The first Boondock Saints was a very entertaining romp, filled with occasionally comically overstylized scenes, an epic amount of over-the-top Willem Dafoe acting, but also some excellent action and really entertaining lines. Plus, writer/director Troy Duffy really showed slick presentation skills within this film, enough to mask some of the bigger deficiencies of the film until far later viewings. There was a period in my life when I honestly considered it to be one of my favorite movies, but that time has long come and gone.
Regardless, it is still very watchable. However, they just announced the release date of the sequel Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day and rolled out the trailer to the world and I am completely unsurprised when I say that it looks truly terrible. After the trailer, I can tell you that I'm going to skip seeing it in theaters so I can wait one month until it's on DVD (how this isn't straight to DVD I have no idea) and then watch it at one of our famed bad movie nights. Once there, we will assuredly rip it to shreds as we watch the ridiculous action, cheesy acting, and insane set pieces, laughing hysterically throughout. It appears to be the first movie if they made everything a good amount worse. Fannntastic. Perhaps I'll save this gem for our next bad movie night and pair it up with the Room and Turkish Star Wars and try to have the single greatest bad movie night of all time.
Three cheers for ill-advised sequels! If only Hollywood had greenlit a Serenity sequel instead of this walking disaster. At least in this we get to see Clifton Collins, Jr. doing what he does best - acting like he's going to murder something at any moment. Really, there is no one that does it better.
Bad Movie Night Material
Yes Month: Day 3
Keller Williams
Yes Month continues as a rousing success, as I've said yes to a number of things I wouldn't typically say yes to and they've all been fun. Today is the first big event, as I'm going to Bear Tooth's First Tap tonight with Keller Williams performing. I've never heard anything by Keller Williams, I generally am not a fan of First Tap events (is it possible to make that place hotter or more crowded, plus, I wanted to save my high school reunion for 2012), and it's $25...but who cares! It's Yes Month! I'm going with Cate, Joanne, Eric and Darren, and I feel like it's going to be an awesome time. Who knows what other opportunities will arise where I'll get to say yes? I excitedly await that answer tonight...
Slices of Fried Gold (Getting Caught Up Edition)
While out of town, I somewhat predictably inhaled two books. That frequently happens while being forced to spend a lot of time in grand places such as airports or airplanes. Additionally, I went to go see a movie that I would have otherwise seen by myself with a group of people because it turns out in bigger cities, people actually like Miyazaki (crazy talk!). As per usual, I must write up reviews on everything, so check out them out. All three are recommended by yours truly.
Ponyo (written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki)
From the beginning of this review, I must admit I'm an unabashed Miyazaki fanboy. Pretty much everything he produces ends up being one of my favorite animated films, somewhat akin to Pixar. In fact, he ranks right up there with Pixar as being one of the most consistent names in movies today. The fact that his average film is loaded with beautiful animation, wonderful voice acting, pitch perfect music, and magical stories is often lost on American audiences, but not this guy. So somewhat predictably, his new film Ponyo is superb at creating a magical storyline filled with very unique characters, not to mention almost preposterously beautiful hand drawn animation. However, it is definitely a lower tier Miyazaki film, belonging to the group that includes Kiki's Delivery Service and Nausicaa in my mind.
While the animation is once again lush and filled with unparalleled creativity, the story is what really brings this film down. It's the first Miyazaki film that I've ever left and thought "wow...that kind of felt undercooked." It was as if there was an entire act of the film missing, even though everything wraps up nice and tidy. While you have the obligatory Miyazaki moves, including (but not limited to!) the (in this case almost obscenely) young pair in love, the "save the environment!" driven story, and the wizened older characters, it felt like everything this film was rushed. Perhaps that was because it was shorter than usual for Miyazaki, but it seemed like the 20 minutes he chopped off made everything in the film resonate far less. Plus, no one was ever really established as evil. Even the primary villain (as voiced most excellently by Liam Neeson) was really just a parent watching out for his intensely youthful (and unique) child.
It's a hard thing to express really, but if you're a Miyazaki fan and you see this you will notice immediately. This is Miyazaki Lite if you will.
Of course, Miyazaki Lite is still very good, as we're given stunning vistas to observe, wonderful characters (such as Neeson's "villain" and Frankie Jonas' Sosuke), and an occasionally wildly imaginative storyline. Plus, you know it's going to be massively entertaining. Miyazaki's unique brand of bizarre entertainment is on full display once again here.
