All in the Family, Part 2

Ok, time for a little catch up.

Back to last weekend during my sister's visit....doo di doo doo di doo

I stayed overnight on Saturday and on Sunday my mom and sister went to the Salem Witch Museum while my dad and I watched political shows. My dad and I agree on most things political, including the fact that Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney (R) would be a good presidential candidate if he was just a little more aggressive politically. Romney/Rice in '08!

Lisa came back and then we headed back to Portsmouth to hopefully do some a little more shopping (for me) and catch some dinner. Unfortunately the malls were closed, so I'll have to wait until the Fall when I see her again to buy more casual clothes (because I don't buy any on my own; because i have questionable taste; because i feel stupid shopping by myself). I then took her on a brief tour of my office...er, um, cubicle. She was surprised by how nice it was, which made me think as an auditor she works in a dumpster, because our office area is not that nice. I like it that way because it's conducive to a more relaxed atmosphere, and an opportunity to complain about "the man" (corporate) and how nice their furniture is (We call it "Mahogany Way."). Then we ate at Warren's, which is my favorite place to eat in Portsmouth because of it's salad bar, which is really neat and has tons of stuff, and it comes with every meal. Lisa and I talked about how lame we are at social gatherings (sorry Lis, but everyone reading this knows that; about me anyway) and how great we've had it thanks my dad's hard work. We talked about other stuff too, but she'll kill me if I say what.

And that was the weekend of June 24-26, pretty much. It was fun.

Oh, and did I mention Sleater-Kinney kicked ass on Letterman? Kicked ass, they did. They played an edited version of "Jumpers," I guess cuz "Entertain" is too long and can't be easily cut down. Carrie and Janet seemed comfortable, but Corin (I call her The Voice) was nervous.

All in the Family, Part 1

Ever notice how hard it is to type with music playing? I find it difficult to concentrate when you have Frank Black screaming "Taaaaame!" into your ear over and over again.

The weekend went by really quickly thanks to family busy-ness. Immediately after work on Friday, Mom, Dad, and Lisa surprised me by appearing out of nowhere on my deck right outside the kitchen window. I was expecting them, yeah, but not like right in front of me with no warning. Mom had brought over a shitload of food to grill and chop and serve, and after showing Lisa the place (she liked it, noting that it's basically a museum of Nania artifacts from residences past), we sat down for dinner. And, much to my surprise, it was the same old dinner-type conversation we always used to have. I don't know why, but I thought with Lisa having been gone so long the dialogue would be a little awkward or different, ya know, less chit chat. I guess it just shows how comfortable we are with each other that we can just pick up where we left off.

Saturday morning I met everybody at the house for the trip to Boston. My dad needed to get his hair cut, so he dropped us off at Downtown Crossing so that we could go to H&M for a bit. "A bit" turned into 2 hours thanks to my sister's boundless desire for a new wardrobe for Florida. I myself was looking for shorts long enough to hide my scrawny legs, but not so long that I might as well be wearing pants. I settled on a couple pair, tried them on, liked them, and that was it. Took me about twenty minutes. The rest of the time was me waiting -- patiently -- for my sister to decide which 50 items she wanted, and also talking to my mom. If you've never been to an H&M in a hip place like Boston, consider yourself lucky. Because it will almost surely lower your self-worth. You think what you're wearing is trendy and fits you well? YOU'RE WRONG. So suggests the H&M clientele. According to them, I should be wearing orange t-shirts, white pants with giant blue buckles, and have my hair spiked in twenty different directions. I should also be incredibly fit and muscular. Oh, how misguided I am.

After taking in the sites at H&M, we took a cab driven by a strange foreigner over to the Prudential building to meet my dad for "linner" (lunch-dinner) at Legal Seafood, which is always a reliable meal. I got the Alaskan Salmon which was tasty. What was not so appealing was my dad telling all of us how at the salon there was a "young, nubile girl with a great body bending down right in front of me and I couldn't stop staring." Why I was the only one who thought this was inappropriate, I'll never understand.

After dinner we headed back home, stopping at Richardson's for some ice cream and cow/chicken watching. Chickens are actually really cool creatures up close. Cows, less so. My dad and I had a good time making fun of the "Chinese Slippers" my sister was wearing, which were basically pink socks with jewels on them. Haha. Girls are funny.

