Sleep

Sleep

This morning you slept late.

Heard the alarm,

But chose to ignore

Despite the ringing melody encouraging you to wake.

For once I heard nothing.

Lost in dreams of a past

Where those I once knew are reduced to fragments;

Pieces that alone sing a quality

Yet together, didn’t quite fit.

Imprint

 Imprint

The makeover was simple.

Nothing more required

than a disguise

of paint,

just like

a snake

shedding skin.

The ceilings shine black

and the walls,

they blink white

and I thought,

maybe,

that was the mistake.

Two, three, even

ten coats will

never hide the

mouths kissed,

bodies writhed,

nights lived in

a haze of drunken youth.

The imprints mark deeper

than cushion covers,

table tops, varnish;

they cut like

fallen stone.

Old young love

Old, Young, Love

She sang her heart out;

The rest wondered

How it would be

To have all eyes on them.

Like a fireplace

Her voice burned,

Through heat spat

Words that felt

Only too well the meaning.

There was no need

To sing of love,

It was already clear-

Transparent eyes,

Wanting fingers that

Graced the strings like

They were a child.

Perhaps she wanted

Others to hear, to know

What is was to be 

Young, and to

Hurt, for she knew

At some point

Everyone had been

There, even her

Grandmother who

Sat at the back-

The age of her skin

Creased with pride.

Mans Best Friend

Man’s Best Friend?

The dog’s nose touched the little boy’s.

Then, before his mother could stop him, a long,

Pink tongue reached out, licked the little boy right on the lips.

He giggled, stuck his own tongue back at that brown furry face,

At eyes softer than soil, kinder than a chapel, and

They saw each other – animal and man, dog and boy,

Friend and friend, until the child’s mother yelped,

Grabbed his hand away as though he’d just

Thrust it down a toilet.

‘Dirty creature,’ she spat.

The dog didn’t know it had done wrong;

It wagged its tail, relaxed its mouth in that soppy way

That you’d swear, swear was a smile.

Drive On

Drive On

If only

I knew beforehand.

More and more control

Is lost, despite

The promise of change. 

The usual route was blocked.

Light did its best

To stretch itself further,

To brighten the street signs,

To ward off the dark. 

The car

Felt like a toy.

The wind could be seen

In the arch of the trees,

The craze of the branches. 

Fields of misted heather

Lined the view

In the distance,

Like the blur of a glass lens

Splattered with rain. 

And then came

The villages,

Like forgotten belongings,

The regret

Of not glimpsing sooner. 

Far beneath

The quarries loomed-

Gaping holes; little houses

Were lit, and called,

And called. 

All I could do was drive on.

Dust

Dust

The rooms are larger now.
Funny that; unlike the lake at the park which
Was never as big as I once imagined
These walls, this house, only deepens with memory.
My eyes are dusty
As I search for the things that I hope will never change.
The chipped dining table, the mark on the window sill,
The attic piled up with nostalgia
For each is a reminder-
The first time I walked, spoke, argued, smoked,
The single bed where I aged each night.
Would I go back?
Repair the mirror that got smashed in temper,
The countdown of Christmas staged in chocolates
Then stolen by my brothers; the tears that followed
Felt like the worst that would ever flow.
Was childhood ever the learning curve that it should have been?
In so many ways, I’m no different now
To who I was then
Except,
The empty space at my side is no longer that.

I thought of you

I Thought of You

I thought of you last night.
Tall, gracious, kind.
Saw those days of childhood when your home was a special place,
And the smell of lavender in the bathroom never failed.
The organ in the hallway waiting each time with its large
Brown hood rolled down.
Your fingers were art themselves.
Guiding paintbrushes, needles, notes,
With a touch that could never be taught.
The shell of your weakened body didn’t stop you,
Not really, it told a story that hadn’t reached the end;
There were mornings to be viewed for a while longer,
Alarms to ring at six thirty am in time for breakfast at seven.
Walks to take along the route that recognises you by now,
And expects your steps upon the grass.

It did all stop, of course. It had to.
You’d hardly even know now, the overgrown fields
Where balls once bounced as your dog played twice a day.
I barely knew it myself. But then, as I thought of you,
And drives in your van that had chairs, a table,
Even a bed;
Each place went you went counted as a thread, a tie,
A knot wound far too tightly to ever be undone.

How Things Change

 

It was familiar when we were younger.

Sundays were different to other days,

We’d dress a little nicer, were told to speak

A little kinder, and we’d gather

In a building made of stone and history.

The old were grateful for the young,

The noise of children a reminder

That time was once without limits,

That coloured glass made stories brighter,

That tradition would be continued.

Or so they hoped.

I was around thirteen when I decided

That I was wiser than it all.

Doubt came with the realisation

That it mattered not whether the door was left open at night,

And thoughts became something to fear.

The sky high pillars, the long white robes,

The book with too many words to ever read

No longer held all the answers.

We went back today.

It wasn’t intended, the sound of a band

Rang out, so we stood at the gates and watched

For a while through the open doors.

Let’s go inside for a minute, why not?

The smell was exactly the same-

Musty, wooden, the smell of age.

Different faces, different daffodils, different walls,

Yet that scent- identical.

And all around they sat, as we did,

All those years ago.

With ears still fresh enough

To believe every word.

