A Matter of Motivation

We know what Kevin Spacey's character, Frank (Francis) Underwood, wants in House of Cards. But his wife's motivations are unclear. She is just as driven and merciless as her husband, neither of them are nice people, but she pours an awful lot of time and energy into her charity. Why?

Maybe its supposed to be a mystery, but I just find it odd. Odd to spend so much time watching Claire trying to expand her clean water empire. How is this tied in to her husband's vendettas?

Everyone else's motivations are fairly evident, just not hers, which makes time spent with her character seem... almost wasted. I'm sure it will all click into place eventually. Like when I finally figured out where I knew some of these faces from. That's the lead from Cabin in the Woods, there's that girl from Once a Thief (the TV show). It all clicks into place and you can't believe you didn't recognize them. I imagine that is how I will feel about Claire's storyline. About this whole show, really. It has the feeling of a puzzle box. A lovely, ornamented (ornamental?) puzzle box.

Seriously, this is a good looking show. About horrible people.

Is it just me, or:

• does Kevin Spacey kinda look like Russel Crowe?
• does Robin Wright have a really weird looking lower neck?
• was that Playstation Vita product placement really obvious?
• did the first shot of the second episode look out of place?
• does this show make you hungry for ribs?

Things Come Up

I will still write about that other stuff, but this week had other stuff. Stuff like the PS4 announcement, and I started watching House of Cards. Both of those stuffs are filled with stuff I want to talk about. So I guess I'll post something every day. This counts for today.

A Statement of Intent

Since I remain criminally underemployed, I figure I should spend some of my days writing instead of making and consuming ice cream. Most of my writing will be about the making and consuming of ice cream. Well, this blog will be about that. That being food. And maybe movies.

I have another blog about video games. I will probably write about video games over on that one.

But each week I will have one of these posts writing about what I want to write about.

This week I want to write about popcorn ice cream, and Far Cry 3, and hopefully I will finally watch Django Unchained.

Let's Talk About Some Damn Movies!

It had been near forever and a day since last I spoke about some fil-lums I seen. So let's do this.

I am unsure if Michel Gondry will ever make a film that even approaches Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I haven't seen all of his stuff, dude makes a bunch of stuff, but I'm talking mainly about his feature films. His Hollywood feature films. Cuz Be Kind Rewind was not good. It had about half an hour of really good stuff in it, all the home-made/hand-made stuff. The rest was piffle.

The Green Hornet is maybe a bit better. Trade out Jack Black falling back on the most annoying of his schtick with Seth Rogen and his most annoying schtick. I like Rogen most of the time, but I pretty much hated his character by the end of this film. I know his incompetence and self-centerdeness are supposed to be played for laughs, but it just stopped being funny.

Kato never stopped being awesome And the film is at its best when he is on screen. The action scenes are the only time this film ever truly feels like it has a bit of life to it. The script is poorly paced and goes on for too long, and Gondry just lets it happen.

I am disappoint.

Not at all disappointed by True Grit. Not at all. I want to read the book to see which version is closer, as they end quite differently. Which could be due to the fact that the John Wayne True Grit is the story of the story, whereas this new one is the story of he girl. She narrates it, it is told from her perspective. So the two versions hit many of the same beats, but each has its own feel. And I like the feel of the Cohens' version better.

Right from the very first shot. I love that first shot. And the last shot. There are some good ones in between, too.

The earlier True Grit was not an ugly film by any stretch, but this new one... I just like how the Cohens see things. And I like Jeff Bridges, I like Matt Damon (whereas I can understand why people would prefer the Duke's version of Rooster, I cannpt comprehend how anyone could not prefer Damon's Texas Ranger), I like every damn body in here.

So yeah, Tue Grit is awesome and I hope it comes out as a double feature when it comes out on video.

I waited to long to blog about the moving pictures and some of them have done moved clear out my head.

Whip It

Whip It was good. Full of people I like. Some that I forgot I liked. And one lady who I don't like but was used perfectly. Julliette Lewis strikes me as strange and unpleasant, which is what she was in this film. And what he hell has Daniel Stern been doing? And why isn't Ellen Page in more stuff? She is adorable! And Drew Barrymore plays a good violent stoner.

