Not Out Of The Woods Yet...

I was up at a reasonable time this morning, brewing a pot of coffee to ensure that I stayed that way, booting up the computer and seeing what was going on in the world.

The wife had a meeting set for 11:30 1:30, so she split while I worked on a review (that I still have yet to finish, nothing was coming out right, wording-wise), then I eventually got dressed and went to see the Hairdressers for my hair appointment. One of the girls had a cancellation, so my gal moved another appointment around so that we could all go and grab a bite to eat once she was done with my hair.

The wife got her meeting wrapped and was able to join us for a bit of a visit, even though she'd already eaten. The women caught up some, we compared notes on our respective weekends, then the gals headed back to work and I followed the wife back to the house.

She chilled in the bedroom to watch one of her craft shows and return some e-mails, so I popped in one of the flicks hanging around from Netfux, a Takashi Miike film called Big Bang Love, Juvenile A. Set in a boys detention center, it follows (in a non-linear fashion) the story of two detectives investigating the murder of one inmate by another, hinting at their love affair and the backgrounds both of them came from that led them to prison in the first place. Filled with interesting visuals (the entire prison facility seems to be a large warehouse with only certain areas spotlit for effect) and a rather slow moving story, it was an interesting watch, but I'm sort of glad I reconsidered the review notes I was going to take. I think the film could be difficult to review ( as there's not a whole lot of action to talk about), and the themes are murky at best, given that the two leads are meant to be lovers, and we barely see them touch one another. A good deal of the dialog seems to be spoken to the audience rather than to one another, and some reference is made to a play, which is how certain elements of the film come across, as a filmed play. This would account for the dark sets that only show small specific areas to you at a time, rather than lighting like a 'normal' film would. All in all, I found it interesting, and would possibly give it another look at a later date to see if I got anything more out of it. I think I'm one of those guys who prefers Miike to be more subversive or bizarro, and this is decidedly restrained, so I'm glad it wasn't a blind buy or anything like that.

The wife split for an evening meeting while I was wrapping up the film, so I spent some time in the back yard with the Yorkie afterward watering the ivy and letting the dog play a bit.

I eventually took the time to go and grab a burrito for my dinner, then retreated to the bedroom to pop in another Blu-ray that I have for review, Wrong Turn 2. I'd seen it before, so I decided to not take notes this time around and just take the flick in, see how it all played out. The film is as I remembered, an okay hillbilly horror flick, none of the characters are all that memorable, the inbred mutant types are hideous to look at, etc. It actually kept more characters alive longer than I expected, which was something of a change of pace, the original film seemed to thin the herd very quickly. Oh well, it's an amiable time-waster (as I saw a film described somewhere, the description always stuck with me), but it's not going to change your life or anything. I think it'll be a cool space filler during the Halloween month, which we're just on the cusp of as I type this.

The wife and I watched a new Ghost Hunters this evening, co-starring Meatloaf of all fucking people, which was just an odd episode. Midway through the show it suddenly clicks in my mind, Meatloaf's mannerisms in the show remind me of Andy Rooney, which is just unnerving to think about: Bitch Tits Bob whining about the price of carrots of whatever other nonsense Rooney goes on about. Yikes.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Hairdressers, Lunch, Movies, Netflix, Big Bang Love Juvenile A, Takashi Miike, Yorkie, Wrong Turn 2, Blu-ray, Television, Ghost Hunters, Meatloaf, Andy Rooney

One Week And Counting

The wife got up this morning to the news that an acquaintance of ours had finally passed away early this morning. He'd been in the hospital for a few weeks, with something like 50/50 odds of pulling through, but the wear and tear of drinking had simply taken too much of a toll on him. I was shocked to realize that he was only 35, I would've guessed at least a few years our senior. Sad news, he was a really sweet guy, volunteering a lot in the community and always in a great mood when I saw him. Our thoughts and prayers are with his boyfriend and family, which I type here as if anyone involved in the situation would ever be reading this.

I had an Orthodontist visit scheduled this afternoon, so that they can take an impression for the retainer that I'll grudgingly wear once they take these Goddamned braces off my teeth. Let me say, while I'm not exactly excited about a week from now, I am rather looking forward to not chewing on the inside of my mouth anymore, as I seemed to bite the inside of my lower lip at least once a week for the past year or so and it's damned near driven me mad.

The wife had a meeting shortly before noon, so I spent some time on the web, while some laundry washed, then watched the Blu-ray copy of Wrong Turn that'd turned up in the mail last week. I recall catching it at the dollar theater in Odessa when it was originally out, with a friend's now ex-wife, then girlfriend, who also had the day off and nothing better to do. She wasn't impressed with the flick, I thought it was a perfectly serviceable little slice of hillbilly horror, but wasn't breaking any new ground. Honestly, the best part of the theatrical experience was that a middle-aged dude and his two sons were among the handful of people in the theater (7 people or so total, including us), when we get to a scene in which smokin' hot, enormous forehead-havin' redhead Lindy Booth says that she and her boyfriend should have sex in order to be rescued from their stranded vehicle on a deserted road. Her theory is that someone always interrupts them screwing, and thinks they should do the dirty to test the law of averages and see if help shows up while they're in mid-stroke. So hot redhead is dropping to her knees in front of her boyfriend as he undoes his pants when suddenly Mr. Man and his two kids stand sharply and walk out of the theater, the sexual content obviously something he considered too much for his 12 yr olds that he had brought to this hard 'R' rated film. The best part is that the camera cuts away from the couple immediately and when they finally come back to them, they're dressed again and looking through the cars for something to eat! No boobs, no hairy bobbin' man ass; nothing! I nudged my companion and said that I kinda felt like I should dash out to the lobby to try and catch the guy & his kids to tell them the danger of sex had passed! Oh well, those poor kids missed out.