Nine Came and Passed

Uneaten sausage and mash.
That was the trigger this time,
That was all it took and then it happens again,
Like lights switched off in a building at night
One empty room at a time;
All except a single bulb that flickers and fights against itself
Thinking over and over sausage and mash,
Cooked just right for once, the potatoes creamy,
Sausages browned and steaming,
Onion gravy made almost perfectly for the first time ever.
I never left the kitchen, a wooden spoon fixed in my hand,
Stirring constantly for fear of leaving the pans alone;
Plated good enough for a restaurant.
But nine came and passed and it went cold, stayed uneaten.
So much emphasis placed on that meal of sausage and mash, and why?
Is this what it’s come down to?
A day later that bulb still flicks on and off, still battles.
Angry, bitter, that it was the only one to care about
That little plate of sausage and mash while the rest of the world
Lives out a life of importance.

The Mess

Night has returned.

The day I missed,

Spent hours with eyes closed,

Limbs wrapped in sheets that never were

To remain fresh for long.

And, still, I want time to pass.

The hum of the freezer lulls the minutes,

A sagging balloon scratches another,

Movement geared from nowhere.

The dishes are stacked,

The pillows askew,

A carpet of crumbs needs cleaning.

Not today.

The remnants of yesterday, the day before,

And the one before that,

Can stay for a while.

Maybe I’ll move on tomorrow.

They Held Hands

They didn’t know.

The world had been blue one minute, the brightest kind,

And everyone else saw it also.

They may as well have been holding hands.

It was humanity at its best.

But the balance was tipped, as it always is, sooner or later, and

Like the oncoming of a dreaded date the link was broken.

The worst thing was it wasn’t through accident, or mistake,

But by a parent? A child, a brother?

Just like that, the blue was uglied to a dirty grey and

Confusion swam alongside fear.

They didn’t know,

They didn’t know why.

Still though, they held hands.

Humble

Humble

The sunset looks pretty today;
Closing golden arms around a landscape hushed by evening,
Running pink fingertips over houses made home
By families, couples, the elderly, by one.
The hum of the washing machine cleans clothes dirtied by living;
Run the iron over creases, hang the shirt for work tomorrow,
Spread butter right to the edges, we might not notice,
But we’ll know.
So many hours spent between our windows of reality.
Outside, above, far away,
The clouds pass by too quickly.

Denial?

Denial?

We all have something, don’t we.
It doesn’t matter how many walls we put up
There’ll always be one that crumbles,
And the strength to piece it back together
Too great.
We’ll tell ourselves, it doesn’t really matter.
The hours of today will wind down
Then tomorrow will be different, if not then,
The next day, the next week, or let’s forget
Altogether.
Life is what you make it.
The pound signs? It’s all show.
Health warnings? We should consider…
But it’s not, we won’t, because it doesn’t matter…
Not really?

So long as I have you and you have me,
The rest will sort itself….

And so we tell ourselves.

Eternal Home

God's eternal nature is contrasted with peoples frailty. Our time on earth is limited and we are to use it wisely, not living for the moment, but with our eternal home in mind. We take a lot of things for granite in life, we live each day without a care for tomorrow. We put our efforts into "stuff", how much "stuff" can we attain and how much "stuff" can we accomplish. We want, want, want for the now, now, now. We just live for the moment. Yes, I am sure that we sometimes think of our eternity and where we will spend it, but do we take the road to make sure that God has a stronghold in our life? There are passions that we have, for some it is facebook, hours of tweeting, sports that we cant get enough of, attaining mass wealth, shopping, what ever our crutch is, we lean on it way to much. Again, we live for the now. We can only take our souls with us when we die, nothing else matters. We need to pray for wisdom so that we may live more wisely, to open our eyes and look upon eternity with a new luster, to desire our eternal home and not on the things of this earth. David said, "create in me a clean heart oh God, and renew a right spirit within me". He was a man after the things of God, let us learn a lesson from David, lets get new priorities, lets seek God and our eternal home.

Smile, Smile, Smile

Did you know it takes almost double the muscles to frown than it does to smile? Yet, you see most of society walking arounf with frowns on their faces, why? Well, that could be for any number of reasons, people have a plethora of issues in their life that could cause a negative twist in their faces. But we can actively change that, when you come into eye contact with someone simply give them a smile and I bet they will give you one back. A smile lightens the mood, gives others a warm feeling, and you know that a smile can actually change someones day. There was this guy who was actually on his way to commit suicide, he went into a church to see if he could get any last minute comfort. Well, this man was homeless and he wasnt dressed for your normal church cwowd but decided to go in anyways. After a few minutes of being there someone came up to him greeted him with a smile and welcomed him. The man smiled back and said "thank you, that smile just brightened up my day, you dont know what that means to me, I was on my way to commit suicide and your smile has changed my mind". You see, we never know who we come in contact with, and you never know what kind of impact you are going to have on someones life. Its a simple smile folks, thats all, so keep that in mind the next time you come into eye contact with someone.............Just smile. :)

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love is a strong 4 letter word, some people have a lot and some people have very little. If you look up the definition in the dictionary youll get the worldly view on in, if you look it up in the Bible you will get the heavenly version, both have a lot of merit to them. Some people take love seriously and others toss it around like a hot potatoe, dropping it, stepping on it, and having no requard for it whatsoever. People in marriage start out with a healthy dose of love ,then for some reason it seems to smolder down and turn to ashes. Love is a funny thing, a outlandish emotion and action that seems to have lost its meaning within society as a whole. Love seems to have found its way into a click, only to be displayed to a select few while others suffer by the wayside. What has happened to us as a people, what has happened to a simple commandment that was bestowed upon us centuries ago? Love seems to be more prevelant during certain holidays as it comes out from within the catacombs of peoples souls, then soon dissapears. What we need to do is rekindle the fire and bring love back to this world, love back to each other, and I am not just talking about people you like, im mostly talking about loving people you dont like, people you dont even know. Peoples attitude is reflected on how we treat them, and we need to treat them with more love. Love your neighbor as yourself is a powerful statement, and we need to take it seriously. Love is contagious and can be engulfed with a little spark. So next time someone treats you with ill will, just show them love, next time you are feeling down think of the love of Jesus, love conqures all my friends and it is the gateway to happieness, feel the love, but most of all, show the love.