Saturday night the men watched "Hostage" while the women tried on clothes. "Hostage" was ok, competently executed but with a little too much craziness at the end. Bruce Willis seems at first to be playing his typical seasoned cop character, but it turns out he's actually very fearful of getting shot at, and gets this sad look on his face whenever he's in danger that is just so un-Bruce-Willis like that it was kind of jarring. I like my Willis tough as nails, not weak-kneed like in "Death Becomes Her." Ben Foster (Russell on "Six Feet Under") plays a dark, creepy scary guy who likes watching people die. I wasn't expecting that from the kid who prematurely ejaculated in "Liberty Heights." 2.5/5.

FYI -- Sleater-Kinney on Letterman

Sleater-Kinney will be performing on the Late Show tonight (Monday), and it will rock. My prediction is that they will play "Entertain."

It was a familial weekend, with my sister visiting and the four of us doing a bunch of shopping and eating. More details to follow, because I know you're dying to know. No movies watched really, oh except "Hostage." And I missed "Family Guy." I'll have to download it from kazaa like a good little criminal.

Movie Weekend

On Saturday, Lori and I went out to eat and saw "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and it was a good time. Dinner was at Macaroni Grill, which everyone agrees is assloads better than Olive Garden, the Chi-chis of italian cuisine. At the movie, we chose to sit in the handicapped seats up front because Lori hurt her ankle and couldn't walk up the steps too well. And let me tell you, these were the best seats in the house. There was no one sitting in front of us, no one directly behind us, and while the screen was a little close, they're so small these days it doesn't make much difference. So my mind was in a good place by the time the movie started, because I wasn't imagining the many different ways I could kill the audience around me. Anyway, the movie was entertaining as all hell. It's a comedy through and through, and it's pretty funny, especially the banter b/w Pitt and Jolie, and even some of the Pitt's comedic acting, which surprised me, because I saw his cameo on "Friends" a couple years ago and he kinda stunk. But second to Tyler Durden in "Fight Club," this is his best role to date. Jolie is pretty good too, although she's mostly just re-hashing the steely sexiness of Lara Croft. Combined, they make a good onscreen team, certainly better than other great-looking couples of late (i guess the fairest comparison would be Clooney and Zeta-Jones in "Intolerable Cruelty") . On top of that, they have an awesome house, with great furniture and lamps, gorgeous wardrobes (i fully expect a sudden surge in shirt/sweater combos in the workplace), etc. So the movie is 2 hours of Brad and Angelina looking good, sounding good, eating good, fighting good, and just plain having a good time. And, yeah, the plot is nowhere to be found, the action gets silly, so on and so forth, but it is what it is, and Doug Liman presents it well. 3.5/5.

On Sunday, Father's Day, my parent's and I saw "Batman Begins" and then ate at Michael's in Newburyport. Both were worthwhile, but ultimately disappointing. You heard me right. The gist of my "Batman" experience was this: I liked it, but I was not satisfied, and it ain't no "X2" or "Spider-Man 2." I fully expect the next Batman installment to be much better. Bale makes a great Bruce Wayne, but the jury's still out on his Batman. The mask looks ridiculous on him (I don't know if it's his face or what), and since we never get a good long look at him in costume, or even get a sense of his movement in the suit (thanks to choppy action editing), I had trouble making the emotional link b/w the Bruce Wayne character Bale had developed so well in the first hour, and the Batman running around in the second hour. A similar problem occurred in the first "Spider-Man," but it was due to crappy CGI spider-man effects. As for Nolan, with the exception of the batmobile chase, his action direction was sloppy and unclear. Again, similar problems in the first "X-Men" and "Spider-Man," particularly in Singer's case. My biggest beef with the movie though is the script, in particular the death of Bruce's parents, which on top of being filmed poorly and with very little emotional impact (a lackluster child actor doesn't help), is arrived at in the most contrived way possible. This is a huge miss on the part of Nolan and the script. You just can't screw up the scene that defines Bruce's life. You see, early in the film, Bruce Wayne as a young boy falls into a well in his backyard and is swarmed by a den of bats. Yes, bats. So he is traumatized by bats. Ok, fine, I thought. Then one night he and his parents go to a play that features, of all things, bats (how convenient). A frightened Bruce asks his parents if they can go, and they do, and right outside the theater they are mugged and killed. So for the rest of his life Bruce is wracked with guilt thinking that it was his fear of BATS that lead to his parent's death. So when he finally decides to become a "symbol of fear" for Gotham's criminals he chooses the symbol of the Bat as a way of turning his fear on those he wants to bring to justice. It has less to do with him wanting to avenge his parent's death and ensure that no criminal can do that again (as is the case in the comic books), and more to do with him wanting to overcome his fears. So, of course, one of the villains is Scarecrow, who throughout the movie releases "fear toxins" on everybody. See, to me, that is all just too neat. It's just such a nice tidy package for explaining BATMAN. Fear. Fear this, and fear that. I guess that's called thematic unity, and maybe it might've worked if the characters were given dialogue better than: "I seek the means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful." What next? "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"? "No man is an island"? Then there are the obligatory "repeat lines" that are said once, but then said again later in the movie for dramatic impact. These are "It's not who I am underneath, but what I DO that defines me!" and "Why do we fall? So that we can pick ourselves up!" The film's best lines are delivered by Tom Wilkinson is his speech to Wayne at the restaurant. It's juicy stuff. But really, there was not one great scene in the movie. There were a bunch of pretty good scenes, mostly having to do with Bruce's interaction with family and friends while he's NOT Batman, and a few crappy ones. There is definitely not one great BATMAN scene, ya know, where he is just friggin awesome. There's only one scene that shows criminals actually being afraid of Batman. And ok another one where Batman interrogates a criminal by scaring the shit out of him. But by the time Bruce is officially Batman, the movie's plot mechanics have kicked in and we're in typical event-movie territory with big explosions, train crashes, and cheesy one-liners like "I gotta get me one of those" (spoken by Jim Gordon, yeah right). Sure, it's miles better than the previous 4 movies, but them's low standards. EXTREMELY low standards. So what is everyone loving about this movie? 3.25/5.

