Sunday, June 3, 2012

"Battleship" is amazing! (Spoiler alert)

Hello,

I would like to openly apologize to the team behind "Battleship". The previews made it look hokey and stupid. The only reason I went to see it is because I had one of my kids with me this weekend and I let him pick which movie we went and saw. He picked "Battleship" and I loved it.

You should go see "Battleship". I love everything about it. The story is amazing. Taylor Kitsch is great, I have never been a fan of his. Brooklyn Decker and Rihanna are both great and gorgeous. Decker has improved dramatically as an actress since "Just Go With It". Also she's absolutely beautiful. I wouldn't say Rihanna is 100% believable, but more believable than I expected. Unlike many American produced movies the story isn't jingoistic. It's heroes aren't just American. I also like when a movie actually reference classic books, in this movie they reference "The Art Of War". 


I love how they worked disabled warriors and sailors from the greatest generation into the storyline. It wasn't just a minor tribute either. Best movie this summer and yes I saw "The Avengers". Of course for "Battleship" it helped that I went into the movie with very low expectations. Every time I thought the movie was going to go off the rails, it continued to surprise me. As with "The Avengers" I had heard so many good things about it that there was no way it was going to live up to my expectations.


I do have two questions and they both involve "Gregory D. Gadson as Lieutenant Colonel Mick Canales, an Army combat veteran and double amputee." (wikipedia.org). When he was about to go fight the alien, he had a very fearsome gun with him. Why didn't he just shoot the alien? Also I thought that the aliens couldn't be exposed to sun. But when Canales ripped off the helmet of the alien, nothing happened to the alien? Those are just minor quibbles though.


Also Gadson is an amazing example of what a real hero is. From wikipedia.org "On the night of May 7, 2007, while returning from a memorial service for two soldiers from his brigade, he lost both his legs and severely injured his right arm, to a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He became one of the first military personnel to use a next-generation powered prosthetic knee with technology to make it possible for amputees to walk with confidence and with a more natural gait."


Some tips about buying music. I know that buying music has become mostly a digital experience now. However my bias remains to have the actual compact disc than getting music digitally. I like visiting actual record stores and browse. The lure of digital music is how relatively cheap that kind of music is. Recently I wrote about the website legal sound.com. Buying whole MP3 CDs for under a buck is now possible. Although their name is legalsounds.com I have doubts about the legality of their music. But I have bought a lot of music from them.


Also amazon.com continually has good deals. Almost daily they have a drastically reduced MP3 CD available. Those CDs used to sell for only $2.99 or $3.99 each, but those prices have gone up recently. They also have several MP3 CDs for sale at only $2.99 right now. Those include CDs by U2, Green Day, Faith Hill and Mariah Carey. Also they have hundreds of free MP3 CDs available. Some are very good, some are decent. If you are just starting a digital music collection now, you could do much worse than filling up your library with a lot of the free music that amazon.com has. Also they have a selection of 69c singles.


iTunes is relatively expensive. The cheapest I usually see a full MP3 CD there is $7.99, but those are rare. They do sell a lot of 69c songs though and they have a much better selection than amazon.com. Also when you get music from them, it's very easy to download. Also I love iTunes, I usually listen to music on that several hours of day. Finally every Tuesday they have a selection of free singles, they represent all genres. The songs range from very amazing to absolutely horrific.


Now on to actual physical CDs. You can get these from Wal-Mart and other big box chains. Actually you can find a lot of good deals on music at Wal-Mart. I picked up a live, greatest hits CD from Phil Collins for only $5.00 the other day. They still sell actual CDs at local independent record stores. If you live in Utah, I highly recommend Graywhale. They have people who are very knowledgeable about music. Also join their Graywhale Killerwhale program. It's only a one time cost of $20 for a lifetime of savings. Using the Killerwhale card I've got many CDs for only $1.99. They have a lot of old classic CDs for only $2.99. Buy one with your Killerwhale discount card and they are only $1.99. Or when they have the double discount, that CD is only .99c. That's even a better price than legalsounds.com.


themusicaddict

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