Brendan Gleeson For Your Consideration

It seems like the favorite to take home the Academy Award for Best Actor this year is Gary Oldman for his turn in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I'm a big fan of Oldman's work in general, and his take on George Smiley, the soft-in-the-middle, morose, cerebral, anti-James Bond spy is great. He was fantastic in State of Grace as a low-level, scene-stealing thug, he's been great as Gordon in Nolan's Batman series, and he was just plain wicked in Leon. Oldman's long overdue for an Oscar nomination, let alone an Oscar, and in any other year I'd say, "Yeah, let the chap have it."

But there's just one problem: Brendan Gleeson turned in the performance of his career in The Guard, written and directed by John Michael McDonagh.

(MINOR SPOILERS ALERT)

Gleeson's cop is sardonic, funny, curmudgeonly, brazen, and a bit racist. He returns lost weapons to the IRA rather than impound them. He hires call girls to entertain him on his day off. He wants everyone to think he's just another roob from the country, but this just might be a clever Columbo-like ruse to mask his intelligence. He uses drugs. He manages to stop a shipment of $500,000,000 (street value) worth of cocaine. And, to top it all off, he just might have been an Olympic swimmer.

I don't think The Guard will receive any nominations this year, and that's a shame. Not too many people saw it, and nobody's talking about it right now during the crucial time around awards season. It's a fast, fun movie with intelligent humor and smart dialogue, and the characters are all interesting. Don Cheadle's FBI agent is a little underwritten, but that's okay because it's really Gleeson's show here.

***

John Michael McDonagh is the brother of Martin McDonagh, who wrote and directed another awesome crime film, In Bruges. The Brothers McDonagh have a great ear for dialogue and create cliche-challenging characters, but they don't rely on these devices as crutches when telling a story. They both care just as much about plot, resulting in lean, but layered, stories.

World's Greatest Golfer Dies

Rest in peace, Kim Jong-il. I'm pretty certain your incredible record eleven holes in one during one round of golf will never be surpassed. Not even Tiger Woods has set out to surpass you, opting instead to set his sights much lower, like breaking Jack Nicklaus's total major victory record.

My 5 Favorite Christmas Movies of All Time

You asked for it (no, you didn't), so here it is. Brian O'Rourke's five favorite Christmas movies of all time:

5) Lethal Weapon. Richard Donner, Shane Black, Danny Glover, and Mel Gibson make buddy-cop movie history in this tightly-plotted actioner that combines all the cliches in the book and rises above the trappings of the genre. And, uh, it's set around Christmas.

4) Trading Places. Old school Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, er, trade places in this comedy set in Philly during the holiday season. Murphy's a homeless grifter/self-proclaimed "karate man," while Aykroyd's a yuppie stock guru who's next in line to run the big firm and marry the buttoned-up, but not exactly prudish, blue-blood. Aykroyd's bosses orchestrate a switch for both men, elevating Murphy out of the slum and tossing Aykroyd into the gutter, and hilarity ensues.

3)Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It's no coincidence that Shane Black shows up on this list more than once, given his penchant for setting action flicks around Christmas. This one's part deconstruction, part glorious homage, to action movies and private eye stories of old. Eat your heart out Raymond Chandler. My favorite line from the film is delivered by Val Kilmer, who plays a gay PI named, uh, Gay Perry: "Merry Christmas. Sorry I f--ked you."

2) Ernest Saves Christmas. The inexplicable juggernaut that was Jim Varney reached its cinematic peak with this film. Okay, that's not saying much, but still I fell in love with this movie growing up and tuned in faithfully each week to Ernest's Saturday morning show. Sometimes nostalgia trumps quality, and this is one of them times.

1) Die Hard. A total anomaly: an action movie set during Christmas not penned by Shane Black. And a total triumph. The 80s were all about heavily-muscled supermen, like Arnie and Sly, who were able to mow down hundreds of faceless enemy soldiers (not that there's anything wrong with that) and take a few bullets while hardly breaking a sweat, till Bruce Willis showed up on the scene. Officer John McClane is very real, very in over his head, and very much a resourceful, everyman wise-ass who just might save the day. Directed by John McTiernan, this flick went on to become the quintessential action movie, much imitated and never matched. Alan Rickman nearly steals the show as one of the greatest villains of all time. And always remember, it's Gary Cooper that rides off into the sunset with Grace Kelly.

