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Author: James Brush

James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.

Monday Movie Roundup

March 20, 2006 • • Leave a comment

By sheer force of happenstance (okay, that’s probably not really a force and if it is it’s certainly one of the weaker interactions) our movies for the past week related the stories of screwed up kids, misfits trying to find their way through this mystery called life…

The Goonies (Richard Donner, 1985)

This was actually the first time I’d ever seen The Goonies. I think that if I’d seen it when it came out (and if it had come out a few years earlier) I would have loved it. A group of misfit kids, led by the shy Mikey Walsh search for pirate treasure so they can help their parents buy their homes, which are about to be demolished to make room for a golf course. It’s a sweet, mostly innocent tale of kids caught up in a caper being run by bumbling adult criminals. The kids aren’t too screwed up in this one, but they don’t really fit in either. Finding buried treasure makes up for a lot, though. Three stars.

Thumbsucker (Mike Mills, 2005)

Thumbsucker is so named because Justin sucks his thumb, which is a problem when you’re seventeen. This makes him a screwed-up kid. Justin is smart, but lacks confidence and over the course of this bizarre comedy/drama he tries several solutions including spiritual ones under the guidance of a weird zen dentist dude played by Keanu Reeves. He experiments with ADHD meds and self-medication, trying out different personas on his journey to discover who he is. Justin’s battle to stand free of his thumb is an interesting, at times funny, sometimes flat movie that seemed longer than it was, but ultimately worth the watch. Three and a half stars.

Back to the Future III (Robert Zemeckis, 1990)

Last week we saw Back to the Future II, so this week we had to wrap it up. Back to the Future III is the least interesting of the trilogy, probably because it doesn’t really explore the time travel paradoxes that make the first two so much fun. It’s mainly a western, and in this one Marty finally gets his life in order. Nothing special, but a fun diversion and a fair ending to the series. Two and a half.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002)

Now if ever there was a screwed up kid, it’s Anakin Skywalker. This punk gives in to hate, seeks revenge, loses control of his feelings, helps brutal Sith lords, defies his Jedi master, shows off and acts arrogant at every turn. He even slaughters a whole village of Tuskin Raiders. Is it any wonder he grew up to be the most evil man in that distant galaxy?

I loved Star Wars when I was a kid, but I wasn’t as disappointed with these new installments as everyone else I know. For one thing, I didn’t expect much and for another I probably would have skipped the original trilogy if I was the age I am now back in 1977. Unless I had kids, of course. So no, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones isn’t great, but it’s fun and it works if you’re not looking for more than that. Three stars.

The United States of Leland (Matthew Ryan Hoge, 2003)

The United States of Leland is about a teacher named Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle) who works in a correctional facility. There are plenty of screwed up kids in a place like that and one of them, Leland Fitzgerald (played by Ryan Gosling), is there for murdering a retarded boy. Pearl is an aspiring writer in search of a novel and as he gets to know Leland he thinks he may have it. Following the conversations between Pearl and Leland, the film focuses on the effects of the killing on both the family of the killer and that of his victim.

Sometimes it’s hard to enjoy a movie that mirrors one’s own circumstances (I’m a teacher/writer working in a correctional facility) because it’s so easy to get lost in the that’s-not-really-how-it-is details. This movie gets it right, and with excellent performances by Gosling and Cheadle, as well as Kevin Spacey who plays Leland’s out-of touch novelist father, it’s definitely worth seeing. Four stars.

Jarhead (Sam Mendes, 2005)

Dark, sarcastic military movies almost always go over well with me, and Jarhead is no exception. It follows the basic trajectory of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket from basic training to meaningless war, but where that film lacks a real third act and is overly bitter, Jarhead feels like a complete movie that actually engenders sympathy for its characters as it follows them through 1991’s Operation Desert Shield and into Desert Storm. At times the film is downright funny and other times it’s scary and often sad.

The cinematography in Jarhead is stunning. The empty deserts of Saudi Arabia become a spooky wilderness in which everything including hope seems only a mirage. The most amazing scenes, though, come after the oil fields are set afire providing hellish lighting for the battlefield scenes in which no battles occur. Jarhead is a sort of Apocalypse Now for a new generation and includes several references to that film, most amusingly when a Marine hears The Doors and complains, “that’s Vietnam music, man” and then wonders why they can’t have their own.

At one point, Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal), the film’s narrator states “all wars are different, all wars are the same,” and so it is with war movies. This one is particularly good though and a powerful reminder of what happens when we send our kids, screwed up and otherwise, off to war. It’s based on Swoford’s memoir of the same name, which I suspect is probably also worth checking out. Four and a half stars.