And the plot wasn't quite as cookie cutter as I was expecting. It was way more of a Rocky 1 ending, when I was expecting a Rocky 2 and up ending. It was a happy ending sure, but not near as syrupy and over the top as it could have been.

Do I want to recap the plot? Not really. Ellen Page is unhappy, she discovers Roller Derby, and falls in love. Simple story, simply told. And adorable.

The Theatre Going Experience

There are some people I know who don't like going to movie theatres to see movies because they never seem to have a good experience. I used to think they were silly, or just had a run of bad luck, but I am starting to come around to their way of thinking.

Saw Tron Legacy a few weeks back. The movie? Pretty. The theatre? Gah!

No one there to take our tickets. (In fact, a harried looking girl with a broom and a walkie talkie growled into her walkie "Seriously, for god's sake, someone man the ticket counter!"

No one had cleaned out the theatre, crap everywhere. Not literally crap, but vomit. There was vomit though. Vomit on a seat in the row in front of us. We could have sat further (farther) back from the puke, but we wanted to see if any poor unfortunate souls would unknowingly sit in the puke seat.

No one did.

Someone did sit in front of my lovely wife. Someone bathed in perfume. And wearing a hat. She done did herself up to sit in the dark.

And someone, somewhere forgot to close a door so the cold Saskatchewan winter was there in the theatre with us as well.

That was a better theatre going experience than yesterday's Harry Potter clustermuggle.

Never sit near old people. Their minds are gone. They don't know how to act in polite society.

One of the old men behind us asked my brother in law to remove his hat. Okay, I thought to myself, he's old school. That's cool.

Then they all talked loudly through all of trailers. Okay, I thought, lots of people talk through the trailers.

Then they didn't shut up for the entire fucking movie. Okay, I thought, this sucks.

I din't yell at them, because they were old. Maybe a little early onset dementia or something. But they didn't look that old when the lights came up at the end. Old enough to chew and breathe loudly, and to need a potty break during the movie. They were thoughtful enough to not all go at the same time. Old fucks. One of the old fucks knocked over a girl's drink and popcorn. Didn't apologize. Probably didn't even notice. Senile old shit. He also giggled every time someone died or something dramatic happened. I wanted to move, but we were trapped in the middle of the row. And there weren't any good seats anywhere else.

And they discussed everything that happened onscreen. They always seemed surprised when someone did magic. Also: "What's that, a sword?" "Yep, that's a sword."

Guh. But halfway thru the film, a switch got flipped and I stopped being annoyed by the horrible old people and just being amused by them.

Afterwards, my sister-in-law mentioned that she overheard some of the annoying people behind us talking in the bathroom beforehand. This group behind us was comprised of an older couple taking their parents out for a movie. Also: they stuffed their ears with cotton cuz movies these days is just too dang loud. Also also: they didn't wash their hands.

Gross. Gross old people.

The new Harry Potter movie? Good.

Netflixin: Ninja Cheerleaders

First sign of quality: the production company logo is basically just a rip off of the Fantastic Four logo. Good artists borrow...

We start at a military base. Some ninjas be lurkin. Their goal is a sword in a military museum. Ninja close up: Holy Shit, he's wearing mascara! And he's a she! It's a girl, is what I'm trying to say. They hack the security system, do the old sword switcharoo and disappear into the night. True ninja professionals: in and out without alerting anyone.

Very next scene: they beat the shit out of some soldiers for no reason. Not sure if the crazy motion blur is to imply speed and skill or is just a byproduct of having to speed up the footage of the slow, unskilled actors/stunt team. The world may never know.

Dissolve to Hiroshi Martial Arts School.

HOLY SHIT IT'S GEORGE TAKEI! He is commending the girls on retrieving the sword. Nice touch: the camera pans past each girl, and the actor's names pan along as well.

George Takei as Hiroshi.

Getting the sword back was their final test and now they are ninja. He gives them their swords.

Title: Ninja Cheerleaders. (font and animation: cheesy)

The girls are being interviewed about the assault on the guards and the theft of the sword.

"I don't even speak Japanese."