Missionary to follow.

I have recently  met a missionary from Nicaragua by the name of Jed Brien, he has recently come to the states with his troupe of 15 youth to minister to communities with their powerful message and their artistic dance crew. I had a chance to go out to lunch with them yesterday. I learned quite a bit on their vision and some of the struggles that they have faced along the way. I only wish I had more time with them cause I had so many questions to ask and they were so intrigueing. I am however saddened by the state of mind that some of the people in nicuragua are in and some of the calamities that these young adults have gone through. It is amazing how they have overcome adversity, and their hearts are now on fire and their faith is rekindled. It is not until you hear some of the storys that you realize how lucky we are and how blessed we can be. I sat through two performances of this tricked out dance crew and was blown away by the raw talent that was displayed before me. Jed and his group will be traveling from community to community, from church to church displaying the love of Christ and emitting it to all the people that they come in contact with. They are stepping out completely in faith that God will provide for all their needs. They have a powerful message and some great storys to tell along the way.


Follow Jeds Blog at,
www.capital-on-the-edge.blogspot.com

21and over

This film isn’t just bad. It’s violently bad as if the filmmakers want to abuse viewers who aren’t brain-damaged by making the dumbest, dullest, most hackneyed movie ever. They succeeded. Watching "21 and Over" is the cinematic equivalent of being waterboarded. If the Geneva Convention folks saw this abomination, they would condemn it as cruel and unusual punishment.

The movie marks the directorial debuts of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who also wrote the script. Or should I say Xeroxed it? They also wrote "The Hangover," which "21 and Over" so blatantly rips off it almost could be considered plagiarism. Can you plagiarize yourself?

In "The Hangover," friends get drunk, lose one of their buddies and spend the rest of the movie trying to find him. In "21 and Over," friends get drunk, lose track of the address of one of their buddies and spend the rest of the film trying to find it. The originality astounds. There are differences. "The Hangover" involved a bachelor party. "21 and Over" involves a 21st birthday party. More importantly, "The Hangover" was a funny movie. "21 and Over" is decidedly not. It’s one thing to carbon copy a plot but when you carbon copy the jokes, you’re just being lazy. But, hey, a lot of people savor regurgitated humor.

"The Hangover" also featured likable characters and a talented cast, including Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Heather Graham and Zach Galifianakis. "21 and Over," conversely, features unlikable characters and a cast allergic to talent. Let’s just say that Miles Teller, who plays the "wild and crazy guy" in "21 and Over," will not be confused with Galifianakis anytime soon.

While both films revel in rude and crude humor, "The Hangover" employs it with a wealth of warped imagination. The film isn’t just being gross for grossness' sake. "21 and Over" is.

Here are some of the film’s knee-slappers: two characters walk naked through a college campus wearing only tube socks on their naughty bits, another character gets a dart in his cheek and another character urinates in a bar, vomits in a bar, eats a tampon, gets thorns in his behind and runs around town wearing only a pink bra and a teddy bear glued to his naughty bits. For more hi-jinks, a buffalo goes rampaging through a pep rally and characters get spanked with paddles.

The dialogue is cringe-inducing as characters banter about having sex with each other’s sister, among other riotous topics. Racist and misogynist jokes are part of the mix, too.

The film reunites three high school friends, Miller (Teller), Casey (Skylar Astin) and Jeff Chang (Justin Chon), who congregate at Northern Pacific University to help Jeff Chang, who is a student there, celebrate his 21st birthday. One of the film’s many hysterical gags is that the birthday boy is always called Jeff Chang.

Complicating the party plans is that Jeff Chang has a very important interview in the morning, which his very strict father (Francois Chau) has arranged. But the trio goes partying anyway, spurred on by Miller. When Jeff Chang gets so inebriated, he can’t tell his pals where he lives, he gets dragged from place to place until his home is located. Those places include a pep rally, a Latina sorority and a party where Miller and Casey partake in multiple drinking games. More hilarity ensues.

The film adds a lame romantic subplot to placate the women dragged to this crud. Casey meets Nicole (Sarah Wright) at a bar and is smitten, but she has a cheerleader boyfriend named Randy (Jonathan Keltz), who happens to be a jerk. Think Casey and Nicole will get together at the end? Casey and Miller also have a falling out. Think they’ll get back together at the end? I’ll never tell. It’s almost like this film is pathetically predictable.

About the only funny characters here are Randy’s two sycophantic cheerleading pals.

Lucas and Moore try to give the main characters some dimension, but these attempts appear tacked on and contribute little to the story. As for the duo’s directorial style, they do keep the film in focus and the actors in the frame. It’s point-and-shoot mise-en-scene.

Tragically, this film should do well at the box office thanks to the Neanderthal demographic and those moviegoers suckered in by the "Hangover" connection. It’s early in the year, but "21 and Over" right now has my vote for worst film of 2013. If a movie more moronic appears on the screen, I’m going to flee to my neighborhood waterboardist.

