Pictures: A Weekend in Review

Well I don't usually write "update blogs" but I'm more than sufficiently bored and I like the idea of a picture blog detailing the second half of my week.

First of all, Jorjette came to visit (Wednesday-Sunday):

We hadn't seen each other in almost two months so it was nice to have 3 1/2 days to do whatever we pleased. We decided to go to my subdivision's fantastic beach. Besides getting burnt (by the sun) and bitten (by gross lake-bugs), it was a true beach experience.

Later that night, we watched Shutter Island.

Although Jorjie fell asleep, I was spellbound for the first hour and a half. Scorsese is a master/genius movie maker. Although the plot line felt a little tired (especially as things progressed), the way the movie was crafted made the experience (and $1 at Redbox) totally worth it.

On Friday night, Jorjette and I made a little trip to Ann Arbor (our usual hang out spot) and made our first trip to State Theater for the movie The Secret in Their Eyes.

Turned out to be a fantastic little Argentinian thriller/romance/drama/thinker. Thoughts were provoked... and I think that's why indie/foreign movies should be made.

Saturday held my little brother's graduation.

I was impressed with a couple things. Namely: the quantity of beach balls students are able to sneak in, one of the valedictorian's fiddle skills, the elected speaker/teacher's vocal similarities to the Simpson's Mr. Burns, the fact that Green Day is still being played at graduations, and the lack of preparation on the student body president's part while simultaneously able to entertain a few thousand people.

Later that day, the USA's World Cup journey began.

Thank-you Mr. Green. We owe you one.

And today, I finally had a chance to return to Hope Community Church.

While I usually have an internal debate on whether or not to make the trip into Detroit for the Sunday morning service, I always come away encouraged that the body of Christ is alive.

That's my weekend. Oh, listen to this song by The Drums. It served as our melodramatic theme song.

Sci-fi done right

I know I'm a couple weeks late on the recommendation but District 9 was a great movie. It did what all good sci-fi movies should do, have a great narrative using, well, fictional scientific stuff that's all very relevant to the real world.

If you're totally unawares (which wouldn't be that big of a surprise, the movie is/was kind of a sleeper... no big names attached to it besides Peter Jackson giving it a recommendation), the movie released 9/14/09, was filmed & set in South Africa, and is about aliens inhabiting the nation. The background of the aliens' arrival is explained with faux-news footage from the last 20 or so years chronicling the aliens' eventual placement into a slum given the name, District 9.

I'd heard good things about the movie but still had semi-low expectations because I thought that it was just going to be a fairly one-dimensional statement against apartheid. My expectation was that humans were just going to be mean and throw the nice, ugly aliens out of the city. But the movie was very fair in showing that the aliens were very different than humans, that it wasn't as clear cut case as it could have been, giving the movie more credibility in any sort of "point" it is trying to make. Issues of identity and humane treatment also play into the story but, all done without getting preachy. Finally, the action scenes are summer blockbuster worthy but, surprisingly, the story behind is what, I think, will really give it its lasting appeal.

So there you have it, this movie has my recommendation.