Stupid Kentucky Fried Crazy Talking Kevin

The wife, Yorkie and I all slept in today, which was a nice change of pace. The pup seemed to have a little more life in her after yesterday's ordeal, so that's got to be a good sign, and she's still eating normally, except that she's avoiding her hard kibble, which is to be expected. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if that is now eliminated from her diet altogether, since we don't even know how many teeth she has left to chew with at this point.

We kinda bummed around the house for a bit, then the wife stepped out to run to the grocery store and a couple other little stops that she had in mind, so I got the house opened up for the day and retrieved the mail and newspaper, then weighed my options for the afternoon. We were to have Buckaroo Banzai and Pookie over for dinner, with them arriving around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon, so I grabbed a shower and dressed for the day. Since I had missed the postman I decided to get out and run the Netfux movie by the post office and picked up a late lunch for myself, as I knew that we were going to be eating a fairly light meal, and not for about 4 hours or so. The burger joint I chose naturally had an assholishly slow moving line at their drive-thru, which meant that by the time I actually got any food in my fucking face it was about 20 minutes away from our guests arriving. Oh well.

The wife arrived and we put away groceries, then our guests turned up a short while later and we visited around the kitchen counter for awhile as the wife served up some of the fruit that we picked up as part of our little basket deal last night. We eventually relocated to the den and caught up a bit more while flipping channels on the television, then the wife eventually got started on dinner, which was to be the cedar planked salmon, rice and a little salad. I popped in the Arrow DVD of Kentucky Fried Movie, as I figured it would pass the time until we got a little more serious and watched something of more substance in the evening.

Kentucky Fried Movie is one of those fun comedy films that seems to hover out there in the ether until you're actually watching it, then the gags come back to you as you watch, as both Bucky and I kept clicking on certain bits just before a punchline was said. The flick was a lot of fun, tho I think the longest skit (A Fistful Of Yen) started to lose the ladies a bit while we ate.

Dinner was great and we all thoroughly enjoyed it while finishing up the movie, then I popped in a little something off the To-Watch Pile that I was kinda banking on being something everyone could get into, rather than the corny horror nonsense Bucky and I tend to expose the wives to. We Need To Talk About Kevin stars Tilda Swinton as a broken woman whose story is told in a disjointed narrative, flipping between at least three different time frames, from her time with her son as an infant into toddler age, then later as a teen and finally in the present, after some tragedy has separated her from her community and her absent family. The fractured storytelling may not appeal to everyone, but the payoff is definitely worth it, as the general arc of the film examines the possibility that a child can be born bad, or does a mother's lack of connection to a child shape the future he might have? It was a really well made film, but ultimately a bit heavy, so I was pleased to have a third film on tap to lighten the mood in the late evening.

We paused around this point to make some coffee, then we watched Crazy, Stupid, Love., which is a rom-com the wife and I had watched several months back and really enjoyed. I'd picked it up cheap on Blu-ray awhile back, and was happy to introduce the guests to it. The movie is sweet and funny on the re-watch, and I'm thoroughly happy to have given it a shot. Really well-written and directed, by three men if I'm not mistaken, which might account for the more universal appeal of things instead of it falling into the typical trappings of the genre.

We called it a night somewhere in the neighborhood of midnight, then I put the wife and Yorkie to bed and spent several hours dicking around on the web and not sleeping, because the coffee may've gotten the better of me. Oh well, it's not like I have anything to add to life, so I can sleep in tomorrow if need be.

Be seeing you.

Let's Robot Jessica To Chicken

Today the poor little Yorkie had to go to the vet for a teeth cleaning, which we pretty much knew would involve having some of them extracted, because the breed tends to have poor teeth anyway,so a lot of people have been surprised that a dog of her age has any. Already anticipating how bad the poor dog would feel when she got home, I woke in a weird mood, as she's such a tiny little helpless thing, so I'm always antsy of anything she has to go through, what with her being our surrogate child and all. The wife was out running her various other errands after dropping the pup at the vet, so I got the house opened up for the day and made the bed, then spent soem time with laundry before finally settling into the Office to get the blogging caught up a bit more. I'd resolved to get at least three posts ready to publish, polished up and ready to go so that it'd be easier to do the double shots I've been posting recently and get things up to date for good if at all possible.

The wife returned shortly before noon, as she had the afternoon 'off' between commitments, so we caught up while I gathered our recycling and loaded up the car, then I stepped out to drop that off and run by the bank before coming home and having some lunch. I left her piddling around on the web and ran my errands fairly quickly, since it was around lunch time and everyone seemed to be in a hurry rather than drag-assing around like they usually are.

Since the wife was chilling with some trash TV in the bedroom I heated up some pizza leftovers and settled in the den to watch the 2nd disc of Robot Chicken season 5, which pretty much ate up my afternoon entirely, in fact I finished looking through the extras while the wife was out of the house fetching the dog back from the vet.

I spent some time in the Office fighting with the Deep Discount website, as they are in the final days of a sale that I was finally able to dredge up a few items that interested me. When I go to pay these assholes for the items, their lousy system bogs down to the point that I'm forced to go through the check out process about 4 times, still with no success. I spent some time on Twitter denigrating the site in hopes that it might stir whatever monkey handling their Twitter account to maybe look into their tech support and sort things out, but to no response or interest from their side. Oh well. I finally had to stop dealing with it because I was agitated enough to smash the monitor in a fit of irritation, so I finally logged off when the wife and pup returned.

The Yorkie seemed to be a little tender, as her mannerisms were kind of hesitant, and when she lay down she made some odd keening noises in the back of her throat, as if she had trouble getting comfortable, which almost made me cry a little. To our relief, she was able to eat some of her wet food with no issue, so that was kind of a load off, as her mouth obviously wasn't that sore if she was able to still get food down.

We got her fed and settled into her little bed, then we had to step out to go to the Uncle's birthday party that was happening at the little barbecue joint that seems to be host to numerous family parties, it's something of a tradition at this point. We made our way out there and spent about an hour or thereabouts, pressing the flesh and visiting with this or that rarely seen relative, then made our way through the buffet line with the Older Sister and her family, who we also sat with and visited for a bit. The OS and her family were leaving form the party to head to their lakehouse, so we all made our way outside shortly after 7:00 and said our goodbyes, then the wife and I headed over to a park near the house to participate in some sort of vegetable/fruit sale that she'd been hooked up with via a friend.

