A sci-fi flick inspired by Isaac Asimov’s short robot stories. It’s not bad – there are a lot of neat effects and a bit of exploration of Asimov’s “3 laws of robotics”. I was surprised to see a Fox movie criticize the idea of compromising freedom for security. It still doesn’t touch my favorite robot…

Still better than the run-of-the-mill action movie, but not as original or interesting as the first one. The amnesia plot device really worked in the Bourne Identity to make an interesting character and motive. This time that motive is watered down with a much more tired revenge story, which seems to require a lot more…

Pete and I met Walkin’ Jim on our 1996 Pacific Crest Trail hike, and Pete recently gave me this book. Of all the distance hiking books I’ve read so far, this one does the best job of conveying what a really long walk can be like, and how it can affect the rest of your…

I can’t recall why I picked this movie. It’s about terrorist attacks in New York, and was made in 1998. I didn’t get much out of it.

This is a biography of Marin Luther made by Lutherans, and clearly Luther is the hero of the film. Catholics might still feel slighted by it, but I don’t think it goes overboard as I feared it might. Luther’s character is kept quite human, and not all of the Roman Catholic Church authorities are simply…

I can’t recall another movie that goes from being good to bad as quickly as this one does. We begin with the interesting if implausible setup of a traveler trapped in a terminal with no legal citizenship when his home country government falls to a rebellion. The movie milks this situation well for a while,…

We almost skipped this performance, tired after a long work week, but I’m glad we didn’t. There’s something moving about the sense of potential in a student performance like this. There was no show business, no attention really at all to presentation, just six mismatched kids with their instruments on a stage. They launch into…

These movies are really good at taking me back to my childhood, when I sat enraptured by any cheesy Spider-man cartoon that came on the tube. I didn’t miss a single episode of the TV mini-series. Stan Lee has remained at the helm all this time, keeping it true to the original comic book story…

A guy who knows R. Crumb decides to write a comic book about his life. This movie follows him from there, through his marriage, a bout with cancer, adoption of his daughter, and up to the movie itself. A fabulous bio, very original.

We’ve been wanting to see a classical music performance for a while now. Tonight we finally made our way to Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver to hear the Colorado Symphony Orchestra play this program: Mozart Concerto for Flute and Harp in C major Schubert Konzertstueck in D major for Violin and Orchestra Kreisler Caprice Viennois,…