The new outfit and the solid object in front of me renewed my faith that the game was still functioning properly.

I reached an unsure hand in front of me to feel what I’d run into. It was solid and flat. As I ran my hand along its surface, I suddenly became aware that it was a solid white wall that started at the floor and went up higher than I could tell.

I followed the wall for several paces until it intersected a second wall at a right angle. I traced the second wall in a similar fashion until I hit a third, and then a forth.

A room. I was trapped in a featureless white room… or a deep, featureless white pit depending on whether there was any kind of ceiling over my head.

The walls were a perfect white color, and the game had conjured no defined light source. There was no hint of shadow, or glare or anything to give a clue about depth or shape or texture. Even where the walls met, there was no visual queue at all.

The absence of any other living presence made me think that this was a puzzle round. I hated puzzle rounds- they could last for weeks- even months.

The worst part of a puzzle round was figuring out what the puzzle actually was. And this time the game had really started me with nothing. How does one answer when there is no question? I leaned against a wall and sank to the floor sullenly.

As I sat, there was noise beneath me. Startled, I scooted aside. There was nothing where I had been except the featureless white floor. Then I realized that the sound had come from me, or rather from my pocket as it had hit the floor.

I reached a hand into the deep pocket of my shorts and was surprised to find my hand grasping the multi-tool from the previous level. The blade had been folded down, and there was no blood or sand to be seen, but I was certain that it was the knife I had just used to slit my own throat.

This was an interesting turn of events. The game did not often let me keep anything but footwear from one round to the next. I wondered if there was a reason. There wasn’t always a reason for things. That’s how the game kept you on your toes.

“Fourty-four,” I said aloud. I wondered how many more levels there were to go, and whether the game would outlast my sanity.

—

To be continued in: “Everything’s Going to be All White”

I had heard a few negative things about ‘Cars 2′ before I saw the film, but I wrote most of them off.

It seems to me that sometimes people get overly-bothered by films not “having enough heart,” or not adhering to what they think they should have been about, or not being emotional enough.

Depending on the type of story being told, I’m personally fine with any of that. Films don’t necessary have to be super-emotional to be enjoyable. I’m more than happy to take the old-fashioned entertainment and escapism of an action movie or the low-brow stylings of a ruckus comedy when that’s what is on the menu.

In one of John Lasseter’s interviews released before the ‘Cars 2′ came out, he framed the film as a “full-on spy movie” in which the characters are “taken around the world.” That sounded great to me. It would obviously give the film plenty of source material to pull from and work with.

Pixar is surprisingly adept at making even the simplest of ideas come to life. I was excited to see a spy-themed movie from them. Unfortunately, ‘Cars 2′ isn’t really a thrilling spy movie, as Lasseter claimed.

I have no doubts that if Pixar actually wanted to do an full-blown animated feature about spying it could turn out well. In fact, I hope they still plan to do one someday.

But spy movies have fundamental elements that ‘Cars 2′ lacks. In particular, they use constructs that give them a sense of intrigue and mystery. Apart from the solid opening scene, which is exciting and well-orchestrated, there aren’t any other action sequences worth noting that lend this enough credibility to be called a thriller or action film. And aside from not knowing who the ultimate bad guy is, there is no mystery or intrigue to be found.

Instead, for a long time during the showing, I thought ‘Cars 2′ was supposed to be some sort of message movie about how destructive gasoline is. The central plot revolves around a new type of fuel, “Allinol,” that is intended to make gasoline obsolete. (Don’t ask me why electric cars need fuel, they apparently just do.) The movie even goes so far as to make all of the bad guys oil company owners, and strongly implies throughout that only old, clunker lemons would want to continue to use oil.

This theme was hammered home pretty intensely at various points, to the extent that I thought Pixar might actually suffer a bit of backlash for pushing it so strongly. I mean, if people were offended by the obese, processed-foods scarfing ship residents depicted in Wall-E, who knows what some peoples’ reactions might be to watching a sustained attack against big oil conglomerates.