Now we cut to them at Los Lomas Malas Junior College ("The Jewel of the County") and we get proper character introductions. Accompanied by the song I Know What Boys Like.

First up is April, age 18. Her sign is Aries and she's a brunette. Her favourite band is The Killers. I didn't think this film was so recent. Favourite Book: The Art of War by Sun Tzu. My final year film also name dropped that book. Me and April were meant to be. Favourite Move: Throat/groin combination. Me too! And she looks good in a bikini.

Next up is Monica, who's also 18. But blonde and a Scorpio. Her favourite band is The Strokes. She likes to dance to them in her underwear in her bedroom. I just like to type 'in her'.

Sorry. That was crass.

Her favourite book is Lullaby by Chuck Palaniuk. I have not read that one. I may never read another book now that I have Netflix. Her favourite move is the spinning side kick. Second favourite move: jumping up and down.

Last up is Courtney, she's a Leo and a very mature 19. She's also blonde (WHAT? WHERE THE HELL IS THE REDHEAD?!? LAME!!!) Her favourite band is the L.A. Philharmonic and her favourite book is Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorn. Her favourite move is the open palmed nose punch. Which she demonstrated on some dude's chin.

Courtney, it seems, is trying to get into Brown. And her teacher (who is brown) is trying to get into her pants. This film, man, you have to pay attention. Some dude just tried to put the moves on Courtney, he even used "You want tickets to the gun show?" She shoots him down by pointing out that his erection is pointing out of his fly.

Back to the girls being interviewed. The offscreen interviewer asks them about Red. Red is in the hospital, all beat up. He is also their cheerleading coach. He hit on April. Invited her on a trip to Mexico. Wow these girls have legs. They also have a red bug convertible.

Tits! I looked up from typing and there were tits. Takei is instructing. Some other Asian dude is standing at the back of the class. Takei gives him the eye and then they talk. In Japanese. About the sword. The other dude has a tattoo. I mention this for no reason, I'm sure it won't come up again.

April is sparring against some black dreadlocked dude. They spar with words and fists. April wins.

I think the tits are this movie's version of star wipes. Star wipes are awesome, but I think I prefer tits.

Car chase! The cops chase some dude past a strip club. We stop following the car chase and go into the strip club. I like how this film thinks. Inside the strip club, two men argue about who was more of a military genius; Napoleon or Alexander. The three girls are there as well. The girls drop some historical knowledge on the Napoleon fan's ass. It seems that George Takei owns the strip club. And the girls work at it. They strip as Takei has a business meeting. April gives Takei's business associate a little dance and strips his gun off of him.

Tomorrow night is the All City Strip Off with a fifty-grand prize for first place. The girls are 'dancing' for their scholarship money, and this prize would put them over the top moneywise. Some drunken sailors harass them in the parking lot. They (the sailors) get their asses kicked. April is not afraid to use her nails. April and Courtney are doing all the fighting, Monica is chatting up the one sailor who thought intimidating girls in a parking lot was a bad idea. It was a bad idea, learns the man who April forces to say "I have tiny balls."

The sound mix is a little off. Too much hair rock and not enough dialogue volume.

Back to the interview room. Offscreen voice reads off a list of injuries. "That wasn't me," says Monica, "I just watched."

Monica's mom doesn't approve of their stripping, but she can't argue with her daughter getting accepted into Brown. The girls study and reflect on how far women have come since their mothers' time. They can study science and evolution whereas their mothers studied home ec. Then there is some implied lesbian undertones and tit-wipe to the next day.

They write some finals and decide to spend their lunch break working out. Oh no! The door to Hiroshi's dojo is ajar! The place has been torn apart. They decide to go to the club. They find Manny, the bouncer, shot and bleeding on the floor. They call an ambulance and then Manny tells them to leave. The safe, with all their money, was taken. The girls fret about what to do and decide to visit Jimmy the Snitch. Jimmy was the man who had a meeting with Takei at the club the night previous. April crushes his balls. "I think I made it pop. Neat." the scrotal assault is doing nothing, so they use a garden hose to give him an enema. Then a Vulcan neck pinch to put him in the trunk. Again, they argue about whether or not to write the rest of their finals or find Hiroshi.

