This may be the best goal I have ever seen. It has been nominated as such for FIFA’s best goal of the year. The match? Irish Woman’s National Team vs. Wexmouth Youths. The attendance? Sub-100. The goal scorer? Stephanie Roche. Girl got game.
Monthly Archives: December 2014
Movie Review: The Theory Of Everything
Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars
Bottom Line: Eddie Redmayne has an uncanny likeness to Stephen Hawking. Not much science. Parts of the movie were engrossing, parts plodding. Somewhat annoying soundtrack.
Stephen Hawking is an amazing individual and without a doubt one of the top minds so far in the 21st century. He has also led, as you can imagine, a very complicated personal life. This movie focuses more on the personal life than his life as a cosmologist. At heart, this movie is a love story with maddeningly tiny bits of science intertwined throughout. In the movie’s defense, what Hawking works on is well over the top of most lay people, including myself, and it does a pretty good job of describing the science it delves into so that most people can at least conceptualize it.
I am not sure how true to life the movie is. It is based on an autobiography by Jane Hawking, Stephen’s love interest in the movie. Having read things about the Hawkings’ personal life in the past, I get the feeling that this movie represents the sugar-coated, lipstick-on-a-pig version of the real story. Not that I’d blame anyone for trying to put a better face on what is undoubtedly a compelling story regardless of the glossing over of sordid details.
It was amazing watching Eddie Redmayne portray the degeneration of Stephen Hawking from awkward nerd to the wheelchair-bound, speech-synthesized professor most of us are familiar with as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) ravages his body. Equally amazing, but easily overlooked, was Felicity Jones’ portrayal of Jane Hawking. If this were a better movie, I’d say they would both be nominated for various awards.
The pacing of the movie was somewhat awkward. One could be so inclined to say that this was on purpose and represented Hawking’s awkwardness as his ALS took over his body, but I’m guessing that was not the intent. Much of the awkwardness in the movie, I think, is due to the halting soundtrack. Most of the more compelling parts of the movie are shot with emotion capturing silence, while others have a not out-of-place, but not quite fitting soundtrack that suddenly launches which, for me, almost always detracted from the scene. Then there were the parts that were likely necessary, but lasted a bit too long so your interest would wane slightly.
All in all, though, this was a good biopic of the Hawking family. They are certainly an intriguing family on many levels. I’d recommend it to pretty much anyone. There is no need to see this movie in the theaters, though, so save your money and wait for it to come to the small screen of your home.
Say What You Want About Amazon, At Least The Trains Run On Time
Sure, Amazon pays their warehouse workers fairly poorly and treats them like common criminals by forcing them to be searched for stolen items after clocking out from their shift, but I ordered an item Monday morning and chose the super-slow-get-$1-credit-towards-ebooks method of shipping and the item shipped Monday night and has already arrived at my doorstep by 1 PM Tuesday afternoon. Logistics, you’re doing it right.
Of course, UPS also deserves a shout-out for their amazing delivery service. And they pay their union employees fairly well. If only Amazon would take a page from UPS.
And yes, my hatred of stepping foot inside a store trumps my disdain for certain companies that treat their employees poorly. I’m not perfect.
Your Daily Dose of Dawwww!
Nothing like an unarmed black man being killed by a white police officer to bring out the undercurrents of racism that are prevalent in our society. And nothing like a sham of a grand jury decision and the ensuing riots by a few bad apples to stir up the racists once again. But I’m not here to complain about that. I’m here to tell you that things will and are getting better.
I volunteer for an organization that provides lodging for children and their families when the children are in the hospital. One of the things that we do for the children is bring them to this big old toy room and let them pick a toy of their choosing. My last time there, I let a white girl who was about eight or so into the toy room and let her rummage around. She came back to me a few minutes later and said that she couldn’t reach the toy that she wanted. I went in to help her and she pointed up to the top shelf where there was perched a princess doll still in all of its packaging. I reach up to grab it and I ask, “This one?”, and she nods so I grab it down from the shelf and hand it to her. She looks at it momentarily says, “Thank you!”, and walks away.
The doll was black.
And just like that, a one minute interaction with an eight year old girl has renewed my hope that things will get better.