Bubba was in town this weekend so I've been spending more time then usual out of the house. We went out on Sunday night then went out big last night. I was out way past my bedtime. All this means I haven't been watching movies. I spent this evening catching up on TV for the week and wow, what a bad TV week. Everwood, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, 24: all pretty crappy this week. I'm about to watch tonight's West Wing, hopefully that will be a bit better.

I guess it's always like this a few weeks before the end of the season. All the shows need to have their big finale's so it's about now that they start laying the groundwork. There are usually some flat episodes before the crazy ridiculousness that happens for the finale (complete with silly cliffhangers that won't resolve until the fall - super!)

Here's a quick off topic post.

The New York Times Magazine has a wonderful article about North Korean refugees. NYTimes.com requires free registration, but it's worth it as they are a great paper with good online presense. Go read it here.

I forgot to mention that on Friday night I saw Better Luck Tomorrow. This was a great movie. But beware, it's super dark. Bad things happen in this movie, and the characters are real, so the bad stuff has power. I've read a lot of reviews that say this is the way teen movies should be made. This is true, for a certain type of kids movie. This is much more like Kids then American Pie. Bottom line: this is a great film.

I also watched the 2nd and 3rd episodes of Six Feet Under. This is a good show but I don't really go to TV for surreal stuff. I can handle surreal movies, but a movie has to wrap up in a few hours. Surreal episodic stuff doesn't work for me in the same way. I might pick up the other DVDs from time to time (my video store rents them one disc at a time) but I'm not making them a priority.

I induldged in sloth yesterday. I slept in until almost noon (I haven't done that in a long time) and then basically lived on my couch all day. I went out twice, but both times just to get food (although I stopped and got some movies on the first outing as well.) All told I watched The Mask, the first 20 minutes of SpaceBalls with the commentary turned on (it sucked) then another 15 minutes or so with it off, an indie movie called Roger Dodger, two episodes from the first season of the Gilmore Girls (the WB plays them on Sunday nights now), the season finale of Boomtown and the pilot for Six Feet Under.

I'm a bit supprised my eyes didn't hurt by the end of the day. It was a bit too much to process to have detailed thoughts on all of it, so I'll just do some highlights.

The Mask: This is probably Jim Carrey's best wacky comedic movie, and I still believe it firmly belongs on my list of the good comic book movies. Also it's cool to see in the credits "and introducing Cameron Diaz." This was her first movie and I wonder how she managed to not be in some early trash before scoring this role.

SpaceBalls: I love this movie and have seen it many, many times. I was way dissapointed in the commentary by Mel Brooks and had to watch about 15 minutes of the regular movie before I could move on. This is one of those where I can recite each line as it's happening (I refrain from doing this though, especially when others are around.)

Roger Dodger: This movie was intruiging. It's morally screwed up and quite dark, but I really enjoyed the dialog. And as a character study of a screwed up guy who sleeps with a lot of women it worked well. There were also many quoteable lines (I quoted it several times today.)

Gilmore Girls: I didn't really pick up on this show until the very end of the first season so it's great that the WB is replaying the full first season this year. It's been fun to see all the orignal episodes and it gives some more background to what's going on in the current episodes. I wish other stations would do that with their shows (for example, I didn't start watching The West Wing until midway through season two.)

Boomtown needs to get signed for next season. It's not an incredible show, but it's way, way above average and deserves a few more seasons to see what it can do.

Six Feet Under: This is a wierd and surreal show. I don't know how much time I'll spend on the later episodes, I may just cruise though some of the first season on DVD and see what I think after some more episodes. I mostly watched this because I like to watch the old Sports Night cast. That was one of my favorite shows and this was the same reason I started watching Ed again this season (when Sabrina Lloyd showed up.)

Well, I finally got around to adding a pair of support pages. The menu on the left now has links to a page all about me (if you care) and some links you might find interesting. Enjoy!

Yikes, it's been a week since my last update. That's bad news for you (it's gonna be long...)

I spent most of the last week visiting my Grandmother and other extended family types in rural Southwest Missouri (Carthage to be exact, but that link makes it sound way more interesting then it is.) I spent a lot of time reading and I also caught a few movies.