They figure Hiroshi would want them to write their finals. I figure the tits in the tit-wipes do not belong to any of these girls.

The finals are now done, the girls are talking about how they did and what they will do next when they are confronted by Detective Harris. As soon as they learn that he is a cop, they turn on their dumb cute act. I kinda like their dumb cute act.

I have no idea what they just said, the sound mix in this is horrible.

April has a chip on her shoulder. She also is good at Googling. She finds out some important plot stuff/backstory. She finds out who the main bad guy is. So do we. We see him electrocuting Hiroshi. We also see Detective Harris bust the girls for obstruction of justice. But they just pick the locks and walk away.

Cut back to the interview room where it is revealed that it has been Detective Harris grilling them all along! OMG!!! Harris has his arm in a sling. I wonder why.

The girls stop by Roland's to pick up their music for tonight's Strip Off. I wonder if we'll see him again.

Back to the interview room where more violence is referenced. Violence we ain't seen yet. Violence we are about to see...

April beats up a bald man because he yelled at some girl scouts. The music that plays during this scene is about as close to Battle Without Honour or Humanity (you know: That song from Kill Bill) as the production company's logo is to the Fantastic Four's. April doesn't beat him up that much though. I wonder if maybe the foreshadowed violence is still yet to occur...

Courtney is picking up their cheerleading outfits from her house. Her drunken step-father, who looks remarkably similar to Sean Penn, gets into a fight with her. Verbal fight only.

The three girls talk a bit. There is some inter-group tension. I haven't minded the acting so far, but this is getting kinda bad. They can do breezy, but the drama is a bit beyond their reach. Within their reach is a bunch of ninja weaponry, and the deed to the club. Which they realize is what the bad guy is after. I think. The sound mix got sucky right around here.

Offscreen throwing star kill! The girls interrupt a dinner meeting of bad guys. The main bad guy, whose name I forget otherwise I would not keep typing 'main bad guy', is not impressed and demands the deed to the club. After the girls leave, a shadowy lady appears. She is confident she will be able to deal with the girls.

Victor Lazarro! That's the main bad guy's name. And Kinji is the name of the mystery lady.

The girls cheer at a basketball game. The tit-wipes also usually involve some ninja and/or cheerleading bits as well. Just so we're clear.

I wonder if it will ever be explained how Hiroshi, the ninja sensei, managed to get himself captured. The girls arranged to have the deed exchange occur at the school during the game. Crossbow hidden in locker! The girls torture a mook to find out where Hiroshi is being held, Kinji gets the drop on the girls, Detective Harris gets the drop on Kinji but Kinji shoots Harris with a crossbow because she is just so damn fast. But the girls are faster! They disappear while Kinji is shooting Harris. They then go to the Strip Off. Wow, this song sucks. Randal should be fired! The girls never get naked. Not sure if I have mentioned that. They are 'dancers'.

Uh oh, Courtney's drunk step-father just stumbled in! He gets kicked in the face as his step-daughter is swinging around on a pole. Tit-wipe! With an extra shot of Hiroshi walking thrown in for no reason! He's still tied up, hanging with Lazarro.

Lot's of sneaky ninja neck-cracking. I wonder if it is actually the same girls in the ninja suits? The girls are getting shot at! It's okay, though, because they are ninja! And so is George Takei! He was playing possum this whole time! Spoilers.

"Ninjas don't use guns!"
"Ah, but I'm old and I forget sometimes."

Kenji appears! They start to fight, but the fight is interrupted by April's cell phone. It's the Strip Off promoter. They won! YAY! The girls fight, as Takei watches and laughs. The weird sped-up look has returned, but not much can help out this swordplay.

Wait! I was wrong! Takei just picked up a sword! Shit just got real! Real full of bad editing and obvious stunt doubles and bad special effects. Fight ends when Hiroshi laughs and touches Kinji's face.

Happy Ending! Credits with out-takes! Set up for sequel! Credits intercut with stripping and ninjas!