The system is that you buy a 'basket' of fresh fruits and vegetables online, then meet at a random park to pick it up by presenting your little e-mailed reciept. You get an assortment of whatever they happen to have, so we ended up with grapes, cherries, mangoes, onions, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, celery, and a few other odds and ends that escape me. What the fuck we're going to do with four large onions I have no idea, but at least we've participated in a local business, right?

We headed home and changed into our comfies, then watched the latest arrival from Netfux. The Yorkie ate another helping of food and then joined us for Let's Scare Jessica To Death, in which a young woman, recently released from an asylum travels to a small farm that she's bought with her husband. They're accompanied by a male friend and when they arrive discover a mysterious woman who's been squatting in the house. This being the '70s, they decide to invite this gal to stay in the spirit of a hippy love-fest and they all settle into a casual vibe in the large house. Soon Jessica begins hearing voices and seeing things and the entire area has an unsettling, creepy vibe from the word go, which only gets worse the longer they're living in the house. The townspeople all seem to be sporting odd bandages and have no interest in being anything but slightly aggressive and unsettling. The movie has several moments that I had to poke fun at, because they are indeed silly characters, but the overall vibe is one of unease and there's a creepy feeling that pervades the entire film. I really enjoyed it and will definitely come back to it in the future.

We watched tonight's episode of The Ricky Gervais Show, then called it a night shortly after 10:00, as the wife and dog were both wiped out. I got started on this post, then finally forced am order though on that Goddamned Deep Discount site, even taking screen shots should their shitty system somehow lose the information, I want to by God be able to have them make it right. I finally called it a night around 2:00 in the AM and headed to bed to read for a bit after discussing the upcoming San Diego trip for a bit with SL on Twitter.

Be seeing you.

The Legend Of Yawny Creek

The wife being out of town had the Yorkie out of sorts and on her usual hunger strike yesterday, so I was sort of flattered when she bothered to join me in the bed rather than wait on the couch near the back door last night. I got the blog finished around 2:00 or so and headed to bed to watch a movie on the iPad that I'd discovered was available on YouTube, because (you guessed it) a podcast was doing a review of it and I wanted to finally check out before giving that a listen.

The Legend Of Boggy Creek is one of those faux-documentaries that seemed to flourish in the '70s, in the days before the internet when you could throw some hillbillies into things and have a narrator go on about events that really super for real actually happened and people would take it fairly seriously. The box art is something that;s always been familiar to me from even back to the VHS days, but somehow the film had eluded me and I was pleasantly surprised to do a search of the web hoping for a bootleg site possibly selling it and instead turn up a streaming link on YouTube. I really enjoyed the movie for a variety of reasons, mostly for the creepy small town feeling that it captures and I was thoroughly entertained by the Gawdawful folk music interludes that pop up here and there throughout the movie, really grating/amusing stuff. Hell, there's a theme for the creature as well as one of the people who supposedly saw and took a shot at it. So deliciously corny.

I went to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, setting the alarm for 9:00 AM, as the wife was supposed to be home shortly after that since she was catching the red-eye back from Dallas. I woke an hour later with sinus drainage giving me fits, which kept me up and down numerous times over the five hours I was trying to actually be asleep, which seems to be typical of my luck lately. As a result, I shut off the alarm when it sounded and went the fuck back to sleep, kind of counting on the wife's entrance the the Yorkie's inevitable reaction to wake me.

The wife returned and did indeed wake me, for a few minutes at least, long enough to kiss her good morning and say hello, then she hopped in the shower because she had a meeting to be at and I fell back asleep for what turned out to be most of the damned day. I mean, I surfaced here and there, but not long enough to really register how late it was, just diving back into the pillows. The wife eventually joined me for a nap somewhere in the mid-afternoon, then I finally staggered out of the bedroom around 4:00 in the afternoon after the Lawn Guys had been doing their thing for the 2nd time this week and woke me with the leaf blowers and the Yorkie bitching at them.

The mail had already arrived, so I brought that and the newspaper inside and then dressed to go and drop the Netfux movie from last night back in the mail and maybe pick up something to function as my late lunch/early dinner. Happily, the wife was also getting up from her nap as I was leaving, so I was able to touch base with her and let her know I was going to bring home some dinner, as she was about to leave again to run an errand before a meeting.

I hit the post office and then picked up a little pizza deal that Pizza Hut was offering in the way home, which included a medium pie as well as bread sticks and a dessert item for around $12, which seemed like a decent enough deal to feed two people. When I returned the Yorkie showed me the oblogatory excitement, then retired to the bedroom to go back to sleep.

With dinner taken care of, I made myself a plate and spent my evening in the den watching the first disc of Robot Chicken season 5, which I had picked up earlier in the week. The wife returned eventually and we caught up on the past few days while she snacked on her pizza and other trimmings, then I finished we watched last night's episode of Dallas off the TiVo.

I was dismayed to see that the season premiere of Louie wasn't airing for another hour, so the wife spent some time working on something in the Office while I watched the rest of the special features on the Robot Chicken disc to pass the time, then we watched Louie and called it a night.

The Yorkie is having her teeth cleaned tomorrow, so we had to be very careful to get her fed sufficiently in the late evening, but then put away both her food and water, as they don't want her to have anything past midnight for whatever reason. I'm pretty sure they put the dog under for the process, so I guess it may have something to do with that. At any rate, I'm glad she finally did a bit of gorging in the late evening, as tomorrow might be a rough day for her.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Burning Ghoul

The wife had committed to visiting the Middle Sister in Dallas, where she and her family are staying for the duration of the Summer, so when I woke with the alarm she was already dressed and ready to walk out the door to be at the airport. I had offered to drive her, but since she's arriving even earlier tomorrow morning she elected to just drive and leave the car overnight, as it seemed simpler with her being gone less than 24 hours.

She left for the day and I got the house opened up and left the bed for the Maid to deal with, since I expected her this morning. I spent a couple hours on the PC in the Office working on the blog, then the Maid finally turned up and I got dressed and stepped out to run a couple errands.

I hit the bank, the post office and then picked up some lunch, which took a bit longer than anticipated due to it being right smack in the middle of the lunch hour. I headed back home to see what the Maid had been up to, since the Yorkie was supposed to be keeping tabs on her for me.

The normal Maid routine usually involves the dog and I being holed up in the Office for at least a few hours, so she and I settled in there and I watched several episode of The X-Files over the course of my meal and the following hour+ that followed. When she finally made herself scarce and split I spent another hour or so wrapping up my interweb travels then moved into the den to see what Netfux had to offer me in today's mail.

