The Flight Over Here

Seven and a half hours from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, a long walk through the Schipol Airport, then and hour and a half to Capenhagen. As usual, I couldn’t sleep at all. And, as usual, I cried at an in-flight movie: Rocky Balboa. As I had read in reviews, it really is a fitting end to that series of movies, a series which sometimes expemplified the worst of 1980s filmmaking. Stallone wrote and directed it, which gives me more respect for him that I’d previously had.

I also watched Casino Royale. As a young boy, I read all of Ian Fleming’s novels about James Bond, so I was confused when I watched the movies — also examples of bad 1980s filmmaking — like Moonraker. The books were about long card games in exotic locales, while the movies were about guys skiing and shooting at each other with their gun/ski poles. Casino Royale not only parallels the book of the same name, but Daniel Craig is the most kick-ass Bond ever. His chase scene on foot beats any other Bond chase scene in cars. And, he screws up, which other Bonds never did — it’s a Bond who’s learning epistemic humility!

PS: Thank God the Phil Yancey — who has my dream job (author/columnist/speaker) — is all right.