After a long week that brought some depressing events in my personal life, I decided that I needed to escape for a while and have some mindless fun. Pineapple Express did exactly that.
Dale Denton (who is played by Seth Rogen) plays a lazy, weed smoking court processing clerk. On one of his visits to his weed dealer, Saul Silver (played by James Franco, who did an excellent job of playing a weed dealer), Dale is introduced to a new strain of weed called Pineapple Express. Later in the film Dale witnesses a murder and dumps the Pineapple Express at the scene. The murderer just happens to be one of the largest weed suppliers in town and traces it back to Dale and Saul. Dale and Saul go on the run and hijinx ensue.
This movie was fun all the way through. Now, the crowd on the other hand was not. Well, just one lady in particular. She felt that she needed to add commentary all the way through the movie. She was sitting 2 or 3 rows behind me and by the sound of her voice I figured her to be a teenager. When the movie was over I took a look back and she was 35 easy. Old enough to know better. Now, for your entertainment, some of her enlightening comments:
OMG, he has on tube socks. OMG, he has on tube socks AND whitey tighties on!
OMG, that is a lot of weed!
After every questionable joke (and there were many): OMG, that’s funny. He said…fill in the blank for each joke.
Best quote of the movie…not from the annoying woman:
Scientist: Private Miller, you’ve been smoking item nine for nine minutes. How do you feel?
Private Miller: I feel like a slice of butter… melting over a big-ol’ pile of flapjacks… yeah.
Funny stuff. Go check this one out, you’ll enjoy it. BP Rating:
Yes it’s another French movie I watched and yes it’s another Audrey Tautou movie :)
The plot: Camille (Audrey Tautou) works evenings as an office cleaning woman, and makes graceful drawings in her free time, living in the attic of a Parisian apartment block. Philibert (Laurent Stocker) is a young, aristocratic history buff living - temporarily - in an apartment lower down, part of the estate of his late grandmother. He has let out part of it to up and coming cook Franck (Guillaume Canet), a gruff young loner and womaniser with a genuine love for his frail grandmother, Paulette (Francoise Bertin). When Camille falls ill, Philibert insists she stay with the two of them so he can look after her. And even though she and Franck clash, the trio manage to live together and learn from each other.
This was a charming and funny story of unexpected friendships between several people that will leave you with a smile on your face, even through the sad parts. It was one of those movies that I was sad to see it end. If you liked Amelie, like I did, you’ll love this one too. I highly recommend watching it.
I’ve never been a western fan. Something about them never really appealed to me. I am, however, a Russell Crowe fan, so I thought I’d check out his more recent DVD 3:10 to Yuma.
I really enjoyed this film. One of the characters, doc Potter (played by Alan Tudyk) looked really familiar to me but I just couldn’t place who he was. It turns out he played Walsh on the movie Serenity (and the tv show). The plot from IMDB:
Rancher Dan Evans heads into Bisbee to clear up issues concerning the sake of his land when he witnesses the closing events of a stagecoach robbery led by famed outlaw Ben Wade. Shortly thereafter, Wade is captured by the law in Bisbee and Evans finds himself one of the escorts who will take Wade to the 3:10 to Yuma train in Contention for the reward of $200. Evans’s effort to take Wade to the station is in part an effort to save his land but also part of an inner battle to determine whether he can be more than just a naive rancher in the eyes of his impetuous and gunslinging son William Evans. The transport to Contention is hazardous and filled with ambushes by Indians, pursuits by Wade’s vengeful gang and Wade’s own conniving and surreptitious demeanor that makes the ride all the more intense.
The thing I really liked about this movie was how it made you think. I won’t spoil the ending but after it’s over it made you question whether or not people can change. Whether people that have been bad their entire life have the ability to be good. At a more basic level, it makes you question whether people are generally good or bad. The relationship between Dan and his oldest son was interesting to watch. Proving to his son that he was worth something was more important than the money to save his family, his families land and his responsibilities to his family in general. It seemed quite egotistical and stubborn to me but made a pretty good sub story in the movie. I highly recommend this one.
I had some free time over the weekend and decided to see what the hype was over this movie. It definitely started off slow and was just plain stupid for about the first half of the movie. I briefly considered walking out. The second half picked up quite a bit and I was glad I stayed. Robert Downey Jr. was excellent. Jack Black was good in his role as was Nick Nolte and Matthew McConaughey. Ben Stiller was, well, Ben Stiller.
One pleasant surprise was that I didn’t know Tom Cruise was in the film. About half way through the film you are introduced to his character, Les Grossman. In the first scene with this character I didn’t realize it was Cruise. He was made up into a fat, bald, hairy Hollywood executive. I kept thinking to myself that this guy looked familiar and I eventually realized who it was by his voice. His performance was hilarious. It was the funniest thing I’ve seen all summer. Too bad the rest of the movie wasn’t as funny.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to update the site. Somewhere along the line I went to see the New X-Files movie. Going in I thought it would be great since they said the storyline would be something along the lines of the typical episode. I’m thinking something to do with aliens and ufos, right? Hmm, well, no. The actual plot is:
When a group of women are abducted in the wintry hills of rural Virginia, the only clues to their disappearance are the grotesque human remains that begin to turn up in snow banks along the highway. With officials desperate for any lead, a disgraced priest’s questionable visions send local police on a wild goose chase and straight to a bizarre secret medical experiment that may or may not be connected to the women’s disappearance. Its a case right out of The X-Files. But the FBI closed down its investigations into the paranormal years ago. And the best team for the job is ex-agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully, who have no desire to revisit their dark past. Still, the truth of these horrific crimes is out there somewhere…and it will take Mulder and Scully to find it!
