PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Friday Night Movies 123

We started with a French film called District B13. It's sort of a cross between Escape Fom New York and 48 Hours with a lot more running and jumping. And style. Lieto, our reluctant hero, hails from the area that the film is named after, and it's none to nice in there. The Official Paris Government types had sealed off the poor section of town several years ago and it has grown more and more lawless. Lieto himself was thrown in jail for turning in the local drug lord. That same drug lord was given Lieto's sister by the police abandoning the district. It doesn't look good for her. It's six months later and now there's a neutron bomb in B13 and it's going to go off in less than 2 days. A hard headed cop, named Damien, is sent to disarm it. He doesn't know the area. He needs a guide and his bosses give him Lieto.

David Belle, who plays Lieto, is an amazing action guy. He started a movement called Parkour which figures heavily in the action sequences of the film. Belle's IMDb page says he is the, Inventor of a discipline known as Parkour, which consists of moving quickly and efficiently in any environment, using only the abilities of the human body. Yahn and Frederic Hnautra, David Malgogne, Stephane Vigroux Kazuma, and Sébastien Foucan are some the very first traceurs (as parkour practitioners are called), who happened to be David Belle's close friends. Sébastien Foucan is the guy who did all the great freerunning stunts in the open scene of Casino Royale. The two disciplines have different philosophies. The parkour link above from Wikipedia will fill you in.

Back in B13, our heros are butting heads, while the bomb does a count down. Tick, tick, baby. The drug lord scoops them up and they offer to disarm the bomb. The bad guy wants a ton of money first. The cop's boss says no money and hangs up. What a prick, huh? The bad guy has chained Lieto's sister to the bomb. What a prick, huh? It's the same no matter what side you're on. Well, you know that those bad pricks are going to get theirs, huh. They do. The government steals all the drug lord's money and his gang shoots the shit out of him. It's just payback. He's shot his gang for snoring too loud, or something. There's still some leapin' about and punchin' to go, don't worry. Eventually the good guys save the day, destroy the bad government official, and ring change on the people of B13. It's simple story reminded me a lot of those short science fiction novels of the 50's that had a guy raise up against the bad government, bring it down, and create a new world for the citizens. All in a hundred and sixty pages. The movie had a shit load more runnin' and jumpin', all in 84 minutes.

There's a lot of running and jumping in Hot Fuzz, our second feature, and they are at it for 2 hours. It's made by the people that made Shaun of the Dead, and that 2 hours went by pretty quickly. Edgar Wright, the director of both films, and Simon Pegg, the star of both films, reunite to co-write a great fun comedy action film. Joining them again is Nick Frost. He was the vulgar pub-lovin' wanker that freeloaded off of Shaun. Here he's got his own place.

The movie borrows all sorts of action cliches, movie references, packs them in with some jokes and gun fire, then adds a nice story about two guys and their relationship. There was a romantic interest for Simon Pegg's character, Nicholas Angel, in early drafts of the script. She was taken out and some of her lines were given to Nick Frost's character Danny Butterman. Danny's dad is the local head of the police force and is played by Jim Broadbent, who had been in a hundred movies and tv shows. He's also mentioned on the Harry Potter fangroups as an actor people would like to see play Horace Slughorn in the 6th Harry Potter movie. Fatten him up a bit lot and he could be a great Slughorn. Broadbent is one of many great actors that may have a small part in the film but they add a great deal to making the film so good. There are too many to talk about here. Really, there's couple of tons of 'em.

Back in Sergeant Angel's world it turns out he's too good for the London Metropolitan police. He's making the rest of them look bad. After he gets stabbed in the hand, by Santa, his bosses send him off to the country. Angel's not happy but he's loyal and he goes. A series of grizzly accidents begin to look like murder to the Sergeant. No one believes him except Danny, who's totally smitten by the supercop from the big city. Danny likes the action films and has a huge collection of dvds. His collection is made up of the dvd's owned by the director and his two brothers. Some were stolen during the making of the movie. It's in the commentary by Wright and Pegg. Danny shows Angel Point Break and Bad Boys II for the first time.