I took my notes for a review, then started getting ready for the Ortho visit in the mid-afternoon.

Once I finished up there I headed back to the house to pick up the wife and we had a late lunch/early dinner before running a few errands of hers. We also stopped into Big Lots for the first time in a few weeks, where I found a lousy dubbed version of a Donnie Yen flick called Fist Of The Red Dragon, as well as the Ray Stevenson film Outpost, which I recall really enjoying.

The wife and I piddled around the house for the evening, eventually watching this past Sunday's Bored To Death before calling it a night.

I'm out kids.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Death, Depressing, Orthodontist, Movies, Blu-ray, Wrong Turn, Lindy Booth, Anecdote, Amusing, Lunch, Errands, Shopping, DVD, Fist Of The Red Dragon, Donnie Yen, Outpost, Ray Stevenson, Television, Bored To Death

Oh, I'M THE THIEF, Am I?

Tonight's post title is inspired by my ongoing project of adding all the DVD's into the Movie Catalog application on the iPhone, so as to avoid purchasing multiple piles of the same DVD if I should run across it cheap and forget that we've already got it squirreled away in the Media Closet waiting to ever be watched. During this process, you add in all your film details, and then the app searches the web for an image to use for the cover art. I've run into an issue of several different sites blocking the use of their images (I think this is called hotlinking (?), if my half-assed interweb knowledge is correct), which I can totally understand. What has amused me, nay actually angered me slightly, is that I've run across a couple of different torrent sites that pop up a message that reads 'You're a bandwidth thief' if you try to directly click on their image links.

Really, faceless interweb douche, happily stealing the mass marketed work of others and offering it for free download to others? I'M THE FUCKING THIEF? Eat a bag of stolen dicks.

But otherwise the application is the tits, works like a dream and is filled to the brim with all the movies I own, I'd totally recommend it, as you can customize it pretty well as far as the covers, genres, etc. goes.

I got some writing done this morning after forcing myself awake and filling my every pore with coffee to stay that way. I ran to buy a padded envelope to mail something, then picked up some lunch on the way home for the wife and myself.

We ate and watched last night's Desperate Housewives, which is a show I'm surprised hasn't burned out yet. It seems that each season starts out on something of a blah note for me, but they manage to fish me in by mid-season, so I'm not judging this one by the season opener, but I was actually pulling for Lynette & Tom (the couple with the pile of children that make them miserable for those unfamiliar with the show) to pull the plug on the twins she's found out she's carrying. Seriously, they had some dumbass 'lesbian kiss' episode last season as a ratings grab, but I bet they'd get a helluva lot more press if they had an abortion rather than carrying on with a pregnancy that no one involved seems to want. This is also probably why I don't have the opportunity to run a major network.

That and my lack of contacts; I have no juice within the Hollywood system.

I left the wife catching a nap before her evening meetings and hit up the post office to mail my stuff, then I watched one of the flicks I have for review in the den so as not to disturb her.

Red Velvet was an interesting take on the slasher film, but some of the set-ups felt a bit off as Henry Thomas as the lead plays a visibly agitated loner type who is rather snappy and uninviting to the cute girl (Kelli Garner), who by all normal rationale should walk away from the creep. What makes this slightly more believable is that she's in a shitty relationship, so maybe she's less put off by asshole-ish behavior other girls might be. The flick has some great visuals, a Giallo-esque palette that splashes the screen any number of day-glo colors while lots of blood-letting happens. It was an okay watch, but I don't know that it's for all tastes, possibly for genre buffs only?

I caught a catnap after the wife split for her thing, then later ventured back out to grab a hamburger for dinner.

The wife and I watched the new Heroes once she got home while she returned a few e-mails, then I headed to the web to jack around with this stuff for the evening.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! iPhone, Applications, Movie Catalog, Torrents, Assholes, Errands, Lunch, Television, Desperate Housewives, Movies, Red Velvet, Henry Thomas, Kelli Garner, Heroes

Cinematic Sunday One Hundred And Seven

Another wasted day. Here's movie trailers.

We'll open tonight with the film Smash Cut, which I had heard mentioned here or there and finally checked out a trailer for this evening. Director Lee Demarbre brings us what looks like a fairly camp affair about a director (David Hess) whose work has repeatedly failed to garner decent reviews. He stumbles upon the idea of using actual corpses in his work to cover up an accidental death, then begins to draw acclaim for the realism, which promptly sends him right 'round the bend. The film co-stars Sasha Grey, Michael Berryman and the Godfather Of Gore himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis. My web travels tell me that the film is currently screening at festivals, so I'm not sure when this will hit theaters or DVD, but it's something I'm curious to see, if only because it looks similar to Brutal Massacre and features the divine Sasha Grey stretching her acting chops in another mainstream role.



Next we have a teaser for the Nightmare On Elm Street re-make, which arrives courtesy of Samuel Bayer and stars Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, the man of your dreams from all those slashers of yesteryear. The NoES franchise was something I've watched and enjoyed to varying degrees over the years, but I honestly don't think I saw a single one in the theaters, except possibly Freddy Vs. Jason, so as long as they make this interesting and keep my attention visually, I'll be down for whatever with this one.



Finally I'll close with a short trailer for a film going into (very) limited release soon, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. Directed by John Krasinski of The Office fame, it's based on the writings of David Foster Wallace and stars Julianne Nicholson as a woman who has been dumped with no real explanation. She sets about studying the male of the species via the titular interviews, all of which appear to be quirky and amusing based on this short glimpses we see in the trailer. I'm not sure when to expect this in wide release, or even on video, but it's nice to have something else to look forward to from Krasinski.



I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Trailers, Smash Cut, Lee Demarbre, David Hess, Sasha Grey, Michael Berryman, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Nightmare On Elm Street, Samuel Bayer, Jackie Earle Haley, Freddy Vs Jason, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, John Krasinski, Julianne Nicholson, David Foster Wallace

You're A Handsome Devil. What's Your Name?

