An online journal from perhaps the biggest, stupidest Tommy on all the internet.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Crazy Heart
As I wander into hour 21 or 22 of "Tommy is Awake," I want to drop a quick note telling you that Crazy Heart is nothing but Jeff Bridges saying "Watch me root around all drunken, bumbling and being awesome" and you agreeing that yes, he is indeed awesome.
There's a really neat moment where Jeff Bridges's Bad Blake and Robert Duvall's Wayne are sitting across the bar from one another, where you realize that two of the greatest actors of the past 50 years, and probably two of the least heralded for their troubles, are staring at each other. It's a really neat scene, when Blake wanders back into Wayne's little bar, and one that I think I want to see again.
I found a disc of The Damned in the Very Scratched bin at the used bookstore a couple weeks ago. This song has been stuck in my head ever since. I probably hadn't heard it in at least five years, and probably closer to ten. It hasn't left my brain in two weeks. Maybe it's why I can't sleep tonight.
Been a little while since an insomnia post. A few random thoughts:
February is a motherfucker. Don't care for it, and I'd argue that it's seven or eight days too long if it weren't already 28 days. February's the month where I generally find myself getting sick as hell of the gray....we don't get much winter weather in this neck of the woods, but from November 15 or so, on to the middle of March it's almost perpetually overcast. Add to that working a job that'll keep me out of any potential sun often from sunrise to sunset, and your old pal Tommy's drinking himself through a nice case of Seasonal Affective Disorder the likes of which you don't see in the U.S. outside of those perpetually dark motherfuckers up in Alaska.
And as for the winter weather, we've already had Two (2) bouts of the shit in 2010, which is two more than we're generally blessed with. And while it's got nothing on the 30 inches of hell the Mid Atlantic's fighting with, it's enough mental retardation to make me want to pack up for the Caribbean.
February's generally a bad sports month, and this one's not a lot different. Football finishes, and baseball's two months away. I try to get into college basketball, but it's just not something that latches itself into my obsessive compulsive disorder like baseball. I've gotten back into hockey over the past couple of years, and that's helped. It was actually February 2008 that helped begin this new interest...Tivo was recording a random game here or there. I honestly hadn't paid too much attention since I'd moved away from Nashville. For all the attention hockey gets even in the Knoxville or Chattanooga papers or TV, it might as well be cricket or Australian rules football. Or chess. But the interweb is helpful, inasmuch as you can find not only instant news or results, but also other people who are interested and write well enough to pull you back in. And in 2010, I find myself following on a daily basis, and what happens? Olympic break.
And, I'm trying to be interested in the Winter Olympics, and there's hockey there, but to be honest, I'm just not feeling it. Maybe I'll feel different when it gets here. I like shows of harmony as much as any good Pisces. But Bobsled? Really? Make two bobsled race down the same chute, striking at each other with hatchets, and then I'm interested. Until then, it's like watching a guy with a stopwatch run the same 500 feet over and over again.
February's also a birthday month, which isn't a bad thing, I suppose. My mother's birthday is the middle of the week, and my own falls weekend after next. I'm turning a Jesus age this year. Maybe this'll be the year I learn to pick my clothes up and put them into a hamper.
I don't know if there's a way to bitch about Valentine's Day that doesn't leave you thinking that or me feeling like I'm a bitter guy without a girlfriend, but suffice it to say I've seen it from both ends of the spectrum, and Valentine's Day is garbage. When I become Emperor, I will destroy the Hallmark and American Greetings companies with my very own flamethrower, and pee the fires out myself.
Lastly, and I know this isn't a February thought per se, but my upstairs neighbor made up with his girlfriend this week. They'd been broken up maybe 2 weeks. But they are back together, for the time being. They love each other very often. Just thought I'd share. This whole Tommy Buying a House thing cannot move fast enough.
Wandering through Netflix's on-demand selection, I ran across World's Greatest Dad, which interested me because it's Bobcat Goldthwait's creation. He was interviewed on some radio show months (years?...is time funny out here for anybody else?) about making the flick.
Now, I dig Bobcat's comedy, which is reliant much upon the idea of broken people, and am a bigger fan of Shakes the Clown, which is one of the finer dark comedies to wander down the pike in a long, long time. In fact, it is indeed a shame verging on minor tragedy that I do not own that flick on DVD.....
