Sunday

I decided that I was basketballed out. Since my NCAA tournament bracket's trashed, I'm now all the way ready for baseball season to start.

I picked up a Nashville Sounds pocket schedule at the gas station this morning. I put a request in the mail for a Cubs pocket schedule. I like to have one with me at all times. In case of emergency.

I read for a while. I watched Underworld and Matchstick Men. I went in thinking I wouldn't like the first much, and the second I would like a lot.

The opposite happened.

While Underworld didn't blow me away, I kind of liked it. It helped that Kate Beckinsale was on screen most of the time. But the whole werewolf vs. vampire fight is enough to keep a dork like me interested to.

I really got annoyed halfway through Matchstick Men. Not even the magical presence of Sam Rockwell could save that one. I think what got to me was that I just wasn't in the mood for the Nicholas Cage performance. You know. The slightly frenetic Nicholas Cage that he perfected in Moonstruck, got praise for, and has been cashing in on ever since?

I'm not condemning it. I just need to try it another day.

Speaking of Sam Rockwell, if you haven't seen Safe Men, you need to. It's Sam, Steve Zahn and Paul Giamatti at their comic best.

Paul Giamatti, as Veal Chop, casually lamenting getting punched in the penis. Need I say more?

I went back out to the K-Mart. I was driving back toward Casa de Big Stupid Tommy, when I turned up into the shopping center with the movie theater in it. On a whim, just to see if anything was starting right then. Remembering my Waterboy experiences, I knew I was treading dangerous water, but I said to myself: "Self: We'll only go see a good movie, if it's starting in the next ten minutes."

It was 4:20, and the Passion of the Christ was starting at 4:30.

But before I could see the movie, I had to take a minute to weep for the future. I got behind a group of people roughly my age, who couldn't quite master the pronunciation of the title of the movie they wanted to see.

Hidalgo.

Now, I know it's not a word you'll run across every day. But it's not like it's that hard to sound out.

Hid-al-go.

They kept trying to buy tickets for something pronounced "Hide-a-go," and the ticket girl wasn't getting what they wanted. The lead of the little group finally got fed up after three tries, and pointed with a huff at theater #3, and said something along the lines of "the one with the horse."

When I got up to the window, I thought about struggling with the pronunciation of Christ, and then asking for the one with the crucifiction.

I won't share all my thoughts on the movie just yet. I'd like a couple of hours to chew on it.

I'll say right now that it's a jarring movie. I was struck by and impressed with the treatment of Judas whose demons move between the figurative and the literal in his torment, as well as the androgynous, beautifully grotesque Satan. I'd not seen either of those two talked about much, in the wake of the anti-Semitism debate.

It's an intense movie. I'll have to think on it a little while.

Now, Tommy goes to sleep.