This Is An Open Comment Thread... (Summer Visitation 2009)

Photo By John Hoff

From time to time, individuals who frequent this blog have suggested the idea of an "open comment thread." Sometimes there is an urgent need to communicate certain neighborhood issues to the world at large, over the internet, but the particular JNS blog posts up near the top (where discussion tends to take place, not so much on older posts) may not have a relevant topic for the urgent discussion.

Despite that obstacle, sometimes very important "off topic" discussions have indeed taken place when readers just ignore the topic of the particular blog post and communicate something urgently, even using the blog as an organizing tool.

Two examples: Hawthorne's leadership learned 3007 3rd St. N. had fallen into the hands of a particularly evil slumlord and, another time, we made contact with a guy who was interested in buying a particular boarded house and transforming it. We're still working on helping him acquire that house.

My regular readers are well aware I'll try new things. So I'm posting this photo of my son attending "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" but readers can talk about whatever pressing topics they like.

As for myself...

...I'll talk about this movie I saw with my son.

First of all, it's pretty good for a sequel, just based upon one overwhelmingly important criteria: you don't need to see the first movie to understand the second one. Like, yeah yeah, the evil Decipticons are at war with the good-hearted Autobots, and humanity is caught in the middle. Again.

One of the best things about this movie is Megan Fox. Clearly, there must be large swaths of the script which only say things like, "Cut to Megan Fox's expressive face, pouty lips, sparkling eyes." And yet I find my heartstrings being ruthlessly played, because Fox's character does one thing so well: she loves her boyfriend, and they both have a distinctly American love affair with cars. I can sit there watching with my 12-year-old son and think, "If Alex had a girlfriend like that during his first year of college, I could believe his whole life would continue to go well."

Fox's semi-wholesome character doesn't have skimpy, revealing costumes. And she doesn't act all vampy-trampy except, well, maybe just once in the first scene in which she appears...but then you see the more complicated layers of her character being swiftly peeled away and revealed: this incredibly hot girl cares about her troubled father. She's trying to keep the family business running. She cares about FAMILY. That's what makes her a good girlfriend, not merely the fact she's smoking hot.

The most heartbreaking scene of the movie is when she's waiting for a live video chat...and her boyfriend never shows up. Some evil Decepticon taking on human form has...well, I don't want to spoil the movie, but let's just say there are times when the internal alien probe doesn't look all bad.

One of the WORST things about "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is surely the goofy twin autobots who deliver one liners like, "That's because you a pussy." These characters are (pardon my geek speak) the autobot equivalent of Jar Jar Binks and Wesley Crusher. How do the makers of movies and television shows manage--time and time again--to deliver characters which are supposed to amuse and inspire, and yet merely annoy?

But my kid liked it. And he wants to see it again and again and again...