Triple Play

-I have fallen behind the pace on my movie count. No specific reason for it, but there are little things that are pulling my attention away from the quest. But yesterday I fired it up and took in 3 films.

1.Wire in the Blood: Synchronicity. Another fine performance from this BBC series. Entertaining and interesting. I'm glad I don't live with the fear of a random serial killer stricking in Bloomington.
2.The Vanishing. A French movie that was probably a lot more scary back in the 80's. The "twist" ending wasn't much of a twist by today's standards, but was entertaining enough. Again, glad I don't have negative encounters with sociopaths and psycho's.
3.Iron Man. We went to the theater for this early summer popcorn flick. Ian and Adie knew even less than I did about the Iron Man back story, and I knew very little. But the flick did a good job of explaining everything easily, and had enough of crazy shit blowing up to keep us all entertained. I'm surprised that the studio gave Jon Faverau 140 million to make this movie without him doing any kind of big blockbuster work before as a director, but he did excellent and set himself up to make more of the awesome comic book movies. It doesn't hurt his cause that the film as already gross'd 210 million domestically.

- We went to Julia's for the Memorial Day weekend. It's always a good time up there, and this weekend was no exception. They decided to have a "small" get together on Sunday. Their idea of small still includes around 20 people, with enough food then to feed about 50. I did get in a game of croquet which was marred by my overzealous need to "send" Julia's ball down the hill. In my attempt to do so, I nearly crushed the side of my foot with the hammer. That sucked. I then later played in 5 games of volleyball. I'm proud to report that I did ok by my standards. I served a few that weren't out of bounds, and I made a few hits that didn't hurt my team.

- We get to pick up Gambit tomorrow. He's getting his harblls cut off as I type this, and will be ready to recover in his new home. Rouge is still a bit under weight, and will probably be ready by next week.

- GTA 4 is one of the main detractors from my movie quest. I'm amazed at the amount of detail that has been poured into it. I think I've played it about 30 hours at this point, but only completed maybe 15% of the game. And it's always nice to be able to disgust Adie with whatever depraved thing I make Niko do.

Stuff and Junk and Things

- Adie and I went to get kitteh supplies yesterday. Yes, we finally pulled the string and went and adopted two kittens from Nashville. They are still to small to bring home, but once they reach 2 pounds they can be fixed, and then brought home. So, we went to PetSmart to get all the necessities. Adie had her heart set on a specific box that had a lid and a special scoop notch and whatnot on the inside. Well, we couldn't find it and had to settle on one that was a step below. And she was seriously bummed out about it. But lo and behold as we were getting ready to leave, what was magically on display in the middle of the store, far away from the rest of the litter boxes, but the all powerful purple deluxe edition shit box. What a great day it turned out to be.

-Here are the adoption pictures of the little scamps. Gambit is on the left, and Rouge is on the right. They will be coming home in the next few weeks.


- I was driving around town the other day running some errands when I noticed a man approaching me riding on his motorcycle. I wouldn't have remembered this if he hadn't been wearing an oxygen tube with a tank strapped to his back. And of course no helmet. That guy has the biggest set of balls, but the smallest brain I have encountered in a long time.

-I'm heading to Louisville for the weekend. On top of seeing Kristen and Kevin, we'll be catching 2 Louisville Bats games. This will mark my first baseball games of the season. Many baseball bloggers have wagered that if the Reds played their AAA farm team the Bats, that the Bats would win hands down. So it should be a good time. They are playing the Indy Indians this weekend as well, so there is a bit of a hometown boy in me that will feel a bit bad about rooting for their demise, but I'll get over it. We also may try and make it to Churchill Downs to mourn the loss of that dead chick horse. If mourn meant bet on other horses and then leave without a second thought. That's what mourn means right? My vocab has suffered recently.

Dude, things happen.

- I got poison ivy on my arm from transplanting some wild hosta's in Joan's yard into her "hosta garden" It sucks.

- There are two people that live in the house. I looked down this morning and saw 6 toothbrushes in the bathroom. I was knocked stupid for a few moments trying to understand why this could be. Then I remembered that Adie has what most people would refer to as "shark teeth."

-I watched Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and Untraceable. Neither of which inspired me to write anything deep about them. Harold and Kumar was funny, which I expected. Untraceable was ok, until the final climactic scene which is jump started by the stupidest thing I have seen done by someone on screen in a very long time. Word to the wise, if you are being hunted down by a technological savvy killer who has just disabled your car's electrical functions rendering it useless, don't return to the car when it magically starts back up a few minutes later. You are just begging to be fucked with.

-I'm about a good hour's worth of work from being finished with school for this semester. Then I get to start summer classes on my birthday. But I'll have about a month off to recuperate. You know, from my extremely hard life. Boo Ya!

