The Patio Boat's Annual Cruise to Christmas Island

Monique and I have watched several Christmas specials and movies over the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd mention some of my all-time favorites; a few others that you might not have seen, but should look for; and a couple that we've come across this year that might not be worth your viewing time.

Television Specials -- The Best

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) -- Simply the best.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) -- Sure, Santa comes across as a mean bigot in this one, but Herbie the Elf's dental obsession saves the day.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) -- The original animated version, natch. I suppose one day I might see the Jim Carrey version, but I remain dubious.

Frosty the Snowman (1969) -- The best part? Jimmy Durante saying, "And being as Frosty was made out of snow, he was the greatest belly-whopper of them all."

A Great One You Might Not Have Seen

Emmett Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (1977) -- Emmett Otter and his Ma try to give each other a Christmas to remember in this early Muppet effort from Jim Henson's studios. Great music and a truly sweet story.

Movies -- The Best

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) -- I've seen this movie dozens of times and it still always touches me. What an amazing commentary on the impact that we can all have on one another.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) -- Maureen O'Hara ... Hubba! Hubba! Er, I mean, a heartful lesson on the true meaning of Christmas emerges from the heart of holiday commercialism.

White Christmas (1954) -- This one continues to grow on me. The sitcom-ish plot is dubious at times, but the amazing music and performances by Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen overcome all.

A Christmas Story (1983) -- Ralphie wants a Red Rider BB gun. It's episodic structure is perfect for that annual "24 Hours of A Christmas Story" marathons on TBS, since you can pick it up at any place and enjoy.


A few pretty good Christmas movies that you may not have seen:

Holiday Inn (1942) -- The first movie to feature Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas." It's structure is basically an excuse for Bing Crosby to sing and Fred Astaire to dance. That's a pretty good idea.

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) -- Kind of "A Christmas Story" for the World-War-II set, with several anecdotes from a family in St. Louis in 1904, the year the Gateway City hosted the World Fair. It hasn't quite held up as well as some other musicals of the era, but there are some real highlights, too -- especially Judy Garland singing "The Trolley Song (Clang! Clang! Clang! Goes the Trolley!)" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

Scrooged (1988) -- There are several good straightforward versions of "A Christmas Carol" out there. (I'm partial to the 1938 version with Reginald Owen as Scrooge and the 1984 version with George C. Scott as Scrooge.) But if you've never caught this 1988 take starring Bill Murray as a modern television executive, it's well worth the time. Great supporting performances abound (Karen Allen, John Forsythe, Bobcat Godthwait, Carol Kane, and Alfre Woodard, among others) and Murray turns in a great "Bill Murray playing Bill Murray" performance. Check it out.


Dubious at Best -- Fortify yourself with eggnog beforehand.

Celtic Thunder Christmas (2010) -- When I cued this one up on the DVR I thought it might be a cool collection of Celtic Winter songs or maybe some Celtic-music-styled versions of Christmas standards. Instead the first 20 minutes were all pretty straightforward and uninspired versions of Christmas standards, at which point I moved on. It wasn't horrible or anything ... just not all that interesting. At best, it's strictly background music as you trim your tree.

Comfort and Joy (2003) -- Nancy McKeon stars as a woman who suffers amnesia and can't remember the last ten years of her life; ten years during which she apparently stopped being a selfish corporate b**** and became a loving caring person with a husband and two kids. The unfortunate thing about this one is that it failed to capitalize on its good premise: "How did I get to be this middle-aged person that I am now when I'm not at all like who I thought I'd become?" Alas, the plotting becomes laughably bad after a while. It's a harmless two hours on the Crying Woman's Channel (aka Lifetime Movie Network) and everybody's likeable enough. But the plot becomes so sitcommy bad that it becomes a distraction. Kind of a cool idea to think about during this season, though.

The Empire Strikes Doggerel

Esteemed film critic Mary Campbell-Droze kicked off the Summer Blockbuster Sequel season with this tribute on the 30th anniversary of the release of one of the great sequels of yore. Naturally, my response follows....

From: Campbell-Droze, Mary
Subject: The Sequel With No Equal: 'The Empire Strikes Back'

Imperial troops have entered the theater! Imperial troops have ent---BXXXXXXTT

Holy tauntaun! Where to begin?
Just look at the state the Rebellion's in
With rumors circling 'bout who is kin;
The Empire comes out swinging!

So much at once grabs our attention:
Wampas! Walkers! And not to mention
Space slugs enhancing sexual tension
And Scoundrel-Princess clinging!

But never mind Han as Leia's lover,
There's YODA! [cue Weird Al's great Kinks cover]
Who over all will sagely hover,
And speak with strange phrase-stringing!