Admission

Films like this comedy have a guaranteed opening weekend audience just because a big TV star has the lead role and is all over the poster. That would be “30 Rock’s” Tina Fey. Those folks probably won’t be disappointed in this lightweight film, even though Fey plays it kinda bland, as is called for her character.
But fans on the novel it’s based on are going to have some problems, in that so many of the story’s elements have been changed beyond recognition.

The basic plot is about Princeton admissions officer Portia Nathan (Fey) having some difficulties concerning Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), a bright outsider sort of high schooler who’s applying there. There’s also John Pressman (Paul Rudd), who runs the developmental high school that Jeremiah goes to. And for any feminists out there, don’t worry, Portia’s mom, Susannah (Lily Tomlin), has some screen time. Book and film are similar on those points.

But changes in structure and plot development and message and eventual outcome are likely going to outrage certain readers.

Of course there’s the argument that the book is the book, and the movie is the movie, and I am one book- and movie-lover that accepts that. But sorry, even though this still remains a study of parent-child relationships, the tampering committed in adapting it goes far beyond anything that’s called for.

Too bad that’s not the only problem. The film stands on its own, but it doesn’t stand very tall.

Both Fey and Rudd – thank goodness they’re not portraying opposites who attract – really underplay their roles. Rudd is usually good at this kind of thing, letting a mischievous glance reveal what he’s planning to do, or putting on a blank expression that lets you feel his character’s exasperation. But this time he comes across as a shy dullard, a guy who wants to do the right thing – help get this kid into college – but doesn’t know where to begin. Fey appears to be the victim of a director who’s told her to hold back, until it’s time to unleash her inner self, which she gets to do a couple of times in what amounts to nothing more than an emotional catfight with a coworker. You want to feel for these two nice, caring people, but it’s difficult when they’re so uninteresting.

On the positive side, there’s Lily Tomlin, who absolutely lights up the screen as the feisty Susannah, a single mom and an independent spirit who was, no doubt, up in the front lines when the women’s movement got its start, and has never backed off. One of the film’s best – and most meaningful – sight gags is the tattoo of Bella Abzug on her shoulder. (Those of you too young to get it should Google her.)

Director Paul Weitz is a little too loose with the film’s moods, as they change, from way up to way down, too quickly. But neither he nor scriptwriter Karen Croner can be blamed for the hard-to-take, not-very-believable ending. That problem rests solidly with novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz, and is the way she ended the book. Why couldn’t the filmmakers have changed that?

The Croods

The humor's classic or prehistoric, depending on your tolerance for slapstick. The 3D animation is state of the art. And the life lessons are all too wearily contemporary in "The Croods," an energetic DreamWorks digital cartoon feature about some cave dwellers who are so Stone Age they make the Flintstones look like the Jetsons.

Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage) is the Neanderthalesque father, more comfortable with a club than with a thought. Ugga (Catherine Keener) is his patient wife. Thunk (Clark Duke) is his dim young son. Gran (Cloris Leachman) is the mother-in-law so old she wears a lizard skin instead of fur. And Eep (Emma Stone) is the story's heroine and the audience's focus for identification, a brave -- as in "Brave" -- young rebel dissatisfied with a Neolithic status quo that tells her curiosity kills, "ideas are for weaklings," and "routine and darkness and terror" -- i.e., life in a cave, foraging for food by day and hiding from predators by night -- is the best a young cavegirl can expect.

"Basically, anything fun is bad," Eep says, summarizing her loving but overprotective dad's cautious survival strategy.

To the credit of directors/writers Chris Sanders (the superior "How to Train Your Dragon") and Kirk De Micco (moving up the evolutionary ladder from his previous film, "Space Chimps"), Eep is not your standard cartoon beauty with attitude. She has an hourglass waist, true, and an eager if toothy smile, but she's squat and somewhat anthropoidal in both appearance and athleticism. She's primitive but also vivacious next to the mysterious, modern-looking young man who shows up one night in the cave family's rocky valley, a clever guy named Guy (Ryan Reynolds) who introduces Eep and her cavekin to the concepts of fire, shoes, pets (Guy travels with a lovable scene-stealing sloth) and extinction: He insists everybody head for safer ground before the earthquakes and volcanoes catch up with them.

Like the recent sequel, "Ice Age: Continental Drift," "The Croods" follows the characters' migration through an impressively realized prehistoric wilderness of imaginative "Avatar"-esque creatures and other menaces and surprises. (The visual highlight is an all-devouring flock of what might be called piranha birds.) While various critters stalk the Croods, the film pursues less challenging quarry: It chases standard sitcom themes about watchful dads and restless daughters itching to leave the cave and "go for the light."

In other words, "The Croods" reproduces the dynamic of the recent "Hotel Transylvania," the last digitally animated feature about a seemingly weird yet in fact traditional family with a suspicious, jealous dad and an impatient daughter attracted to an audaciious newcomer. The familiarity likely won't bother kids, or most of their parents. The audience at the preview I attended applauded at the end of the film, and the little girl behind me declared: "I love this movie!"

Why wouldn't she? Some conservative pundits like to say movies represent a threat to traditional family values but, seriously, is any entity as aggressive at affirming the primacy of family togetherness as Hollywood? The typical modern animated feature spends so much time and energy reminding parents and kids that they love each other that it creates the impression that families today are especially fragile and needy -- or certainly much more so than in the decades that produced "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "The Jungle Book."

