February, the month of sickness and DVD rentals

Ok, so Daryl and I got sick. So I rented a bunch of movies. After Daryl got sick, I got sick. After two weeks, I am still sick. But here are my impressions of the movies. Hey, I was wrong about THE ARISTOCRATS. They did have it at Blockbuster. It was a really good movie about comedy and comedians. I recommend it to anyone who likes comedians. MARCH OF THE PENGUINS was a little overrated. I had seen a documentary on penguins much like this on the Discovery Channel a while ago and knew the crazy behavior that ensues when, like most species, they have kids. The parents stuff themselves, then go on a marathon to a remote part of Antartica to mate and then spend months sitting around taking care of their offspring while alternating the marathon, stuff food into belly, marathon, aaaand, switch off until they feel they can leave the kids alone. Like all species that decide to procreate, the kids drive the parents to do crazy things for their welfare and what do the parents get out of it? Only some of the kids make it. That's how it goes in the coldest place in the world. The problem with the movie is that they liken a lot of animal instincts to human behavior, which, come on, they're penguins. But hey, the babies are cute, and the cinematography is great, so enjoy. Just don't buy into the sentimentality. Nature is harsh. No less for humans than for penguins. Moving on, JUST LIKE HEAVEN was a nice romantic comedy. If you like romantic comedies, then this is a well done version of the boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love with each other, but girl is a ghost, and so on... I cannot hate anything that Reese Witherspoon is in, not even LITTLE NICKY, so this is no exception. And I've found that I really like Mark Ruffalo. I am waiting to see more of his work where he's not crazy or depressed, but it may take a while since that seems to be the only kind of role he gets. Way to go Hollywood. But I guess I should just be glad that they even hired a guy like Mark Ruffalo, because he can actually act. THE BROTHER'S GRIMM was a feast for the eyes, as is typical of a Terry Gilliam movie. The forest is hideously beautiful and the special effects are marvelous. They story was not as great as THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, but it was well done and it was a great take on fairy tales. There's a little red riding hood, a wolf, a woodsman, an evil witch in a tower, hair that's used as a rope to get up to the tower, an enchanted mirror, oh, all sorts of crazy fairy tale stuff, even a nice take on Cinderella with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger wearing bonnets and aprons. Heath Ledger is great as a bespectacled lovesick geek. He makes you believe that he's a nerd, when, seriously, even with glasses, he's gorgeous. There is no way a guy that looks like that is ever going to have a hard time finding a girl. Or a guy since he swings that way in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, which I haven't seen yet. Look people, I know the Oscars are Sunday, but I'm still trying to get out of the house without coughing up a lung. WAR OF THE WORLDS was a typical Speilberg movie, although I did like the rather narrow vision that he had in concentrating on a single family's struggle to survive. Tom Cruise is typically annoying, but I didn't feel the Tom-hate I usually feel when I see him onscreen-as much. Dakota Fanning is alarmingly good. And the special effects are so good I watched a bunch of scenes over and over again. One scene, of them driving down the road, was one long continuous take that was fantastically done. I watched the original on TV many years ago and while there are a few moments that I remember, I mostly only remember the end. It's a really good ending. But this movie's ending wasn't nearly as good because Tom Cruise was in it. And really, does everyone have to use Morgan Freeman to narrate their movies? Can't they find someone else? Although, he does have a great voice. It's just that he seems to be narrating everything. I had read a review of DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN so I got it and I did like it. It wasn't terrific, but it had a good story about forgiveness and an unbelievably sappy love story. And it had a few really funny moments that I appreciated. A lot of Christian movies are really awful, mostly because the filmmaker's get more concerned about their "message" than about making something entertaining. Not that I mind their message, it's just that if it were entertaining as well, I would actually watch it. This movie has a great message, but it's also somewhat entertaining, so I was glad to see that. We also saw the movie KONTROLL which is a movie about the subway, and the subway workers in Hungary. Apparently the whole idea of paying to use the subway there is on sort of a honor system, so you get a lot of people who simply don't buy a ticket. So they have subway workers whose job it is to collect tickets from people and try to get money out of people who don't have a ticket. And most of the time those people are scary. Plus, the subway workers are sort of like gangs and have rivalries. And they do stuff like race the trains. Crazy. The movie follows one group of subway ticket takers, who seem to be the losers of the group. There's a mysterious person shoving people onto train tracks, a cute girl in a bear suit, and a regular ticket scoffer who's faster than the subway workers and shows them up--way too many times. Some of the stuff that happens is beautiful and some of the stuff that happens is fun and some of the stuff is hide-your-face scary. The actors are all very good and it's a good film from a young director and a country you don't hear about that much here. And we finally got to see GRIZZLY MAN on the Discovery Channel. It's a very good documentary about a guy who filmed grizzly bears. He and his girlfriend got mauled by one and they had a tape of the actual mauling. You don't want to hear it and they don't play it and I think it's a good thing. Remember the thing about anthropomorphi-sizing animals? Well this guy goes a little too far. It sort of an amazing picture of human nature vs. real nature. Real nature wins. We still have a bunch of movies to get through, but I guess that's just going to have to wait until March.

