First Entry

I am writing a blog to learn about blogs, including whether anyone will actually read this blog. We shall see . . . I recently rented "Kandahar," a movie made in 2001, but before 9-11, about a woman who attempts to travel to, surprisingly, Kandahar. I went out onto www.imdb.com to see a review. Roger Ebert gave this movie 3 stars out of 4. If Roger gave this movie 3 stars, I believe I could make 3 star movie about my family's almost-annual trek from Littleton, Colorado to Cache Valley, Utah, typically taken be means of southern Wyoming, a stretch of land that seems to resemble how the surface of the moon would appear if grass, sage brush, fences, an occasional cow or oil well, and billboards were added. Clearly this pedestrian (as you are not likely to have seen this movie, you would not know that "Kandahar's" protagonist does, in fact, have to resort to walking significant distances, so it is unnecessary for me to note "no pun intended" here) movie drew popular interest as the world came to focus on Afghanistan, but I was quite surprised to see Roger give the movie such a good review (then again, Roger panned, "Napoleon Dynamite," which I heartily recommend over this film). I watched an extra on the "Kandahar" DVD about the young woman who made the film, and she is an admirable person indeed, but not a first-rate film-maker. If you want to see some landscapes from Afghanistan and learn a few things about the culture and politics there, watching "Kandahar" is one way to do it, I suppose, but so is reading an encyclopedia. If you're looking for quality entertainment, I refer you to the greatest television program of all time. That's right, "The Dick van Dyke Show." So there, I've spouted off about something. Let's see what happens.