Swan Recanted & Two Reviews

I’ve decided to un-sing my swan song, to recant my decision to stop writing on my blog. I couldn't make it even for a week. Too many things I still want to say. Besides, I get really nervous sitting around and not writing anything. Idle hands, you know. People still astound me. Many of the folks in Colorado were shocked and stunned by the news that the James Holmes jury had decided not to put him to death but to imprison him for life. How could they not know that in this day and age, at least one of the jurors wouldn’t believe in the death penalty? It took only one of the twelve to deny it. I’d have thought there would be more than one. I also think that life in prison is a more severe punishment than death. Then there’s the improbable popularity of Donald Trump in the latest polls. Why would so many people—Republicans, that is—want this blowhard to be the leader of the strongest nation in the world? Is he what they think our president should be? He would offend the people of virtually every other country in the world, just as he offends a lot of people here. He thinks he could reduce the national debt back to zero, yet four of his companies declared bankruptcy in the last decade. If they were his companies and if he truly has such wonderful business acumen, why did he let them fall into such debt? How can he continue to brag about his $10-billion fortune when it’s clear that he doesn’t have nearly that much? You people, as Clay Thompson would say. You people, what in the world are you thinking?

Two quick movie reviews, last year’s Cake and this year’s Mission Impossible, Rogue Nation. I checked a number of reviews of both, with Cake receiving mostly lukewarm comments and Mission mostly positive. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Or, better yet, comparing watermelons and cotton candy. They’re too different to be compared. Cake, though not a bundle of laughs, was a really interesting study in pain and grief, and a wonderful look at Aniston showing us her acting chops. I don’t think it deserved the degree of negativity it got. I, like one of the reviewers, thought she should have been nominated for best actress. The plot is simple, a woman suffering from pain after an auto accident that killed her young son and nearly killed her. She pops Percocet like jelly beans and is rude to nearly everyone she encounters. Her support group kicks her out; her physical therapist nearly drops her; her ex-husband doesn’t want to see her; and her housekeeper, despite being treated like a dog, stands by her. Okay, so it gets a little soggy near the end. It’s still a film well worth seeing.

Now for the cotton candy, Mission Impossible, Rogue Nation.
It was pure techno-action fluff, without much substance but still a lot of fun to eat. Fun and fairly forgettable. Tom Cruise has fun hanging onto the side of a plane taking off, zipping in and out of traffic on a motorcycle as he chases Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) as she's zipping in and out of traffic on a motorcycle, doing a backward car chase (or was he escaping?), playing games with the old Mission Impossible rubber faces. And, yes, this isn't the last we'll see of the MI boys and girls, just as this blog isn't the last you'll see of me.