All hail the Emperor (Ian---Great Scot!
Clive's better in 'Hell House', is he not?),
But boy, Darth Vader: he's just got
To stop all that neck-wringing!

Then...Lando! Lobot! Carbonite!
Luke's duke is severed in a fight
Against---his DAD?! Whoa! Cripes! What might
George Lucas next be bringing??

Till then, the Sibling Smooch debate
And "Hăn" or "Hān" start while we wait,
While Boba Fett becomes a great
Tool for future marketing!

But after 'Empire', 'Jedi' 'd be
The weakest of the trilogy---
Sheesh! I'd just as soon kiss that Wookiee!
(And the prequels? Gaah! I'm cringing!)

----------------------------------------------

From: Magee, John
Subject: RE: The Sequel With No Equal: 'The Empire Strikes Back'

Han in a block of carbomite?
Luke lost his hand in the big fight?
And Vader's his dad?! That can't be right!!

But one thing was cruel and much too mean,
As cold as a the ice planet Tatooine,
This thing I heard after Empire's final scene.

I nearly cried angst-ridden tears
When it fell upon my youthful ears:
"You'll find out what's next in just three years."

Netflix for the Recovering Knee Surgery Patient

I saw on Facebook today that a friend is due for some knee surgery, and is looking for movie rental suggestions while she recovers. So I took the opportunity to scan our Netflix account from the past eighteen months or so, and to pull out a list of movies that Monique and I particularly enjoyed for one reason or another:

Documentaries - Something for the obsessive, no matter what the obsession.
Helvetica - Pretty lightweight flick about obsession with the "Helvetica" typeface. Particularly interesting if you're at all involved in publishing or graphic design.
The King of Kong - Great flick about obsession with Donkey Kong.
Wordplay - Great flick about obsession with crossword puzzles.
Spellbound - Great flick about obsession with spelling bees.
Trekkies - Great flick about obsession with Star Trek.

Romantic Comedies and Dramas - in order of increasing heaviness
Enchanted - Lightweight and fun.
Julie & Julia - This movie will make you eat.
Once - A really nice musical slice of life in Dublin.
Vitus - Starts slowly, but grows on you.
The Visitor - Another film that starts slowly, but grows on you. Great acting.
In Bruges - Oddly entertaining and funny, despite the violence. Or maybe because of it. I'm not sure.
Milk - Some great acting turns in this one. Especially interesting if you've ever lived in San Francisco or been involved in politics.
Gran Torino - Clint Eastwood is the toughest retiree in Detroit. You do not want to mess up his lawn.
Frozen River - Mesmerizing and tense.
The Hurt Locker - Tense.
Sin Nombre - Pretty tough flick about gang violence and emigration in Mexico.

Animated - Two great recent animated flicks
Up
WALL-E

Short Flicks - Really, any of these short collections are well worth the time. Short film collections might be doubly welcome to somebody who has a short attention span because she's on painkillers.
Paris, Je T'aime - Sixteen short flicks set in Paris.
2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films
2006 Academy Award Short Films Collection
2005 Academy Award Short Films Collection

Sci-Fi and Action
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - A supervillain musical comedy starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion? Genius!
District 9 - Weird, but fun.
Let the Right One In - The greatest teenage Scandinavian vampire flick of all time!

Classics
Holiday - Clark Gable and Katherine Hepburn, directed by George Cukor. Need I say more?
Forrest Gump - If you've never seen it, well worth the time.
The Third Man - Great Orson Welles film noir starring Joseph Cotten.

My pores are oozing butter and cream ... and chorizo

Monique and I finally caught up with Julie and Julia last night. As expected, it was a very fun movie featuring acres and acres of lovely food. For those who don't know, the movie features two stories, the story of Julia Child (Meryl Streep) learning to cook French food and then writing The Art of French Cooking, and the story of a woman named Julie (Amy Adams) who sets out to cook every recipe in the book in the year, while blogging about it.

Let's face it, you can't watch a movie that features two hours of delicious French cooking without breaking out a bit more butter the next time you cook. And maybe a little cream. And possibly some extra cheese.

And so it was that tonight when I had some chorizo and huevos rancheros burritos in mind -- yeah, that's not French, but butter is universal -- I decided to adapt a wee scrambled egg recipe shown in one of the bonus features on the Blu-Ray disc. It's pretty simple: you melt some butter in a frying pan, toss in a few eggs, scramble, stir in some 1/2 and 1/2, and then grate in a bit of cheese at the end. Well, in a burst of Julia-Child-inspired enthusiasm I melted a lot of butter, stirred in a lot of 1/2 and 1/2, and grated in a lot of our favorite sharp Irish cheddar.

