A living, breathing masterpiece.

"The Concept of Life"

Starring: Savannah Self, Clayton Self and introducing Evelyn Grace Self

Directed By: Dr. Sand, KVCH Nurses

Written By: Proud Parents

Rated: Perfect

Running Time: Forever Please

One of the great pleasures of being a brand new dad is that you are probably the only one in the room at the time of birth that gets to observe so many things at once.  Mom, valiant and courageous, is pushing through immense pressure and focused almost exclusively on delivering the life that has grown within her for 9 months.  The Doctor is expertly navigating that new creation through life's arrival gate.  There are Nurses and family members coaching mom; assuring her that the worst pain has indeed passed and that after just a few more breathless seconds, she will have her reward.  But fathers have varying levels of involvement.  Some might have a medical fascination with the process and may be actively engaged in the current pursuit to usher in a new life unharmed.  There are others that stand near mom's head, secretly hiding a racing heart rate and a million thoughts beneath a calm exterior.  While I can state firmly that I am in this latter category, it encompasses much more that it implies, and certainly more than could ever be expressed in written or spoken word.

Even as I sit writing this in the very room where my daughter's life began, watching her slowly rise and fall on my wife's chest, words escape me.  Breath comes only because life requires it and my brain tells my body to do it.  My entire consciousness rests symbolically within this tiny extension of myself, and the contribution of my genes is only half of what makes her a miracle.  Hearing the words of others, many of them the same, could never do this justice.  People use the common cliches to express happiness or strangely encouraging words of doom.  "Say goodbye to sleep as you know it" they say.  Maybe they see this is as a negative thing, but I think my heart stopped as our daughter took her first breath, and after that, who would want to waste time sleeping?  The hardest part to me is the feeling of helplessness every time she cries; or the way every touch betrays my lingering lack of confidence.  How do you bring this perfect being into the world, with all there is to understand, when you don't even yet understand it?  I know these fears will subside, but in the meantime they are contained in a single room, like a perfectly safe bubble surrounded by chaos.

There are several random bits of knowledge a man can take away from his first day of fatherhood.  Almost like chapters, the day of birth is punctuated by phases of emotion.  When I was told Savannah was dilated to 5 centimeters, no force on earth could have slowed me down from the speed at which I was scrambling to make sense of what was about to happen.  I have never taken LSD but from what I have read on the affects, this scenario may have been comparable.  On the way to the hospital, my hallucinogenic state made me perceive traffic as moving slower than it ever has.  Simple things like pressing the gas pedal suddenly had a manic sense of priority.  Luckily, the parking lot presented relatively few challenges.  Then immediately upon seeing my laboring wife, phase two started and the necessity to remain calm took over.

One of the fun parts amid all the fury of delivery day is the dictionary's worth of terms there are to learn.  Just having become used to the term "Lactation Consultant," which could potentially be the best job title in existence,  there are new gems like "Phlebotomist," which sounds ominously like some sort of mucusy circus performer.  Fortunately, for needle-phobes like myself, the entire delivery was carried out relatively needle free.  In fact, the biggest point of pride for the day was not even my own, as my wife braved intense contractions and 17 minutes of pushing completely free of medications or an epidural.  The only trouble came when the baby's heart rate dropped, momentarily spinning me into a panic as the medical staff instantly snapped into their successful routine that lead to a safe birth for both mom and child.  Then, at the very instant her head was fully visible and I first heard her cries, my heart stopped and my immediate tears told me all I needed to know.

Right now, more than 24 hours after Evelyn's birth, my arm is throbbing from a 'Tdap' vaccine; yet another small step to help the health of this new life I get to share responsibility for.  I am surrounded by the people who have always been most important to me and a new one who's value cannot be calculated, who's meaning cannot be measured and who's importance I will spend my life trying to live up to.  My heart now beats outside my body and it has never beat as strongly or as purposefully.  I feel that to adequately compile my entire range of feelings and thoughts, I would have to write something much more substantial in length, but it would take the better part of an eternity to read it.  Besides, the limitations of human expressions and vocabulary aren't enough.  Becoming a father has diminished every thought I ever had about what it truly means to be a man.  Lucky for me, I have the perfect example of human life breathing just a few feet from me and through her I will learn what it means for the first time.

More Like "The Bourne Addiction"

"The Bourne Legacy"

Written and Directed by Tony Gilroy

Starring Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton

PG-13

135 Min

"The Bourne Legacy" is either a sequel to the first three Bourne movies, or it is a spin-off.  I can't quite say which because while it works well enough as a spy thriller, it has some trouble incorporating the familiar Bourne brand name.  The problem isn't in the casting, which replaces Matt Damon's Jason Bourne with a new character named Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner.  Renner has been making the rounds in a great many blockbusters over the last few years, and he is a welcome presence.  The issue lies within the film's identity crisis.  The first hour or so is made up of scenes of Cross in the Alaskan wild, intercut with scenes we saw played out in "The Bourne Ultimatum."  Therein lies the rub; because even though the tone of this feature fits nicely into the established Bourne film universe, it is too tied down to the previous installments, and does nothing to move the story forward.