I would have picked the first Bad Boys instead. I just like it better, but II has the great line where Martin Lawrence says: " That shit just got real." In context it makes me laugh. My favorite scene from the first movie, is when our guys go into a small store. The clerk thinks Martin Lawrence and Will Smith are going to hold him up. He spotted their guns. He pulls a gun. They pull their guns. He's bummed out. The clerk says, "Oh, shit. I'm fucked." Will Smith says, "Now back up, put the gun down, and get me a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubbilicious." And Martin Lawrence says, "And some Skittles." I always laugh. People like to put Michael Bay down but I liked Bad Boys and it's sequel. They are fun films with, good characters, lots of action, and things blowin' up. The hanger scene at the end is one motherfuckin' huge explosion. The boys in Hot Fuzz do what they can with their much smaller budget, and still blow up two buildings. Not bad, eh. One of them's the cop shop. In his commentary Edgar Wright talks about liking action films and now that he's making one he really knows how hard it is to shoot a good action scene.

Besides all the action, there's a pretty good story and some fun twists. I like the jokes. I like the look of the film. It's goodt some good camera work and a nice style. The music is fun and fitting. These guys have improved as film makers, and taking 18 months to work on the script was a good idea. I don't mind waiting for good stuff.

Reading is Fundamental

There is an interesting article on MSNBC today. It's about books and who reads them. Here it is. Don't tell them I stole it.

Poll: 1 in 4 read no books last year

New survey shows biggest readers are women, older people

The Associated Press

Updated: 7:34 p.m. CT Aug 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - There it sits on your night stand, that book you’ve meant to read for who knows how long but haven’t yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing — you are not alone.

One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn’t read any, the usual number read was seven.

“I just get sleepy when I read,” said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.

That choice by Bustos and others is reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.

When the Gallup Poll asked in 2005 how many books people had at least started — a similar but not directly comparable question — the typical answer was five. That was down from 10 in 1999, but close to the 1990 response of six.

In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled “Reading at Risk” found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.

Demographics of non-book readers
Who are the 27 percent of people the AP-Ipsos poll found hadn’t read a single book this year? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.

At the same time, book enthusiasts abound. Many in the survey reported reading dozens of books and said they couldn’t do without them.

“I go into another world when I read,” said Charlotte Fuller, 64, a retired nurse from Seminole, Fla., who said she read 70 books in the last year. “I read so many sometimes I get the stories mixed up.”

Among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger.

Pollyann Baird, 84, a retired school librarian in Loveland, Colo., says J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy series is her favorite. But she has forced herself to not read the latest and final installment, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” because she has yet to file her income taxes this year due to an illness and worries that once she started the book, “I know I’d have to finish it.”

Religious books popular in South
People from the West and Midwest are more likely to have read at least one book in the past year. Southerners who do read, however, tend to read more books, mostly religious books and romance novels, than people from other regions. Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics, and those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently.

There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives.

The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre — including politics, poetry and classical literature — were named by fewer than five percent of readers.

Women more diverse readers
More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography. Industry experts said that confirms their observation that men tend to prefer nonfiction.

“Fiction just doesn’t interest me,” said Bob Ryan, 41, who works for a construction company in Guntersville, Ala. “If I’m going to get a story, I’ll get a movie.”

Those likeliest to read religious books included older and married women, lower earners, minorities, lesser educated people, Southerners, rural residents, Republicans and conservatives.

The publishing business totaled $35.7 billion in global sales last year, 3 percent more than the previous year, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association. About 3.1 billion books were sold, an increase of less than 1 percent.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from August 6 to 8 and involved telephone interviews with 1,003 adults. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Back to me:  I thought that survey was interesting, although I would like to see a larger sampling. I thought fewer people read than that but I was probably remembering some survey on fiction. This covers all sorts of books. You can see the book industry is pretty good size but has no growth. The local bookstore owners that I know are saying the same thing. No growth. That's probably why places like Barnes and Noble have so much non-book crap to sell. They need that extra revenue stream. Your staff might only get a tiny 1-3 percent raise a year at these places, but if your growth isn't more than that percentage, you're back sliding. A lot of bookstores back slid right into oblivion. You don't get to use oblivion much. Just thought I'd throw that in.

I have some wonderments about some of the info presented. Like what percent of the public never reads a book. I know several people who don't read books. At all. Some of them have read a book but not since they were in school. Some only read technical books. My brother does that, reads IT stuff but doesn't read fiction. He's like that one guy, who, if he wants a story, rents a movie. "I like stories." Remember who said that? Wasn't me.

