MVC Cross Country is this week, Throws Pentathlon, KC Royals and a couple of foreign "I" films

It’s been a busy week with all kinds of stuff going on so here’s the recap …

Track

In my world, which is the sprint/hurdle group, we had our toughest week of practice so far this fall.  Basically I killed them this week.  What does a tough week of training for a sprinter look like?  Here’s the basic outline for what we did:

Monday – all kinds of sprinting activities (and hurdling for the hurdlers), plyometrics and weights.

Tuesday – speed endurance (this only takes about an hour but it’s the most exhausting workout of the week).

Wednesday – our easy day, hurdle mobility, a couple miles to loosen the legs, stadium runs, and weights.

Thursday – more sprinting (and hurdling) as well as a hill workout.

Friday – hurdle mobility, plyometrics and weights.

Saturday – we got up early in the morning and did 10x200m (for most of the group) with one minute rest.

Sunday – I told them to take the day off!

Now maybe for some people that might not seem like a ton of stuff but understand the intensity level at which most of this work gets done for a sprinter.  I also left most of the details out and the devil is always in the details.  Needless to say my group probably hates me right now but that’s ok, hopefully they love me when the championship time comes around!

 MVC Cross Country Championships

This is a big week for our program as our cross country team will head to Carbondale, Illinois (Southern Illinois University), for the MVC Championships.  This year’s meet looks to be very close for both the men and women.

Historically we’ve had very good women’s cross country, winning a string of five straight MVC titles from 2006-2010, but after a couple a second place finishes in 2011 and 2012 our young ladies group fell to fifth last year.  This year’s group is a year older and running much better so a higher finish looks very possible.  Our men haven’t won a MVC title since 1987 but a third place finish a couple years ago laid the foundation for the men’s team we have today.  The guys probably would’ve liked to have run better at pre-nationals but we think they are much better than what they showed.  It’s a fun group to watch work together and I’m excited to make the trip to Illinois for the meet!

The races happen Saturday morning.  If you can’t make it in person make sure to check GoShockers.com for the results!

Throws Pentathlon

Our throwers were the center of attention this weekend as they held their annual Throws Pentathlon meet at Wichita State.  Coach Hetzendorf started this meet a few years ago as a fun way to do some testing and now it’s turned into an actual meet with some great performances!  I was able to watch most of the competition and saw several personal bests – and for that to happen in October shows our throws group is ready to do big things in 2015!  Good job Dorf!

Recruiting

On top of practice, MVC Cross Country and the Throws Pentathlon, we are all very busy  with recruiting.  The NCAA changed the recruiting calendar this year for track and field to include an early mid-November two-week period for signing.  Because of this, more athletes are visiting in the months of October and November so they can decide where to go to college.  I have a dry erase calendar in my office that shows all kinds of important dates as well as all of our official visits in RED.  My calendar is full of RED!  It will be crazy seeing how many recruits will be around Cessna Stadium in the coming weeks – hopefully we will convince our fair share to commit to Wichita State!

Speaking of that, we got our first commitment recently and I was fortunate enough for it to be one of the athletes I’ve been recruiting.  Because of NCAA rules I can’t comment in this blog about it specifically but I can say we are excited how our recruiting is going and the future of Shocker Track & Field is bright!

Kansas City Royals

Believe it or not with all that is going on I had a free day (well some free hours) so I went up to Kansas City to take in the hysteria that is the Kansas City Royals fans.  Being from a smaller market myself (Cincinnati), I can appreciate not having this opportunity very often.  The last time the Royals were in the World Series was 1985.  I remember being in high school when the Reds were in the World Series in 1990 and how fun it was to be living in the area.  Since they aren’t playing the Reds I will be pulling for the Royals to take the crown!

There were a lot of angry Royals fans after the loss Saturday night.  Memo to all Royals fans: it’s been 29 years since the last time you were here, enjoy it!

“I” Movies

This is the ninth of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) where I list movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some that start with numbers).  I currently own a small collection of 164 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

Most of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely.  Some are movies that I had not seen but was curious about.  Some were gifts from people with bad tastes in movies.

I only have two “I” movies and they are both foreign films so here is the short list from best to worst …..

