Above Average

I just wanted to post a quick thing instead of my usual WEEKEND GRAB-BAG, mostly because it's midnight and I have to be up in eight hours to go to school. . .

BUT. . .

My thoughts on the All-Star game from Sunday (one word: anti-climactic), the first half of the NBA season (Dallas is tough; the West as a whole is tougher), the upcoming OSCARS (please, please, please don't let BABEL win!), the girls basketball team (we're going to the Quarterfinals!!!), and my room (it's clean!!!) will be coming shortly. I promise.

Until then, I wanted to post two things.

One.

I went bowling tonight and boy did I bowl well!!! This had to have been one of the best nights that I've had and in ended with my new best game ever. My scores from tonight are as follows:

140
161
180
181
177
167
193
170
223!!!

That's a 177 average, which is between 10 and 15 above my usual average (I'm a solid 160 bowler as of now)!!! I am very excited and you should be too :D

Two.


Here is the entire movie review that I wrote for BABEL. It's negative, so don't be shocked :D

O and the definition of versimilitude is "the appearance of being true or real". You'll understand shortly. . .

BABEL’S MESSAGE MUDDLED AND MISCOMMUNICATED

BY JUSTIN GOTT - SENIOR WRITER

As I sat in the darkened theater watching the torturous, seemingly never-ending Babel¸ I wondered aloud why the talented cast (including the rugged, still handsome Brad Pitt and the pale, shower-deprived Cate Blanchett) and filmmakers carried such a disdain for moviegoers like me. The only answer I was provided with was the continuous nonsense that permeated the screen that made me wish I was in the next theater over!

The problem with Babel, director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s second feature-length American film (after 2003’s 21 Grams), is that it tries too hard to be too many things. The film is political (look, a Middle Eastern family was involved in the shooting of an American!), scandalous (the deaf-mute Japanese girl has image issues and can only think of sex!), and political again (illegal immigrants trying to cross the border!).

Babel is essentially a “wannabe Crash”. You might remember that brilliant film from a year ago that took everyone by surprise and took home the Oscar for Best Picture. The grandiose aspect of Babel is what separates it from the tightly-wound, personal film about the role of racism in a city like Los Angeles. Simply put, the worldwide stage is too large for this film.

The truth is that a fine film could have been made out of any one of these intertwining stories. For example, the heartbreaking (and Oscar nominated) performance by Adriana Barraza as the Mexican immigrant nanny could have been made into a sufficient and equally political film as Babel.

Instead, we are shown each of these many stories in five to ten minute blocks and then hurriedly transported across the globe to someone else’s story. The editing is choppy and the screenplay is weak, which is a shame considering all of the big names involved.

Consider this fact: the entire film revolves around a central event that is not believable. Moviegoers are supposed to believe that a wealthy, Southern California couple would allow their two children to be left in the care of an undocumented Mexican immigrant while they toured the African country of Morocco. I just cannot find the verisimilitude in this sequence of events!

Plus, is the film not entitled Babel after the biblical Tower of Babel, the place where all of the global languages were supposedly begun? The only part that involves miscommunication is the American tourists in – get this! – a foreign country! No one should expect to go to Morocco and have a multitude of English-speaking residents greet them with waving and flowers. How utterly ridiculous!

The critics seem to be quite torn, with a true “love it or hate it” atmosphere surrounding the film, now out on DVD (so now you at home can make up your own mind). Babel is a film that thinks it is important and thinks it is saying something worthwhile. In all irony, however, the film’s message and purpose seems to have been lost somewhere along the line in translation.

Grade: D

So, is it any good? Is it above average? Ha ha :D

Gotta be up soon, so I'm hitting the hay. Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow!