Long Time No Fly

Well, I've been out here for about a week now. Unfortunately the weather is not particularly cooperating to get me up flying. It's been pretty dusty outside the last couple of days. That's actually pretty common this time of year out here. I've pretty much passed my time sleeping, working out, and watching movies.

Speaking of movies, I watched that Quentin Tarantino movie based on a poster he once saw about WWII. I'm sure that you know the name of the film. I've seen all the hype about it, and frankly I'm a little puzzled. Like most of Tarantino's other works, I walked away from this one thinking "Well, that was OK, I guess." while everyone else seems to praise it as a reinventing of American Cinema. Call me a purist, but I kind of figured that a WWII film would have some small smidgeon of a basis in, you know, WWII. Here are little known facts about the War that I learned from watching this movie:

1. The Nazi occupation of France apparently lasted something like 15 years.
2. If you happened to be a Jew living in France at the time, as long as you escaped the initial Nazi attempt to kill your family it was quite easy for you to re-enter normal society. Even to the point where you could somehow inherit property from your relatives without anyone questioning it.
3. Killing or disfiguring unarmed prisoners in horrific ways is completely acceptable, as long as you're an American.
4. All Germans were evil Nazis. No exceptions.

Don't get me wrong, the movie was not without it's enjoyable moments. Christoph Waltz did an outstanding job and is more than deserving of his Oscar nomination, but overall I'd have to give this film 2.5 stars. I'm not really sure where the "Best Picture" nomination came from.

The other movie I watched was "The Happening". I'm not even going to really justify this one with a review. I'll suffice it to say that I'm pretty sure that M. Night Shyamalan wrote this film on a toilet paper roll during a particularly bad bout of food poisoning. I've seen better dialogue and more compelling drama in toothpaste commercials. I think that it's safe to say that he peaked with his first film and has been going downhill at an increasing pace ever since. Too bad.

Anyway, that's about it for now, sorry there's not more to write on the goings on in Iraq. Hopefully I'll get flying more soon and have more to tell y'all about.