Happy New Year Weekend Update
Happy New Year
I hope you all had a very Happy New Year, gentle readers. For me, my new year’s was a quiet one. For the first time in years, there was no New Year’s Eve party in my building so it was easy to go to sleep after watching the tape delay of the ball drop in Times Square.
I wish Time Square ball drop was broadcast live to the West Coast. Then, we could be in bed and sound asleep much earlier. It would save a lot of time and cut down on the drinking. I mean, why drink after mid-night when you saw the ball drop in Times Square?
The only noise of consequence was some fireworks that had been leftover from the 4th of July. The fireworks did not delay my falling asleep at all.
Emerald Bowl – Part 2
I have some more on the Utes victory in the Emerald Bowl. These are sports headlines from non-Salt Lake City papers:
Humiliating bowl loss for Jackets
Atlanta Journal – Constitution
No sting from Jackets as Utah rolls to Emerald Bowl victory
Macon [Georgia] Telegraph
Georgia Tech Dismissed by Utah
Los Angeles Times
I wonder what the Salt Lake City Tribune had to say about the game.
I did get an email from the University sports stuff sales agency on Saturday that announced that it still had some Emerald Bowl stuff available for purchase. Last year, when Utah won the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, they sold a commercial free DVD recording of the game. Of course you know the result; it is still nice to watch without all of those needless commercials.
[Written while eating Emerald Cashews.]
What Did I Do?
That’s a really great question. With four days to relax with, I should have been very active and accomplished a great deal.
But, I actually did much less than I could have finished.
Tommy’s and DVDs
On Saturday, Doug and I went to lunch at the Original Tommy’s Burgers on our way to DVD Planet.com. It was a perfect way to go buy some more DVDs.
We got to Tommy’s before the noon time crowds that did not appear. Maybe the cool weather and light rain kept everyone home. Moving on to food, we both had the Mega Combo which is, as you know, three patties of beef, cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato, and chili; chili cheese fries, and a large drink. For the record, I had a bowl of soup and two slices of sourdough bread with brie cheese for dinner later on that day.
The Big Guy and I got to talking about three young women who came into to Tommy’s for lunch after they had their workouts. I pointed out to Doug how great that was, to find an attractive women who liked Tommy’s. In my mind, that made dead solid, almost perfect potential young women to go out with.
Doug sort of rained on my images. He said, “Dad, what sort of woman goes to Tommy’s for a chili cheeseburger, fries, and a soft drink after working out? What kind of a message is she sending out?”
I have to admit that he did raise excellent points there. Anyway, since I had not shaved in two days and I had just finished a Mega Combo and all of the natural ingredients, I felt I was not in the best of shape to engage in a conversation.
So we left and went to DVD Planet.com.
DVD Planet had some nifty film bargains for me and the Doug. I picked up a copy of M*A*S*H and this brought me to having 93 of the American Film Institute100 Best Films. I also picked up some films that had been on my DVDs to buy if I don’t get a gift of them for Christmas list.
Doug helped me add to my foreign [French and Italian foreign film collection in Doug’s mind] film by Jean Renoir, THE RULES OF THE GAME, and two versions of the same film, THE LOWER DEPTHS, one by Kurosawa, one of my favorite directors and the other by Renoir again.
Doug was particularly pleased with himself as he found a DVD that his friend and co-writer Mark had been talking about. Doug said he may let Mark borrow it after he views it. That’s sporting of him.
Since I was in South O. C., behind the Orange Curtain, I had thought about catching a film at one of the two foreign film houses in the O.C. I was thinking of seeing either CACHÉ or THE WHITE COUNTESS. In the end, I gave up on that idea because I would have to kill a couple of hours waiting for the next showing after we finished up at DVD Planet. The wait did not appeal to me and if I had waited, I would have had a drive home in the dark and in the rain with some of my fellow drivers driving under the influence of alcohol. That seemed like that would be no fun at all for me.
My Favorite Films of 2005 List
I am diligently working on my list of the films I enjoyed most in 2005. I am highly confident that my list will have some films that did not make it on to your list of films. I have my list down to eleven or twelve films right now. I still have two more films to see; I should catch those tomorrow when the cinemas ought to be empty plus neither film is a film for small children.
My film list will be alphabetically. This seems like a much easier process for me. Doug ranks his films from 1 to 10 with 1 being the best film on his list. I expect that I will be able to post my list sometime during the week.
