Tony Romo Pops the Question to Candice Crawford

CNN reported this morning that Candice Crawford was proposed to by Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo.

Crawford works as a reporter for KDAF TV and as the two celebrated her birthday at Five Sixty in Dallas Romo popped the question to the 24-year-old. Romo is 30-years-old and well known for being Jessica Simpson's ex-boyfriend.

As well as being a reporter, Crawford is known for being the sister of 'Gossip Girl' star Chase Crawford.

Tron Legacy: 2010: A Digital Odyssey

Tron Legacy is best seen at The Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. That's where this blogger saw it just over an hour ago. The grand space with it's indirect lighting is the perfect backdrop for a most unsettling movie.

Tron Legacy is so because it's a cross between the 1982 Tron and 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In fact, you should see both of those movies before you set foot into the Grand Lake to see Tron Legacy. The Jeff Bridges-starring flick makes you think about the meaning of your own existence. It's also yet another story featuring White Guy Playing God While Not Mentioning God.   That was the unsettling part: the man-replace-God theme, again.

Yep. The "White Guy Playing God While Not Mentioning God" theme is hammered into us everyday.  Be it Stephen Hawking working to say God doesn't exist, and trying to make himself look like one in the process, or some Atheist like Christopher Hitchens asserting his all-knowing self into your life, telling you there is no God to trust in him, Christopher.

This happens so much so I view it as part of The Matrix. And in order to avoid being brainwashed by The Matrix you have to question of frequency of what you see. How many times have you seen the "Black Guy Playing God While Not Mentioning God" theme in a movie? How about in life? Hard to find an example, eh?   And frankly, I find that idea just as unsettling as the "White Male God" message.

But I digress.

Everything about Tron Legacy is 2001 A Space Odyssey, all the way down to these connections: Hal 9000 is Clu, the program-human created by Kevin Flynn (Bridges) that becomes all too self-aware. Kevin Flynn and Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) are Dave in 2001: the person we take the journey with to where he eventually becomes the star-child, the entity around which a new life form is born. That life form is represented by Quorra (Olivia Wilde), who was created by Kevin Flynn and is the last of her kind.

Ultimately, it's left to the elder Flynn as Dave to take down Clu as Hal 9000.

While I've given away the central theme of Tron Legacy, that doesn't mean it's not a film worth $11 and 3D glasses to see. It's worth every penny.  Even if the 3D wasn't really all that necessary.  In fact, there's a disclaimer at the start of the movie that some parts of it are presented in 2D, not 3D.  But I found myself pulling up my 3D glasses to get a view of Tron Legacy without them.   What I saw wasn't too bad.   Yes, 3D added something, but it wasn't the WOW factor we've come to expect from movies like Avatar, the Gold Standard for 3D to date.

Jeff Bridges Was OK

Jeff Bridges was just OK in his role as Kevin Flynn.  His flip 1960s hipster / LA Lakers Coach Phil Jackson-esque style injected just the right amont of humor into tense moments, though I can see how some would be annoyed with the act.

Garrett Hedlund was a little too action frat boyish to be believed, but we accept him as Sam Flynn, Kevin's son.

But where Garrett Hedlund was subpar, and that's due to the way the character of Sam was written, not to his acting skills, Olivia Wilde as Quorra was awesome.  She was, of all of the characters, the one you rooted for the most.  Quorra, a digital creation, was the most human of all entities in Tron Legacy.  Seeing her escape the digital world feel the sunlight at Tron's end, made up for whatever discomfort I had with the whole "White Man God" thing.

And why the discomfort?  Regardless of who does the God thing, human's aren't ready to be God, let alone play God.  Our idea of God as expressed in movies and books has little to do with being good, and everything to do with lording over other people, against their will.  

Lord, help us.

Burlesque Leads Pack Of Oscar Original Song Contenders, 41 In All

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) reports that 41 songs have made the list of contenders for the "Original Song" category for the 83rd Academy Awards.

Of them, the musical Burlesque leads all movies with 3 songs in the hunt: Bound to You, Welcome to Burlesque, and You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me.

Following Burlesque in songs on the list are several films with two songs in the competition: Black Tulip, Despicable Me, and Country Strong. Below is the entire list provided by AMAPAS:

Alice from Alice in Wonderland
Forever One Love from Black Tulip
Freedom Song from Black Tulip
Bound to You from Burlesque
Welcome to Burlesque from Burlesque
You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me from Burlesque
There’s a Place for Us from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Coming Home from Country Strong
Me and Tennessee from Country Strong
Despicable Me from Despicable Me
Prettiest Girls from Despicable Me
Dear Laughing Doubters from Dinner for Schmucks
Better Days from Eat Pray Love
If You Run from Going the Distance
Darkness before the Dawn from Holy Rollers
Sticks & Stones from How to Train Your Dragon
Le Gris from Idiots and Angels
Chanson Illusionist from The Illusionist
Never Say Never from The Karate Kid
To the Sky from Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
What If from Letters to Juliet
Life during Wartime from Life during Wartime
Made in Dagenham from Made in Dagenham
Little One from Mother and Child
Be the One from The Next Three Days
If I Rise from 127 Hours
When You See Forever from The Perfect Game
I Remain from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Dream Big from Pure Country 2: The Gift
How I Love You from Ramona and Beezus
Darling I Do from Shrek Forever After
Noka Oi from Six Days in Paradise
This Is a Low from Tamara Drewe
I See the Light from Tangled
Rise from 3 Billion and Counting
We Belong Together from Toy Story 3
Eclipse: All Yours from The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Nothing from Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too
A Better Life from Unbeaten
Shine from Waiting for ‘Superman’
The Reasons Why from Wretches & Jabberers


The Academy's Teni Melidonian explains:

On Thursday, January 6, the Academy will screen clips featuring each song, in random order, for voting members of the Music Branch in Los Angeles. Following the screenings, members will determine the nominees by an averaged point system vote. If no song receives an average score of 8.25 or more, there will be no nominees in the category. If only one song achieves that score, it and the song receiving the next highest score shall be the two nominees. If two or more songs (up to five) achieve that score, they shall be the nominees. A DVD copy of the song clips will be made available to those branch members who are unable to attend the screening and who request it for home viewing. A mail-in ballot will be provided.