However, the issue of how rushed it feels combined with some poor voice acting (Ponyo's voice is grating and Tina Fey just doesn't fit) downgrades this film a good amount. While it's always splendid to get new Miyazaki, I prefer my Miyazaki not rushed and fully realized, thank you very much.
Ponyo: B- 
Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman
This is Chuck Klosterman's debut fiction novel, and like in his non-fiction work it is a piece that is driven by his time spent in North Dakota as a pop culture obsessed youth who understood the human condition very well. Of course, this is more obviously driven as it is about the town of Owl, North Dakota and in particular three highly disparate individuals who live there. You could make the argument that this story is Klosterman proving he can do mundane as well as anyone, but if this is mundane then I can't wait for more of it from Klosterman.
One of the best thing Klosterman does within this story is really create the sense of community and environment, as he makes us fully realize what it's like to live in a horrifically small town in North Dakota. Giving the entire story to us in (mostly) three individuals perspectives who belong to three greatly different archetypes (the outcast high schooler, the fish out of water young schoolteacher, and the wizened life time citizen) was a strong decision, as it lets each reader get a different perspective as to what makes this city tick. Within these pages, Klosterman loads the reader up with every nook and cranny detail of the city and its denizens. Every person in Owl knows everything about person in Owl, except when you get down to it no one really knows anyone. It's a very unique perspective, but one that strangely never seems to be leading anywhere plotwise.
Until it does, in truly cruel and unusual fashion.
Besides what effectively amounts to an entire absence of a traditional plot, this book is excellent as Klosterman is spectacular at creating well rounded characters without subjecting any of them to the singular voice of Chuck Klosterman himself. Each of these characters sound like Klosterman and sound like every person you've ever met. His ability to do this with small snippets about every character allows the town of Owl to really come to life in a truly amazing fashion, and in a lot of ways reminds me of another recent read of mine: David Mitchell's Black Swan Green. While even Klosterman can't turn a phrase like Mr. Mitchell, he has similar aptitude in creating realistic and tragic characters with the greatest of ease (namely my favorite character in the book - Cubby Candy - who is remarkably interesting but only really gets a chapter).
If you cannot stand a book that is a pinch on the aimless side (you have to call a spade a spade...it's pretty much plotless), this is not for you. But if you want a very well written piece of small town Americana with well drawn characters and an all in all stellar example of the English language, look no further.
Downtown Owl: B+
This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
Generally speaking, I don't pick up books until well after they're released. However, I read a review for Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You and instantly had to pick it up. It 100% absolutely seemed like it would be my cup of tea, and sure enough it was. Tropper has crafted some kind of masterpiece here as he created one of the single greatest representations of modern American families I've ever seen (regardless of medium). Imagine the Bluth family but if you actually gave them a heart and then locked them in the same room together for seven days. I'm unsure if I could compliment something more oddly or better, but it happened all the same.
The story follows Judd Foxman, a recently cuckolded middle child of a family whose patriarch has just died. Evidently the deceased father had a last wish, and that wish was for his entire family to sit Shiva for him. That means Judd and his three siblings (Wendy, Paul and Phillip) will have to live together with their mother (a best selling author on parenting who raised four messed up kids) and everyone else for an entire week, without killing each other (ideally).
That's the central premise of this story, but Judd also takes us on journeys into his memory including what I will eternally refer to as page 23, which is a breakdown of what he does when he discovers his wife cheating on him with his boss. Also known as the single funniest thing I've ever read. I nearly fell over while reading it.
Really, this story is one of an awakening for a devestated man, at times seeming like he's quite possibly the saddest man on the world but always ready for sharp observations and ones of stunning emotional depth. It's about how you not only survive being in a dysfunctional family (as every family says they are but none actually when in comparison to the Foxman clan), but eventually thrive. It's about the differences between being in your 20's and 30's and being an adult.
Every aspect of this novel is almost impossibly well done, as the characters are rich and textured (particularly Phillip, the impetuous youth of the family), every conversation is a loaded one, every moment a monumental one. Not only that, but the way Tropper presents the story is in such a fashion that you can almost read each section as a novella, all little portions that are much more than the sum of their parts.