Anyway, I clicked on World's Greatest Dad.
I don't want to say too much on the movie, my kneejerk reactions veer toward the extreme ends of the love/hate spectrum. Want to think on it a moment.
I will say that there are a few moments in various movies that I can precisely point out when and why I like a movie.
Somewhere around minute 37 in this flick, when I was honestly rather iffy on the flick, a sudden corner was turned involving a death of a character.
Today was one of those days where for all my best efforts, I felt like everybody was somehow in on the joke but me.
Which is cool. I like jokes.
Sometimes I wish: could it at least be a cool joke? Like, with some Indians talking about the weather, or maybe where a guy asks for golf clubs instead of sex?
Because today, I feel like I'm in a joke that ends with me having to stuff pumpkins up my butt.
You know that scene in Jurassic Park, when the Tyrannosaur has busted out his pen, and he's just gone eyeball-to-eyeball with that blonde chick? When the Tyrannosaur roars, that's how I'd like to roar.
Think how cool that would be.
Imagine: You and I are standing around, enjoying nice cool cans of Diet Rite (I had the regular flavor, you had the White Grape because of your cough syrup addiction). I'm telling that story about how I got my letter about the Pizza Tank read on David Letterman. I finish the story, down the last contents of my can in one quick swallow, and just as you think I'm about to let a Diety Rite good belch, I instead let an ear-splitting roar loose that stops traffic and very likely makes you shit in your pants.
I tend to think that's the sort of thing that gets a feller a nickname.
Perhaps it's the sort of thing that gives a feller a little bit of gravitas when it comes to suggesting names for nephews.
Tonight, my sister rejected the following names for the tiny human she's growing in her innards:
Nikolai Volkoff Jimmy Superfly Bam Bam Bigelow Big John Studd Barry Windham Tully Blanchard Arn Anderson Ole Anderson Mike Rotunda Dr. Death Steve Williams Ryne Sandberg Leo Trotsky King Kong Bundy Special Delivery Jones Barry Horowitz Jungle Jim McPherson Bubba Ray Dudley D-Von Dudley Sign Guy Dudley L'il Spie Dudley Big Dick Dudley Black Superman Tony Atlas Rowdy Roddy Piper Ferris Bueller Butch Reed Ron Simmons Dusty Rhodes Lex Luger Hillbilly Jim Uncle Elmer Jim the Anvil Neidhart
Any one of those names is the type of name that would bring a young man much respect and acclaim. Hellfire, they'd probably make him the starting quarterback for his high school the very minute little Nikolai Volkoff enrolled in school. He'd be the Fonzie of his generation.
Which begs the question, who was the Fonzie of my generation?
Probably me. You know it. Even without a badass roar.
Anyway, back to the point.
Here's how the conversation would have gone, had I a roar:
"Hey, April!" "What?" "Put that hamster down and get over here!" "It's not a hamster, it's the Holy Grail, which I've quested for." "Oh. Well, I have a real neat idea: You name your kid Nikolai Volkoff!" "No...that's stup..."
"Okay, okay. We'll name him Nikolai Volkoff....you're such a baby..."
Anybody else floored that the whole Janet Jackson flashing incident was Six (6) years ago? I posted this a day or two after the incident (which I didn't see live, as I note...we'd flipped over to a showing of Independence Day, apparently. For the record, Independence Day is still preferable to anything Sean Combs does.
From February of 2004:
My Last Thoughts on the Booby (for Today)
You know, we're watching a violent game. That's a given, right? Where 300 pound men run in to each other several times over the course of the hour.
Played by players who were given preferential treatment all through their schooling....some of whom can barely read beyond a first grade level, yet were given a free ride through our educational system all the way to the college level based on their ability to catch a ball or run into another guy really, really good.
Also, these guys are getting paid six and seven figures a season to do what they do. Some of them will get more money this season than the greatest majority of teachers, firefighters, policemen and women, almost anybody serving in the armed forces, or even most doctors, will see over the course of their lifetimes.
And, without a doubt, a few of these men constantly push the envelope of acceptable behavior as far as how they conduct their chemical supplementation and their home lives.
What's more, the television broadcast of the game is paid for by ads for alcohol, movies that contain scary and violent images, and two different drugs that help people get and maintain erections. We even had a commercial (my personal favorite) where the girls in bikinis are playing volleyball on a beach in winter time, and at the end, they curse!!!!!! (damn).
