We saw Win Win last a couple of nights ago at an old fashioned movie house. The Guild, built in 1926. It only has one screen and, as the lights dimmed, the manager came down to the front to welcome us. She told us that if we had any problems, like the sound volume or the temperature, to come to the back and tell her. When the curtain opened – when was the last time you were at a movie theater that had a curtain? – they started running previews, not ads.

Befitting the theater, the movie was shot in old fashioned Technicolor film that made it look slightly homemade.  Paul Giamatti was the lead – I am hesitant to say star – and an excellent supporting cast most of whom I have seen before but I am not sure where. I thought it was a very enjoyable movie.

We saw Source Code at our local multiplex in downtown Redwood City. Both the movie and the theater could not have been more different. I am a big fan of this multiplex; I think that it has been a big factor in revitalizing downtown Redwood City. Revitalizing downtown Redwood City may be overstating it, but the downtown is much more lively than it used to be with lots of restaurants.

Anyway, Source Code has Jake Gyllenhaal who almost anybody would say is a star and Michelle Monaghan as a sort of random woman on a train. Vera Farmiga – show below in a gratuitous cheesecake shot to emphasis her non-militaryness – plays an Air Force captain at Nellis Air Force Base. The movie is shot in a hyper-sharp, probably digital, medium; much like the dream sequences in  Inception. I thought it was a very enjoyable movie.

The plot of Win Win revolved around a regular guy with a regular job and a regular family making the sleazy kind of bad decision regular people sometimes make. Source Code revolves  around the totally preposterous premise of putting somebody’s mind into a dead person’s body to relive – with modifications – the last eight minutes of their life which is still around in a sort of after image.

The thing is, when we walked out of Win Win, Michele said, That didn’t seem very realistic, it was just too much of a coincidence that Kyle was a wrestler. I felt the same way. But neither of us felt that way walking out of Source Code.  Because Win Win was so close to real reality, we hold it to a higher standard.  We hold Source Code to a Star Wars standard. All movies are unrealistic; they all include an arc of change and a transformation that most of us haven’t experienced in a lifetime. That’s why we go to the movies.

Last year the Virgina celebrated Confederate History Month with a Proclamation that started out

WHEREAS, April is the month in which the people of Virginia joined the Confederate States of America in a four year war between the states for independence that concluded at Appomattox Courthouse;

and went on in the same vain. It really pissed me off and I posted on my complaint last year, so it is only fair that I post this year’s version. This year the proclamation is completely different, now it is Civil War History in Virginia Month. I like that much better. It says

….it was in April 1861 that Virginia seceded from the Union following a lengthy, contentious and protracted debate within the Commonwealth, and it was in April 1865 that the War was essentially concluded with the South’s surrender at Appomattox….

WHEREAS, the largest wartime population of African-American slaves was in Virginia, yet through their own acts of courage and resilience, as well as the actions of the United States army and federal government, they bequeathed to themselves and posterity a legacy of freedom; and

WHEREAS, slavery was an inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War ended its evil stain on American democracy and set Virginia and America on a still-traveled road to bring to fruition the great promises of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to enjoy equally the blessings of liberty and prosperity; and

WHEREAS, the military leadership and tactics of Virginians like Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson and Union General George Henry Thomas are still studied, analyzed and discussed today; the heroism of brave individuals like William Harvey Carney, who was born a slave in Norfolk, gained his freedom through the Underground Railroad, and received the Medal of Honor for his valor as a Union soldier at the battle of Fort Wagner, inspires us through the ages;

What a difference. The Proclamation has gone from a pro-confederate screed to honoring both the Virginian Confederate generals and the Union General George Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga. More importantly, it honors both whites and blacks, and especially a Virginia slave who won the Medal of Honor.