This was the day that got away completely, as any number of plans had been made, hinted at or considered, but absolutely none of it ever came to fruition.

Robbb had called yesterday evening, mentioning that he was on his way into town for a whirlwind visit, and wanted to try and grab some lunch today. I invited Macguffin to drop by around noon-ish to join us, thinking it'd be cool if he got to see Robbb as well.

We also had tentative plans for the evening at a little fair/carnival type thing with the Hairdressers, that we figured Robbb would be into, since he hasn't seen the Hairdressers in several months. Our friend JH had called and we'd mentioned the tentative plans to her as well, so it sounded like the day would go: lunch with Mac and Robbb, take the afternoon to chill, then get together with the larger group for dinner and fair nonsense of candied apples or whatever.

Mac came over around noon, so I gave Robbb a call about lunch, only to find out that he was still on the road, being driven into town by his sister, because car trouble had stranded him on the side of the road in the midst of his 5 hour drive. So lunch with him was out completely, so we went and had some Italian, bullshitted a bit, then Mac headed back home with the idea that we'd try to get together this evening once I heard from Robbb after he was safely in town and settled at his family's place.

Robbb turned out to be ill this evening, so Mac stayed home, and we never heard anything from the Hairdresser's until waaay later than we anticipated, by which time the wife and I had already had a sandwich at a deli across town and headed back home. JH passed on hanging out because she was in a mood or something of that sort, so the wife wished her a better evening and we chilled out to watch some television before calling it a night.

I accomplished virtually nothing today, which is rather frustrating, but seems to be about par for the course lately.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Friends, Lunch, Car Trouble, Dinner, Hairdressers, Television

Another Friday Night Tedium-ed To Death

Okay, so I just lost two full lengthy paragraphs worth of shit because Blogger didn't save it for whatever random fucking reason, which makes me want to throw my wireless mouse through the monitor. I'm going to bed, because that's just a big pile of fuck this. I'll write this nonsense tomorrow morning, other bullshit permitting.

**************************************************************

Okay, Saturday morning, take two of this post, let's see how far along we can get before I destroy something.

Friday was of course all about the dread of having to go to our standard dinner with Brian, which I knew would be made even more tedious by the fact that we'd seen him not 24 hours earlier, and that he'd have nothing new to really tell us.

I watched an Ingmar Bergman film in the afternoon, the second I've seen by him, and it did little for me save to add to my impression that he may be one of those directors that I just don't 'get'. I have now seen Hour Of The Wolf, as well as The Virgin Spring several months ago off Turner Classic Movies, and neither film did all that much for me, though I liked the visuals of HOTW more. Numerous people suggested other films of his via Twitter when I mentioned that I was watching the film, and there's at least two other films of his that I will eventually see, but it will honestly be more out of a feeling of that weird cinephile's obligation to see certain 'classics' than my own interest in the material itself. I feel pretty bad saying that, as I don't consider myself the typical low brow type who can't handle foreign films, or who can't deal with a slow moving story, but for whatever reason, both of these films have just left me fairly cold, sort of the same way Picnic At Hanging Rock did when I finally saw that. I'm thinking Bergman may have to go on the list with Kiyoshi Kurosawa as another director whose work I just don't understand. Oh well, I'm sure it's me, not them.

Dinner plans got larger as the mention of the Hairdressers joining us was thrown around, so I got on the cell immediately to see if I could make that happen, just to spruce up my dining experience, which would be boring as fuck otherwise. As it happened, the Hairdressers couldn't join us until after 7:00, which gave us an hour to kill, so I asked if we could run into Best Buy to look for some blank DVD's because I'd suddenly realized we only had one left and you never know when you might need one, y'know?

Best Buy didn't actually have the type of DVD I was looking for, so we found ourselves in the other side of the loop looking for them at Office Depot, where some wandering actually turned up an item I'd been considering buying for awhile now, a range expander for the wireless router that we have here in the house. I have been frustrated in the past that we don't have the option of using a laptop very easily inthe den, or at all in the guest side of the house because our router's signal just doesn't have that kind of juice. Some online rummaging revealed that you can buy this little range expander that boosts things into the 'hard to reach' areas of the home, so I figured that was worth a shot.

Dinner was fine, though between slow service and six people plus a baby (one of the gals' daughter's and her infant son came as well) at the table, it took much longer than I would have anticipated to get the hell out of there. Once we finally got everyone rousted and moving I was halfway to the car before I noticed that the wife and the Hairdresser's were still hanging around inside the restaurant, yammering about this or that as if the place wasn't closing down.

We finally got everybody moving, got outside and made some oddball plans to go to this little fair/carnival thing tomorrow night, the thought of which makes me want to punch a baby in the face, but whatever, what else do I have going on?

We watched The Soup back at the house before Brian split, then I took the time to set of the range booster on the router, which worked gloriously. The laptop's signal was boosted dramatically in the den, and I took it to the far corner of the house and was able to access the web in the Library, even with the 'low signal' that we used to get in the den, so that's going to work out well.

The computer was acting rather glitchy after I'd run the set up for the router though, and after several fuck ups, including losing all of the blog post I wrote, I said fuckit and went to bed, determined to try again this morning.

Which seems to have worked out okay.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blogger, Blogging, Frustration, Movies, Hour Of The Wolf, Ingmar Bergman, The Virgin Spring, Turner Classic Movies, Twitter, Picnic At Hanging Rock, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Dinner, Hairdressers, Television, The Soup, Wireless Router

Can We At Least Order From The Adults Menu?