Yet, an FCC Commissioner calls the Janet Jackson flash an outrage (quote borrowed from Mark Evanier):
F.C.C. Commissioner Michael Powell says, "I am outraged at what I saw during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration. Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt. Our nation's children, parents and citizens deserve better."
Well, Michael, I'm sorry that your high and holy celebration of the ignorant and violent erection and beer ceremony was tainted by a brief flash of Janet Jackson's booby. Just so you know, the Super Bowl in general is a crass and classless stunt. That's part of why I like it: in the sports world, the Super Bowl and the NBA players' entrances are the closest things we have to Pro Wrasslin' in the "real sports" world.
I should add that Bill thinks what we should be worried about is the whole misconception of the breast that our children will have now because of this.
Personally, I wasn't wanting to celebrate America or have a high and holy day with the Super Bowl. I just wanted to watch a football game. (A pretty decent game, but one I just couldn't get an emotional stake in, so I ended up not caring a whole bunch....)
Now. Let's all shut up about this, and focus on what's really important:
Hello, and welcome to February. My name is Tommy, and I enjoy wearing pants, and other pieces of clothing. This is simply a rambling post, and I invite you to wander with me....
Not much on my mind. I've wandered through a rare couple of days without obligation, and let me tell you that it does wonders for the disposition, at the very least, and very likely much for the soul.
My little corner of Southeast Tennessee has fought its way through Snowpocalypse 2010. The final results? Five inches of snow, which, believe it or not, managed to stick around longer than 5 hours. It may not sound like much, but it's enough to turn Southeast Tennessee into the south's home for the criminally retarded. The last day of work, which resulted in the top business day in more than a decade for my store, went relatively smoothly (with the exception of once incident, where yours truly was cursed....I'd say it's probably not wise to expound upon such things here, suffice it to say the way you treat retail and service staff is generally the best reflector of the type of person you are at heart).
Roads were an issue, and I'll say that my drive home, some 30 miles, was slow, but uneventful, aside from one What-the-Fuck-is-That moment where the lights on a road grader being used to shove snow to one side of the road made absolutely no sense to me as I approached it up Highway 11.
I didn't crap my pants. I call the day a win.
Not much to report on Saturday, minus the successful acquisition of Indian food on Saturday night. If you're having a rough day, I very much recommend a steaming plate of lamb korma.
Sunday saw a trip down into Atlanta. I figured I needed to go scream my head off at a wrestling event. There are a couple of pictures I took that I'll put up, as soon as I can remember where I've left my file transfer cable. I think one will speak volumes as to why the WWE needs to put their cart behind C.M. Punk to pull them into the next half a decade or so. The man, ostensibly a heel, had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. The man's maybe the best heel the company's seen since Macho Man or Piper in their heydays.
One other minor revelation: I do not need a Dave & Buster's anywhere near me. It's like Showbiz pizza for grownups. Substitute beer for the animitronic singers, and suddenly, you've got a 6'4" goofball going ticket crazy. I'd blow my paycheck trying to win a flexible piano and hire Robert Loggia to play Chopsticks. I didn't see him on the wall, but I'm fairly sure you can hire Robert Loggia, with enough skeeball tickets.
The first Monday of February was spent wandering around changing services for cable and arranging new payment of bills. I've changed my cable so that the only service I receive is the internet. I figure that between work and Netflix, I'm watching all of 3 hours of teevee a week. And the vast majority of what I watch on TV, I can get off the internet or DVD down the road. I'm cancelling TiVo, too. As much as I dig the service, the above statement still applies.
I do this in full recognition that Lost starts again tomorrow. It's one that I can catch online. Sometimes, I miss stuff online, but I can't see paying the 54 bucks or so I'm saving a month just for Lost. Considering I'll be able to pick up the DVDs around Christmas for around half that.
Just restructuring a few finances here and there. Biggest reason is that I'd like to take a vacation or two this year. I've talked with a couple fellow bloggers about meeting up across the mid-west, and out on the west coast. I'd like to hit a couple different baseball stadiums this year, put some faces with names that I've read for years (and years, in a couple of cases...). Just feel like I'd rather pay for that stuff than pay for television I'm not watching (or fast foot that's only making it hard to fit into a decent-sized pair of pants...still doing well with the no-fast food, last night's post Rumble trip to Mickey D's aside).