A lot.

It was entirely delicious, and the eggs plus some chorizo and some fried onion and green pepper made for a delightful burrito.

However, in retrospect I can see that the book The Art of French Cooking is a subversive tome every bit as dangerous as The Anarchist's Cookbook. Our house looks like a casualty ward right now. Monique is slumped in a butter-induced coma on the couch, too logy to press the buttons on the TV remote. Katie the Beagle enjoyed just a smidgeon of the leftovers, but is now curled on her perch as her snores make her now-bulbous beagle belly rise and fall.

And I, your humble correspondent, am sitting here, my pores literally oozing butter and cream ... and chorizo. That Julia Child was one dangerous, dangerous lady.

IMDB: Julie and Julia.
Netflix: Julie and Julia.

Quick Henry & Malcolm Update

They arrived safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon. After some energetic swimming and a very welcome untangling of fishing poles and cleaning of tackle boxes by Arsen, the assault on the fish population began in full force. Not many fish were caught this first afternoon, though, and it was however, an early night for our jet-lagged heroes, and they were off to bed after dinner.

The next day, the fishing brought results:

Malcolm's first bass of the year: July 15, 2009.

Henry's first bass of the year: July 15, 2009.

And the fishing pressure stepped up today, as the fishing fleet was launched upon the seas.

The mighty fishermen venture forth: July 16, 2009.

The mighty fishermen return triumphantly, covered in glory: July 16, 2009.

In other summertime Malcolm & Henry news, the three of us went to see Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince on its opening day when we went to the 6:30 pm Wednesday show. Monique, alas, didn't get to see it because she still had pages to proof. So she had to return home after first bringing the crew to Taco Bell for dinner and then ferrying them to the theater, where I met them on my way home from work.

The quick review is that I thought it was pretty good and plenty of fun, but not the best of the Harry Potter flicks. It suffers a bit as a stand-alone movie from really just being the first act of the story arc of the final two Henry Potter books. The "10-year-old French boys review" is that Henry liked it more than Malcolm, who thought it got pretty slow for a while. (One word of warning: if you or your wee ones haven't read the book, be forewarned that it gets darker than some of the earlier ones, and there's a pretty scary and sad scene towards the end. There were definitely crying children in the theater. However, I don't think it's anything that would discourage me from bringing all but the youngest children to see it.)

That much fun doesn't come without a bit of a casualty report, too. We can report two minor cases of sunburn from Wednesday and one scraped hand this morning for Malcolm. Thanks to Monique's superior nursing and first-aid skills, I'm still pretty optimistic that we'll be able to return two intact boys to France in a month's time.

And that's the news from Wolverine Lake, where all the visiting children are above-average, all the beagles are a bit perplexed by all the hubbub, and all the fish are scared.

Gran Torino

Long time no post. What can I say? It was a hectic week, followed by an overall lazing about weekend. Here's a quick movie review to start your week:

Gran Torino -- Clint Eastwood is the crankiest old man in the neighborhood, and you do not want to hit your ball into his yard, punk.

Monique and I both liked it, but split a bit on how much. She felt it was one of the best movies she has seen in years, while I didn't think it was quite up to the level of Clint's best directorial efforts, but still well worth watching, especially if you live around Detroit. This was one of the first movies filmed here after the movie-industry bill was passed, and it really does benefit from a genuine sense of place.

Both Clint and Bee Vang -- who plays Thao, the Hmong boy next door -- were strong in the lead roles, as was Ahney Her as Thao's sister Sue. I thought the developing mentoring relationship between Clint and Bee Vang's characters worked much better than the gang-violence storyline or some of the supporting characters, who often seemed more like quickly sketched caricatures than genuine characters.

Check it out, especially since this may be Clint's last steely-eyed go-round in front of the camera.

IMDB: Gran Torino.
Netflix: Gran Torino.
Rotten Tomatoes (80%): Gran Torino.

Godfather, Part III: An offer you *can* refuse

Monique and I just watched the Godfather trilogy. It was on the HD Movie Network over Memorial Day weekend (HD, no ads. Yippee!) It had been quite a while since I had seen I and II, Monique had only seen the first one, and neither of us had seen III, so I recorded them all on the DVR and we finally watched them all over the last few days.

No surprise, Godfathers I & II continue to stand up well. Four-star stuff, and if you've never seen them, do yourself a favor and watch 'em., preferably together. I prefer the first one, but there are lots of responsible opinions in favor of #2, and I shan't quibble here.

But the third one is a stinker. It was made about fifteen years after the others, and after watching it I can only conclude that Francis Ford Coppola needed more money for his winery up in Rutherford, CA. (Which is very cool and well worth touring -- a much better use of your three hours than this crappy movie.)