Well. That film was much better put together than I was expecting. It looked good. The action could have been better but I have seen a lot worse. The acting was fine. The dialogue was not horrible. Lots of stuff happened. The sound mix was pretty shitty, but that would be my biggest complaint about this film. This odd little film about three strong young women that also introduced the use of tit-wipes. The trade off of this flick being better than I expected is that it is not nearly so bad it's good. It's so good it's average.

Since this is Netflix, and Netflix has a built in ranking system, I can tell you what I told Netflix I thought about Ninja Cheerleader. I gave it three stars. I liked it.

Netfilixin

I kinda sucked on that Scott Pilgrim review. I'll be taking a mulligan on that one some time later.

It might be a bit of a wait, though.

Why?

Because Netflix. That's why.

Netflix is like a video store in your home. And what was the best part of video stores? It wasn't the latest and greatest. I'd already seen those. It was the old and the worst. Movies whose covers or descriptions made me have to rent them. Video stores are how I discovered Evil Dead 2. And how I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kirk Douglas in a western.

I will, one day, fill in the gaps of classic cinema viewing thanks to Netflix, but until then I'll be watching films like Thankskilling.

One day, I will try to review that film. But it throws a lot at you, in fairly rapid succession. None of it good.

As I was watching this, I wanted to be jotting down notes, doing a real time review.

Which is what I'm going to do right now, for a little film called Ninja Cheerleaders.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

I love this movie. I love, love, love this movie. Favourite film of the year. Maybe of the decade. I love this film because this is a film full of love. Love of the source material, obviously. The amount of content from the books they managed to cram into a movie this zippy is amazing. And the stuff they changed I prefer, for the most part. I may get into that later.

Let's get back to the love. This movie loves movies, loves video games, loves music, loves comic books, and loves love. It understands that love, especially this kind of love - young love is irrational. Foolish even. Inexplicable. So why try to explain it? Knives loves Scott loves Ramona. And Ramona? Who knows? She's always been mysterious. That's part of her allure.

But now I've digressed. I started trying to defend this movie from it's detractors. The ones who complain that "What does Ramona see in Scott?" "Why are they in love?"

Why is anyone in love? Fuck it. And everyone comes across as more likeable in this film than they do in the comics. Not to slag on the books. I like them. A lot. But I just fucking love this movie.

It is just amazing the amount of love poured into this movie. The enthusiasm. The amount of care. How long must it have taken just to find the perfect sound effects, music cues and such? I love the sounds in this film.

Before the film even started, during the Universal logo (in all its 8 bit glory) I turned to my wife and said, "I think I love this film."

I could not have been more right.

I sound like a broken record. Its annoying. I apologize.

I just love this fucking film.

House

Not the crappy American horror movie from the 80's or the medical drama with Hugh Laurie, but the bugshit crazy Japanese movie from the 70's.

I don't know if words can convey what watching this movie is like.

It seems like whoever wrote this film, directed this film and edited this film had never been involve with film before. This is a film of wild exuberance. An everything and the kitchen sink approach. The film shifts so rapidly between tones that it may give you whiplash. I can see how people may hate this film.

So what is it all about? A girl and her friends (stereotypes all, with names like Gorgeous, Melody, Professor and such) invite themselves to the girls aunt's house for a summer vacation. The girl, Gorgeous, has not seen the aunt in years and may have only met her the once. The girls go the house and things go crazy.

How crazy? Deadly futon attacks. A dude turns into a pile of bananas. Flying heads biting bottoms. Pointless nudity. Bizarre editing and sub-amateurish special effects. Pointless green screening. Freeze frames and dissolves for no reason. Music that makes no sense mixed poorly with the dialogue.

So crazy. Impossible to describe. There is no real through line to follow, the people involved just seemed to shoot whatever came to mind and then threw it all together.

It sounds like it should be a disaster, but it is so unlike anything else that it is definitely worth a watch. I might even buy it on Blu Ray, especially if there is any sort of commentary track.

Raderday

One Saturday, not so long ago, we watched a couple of 'classic' 80's movies. Rad and Thrasher.

Rad is about BMX biking whilst Thrasher is about skateboarding.