I tried to catch up on my sleep today, turning off the alarm on the cell, checking e-mail and then going back to sleep immediately afterward. The doorbell startled me awake, and I was guessing it to be another random package of stuff that the wife had ordered when it rang a second time, which the UPS guy never does, so I crawled to the door to see who the Yorkie was going nuts over.

Turned out that Macguffin was back over to see another doctor (seriously, writing about our lives I make him sound 80 or something with all the doctor visits), so he'd dropped by to see what was up while he was out and about. Somewhere in the blurry recesses of my mind I even recalled saying that we should get together today, but I can't be sure if it happened or was all just a dream.

I dressed and we went and poked around Barnes & Noble a bit, I grabbed the new Juxtapoz and a coffee to take the edge off, then we grabbed some lunch and ate back at the crib while watching last week's Family Guy off the TiVo.

Mac split, I watched another Kitchen Nightmares because there's a lot of fun to be had in watching Gordon Ramsay mutter "fuck me" under his breath while looking disgusted, then the wife got back from her errands, so we caught up a bit. She hit the bedroom for a lie down and I ran by the post office to mail a couple of things, then hopped online to see what was happening in the world.

I hit the recumbent bike afterward, which makes a whopping three times in a single week that I've made the time for that, which is a good thing, as I've been doing virtually nothing lately and I feel like a big fat tosser. I showered and dressed for the evening, which was to involve us having dinner with Brian and his parents. This set-up kind of makes me feel like we're all 12 and going out to eat with the 'rents on a Friday night or something, I suppose because the wife and he have been friends since like, the 7th grade. It just makes me feel slightly cheesy, I'm not sure why. But in their defense, I never have to deal with anything similar because both my parents are long dead and if they came calling about dinner, I'd need a shotgun instead of reservations.

Dinner was decent, though they evidently flash-fried the salmon I ordered, as it had a crispy edge to it that I wasn't expecting, but whatever, it was a change of pace for the evening. I was slightly annoyed to hear something about dinner tomorrow night with Brian as well, and since I was hoping that tonight's dinner would get us off the hook for that horseshit, I'm hoping that we can find a way out of it. Y'know, because God motherfucking damn, can't I have a Friday off? As I always bitch, it's not that I really resent the company, I just despise having a standing engagement EVERY week that isn't related to a career or livelihood or something, Goddammit!

The wife dropped me back at the house after dinner, then she went to meet a couple girlfriends for a drink. I watched the new episode of Fringe, then tackled For A Few Dollars More, since the DVR has been getting perilously close to full. I don't know what the deal is, I guess the wife decided to stop watching any of the shows she's recording, so I need to mind my 'P's and 'Q's when recording right now. I had apparently never seen the film, which surprised me, but I'm happy to have remedied that finally. I'm working my way through the Sergio Leone catalog, as a lot of the podcasts I listen to have covered numerous Spaghetti Westerns over the years and I keep putting off watching some classic material. I've apparently only seen 2 of the 'Man With No Name' films, A Fistful Of Dollars and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, which I plan to re-watch on Blu-ray later this weekend if possible.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Shopping, Juxtapoz, Magazine, Television, Family Guy, TiVo, Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay, Dinner, Frustration, Fringe, Spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Leone, A Fistful Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad And The Ugly

So. God. Damned. Sleepy.

My scheduling being increasingly weird of late, I was up until after 4:00 AM, knowing full well that I had to be up and moving by 9:00 this morning, lest the Maid be ringing the doorbell whilst I was still laid up in bed, drooling on my pillow and dreaming of electric sheep.

The four hours of sleep did me no good whatsoever, so I started coffee and hoped for the best.

The Maid arrived a couple of hours later, around 11:00, which would have annoyed me except that the coffee had taken hold and I was finally feeling human and productive. I got a couple of reviews submitted to the old Big Suck Loser, then dressed and started gathering up the recycling stuff to drop it off, as the newspapers were getting out of hand.

I picked up lunch, then headed back home to eat and wait out the Maid, as I was hoping to grab a nap in the afternoon to try and get caught up on my rest a bit. I was happy to find that the TiVo had quite randomly recorded something off MTV2, where the actually show videos from time to time, including the following video from The Big Pink. I'm really loving what I've heard from these folks, just bought the CD this evening.



I got a call from Macguffin, who had to be in town and wanted to bring over his Chihuahua to play with the Yorkie, as his pup has been mopey in the midst of the impending divorce. His theory was that he'd enjoy playing with another dog his own size, so I said it was cool to let them chill while Mac went to do his thing at the doctor's office.

The wife and I watched some BBC America, a few episodes of Kitchen Nightmares that I hadn't seen, then Mac arrived and the dogs started mingling. They actually seemed very disinterested in one another after a few minutes, more concerned with vying for the attention of the humans, then little piss-pot Chihuahua hikes his leg on the side of our leather sofa and and I shouted him down and put him outside to clean up after him. The wife spotted more as I was heading outside with the Yorkie, so she cleaned that up (I'm guessing he either wasn't finished or went a little more when this stranger started yelling at him. Oops.) while the dogs and I milled around in the backyard. Mac got back, was surprised that the dog had already had an accident and slightly annoyed that the dogs seemed so uninterested in one another.

This was pretty amusing actually, the Chihuahua basically followed one of us around the entire time we were outside, while Bella patrolled the yard perimeter to see what those asshole Lawn Guys had been up to when they were here earlier. Mac was kinda dismayed that his dog had little interest in playing with Bella, but was more interested in trying to get any of the humans' attention.

He and I watched some more Gordon Ramsay stuff while the wife chilled in the bedroom dealing with some e-mails and Bella eyed us with vague disdain for having another dog in the house. I think this answers the question of whether or not we should ever get another dog, Bella is obviously the head of a one dog household.

Mac split around 6:00 or so, the wife and I watched a few things off the TiVo, then went and grabbed a sandwich for the evening meal, for no other reason than to get me off the couch for a few and out of the house, which I was banking on being enough to keep me awake until this evening.

