Vanishing of the Bees

I don’t know very much about the animal kingdom, but I have a very respectful fear of it.  If time permits, I can pretty much sit down and watch any program/documentary or extended feature on any animal or insect.

When I ran across the documentary, Vanishing of the Bees - I got pretty excited about watching something I hoped would explain to me what’s really going on with bees.

The film is narrated by Ellen Page (Juno) and it reportedly got a few film festival “selections”.

All in all, it was an informative viewing…  I learned a lot on a subject that I knew very little about going in so it was good in that aspect.  It didn’t however have a very good production budget… think PBS with a very stale Ellen Page reading copy from a booth.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t watch this documentary.  I’m just saying that if this documentary had the production chops of say “An Inconvenient Truth” - I think that this documentary would get a lot more buzz.  (no pun intended)

If watching a documentary on Bees isn’t you’re thing but you kinda want to know whats up…  let me quickly fill you in.

1.) There is still no answer as to why there is Colony Collapse Disorder.  The disappearance of the bees - is very strange and there’s a number of theories but nothing checks out.  They think it could be diseases… they think it could be shitty diets the bees are weened on…  they think that pesticides can have an affect on them.  

2.) Bees are big business.  By that I mean, there’s people out there that artificially get queen bees pregnant and there are bee keepers that kill old queens and reintroduce new ones but it’s not natural.  

3.) There’s no argument that Bee’s are important for humans.  Without them, we are pretty much fucked.  They do tireless, thankless and impossible work for anything else on earth to also get done.

Lastly.) Cell phones have nothing to do with the vanishing of bees.

movie 25/365

“Statue of Liberty,
Staten Island ferry,
Alphabet City,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
Central Park,
Brooklyn Bridge,
The Empire State where King Kong lives,
Coney Island and Times Square,
Rockefeller Center: wish I was there!”

—

Cub

Too Tough To Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone

Nothing quite grabs my attention, when I see a new book or documentary about the Ramones comes around.

Just this week, a new book (Commando) about Johnny Ramone and I’ve been thinking about picking it up.   The problem however is that I don’t really ever learn anything new about the Ramones when these books or documentaries come out.

While looking thru my Netflix instant queue I decided to finally watch the documentary called “Too Tough To Die: A tribute to Johnny Ramone”

The movie isn’t so much a tribute to Johnny Ramone but a close look at the concert that was performed at the Ramones 30th anniversary show, 4 days before Johnny Ramone passed away.

Performances by : 

Red Chili Peppers
The Dickes
X
Henry Rollins
Eddie Vedder
Pete Yorn
Joan Jett if you stick all the way thru the credits 

 and several others…

The strangest part of the documentary had to be the funeral.  For some reason Nicholas Cage gave a eulogy and as one would suspect he made an ass of himself… 

As for the documentary, I would give it 2 out of 5 stars…  The best Ramones documentary to date is “End of the Century”

Movie 24/365

Season of the Witch

I know a number of people who havecompletely turned their back on Nicolas Cage and movies he stars in.  I however haven’t grown tired of his work and have decided that he will have to grow tired of acting before I grow tired of his shitty movies.

Which brings me to the Season of the Witch…  wow, where does one begin with this movie?

In short it’s about Cage and Ron Perlman, phoning in some performances set in Mid-Evil Europe.  They run across a fierce case of the black death…  while there they get asked by black death stricken king to take a girl he believes is a witch to a set of monks who can confirm his suspicions.

Cage and Perl soon discover that the plague has reached the castle… there’s then a discovery that the girl they have imprisoned is not a witch but they end up running into a devil.

Shit gets pretty stupid from this point on but in the end Cage rocks out with his cock out and ends the movie with the book of the dead in hand.

Stay away from this at all costs.

Movie 23/365

The Crow

Sunday Nights are always a pickle for me…  I have a hard time falling asleep and it didn’t help that I didn’t get around to watching my movie of the day until 10pm.

The subject of “the Crow” had come up a few days prior to me seeing the movie again… I had a conversation with my friend Ted who said to me that he hadn’t seen it yet.

This surprised me because the film (backdrop of story) is set in Detroit, Michigan.

I can’t remember the last time I saw the from start to finish but I’m thinking it had to have been around 12 or so years…   I was really curious to see if it held up almost 20 years after its theatrical release.

Much to my surprise the look of the film felt pretty good.  The city depicted in the movie looks nothing like Detroit but I found myself enjoying the soundtrack all over again.

The movie is about a guy (Brandon Lee) by the name of Eric Draven, who was murdered on Halloween night in his loft with his fiancé. He’s come back from the dead (with the assistance of a Crow) to get his vengeance against everyone whose wronged him.

Eric Draven, quickly learns that he must right a number of wrongs (6 or 7 people total?) while he’s back in our dimension.

He get’s a little help from Ernie Hudson (the Black Ghostbuster) along the way too…

If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend you check it out.  Especially Ted.

Movie 22/365

The Fault In Our Stars

 Truth be told I never intended to read the book “The Fault In Our Stars” …  I had only heard about the book and author when my friend Jaime tweeted that his book was lost in transit to Ferndale, Michigan - despite placing a pre-order for it months ago thru Amazon.

Having the day off, I drove over to Target (my nearest book store - which is insanely sad when you think about it) and picked up a signed copy - not knowing what it was about. Its second highest selling point for me was that the cover of the book had a Nick Hornby feel to it.  The first was having the book in my grubby hands before Jaime in Detroit.

Due to a rather busy work week, I found myself reading about 4 chapters a day…  feeling the urge to complete the book in one sitting but putting it away long enough to think about some of topics and tones in the book.

My mom is currently in Mexico City, sitting bedside to an ailing Grandmother who has been at death’s door for nearly 2 weeks.

Contacting my mom is difficult…  she’s rarely away from the hospital and when she is, it’s usually at hours I’m at work or sound asleep.  My mom has 6 siblings all of which are brothers.  She’s the only surviving daughter that my Grandmother ever had.  If I remember correctly, my Grandmother gave birth to another little girl but she died at some point during infancy.

My mother actually had a near brush with death as a child too… she suffered from what I can only describe as a 3rd world fever, but she clung on and has lived to this point a very healthy life.

I’m not exactly sure how my mom is feeling right now… I haven’t talked to her in nearly 2 weeks.  I’m sure she feels a burden of some kind to not leave my grandmother’s side because she’s the only daughter.

This long, personal aside - played a big part in my reading of this book because there’s a lot of emotions I’m working thru as I can’t talk to my mom as she’s possibly going through one of the hardest ordeals in her life.

The Fault In Our Stars - is a story about a 16 year old girl (Hazel) with a terminal case of lung cancer.  She’s elongated her life thru the use of a drug I can’t possibly spell and I won’t bother to look it up because it would be a spoiler of sorts.

The book touches on friendships, discovering love and why you should always avoid meeting your heroes.  

There’s actually one part in the book (the eulogy for those who have read the book) where I actually had to put the book down for nearly an hour because I couldn’t stop weeping.

In retrospect, I think I was working thru a number of the emotions I mentioned above…  but I must give a tremendous tip of the cap to John Green who wrote what may possibly be one of the best books to come out in 2012.

Highly recommend you pick this up for yourself and friends.