A ‘Host’ with Heart

Netflix starts to get a good handle on the movies you like to see. Based on my consumption of classic horror and campy B movies it has been recommending “The Host” (or "Gwoemol" in its native Korean) to me for weeks. I finally saw it.

I REALLY liked it and it was NOTHING like what I expected.

The Basics:
"The Host" is a modern version of the classic monster movies; think “King Kong,” “Godzilla,” “Jaws,” and “Jurassic Park.” Add in a dash of the realism of "Cloverfield" (which I also loved).

Basically, some animal mutates due to toxic waste in a river in South Korea to become a giant half frog, half squid, ugly thing that craves human flesh. The monster wreaks havoc in the city next to the river it resides in. It spirits off with a little girl that her family assumes has eaten her. Or did it…? A cell phone call from the girl gives the family hope that she’s still alive. As it turns out, she is alive and trying to survive in the monster’s urban waterfront lair.


The Twist:
This movie was nothing like any monster film I’ve seen. I was expecting the usual bad acting and lead characters being plucked off one by one in order of most expendable until none remain and a sequel is required. Here’s the deal though: this movie played out like a serious drama with moments of comic relief and sparse horror, but heavy on heart—truly.

Pick any drama like “Schindler’s List” or "Legends of the Fall" and “The Host” played out much more like one of these. The family that is the focal point of the movie is completely dysfunctional. You have a grandfather who runs a snack shack on the riverfront. He has one son who is a frustrated unemployed college graduate, a daughter who is a competitive archer with major confidence issues, and another son who seems mentally slow— very childlike; and it is he who has a child himself. The granddaughter, about 10 years old, is raised collectively by her father’s siblings and grandfather since her mother left her when she was born.

What’s really going on in this movie is watching the family rally together, led by the grandfather, to get his pathetic children to work together to hunt the beast and find the little girl. Along the way, the Korean government spreads misinformation or lies (I was never sure which) about the toxic nature of the beast. The family has to escape and avoid quarantine and martial law in their city while they try to find the granddaughter.

Additionally, unlike most monster movies that slowly reveal the featured beast over the course of the film and show it in all its glory at the end (like "Aliens"), this movie surprises by revealing the monster in the first five minutes in broad daylight as it rampages through a park next to the river. Oddly, this approach made the movie and the monster seem very real. And the monster is FREAKY: a gross, mutated mix of sea and amphibious creatures.

Is the movie great? Yes. Is it a horror? I’m not so sure. I liked it more as a heartwarming story of a family in crisis pulling together in hard times to triumph in spite of great odds. I’m serious. Check it out; it’s a good film.

Get-it-Yesterday Song #14: Yours is No Disgrace

Here is the next song in my continuing series of songs that you need, nay, must have in your music collection.

This time I'm going to drop a little prog rock on ya by recommending "Yours is No Disgrace" from Yes.

It hit my like a brick last week that this needed to be the song I featured next.

Last week my wife delivered our fourth child. As with the other three, she was induced and the labor was a long one. We went into the hospital at 3pm and by 8am the next day our son was born. In that span of 17 hours - half of them during hours when I'm normally sleeping - I had to find a way to calm myself down and tune out the interruptions; (I know, I know, waaa, waaa - yes Anna, you had the much harder part).

As I curled up on the whatever-the-heck-they-call-that-thing-that-acts-as-a-guest-bed in the delivery room, covering my head with a blanket to get a few Z's, I happened upon my collection of Yes in my iPod.

I like Yes. I'm not an "I have all their albums and their bootlegs" fan. I only have a greatest hits album of theirs, but I played it plenty in college. For some reason, in that moment in the hospital Yes's music really resonated with me. I listened to one song, then another, and another. That's no small feat with Yes. They are known for composing some LONG songs as far as rock goes; hence, in part, the reason they're well known for carrying the flag among prog rock ranks.

So, with that, I present you two things. First, my beautiful son:

Second, "Yours is No Disgrace," one of my favorite Yes songs. If you have not heard Yes, or heard of them, just get this one song. You'll dig it. It's a little on the longer end, but I promise after you let it soak in a couple times you'll like it. This song is cool because they keep singing the same words each verse but change the tempo each time (<---here's me trying to talk music theory, haha). Check it out:

Get that thing in your iPod YESterday!

Alan's Little Life Maxims #28

Mustaches and sinus colds are a grotesque combination.

Happy birthday, son

Mom and baby boy are fine. We're all tired, but it's been a good day.

Here we go again

We're on the eve of having our fourth child. It's kind of surreal. I always figured I'd have four, but told myself I'd simply have "one at a time" and see how it goes. Thank goodness no twins came and screwed that plan up.

Anyway, after Anna and I had our third, I told her "Forget about you being the one pushing another human being through your loins; I can't go through that again." I remember the zenith of the labor like it was yesterday: my wife's crying, monitors show both my wife's and yet unborn son's heart rates dropping like rocks. All I could do is stand there and watch the doctors and nurses work, seemingly unaware of my presence. I just stood by praying to God that it would turn out alright.

Thankfully it did.

So, I'm merely about to go through that again sometime in the next 36 hours or so. I can only imagine what's on Anna's mind right now. I'd be puking my guts out on nerves alone. Thank heaven for women. I couldn't do what she's about to do.

Please God, let everything go well.

Alan's Little Life Maxims #27

The 3-D effect in movies is totally overrated.

Just give me a good plot with interesting characters and good ol' 2-D is fine with me.

Where can I turn for (sports) peace?

My Ute football team just got pantsed by TCU.
My Ute basketball team just got pimp slapped by lowly Idaho - in SLC.
My Jazz have less chemistry than Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie.