Weekend Hound Blogging: Can You Hold Your H2O2?

March 19, 2006 • • 6 Comments

Dogs will eat anything. Anything. Trash, wood, plastic, rotten food, rubber, bones, the list is as endless as a dog’s curiosity. We’ve learned this over the years because our hounds have on several occasions snacked upon that which they shouldn’t. A quick call to the animal emergency clinic gets us the correct dose of hydrogen peroxide for a dog’s weight and then we go out back to induce vomiting. I’ve done it several times.

The first time was shortly after we got our first dog, Zephyr. We learned she was a trash eater when she treated herself to a pound of rancid bacon and whatever else she found in the trash on a day that we did some ‘fridge cleaning. I called animal emergency and they provided me with the recipe for stomach cleaners, also known as hydrogen peroxide shots. I was instructed to give her a tablespoon every five minutes until she threw up.

Out we went to the driveway and commenced. It was nearly half an hour and much H2O2 later before she finally started. This was, of course, right when the neighbor came staggering over to meet the new dog who was now wobbling uncertainly and foaming at the mouth with long bubbly tendrils of bile dripping onto the soggy pile of half-digested bacon in front of her.

Meet my new dog.

The neighbor smiled and said in his permanently drunken twang, “She’s brindle. She’s beautiful.”

Zephyr, a trash hound if ever there was one, got pretty familiar with H2O2 over the years. When we got Daphne it sometimes became more difficult since we didn’t always know who the guilty party was, but we found that Daphne threw up much more quickly than Zephyr so while Zephyr might be hiding in a corner of the yard with her nose jammed under the fence, Daphne might hurl, thus revealing the evidence of the crime and sparing Zephyr another tablespoon of that most insidious poison.

As might be guessed, Phoebe entered the club last night. We came home from the Willie Nelson show to find that she’d eaten a rubberized nylabone. A call to animal emergency told me I would be inducing vomiting.

Despite being the biggest dog we’ve ever had, she’s a true lightweight when it comes to doing H2O2 shots. She asked if she could have it with some grenadine – an H2O2 sunrise – or even on the rocks, but I pointed out that real dogs do their shots straight up. Without salt, lime, or grenadine she took it like a trooper.

She hacked after the first one and then immediately after the second, she threw up, expelling the rubber scraps of her evening adventures. She went to bed singing, “Hydrogen peroxide river don’t run dry, you’re all I got to take care of me.” while I wondered why these things only ever happen in the middle of the night.

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Want to make a fast friend by saving a greyhound in Central Texas? Check these pups out. Or go here to find a greyhound near you. You can also go here to find out why greyhounds are running for their lives.

If you have dogs who need proven leadership, go here to find a cat.

Outlaw Country

March 18, 2006 • • 5 Comments

When I was growing up there were certain artists whose music was always in the background. Foremost among them was Willie Nelson, and frequently heard were Willie’s fellow Highwaymen: Waylon, Kris and Cash. I always dismissed this stuff as my parents’ music, but it wasn’t until I was on my own without any of their albums that I realized I liked it and that I missed hearing it.

The moment came when I was in college, still new to Austin and Texas, and I found myself sitting around playing guitars with a friend. The conversation turned to secret musical fixations and I admitted to Willie.

My friend, a lifelong Texan, informed me that Willie didn’t count.

“Why?”

“Because everyone likes Willie. They just don’t always admit it.” We took a break from Joy Division and the Grateful Dead, and he showed me how to play a few Willie tunes. I finally had to fess up to something else, but what he said was spot on.

I’ve realized over the years that I can’t stand Nashville country, which sounds to me like it’s in, shall we say, its hair metal phase, but I do like the old outlaw country guys: Willie, Waylon, Kris, Cash, Jerry Jeff as well as some of the new country that comes out of Austin. It’s simple, nonpretentious music with a kind of hard-edged honesty and dark sense of humor that lends it a quality similar to old school punk or gangsta rap.

This all surfaces because of two events. Last week I saw Walk the Line, which put me on a Johnny Cash thing, and tonight I’m going to go see Willie at the Backyard. This will be the second time I’ve seen him play. The first was one of those God-I-love-Austin kind of days.

Back in the early ’90s, word got out that Willie was going to play a free show on the south steps of the capitol building. It was a Sunday afternoon, I think, and I decided to check him out. I rode my bike down to the capitol and waited with the small crowd. Finally, Willie came out and stood in front of the single microphone. He had no band; it was just him and Trigger, all beat up and full of holes.