Rad is better at conveying what BMX biking is was all about at the time. The opening and closing credits have dudes pulling all kinds of tricks off on their bikes. The hoppy, near stationary, climbing all over the bike in ways a bike was not meant to be climbed all over kind of tricks. There's off road races, track races, ramp tricks. And there is bike dancing. Just about anything being done with a bike in the 80's is in this film somewhere.

Also in this film? Adrian, and Uncle Jesse's hot wife from Full House. And My Favourite Martian. Truly a cast well studded with stars. And there were probably some famous bikers in there too.


The bikers were good at their biking. This is a couple decades old and some of these tricks are still impressive.

So the movie is good, when people are on their bikes. Off the bikes, the movie ain't so great.

Luckily, people spend a lot of time on bikes. They even dance on their bikes. The bike dance is just awesome.

There is nothing awesome in Thrashin' (not Trasher, I've been referring to it by the wrong name forever. Oops)

It ain't bad, it is a good example of an 80's sports movie, but there is nothing all that remarkable about it. Now let me make some remarks about it.

Josh Brolin has always looked older. Always. And he may have been allergic to shirts back then. At the very least, he was allergic to buttons. The female lead in this came of poorly in direct competition with Rad's Full House lady. No real impressive skating in this film. Not a lot of board tricks. Barely any grinds. The only half pipe in this film gets burned down before it ever gets used. Mainly it's just Josh and his gang goofing off on their boards around L.A. Then the Chilli Peppers show up.

And there's some skateboard jousting and downhill racing. None of it shot with any real energy.

What is it about the 80's, man? The 70's gave birth to some of the greatest films ever. Timeless classics. FIlm making as an art form made a couple giant leaps. And then the 80's showed up and forgot all that. The nicest thing I can say about the style and craft of these two films is that they are charmingly inept.

The Expendables

I think that this film may have made more sense if I was mainlining Human Growth Hormone. Or this flick is HGH for the eyes. Or both.

I had fun watching this film. But I knew that I would. Yeah, this is that kind of film. If you think you're going to like it, you probably will. If you know you're going to hate it, you ain't wrong. This is a film that rips the heart out of some nameless mook and then proudly wears it on its sleeve. You've seen the list of names. You know whether you are going to like this film.

The question is whether you will like it as much as me. Notice the word like, not love. That's deliberate. There was thought put into that word choice. Not sure how much thought went into the script for this film, other than thinking up awesome ways to kill dudes. It's basically like Stallone's last Rambo but with more dudes. The Expendables plays like the latest instalment of a franchise that has been going strong since the 80's. The characters are less than sketches, they are drunken doodles. The subplots add up to less than nothing, they are there to pad out the running time.

These are not complaints, I liked these characters, which is to say I liked these actors. I liked the non action beats the script forced them through. Charisma Carpenter is in this film solely to be another strong Whedon woman who needs rescuing. She needs to be beat up so Statham can beat the dude who beat her. And that is the least senseless of the violence in this film.

The Expendables get involved in this film's plot because a pretty girl asked them Sly to. You can tell that Stallone likes this girl because he raises he eyebrows. That's a joke. You see, because dude's face has been pulled so tight that the most developed muscles on his whole body must be his eyelids. He's looked better. They all have. Which is kind of the point. If a film like this can have a point.

Wait. No. The point of this film is the violence, the gore and the explosions. And they are all present and accounted for. Plenty of shooty shooty stabby stabby kicky punchy slammy 'splodey. At least a few points where the audience I was with all turned to each other to ask 'Did that just happen?'

It did.

There is a lot of violence against the human body in this film, all filmed for maximum impact. There's a little bit of the too tight, too shakey, too edited to tell what the hell is going on, this mainly happens during the Jet Li fight scenes. Stallone is good at capturing gun and knife violence but his kung fu filming skills are weak. Which is too bad because I think his fight scene with Dolph Lundgren was pretty cool. I think it was, but I can't be sure. That Dolph, he's a big boy.

These are all big boys (even Eric Roberts who looks like a cross between Vince McMahon and Cuella DeVIlle), and they all hurt things and get hurt. Sometimes in cool ways, sometimes in cliched ways, but you knew all that just by watching the trailer.

