So, the college eddicated brother and the breaking-and-entering brother are thrown together in their mom’s house in Podunk southern california to fight over a screenplay and sibling rivalry.

One of the major things in this play is the question of what kind of story is true-to-life. In a lot of ways, the answer to that question depends on whose life you are talking about.

What is a Western anymore? Is the western dead? Or maybe westerns are not about horse chases and desert living.

Maybe they are more about trying to make it on freeways and in the office. But maybe they still involve horse chases.

It depends on your life. These guys are so funny. I think they are true to somebody’s life. The true west now might be a lot like that.

Or not. Hard to say. But this story was funny.

The philosophy of the Matrix is a half-step short of religion for some people.

I feel that I should be informed on pop-culture religions.

Plus, the cool outfits in the first movie made me want to see what came next.

So, I dragged my unwilling boyfriend down to the theater and we got into it. Since it’s a movie, and you can go see it anytime you want, I’m not gonna tell you the whole plot.

I will give my impressions, however.

The movie was long, but it moved fast. I didn’t feel bored or tired out by the length. So, that’s pretty good.

Some parts seemed like there weren’t enough explanation. It took conscious effort to suspend my disbelief. Not good.

But then, there were all kinds of hints at other unseen things happening. Lots of questions, the kinds of questions that give satisfying subject matter for endless after-viewing discussions.

Where did Zion really come from?
What are the motives of the Oracle?
Who is a program and who is not?
What change occurred in Agent Smith?

All good things, for those who give it importance, to talk over and ponder.

That is the sign of a good movie, for me. Interesting, discussable. I don’t think I’ll join the religion, but I’m waiting for the next one.

Jefferson was a young Luisiana black man in the 40s. He stood trial and was convicted of murder. He’s in jail, about to get the death penalty, but his godmother takes the local schoolteacher to come talk with him. That’s where the story begins.

It turns out that Emma, the godmother, wants the teacher to teach Jefferson how to die.

The Victorians were obsessesed with dying. They would think about how to do it right, author manuals about it. Some of them would create huge mausoleums. I guess we still do that today. Some of us do, anyway.

But in this case, this young man had to find a way to face the terrible injustice of prejudice with dignity. The whole community looked to him to be their representative.

Emma wanted the schoolteacher to teach Jefferson how to face death with courage. But Grant, the schoolteacher wanted nothing to do with it. Who would teach him how to face life with courage?

This is a very serious drama, about how a community interacts and relies on one another.

The power the women held in the story, the power of the preacher, and the lack of power of the sherriff were a very interesting juxtaposition.

Please god, let me never have to face such a terrible dilemma! But I would hope that i can remember to face my lesser trials with honor.

This play by Lillian Hellman traces the consequences of one schoolgirl’s spreading rumors about her teachers. The two women who run a school for children have to bear the insinuations of this unpleasant child that they are in a lesbian relationship.

This story fits in very well with Lillian Hellman’s experiences with the House Unamerican activities. Unproved rumors can be very unpleasant.

This story is surprising and very dramatic. Hellman gives a diverse portrait of different kinds of people’s character. She also handles the subject of homosexuality with a frankness very uncommon in that time.

There was also a movie made with the script, starring Audrey Hepburn as one of the teachers. It was made in the 60s, so dealing with homosexuality was just a hair less scandalous. But the story was still pretty good.

There’s a lot to think about in The Children’s Hour

Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and the President of the United states are lost in the woods. No, that’s not the set for a joke. This is what happend in the play “Camping with Henry and Tom” by Mark St. Germain.

And it’s based on an event that actually occurred. President Harding, Edison and Ford were really on a camping trip. The imaginative recreation of that event is pretty funny, and really sharp. No matter what changes, things remain the same.

Businessmen often get the urge to go in and clean up politics. Anybody remember Ross Perot? but politics is not the same as business. People are much more complicated.

