Sex in the City Season 3 (TV series): The #1GF! likes this series a lot. I will admit that I liked the 1st season of this show, where I saw the extremely flawed characters as cute and funny, but by the third season, it’s wearing thin. The characters have lost their shine and are annoying and petty enough to make me want to barf. 1/2 the time I was ready to get up, and the other 1/2 I did. I don’t think I have a very high tolerance for the women depicted in this series, and the ability to be able to walk out of the room without offending anyone is a god send.

Six feet Under Season 3 (TV series): Even though this show is not very shy about hiding hot gay action, it has the good writing and production that have been the trademark of HBO series in the last few years. B+

Before Sunrise (foreign drama): A man and a woman meet on a train and only have 12 hours together in Vienna before they each have to leave for their respective destinations. There were some cool parts in this one, but I can’t say that it was great. If it was free on cable I might watch it again, but I can’t say that I would recommend it as a rental. C+

Sports Night (TV series): Being that this was a TV series about a sports news show and I had never heard of it, there was no reason for me to watch it, but the fast pace and the witty dialogue made me wish that there were more than 2 seasons. A

Girlfight (drama): It’s a low budget story about a troubled girl who gets into boxing. The acting was pretty good, but it was slow, and I couldn’t get away from the feeling that I was like watching a cheap version of Million Dollar Baby with a happier ending. B

Amores Perros (Spanish drama): It must be the heat that makes some of these Mexican movies so slow. I need to remember 2 things: Just because it’s foreign and I’ve heard of it does not mean it’s worth watching. And maybe it’s so hot in Mexico that the editors just pass out before they can finish their job. Not only did I think this movie was over 3 times before it was, I wished it was over 3 times before it was. This was just 2 hours too long. C

Life as a House (drama): This guy has cancer and wants to build a house for his teenage son, who is played by a brooding young man without the slightest bit of acting ability. I would suggest he take a class or two before taking another role. I’m dropping another few points for hitting the intentional tear jerk button too many times. C+

National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (comedy): Run of the mill college comedy. I’ve seen wilder, and it’s not. Unless this came on cable and you were drunk and flipping back and forth to Animal House, you probably won’t be laughing. C.

Meet the Fockers (comedy): This is that follow up movie to Meet the Parents. I think the joke writing was pretty thin in the first one, and nothing has changed except this time they seemed to be trying to cover the stink of the writing with a healthy spray of trying to go over the top for a laugh. Unfortunately, it was more like Grandma going over the top for the laugh, making this one just barely tolerable. C+

The Dinner Game (French comedy): This was only an hour and 20 minutes long and took place in one room, making it seem like more of a play than a movie. The premise is that a group of pompous asses invite the biggest idiots that they can find to a dinner party. The one who brings the biggest idiot wins. The idiots are never supposed to find out the premise of the game, so when one of them does, it gets pretty damned funny. B+

United States of Leland (drama): Leleand is a slow-talking teenager who kills his girlfriend’s retarded brother, and throughout the movie everyone was trying to figure out why. Unfortunately, by the end, I was so bored that I was just trying to figure out what was preventing my finger from hitting the little square button on the remote. And good thing I didn’t waste any brain power on the “why” of the movie because the reason ended up being a big fat fizzle. Cut this movie to two paragraphs stuffed into a Playboy pictorial, and I might read it. C

The Machinist (drama): This was one of those “What the hell am I watching” movies that went on and on and on and on and made as much sense as a David Lynch movie. There were some nice shots in it, and the guy playing the main character dropped 80 pounds for the role, but it really was just not worth the watch. D

Metallica - Some Kind of Monster (documentary): I take this as proof positive that the band that used to be Metallica was replaced by a bunch of whiney ass bitch robots at some time during 1988. From now on, as long as it doesn’t break some corporate policy and get me fired, I shall refer to the current version of the band as a separate entity from the guys who rocked my ass off all through high school. These new guys, “Fagtallica,” just sat around whining through the movie, saying things like “I’m feeling what your feeling is not feeling the feelings that I’m feeling.” Hey, Metallica. I know you’re middle aged, have kids, cut your hair off, and could fart into a microphone and some idiot would shell out the $10 to check it out, but please don’t replace the memory of the masters of metal that I have in my head with this shit. This really is good watching if your kids play Metallica loud and think they’re tough or something. Make them watch this with you and point and laugh at the screen. At one point during a foofy song in the film, I turned to #!GF and said,
“See? This is where they lose me.”
“Because they sound like Creed?” she asked.
“Fuck. That’s just so perfect.”
I give this one a solid B+ for laughability.

Training Day (thriller): Oh, Denzel Washington is a bad, bad cop. He’s so bad that if his dirty money could fit in a wallet, that wallet would be the one that said “bad motherfucker” on it. Mr. Bad cop has a rookie trainee that still believes in justice and moral fortitude on his first day of the job. This is a classic good versus evil story with great acting, a great story, and cameos by Snoop & Dre. Plus, it’s directed by Antoine Fuqua, which you can amuse yourself by pronouncing “fucka.” This one is a solid A-

Coach Carter (drama): Ok. Samuel L. Jackson threw away his wallet with “Bad Motherfucker” on it to play Coach Carter, a local business man who takes a coaching job at an inner city school. This is the total opposite of Training Day. If you cut the number of honkies in Hoosiers and added in the guidance of either Stand & deliver or Lean on me, you end up with something close to what Coach Carter was like. A-

EuroTrip (comedy): A teen thinks that his German pen pal is a dude who wants to get it on with him, so he tells the german dude off by e-mail. Soon after, he finds out the German dude is a German chick, who he is somehow all of a sudden in love with. A few good laughs and a lot of gratuitous boob shots ensue. C+

*LAE: Long Ass Edition

I heard that they were shooting a new Scorsese film in a shipyard not too far from the house, so the #1GF! and I drove down to the set to see if anything cool would happen. After 10 minutes of standing in the dark staring through a fence at a guy cooking hot dogs next to a warehouse, we gave up, leaving the other late night derelicts to their staring.

Within 3 minutes of getting in the car, I annoyed the #1GF! with rants about how bad their Boston accents will be and how I really should’ve better spent my time standing outside the fence by yelling “I love you Leatahdo DiCraprio!” while holding up a friend of mine’s name and number on a poster board. After an hour or so of this nonsense, I had advanced through a scenario where I was standing outside with a bullhorn yelling “lets go Reatahdo, lets go [clap][clap]” and DiNero coming out to kick my ass. I would obviously be grabbing my crotch and telling the old fart to “Analyze THIS!”

When it seemed like I could stretch it no further, I made a little L out of the toothpaste on the #1GF!’s toothbrush and told her that it was in honor of Leahtahdo and that I was the kingathaworld…

I think that there is definately a price to pay for being the #1GF!. And sometimes that price is high.