I had planned to go to the cinema on Monday. But, it was raining heavily when I would have had to leave so I decided to pass on the cinema until next weekend. This gave me the time to complete my Best Films of 2005 List. I decided not to rank them 1 to 10 or however many there might be. My list is arranged chronologically by the date that I saw the film. Not the most rational approach, true; but, it works for me. Here is my list of 2005 Films:
BRIDE AND PREJUDICE
SIN CITY
LAND OF THE DEAD
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE
WEDDING CRASHERS
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
THE ISLAND
2046
BROKEN FLOWERS
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
CAPOTE
SYRIANA
I already have the ones in italics on DVD now. I expect that I will pick up the others as they become available in the coming months or on my next trip to the DVD stores.
What I Saw at the Cinema
I did manage to go to the cinema this long weekend and I did see some good films. I only saw three films instead of the five that I had planned to see.
KING KONG was the sleeper that Doug said it was. By the way, sleeper, in this context means, a film that put him to literal and actual sleep. While the film has some great cinematography and CGI work, it is still overly long. Its first act plods along like a desert tortoise with the slows.
When I saw KONG, I was sitting next to four teenage girls. They say next to me and not the other way around. The one sitting next to me must have been really affected by the film since she got up and returned three times during the film. Maybe she had a weak bladder or got scared by the big ape. Anyway, she and her friends were holding on to each other which was because having the one next to me hold my arm would have been out of the question unless I was may be 20 or so. Then, it would have been very good for a college guy.
Doug said the film could have gone a good editing diet and dropped maybe 40 or 50 minutes without suffering very much. I was of the opinion that a first year film student could have done a better job of cutting and editing the film and would have dropped its run time by a full hour. In the final and absolute analysis, the box office results, the film is beginning to flounder and it will probably be unable to recover its costs.
I was looking at IMDb today and noticed that the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA had overtaken KONG at the box office over the long weekend. I saw both of these films on Friday afternoon; NARNIA played to an almost full house while KONG only filled a quarter of the seats in comparatively equal sized theaters.
The CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, on the other hand, moved along at a much quicker pace and delivered more action in a faster paced sequence. I think the CGI was less impressive in this film. Some of the extras looked like they were Ork [or however you spell the term] refugees from the LORD OF THE RINGS.
I also think the actors had something to do with the impact of these films. Naomi Watts, currently Doug’s Babe of the Week [two weeks running], certainly seems as good of an actress as Fay Wray was. Jack Black looked so much like a cardboard cutout whose sole acting skill seems to have been raising an eyebrow. That move works from time to time but not for almost every scene in a three hour film.
The CHRONICLES seemed to tell the story better than KONG. It almost seemed as if Peter Jackson was trying to recreate the scope of LORD OF THE RINGS with KONG. Some of the action scenes, while brilliantly constructed and executed, tended to distract me and this may have adversely affected my viewing enjoyment.
Here’s another statement of the film’s staying power. Half way through the film, at about the 80 minute mark, the film broke. It took close to 15 minutes to repair and no more than a handful of people left their seats and did not return. Even when the venue offered them a free replacement ticket for any other film showing at the multiplex.
My last film was SYRIANA. I found this to be the more compelling and most enjoyable of the three films. It may have been because it was an adult film while the others were aimed at younger audiences.
I liked the way the film jumped around with the parallel and interwoven stories. This added a nice layer of sophistication. It also made you pay attention to what was going on the screen. Unlike KONG were you could miss out of a scene or two, you could not miss any scene in this film.
The film moved along crisply to its ultimate conclusion. It is a sad tale of genuinely good people getting caught up in the ambiguity of super power politics and international business.
If I had to rank the films, I would put SYRIANA first, then CHRONICLES, and finally KONG.
Rock and Roll
I listen to a classic [oldies] rock and roll station in Los Angeles when I am driving in my car. I also listen to the news and traffic which are necessities in Southern California so you can avoid getting stuck in a mess on the non-moving freeways.
Every big holiday, the station conducts a listener poll of the top 300 best rock and roll songs. The end of year collection was called “The Greatest Rock and Roll of All Time.” I thought that was bit presumptuous on their part.
The No. 1 song was Carlos Santana’s “Evil Ways,” and that struck me as being very odd.
I would have been certain that the Beatles or Elvis Presley would have had the number one song. Maybe there was ballot box stuffing. I am already over it since the song list will be gone by the time I hop in the Prelude tomorrow and drive off to work.
That was my New Year’s Weekend gentle readers.
Be well and stay happy.
