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Parakeet Belay at Rainbow Rock
We join our friends Pete & Jess, Jess’ brother David, and his daughter Alex at Ruby Mountain campground on the Arkansas River today. It’s a little cool for floating so we rally to Rainbow Rock, a wall of pumice cliffs along the river, for some climbing. There are a couple of anchors good enough for…
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Movie: The Motorcycle Diaries
To me this is a retelling of the fable of Prince Gautama’s early forays from the castle – young men venture out into the world for the first time and encounter human suffering there. The scenes on the road are irresistable to me. The earth is a character, and the they become lost in it…
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Movie: Monster (Il Mostro)
This movie makes you think that just following Roberto Benigni around on the street would be exhaustingly funny. We had to take a break halfway through this farcical tale of mistaken identity and sexual perversion, but I sure wouldn’t want to miss the closing scene…
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Movie: The Third Man
I thought I’d had enough film noir for a while, but wanted to get this one last classic in. Well worth it. Best of all, the sound track is mostly guitar instead of orchestra. The reparte may not be as snappy as a Dashiell Hammet story, but there’s also less melodrama here, which makes for…
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Movie: The French Connection
We seem to be catching on to controversial 70’s movies lately. This one would be good just as a drug bust movie, but it’s excellent as a scathing attack on the war on drugs. Like Dog Day Afternoon was revealing of Al Pacino’s early career, here Gene Hackman shines 10 years after his debut. It’s…
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Movie: Mrs. Brown
For me this movie was a good history lesson about Queen Victoria and the labor and tory parties, with some really good performances.
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Movie: Black Robe
A bitter tale of the devastating effects French Catholic missionaries had on the Algonquin and Huron tribes along the St. Lawrence river. Beautiful scenery is the only respite in a spiteful, if accurate, story.
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Movie: Dog Day Afternoon
I had no idea what I was in for with this movie. It starts with a true story that took place in Brooklyn in 1972, and proceeds to hit you from all directions with the oddities of human behavior. Economic hardship, the influence of mass media, gay marriage, mob psychology, hostage psychology, transgender operations, geographic…
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CDT Anniversary
Ann reminded me that this week a year passed since we set off from the Mexico border to hike the Continental Divide Trail. I feel a little guilty that the day slipped by without snapping me out of my busy work week to recognize it. It’s still very emotional thinking back to that first day…
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Movie: Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
This movie compares mental illness and drug addiction to love, and has fun doing it. I wouldn’t usually root for a violent, thieving stalker as a hero, but what if such tactics are the only ones that would ever get through to the self-loathing, drug-addicted object of his obsession? The dangerous presumption is that his…