I sure got that usual number of 7 books read beat. I am up to 67 right now. I need to get around telling you what I read in June and July. I know I think you want to hear. Admittedly it was mostly Harry Potter. The last one twice. The second time was actually in August. I lead such a complicated life, reading the same book twice, in two separate months, it's hard to keep it all straight. And it's hard keeping all these numbers straight. It just looks bad for books, expecially fiction. In our modern capitalistic society we need growth or bad things happen. Like no book stores. I don't see that happening anytime soon but I do see some changes in the way books are sold. As a younger generation of readers takes over many of them might be more interested in getting their books over the internet. Both paper versions and electronic versions. There are a growing number of internet only booksellers out there, selling both paper and electronic versions of old and new books. A lot of people read fan-fiction on the internet. I like to print it out and read it. Weird, huh. I am guessing that the poor sales of ebooks has been because the bulk of the readers out there aren't interested or they aren't internet ready. My mother reads 2-300 books a year and she wouldn't want to read them on a pc. She won't even take a free pc from my brother or me. We've tried but no way. "Why would I want that?" Once more of those old people die off, and don't rush mom, things will change.

Another problem with books is the size and cost of printing. If I buy a book, I have another book, and it's not that big a deal. Publishers buy a book, print it and then they have lots of copies of lots of books. Storage and tranportation add to the cost of a book. Tax on the inventory is just another incentive not have any books around for too long. Paper keeps getting more and more expensive as production drops and shifts. So, who knows where it will end, but if you're an old fart like me, you won't like it. Mind you I don't ever need to buy another book, so fuck shoppin'. I have plenty of books to read and re-read. I bet I have enough in my house to last me the rest of my life. Especially if I didn't live more than 27 years, longer if I re-read all my comics too.

Kevin Smith talks

I was looking at a new film blog called FilmDrunk and he had a link to a clip of Kevin Smith in some hall. He talks anywhere they will hire him. Kevin was talking about Ben Afleck's Thanksgiving at Steven Spielberg's. Afleck was dating Gwenth Paltrow then. He has some fun details and it made me laugh. You can see Kevin here, and FilmDrunk here. FilmDrunk is kind of like What Would Tyler Durden Do. They both rag on people. FilmThreat has more film stories, while WWTDD spends it's day pointing out the wrong doings of the rich and famous. I can only read so manyK-Fed and Brittney stories, not that I read them, I mostly laugh at the pictures and move on.

Friday Night Movies 122

It's been a busy week as I sorted through all the toys in the house and made two piles. One to keep and the other to go. I watched a ton of movies, mostly old dogs from TCM, and sorted toys. I planned to have a garage sale and earlier today I did. It was rainy, not many people came by, and I-94 was closed while they fiddle with the freeway to compensate for the bridge being in the river. So, with all that going on I was real tired when I showed up to watch movies friday night. I was thinking of leaving after the first movie and I didn't care what we watched. We had nothing much new and we wound watching the first Lone Wolf and Cub movie.

I am thinking I have talked about this series before. Kozure Ôkami: Kowokashi udekashi tsukamatsuru is the first of the series. You might know it as Lone Wolf and Cub: Child and Expertise for Rent but mostly likely you'd know it as Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance. In reality most won't know any of the titles, although it gets a neat 8.0 on IMDb. There are six movies staring Tomisaburo Wakayama as the Shogun Executioner. In this opening movie, based on a Japanese comic series, our hero gets framed and gets mad. Three guys, claiming they wanted vengence for the execution of their lord, attack the Itto household and kill everyone there. Itto returns home to find everyone dead but his infant son. The three men ran to the local authorities and confessed while they were committing seppuku. In reality they used the attack to hide a memorial tablet, with the Shogun's name on it, in the Itto Shrine. That means Itto would like the Shogun dead and that's  a crime. Punishible by death. He rebells against the frame up and kills a bunch of guys. He goes on the lam with his infant son, vowing vengence against the Yagyu Clan and their dirty tricks. It's two years later and Lone Wolf and Cub are travelling the country side. They are selling their services and he will kill all you want for 500 gold coins. Cool. I know some people need killin' and if it's that easy, let's get at it. And that seems to be the attitude of many people Igami Ito meets in his travels. Fuedal Japan is a place filled with power struggles and battles for the high position in court. Not that it's any different in any other place either. Hey, Europe, stab anyone in the late 1700's. I didn't see the papers that century.