Ladder 49 (drama): Within 20 minutes, I found that I couldn’t take any more, and started wandering around the apartment just to get away. I eventually migrated away from the TV, leaving the GF to watch the overacted fireman story by her lonesome. This was a bad version of BackDraft, if you can imagine. F

Hotel Rwanda (drama): This is the true story of a man who did everything he could to protect a hotel full of Tutsi refugees from genocide in Rwanda. I don’t think that the movie lived up to the hype, but it really gave me the impression that I have no idea what a hero really is. Then again, it’s difficult to be heroic when there is no one around shooting at you. B

Old School (comedy): This is pretty much a Will Farrel version of Animal House. I laughed, but it is a pretty dumb movie. B

Without a Paddle (comedy): A bunch of guys go on a camping trip to find their dead friend’s treasure, and hilarity should ensue, but someone forgot to pack it. If comedy is a river, then the movie’s title is fitting. This was as painful to watch. C-

Roman Holiday (drama): This is an is old enough that it was Audry Hepburn’s acting debut. I think the pacing is much much slower and the dialog less frequent than in today’s movies, but it was more quaint than boring. One thing that I don’t understand is the weird accent that people have in these old films. It’s not quite an English accent, but it’s no form of American that I am aware of. Imitating out loud, even to myself, sounds incredibly dumb, but it does add a weird charm to the movie. C+

Tao Of Steve (comedy): Dex is a fat guy who knows that he can’t rely on his looks to pick up chicks, so he has developed a system called “the Tao of Steve” to do the work for him. The system is based on finding that place of cool inhabited by the most macho men of cinema like Steve McGarrett, Steve Austin, and Steve McQueen. This is a love story at heart, but it’s a love story that guys won’t mind watching in the slightest. B

Love Me if You Dare (French dark comedy): The movie is about a little boy and a little girl who dare each other to do increasingly worse and worse things to win a carousel toy from each other. The toy is passed back and forth throughout their lives with worse and worse consequences. I liked this movie so much that after I watched it I sought to validate my thoughts by seeing what other people had written about it online. That was a mistake. People tore this movie apart like I have never seen without actually saying “Fuck this movie. Fuck it up its stupid ass.” A

Team America: World Police (comedy): This was an action movie done all with marionettes reminiscent of the 60’s show the Thunderbirds. The movie was thoroughly crap, but worth watching simply for the puppet sex scene. You heard me. I said that I really didn’t like it after I watched it, but I’ve quoted it numerous times, and the music is stuck in my head. C

Word Wars (documentary): This is a documentary following 4 players through the 2002 National Scrabble championship. I don’t think that this one is for everyone, but I get a kick out of watching people who are way, way nerdier than me. C+

The Princess and the Warrior (German drama): This film shares the director and lead actress with Run, Lola, Run, but nothing more. Some of the shots are nice, but I can’t say that any of it had any lasting effect on me. C

Sideways (drama): This is the story of a gregarious actor and an introverted author who go on a winery tour the weekend before one is supposed to get married. I didn’t expect much from the film because I was told that it was a depressing movie about an alcoholic, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be an in-depth character study of a perpetual victim. I didn’t find it depressing, and even though the ending left me hanging (which I really hate), I can’t say that there was a more perfect ending to the film. B

Mean Girls (comedy): There is no way in hell that I wanted to like this film. Before I even watched the movie, I had a grudge against it for being such a direct and total rip off of the movie Heathers that it really should be classified as a derivative work. I liked the movie Heathers, and the simple fact that the current generation of young movie goers has no idea that the movie exists doesn’t mean that Hollywood should re-make and repackage it with a hip young cast, does it? “Hell No,” I thought. Then, I sat down and watched it and found that even though it was almost the same story, Mean Girls was actually funnier than my generation’s version. B+

Da Ali G. Show Disc 1 (comedy): He’s a white guy pretending to be an Indian guy pretending to be a rapper. He interviews world leaders (I have no idea how he gets the access) while wearing a big yellow sweatsuit and gold chains. And he asks moronic questions that make women roll their eyes and me roll on the floor. B+ for Booyakasha!

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (comedy): As a man, reviewing this movie is as useful as sitting down and reviewing a bra. It was so wholely and intentionally made for women, that I have no idea what the criteria are to even begin to judge it. The GF said she could’ve lived without it, so F. Oops? Is that a rating, then? F? I suppose so. F-itty eF eF F Burn your bras!

Saw (thriller?): Ok. If you want to see “Saw” done correctly, see Se7en. For Saw, the plot twist at the end was so stupid that I my head involuntarily lolled, the gore was over-done, and I don’t think that there could’ve been worse acting from people who make their living in front of a camera. The end of the 2 hours went something like this:
Me: Shit.
GF: I want it all back.
Me: The time?
GF: Yes, all of it.
Me: It could’ve been worse.
GF: [quizzical silence]
Me: We could’ve been forced to blow a donkey in a Mexican jail…
GF: Still…

Short Cuts (drama): This was the story of how a bunch of lives in Los Angeles intersected. It has an all star cast, and some really great acting, but it’s 3 hours long and really doesn’t go anywhere. I can say that it’s easy to get involved with the characters on an enjoyable 3 hour ride to nowhere, but this is really a character study, and not for a lot of people. B+

Sex & Lucia (Spanish drama): If you are into spending an hour watching Paz Vega walk around naked or guys showing the full Monty, this is the movie for you (Three quarters through the movie, I actually pointed at the screen and said “Holy crap! Look at that dude’s dong!” I didn’t want to, but it was a knee jerk reaction to seeing a baby’s arm holding an apple attached to a man’s midsection. The GF just calmly said, “Don’t point.”). If you want normal things like plot, characters, cinematography, I’d look elsewhere. Boobies: A. Dongs: Sorry, I don’t rate dongs. Movie: C-

Thomas Crown Affair (Whodunit?): A Rich dude pulls off stealing a painting from an art museum and a woman investigator wants to catch him. That’s it. Not bad. Not great. Regular. B-

In the movie, I Heart Huckabees, the essential question is whether we as humans are all connected, or whether we are all essentially alone. It took the question to extremes where one camp argued that humans are so connected that they are like a blanket. In their view, it didn’t matter whether you live in the mansion on the hill or sit alone on a dung heap, because humanity is so connected that we are, in essence, one. If someone else lives in the mansion, so do you. If someone sits on a dung heap, so do you.

On the other extreme, the movie proposed the nihilistic view that nothing matters because we are so separated from each other that connection and true knowledge of anything are impossible.

Both are extreme views, and the movie happily dumps the viewer in some happy little medium where both views coexist as two sides of a philosophical coin, but it avoids even the smallest attempt at reconciling the two philosophies. If it had made the slightest attempt, I could’ve avoided all this writing, and you could be doing something more useful than reading philosophy 101 from someone who doesn’t even smoke weed or have a pony tail. Yay.

The question is: can the two polar extremes of people being utterly disconnected and completely connected coexist, and both be true?