Perhaps this is so. Maybe attending these movies together provides a ritual security for parents and children. In any case, "The Croods" bludgeons you with family-friendly life lessons with all the subtlety of a club-wielding Alley Oop selecting a mate. Guy discovers fire, sure, but it's Grug who invents the hug.

 

 

Judging from the crawl at the end of "The Croods," kids and dads aren't the only ones who need boosts to their self-esteem. Like some other recent films, "The Croods" doesn't acknowledge only those who created the movie but seemingly the entire DreamWorks staff, including those in "business and legal affairs," "financial accounting," "human resources, recreation and outreach, " and "marketing and home entertainment products." Why punish those few aficionados who sit through the end credits? By the end of this endurance test of a roll call, I was half-expecting to learn the name of Jeffrey Katzenberg's paperboy.

Olympus Has Fallen

This is typical action fodder for the post 9/11 era, which means things have been toned down, but Gerard Butler pulls it off with style. Gerard Butler is no Bruce Willis, but that doesn’t stop him from outdoing the John McClane role that Bruce Willis has been trying to do these days. For those who like the TV series 24 and wish Jack Bauer could do more, here’s your chance, though without Kiefer Sutherland. Olympus Has Fallen delivers an action thriller on such a massive scale that it would fit right in with the Summer blockbusters.
Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is a desk jockey assigned to protect the President (Aaron Eckhart), and he’s still shuffling papers when the terrorists attack. He finds himself the last man standing in a destroyed White House, as the President is being held hostage. Hence, Olympus has fallen. The Speaker of the House (Morgan Freeman) and the director of the Secret Service (Angela Bassett) give Banning a mission. He must escort the President’s son to safety, kill all of the North Korean terrorists, and rescue the President himself. The terrorist leader (Rick Yune) delivers yet another standout performance. Not bad for a guy whose first notable role was in The Fast and The Furious.
Olympus Has Fallen has all the style of a big-budget film. Antoine Fuqua turns the whole invasion scene into an extended, wrenching sequence. This film is bloody and pulls no punches.

Heat VS Kings

If this truly was the final visit of Sacramento’s purple and white to Miami, then thank you, Kings. What a game to remember the good times of that organization before likely getting shipped off to Seattle by what appears to be greed and folly.
It took two overtimes, but the Heat defeated the NBA’s lame-duck team 141-129 on Tuesday at AmericanAirlines Arena for its season-high 12th win in a row. Most likely, the Kings will be in Seattle next season as the second coming of the SuperSonics. If so, their last trip to Miami was a memorable one.
Led by 11 points from LeBron James in the second overtime, the Heat outscored Sacramento 17-5 in the final five-minute session. James corralled the Kings’ final shot of game with about four seconds to play and passed the ball across the court to Wade. Theatrically, Wade set the ball on the court and rested his foot atop the sphere. Finally, it was over.
“I couldn’t wait to get to the locker room and get some ice on me,” Wade said.
James finished with 40 points, eight rebounds and 16 assists, and Wade had 39 points, eight rebounds and seven assists in what turned out to be one of the most exciting games in Miami this season. It was the Heat’s first double-overtime game at home and second overall. Miami is 5-1 in overtime games this season.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra called James’ final statistics “video-game numbers.” He had 15 points, four rebounds and five assists in the two overtime periods.
The Heat’s win streak is its longest of the season and only two shy of the team record. For Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, the exciting finish didn’t gloss over an obvious reality of the game. For the first time since a road loss to the Pacers at the beginning of February, the Heat didn’t play well.
“It’s wasn’t until the last four minutes of regulation and overtime before it became a serious ballgame and we were able to respond,” Spoelstra said.
A from-behind block by Dwyane Wade of Marcus Thornton on a breakaway swung momentum in the Heat’s favor in the final overtime period. Moments later, James drained a three-pointer in transition to give the Heat a 131-127 lead. James drilled a 20-footer on the Heat’s next possession, and a dunk by Chris Bosh off a pick-and-roll with James gave Miami a 10-point lead with 1:29 left.
“We’ll take it any way we can get it, but for the most part we know we are able to play a lot better,” Bosh said. “Our standards are a lot different than other teams.”
Bosh had 15 points, including six in the first overtime, to go with eight rebounds. He had a chance to win it with 0.4 seconds left in the first overtime but air-balled a wide-open, midrange shot at the buzzer.
It wasn’t the first opportunity for the Heat to put away the Kings in the first overtime. Just before Bosh’s miss, James air-balled a point-blank layup with 2.1 seconds left. James complained loudly about not getting a call on the play and seemed to ride that frustration into the second overtime, turning it into motivation.
It appeared James was fouled by Kings center DeMarcus Cousins on the play.
“There was a little frustration,” James said. “I felt like I got fouled. I got fouled at the end of the first overtime. The second overtime was when I was able to pick it up and lead us offensively and just kind of take over the game.”
Reserve Marcus Thornton led the Kings with 36 points, going 11 of 18 from the field and 8 of 12 from three-point range. Thornton made his final three-pointer with 3:51 left in the second overtime before Miami pulled away.
The Heat led 112-104 with 1:39 left in regulation but was outscored 8-0 from there to send it into overtime. With his team ahead 112-110 with 19.8 seconds left in regulation, Wade missed a pair of free throws that could have given Miami a two-possession lead. Instead, a layup by Cousins sent to the game into overtime.
Cousins finished with 24 points and 15 rebounds. Tyreke Evans had 26 points, going 11 of 19 from the field.
It was an entertaining game after the Heat’s first-half malaise lifted. Miami shot 55.4 percent from the field overall compared with 51.6 percent for the Kings.
Led by Thornton, the Kings were 14 of 27 from three-point range. Miami countered by going 10 of 23 from long distance. Ray Allen had 21 points and five three-pointers.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/27/3255985/miami-heat-outlasts-best-effort.html#storylink=cpy