Cop Out

Is not a good movie. It is a bad movie. The worst of Kevin Smith's career. It looks better than a lot of his earlier stuff, he's become a better visualist, but that doesn't mean much when everything else is so substandard. The story is a non-starter. I can't quite recall what all happened, actually. There were buddy cops, a wedding, a rare baseball card, and it all flowed together not at all. It's like someone once saw a buddy cop movie and thought it was neat so they tried their hand at writing one. It didn't turn out so good.

And maybe the original script was good. This film makes it impossible to tell. Maybe Smith was trying to test himself, stretch himself, expand his horizons because it seems like half the dialogue in this film is improvised. I don't know if Tracy Morgan is capable of remembering lines. Or he is so good at seeming spontaneous that he's got me fooled. And maybe a lot of his improv was funny, but I couldn't understand most of it. I like Tracy Morgan. He's great in 30 Rock and I've enjoyed some of his other roles but I don't know if he's cut out to be a leading man.

Especially if the other lead is as lackadaisical as Bruce Willis. You'd think he would have hit this role out of the park as both WIllis and the part he plays in this film are mainly just interested in getting paid. His near catatonic performance cancels out Morgan's spittle fuelled anarchy.

This film just... it's just bad.

The action isn't horrible, but there is nothing memorable about it. I surprised myself by laughing maybe twice, but I felt dirty afterwards. The only thing of note about this film, other than how bad it is, is the soundtrack. It sounds like an 80's buddy cop movie, all cheesy synths and such. I enjoyed it, but it didn't seem to fit the film at all.

Which is the main problem of this film, there are a lot of great things about this film in theory. Tracy Morgan's whirligig of crazy off the cuff comedy. Bruce WIllis' gun and quip slinging chops. The crazy synth soundtrack. Kevin Smith's love of words and characters and how characters use words. These are all good things, these are all things I like. And they are all in this movie, but none of them seem to be in the same movie. This film is like oil and water and vinegar and baking soda. A big messy explosive misfire.

Shoot Em Up

Finally saw this flick.

When it was good it was great, but it was pretty bad in the in betweens. The action is the highlight, of course, but the one liners are horrible. I know that is the point, but...

I know that a lot of one liners in action movies are stupid, but movies with nothing but shitty one liners are usually the shitty action movies. Each action classic has at least one or two line that hit. Shoot Em Up has no memorable dialogue.

Weird that I nit pick the writing, but that's kinda what I do. Let's continue with the negatives: this film doesn't look all that nice. Kinda blah. Don't remember any of the music either.

I do remember a lot of the action beats. Which is the most important part. I remember shooting with the carrot. I remember the baby on the playground, the hideout shootout, the gun warehouse shootout. There is some crazy inventive stuff in here. Enjoyable crazy nuttiness. And the bad guy is a real scumbag. And I like the protagonist's hatred of jerks and douchebags.

So while I wasn't blown away by Shoot Em Up, but I'm glad I finally saw it.

Man! The text on this MacBook screen is tiny!

Inception

Inception, though I've only seen it the once may be my favourite film of...

Quite some time, let's say.

I cannot stop thinking about it. Snatches of scenes continually float through my brain. And a lot of people, most of whom are better thinkers and writers than I have clicked a fair amount of keys discussing all sort of Inception minutiae. So I won't do that.

I'll just mention a couple things. One: the main complaint against the film is that it is a little cold, the emotional thrust of the film is a little muted. To this a have a few responses. The first is that I don't agree with them. It worked for me just fine. The scenes with the wife near the end got to me. I wasn't bawling, but I was moved. Also: this is a frikkin Nolan film! He ain't known for his melodramatic weep-fests. He has a style. And Inception fits his oeuvre perfectly. Finally...

Let's look at Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Arthur. Within the dreams, he's all business. In the waking world he is also all business. Other characters mock him for his humourlessness. But when you see him asleep, working in the dream, he has a beatific, untroubled smile on his face. He's having fun, but only we (the audience) know this. The people, their job is to invade other people's dreams, they try to blend in so as to not alert the mind's defences. Bringing your own emotions into other people's dreams ain't the best idea.

Also: the ending.

I don't think the point is wether he's dreaming or not. The point is he doesn't care.