Obviously, if this is meant as a spin-off, we'd expect to be carried along by a new narrative that could stand independently of the previous films' events.  Instead, "The Bourne Legacy" bites off more than it can chew by attempting to branch off in a new direction, and simultaneously treads lightly with the new story in favor of leaning on the more compelling events surrounding Jason Bourne.  David Strathairn, Albert Finney and Joan Allen all show up very briefly to reprise their respective roles, which is all well and good, but they are gone so quickly that it makes us wonder why they were included at all.  We also see footage from "The Bourne Ultimatum" which conveniently leaves out any scenes of Matt Damon.  The result is a first half that almost forces the audience to distract themselves by trying to piece together events from the last movie, which takes us out of this one.

The new story involves Aaron Cross (Renner), an operative for the 'Outcome' program, which if I understand it right is a subsidiary of the 'Treadstone' program that Jason Bourne was a product of.  The difference here is, the Outcome agents are enhanced by pills that are taken at regular intervals.  There is a green pill for physical enhancements and a blue pill for cognitive improvement.  These 'chems,' as the screenplay calls them, are manufactured at a Government lab where Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) works.  For nearly the first hour, Aaron Cross is trekking through the Alaskan wilderness, apparently as punishment for insubordination or something.  He is running low on chems and seems to need a new dose really bad.  Meanwhile, as a result of Jason Bourne exposing Treadstone with the help of Pam Landy (Joan Allen) in the last film, Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn) fears that similar unsanctioned Government Operations may be at risk.  Retired Colonel Eric Byer (an always welcome Edward Norton) is informed of the situation and immediately decides to eliminate all the agents for Outcome.  This is done by replacing the agents' chems with a single yellow pill that brings death in the form of a left nostril nosebleed.  Since Aaron Cross is unreachable in Alaska with another agent (Oscar Isaac), Byer and his goons send a drone to explode things. With the help of some wolves (don't ask), Aaron is able to make it appear as though the drone was successful.

I've often wondered in these features why the best strategy for hiding the shady dealings of an unsanctioned Government Op is to leave a trail of mysterious deaths.  Since the brainwashing recruitment strategy has already been established, wouldn't it be more conducive to make the agents promise to never tell in case things go south?  But nevermind.  Aaron is able to make his way to Marta's home just in time to save her from some unsavory "mental health professionals" who intend to permanently remedy her trauma from a recent workplace tragedy.  Together, Aaron and Marta go on the run from everyone who wants them dead and this is where the film starts to lose its trajectory.  You see, Jason Bourne had amnesia when we met him in "The Bourne Identity" and part of the fun of following his journey was that he needed to find out who he was.  While Aaron Cross certainly has something to run from, he lacks a clear goal or motivation outside of drug addiction.  His whole reason for sweeping Marta along is so that he can get more pills; until Marta informs him that there is an injection form of each chem that can "viral off" the enhancements, making them permanent.  Even better.

Once they reach the lab in Manila and get the vaccines, then what?  "The Bourne Legacy" has a hard time answering that.  It spends the last act mixed up in rooftop parkour, motorcycle chases and shoot outs.  There is even an assassin sent to kill Marta and Cross who is so skilled that one of Eric Byer's colleagues has "never seen evaluations like this."  Mmmhmm.  So talented is he that after clumsily chasing them in plain sight, he is easily and brutally dispatched by none other than the timid Marta.  I give away this detail not to spoil your enjoyment, but to lower your expectations of anything as cool as what we've already seen in the first three movies.  While the action is exciting, it is brief and infrequent, and because we don't really understand what the main protagonist is trying to accomplish, it gives no sense that anything is at stake. Then, to top it all off, the movie just ends before setting up any kind of connection to let us know precisely what the "legacy" referenced in the title is.  What is clear is that sequels are intended; perhaps with Matt Damon and Jeremy Renner teaming up to take down the whole conspiracy.

Tony Gilroy, who has provided the screenplay for all the "Bourne" feature films, also directs this one.  At that, he is accomplished.  His "Michael Clayton" was one of the best pictures of 2007, and his smart writing takes center stage here in a very talky movie.  That would be great if there was a sense of momentum to what's being said.  Instead, we're given a competent action film, with little in the way of action, that relies too heavily on our enjoyment of the original three "Bourne" adventures.  No surprises if some viewers feel swindled when they walk out of the theatre.  I might give it another watch just to see if my perception is different the second time around.  Maybe I'll take one of those blue pills before going.