Personally though, I was fine with this angle. Cars 2 could be a message movie for all I cared. Gasoline truly is on its way out, something I’m sure paying $4.50 per gallon at the pump every week has tipped many of us off to. It is a fossil fuel, after all. And underseas oil drilling is often times very destructive. Message movies frequently aren’t as compelling as old-fashioned story-telling, but they still have their redeeming qualities.

Sadly, Cars 2 managed to be dysfunctional even on this level. The ending of the film makes a complete about face. It turns out that Allinol was a massive scam all along, and only bio-diesel or gasoline fuels are actually viable. Nearly every car that used Allinol is essentially blown up on the race track. So much for that message about trusting your friends!

Lasseter said that ‘Cars 2′ was produced so that our favorite characters could be taken around the world. Although that sounds like it could be fun and exciting with the right treatment, it just didn’t play out successfully on screen. I went in expecting a travelogue of sorts, but the most memorable scene that illustrated any cultural differences is from the trailer, where Mater suffers at the hands of a futuristic, automated lavatory system in Tokyo.

The pacing also seemed to be somewhat off throughout the film, which is extremely out of character for Pixar. ‘Cars 2′ almost doesn’t have the normal scene structure that one would expect, instead every shot rolls quickly forward with very little pause, like one huge, extended montage. This makes everything seem superficial because individual scenes are never explored in any depth.

It frequently feels abrupt and rushed. The viewer leaves each scene never feeling the intensity that the depicted sequence of events was supposed to convey. Some stuff happens, you move to the next shot, then the next. It’s all very cursory. Even the near-death scenes aren’t close to being scary, a massive change compared to ‘Toy Story 3,’ where the intensity of one of the incinerator scenes practically gave me an existential crisis.

The animation is as beautiful as ever; Pixar has always specialized in making their visuals impressive and immersive, and ‘Cars 2′ is no exception. Credit also has to be given to the two new cast members. In the vacuum of anything else interesting happening onscreen, Michael Caine and Emily Mortimer make the movie watchable in their roles as British special agents.

The culprits here are the writing and the direction. The story being told simply isn’t compelling, on any level. The funny parts of the movie aren’t funny enough. After the opening scene, the action sequences aren’t exciting. The satire of the spy film genre you would expect to see is practically non-existent. The message of the film about alternate energy is muddled at best. Several of the supporting characters are so obnoxiously stereotypical that they come off as more annoying than entertaining.

Even the central theme about friendship barely works, mainly because the two central protagonists hardly seem like true friends. Short of spending one day hanging out together, which is one of the few sequences in the film that feels genuine, they spend most of their time at odds with one another, trying to reconcile fundamental differences.

Worst of all, ‘Cars 2′ just isn’t funny. I know humor is highly subjective; but even so, I think most observers would have to admit that the comedic scenes here are grossly mismanaged. There is nothing that compares to the many boisterously funny sequences in ‘Toy Story 3.’ ‘Cars 2′ basically lacks any sort of comedic spark, which is pretty bad news for a movie that is mostly intended to be a comedy.

All in all, ‘Cars 2′ ends up just being a mediocre experience. Even if the film was intended only as an entertaining lark, Pixar would still have been well-advised to put a bit more time into producing a stronger final product than this.

MtGox, the largest online exchange for bitcoin trading by far, has had some staggering security issues this week.

The administrator, Mark Karpeles, also known by his handle MagicalTux, says that the site’s database was leaked in an encrypted format after an independent auditor’s machine was compromised. After some of the encrypted passwords were cracked, he claims that a hacker logged on and started a massive sell-off from an account that had enormous bitcoin holdings.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a few inconsistencies in the story. Not the least of which is that fact that no one has talked to or heard from the alleged victim, someone who supposedly was keeping 500k bitcoins in their online MtGox account.

There was definitely a massive sell-off that caused the price of bitcoins to plummet to a rock bottom valuation of $0.01 yesterday. Earlier, the price had been around $17.50.

Who ended up with the 500k coins? Enter Kevin Day.

