Sundance film reviews!

I know that I'm a bit late with this one, but I figured, as they say, "better late than never!"

Here are some quick reviews, written a few months after I saw the films at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah back in January.

First of all, the most important thing was that I loved being able to stay seated after the film and hear Q&A sessions with many of the actors, directors, producers, etc. Really made the films more human.

Second of all, the films were astonishing compared with everyday blockbuster films because the themes weren't readily apparent, or easily digested. Many times during and after the film, we'd discuss who was really the 'good guy' or 'bad guy' -- a theme you can easily find in most 'normal' films simply by the color of clothes the actors wear. It was refreshing to be so engaged.

In the order I enjoyed them, and check the ratings before showing your family:

Get Low: Loved this one -- not the Lil' Jon song, but rather a film with Bill Murray and Robert Duvall. Based in truth, about a 40 year hermit from the south (Georgia, I think?), who threw his own funeral, pre-death, and thousands of people showed up. Great story, great acting.
Score: 8/10.

Click here to open trailer in new window, (opens in LA & NY theaters July 30).



Hesher: Awesome film about who is really good and who is really evil -- it's not always easy to see. Fun, as well. Pretty irreverent, as it has to do with anarchy, etc. Cast was really fun to watch -- breaking their typical roles: Natalie Portman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rainn Wilson.
Score: 8/10.

Closest thing I could find to a trailer.


Winters Bone: Intense movie about living in backwoods Missouri, and a family's struggles with nasty neighbors and drug addictions. Love that it was a real 'film', and had quiet spots without dialogue or music, etc.
Score: 7/10.


Cyrus: didn't care for it too much, though it was fun to see the locations, shot in LA. Kinda quirky, didn't know where it was going at many points. Fun enough to rent.
Score: 5/10.

Climate Refugees: Didn't care for it too much, though lots of good input from Lester Brown, author of Plan B. It focused on examples of what climate change was already doing, and tried to extrapolate to a doomsday scenario. I prefer looking at trends, rather than single data points, which could be attributed to a simple bad year, etc. I did like their randomly generated numbers of how many people will be coming to America in the next 40 years (I think it was 100 million).
Score: 4/10 (Don't bother unless you're really interested)

Camping in Central California!

This past weekend a few of us drove up to Bishop, CA, which is just south of Mammoth Lakes on the east side of the Sierra Mountain range.
Camping Partner, Special Friend.

Our tent site at the Pit, which was free, courtesy of the research groups that rented out the whole place. High desert, yum!Hard to beat butter, eggs, avocado, tomato, and cheddar. Really hard.


We took time out to do some hiking up to Treasure Lakes, through the snow that we weren't quite prepared for.

John Muir Wilderness is one of my favorites, for sure.
Retreat!!! Snowballs aren't supposed to be that big!
South Lake, outside Bishop, CA. 81 degrees, 10,000 feet, Sunny, Snow on the ground. Bliss.
Aspen groves were out in full force! So beautiful to see the shimmering leaves!

And I forgot to take any snaps, but this is a reasonable stock photo of one of the TWO hot springs that we visited during the weekend!
Thanks, iStockphoto!

Also, the Bishop area has some of the best bouldering around, so we naturally had to take it easy with some climber friends
Dynamic move to the crux of the problem!
Soft hands to cradle.
Harder than it looks.

Stuck~!

Hooping with the Sierras as a backdrop (and a canyon just behind the cameraman).


Triumph! Love this shot because of the colors. It's got a swath of green in the center/right, blue at the top, and reddish tones on the bottom left.

Blog Action Day 2009

About this time last year I did a quick post about Poverty, highlighting my thoughts on the global situation, as well as a few groups that are doing their best to alleviate the pain involved.

I encourage you to read the post here, as not much has changed. However, I have to say, since then, I have donated to Kiva, enabled a few loans, gotten my money repaid in full, and loaned it out again. And it feels great. Give it a try for as little as $25, please! And let me know how it works out!



This year's Blog Action Day focuses on climate change. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of discussion on whether "global warming" is "real" or not, and whether humans should feel responsible. Personally, in my daily life, I could care less whether the temperature is rising or falling, though I do admit that is important. What I do care about is living sustainably. I would like to be able to say, 100 years from today, that I did my best to preserve the Earth for future generations.

Certainly none of us (that I know of) can say this today, as we are living as major consumers, and in an extremely carbon-negative way.

Thankfully, lots of us are working on long term solutions, from cleaner transportation, cleaner energy generation (and use!), as well as trying to re-set the environments we've destroyed so far.

For some of us it's been a while since we've honestly thought about these types of issues, and if so, perhaps we (you, me, everyone!) should take 5 minutes out of our day to reflect on how we're living, and how we're treating the Earth!


(Image from random website here.)