Movie Name (year made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)

In Bruges (2008, 107 min, R, 8.0, $33.3m) – I can’t remember how I stumbled upon this movie but it is one of my all-time favorites.  It stars Colin Farrell as a hitman who is dealing with his personal demons when a job goes wrong.  It’s darkly funny and very well put together (Bruges is a city in Belgium by the way).  This is the movie that I became a big Colin Farrell fan as I think he is a very good actor.  The English director Martin McDonagh recently did a movie called “Seven Psychopaths” that also starred Farrell.  If you haven’t heard of In Bruges, don’t worry its well worth your 107 minutes!

The Idiots (1998, 117 min, R, 6.9, $??) – Last week when I said I’d give anyone a million dollars if they could guess the two “I” movies I own it was because I knew no one would get this one.  Thanks for those of you who tried, luckily my million dollars are still safe, haha!  A couple years ago I got into a phase of wanting to buy and watch weird movies (I guess I was bored with regular movies) so I found this one online and it’s about as weird as it gets!  It was part of a series of experimental movies made in Denmark in the late 1990’s.  The plot of this movie is that a group of people gather to basically act mentally handicapped in social situations to see what would happen.  Then it went further to their home lives and that’s when it got really weird.  I can’t say I enjoyed this movie although I did laugh several times and it made me think when it was over so I would say I was entertained.  I’m pretty confident I’m the only person in Kansas who owns this movie!

Next week

Obviously I will be back to talk about how our cross country teams did at the MVC Championships as well as letting you know if my group still hates me!  I’ve got 5 “J” movies coming next week including one about a really mean shark and another one about a jerk!

Until then thanks for reading and Go Shocks!!!

Training starts to get tough, Bolt hit 285 golf shots, and a pimp inspires us all

Track

This past week we started our next phase of training after our initial conditioning phase we finished last week.  For us it lines up with our annual Fall Break where WSU students get a couple days off around the mid-term time.  We didn’t have a Fall Break at Kent State (where I went to school) so this was new to me when I started working at WSU.  We use it to give the athletes a few days off and hopefully return to practice refreshed and ready for a new level of training.

Taking a few days off is just as important as trying to push yourself to the limit every day.  It’s impossible for coaches to know when an athlete is most susceptible for injury but it’s much more likely to happen if they don’t take a break here and there.  Our athletes want to be ready right NOW but sometimes they (and we) forget it’s most important to have them ready for the championship portion of the schedule in late February and then May (and beyond).

So after a few days off and a day at the golf course supporting Coach Bolt (see section below), we got back at it on Thursday with our first speed endurance workout of the year.  No matter how good of shape you‘re in, nothing can prepare you for the first time your body fills up with lactic acid from long and intense sprints of 100-500 meters.  I can still remember the first time I did 500-300-300-200-200 with 6 minutes rest.  I laid on the track for what seemed like an hour afterwards wondering what truck had just run me over.  I’m sure I went back to the dorm afterwards and fell asleep immediately.  This is what you have to go through to become a good long sprinter.  Luckily, your body begins to adjust to these types of workouts over time and the recovery process isn’t nearly as bad the next few times.  For a good long sprinter (200/400) these workouts are the “bread and butter” of their training.  It’s the most specific work they will get in preparation for those events.

Thursday was also the first day to get a little event work in so if you had stopped by the track it would’ve looked like a 3-ring circus with hurdles, long jump, pole vault, high jump, sprinting, and throwing all going on at the same time.  Even though it probably seems chaotic to the outside viewer, I usually find myself smiling because I know the indoor season isn’t too far away!

Cross Country Pre-Nationals

Coach Hunter took the cross country squad out to Terre Haute, Indiana, for their toughest challenge of the season so far – the Pre-National Invitational.  Run on the same course as this year’s NCAA Championships it brought together over 100 teams, many of which are ranked in the top-25.  Both of our teams were placed into the “Blue” race, which is reserved for the top teams in the meet.  There were around 40-50 teams in the Blue race and our men placed 31st while our women finished 37th.

Coach Hunter was a little disappointed in the overall placing but felt confident afterwards that our team would be ready in two weeks.  He has done a great job getting this group to believe they can achieve at a high level and I’m sure this little hiccup won’t be a major issue when we’re in Carbondale, Illinois, for the MVC Championships.