Dark Skies

Dark Skies tells the story of Lacy (Keri Russell) and Daniel Barrett (Josh Hamilton), a typical American couple living in the suburbs with their kids, Jesse (Dakota Goyo) and Sam (Kadan Rockett). But things begin to turn quite atypical for them when strange disturbances in the middle of the night quickly begin to escalate – from signs of an animal getting into their fridge, to their furniture being bizarrely arranged into an unbelievably balanced tower to family photos vanishing from inside frames. Is it a stalker? Is one of the children disturbed? Or, could it be… aliens?
Writer/director Scott Stewart (Legion, Priest) gives the film a recession-era bent by introducing us to the Barretts in the midst of some hard times. Daniel has been laid off and can’t seem to find a new job, leading to growing tension between him and Lacy. Russell (currently kicking ass, both dramatically and physically, on The Americans) and Hamilton (Louie fans may remember him as the obnoxious neighbor Louie got high with) are both very good here creating a believable relationship and the strain the two are already under before things get freaky.

But Dark Skies falters when it moves beyond that family unit. There are some notably cheesy moments involving the requisite skeptics in stories like this – the local cop or guy from the alarm company who are there to roll their eyes and give the “well, it must have been this” explanation for the crazy-ass stuff happening in this house. It doesn’t help matters that some of these peripheral characters are performed in particularly hammy ways.
It’s hard not to feel Stewart was heavily influenced by early Spielberg here, as Dark Skies feels very much like Close Encounters of the Third Kind meets Poltergeist – taking the former’s possible alien arrival and the latter’s suburban home setting, complete with the youngest member of the family the one to have the most direct early contact with the presence among them. (Yes, I know that, rumors aside, Spielberg, according to the credits, was “only” a writer and producer on Poltergeist, but still…)
The film often walks a very fine line as far as what is creepy and what is campy are concerned, especially as pretty much each family member begins to take a turn going to some very odd places and acting extremely strange – including making some uncharacteristic noises. I suspect mileage will vary among audiences as far as those who outright laugh at some of this and those who find it suitably unsettling. Ultimately, the creepy side slightly “wins,” but Stewart is unable to sustain Dark Skies’ tension for as long as he’s attempting.

Beautiful creatures

It is possible that I enjoyed Beautiful Creatures a great deal more than the film actually deserves. After half a decade of sitting through the insufferable Twilight franchise, really the last thing I wanted was to be subjected to the first instalment of what is promised to be ''the next Twilight''.
So I kind of trudged into Beautiful Creatures in that way that people trudge into the dentist's surgery: I don't want to be here, but it is necessary, and it'll all be over in an hour or two.
And then, the oddest thing happened. Up on screen, a watchable and enjoyable film began to play out.
Beautiful Creatures, though it might be touted as not much more than a shameless Twilight cash-in, is - as far as I'm concerned - superior in every possible way.
In small-town South Carolina, a couple of high school students meet and fall in love. Only trouble is, she's a witch, and she's about to face the biggest day of her life. On her 16th birthday, Lena will be chosen to represent either the dark or the light side of witchery.
If it's the former, then she's in for a life of deceit and cruelty. If it's the latter, then Lena might just be the saviour of the world. Or something. But whichever way it goes, there is no room in Lena's life for the normal, mortal, but drop-dead adorable young Ethan.
But, teenage love is one of the universe's more implacable forces, and so Ethan and Lena fly in the face of her family, and persist with their relationship.
So far, so what? Put like that, Beautiful Creatures sounds pretty bloody awful. But, god is in the details, and this film - and, I suspect, the novel it is based on - get the details refreshingly right. Firstly, Lena is in charge. She carries the responsibility, she makes the decisions, and she solves the problems. The relief after Twilight's moping nonentity of a female lead could not be more acute.
Secondly, these kids talk in a way that sounded to me like fairly authentic dialogue. A conversation early on about banned books and moral censorship in America today struck me as subversive and timely.
And any film that's quoting Bukowski and invoking Kurt Vonnegut in its first 10 minutes is always going to score some very non-objective brownie points from me.
Mix those sort of agreeable smarts with some excellent casting - young leads Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert (daughter of Jane Campion) are both very good, while Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson are both clearly enjoying camping and vamping it up in the grown-up support roles - and Beautiful Creatures turns out to be my pleasant surprise of the year so far.