- The Reds still suck, but they did beat the Cubs last night. And they will have a chance to do it again tonight. I would almost be happy if the Reds never won a game except for every Cubs game.

Early Voting

I did my part for society today by going downtown to vote early for the primary. I voted early so that I could avoid the throngs of people on Election day, but still maintain my presence during this primary. Considering this may be the only time in my life when Indiana has a primary that matters to the outcome of the nominations, I had to do it.

Upon my arrival at the designated early voting place, I was graced with some excellent karma by getting a parking spot right out front that had been reserved for early voters. Score 1 early for me. I was then greeted by a handful of campaingers who eagerly thrust pamphlets and pages of literature for me to read before I voted. I took their gifts with a smile, but kept to myself that I would only be voting in 2 catagories today, neither of which included who they were stumping for. I just don't feel right voting in a category such as judge or coroner or something where I have no idea who the people are.

Much to my suprise there were about 40 people in line ahead of me. I wasn't the only one who thought they could sneak in during the day. But the line was moving fairly smoothly so I wasn't to rattled by the outpouring of those eager to push buttons to decide the fate of our nation. That may be a bit over the top.

There was also a steady stream of people who queued up behind me as I made my way towoards the voting area. You had the choice of voting by machine or by paper ballot. It came as no suprise that many of the senior citizens chose the old fashioned paper ballot. I chose the machine.

I was led back to my machine by a man in his 60's who would go over the proper procedure of voting so that there would be no questions or concerns about improper voting. What followed was either the most brilliant subliminal voting influence ever, or innocuous chatter that he was forced to repeat over and over again all day. As he began to tell me how to vote, he told me that the computer would have the candidates lined up for me to vote on, and I could then simply press the button next to the name of who I wanted to vote for. As he told me this, he pointed to the button next to Obama's name. He then said that if I made a mistake and pressed the wrong button, I could simply press the button again, the X mark would be removed and I could then pick who I really wanted to vote for. As he said all this, he pointed towards the button next to Hillary's name.

I'm sure it meant nothing, but it if did, bravo voter helper guy. Let's hope your not so sublte gestures influences many voters over the next few days. I'll be sitting back come Tuesday and toasting you as I do whatever the hell I want instead of going out to vote.

Triple Double

So, that review I promised on Monday. HERE IT COMES PEOPLE. And it's a 3 in 1 deal. Lucky for all of you.

The Mist

"As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up ways to kill one another."
- Ollie Weeks

I would consider myself well versed in the realm of paranormal disaster situations. I've seen/read many things about zombies and have developed a personal plan should the dead ever rise again. The Mist deals with many of the same things, just replacing zombies with some really freaky monsters that like to eat humans.

Based on a novella by Stephen King, there are plenty of themes and human tension mixed in with some of the strangest and bizarre creatures I have ever seen. Most of the film takes place with a small town under siege from a thick mist with monsters hiding in it waiting to eat them if they go outside. A large section of the community is at the grocery store restocking after a large rain storm from the night before when the mist hits and they are trapped inside.

Placing the characters inside a grocery store from the very beginning solves one of the greatest problems in a disaster of monstrous proportions right off the bat. With tons of available food, no one has to worry to hard about the basic necessities. They are all clothed, have a roof over their heads, and have plenty of food. Because the basics are taken care of, the people are free to let their minds destroy themselves while waiting and fighting off the monsters.
The monsters are the obvious villains in the film, but the true villainy takes place between the factions of people trapped together and forced to survive together. Human nature will trump paranormal beasts in terms of brutality any day.

The scenes with the monsters are some of the most nerve wracking I have ever seen. I could tell my blood pressure was rising on many occasions, culminating with one of the most intense and heartbreaking endings I have ever seen in movies.
This is a really good and thought provoking movie that was pigeon holed into being a horror flick because of the original material. And it has plenty of scares and gore. But it's not just cheap scares and flashy blood.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

"I just went from Six to Midnight!"
-Mathew the Waiter

Another great comedy from the Apatow Gang. Really, really funny with just enough absolutely over the line humor to keep me engaged.

Dealing with breakups are common fodder for movies, but they are usually from the woman's perspective. This movie tells the tale of an overly sensitive composer who gets dumped by his famous girlfriend and can't quite shake it.

Jason Segel plays the main character with just enough whiny cry baby sniveling to make him attractive to the ladies. Some of the funniest parts of the film are his facial expressions and reactions to seeing his ex girlfriend over and over.

The movie culminates with a great scene featuring the puppet Dracula musical that is a main plot point. Rumor has it that based on this scene alone, the director and writers have been asked to make the next muppet movie. Which would be awesome.
Word of warning, there is man dangle repeatedly in the film. So be prepared.

