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I loved Lego toys as a kid. (Who didn’t, really?)  They were awesome.  I still occasionally see ads for the new and improved sets that come out and think to myself: “why didn’t we have that when I was 10?  The fun I’d have had!”

So, I watched The Lego Movie hoping for a nostalgic love-letter to a great toy.  And I was not disappointed, either. It was a very cute movie, and they did a pretty good job of keeping the “look” of Lego intact.  It was awfully fast-paced but I suppose that’s par for the course for a children’s movie.  And it managed to be a film that adults could enjoy without having innuendo and double-entendre jokes thrown in. (Well, except for one line, but it was fairly mild.)

The only issue I had with it was that the name of the villain who wants to glue all the Lego-people in place forever, was “Lord Business”.  It seemed like an odd name for the character, given that Lego is, itself, a business.  You see, the movie has sort of a “meta” narrative, in which at the end, the characters are revealed to be the playthings of a child, who is basing the story on his father’s refusal to let him modify his carefully arranged Lego dioramas. So, his father is “Lord Business” wanting to keep everything “just so”, and the good characters are rebelling against this. Do I even need to say that it all ends happily and valuable lessons are learned?

As for the “Lord Business” name–I guess they were saying “business” as opposed to “play”; but all the same, it seemed peculiar. I read that a lot of conservative types complained about it–they felt it was an anti-capitalist message.  I don’t think it was, though–it was just a poor choice of words.

That aside, I thought the movie was very clever and entertaining. Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell and Liam Neeson all give very funny performances.  The jokes are all too rapid-fire to really mention them–it’s more the cumulative effect than one joke. But I think my favorite bit was this (which was also in the trailer):

[The villains are attacking a gathering of assorted Lego heroes]

Batman: “To the Batmobile!”

[Villains blow up the Batmobile]

Batman: “Dang it!”

Wonder Woman: “To the invisible jet!”

[Villains blow up the invisible jet]

Wonder Woman: “Dang it!”

Batman: “Every man for himself!”

Something about hearing a superhero say “every man for himself” is pretty funny for some reason.  All in all, a very entertaining flick.

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Everyone is concerned about the impact of big money on political elections.  I am concerned about it, as evidenced by this recent satirical poem I wrote on the subject. And then along comes this fellow Dave Brat, beating the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a gigantic upset in the Republican primary, despite Cantor’s campaign having spent more than 40 times as much money as Brat’s campaign.

Obviously, for any plutocrats looking to buy elections, this would have to be a bit troubling.  If Cantor couldn’t win despite having such a massive financial advantage, then is any election safely bought and paid for?  And it wasn’t like they had caught Cantor in some giant scandal right before the primary either, which is about the only way one could normally imagine this happening.  Everyone was just assuming Cantor would win.

Apparently, the Cantor people didn’t pay for accurate polls, which might have told them how much dire trouble they were in, and gotten people scrambling to do something.  They just wandered into their defeat without understanding what was going on.

How did this happen?  How did people even find out Brat was a guy they wanted to vote for?  Was it just a matter of a bunch of Republican voters wandering in to the polls, seeing “Eric Cantor v. Random Other Guy”  on the ballot and thinking to themselves “well, Cantor’s bound to win, but I don’t like him being such a stuffed-shirt Washington insider, so I’ll vote for the other fellow as protest,”  never thinking he might actually win?

I keep hearing that it’s about “grassroots opposition to immigration reform”.  I’m skeptical of the impact of “grassroots opposition”. Ordinarily, grassroots opposition and $2.95 will get you a cup of coffee in Republican primaries.  The Republican establishment crushes grassroots opposition to things all the time.  What made this different?