We wrapped up our evening with a new episode of Ghost Hunters (which was somewhat frustratingly uneventful), then called it a night. I headed to the web to crank this out before my eyes burst so I can finally crash.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Exhausted, Maid, Movies, Reviews, Big Suck Loser, Lunch, Recycling, Music, The Big Pink, Television, BBC America, Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon Ramsay, Yorkie, Chihuahua, Friends, Ghost Hunters

Somebody's Watching Me...

The wife had a meeting this afternoon, which is par for the course, so she was up showering and getting ready fairly early. I forced myself up as well, because I'm still in the process of re-acclimating myself to the world of the normal human being.

I was happily able to get a couple of reviews written this morning, then hit the recumbent bike for a bit before showering and getting ready to run over to Odessa to visit with Macguffin for the evening, since the wife had a meeting tonight. I listened to this week's episode of Night Of The Living Podcast on the drive, which glowing reviewed Deadgirl. This actually made me wonder if I was missing something in the film, but I'm sticking to my gut reaction, which was that it was okay, but didn't really blow my skirt up.

Mac and I grabbed an early fats food dinner, then ate while watching the first episode of Bored To Death, a show I'd DVR'd at the house out of curiosity. The show was amusing enough, so I figure I'll probably keep watching just because some of our other shows are finished up for the season anyway, so we have a time slot free.

I had brought over the Netfux Blu-ray of Surveillance, from Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David. I had watched the trailer for it awhile back, while tells very little of what is happening in the film, so we basically went into it cold, knowing that there was some sort of murder mystery (which is revealed in the first scene, so big whoop for knowing that), but with no clue what else we were in store for. The film manages to be populated with enough odd mannerism-havin' quirky characters that you are left wondering who the hell could actually be responsible for the killings right up until the final act.

Or at least we were wondering, but as I've been writing this, I've been having a chat on Twitter with the fellas from Mondo Movie, who both generally disliked the film, and found the twist predictable and annoying, so maybe I'm lowering my standards. I was just impressed with the unnerving use of ambient noise that left me feeling edgy even when nothing was really happening onscreen, and with how she made all the characters just strange enough to draw suspicion to them as you try to piece the events together.

I headed home around 8:30, spent some time catching up with the wife and then started working on this shite for the evening.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Podcasts, Night Of The Living Podcast, Dinner, Television, DVR, Bored To Death, Movies, Netflix, Surveillance, Jennifer Lynch, David Lynch, Twitter, Mondo Movie

More Boring Shit

Yeah, I wasted the entire day away today, which is sort of the case most days, but for whatever reason today it kind of bummed me out. It’s also been a real See You Next Tuesday as far as technology goes; the iPhone was being a real bitch all afternoon, which I’m still not sure was related to their 3G coverage (or spotty lack of it), or to other shitty service of web-related sites. Oh, and it’s now 2:15 in the morning as I compose this in Word because the internet service has suddenly gown MIA, so who knows that the fuck is up with that.

I picked up a late lunch while the wife got numerous non-profit related stuff done in the office, then I chilled out in the den and ate while watching a little something off the TiVo.

The wife caught a nap in the bedroom while I sat through Gus Van Sant's film Last Days. For reals kids, I don't usually just jump to the negativity in the general statement about a film, but this was one I definitely felt as though I were sitting through rather than watching, because so very little happens. The idea is that it's a fictionalized version of the last days of Kurt Cobain's life, and Michael Pitt really looks the part to a 'T'. The problem that I had with the film was that aside from his dead on look, and a few interesting tricks of time as you see different perspectives on certain scenes, there was little going on here beyond Pitt wandering his house and estate muttering to himself and actively trying to avoid any contact with even those staying in the house. There’s just not anything going on here, and while I might not’ve been in the right mood to watch this, I wasn’t so out of it that I couldn’t find bits or pieces interesting, I just wasn’t prepared to sit through an hour and forty minutes of what was the inevitable conclusion, y’know?

The wife had an evening meeting, so I ended up popping in something from Netfux next, a film called Deadgirl. It is the story of two teenagers that find a girl tied to a table in the basement of an abandoned building, and are shocked to see her draw a breath, even though she’s obviously been down there forever. One kid wants to tell someone, his buddy thinks they should keep it a secret and use her for sex, y’know, because today’s youth are a bunch of assholes. Things get more complicated as others find out about the deadgirl, and the film takes some turns that I wasn’t fully on board for towards the end, which sort of lost me and forced my ratings down on it. And while I liked this taking a different pass at zombies, I maintain that even the over-sexed Porky's kids wouldn't line up to fuck a corpse, regardless of how desperate they were. So in this day and age, when you can buy a pocket pussy off the interweb with a remarkable amount of ease, rather than resorting to railing the dirty, sweaty corpse you found in a basement somewhere, why not go for the awesome Jenna Haze model instead?

I got caught up on the phone with Macguffin for a bit, made plans to do something tomorrow, then I let him go just before my phone lost the last of its charge.

The wife and I watched the season premiere of Heroes in the bedroom, though I have a strange feeling that the two of us passing in the night and not really spending any time together today has left us feeling a bit off. I could be totally wrong on that, but I just felt like one of us was in a bad mood, and who knows, it could even have been me.

I left her going to sleep and headed to the web to fuck around with this nonsense.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you’re it, Baggy Eyes! Technology, Frustration, Tivo, Movies, Last Days, Gus Van Sant, Kurt Cobain, Michael Pitt, Deadgirl, Television, Heroes

Cinematic Sunday One Hundred And Six

So here we go again with the trailers.

