July 2008: Fireworks, Lightning, Hellboy, Maniacs, and Gambling

July 4th, Friday - Fireworks at Val & Matt's. It's the 4th of July and we went to the Winchester and had hot dogs and watermelon and then watched stuff blow up. They got all of the legal fireworks they could and while that was going down, some of the neighbors were setting off the illegal ones. It was like we were in a war zone. I am not much of a pyromaniac, but the legal ones were pretty good. Personally, I just prefer the hot dog portion of the evening.

July 12th, Saturday - Val's Birthday. At the Winchester again. This time, there weren't any fireworks, but we did have a lightning storm. It was alternately pretty and scary. After one too many lightning strikes though, I had to go inside and it was there we were sucked into the Wii. Man, that thing is addictive. Val got DW sound effects, which was especially fun since you could have it say "EXTERMINATE" over and over again.

July 13th, Sunday - HELLBOY: THE GOLDEN ARMY. I love Hellboy. I really do. I also love Abe Sapien. And it looks like other supernatural characters love them too. I am so glad Doug Jones got more opportunity to act in this movie. He was so good in the previous one and then the overdubbed him with David Hyde-Pierce's voice. DHP, was/is such a classy fellow, he didn't even want to take credit for it. Go DHP! I'm not sure this movie is as good as the first one. The solution to the problem seemed absurdly easy to me. But the emotions were spot on and the actors so good, it was worth it. Oh, and the graphics were lovely. Steampunk robots! And Gigantic Tree Monsters! And fighting! Always good stuff.

July 19th, Saturday - TAKING OVER THE ASYLUM at Val & Matt's. We watched the very first show that David Tennant was in on British television. He was a manic-depressive in an asylum. He was really good. Super skinny, too. I think he's aging well. He looks a lot better now than he did back then. The show was about the inmates in the asylum and the radio DJ who's been assigned to help them run their internal radio station. He's got issues of his own and it sometimes seems like the "normal" people on the outside are crazier than the inmates on the inside. It's funny and tragic and I don't want to give anything away, but it all kind of seems like real life even though it isn't. It was very, very good and DT credits this show with starting his career. I have no picture because DT looks horrible in 80's clothes.

July 20th, Sunday - THE FALL. It made me cry people. It made me cry. Plus it was visually stunning. Lee Pace is a stuntman in the hospital after an accident on set and he makes friends with a little girl with a broken arm. He starts telling her a story and the visuals switch to the story he's telling and the hospital scenes. Then they kind of meld together. I don't want to give anything away here, but the friendship with the little girl is a ruse and there's more to his accident than he's telling people. Tarsem Singh also did THE CELL, which was visually frightening, at least to me, but it seemed like a very original piece of work. The man does know how to shoot beautiful pictures and I don't think he used CGI at all in this picture. There's a bit of animation in the movie, but it makes perfect sense, when you think about it. I highly recommend it, but if you do get it, get the widescreen or HD version because you really don't want to miss that.

July 26th, Saturday - Casino Night at the Brant's. Daryl and I went to a friend's Casino Night way out east, nearly half-way to Vegas it seemed. Anyway, each person was given a certain amount of money to gamble with and there were games of roulette, craps, poker, and blackjack set up. I held onto my money in case Daryl lost all of his and in the end we were up $600 of play money. But there was one guy who made over $50,000 so he won for the night. Craps was a complicated game and I couldn't figure it out. Roulette seemed to be the most popular one of the evening, and got even more popular after the fellow won $50,000 on Black 9 or some such. The only games that made sense to me were blackjack and poker, but I'm not very good with cards. With my luck, I try not to bet on anything. Oh, and I got to see a junebug. It was huge! The desert makes very big bugs.