I don’t think that there is argument against the existence of connections existing between parents and children or among siblings. What about connections to people we just met, where we just seem to “hit it off” without the slightest effort? Anyone who has ever shared a laugh with someone knows that we can share some connection with people. If we can agree these connections exist, can we stand beside the premise that we are utterly alone?

Now, those of you who subscribe to the premise that “all humans are one” can line up at my front door. First we’ll weed out 23% of you for being on drugs, a solid 49% of you for being below average intelligence, and 7% for being guided by some form of higher being. The 21% of the critical thinkers left will get a good old fashioned kick in the nuts (I suppose we can set up some sort of equally painful uteral tweaking for the ladies) to see if it hurts me as much as it hurts you. If we are all one, it should, but it won’t, so we’re really not.

So we’re not one, but we’re not separate? Yes. Both and none. This has nothing to do with magic, jebus, or Stephen Hawking. Simply put, our problem is our brain.

There are cases in which people intentionally distort and misrepresent situations to us, and it makes some of us mad as hell, and throws others into years of therapy, yet our own brains do the same thing to us all the time and we happily ignore it. Our perceptions may paint an untrue picture of what is happening around us, or our brain may fill in the gaps where our perception left off to present us with an uninterrupted picture of what is going on in front of us.

Your eyes are doing it to you right now. Your eyes are taking high quality samples of these words right now and storing them in your brain. It is creating a virtual model of the room you are in, right now and that is where you are living: not in the real world, but in the virtual representation of the world as stored in your head. You’re here, but you’re not. Close your eyes and take a second and really try to picture the last time you were reading a book before reading on.

If you are like most people, you visualized the scene where you were looking at yourself reading. I will extend the assumption of your normalcy to include the premise that you’re not prone to out of body experiences while reading. Yet, quite naturally, you have visualized a scene not as it was, but from a point of view that you could not have held in the real world.

And you do this with everything. You see a table, your brain creates a little table in your head and stores it there. You and I can both interact with the same table, and we can both agree that it is solid and brown without conference. Yet, we will store different tables in our heads based upon what we individually find interesting about it. I might store the short table with the scratch in the leg, while you store the veneer table that could use some polish. We see the same object, yet we create different objects in our minds.

What if we turn the table into a person? There is only one person in the real world, but all of us have built models of that person in our heads based on the attributes that stand out to us. And because you create a little carbon copy of them in your head, you never really interact with the other person. You only interact with your perception of them. Who they really are, can only be felt by them, and even if they could express it with the most truthful of words, you would never reach it. You would always be interacting with someone that you have created, rather than the person who really exists.

They will always exist to you as filtered through you and your perception. You will always project onto that carbon copy the attributes that you want them to have and deny them the attributes that they don’t deserve. You will force their actions to fit into your model of them, irrespective of their accuracy in the real world. Did Jim just yell at me because I’m driving him crazy? No Jim yelled at me because James a dick. Did Mary just pocket that ten bucks off of Jim’s desk? No way! She’s a sweet old lady. And, plus, like I said, Jim is a dick.

So, are the Nihilists right? Are you really making any connection with other people at all? Or are you merely interacting with a model that only exists in your head? If you are only interacting with a model of someone in your head, you are then incapable of making any real connection with them. We are all alone.

Yet, if the only connections that you make with people are really interactions with models of them in your head, then you are God. Everyone in your world was not only created by you, but exists within you. And if everyone exists within one being, then everyone is connected and we are all one.

With talk like this, I should probably take up drugs or drown it all out with some Slayer.

Pieces of April This is a pretty funny story about a girl who is having her estranged family to her ghetto apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s an indy film, so the camera work is a little shaky, and it’s a character piece, so it might not be for everyone. I enjoyed it, and it put the GF in a major weepfest (which means chicks will dig it too). B++

I Heart Huckabees (comedy?): If a professor assigned this to me for a philosophy class, I would think that he was the coolest teacher in town. Because I wasn’t, I felt like I was being dragged through a very heavy philosophy lesson punctuated by comedy. B-

Jersey Girl (drama): Oh Ben Afleck, how you deserve a kick in the balls for making this movie. Jennifer Lopez is married to Ben, and dies when their child is born. Ben doesn’t want the baby, until the end of the movie when he has a heart warming change of heart. If this were a sporting event there would be penalty flags all over the field for bad acting, intentional tear jerking, and for killing Lopez without once showing her largest asset. D-

Kaena: The Prophecy (animated): This was on for free on a free Starz weekend, so I sat through it. I knew that there was some sort of buzz about it, but I didn’t know why. It was about a giant tree in the sky that had some sort of alien power ball jammed in it or something. It was like I was watching something made by the Japanese, for the Japanese. Then, 3/4ths through the movie, the buxom cartoon gets naked. At that point, I realized what the buzz was about, and how much time I had cluelessly wasted on it. They were big, fake, animated jugs, that some lonely nerds created a buzz about. Get GF’s and stop chatting up the nude cartoons, freaks. D

Dirty Pretty Things (drama): Audrey Tautou from Amelie played an immigrant in England that sort of lives with some African dude who is on the lamb or some shit. Even though it involved kidney cutting and was free, this movie was boring as shit. I’m bored even mentioning it. C-

Ali G: Indahouse (comedy, innit?): Dis was de best movie, ok? Ali G is this white guy, who talks like a Jamaican guy with a British accent, wears yellow fubu sweat suits, drives a little yellow car with a big wing on it, has a 2 finger ring that says “EastSide”, and he wants to save the youth center by getting elected to Parliament. This was all dick and fart jokes, but I actually watched it twice in a row. B as in Booyaka!

Bringing Down the House (comedy): I use the term “comedy” loosely when categorizing this movie. I pretty much knew it would be crap, but it has Steve Martin and Queen Latifa in it, so I took a shot. There’s something about watching Eugene Levy trying to get jiggy with a big girl with the attitude of a fit girl that kept me from the stop button. C

Spanglish (romantic comedy): This is essentially a 2 hour exploration of the interactions between a wealthy family and their Mexican maid, as told by the maid’s young daughter. The characters in the movie were extremely believable and quirky, throwing you headlong into the story. Sandler did a surprisingly good job without relying on a schtick to float his performance, and Paz Vega, who plays the Mexican maid, did the entire performance without knowing how to speak English. To me, this made her performance all the more remarkable. Although I enjoyed the film, and Paz Vega is one salsarific fox, no matter which way you slice it, this is a chick flick. B.

