Olympus Has Fallen

Saturday I went to see "Olympus Has Fallen." If I were to sum it up in a short sentence it would be "Die Hard takes place in the White House." It was a good action movie. Gerard Butler looked great as a Secret Service agent, square-jawed and clean shaven wearing those aviator sunglasses.

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, the basic premise is this, terrorists take over the White House and Gerard Butler saves the day. Like I said, Die Hard at the White House with Gerard Butler replacing Bruce Willis.

The writer did a great job of nearly immediately endearing the audience to the President (Aaron Eckhart--the guy with the huge dimple in his chin--also known as Harvey Dent), his wife (Ashley Judd) and their young son Connor (Finley Jacobsen).

Now, perhaps it's just the recent news about North Korea, but I have to say that it completely freaked me out to watch how the swiftly and completely the Korean terrorists took out the White House.  (And I say Korean because this terrorist was born in North Korea and grew up in the South.) Lots of of blood, lots of booms, and lots of shooting.  Don't get too attached to any one character in this film, because like an episode of Downton Abbey or The Walking Dead, they'll be dead in a minute.

Like I said, I liked the movie.  I liked the premise.  I liked the performances. Morgan Freeman played the Speaker of the House, for goodness sake. (Who we never see take the oath of office to be the president....they did that on the West Wing when John Goodman became President) Gerard Butler was totally believable and likeable as the super-tough guy Secret Service agent in search of redemption. This is the thing I didn't like. It is my understanding that the Secret Services' job is to protect the President, at all cost. I get that, so while I hated watching them get mowed down, I understand it. It is my understanding that the President's job, and the job of the people who work for him to protect the country, no matter the cost. Now, I realize that the movie has to move forward, but I have to say I got really irritated when the President ordered his subordinates to do things that placed the nation in jeopardy so that he could be the big hero.  "They'll never get it from me." Also, the Speaker of the House caving to terrorists to save the life of the President, didn't sit well with me.

If you're looking for a fun and action packed movie experience, go see this. If you're a student of how our government works and how the succession of power and the protection of the government works, you might want to leave that all at the door.

The Crowd Has Spoken

This week something extraordinary happened. Yeah, yeah, the Catholic Church chose a new Pope. What I am talking about is way more exciting than some white smoke coming out of the Sistine Chapel.  They did it! Veronica Mars is going to be a major motion picture!

I was not an original "Marshmallow" as Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell, likes to refer to us. I was converted while laying flat on my back after my cancer surgery. My good friend Deb not only did my laundry during that time, but she gave me the wonderland of Neptune, CA and the sassy Veronica Mars on DVD to help pass the time.

It was there I discovered the UPN/CW Network short-lived series about a high school girl who sidelined as a private detective. Veronica came by her obsession honestly, her dad was the local sheriff. Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni) was a single dad to a very unwieldy teenaged girl. Veronica did her best to take care of her dad despite her penchant for trouble. I liken their relationship to that of Molly Ringwald and Harry Dean Stanton in the John Hughes 80's classic Pretty in Pink, except Keith Mars wasn't a loser drunk. Veronica's best friend Lily Kane (Amanda Seyfried) is murdered and Veronica dives in head first into the nefarious doings of her small town to find out who her killer is. All the while, Veronica is still a high school student wending her way through the usual challenges of boys, and classes, and expectations, and well, more boys. There's the bad boy Logan (Jason Dohring), all his smoldering looks and misunderstood ways, Veronica's best friend and fellow investigator, Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), the resident gang banger Eli (Francis Capra) and many many more. I was truly upset that I never made this show a part of my regular viewing and thereby helped to kill it, perhaps before it's time.

Now, however, I have taken part in breathing life back into this show. You see, this movie isn't being made because the studios thought it would be a good idea. This movie is being made because the people who watch TV and movies thought it would be a good idea. Writer/creator Rob Thomas and Bell took it to the people through the Web site Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a site that does what is referred to as crowd-sourcing. If you have a project, whether it be creative, business, or charitable, Kickstarter allows you to collect funding for the project. The goal to get the movie made was $2 million. The site went active on March 13, 2013, and took all of 11 hours to fully fund the project. At the moment I am writing this 50,312 people have backed the movie and $3,3210,038 has been raised. And every time I toggle over there, it goes up and up. Check it out here http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/559914737/the-veronica-mars-movie-project


I know, it seems kind of silly and shallow. Can't that money be given to feed the poor or support something important?  The answer is yes, yes, it could. But, it's also kind of exciting to see we are in era where anything is possible and that the voice of the people can matter. So, if we can raise $2 million to make a movie, then maybe other more important things can be brought to the forefront and funded.

In the meantime, I am waiting patiently for my T-shirt, my shooting script, and my glimpse of what Neptune is like in 2013.