One More Thing

I watched Extreme Makeover: Home Edition tonight. Which is nothing new. I love this show, mostly because it's about helping people in some kind of need. It's not about the style or decor (which would be okay), but everything the designers do is about how it would help the people. I can only hope to be involved with something so grand at some point.

Poor Texans

I am not a football fan of any sort. I'm not even a sports fan. At all. The only reason I pay any attention to sports on the news is so that I can occasionally comment on a discussion if I hear anything.

Today, the Texans (the Houston NFL team) blew a 21-point lead to fall to either 1-9 or 1-10 for the season. I'm very sad for the players and the head coach. Somehow or another, when it's all over with, many heads will roll. Whose will it be? I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to evaluate it. Apparently, the offensive line is not doing their job. I'm afraid they're gonna can the quarterback, David Carr. Which would be bad, as he's doing what he can (I imagine). He's apparently done some quite good things within the community working with underprivileged children among other things. I guess he can work anywhere, but dangit, why do all the good guys have to leave?

But then again, I don't know nothin' 'bout no football. Back to Stargate: Atlantis for me.

Go Figure — More Movies

Thanksgiving was a good time. I went to my friends Stephen & Lisa's house (at their invitation, of course; I didn't just show up for turkey!!!) and had some quite excellent food and food stuffs (whatever they might be).

So, we watched Stealth after their children went to bed. It was slightly better than what I expected. Jessica Biehl, while very attractive, didn't really convince me in her role (I still think of her as Mary from "7th Heaven"). Jaime Foxx was his normal self, what you would expect him to be, Ray not withstanding. The only one remotely interesting was Josh Lucas, and even he didn't do that good a job. Of course, with bad material, there's only so much one can accomplish. Anyway, it's not a total waste to watch this, but I can think of many other things I'd like to see. I can say two good things about this flick: (1) there was a great transition from flying over water to the XO walking on the flight deck, and (2) there was an incredible explosion that I would love to see the backstory on how they did it (it did make sense in the story, not just mindless stuff).

After I got home, I finished watching La Grande Illusion (1938). This is an interesting war movie (it's interesting to not that when I was young I would refuse to watch war movies because I thought them boring and :::ugghh::: black and white. I grew up. Even if you don't believe it, I did.) about some captured French pilots and soldiers. I guess France used to fight. Anway, the setting is during WWI, so no Hitler or Gestapo or SS to hate. The German officers were portrayed rather kindly, as were the prisoners' housing conditions. I have no clue how accurate this might be. Definitely worth seeing.

Finally, last night, I watched Divorce Italian Style (1961), apparently the precursor to Divorce American Style (1967), starring Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds (and which I now must see to compare to the original Italian). Anyway, this movie is about a man (Marcello Mastroianni) who is trying to figure out a way to kill his wife "legally" so he can marry his young cousin (and not have to pay his wife alimony, though in his position, divorce might not actually be a viable option). It's rather a dark comedy, but not necessarily a laugh-out-loud comedy. The ending is definitely worth watching the movie.

My only problem with these two movies, and it's more pointed at me than the movies themselves, is that they're subtitled (which I don't mind at all). However, to watch them, I have to really pay attention, which I should really be doing anyway.

Before these three movies, however, I watched David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997), an extremely spare DVD. It's dark and moody, contains some really good music, and makes me question whether I ever want to see any other David Lynch movie. Between this and Eraserhead, I don't hold much hope of enjoying anything he does, except perhaps for The Straight Story. After reviewing his filmography, I admit I enjoyed Dune, but that story was not his. And the mini-series on Sci-Fi was a much more faithful adaptation, but Lynch's movie was not bad at all (unless you ask my mother).

I don't mind thinking about a movie and having my head messed around with (Memento comes to mind), but this movie is ridiculously obtuse, strange for the sake of being strange, irrelevantly explicitly sexual in multiple places, and does not build me up in any way, shape, form, or fashion. A viewer's review on Netflix indicated that you need to watch this movie many, many times and read all of the other viewers' takes on the film to get an idea of what it's about. That is ridiculous. The Emporer's new clothes are non-existent, people, and this is not worth fauning over. As much as I detest Eraserhead—the single most disturbing movie I have ever seen—it's a far more interesting movie and could actually be worth tracking down all the interpretations and trying to figure out more.

I started watching Creature Comforts - Season 1 (1989), by Nick Park. Comedy of circumstances and situation absolutely rocks. Not knowing the full background of the series, it seems like British people were interviewed, and their voices were animated by clay animals in the style of Wallace & Grommit. Very funny stuff, and well worth your time. I've only watched three or four of the thirteen episodes, but it's really quite good. (Each episode runs under nine minutes.)

No More Chocolate

I have eaten all the chocolate in my apartment, and there is no more. Fortunately, it lasted nearly two weeks and not the 1-2 days it normally would.