Pirates of the Caribbean (stupid): Having a movie that’s a 2 hour long advertisement for a 30 year old Disney ride, isn’t exactly the best idea for a movie. Even though I thought that Johnny Depp did an excellent job, I have to fail it, because I shut it off after a mere half hour. It is interesting to note that Depp based his performance on Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, but not interesting enough to keep me watching. F

Go (action): Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, I realized that I had seen it before and was on the verge of shutting it off. It was surprisingly good the second time. I suppose it’s difficult to describe the plot, but like Pulp Fiction, or Mystery Train, we follow a series of simultaneously occurring events in a thrill a minute ride. I’d never have guessed from the DVD cover or from any plot summary that I could find, but this one made me laugh out loud, made me say “oh shit!” a couple of times, and tied up every last loose end by the end of the movie, leaving me free to hit stop without feeling like I had wasted another 2 hours of my life. A-

Donnie Darko (sci-fi): I really don’t think this movie was marketed properly in the states, because I always thought it was a teenager slasher movie that somehow involved a demonic rabbit. What it turned out to be was a really, really well-written and directed time travel movie. Kevin Smith (of Clerks, Jay & Silent Bob) was featured on the commentary and put it pretty well when he said something like, “After the movie, you just sit there like ‘What the fuck did I just watch?’ Not like it’s a horrible movie, but you think you’re just too stupid to get it.” And that’s exactly what happened to me, forcing me to watch it twice. I really could’ve used another viewing to absorb more of the subtleties that I might have missed on the first two passes, but I think I’m being a bit obsessive. (On a side note, Smith was saying that it has been nearly impossible to track down the copyright holder of the movie, C.H.U.D., making me want to make my VHS copy more accessible.) A.

Iron Monkey (kung fu): I always watch movies in their native language, but this one was so fucking asinine that I couldn’t imagine that watching it in English could possibly make it worse. I don’t think that I can waste another word on this. Ooh, how about a letter? D-

Out of Time (drama): Oh look, some cop is getting double crossed and he needs to fix everything before time runs out, bla, bla, yadda, yadda. I think I’ve seen this movie 50 times under 49 different titles, and I seem to be a step ahead of the plot a majority of the time. C-

City of God (drama/action): Based on a true story of the violent youth gangs that ruled the slums of Rio in the 1970’s, this movie would’ve been brutal with an adult cast, but the fact that the perpetrators were children made it even more so. It’s reminiscent of a Lord of the Flies, and contradicts our traditional, and stronge held belief of the innocence of children. B+
The Office Series 2 (comedy): This was the second part of the BBC’s Office series, which I found more painful than funny. C
Flesh Gordon (semi-porn): In 1974, this was made as a “porno” knock off of Flash Gordon. The acting is horrible, the story bites, and it’s not really a porno. I have to admit that it was funny as hell, but for all the wrong reasons. The best part of the DVD is listening to the commentary track featuring one of the producers telling the story of evading the police to get the film made. C+
Our Man Flint (action): This is a 1966 spoof of the whole James Bond super-spy genre. It’s a pretty silly, with a couple of laughs, but not really worth watching. C+
The Forgotten (Thriller): A woman is losing the memory of her dead son. Is she crazy, or is it a conspiracy to make her think she’s crazy? Well, neither. Not to ruin it for you, but it’s fucking aliens. This movie really had potential, but not even the director’s cut left me with any sense of satisfaction. For my own peace of mind, I’m going to pretend the writers were abducted by aliens and severely anally probed before being able to finish the script. C

Ray (drama): If you haven’t heard the buzz from the critics to your grandma, everybody just looooves this movie about Ray Charles’s life. Jamie Foxx does an excellent job of playing ray Charles. His performance was so damned convincing that I would bet that if he played a cactus in the desert, I would start sweating in my seat. Unfortunately, two hours of staring at a fucking cactus is two hours of staring at a fucking cactus, no matter how realistic it seems. The same goes for Ray. Cut the motherfucker down to an hour long ABC after school special on the dangers of shooting horse with jazz musicians, and I’ll bump it to a B and get on with my life. C+

Wicker Park (drama): There was this crap movie in the early 90’s called Single White Female, about a psycho female stalker. Even though it was deemed a thriller, the movie was pretty stingy with the thrill, and a pretty generous waste time. Now, let’s say we squeeze that tiny bit of thriller out of SWF, and add in a lot of grainy, artistic flashbacks and shots that go on too long. Then, top it all off by taking any semblance of writing and handing it over to the interns. We would then have a film called “Wicker Park”. I think I subconsciously forced the need to urinate about 12 times during this movie. Then I cooked some chicken. I just couldn’t take it. D

White (drama): This was the second in a series of three films that were supposed to deal with French society. The First, Blue, had some nice shots, but made no fucking sense. This one gave up the nice shots. I didn’t make my GF watch this, and I should’ve spent the time more wisely. I’m not even going to bother mentioning the plot. C-

The Secretary (drama/dark comedy): This is an S&M movie, so it’s probably not for most people, but I can say that this is easily one of the strangest love stories that I have ever seen on film. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a girl who is released from a mental hospital and gets a job working as a lawyer’s secretary. The way she kept her character walking a line between being a woman and being a child was pretty amazing and the plot was strange enough to keep me watching. B+

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (drama): I don’t know what the hell was going on in this movie, but I was stuck on a plane and the stewardess wouldn’t let me shut it off. C

After the Sunset (action): It was a twisty little thief/caper movie that I watched while again captive on a plane. I was entertained, but the air is pretty thin up there, and I can’t say if I would’ve enjoyed this on the ground. B

Finding Neverland (drama): I’m not into period movies or biographies, but again, I was stuck on a plane. Johnny Depp played J.M. Barrie, the author of “Peter Pan”. Over the years I have become convinced that Johnny Depp is a good actor who stars in shit movies, but for once I was pleasantly surprised. B+

The Others (horror): Nicole Kidman sucks. I think she’s so overly dramatic that I find it difficult to pay attention to for more than 5 minutes. That said, I watched and enjoyed this entire movie. I think that Kidman’s overly dramatic style has finally found a home in the character of a turn of the century Victorian woman in a haunted house. This was a horror movie, but didn’t resort to loud noises or gore for the scare. It was simply creepy and slow enough for the hair on my neck to stand up a number of times. B+

P.S. - It’s snowing and I worked 11 hours today. Vacation is o to the v, e to the r.

8 1/2 (foreign): The only reason that I rented this was that it got great ratings everywhere I looked. After the first hour of avant garde dream sequences, I was apologizing for renting the movie. After the second, I woke the GF up to apologize again. When I finished it, I actually went straight to google in a near panic thinking that I was not only too stupid to understand the symbolism of the movie, but my stupidity had helped me to entirely miss the story itself.

If I had only read critics comments instead of their ratings, I might’ve seen that although critics rate this movie highly, no one understands a single fucking minute of it. In 15 minutes of googling, I couldn’t find one basic plot outline of the film. How can a movie be phenomenal without even having a basic semblance of plot? It’s akin to a bunch of people in an art gallery applauding at toilet because it is so obscure and life-like, roping each new critic into their bovine reality. And I just stand there hoping it’s not the only toilet in the place. If I knew there was no story, I might’ve enjoyed the film more, rather than getting frustrated trying to make sense of it. C

Ghost in the Mail
I mailed my movies back to Netflix last Saturday, and just got movies from them today. And out of 3 possible movies in my mailbox, I only got 2. If you make me wait for 7 days, at least send me all fucking 3. In most states, I could get a gun faster than this.