Burning Bright is a really silly movie about a girl and her autistic brother who find themselves boarded up inside a house during a hurricane, then her idiot stepfather decides the best way to rid himself of those shitty step-kids is to release a ravenous tiger into the house. Even on paper this sounds like a fucking weird-ass idea, but it somehow got made into a film and it stars a cute chick so I was able to make it through it, but good God, what a middling film. Seriously, Briana Evigan is cute as hell, reminding me of Rashida Jones a bit, if she had a decent haircut, but aside from her scampering around in a tight white wifebeater and boyshorts for most of the film, there's not a lot going on here.

After the film I made myself some pasta for dinner and then flipped around to see what was on the TiVo and finally settled on Ghoul, which was a movie that I'd recorded off Chiller because it was based on the Brian Keene novel of the same name that I had liked in the past. The movie is about three kids who have a little underground clubhouse in the cemetery where one of their father's works, but soon the discover that someone or something is killing people in the nearby vicinity and they have to try to stay alive and avoid the usual pitfalls of adults trying to fuck up their fun. The issues I had with the movie is that the book had the free license to name check legitimate comics and magazines that the kids were reading, shows they watched, etc., but the film version had to have those awful generic comics that you see in movies that always have those cardstock covers (that DON'T exist, really) and art drawn by someone's high school aged nephew, which never fails to take me out of the film. The acting was stunningly average and the ending is even changed slightly for reasons unknown, so all in all it was something of a blah way to end the evening.

I made my way into the Office to work on the blog for today, spoke to the wife on the phone about her day, then tried to wrap this up post so that I can get to bed and try to talk the Yorkie down enough to go to bed with me, as the wife's absence is really messing with her.

Be seeing you.

Satanico Shelter

The alarm woke me this morning to the sounds of the wife returning from running a few early morning errands, including dropping the Yorkie off at the Groomer. The wife made a couple phone calls and I got the house opened up for the day, then she grabbed a shower and did her hair while I made the bed and fired up the PC to see what was happening in the world.

The wife eventually joined me in the Office and worked on her own stuff on the Mac, then the Groomer surprised us and called saying that the dog was ready to go, a full half hour before noon. Since the wife had a busy day I offered to fetch the pup while I was out to grab a bite to eat and she split to run another errand before a 12:30 meeting. I got another blog post published and took a few things out of the laundry, then dressed and headed out to rescue the dog from the Groomer's clutches, where she sat shivering in her little pink carrier. We hit a drive-thru on the way home, then I released the beast to give her the run of the house and allow her to dig into her own lunch in the hall while I settled into the den to eat.

I watched this past Sunday's episode of Ultimate Spider-Man while I ate, then the wife turned up again in between meetings, sequestering herself in the Office again to deal with some e-mails.

In anticipation of a podcast reviewing it later this week, I grabbed Satanico Pandemonium off the To-Watch Pile to pass the time. If the title sounds familiar, it was the name of the character played by Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn, which was my only real info about it besides the fact that it's a Nunsploitation flick. The film has a fairly slow pace and is about a young nun who starts seeing a certain man lurking about, sometimes nude, eating an apple, and when she feels his effects she begins to act out, trying to seduce the local shepherd boy, who shuns her like any average horny 14 yr. old boy would, right? Her behavior becomes increasingly sexual and violent, and it all has a strangely surreal quality as she tries desperately to fight off the Satanic influence. This one was a lot of fun and I would've really have loved to watch it in its entirety in one setting, but the Goddamned power went out with about five minutes left in the film.

The wife had noticed a local news blurb that mentioned that the electrical resources have been stretched mighty thin with the rising temperatures, so there was a potential for rolling blackouts to try to accommodate everyone. Well, when the power went out and stayed that way we kinda mulled options, as we're never sure if it's just us or not, so the wife texted the Older Sister and a friend who lives a few blocks away, and since they both had power she gave me the contact info and I gave the power company a call. The wife left for a final meeting and I was left to wait patiently for the power to be restored.

The Yorkie and I settled into the sitting area off the kitchen where the light was best, as I figured I could pass the time while reading a bit. I did happen to look at Facebook and was forced to resist the urge to rip into a total stranger who is friends with the wife, because she had asked (when we were still wondering if this was a blackout or just our issue) if any locals were currently without power. It took all of about a fucking minute for some 'card' to comment that if anyone was without power it'd make it difficult to reply har de har har, unless they were on their cellphone, which made me wanna say "Hey random guy I don't know, thanks for being absolutely no help at all and answering your own fucking question in the space of one sentence." just because I wasn't in the mood to suffer fools. Douche.

At any rate, about an hour later the Yorkie and I see a couple large trucks pass the house, then they turned up again out back, where they spent about an hour all told trimming the shit out of the neighbor's trees that live directly behind us, which makes me wonder if they had a limb drop onto a power line or if they were just doing something preventative. Our power was restored about a solid two hours after it went out, which isn't all that bad considering. The temperature in the house was up to around the high '70s by this point, which isn't bad but isn't as chilly as the wife and I prefer, so I was relieved.

The wife got home shortly after the power came back on and spent some more time in the Office dealing with e-mail and getting a boarding pass printed for a short trip she's taking to Dallas tomorrow. While she did that I was able to finish the final five minutes (!) of Satanico Pandemonium, so that was cool, then I played with the Yorkie, who seemed to come alive again when the wife got home.

The wife eventually joined me in the den and we popped in the Blu-ray of Take Shelter, which had arrived courtesy of Netfux yesterday afternoon. The movie stars Michael Shannon as a man who begins to experience nightmares and foreboding visions that indicate a natural disaster of some kind if threatening the small town in which he lives. He becomes obsessed with fortifying the storm shelter out back of his house, to the neglect of his job and the very family he's trying to protect. His family has a history of mental issues, which leads his loved ones to question his actions even as he himself struggles to decide if what he's seeing is even real or something he's begun to make up. The performances are strong, especially from Shannon and the film's only misstep is the last five minutes, in which it seems to want to get a little too vague for its own good, but I wouldn't say that ruined the film for us or anything.

We wrapped the evening with last Friday's Ricky Gervais Show and an American Dad re-run that was on Adult Swim, then I put the wife to bed and got started on this post, as I need to be in bed soon myself, what with the Maid being underfoot tomorrow.

Be seeing you.