It's really difficult to write anything about this book, as every aspect of it is so damn good. My friend Jason said that if he ever got a hole in one in golf, he'd quit forever, and if you want to put that into terms of writing, Tropper has a hole in one on his hands. I have no idea how he could ever top it. Tropper really should retire now.
I could not recommend this book enough. It's one of the most funny, touching and real books I've ever read. I had read twenty pages of it and immediately went back and purchased this for a friend as a present. It's that good. Pick it up now or fear my wrath!
This is Where I Leave You: A (for absurdly good)
Kelliefest 2009 and the Corner Wedding
Recently I had a nice gap in blogging, which was caused by a rather impromptu and a rather planned vacation. How could it be both? Well, this was a tale of two vacations my readers as the first six days of it were spent traversing the Pacific Northwest with my wonderful friend Kellie (aka KLH aka Magical Princess) and the latter four days were exhausted (quite literally) on making Colver and Lorna's wedding the best wedding ever.
It was an awesome time but an extremely tiring one. Here's a quick day by day analysis of the fun:
"Day" 1: Get off the plane and start grinning uncontrollably.
Back story: Kellie and I had met twice before but we had first started talking on Twitter. Twitter turned into Facebook, and within the first evening of talking on Facebook Kellie had asked me if I'd like to go on a road trip with her before the wedding. Given that I was looking to try to make this happen, and after much deliberation and talking by KLH and I, it ended up happening. Fin.
"Day" 1 continued: Get off the plane and start grinning uncontrollably because I'm about to see the Magical Princess. See her, hug, get coffee, get bag, and then we drive from Seattle to Coos Bay, Oregon (7 hours!) immediately after I land. Did I mention this was starting at 1 am?
When we get there, we napped and then Kellie abandoned me with a posse of guys to go to an all girl BBQ, with whom I watched District 9 (still awesome!), drank coffee and beer and played shuffleboard. We then met up at the party and had an awesome time.
Day 2: Woke up a little hungover and extremely tired. The tiredness was beginning to compound. We spent the day roaming the Coos Bay Blackberry Festival, checking out Kellie's friend Erin's school OIMB (Oregon Institute of Marine Biology), and eating. I spent most of this time near catatonic because my brain was effectively broken from tiredness.
Crazy beautiful spot of our hike
Day 3: Kellie and I leave Coos Bay, roam up the Oregon Coast and have an awesome day. We hiked, I swam (Pacific Ocean = cold...who knew?), we checked out the Rogue Brewery and the Tillamook Factory, and just talked all the way up the coast. We got into Portland somewhat late, but Erik and Katie were up waiting for us and we stayed up way too late talking about this, that and everything else.
Day 4: Catatonic David re-enters the picture (this was my biggest bummer during the trip - I was off my game the entire time, I completely failed at conversation), plus I end up having to do a little work this day (54 minutes on the phone explaining a spreadsheet sucks). Kellie and I spend the day shopping for books and clothes, I spend a bit of it trying to kill us in Portland traffic, and then we go back to E & K's. After which we go to Pok Pok, which is a Thai joint in Stumptown that is knee bucklingly good. I honestly think it is one of my two or three favorite restaurants immediately. Amazing barely covers it. We then go watch Ponyo (the new Hayao Miyazaki film) and then go home to crash.
Myself, Sobo, Sarah and Kellie
Day 5: Kellie and I go see Sobo and Sarah! Sobo is my amazing friend who is currently dealing with leukemia, but I can say for a fact that he is dealing with it like a champ and looking great. He's on the road to recovery and he has an amazing support group starting with the incomparable Sarah, his wife and pillar in his time of need. I'm very proud of him. We spent the day with them talking and playing an amazing board game called Pandemic (we even walked around the hospital with this in our hands - odd looks aplenty). After that, Kellie and I drove to Seattle as she had to work the next morning and I had to go to stupid Montana. Thankfully, we had relaxing to do and insane amounts of delicious Lebanese food to eat, which is always a plus.
Day 6: Kellie leaving makes a very sad David. Thankfully, Marc (my fellow groomsmen in the wedding) quickly gets me and we have a delicious breakfast and then fly off to sunny Missoula, Montana, followed by a not so quick drive up to Columbia Falls, MT. The good news is, because it wasn't so fast we were able to do great things like 0 to 60 test our rental car, talk about politics without going bonkers, and listen to Ghostface Killah and NWA while driving around Montana with our windows down. So it was great.