Ghost in the Machine
When windows won’t install a package because it says it’s already installed, things are bad.

If you have to hack both the files and registry entries out manually only to find that Windows still thinks the product is installed, things are worse.

When you get to the point where you have to use MSIEXEC from the command line, forcing its output to a log file (msiexec /i [package] /l [logname]) just so you can figure out what fucking GUID is making a fool of you, things are going poorly enough to make even a seasoned sysadmin unhappy.

If you happen to come across the GUID hours later, and are forced to resort to using Mircrosoft’s MSIZap to locate a bunch of hidden reg keys that you’ve missed, your lack of beard to pull on while you think will drive you nearly bat shit crazy. You may even begin to do push ups between the reboots.

When you finally finish it all, you will have an immense feeling of satisfaction for a solid five minutes until you realize that you just spent 4 hours troubleshooting a single installation, when a reinstall of the entire system might’ve set you back 2.

I smell like frustration with fudge and nuts.

Hide and Seek (horror): Oh let’s start this one by saying that after this movie ended, a friend of mine stared at the screen and said, “What the hell happened to DeNiro.” I mean there was a time that you could stick DeNiro in a movie taking a crap for two hours, and people would leave the theater thinking that it was the most honest defecation that they had seen on film. I think that the creators of Hide and Seek were thinking the exact same thing:

Script? Fuck it, we’ve got DeNiro.
Scariness? Fuck it, we’ve got DeNiro.
Plot twists? Fuck it, we’ve got DeNiro.
Acting? Fuck it, we’ve got DeNiro.

I’d have to say that the best part of the movie came during the credits when a woman walking out said, “Well, I guess they don’t make movies like “The Ring” or “The Grudge” anymoah.” I’d have to agree with my friend who said, “Those are new movies, made in 2002 and 2004, respectively, so, uh, yes they do.”

Even though I paid $9.75 per ticket (can you believe that?) to see this royal piece of crud, I would’ve walked out on it in the first 45 minutes if I hadn’t been on a double date. And once I get to Hollywood and find those 20th Century Fox fucks who made this movie, we’re gonna make ‘em eat our shit, then shit out our shit, then eat their shit which is made up of our shit that we made ‘em eat. Anyway, and this rarely happens but: F.

Stealing Beauty (no idea): Because I’ve been putting a lot of foreign films on my Netflix queue, I thought I’d throw my GF a bone and add a major chick flick in there to make up for it. This was the one that I threw in. The description mentioned a girl, and some love story crap, and even some stuff about someone’s mom dying, so it sounded like total chickamania to me. Unfortunately, it was, but not in a good way.

This was like being set up on a blind date with someone that your friend told you tells the best stories ever, and then sitting and listening to her talk about her feelings for 2 hours without finishing a single thought. But you can’t seem to extract yourself and run out the door, because you just know that she’s going to make a point some time. Unfortunately for you, she never does. But, she flashes you a few times, so you figure it’s not a total loss. C-.

Twilight Samuri (Japanese drama): A Samuri’s wife dies, and he gets really sick of being a Samuri. He decides that he would rather give up his status and stay at home to care for his daughters, but his clan leaders think that’s a bad idea. Although this movie was slow and drawn out, and I expected a little more sword fighting, I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it. If they added a little more sword fighting and an ending that didn’t seem like they got tired of writing, and I’d bump this one up a little, but B.

In the movie, Garden State, one of the main characters says to the other, “You gotta hear this one song. It’ll change your life.” That song is from the Shin’s Oh, Inverted World, which I’ve been slowly growing into over the last few days. I wouldn’t say the album is life changing, but it has put me into a strangely nostalgic mindset. Somehow, it’s made me step back and see that, for years now, I’ve been living like I’m an old man.

I care about my dead career, my car, taping TV, and a bunch of other thoroughly aimless bullshit that, if left unchecked, will eat enough years to leave me looking back and my life with nothing more to say than, “What the fuck did I do.

It wasn’t always like this.

There was a time when everyone I knew would drop by each other’s apartments with no time table nor plans to speak of. We would end up watching crappy TV together, and inevitably either stay too long or fall asleep right on each other’s floors. There was always a stream of people in and out of wherever we were, and there was always nothing going on in a number of places.

Now, it seems that the apartments have turned to houses, and everyone has grown into adults. Phone calls that used to be made on the road simply to establish where everyone was, now they need to be made 3 days in advance and with a purpose and definite timetable to frame any and all plans. We used to pick each other up and drive together. When was the last time that you picked someone up to go somewhere? When was the last time that you had four people in a car that weren’t either children or another couple?

Don’t ask me, because I couldn’t tell you. I can’t even remember the last time I called anyone just to hang out without including a meal, or the last time someone dropped by unannounced, nevermind someone falling asleep on my floor. I have no idea when the last time I went to a full-on house party was, or the last time that someone wanted to aimlessly spend time with me without plans or time limits purely for the company.

Maybe that’s what growing old is all about. Maybe it truly is about loss. Maybe it’s about losing interest, and having others lose interest in you.

Then again, maybe I should throw the Shins out the window and put the Slayer back in the player.

I’m getting a big, blue fucking mowhawk. Then, I’m coming to your house during the dinner hour.

Ok. Not really. My career is dead enough. I can’t believe that I now use career as an excuse for not doing stupid things.

Shit. Save yourselves.

Sure my PC will automatically transcode DVDs to MPEG files for my video library, but why can’t it transcode them in sweet-ass DTS? And how the hell does it transcode the DVD in the first place?

If your computer will do something for you automatically, and you spend days learn the underlying process, you may be a little bit geeky. If you can re-write the process to your liking, geekiness is assured. If you can get the little DTS light on my receiver to light up when I play my MPEGs, you win $3. If you want to enter god mode, make a PVR-350 decode the video while offloading the DTS decoding to an external sound card.

If you have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about, don’t worry about it. Just say, “Nerd,” and keep on truckin’.

Good I
Day 6, and I got not only the 5.1 stereo working on the ol’ sound card, but I got it to output in DTS from a DVD. Next up: getting MPEG2 files to play in DTS. I need to figure that out right after I figure out what I did to get the sound card working. Then, hopefully, I’ll write it down.

Good II
Day 7 and Netflix decided to send me some movies. I made my GF watch Life is Beautiful, warning her that she was going to cry like a baby. And you will, too, if you watch it, you big wuss.

Good III
After Shaving 101 and Shaving 102, I thought that I had covered all possible beard types. The only thing that I could think of to do for Shaving 103 was a Mr. T mowhawk (with beard connection: pic). As I hadn’t yet figured out the logistics of getting away with a celebrity trademark haircut on a basement-dwelling LAN admin scalp, I was lucky to find Name That Beard.

Not only have I never donned the “Franz-Joseph” or the “A La Suavarov”, but I never even considered the “French Fork.” And who knew that mutton chops could be considered friendly? Sorry, Mr. T.

