MarcS's Blog

On a bare concrete floor that is often covered by parkay wood, ice or astroturf, several hundred members of the local, national and international media gathered Tuesday to discuss logistics for the Democratic National Convention.

Some came armed with poignant questions for convention organizers about issues ranging from access to delegates and speakers, to lightning. Others probably came just for the free lunch, which consisted of barbeque chicken sandwiches, cole slaw, corn on the cob and cookies.

Upon entering the Pepsi Center each member of the media was handed a booklet with black-and-white printouts of how the arena itself will be organized, and also how the parking lots will be quartered into media staging and protest areas.

From there, we were sent on guided tours where convention organizers tried their best to explain -in visual terms- what Pepsi Center will look like when Democratic delegates convene to formally select the party's nominee on August 25th.

The only significant piece of news that I was able to discern from the network affiliate tour (which I was part of), is that Speer Boulevard will not be open at Wewatta during the convention. A security representative wasn't willing to give much detail about the overall security perimeter, but he did provide that titbit.

This might not sound significant, but it's really the only indication we've received in weeks of what the downtown traffic impact will be. We already know that Colfax and Speer will be part of the designated protest parade route, but it wasn't until today that we heard other parts of Speer would be closed as well.

One can only assume more closures will be announced in coming weeks. After all, Speer Blvd and the Auraria Parkway are just a stone's throw from Pepsi Center.

Pepsi Center will undergo a major transformation over the next month and a half. Seats will be removed. Suites will be torn apart, rebuilt...then torn apart and rebuilt again. The arena will be unrecognizable to those who frequent Avalanche, Nuggets or Crush games...or rock concerts for that matter.

One thing that wasn't addressed during Tuesday's media walk-through was the big news from the day before: that presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama won't be speaking at Pepsi Center at all. Sure, he'll be here to cheer, smile, shake hands, etc. But the biggest event of the convention, of any convention, the nominee's acceptance speech, will be held roughly a half-mile to the west at Invesco Field at Mile High.

In an era when political conventions aren't necessarily news-makers in and of themselves, one has to wonder how the decision to move Obama's speech will impact the overall "vibe" at Pepsi Center. Sure, the vice presidential candidate will speak here. The ex-presidents will speak here. Other policy-makers and elected officials will have their turn at the microphone. But the main event won't be here.

This will certainly create new logistical challenges for the media, but it will get figured out. And TV viewers at home won't care.

Is Denver ready for the big party? Mayor John Hickenlooper says we will be. But there are still plenty of loose ends. Lots of money to be raise. Security and traffic issues to address. But the mayor says the convention is on track.

Denver's transformation begins...

Ok...so the Rockies snuck into the playoffs last season thanks to a couple of blown saves by Trevor Hoffman. Yes, the team played amazing baseball down the stretch and smoked Philadelphia and Arizona in the playoffs...but that was last season.

Now it's time for a new season

Do you think the Rockies can (or will) repeat as National League Champs?  Will they even make the playoffs?  Was last season a fluke?

My prediction:  89-73...good enough for a Wild Card berth.

Well...this case will soon be in the hands of a jury. 

Nelson, herself, surprised many observers by taking the witness stand in her own defense.  She says she didn't have anything to do with the Jan. 2007 murder of Heather Garraus, despite every witness prior to that giving testimony that indicated the exact opposite.

This is a sordid case involving marital infidelity...possibly bi-sexuality...high powered hand guns...and even diarrhea.

Do you think Nelson is guilty?

Originally published June 2007

It was a color-by-numbers (or Murder by Numbers) reunion show.

The Police played pretty much every song you would expect them to. They opened with Message in a Bottle, which would have been great had Andy Summers' guitar been amplified. It wasn’t until 20 seconds or so into the song that fans were able to hear him. Not a great start. After that, The Police went straight into Synchronicity II, which sounded pretty good.

Throughout the two-hour show, these aging rockers treated fans to countless classics like So Lonely, Walking in Your Footsteps, Voices Inside My Head/When the World is Running Down, Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, the list goes on and on… They played two encores which included Roxanne, So Lonely, King of Pain and Next To You. People seemed “into” it, and I’m sure most of the crowd went home very happy. I, however, was not impressed.