On Sunday night I went out and saw A Man Apart. This is really a paint by numbers action movie. Nothing too complicated, nothing special. But they did execute well on the classic formula. There were some fun moments and Vin Diesel does a good a job as anyone in roles like that.

Monday night my Dad and I (we were on the trip together) went and saw Anger Management. My expectations for this were way down after reading reviews of it over the weekend. This was good because while it was funny and entertaining, it wasn't what I was hoping for with the pairing of Nicholson and Sandler. It was really a run of the mill below average Adam Sandler comedy with Jack adding lots of flavor. As it was it was funny and passable, without Jack it would have been straight to video quality.

Then last night on the way home from work I went to see Bulletproof Monk. I wrote about this a while ago and my fears were accurate. This thing was like amateur night. The fights were poorly choreographed and filmed choppily. The special effects were pure camp and didn't blend into the human actors well at all. It was painfully obvious that the actors (outsite of Chow-Yun Fat) didn't have a lot of fight training - especially when it came to wire work. But in the end this all added to the camp factor. If you like the old school Hong Kong martial arts movies more for their camp then for the talented people who star in them then you'll probably enjoy this movie. I mean, how can you not get behind movie with a monk tutoring stiffler, a guy with "Mister Funktastik" tattooed across his chest (yes, that's his name), and Nazi's, yes Nazi's, as the main villians? Pure camp fun.

That said I have two thoughts that come to mind:

1. I shudder to do this, but I actually found myself comparing scenes in this movie to The Empire Strikes Back. Yes, I know this is a bit of blasphemy. But when Chow-Yun Fat starts following Stiffler around, messing with his mind and stuff, I was reminded of the early scenes when Luke first meets Yoda. Sad but true.

2. Why can't John Woo come back and direct again. He can get a Hollywood style budget then go sign Chow-Yun Fat. And here's the important part: Get Chow-Yun out of the martial arts movies where he does ok (but not great) and put two 9 millimeters in his hands like God intended. Then they could go off and make an stunning action movie. There was a brief moment of bliss where Chow-Yun had two guns in his hands in this movie - anyone notice how much more natural he looked there then in the hand to hand scenes? If you want to know what I'm talking about go rent Hard Boiled and The Replacement Killers.

Wow, I've been busy. Not so much time for movies. Although I have managed to fit a few in here and there.

I tried to have a Gilmore Girls moment on Saturday night but I ended up wimping out. I felt like crap on the river Saturday but fortunately we were at the Green River which is only about 45 minutes from my house so I got to come home. By the time I got home I was feeling a bit better. I ordered enough food for three of me and rented Tuck Everlasting. I ate a bunch of the food but only watched a few minutes of the movie before I fell asleep. Note that this was at the super late hour of 8:30...

Buton Sunday I had a bit more energy and watched the movie then instead. My reaction? I liked it. It was fun, and wholesome, and well made. It's a great innocent young teenager kind of movie. It's not a great movie, but it's not a waste of your time either. However, I haven't read the book. I've been told that this is one of those where if you liked the book then the movie will fall short - but chances are if you really liked the book you would have already seen this. The storyline was quite interesting, maybe I'll find a copy of the book and give it a read.

Then tonight I watched Phone Booth. I was really looking forward to this, although not for why you may think. Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs up. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 75%. But my friends who saw it on Friday night universally panned it. So of course I had to go see it to striaghten this all out.

I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fresh and original. I thought Collin Farrel, Forest Whitaker, and especially Keifer Sutherland did a great job. I thought it was an intruiging look at a scummy PR guy and a true psycho. However, I can see why my friends didn't like it. Not much happens. Everything happens in one place (trivia note: the movie was filmed in 10 days on one set.) The movie doesn't tell a story so much as it hints at a story.