Honorable Mention: Scrooged, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,

Brian O'Rourke as Harold Bloom on The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland

My feelings about the Sesame Street film, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, are a matter of public record but after some further discussion with my wife and another three hundred or so viewings with my daughter, I don't think I gave this film the analysis it truly deserves.

If Follow That Bird is the Old Testament of the Sesame Street movies, then the Elmo movie certainly represents the New Testament. Oscar the Grouch is clearly the god-like figure in both texts, as he's his grumpy, fickle self in FTB while revealing a kindler, some would say out of left field, gentler side in TAOEIG. Don't believe me?

Big Bird suffers like Job, losing his home, his family and finally his freedom after being forced into servitude by a couple small-time crooked carvinal goons, and yet Oscar can barely be bothered to lift a furry, matted finger to help our feathered friend, who has shown him nothing but kindness and love despite Oscar's constant rebuffing. Compare that crusty attitude to The Grouch's subsequent behavior when he decides to stir the citizens of Grouchland into action so he can help his friend Elmo ... wait for it ... wait for it ... reclaim his stolen blanket. Big Bird can lose everything and be pressed into avian slavery, but Elmo can't lose his precious wubbie.

Something just doesn't add up here. They say that all writing is a product of its time, and perhaps that's true, but something greater has to be at work.

Or as Harold Bloom might say, the screenwriters of the Sesame Street films could not escape the anxiety of influence ....

You're probably thinking Brian has finally lost it. And I have if I'm speaking in the third person. But all you planning to become parents should take heed. You will watch the same shows and movies so many times that you'll start to see deeper messages buried within the most trivial things. I watch the Wiggles everyday and I'm almost convinced they're part of some Masonic conspiracy.

SPARTACUS FUISTI

Andy Whitfield, you will be missed.

Awful news about Andy passing away. At 39 years of age, just when he gets his big break, this happens.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE

Do The Amish Play Golf?

For all my life, this question has plagued me. But after spending a few days in Lancaster County with the family, I now know that yes, they do. They don't use clubs; they use "bats."

Not only do they play golf, but apparently they have no qualms with using a golf cart either. I was told this is permissible because technically they do not own the cart; renting or borrowing or leasing such a contraption is perfectly acceptable under the rules.

Bear in mind I've done zero research on this. I'm just repeating what I was told by a fellow non-Amish guy who's lived in Lancaster County for several years after we spotted an Amish foursome on the course.

Baby, We Were Born to Run

Just finished Christopher McDougall's wonderful book, Born to Run. Part travelogue, part lesson in human evolution, part runner's spiritual guide, and part inspirational tale, it's a fast-paced read filled with some of the most interesting characters ever committed to page.

McDougall's personal quest to become a better runner serves as the everyman's intro into the fascinating--and insane--world of ultrarunning. The narrative is a journey that takes us from Leadville, Colorado, back in time to the dangerous savannas of pre-historic Africa, and to Copper Canyon in Northern Mexico, where the reclusive Tarahumara (Raramuri) people live, entirely cut off from the modern world.

The athletes that populate McDougall's tale are runners in the most extreme sense. Several of the characters competed in the Leadville 100 (that's 100 miles), and the book is capped off with what McDougall refers to in the subtitle as the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, a mere 50-miler through the sweltering heat, up and down the tricky passes of Chihuahua, Mexico.

My favorite thread of the book deals with man's evolution into a long-distance runner and persistence hunting. I first encountered this theory way back in college and wasn't quite sold. But McDougall, and the scientists he introduces us to, make a strong case for it in this book. The idea is this: before man was intelligent enough to create throwing weapons, he chased his quadruped prey over long distances, till said prey was too crapped out to run any farther. Without going into the specifics of why this might have been so, I will say it's an intriguing theory--that man evolved not to run fast, but to run far. It sounds crazy till you hear about those long-distance races pitting human beings against horses, with man typically emerging the victor.

Another interesting thread in the book is the barefoot running trend. I won't bore you with the specifics, but I got the itch to give it a try. The immediate change in my mechanics while running barefoot was scary, and scarily instinctual. Almost like I was meant to run that way...