Bolt’s 57 hole golf-a-thon

Last week I mentioned Coach Rainbolt would be walking 57 holes of golf (he’s turning 57 this year) to try to raise some money for Shocker T&F.  Well he was able to accomplish the feat and it was a very enjoyable day.  Our entire team of 130 athletes made their way out to Willowbend County Club in shifts to be the “gallery” for the event that began at 7:30am and ended around 5:30pm.  It took Bolt 285 shots to play 57 holes and he said he felt a lot better afterwards than he did compared to his crazy 50k and 55k jog-a-thons.  So far we have raised around $8000 for our program and we expect it will eventually be over 10k.  Thank you to everyone who has donated – it will go a long way towards supporting our great Shocker athletes!

Tallgrass Film Festival

Believe it or not Wichita is the home to a great artistic culture.  Besides things like museums and live music, one of the biggest passions for people in this community is movies.  In 2003, the Tallgrass Film Association began the Tallgrass Film Festival with the motto being “stubbornly independent”.  It is much like the famous film festivals you may have heard about like Cannes and Sundance.  There are over 200 films being shown in Wichita this weekend and I always try to get out and see a few of these great shows.

I was able to get out to a couple of films this weekend and my favorite was a collection of short films made by Kansans or films about the state of Kansas.  There isn’t anywhere else you would be able to see such unique and quality cinema except a festival like this.  Thanks Tallgrass!

“H” Movies

This is the eighth of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) where I list movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some that start with numbers).  I currently own a small collection of 164 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

Most of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely.  Some are movies that I had not seen but was curious about.  Some were gifts from people with bad tastes in movies.

I only have 5 “H” movies but they are all very good so here is the list from best to worst …..

Movie Name (year made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)

Hustle & Flow (2005, 116 min, R, 7.4, $23.5m) – It’s hard to imagine a movie about a pimp who tries to become a successful rapper is one of my all-time favorite movies – but it is!  Terrance Howard is incredible as Djay, the down on his luck pimp who is desperately trying to earn a legitimate living but can’t quite turn the corner.  One of the most fascinating things about this movie is that it was written and directed by a white guy (Craig Brewer).  This was a low budget movie that was an obvious labor of love for Brewer.  If you haven’t seen it, make sure to find a copy soon.  “Everybody gotta have a dream.”

The Hurt Locker (2008, 131 min, R, 7.6, $49.2m) – Jeremy Renner stars as a Sergeant in the Iraq War who is assigned to a bomb squad and ruffles his fellow mates with his wild ways to disarm bombs.  This movie won all kinds of award including best picture of 2008 and it’s easy to see why.  Brutally honest and seemingly realistic, it will open your eyes as to why people do this sort of job and want to go back again and again even in the most harsh and dangerous situations.  I love this movie and the final scene with Renner marching off the plane will give you goosebumps, not knowing if it’s a good or bad thing.

He Got Game (1998, 136 min, R, 6.9, 21.5m) – This Spike Lee movie stars Denzel Washington as the father of the best high school basketball player in the nation (played by NBA star Ray Allen).  As a young athlete when this came out I was totally engaged in the behind the scenes recruiting as well as the drama of how all this affects a young, talented person.  It’s not a perfect movie but I think it’s one of Spike Lee’s best.

Hard Candy (2005, 104 min, R, 7.2, $7m) – This was one of the early Ellen Page movies that showed her immense talent.  She played a teenager who turns the table on a pedophile in his own home.  I don’t want to give away what happens in this movie because it’s some of the most intense stuff you will see but needless to say any male who watches it will wince while making sure his manhood is still in place.  This is a great little movie that basically only has 2 characters.

Higher Learning (1995, 127 min, R, 6.4, 38.2m) – This was one of John Singleton’s follow ups after his success with Boyz in the Hood.  The main reason I bought this movie was because the lead character, played by Omar Epps, is a college track athlete and how many movies that involve college track are out there?  Not many!  Unfortunately, most of this movie isn’t about track, it’s mostly about racism and how young people are influenced on a college campus.  I feel much of the movie is blown out of proportion but it’s still entertaining nonetheless.

Next week

We are fully back to practice so I’ll report on that as well as talking about our Intersquad Draft that takes place Wednesday night.  I only own two “I” movies and if you can guess them both I will give you a million dollars.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!!!

