Professional Movie Review: Lincoln

Lincoln was many things.  A great president.  A city I assume I never want to visit.  Fun toy based on logs.  A bit too long.  And a pretty good movie with great acting.  However, it was not the action-packed movie with both Daniel Day Lewis and vampires that I was hoping for.  In fact, in three hours of Civil War history, I didn't see a single vampire get hunted, nor even bare its teeth.

I did, however, see Lincoln get upstaged repeatedly by whatever character Tommy Lee Jones played.  That's not to take anything away from Abe.  Tommy Lee Jones was just intense, amazing, and very likable, cemented by the ending.  I actually heard an argument the other day where someone was mad that DDL was being considered for a Best Actor award, since "nobody knows what Lincoln was actually like, therefore how can you say DDL played him really well?"  From the home movies that were recovered on Lincoln's cell phone, that's how.

The movie should have been called "The 14th Amendment" (or whatever amendment it was that freed slaves, I don't remember history too well and there's no possible way I could quickly research this information) or perhaps "Mary Todd Lincoln is constantly hysterical and it annoys me."  The movie was less a biography and more about a specific period of time and an act that changed history.  For the better.  That's why the ending pissed me off so much.  Spoiler alert.  He gets assassinated.  In a theater.  Everybody who's passed 2nd grade knows this, so why spell it out in the movie?  It's not like after the amendment passed, I was wondering what would happen next?  There was no cliffhanger, no possible sequel, and no need for a montage with text on the screen to let me know what happened to all the characters.  Everybody already knows.

I did learn some interesting things, like not all the Northerners in Congress were for freeing all the slaves.  You never really read about that in our history books.  That and the White House was constantly cold.  Lincoln spends most of his time in the White House walking around in a Snuggie.  Either he was secretly a woman (everyone knows women don't have blood, which is why they're always cold) or he didn't know how to dress himself very well.  It was this slight affectation that proves how well Daniel played the part.

Professional TV Review: Game of Thrones

I recently finished George Ruby Red Railroad (leave off the last R for savings) Martin's masterpiece, Game of Thrones, and decided to branch out from doing professional movie reviews to just-as-professional TV reviews.  My choice to watch the show after I read the book stems from being a big believer in using your own imagination to bring the characters to life.  Having finished that, I decided I needed to watch the show for a number of reasons, chief amongst them everyone declaring what a great show it was, and wanting to see what a direwolf and direwolf pups look like, in real life.

I'm currently in the middle of the first episode, but so far all that's happened is I've been reminded how much I HATE Sansa.  She is so whiny and annoying, and nothing has even happened yet.  However, now I don't have to use my imagination to picture what me punching Sansa looks like; I can punch the TV every time she comes on screen.  Thanks, HBO!

I've heard the show follows the exact plot of the book, so there's little chance anyone on screen will punch Sansa, or one of the wolves will go CHOMP.  However, I'm holding out hope that she gets her due for whininess later in the season, or even better, this first episode.  Man, I hate Sansa.