I've seen this movie several times and still enjoy it. On his mission Itto stops in a small town with a hot spring. There are the few people that live there and some stopping criminals. They are part of the mission. They are a surly lot, much in need of killing. It's a violent ol' time. One guy gets his legs chopped off, while he is standing up, in a technique called something to do with a horse. There are lots of blood spurts coming from many wounds. The later films really get crazy mad in their violence. Hey, the road to hell is paved with some sticky stuff, and our boys are on the way. It's a fun series to watch as Igami and Diagoro battle their way to vengence. The comic was abour 8000 pages but the 6 movies don't cover the whole story by a long shot. Animego has a set of all 6 out here in the USA and you can find it on Amazon. Well, worth having. I bought some of the Animego versions, after I had gotten some Asian dvd's that were just copies of the Animego dvds. They are nice looking copies with pretty good sound. The score is a lot of fun too.

Then we watched the Robot Chicken Star Wars Special and the first show of the new season. They were funny. I went home to putter a bit and go to bed. I intend to do the same right now.

Friday Night Movies 121

We watched Frankenstein vs Baragon or, Frankenstein Conquers The World, and you know what? He didn't. He fell into the ocean or was sucked into the earth. It depends which version you see. There are three on the Tokyo Shock DVD. We watched the International version, which is three minutes, or so, longer than the Theatrical version. They both reside on the same disc. There is also a US version on a second disc. We watched the International version, which has an octopus in it. The movie starts during WWII with a Japanese sub and a German sub meeting in the ocean. No octopus yet. A large box is transfered to the Japanese Sub. They are attacked and the German sub is sunk. The Japanese escape and bring the box to Japan. Hiroshima to be exact, just a short bit of movie time before the bomb falls. It's revealed that the box contains the still beating heart of Frankenstein. There seems to the the usual confusion about Frankenstein and his creature. There are, I understand, a whole pile of the general public that still doesn't understand that the doctor is Frankenstein and the creature is the creature. Creature got no name. Aug 6th, 1945 rolls around in the movie and Hiroshima turns to fire. Frankenstein's monsters heart is lost. We disolve to 20 years later. Some science doctor guys are trying to treat people for radiation poisoning. They are also working on a cure. It's not going to well. There's a weird waif kid running around the town and scaring people. He eats animals. There's a large underground dwelling monster that pops up once in a while. He eats people. Pretty much nothing happens for a long time. And still no octopus. The waif is captured by the science doctor guys, one of whom is Nick Adams, and another is a lady. They lock it up, feed it, and it starts to grow. Soon it's huge. After some excitement, caused by some doomed reporters, the waif breaks free and some people die. Mostly those same doomed reporters. The ones who caused the problem in the first place. Just like in King Kong. Flashbulbs were dangerous, glad we got rid of them. Hooray for high ASA film and low light digital cameras. They might save your life. Nothing was going to save me from this film, and after what seemed like hours, but was just more than 70 minutes of this 93 minute movie, the waif, who is has grown huge, and the monster fight. It's not a great fight. Mostly some actrobatics. Eventually the monster is beaten and the waif is attacked by that octopus. As I said before, the waif falls into the ocean to wait for the sequel. In the Theatrical version the waif and the monster sink underground to wait for the sequel. Last week I was hoping for some unintentional comedy. I hadn't seen this movie in a while and I didn't remember there wasn't much of it. Mostly it was unexciting. The monster scenes weren't the best and the monster is pretty boring as these guys go. Even that octopus wasn't too good. The Wikipedia page linked above mentions that the octopus scene was requested by the American Co-producer, but the Japanese guys didn't like it and cut it. It got cut from the US version too. I can't blame them. It's not too good. There is supposed to be a better octopus scene in the 1966 sequel War Of The Gargantuas. One can only hope the special effects are better than it's 1965 pal. They weren't very good either. There's a bore that has to be seen to be believed. The buildings were better. The actors are the usual gang of Toho players. Mostly for the fans of the genre, the IMDb gives it a 2.8. You can see some pictures here, and here, and some posters here. You can see a trailer on YouTube.