Snitch

In Snitch, Dwayne Johnson -- still probably better known as The Rock -- plays a normal guy pressed into action to help save his son from a 10-year stretch in prison because of the mandatory-minimum sentencing drug laws in Missouri, where the film is set.
And that injustice -- the kid was a dupe, caught in a situation with the drugs in his possession by a hard-charging prosecutor - is the rather flimsy hook on which the entire movie hangs.
While this could nominally be considered an action film -- because of a couple of shoot-outs and car chases -- Snitch is more a dramatic thriller with violence thrown in.
The story of a straight-arrow businessman forced to think like a criminal to rescue his offspring, from whom he's been estranged since he divorced and remarried, the film is a a semi-daring move for Johnson, with its focus on the dramatic rather than the action. He's shown more layers as an actor than you might expect in the past. But this role seems underwritten, for him to rely on his acting chops (and a padded, overly talkative script by Justin Haythe) to get by.
Here, he's the angry father, then the anguished parent, then the expedient businessman forced to live by his wits and rapidly acquire some street smarts. Johnson does make us believe this John Matthews is someone who can talk the cops -- specifically, a politically ambitious U.S. attorney played by an under-used Susan Sarandon -- into letting him go undercover to trap a drug dealer, in exchange for shortening his son's sentence. But he's also someone who can maintain his cool when dealing with a gun-happy inner-city dealer named Malik (Michael K. Williams) or with his supplier, the silkily threatening El Topo (Benjamin Bratt).
But the script, while advertised as "inspired by real events," doesn't find many places to go, which is surprising, given the level of double-cross and infiltration implied. Since they were fictionalizing it anyway, why not give it a little life?
Yet Johnson makes the most of his scenes; he apparently can shed tears on cue, though he still can't transcend weak writing. There's a difference between intensity and emotional intensity, something Johnson has problems navigating and calibrating.
Snitch is competent but uninspired, and uninspiring. I'm still waiting for Johnson to be teamed with a script as good as the one he had in, say, The Rundown. Until then, he's not really making movies -- just cranking out product.

Safe Haven

Safe Haven, based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, is a romance film directed by Lasse Hallström. The film stars Julianne Hough as Katie, a young woman looking for a new life; Josh Duhamel as Alex, a widowed father and shop owner struggling to move foward; and Cobie Smulders as Jo, a woman stuck in a place she longs to leave.
Since Safe Haven is part of Nicholas Sparks book-to-film collection, while watching the film, I compared Safe Haven to other Nicholas Sparks films. Unfortunately, I found Safe Haven to not reach the romantic appeal of The Notebook or Dear John, and it does not make me swoon for the love portrayed. Safe Haven is not a magnificent romance film, it will not have you dreaming about true love, but it is a heart-warming film to watch.
The film’s main stars act well, but the scene-stealer award must go to Mimi Kirkland, who plays Alex’s daughter Lexie. Kirkland’s cuteness shines in this film as she plays the joyous and upbeat Lexie. Whenever Lexie worked as her father’s cashier, aiding costumers with a mature attitude, the theater audience chuckled in adoration.
Aside from the acting, the film scenery was beautiful, but simple. The film was shot mainly in a forest, a beach, and a couple buildings. Yet, the simple scenery juxtaposed with Katie’s daunting past nicely.
Katie’s past presented the only action/suspense aspect of the film. This made the first half of the film dependent on building a romantic relationship between Katie and Alex, and while watching the relationship between the characters grow was entertaining, the lack of action made the first half of the film slow. The slow beginning caused me to not become completely engrossed in the film until more dramatic aspects were introduced.
The film’s soundtrack paralleled the film’s slow first half. The film did not have a memorable soundtrack in the film, and there wasn’t a soundtrack that made the film memorable. Therefore, in relation to the film’s score, nothing special arose.
All in all, while the film did not reach the romantic depths and cinematic complexity of other Nicholas Sparks or romance films, Safe Haven was enjoyable to watch, especially if you are looking for a romantic story for a simple smile.

Michael Vick

In 2012, Michael Vick had the look of a fading quarterback. Plagued by injuries and inconsistencies at age 32, he had his worst full season since signing with Philadelphia in 2009.
The six-year, $100 million extension he’d signed in 2011 was looking shaky. In the quirky contract world of the NFL, only about a third of that deal was fully guaranteed, little of which was left on the remaining four years. Set to make $15.5 million in 2013, Vick, who no longer has a firm hold on the Eagles starting job, may well have been cut in a cost savings move.
So Vick did the smart thing. He agreed to tear up the deal in favor of a one-year contract worth up to $10 million. The move salvages a big chunk of what he stood (but wasn’t guaranteed) to make next season, while opening the door to early free agency. It’s a gambit, but a good performance in 2013 would likely get him at least one more nice long-term deal , especially with a weak field to compete with after next season.
“Sense Vick and his agent surveyed the potential free agent landscape, saw it lacking and moved forward with the Eagles deal,” tweeted Andrew Brandt, an NFL contract expert and former Green Bay Packers executive who now works at ESPN.
Could Vick kick things back into high gear? Sure. New Eagles’ coach Chip Kelly employed the speed game to build the University of Oregon into a college football powerhouse. His fast break style figures to agree with Vick, still quick after more than a decade in the league (with a two-year time out for legal issues, hence fewer miles on the body).
For Vick, Kelly might be the gift sent to restore big numbers to his stat line, and by extension his wallet. At the least, it gives quarterback and coach a one-year window to see if they ‘re right for each other.

 

 

 

Side Effects

I walked out of Steven Soderbergh’s “Side Effects’’ thinking to myself, “Finally, a mainstream 2013 movie I can whole-heartedly recommend’’ — then quickly added, “well, except that it will probably piss off a sizeable portion of the target audience.’’
Moviegoers, including those who’ve seen the deliberately misleading trailer — and especially including all those who fell for Channing Tatum in “Magic Mike” — may well feel they’ve been sucker-punched for their $12, buying tickets to a pill-popping drama that suddenly turns into something entirely different.

