07-16-2005

529) Rounders. I've heard about this forever and just never thought about it when I was at the video store. If it hadn't been right next to Remember the Titans I wouldn't have picked it up. But it was, so I did. Pretty good but it was kind of weird seeing how crazy they were for poker. I'll admit to getting sucked into watching hours and hours of it on ESPN and playing a lot in high school PE after I became the de facto pit boss of a locker room full of freshmen (I was the only senior) and wound up leading them all into a year long obsession with gambling. Anyway, I can get obsessed about stuff like football and relive games for years and years but when he was rewatching old World Series of Poker tapes? What? Why? Didn't get that part. I mean, I got that part, but I just couldn't put myself in that situation.

530) Beyond the Sea. I see we've now entered the era of the stylized biopic. All of the clever little literary devices were interesting, but also kind of distracting. Still good though, I'm just being nitpicky. Plus, Kate Bosworth.

531) We Don't Live Here Anymore. This was not the best way to win me back, Naomi. Why the dirty?

532) Hidalgo. I was really surprised by this one. I wasn't expecting much really, but it had that kind of old Hollywood adventure picture feel to it and I liked it a lot.

533) The Notebook. Charity bawled and she'd already seen it once. She's such a girl sometimes. Anyway, very sweet, very sad, tugs at the old heart strings at just the right moments. Very well done. I could see why there was such a fuss made over it.

533 down, 467 to go.

07-15-2005

523) Waking Up In Reno. While driving cross country to attend a monster truck jam might be a noble endeavor, using it as the frame work for a character drama about four "comically" unhappy people isn't. Crap.

524) Dracula II: The Ascension. I'm not sure why this is a sequel to Dracula 2000 since it didn't really have anything to do with continuing that storyline. Showed promise in the beginning and then got strangley dull for awhile until the action picked back up near the end. I'll rent the next one and maybe that one will flesh out the rest of the story enough to make it all worth it.

525) Hot Rods to Hell. Dirty, stinking, no good teenagers. I kept thinking about Straw Dogs through this. The whole decent man driven to violence to protect himself and loved ones is very Peckinpah.

526) A Midsummer Night's Dream. I enjoyed the 1999 remake, but the whole Golden Age of Hollywood big budget costume drama production atmosphere of this one seemed more....I don't know, right? Like Shakespeare is supposed to be all pomp and pageantry and only old school Hollywood could deliver that kind of tone. Special mention for Rooney who made Puck completely malevolent as opposed to simply mischievous and Cagney who turned in an excellent against type performance.

527) Risky Business. One more that everyone has seen but me. Didn't live up to the hype.

528) Remember the Titans. Again, didn't live up to the hype. But it did have football, so that's a plus.

528 down, 472 to go.

Stayed home again today and took it easy. Not really feeling a lot of improvement but it's only been one day. The problem with the brace is that my knee isn't folding back too far anymore but with it on it feels like I'm going to pitch forward. My dimestore physiology is telling me that there is something going on with the ligaments so that they aren't holding my knee in position like they should and pumping me full of Celebrex isn't the solution. Also, Lee says Celebrex messed his mother up when she was on it so I'm a little worried about it. I don't know if headaches and being short of breathe are official side effects but I'm pretty sure they are. Cause I have them.

07-14-2005

520) Hitch. Hollywood is going to have to start implementing some sort of rule about date movies not lasting longer than 100 minutes. After 90 minutes caring about the hero getting the girl sets into boredom and that's no good for real guys on dates.

521) Larceny, Inc. Pretty funny. Reminded me of The Big Deal on Madonna Street (the greatest caper comedy of all time) from time to time, but stands out on it's own.

522) Saboteur. Another unseen Hitchcock. I agree that this is a forerunner to themes Hitchcock would explore in later movies and as such it's an interesting watch. Otherwise it was only okay. Visually great though, Hitch always had an excellent cinematographer on hand and a keen eye for location.

522 down, 478 to go.

