I mean I laughed lots and lots. Who would have thought that Matt Stone and John Waters might be so funny? With gentle humor, it explained why a certain kind of American movie seems to suck when compared to European movies—though I’ve seen a few stink-bombs from Europe, American movie makers seem to specialize in dreck—despite having a much larger budget. Oh, and there’s a p.i. All sorts of comedy ingredients.

Wait, it’s a documentary. My bad.

But, again, it was pretty telling about how in terms of ratings violence is ok, but real, non-simulated sex is bad. The MPAA’s real purpose, if this movie is any guide, is to limit what stories can be told to American audiences.

Worth seeing.

Ok, I’ll admit, the movie was pretty cool while I was watching it, but upon further reflection I like it less and less. So on one front it worked—it was entertaining. But on another, it was a disappointment.

While I don’t know how accurately Saudi Arabia is portrayed in the film, I do know that it glorified the Americans beyond normal human status (or so it seemed to me). We (the Americans) were the ones who wanted the crime investigated. We were the ones who knew how. We were going to bring justice. That was one gripe.

I also didn’t really go for the hand-held camera thing. So often it doesn’t convey action or confusion or anything. No, too often it conveys that the director doesn’t know how to stage an action scene or build suspense without resorting to cheap tricks that doesn’t give the audience credit to know what is supposed to be action.

By the power of Greyskull!

Really, does it get any better than this? Ron Howard and John Wayne in the same movie. On screen, the same time.

I can think of only one thing.

Having a character named Burly Man. Oh, wait, they’ve got that too.

I laughed until it hurt when Reggie Jackson was destroying mailboxes in the movie. I had to skip back and watch that a few times.

The funniest parts had Reggie Jackson, a non-actor, playing against the actors. The rest of the movie was a diversion while I fed the baby.

Shame.

That’s all I can say. I felt a moderate degree of shame checking out Dumb and Dumberer at the library. I felt even more ashamed when I put it into the DVD player at home. I had sunk to the ninth circle of shame when I lauged out loud at the movie.

But that’s life.

I really didn’t enjoy this book per se. As a look at Philip K. Dick’s other works, it’s quite interesting.

Written early in his career and long unpublished, it is apparent why it hadn’t been published earlier. I’m not sure I would have read this had it not been written by Dick. It certainly isn’t my taste—it’s a work of realistic fiction set in the real world of the 50s, nor did I particularly care for the main character.

Even so, for serious PKD fans, I would recommend this book.

So why bother with this book? It explores lots of themes that Dick writes about in his other books. Specifically the man on the run, the less-than-wonderful marriage, the TV/radio repair shop, religion and mental illness. I was surprised at each plot turn by the way these things echo in other books. You might be too.

For the first time in weeks, my wife an I got out. Just the two of us. Baby at my parents. We’d been planning this since the beginning of the week.

I was thrilled to find out when we got to the theater that the movie was in the Imax. When we got to the counter to pay they handed us 3D glasses and told us that the last half-hour or so was in 3D. So far, so good.

Well the first part of the movie was fun. The story moved along and the magic seemed real. I was delighted. Then the 3D came on. I felt like I was going to throw up. Imminently. Sadly we had to leave before the end. I hope that the 3D feature is not on the DVD or I’ll never see how the movie ends.

The best introductory Latin text I’ve ever seen. It’s all Latin from the beginning, but it starts out—and remains—fully understandable in Latin.

I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn Latin with the least pain.

Drop a comment if you’ve got questions.

I’ll be honest, I really didn’t care too much about the main story. It seemed too, ah, staged and uncomfortable.

But the scenery of India. I loved all of the parts of the film that took place in the market, at religious festivals and most especially in the story within the film. The color was striking—I usually don’t like 50s Technicolor and prefer black and white to color in older films. It was obvious that the director, Jean Renior, had great sympathy for India, and it came through in the film.