A COUPLE OF MOVIES I LIKE

As you read this, please keep in mind that I'm not a movie guy, or a Hollywood guy, and I really hate the "popular culture." However, I do like movies with great characters. A couple of movies that I like, both kinda old, are Juno and Nacho Libre. They have really good characters. These actors might be ones that everyone else in the world knows, but I didn't know most of them and now I love them, especially in these movies, where they were stunning:

In Juno, you've got Juno, played by Ellen Page and her boyfriend, Paulie Bleeker, played by Michael Cera. Both did an incredible job in this PG-13 movie. If you rent it, don't get discouraged in the first few minutes. This movie really ends up teaching some great lessons.



There's also an actor in Juno that I've seen before, and always loved, but he outdoes himself in this movie. His name is J.K. Simmons. He, and Allison Janney, who plays his wife in Juno, are tremendous. At first, they seem like typical parents in adolescent-centered movies. But they turn out to be incredible, intelligent, somewhat complicated people.


I love the language of this film. The one-liners, the nicknames they call each other, the expressions they use, are so funny. I bet you'll laugh out loud. And in the end, you might even get a lump in your throat, like I did.

Well, enough about Juno. If you haven't seen it, you should. If you've seen it, but didn't like it, too bad...you're a goof.

The other movie that has characters that just crack me up is Nacho Libre.

It's just horrible, but I laughed all the way through it. Jack Black always makes me laugh and his sidekick, Esqueleto, played by Hector Jimenez is a scream. It won't take you long to figure out why he's called Esqueleto (Skeleton).




If you want to see two good movies, both good for different reasons, check out Juno and Nacho Libre.

If you don't like Nacho Libre, you're probably not a goof, you're probably cursed with intelligence!!

BAILOUTS

I'm sick of bailouts. AIG and GM and Bear Stearns and Fanny/Freddy and Bank of America and...so many other companies that it boggles the mind. And after allocating trillions of dollars and giving away trillions of dollars, how is the economy looking? The Dow closed at around 6800 yesterday. And, after all of your money and my money that has gone to AIG, how are they doing? They're back at the front of the soup line asking for more money!

We need to move back in the direction of a free market system and have the government keep its mitts off the market (other than those obvious requirements of maintaining the legal system and protecting property rights.)

Write in your journal that on March 3, 2009, I predicted that unless the government stops this foolish practice of allowing no business to fail, our economy will collapse.

There are those (many!!) who feel that the 1981/82 recession was worse than what we're facing now. Unemployment was as high as 10.8%. Banks were failing. Businesses were closing. And how did we get out of that financial crisis? In the end, after some attempts to kick start the economy by pouring cash on the problem, it was ended by lowering taxes and having the government get out of the way.

I realize that there are differing ways to look at this situation and there are those who feel that the lowering of taxes and reducing government intervention didn't have that much to do with ending the recession, but the fact is, the recession came to a speedy conclusion and President Reagan was re-elected by a huge margin, attesting to the fact that the majority of Americans felt like his approach is what got us out of the financial crisis.

I continue to pray that President Obama and his financial team will figure out a way to end the current financial mess.