Good news and bad news. Good news first; no surgery plans yet. The initial diagnosis is that fluid build up on my knee is causing it to pull to the left instead of going straight up and down as I walk and is dragging the patella with it and that's what's causing all the pain. So I've been fitted with a brace to keep the cap in line and prescribed Celebrex to get rid of the fluid. I was also given a shot of Cortizone which hurt like a bitch for a few minutes but it really did work wonders for awhile. I think it worn off though, my knee is throbbing like mad right now. I'm to go back in four weeks to see if that's helping and if it isn't then we try something else. The bad news? I didn't get to see my doctor. The only one available is the same dickhole that jerked me around for SIX MONTHS last time, trying different inflammatory medications, running every damn test known to man on me, implying that there wasn't anything wrong with me and that I was either a big baby or a big faker and I should really just suck it up and stop bothering him every few weeks, and generally being an asshole of the highest ranking until I finally put my foot down (very gingerly) and demanded to see the doctor I was supposed to see in the first place who took all of five minutes looking at x-rays and feeling my knee to determine that I had torn cartilage and the bones were rubbing together and they could fix that right up how does Friday sound to you? I didn't actually realize it was the dickhole until after he left (it's been about four years and I only actually saw Dr. Competent the one time) since he never actually said "Hi, I'm Dr. Dickhole, Dr. Competent is busy right now" or anything and since I recognized him I just kind of assumed it was the right one and let him do his thing. After he left I saw his name on the prescription and realized who it was and now if things aren't better by the end of next week I'm going to see a different doctor. Hopefully this will work but I'm highly skeptical. True to form he started out all "it's inflamed, we'll fix it with drugs" and that didn't work at all last time so I'm figuring on suffering for another week. So it's only 8:30 and I'm going to watch at least one more before I go to bed, but I really don't feel like blogging later on so I'll catch up tomorrow.

07-13-2005

516) Too Late for Tears. The print on this one sucked and the audio/video synch was way off so that was annoying, but the story was good.

517) Kissin' Cousins. This movie game me a great idea. If there really are a bunch of hillbilly hotties roaming the mountains of East Tennessee looking for men, why don't all the eligible bachelors of the SEC head up there and breed out all the UT fans?

518) The Brother From Another Planet. Whoever cast Mos Def as Ford Prefect must have never seen this. Joe Morton would have been perfect.

519) Romeo Must Die. Murder and extortion in order to build the Raiders a stadium in Oakland? Sounds about right.

519 down, 481 to go.

So. Knee is fucked. Appointment tomorrow at 2:30 so the doctor can tell me I'll have to have surgery again. On the one hand, days and days of movies here I come. On the other, I don't have time for this shit. FUCK.

07-12-2005

514) Follow that Dream. Nothing warms the cockles of the heart like simple country folk sticking it to THE MAN.

515) Detour. Film noir classics indeed. Wisest $20 I ever spent.

515 down, 485 to go.

07-11-2005

512) 2 Fast 2 Furious. Crap.

513) Mission to Mars. Blah blah blah blah blah De Palma blah blah blah talented blah blah wasted blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah Tim Robbins blah blah insufferable twat blah blah blah blah Cheadle blah blah blah as always blah blah blah blah blah not enough blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. HATE.

513 down, 487 to go.

I've been pretty good about biting my tongue. Really I have. But sweet fucking apples Britney, you married this? THIS? THIS? Really, I just can't fucking handle it. If you needed me to be more white trash I could have done it. I spend most of my nights sitting around in my boxers, sunglasses and cowboy hat looking like Bocephus and eating chili while watching TV so I don't know how much more white trash I could have gotten, but I would have tried. I WOULD HAVE TRIED. For you, Britney. Just for you. Because that's how much I loved you. But no more. I've said we are through before. I've said you are dead to me before. I've insisted that my friends refer to you as "She who is not spoken." But this time it's really over. For real. No more drunk dialing. No more fond remembrances. You're cut off! You've made your filthy, flea infested bed. Lie in it!

...You just kinda wasted all my precious time...

...but don't think twice, it's all right...

Things I don't want to do today:

1) Be at work.

2) Do any work.