A Random Assortment Today

Apparently, the bus driver who drove a bus filled with elderly nursing home patients will not face homicide charges (the bus caught fire, and 23 patients died). I think it would be an extreme travesty of justice to try this man for murder or even manslaughter. The bus was in stop-and-go traffic for nearly 24 hours, and those vehicles are not built for that type of operation. Yes, it's a terrible thing that these people died. But how could that possibly be offset by holding this man for murder? What justice would be served by making him "pay" for this accident?

A cold front came through Houston this afternoon. It was accompanied by quite the storm. Lightning struck the building or near the building I work in, and immediately the fire alarms went off. That was quite annoying for the next 10 minutes. Once the storm started clearing a little bit, I saw the eeriest looking sky I've seen in quite some time. If the sky had been green instead of this garish yellow, I would have been extremely concerned. Maybe I'm just ignorant enough to not realize I should have been concerned with the yellow sky, too.

Coming back from lunch today, I was stopped at a light. That is not an event worth noting in and of itself. Once the light turned green, however, the story turned much more noteworthy. There was a Suburban on my left, and the driver started out a half second or so once the light turned green. Note also that in Houston, there is a noticeable lapse of time from the time the light turns red in one direction to another direction getting a green light. So, for the Suburban driver to have waited a half second should have provided plenty of time to clear the intersection. Suddently, he's slamming on his brakes as a driver comes barrelling through the intersection blowing his horn like he's got the right of way. If there had been a collision between those two vehicles, the Suburban more than likely would have been knocked into my car; that's how fast the cross vehicle was going. Where was a policeman? Probably looking for a speeder or some other revenue-generating "crime". Thank Tou, God, for protecting me and us in this situation.

And that's all for today.

Recent Movies

I was telling a friend of mine about recent movies. I figured it was neat enough that I would post here. Don't know (or care) if there's any overlap with previous posts. (only Nobody Knows, b/c I remember posting how extremely upset I was about what the mother did to these children.)

Recently watched:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1941) - very good; atypical [sic] Hitchcock; everyone's quick to claim remake in name only, but I think it's closer than that, at least thematically (talking about marriage)

The General (silent, 1927) explains why Buster Keaton is so revered. Hilarious. I want more Keaton -- Buster, not Michael (though he's pretty decent in his own right)

High & Low (dir. Akira Kurosawa, 1963) His take on the American crime detective story. Slow but deliberate. Excellent.

Shoot the Piano Player (dir. Francois Truffaut, 1960) well done but a little disjointed; I guess a very French film, though not nearly so depressing an ending as typical. Makes me want to see more Truffaut films, of which eight are previewed on the disc.

And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie story, 1945) the original (maybe). great story with a great twist. If you've seen Identity, you know the basic twist. Still worth seeing.

Beauty and the Beast (dir. Jean Cocteau, 1946) very much a live-action fairy tale/fable. I understand much better how the Disney film was what it was (though clearly different, and not necessarily for the better)

Nobody Knows (2005) based on a true story (apparently "inspired" is the appropriate term), four children are abandoned by their mother to fend for themselves. How will they manage? I believe in the true life version, the mother actually died, which I think is not nearly as tragic as the abandonment.

 

Watching Shall We Dance? with Richard Gere. It's decent. Apparently, it's based on a Japanese film of the same name (though in Japanese, not English)

Mute Math -- Almost

Left work early -- at 5 -- to meet friends for dinner and go see Mute Math. Food was very good, but service was slow. The concert started at 7:30, meaning about 8, right? Well, we got there (two blocks from the restaurant), and the venue was already sold out. Small place + large crowd = not much chance of getting in unless one had purchased tickets early.

So, sadly, I've only seen Mute Math once this year. Which is one more than two of my friends who went tonight. I was looking forward to hearing Mae. Not being at all familiar with them but having heard good things about them, I felt their show would be good. Apparently, many others felt the same. Next time, we buy tickets in advance.

So, instead, we went walking around downtown. Lots to see, but only bars were open. That was kind of disappointing. And we won't talk about the massively over-commercialized Toyota Center (Toyota Tundra Parking Garage? give me a huge break!). Sure, they're building downtown to look nifty, but they're quite a ways away from actually being able to entice people to want to come down there on a regular basis, or anything other than a special event.

I rode the light rail for the first time. It was nice, but kind of pointless. It is only in the area of town already well-served by Metro buses. Serving the tens of thousands of people commuting back and forth from West Houston? No, not a chance. More than hourly service to the Galleria area, where almost as many people work as are downtown? "Well, we're considering whether it's feasible to provide that kind of service." Gosh, it seems that Metro is really only interested in developing routes along land that is owned by members of the board who control Metro. I wonder how that happened. But enough of that.

Micro$haft

Micro$oft is demonstrating increasingly insane behavior. I use XP at work, and I've set all Automatic Updates to download and inform me when available. Twice now, my computer has been force rebooted by a Micro$oft update WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, killing some long-running programs in the process. They (you know, the infamous "they", the "they" who hold all wordly knowledge and wisdom) say bad things happen at night. I understand that at night there is generally less traffic, but it also seems Micro$oft hides behind this to do its dastardly deeds without question or restraint.

"You weren't there to say, 'No', so we had no choice."

Grrr