I'm not going to post a full review of the movie "Hell Or High Water," but I liked it. Chris Pine and Ben Foster are good as the bank-robbing brothers, and there's a little bit of a "Bonnie and Clyde" feel to the movie. It's not in the same league as that Robert Benton classic, but it's well made and worth your time. My only complaint is that Jeff Bridges once again mumbles his way through his role as a Texas Ranger, just as he has ever since playing the Rooster Cogburn/John Wayne part in the "True Grit" remake a few years ago. If an unknown actor auditioned for this role sounding like he had two pounds of chewing tobacco in his mouth, he'd be shown the door -- but director David Mackenzie lets Bridges get away with it, to the character's detriment.
Several people have emailed asking why I've been silent on the Colin Kaepernick controversy. The answer: I don't care. One of the benefits to not doing a daily talk radio show is that I don't get drawn into these minor issues that get blown way out of proportion. You want to get pissed off about an NFL player exercising his first amendment right to protest whatever he's upset about? Go ahead, as long as, while you're exercising your first amendment rights, you don't deny his. And don't bring veterans into this. No American soldier ever fought a war to protect you from being offended.
If you want something juicy to discuss about the NFL, think about how the future of the league will be impacted by the recent class action suit against Pop Warner football. That organization gets millions in funding from the NFL (as do lots of other youth football leagues), but it may be rocked to the core by this. The plaintiffs -- moms of boys whose lives were ruined by brain trauma caused by football -- say Pop Warner didn't do enough to protect their sons from concussions and other head injuries, and used amateur coaches who didn't have proper training in how to recognize and avoid them. With participation numbers already way down, and fewer parents likely to allow their sons to play full-contact football in years to come, the stream of potential talent for the NFL, colleges, and high schools will be reduced dramatically.
I'm looking forward to seeing "The White Rabbit Project," a new Netflix series coming in December. It's from the producers of "Mythbusters," and will star Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tori Belleci from that show (but not Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman). The press release says, "the three head down the rabbit hole to investigate weird and wonderful events from pop culture, science and history. Under their microscope are topics as diverse as jailbreaks, superpower technology, heists and crazy world war two weapons." Okay, I'm in.