When Maria and I saw “Date Night” in the theater a few months ago, one trailer in particular stood out. Sure, I immediately wanted to see the movie being advertised, but I could not believe when my wife leaned over and said she could not wait to see the big-screen version of “The A Team.”

I don’t know why that surprised me so much. She’s a huge James Bond fan, we have seen the Jason Bourne movies and she enjoyed the new action-packed Sherlock Holmes. Since my love for the renegade foursome comes from watching the TV show as a kid, I just didn’t think she had the same memories. Either way, we caught the flick a few weeks ago, and it delivered.

“The A Team” won’t win many awards, but it provided lots of cool explosions, an interesting enough story and better than expected performances from the cast. I lost myself in its simplicity for a couple of hours, which is all I can ask for from a movie like this.

I really liked the tidy way they introduced the characters before they worked together to set the stage for the rest of the film. The way the cast works with the combination of technological advances and old-fashioned sneakiness made the story as believable as possible in a film like this

I worried about Liam Neeson as Hannibal, but he brought a toughness I did not expect. I liken it to the way Daniel Craig portrayed Bond when he assumed the role a few years back. There was an edge that set the tone for the whole movie. Bradley Cooper pulled off Face just as I expected, Rampage Jackson gave B.A. more depth than Mr. T could ever imagine and Sharlto Copley provided Murdoch with a dizzying combination of craziness and dependability.

Remakes like this can crash and burn pretty easily. They managed to put enough effort into the story that things like flying a tank and dodging a barrage of shipping containers just seem like fun. Plus, they kinda, sorta left room for a sequel that might include more Jessica Biel. That’s a winner for everyone in my book.

While searching for titles to read recently, I came across a new book by Brett Easton Ellis. Like a lot of people my age, I had read some of his early work. I bailed when he started to get gory with American Psycho. That just didn’t appeal to me at all.

But the new book (Imperial Bedrooms) did because it’s a prequel to his legendary debut Less Than Zero. The concept seemed a little kitschy, but intrigued me enough. I only had one problem.

I can’t remember the last time I read Less Than Zero so I really couldn’t wade into the sequel unprepared. So I pulled my well-worn copy of Ellis’ debut of the shelf and settled into my favorite spot on the porch.

The one thing I realized from re-reading the book is that Ellis simultaneously managed to produce something vapid and ground breaking. I forgot the absurd excess of the characters framed by Ellis’ flowing prose. You could almost feel yourself moving along, herky jerky, with these lost souls.

I need to re-read books like this, books that stirred my imagination as a young writer, more often. I think we all do to stoke the fire of inspiration for both reading and writing.

One of the perks of working in publishing is that you might grab a book which would ordinarily not catch your attention. “The Mistress of Riversdale” definitely fits that bill. I bought the collection of letters from the early 19th century on a whim at a sale of remainders almost two years ago for next to nothing.

I finally picked it up a little while back when I had a lull in my stack. I figured I could easily cast it aside if I didn’t like it or found myself distracted by something else. That never happened.

The book features letters from Rosalie Stier Calvert, a wealthy Belgian woman who married in to one of Maryland’s most prominent families after emigrating to America in the late 18th century. Her family ultimately returns home while she stays with her new husband, affording her the opportunity to write many letters detailing life in early America.

I don’t think I had ever read a real-life account of this time period. I found a very interesting story which would probably surprise a lot of people, especially those who say that America has changed under the current administration.

I have news for you people - no, it hasn’t. With some cultural updating, you could easily mistake Calvert’s letters for current complaints. For the wife of one of the richest men in the country, she didn’t like much about America, even as they built an expansive country home.

But beneath the whining is biting social commentary, a fascinating look at a woman exerting her independence and a stark reminder of how much better we have it today than those who laid the foundation for this nation did. People might not like the health care legislation, but you don’t often hear of two children from a wealthy family dying within a week from a mysterious disease. That happened to the Calverts, who buried four of their nine children before Rosalie died in her mid40s.