Inspiration drips off every page of the book as the characters push themselves beyond all reasonable limits. If, by the end, you don't feel like going for a run, then you just ain't human.

Something in the Water in Northern Ireland?

How is it with a population of 1.68 mill (according to wiki) does a country the size of Connecticut produce three different major champions in golf in the span of thirteen months?

First Graeme McDowell took the US Open last year, then his buddy Rory McIlroy won it last month, and now their forerunner of Northern Irish golf, Darren Clarke, got to hoist the Claret Jug today after winning the Open Championship at age 42.

I've always been a fan of Darren Clarke, and his win today comes as something of a surprise. It was widely thought his best years were behind him, but somehow he managed to put four great rounds of golf together at just the right time for his first major championship. Clarke's a good guy who lost his wife to breast cancer a few years ago. Since then, his form's been understandably off but he never gave up the dream of winning the Open Championship. And obviously that romantic stubbornness has finally paid off.

So what is it about Northern Ireland and its golfers?

I'd like to say it has to do with perseverance. The Northern Irish have had to endure a lot in the past century and it has undoubtedly hardened them. You need to be able to weather the storm of bad luck and bad bounces inherent in the game, especially so in the two Open championships, in order to claim victory. The Northern Irish, to me at least, seem to have a wonderful appreciation for irony and an ability to laugh off the bad breaks. They're also gutsy. It's these qualities that go a long way in the game of golf.

The Hangover Meets Hitchcock

I checked out the new flick Horrible Bosses this weekend. It boasts a solid cast, including Kevin Spacey, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell, who nearly steals the movie with criminally-limited screen time. But I didn't go to see it for those actors, I went to see it for Charlie Day, who's part of the awesome yet still relatively unknown ensemble cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. (For all you It's Always Sunny fans out there, Charlie's great in this movie.)

Boiling down the premise to its essentials, Horrible Bosses is The Hangover meets Strangers on a Train. In fact, you can almost see the screenwriter pitching the idea to the studio in just those terms: R-rated raunchy comedy about three guys planning to murder the bosses who've made their 9 to 5 lives a living hell. And the film even has one of those meta-moments, where the characters pause for breath long enough to realize their plan is lifted straight out of a Hitchcock story.

The three career-frustrated characters are little more than archetypes, and the comedy leans heavily on vulgarity and pop culture references. Hearing that you might think it's a bad movie, but it's not. In fact, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. Seth Gordon, the director who brought us the brilliant documentary The King of Kong, pulls off the difficult task of making murder funny. The plot zooms along--and it has to or else the sheer absurdity of the story would come crashing down on the audience--and the three leads make the material work. (I'm no Saturday Night Live guy, so I'm new to Jason Sudeikis but thought he was great in this.) There was also a lot of overlapping jokes and asides from the three leads, giving the story a lot of comedic energy, so I'll bet this one's got some replay value, which will bode well for its theatrical run and DVD sales. It's dark, but not too too dark. Some critics have complained about that, but for me, I prefer dark humor when it's in a drama as opposed to a comedy. I want my comedies light, fast, and fun.

What's Next for NASA?

Earlier today, Atlantis lifted off in what is NASA's final shuttle flight of its thirty year program. The general scientific consensus seems to be a begrudging admission that the shuttle program achieved mixed results overall. I'm no scientist, so I can't chime in one way or the other intelligibly, but the idea of humans journeying into space was always cool and admirable to me, regardless of the mission.

I wonder where NASA goes from here? It seems like the wise money will be spent on unmanned probes and satellites and on things like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which looks like it's going to replace The Hubble.

I'd like to see the government spend more on research into interstellar space flight. I know that we theoretically can't travel faster than light, but it'd be good to be able to reach some of these potentially habitable exoplanets in a reasonable, and practical, amount of time. Call it manifest destiny if you want, but I think it's imperative the human race colonize other, already habitable worlds. Because the odds are long we'll be able to effectively terraform any of the other bodies in our solar system, and as a species we don't want to keep all our eggs in one basket. If you've read The Road, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Local Author Interview and Short Story

My buddy Nate Green has got an author interview up here at Apiary Magazine. Check out the great interview, where yours truly gets mentioned, and also take note: Nate's short story, "The Slut Buck" will appear in Apiary online soon.