I knew Godfather, Part III had gotten bad reviews, but somehow I had let the hope that there was still one more half-decent Godfather flick out there that I hadn't yet seen. My hopes were in vain. I had pretty low expectations going in, and it didn't come close to meeting them. I shan't relive the horror, except to say that for the first hour or so, I thought a good editor might have saved this movie. The final two hours convinced me that it was an unredeemable mess. Worse yet, both Monique and I guessed the ultimate end less than five minutes into the flick.

And I don't think I'll even go into the weird cousin-love subplot, except to say that I thought the Corleones came from Sicily, not deepest Appalachia.

I could go on and on, but why bother. It was crap. You've been warned.

The last thing I'll say is that tonight Monique and I are watching Terror of Mechagodzilla (1978) and it makes quite a bit more sense than Godfather, Part III.

I won't even provide a link out to number three, so as not to encourage any of you. But here are a couple of handy links to more on Godfather, Parts I & II, which I would heartily encourage anybody to watch, or watch again.

IMDB:
The Godfather
The Godfather, Part II

Netflix:
The Godfather
The Godfather, Part II

The Three Musketeers (1948) with a cast of favorites

Just passing along a quick movie recommendation, the 1948 version of The Three Musketeers, starring Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, June Allyson, Van Heflin, Angela Lansbury, Vincent Price, and a cast of favorites.

By far the best and worst thing about this version is the casting of Gene Kelly as D'Artagnan, the dashing young French swordsman. In acting scenes, Gene Kelly is a completely ridiculous choice for D'Artagnan. He's such an iconic American presence and emanates such a distinctly American charisma that he's pretty much the least Gallic actor I can think of for the role, short of casting John Wayne -- which, I have to admit, would make for a really interesting and terrible movie, now that I think of it.

But in the fencing scenes Kelly is nothing short of amazing. He is just unbelievably athletic and quick and graceful. It's pretty much everything that made some of his best dancing scenes so memorable, but with a sword.

Fortunately, the rest of the movie is so well cast and so likeable that it becomes relatively easy to overlook the oddity of the smiling 36-year-old Irish American actor trying to project the angst of a French teenager. Lana Turner has a fabulously juicy role as the beautiful and treacherous Lady de Winter, and a lot of other familiar faces tear up the scenery with equal enthusiasm. Vincent Price is especially good as scheming Cardinal Richelieu.

It also makes a really good family film. Not in the "everything is innocuous and bland" Disney kind of way, but in the sense that there's lots in there to entertain both kids and adults alike, without containing anything too terrible for the youngsters to see.

So, flaws and all, I say check it out. It's coming on cable again in just a couple of weeks.

Next cable showing: Wed., June 10, 12:00 PM, TCM (Turner Classic Movies)
Netflix Listing: The Three Musketeers (1948)
IMBD: The Three Musketeers (1948)

Star Trekkin' Across the U. in Verse

From: Campbell-Droze, Mary
Subject: To Boldly Glow Where Treks Have Dawned Before

[and not, To Moldily Go Where Unknowns Have Gone to Spore]

I dare to hope that this will work
And not croak like Bill Shatner's Kirk!
(But, of course, it must be said:
Is any 'Trek' star EVER dead?)
A refreshed franchise sounds divine
To us who bailed after "Deep-Sixed" Nine!
I wish these newbies no ill will---
They've got pretty big boots to fill!
Speaking of boots, I'm sure Chris Pine
Can pull his on (and off) just fine,
And Urban will nail his "Dammit, Jim!"
Despite having led the Rohirrim;
Simon Pegg's a plus as Scotty
(Just hope his burr is not too spotty)
And Quinto's Vulcan's sure to please
…Pine's brows could *also* use a tweeze…
But mostly, here's the gist of it:
Not to turn 'Trek' into s##t!
Abrams will feel our Trekkie rage
Before you can say "TOS.1 - 'The Cage'"!
- Meanwhile, Picard patiently
- Sips hot, non-poncy Earl Grey tea.


From: Magee, John
RE: To Boldly Grow Where Treks Have Rhymed Before

We who watched that Enterprise crap
Second Mary’s Trekker rap
I hope they got someone to write
A screenplay worthwhile on first night
‘Cause if this movie’s not a hit
Abrams' future ain’t worth s***.

How will it fare with critics, fans?
Will we renew our old Trek banns?
Mary’s dream arrived to greet her:
A one-hundred score on TomatoMeter!

(http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_trek_11/)


From: Campbell-Droze, Mary
Subject: RE: To Boldly Grow Trekkie Cred of Long Before

Great news! …but should one refer to me,
I'm not a "Trekker"---I'm a proud "Trekkie"!