2LDK was our second feature and it's a film that has a story. From the Trivia page on the IMDb, where it gets a 7.1 rating:

Yukihiko Tsutsumi and Ryuhei Kitamura each finished their contributions to the short film anthology Jam Films (2002) in record time. As a result producer Shinya Kawai gave the two directors a proposal to each create a feature length movie with only two actors, battling in one setting and filmed entirely in one week. The undertaking was called the Duel Project. This movie was Yukihiko Tsutsumi's result and Ryuhei Kitamura's was Aragami (2003).

I certainly wouldn't give 2LDK that high of a rating. It takes me no where I want to go and the two characters aren't very interesting. It's more of an interesting concept than a story, even with a lame O Henry type of ending. Ironic, oh gee. The movie is only 70 minutes but it seems way longer. I didn't care for the film, so I couldn't wait for it to be over, the 1.5 speed would have helped on this baby. I was curious to see it, but only because I had enjoyed Aragami. That has two guys in a temple fighting and talking. It more supernatural and the fighting has more meaning, and less reality, when you're fighting a demon. I actually bought the Aragami DVD after I had seen someone else's copy. According the IMDb trivia page the title of 2LDK is code used in apartment adverts. Two bedrooms, living rom, dining room and kitchen. Large apartments are a rarity in Tokyo and that's where these two hideous women live. They are actors, forced to share the space by their agency, and they are both up for the same part. It was hard to tell how long the two of them had been living together but this night it all goes to hell and they wind up croaked on the floor. Matter of fact they are couple of pretty awful women and seeing into their thoughts just makes them worse. The fact that they wind up killing each other doesn't redeem the film either.

Him Real

Lance sent me that picture. It's of a giant LEGO guy who was found on the beach. At first I thought it was one of the 19 inch minifigs that LEGO makes as promo items. Here's a couple from the Bellaire Historic Society Toy Museum. There are currently 3 for sale on ebay. Starting at about 80 bucks each. No pirates.

When Lance sent me an article from the BBC about how this 8 foot guy was found on a beach in Zandvoort. I had never heard of the place. Then he sent me an article on the party the LEGO guy went to. As you can see an 8 foot LEGO guy gets the girls. Lance, and I quote, said: "Probably got drunk or high at the Dance Valley festival, fell into the canal and finally drifted ashore in Zandvoort." I could see that happening. I once got drunk, fell in a guy's car, and wound up in St. Paul. Not too much different. Well, except for the beach part. And the girls. And being 8 feet tall.

The Bellaire Historical Society Toy Museum has a giant 8 foot LEGO guy. The head on the party dude is kind of like the older style face. Very simple, nearly a smiley face. The 8 footer in the museum has a newer style head, with painted hair hanging down, and more of an expression. I almost wish I had one, but again, with the storage. And what happens when he gets drunk and fall on you. Ow.

Lego Chatter

I thought these were funny, and I don't even listen to the Beatles anymore. I don't think I know anyone that does. Joe once said, he had heard all those songs enough and he didn't need to hear them any more. I think that's the head of a Harry Potter minifig, up there in the upper left of Let It Be, pretending to be John Lennon. That's Ginny Weasley hair. The Weasley's have distinctive reddish orange hair.

Here's where things go wrong with people and their creative impulses. One one hand you have the cute little picture with the geese and the little girl or boy. Nice. Then you have the guy , the bear and the bunny. What the hell's goin' on here? That Bear came from Carla's Winter Camp. It was a Scala set. They aren't the same scale as regular Minifigs. Bellville has the same scale. Occasionally there are some cross over parts between the series.

Scala and Bellville are more like playing dolls than playing with blocks. I guess those two bears get into Carls's food, and then their mother comes along and kills Carla. Damn. Where did that come from. It must be those bears. They must be evil, makin' me think such thoughts. Oh. Here's a couple of nice things. A cheeseburger for your cat and a VCR. Those are good things. 

 

Good things that could go bad. Cheeseburgers and VCR's were my undoing. Tools of the Devil. If I believed in the Devil, mostly they just make you fat.