Once we got to Montana, we met up with everyone else at our soon to be home: Lorna's house, which also featured a smaller cabin for all of us to stay in. YES! We played badminton for a while until we went out to dinner with Colver's parents at a rather tasty pizza joint in Whitefish. The group partied down a bit after that and that was that.
I make it rain
Day 7: This day was freaking awesome, as we went out and got our tuxes and then went off to a sporting goods shop. Why? We needed targets to go shooting with! We picked up camo hats and targets and then went back to the Weidling Mansion to go shooting with Lorna's dad Ben's guns - including a Kimber 45, two scoped rifles, a completely rowdy shotgun, and a howitzer. Okay, that last part just felt like shooting a howitzer and I have no idea what it actually was. I'd never shot before so all of the girls assumed I would kill myself. Well I didn't - I actually was completely awesome hitting every target. I guess the years of Counter-Strike really did pay off.
The whole posse
After that, we had rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner to go to, and that's when things started getting rough. Given that two of the groomsmen were Lee and Paul and they are the Larry Bird and Magic Johnson of drinking, I (the Mike Dunleavy, Jr. of drinking) was not exactly smart in trying to keep up with them. That night was foggy at best...
The first kiss!
Day 8: ...and that day was devestatingly painful. Nothing like the best man getting completely annihilated the night before the wedding. It was like I was trying to recreate the Hangover as a one man documentary. Not my strongest day. The good news was I mostly had to deal with actions I had perpetrated the night before (shame wave!) and feeling completely terrible right up until the ceremony, at which point I started feeling great again. Evidently I'm the really clutch version of Mike Dunleavy, Jr. The ceremony was beautiful and the fact it resulted with Lorna's last name becoming Colver effectively blew my mind. Lorna Colver. Lorna Colver. Weird.
The first dance!
The reception was a blast, as it was a complete explosion of dancing, drinking and good times. Everyone had an absolute blast as we broke it down, with moments including Erik, Katie and I doing our standard wedding dance to Ghostland Observatory's "Sad, Sad City" as everyone else looks on at us like crazy people and the groomsmen dance as Colver, Lee, Paul and I rocked it out to the Beastie Boys "Fight For Your Right." It was awesome.
Myself and JR at the Blue Moon
PLUS! I gave my toast and it turned out extremely well. I had thought of revealing it here, but some things are better left to the event. But I do have to share - it was great. I'm glad it turned out as well as it did.
The whole group at the Blue Moon
At the end of the reception, the bride and groom piled into a towncar and rolled out while we all looked on, and the remaining wedding party plus piled into cars and went to a country bar in Columbia Falls. While I hate country music, it turns out I love country bars. We pretty much dominated the Blue Moon (the aformentioned bar), as we danced like crazy and met a ton of people there (including Mary, this very attractive blonde who taught me how to two step and spinny dance and then proceeded to wink at me for the rest of the night and JR, this hardcore biker type who let me try on his vest and may have slightly violated Hannah). Perfect ending to the wedding night.
Day 9: Travel day...goodbyes...complete deadness. Ready to get home.
All in all, it was an amazing trip. I met lots of great people, had a ton of fun, and did many things I've never done before (some very regrettably). When Kellie first asked me to come down early, I was really unsure. But why would I be? The trip ended up being a blast and worth every penny and minute spent. The only problem is I really want to go on vacation again immediately, but I'm sadly going to have to wait.
Katie and Kim looking as happy as any two people I've ever seen
The groomsmen and the groomsmom
Intense drinking by these playa pimps
Katie, Todd and Marc dominating as Ben looks on
Marc and Todd...killers
Contact Me
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About Me
My name is David Harper and I'm a 26 year old from Anchorage, Alaska. I work in Marketing, am a Capricorn and frequently enjoy long walks along coastal trails (given the lack of beaches in Alaska, this is what I have to offer). I pride myself on my verbosity, as why would I want to convey something in three words when I could use three hundred. I love writing, it's my hobby and my love and I really hope you enjoy everything you read on here. If you do not, make sure to click on contact above and use any of those avenues to reach me and share your (constructive) criticism with me, or if you just feel like being complimentary I enjoy that as well.
If not, just read, enjoy, and please tell your friends. I crave readers and comments like I crave avocado melts - which is a whole lot of craving.
