The Book of Eli is the story of a man’s journey across the barren wasteland of a world destroyed by war.  It’s a story of human nature and faith, and I really enjoyed it.

Everything on the screen looks amazing from the first frame. The presentation is visually stunning using a stark and desaturated palette that perfectly suits the world the story takes place in. A large number of close-ups begin many of the scenes, giving them an epic quality. These shots almost seemed to be overused at one point, but turned out to be an excellent storytelling device as the focus of the close-ups shifts late in the movie.

The score and audio effects used were also amazing, adding a real depth to events.  In particular, two scenes featuring brutal attacks on a defenseless Mila Kunis and the final confrontation between Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman were incredibly powerful as the sound almost went to white noise, overloading my senses.

If there was anything to complain about it was that some of the visuals drew my attention away from the story. At times, Eli’s clothes looked too clean. After a fairly graphic fight scene there was almost not enough blood on the ground. Too much water was spilled for the value that was placed on it, and I couldn’t help but notice some product/brand placement.  There has also been some criticism of the similarities between The Book of Eli and an indie comic published a few years ago called The Book of Jesse. I don’t know much about the comic (although I plan to investigate), but a lot of the rumblings over it seem superficial.

Some complaints were overheard on the way out about the movie being too religious, but let’s face it, if you didn’t know that going in, I don’t know how you even knew about the movie. It’s fairly obvious that there are religious and faith based themes involved.  I even saw buses that read “rELIgion is power” advertising the movie; it’s not like this was a secret.  Even so, where things could have gotten heavy-handed and sanctimonious in the film, they didn’t. The filmmakers went with a subtle approach that I really appreciated.

I’d see The Book of Eli again in a heartbeat.  In fact, I’m planning to. However, if you don’t like the idea of God contaminating your post-apocalyptic samurai Western, this isn’t for you.

After looking at our visitor logs over the last year, I feel I have to do something about a group of states that never visit. You know who you are…well, you really don’t know who you are, do you…

Disclaimer: Before I begin, you should know that we did have a visitor from Utah just last week. However, I had already begun my “research” and wasn’t going to allow this lone visitor to take an installment away from me. Instead they were moved to the top of the list despite being eighth alphabetically.  Also, Angie explained to me that Utah spelled backward is “sneeze” while falling asleep last night.

I’ve never visited the state of Utah, because I’ve never really had a reason to. I have every intention of visiting all 50 states before I’m done, but to date Utah has not been prioritized. Maybe this is why Utahns don’t visit MLD. Are they not visiting us because Jerry Sloan’s Jazz are neither bad nor good enough this season to be worthy of note? Sure they smashed the Sixers already this season, but so have 20 other teams.

Outside of the NBA, the only time Utah even comes to mind is when I’m listening to the The Dwarves or Angie’s watching Big Love. I suppose Point Break might bring it to mind, and I recall Utah Saints being popular in the raver community circa 1992, but how often does any of that come up?

Utah, I know you have towns with great names like Dirty Devil River and Cactus Rat Mine, but outside of Salt Lake City there’s just a whole lot of peoplelessness.  So I beckon you, people of the mountain, don’t let that low population density keep us apart. Put down your snowboarding video games and waste your time on us.  We can even talk about Roseanne Barr and James Woods if you like.

Image courtesy of Greenwich Mean Time.com.

Other states that never stop by: Nebraska, Maine

The New Jersey Nets have already set the record for consecutive losses to start a season. Could the Nets break the all-time season loss record?

The Nets record is currently 3 and 36, giving them at a winning percentage of .077. This puts them on pace to win 6 or 7 games and finish with 75 to 76 losses. The all time loss record is 73 held by the 1972-73 Sixers (on pace to win a miserable 27 this season).

At nearly the halfway point in the season, it’s very possible that the Nets could win less than 9 games. I’ll be keeping my eye on the their numbers this season to see if they could take this distinction away from my beloved Sixers.

The Nets play today at 3:30PM against the LA Clippers as part of the NBA‘s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day schedule of afternoon games beginning at 1PM EST across the league.

Our first post was one year ago today.  It’s been a fun adventure so far, and I know we’re all excited about the year to come.  At the six month mark, I took a moment to recap our history and now seems like a good time to do it again.  We’ve had incredible support from readers, hundreds of comments, thousands of visits, and great feedback. We’ve made some changes to the site layout (mostly to your right) in recent weeks to make things easier to find. Thank you to everyone that has taken a moment to look in at what we have to say.

It’s always interesting to see what draws people in and more importantly where they’re drawn in from.  We get hits from all over the world, and it’s the coolest thing to me.  However, I can’t help but notice that some of our very own United States have neglected to stop in. What could possibly be keeping people from the these states from visiting MLD?

Over the next few weeks, I’ve decided to reach out to these areas and see if I can generate any interest from the locals.  Even if I only end up creating a magnet for search engines, I’ll be satisfied.  In the meantime, enjoy this collage.

One of the things I enjoy most about reading comic books is speculating about what happens next. Sometimes what comes out of this process happens, sometimes it’s better that it doesn’t. Regardless, my favorite titles have kept me coming back for a long time.  Earlier tonight, I was thinking about Marvel‘s Amazing Spider-Man comic and what’s been going on for the last few years.

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