South Akira Matrix

Today I woke with the alarm in time to see the wife off to her one and only meeting, then I got the house opened up, made the bed and started a load of laundry while I got a couple things ready to mail off. I had sold another Amazon item, and had a Swap A DVD trade that needed to be on its way, so I got all that together and some Reward Zone certificates that I wanted to use at Best Buy while I was out, then I dressed and left the Yorkie in charge of the house while I went to run my errands.

While waiting in the never moving line at the Post Office I listened to the local pundits bitch about Obama and pine for the good old days of George Bush, which had me wondering why the president had come up. Was he the asshole here picking up the package he'd missed at home and holding up this long fucking line? Because I'm pretty sure that's actually one of you jerk-offs, and that's bugging me more that anything Obama has done to me today...

Anyway...

I ran into the wife of a friend from way back in the comic store days, so she and I visited briefly, then I headed out to hit the first of three pawn shops planned for my outing, where I found nothing. The second one was the same story, and then the third turned up a copy of Bride Of Re-Animator for $2 on DVD, so that's kinda cool, as well as a copy of Monster Squad that was so cheap I figured I could throw it on Amazon for $5 and still make a couple bucks on it. I poked my head into the local books, music and video outlet for a cursory look, then wandered through Barnes & Noble as well. I don't think Barnes & Noble is really 'my' bookstore anymore, as they've releagted the film magazines I love to one of the 'ghettos' on their second row of shelving, up under the top layer of things, making them all but impossible to shop without shredding the cover off the magazines while trying to find what's crammed up there, and they haven't had a bargain book I wanted in ages. Couple this with their piss-poor discounting on new material and I guess I just do my book shopping on Amazon now and pick up the magazines at the books, music and video outlet. Oh well, we had a good run.

Best Buy was the same disjointed shopping experience it usually is, in that I didn't really see anything in the normal shelving that grabbed me, but instead turned up a few things in their odd cylindrical dumps that are around every fucking corner of the store, inviting the consumer to shovel through it at their leisure. I just so happened to find a few things on top of the piles and picked them up to pad out my purchase to use the Reward Zone certificates.

When I got out of the store I tried to get the wife on the phone to inquire about her lunch, just to make sure she didn't need me to bring her anything, but since she didn't answer I just called in an order for some Thai and picked it up on my way back to the house.

The Yorkie greeted me warmly, but the wife was catching a nap since she'd slept poorly last night. I settled into the den to eat and popped in one of today's random purchases just for the hell of it. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is something I've seen a few times before, both theatrically and on cable, but for whatever reason I had never owned the silly thing. Since the Blu-ray was in the $6 range I figured why not give it another look? It actually holds up pretty well, as their ridiculously juvenile swearing is made a focal point of the film and leads to some hilarious musical numbers. The wife joined me toward the final reel of the movie and we caught up on her day and my various errands, then she spent some time paying some bills and boxing up a few things of her own that she has to mail.

In the late afternoon we both spent time in the Office, me working on the blog while she caught up on e-mail and a few other projects. I eventually excused myself to chill in the library and do my afternoon reading, finishing another magazine off the nightstand full of stuff to read, so that's cool I suppose. The wife actually did some yoga in the bedroom while I was in the Library, so good for her, too.

We eventually reconvened in the den where I popped in my Movie Shame Monday selection of the Akira Blu-ray, a classic anime film that I'm pretty sure I've only seen once with friends back in the VHS days. I was surprised to notice that the Blu-ray is not out of print, selling for around $80 used, and this is a disc with little to offer beyond a few trailers as bonus material on the disc. I can't imagine what a more loaded version would be going for. The movie looks great, I have to admit. I had forgotten most of the storyline beyond Tokyo being destroyed by powerful beings, which is pretty much all that happens, so I guess on some level I had forgotten very little. Good stuff, I'm happy to have given it another look after..what, at least ten years, possibly longer? That's crazy to think about. I tried to give the wife some details as the film went along, as I figured she could give a fuck less about it, so the least I could do was to try and put the film into its historical perspective and how it blew the doors off as far as Japanese animation making it to the States.

The movie had me thinking about the threatened live action U.S. re-make, which had Keanu Reeves vaguely attached at some point from what the webs have told me, so I found myself thinking about The Matrix as the film ended. The wife had an early morning planned, so she tapped out for this one, heading to bed early while I gave The Matrix another look out of the Blu-ray set. The first film still holds up well, though I have to admit that I don't have the same casual hatred for the sequels that most people seem to suffer from. Who knows, maybe I'll give the other films a re-watch as well later in the week.

I called it a night around 11:30 and got started on this post, distracted here and there by random web surfing and general fucking around on Facebook.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Linda Snake

Happily, I slept a whopping 9 hours last night, though going to sleep as late as I did had me in bed until after noon today. This worked out well, as there wasn't anything going on anyway. The Yorkie showed me some love when I finally stirred, then I got up and left she and the wife still snoozing in bed while I picked up the kitchen a bit and noted that there was evidence of the wife having been awake earlier, so I guess she'd headed back to bed to catch a few more winks since nothing was happening around the house. I was actually settling into the den to watch a movie when the wife poked her head out a short while later to see what I was doing.

We visited for a bit and I flipped around the TiVo a bit to make sure nothing was going to delete itself, then I offered to pick up a late lunch for us. The wife called in an order and I threw on some shorts, then headed across town to grab our food. I actually enjoy a Sunday drive, as the town is actually fairly empty and it's easy to get around, an admission that makes me sound like the oldest fuck, ever, but it's the truth. When I got back with the food we settled into the den and I popped in a movie from Netfux so that it can go back in the mail tomorrow.

Linda Linda Linda is a Japanese film that I know was mentioned or suggested by a podcast, though I can't for the life of me remember which one. The basic story is really simple: a group of school girls need to find a vocalist for their band in time for the little festival that the school is throwing. The girl they choose seems game for the project, but she's Korean and has trouble understanding what they're talking about most of the time, let alone learning the nuances of lyrics. The rest of the movie is made up of charming character moments as they try to get their act together in time. There's a few bits that might've been shorter if I had my 'druthers', but overall it's just a lot of fun and worth a rental if you dig foreign cinema.

The Older Sister and the wife had a weird texting session somewhere in here about how the Niece is telling her that she (the wife) doesn't approve of how her parents keep tabs on her, which had the wife kind of upset. The wife finally seemed to settle things by telling her that she's never point blank said anything about how she parents her daughter, just that it's always surprising when we hear something, since the kid isn't some kind of sneaky drug addict, adding that she usually tells the niece that whatever her parents are doing, it's because they care, not trying to ruin her life. This seemed to pacify the OS, as she left it alone after that. The wife later added that the case could be made that the Niece is playing the two sisters against one another slightly, just because that's what kids tend to do, to which the OS agreed.