Touching the Void (documentary): Two brave and incredibly unlucky guys go mountaineering on a mountain that has never been climbed before. They do this incredibly brave/stupid thing with no one but the biggest English wuss in the universe as their base camp support. To make matters worse, they found this guy hitchhiking on the way to the mountain. Bad things ensue. Moral: Stupid and brave are a bad combination. B-

School of Rock (comedy): Let me preface this with the fact that I think Jack Black is really funny. I just wish he could land a role in a funny movie just once. This movie has a few of good points: 1. If you look at the various band stickers seemingly placed everywhere in the movie, a lot are impressively and obscurely cool. 2. It made me remember how incredibly cool it feels to be in even the crappiest of bands. 3. The GF got proof that any rock faces I make while playing air guitar are not specific to me, and thus, can not be considered a personal defect.

Despite these fine points, this movie is proof that you’ll get some laughs if you stick a bunch of cute kids in a movie with Jack Black, but the comedy will seem thin and contrived. Even though I laughed a few times, I had to give this movie a semi-crappy rating, which seemed to really irritate the GF. The only way that I can explain it is by saying that if a guy trips and falls on the sidewalk, I will probably laugh, but I won’t automatically consider him an adept comedian. C+

Million Dollar Baby (drama): Upon hearing the description of this movie, I groaned. There were words like “heartfelt” and “triumph” which indicated that I would be attending a full-on chick flick. When I found out that it was a Clint Eastwood movie, I let out a double groan, because Clint’s movies in his later years have turned out to be as girly and meandering as his earlier films are direct and action-packed.

After seeing the movie, I can’t say that it isn’t a chick flick, but it is in no way your typical Julia Roberts bubble gum tear jerker. Before seeing this movie, I would say that the director’s cut of the Butterfly Effect was a probably the worst emotional downward spiral that I had seen on film. It left me staring at the screen wishing I had a comedy or two to wash the bad feelings out. I may not admit it, but secretly I want the good guy to win. I want to be left with some glimmer of hope that everything is going to turn out ok. And I want to leave the characters behind in the theater.

Unless I focused on the illusion that this film was about Clint Eastwood’s character, this film made me feel worse than that. It was grittier, it was darker, and it had no science fiction to detract from its believability. It left the theater morose, and I don’t think that there was one woman in the theater with enough tissue in her pockets.

In life, not everything turns out ok, but film has a way of filtering life and tying up all the loose ends into a nice, neat package that we can leave the theater feeling good about. When it doesn’t, most of us don’t enjoy it. I definitely don’t. Life is hard enough. Despite leaving me with 2 days of bad feelings, it’s unfair to judge it for not leaving me with something hopeful to carry away. On the contrary, I can only say that it was, to me, a powerful film. A

*Theater Edition

Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy (documentary): Ron Jeremy was on a TV show a while back, and he seemed like a really down to earth, genuinely nice guy. I found this surprising, because Ron is one of the biggest porn stars in the world (no pun intended). Unfortunately, the documentary falls flat, portraying Jeremy as a bit of a nut. My favorite part in the movie was when a young porn star says to Jeremy before a scene, “Do you think you could just get this over with quick, because I want to get out of here.” “Not if you keep talking like that, honey,” was Jeremy’s disgruntled reply. C

Unforgiven (Western): Clint Eastwood is a retired killer that comes out of retirement to kill some people for money. I’m not fond of westerns, but Eastwood westerns are usually pretty good. Eastwood played a good part, but I think the writer got bored somewhere near the middle and gave up. C

Manchurian Candidate (drama): This one was a remake, and I couldn’t remember the original except for the fact that there was some sort of twist. Denzel Washington did a good job, and the ideas presented were probably really novel in the 70’s when people were smoking so much pot that bell bottoms seemed to be a good idea, but this was a dud. C+

Igby Goes Down (drama): Igby is a rich, New York teenager who seems to screw up everything he does. Like most of the movies that I really end up liking, this is highly focused on character development and story, while providing a fair amount of very clever dialogue to keep me nodding in agreement. And although a little far-fetched, the reactions of the characters seemed very genuine. A-

Trois couleurs: Bleu (foreign): I don’t know why, but I really like foreign movies. Maybe I watch because they offer a different perspective, or that their visual effects don’t solely rely on explosions, or maybe I secretly feel a little smarter. I don’t know. Bleu is the first in a 3 part series (White, and Red follow) about a woman composing a symphonic score after her husband and daughter die in a car wreck (I think I have just written the worst advertisement anyone has ever written for a movie). Anyway, in typical French cinematic fashion, there are lots of really nice camera shots that are great to look at, but make no sense at all. A lot of the time I had no idea what I was watching, but enjoyed it. I couldn’t recommend this one as a stand-alone movie, but I will rent the others to see if the series is worth a watch. B

Given the number of movies that I watch, my parents decided to give me a three month subscription to Netflix for Christmas this year. The way it works is, for a monthly fee of $18 or so, Netflix sends me 3 movies that I can keep as long as I want. When I’m finished with one of them, I drop it into a postage paid envelope, and they send me another.

Like all great gifts, this was something I would’ve never bought for myself. I thought that I might not be able to stand the lag time between mailing an old movie out and getting a new movie back. When I want to watch a movie, as an American, I want said consumable in my hand within 5 minutes no matter what the time of day or night. And preferably said consumable should come with something free like, say, a 64 oz. Big Gulp. And maybe a cookie. So, when I thought about requesting a movie on a web site and having to wait at least 3 days for it to arrive, I figured that signing up would make my life more complicated rather than easier.

This is without even mentioning that I have, over the years, developed a finely honed system to avoid all inbound communication to my residence. My answering machine is in French, which I don’t speak, and full of messages that I rarely pick up. E-mail is worse is a notch down from there, and snail mail, god help it, is at the bottom of the proverbial dung heap.

Why? My mailbox sucks. It’s always crammed with crumpled piles of bills, ads for the price of produce at the local grocery stores, and prize notifications for “exciting” trips to visit “fabulous” time share opportunities from contests I never entered. Not to mention the fact that it’s completely incapable of speaking French half as well as the answering machine. It’s a mute, trixy little mailbox. And trixy little mailboxes get less attention per week than I dedicate to learning enough French to understand my snotty French answering machine: zeero hau-airs. hawhawhaw.

So, I figured that joining Netflix would not only upset the delicate balance of power in the relationship between my mailbox and I, but would also increase my anxiety because of lack of said movie being in my aforementioned hand within my 5 minute American time limit of desiring it. But, despite all the issues it brings to the table, it doesn’t take a mathematical wizard to figure out that it would be much cheaper for me to rent movies from Netflix than BlockBuster. Right?

I’m not so sure. Normally, I can wander through a Blockbuster for a good 25 minutes without finding a single movie that I want to watch, leaving me with an extra $4.95 in cash and 1.5 hours free at the end of the night. If I signed up for Netflix, I thought, the monthly $18 fee makes it seem like any movie after the fourth is a freebie (when compared to the $5/rental blockbuster), encouraging me to put my ass on the couch and waste time on movies that I normally wouldn’t even watch. Trixy Netflix.