The further we get from the early days of our country, the more we romanticize it. Sure, the Calverts had tons of money and hobnobbed with presidents and diplomats. They also had to manage thousands of acres of land, teach their own children and watched as a fractious republic found its legs. Oh, and they had plenty of slaves, a reality which makes the final chapter of the book a must read.

You can never learn too much about the past as long as you keep an open mind. Calvert’s letters open up some of the realities of early American life, even through the prism of the elite, and demonstrate that the problems we perceive don’t really represent anything new. The America we knew has been here all along.

I admire Andrew Dana Hudson. A graduate from Fordham University last May, he moved to India for a writing job after having no luck finding work near his home in Indiana. He chronicled his story today in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

There might not be room for us recent college graduates in the job market at home, but the world is a big place. I bet somewhere out there is an opportunity for each of us. So go.

I could never do something like this. Heading to a developing country to find a job would have never crossed my mind when I graduated college. Twenty years ago, after I got my diploma, my friends and I also faced uncertain economic times so I kind of understand Hudson’s dilemma.

That’s where the part about his piece I can’t understand comes from. Listen, I know the job market sucks. Only an idiot would argue that. But some of the whining coming from the younger generation - yes, this is me officially becoming a grumpy old man - just flummoxes me. Like this part of this article.

Two friends who studied psychology for four years now work off the books at a sandwich shop. Another, who got her master’s in development studies from Cambridge, became a barista at Starbucks.

Social science majors having trouble finding jobs? What a shocking new development in the world! You mean there are not businesses lining up to hire psychology majors right out of college. [Ralph Wiggum]That’s unpossible![/Ralph]

Dude, this has been happening for ever. I’m an English major. I luckily found a job within a few months of graduating, but it disappeared after a year. I was laid off for eight months before I was hired again, about two years after I graduated. And I was one of the lucky ones from my liberal arts college who could work in his chosen field for one of the two years after I got out of school.

Complaining about the job market is understandable, but stop acting like some of the things going on have only happened to your generation and that you are owed a job in the field you want and the pay scale you want without having to make compromises. There’s only so much sympathy to go around and a lot of people who want it. Entitled young adults dragging their crosses across the landscape will probably come at the bottom of most people’s lists.

Most sports fans know that one of the saddest things you can ever witness is a great champion not knowing when it’s time to step aside.

Not many athletes step aside at the top of their game. The yearly intrigue of whether certain players will retire has almost become a punch line in some circles.

Yeah, I’m looking at you Brett Favre.

But these situations don’t always apply to the monied stars we see on television. Sometimes the guy who hangs around too long only lives in some niche universe where only a handful of fans understand the dilemma.

Then there are those who face this dilemma inside themselves. They only disappoint an audience of one when they can’t compete at the level they are accustomed to.

That’s how I felt one day last week on my family’s annual beach vacation. I realized that I might not have the chops to take on the kind of waves I used to in my younger days.

Read More »

Ordinarily, I like change. I think fighting the inevitable flow of life simply makes people upset for no good reason.

Sometimes this means letting go of the things we hold near and dear to our hearts, but that’s the price we pay for living in this modern world. As with most things, however, there are exceptions.

Like my pillow.

Somehow over the past decade or so, my pillow has evolved from a source of comfort and rest to a floppy piece of fabric unfit for man or beast. The thing has lost any source of support.

I stuck by my old friend for a long time. I would fold him up to try and make a half-sized pillow that would meet my needs, but that never quite worked. More often than not, I ended up with an arm underneath the pillow for some support, which would kind of help me sleep, but always resulted in my arm falling asleep.

We have plans to buy a new bed because our current mattress has seen better days, but we started the process the other day by shopping for pillows.

Read More »

I have been thinking about how to write my review for Toy Story 3 for a few weeks now. Unfortunately, my friend Dave Lifton stole the minimalistic approach so I didn’t want to go that route. But the reality is that I bawled like a baby. You likely will too. Not just in the final scene, though. I cried for a good 10 minutes. Don’t think you will be immune to this possibility.

This movie better get serious Oscar consideration when the awards come out next year. I’m not talking about token “Hey, Pixar is pretty cool and this movie was popular” recognition. This is Best Picture material.