Promote Whatever You Want

It's been awhile since I last did this, but it's never too late to bring a good thing back is it?

(Put your proverbial hands down. That was a rhetorical question.)

The one rule is that there are no rules. Promote whatever you want by leaving a comment below. In the past, we've gotten mostly authors pimping their books but the random promoters, like the clothing line person and the potentially copyright infringing podcaster, are always welcome too.

Oh wait, there is one rule I forgot about: you can't promote anything for me. Don't worry, I still get plenty out of this just from the traffic alone. Thanks in advance.

And there are no prizes for guessing the identity of the man in this picture. If you want prizes, you must go to my friend Nate Green's blog.

Local Author Appearing in Doylestown Bookshop This Saturday

Fellow local author Jim Kristofic will be at the Doylestown Bookshop on Saturday to do a reading and signing for his memoir, Navajos Wear Nikes. I've recently had the opportunity to meet Jim in a YA workshop and look forward to reading his book myself. Here's the info:

LIFE ON AN INDIAN RESERVATION… WHAT'S THAT LIKE?
An Evening of Storytelling and Booksigning with Navajos Wear Nikes author Jim Kristofic
WHERE: Doylestown Bookshop
WHEN: May 21st, 6-8 p.m.

Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation Life

When Jim Kristofic's family moved across the country to Ganado, Arizona, his life changed forever. Ganado was a "Rez-town" on a reservation the size of West Virginia. More Indians lived on the Rez than anywhere else on earth. White people called them Navajo. They called themselves Diné—The People. For Jim's mother, living among the Navajo was a childhood dream come true. For Jim—who'd just barely learned to tie his own shoelaces—it was the end of the world and the beginning of something new and unforgettable.

In this memoir Jim Kristofic introduces readers to the complex world of the modern Navajo Nation, where Anglo and Navajo coexist in a tenuous truce. It is a place of spirits, where witches haunt the valley at night and the supernatural is part of everyday life. But his friendships with local boys lead Jim to understand the wit of the Navajo language, how to make fry bread, how to find hózhó, a beautiful harmony. He shares tales of rescued "Rez-dogs," a captive hawk, a gang-style murder, an Indian Boy Scout troop, a fanatical Sunday school teacher, a sheep butchering in the middle of the school day, and his friendship with the Navajo bull rider and artist who becomes his stepfather. After the births of his Navajo sister and brother, Jim's family moves off the Rez to an Arizona border town, where he and his family struggle to adapt to the Anglo society that no longer feels like the home he left behind.

With compelling honesty, Navajos Wear Nikes tracks a modern life on the Navajo Reservation, from childhood to manhood. Kristofic recounts the painful, fascinating history of Ganado, Arizona and tells the story of a boy trying to understand the truth of a people and the truth about himself.

Jim Kristofic has worked on and off the "Rez" for more than ten years as a river guide, journalist, and oral historian. He has written for The Navajo Times, Arizona Highways, and High Country News. He and his wife currently live in eastern Pennsylvania with—of course—a rescued dog.

CURRENT PRAISE FOR NAVAJOS WEAR NIKES

"Jim Kristofic combines the spirit of Joseph Campbell and J.D. Salinger to give readers an intimate look at the complexity of life in Navajo country. I rarely have tears when I read the last chapter of a book… with this book I did."
Martha Blue, former Indian country attorney and award-winning author of Indian Trader: The Life and Times of J.L. Hubbell

"This is a story told on many levels. It can be brutally frank, irreverent in places, and funny in others. But it is so serious that it will hold the reader's attention from beginning to end. It brings to Native life a strongly personal and emotional aspect seldom seen, and it will persist in memory long after a first reading."
David Brugge, historian, anthropologist, author of The Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute: An American Tragedy

"Few regionally tied autobiographies have shown as much wit and keen observation as Navajos Wear Nikes by Jim Kristofic." -- Arizona Daily Sun

"Many years ago, a coworker and I thought about preparing a `primer' for non-Navajo newcomers needing to learn the rights and wrongs about living on the Navajo Nation. This book could be used as such a primer."
Ed Chamberlin, National Park Service curator of Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site

"The story of how a minority overcame prejudice and made lifelong friends in the process will resonate with many teens." – Booklist

You Tough Mudder

I've endured two marathons, the bar exam, Greek family reunions, Bergman films, Kurt Vonnegut, and the disappearance of Vanilla Coke. (Seriously, why'd they get rid of that again?) But nothing, not even the loss of my beloved soft drink, could prepare me for the masochistic insanity that was the Tough Mudder.