OK, you’ve had the consumer warning. And though I’ll avoid spoilers more than I usually do — this is a rare film where it’s worth keeping secrets — be warned there’s going to be a bit of hinting.
At first, it seems like the film’s protagonist is 20-something Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara), whose husband, Martin (Tatum), has just been released from prison after serving four years for insider trading.
His absence — and her relocation from a palatial Connecticut home to an Upper Manhattan apartment appear to have taken quite a psychic toll on poor Emily.
Martin is concerned his listless spouse is seriously depressed even before Emily drives her car into a wall.
In the emergency room, she meets Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law), a psychiatrist who takes her on as a private patient and tries to treat Emily with a menu of psychotropic drugs such as Prozac and Zoloft.
Nothing seems to work until Emily’s former therapist, Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones) helpfully suggests to Banks that he try a new wonder drug, the fictional Ablixa.
“Side Effects’’ appears initially to be a mordant satire of America’s prescription-drug culture — everybody’s taking some sort of mood stabilizer, and Banks himself is being wined and dined by the makers of another fictional drug who recruit him to conduct paid tests.
But when a major character dies half an hour in — I’m not giving away anything that isn’t in the trailer or a flash-forward in the opening scene — Soderbergh shifts gears to the tune of a Hitchcockian thriller. (“Psycho’’ and “Vertigo’’ being the most obvious classics being riffed upon.)
There’s a good reason that Law, and not Mara, gets top billing here. The focus shifts to the good Dr. Banks, who loses his practice, and his unemployed wife (Vinessa Shaw), as he becomes obsessed with clearing his name after the death gets him labeled “PILL KILLER’’ on the front page of The Post.
Insufferably callow in his leading-man period, Law has become a fascinating actor in middle age, especially playing weaselly but not wholly unsympathetic characters like he does here and in Soderberg’s “Contagion’’ (which, like “Side Effects,’’ was written by Scott Z. Burns).
Mara gives an appropriately enigmatic performance in a film that’s also been immaculately photographed and edited by Soderbergh, with Thomas Newman contributing the highly effective score.
Tatum has basically repaid Soderbergh here for his breakthrough performance in “Magic Mike’’ — a surprise hit — by serving the eye-candy function generally reserved for actresses. (What the two films — and the director’s “The Girlfriend Experience’’ — have in common is a lively interest, rare in American movies, about people’s struggles during an economic downturn.)
And fourth-billed Zeta-Jones? If you surrender to the chilly, cerebral jape that is “Side Effects,’’ she delivers a great campy jolt at the end. If not, she’ll likely have you demanding your money back.
What Soderbergh claims will be his last theatrical feature for “a long time’’ is the sort of movie best appreciated by us jaded movie critics — and those Soderbergh fans who share our fascination with his daring, sometimes perverse, experiments with film.

Parker

Parker introduces Statham as a saint among thieves; literally, he disguises himself as a priest during a robbery at the Ohio State Fair and keeps the people caught in the fray calm, while his compatriots dress as clowns and the cocky, inexperienced August (Micah A. Hauptman) carelessly puts the lives of innocent people in danger. However, things really go bad when the crew’s boss, Melander (Michael Chiklis), refuses Parker his share during the getaway, but promises a much bigger payout if he helps them on a new job. A fight ensues and Parker is left for dead on the side of the road.
Once he recovers, though, he sets out to collect the due pay(back) from Melander and his men (including Clifton Collins Jr. and Wendell Pierce). Parker follows them to Palm Beach in Florida, discovering their planned score involves $50-70 million worth of diamonds. There, he meets Leslie (Jennifer Lopez), a divorcee pushing 40 who immediately sees through Parker’s fake identity as a Texas mogul looking to buy new real estate. Leslie agrees to keep Parker’s secret, on the condition that she gets a share from his payback scheme (in part as compensation for her years of enduring disrespect and being ignored by her wealthy clients).

The elements are there for Parker to fly high as pulpy entertainment, with Statham playing the rare male badass who’s not a womanizer – rather, Parker’s committed to his girlfriend (Emma Booth) and her father/his friend (Nick Nolte) – and yet, still able to get his hands dirty in a creative fashion. Indeed, Parker finds way to hurt people using things like toilet tank lids and gun clips in creative ways that resonate on a deeper level of irony (and entertain anyone who’s just looking to watch Stath bring on the hurt). That violence is limited, but effective and responsibly bloody in execution, even when Parker hurts himself in a cringe-inducing knife fight.
However, Hackford’s direction, while competent, leaves something to be desired; similarly, there are some questionable editing choices along the way that stand out as clumsy and confusing in logic (ex. flashbacks during the middle-of-action in the opening robbery set piece). McLaughlin’s script has no pretensions about elevating Westlake’s dime novel tropes, but it also has limited fun playing around with them. As indicated before, there’s recognition of the appeal these stories have for regular people (see: a short montage where clueless rich people ogle diamonds is a fun setup, giving extra reason to cheer the working-class Parker and Leslie), just not enough and in limited doses. Steven Soderbergh’s collaboration with J-Lo on Out of Sight provides a great counter-example on how to properly treat similar material; Hackford’s film, by comparison, is far less lively and energized on all levels.

When all is said and done, Parker just doesn’t reach the comfortable middle ground between satisfying action junkies looking for exhilarating, witty thrills and satisfying viewers interested in a smart pulpy genre exercise. Statham and his supporting cast do fine work, but they’re weighed down by unexceptional storytelling behind the camera. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting this is a unique Stath vehicle that has more going on than just allowing him to showcase bravado fight choreography – and it even plays with his eye candy status, in a scene featuring the ‘female gaze.’
In summation: if you’re interested in standard kick ass Statham entertainment, Parker will probably leave you bored. Everyone else, there’s an unremarkable but (mostly) satisfactory crime tale worth checking out, especially in comparison to what else is playing in theaters right now (though you’ll also be fine waiting to rent it).