@#$%!

My Four Worst Sports Blunders

My friend, Brad, told me about one of his worst sports experiences in his life the other day: his team getting their butts kicked in a county rec soccer game.

It got me thinking about my own "plays of the weak." Here are my top four:

Fourth worst: my freshman year at the University of Utah, my LDS Institute "fraternity" decided to sign up for the intramural soccer league. A handful of the guys on my team had played in HS and so they were adequate players for what you'll find in Utah.

They needed a couple more guys so they extended me an invite. I told them I had not graced a soccer field since my AYSO days. With that qualifier out of the way, I got on the roster and showed up at the first game.

First off, I'm the only guy wearing basketball shorts that (even though it was the mid 90's and the John Stockton short-shorts were still relatively in style) were still longer than all the other soccer dude's shorts.

I didn't own any cleats at the time, so I was jusu wearing some cross trainers. My moment of glory came when the ball was rolling toward the sideline. I was the nearest guy to the ball so I ran toward it to give it a nice boot up field. I approached the ball at a pretty quick speed, reared back my leg, struck toward the ball and completely whiffed. I missed so badly that I ended up on my back and the ball rolled out of bounds. I heard a chortle come from the sideline where a dozen spectators had gathered.

Third worst: striking out in softball in 9th grad PE. In this setup, your own team pitched to you and this blond jock with a preppy version of a mullet (hey, it was the early '90s) was pitching to us. He kept throwing bad pitches that I let go by. Both my team and the opposition got restless and jeered the fact that I didn't just swing. I took the next pitch, another crappy one, and I whiffed it. I had never, ever, ever struck out in softball....

Second worst: another softball strikeout. It was for a corporate one-day softball tournament. My boss's boss was on the team and he was super competitive. It was co-ed which made them institute some really lame rules.

I can't remember the nuance of the rule, but if I got walked, somehow the girl on second base would have scored. We were making a comeback from behind. The pitch went up and I had to make that instant decision to swing or take it for the walk - which would have been worth a badly needed run (to tie, if I recall correctly). It looked like a ball, albeit barely. At that very moment in which it's too late to do anything about it, I saw that it was a better pitch than I had initially judged. I watched it pass, it landed, hitting half the plate and half the dirt. The ump called it a strike. Last out, game over. A walk-off strike out - caught staring.

Worst sports moment: I'm about 14 years old playing church-ball hoops. It's early in the second half. The other team is shooting foul shots. I'm playing guard, so I'm not standing at the key, but 8-10 feet behind the foul shooter. His second shot clanks off the rim. I timed it perfectly to get to the ball before anyone else. In all my buck fever, I snatched the ball, drove the lane and like a gazelle laid it in... for the other team.

Our coach was this uber-competitive guy. He flipped out on the sideline with a combo of "What are you doing!?!" and then covering his face in his hands. I immediately got pulled out of the game. I tried to explain to him how or why I did that, but the truth was, I was still trying to figure it out myself as I explained. I *think* I slipped back into 1st half mode at just the wrong moment. I wished the floor could have opened up beneath me.

Two Ways I'd Change Major League Baseball

I've been a baseball fan for a long time, though I'm not as hardcore as I once was. I passively keep track of the standings, and tune in to the All-star Game and World Series.

I'm not sure why it's changed but I'm sure married life and fatherhood has a lot to do with it as my time is spent on other things than watching sports 24/7 like I could have in my younger years.
Anyway, with the Yankees just winning their 27th championship and the season having come to a close, I've been thinking about the two things Major League Baseball needs to do to become a better sports league:

1) Have a true 'round robin' schedule.
There are only 30 teams in the Majors. They play 162 games. There is no reason they couldn't all play each other over the course of that season. It was only in '97 that any inter-league play was introduced. That was a step in the right direction, but they need to go whole hog and get each team playing everyone else.

I'd set the schedule up similar to the way the NBA does it. Take the Angels in the American League for my example. I'd schedule it so that they would play four games against all National League teams; two home, two away. That would account for roughly 60 games of the 162-game schedule. That leaves 100 games to play within their own league. That would mean they could play every team in the American League six times, with a few left over (if I'm doing my quick math right). With those extra games, I'd tack on another home-and-home with division rivals.

That way, at the end of the season, everyone has played everyone else and they've all played a more similar schedule giving a better indication of where each team really stands.

C'mon MLB, get it done!

2) Decide what to do about the designated hitter and make both leagues adhere.

Keep the DH, get rid of the DH - I don't care; just make the leagues play the same game. For non fans, the designated hitter is a 'hitting only' player who takes the pitcher's place in the batting lineup. They only do this in the American League. Theoretically, since most pitchers are horrible hitters, the DH puts a real hitter in the place of the pitcher allowing for more offense, and subsequently allowing the managers to leave their pitchers in the game w/o it affecting their offense (a luxury the National League does not have).

I go back and forth on the rule. I don't hate the DH, but I'm more of a purist, so I would say get rid of the DH for both leagues. On the other hand, if the NL decided they wanted to adopt the DH, I wouldn't really care. Rather, I'd be satisfied that both leagues would be playing the same game.

Can you imagine if the NBA allowed the Western Conference to have a college 3-point line while the East played with the pro version? Can you imagine if the NFL allowed the NFC to play with five downs while the AFC played with the traditional four?

For a sport that is so puritan in its approach to history and tradition, it's shocking to me that they allow the two leagues to play such a fundamentally different game.

So, that's it. That's what I'd change (other than reducing the season by a few games; 162 is too many. April to November is too long).

Alan's Little Life Maxims #26

I've never gotten anything in life by being a total a-hole. I should try it sometime.