We Are Marshall

I have some fun New Year's posts that I want to do tomorrow and later this week but first I had to post about this AWESOME movie I saw today. I cannot say enough good things about it. We Are Marshall is based on a true story and is incredibly moving.


A small college town in West Virginia loses almost their entire football team and many other members of their town in a plane crash. This picture is of the real football team in 1970.


Matthew McConaughey and Matthew Fox star in it and they both did an incredible job. It cracked me up because I'm used to seeing McConaughey as the good-looking bachelor in most of his movies and he played such a different character this time. He had this horrible 70's hairstyle and wore these wretched plaid suits and yet he did such a good job as the coach that he was playing. I cried through most of the movie because it was so moving and inspirational.


It was also neat because it takes place in West Virginia in the 70's and I actually lived in a small town in West Virginia in the 70's so that was kind of cool.


At the end of the movie they showed a lot of pictures of the real people that the movie was about. I always love it when they do that and this is a picture of Fox & McConaughey with their real life counterparts.


Matthew Fox talking about his thoughts about doing the movie and getting to know the real life Coach Red Dawson that he plays in the movie.

LMC gives the movie two thumbs up and I highly recommend you see it. It is also rated PG so it is a great family friendly movie.

Wonderful review by Michael McBride

The Butcher of Baghdad has been executed

This is an important day in history!! A mass murderer who had no qualms even killing people in his own family has met his Maker. Justice has been served.

Father and child gassed in Halabja
Photo Hat tip: Mike's America

Lest we forget the horrors he inflicted upon thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children this picture is just a small reminder. This evil man's reign of terror would have continued with his even more pathological sons, Uday and Qusay had it not been for President Bush and our brave U.S. troops.

I watched several A&E biographies on Saddam Hussein and his sons and I was horrified at what I saw. When his sons were very young they were forced to watch the torture and murder of fellow human beings and even ordered to commit murder or be killed themselves. Uday breeded terror among the women at the University of Baghdad where he would pick out the most beautiful women, rape them and then kill them. Qusay was just as brutal and Saddam had succeeded in turning his sons into monsters. Here is an excerpt from a short piece on Saddam's sons:

OUTLANDISH DEPRAVITY
"The stories told about Saddam’s sons, related to NEWSWEEK by several Iraqi exiles, seem almost too grotesque to be true. Some are probably exaggerated, but not by much, according to a senior administration official who has access to CIA files on Saddam’s sons. More is known about Uday, but only because he was outlandish in his depravity. Qusay is “in the shadows,” says this source. “We don’t know much.” But U.S. intelligence believes that Qusay is Saddam’s true heir apparent, for the simple reason that he controls the security that keeps his father in power and alive. Given their family history, it is remarkable that his two sons have not killed each other (though they may have tried).

Both men (Uday is 38, Qusay 36) were born and bred to violence of the most lurid kind. As infants, they were supposedly given disarmed grenades as toys. More reliably, they were said to accompany their father on outings to the torture chamber. What did they see? The methods used by the ruling Baath Party have never been subtle. When the Army briefly drove out the Baathists in the early 1960s, it discovered a chamber of horrors where Saddam worked as an officer. In the cellars of Qasr-al—Nihayyah (“the Palace of the End,” so-called because King Faisal II was murdered there in 1958), the Army found “electric wires with pincers, pointed iron stakes on which prisoners were made to sit, and a machine which still bore traces of chopped-off fingers,” according to one account based on official sources.

Saddam has always believed in the symbolic power of mutilation. “Under torture, the high and mighty are quite literally exposed as being made of the same stuff as everyone else,” writes Kanan Makiya in his study of Saddam’s Iraq, “Republic of Fear.” As Iraqi ruler, Saddam delivered the broken bodies of his victims to their families. He was aiming at the creation of “a new man” in Iraq, just as Hitler and Stalin had tried to do in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. He may well have made his sons into psychopaths."

Not only did Saddam torture and murder thousands of his fellow muslims but he had many ties to terrororism around the world.

Toon Hat Tip: Flopping Aces
 

President Bush and our U.S. troops have protected the lives of countless innocent men, women and children. Even though we are still unearthing mass graves in Iraq no new ones are being created. Saddam's reign of terror is over!!

Happy Birthday to Harley & My Little Brother

My daughter Harley actually turned 9 on the 12th but today is her Birthday party. We are having an American Girls' Christmas Party at my house and then I am taking Harley and 4 of her friends to Build a Bear. My baby brother also turned 30 this month on the 14th. So I'm wishing him a belated Happy Birthday as well.



I apologize for not posting or visiting much lately. I've been busy making these Christmas wreaths and Peanut Butter cookies with Hershey kisses in them. I've also been trying to get Christmas cards out and make my house look presentable and get laundry done. Right now I have an hour before everyone arrives at my house and I have laundry all over my house and my house looks scary so I've got to get my act together. I hope everyone is enjoying the craziness of Holiday preparations as well :-)!!

