Viewing pleasures

Not to beat this whole Kerry thing into the ground...but was I the only one who was hoping he'd say something like, "I apologize to all the fine servicemen and women serving in Iraq who were too stupid to understand that I was making a joke"?

Just watched "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" last night. Pretty good, and the unexpected addition of Vince Vaughn made it even more saucily tasty. Seriously, do you think Brad's kinda pissed off at Vince? Or does Vince have to pretend to hate Brad when Jen's watching Access Hollywood and they're talking about Brangelina adopting kids again, but secretly Vince understands? But I digress. The movie: You could easily see how Brangelina could fall in love during the filming, its chemistry was apparent. I went in with very few expectations, which is always the best way to enjoy an action movie I think. But by the end I found myself actually getting fairly excited when they set up the final showdown in the Costco. Turned out to be fairly anti-climactic. I thought the earlier scenes in their house—beginning with their face-off with each other and then culminating in their teaming up against the other hitmen—and on the freeway, with them taking out the three cars in the minivan, were both more exciting and original. And the one line that actually made me chuckle: “These doors really are convenient!” I never really got into the whole comedic premise of the movie—the juxtaposition of their marriage with their careers—but that was a good line. And when Adam Brody asks from the back seat, “who are you people???” right after they’ve kidnapped him. That was a nice touch, too; good to see Adam Brody expanding his repertoire. Switching from the wise-cracking Jewish high school kid to the wise-cracking Jewish hitman...he really stretched his chops on that one. Soon enough we'll see such favorites as "wise-cracking Jewish host of his own late-night infomercial" and "wise-cracking Jewish upper-left square."

On that same topic: Doug Liman, the director. Also directed "The Bourne Identity," which I knew. What I didn’t know: he directed the first season of The OC, which explains the presence of Brody (as well as the prime-secondary-but-non-speaking role given to the woman doctor from House MD). AND Liman directed Swingers! I did not know that. Explains Vince Vaughn though, right?

What else have I watched since I got here...Oisin actually has an enormous movie collection, he downloads them all, so I have a whole bunch to choose from. Watched “Catch Me if You Can,” surprisingly good. And I haven’t yet gotten all the way through "King Kong." I really enjoyed the first hour of that one, then the second hour...wow. What can you say about the second hour? I was all with it during the big fight between Kong and the raptors (who have obviously replaced T-Rex as the go-to scary-ass dinosaurs). But then, when all the guys fell down into that pit...and there was that extended scene fighting off all the huge bugs? Mother of God. I seriously could not handle that. The one-armed dude getting eating by the worms? Oh hell no. But just all the enormous spiders and locusts and centipedes, Jesus T.F. Christ. After “Lord of the Rings” I guess I kinda forgot Peter Jackson’s MO early in his career. All those zombie movies and “Meet the Feebles” and whatnot receded nicely into the background, replaced by ginormous set-pieces and amazing actions sequences. I have to hand it to him, he’s still the gross-out king. I guess he didn’t want anyone to forget that.

As I said, I still haven’t watched the third hour. Or the forth. Or however many more hours this longass frickin' movie has. But I will at some point.

Other than that, I rewatched “40 Year Old Virgin,” which is right there at the top of my “funniest movies of all time” list. Okay, since you asked, here’s the list: “40 Year Old Virgin”; “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut”; “Office Space”; “Team America”; "Pulp Fiction"; “This Is Spinal Tap”; “Raising Arizona”; the scenes in “So I Married an Axe Murderer” with his family; uhhhh...I know I'm forgetting something here. Ah well.

Otherwise I’ve watched a couple American movies in Spanish for “studying purposes”: Unforgiven (still impressive in any language) and “Sweet and Lowdown,” which definitely loses something in translation, just because Sean Penn’s vocal performance is so great. And it’s funny to see Woody Allen not sound like Woody Allen.

I totally gave up on Lost. Could not get into it. It says something about my interest that I got fairly close to the end of season 1 and still did not care what happened next. I finally gave up completely when they returned to one of Jack’s back-stories. I can’t stand Jack. And that whole love-triangle with him and the bad dude and the chick, whatshername...oh yeah, Kate. Fuck. That. Noise. I know it’s necessary for a network tv show and whatever. But no thanks, not with my 42 minutes.

And what about that whole torture thing? Yeah right, everything’s going to be cool in the school after the Iraqi guy shoves sharp sticks under bad dude’s fingernails! And don’t tell me they dealt with it by sending Iraqi guy off for a few episodes, having him be tortured, etc. That’s all well and good from a karmic angle, I guess...but a couple episodes later, after I.G. returns, they’re actually making jokes about it! I remember at some point Jack saying something to Kate about the sexual tension between her and bad dude; something like, “last time you did that, you ended up making out with him.” And she responded with something like, “yeah, well, that’s because torturing him didn’t work!” And then he kinda smiled and shook his head, like in a sitcom when the husband mouths off about dinner and the wife responds with something about how bad he is in the sack. Hello??? We’re talking about torture here, people!

Wow, that rant got out of control in a biiiig hurry. Anyone still with me? Hellooo...