Anyway. Not much else on my mind. Just putting some words on paper to get them out of my head.
Despite all the fun with Snowpocalypse 2010 I've been having, I'll say that all the major roads between here and Chattanooga are fine. The backroads, I cannot speak much on, but the major arteries are fine and dandy.
A somewhat annual event here at Big Stupid Tommyland...the WWE's Royal Rumble is tomorrow night. It's the 23nd annual...every year ('cept '88, mind you) 30 men enter the ring, vying for the illustrious label Royal Rumble Winner. Since 1993, the winner's automatically gone on to Wrestlemania as a Main Eventer...
It's the springboard for Wrestling's biggest and most eventful corridor...it's not a coincidence, I don't think, that it coincides with the end of the NFL season and operates during the lull between football and baseball.
The Royal Rumble is my favorite event. Yeah, what I watch is grown men pretending to fight in predetermined events generally designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I think what I like about the Royal Rumble is that it doesn't always follow the Lowest Common Denominator outcome...what happens is as close as wrestling can get to random and it's not easy to determine prior to the outcome. I think it's the closest that professional wrestling comes to being an actual sporting event....
This year? It's a little different. The Rumble's being held in Atlanta, a couple of hours from Casa de Big Stupid Tommy. I, and my brother-in-law and my co-worker Jeff are heading down tomorrow afternoon to take a seat in the Phillips Arena, to catch us some Wrasslin' Action. I'll take plenty of pictures for your asses. I do this particular list every year. I'd be lying if it didn't hold a certain morbid fascination. I guess it all comes from the same place where we slow down at a traffic accident, or my own fascination with a barn near my parents' house, that is slowly falling in upon itself. I, like most, have a fascination with the bizarre. Looking at the number of odd images I have on my computer, I'd say my fascination is maybe a bit higher than the average joe's, but I don't think it's to an unhealthy degree.
Or the part of the Oscar or Emmy ceremony, where we look back at all the stars and workers who have passed on in the previous year....
Anyway.
Tonight's show will be the 23d over-the-top-rope match, and in keeping with that, we look at how many of the previous years' rumble entrants are no longer with us...
1988: (2/20) Dino Bravo and the Junkyard Dog are dead
1989: (6/30) Big John Studd, Andre the Giant, Big Boss Man, Hercules Hernandez, Bad News Brown, Mr. Perfect
1990: (7/30) Andre the Giant, Dino Bravo, Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, Hercules Hernandez, Bad News Brown, Earthquake, Rick Rude
1991: (8/30) Dino Bravo, Hawk (of the Road Warriors), Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, Davey Boy Smith, Hercules Hernandez, Kerry von Erich, Crush and Earthquake (thanks for the heads up, Flash...
1992: (4/30) Big Boss Man, Hercules Hernandez, Davey Boy Smith, Kerry von Erich
1993: (3/30) Owen Hart, Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, Yokozuna
1994: (3/30) Owen Hart, Crush, Bam Bam Bigelow
1995: (4/30) Davey Boy Smith, Owen Hart, Crush, Dick Murdoch
1996: (3/30) Owen Hart, Yokozuna, Davey Boy Smith
1997: (3/30) Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Crush
1998: (1/30) Owen Hart
1999: (4/30) Owen Hart, Big Boss Man, Golga, Test
2000: (4/30) Big Boss Man, Test, Davey Boy Smith, Crash Holly
2001: (2/30) Test, Crash Holly
2002: (3/30) Test, Big Boss Man, Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig
2003: (3/30) Test, Jamal/Umaga, Eddie Guerrero
2004: (1/30) Chris Benoit
2005: (2/30) Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit
2006: (1/30) Chris Benoit
2007; (1/30) Chris Benoit
2008: (1/30) Umaga
2009: None (But the day ain't over, yet).
Edit: I omitted Earthquake out of the 1991...just an oversight. He's not a 400 lb. messiah, back from the dead or anything.
So, I work this afternoon. I slept a healthy nine hours (an endeavour I highly recommend for the great many of you, considering I woke up this morning feeling very much like a superhero...honestly, I'd say this is what Superman feels like when he wakes up in the morning, minus the having to pee like a racehorse).
