Tuesday, January 31, 2012

movies part duex

Last week I listed some movies that I watched that I enjoyed.

Now here are the rest.

Movies that I'd give a B to C :

Oxford Blues - Documentary about Oxford boxing club. Very good.

Black Swan - Natelie Portman and Mila Kunis making out. You need more ?

Crazy, Stupid Love - Decent date movie if you need to sit through one. I'm a sucker for all things Emma Stone.

Norm McDonald Stand Up - funnier than I expected.

Adjustment Bureau - Eh, OK.

Contagion - I'm usually a fan of anything with Matt Damon. A bit predictable, but passable. See Adjustment Bureau.


C to D



The Tourist - I like Depp and Jolie. This is fine for what it is.

Salt and Hanna - Same movie essentially. Both OK.

Waking Life - I little wordy and long. Good effects, nice message.

Johnny Mnemonic - Old dystopian film. A little hokey

Ghost in the Shell - Inspiration for the Matrix. Animated.

Poolhall Junkies - Boy this was close to being really good, but just never got there.

Chloe - eh.

Notorius - The story of Notorius B.I.G. This was pretty bad, but if you have the flu and nothing else to watch. Slightly worse than Get Rich or Die Tryin.

F - Don't bother watching

Cedar Rapids - drivel

Easy A - even Emma Stone can't save this

Battle LA - horrid

Outsourced - likeable characters going nowhere and doing nothing

Tapeheads - This is supposed to be a cult classic. That's got to be one unfunny cult.

Player 5150 - Apparently the producer was some rich son of a sheik and flipped out in the middle of filming and took over the entire project. After watching, I believe it. Total crap.

The Pornagrapher - Nice try, falls flat. No pacing.

The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick - Worst production of any documentary I've ever seen.

Greatest Movie Ever Sold - Not to bad, but could have been 15 minutes long in total.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Bah-stun

I won a Red Sox had in a wager with a friend from Boston.

Occasionally I wear it. Not because I like the Sox, but because my hair is thinning ( thinning, not balding goddammit ), so I tend to wear a lot of hats.

Anyway, every time I've worn the thing, random people have come up to me and said something. Occasionally it's a Yankees fan walking past who says something like " screw you homo" or " ha ha C.C. smoked you last night" , but I'm used to Yankees fans randomly yelling at me so I really never notice.

But most of the time its Boston fans who pull me aside and ask, "what ya think about next year ? As I usually forget that I'm wearing the hat, having a stranger acost me and ask me random questions usually freaks me out. I don't know what it is with these folks, but when a Boston fan sees a Boston hat it makes me feel like I accidentally flashed a gang sign at a rap concert. It's like they just realized I'm the grand master at a Masonic lodge.

In the end, I usually reply, " same as last year." because even when I do realize what they're talking about, I don't know shit about baseball. And for whatever reason, that seems to do the trick.

Getting there

270 plus watts today for 30 mins. Best in two years. I'm slowly getting there.

Played basketball for the first time in an eternity. I was sore everywhere for 2 days, but had fun.

I can name 6 species of trees and can tie 9 different type of knots. My car is clean.

Not drinking is going to make me insane.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Monday, January 23, 2012

Movie Review

I'm a movie nut. I watch at least two movies a week. I subscribe to crackle, netflicks, blockbuster, and rack up the charges on comcast pay-per-view.

Insomnia is a bitch.

The inherent problem is that I've exhausted the number of watchable movies, burned through most of the rentable foreign films, and am well on my way to making my way through the classics. Along the way, I've spend far too many hours watching pure shit. Sometimes you need to dig through a lot of dirt to find a nuggest of gold.

I figure I'd share with you some of the better films I've seen lately.


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy. A-


Swedish with subtitles. I enjoyed all three of these movies. The pacing of the movie was such that the subtitles we not distracting in any way. The first of these has been redone win English starring Daniel Craig. I haven't seen that version, but word is that it's pretty consistent with the original.


Ides of March. A


George Clooney, Ryan Goslling, Phillip Seymore Hoffman, and Paul Giamatti. I figured that this was either going to be excellent or self indulgent drivel. I was happy to find it the former. Timely movie with the election cycle in full bloom.


Knuckle. A

IMDB descibes this as: An epic 12-year journey into the brutal and secretive world of Irish Traveler bare-knuckle fighting. This film follows a history of violent feuding between rival clans.

Need I say more ?

Pearl Jam 20. B+

Great interviews, footage, and background stories. This movie gave me a greater appreciation for the grunge players and a fun trip back into the 90's. It ran a little long for my tastes, but work the rental.

Thumbsucker. B

Fun little indie film from 2005, just coming out as a rental. This is Mike Mils full length directorial debut. Its just about what you'd expect...a nice little coming of age story. Tilda Swinton is, as usual, amazing.

Moneyball. B+

Fun. Brad Pitt is solid. Jonah Hill plays Jonah Hill. Good flick.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

nut magnet

I spent 30 minutes at the lunch counter with a crazy guy this morning.

For a crazy guy he sure made a lot of sense. I hope he thought the same thing about me.