I have never actually brought up the same film two weeks in a row, but I'll be doing it this week when we talk about Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity, a film that I'm dying to see after yet another intriguing looking trailer and more teasing on the web about limited release for the film. As mentioned last time around the film is (still) a verité style film about a couple who use video cameras in their house to get to the bottom of some strange occurrences. As you see in this new trailer, Micah and Katie begin to realize that whatever is in their home may not be a ghost at all, but something targeting Katie specifically. As I said earlier, I'm really keen to see this film, so I hope it gets the wide release it would take to get it to my little po-dunk town.



Next we have Van Diemen's Land, a film from writer/director Jonathan Auf Der Heide that stars Oscar Redding as Alexander Pearce, a notorious criminal (for reals, hit the link, it makes for interesting reading) who escapes into the wilds of Tasmania with seven other prisoners from the penal colony in the harbor, only to be forced to turn to cannibalism as their ordeal becomes increasingly hopeless. This looks as though it could play favorably with something like Ravenous, the film opens in Australia later this week, but I'm not sure when we'll actually see it here in the USA.



Finally we have a trailer for Me And Orson Welles, a film from Richard Linklater starring Claire Danes, Zac Efron (of all people- I'm actually somewhat confounded to find myself writing about this little human pixie) and features Christian McKay as Welles himself. Set behind the scenes of The Mercury Theatre's production of Julius Caesar, it follows Efron's life as he stumbles into a part in the production, falls in love, all the usual coming of age type stuff. I don't know that I'm sold on this version of Welles, but I'm willing to give this a look, as Linklater's involvement and the subject matter in general is enough to pique my interest.



I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Trailers, Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli, Van Diemens Land, Jonathan Auf Der Heide, Oscar Redding, Me And Orson Welles, Richard Linklater, Claire Danes, Zac Efron, Christian McKay

Saturday Trifecta

The wife had some sort of crafting class scheduled for today that she went to bed not sure if she was even going to go, as she was thinking that she should look into picking up the house. The house lost out on that deal, as I heard her up early in the shower, so I went back to sleep myself since my sleep patterns are turning into those of Nosferatu lately, no matter how hard I seem to try and get up early and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

I got up late, lay in bed petting the Yorkie for a bit, as that's generally the only time she's willing to let you love on her, because she's something of a moody cunt a lot of the time. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually find out that Yorkie's are part cat, as this one definitely has some of the same stand-offish qualities that a feline would. I made coffee and spoke to the wife on the cell, she was between the craft thing and the grocery store, having left early because the crafts they were teaching her weren't holding her interest very well.

I sat down with my coffee and got fished into about a half hour of There Will Be Blood, a film that I can't seem to pass up on cable, then started watching The Magnificent Ambersons, a film that'd been on the TiVo for much longer than I had intended. I had never seen the film before, but was impressed with how it was constructed, even knowing that Welles had lost any say in the actual cut that we see. I would have to say that I wasn't as interested in his protagonist Georgie as I had been in, say, Citizen Kane's leads, but that would be due to the fact that Georgie himself is a spoiled rich asshole for the duration of the film, whereas Kane has some moments that make him sympathetic even if he is full of himself and drunk on power.

The wife got home sometime during the middle of the film, so she and I watched the end of that then took a quick run to pick up a little lunch. She caught a nap after we ate, since she'd been up and running fairly early this morning, while I decided to pop in one of the random movies selected by the Movie Catalog application.

I haven't really watched anything from Sam Fuller (though I've owned a copy of Shock Corridor forever as a result of finding it cheap), so I wasn't sure what to expect with White Dog, a film about an actress that adopts a white German Shepard that she finds, only to find out that it has been conditioned to attack any black person it comes in contact with. Kristy NcNichol is the actress who brings the dog (who is never given a name) to Paul Winfield, who resolves to de-program the animal. It's a pretty interesting film, well worth a look if you get the chance to check it out.

The wife and I picked at this or that around the house for our dinner, then I popped in a flick that I would like to finally return to Netfux on Monday, a film called from London To Brighton, which I'd heard about on a Mark Kermode review show awhile back. The story of a prostitute who has second thoughts about delivering a young girl to a pedophile at her pimps behest, she take the girl on the run via train from London to Brighton. They're pursued by her pimp and a the son of the pedophile, who has an axe of his own to grind. It's told in a non linear fashion, unraveling up until the final act reveals what actually happened to send the girls running, and what their final fate is meant to be. It was an okay watch, though the wife and I both guessed where it was going about 20 minutes before the reveal, which to me says that it won't hold up to multiple viewings. Give it a look, but don't blind buy that mother.

We called it a day shortly afterward, and I started playing with this stuff while listening to a live recording of (Cool) Shite On The Tube.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Yorkie, Movies, TiVo, There Will Be Blood, The Magnificent Ambersons, Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, Movie Catalog, Applications, White Dog, Kristy NcNichol, Paul Winfield, Sam Fuller, Shock Corridor, Netflix, London To Brighton, Mark Kermode, Cool Shite On The Tube, Podcasts

Fridays With Mob

It was a good day.

I was happy to find the wife without any of her numerous commitments this afternoon, so I suggested that we go and grab a bite to eat for lunch, since I knew we'd most likely be entertaining Brian this evening. Our habit of eating a late lunch usually bites me on the ass on Fridays, as I always feel like I barely left a restaurant when it's time to head back out to have dinner. We went kind of light with a visit to a deli, then headed back home, but the wife asked if I'd care if we stopped to visit with her Grandmother on the way back. That little visit ate up almost an hour, but Grandmother seemed very happy to see us and we got caught up on her goings on for the week, so that was cool.

The wife and I spent the afternoon on the phone, in separate parts of the house, which was a weird way to do things, together but alone with other people as it were. She had a couple of drama queens calling to pitch a fit about this or that charity nonsense, while I traded calls with Macguffin about him coming over for dinner, then spent some time on the horn with Robbb catching up on his life in Dallas.

