Author: Mark Alexander

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Movie Review

What do you get when you take a generous helping of The Fifth Element, a bit of Jupiter Ascending, and throw in a dash of just about every SciFi/Fantasy flick of the last twenty years? You get Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. And I don’t mean that to be derogatory in any way. For years I’ve been lamenting that Hollywood never does anything new and with Valerian it has. I was truly and completely captivated and entertained by this flick and felt it was very much worth the price of admission. How often can you really say that these days?

Certain reviews have labeled it a hot mess, and yes, it’s heavy on special effects—at times almost to the point of being overwhelming—but unlike certain other films (cough, Star Wars prequels, cough) I didn’t feel they detracted from the story. I couldn’t tell were CGI left off and practical effects began; a testament to the degree of technical expertise exhibited in the film. The aliens—as in The Fifth Element—were amazing. The actors’ performances—while not exemplary—were at least convincing, and that’s more than be said for a lot of recent films. This is really one of those movies that deserves to be seen on the big screen—as increasingly unpleasant as that experience has become.

And if nothing else it was a three hour escape from all things Trump.

The soundtrack ain’t bad either…

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Quote of the Day

Most significantly, these first six months have revealed a central weakness of our system: its dependence on leadership that honors the norms and traditions of our political institutions and understands the necessity of at least appearing to adhere to common values of decency and honesty. President Trump and the Republicans in Congress have shown no respect for any of that. It’s a harsh lesson for our country and it may get harsher still. But at least we know now who they really are and what they really believe in: nothing.” ~ Heather Digby Parton, Salon

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“Houston, Tranquility Base Here…

…the Eagle has landed.”

It’s been 48 years since those immortal words were uttered, and sadly, I doubt that humanity will put another man (or woman!) on the moon until after I’m long gone from this plane of existence…if even then. And I doubt even more that the United States will be the one to do it. As a nation, it seems we’ve lost our way; lost our will to explore and to truly lead. Nevermind the active dumbing down of the population over the last generation—something that was brought into laser-sharp focus this afternoon as I fell down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos.

I started out innocently enough with upcoming movie trailers (there’s some good stuff coming out over the next year) and then I got sucked into “You won’t believe what this woman found in her attic” clickbait, and then somehow fell into Area 51 UFO conspiracies. I finally had to step away when I stumbled upon the religious yahoos claiming that the August total eclipse is proof positive of the End Times (it’s in Revelation!) and/or not an eclipse at all, but rather the planet Nibiru finally careening in from the outer solar system, completely destroying all life on Earth…and the government has been hiding the truth from us for years! (Hey, even though we can’t see this supposedly huge object in the night sky that’s less than a month from destroying civilization, the ancient Sumarians believed in it, so it must be true!)

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Art Imitates Life

But America, too, can take issue with a woman of power. It finds ways of cutting her down. Of punishing her for her daring to be. And our girl, after a while, even she forgot there’s a queen inside. And there is no end to the cruelty of men threatened by strong women.” ~ Mr. Nancy, American Gods Season 1 Episode 8

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He Would’ve Turned 60 Today

And I find that harder to wrap my head around than the fact that he’s now been gone for more years than he’d been alive when we met.

Steve Golden, 7/18/57 – 1/23/90

I’m a part of that subset of Boomers who didn’t have to go to war. Too young for Vietnam, too old for the Gulf. Hell, we didn’t even have to register for the draft when I came of age.

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t still suffer the loss of war; a silent, yet deadly war we fought in the streets, in hospitals and the halls of Congress that easily ripped as many of our finest from us as armed combat on foreign soil.

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Quote of the Day

For Republicans, there was no allegation too small to investigate in respect to Secretary Clinton, but there is no scandal too big to ignore with Donald Trump” ~ Rep. Elijah Cummings.

And there you have it, folks. All wrapped up in one easy-to-digest soundbite.

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Quote of the Day

In no particular order, America has overcome a civil war, Adolf Hitler, a depression, and even disco. This illegitimate occupation of the White House by a confirmed traitor is a whole new kind of challenge for us. But we can, and we will, overcome this. In the end, the will of the people will propel the Constitution to propel Donald Trump out on his ass. When his degenerative brain disease finishes him off in a few years, he’ll either die a lonely miserable broke man, or he’ll die in a prison cell. We’re in the fight of our lives. But Trump is going to lose this battle, and America is going to win. We always have, and we always will.” ~ Bill Palmer, The Palmer Report

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TMI

https://twitter.com/voenixrising/status/886331569169866753

Yeah, I used to read the newspaper (you remember those, actual physical objects, right?) during lunch back in the 80s and 90s (a lot of time just for the latest installment of Bloom County), but I was never what you’d call a news junkie.

But like so many other things, that all changed on 9/11. I was glued to the television set and the radio in the aftermath, and as we descended into the Madness of King George during the subsequent years, it seemed the whole world came online, feeding our need addiction to be informed of what was going on in every corner on the globe.

This obsession has only gotten worse under the reign of 45. Every day I scour my feeds in hopes of finding some nugget, some morsel of good news: notice of his resignation, his impending Impeachment and removal from office, the invocation of the 25th Amendment…anything to restore sanity to this glitch-in-the-matrix, alternate-reality we were thrust into six months ago. There are glimmers of hope. Amid the now-daily, further-down-the-rabbit-hole revelations of criminal wrongdoing and Russian collusion, news of hearings and investigations are finally starting to break through the noise. The noose is slowly tightening around the necks of everyone connected with the criminal cabal currently occupying the Oval Office, but it’s all moving so slowly. I realize that the wheels of justice turn slowly and there can be no mistakes made in this process if we are to rid our country of this cancer, but I want the nightmare to end now. I want to go back to some semblance of a normal life, of normal sleep patterns…of not having to constantly wonder how much more damage that asshole, his cronies or his enablers will wreak before they’re all ultimately behind bars. (I’d much prefer to see justice delivered in the manner employed by the French Revolution, but we are a civilized country after all.)

Most of all, I want the firehose of steaming bullshit shut off. I realize that all politicians lie—as a certain insurance company’s current advertising campaign goes, “It’s what they do”—but to be lied to so blatantly, in such an obvious how-stupid-do-you-think-we-are manner with a straight face and absolutely no push back from the media has to end! I’m tired of the jokes, the parodies, and the fact that you cannot escape news of that demented, motherfucking man-baby no matter where you go online.

In short, I want my—I want our—lives back. I want intelligent, rational adults back in charge of this country so I don’t have to worry every waking moment about what’s going on in Washington.

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