I sat down and wrote for a couple of hours, and then said "I think I'd like to watch a movie, as I clean up a little around Casa de Big Stupid Tommy."
The nice people at Netflix sent me the flick Sugar, and I go to pop it into the DVD player, and the DVD player will not power up. Several incoherent grunts after first pushing the power button, the eject button, any button that will push (indeed, even in my own throes of dismay, I enjoy pushing buttons). I get nada.
It is plugged in to the same surge-protecting powerstrip my TeeVee is plugged into. My TeeVee works. It had informed me of the impending snowpocalypse later this afternoon. Changing plugs on the strip does not work. My TeeVee continues to tell me about the snowpocaylpse, even after plugging it into the port my DVD player was plugged into. My DVD player, I fear, is dead.
Troublesome, since the second disc of The Survivor Series Anthology is still lodged inside.
Any recommendations before I pry the thing apart to get my disc out, and then use this lovely piece of shite for target practice?
Wanted to take minute to post a video, that you can watch until NBC pulls it down.
I haven't had a horse in the hunt in this Late Night mess, watching very, very little of it, and getting only the best soundbites when they replay them on my drive into work in the mornings. Of those, I can say that they are the best soundbites to come out of late night talkdom in several years. I've always believed that David Letterman's at his best when he's lashing out at somebody in particular, and I'd never seen Conan backed into a proverbial corner (such a corner, we should all be so lucky to be backed into, but that's for another four line pararaph later in this post).
I didn't really have a dog in the whole hunt. If I've watched any late night talk in the past year or so, it's been Craig Ferguson, whose sense of humor I've found is fairly compatible with my own. I used to be a regular Letterman watcher, and I'd catch Conan from time to time, as he's got a goofy sensibility that agrees with me very much. I'll also say that Jay Leno's comedy never agreed with me much, and I can't say that I've watched much of Jay Leno's run on the Tonight Show or the Jay Leno Show. It's simply a matter of taste.
Like I said, I haven't watched much late night TV in the past year. Craig Ferguson, I've caught a few times, and then only because I was getting home when his show was on. Beyond that, I made only a consciouse effort a couple of times. I think I've caught a couple episodes of Letterman, a segment of the Jay Leno show when Jimmy Norton had a segment, and one particularly troublesome segment on the Jimmy Fallon show with Steve Martin and Paul Simon that made me uncomfortable for the guests, and angry that Jimmy Fallon is still a celebrity.
I did want to take a moment, though, to speak on Conan's final speech, to the "young people," telling them not to be cynical. I guess I agree with the sentiment, although I think there's a valuable lesson in this whole deal about the intentions of management, and the value (and lack thereof) in being a team player. Seems to me that a little more cynicism, at least as it regards the intentions of the corporate folks might have done everybody a little more good.
A lot of people have wanted to make Jay Leno the bad guy in this whole deal, and that's unfortunate. I'm about to launch into a paragraph against the man, but at the end of the day, his end of the deal was made in good faith.
Yes, there are decisions he could have made, and decisions my NBC management that he could have fought. At the end of the day, Jay was a company guy. Now, whether he ws a company guy because he'd gotten the catbird seat years and years ago is not something I'm going to debate. But, when NBC came to him and said "We wanna make Conan O'Brien the guy in 2009," Jay had the opportunity to take his ball and go elsewhere. Jay was loyal to the company that had largely made him a household name, and had faith in their decisions. He agreed, largely because he felt like NBC was doing the right thing.
And I think that's where the fault lies. For better or for worse, Conan and Jay (like the majority of us) work in a corporate environment, where their values were simply numbers on a spreadsheet somewhere. For all the loyalty that Jay and Conan had for NBC, they didn't have to have any to Jay or Conan, for much longer than a couple of ratings quarters. Conan didn't do the business that Jay did, in terms of revenue. And while it left me with a sour taste in my mouth for Jay to go along to get along, when it looked like NBC was first making noises to put Jay back at 11:30, ultimately, it's not Jay's decision.