That last part is what I feel like talking about most. This movie could be in real time. I actually got the distinct sense while I was watching it that it was meant to be in real time (fortunately they didn't gimmick it like they did in Nick of Time.) They even used some of the same editing tactics they use in the TV show 24, which also uses the real time gimmick (quite effectively I might add.) Anyway, because the story happens in real time it's essentially just a conversation between two people. Not a lot can really go on in 81 minutes of time. But we do get hints at back story. The fun part is the movie doesn't show us the backstory, it lets us fill it in. I had fun thinking about the prep the psycho put into this stunt. We got to know Stu by hearing about what he did and watching him react to his current situation.

You may not like it. But I had fun. No I'm going to have to figure out how to explain all this to my friends who straight up didn't have a good time.

Yikes, it's a good thing I'm not on deadline, cause I can't write well tonight...

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Lily,
Happy Birthday to you.

Yep, today is my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday sis, I hope you have a good day. And your present should get there tomorrow (only one day late, that's pretty good for our family...)

I threw the Dazed In Confused DVD in for a bit last night. I love this movie. It's just plain fun and there are lots of talented young actors in it as well. The best is they were moslty unknowns when the movie was made. Just check out this list:

• Jason London
  
• Joey Lauren Adams (From Chasing Amy - one of my true favorites.)
  
• Milla Jovovich
  
• Deena Martin (she's still a nobody, but the observant viewer will remember her as the Vegas cocktail waitress in Swingers.)
  
• Matthew McConaughey
  
• And of course... Ben Affleck

There's great energy and the soundtrack is awesome. It's the kind of movie that takes me back to high school. Of course I'd like to say that my experience was like the cool kids in this movie - but it was much more like three nerds trying to decide if they wanted to party on the last day of school or play their regular poker game. There are tons of great quotables but the best has to go to:

"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age..."

I forgot something earlier. One of the coolest things about going to an Indie movie is you get to see Indie previews. By far the most interesting one last night was for Winged Migration. Near as I can tell this will be 3 minutes of French narration with English subtitles followed by 82 minutes of spectacular shots of birds flying around to music. I know from watching the shots in the trailer that I'll be a fan. However, I'm a little worried about it's ability to keep my attention for 82 minutes with just pretty scenery and music. Anyway, it looks like it will open in two weeks in New York and LA and then hopefully in Seattle not long after.

My Tuesday night soccer team had a bye last night so instead I went to see Bend it Like Beckham. This one is still in limited release (only one screen in the greater Seattle area) so it may not be out in your area yet, but it should have a wider release in the next few weeks. I was looking forward to this one since it has an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wasn't dissappointed. It certainly wasn't an exceptional movie, but it was quite good.

It's a teenage coming of age movie that works the classic theme of second generation immigrants. In this case it's a young woman who is the daughter of a traditional Indian family who now lives in the suburbs of London. She wants to play soccer and date who she wants; her family wants her to learn to cook a full Indian dinner and marry a nice Indian boy. The movie has a bit of a weird feel though, it is mostly a comedy but doesn't have a lot of comedic moments. It sort of sits in this neutral zone between comedy and drama. Overall it reminded me of Billy Elliot, not just in story but also in feel. And the soccer wasn't that bad - with the huge exception of every shot with a goalkeeper in it.

I also watched The Emperor's New Groove in bits and pieces over the last week or so. This is one funny movie. If you like satirical comedy (and more specifically David Spade) make sure you don't miss this and go rent it.

Now I'm going to morph into a potato and spend a lot of time on my couch. I can't wait.

I just did a little site tweaking. You shouldn't notice anything unless you have a link somewhere to my archives. Just beware that they moved so all those links are now broken.

The big addition is the "permalink" thingy below. This will give you a link that will always go directly to that post. Since the posts rotate off the main page this would be usefull if at some point I say something interesting enough you want to link to it for a long time. And I promise not to move the archive files around any more - unless I really need to.

Happy Birthday Bubba! Those of you that know Bubba well will likely agree with me that I can't think of a better day for Bubba's birthday then April Fools Day. Congrats on the quarter century mark.

And in honor of Bubba (since his site does a lot of linking) here's a link he'll enjoy. I have to give Dave Barry credit for that one but it was actually my boss who pointed it out to me (yes, that's right, my boss - I wonder sometimes how we ever get anything done.)

Happy April Fools day everyone, and remember not to believe anything you read on most online sites today.

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