Under Academy rules, a maximum of two songs may be nominated from any one film. If more than two songs from a film are in contention, the two songs with the most votes will be the nominees.


To be eligible, a song must consist of words and music, both of which are original and written specifically for the film. A clearly audible, intelligible, substantive rendition of both lyric and melody must be used in the body of the film or as the first music cue in the end credits.

The Academy will announce the winning nominations on Tuesday, January 25th at 5:30 AM, in the in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be held Sunday, February 27th on the ABC Television Network.

Shelley Malil: 40 Year Old Virgin Actor Sentenced to Life For Attempted Murder

Shelley Malil was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole in 12 years for stabbing his ex-girlfriend, Kendra Beebe, over 20 times.  The actor broke down in the courtroom as he apologized for his actions.

The stabbing took place in Kendra Beebe's home in San Diego, California, when Malil came over unannounced and found her drinking wine with another man. Malil grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and stabbed Beebe repeatedly.  Beebe had wounds on her back, arms, chest and neck, as well as two punctured lungs by the time the attack was over.  Malil fled the scene when neighbors heard Beebe's screams and was caught the next day at an Amtrak station in Oceanside.

Malil was convicted 3 months ago after only 4 hours of deliberation.  He may be eligible for parole in 9 years for time served and good behavior.  After the trial Beebe stated that “During the course of the trial it became clear he was an actor, but not a very good actor at that. His testimony was lie after lie after lie.”


John Bobst aka The Force of Nature

Check me out on www.theforceofnature.net

Morgan Freeman: Hoax Tweet That Actor Died

The rumor that Morgan Freeman passed away today made it's way through the twitter universe. The tweet purportedly came from CNN's twitter account. The network has clarified this though saying that "CNN did not report Morgan Freeman death. Rumor is false. CNN will aggressively investigate this hoax."

The hoax fooled many people though as it was re-tweeted throughout the web. I've noticed that celebrity death's seem to happen pretty often on the internet. I remember awhile back there was a rumor that Zach Braff had passed away.

I'm not sure how these things spread so quickly, or why they get started in the first place. Maybe it's that thing we have inside of us that makes us want to be the first to tell our friends about something, that makes us jump to pass along news like this. You know the urge I'm talking about, the one that makes you send out Youtube links to people in hopes that you'll be the first to introduce them to some hilarious video. We always want to be one of the first to know, or tell, about something, and so things like this spread like wildfire through the interweb.

And I'm not really sure about the people who actually start these rumors. As far as their motivation is concerned I mean. We all know that one person who does things just to see what happens. Maybe this is the same mentality behind spreading around fake celebrity death reports. I remember in the case of Zach Braff the guy who started it was dubbed, "douchebag" of the day by Zach Braff himself, for making his mother cry.

I think in the end people just want to feel special and get attention. The person who started today's rumor is anonymous for now, but he's still getting attention. Attention by people like me who write about this stuff, and people like you who read about it.

The point is, don't believe everything you read on twitter and people are attention whores, and hopefully the guy who started today's rumor didn't make anyone in Morgan Freeman's family cry.

John Bobst aka The Force of Nature

Check out my other work at www.theforceofnature.net

Grim Sleeper: LAPD Releases Photos of Potential Victims

The LAPD released photos today that were discovered on the property of Lonnie Franklin Jr.  A man who was arrested for the murder of 10 women in July of 2010.  The killings occurred between 1985 and 2007, with a 14 year break in between from 1988 to 2002.  This period of inactivity is what earned the serial killer the nickname "Grim Sleeper."

The police found over a thousand photographs of women in the serial killers trailer.  The photographs are sexually explicit in nature and in some cases the women appear to be dead or severely drugged.  There are 180 different women among the 1 thousand or so photos that were discovered.

The crimes that Lonnie Franklin are accused of were traced back to him through ballistics and DNA evidence found at the scene of these crimes.  But the police cannot be certain that these are the only murders he committed and released the photos in an attempt to possibly identify more victims of the serial killer.  The chief of police Charlie Beck said "We certainly do not believe that we are so lucky, or so good, as to know all of his victims,"We need the public's help."


The images have been made available through the media and online.  Due to the explicit nature of the photos the LAPD has cropped the images to only show the faces of the women.  The photos can be found on the LAPD's website at http://www.lapdonline.org/  

John Bobst aka The Force of Nature

Check out comics and other writings at www.theforceofnature.net

Facebook Glitch: Social Network Site Went Down

Facebook went down for 30 minutes on 12/16/10.  The site was taken down intentionally at 4:15 due to some glitches with an upgrade of new features.  Facebook issued this statement in regards to the temporary shutdown

"For a brief period of time, some internal prototypes were made public to a number of people externally.  As a result, we took the site down for a few minutes.  It’s back up, and we apologize for the inconvenience."

John Bobst aka The Force of Nature

Check out my other work at www.theforceofnature.net