Fall testing results, birthdays, and Clint Eastwood is a bad dude

It was such a great week that this blog wasn’t able to be completed until Monday.  Sunday was used to nap, eat and watch the Bengals miss a chip shot field goal to win the game.  Well I guess the entire week wasn’t perfect.

Fall testing and what it means for the Shockers

On Wednesday and Thursday we did our annual fall training with our sprinters, jumpers, vaulters, hurdlers, and multi’s.  I explained what our fall testing was last week so check out that blog if you need the background info.  A lot of people have asked me how I thought our fall testing went and I would say it went pretty well with a few exceptions, but all it really means is that we’ve done a good job of training during the summer and first six weeks of practice.  They don’t give out any championships in October.

Without getting into crazy detail about who did what this is what I feel like our fall testing told us:  Our men are very good and our women are talented and young.

First for the men, we had very good testing in our 30m fly’s.  I tend to lean towards this test as one of the most important of the seven tests we do and, as a group, our guys performed very well.  And it wasn’t just the sprinters.  We had some very good 30m times from our jumpers, hurdlers and multi’s too.  Where did we not test very well?  Probably some of the second day plyometrics for my sprint group, which isn’t uncommon, but it does tell me we have to concentrate on our explosive actions during our next phase of training.  But like I said I think our coaches were very happy with the men – so far so good.

It’s a little different for our women although not in a bad way.  We have a lot of newcomers to the sprint group this year and we’ll need to be patient although several of those newcomers showed flashes of great potential.  When you have a younger group some of the things in testing seem pretty foreign to them (like overhead back shot put throw or hang clean) and they don’t perform like they will one year from now.  I think this group can be good but they will take longer to come around than the guys.  I’m sure some of our early season meets will be inconsistent but I do believe this group will be scoring good points when it counts at the MVC Championships.  On top of having that young group, we have a few of our studs that we held out of testing for precautionary reasons with aches and pains.  I like this group – they will be fun to coach and watch grow over the next 7 months.

Someone turned the big 4-0

Even though I have really enjoyed my 30’s I couldn’t hold back the inevitability of turning 40 on Saturday.  I got a lot of the “do you feel older now” type questions and this is what I tell folks:  I feel great, my 30’s were much better than my 20’s so I am assuming that my 40’s will be better than my 30’s.  And I totally believe that!  I think the experience you gain with age outperforms the struggle you might start to have physically and if you can pay a little bit of attention to your health you should feel pretty good by 40.  Now the other side of that is I’m not married and don’t have any kids so the level of stress in my life is probably lower than most, so you tell me?  I’m excited for the next decade and hopefully I can say the same when I turn 50!

As for the weekend, me and fellow coach (and new 40 year old) Pat Wilson hosted a gathering of friends.  It was a great time and I wanted to thank everyone who wished me well in my new old age!

Someone else is having a birthday too and he might be crazy

Our head coach Steve Rainbolt is turning 57 soon.  When Bolt has a birthday he doesn’t mess around.  Some of you may remember when he turned 50 he did a one-man 50k jog-a-thon (about 31 miles) on our indoor track for a WSU Track and Field fundraiser.  Five years later he did 55k (34 miles) on our outdoor track for the same reason.  After that 55k, which he admitted he hadn’t prepared well for, he said he’ll never do that again (it took over 9 hours).  So this year Bolt, an avid golfer, has decided to play 57 holes of golf in one day for another fundraiser.

While that is a lot of golf most people might not think of it as a huge challenge, but here’s the tough part – Bolt will walk the entire way which will end up being around 24 miles.  There is only about 12 hours of daylight so he will need to hustle.  If anyone is around Willowbend Country Club on Wednesday, stop and walk nine holes with Bolt – it should be an interesting event!

“G” Movies

This is the seventh of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) where I list movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some that start with numbers).  I currently own a small collection of 159 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

Most of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely.  Some are movies that I had not seen but was curious about.  Some were gifts from people with bad tastes in movies.

For some reason I don’t own many movies that begin with G so here is the short list from best to worst …..

Movie Name (year made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)

Gran Torino (2008, 116 min, R, 8.2, $269m) – I’ve grown up watching Clint Eastwood in movies like Dirty Harry, Heartbreak Ridge, and Million Dollar Baby and this may be one of my favorites. Some like to think this character might be and retired version of Dirty Harry.  It’s classic Eastwood, darkly funny and dramatic throughout.  I doubt he will make many more movies so it’s great to see him act and direct such a great movie at the age of 78!  “Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t mess with?  That’s me.”