Sting sounded great on vocals and bass. Stewart Copeland’s drumming was crisp and precise. But Andy Summers sounded like he hadn’t played guitar in a decade, and the band was generally--- not very tight. I expected more creative arrangements of their songs, and more creative staging. I walked away with the impression that The Police got back together just to make a quick buck, and that the tour was thrown together in a hurry.

Before the show, I tried to manage my expectations based on other reviews of the tour that I had read, including Stewart Copeland’s personal blog which was highly critical of the band’s first gig in Canada. Did The Police meet my expectations? For the most part, yes. Did they exceed them? Not in the slightest.

For a bunch of 50 and 60-somethings, these guys still sound pretty good. But I wouldn’t expect a second leg of the tour, a new album or much else from The Police at this point. Maybe they’ll release a DVD of the show, which some will buy. Not me. Once was enough.

Farewell, Sting, Stewart & Andy. You guys were great, back in the day. Thanks for the music and the memories.

A scene from Dimension Films' Stephen King's The Mist - 2007

The basic premise of most horror movies goes something like this: ordinary people are forced to fight for their lives after being confronted by something really, really terrible.

In that regard, the big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, The Mist, fits the bill. But to simply label The Mist as a “horror movie” misses the point. 

The Mist (like many Stephen King stories) takes place in rural Maine where the story’s main character (Thomas Jane) and his family are forced to take refuge in the basement of their lake-front home during a violent storm. When they emerge to survey the damage the following morning, they noticed a thick mist rolling across the lake toward their small town.

Not long after Jane’s character and his nine-year-old son leave mom behind and head to the local grocery store for supplies, the mist envelopes the town and the real trouble begins.

First, a bloodied, delirious man seeks shelter inside the store after seeing…well, something in the mist. 

Later, the main character and several store employees battle (part of) a flesh-eating creature on the store’s loading dock. One is even killed. Yet, when they try to explain to everyone else what happened, no one believes them.

And such is the theme of The Mist: distrust and disbelief.

The local residents don’t trust the “out-of-towners” (i.e. rich people). A nasty bible-thumper (played masterfully by Marcia Gay Harden) declares the mist as the End of Days, and eventually scares enough people into believing she has a direct pipeline to God and can deliver salvation.

The creatures attack. The humans fight back. The humans fight each other. Soon, it’s unclear whether the true horror lies in the mist or within the grocery store.

While the Mist succeeds in painting a grim picture of how humans interact during times of crisis, it fails to deliver enough monster madness and mayhem to satisfy those looking for a good old-fashioned creepshow.

Too much time is dedicated to character development and human conflict, and the producers seemed to skimp on the computer-generated wizardry that I (for one) was hoping to see more of.

Yes, the creatures are scary. But we don’t see much of them (especially the really big ones). The biggest villain turns out to be our bible-thumper (who becomes a monster in her own right).

I also had an issue with the ending, which didn’t make much sense. Having read The Mist as a teen, I remember things going quite differently. But I’ll leave it at that.

As my wife and I were walking out of the theater, we overheard one young lady say “that was the worst movie ever.”

She was obviously exaggerating. Yentl and the re-make of Rollerball were worse. But I could see why someone doling out $10 for a horror flick on a Sunday night would be disappointed.

Bottom Line: Wait for The Mist on DVD or cable. Or just miss it.

Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone) in Paramount Pictures' Beowulf - 2007

3-D movies have come a long way. What used to be a jumbled mess of black, white, blue and red has given way to full color, dazzling computer-generated imagery…not to mention fewer headaches.

That being said, Beowulf succeeds on many fronts but falls short of being an animated classic.

For those who don’t recall (or simply never read) the epic poem, Beowulf takes place in 6th century Denmark during a mythical time when man frequently battled giant, blood-thirsty beasts.

Enter King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins), an aging monarch cursed by a mistake he made decades earlier which has put his people in peril.

As Hrothgar and his disciples celebrate the inauguration of a new mead hall one evening (mead is a primitive alcohol beverage), they are paid an unwelcome visit by a gigantic, mutant monster named Grendel (Crispin Glover) which proceeds to rip dozens of people to shreds.

To try and solve this problem, Hrothar calls upon the story’s hero, Beowulf (Ray Winstone), a seasoned warrior who arrives at the village with a small army intent on destroying the beast and lifting the curse. One battle leads to another. One curse leads to another. Beowulf is eventually thrust into the role as king and has to fight a new monster to save those closest to him.

