Life of Brian

Missed rating last night. Had a good one worked up about movies again. Couldn’t finish Purple Noon on Monday afternoon and tried to watch Mulholland Dr., but bailed about 45 minutes in. But when I sat down to write it all out I couldn’t concentrate.

About 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon I felt flush and light headed, out of sorts. I had the nurse at work check my blood pressure, it was 176/102. She suggested I see my doctor. I called and they could give my an appointment at 9 the next morning. On the way to the car, my wife said lets just go over there. I got to see the Physician’s Assistant. Took my blood pressure and it was still like 170/110. My pulse was 78. Both high for me. I am usually right around 130/90 and my pulse is usually 55. She listened to my heart and went and got me a Hytrin (a blood pressure drug), said take one tonight, go to the lab and get some blood work and keep the 9 AM appointment tomorrow. Last night I hardly slept, I could feel every heartbeat and they seemed to be coming twice a second. Somewhere around 2 AM things seemed to slow enough that I got some bits of sleep in.

I got to the lab first thing and they took some blood and I made it to the doctor’s office a bit early. The nurse took my pressure and it was 160/100 with my pulse still 78. She said lets run an EKG. After that The PA came in and did the pressure thing – 156/96. The EKG showed nothing too abnormal, she said there was some indication of electrolyte imbalance, but need the blood work results before making any comments. That will take 24 hours (don’t get me started on why that is like that) and I should go back to work. I hadn’t slept so I went home and took a 2 hour nap.

I still feel crappy as I write this, but not like last night, I’m sure my heart rate and pressure are down, I can tell, but I’m still not right. Let’s see what they say tomorrow. Do I need to keep taking the Hytrin? Am I now a high blood pressure person? Is that how it comes about, suddenly and dramatically?

Last night was the big 2 hour series finale. Yeck, I’m glad that is over with. Sunday’s are free again. I was going to rehash the episode and dissect it’s inadequacies, but it would take to long and I just want to forget it. Best line of the whole episode comes from the prosecutor, after a litttany of witnesses testifying to their little bit of knowledge of the Mulder story and the alien mythology, he objects by saying, “This testimony is irrelevant, we didn’t come here for a trip down memory lane. We are here to try Agent Mulder for murder.” I wanted to stand up and cheer. I only wished he had said it sooner.

Let’s just say I would have had a better time watching the Cosby reunion on the channel.

I happened to catch just a part of this movie on one of the cable channels a month or so ago and my wife and I decided to rent it. George Clooney for her, Nicole Kidman for me. That’s right, The Peacemaker and as it turns out we saw the best 10 minutes on TV. (The part where our main characters are introduced to each other.) I stopped believing when they start passing around pictures of the train wreck taken from a satellite. If we have pictures being taken of every square inch of the country of Russia to be able to pick out this particular bit of train track, why don’t we have pictures of the robbery train and work back from there to track the truck with the nukes? George and Nicole outrun, not just one, but two explosions. We are treated to the usual red LED countdown clock as they try to disarm the bomb. The only action movie clich? we missed was the Fruit Cart. Then again, that might have been in there while they were tearing up downtown Vienna and I had glazed over and missed it. Oh, and I fell sorry for the citizens of Vienna as it appears they have no police force at all.

The only movie left on the coffee table to watch now is Purple Noon. 1960 French film based on The Talented Mr. Ripley books. I actually liked the Matt Damon – Jude Law flick based on these characters, so we’ll see.

Today’s featured film in the cinema that is the Bogardus living room, Bandits.

In what is now almost cliched movie making, the story is told with a non-linear timeline. It starts with our “heroes” surrounded in an LA bank and arguing about how thing would have not turned out so badly if it wasn’t for the girl. Not long into it we realize that this is the end of the movie, as we are whisked back a couple months to the spur of the moment prison escape of Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) and Terry Collins (Billy Bob Thorton.)

Bruce and Billy are good together in this movie, sort of like the Oscar Madison & Felix Unger of the criminal set. The bank robberies were done using an interesting M.O. and with the combination of the 2 character’s personalities and how they reacted to each unique situation would made for a good movie, if they had just stuck to that. But the woman who brings about the demise of our bank robbers also brings about the demise of the movie. Don’t get me wrong, Cate Blanchard is good in her part but the subplot of the love triangle is so strong that it detracts from the movie’s “real” plot.

The only reason this gang of “Sleepover Bandits elude the Oregon cops for so long is that they seem to be operating with an ineptitude normally reserved for the law enforcement professionals from back woods Alabama. Right off the bat they can’t hit the broad side of a full-size cement truck as it drives through the gates of the prison and then lose it trail in minutes as they drive right by where the truck plowed through a small fence into a field.

The ending was way too Hollywood happy ending. I was actually disappointed to learn that he upcoming shoot out was going to part of the trick ending. I would have been to have these two idiots actually kill each other.

One thing I really liked about this movie was the soundtrack, not the part where Cate & Bruce sing a duet of Total Eclipse of the Heart, but the general background tunes, which included my favorite late 80’s tune, Tanita Tikaram’s Twist In My Sobriety.