Let me speak on Conan for a second. I look at Conan's run as damned for a couple of reasons. For better or for worse, the biggest part of Conan's fanbase is somewhere in my general concentric circles of age and/or bullshit, and younger. Conan got Late Night when I was in college, and that's when I did the bulk of my watching. He came out of left field, from time to time, and threw a joke curveball or three that I enjoyed. And, by the way, he had a joke style that was different from Letterman, and most definitely from Leno. I dug it, and I can't think of a better place in this rant to praise him for not changing his comedy style (fuck Dick Ebersole, by the way...precisely the reason I don't care for Jay Leno or Jimmy Fallon is that they craft their acts so that they appeal to the greatest number of people...never much cared for the lowest common denominator comedy, myself) when he took the 11:30 spot.
But here's the thing, and here's the first part of Conan being damned from the start. I'm in the middle of the demographic NBC was going for, that Conan was supposed to bring in. And I never watched.
Can't say way precisely. Part of it's the whole bit where I haven't really felt like I needed to watch a late night talk show (or a talk show of any time of the day, really). Part of it is my own schedule. And while I sometimes wish my social life was a little more burgeoning, I'll say that I'm out enough that it's just not a priority to watch late night TV.
Or, if I am at home watching TV at night, I (like many dozen Americans) have the Tivo or other DVR system, and am watching something I might have missed earlier in the night. Come to think of it, outside of Lost, I can't think of much television that I watched Live in the past couple of years. I think a lot of people are like that.
Add to that, it's 2010, and we have 3 bajillion channels full of the exact forms of comedy I was looking for when I first turned to Conan O'Brien in 1995 or 1996. Likewise, the internet is full of fun and interesting stuff that I can bring up at any time of the day.
Like this:
Last thing that damned Conan? Now, I'm not a fan of Jay, but know people who are. And there were a number of people who absolutely did not like Jay's 10 o'clock show. It wasn't what they were looking for, and they weren't watching. Did it affect Conan? Dunno. I would say so, especially if local news affiliates were bitching about Jay affecting their revenue for their 11 o'clock news programs....
Anyway, as I'm running out of steam, I would like to say this, finally. Part of the reason I never jumped on the whole Team Coco wagon was A.) I hate the name Coco and B.) I'd not watched much in the past year and C.) the dude was going to draw 8 figures whichever way the cookie crumbled. I'd like to say that it was pleasing to hear severence for the crew was something of a sticking point in the final negotiations. I'd say that most guys probably would find a way to take care of their staffs.
(I'd like very much right now to make some kind of joke about Letterman has somebody taking care of his staff for him, but I'm not nearly clever enough).
Suffice it to say, part of my not taking a lot of interest in the whole shebang was that it wouldn't really change my personal status quo, all that much. I'm still not going to be watching much late night television, even after Conan eventually comes back (to Fox, or wherever he ends up with his 32 million dollar pompadour). I guess that's my final point. The amount of money being thrown about was offputting. Somebody on Twitter made a joke (I think it was Barry, but I can't remember for sure, and I apologize), but it went something along the lines of negotiating a severance package for $45 and two free oil changes at Jiffy Lube. We should all be so fortunate to be backed into a situation where "losing" means taking home a $32 million dollar paycheck as a buyout.
It's hard to gnash my teeth about somebody who'll be making more money than I and ten of my closest friends put together will see in our lifetimes. Meanwhile, it's 2010, and I can find any number of things I want to laugh at, so I'm not relying on NBC to give me all my funny.
I post this, a compilation of scenes from Short Cuts featuring Tom Waits and Lily Tomlin, for a reason.
First, the clip:
Then, the reason. I have seen two movies in theaters the past week or so.
Wandered down to Chattanooga a Sunday or so ago to catch The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. A neat movie that I was a little wary of. I'm generally all about Terry Gilliam movies. Generally, they're visually stimulating like few other directors' work. And they usually leave a whisper of themselves in your brain, leaving you thinking about the flick long after you've seen it. Parnassus had a couple things working against it. Tideland and Brothers Grimm were both off, for me. Both seemed like too much style, too little substance. And, given the circumstances underwhich the flick was completed, having to re-write and re-film certain scenes after the death of Heath Ledger, I felt like the potential for a mess was pretty high.
I was pleasantly surprised, though. I thought the movie turned out well, and I'd put it into the same category as Baron Munchausen or Time Bandits in terms of fun flicks.