Mac arrived before 5:00, so he and I chilled in the den and shot the shit about this or that for awhile, then I checked up on the wife in the bedroom and realized that we also had plans for dinner with JH this evening, as well as our standing engagement with Brian. I made sure this was cool with Mac, who I feared might be a tad anti-social when thrust into odd social situations that he wasn't prepared for, but he seemed game.

Our other guests met us at the house, we did they typical dance of no one wanting to make a restaurant decision for a few before we finally nailed it down to in Italian place across town and headed out. We took two cars as JH wanted to be able to split from the restaurant to work on some kind of online quiz for a class she's taking. The meal was good, though the cacophony of people in the restaurant made most conversation an exercise in futility, so Mac and I simply found amusement in watch JH pester Brian at every turn. Seriously, at one point the wife suggested that JH should be on a board that Brian oversees and he looked up from his food as if he'd been shot, it was hilarious.

We said our goodbyes after the meal, then the four of us hit the Starbuck's drive-thru for a coffee and stopped into the local books, music and video outlet to let the wife poke around for a magazine. We headed home afterward, Mac split to go check on his dogs, then Brian settled in with us to watch the new episode of The Soup before calling it a night himself.

The wife headed to the bedroom to chill with the Yorkage and I to the office to fiddle with this nonsense.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Lunch, Friends, Dinner, Amusing, Shopping, Television, The Soup

Happy To Be Out Of That Race

The wife had a metric shit-ton of errands and meetings today, so when was out of the house before 9:00 AM to get a jump on that stuff. I got up with the alarm and started a pot of coffee before popping in the earbuds and listening to this week's ShowShow while I did some dishes and picked up the kitchen a bit.

I spent some time online dicking around with some more music and whatnot, then ran the computer through all the usual spyware checks and defrag'ed it to keep things running smoothly. I've been trying to be better about doing that sort of thing, it seems to smooth out some of the bumps we might normally have otherwise.

I heated some leftover pizza and was settling in to watch a movie when I got a call from Macguffin, who had some more developments in his impending divorce, which seems to be edging closer to ugly than amicable as the realities of it set in for both parties, especially the departing wife. I hope that whole thing doesn't get too much worse for everyone's sake, it's already bad enough as it is. Mac eventually had to let me go to take a call from his mother, presumably about the situation at hand, so I said goodbye and left him to deal with all that.

I watched the rest of my flick, which was the Paul Naschy DVD I grabbed for a few bucks yesterday. I decided to give it the once over because what I had originally thought were smudges at first glance turned out to be a few surface scratches, so I was curious if they effected play, because that'd be sorta typical; spending a few dollars on what you think is a decent bargain only to have it not play or something.

I was happy to have it play from beginning to end with no issue, and amused that the second Naschy film I've seen appears to follow the same formula that the other one does. Naschy wrote or co-wrote both films, so it sees him cast as the rough & tumble anti-hero, surrounded by hot Euro-babes, (4 in this film, at least 2 of which he bones), and both movies ended on a down note, leading me to believe the pitch meetings go like this: Okay, I'm a loner, there's numerous hotties, they show a little boob, I roll around with them in various stages of undress, and there's some kind of murder plot in the background, got it? Roll camera!

So anyway, Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll was a fun way to kill 90 minutes, a very passable Spanish attempt at the Giallo genre, though at least one of the 'twists' was something you could spot a mile away, just based on a throwaway line from a character in the first 30 minutes. Still, fun stuff, cute girls and passable acting, give it a peep.

The random movie feature on the Movie Catalog told me that I would next be watching Unfaithful in my efforts to finally work through some of the unwatched piles of movies that we own. This would be a film that I don't know that I'd ever really sit down to watch otherwise, it came to me via one of the DVD lots I had picked up from e-Bay a few years back, and had collected dust on the shelf ever since. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Diane Lane in the raw, but the idea of following a couple through a woman cheating on her husband just didn't grab me at first glance. The film was surprisingly engaging, and Lane's conflicted performance was rather nuanced as she struggled with the pleasures of the flesh vs. the commitments and guilt she was back-burnering to go and screw this new guy. Oh, and there's boobies, so yay.

The wife got home shortly ahead of the dinner plans she'd made for us with our friend JH, who has been feeling a bit down, so I hadda pause my flick to go with her to grab a bite for dinner at a restaurant across town. JH has been having issues with a guy she's been sort of seeing, in that he's not all that committed to the idea, which makes him kinda douchey in my mind, 'cause she's a cool chick, and if this guy can't be bothered, well then fuck him in his stupid, stupid ass, y'know? But it's easy for me to say shit like that, I'm happily married and don't have to worry about trying to impress new women or wonder about where the next piece of ass is coming from. The singles out there might view this differently, and JH certainly does, wanting to try to salvage things back to at least a 'friends' stage if they aren't going to be a couple. I'm of the mind that it's time to cut bait and move on, but honestly, even when I was single I didn't ever want to spend time breaking my balls to try and date women I wasn't relatively sure I wanted to be with, because I could be at home relaxing and not wasting my fucking time making nice with someone who may or may not even care to hang around with me.

I'm amazingly happy to be out of that game, and I sincerely hope JH can find something to focus on besides the relationship angle. The main problem is that this is a small fucking town, and the dating pool is more like a dating puddle, so as we get older I could definitely see how one might get a little edgy, in spite of my big talk earlier.

The wife and I finished up Unfaithful back at our place, then watched the evening's NBC comedy stuff off the old TiVo before calling it a night.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Podcasts, ShowShow, Household Chores, Friends, Divorce, Movies, Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll, Paul Naschy, Movie Catalog, Applications, Unfaithful, Diane Lane, Dinner, Relationships, Television, TiVo

Hours Of Bargain Shopping Fun

The Yorkie is back to her normal self, which is a combination of fun companion and giant, annoying pain in my ass, so that's cool.

