Kennydale Beach Park.

I thoroughly enjoy Kennydale Beach Park. This is a little surprising seeing how on first glance, the park is not that great. The beach sand is full of stones. The shallow part of the beach has weeds. The grass is full of clover which attracts many bees.

So why do I enjoy Kennydale Beach so much? First off, the competion is slim. ONly two of the three beaches in the area have proper deep swimming sections. Kennydale has roped off an Olympic Pool sized area of deep water. You can actually dive into it from a clean dock.

Compare that to Newcastle beach. No diving allowed and the raft that you can't dive from is usually covered with goose shit. In addition, the water at Newcastle beach is full of weeds. Kennydale beach is very clean in comparison.

And then there is parking. On a hot day you will not find parking near Newcastle or Coloun Beach. Not so at Kennydale.

Life is Beautiful

Life is Beautiful. What a strange movie. The first 3rd is slap stick romance. The rest takes place in a POW camp during WWII-- the lead character is Jewish. The father uses humor and clowing to convince his son that it's all a game and if the win, the prize is a tank.

The switch between slapstick and horror happens quickly. This isn't Hogan's Heros-- people actually die. In one scene the father is carrying his sleeping son through deep fog. They stumble on a huge pile of human bones. The father quietly backs away, hoping to not wake his son.

Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn about an American pilot on a secret mission in Laos at the start of the Vietnam War. He crashes. Is captured. Is tortured and sent to a POW camp. Eventually he and another POW escape. They have a very harrowing treck through the jungle but are eventually rescued.

I enjoyed this move. Parts of it were beautifully shot-- the opening is a spectacular slow motion scene of a bombing in Vietnam. The acting is also solid.

The Notebook...

The Notebook got great ratings, but it didn't click with me. Mind you, it's a tear jerking chick flick and neither of those are my favorite genres.

What bugs me about most romances is that the guy inevitably does something stupid to show the girl how much he loves here and the girl always responds with glee. She never calls him on it. Never "I can't date you because you keep acting stupid." It's always "This crazy act shows me how pure and loving you are and how my life will be better with you." Bleah.

Maybe I'm just too old.

How We Decide...

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer rehashes many recent pop-psych books, but is non-the-less a decent read.

It has some good ending advice... be aware of how you are thinking.

Know what your emotions tell you and when to trust them. But, beware that emotions that can let you down when you do not have experience with the situation, when you are under stress, or when you are on a loosing or a winning streak. When loosing people tend to take unwarranted risks because they have to make up for what they've lost. When people win they also tend to take too many risks because they feel they are on an lucky streak.

Know what your rational brain tells you, but be aware of it's limitations. It won't know your preferences-- that's emotional. It can get overwhelmed with too much data. We tend to give each fact equal weight when the truth is some facts are very important while others are just detail.

Ma vie en rose

Ma vie en rose is the story of a seven year old boy who thinks he's a girl. This causes much stress for the family as their son freaks out the neighbors.

The movie avoids sexuality. It really is just about about who thinks he's a girl. There is no why to this. The boy doesn't think through the full implications of this. He just knows that he's a girl.

What was interesting is that even though the movie is set in suburban France, it could have been suburban America. The small houses set next to each other, the daily grind of families with kids, seem to be the same the world over. The only difference i could spot was a scene where the parents pour champagne for their kids. The whole family drank together to celebrate the fathers new job.

I had a problem with some of the writing. At the beginning of the move the father was the most uncomfortable with his cross dressing son, while the mother was tolerant. By the end of the movie their attitudes flipped with the father accepting his son and the mother lashing out at the boy for causing problems-- for not fitting in.

Still, it was a plesant film.

The Divingbell and the Butterfly...

The Divingbell and the Butterfly is a move based on the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who uppon waking from a stroke finds that he fully paralized with one exception-- he can blink.

Eventually he and a speach therapist work out a system of communication. She recites the alphabet. He blinks when she says the right letter. Part of the story focuses on how slow this sytem is. To write the book, he and an assistant work for hours every day just to compose a single page.

This isn't a movie with a profound ending where everyone learns to live for the moment because tomorrow you may die. Bauby chooses to not feel pity for himself.

The movie and the book are different beasts. The book is all bauby's words. In the movie, the director can add the perspective of others, how Bauby's woman chasing hurt those around him. How others react to him.

I enjoyed both the movie and the book.

What is there to say about this movie? Is it life affirming? Is it a sad story? Is it a story of a man concering adversity? I wanted it because I have questions that I am trying to answer. "Why are we happy?" and "How do different people find happieness." This movie is an extream example of somene finding happiness despite being in the most horrid of situations. It's as if we control how we feel.

Yet, if we control how we feel, then why achive anything? Why shouldn't I dedicate my life to being a care free, pennyless happy hobo?

These questions quickly desolve into a vat of hypotheticals.