He played a solo acoustic set that included many of his most famous tunes. I remember the weather was beautiful, the crowd was happy, and Willie seemed so pleased to just be making music for a small group of fans in his home city. Afterwards, he stayed up on stage while people passed him boots, belts, LPs, guitars, and posters to sign. He joked with the audience and didn’t leave until he’d signed everything that anybody wanted signed.

I’ve always associated Willie with Austin and as much as I love this town, it’s surprising that I’ve never made it to a real Willie show so I’m looking forward to tonight. Despite the forecast for rain, I’ll be there. After all, what would Willie do?

Bird Pictures from Canyon of the Eagles

March 15, 2006 • • 9 Comments

Here are a few of the better pictures of birds from Saturday’s trip up the Canyon of the Eagles.

This is a bald eagle. They roost there this time of year. We mostly saw juveniles, which look more like hawks because they don’t have the white heads yet. This is the best shot I could get of an adult. A 300mm lens doesn’t do it justice, but that’s all I’ve got. It looked stunning through the binoculars.

Bald Eagle

Next up we have some pelicans chilling with a flock of ducks…

Pelicans

A couple of blue herons standing in a tree on top of a cliff…

Blue Herons

And finally some seagulls who didn’t mind getting closer to me and my camera…

Seagull

Seagull

Seagull

O, the Fame! O, the Accolades!

March 15, 2006 • • 1 Comment

Morrison is this week’s Catmodel of the Week over at Carnival of the Cats. A few weeks ago, the carnival’s host asked if Morrison’s picture could be used on the Carnival Banner. After checking with his attorneys and press agent, he agreed. People clicked on his picture and now he’s bad, he’s nationwide. You might say that he’s bonafide, he’s got prospects. You’d definitely be correct in thinking that he’s won the people’s ovation forever.

By the way, don’t forget to check out this week’s Carnival of the Cats over at Justin’s Random Thoughts.

A Vanishing Texas River Cruise

March 14, 2006 • • 9 Comments

On Saturday, we went for a river cruise up the Colorado north of Lake Buchanan. The trip, called a Vanishing Texas River Cruise, was a Christmas gift from my parents, and they joined us for a beautiful trip into the Canyon of the Eagles, a bit of the Texas Hill Country that I’d never before seen.

The cruise starts on the far north end of Lake Buchanan at Canyon of the Eagles Park and goes upriver for about two hours. A tour guide points out various landmarks, relates the history of the region, and talks about the different bird species that roost along the river.

This is ceremonial rock. It’s near where the lake starts to become the river.

Ceremony Rock

Bird watching is the main draw and as we got away from the lakehouses and into ranch country we started to see a pretty good variety of birds including bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, blue herons, pelicans, an osprey and some hungry seagulls, as well as a few herds of cattle and some goats.

This is a waterfall near the point where the boat turns around just south of Colorado Bend State Park, about twelve miles up from where we started.

Waterfall

The trip provided a nice way to see a slice of the hill country on a perfect spring day. At times I could look around and see nothing man-made, getting a glimpse of what this region might have looked like when the first Spanish explorers stumbled through searching for gold.

Despite the name, the river itself does not vanish, but as development in the hill country continues, the wildness is vanishing, though nothing actually disappeared while we were out there. In fact we saw quite a bit. Hopefully the ranchers and conservationists can hold out so that the river scenery and the bird species that depend on it don’t vanish too quickly.

Here’s some more pictures, mainly of birds.

The Education of Greyhound Phoebe, Chapter the Fifth

March 14, 2006 • • 3 Comments

in which Phoebe makes friends and realizes that other people will give her treats just for being cute

Despite the fact that it’s spring break, Phoebe still had to go to school. She didn’t really mind, though, since she’s made friends with all of the owners. She seems to like the humans more than her classmates. I suppose that’s because humans give treats whereas dogs take treats. She likes getting.

We worked on sit, which has been modified for Phoebe. When others do sit, Phoebe does stay, which I’m proud to say she is very good at. We practiced stay and come and worked a little bit on down, which she sometimes will do. The trick to it seems to be to catch her when she’s lying down anyway and then give the command followed by a treat. That’s our homework.

On the social front, Phoebe has made such good friends with the other owners that when she decides not to do whatever task is being practiced (and therefore not earning a treat from me) she just saunters over to someone else and asks for a treat. She stares at them with her big greyhound eyes, and they always melt and give her a treats as if it’s their privilege to do so. Of course she always comes back to me when I call her, which makes me happy.