The Grudge (2004, 92 min, PG-13, 5.8, $187m) – This is the American remake of the original Japanese movie Ju-on: The Grudge.  I’ve actually seen both movies and it gives an interesting perspective on what the differences are in what Japan likes and what Hollywood thinks we like.  Both were directed by Takashi Shimizu and the Japanese version is a little more subtle and realistic while the American version is more of a horror movie.  Both are well made and, in some places, identical shot for shot.  If you’re a horror fan you can’t go wrong either way but I like the original a little more.

Next week

I’ll be talking about our first week of “specific preparation” as well as letting you know how Coach Rainbolt’s golf-a-thon went.  I have five movies that begin with H – and all of them are very interesting and unique!

Until then … go Shocks!

Chile Pepper, fall testing, and Fargo gets the nod this week

There’s a lot happening in Shocker Track and Field so I’ll just get right into it.

I traveled over to Fayetteville, Arkansas, with my fellow assistant coach Pat Wilson to watch our cross country teams compete at the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival on Saturday.  It was the first time I’ve been to this meet and was quite impressed with how well run and organized it was.  I would estimate there were around 40 colleges and at least twice as many high schools competing.

 This was our cross country teams’ first significant challenge of the season as both our men and women had won their previous two meets.  Our women finished fourth and our men ended up fifth.  I sat in for the team meetings the previous night and their goal was to finish in the top-3 so I know there was a little disappointment afterwards but I thought our group looked very strong and worked well together.  They’re a great group of kids that really seem to like and respect each other – that should help them come championship time, which is rapidly approaching!  The Shocks will head to Pre-Nationals in two weeks and in four weeks the MVC Championships will be at Southern Illinois.  The fall season is flying right on by!

On the track, this past week was our last full week of what we call “pre-season conditioning” where we are limited to eight hours of practice per week.  The next two weeks are “testing and regeneration”.  After a normal Monday practice and Tuesday off, we will do our annual fall testing on Wednesday and Thursday.  We do this every year to see how our athletes have improved from year to year.  With not having a competitive fall season it also helps to give our athletes something to look forward to in terms of a competitive effort.  We do this with all the sprint, hurdle, multi, and jumps athletes – basically everyone except the throwers and distance runners (the throwers have already done testing of their own).  Our testing goes like this:

Day 1 – 30m fly (with a running start), 30m acceleration (from a 3-point start), and then a long sprint of 150m, 300m, or 600m depending on what event the athlete runs.  We do all of these tests at our indoor track so that weather and wind won’t play a factor in comparing times from year to year.

Day 2 – Standing long jump, standing triple jump, overhead back shot put, and the Olympic lift hang clean.  We try to do these at our outdoor track because the weather doesn’t significantly affect these tests.

A few years ago I created a scoring system for each event so at the end we have a total score much like a Heptathlon or Decathlon.  I’ve seen all kinds of testing competitions like this and after many years of trial and error we have landed on this system.  It’s fun for the kids and very informative for the coaches.  We can narrow down where an athlete needs to make improvements as we head into our specific preparation phase – which starts October 15.

Besides our annual Intersquad meet in December, this is one of my favorite weeks of the fall semester.  The upperclassmen, who have been through our fall testing before, get very enthusiastic and create a fun atmosphere.  The newcomers are mostly nervous and a little intimidated by the scene – which is usually good, because it’s an introduction to what will happen when the actual track season begins.

After testing is over we give our athletes several days off (which coincides with our fall break) before gathering back up October 15 for our next phase of training.

As for recruiting, October will be a very busy month. We will have lots of official visits on campus as we lead up to the early signing period in November.  In fact I need to finish this blog so I can meet a recruit later today!

All of that and I will be turning 40 Saturday!  The best birthday present I can get will be some great test results from our athletes!  (And I also like cash)

“F” Movies

This is the sixth of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) where I list movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some that start with numbers).  I currently own a small collection of 157 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

Most of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely.  Some are movies that I had not seen but was curious about.  Some were gifts from people with bad tastes in movies.

