It’s a great title, and some of the flying sequences are pretty cool. And that’s all of the positive things I can say about the film.

The rest of it sucked.

I love planes – and I love this particular piece of history – but terrible acting, weak sets, predictible plotline and at best a questionable reality make this a film to avoid. Anytime a movie is based on a true story I get excited, but nothing could save this thing. Except a time machine where you went back before it was made and shoot the director. You should probably not even go to a theater that is playing this movie, lest someone think you were watching Flyboys.

If you have to see this movie, make it a DVD rental using a coupon, this is barely worth $1.99 for that, and certainly not the $10 I just paid. At least McGill and Fields were there to share in the agony. Nothing better than having a reference point for the forseeable future of a movie “low.” And this one sits squarely at the bottom of the barrel. Avoid at all costs.

JG

Did you know you can text Google while you’re out an about and they’ll text back with what you’re looking for? Whether it’s a map, a zip code, movie times or the number for closest Wal-Mart, they’ll send you a text back with the information in seconds. Ben showed it to me last night at the Fields’ house – I tried it today and swore I would tell everyone I could about it. Here you go – enjoy!

1. Start a new text message and type in your search query

2. Send the message to the number “46645″ (GOOGL)

3. You’ll receive text message(s) with results

Hit this page for full details of all of the commands you can send and so much more. Love it!

JG

Hmmm … kinda let down by last night’s regular television shows. First off, Survivor has already ended the teams divided by race – leaving us with essentially a normal survivor show. And secondly, The Office was the most average episode ever. Not good.

All the hubbub about the Survivor ethnic experiment turned out to be pretty worthless.

Why? Because after only two episodes, producers merged the black, white, Asian and Latino tribes into two mixed-race gangs. No explanation was given for the quick abandonment of segregation; it seemed to pass by so quickly as to mean nothing.

“We’re back to America. We’re a melting pot,” said Parvati, a boxer on the new Raro tribe. “I love it.”

Yawn.

JG

The Gathering is officially over. 3 days of food, fun, brainstorming and teaching ended last night after Survivor at the Fields’ house. It was awesome having our state mentors in town – these are the men and women who are living out the biblical purposes in the trenches and committed to helping others. They are essentially the stars of PDYM, the leaders of the network of thousands of youth ministries united under the purposes.

It was an amazing time, look for more updates about it on pdymcommunity.com and the “fine” game we played to benefit Glue Boys. Some of my personal highlights included the rubber balls on the tables that turned into ‘ball wars’ periodically, seeing Joby’s amazing body again, getting new mentor pictures for pdymcommunity.com and giving the mentors tons of free books and resources.

Whew!

JG

Just updated iTunes with the new Simpy Podcast. We’re still full speed ahead at the Gathering, so you’ll have to wait for links. The Matt-cast has finally arrived!

JG