While ‘Beowulf’ works as a standard animated film, I highly recommend seeing the 3-D version at an IMAX screen near you. The battle sequences are vivid, brutal and astounding. The computer animation truly pops in 3-D. Unless you don’t particularly care for fake creatures, fake body parts or fake swords, arrows and spears flying at your face for 2 hours, 3-D is the way to go.

One could nit-pick the films’ dialogue and how the writers tried to compress a 3100-line English poem into 2-hour film, but something tells me that is not what people are paying to see.

The CGI effects, while impressive, were not perfect. The human characters often lacked facial expression and seemed a bit rubbery. Some of the landscapes also felt more two-dimensional than 3-D.

The monsters, on the other hand, are extremely life-like…and in the case of Grendel, really gross.

The battle sequences keep you on the edge of your seat. I almost wished there were more of them.

Oh…and then there is the whole Angelina Jolie-naked thing. Some people will make a big deal out of it, but it really isn’t that special. After all, it wasn’t really Angelina Jolie, but rather, a CGI version of her. Other characters appear naked, or semi-naked, in Beowulf as well (i.e. Anthony Hopkins)…so by the time we see the full-frontal cartoon-ish version of Jolie, it doesn’t make a huge impact. But that’s just me.

While flawed at times, Beowulf succeeds in pushing the envelope of computer-animated film-making. It seems we are not too far off from seeing many film actors replaced by computer animation (in some form or another). Whether this will be a positive development or not, I am not quite sure.

Beowulf is rated PG-13 and contains extreme simulated violence and simulated nudity.

Over their 30-plus years together, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart (aka. Rush) have produced many great albums and written countless great songs.  The band's loyal fan following has more than compensated for a lack of radio play and general publicity. Their concerts are legendary not just for their musicianship, but also for the lighting effects and staging.

 

As an admitted fan of Rush (I've seen them in concert 15-20 times), I was excited to learn that the band had returned to the studio to record it's first full-length album of original material since 2002's Vapor Trails. 

That being said, "Snakes & Arrows" is somewhat of a disappointment. 

The album starts off with the single "Far Cry," which may be the best track (that includes lyrics).  It begins with an impressive musical intro that reminded me of some of Rush's earlier work on 'Hemispheres’ or '2112.'

"It's a far cry from the world we thought we'd inherit," Peart (the band's drummer, lyricist and resident poet) writes, setting a tone for a certain kind of pessimism and dissatisfaction with the state of the world that is a central theme of  "Snakes & Arrows."

From there, things go downhill in a hurry. "Armor and Sword," "Working Them Angels," "The Larger Bowl," and "Spindrift" seem like a collection of disjointed musical themes with even more disjointed lyrics that will only impress the most forgiving of Rush fans. 

But the album is not without its high points, specifically, the three instrumental tracks.

"The Main Monkey Business," the guitar-driven "Hope" and "Malignant Narcissism" prove that today's Rush can still rock like yesterday's.  The songs may lack familiar drum and bass rifts heard on previous instrumentals like "YYZ" and "La Villa Strangiato," but they are each impressive in their own right.  Rush's large musician fan base will grin with satisfaction, and I am certain these songs will be impressive to see live.

Another moderate success on "Snakes & Arrows" is the more mainstream-sounding "The Way the Wind Blows." "Hollow speeches of mass deception from the Middle East to the Middle West. Like crusaders in unholy alliance," Peart writes, in a less-than-subtle shot at current U.S. foreign policy and the Bush Administration.

"Faithless" is a track that continues Rush's enduring theme of self-determination over religion.  "I don't have faith in faith. I don't believe in beliefs. You can call me faithless," Peart writes, and Lee sings.  The lyrics are hokey and too overt.  With less-than-inspiring music to go along with them, this track is symbolic of a larger problem I had with "Snakes & Arrows."

Alas, after 18 full-length studio albums and a handful of live recordings, Rush's music and lyrics have never sounded more disconnected.  It's as if Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson want to keep cranking out hard rock anthems, while Peart wants to go in a more poetic, less hook-driven direction.  With three instrumental tracks on this album, I would not be surprised if Rush chooses to go entirely instrumental the next time around...assuming there is a next time around.

But with a body of work that has produced countless progressive rock classics over the past four decades, I will be among the thousands of Rush fans at Red Rocks on August 8 enjoying this legendary band yet another time. I am certain it will be a fantastic show. 

    -by MarcS