I'm super glad we're not having kids, because this is all too much of a pain in the ass, quite frankly.

The wife had a 'thing' at the museum this evening, so she spent some time getting ready fro that, so I hopped online and looked at Facebook and other time-sink bullshit for awhile, then decided to pop in another Asian film for a re-watch, since I appear to be on this impromptu marathon of some sort and it's supposed to be covered by a podcast next week.

I hadn't re-watched Tsui Hark's Green Snake in quite some time, but I know it's one of the first things I ever bought on eBay, as they were one of the first places I ever discovered import DVD's. The story is about two snake spirits who strive to become human, which leads to a couple different monks trying to turn them back into snakes and one hapless guy falling for and marrying one of them. There's some amusingly dated special effects that I'm sure looked pretty cheap for the time, but it's shot in such a way by a creative director that it is all forgivable and just adds to the atmosphere.

The wife was out for about an hour or so, returning to find me in the middle of an episode of American Dad. The Fox animation stuff was preempted this evening with some Fox anniversary special re-run, so we watched the two that aired, then flipped over to the recording of True Blood to round out the evening.

The wife headed to bed a little early and I spent some time filing away a few movies and books on the Guest Side of the house before getting started on this post.

Be seeing you.

Burke Killer Police Zone

So after a long night of sipping cocktails and watching movies I went to sleep in the early hours of the morning for about 4 hours, then woke with a start at 9:00 AM, because God forbid I actually sleep the 5 hours I intended. The wife had another strategic planning meeting that was to last most of the day, so she was long gone when I got up and about, trying to shake off my drowsiness. I got the house opened up for the day and made the bed before grabbing a shower and getting dressed for the day.

The Yorkie gave me that betrayed look as if I was shafting her in the same manner that the wife did a few hours earlier but I kinda ducked her cold glare and headed out to poke around at the Library Thrift Store that's only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I found absolutely nothing, and since I was in the neighborhood and it was a little after 11:00 I decided to pick up an early lunch at the Thai place.

The Yorkie greeted me happily, all was forgiven and I settled into the den to eat my lunch under her watchful gaze. I ended up watching the first thing I ran across on the TiVo, which was the recent John Landis film Burke And Hare, about two grave-robbers supplying a medical school with cadavers in Scotland, the origins of the tale being based on fact. The film had gotten mixed reviews from what I could recall, but I was fairly pleased with how quick and breezy the storytelling was, moving along at a decent little clip with a few amusing gags here and there. It was fun, mostly due to Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis as the two leads, as they had a nice rapport.

After the movie I spent some time in the Office working on the blog and getting a post written up for yesterday, then the wife got home and we caught up on her day, which had included a lengthy text exchange with the Older Sister regarding the Niece, who has evidently been clashing constantly (as most teens are wont to do) with her parents recently. The wife had offered to let her spend the night with us tonight, if that would be something to allow the Niece to go to a neutral corner so to speak, and decompress a bit, let the OS have the night off from things, etc. Well, the OS wasn't keen on this idea, as she felt that it was letting the Niece 'run away from her problems', so it was sounding like that whole idea was pretty well nixed, which I wasn't surprised by. They seem to kinda sit on the girl more than I would figure that they need to, as she's been raised well and isn't some wallflower/follower type, so I don't think she's just going to wake up one day and go apeshit, but the In-Laws still keep her on the short lease I'd expect for the kid you've caught smoking pot while screwing in the parents bed or something. I guess for me I wouldn't be quite so controlling until it felt like you have to be, but I'm just some schmuck who's not going to have kids because what's the point, so what do I know? The only thing that actually annoyed me about the situation was that the OS made some comment about being afraid that the wife didn't have the 'emotional maturity' to give good advice to her teenage daughter, which I resent on a lot of levels. I mean, we're both in our late '30s at this point, so what magical age does the OS think we get our wisdom chip installed? I know she's worried about her kid and all, but it just seemed like an amazingly condescending thing to say to another adult unless one of those involved has a learning disability or something of that nature.

Anyway...

The wife and the Yorkie relaxed in the bedroom and since I figured we weren't really expecting anyone today, I popped in something off the To-Watch Pile: Anita Ekberg in Killer Nun, in which she plays a nun who takes a cruel turn and starts to lose her mind after a surgery to remove a brain tumor, leading to drug use, an affair with a younger nun (played by the super cute and NSFW Paola Morra) and most importantly, the bodies begin to pile up because she's just that unbalanced. And I guess the title promises it, so there ya go. The movie was pretty decent, though I might've expected it to be a little sleazier, considering this is my first foray into the world of nunsploitation.

My next selection off the To-Watch Pile was Johnny To's PTU: Police Tactical Unit, in which a group of officers must spend a desperate night trying to recover a gun that's lost by a hapless policeman. Simon Yam leads the team, giving a strong stoic performance and I was kind of surprised by how set-bound the film feels, as the late night streets are amazingly well-lit and empty, giving a very controlled and unique look to things.

The wife, OS and the Niece had come to something of a compromise about the evening, as the OS was cool with she and her boyfriend stopping by for a visit so that we could meet the new guy, who we're hearing good things about. The wife stepped out to pick up our dinner and I threw on another Simon Yam film on a complete wild hair.

Kill Zone is a great action flick starring Yam, Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung, with Yam and Yen squaring off as cops under the gun to bring crime boss Sammo to justice even as time and nature itself conspire against them. The fight sequences in this are amazing, and we were about 20 minutes into it when the Niece turned up. We visited with her for awhile, then were joined by her boyfriend, who seems like a pretty nice kid. The wife grilled the poor bastard in much the same way she does when meeting anyone new, but he took it all in good-natured stride, so that's cool.

The kids eventually said their goodbyes and split in advance of the Niece's curfew, as I figured they might want to spend at least a few minutes alone without some middle-aged couple quizzing them about every Goddamned element of their lives. It was a fun visit.

The wife headed to bed shortly after they left and I finished out the movie, then the wife and I compared notes on the day before I got started on this post.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Strip Nude For Your Forced Entry

The wife had meetings scheduled out for most of the day, so I woke briefly while she was showering, then went back to sleep for a bit longer after looking at Twitter for a few minutes. I finally rose with the alarm around 9:30, having allowed for an extra half hour or so of sleep when I set the alarm last night. I was up later than I intended reading the first volume of Grant Morrison's run on Batman, which is titled Batman And Son. It's been pretty interesting so far, though I sort of feel like I may be missing a few nuances here and there by not being more familiar with recent events in the Batman world, or the DC Universe in general, but it's still really well-written.