Kevin has come forward to explain how he ended up with over half, more than 250,000, of the purportedly stolen bitcoins. Kevin happened to be logged into MtGox at the time when the share prices going steadily down during the massive sell-off. It became obvious to him that someone was intentionally crashing the market. He would only have a few minutes to get in on the trading.

Although the site was having issues at this point, Kevin managed to place an order for as many bitcoins as he could buy at $0.0101 per coin. He says that he figured some other members must have already put buys in for a penny, so he hoped his request would just edge them out by a fraction of a cent. Kevin ended up becoming the new owner of the lion’s share of the allegedly stolen bitcoins, purchasing 259684.77 BTC for only 0.0101 each, or a little under $3,000 total.

To put his profit margin into perspective, before the exchange crashed, this many coins would have been around $5 million dollars.

Although the MtGox exchange was now listing more than 250k bitcoins in Kevin’s account, there was still a hard limit on how many could be withdrawn. Kevin withdraw as many as he could, 643.27, into this personal account before the site went down.

Within the hour, MtGox was completely offline, and soon afterwards Karpeles was claiming the site was hacked.

There are a few issues with his story though.

Who is the alleged mystery victim who was holding more than 500k BTC in their online account?

This is a troubling question for several reasons. In order for a crime to have taken place, there has to be a victim. Here, we can’t immediately see one.

Since there isn’t really any reason for someone to keep that many bitcoins in their online account, it is a bit difficult to believe that one user was maintaining that many in their MtGox portfolio. In general, one only needs as many coins in the exchange as they would want to use to trade. Since no one would ever want to trade with 500k BTC at once, it doesn’t make sense to keep that sort of volume online. Selling so many coins would simply cause the market to crash, as we have just seen. That isn’t what someone who wants to see their investment rise in value would do.

Even if someone did have 500k BTC in one account, as unlikely as that is, they would have had to have had to have used an extremely short password for it to be broken as quickly and easily as this one apparently was. The stolen database passwords were still encrypted; it takes weeks or months to decrypt passwords even when they are of mid-level difficulty. In this case, it seems like the unknown account holder would have had to have been using something like a dictionary word in all lowercase for it to be cracked so quickly.

But why would someone be using a short, easy password on an account with more than $8.5 million dollars worth of bitcoins inside of it? This is especially implausible considering that anyone who accumulated that many coins would be extremely likely to know a few things about encryption.

One theory on the matter is that the hack was much more extensive than Karpeles is willing or able to admit. If this is the case, the 500k coins were probably not from one user’s account at all, but rather may have represented all of the coins on the site at that time.

But the most stunning development of all came a few hours later, when Karpeles posted the following message onto the bitcoin forums, in response to Kevin:

Kevin had only one chance that day to place his 0.01 buy order. So either he had a lot of luck, and somehow knew it was the right time to place a 0.01 buy order, or something smells fishy in there. It’s not up to me to decide, but I will report this as it has become a public matter.

Therefore I choose option 4:

Option 4: Mt Gox signals this to the competent authorities
+ We are safe
+ We may even have a chance of catching our hacker if Kevin knows him
+ We can rollback without having to worry
- Having to deal with FBI, provide logs and proof

The FBI? Really?

Here we have bitcoins, purportedly a quasi-anonymous, crypto-currency that is intended to bypass any and all government interference. The whole reason it has become so popular is due to a perceived lack of government intervention and jurisdiction.

Yet suddenly, as soon as an exchange faces trouble, (as a direct result of constantly poor security practices,) the site administrator thinks he should take the case to the FBI?

Exactly how much data is Karpeles planning on giving to the FBI? Would he be providing them the entire MtGox userbase? IP addresses?

How about all of the transaction logs?

MtGox has around 60,000 or so users who I’m sure would not take very kindly to that prospect of all of their personal and financial data being shared with a federal agency. What’s even more amazing is that Karpeles is planning this even when he has absolutely no obligation to do so. There isn’t even a request for any user data currently from any government office, let alone a warrant. Karpeles seems to believe it’s appropriate to simply give even more data away.

