Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone. R:tAG went up to KublaCon and I spent the day completely alone at home. It was fantastic and just when I started to think “OK, it’s been about ten hours of isolation, maybe I am reconciled to human contact” the phone started ringing with family and friends calling. Good timing!
It’s been a shooty-action-movie sort of fortnight; we’ve seen 3:10 To Yuma, Indiana Jones and the Implausible Crystal Plot,* Iron Man, There Will be Blood,** Shoot ‘Em Up,*** and Crank, and that’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure there was another bulletfest in there somewhere. 3:10 To Yuma was quite good, Iron Man was good if you like the genre, the rest were enh for me (which was too bad, because I was quite excited about the Indiana Jones movie).
Other than that… hm. Not much to report. Oh, you should read The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon, if you like noir detective stories with a twist. I really liked it.
Oh, and with dance, I took a workshop with Sabine about sword dancing and it was great. She is amazing, and about eight feet tall, and gorgeous, and has huge sharp swords. What’s not to like? I don’t know if she’s just a really good teacher (well, she is) or if I’m starting to learn differently, or if the particular subject was just easier for me for some reason but this was a workshop where I really felt like I got something out of it. Yay, swords!
* Motto of the movie: “Wait, what?”
** Motto of the movie: “This soundtrack is violating my ears, without lubrication”
*** Motto of the movie "I call no way!"
We checked out Indy this week-end.
Uhm...
Why is he a spy? And why was there a bomb? And how could he survive the flying refrigerator episode? Why didn't the aliens leave before they lost their head? Where did Marienne go for that whole driving chase scene?
All this and more, in my head tonight at seven, eight central.
But really, I did enjoy seeing Harrison do the Indiana Jones thing, even if they were avoiding calling him that, which I didn't really get.
Crank was rented with very low expectations and immediately after Smoking Aces. So, in retrospect, I might have given it undue praise. On the other hand I did think it was fun.
Oh and Indy...well as I said in my blog. The only real issue I had with it was the use of magnetism. I don't ask movies to make sense, just to be internally consistent. Which is why the famous computer virus thing in Independence Day didn't bother me but the random magnetism in Indy does.
Yeah, the "magnetism" thing bugged the hell out of me too. They even admit, basically, that it can't be normal magnetism because it affects gold, but the effect isn't even *internally* consistent (bullets but not belt buckles?). Plus it appears to be blocked by burlap.
Pshaw. Everyone knows alien selective magnetism is blocked by burlap.