"Family Guy," Petarded. Only time I laughed heartily was the Dan Rather "s" alliteration.

"American Dad" was mostly just disgusting.

March of the Penguins!!!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/warner_independent_pictures/marchofthepenguins.html

i'm seeing this movie because watching the trailer made me think life is wonderful and and i love everybody. what an awesome looking flick. no i'm not drunk.

Updated -- Talk Show Heads Up

Charlie Rose's guests tonight are: Christian Bale (yay), Christopher Nolan (yay), Will Ferrell (yay), and Nora Ephron (feh).

11pm, PBS. i'll be watching these actor-director teams in anticipation of this week and next week's big movie releases: "Batman Begins" and "Bewitched."

UPDATE: The interview with the "Batman" guys revealed a couple things about the movie that I'm going to have problems with. I won't spoil them for you the way they were spoiled for me, but one of them is the same error that was committed by the "Hulk" filmmakers in regards to the cause of Bruce Banner's transformation. In "Batman Begins," the cause of Bruce's parents' deaths is similarly needlessly contrived. It sounds like it'll tie in well with the themes of the movie (fear, guilt), but it strikes me as hokey. You'll see what I mean. I'm still excited about the movie, though. Bale was cool enough to mention not only "Dark Knight Returns" and "Year One" as Batman books he read in preparation for the role, but also "Arkham Asylum" (which is a really abstract story by Grant Morrison) , as well as "The Long Halloween" and "Dark Victory." He even cited the writer-artist team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale! Not that's my kind of Batman.

Nora Ephron is a twit.

More

1. More bees nests on my deck. Wasps, actually. And boy do they set up shop quick. This time inside my friggin lamplight. An, no, anonymous poster, they aren't friendly.

2. More test-driving Acuras with my dad. Looks like he's going with the RL (black on black). Good for him. CFOs shouldn't be driving 10-year-old Mazdas.

3. More TV. "Family Guy" was alright. The Peter-Copter and Hinden-Peter cracked me up. The "You have AIDs" musical interlude was a bit much, not because it was offensive, but because musical interludes just aren't funny on this show or most other animated shows (South Park comes to mind). The "Rocky III" ending was clever.

4. More DVDs. Watched "The Machinist" for the second time and thoroughly enjoyed the kafka-esque tone of it all. Made it halfway through "The Life Aquatic" before I realized Wes Anderson had seriously misfired. That, or his trademark dry, straightfaced humor had just become very stale.

5. More Sleater-Kinney. "The Woods" is growing on me. I can't figure out if the last song, "Everything," is on the album proper or was only sold through iTunes. Help?

6. More crazy weather. Humid as hell, then rainy and cold. Can't wait for San Diego vacation visit. Earthquakes be damned.

P.S. I finally got "Don't Stop Believing."

Rasberry Twizzlers

The weekend wasn't very eventful, but there's a few things I'll mention:

1) Yummies' Red Rasberry Licorice: There's a town right outside the NH state line called Kittery, Maine that has a shitload of stores, outlets, and restaurants all in a row (why all the sudden in Maine? Because it's not sales-tax-free like NH). One of the stores is this mini candy warehouse called "Yummies," and goddamn if it isn't one of the coolest little places around. All the candy -- all types -- is packaged in these clear plastic bags, and stacked like sheet rock in big vertical bins. This no frills presentation was really endearing to me. But, more than that, it sold Red Rasberry Licorice Twists, and it was love at first sight. I'm eating them right now and I'm in heaven. Mmmm...oh YES! They're even better raw! <--- "Critic" reference.