I got the house opened for the day and piddled around for a few on the web, then got out to drop the Netfux movie in the mail and grab a burger for my lunch.

Back at the house I popped on the first disc of season two of The Ricky Gervais Show to pass the time while I ate. This turned into a marathon of the entire disc, which ate up a good portion of the afternoon.

The wife returned in the late afternoon and we caught up a bit before she caught a nap while I finished the show and then spent some time in the Library reading in the very late afternoon. I eventually stepped out and grabbed some Maker's Mark for the weekend, as I knew I'd be spending the evening watching a couple movies while the wife was out and about.

Our friends Anastasia Beaverhouszen and Kno1 had bought a table at a little theater production that happens annually downtown, and we'd been invited, though I had to beg off, as the tradition is that everyone buys and throws popcorn, which I find to be tedious and irritating. Knowing myself, I just flat ass said 'no', I don't wanna go, but the wife was cool to go to dinner at their place and then attend the theater thing with their group of out of town friends, so no harm, no foul, I suppose. I just know me and I know I wouldn't have any kind of a good time with shit flying around and getting in my hair, etc.

The wife dressed and left for dinner around 6:00 while I was chilling with a film called Forced Entry, which stars Tanya Roberts as a housewife menaced by a garage mechanic who spends the movie raping and murdering random women he happens across, including Nancy Allen playing an unfortunate hitchhiker. The movie was made in 1975 and is essentially a re-make of a porn film from a couple years earlier, a 'roughie' that told the same storyline, but with actual penetrative sex when you see a rape, which I have to admit I'm sort of curious about just because how fucking uncomfortable is that to watch? I mean, rape in a film is unpleasant enough, but what the hell would a grimy '70s era film add to that mix with full on penetration? I may have to track this one down eventually, just to satisfy my morbid curiosity.

I made myself some pasta for dinner as well as another cocktail, then popped in the second half of my sleazy double feature: a re-watch of Strip Nude For Your Killer off the To-Watch Pile. Ther film is about a series of murders connected to a modeling agancy and stars the always stunning Edwige Fenech and a bevy of other Euro-babes as the majority of the cast. Fenech is saddled with a real douchebag for a suitor, and honestly he makes the movie kinda feel a bit clunky, as he's this swaggering asshole chauvinist type and she just good naturedly puts up with it to the point of it being maddening.

I moved on to the second disc of The Ricky Gervais Show afterward, pausing when the wife got home to see how her night went and then put her to bed. I felt bad for keeping her at something of an arms' distance, but she reeked of fucking popcorn and it was rather off-putting.

I finished out the entire season of the Gervais show, then noticed that Halloween II was starting on cable, so I stayed up rather late with a final cocktail and gave it a re-watch, just for the hell of it.

I read for a bit on the john before calling it a night after I finished the Batman book, as it proved to be a quick read. I set the alarm for 10:00 AM so that I could try to squeeze in 5 hours of sleep and still go check out the Library Book Store before it closes at noon.

Be seeing you.

Uncle Fright

Today the wife went about her normal business and I slept in after turning the alarm off and pretty much pissed the day away. Seriously, I woke today after 1:00 in the afternoon, which makes me feel like the total waste of space that I am. I looked at e-mail and returned a text to the wife from 2 hours earlier, then started getting the house opened for the day. We spent some time catching up on her day so far, which included morning yoga, lunch with Brian and a visit to the Uncle in the hospital, who seems to be in great spirits, all things considered.

I left the wife chilling with the Yorkie and got out to finally drop off the recycling and grab myself a sandwich for a late lunch. When I got back to the house I settled into the den and popped in Uncle Sam off the To-Watch Pile as a random choice to pass the time. The movie wasn't bad: a story of a soldier killed by friendly fire in Kuwait who inexplicably returns from the dead on July 4th weekend to wreak havoc on the various unpatriotic people in his home town, all while dressed as Uncle Sam in a stolen from the local parade. The movie kinda surprised me, as I thought (for some reason) that it was from the '80s, but it was actually made after the first Gulf War, and I wasn't exactly sure what message the film was meant to be giving us. On one hand, old Uncle Sam is a violent asshole even before he's killed and starts killing people, but by the same token the people he kills are all mostly self-serving assholes, so it's hard to decide who we're meant to root for, y'know? The message I came away with is that America mostly sucks, but might be worth fighting for. Sorta.

Since the wife and Yorkie were napping, I spent a few setting the computer up to run the various scans and updates in the afternoon, then spent about an hour in the Library reading a copy of Fangoria from last year, as is my custom.

The wife was planning on making some cedar smoked salmon for our dinner, so she was starting on the minor prep for that as I made myself a cocktail and spent about an hour in the Office paying a few bills and getting a blog post published since the computer was finally done with all of its security stuff.

The wife made an excellent piece of fish, which was served over a bed of rice, then we settled into the den and watched Fright Night (2011) via Netfux rental that'd arrived in yesterday's mail. The re-make of the '80s film is surprisingly watchable, considering most of the original film's appeal (to me anyway) is the nostalgia and corny time capsule vibe of it all. Colin Farrell is decent enough as the new vampire neighbor, and the kids are all convincing in their roles, though we see much less of Evil Ed than I was expecting, which kind of disappointed me. Oh well, it's a pretty decent rental, give it a go if you are into that kinda thing.

We wrapped the night with last night's episode of The Soup, then the wife headed to bed because she has an early morning engagement that may or may not keep her tied up for the entire day. I made myself a final cocktail and then marathoned the final three episodes of Nikita's last season, which ended pretty well, I have to admit. I know that they have another season planned, so I'm interested to see where it goes next.

I finally made my final move of the evening to the Office to get this post started and the blog updated for the evening.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Viva Italia

Today the wife had meetings in the morning and early afternoon, so when the alarm woke me she was already in the bathroom drying her hair and getting ready for the day. I got up and moving after scrolling through Twitter for a bit, got the house opened up for the day and fired up the PC to see what was happening on the web. The wife and I passed like ships in the night, then she split and I worked on the blog for a bit before hitting the stationary bike for awhile and finally heating up some leftover Chinese for my lunch and settled into the den to give a movie a watch and relax.

