Brad Pitt is cute as "Button"

I went to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and, on the whole, I enjoyed it. It is a much more melancholy movie than "Forrest Gump," a movie that it is often compared to and, at nearly three hours, it is long - but not overly so. It is as long as it needs to be. And "Button" is often like that - all it needs to be - but seldomly more. It doesn't soar as "Gump" did and it feels derivative: Gump's braces are Button's old man wheelchair and double canes; "Lieutenant Dan" meet "Cap'n Mike"; Cate Blanchett's Daisy is Button's Jenny. That said, "Button" is an oddly affecting movie that stays with you long after the theater lights have come back on. (By the by, I would like to give a special shout out to Taraji P. Henson's performance as Button's "mother." This is a small jewel of a performance by an actress who is proving herself to be an artist with many colors on her palette. From "Baby Boy" to "Button" is quite a journey).

New Jack Obama Bashers

I often wonder what world new jack Obama bashers live in. They wanna hate the playa when they should hate the game. I give President-Elect Obama credit for not only recognizing the game but becoming Master of the game. Now that he is President-Elect the game has changed but the game remains the same. Further, let us not forget the most successful Democratic administration in fifty years was the Clinton Administration - which I contend was also the only moderate Republican administration of the last half century. By that I mean the Clinton administration actually delivered what Republicans always promise (to win elections) but never deliver.

Now there is a hue and cry about a dearth of Hispanic cabinet nominees. For the record, I am not in favor of the kind of black token picks that embarrassingly littered recent Republican administrations (paradoxically, the appointments of the eminently qualified Colin Powell and Condelezza Rice are exceptions that prove the rule - I direct you back to the Reagan and first Bush administrations). While I am confident there are Hispanics with credentials and necessary portfolios, I am heartened and gratified that Obama has appointed individuals as gifted and qualified as Attorney-General nominee Eric Holder and Ambassor to the UN nominee Susan Rice. And I am positively giddy that there will be no one anywhere in Obama's administration who graduated from that community college known as Liberty University..