I ran the course in New Jersey back in November, 2010 with my buddy Joe, and in case you're wondering why I'm just getting around to blogging about it now, it's because I've finally gotten over my post-traumatic stress disorder. My therapist has urged me over the past several months to post about the race as a way to purge the soul of the horrifying memories of this particular race. No amount of writing could do that, but I figured I might as well share my exploits because they might be good for a chuckle.

The Tough Mudder is a lengthy obstacle course designed by British Special Forces. Our course stretched 12 miles, and by my estimate, 6 or 7 of those miles were through ankle-deep mud. So challenging are the individual obstacles and the course overall that, before you run it, they require you to sign a Death Waiver.

(Mom, sorry for not telling you about the Death Waiver in advance. I figured you'd just worry.)

Every possible fear you might have is exposed and exploited by the 20 or so obstacles waiting for you. Obstacle number 3 on our course was called Walk the Plank, which required a 20 foot plunge into the muddy, freezing waters of late November in New Jersey. It was a balmy 35 degrees when we ran the course, so that should give you some idea of how frakking cold the water was. The shock of it makes it difficult to breathe, so you're doubly spooked about drowning.

One of my favorite obstacles was the Firewalker, where - you guessed it - you get to run through fire. The presence of the Fire Department at the obstacle was reassuring at least. Aside from Walk the Plank, my two least favorite obstacles were the Mystery Obstacle (more on that below) and the Cliffhanger. The Cliffhanger wasn't particularly difficult, as it only involved scaling a slick, dangerously muddy slope, but I ended up losing my footing, flipping in the air, and landing on the side of my head. Not my most graceful moment and not that big a deal really, right?

Unless you've got another EIGHT EFFING MILES TO GO.

As for the Mystery Obstacle. You can tell by its name we didn't know what it was going in to the race. At the starting line, the man on the squawk box directed our attention to an open wooden structure about half a mile away. From that distance, we couldn't really see it. It looked like people were running under it and through tangles of hanging yellow string.

Except it wasn't string. More like wires. Live wires. As in, there was electrical current coursing through them. Around mile 11, after everything else we'd endured, they made us run through LIVE wires. The website has some of the more nasty video of this, and plenty of candids have been posted on Facebook to memorialize the torture.

There was no way to avoid the wires really. I figured the current wouldn't be too bad so I just charged through. I mean, how bad could it really be? I knew we'd signed a Death Waiver and everything, but financially or legally it wouldn't make sense for them to kill any of their runners. They'd get no repeat customers, right?

I don't know how much juice was in those things, but the first jolt made the heart flutter and all my muscles tighten up like Zeus had hurled a thunderbolt from Olympus at me.

And that was only the first jolt.

The second jolt nearly floored me, which wouldn't have been good, because then I would have fallen into the tangle of wires, repeatedly shocked till some brave soul dragged my sorry ass outta there. Later, I heard that happened to a few people, but I was fortunate enough to escape relatively unscathed.

On the whole, I think me and my buddy acquitted ourselves well. We made it around the course in 2.5 hours with minimal complaint, even when there was a legally actionable shortage of water at the rest stations. (Not cool, guys.) After being electrocuted, I said to Joe, "I'll bet we look like the effing hobbits when they were scaling Mount Doom right now." Not my best material but pretty good considering the circumstances.

Joe laughed politely at my joke, paused, and then cackled at something else. I asked him what was so funny, and he turned to me and said in a thin voice, "Why did we do this? Why would we ever do this?"

Why indeed, Joe? Why indeed?

So I'm thinking about signing up for the next one...

Ghostwriter Publications

For anyone interested in the often seedy underbelly of publishing, check out this terrible story here. I had very similar experiences with the publisher in question.