And he does have a lot of data to give away. This is an email from Karpeles to a user who requested a raise on his withdraw limit:

Hi,

To increase your bitcoin withdraw limit, there is no need for any document, just let me know your mtgox account user name, and the daily limit you wish for.

To increase your withdraw limit (by default $1000 per 24 hours and $10000 per 30 days), please provide your account name, the copy of an official ID document (such as passport, driver’s license, etc…) and the copy of an utility bill at your name and address.

We will review your document and increase your withdraw limit based on your risk profile.

Please note that you can also send a notarized color copy of your ID document to this address (remember to include your mtgox account name) via registered mail (fedex, etc) :

What a goldmine of information.

Threatening to provide data to the FBI defeats the entire purpose of an alternate currency. It is supposed to operate in a sustainable manner, outside of the jurisdiction and purview of any government agencies. That can’t be done when government officials have insider records of every financial translation ever made on the exchange.

They aren’t even going to need a warrant to obtain them.

What’s even more confusing is that MtGox is owned and operated in Japan, and the hacker is purportedly from Hong Kong. So how would the FBI have any jurisdiction over the case, even if they were inclined to investigate it?

It doesn’t seem that Karpeles has a clear grasp on how exactly the FBI would help. Maybe he is just naive, but what makes Karpeles think that the FBI would investigate the theft rather than him, for owning a potentially illegal and unlicensed financial trading operation?

Credit goes to bitrebel from the bitcoin forum for his prescient description of how such a conversation would likely turn out:

Mark: Hi Mr FBI agent… My Name is Mark from Mt Gox…

FBI: What does it stand for?

Mark: Oh, it stand for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange.

FBI: What the fuck is that?

Mark: Well, it’s really irrelevant to anything. I’m here to report a theft from a hacking break-in.

FBI: What happened?

Mark: Well, I run this online bitcoin exchange…

FBI: What the fuck is that?

Mark: Well, bitcoins are a form of digital currency that is not really currency.

FBI: Well, if it’s not currency, then what is it?

Mark: It’s a series of encrypted numbers that keep transactions between people anonymous. Nobody can know who bought or spent them.

FBI: Yes, go on… please keep talking…

Mark: So, you see, I run this exchange from Japan, and someone logged in from Hong Kong and tried to make a huge sell off of 500,000 bitcoins at once.

FBI: and who owned these bitcoins?

Mark: We don’t really know, because it’s anonymous.

FBI: Okay, go on. Keep talking…

Mark: So, then this person we suspect of being the hacker, Kevin, had placed a buy right after the hacker logged in and tried to make his sell off.

FBI: And what evidence do you have that Kevin is the hacker?

Mark: None, it’s just that if we don’t have anyone to blame, then we have to payout the full 500,000 bitcoins from our own purse.

FBI: Were these accounts protected somehow?

Mark: No, not really.

FBI: What is the current value of the bitcoins stolen?

Mark: No way to really know for sure.

FBI: How do we know you didn’t steal them from yourselves or other members, and try to sell them all off, thus laundering them through your own exchange, and buying them back up at .01 each, allowing you to make off with 500,000 bitcoins worth 2 million dollars, but Kevin came in and made equal buy orders, thus cutting your stolen profits in half?

Mark: Well, we can’t really prove that we didn’t, but Kevin logged in 5 minutes after the hacker did!

FBI: Come with us, please.

Bye Bye, Mt Gox!

Karpeles seems intent on going this route, although it’s difficult to imagine how such a scenario would be in anyone’s best interest. The unbridled enthusiasm Karpeles seems to have towards giving away users’ personal information is staggering, and should be a strong warning for anyone considering using MtGox once it is back online.

As an old Russian proverb says, “When you dance with the bear, you don’t get to stop just because you’re tired.”

26-year-old Jose Guerena, pictured in full regalia, was an ex-marine and Iraq veteran who served faithfully for two tours. He was brutally gunned down early last month inside his own home, shot at 71 times after his door was kicked in by an Arizona SWAT team on the morning of May 5th.