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2) Devil's Offspring: On Friday I experienced another milestone in my home-renting journey: My first insect problem. While I was pulling weeds in the backyard, I noticed a few big black bees flying around the deck. They looked like bumblebees except they were shiny and not fuzzy. A couple of them darted in my direction a few times, and being the incredibly cowardly wimp that I am, I finished what I was doing and hurried back into the house. I spent the next five minutes waving non-existent bugs out of my hair, and then decided one hour outside had been enough. On Saturday I went out again and surveyed the activity around my deck. And under the railing there were two little, finger-tip sized holes, with the sawdust from the holes scattered right below them. And just as I was looking at it, a big giant black bee flew out! Motherfucker!! (i said). These godamn things were burrowing into my godamn deck, godamnit! SoI thought they must be hornets or something, because bees don't do this. Bees build hives and shit, and they're black and YELLOW, not black and BLACK. So I got my hands on some hornet & wasp spray, but when I looked at the pictures on the can, I didn't really see anything that looked like what was destroying my deck. So I did some research online and came across a species of bee called a Carpenter Bee. And what do they do? They build nests in wooden fixtures (decks, furniture, homes, trees), by digging finger-tip-size holes into the outersurface of the wood and creating long narrow passageways in the direction of the grain. Jackpot, that was them. Thankfully, they're not known to be aggressive, even less than your average honeybee. Well, the males are aggressive, but they don't have stingers; and eventhough the females have stingers, they're not aggressive. That was a relief. Plus since I caught it in the early stages, I wasn't really dealing with an infestation. So on Sunday when my parents visited, we bought some Wood Insect Chemical mix from Home Depot, waiting until the sun went down to spray the holes (In the interest of full disclosure, my dad did the spraying). We saw only one bee crawl out, sickly from the spray. I'm not sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign. Since I didn't get home til later today I don't know for sure how many were killed or what, but I'm gonna spray again tomorrow, and end this menace. Fuckers.

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3) "Cinderella Man:" Yes, it's Oscar bait. Yes, it's kinda cheesy. And yes, there are no complexities whatsoever. But damn if it isn't GOOD. Crowe nails his part each and every second. The diverse performances this guy has given in the past decade -- "LA Confidential," "The Insider," "Gladiator," "Beautiful Mind", and now this -- point to the simple truth that he is a character actor taking on lead actor parts. And as much as I want him to take on more parts -- cool supporting parts, more ensemble work -- when I think about how Sean Penn has spread himself so thin lately, I think Crowe has got a good thing going. The fact that he doesn't have another film in produciton (at least not on imdb), indicates that he's taking his sweet time with his career. I like that. His performance in "Cinderella Man" is really effin good, but it's not so astonishing that it guarantees him awards. So it won't be Crowe overkill for the rest of the year. Giamatti is good as Crowe's trainer, too; his bug eyes are very expressive, and he's just an entertaining actor. Craig Bierko, who plays the villainous Max Baer, surprised me. Most people probably remember him as the jazz musician on "Sex and the City," but he's never really made an impression. Until now. I think he just extended his career another 3 years. Very physical screen presence, and his portrayl definitely made the final fight betwen him and Braddock a lot more involving. What a final fight, btw. Forgive me if this sounds blasphemous, and you know I'm the last person who would ever say this, but Howard's fight scenes are technically almost on par with Scoresese's "Raging Bull" and are even better than Michael Mann's in "Ali," although it's pretty obvious that he's stolen from both. But still, the choreography and camerawork never confuses or misses a step. It's very fluid. It's shocking to me that this is the same cinematographer that worked on "Any Given Sunday," which had the most confusing sports camerawork in movie history. I guess that says something about Oliver Stone. Kudos to the editors in these scenes as well. All in a all, very effective drama work by all involved. 3.5/5.

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4) "Family Guy" highlights:

Stewie: "Your anguish sustains me!"

1980's "Fixing stuff up" montage.

Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" as sung by Quagmire: "It goes on and on and on giggety giggety goo!"

Joe, who's paralyzed, getting smashed like a guitar.

"Hey, Ethan Hawke! Why don't you go star in another awful Richard Linklater movie!"

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shit, why can't i get "Don't Stop Believing" on kazaa? There's no way I'm paying for it.