Think back to 1992. “It’s the economy, stupid!” Amy and I watched The War Room
Change vs. more of the same
The economy, stupid
Don’t forget health care.
Carville is an absolute genius and unbelievably entertaining as a special bonus feature. I’d team up with that dude any day just for the laughs. Stephanopoulos reminded me of Sam Seaborn which – it turns out – was intentional.
Amy and I saw Serenity yesterday, along with $10m worth of other people. We loved it. This morning, while I was running over the Brooklyn Bridge with Matt Blumberg, I asked him what he thought of it (he saw it yesterday also). He was unambiguous – he didn’t like it. I probed a little, found out he hadn’t seen the TV series (amazing show, but cancelled after a dozen episodes or so) and it was clear that he didn’t understand a lot of the movie.
It’s a fantastic movie. However, I’m going to guess that you have to at least be familiar with the backstory to get it. And – like other movies that evolved out of TV shows (e.g. The X-Files) I’ll bet that you have to love and have befriended the characters already to understand all the jokes, bantering, and double entredres. If you haven’t seen the TV show, but want to see the movie, spend some time on the Firefly Wiki getting up to speed (c’mon – you’ve got to love a TV show that has its own wiki.) Or – try the fan blog if you want to keep up real time with the chatter. Or – go hardcore and watch the TV show Firefly on DVD in four days like Amy and I did.
Yes – Joss Whedon is a genius. Jayne caused me to fall out of my chair when he said – referring to River – “she’s starting to damage my calm.”
Ah – we’re back in the land of 24 screen movie theaters so our Friday night movie is no longer limited to two choices. However, almost all the movies out right now are crap (you know you are in trouble when the #1 movie last weekend was The 40–Year-Old Virgin) so we decided to give Transporter 2 a try.
We loved the original Transporter – it was definitely a sleeper and Jason Statham was – well – the British Vin Diesel. Frank (Jason) and his rules are back, the evil bad girl is super hot (although a horrifyingly bad shot), and the eastern European villain-scientists are bad news, but doofuses. The action / adventure / car chases / shoot–em-ups are great and – with the exception of a few scenes – I managed to suspend my disbelief for the better part of 90 minutes.
It’s not as good as the first one, but it took my mind off cancer, New Orleans, and other bad things for a couple of hours.
It’s Friday and our new movie choices appeared this morning at our little theater down the block. Tonight we went to the 8:30 showing of Wedding Crashers – remarkably the theater was completely full for the first time this summer (we were the oldest people there – I think all the teenagers in town showed up.)
Now – I’ll basically do anything I can to avoid going to a wedding (Amy and I eloped), even ones I’m invited to – so it was with some trepidation that I agreed to go to a movie with the word wedding in the title. Amy tricked me into seeing it by saying that there were venture capitalists in the movie so I had to go see it (yes – Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn pose as VCs in one scene – very very scary.)
Wilson was – as usual – cute, cuddly, warm, funny, and confused. Vaughn was hilarious. I’ve always loved this 6’5” dude, but he was absolutely at the top of his game in this movie. Maple syrup has several good moments, as do eye drops, sappy pickup lines, a very twisted virgin / first time / psycho girl theme that sucks in Vaughn, stage 5 clingers, “a little place on the shore,” plaid pants, the “touch” football game, a quail hunt (and other assorted WASP icons), and the uncontested scariest man in film – Christopher Walken – as dad. Will Ferrell – who nauseates me – had a few funny moments with his mother (and – if I treated my mom that way – she’d simply kill me.)
Well worth two hours of your life.
Hysterical – John Travolta looks damn good as a bunny. Uma Thurman – not so good. Hat tip to David Beisel.
I just wasted two hours of my life. At least I got to sit next to Amy and eat popcorn.
As I’ve said in the past, we get two movies a week in Homer. Friday morning comes with great anticipation as we drive past the theater marque (on the corner of Main Street and Pioneer – how fitting) to see what we get to enjoy next. This week is War of the Worlds and Bewitched and I had low hopes for both of them. Since we don’t have a TV here, this is all we are going to get this week (no – I haven’t broken down to watching movies on my laptop yet.)
We gave War of the Worlds a shot tonight. It was tragically awful. Yeah – the special effects were good. But H.G. Wells is screaming his head off wherever he is (or would be if you believe in an afterlife.) The acting was marginal. The plot was completely predictable. The Spielberg cute-heroic-screaming child did exactly what you’d expect. The sullen teenager did exactly what you’d expect. All the humans behaved poorly under pressure and the military was completely ineffective against the aliens. After 115 minutes of stupidity, the aliens and their machines fell over dead, humanity was saved, and the Morgan Freedman / God character got to make a stultifying speech.
And – I’m still not entirely sure what actually happened. Ugh – that was terrible. Sadly, Bewitched may be the better movie of this week.
One of the treasures of Homer is our local movie theater. It’s located on the corner of Pioneer and Main (how fitting) and is an old single seating theater. We get two movies a week with three showings a day (3, 6, and 8:30). The movies change every Friday so there’s a moment of excitement late Thursday night or early Friday when we drive (or run, or walk) by the marquis after the movie change. The popcorn is fresh and parmesan cheese is 25 cents extra.
Last week’s movies were Star Wars III and The Longest Yard. I punted Star Wars III since I’d already seen it in Boulder (and once was enough for this one – how disappointing) so Don and I went to The Longest Yard last night (gotta get it done by Thursday or you’re hosed). The girls (Amy and Christine) had no interest so they stayed home and played with dolls or something.
Adam Sandler’s remake of the 1974 Burt Reynolds original version
Tonight’s movie: Mr. & Mrs. Smith which we’ve already seen, but tonight is a 6pm movie night, so we’ll get to enjoy my namesake demonstrating some studly behavior while fantasizing about his girlfriend / movie-wife.
Star Wars 3 was technically beautiful, but thematically disappointing to me. However, Seth emailed me a link to Store Wars (via his dad Randy). You’ll have to decide whether or not you are on the dark side of the farm. Worth a five minute break from your day. Hang in there until the end – yogurt is delightful.
For all you 24 fans out there, Jason pointed me the 24: Season 4 Life Expectancy Chart. Priceless. Of course, if you aren’t a 24 fan YET, you can get started in – well – 24 hours – with 24 – Season One
To demonstrate how truly committed I am to the cause, I managed to convince Amy to let me change our flight time on Monday from Chicago to Washington DC so we could get there in time to watch the grand finale live.
NPR had a magnificent segment on the new Star Wars Family of Home Health Care Products for all you veteran Star Wars fans. The product line includes:
and many more, including the Skywalker Walker.