I'd been putting off listening to a certain podcast until I could re-watch the two Demons films, so imagine my dismay when I realized that I only own the first film, as I could've sworn that I had both of them on-hand. I guess when I watched them a few years back I must've just rented the sequel from Netfux. Oh well, it just put me on the trail after the recent Arrow Blu-ray releases, making double dipping a little easier since I don't own both of the films. At any rate, Demons from Lamberto Bava holds up rather well on the re-watch, still being as strange and over the top as I remembered, filled with great '80s hair metal and more day-glo gore than you can shake a stick at. The patrons trapped inside a theater begin to become possessed by demons and turn on one another: that's basically the plot and it's a great excuse to watch some chaos for about 90 minutes. Fun film, well worth a peep if you haven't seen it yet.

Since I was already 'in Italy' so to speak with this film, I popped in the final disc of the Dario Argento set I've been trying to work my way through. This final film was one that I've heard nothing whatsoever good about, and to be quite frank, even the trailer for it looked like complete dogshit, so I wasn't expecting a helluva lot when I started watching The Card Player. Basic plot is that soem hacker genius type is kidnapping women and forcing the police to play video poker with him. If the police lose a hand, she loses a limb, and if they lose the game, she dies, so they spend the film trying to track down the guy via the web, which is re-directed all over because he's a genius, and they pick up clues from the corpses of the victims that hint at the area he might be in. My biggest issue is that Argento is known for his elaborate set pieces and murder sequences, but most of the kills in this take place on a small computer screen via webcam, which isn't very cinematic at all, it felt like a Lifetime thriller. The killer turned out to be exactly who I expected it to be and there's just not a lot to recommend this unless you're a completist stricken with the same morbid curiosity that I was. Pass.

The wife got home with groceries in the early afternoon, which I helped her put away, then we went through the mail and caught up on her day thus far. The Uncle had surgery at the crack of dawn for the brain cancer that he'd been diagnosed with, and while we're still not sure of all the details, the upshot sounds like it may be inoperable without causing brain damage, so who knows what that bodes for the future, beyond nightmarish treatments and the eventual decline. I think we're being fairly upbeat at this stage, but there's issues with the lymph nodes as well, so I don't know what all the poor man is looking at from this point on. Seriously, what a fucking nightmare.

The wife had returned during the awful movie, so I asked her if she cared to join me, as I hated to be making fun of this to an empty room, so after changing clothes and sending a couple e-mails she joined me in the den to wrap the film. The mail had brought a couple packages, including the Region 2 stuff I had ordered from Amazon UK, so I took the time to update my spending tab list while the wife puttered around the kitchen a bit and returned a couple calls, then we reconvened in the den to test out one of the UK discs.

Dellamorte Dellamore, which is more commonly known as Cemetery Man in the States is a film that I already own on an out of print US released DVD, but since I saw that the UK version from Shameless has a commentary and a few other features I decided that I would just own both. I popped that in for a re-watch and I have to say, having not seen it in several years, it still holds up amazingly well. Actually, the very things I liked about it were what I found frustrating when we viewed Inferno a few nights ago, the weird dreamy nature of it, the crazy camera work, here I loved it, the other film it drove me up the wall. Rupert Everett is great as Dellamore, a cemetery worker who must kill the corpses he buries, as they begin to rise seven days after being interred, a task that begins to take a toll on both he and his assistant. The amazingly gorgeous Anna Falchi is cast as three different women over the course of the film, each of which Dellamore falls in love with, to varying degrees of commitment and success, which reinforces the weird dreamy nature of the film. Great stuff, and I can't wait to give the bonus materials a look in the near future.

We watched the new episode of Dallas after the movie, which seems pretty decent. I would say that I like it, though it's nothing I'm just in love with, it's still pretty watchable. The thinnest plotline right now is that someone supposedly broke up via e-mail, driving a lover into someone else's arms and the person receiving the "it's not you, it's me" missive wasn't tech savvy enough to question things, which I find patently ridiculous past a certain point in the '90s, much less within the past few years. I watched the one hour premiere of the new season of Futurama afterward while the wife poked around on Facebook, then we called it a night and I put she and the Yorkie to be before getting started on this post.

Be seeing you.

Loser Cotton Sitter Love

Today I rose with the alarm to find that the wife and Yorkie were already up and about, presumably because the pup had nagged the wife awake earlier than usual. I got up and said goodbye to the wife, who had plans for the morning and early afternoon, then I made the bed and got the house opened up for the day, as is the custom. I got an Amazon sale ready to mail and then spent some time on the stationary bike before retiring to the Office with some water to cool down and polish up a blog post for this afternoon.

While I worked on that I got a text from EL cancelling our lunch plans, as he had a doctor's appointment, so I started rethinking my errands, figuring I would hit the Post Office and then do our recycling before picking up some takeout and heading home.

The Post Office I chose naturally fucked me completely, with one clerk working and taking his sweet time to do everything, because he evidently took the tortoise and the hare's 'slow and steady wins the race' mantra to heart somewhere in his life, because God forbid he break a sweat no matter if the line is out the fucking door waiting on him. Sigh. I basically wasted about 20 minutes of my life standing in line, surrounded by 5 or 6 Mexican women while this guy carefully taped everything shut that crossed his desk, slowly and methodically instructed each customer about other shipping options that they might not be aware or and essentially moved slow enough to have dead lice falling off of him because he wasn't moving enough blood to keep them alive. I usually try to view these moments in life as opportunities to try and take a deep breath and look for a quiet center to things, because my first instinct is to start coming out of my skin with agitation. Any job involving customer service should be coupled with a sense of urgency, just because most people want to get this thing (whatever it may be) done and get on with their lives, not have a lot of downtime to cool their heels and slowly become aware of how much they hate everyone else in the room and how they're wasting their life away looking at the back of some asshole's head for a half hour while just trying to do something as simple as mail a fucking letter. Gah.

When I finally (Thank you Christ) got out of there without strangling anyone or stabbing myself to death with one of those pens on a chain, I headed to the nearby grocery store where the recycle bins live. Since my trunk was full of bullshit, I naturally noted with alarm that the area surrounding the bins was covered with the tell-tale signs of them being full, IE: there were piles of garbage bags strewn around the bins because people don't feel like leaving with their recyclables, even if things are overflowing. I double checked, and sure enough, there was no way I could get rid of any of this crap today, so I gritted my teeth and ordered my food, which I wanted to grab on the way home with my trash.