Friday Night Movies 120

There was excitement before we settled in to watch. A giant Stainless Steel fridge came barreling through the living room. Did you know magnets will not stick to stainless steel? And it costs more too. Man. The, I think, drunken fridge, knocked us all out of our seats and pushed the couch half way across the living room. No one was hurt, although the fridge now has a head ache and is resting in the corner of the dining room. I don't think anyone dared to plug it in, no use getting it all riled up again. I hate when electrical appliances get all up in your face. I've seen an actin'-up copier bring a grown man to his knees, crying like a frustrated baby. I tried not to laugh. That shit just comes back to haunt you.

Just as your actions continue to haunt you through the years, some movie characters continue to haunt you. This is not a bad thing. Tonight we watched two movies that were for their fans. And that's not a bad thing either. Everyone was interested in seeing Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales, except for Greg, who's in Japan. Damn, I should have asked him to get me a weird Japanese KitKat. Oh, well. Back to the B5 universe and some lost tales, which I was interested in seeing again. Movie Night is one of the few times I sit and actually watch a movie and am not also doing something else. I move my head a lot. It's why my computer looks over my tv. I'm only 8 or 9 feet away, but at an angle. I always seem to have something to do. I gotta quit that shit. Getting too old to work at work and work at home too. I need more book readin' time and movie watchin' time. I liked watching B5-TLT again. Our Joe complained there wasn't much story in either of the Joe Straczynski's stories. And I understand. I think they are short and not so showey. They might not get new fans interested in the series but some of us old fans will like them. Especially, if you liked the talky introspective episodes that explore morality or spirituality. I like Joe Straczynski's voice and he's a good examiner of people and their damn ways. Aren't they a pain in the ass? On second viewing I liked the actors even more and thought they did a great job. JS did a good job directing and his Director of Photography did a great job putting it on film. The ships look the best yet. I hope they sell enough dvd's to do more productions. Especially ones with a bit bigger budget and more space ship stuff. Zooma zoom in a boom boom. Pretend it's about spaceships and laser cannons.

It was a toss up between Clerks II and Frankenstein Conquers The World. Mike tipped it by voting for comedy. And by that he meant intentional comedy. Maybe next week we will take some time to explore the unintentional comedy of FCTW. Clerks II sure made me laugh, but I am partial to the Kevin Smith universe. It's ten years later and Dante arrives at the Quick Stop to find an inferno. Luckily I haven't read any other reviews of this movie so I don't know how over used that joke is. Oh oh! Looks like Randle left the coffee pot on again. That joke never gets old. Fuckin' Randle. A year later they both are working at Moobies and Rosario Dawson, looking her most absolute cutest, is their manager. They work with a Lord Of The Rings/Tranformers fan, who has some remarkable knowledge of human sexuality, for a virgin. Something he will share and it will stun you. That's just one of the many weird and challenging conversations that occur in this gab fest. Another thing the movie shared with the previous film. People talking about their problems and sharing their opinions. And what opinions they are. This is not a movie for my mom, that's for sure. She sure wouldn't like that bit about the interspecies erotica. Donkey show, naughty naughty. There are some great scenes with Jay and Silent Bob, who in the end, save the day. The Clerks II IMDb trivia page is a fun read. At the heart of the movie is a fucked up love story that mostly gets resolved. And there is that donkey show. They swear a lot and I liked that. Can't swear enough some days. Damn, B.

It was a good day for me

Well, what a day. Since our Fiscal year starts today at work, along with a new years worth of vacation, I decided to take the afternoon off and go see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I couldn't make up my mind where to go. I finally picked the Mall of America to go see the 1:20 show. That way I could stop in to the Lego store and see if they had anything new on sale. There's a chinese place in the food court that has some ok Sesame Chicken and fried rice which has gotten more expensive since I was there last. $5.39 for a good size pile of fried rice and two meat choices from a steam table. I always get the Sesame Chicken and a beef skewer. It's nothing special but I like the sauces and they give you a good pile of food. 