F seems like a popular letter for movies so here is the list of my 11 “F” movies from best to worst …..

Movie Name (year made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)

Fargo (1996, 98 min, R, 8.2, $60.6m) – I love the Coen Brothers’ movies and this is one of their best.  Fargo is crime drama that shows perspective from both the criminals and the police trying to solve the crime.  Interesting and funny throughout, it won two Oscars for best screenplay and best actress.  If you haven’t seen it you won’t be disappointed – “you betcha!”

Full Metal Jacket (1987, 116 min, R, 8.4, $46.3m) – The first 30 minutes of this Stanley Kubrick war movie is some of the most intense cinema I’ve ever seen.  It’s really two movies, the first part is about basic training and the second part is the actual fighting in the Vietnam War.  R. Lee Ermey plays the king of all drill sergeants – I would quote him here but none of his lines are suitable for this blog!

The Fighter (2010, 116 min, R, 7.9, $129m) – Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale play professional boxing brothers Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund in this based on a true story movie about the early years of Micky Ward’s life.  I’ve always enjoyed movies that are based on a true story and Ward’s life is a more recent version of Rocky.  Great movie and Christian Bale is pretty incredible as a former boxer turned to a waste of space brother.

Friday (1995, 91m, R, 7.3, $28.2m) – One of those movies that crosses racial and ethnic lines because it’s just so funny.  Chris Tucker and Ice Cube (who also wrote the movie) star in what happens on a typical Friday in the hood.  It spawned several sequels but none could capture the magic of the original.  This movie is still as funny as ever!

Friday Night Lights (2004, 118 min, PG-13, 7.3, $61.9m) – Another based on a true story movie about Permian High School (Texas) football.  The book was controversial and very popular because of all the inside info the author let loose and obviously it made for a good movie as well. Billy Bob Thornton plays the head coach who tries to keep his team together through tumultuous times.  Really good movie, I imagine it hits home for many people who look back at their high school athletic career.

Footloose (1984, 107 min, R, 6.4, $80m) – This is one of those cheesy 80’s movies that just seem to never get old.  Kevin Bacon plays a teenager who moves to a small town where music and dancing have been banned.  I’m sure Bacon is embarrassed to watch some of the scenes nowadays but that’s what makes this movie so enjoyable.  And whenever the theme song comes on Coach Yost starts dancing like crazy.

Fletch (1985, 98 min, PG, 6.9, $59.m) – One of Chevy Chase’s classic flicks from the 80’s with classic lines and scenes that anyone my age remember like it was yesterday.  Upon more recent viewings this movie doesn’t stand up as well today so if you’ve seen it before I would recommend just watching the funny parts on YouTube.  “Awww, come on guys, it's so simple. Maybe you need a refresher course. [leans arm on hot engine part] Hey! It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads.”

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, 117 min, R, 7.1, $245m) – This was Hugh Grant’s coming out movie and a very good one at that.  The title explains the plot as it follows a group of British friends one summer.  This is how romantic comedies should be – funny!  I think Hollywood forgot the “comedy” portion of that genre.  I think the Brits make funny movies, I only wish more of them made it over the pond so we could see them!

The Fall (2006, 117 min, R, 7.9, $3.6m) – I stumbled onto this movie through one of my weird friends on a weird night.  It’s a super artsy film but something about it kept me intrigued.  It’s one of the most visually appealing movies I’ve ever seen but most of my friends who I’ve tried to get to watch it usually fall asleep.  That must be why it only made $3 million dollars at the box office.

Friends with Benefits (2011, 109 min, R, 6.6, $149m) – They took two good looking people (Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake) and had them try to avoid every Hollywood cliché possible but in the end you knew they were going to get together.  It’s not a bad movie, I was just hoping they would be more creative with the ending for a movie with this kind of subject matter.

The Fountain (2006, 96 min, PG-13, 7.4, $15.9m) – Another super artsy film starring Hugh Jackman and directed by Darren Aronofsky (who also directed Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan) about death, love, spirituality, and uhhhhhh yeah I kind of got lost halfway through.  It does have a pretty cool ending so if you can hang in there it’s almost worth it.

There are a whole lot of great movies up there, you really can’t go wrong with any of them except maybe The Fountain.  I only have two “G” movies so next week will be a short review.

Until then have a great week and Go Shocks!