I hope you all had a very Happy New Year, gentle readers. For me, my new year’s was a quiet one. For the first time in years, there was no New Year’s Eve party in my building so it was easy to go to sleep after watching the tape delay of the ball drop in Times Square.
I wish Time Square ball drop was broadcast live to the West Coast. Then, we could be in bed and sound asleep much earlier. It would save a lot of time and cut down on the drinking. I mean, why drink after mid-night when you saw the ball drop in Times Square?
The only noise of consequence was some fireworks that had been leftover from the 4th of July. The fireworks did not delay my falling asleep at all.
Emerald Bowl – Part 2
I have some more on the Utes victory in the Emerald Bowl. These are sports headlines from non-Salt Lake City papers:
Humiliating bowl loss for Jackets
Atlanta Journal – Constitution
No sting from Jackets as Utah rolls to Emerald Bowl victory
Macon [Georgia] Telegraph
Georgia Tech Dismissed by Utah
Los Angeles Times
I wonder what the Salt Lake City Tribune had to say about the game.
I did get an email from the University sports stuff sales agency on Saturday that announced that it still had some Emerald Bowl stuff available for purchase. Last year, when Utah won the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, they sold a commercial free DVD recording of the game. Of course you know the result; it is still nice to watch without all of those needless commercials.
[Written while eating Emerald Cashews.]
What Did I Do?
That’s a really great question. With four days to relax with, I should have been very active and accomplished a great deal.
But, I actually did much less than I could have finished.
Tommy’s and DVDs
On Saturday, Doug and I went to lunch at the Original Tommy’s Burgers on our way to DVD Planet.com. It was a perfect way to go buy some more DVDs.
We got to Tommy’s before the noon time crowds that did not appear. Maybe the cool weather and light rain kept everyone home. Moving on to food, we both had the Mega Combo which is, as you know, three patties of beef, cheese, lettuce, onion, tomato, and chili; chili cheese fries, and a large drink. For the record, I had a bowl of soup and two slices of sourdough bread with brie cheese for dinner later on that day.
The Big Guy and I got to talking about three young women who came into to Tommy’s for lunch after they had their workouts. I pointed out to Doug how great that was, to find an attractive women who liked Tommy’s. In my mind, that made dead solid, almost perfect potential young women to go out with.
Doug sort of rained on my images. He said, “Dad, what sort of woman goes to Tommy’s for a chili cheeseburger, fries, and a soft drink after working out? What kind of a message is she sending out?”
I have to admit that he did raise excellent points there. Anyway, since I had not shaved in two days and I had just finished a Mega Combo and all of the natural ingredients, I felt I was not in the best of shape to engage in a conversation.
So we left and went to DVD Planet.com.
DVD Planet had some nifty film bargains for me and the Doug. I picked up a copy of M*A*S*H and this brought me to having 93 of the American Film Institute100 Best Films. I also picked up some films that had been on my DVDs to buy if I don’t get a gift of them for Christmas list.
Doug helped me add to my foreign [French and Italian foreign film collection in Doug’s mind] film by Jean Renoir, THE RULES OF THE GAME, and two versions of the same film, THE LOWER DEPTHS, one by Kurosawa, one of my favorite directors and the other by Renoir again.
Doug was particularly pleased with himself as he found a DVD that his friend and co-writer Mark had been talking about. Doug said he may let Mark borrow it after he views it. That’s sporting of him.
Since I was in South O. C., behind the Orange Curtain, I had thought about catching a film at one of the two foreign film houses in the O.C. I was thinking of seeing either CACHÉ or THE WHITE COUNTESS. In the end, I gave up on that idea because I would have to kill a couple of hours waiting for the next showing after we finished up at DVD Planet. The wait did not appeal to me and if I had waited, I would have had a drive home in the dark and in the rain with some of my fellow drivers driving under the influence of alcohol. That seemed like that would be no fun at all for me.
My Favorite Films of 2005 List
I am diligently working on my list of the films I enjoyed most in 2005. I am highly confident that my list will have some films that did not make it on to your list of films. I have my list down to eleven or twelve films right now. I still have two more films to see; I should catch those tomorrow when the cinemas ought to be empty plus neither film is a film for small children.
My film list will be alphabetically. This seems like a much easier process for me. Doug ranks his films from 1 to 10 with 1 being the best film on his list. I expect that I will be able to post my list sometime during the week.