3) Stay all day at work.

And yet, being the loyal company man that I am, I shall do all of these things right after I'm through complaining about it here. Today would be a perfect day to take off so I could sleep late and then watch movies all afternoon but there's just too much to do. Jolley continually accuses me of being a workaholic (need...more...WORKAHOL...) but that's seriously not the case. For starter's, my name is on the building. It's not like I can get away with half-assing everything enough to keep getting a paycheck. There's already enough people doing that which is the one of the direct causes of my insane work ethic. It's true, I hate to leave things unfinished, but when the day is over and I can't go any longer (you try working 60 to 65 hour weeks for four months straight on knees that feel like a rusty screw is caught in the middle, buddy) I leave and don't think about it again until the next day whether I'm finished with everything or not. And when that next day comes I hit snooze for as long as possible and spend the rest of the time before I get here dreading it. I'm not the kind of person that is constantly thinking about work and wishing I was here. It's the total opposite. So now there's a second floor worth of shit from UPS to go sort, half a dozen orders to be printed hanging under my name, and a sincere desire to go home and hide under my bed, but not too far, cause then I can't see the TV.

07-10-2005

507) Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead. Quirky humor, great character actors (by the truckload no less), why wasn't this a bigger deal? I remember it in the theaters briefly and thought it looked good but then forgot about it.

508) Strange Illusion. When I was at Sam's yesterday I took a look at the DVDs and they had all these crazy DVD box sets that looked kind of ghetto, but also awesome, and I had actually seen the film noir one at Best Buy and thought about buying it but backed out 'cause it was $40 and looked too cheap to command that price (even if it was 10 DVDs), but since Sam's had it for $20 I decided to take the plunge. So far so good. I've already seen D.O.A. earlier this year but if the other 9 are as good as this one I'm headed back for Gothic Horror, Horror Classics, and Vintage Murder Mysteries.

509) Last Action Hero. I know this had a bad reputation and everyone thought it was stupid, but I kind of liked it. As far as a parody of action/cop movie cliches go it was pretty funny (maybe that's why no one liked it, they wanted a serious action movie from Arnie?), if a little bit long (though was that also part of the parody?). Bonus points for a young Veronica Vaughn and the nod to The Seventh Seal (although Ian McLellan as Death seemed silly for some reason. Maybe it was the screamingly obvious bald wig they put on him).

510) Hart's War. Long, kind of preachy. Whatever.

511) The Hitch-Hiker. One more from the box set for today. I'm totally sold on it now. Ida Lupino steps behind the camera for this one, and she does a good job, but it would have been nice to have her to look at for a little while.

511 down, 489 to go.

07-09-2005

506) Coach Carter. Jackson was Jackson, and it was a pretty standard motivational/feel good sports movie, but I still enjoyed it.

506 down, 494 to go.

Can I really call yesterday a weird day when weird days are starting to become the norm? My few hours of tieing up loose ends yesterday morning turned into a six hour no stopping for lunch almost full work day. It didn't really seem that bad though, I was actually a little shocked when I looked at my watch and saw it was 2 o'clock and was thinking the whole time we had only been there for three hours. But still, plenty of time killed, and more down the drain when I took a shower and then headed to the grocery store since I haven't been in four weeks and I was pretty much down to condiments and expired milk. I've been stopping at Walgreen's on the way home from work to pick up a case of Coke every couple of nights and living off whatever fast food I could con Sarah or Charity into bringing me. Which, now that I think about it, really wasn't that bad of a system. But I was getting really tired of wanting a midnight snack and finding nothing appealing so it was off to the grocery store. When I got back I started to watch Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, but Donna called with a computer emergency so I walked over there got her problem fixed and when I got back I made it about ten minutes before I fell asleep (by now, it's about seven o'clock). Sarah called at 8 wanting to hang out, but I was still half asleep and told her I'd call when I woke up. That didn't happen until about ten minutes ago. All hail the mighty 14 hour nap! So another day wasted, more behind, but for once in my life I actually feel rested so I suppose I needed the sleep. Time to buckle down today.