Murderball, Sky High, Fantastic Four, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Sunday, the 5th-First of all, I just want to say that I've had a lovely anniversary weekend. I'm thinking of extending it to the rest of the month. (It's a short month after all.) Today, we had my favorite, Vietnamese food, and then got a bunch of DVDs from Blockbuster. I really wanted to see THE ARISTOCRATS but there is no way that's going to be available at a Blockbuster. So we got MURDERBALL, which was fabulous. It's a documentary about a bunch of guys who play quad rugby, or as they like to call it, "murderball". All of the players have some sort of impairment of all four limbs and it's basically "get the guy who has the ball" and don't let him roll over the goal line. Pretty simple, but what happens is that you get rammed from your opponents and lots of times you fall on the floor. It's a story about the game and the guys who play it. And the guys who play it are inspiring. You really do start to think, hey, look at them, they had a horrible thing happen to them, but look what they've done since. The extras on the DVD are fun too, such as the time three of the guys from the movie hang out with the crowd from JACKASS. Now, that was hilarious. The next movie we saw was, SKY HIGH. Yes, I know it was a Disney movie, but it was written by the same guys who write for KIM POSSIBLE, which is the best show on the Disney Channel. Kurt Russell was pretty funny as The Commander, the dad who thinks it's the worst thing in the world that his son has no superpowers, but tries not to show it. And the effects were great, lots of practical effects, which means no CGI and, yes, the tables were thrown across the room and the guy really did get thrown in to the column. Stuff like that. The little teenage love triangle was ok, but the whole division of the school into "superheros", i.e., the "cool" kids, and "sidekicks", i.e., the "not-cool" kids, or as they like to say, "hero support" was a good idea. Plus, they had Dave Foley and Kevin MacDonald in the movie as well. Can't go wrong with that. I'm hoping this gets turned into a TV series. Are you listening, Disney? The kids were fantastic here. Give them a show. Oh, and Kurt Russell too maybe. Moving on. The FANTASTIC FOUR was the usual CGI fest, but it did have some good humor bits. For those who watch it, the best part is the the part with the shaving cream. Really. The fire effects for the Human Torch was very well done and I heard that the race with the missle took 4 months to create---for what amounts to about 3 minutes of film. This is why movies cost so much. Well, that and the fact that actors and producers get 10 million for doing a movie. It's definitely not the make-up dude that get's the huge paycheck. It's not nearly as good as SPIDERMAN so don't expect too much, but it's got a few good moments. And even though Jessica Alba is waaaaay too young to be Sue Storm, she does an okay job here. The best actors, I think are Julian MacMahon and Michael Chiklis, playing Victor Von Doom and The Thing, or Ben Grimm, respectively. Michael Chiklis, in particular does a fantastic job under an entire Thing suit. Next, we saw the latest version of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Now, I'm a big fan of the 1971 version with Gene Wilder. This version is definitely not as good as that one so I recommend that everyone see the 1971 version. Now, Johnny Depp is, as usual, completely original and daring in his portrayal and since this is a Tim Burton movie, the art direction on this is fanciful with a little bit of menace. The oompa loompas are all played by one man, who, by the way, deserved every bit of money he got. Oh, and the compositors earned their keep too. But they gave Willy Wonka a really odd backstory, which wasn't the least bit necessary and sucked the mystery out of the character. As a result, this movie is a lot flatter and less interesting than the diabolical 1971 version. Thems are my reviews! We got a coupon for Blockbuster so maybe there'll be more reviews later.

Flower-daddy

Saturday, the 4th-The Flower Market. In honor of our anniversary weekend, Daryl tells me that today he's my flower-daddy. So we go to the flower market (Eeeearly in the morning, really early.) with Christian and he gets me two large bouquets of roses. Then we go to the Korean market and get rice bun treats. Christian finds a box of honey, so fine, they sell them in laquered boxes. He says he's buying that the next time he goes to Burning Man. Then, when we get home we take a nap. This IS the perfect day. Mo invites us out for dinner at her place. She got a bag of Carson's Ribs sent by her mom and she wanted to share. Daryl and I bought ice cream to eat for dessert and then when we arrived, Mo was still in the process of cooking and so Daryl and I made rice pasta and vegetables. We had a nice dinner, although I found out later that the sauce is definitely not gluten-free. (Thanks, Daryl.) Then we went to Manhattan Beach to play pool at a place called Mr. Pockets where we met up with her friends from the plant nursery. I got a Shirley Temple and Daryl got a Roy Rogers. Daryl, as usual, does a fantastic job running out the table. I'm dying by 10p-ready to go to bed. I must be getting old.

First kiss!

Friday, the 3rd-It's the anniversary of our first kiss. Ten years ago Daryl and I had our very first kiss, thus confirming for Daryl that I was, indeed, interested in him. Daryl and I don't really celebrate our wedding anniversary, but we do celebrate our first kiss. Daryl is unfortunately at work so we just had an afternoon with each other. So, I think we should have an anniversary weekend.

No work today...Try again tomorrow...No work today...

Thursday, the 2nd-Just to explain the past month. I haven't had any work since the new year. It's depressing and then I find out that Christian lost a big job and therefore, I did too. So Daryl's my sugar daddy for the time being. Although I've been working out (yoga twice a week and 30 minutes of cardio and weightlifting twice a week) and getting acupuncture. Plus, I finished up a Defensive Driving Course ONLINE. Isn't that odd? You'd expect a driving course to actually involve driving, but, no. OK, I'm not the one who makes the rules here. So, I clean the house, surf the web, work on EFT (www.emofree.com), read my magazines and try to work on arranging the photographs that I haven't organized since 2001. I really miss Daryl at night. Now I make dinner just for me. It's a little odd.