From: Magee, John
Subject: RE: To Boldly Go and Mary's Trekkie Cred Restore

I did not mean to thus offend.
At warp speed, apologies I send.

Movie Review - "Let the Right One In" ("Låt den rätte komma in")

"Let the Right One In" ("Låt den rätte komma in") is without a doubt the best low-budget Swedish pre-teen vampire flick that I have ever seen.

Given that introduction, this next sentence won't be a surprise: it's kind of a strange movie. If I had to compare it to other movies, I'd say that it's "My Life As A Dog" meets "Salem's Lot". If you've seen both of those movies, you know what a strange mix that would be. (BTW, I haven't seen "Twilight", so I really can't give you a head-to-head comparison with this year's big-budget American pre-teen vampire flick. )

Overall, I really liked it and it's going to stick with me. There are some wonderfully strange and beautiful visuals in it. Those scenes are interspersed with some pretty gruesome and bloody scenes. And the day-to-day life of the boy at the heart of it is every bit as horrific as the vampire stuff in some ways. I won't say much about the story, so as not to give anything away, because figuring it all out is part of what made watching this movie fun. But there are some wonderfully haunting images and plot points.

It's the best scary movie that I've seen in a long time. Make it a late-night rental and curl up on the couch with somebody warm. It'll make an excellent Halloween rental for folks when that season comes around.

(Foreign Flick Note: Monique and I watched it in Swedish with English subtitles, but our Blu-Ray disk also had a dubbed English-language version. In fact, the disk defaulted to the English-language dubbing, but we generally prefer to watch foreign movies in the original language if the subtitling is decent, which it was.)

General weekend wrapup

No deep thoughts or spectacular photos today, just a general weekend wrapup. It's been kind of a nice, quiet, rainy weekend, despite not getting enough stuff done around here. Friday evening Monique and I drove across town to the Commonwealth Club in Warren to work the Friday fish and chips. For those who have never heard of the Commonwealth Club, it's a club of British expatriates who have a nifty clubhouse in Warren with a bar, a dart room, and some nice banquet facilities.

The Detroit RFC does quite a few things with them, including providing volunteers to work the kitchen for their Friday fish fry from 5 pm - 8 pm on the first Friday of each month. The clubs within the DRFC (men, women, old boys) rotate the assignment, so each group is responsible for coming up with five or six volunteers once every three months. It's a good gig: free beer and all the fish and chips you can eat, and it's always a good chance to chit-chat with some friends. It's usually an easy "get" for volunteers, but a lot of the usual suspects had other things going on, so I spent more time than usual beating the bushes. Fortunately, all turned out well and a good time was had.

It's been pretty much downhill for me on the productivity front this weekend ever since. Monique and I had been thinking about going out to see "Watchmen", since we found ourselves enmeshed in so much of the publicity last week when we attended the fundraiser shindig at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. But after working the fish fry we were both too full of fish to want to battle the opening-night crowds. Plus, I can't help but look at the reviews and think, "This is a movie that Monique will hate." She's game enough to go with me to it, especially since we did see the display of source material, props, costumes, etc. But I can't help but think she'd really rather catch up on the three or four episodes of "Damages" that have been sitting on the DVR since we got home.

I suspect that I might just wander out and catch it myself during the week. We shall see.

The movie that we did watch Friday night was "In Bruges" on the DVD player. I'm still not quite sure how much I enjoyed it, since I really liked some pieces and didn't like other aspects of it. I did mostly enjoy it for its quirky humor, particularly in the early parts; general weirdness; and the great juxtaposition of this film noir story with the preserved and touristy medieval city of Bruges. But it did get pretty grim at the end in a way that didn't quite feel as if it fit with the movie. Still, it was a heck of a lot more interesting than most of what comes out in the way of thrillers or crime dramas these days, so I'd say it's worth the rental.

After that, it's been a pretty quiet weekend at home for me, and a pretty active weekend of errand-running for Monique. I've been trying to get a few things ironed out on the new laptop, cleaning up and organizing my desk, and doing a bit of general puttering about the house during a rainy weekend. Monique has thrown herself into some general cleanup around this place (which needs it) and a series of errands, most of which have been out of the house.

We often have weekends in which I putt about the house while Monique runs errands. I think that this is probably a reflection of the fact that I spend so little time at home during the week, and since she works at home all week and is quite happy to get out and about. Everybody like's a change of pace and locale during the weekend.