Superhero Movie

"I can't breathe, your kneeling on my balls"
- Uncle Al

When this originally came out, I had read a few reviews that this was the best spoof movie to come out in the past few years. After seeing this last night, I think that's like being called the fastest swimmer with no arms or legs. It's just not that much of a compliment.

The one thing this film had going for it was that it stayed away from lots of pop culture references that will date it years down the road. Of course this is assuming anyone watches it years from now.

I may have laughed 3 times during this record breaking 1 hour and 10 minute "movie" You can also discount 2:30 minutes out of that for the opening credits. It did succeed in parodying super hero movies, but only because that over half the scenes were shot for shot remakes of scenes from Spiderman 1 and 2 and X-men 1 and 2.

It did have a cameo by Tracy Morgan, so at least that's something.

The scary thing about these spoof movies is that they seem to always make money, which means they will also always be made. According to IMDB, the budget for this was 35 million. I can't imagine what the hell they spent it on. But, it made close to $33 million worldwide in theaters. So all it has to do is sell half a million DVD's and there is a profit for the studio. Even if they make a few million off of each of these shit films, they keep pumping it out.

Tidbii

- I was chastised today for not blogging enough. Oddly enough it was by someone who themselves has slowed down in their blogging habbits. Suck on that one unnamed chastiser. So here is an update.

-Adie and I were invited to a screening of a documentary on Friday night. Adie's teacher friend's husband is a professor at IU who also produces documentaries. This was a near completed version of his latest doc about Veterans of the Vietnam War who have children in the Iraq War. It was well produced and thought provoking even in it's incomplete state. There was one of the Iraq vets who appeared in the film at the screening. He is a student at IU and was a very nice guy. Adie and I chatted with him after the film. He's a veteran, but younger than me. I'm thankful for those that chose to go into the armed service. It means I don't have to.

- We have a busy few weeks ahead of us. We are going to a wedding this coming weekend. Adie is going to another rowing meet the following weekend. Two weeks after that is the last rowing meet in Tennessee. I'm going to be turning up the tv and fan extra loud.

- I was hoping that it was just nothing, but Adie found mouse poo in the kitchen the last two days. It's more than a coincidence. So we purchased the old school traps and some poison today. If I thought there was any chance of us catching the thing alive I would, but having never seen any of it except it's leavings, the chances are slim.

- The Reds still suck. I could go on, but I think I've summed it up pretty well.

-That's all for tonight. I'll have a fresh review of the film I took in today in the morning.

Tidbits

I realize that I have not updated in a while about what's been going on outside of my movie watching. Rather than try and type out a coherent post with some semblance of a story to tell, I'm just going to give some bullet points about what's been going through my head recently.

- I go through fazes in my life where I fixate on a certain food item and crave it constantly. For a time after high school I would go to Morgantown IGA at least 3 times a week and buy a pound of hamburger. I would fire up the George Foreman when I got home and eat every bit of the meat. Of course I would be so full that I wouldn't eat dinner. And this went on for months. I still could eat Hamburgers most every day. In fact I'll probably make some tonight.
Currently my obsession is Corned Beef. Kroger has had it on sale the past two weeks, trying to get rid of their stock after St. Patrick's Day. It's fairly cheap, and easy to cook. I've made 2 roasts in the past 10 days, and once again, may go and buy one to cook today. Daddy Joe told me yesterday that Shapiro's has upped their prices on their corned beef sandwiches to $10. Their beef is the best I have ever had, but I can get close to five pounds and cook it at home for that price. bargain baby.
- I have seen the Reese's peanut butter commercial featuring the Easter chocolate bunny dipping itself into the peanut butter. It seemed like a really good idea. I tried it yesterday. It sucked. False marketing.
- Adie is chaperoning a field trip through school at bradford woods. She was gone last night, and again tonight. This will affect my sleep schedule until she returns. One of my main reasons for never taking a nap is that I'm constantly paranoid about sleeping in an empty house. I end up having really paranoid dreams about someone breaking in.
It makes me feel better if anyone else is in the house. But without that I have a hard time falling asleep. It didn't help last night that I had two pepsi's with dinner and the caffine kicked in at around 11pm. I know it's completely irrational, but I hate sleeping in an empty house.
- The Reds lost 3 in a row to the Pirates. inexcusable. It's gonna be a long season if they can't score consistently. On the flip side from last season, the pitching is vastly improved and have only been blown out in one game. All the rest of the losses are in close games where no one can score. Either way they are still playing .500 ball.
- I can't wait for the NBA season to be over. Then Fox Sports Indiana will start showing lots more Red's games instead of Pacer games. The pacers suck. Hopefully they dodge the odds and get a decent draft pick this year.

That's all I can think of for now. It's halfway through April and it's still cold. Spring will be a short season this year.