Posted by Rob on September 16, 2009 – 6:33 am
Filed under Books, History
Tagged as book, civil war, confederate, federal, grant, History, lee, mcclellan, meade, military, none died in vain, north, rebel, robert leckie, south, union
As I had previously mentioned, despite the fact that I am a history nerd, specializing in American history, I was always ashamed that I knew little about the Civil War. Though most history nerds like myself love the Civil War, I did not, as my main area of focus is the colonies up through the War of 1812. So when I had to choose my final graduate level history course, I decided to finally learn about the Civil War, so I took a seminar on it. The first book we had to read was Robert Leckie’s None Died in Vain.
The book is an exhausting 640 pages of everything about the Civil War, starting with the Mexican War (where many of the generals who would fight for the North or South during the Civil War actually fought together for the U.S.) up to the assassination of President Lincoln. In this respect, it was great. I learned a lot about the war, and the varying causes of it. It was really interesting to learn how the future generals got their combat experience fighting alongside each other, and then later turned these tactics against each other on the battlefield.
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Posted by Rob on August 28, 2009 – 11:14 pm
Filed under Movies
Tagged as agent, alien, big bad bob, bigbadbob, bounty hunter, disney, dwayne johnson, family, federal, kids, movie, predator, race to witch mountain, terminator, the rock
Sure, its meant to be a kids movie. Its made by Disney, has some young kids getting into trouble. My real interest in it is from the star: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I have loved pretty much every movie Johnson ever did (aside from Scorpion King). He made a big leap from wrestling to the movies, and he did a damn good job. He has proven to be one of the best actors today, and he is one of the few who dont piss me off. Like Hogan, he moved from the squared circle to the professional film circuit, but unlike Hulk he did a damn good job, and is not as corny. So I rent the movie for him.
The movie is a remake of an older movie, and based on a book. Basically, some kids are being hunted by federal agents because they are not kids, but aliens from another planet. Johnson’s character is a taxi driver who picks them up (not knowing they are aliens since they look like normal kids) and the adventure is born as he helps them evade capture. The point of it all is to get to Witch Mountain, where the kids spaceship is being held at a secret underground military base, so that they can blast off back to their home planet.
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