The only downside to the weekend for me has been the re-emergence of the leak in our kitchen skylight. Every few years one of our two skylights springs a leak. The leak usually emerges during a downpour, which is when vast quantities of water shed off our roof, pile up on the upslope side of the skylight, and eventually find their way past the caulk. I really don't mind climbing up on the roof and re-caulking. I just wish I didn't have to wait for decent weather because it means pots and bowls on the kitchen floor until I can caulk it up again.

Oh, and it's been an action-packed weekend for Katie the Beagle, too. After I reassured her that Cruella de Riordan was still in Gettsyburg, Katie emerged from her camouflage towel and is now contributing to the general rainy-weekend atmosphere by laying about on the couch. Here, in a series of action shots that just burst off the page she briefly contemplates standing up and stretching before curling back up to go back to sleep:

She does good work.

The Oscar-Party Review, or lack thereof

Alas, there is no review of the Oscar party to which Monique and I were so generously invited. Why? Because I came down with some brutal intestinal virus late Saturday night and spent the entirety of Sunday laid out on the couch of the guest cottage. I shan't go into further detail, gentle reader, because with further detail you would move from "gentle reader" to "horrified by too-much-information reader."

Nonetheless, today I am now sitting upright and managed to hold down a plain bagel for breakfast and a scone for lunch, so with a return to solid food I seem to be on the mend. I will, however, stop for a moment to whine that getting sick while on vacation always seems a bit unfair. Ironically, I was planning to work today, so I have now called in sick from working while on my vacation.

As God is my witness I have no idea how that should go on my timecard.

I did manage to watch the Oscars themselves, though. I thought it was a good show with lots of glitz and glamour. Hugh Jackman made a surprisingly good host, funny in the right parts and filled with enough star-quality charisma to hold the stage in that setting. I also liked the new layout -- with the orchestra on stage and the stars all the way to the front of the orchestra pit. In fact, the only thing that I didn't like was the nauseating gush-fest of the various best actor/actress awards, where they had five previous winners going on-and-on about the greatness of this year's nominees. Not only did it ooze Hollywood phoniness, but its worst sin was that it was flat-out dull. I hope they kill it next year, but I fear it will live on. The only thing most actors and actresses love more than droning on about their own greatness is hearing other people drone on about their greatness.

The best bit of the evening was Ben Stiller doing his Whacked-Out-Joaquin-Phoenix impersonation. Tremendous stuff, and a great change of pace from the usual three-wisecracks banter that makes up most of the writing for the award presenters.

As for the winners, I'm happy for Slumdog and more determined than ever to catch Milk on DVD. After the broadcast Monique and I watched Man on Wire (the movie about the French tightrope artist who walked between the Twin Towers in 1974) which had just won the Best Documentary Oscar. It had been sitting at the top of our Netflix DVD queue, but I was in the mood to watch it, so we watched via Netflix instant streaming on the laptop. It was really good, a bit of a caper movie, really, with a lot of joie de vivre. And it was all the more poignant for being set at the start of the Twin Towers' career when nobody knew their terrible fate. It's well worth watching.

Quick late-night update

Sorry to have been a blog slacker the last few days. There was so much vacationing going on that I never had a good chance to sit down and catch folks up. Pictures still coming, soon. Maybe tomorrow if I get a chance.

So, what have I been doing that was so vital that I couldn't blog for the last 72 hours? Here's a list:

• Drove up to Sonoma to see the HGTV Dream Home with Monique, her friend Kelly, my aunt Carol, and my cousin Laura.
• Ate an entirely delcisious lunch at a really nice restaurant in Sonoma called The Girl and the Fig, or something like that. Believe it or not, I wasn't the one who suggested we eat at the joint that had all the nudie pictures on the wall and was named after a girl playing with a "fig".
• Wandered with the wimmin-folk through a lot of stores on the downtown Sonoma Square. In all fairness to the wimmin-folk, that was a known hazard before the expedition set out.
• Ate Mexican food for dinner. Yummy!
• Watched "Slumdog Millionaire." Quick review: I liked it very much, but be forewarned that the first half-hour or 45 minutes has a lot of brutal scenes of what happens to children who grow up parentless in a brutal slum.
• Slept in and lazed about Friday morning.
• Ran some errands.
• Went over to Tim and Jennifer Kardos's place in San Mateo where they hosted an entirely excellent dinner party. Played croquet, drank too much Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, had a delicious dinner, and caught up with a lot of folks I hadn't seen in too long. An excellent time.
• Slept in and lazed about Saturday morning.
• Went for a longish walk with Monique, my aunt Carol, and her dog Rosie up on one of the fire trails in the Berkeley hills.
• Ran some more errands.
• Ate a late lunch. (Two bologna and cheddar sandwiches on rye.)
• Watched "Frost/Nixon." Quick Review: I liked it much more than I expected to. I feared that it would be a two-hour wallow in Watergate, but it was really an excellent character study with great storytelling. I'll probably be the only one, but tomorrow I'll be rooting for Frank Langella to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, not Heath Ledger. (Sorry, Bat-fans.) I'm not sure, but of the two Best-Movie nominees that I've seen this year, I think I might give the nod to "Frost/Nixon" over "Slumdog Millionaire". (Sorry, plucky-indie-flick fans.)
• Delicious dinner and fun chit-chat with Monique, Carol, and Joe.

