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At first it sounded lame. Now I’m hooked.

Prison Break is a Fox TV series about two brothers. One has been framed for the murder of the Vice President’s brother and now faces an expedited execution. The Other is an extremely intelligent civil engineer whose company built the prison that now hosts his brother on death row. The Other decides to break the One out of prison from inside those walls, and the story weaves around his escape plan and his interactions with the guards, other cellmates, and prison life. Outside those walls, the One’s lawyer and son attempt to prove his innocence while evading those who framed the One and are desperate to cover the whole thing up.

The “inside” story, if you will, is very good. Entertaining, unexpected, and a bit of a mystery to discover exactly how these inmates intend to escape. The prisoners themselves have varied and interesting lives and backgrounds, and tangents in to their stories grow the overall plot nicely. Unlike many shows, the escape plan isn’t too far-fetched, and neither are some of the adventures that play out over the course of the show. Credibility is a refreshing change.

The “outside” story is frustrating. We are about halfway through the first season on DVD (the second is still airing) and as the plot thickens, the characters are too naive and ignorant to realistically still be alive. One of the characters is wanted for a double murder yet they spend two days at a hospital and no one recognizes him, and none of the “cleanup crew” find them after most of the other people with exonerating evidence have disappeared or died. Its just annoying to see one half of a show so good, and one half so bad.

That aside, I’d say its better than the majority of current TV series because it includes an interesting storyline, humor, action, and a vested interest in the characters. I’m enjoying it and I’d recommend it.

Today I seek you, wise Internet and loyal readers, for help. The other day I was explaining to a group of 3-4 coworkers that Eric had recommended I read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I mentioned that he first learned of it through his Jew class at school (Western Oregon University), and the room went deadly silent. One of them said, “His what class?” To which I replied, “His Jew class.” Which elicited a “That’s what I thought you said.” I then went on explaining the book, but it was crystal clear that they felt I made ill-use of the term.

Is “Jew” a derogatory word? Am I not allowed to use “Jew” as an adjective? Is Jew one of those words only available to Jews? I don’t feel I was using it inappropriately, nor did I intend for it to negatively describe the class. The fact of the matter is that the Jew class in question was aptly named – the entire class was formally entitled “The Jewish-German Experience.” Honestly, I believe Jew can be used freely by everyone; I don’t believe it is generally categorized with other more distinctly derogatory terms I will not include. Am I wrong?

PS – The book is an EXCELLENT read. I agree strongly with Frankl’s conclusions and highly recommend it.

Overall Rating? A-

Although this movie had a lot of great sequences and imagery, the dialogue and in part, the directing angles lessened the movie a bit. It played particularly well as an interpretation of a graphic novel; the slowing of time through the fight scenes was especially comic book-esque and nicely done.

300 was no Gladiator nor LOTR series, but a good movie nonetheless. And for the amount of blood and gore touted (we had to show our IDs twice to get in), I thought 300’s violence was much less disturbing than, say, Saving Private Ryan’s imagery of intestines falling out and men picking up their own severed limbs. There were a few good beheadings, though, but mostly just spurting blood from impaling javelins.