Posts tagged water
“Earth” Tears to Your Eyes
Apr 30th
Tears to Your Eyes
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
EARTH is a beautiful film that covers the globe from the Arctic to Antarctica and focuses on a family of polar bears, elephants, and humpback whales in the process.
To do so, dozens of film crews used 200 locations in 64 countries, and the result is magnificent.
The film begins in January in the high Arctic where there has been no sun for months.
The narrator, James Earl Jones, says, “Every living thing is waiting.”
Then we see a mother polar bear and her two cubs come our of their den. The mother hasn’t eaten in five months and has lost half her body weight, we are told.
In the meantime, we also see the father polar bear in his solitary search for food, which becomes increasingly difficult because of the melting polar ice.
We see herds of caribou in migration across the tundra and the wolves who shadow them.
At this point, you might ask, “How did they manage to film this?” Stick around for the closing credits, and you will see how those shots were made and some of the dangers that the film crews encountered.
We see baby ducklings and their first flying experience out of the tree, or more accurately, as the narrator says, “falling with style.”
Then we are in the Tropics, where the sun shines 12 hours a day every day, and we see the Birds of Paradise in New Guinea. You can try to ignore the cheap jokes and comments from the narrator, but it is also hard to forget that he was also the voice of Darth Vader, remember?
We travel to the dry season in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa and pick up a mother elephant and her calf struggling to keep up with the herd on their search for water.
We watch the drama unfold between the hunter and the hunted in extreme slow motion.
The pictures of scenery are majestic and make you appreciate what a wonderful planet we live on, as well as how fragile and dangerous life on it is for us all.
The final family we track is a mother humpback whale and her calf, who have to travel 4,000 miles from their breeding ground to Antarctica in search of food.
EARTH is so moving that it brings tears to your eyes.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“Friday the 13th” Cheap Excuse
Mar 4th
Cheap Excuse
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009) is a movie so bad that only a few groups of people will want to see it: friends and family of the cast and crew, movie reviewers, and, oh yeah, TEENAGERS.
The original version came out in 1980, and so any teenagers who saw that movie when it was released would be in their forties now, and they might want to see just how it has been updated, but the only reason that I saw it was that the equipment broke down for the movie that I intended to see and review.
Another group of people who might want to see it are those voyeurs who enjoy lots of shots of bare boobies and gruesome murders, but most of them are probably teenagers anyway.
The story begins on June 13, 1980, at a place called Crystal Lake. and we see a woman crazed by grief confront some other people and shouting, “Jason was my son! You should have been watching him!”
Jason, of course, is Jason Voorhees, the mad slasher in this series of slice-and-dice teenage thrillers, the one who wears a hockey mask as if he is afraid that his victims might be able to identify him.
Then we jump forward to “Present Day” at Crystal Lake and watch the first group of victims, consisting of three guys and two girls, and then get way too much exposition about the first series of murders.
Well, guess what happens.
Then it is six weeks later and seven more campers show up, as well as Clay, the brother of one of the girls who is still missing from the first group six weeks earlier.
This group, however, isn’t camping out in the woods, but staying in the fancy cabin owned by the family of one of them, a real obnoxious jerk who you just can’t wait for him to get his.
As always, the only suspense is which one will be killed first and which one will be the survivor.
Now, however, we get some topless water-skiing along with the not-so-scary individual trips up into an attic or out to the toolshed in the dark.
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009) will probably be loved by teenagers but hated by everybody else, because it is just a cheap excuse for profanity, nudity, and other teenage thrills, and I am not a teenager.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Gorgeous Food with Jena – Episode 2: Part 2 – Vegetarian Butternut Squash Soup
Oct 30th
Ingredients:
(2 – 5 Pound) Butternut Squash
16Oz Box of Coconut Milk
Fresh Herbs (Parsley, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme)
Salt
Cayenne Pepper
1 Ginger Root
2 Cups Water
Instructions:
1. Wash butternut squash.
2. Poke holes in outside of squash to prepare for baking.
3. Bake squash at 350° for an hour in oven or until brown and very tender when tested with a fork or knife.
4. Split squash in half and remove seeds with a spoon.
5. Remove skin from edges.
6. Warm 2 cups water and sliced ginger in pot to make a tea.
7. Add Coconut Milk and fresh herbs (tied with butcher twine) to large pot and simmer.
7. Simmer for a few minutes and then add squash.
8. Continue to simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes.
9. Remove herbs from pot and discard of all excess leaves.
10. Add contents of pot to a blender and mix starting slowly and gradually increasing speed.
11. Top off with salt and cayenne pepper.