<< previous chapter | next chapter >>

Visit Phoebe’s friends at the Carnival of the Dogs and don’t miss Doug Petch’s comment-a-thon benefiting greyhound rescue.

[saveagrey]

Monday Movie Roundup

March 13, 2006 • • 4 Comments

We spent some time catching up on the Netflix and DVR backlog. Here’s what we saw.

Along Came a Spider (2001, Lee Tamahori)

Along Came a Spider was a pretty cool little detective thriller. Morgan Freeman plays an expert profiler who gets pulled into a case involving a teacher who kidnaps one of his students from an elite Washington, DC school for the children of politicians and diplomats. The movie has some nice twists and clever turns. It’s pretty enjoyable, though I’d almost forgotten it by Sunday evening. Three stars.

Open Water (2003, Chris Kentis)

Yikes. I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie this terrifying. It’s an incredibly tight film based on the true story of a vacationing couple who go SCUBA diving only to come up after their boat has headed home leaving them alone on the open ocean. They float in shark-infested waters for most of the film, clinging to one another while writer/director Chris Kentis expertly builds a palpable feeling of isolation. The film is beautiful to watch and yet the events so hopeless and terrifying that you can’t help but feel that you’re floating there with the two lost divers. Four stars.

Walk the Line (2005, James Mangold)

I’ve always liked Johnny Cash, but knew very little about his life. Walk the Line is a very well done biopic that captures the excitement and fun of Cash’s early career as it quickly degrades into a hell of drug addiction, self-loathing and betrayal. The movie focuses on the romance between Cash and June Carter and his struggle to win her heart. Cash’s music sounds as good as ever and the film does a nice job probing behind the music and into those wells of darkness that Cash drew upon to bring that grim and yet somehow hopeful feel to his music. Four stars.

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003, Jim Jarmusch)

We tried. Coffee and Cigarettes appears to be a series of vignettes in which witty verbose people sit in coffee shops, drinking coffee and yes smoking cigarettes while having tedious conversations. It seems to be slices of life, but not the choice cuts as it were. It’s just the sort of movie everyone back in film school might have been into, talking it up in class and then going back to apartments and dorm rooms to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. Stopped after ten minutes. Couldn’t take it.

Buffalo 66 (1998, Vincent Gallo)

This one has to grow on you, but unlike Coffee and Cigarettes it does. The film is about Billy Brown (played by Vincent Gallo who also wrote and directed the film) who upon getting out of jail decides to visit his parents. He told them he’s been working for the government and living a successful life so he kidnaps a girl and forces her to pretend to be his wife in order to complete the illusion for his bizarre parents.

The dialogue can be annoyingly repetitive at times, but eventually I stopped noticing and began to enjoy the quirky storyline. I can even forgive the gigantic plot hole, namely the fact that the kidnapped girl, played by Christina Ricci, never once tries to escape despite the fact that she has plenty of opportunities (and reasons) to do so. I guess her curiosity and pity keep her there. Despite all that, it’s an interesting and well made little indy that has fun with the conventions of film, demostrates a wickedly dark sense of humor and yet manages to bring it all together in a very human and satisfying – if not believable – story without ever once coming off as pretentious. Three and a half stars.

Back to the Future 2 (1989, Robert Zemeckis)

I love Back to the Future. It’s one of those franchises they try to get you to hate when you’re in film school, but they’re fun, amusing movies that no amount of academic arm twisting could make me hate. I mean how can you beat Christopher Lloyd, time travel paradoxes, and mean old Biff tearing up the scenery in his bumbling efforts to tear up Marty McFly? Good Stuff. Three stars.

Weekend Hound Blogging: Dangerous Greyhound?

March 12, 2006 • • 2 Comments

Dangerous Daph

Ok, so Daphne isn’t really a dangerous greyhound. She just likes to gently chew on people when it’s time to play. She’s just a bit mouthy. Like a shark.

Doug petch’s comment-a-thon to help greyhounds continues on this post (it’s a new one, so go over and leave a comment and he’ll donate to a greyhound rescue group) and don’t forget to visit this week’s Carnival of the Dogs and Friday Ark

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Want to make a fast friend by saving a greyhound in Central Texas? Check these pups out. Or go here to find a greyhound near you. You can also go here to find out why greyhounds are running for their lives.

If you have dogs who need proven leadership, go here to find a cat.