Jose’s only crime, for which he was summarily executed, was owning a gun. He drew a weapon when he was awakened by the sound of his door being kicked in, by what he thought were home invaders.

Jose’s wife, Vanessa Guerena, saw armed men approaching their home. When she shouted to her husband, who was sleeping in the next room after working a night shift at the local Asarco copper mine, he woke up, jumped out of bed and told his wife to hide in the closet with their 4-year-old son, Joel.

It turns out that Jose’s in-laws were murdered in a separate home invasion in Tuscon just one year ago, so it’s more than understandable why his family might react suspiciously to a large group of armed men approaching the house.

Jose Guerena armed himself with a AR-15 rifle and crouched in the hallway. The SWAT team kicked down his door immediately after giving one verbal warning. Then they unloaded on Jose on sight, firing 71 rounds total and hitting him 22 times.

Although the Pima County SWAT team was ostensibly there to serve a drug warrant, no drugs were found in the home. Weeks later, upon autopsy, it was revealed that there were also no drugs in Jose’s system.

The raid was captured on helmet camera and released amid public outcry over the shooting.

Most experts consider the raid extremely botched.

Immediately after the incident, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office claimed that Guerena had fired at them first. But within a week, they backtracked and said he had not. “The safety was on and he could not fire,” according to the sheriff’s official statement.

As Jose lay bleeding to death in his hallway, the police refused to allow paramedics entry to the scene for an hour and fourteen minutes. During that time, they pulled his wife out of the house, and sent in robots to poke and prod at Jose’s unmoving body while he bled to death from twenty-two bullet wounds.

Police waited until they were sure Jose was dead before entering the house again, despite having trained medics on site.

Call records from Drexel Heights Fire rescue say an ambulance was on the way at 9:43am. It arrived just two minutes later. But the ambulance crew was told to wait outside.

Law enforcement usually holds back medical crews to be sure they’re not walking into danger.

The Drexel Heights crew waited until 10:59, then heard Code 900. The radio call that means they were no longer needed. The man was dead.

They had waited an hour and fourteen minutes.

Compare that to the chaos of the January 8th mass shooting. Even with a large open area to secure, medical crews only waited 12 minutes to be allowed in.

The safety was still engaged on Jose’s weapon, despite being shot at 71 times. It turns out the ex-marine had more trigger discipline than the police who were raiding his home.

Despite all of this, because Jose had a weapon, the shooting was cleared this week. None of the Arizona police officers on site were found to have done anything wrong, including the denial of medical treatment.

“Under the circumstances, and based upon our review of all the available evidence, we have concluded that the use of deadly forces by the SWAT Team members was reasonable and justified under the law. Accordingly, the Pima County Attorney’s Office finds no basis to prosecute,” according to the ruling on the raid by Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall.

Circumstantial Evidence Abounds

The SWAT officer shown above, Sergeant Bob Krygier, told investigators that the raid on Guerena’s home was part of a probe on “possible drug running, home invasions and potential homicides.”

The warrant was sealed the by police for several weeks after the shooting. Apparently releasing it would give information about an informant. After nearly a month, the warrant was unsealed and made public with portions redacted.

It essentially contained several pieces of circumstantial evidence that centered around a mid-scale marijuana dealing investigation.

The raid was to gather evidence for marijuana dealing and money laundering investigations that involved several people, including several members of the same family. The primary suspect in the investigation was Jose Guerena’s brother, Alejandro.

Jose’s name was added to the investigation after a traffic stop in 2009. Jose was a passenger in a pickup truck that was carrying commercial rolls of plastic wrap that are commonly used to package marijuana.

Since the killing, there has been no further evidence of Jose being involved with drug running. No drugs were found inside his home, nor has any evidence been released that would connect Jose with any sort of violent acts, as suggested in the original warrant.

The Misplaced Priorities of the NRA

Being a gun owner certainly didn’t protect Jose Guerena from government tyranny. In fact, just the opposite occurred, owning a gun got Jose Guerena killed.

That brings us to the NRA, one of the most powerful lobbies in America. They take in $25 million per year in revenue and represent more than 4.3 million gun owners, across all fifty states.