I had planned to go to the cinema on Monday. But, it was raining heavily when I would have had to leave so I decided to pass on the cinema until next weekend. This gave me the time to complete my Best Films of 2005 List. I decided not to rank them 1 to 10 or however many there might be. My list is arranged chronologically by the date that I saw the film. Not the most rational approach, true; but, it works for me. Here is my list of 2005 Films:
BRIDE AND PREJUDICE
SIN CITY
LAND OF THE DEAD
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE
WEDDING CRASHERS
CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
THE ISLAND
2046
BROKEN FLOWERS
THE CONSTANT GARDENER
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
CAPOTE
SYRIANA
I already have the ones in italics on DVD now. I expect that I will pick up the others as they become available in the coming months or on my next trip to the DVD stores.
What I Saw at the Cinema
I did manage to go to the cinema this long weekend and I did see some good films. I only saw three films instead of the five that I had planned to see.
KING KONG was the sleeper that Doug said it was. By the way, sleeper, in this context means, a film that put him to literal and actual sleep. While the film has some great cinematography and CGI work, it is still overly long. Its first act plods along like a desert tortoise with the slows.
When I saw KONG, I was sitting next to four teenage girls. They say next to me and not the other way around. The one sitting next to me must have been really affected by the film since she got up and returned three times during the film. Maybe she had a weak bladder or got scared by the big ape. Anyway, she and her friends were holding on to each other which was because having the one next to me hold my arm would have been out of the question unless I was may be 20 or so. Then, it would have been very good for a college guy.
Doug said the film could have gone a good editing diet and dropped maybe 40 or 50 minutes without suffering very much. I was of the opinion that a first year film student could have done a better job of cutting and editing the film and would have dropped its run time by a full hour. In the final and absolute analysis, the box office results, the film is beginning to flounder and it will probably be unable to recover its costs.
I was looking at IMDb today and noticed that the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA had overtaken KONG at the box office over the long weekend. I saw both of these films on Friday afternoon; NARNIA played to an almost full house while KONG only filled a quarter of the seats in comparatively equal sized theaters.
The CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, on the other hand, moved along at a much quicker pace and delivered more action in a faster paced sequence. I think the CGI was less impressive in this film. Some of the extras looked like they were Ork [or however you spell the term] refugees from the LORD OF THE RINGS.
I also think the actors had something to do with the impact of these films. Naomi Watts, currently Doug’s Babe of the Week [two weeks running], certainly seems as good of an actress as Fay Wray was. Jack Black looked so much like a cardboard cutout whose sole acting skill seems to have been raising an eyebrow. That move works from time to time but not for almost every scene in a three hour film.
The CHRONICLES seemed to tell the story better than KONG. It almost seemed as if Peter Jackson was trying to recreate the scope of LORD OF THE RINGS with KONG. Some of the action scenes, while brilliantly constructed and executed, tended to distract me and this may have adversely affected my viewing enjoyment.
Here’s another statement of the film’s staying power. Half way through the film, at about the 80 minute mark, the film broke. It took close to 15 minutes to repair and no more than a handful of people left their seats and did not return. Even when the venue offered them a free replacement ticket for any other film showing at the multiplex.
My last film was SYRIANA. I found this to be the more compelling and most enjoyable of the three films. It may have been because it was an adult film while the others were aimed at younger audiences.
I liked the way the film jumped around with the parallel and interwoven stories. This added a nice layer of sophistication. It also made you pay attention to what was going on the screen. Unlike KONG were you could miss out of a scene or two, you could not miss any scene in this film.
The film moved along crisply to its ultimate conclusion. It is a sad tale of genuinely good people getting caught up in the ambiguity of super power politics and international business.
If I had to rank the films, I would put SYRIANA first, then CHRONICLES, and finally KONG.
Rock and Roll
I listen to a classic [oldies] rock and roll station in Los Angeles when I am driving in my car. I also listen to the news and traffic which are necessities in Southern California so you can avoid getting stuck in a mess on the non-moving freeways.
Every big holiday, the station conducts a listener poll of the top 300 best rock and roll songs. The end of year collection was called “The Greatest Rock and Roll of All Time.” I thought that was bit presumptuous on their part.
The No. 1 song was Carlos Santana’s “Evil Ways,” and that struck me as being very odd.
I would have been certain that the Beatles or Elvis Presley would have had the number one song. Maybe there was ballot box stuffing. I am already over it since the song list will be gone by the time I hop in the Prelude tomorrow and drive off to work.
That was my New Year’s Weekend gentle readers.
Be well and stay happy.
posted by Chuck Reinhardt at 6:46 PM
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