Wow, when I write it up like that it sounds quite busy. In reality, it's been a completely relaxing three days. But I hope this list at least provides a good excuse for my non-blogginess.

Oh, and I forgot to add it in to my list of "accomplishments," but I did write another haiku in response to my sister's comment regarding the photo with me and the elephant seals. You can see it by clicking on this link. I mention this haiku not because it is the best poem I have ever written in any form. (Although it is.) I mention it because it should be a good reminder to all that much of the value-add of this content-centric customer-enabling information solution can be found in the comments.

So, um, write some comments, folks.

Last item: preview of coming attractions for tomorrow. We are going to an Oscar party that is being hosted by a friend of my cousin Laura. The Oscars were a bit of a California tradition for me when I lived out here because just about every year I would pick up a pizza and watch the Oscars with my grandmother. We would also sometimes try to see at least one of the contenders in the week or two beforehand; but whether we made it to any of the contenders or not, she never lacked for opinions on the Oscar winners and losers. We had a lot of fun just watching the show and chit-chatting.

So, I still like to watch the Oscars with a pizza, usually with Monique these days. When I mentioned to Laura that maybe all three of us should grab a pizza and watch the show, she told us that her friend Jen hosts this little Oscar shindig every year and that it's "totally low-key and laid back." I thought this sounded like potential fun along the lines of my usual pizza and Oscar-viewing kind of evening, and Laura wrangled us an invite.

So then I ask what I should bring: pizza? bag o' chips? bottle o' wine? And Laura says, "Oh, we won't need any food, Jen always has it catered. Oh, and she usually gets this great chocolate fountain...."

I now remind you, gentle reader, of that moment just two paragraphs ago in which Laura used the words "totally low-key and laid back" to describe the shindig. Methinks this might not be my traditional take-out pizza Oscar affair. It could be that I'm moving up in the world of Oscar parties. I think I might wear the slacks instead of the beat-up shorts I've worn the last week, just to be safe.

The Oscar-nominated short animated and live-action films

Monique and I did something really fun this afternoon. We went down to the DIA (Detroit Institute for the Arts) and saw all of the Oscar-nominated short animated and live-action films. They were all really good. If the show is playing somewhere near any of you, I highly recommend it. (I've also heard that they're up on iTunes, but the iTunes "Oscar Short Films" listing only has the winners and nominees through 2007. Presumably this year's crop will be along soon. )

I don't have a full review in me tonight, but Monique and I gave the top animated marks to "La Maison en Petits Cubes" and "Lavatory - Lovestory". "La Maison en Petits Cubes" is the story of an old man fighting off a rising tide that is overwhelming his house. It starts kind of slowly but really hits home when you realize what it's really about. "Lavatory - Lovestory" is a very sweet story of a restroom attendant who discovers that she has a secret admirer. Some of you may have already seen one of the other nominees, "Presto", which was a short that was included on the WALL-E DVD. It's a very funny cartoon about a rabbit in a magic act, and it holds up well in this distinguished company. I guess "La Maison en Petits Cubes" would get my vote, but it's close.

I'm still not sure which one of the live-action films I liked best. If I had to vote I might go for "New Boy", which is based on a Roddy Doyle short story about an African immigrant boys first day in an Irish classroom. But really and truly, they were all superb.

Here's the full list. It'll be fun to have a rooting interest this year when we watch the Oscars:

Best animated short film
"La Maison en Petits Cubes" (Japan)
"Lavatory - Lovestory" (Russia)
"Oktapodi" (France)
"Presto" (United States)
"This Way Up" (Great Britain)

Best live action short film
"Auf der Strecke (On the Line)" (Germany/Switzerland)
"Manon on the Asphalt" (France)
"New Boy" (Ireland)
"The Pig" (Denmark)
"Spielzeugland (Toyland)" (Germany)

Movie Review - Hellboy II: The Moldin' Army

Monique and I just finished watching Hellboy II. Well, technically I just finished watching Hellboy II, and Monique watched the first hour and thirty minutes or so of Hellboy II.