Once I got home I settled into the den with my food and decided that today was a good day to clear a few things off the TiVo, so I gave Cotton Comes To Harlem a look for the first time. Based on a Chester Himes novel and starring Godfrey Cambridge and Raymond St. Jacques, this one manages an interesting balance of drama and comedy, with some of the more slapstick elements coming up during action sequences and lightening the mood a bit. The general story is about a crooked preacher's missing donations and how it might be connected to a mysterious bale of cotton that's dumped in Harlem during a car chase at the beginning of the film, with crooks, cops and even the preacher's flock all in pursuit of the dough. It's a fun film and I'm happy to have checked it out, it's definitely something that I will re-watch at some point in the future.

The wife returned about halfway through the film and I explained about my lunch plans falling through, then we caught up on her day before I finished out the flick. Since I was looking at TiVo stuff today I moved on to another film on there, the made for TV film Get Christie Love!, which was popular enough to kick off a single season of television starring Teresa Graves as the titular law enforcement officer. The movie was presented on broadcast television, so it was riddled with commercials (which did the flow of the action no favors whatsoever) and hosted by some corny a-holes who do a movie show on something called Retro TV, a channel I barely even knew that we have. How I came to record this I have no idea, perhaps I just noticed it while flipping channels, as I certainly wasn't familiar with the movie hosts or anything like that. The movie is just okay, a standard cop undercover thing as she tries to prevent a shipment of drugs from getting out in LA, and the fairly watered down nature of the made for TV fare leaves you with little to really sink your teeth into.

The wife napped through most of this second film, which didn't surprise me, as there wasn't a whole lot to keep one riveted. After I finished the flick I hopped online for about an hour and got a blog post published and another one cleaned up for later, creeping closer to getting caught up with things, though I don't know exactly when that will happen. The wife eventually worked on a project she's got involving looking over a series of resumes at the kitchen table, so I spent about an hour in the Library catching up with an issue of Horrorhound Magazine.

In the evening the wife got out breifly to grab some dinner from a drive-thru while I watched another episode of Nikita, then we popped in a Netfux rental that had turned up in today's mail: The Sitter. From David Gordon Green, who directed Pineapple Express, this one stars Jonah Hill as a slacker type who finds himself babysitting his neighbor's kids who are a giant pain in the ass, but is then forced to drag them on a bizarre journey through NYC when he gets a call from the gal he's been trying desperately to bang. The film is equally sweet and vulgar, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Since the film was kind of middle of the road fare, I popped in the rom-com Loser afterward, as I figured it was light and kinda fun. As it turned out the wife had not seen it before, and I enjoy it well enough, so what the hell, right? The really weird thing I was struck by is the fact that Greg Kinnear plays an asshole SO well that I have to wonder how near the truth these characters are, y'know? He's had charming roles here or there, but my God he plays such a weaselly asshole in numerous films I find it hard to disassociate him from the characters. Yeesh.

We called it a night after the last movie, then I got started on this post, interrupted from time to time by my goldfish-like attention span that allows me to start Googling dumb shit and losing time surfing the web instead of finishing this out properly.

Be seeing you.

M Shame Monday

The alarm was set for 9:00 this morning, but the sounds of the wife and Yorkie puttering around in the kitchen woke me a little before that, so I was still scrolling through Twitter when I heard the wife leave for her morning outing. I got up and made the bed, then got the house opened up for the day and picked up the kitchen a bit, as the plastic recycling was starting to get ugly after the weekend.

The Yorkie followed me around the entire time I was picking up, then sat on the bed and watched me on the stationary bike, then while I cleaned up the roses that were left over from the wife's anniversary week (we always dry the rose heads to display in large glass canisters) so I finally figured I should throw her a bone and let her run around outside for a few while I walked the bags of recycling to the car and tossed them in the trunk. This seemed to please her, so she finally stopped following me around and had some food before settling down on the couch in the sitting area near the kitchen to relax.

I got the blog updated with another post, then decided to get out and grab an early lunch about 11:30, so I picked up a burger and a salad in an effort to be at least somewhat responsible in my eating and not just die of fat before I hit 40. I caught up with this week's episode of Ultimate Spider-Man while I ate, then popped in something off the To-Watch Pile to kill two birds with one stone.

Fritz Lang's M was something that the GGTMC fellas were covering and it fit nicely into my Movie Shame Monday routine, just because I've only seen it once before and had this fancy new Criterion Blu-ray laying around, so this seemed the perfect time to give it a spin. The film holds up amazingly well on what I believe is only my second viewing, and the Blu-ray looks great for a film that is over 80 years old, plus it's loaded with bonus material that I will have to make the time to check out, because there's an interesting mix of talent talking about the film, including Claude Chabrol.

The wife returned during the film, so we caught up on her day and plans for the afternoon and evening, then I left her to her own devices while I finished the movie and then spent my usual hour in the Library reading. I eventually drifted back into the Office and worked on updating the nerdlists on the PC until shortly after 5:00, then started weighing my movie options to kill time while the wife was out of the house for a late meeting.

The wife's thing ran from around 5:00 until shortly after 6:00, so I popped in Dario Argento's Inferno, just because I had been reading about it in a magazine earlier in the afternoon. The film is the second film in the Three Mothers Trilogy, which includes the amazing Suspiria and the rather middle of the road third film Mother Of Tears. I have to say that now having seen all three films, this series has fallen victim to the rule of diminishing returns, and the fall-off was precipitous even in this second film. There's a lot of rock video looking scenes in this (fog, colored lights, a ridiculously over the top soundtrack) and while I generally enjoy Argento's 'style over substance' approach a lot of the time, this one left me fairly cold. The issue I had may be that the way things are staged, in that there's way too many scenes of people wandering through creepy rooms until something bangs open and startles them; it's like watching a filmed walk-through of a haunted attraction or something.

The wife brought home some dinner when she returned and we ate while finishing the movie, then watched some odds and ends off the TiVo, including last week's Ricky Gervais Show, which lightened my mood after Inferno agitated me so much. I have a couple other Argento films I want to watch, but I fear that they will just piss me off worse than this one. Hell, The Card Player looks like dogshit just from the trailer, so that's one I'm dreading like a dentist's visit, but my completist nature won't let me back off from it.

We wrapped the evening with an episode of Nikita, whose season ended about a month ago, yet I still have this handful of forgotten episodes on the TiVo, so I've resolved to plow through these five over the course of this week, just to be caught up on the show.

I put the wife to bed and then got started on this crapola for the day, as I am fairly tired and want to be in bed sooner than later.

Be seeing you.