Ah, how astute I am.

In the last two weeks, since activating my Netflix account, I’ve spent a relatively insane amount of time not only on the Netflix site rating movies and putting them in my queue, but the queue consists almost entirely of movies that I have either passed over in the video store or never even heard of. And when I am not on the site checking what’s been returned and what’s been sent, I’m running to the mailbox and literally sweeping my hand around in there feeling for Netflix envelopes. The balance of power has been upset, and I’ve sadly become the mailbox’s little French bitch.

Even though it wastes a lot more of my time, drives me crazy, and they’ve sent me the wrong discs twice within two orders, I am under the distinct impression that this was one of the best gifts I got this year. Oops. Gotta run. The mailbox has no idea I’m using the computer.

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (comedy): Harold and Kumar are Stoners. They get high and get a hankerin’ for White Castle Burgers. On the way, there are a lot of fart jokes. B. (Those lacking in testosterone, or not appreciative of a good fart joke would probably give this a C.)

Little Black Book (comedy?): Girl loves Carly Simon. Girl loves boyfriend. Girl sticks her nose into her boyfriend’s little black book, and hilarity should ensue. It doesn’t. And what the hell does Carly Simon have to do with anything in this movie? If I had big boobs and tear ducts, I may have given this movie a B. Then again, if I had big boobs and tear ducts, I’d probably skip this one in favor of some lesbian porn or fondling my boobs in the mirror. But, I don’t. So, C.

Anchorman (comedy): Will Ferrell was great in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He is always funny and as fast as Robin Williams on a coke binge. Unfortunately, this movie suffers from the same issues that curses SNL and a plethora of their spin off movies: No matter how funny your lead is, or how quirky the character is, the movie is going to suck if you don’t spend some money on writing some semblance of a story to hold people’s interest for 2 hours. C

Shaun of the Dead (horror/comedy): Rule Number 1: If the name of your movie is a parody, don’t give me some haughty bullshit about wanting to be “true to the horror genre” by making a real horror movie. If you want to make a horror movie, call it “Bloodbath” or “Day of the Dead VII.” If you name the movie “Shaun of the dead”, you better give me the humor and gore of “Return of the Living Dead” or “Evil Dead,” and not “Dawn of the Dead” with English people acting a little funny. Gahd. I’ve taken scarier craps. And probably funnier ones. Big fat C.

Garden State (romantic comedy?): Zach Braff from the TV show, Scrubs, wrote, directed, and starred in this boy meets girl movie. For a directorial debut, I was really impressed. It had some good camera work, a good story, and the acting was pretty good, too. It suspended my disbelief, which is rare. A

We don’t Live Here Anymore (drama): The tagline is “Is it adultery if no one cares?” I honestly can say that after this movie, I couldn’t care less, so probably not. This was so slow that my GF apologized several times while I was amused by the ceiling fan. I think that they should show this to today’s film students simply to torture them for all the crap that they will trick me into renting in the future. C

The Office Season 1 (BBC TV comedy): There’s a British office. It’s full of idiots. I laughed, but not a hell of a lot. C+

Sex in the City Season 1 (TV/comedy): It’s clever and funny, and after the first episode, I have no problem watching another. Somewhere around episode 5, my tolerance wears incredibly thin and I can think of nothing more pleasant than choking the shit out of Sara Jessica Parker and her high-heeled, high maintenance friends. B+ (in small doses)

Absence of Malice (drama): The local newspaper screws over Paul Newman, and he’s at the height of his career and has not ventured into salad dressings, yet, and chicks dig him, so he’s going to spend a couple of hours acting macho and serving up some lame ass payback. This was probably really good when America liked Sally Field and had never seen a plot twist, but even for free on cable, this movie was bunk. C

* Vacation Special Edition

Movie Reviews #636585
Bourne Supremacy (Action): Same old story: Boy meets girl, government puts a bullet in girl, boy goes killing spree. It met nearly all the requirements of a good action flick, having an abundance of explosions, gun play, kung fu, and car chases. There was a lack of a smoldering, scantily clad, pouty, supermodel lead in 6 inch heels and a short skirt, but the whole “I look like a pretty normal guy, but I’m trained to kill you in 15 secret ways with an ice cream scoop” easily made up for it.

For those who aren’t fans of shaky camera shots, this may not be the movie for you, although it was more NYPD Blue than Blair Witch, lending itself to the feeling that you are more of a bystander in the middle of the action than a bystander waiting in line to throw up. B+

From GF, with Love
If you yawn and your GF asks if you farted, instead of giving her that hurt, shocked look, invest heavily in mints and mouthwash.

From Me, with Love
One of my really good friends is engaged to a Harvard Lawyer. I was chatting with him via IM.

Me: Hey do you think that your fiance is a type A personality?
Him: [crickets]
Me: I only ask because I want to know if you’re marrying up or even.
Him: [crickets]
Me: I mean, I think of you are more of a B+ personality.
Him: lol
Me: No, really.
Him: She’s most definitely an A.
Me: Ok, then. Now let me ask you: Does that mean that laying around eating potato chips off your belly and playing video games is frowned upon?
Him: lol
Me: …Because I really don’t think I could deal with that. Hey, now what’s that personality type where you really don’t give a fuck about things most of the time, but when you do, you really give a fuck?
Him: lol
Me: I’m going with C+
Him: You’re selling yourself short…
Me: [crickets]
Him: [something like www.personalitytest.com/ testyurpersonality?php@dogdoo.m/ mrpoopy/ asshat.php]
Me: Personality tests are for Type a personalities looking to be A+’s
Him: lol

Should I be worried that a good portion of my conversations involve me talking and other people laughing at me?

Summary
Borrowing the Bourne Supremacy: 0 Dollars
Having stinky fart breath: 0 Dollars
Having friends that upgrade your personality type without tests: priceless.

Bubba Hotep (comedy/horror?): Ok. Elvis is old, has a “giant growth on his pecker”, and is hiding in a rest home with J.F.K. J.F.K. not only claims to have sand in his head, but happens to be black. If that’s not enough, the two are working together to stop a really lame, toxic avenger style cowboy mummy from, and I quote, “sucking people’s souls out of their assholes.” This is not meant as figurative speech. The movie was just good enough that I couldn’t shut it off, and bad enough that I kept asking, “Why am I watching this.” If you’re looking for a craptasticly done horror movie like this, I suggest checking out Bruce Campbell’s other movie, Evil Dead 2. This one gets a big, fat D.

Note: Today, the host at Stars bought us breakfast. Now that kicks ass.

Collateral (Character-based action?): It was a pretty well thought out movie with a good amount of action, and for $.99, how can I complain? Ok, fine. Why does Tom Cruise feel the need to sprint in every movie that he’s in? It ruins the action by making me laugh instead of gasp. Maybe it’s me, but he runs really strangely. B+

Dodgeball (comedy): Blockbuster had this one for the $0.99 overnight rental this week. A dodgeball to the nuts is pretty funny, but when a movie relies a little too heavily on it, the joke tends to run thin. If you can get this as the $0.99 rental, the featurette called “Justin Long: A Study in Ham & Cheese” is worth the full price of admission. C+/B-.

