Jason Bourne

Another movie that I missed while in Australia and New Zealand is Jason Bourne which, by the way, I have been anticipating since I saw the first preview during the Super Bowl!  I finally had the chance to see it last night with my Dad and I liked it but it is definitely the weakest offering in the franchise!  It has been ten years since Bourne (Matt Damon) exposed Blackbriar and he is still on the run and clearly tormented.  Former CIA agent Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) hacks into the CIA mainframe and, while looking for evidence of another black op called Iron Hand, she discovers information about Bourne's recruitment and decides to track him down in Greece.  However, unknowingly, Parsons has attracted the attention of Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), head of the CIA's cyber ops division, and CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) who suspect, correctly, that she will lead them to Bourne.  As Bourne searches for more evidence about his recruitment, Lee and Dewey send an asset (Vincent Cassel), a CIA agent with a personal grudge against Bourne, to assassinate him leading to an ultimate showdown in Las Vegas.  As with the previous installments, this movie does have some great action sequences.  Paul Greengrass, who directed The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, with his signature use of hand-held cameras, puts us right in the middle of the action from Reykjavik, to Athens, to Berlin, to London, and, finally, to one of the best car chases I've ever seen on the Strip in Las Vegas (I also love the car chase on the streets of Moscow in The Bourne Supremacy).  Besides the great action sequences, the subject of this movie is quite timely and thought-provoking.  Iron Hand, the black op involving the use of a social media platform to spy on citizens in real-time, is pretty disturbing.  Are we willing to give up our privacy in the name of safety?  Damon is as inscrutable as ever as Bourne but I think that Vikander is completely wasted in this role because all she seems to do is say, "Copy that."  I will admit that I was a little bit disappointed in this movie because I have been anticipating it for so long but I didn't hate it.

The Kangaroo Sanctuary

After touring Alice Springs, we ended the day with a sunset visit to the Kangaroo Sanctuary, a 188-acre preserve dedicated to the rescue of orphaned baby kangaroos and their rehabilitation back into the wild.  Many kangaroos are killed by traffic though the outback but, if a kangaroo has a joey in her pouch, it often survives.  Brolga, as he is known, began rescuing the joeys from their dead mothers in 2005 and eventually built the sanctuary to protect them.  Brolga took us on a tour and showed us his newest joey, Madeleine.

As we were walking through the sanctuary we came upon Johanssen, one of the older joeys, and Brolga looked at me and said, "You want to feed him, don't you?"  I got to feed a baby kangaroo!

You can tell that I don't feed babies very often!  Look how awkwardly I am holding the bottle!  I'm such a dork but it was one of the coolest things I have ever done!  We continued wandering around the sanctuary and got to see lots of the kangaroos in action.

I loved how they would use their tails to balance themselves on two legs!

The sunsets in the outback were spectacular!  The visit to the Kangaroo Sanctuary was definitely one of the highlights of my Australia trip!

Note:  Go here to find out more about the Kangaroo Sanctuary and how to donate to this wonderful cause!

Beyond

There are quite a few movies on my must-see list that were released when I was in Australia and New Zealand!  I'm so behind!  Last night I made a start at getting caught up by seeing Star Trek Beyond.  I loved it!  I have been a huge fan of the reboot of this beloved series and I think this one might be the best one yet!  The USS Enterprise and its crew are three years into their five year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no man has gone before.  The mission has become monotonous and both Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) are contemplating other assignments as they dock at the USS Yorktown, an elaborate new space station, for supplies.  Soon, the Enterprise is sent to rescue a ship in distress but it is attacked by an unknown swarm.  The ship is destroyed and most of the crew is captured, including Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana).  Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) and an injured Spock escape to a nearby planet together (and their banter provides much comic relief), Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Kirk escape together, and Scott (Simon Pegg) escapes separately but encounters Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a scavenger abandoned on the planet, and enlists her help.  The crew discovers that an alien known as Krall (Idris Elba), who controls the swarm, has attacked their ship for an artifact discovered during their mission capable of mass destruction and that he intends to use it to destroy the USS Yorktown.  Can Kirk save his crew, get the USS Franklin, an old Starfleet vessel, in the air, stop the swarm from destroying the Yorktown (a great scene involving the Beastie Boys' song "Sabotage", also known as "classical music"), and face Krall in an epic showdown?  The answers make for an action-packed and highly entertaining film.  Most people have probably already seen it (although my screening was packed), but I highly recommend it to those of you who haven't!

Friday Night Lights

A big crowd at Ed Mayne Stadium for Wolverine Football!

School started this week so I am back to my normal (read: insanely busy) schedule.  I am still suffering a little bit from jet lag so I didn't feel as prepared to start the school year as I normally do but the kids still showed up at my door any way!  The good news is that I seemed to muddle through just fine and I have enjoyed getting to know my students.  The officers, of course, have hit the ground running and I am very proud of all of their hard work.  We had our Welcome Assembly yesterday and I think it went really well, especially considering that we had three days to prepare!

The spirit can made an appearance at the assembly.

Now that school is in session, I will be spending many of my Friday nights at football games.  Last night was our first game of the season against the American Fork Cavemen.  The Wolverines seemed to struggle a little bit because many of our stars from last season graduated and players are settling into new roles.  At one point, American Fork was up 17-0 and then Hunter came alive scoring three unanswered touchdowns.  However, American Fork scored twice in the fourth quarter to win the game 31-21.

The spirit can made an appearance at the game, too!

Even though we lost this game, it was still a lot of fun!  The officers made banners and used the spirit can to keep the crowd cheering.  Being at the game makes for a really long day but it is so fun to see the students outside of the classroom and I had a group around me most of the time.  Now that football season is here I want it to be fall!

Ben-Hur

Last night my family and I went to see an early screening of Ben-Hur.  I thought it was exciting, to say the least, and I really enjoyed it despite what many critics have said.  Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) is a wealthy prince in Roman-occupied Jerusalem and Messala (Toby Kebbell) is a Roman orphan who has been adopted into the Ben-Hur household.  While the two brothers are extremely close, they are divided by religion and Messala feels that he will never be a part of the family after a romance with Judah's sister is frowned upon.  Messala joins the Roman legion and, after a number of years, returns to Jerusalem as an officer trying to quell the zealots.  Eventually, Messala accuses Judah of treason for harboring a zealot and condemns him as a galley slave.  Judah escapes (in an epic battle scene) and encounters Iderim (Morgan Freeman), an African trader who becomes his mentor.  Judah longs for revenge and Iderim convinces him to race a chariot against Messala.  A parallel story involves the ministry of Jesus Christ (Rodrigo Santoro) and the conversion of the brothers to Christianity after the race.  The story of revenge and forgiveness is very compelling, but I think that the revenge took too long to set up and the forgiveness happened too quickly.  In between, however, the action sequences are absolutely incredible.  The aforementioned naval battle between Greece and Rome is amazing because it is shown entirely from the perspective of the slaves below deck and Judah's escape is incredibly suspenseful because he is chained to the other slaves who are being dragged into the water.  The chariot race is brutal, but tremendously exciting to watch!  Microphones were placed on the legs of the horses to capture the thundering sounds of their hooves on the track and GoPro cameras were buried in the sand to give the feeling of being in the middle of the race.  Much of the scene involved practical stunts rather than CGI and it was intense!  I found myself having to look away at times, especially when chariot drivers were trampled!  I have to admit that I have not seen the William Wyler classic staring Charlton Heston (to which this adaptation is being compared unfavorably) but I can't imagine that chariot race being better than this one!  This movie has flaws, but as a late summer blockbuster, it certainly delivers the thrills!