I liked the movie. It's dark and bleak and fast. So much has been condensed and I wonder if people who hadn't read the book would have a harder time understanding the story. I do miss some sections from the book that got cut. Harry and pals meeting Neville and his Aunt at St Mungo's, and finding out what happened to Neville's parents, is one of my favorite scenes in any of the books. It's my goal to build the scene out of Lego. Now that's some love. The special effects are pretty special and at one point I was wishing I was sitting a bit farther back than the fifth row. The big fight in the ministry was quite the wizard battle but there was so much going on it was hard to take it all in at one go. Especially those Death Eaters and their whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

I really liked Evanna Lynch's Luna Lovegood. She does a great job bringing this delightful character to life. I would have liked to see her in her roaring Lion Hat but they cut the Quidditch scene. I think she has become a fan favorite all over, and she's certainly a favorite character of mine. I really liked her bedroom in the 7th book and her stiff upper lip in the face of adversity. Her patronus is a rabbit. The Patronus scene in the movie brought tears to my eyes as I shared the kids success. I like seeing a shared experience in a montage. Even after South Park's take on the montage. "It's a Montage!" "Montage!" That Delores Umbridge is a right nasty piece of work and she needs a good stabbin'. Every time she was on the screen I clenched my hand around the invisible knife of retribution. I was glad to hear she gets her's in the future. Saves me the trouble of stabbin' her. I enjoyed Bellatrix. I didn't think Helena Bonham Carter was too over the top. She fit the tone of the movie which was jazzier than the book. A new director and screen writer made this movie. Like the cover on the US Edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the movie was very blue, except for the Ministry of Magic, which was very black. That was a black marble cavern with the giant statue of a wizard lording it over the lesser magical creatures off standing in their own fountain with a witch. That set was 200 feet long and great looking. I didn't think the black was too much, it's the wizarding world, they do like to show off when they get together, and that black cavernous look turns up in real Muggle buildings around the world and here in our own St Paul. The Ramsey County Court House is very black. Lots of black marble, except for the Vision of Peace. This guy has a couple of nice pictures of the unique statue on his St Paul Pictures blog. I don't know who he is, but he has some nice pictures of other parts of the city, too. Like the Ministy with it's giant Wizard statue, the Vision of Peace is 60 tons and 36 feet high, making it the largest carved onyx figure in the world. It's very cool. And so was the movie. I liked the kids and wished I could have spend 4 hours with them. Too bad they won't pull a Peter Jackson and have the extra-overly-long version out at Christmas.

I headed home after hanging out in the Lego store a bit longer. I bought some Lego from the Pick-a-Brick display. You pick the pieces you want and put them in a container with a lid that looks like the stud on the top of the Lego bricks. It's a giant plastic glass when the bricks are out, although it really wouldn't be much good for that, it's too hard to clean the indented bottom of the container. It's a place for the stud of the lid to go when you stack them. If you have two. And you want to stack them. Actually, you could silicon the lid to the base and make a vase out of it. I stopped at the Rainbow to get something and wound up with all sorts of things. I don't know how that happens, I just go nuts in the grocery store. It was about 5:30 when I got home.

I made dinner and started watching the new Babylon 5 original movie that just came out on DVD. Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales. I don't think it played on tv at all. I liked it. It's pretty low budget and there are not many people in each part of the two part 72 minute long movie. Lockley and a priest confront a man who claims to be possessed, and Sheridan must decide if he's going to kill a man or not. Galen the Technomage is in that episode. They are the only returning characters from the series cast. I enjoyed both stories. They are pretty introspective and the first makes very conclusive statement about religious mythology. There are a bunch of great shots of the Station. The CGI is mostly a lot better than the series. There are featurettes glore on the DVD and nice memorial tributes to Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs. Their characters G'Kar and Dr. Franklin are also memorialized in a fun minicomic that comes with the DVD. It could actually be a fun comic series as the two of them make their voyage through space beyond the rim. Lot of cool things beyond the rim. Somedays I wish I was out their beyond the rim, but then I think, I'd miss this place.

Sometime during the featurettes and interviews on the Babylon 5 dvd I called up the internet and saw the headline about the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis. What? Wow! Sure enough the 35w  bridge over the Mississippi fell into the river. I talked to several people and we were all glad to be, not in the river. Seven dead and no one I know was envolved, at least not yet. Simba did report that she had been over the bridge just 15 minutes before. Nice to see someone is looking out for her. I had been by there yesterday but could not get on because the entrance ramp was closed. I had to detour onto the 10th avenue bridge and head home that way. I was thinking how it would be nice for that bridge to get the resurfacing done and I can quickly go home and not have to go over the 10th avenue bridge which I don't care for. Luckily I don't have to go that way very often. Luckily there weren't so many people killed.

A few days later: I find that one of the electricians at work, his girlfriend is one of the missing. Poor Greg.