Ice Age (kiddie): Lots of story for the kids, none for the adults. C.
The Terminal (drama): The GF picked this one off Blockbuster’s 99 cent rack. For a buck it was pretty awesome. A-
The Station Agent (drama): A dwarf, an Italian guy, and a divorcee walk into a bar. It’s an indy film, so it has great character interactions, but I think they ran out of money before writing an ending. It went nowhere, but the ride was nice. B+
Coffee and Cigarettes (??): Jim Jarmusch directed two of my top all time favorite movies: Night on Earth and Mystery Train. This one was such a piece of crap that I had to shut it off before we got 30 minutes into it. If I shut off the movie, it gets an automatic F. F.

There Can Be Only One!
Guess the only site in google that gives you the “oligopolistic boogers” that you’re searching for. Go ahead. Guess. Yup, it’s me. I am currently the undisputed google champion of oligopolistic boogers, baby. Here’s the Proof. Eat my boogers, suckers.

Played 2 million hours of GTA:SA, watched 5 movies, attended 2 birthday parties and a confirmation, and averaged nearly 2 episodes of Jerry Springer per day.

Movies
Shrek 2: Good story, good animation, and it’s a movie for kids. Thumbs up. B.
Mona Lisa Smile: Oh look, my name is Julia Roberts. I’m in a movie. There are no guns. C
Incredibles: Amaaaaaazing animation, sub-par story. Although I wanted to be, I wasn’t very engaged. B
Elf: I think of every movie starring people from SNL as being a version of Night at the Roxbury. I wanted to hate it and ended up laughing my ass off at the stupid humor. A-
Bad Boys: Bad Boys II is one of my favorites. This one is a version of 48 hours with one less white guy. C

Movie reviews #226458322
Man on Fire (action): Tired story of the washed up mercenary that turns himself around and saves the day. C (as in crap).
triggermen (action): 2 hours went by and I had no idea why. P.S. Donnie Wahlberg sucks. C- (as in crap minus).
Harold and Maude (drama): I’ve heard people love this movie. I didn’t really get it, but it had a lot of funny quotes and some funny parts. B- (as in not that bad).

Jay
My friend Jay came in to Boston from Sweden for 23 hours on his way to visit his parents in Georgia on Saturday and didn’t tell anyone that he was coming in except me. I think it was payback for having been in the U.S. for three weeks the last time he was here and not having more than 2 hours for me. It was unexpected, and nice.

While waiting at Terminal E and sipping my Dunkin Donuts coffee, I remembered why I like being at the airport: everyone is happy, hopeful, and well, huggy. I can stand and watch people come in for at least a couple of hours without getting the least bit bored. This goes double for the international terminal because the varied cultures of the happy greeters, and the high proportion of exotic looking people coming through the gates.

Jay came in at 6PM Saturday, ate at Grumpy’s, met some friends, and hung out, leaving little time for sleep before heading for the airport at 6:30AM Sunday morning. I give the visit a harried thumbs up.

On the way home from dropping him off at the airport, I encountered the exact opposite of the friendly, hopeful air of the airport at the tolls. There was a fat middle eastern guy with a grey moustache and not-blue-blockers-but-might-as-well-be-sunglasses in the booth. I pulled up, and handed him a $5, and fully expected $3 back. Not only was I surprised to find out that the toll had been bumped up to $3 for passenger cars, but that I only got $.50 back.

When I stared at him in dismay he barked, “4.50″ in a way that typing cannot do justice (but, of course, I’ll try).

I just stared confused and eeked out a confused, “What?”
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!” he barked.
“Dealer plates?” I said confused.
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!”
“I’m not a dealer, man, this is a loaner while they work on my car at the dealer.”
“Dilled pletts. Fwad fifteh!”
“I’m not a dealer. This is a loaner.”
I stared. He stared.
“Jeem! Check cahd fod dillehd pletts,” at which point Jim came out of the booth and said something ingenious like “Yep. Dealer plates.”
“Dillehd pletts. Fwad fifteh!!”

At that point I realized that this guy was happier with the letter of the law than the spirit, and that for me, the price was not the problem, but this guy’s attitude. It was at that point that driving away was well worth $1.50. Once I had gotten a mile up the road and all the fantasies of perfect snappy responses and choking had faded, I hoped that this guy’s attitude somehow bit him in the ass. Then, I left him behind.

Mouse
For the last couple of weeks, I refused to believe it, but we have had a mouse in the house. I don’t feel good about killing small animals that I don’t intend to eat, so neck snapping traps were out. I mean, it wasn’t the mouse’s fault that he was searching for food in a place that I claimed as my territory. Due to my lack of urinating in every corner of the apartment, the mouse had no idea that I claimed this area as mine. It was merely occupying some small portion of an area that I arbitrarily claimed as my own based on an arbitrary monetary system that it knew nothing about. So, how could I kill it?

My GF bought these clear plastic traps that only open in. Each had air holes, and could be emptied by simply flipping the trap over allowing the door to swing inward fully, releasing the mouse. I stuck a piece of peanut butter coated Wasa (Swedish mouse trap!) in there, and set it in the laundry room overnight.

While I was out with Jay, the ingenious little invention trapped our mouse. Although it was only an inch long, my GF really, really, really harbors some serious issues against mice. As she slept behind closed doors, I released the little thing into a field near my apartment. I think that she closed the door to be as far removed from that mouse as possible, while I, on the other hand, stared at it in wonder, and thought it was really, really neat.

I wonder if my propensity to move mice from the house and snails off of the path is an indication of a big pussy or if it’s more big-heart Buddhist. Then again, in trivial matters, “why” is inconsequential, so who cares?

Frog Man
Because I don’t like telemarketers, I set the default language on my answering machine to French. I spent last weekend looking for a car, and have been getting a number of calls from various dealers. One of the dealers called me back today and left a very nice message detailing a multitude of things. Unfortunately, I could not possibly understand any of it, because he left it in French. The only French I’ve ever learned was the numbers 1-5, merci, and part of that song from the 70’s where the lady wants to do it with me.

Fly Girl (a fly fly)
Speaking of ladies that want to do it with me, GTA: San Andreas came out today and my fly-ass GF bought it for me even though it involves a ton of violence. Oh, and she also bought me Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back even though it uses a ton of foul language and Dogma even though it makes fun of religion. I guess she understands that they’re just games and movies and not tears in the fabric of society. That’s my kind of GF. Oh yea.

Supersize Me (documentary): A guy goes on a binge where he only eats things on the McDonald’s menu for 30 days. This wasn’t really a great movie, but it was a good waste of a couple of hours if you don’t have the patience to read Fast Food Nation (which I would recommend highly), or need motivation to get into the gym. C+