Tom Waits plays an integral role in the flick...antagonist/playmate of the titular Dr. Parnassus, and it's a role that Waits revels (wallows?) in. You can see he's having tremendous fun playing Mr. Nick. I give the movie a thumbs up, as I say...it's not on par with 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing or Brazil, but it's a trip, and definitely worth seeing, especially for Tom Waits snatching pretty much every scene he's in.
Then, today, wandered out to see Book of Eli. Another fun flick. And considering my mood's been something akin to Post-Apocalyptic lately, this hits the spot. Lots of normal stuff you'd find in a flick about a world that's moved on, with a couple nice shout outs to Mad Max & A Boy and His Dog.
Plus? Tom Waits shows up as the operator of a trading post of sorts.
He doesn't do a whole lot in the flick...and I honestly should probably have written this little part of the mini-review first...
In a condensed form, this is a digest/highlight version of the text & Blackberry Messenger conversations I had over the last few days:
I have seen the movie District 9, but I am welcome to come watch it on Blu-Ray at my buddy Chris's house. I have not yet begun to read the book Tokyo Vice which he lent me before Christmas, but it's next on my list.
Apparently, I talked myself into a corner in a conversation with my brother-in-law, simply because I thought both ESPN's Hubert Davis and Lophonso Ellis both look like Klingons. Ellis looks like a high Klingon. As such, I wandered into the land where apparently all black people look like Klingons. I would like to take this opportunity to say that all black people do not look like Klingons. Only some of them.
I found an armful of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books at the Goodwill store one evening. I was pleased. My friend Julie was equally excited. It is a good thing that we are both geeks. Her significant other was less so, saying simply Steven Seagal Lawman > Choose Your Own Adventure books.
My sister is largely concerned with whether I have seen the movie The Sandlot. As I have told her several times: I have seen it, and do not see the charm surrounding it, to the point where people include it on their lists of favorite sports/baseball movies. I find the movie largely underwhelming, while respectfully recognizing that a great many people whose opinions I respect are dreadfully wrong about this shitstain of a movie.
My sister thinks Denis Leary is creepy looking in the movie The Sandlot, and that he hit the kid with the baseball on purpose. I think Denis Leary is a little creepy looking, in general. Like the Cryptkeeper, before he desicates completely.
People are generally unimpressed when you send burps, farts or Meow sounds over the voice message function of Blackberry Messenger.
I did not have to drive to Maryville to get toilet paper for a sale at my store. I was muchly relieved, as this would have been roughly 95 miles out of my way, round trip.
The score of the Colts/Ravens game, at the time of my text to my boss, was 17-3, and the Ravens were largely defeating themselves in the game. A mutual friend, who is a huge Ravens fan, had gone incommunicado, and we suspected had largely destroyed portions of his house, at the time.
My sister beat her record and the game of BrickBreaker. She taunts me.
Golden Globes award winners talk too much, according to both Jason & me. I had never before wanted to run Meryl "T-Bone" Streep over with my truck before last night.
The general consensus was that Harrison Ford was largely the drunkest man in the room at last night's Golden Globes, with Brendan Fraser coming in second. Kevin Bacon was likely the highest. Kevin Bacon might be a zombie.
Helen Mirren, consensus says, is a sexy old broad.
Christina Hendricks' boobs are the boobs God looks at up in heaven.
Crowd control at the Golden Globes was lacking. Shut the fuck up, if you're in the gallery, and get the hell out of the way, if somebody's trying to get to the stage.
The Golden Globes needed more Ricky Gervais.
The comic/tragic potential was high when Ricky Gervais slammed Mel Gibson. Think of the headlines if Mel had just come out and started beating the living shit out of Gervais...
James Cameron is a blight on humanity, as it that stupid movie, although I respect the honesty of the statement "I gotta pee something fierce."
Jason has civility pouring out of ass.
Simple question: Could you relax if Touchy-Feely Mike Tyson was standing just behind you?
Nobody would bring me Barbecue Potato Chips last night. One particular negative response was met with the accusation: Communist. One reason given for no potato chips: Hitler was eating barbecue potato chips in his bunker, just before he offed himself. This particular conversation devolved into the statement "I have no way to explain the previous statement that does not involve punching you."
The six-sided ring for TNA wrestling was retarded, an ill-informed way of trying to make your own recognizable niche. Moving back to the squared-circle, however the change came about, is probably a good move.
