Indiana Will is Uncommon

And a very happy July 4th to Stroock's Book's reader(s), except the British. Also the Canadians. You guys can all suck it. 

Today will be the last day that some Americans awake with all ten fingers. Such is the price of freedom. [Serves you right, bloody Yanks-Ed]

As for us, aside from hitting the gym early as it closes at 1 PM, we'll be treating today like any other. There's a fireworks display at nearby North Branch Park and we'll be able to enjoy them from our driveway. 

Uncommon Valor* Week: This film expertly creates tension. Colonel Rhodes' freelance commando team has two tasks.  Liberate the prison camp and steal three choppers from a nearby base to make their escape. The assault on the chopper base has a few snags and takes longer than anticipated. Back at the camp, the guards are marching the prisoners toward a bridge for work across the river. Once the prisoners are across the bridge, Rhodes' team won't be able to rescue them.

No one knows what to do.  But as the prisoners approach the bridge, the explosives expert, Blaster, blows it up. And away we go! The assault force begins the operation not knowing if the choppers are in the air. As the battle rages, the three captured choppers arrive. Well hell, if we didn't have that damn emotional reaction. But wait! Enemy boats are coming up the river, and the bridge isn't completely demolished as reinforcements approach...

With the failure of Indiana Jones and the Kathleen Kennedy Skank Self Insert, last night we decided to watch Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. We haven't seen this film in a couple of decades. A few thoughts...The Last Crusade is bright, shinny, much more so than its predecessors and it looks slightly off to us.  There's a lot of humor, a lot of jokes, a lot of tongue-in-cheek. A lot. Like, every scene. The humor is well done but also overdone. We thought the opening sequence was delightful in every way. Overall, it's almost as if Stephen Spielberg knows how to make a good movie. The Last Crusade rates a 3/4 and wins the Bronze medal in the Indiana Ones trilogy. [Wait, what about...-Ed] I said trilogy!

We read through the strike aftermath chapter in World War 1990: The Final Storm. What we have is fine. The chapter seems at once too much and not enough. Basically, it's half a dozen vignettes around the world as the American Emergency Broadcast System goes live. Ideas welcome.  

*Note, we don't have to use stupid British spellings. Thank you, George Washington.