On paper, the NRA is all about freedom. They are listed as an “advocacy and civil rights” group on various charity sites. One would assume that they would be up in arms over Jose Guerena being shot to death in his own home, with the safety on his gun still on, after his door was kicked down with very little warning of who was outside.

However, the NRA has been entirely mute on the incident. A search of their site doesn’t bring up any results about the Guerena shooting, or, for that matter, any mention of any of the paramilitary-style raids that are becoming more and more widely adopted in the U.S.

A search on the NRA site for information about their position on the war on drugs brings up little substantive information.

There isn’t a single policy position or editorial about the war on drugs to be found.

Let’s compare those results to another leading advocacy and civil rights group on the same topic, the ACLU:

The ACLU web site returns more than 6,000 results. There are dozens of case-studies and profiles of citizens who have been negatively impacted shown in just the first few pages.

While the ACLU does have a broader civil liberties focus than the NRA, the difference here is still fairly staggering. It seems that the NRA is content with simply avoiding any mention of the war on drugs and hoping it’ll just go away on it’s own, even as their veteran members are killed needlessly in their own homes over murky allegations of marijuana trafficking.

Worse still, the NRA continues to endorse Republican political candidates who want to expand the drug war and the unprecedented American prison state, rather than advance legislation based on scientifically-proven, public-health centered drug policies.

Here’s my question to the NRA: Does the second amendment still exist when law-abiding citizens can be gunned down on sight in their own homes for owning weapons? If the answer is no, why aren’t you doing anything about it?

As long as the NRA continues to support socially conservative, moralist politicians who want to expand the war on drugs, there are millions Americans who are being done a great disservice by their gun lobby representation. The second amendment has been effectively nullified when the police can kick down your door and slay you simply for being a gun owner.

Personally, it’s enough to make me switch to a different advocacy group. One that hopefully won’t stand idly by as gun owners are killed because of a forty-year-old, politically-motivated and failed drug war.

‘Super 8′ has done much better than expected in its opening run this week. It drew $37 million over the weekend which means, at least as far as revenue is concerned, the film has surpassed most predictions. It does make me wonder though: Why were expectations were so low in the first place?

If we look at box office results of comparable sci-fi films of late, they have been fairly impressive. Abrams last film, ‘Star Trek,’ drew $76.5 million in its first four days. And lest we assume that was only because of that franchises’ name recognition and built-in audience, Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’ was an unknown entity when it earned $60.4 million last summer during opening weekend. Not to mention the staggering earnings of ‘Avatar.’

It seems like an odd thing to have to remind the industry of, but people are more than willing to spend a few bucks to see solid science-fiction and fantasy releases. It really shouldn’t be a surprise when they do well.

The comparisons of ‘Super 8′ to other Spielberg films are to be expected, especially considering that he is a producer here. That being said, Spielberg does produce quite a few films nowadays and not that many of them are comparable to his prior directorial work. For instance, nothing about the ‘Transformers’ series strikes me as particularly Spielbergian, but he continues to fund those. Perhaps the similarities people see with ‘Super 8′ are simply confirmation bias.

Whatever the case may be, some similarities are definitely present. And for what it’s worth, that’s a compliment. In both of his last two films, J.J. Abrams has struck me as a master of homage. Star Trek had a definite sensibility and awareness of what inside jokes to highlight in order to connect with the audience, and the same is true here. There are scenes in ‘Super 8′ that pay homage to ‘Close Encounters,’ ‘E.T.,’ and ‘The Goonies,’ among others.

That being said, Super 8 never quite feels as authentic as any of those films. Perhaps with just a little bit more imagination it could have. Super 8 spends so much of its time following the textbook “science-fiction alien-encounter” narrative that it never quite feels original enough to stand on its own.

The main difference between Super 8 and a true classic is simple: Super 8 doesn’t take any imaginative risks. A film like Goonies was either going to succeed massively or fail hard, but for any of its faults, it came across as so interesting and different that it turned into a huge success and cult classic. I mean, it had a bone piano. What more could you ask for?