I think it's safe to say that if Monique had to choose a word to describe it, she might select "crappy". I wasn't quite so down on it, but I have to admit that it was pretty disappointing. The part that's really disappointing is that we both liked the first Hellboy movie. I just don't think the movie ever quite caught the wittiness and tone of the first effort. Also, it felt like the whole film was driven by overly long special effects sequences and battle scenes instead of storytelling.

I guess this makes it the second time this year that Monique has walked out on the sequel to an action flick that we liked. (She also marched out on The Dark Knight, with much more animus in that case. She really hated that movie.)

I don't know quite why it's so hard to capture the magic a second time with an action flick, but it certainly is a rare happening. It's almost as if they're making the same movie again, so why can't they get it right? It kind of reminds me of all the sequels to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Spielberg and Lucas got the tone just right in the first movie, but they were never able to get that tone right again for an entire movie. I think the real problem was that they kept trying to top their previous efforts. But there was a relaxed feel to that first one that was what put it over the top. It was the same thing with Hellboy II, it felt like more effort went into trying to top the effects and action sequences of the first one than went into the storytelling.

On the other hand the really good version of The Maltese Falcon (the 1941 version with Humphrey Bogart) was actually the third time in ten years that the studios made that flick, so I guess sometimes a movie does get better the more times you make it.

Movie Review - One half of "Superbad"

Oooh, I just "walked out" on another movie at home last night, and this time Rotten Tomatoes differed as to its merits: Superbad (87% on the TomatoMeter.)

I have to admit that I was really disappointed. I really , really, really expected to like this movie a lot. I'm a big fan of the dumb teenage sex comedy genre, and I think Michael Cera's a genuinely funny young actor. So it seemed as if this should have been right in the groove. (And mind you, this review comes from a guy who even liked Beerfest.)

It wasn't actually terrible. But I just wasn't finding it funny. So after an hour I decided to turn it off and move on with my life. It could be that I just wasn't in the mood, but I think the real problem was that the writers mistook the f-word for a joke, so they never got around to writing actual jokes.

Oh well, comedies are kinda like that. Either they make you laugh or they don't, and that's ultimately the only valid measure of their merit.

No second opinon from Monique. She was asleep, which is why I was watching Superbad in the first place. It was on my list of "movies to watch when Monique isn't around" because it pretty obviously wasn't going to be her cup of tea. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it wasn't my cup of tea, either!

Speaking of movies...

... this was a pretty good exchange from an off-topic movie discussion we've been having over on the BaseballHQ boards:

JVR: On another level, has anyone heard anything about the Wall Street sequel?

Patioboater: Poseidon Adventure 3?

DAVITT@HQ: Starring Shelley Winters as the vessel.

Patioboater: And Gene Hackman as the fighting young priest who vows to lead Lehman Brothers back to profitability.


(Yes, yes, I am indeed continuing with the content generation model known as "reusing stuff I wrote elsewhere." Don't expect that to change anytime soon. I think we all just have to hope that I'm a good enough editor to limit my repostings to funny little exchanges, insightful meanderings, or genuinely newsworthy items, and that I will not post any of the usual eight-paragraph analyses of polyhierarchical thesauri mapping projects or metadata tagging process re-engineering proposals that make up the vast majority of what I write during my day.)

Movie Reviews - Once, Unfaithful

Monique and I finally got around to seeing Once last night and we both really liked it a lot. (Not really a surprise, since it hit 97% on the ol' TomatoMeter.) The real surprise is that if you took the entire cast of The Commitments and asked who would go on to one day win an Academy Award, I'm pretty sure nobody would've guessed, "The guy who played Outspan."

The worst movie I've ever seen? Probably Unfaithful with Diane Lane and Richard Gere. It climbs to the top of the list for three reasons:

1) Richard Gere, always the sign of a bad movie. (I'm not anti-Richard Gere. It just seems to me as if I end up hating every movie I see him in.)
2) I walked out on it about 2/3 of the way through, and I was in my own house at the time. (Monique was still watching, so I went upstairs to read a book instead.)
3) Item #2 happened despite the fact that Diane Lane was running around buck nekkid in a good deal of that film. I would've bet good money that no movie could be so bad as to make me walk out on a naked Diane Lane.

Movie Reviews - The Host, Cloverfield

Monique and I watched a good Creature Feature pairing last week on DVD: The Host and Cloverfield. I was a little disappointed in The Host, but I think it was a matter of having set my expectations too high. (It scored a whopping 92% on the TomatoMeter.) Taken as just a good, rousing Korean monster movie, it was good stuff.

And Cloverfield (77% on the TomatoMeter) was the best monster movie I've seen in years and years. Really, it was everything that the American Godzilla flick of ten years ago should've been, and wasn't.