Rants

Hollywood II

I was 1 for 2 against them Saturday night. It was our yearly trip to the Big-Mo Drive In and the double bill was Showtime with Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy and Murder by Numbers with Sandra Bullock.

I was suckered in by Showtime. I think I was suckered in because the movie didn’t try to be something other than exactly what it was. It was a silly little plot littered with holes and full of clichés, but I still was entertained – here’s why: Eddie played a caricature Eddie, DeNiro play a meld of every DeNiro character since, well, the beginning. William Shatner played himself or what we have come to believe is himself and he is just like that in real life or he is as brilliant an actor as Andy Kaufman was. I laughed and I wasn’t even upset like I usually am by the every-car-in-the-sector police chase/blow ’em extravaganza.

And I almost bought into Murder by Numbers, but it tried to take itself to seriously. I’m sure when Sandra took the role it was because the character she was to play appeared to have depth because of her tortured past. For whatever reason it just didn’t come out that way. The collapsing balcony fight scene and subsequent rescue thing looked like it was thrown in because everyone involved knew it was a dog of a movie and felt that it would punch it up. Then when we got our now Hollywood standard triple twist in the end about the actual killer nobody really cared.

Hollywood

I can’t remember why I rented it, must have been a fawning review on some site or something, but Rock Star has been sitting on my coffee table for about a month. This is a bad sign, since it has been laying there ready to be watched, The Harder They Come, Apocalypse Now, Heist, Blazing Saddles and The Center of the World have been watched and returned to Netflix. Seeing as it was the only one in the house at the moment, I decided to watch it. I watched the little 10 minute behind the scenes thing while I waited on Donna to join me. I almost didn’t watch the movie – Wednesday’s Law & Order was cued up in the VCR – but I said I’ll give it 15 minutes. Mark Wahlberg with long hair seemed to old for the part, and in spite of my eagerness to bail, we watched the whole movie. Hints of Spinal Tap, combined with a heaping dose of irony and lots of 80’s metal music overcame the tired ass plot line. In the end I enjoyed the 103 minutes spent with it.

I feel so cheap, so used. Manipulated by the Hollywood machine. I should have been watching IFC Fridays on Bravo, but instead I watched a lamo movie and liked it.

Some People Are Wurse Spellers Than I Am

Looking for songs for my May CD Mix. I started looking for songs with the word dinner in it. Searched far and wide into the nooks and crannies of the internet using Bearshare. There was one song I was interested in that seemed elusive. It was a Suzanne Vega song entitled “Tom’s Dinner.” I finally snagged not one, but two versions. When I played it, much to my surprise I recognized it, cool, I even liked it. But tragedy struck when I paid attention to the words….it was Tom’s Diner, the restaurant type, not the meal, sheesh.

Fuji FinePix 2600

I’m not sure it is all together acting correctly. When you have the camera on to take pictures it goes to “sleep” after two minutes. The lens retracts and to take a picture you have to turn it back on. There is a sleep mode setting, but it has no effect on when this happens. I read the manual it seems the sleep thing just shuts off the LCD display after 30 seconds….hmm I wonder if I use the LCD would it go to sleep and not have to be turned back on. I’ll experiment.

I’m back. With the Sleep mode on the LCD goes blank at 30 seconds and then after 2 minutes the lens retracts and off the camera goes, no wonder they are so proud of their power consumption on the web page, it’s built in. I think I need to start saving my scheckles for a different one.

The Harder They Come

One hour and 14 minutes in and the picture just froze. Couldn’t fast forward, nothing. Tried going to the main menu and picking the next chapter, nope. After a few other attempts I took the movie to the PC and played it there, but only got 5 minutes further in before it froze up the PC. In my 2 year history of renting DVDs from Netflix, this was only the second DVD that crapped out in viewing.

Set in Jamaica in the early 70’s it tells the story of a rural “kid” that travels to Kingston to make it big in the music biz. He gets the fame he wanted, but not in the way he originally intended. Half the dialog is in such a heavy accent that it is hard to make out what they are saying, but fortunately the story is easy enough to follow. I’m going to have them mail me another one so I can see what happens in the final 25 minutes. I may watch it from the start though just to listen to the music again or maybe I’ll just go listen to the soundtrack CD…

X-Files IV

Only two episodes left. Tonight we wrapped up the mystery behind John Doggett’s son’s murder. Seemed a lot like the supposed conclusion of the disappearance of Mulder’s sister, too neat, a “serial killer” leads them to the answer.

No scenes with little William this week. Was last week’s episode to be believed, Scully gave him up for adoption to some mid-western couple to protect him? Sounds a lot like the plot line of Star Wars, mother hides child in a little visited part of the country/galaxy to protect it from the dark side… Of course a really educated person would be able to tell me that that same plot line was invented Shakespeare or Plato or earlier. Not much chance of that happening though, as a really educated person would be reading this. 🙂

Please Learn How To Work All The Do-dads Before Leaving the Lot

Made a little trip to Augusta this evening. Dinner out at Damon’s, our favorite place for ribs. While driving on the by-pass on the southern side of Aiken, I got behind a Suburban that seemed to be a little late on the brakes and a little late on the start from a light, plus he did a little lane drifting as well. When I stopped behind him at the next light I noticed the drivers arm exploring the overhead console area, a light went on, then off again, and of course we were a little slow leaving that light because we were busy futzing with something else. It was then that I noticed the paper dealer plate on the back. It was starting to sprinkle and the sun was going down, I hope he/she knew where the wiper and light switches are. Fortunately they turned right when I turned left so I wasn’t behind them when they started looking for the switches.