Maybe I shouldn't try to go day by day

We didn't even really try to watch a movie on Tuesday. We lazy.

Instead, the wife and I stayed home and watched I Love You Man. Decent enough movie, but no one mentioned how cringey a lot of the humour is. Not vulgar or gross, just a dude being uncool. Not the biggest fan of the cringey humour. But Paul Rudd is much better in such a film than, say, Ben Stiller.

Monday Again

The Monday after a cabin weekend is usually spent getting back to 100%. But thanks to the water and gatorade, I felt no ill effects, even on Sunday.

So Monday was spent doing nothing.

Friday is When the Weekend Starts

We spent a fair bit of Friday morning cleaning up and packing. Still. Everything seemed to take longer than it should.

I got up at 6:30, fer goodnessakes! Went to a bootcamp, trying for a bit of preventative medicine. An hour of sweating more than balance out an entire weekend of eating and drinking to excess, right? So I got up early and got my motor running, and still we didn't get out of the city till after 2. I thought for sure that someone would be out there already, waiting for me. Luckily, that was not the case.

We unloaded the car and waited for others to show. After about an hour, Trev Kim and Nate showed up. They brought the rain with them. The rain didn't stick around too long, it just kept the heat of the day away.

Others arrived and soon the cabin was filled with the sound of laughter and booze.

Shut up, booze does so have a sound.

I think there may have been over 30 people out at some point. They didn't all stay overnight, thank goodness.

What were the highlights? Hard to say...

The food, as ever, was delicious. Cabin air makes food taste better. This is a fact. Science would back me up on this, but it is too busy eating delicious food.

I think I may have mentioned that instead of buying many steaks we instead bought one big slab of meat that we cut ourselves. It seemed less solid, more squishy. Less easy to juggle. But it cooked up just fine. Better than fine. SUPA FOINE! reddish pink all the way through. Best steak I've had all year. And potatoes to go along with it.

Breakfast each day was greasy and good. Jury is still out on the ham steaks, some liked 'em, others thought they were over-rated. I liked 'em.

Speaking of breakfasts, morning this year were not as bad as last year. No puke at all this year. Big change from last year. Big change. Really cut down on the clean up time. Gatorade and a massive jug of water are permanently added to the roster.

Back to food - stir fry also rocked. That griddle is god send.

Some people, not I, ping ponged.

Actually spent a decent amount of time on the baech this year. The lack of puking and hangovers this year probably helped. The not stupid heat was also nice. And I got to go for a swim. I would like to go for a couple more of those before the summer is done.

What else...?

Oh yeah, THIS!!!!!

Most fun anyone has ever had because of Family Circus. There is some truly filthy stuff in there. Provided you provide the filth. Which I always do.

The time just flew and before I knew it I was in an near empty cabin with too much food and booze left over and a whole lotta empties.

Thursday

Once upon a time there was a plan that involved us being out at the cabin starting on Thursday. That plan did not bear fruit.

Right. Forgot to mention something about Wednesday, the day before this day not the acclaimed film. We stayed up finessing my lovely lady's resume and cover letter. She did most of the finessing, I was mainly there for moral support.

It was a late night/early morning.

Apparently I didn't look too great on Thursday. Pale, faded, worn out. Best thing to go when you feel like that?

Costco!

We went to Costco and wandered around Costco preparing for the cabin weekend. We spent close to 300 bucks on foodstuffs. Way more fruit and veggies than one would expect for a drunken weekend. And a lot of meat, too. An 80 dollar hunk o' rib steak.

Just as we were leaving, it started to spit. It was raining by the time we got home. It was pouring by the time we finished unloading the groceries. Thank goodness for garages.

The raining turned to hailing. So Trev helped me finish DeathSpank.

I beat DeathSpank. The ending is... not so much.

The rest of the day was spent packing and cleaning and watching more HIMYM.

Wednesday

I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I once made a film called wednesday.

On Wednesday, we went out to the cabin for some eatering. There was meat. And potatoes. And corn. Maybe some salad. Visited with my aunt who I haven't seen in forever. She looks great. It's good to see how good she's doing.

It's good that she's good and I'm glad that she's good.

Good.