The three men in the story are gigantically successful. But St. Germain brings out their human side in the very human circumstance of being lost in the woods. The story shows how people really do have pretty much the same things to deal with, wherever they are.

A perfectly healthy housewife discovers that she can’t operate her legs anymore, drawing her husband and the doctor into a frightening examination of past and present feelings. Set in New York, right as the Nazi party is on the rise, these American Jewish people are forced by the paralysis to consider their relationship to the world and ultimately, themselves.

Miller is good at the kind of story that dredges up buried feelings. I like his way of taking a thing and turning it around to see the different sides of it.

In this story is good because, in a way, you pretty much know what’s coming, but at the same time, you are surprised by the way it comes through.

It makes me think, which I appreciate.

And the actors were very good. The tension and the drama were very satisfying.

Yes, it’s John Cusack again! My only true movie star idol. But he’s got some other great folks in there too, like Jack Black.

I watched this movie in the theater alone the first time, because I couldn’t get anyone to commit to seeing it with me, and I really wanted to see it. I liked it a lot then.

But sometimes it makes a difference, to see a movie with someone and discuss it. This movie ended up being much better when I watched the DVD with a music nerd friend last night. It was AWESOME! we were poking one another to laugh at all the parts that were so true.

Who doesn’t go over their relationships like Rob Gordon(played by Cusack)? His Xes were just classic, too. He hit so many classic relationship dynamics.

In the movie, the judge of a good movie would be how discussable it was afterwards. You know, how many things sprung to mind after you saw it. Things that just made you chuckle to yourself spontaneously. or things that made you turn and ask the person you’re with a weird question.

I was going all that night and the next day with fuel on this movie.

Cusack didn’t let me down on this one.

It’s tough when you are twelve. Nothing you liked to do when you were younger is interesting anymore, and you are not allowed to do anything else yet.

Frankie is dying to leave her town, longing to get out and do exciting adventurous things. Her brother is in the army, and she adores him for the adventurous life she is sure he is leading.

And when he comes home to introduce his new bride, that is only one more adventurous romantic thing that Frankie is dying to be a part of.

That’s the main thrust of the story’s action. But the relationships between the main characters (Frankie, Bernice, and John Henry) are more important than Frankie’s delusions.

Bernice is the black cook. Her life, revealed in little peeks, has been far from dull. She cares very much about Frankie and her little cousin John Henry. She is very sympathetic to Frankie and tries to help her every way she can. John Henry gets the short end of the deal in the end.

It’s funny, too, how they all end up acting like kids. That happens! Adults, like Bernice, get drawn into the logic of the children. If you spend that much time around kids, you do start to think like them.

Frankie is trying so hard to be the grown-up that she doesn’t know how to be yet.

Every day has some “stuff” in it. I mean, little thorns and snags of life. Things you would like to change, or wish you didn’t have to deal with.

Sometimes they are not so little. Sometimes they feel, to you, like monumental struggles–rapids on the river of history.

This is why I like the X-Men. Boy, have they got problems. They are gifted, sure. But their gift is a curse.

And even if it were a true gift, they aren’t sure how to deal with it. Because they are each absolutely unique in the universe, an undiscovered and uncharted force in nature’s fabric.

Like me.

And like you.

You and I don’t have the elemental force of weather at our command, like Storm. And it won’t kill people if we touch them, like Rogue. I don’t have claws that rip open my knuckles when I fight.

But I have my gifts. My powers, though not “super” are to be reckoned with.

I finally watched the XMEN movie last night. I love to see how these dramatic super heroes deal with their stuff and the stuff of those around them.

How does Rogue manage to be so sensitive to others, when she cannot ever reach out?

And how does Wolverine manage to be so brave in the face of all the pain he deal with?

How does Jean Grey stand up before congress and stay calm when pleading the cause of herself and her friends?

Theri problems are more exciting than mine, I have to say. But courage is courage. Self-control is self-control. Caring is caring. No matter who you are.

Xmen are so cool!