Super 8, on the other hand, comes across as a film that took its rewrites from a risk management team. Don’t expect anything more risqué here than a character who smokes pot and falls asleep.

The acting is first rate overall; aside from a somewhat wooden performance by Kyle Chandler as the town’s deputy, all of the performances are very convincing. The adolescent actors in the film did commendable jobs; even when some of the material could seem a little sappy, they pull it off without a hitch.

Overall, Super 8 is a fun summer viewing. Just don’t expect it to be as original or iconic as some of the films it’s getting compared to, that was obviously not the goal.

I had been looking forward to seeing ‘The Tree of Life’ for quite some time now, after all, the trailer was fairly exceptional and quite a few people have been saying that it will be Terrence Malick’s masterpiece.

I ended up seeing it at a local art-house theater in the North Bay last night and was less than blown away by the end of the viewing. My main suggestion regarding the film is simply this: Don’t believe the hype.

Thematically, ‘Tree of Life’ does tackle some interesting ground. I do believe that there is room in the film industry for movies that attempt to take on the more grandiose, philosophical questions of life. To its credit, it certainly does seem to make an effort in this regard. Unfortunately, its examination of these themes falls flat. Personally, I love to think about big picture ideas and philosophy, and I have a lot of respect for films that are able to change or add to my worldview in some way. ‘Tree of Life’ is one of those films that made me feel like I walked away from the theater dumber than when I went in.

That’s not to say that it’s entirely without its positives. The film does at least attempt to tackle an impressive swath of thematic ground. Meaningful questions are raised in fairly compelling ways, and for that, the film does deserves some credit. Some of those questions include: How much parental discipline is too much? What is the best way to raise children? How can a family cope with the loss of a child? How do children end up like their parents? What happens when we die? How can we best live our lives in order to be happy? Why does evil exist? Does God care about us? Does God exist?

Another positive of ‘Tree of Life’ is the impressively sweeping cinematography. Out of the over two-hour running time, I’d estimate that nearly an hour of screen time doesn’t have any human cast in it at all. Rather, it displays panoramic shots of nature in all its varietals: blue oceans, lush forests, vacant deserts, frozen tundras, volcanoes, dozens of celestial events. All of this scenery is captured brilliantly; it’s a pleasure to watch.

Despite these positives, ‘Tree of Life’ loses its way when it comes to telling its central narrative. Even calling it a narrative is being generous, it has much less of a traditional plot than a sort of stream-of-consciousness style depiction of random moments from one family. Worse still, Tree of Life does a poor job of answering any of the central questions it poses, instead settling for a vague notion of heaven with pervasively religious undertones throughout the film.

‘Tree of Life’ begins with a series of extremely abstract sequences. For around twenty minutes or so, just long enough to make the viewer start to be concerned that the whole film might be this way, we’re shown montages from outer space overlaid with vaguely philosophical, whispered voiceovers.

Whispered dialogue: “Brother. Where did you go?”

One thing that struck me throughout the movie was how Malick seemed almost desperate to fill up sequences with nearly overpowering music. There is no quiet vacuum of space in this film, instead the viewer is subjected to shrill operatic vocals at every turn.

Contrast that to the opening sequence of a film like Contact, which wasn’t afraid to directly examine the sheer beauty and magnitude of seemingly empty space.

In stark contrast, Malick seems to want nothing to do with the universe being empty.

In the opening scenes, we learn that the family matriarch has lost a child, and is struggling with what appears to be overwhelming grief. However, we don’t know anything about her family yet, and we won’t find out anything else about them for at least another half an hour.

During that time, we proceed through a slow sequence of the evolution of life on Earth. We see the oceans churning over top of molten lava. We see the formation of the first cells from bubbles in the water. We see mitosis and the gradual evolution of multi-cellular organisms. For a while, I thought we might see the entirety of evolution leading all the way up to Brad Pitt, but instead Malick goes with punctuated equilibrium. There is a quick transition from schools of jellyfish to there suddenly being massive dinosaurs roaming the planet.