More Movie Stuff

There are a couple of movies that have come out this year that I want to see but haven't gotten a chance to yet. I admit that even though I am a big Gibson fan it was hard to think about going to see one of his movies since his incident. But Sean Hannity got to see his newest movie Apocalypto and said it was very good and very moving. That describes a lot of Gibson's movies so I wasn't surprised. It made me want to go and see it especially since its about the Maya Kingdom which is an intriguing subject for me. Also, I know this is a little corny but O'Reilly has this body language expert on occasionally who analyzes people's body language. O'Reilly had her observe Gibson on Leno's show and she said that his body language conveyed a real remorse about what had happened.

I also wanted to see Flags of our Fathers awhile back but never made it to the movie theater. Another one that is out right now that looks good is Bobby which is about Robert F. Kennedy. I'm in desperate need of a movie night but no time right now.


I watched End of the Spear last night and was pretty impressed. I am actually pretty familiar with this story about the 5 missionaries that were killed by tribal people but never knew the details. Elisabeth Elliott is a famous speaker and writer and she was one of the widows of the missionaries. I'm not a big fan of hers since she is a little on the legalistic side but never understood how some of the widows and children went back in to minister to the very people who killed their husbands. When you watch the movie it all makes sense. It is still pretty remarkable and it is a true picture of Christians showing the unconditional love of Christ to the lost. It is a movie well worth seeing.


Joia reminded me that I forgot to mention Clueless in my movie reviews. She lent it to me so I forgot since it wasn't on my Netflix list. This is a total gem of a movie. I was always turned off by it because it just seemed like an airhead, teenage movie to me but its actually very fun. First of all it is a modern version of Jane Austen's book Emma so that makes it neat. Also, I was so excited to see the name of one of the main characters. Alicia Silverstone is the main character whose name is Cher but her best friend is Dionne and they are both named after has been singers. This was so awesome to me because I have literally never seen a movie with a character in it with my name but also for her to be named after the same singer was very cool.

DVD Warning:

Just to save some people some stress I felt I needed to issue this warning. The two big DVD renters that send movies through the mail for a monthly fee are Netflix and Blockbuster. These are awesome services because you get unlimited movies for one low price. My warning comes in that there is a big difference in the customer service of Netflix versus Blockbuster. I started out with Blockbuster and had numerous problems. A friend and I both got frustrated and switched to Netflix. I have used Netflix for about 8 months and have never had any problems. Recently Blockbuster is trying to lure people to them with their option of enabling you to return DVDs that you get through the mail at the store and immediately get a new movie. I thought this would be a nice feature and so decided to give them another try. After going through the hassle of switching back to them I immediately encountered problems. Within one day I had 3 different issues with them. I decided it wasn't worth it and switched back to Netflix immediately. Bottom line, go with Netflix and save yourself a lot of stress.

Movie Reviews

Patrick had a great idea where he looked at all the movies he had gotten through Netflix this past year and gave mini-reviews on what he thought of all of them. I thought that sounded like a fun idea so I'm doing the same although I'm categorizing them a little differently and I'm not listing every single movie. Of the ones I can remember I'll list the movies I saw in the theater.

Netflix Movies

These are the movies/TV series that I loved:

LOST--Seasons 1 & 2--shocking to all of you I'm sure

The Outsider--I loved this movie, bought it and have watched it several times

Iron Jawed Angels--I did a whole post on this

The Inheritance--based on Louisa May Alcott's book

Reality Bites--I had seen this before but I liked it much better the 2nd time.

American Outlaws--my favorite Colin Farrell movie

Dreamer--inspirational movie with Kurt Russell & Elisabeth Shue

Tears of the Sun

Movies I liked:

She's the Man

Save the Last Dance 2--This wasn't bad but wasn't near as good as the first one which I love.

Drive Me Crazy

Last Holiday

Eyes of a Stranger

Just Like Heaven--Reese Witherspoon

Cinderella Man--I liked this more than I expected too

Miss Congeniality 2--Not as good as the 1st one but cute

These movies I thought I would really like but they were a big disappointment:

Young Guns 1 & 2--Kiefer Sutherland is awful in these. I don't think I ever liked him in anything until 24. Its almost like he's a different person in 24. He is one of those actors like George Clooney who looks and acts better in his 40's than he did in his 20's.

The Sentinel--A recent Kiefer Sutherland movie that I thought would be good but was just kind of a flop.

The New World--Huge Disappointment

La Femme Nikita (the series)--I was told this was similar to Alias. I love Alias but Nikita is nothing like Alias in terms of its appeal. They have similar story lines but I love Alias and despised Nikita.

Tristan & Isolde

Casanova

Movies I just didn't like:

Tigerland

The Recruit

Hart's War--This had Bruce Willis & Colin Farrell in it and was a war movie but it still didn't cut it for me.

Hostage

To end all Wars

Rumor has it

Movies I saw at the Theater that I loved:

World Trade Center

United 93

Annapolis

Failure to Launch

Movies I saw with my kids at the Theater:

Superman Returns--I got to see it in 3D with my boys. A friend had told me it was really good so I had high expectations and ended up not even liking it.

The Devil Wears Prada--I saw this with my girls and it was pretty good.

Santa Clause 3--I saw this with all my kids. It was good but not as good as 1 & 2.

Yours, Mine and Ours--Cute movie