Someone once told me that I shouldn’t come to work expecting to make friends. I have been criticized in the past for having a fun attitude at my job. Toy Story 3 made me remember that people who think that way are the real ones with the problem.

We should never outgrow our imagination. We should never let go of the things which make us feel like a kid. The minute we do that, we have lost our tenuous grip on reality. Life is too short to take everything seriously.

That’s why I cried at the end of this movie. I realized how lucky I am to have the ability to still play, whether it’s creating a scenario in my head for fun or goofing off with my daughter. Some people think we should stop enjoying those things once we hit a certain age. Those people are dead wrong.

If Toy Story 3 wins the Oscar, it might not change the workaholics and self-absorbed people of the world, but it will validate the kid inside people like me. You can’t put that in the bank, but it can make you feel a little bit better about the world around us.

Even if you do cry like a baby.

Apparently Apple released some sort of new phone the other day. I think I heard about it because people were camped out in front of stores hours before they opened to get the new product.

I may be wrong though because I think these Apple people were camped out in front of stores a few weeks ago for something else new, something I heard described as just a really big phone without the phone capability.

So I didn’t know at first if they really had a new phone out or if these people had just missed the memo and showed up too late for the iPad thingamajig. Or maybe they just like spending the night in front of Apple stores.

Read More »

The Internet has done some wonderful things for this world. We can instantly find out the answer to any question. We have many different ways to waste time. We can keep in touch with long-lost friends.

However, Al Gore’s intricate system of tubes and wires has a downside. By this, I mean the hue and cry whenever a television show is canceled. Given that I went nuts online when Parks & Recreation was moved to a mid-season replacement for the 2010-11 season, I feel a little hyocritical. But it’s the angst from the lesser known shows that makes me wish Uncle Al had never finished his invention.

The example now is Party Down. If you aren’t familiar with the show, you have justified why it no longer exists. I have never seen the show myself, but am sure it’s a fine piece of entertainment. To tie an earlier fact together with this topic, one of the reasons the show no longer exists is because star Adam Scott left to join the Parks & Rec cast.

Kinda, sorta. He took the new job because the fate of Party Down was not determined yet, and he couldn’t afford to sit and wait. All these developments together have fans of his old show a little bummed out, enough to have a #savepartydown hash tag floating around Twitter. I can understand a little since losing a show you love can hurt. The thing I don’t like about how the Internet affects thing is related to one nugget of information I have not shared yet.

Party Down appeared on Starz. Yes, Starz. You know, the pay network that isn’t HBO or Showtime. This is like protesting the CW canning a show. People may have liked the show, but it wasn’t on a real network. You shouldn’t get that angry when the network of last-resort cancels your favorite show. It’s kind of an omen.

So what we have are the usual crew (some are friends) of people who think that any cult show on any non-mainstream channel is just awesome is getting totally screwed when it doesn’t become the world’s biggest hit. Maybe the show is awesome. Maybe it should have a new life somewhere. But the reality is that it ended up on a channel that not a lot of people have - a channel you have to pay extra for, no less - and not many people watched it.

We have just a short time until the remastered version of Fables of the Reconstruction, R.E.M.’s third album, hits the stores. The bonus goodie for this one will be a set of demos the band did before they headed to London to make the record.

As I said before, there was some consternation from some R.E.M. fans because so many demos already exist. This set does seem to represent something new for the band’s vast catalog. I didn’t find any of the versions I have heard familiar.

I really like this because the live sets released with the first two remastered CDs were widely available. I did like getting a cleaner version of them, but a few songs disappeared, presumably due to royalty issues.

Either way, I like that this new disc will have something really new. I also like the way I have been able to find this out - 25 different web sites are apparently being used to release songs online to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Fables.

So you can hear the demo versions of “Can’t Get There From Here” on the Entertainment Weekly site or “Auctioneer” on the Consequence of Sound site.

I’m not going to list all 25 here because I’m lazy and haven’t even found all of them yet, but if you Google the album’s title, you can probably track most of them down. Or you can just buy the album when it comes out in less than two weeks.