With what seems like a strong grounding in evolutionary science, the viewer might be led to believe that the whole thematic analysis would also remain equally grounded in reality. Sadly, this is not the case.

Once we do make it back to the Pitt family, which is the only way I know to refer to them since I don’t think any of the family members actually have names, they are raising three kids in an archetypal small American town in the 1950′s. There is a lot of lawn care (including stroking the grass,) rope swings and bicycle riding. Everything you would expect from a film set in this time period.

We are told right from the start that life philosophies are to be divided into two camps: One philosophy is grace; the other is nature. Grace rises above all conflict and negativity; it is forgiving and loving. Whereas Nature is selfish, and aims to control, even through force if necessary.

Brad Pitt’s character embodies the “nature” side of this equation. He is the warm but controlling patriarch of the family, but often doles out more discipline than unconditional love to his three sons. Jessica Chastain, the families’ mother, embodies grace. She is loving towards her children to a fault, although not quite adept at controlling the three young boys.

We spend most of the film with their family, watching various moments in their lives. The life of the youngest boy is mostly ignored; we spend the majority of our time focusing on the oldest and middle children. The oldest, who will eventually age into Sean Penn, and the middle son, who we know will die from the opening sequence, both give compelling performances.

Whispered dialogue: How do I get back there?

Mainly due to a lack of screen time, Sean Penn doesn’t get a chance to do much actual acting. If he did, it was mostly edited out. His parts consist mostly of looking bewildered, turning around in a circle, looking bewildered some more, staring pensively out a window, standing on an elevator, and so on. His character exists solely as a vehicle through which childhood memories are channeled, but is never actually developed enough to add anything to the film.

It’s unfortunate that Sean Penn’s character doesn’t bring anything of importance to the story. All we can really glean is the sad realization that the child the film focuses on will eventually turn into a very depressed looking adult. There was potential there to really get to know his character better as an adult, but we never do.

All in all, there are quite a few missed opportunities like that one in Tree of Life, and that’s partially what makes the film so frustrating. There are dozens of gaping holes in the narrative. Perhaps these are meant to be left to the the viewer to fill in the blanks, but instead it tends to make the film simply seem vague and mishandled rather than profound.

For instance, we never get to know how the boy dies. For that matter, we never even get to see him age; all the sequences are shot when the middle son is either an infant or a ten-year-old. What was he like when he was fourteen, sixteen, or eighteen? What was happening in his life before he went to war, where we presume he died? So much time is spent on nature shots at the expense of the actual stories of the main characters.

In fact, the narrative is so vague that the viewer isn’t even entirely sure which child dies. We would assume it was the middle child, only because he was focused on so much during the film, and because Sean Penn looks more like the oldest son with dark hair. But this is never clearly stated.

What happens to the parents? They were profiled so thoroughly, then so carelessly disregarded. Did the mother actually end up happier with her life because she lived with grace? Did the father end up worse off for trying to control everything? What happened to the youngest brother?

We’re faced with the stark horror of a child dying, and we see a brother who is unable to cope with it because it was outside of his control. He can’t stop thinking about him, even decades later.

The real philosophical fight here is not between nature versus grace, but rather between control versus acceptance. Obviously, if one can’t accept that someone they loved died decades ago, it has the potential to haunt them endlessly and negatively influence their life. As difficult as reaching acceptance can be, people do move on.

In order to dress this up, Malick ritualizes acceptance. He turns catharsis into a human sacrifice to an invisible deity. Mere acceptance isn’t enough, it has to be labeled grace.

Whispered dialogue: I give you my son.

Tree of Life is less of a film than a sort of experiment in visual meditation. Unfortunately, the viewer is left with more questions than answers. In fact, there isn’t really even an genuine attempt towards trying to find answers. While there are a few striking moments in the film, it mostly feels like a missed opportunity to tell a genuine, heart-felt story, eclipsed by psudeo-intellectualism and overly simplistic philosophy.

Where is his brother now? As is the case with much the film, the answer we’re finally provided isn’t nearly as profound as it tries to seem.