This movie was terrible. In fact it might have been the worst movie I’ve seen this summer. The acting wasn’t good, the storyline was slow and a little on the boring side. Leaving the theater I thought to myself…”Well, that’s 2 hours I’ll never get back. Why didn’t I go see Batman instead?” I’d skip this one and just wait for it on DVD…if you must see it at all.
Earlier this week I got an email from MLB.com saying their premium MLB.tv has been marked down 50%. Since MLB doesn’t let WGN show nearly as many Cubs games as they use to I thought this sounded like a good idea to try out.
One of the new features this year was upgrading their technology to Microsoft Silverlight (Have I mentioned how much I love Silverlight?). Since doing so we can now watch the games in full screen mode. Tonight I was watching it on my laptop and wondered how it would look if I connected my laptop to the tv in my study (see the video below). I was really surprised at how good the video looks. When the action is slow you can’t tell you are watching it over the internet. When the action gets a little faster it isn’t as good but it’s still outstanding. I think my next step is figuring out some kind of setup to have it on the living room tv. I’ve been wanting a Media Center PC out there anyway so this might just be a good excuse to do it.
Check out the short video below. It was shot on my phone so the quality isn’t that great but should give you an idea of what it’s like.
Friday when I got home the Roku player I ordered had arrived. I had been eagerly awaiting its delivery for several days and the anticipation wasn’t a let down at all.
For those that don’t know, the Roku player is a small box that is about the size of a CD case and about 2 inches tall and is used for streaming movies from your Netflix account. The player itself connects to the tv (it comes with HD connections including digital audio, HDMI and component as well as the standard definition connections) and displays a linear list of movies that show up as the dvd cover of the movie. You can navigate through the list, click on one and see the description, running time, etc. You can watch or resume where you left off and rate the movie from the player itself. The video is amazing. You would expect that there would be some rebuffering or choppy video but there isn’t. I couldn’t tell that I wasn’t watching a physical DVD, the experience was that good.
One pleasant surprise was that the unit comes with built in Wifi. I had bought a Linksys gaming adapter so I could get Internet connectivity to the XBOX and the Roku player but it turned out that I didn’t need it for the Roku player.
The only thing I would change would be adding the ability to add items to your queue from the player interface. Otherwise you have to have previously added them through the Netflix website. It really isn’t a big deal but it would be handy I’m sure. All in all, this little gadget is probably the best gadget of the year in my opinion. It’s that good.
Having never seen the original series I didn’t have a lot of expectations for the movie. I knew the general theme and what the movie was about however. The plot revolves around Maxwell Smart (played by Steve Carell) who works as an analyst at Control, a U.S. spy agency that was supposed to have closed after KAOS was defeated. However, KAOS is far from being dead. KAOS penetrates Control and steals the names of all their field agents, and they then begin to kill Control agents around the world. The Chief (played by Alan Arkin) promotes Maxwell Smart, designates him Agent 86, and partners him with Agent 99 (played by the ever lovely Anne Hathaway).
As the movie unfolds you find out that Smart has always wanted to be a field agent and wanted to be partnered with the best, Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson, I must admit I like the Rock’s movies. There, I said it.). Smart is given a little training and some spy-tech gadgets to help him do his job. Then he and Agent 99 uncover information of where Siegfried (played by Terence Stamp), the sinister head of KAOS is located, and they go after him to stop him from taking over the world.
I really enjoyed the film. They thew in some cameo appearances by some well know actors (I won’t say who so as not to spoil it) and some original cast members from the tv show. I thought about giving the film 3.5 stars but it missed it by that much :)
Over the past year or so I’ve started a Sunday ritual. I usually cook a nice dinner and try a new bottle of wine with it. Lately I can’t seem to find anything new that I like. This evening I decided to try a bottle of Black Swan Merlot from Australia. Along with it I made a Ribeye that had marinated in Jack Daniels Mesquite marinate over night, baked beans and a Caesar salad.
The food portion of the dinner was very good. The Merlot was not. I tend to like sweeter wines and this one was much to bold and strong. The bad part is I also have a bottle of Black Swan Shiraz in the wine refrigerator. I’m not looking forward to that one nearly as much now. I think next Sunday I might go with a chicken course and a bottle of white wine for a change. I think I’ve just about had my feel of reds for a while. Does anyone out there have any suggestions?
It really pains me to admit that I bought something from Wal-mart. My hatred for that store runs deep. A couple weeks ago a guy at work mentioned that they had an amazing deal on a Samsung 42″ plasma and I couldn’t pass it up. It’s hard to tell from the picture but it’s about twice the size of the old I had in there. It’s taking some getting use to but really, you can’t ever have a tv that’s too big :)
