Lincoln 2012

Every Summer provides a blockbuster round of big budget movies that are for the most part lacking in anything except large CGI explosions (or any other word you want to insert here). There are obviously exceptions to this but I would like to point out that the two most popular movies of this past summer were The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. Both are very exceptional movies and both had their share of things going boom. As a person who enjoys going to the movies I do enjoy the buffet of gluttony that is the Summer movie season, but I also want to see movies that stimulate more than the lower part of my brain that is entranced by bright moving pictures and explosions.

Oohhhhh pretty

That being said, this fall is an exciting time for movie goers. There are quite a few movies that could be great. I already saw Argo, Ben Affleck’s latest directorial hit – it still feels weird typing the words “hit” and “Ben Affleck” in the same sentence. Argo was awesome and Affleck’s come a long way since he repeatedly tried to let Michael Bay flush his career down the toilet. I also saw the new epic that is Cloud Atlas… and I loved it. Cloud Atlas is going to be a polarizing film and is not for everyone. It’s a long movie with a lot of things going on, so if you’re someone who is easily distracted, or think Twilight is good, then you probably shouldn’t go see Cloud Atlas because within two minutes you will be completely lost and you’re brain will collapse in on itself (black hole style) due to its own useless weight . I can’t even begin to talk about how excited I am about The Hobbitt, which comes out in December. Nerds everywhere rejoice!

The movie that I’m most excited about, and this post is dedicated to, is Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg. I’m so excited about this movie I feel it necessary to explain my absolute Christmas-morning, giddiness or else risk the danger of being sealed in a room where pillows aren’t necessary because the walls and floor are already downy soft.

4. Daniel Day-Lewis

Daniel Day-Lewis has been cast in the role of the emancipator himself. Taking on the role of any historical figure can be difficult, but it’s even more compounded when you have to play the person often regarded as the greatest president in the history of our country. Day-Lewis has the acting chops to fill this role perfectly. Many of you may not even know who Daniel Day-Lewis is because he takes on so few acting roles (this is only his fifth movie since 1997). If you do know anything about Day-Lewis then you know he gets nominated for an Oscar for just about every role he takes. Basically every few years Day-Lewis decides he wants to add to his trophy collection and stars in a masterpiece.

It's a little bit like this

So far he’s been nominated three times for Best Actor at the Oscars and won two of them.  The one time he lost was in his role for Gangs of New York where he happened to have won seventeen other awards from various organizations. This is nothing compared to his role from There Will be Blood where he won the Oscar for Best Actor along with TWENTY-EIGHT other awards including a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award.

Yeah, I think Daniel Day-Lewis will do just fine.  

3. Team of Rivals

It’s no secret I love reading like a deer loves headlights. Many of my previous blog posts are about my narcotics-like book habit. I am also inquisitive about history (i.e. a nerd) and love learning, especially about the Civil War (because if you’re going to learn about your own history, you might as well focus on the time we all tried to kill each other). Last spring I decided I could double down and get my reading and Civil War fix all in one sitting and started reading Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. For those of you not familiar with this desire, imagine wanting fried food and a candy bar at the same time. While most people would simply go to KFC and then stop at the gas station on the way home, you intrepidly decide to go to the state fair where they will batter and deep fry a Snickers for you. Problem solved.

It comes with a side of Pepto

Team of Rivals was a great book and showcased Lincoln’s ability to handle all the strong personalities of Washington, including his own cabinet. After reading the book I came to the conclusion that Lincoln was possibly the greatest political genius in American History. This book happens to be what the new Lincoln movie is based on. The book focused on Lincoln’s entire presidency while the movie will only focus on the last few months of the war. I suppose it would be quite difficult to turn a 944 page book into a single movie

2. No Vampires

Besides Team of Rivals, I also read another Lincoln book last spring, A. Lincoln, which was a meager 816 pages long. With these two book combined I had read 1760 pages over Abraham Lincoln. Suffice to say, I had Lincoln on my mind. I then went to see an early summer movie which had a trailer that started with what looked like images of 19^th century America. My interest was growing by the second and then images of Abraham Lincoln reciting some of his most famous words began playing. By this point I was absolutely livid and probably on the verge of having security called on me. I had just read so much about Lincoln and here was a movie coming out about the man himself! You can imagine my disappointment when I found out this promising trailer was about a vampire movie

I have a dream too, and it just got crushed!

Thanks for nothing Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

1. It’s Lincoln and I’m a nerd

By now this point should be the most obvious out of my entire thesis for today. I’m excited about the Lincoln movie because of how deeply rooted my nerdiness really is, especially when it comes to history. Most middle school kids read books found in the teen section of books store. Actually, I lied, most middle school kids don’t read books, but the kids that do, read books in the teen section. On the other hand there’s me whose parents would buy their child books over the Civil War because of how voracious his appetite was. I even played video games over the Civil War.

As a 12 year old I was a worse strategist than Burnside but did drink less than Grant

The fact that this movie is coming out in the same year that I read two Lincoln books, one of them which the film is based on, probably means my life is now complete. There’s not a whole lot left to do. Everything has already been accomplished that can possibly be done here on Earth. I will now have to turn from history to the future of science fiction. Futuristic, sci-fi like accomplishments are probably years away, but I can always dream. Maybe one day humans will be doing space jumps like in the newest Star Trek movie. That would be really cool to see.

What? That's already been done? HE WENT HOW FAST!? Excuse me while I throw up