I was headed out this afternoon to drop off some recycle stuff when I got a call from El Vox, who was in town doing some running around of his own. I figured that I could make it to the recycling bins and back before he could get to our house, so I told him to meet me at our place and continued on my drive, listening to the new Dead Lantern Splattercast on the drive.

Vox rode with me to grab a coffee, shooting the shit about his recent vacation and the like, then we hit up the local books, music and video outlet to try and find a bargain, which are usually few and far between. I made a pass through the entire DVD section and found exactly two flicks that were even vaguely tempting, but this is a store that frequently runs a buy two, get a third for a buck deal, so I decided to wait and see if anything else turns up later, especially when you consider we're talking about a few movies I'm not exactly in love with.

We hit several pawn shops afterward, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple things, including a Blu-ray copy of Michael Clayton for only $5 at our first stop, and a Paul Naschy film called Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll for only $2 off the discount shelf at the second place, I was very pleasantly surprised. It's very rare to find anything all that interesting locally as far as horror stuff goes, and for whatever reason this pawn shop even had a 2-disc version of Suspiria, which I cam close to buying, but finally talked myself down because A) I haven't watched my single disc version in at least a year or more and B) If I really NEED to re-buy this fucker, shouldn't it be on Blu-ray?

Vox and I headed back to the house and chilled in the office checking out some different music that we had to show one another, swapping out a few CD's and that sort of thing, then the wife popped in around 6:00 or so and we started making dinner plans.

We ordered in some pizza, visiting a bit while we ate, then Vox split for home as the wife and I were sitting down to watch the latest episode of Ghost Hunters. We stayed up a little later to check out this week's TiVo'd episode of Color Splash before we called it a night.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Yorkie, Podcasts, Dead Lantern Splattercast, Movies, Blu-ray, Michael Clayton, Blue Eyes Of The Broken Doll, Paul Naschy, Suspiria, Television, TiVo, Ghost Hunters, Color Splash

This Is Why We'll Never Have Kids

I'm mostly kidding with the post title, but I gotta be honest with you, the Yorkie got sick last night (something she ate, as is always the Goddamned case), and the wife and I spent half the night limping her along hoping that we wouldn't have to call an emergency vet. I really knew that she wasn't feeling good when she let me hold her once I got in bed, as she always moves to the foot of the bed, away from us to finally crash out for the night. Last night, I lay down next to her and pet her, she doesn't budge, like she's too wiped out to even be annoyed with me petting her, very uncharacteristic.

I was startled awake by her final dry heaving fit around 4:30, though at the time I was pretty much under the impression that the dog was vomiting on my side right there in the bed, a thought which kinda makes me die a little inside, but whatever, this is a good life, if that's the worst thing I have going for me, who the fuck cares? This turned out to be a false alarm, just her last hurrah before finally settling for the 'night', I dunno if you can call it 'night' in the wee hours of the morning like that.

My point (and I do have one) is that since we married later in life (age 30) when everyone else is squeezing out their children and we're just decorating that first house together, I've got a lot of people on my dick about when we're gonna have kids. My new stock response is going to be that we can barely keep this 4 lb. fucking dog alive, do you really think we should be trusted with an infant?

Thankfully, she's been on the mend today, and by late afternoon was up and making the little keening noise in her throat that signals an interest in food. We started her back on a small scoop of food and I continued to dole out another small serving every few hours or so until this evening, so whatever she'd gotten into has passed. I did buy her a new chew toy this afternoon while I was out running around with Macguffin, because I thought it might cheer her up, and it seemed to do the trick, she happily squeaked away on it for a good 30 minutes before crashing out after her meal.

As I said, Mac had a few errands to run, so he and I did that while the wife worked on some things for her meeting this evening. He and I hit up a few stores and had a burger for lunch, then headed back to the house. Mac split to drop some stuff at his mother's house and I got fished into a project that the wife was playing with, making a CD to accompany the Powerpoint thing she'd created to show this evening. Her initial idea was to use three songs on a CD, repeating them three times for background noise while other stuff happened before the meeting proper. Once we had the burned disc in her hands I decided to tell her what an awful stinky asshole of an idea this was, as the same three songs on a loop sounds like my own kind of personal hell.

I spent a good hour digging through her iTunes to put together 30 minutes of music that felt appropriate and didn't have something offensive in there, and went well for the theme of her meeting. I was rather pleased with myself by the time it was finished, as the recording clocked in at 24 seconds over the 30 minute mark, and all selections were approved by the wife.

I sent her off to her meeting and was in the process of making a CD for myself of some recently purchased music when I got the Twitter call that Outside The Cinema was doing a live show, basically showing a bizarre film called Alabama's Ghost. The film was every bit as puzzling and nonsensical as promised, but the feed died when the hosts lost power, so we bullshitted in the chat for a bit, then the wife got home and I hopped offline to catch up and see how her evening went. We watched a recently purchased cheap copy of Little Shop Of Horrors, because I was curious to hear the Mike Nelson commentary, which was amusing, though since it was the first I've heard with him solo, I 'd be curious how funny those are with him snarking by himself.

I filed away some stuff in the Media Closet and got a few movies lined out for viewing using the random movie option of the Movie Catalog app on the phone, then we called it a night.

I listened to a few Cool Shite live recordings while I worked on this, which was a fun diversion that's been absent as a couple of the hosts have been off doing other things. I never made an y coffee this morning, so I think I may skip my nightly Lost feeding today and just head straight to bed, Yorkie health permitting.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Vomiting, Yorkie, Errands, Lunch, Music, CD Burning, iTunes, Podcasts, Outside The Cinema, Movies, Alabamas Ghost, Little Shop Of Horrors, Mike Nelson, Applications, Movie Catalog, Cool Shite On The Tube, Television, Lost