Movie Log 2006: #108-110
yeah, I'm backdating...
The Prestige - Kirsti didn't care for this much, but I found it very engaging. Does Ricky Jay need to show up in every magic/con man offering?
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny - I enjoyed this a lot, but was still disappointed. It came about two years late, for one thing.
Cars - Admittedly much of the problem here had to do with the dying television I watched it on: the brightness kept fading in and out. Still, it was pretty clear that this was the weakest Pixar feature.

the start of a new tradition?

We forgot to bring one bag with us to MN. Unfortunately this bag contained nearly all of my gifts to Kirsti, as well as something I picked up for her on Mom's request. So yesterday I boxed and wrapped some random household items and attached notes describing the actual presents. I think this has a lot of potential. It is silly, of course, for us to buy each other gifts at home, travel 400 miles with them, wrap them, unwrap them, and then take them 400 miles back home. Plus, the joy of watching my beloved open a box containing three cans of lawnmower oil is going to be a Christmas sight that's sure to melt the heart of even the Grinchiest Grinch.

Is there a sticker for older listeners?
My grandma is 88 and is more or less in good health for her age. She really likes Johnny Cash. So in finishing up my shopping today I got her his last album, American V: A Hundred Highways. As this was a used copy, I gave it a listen myself. I'm glad I did because three songs in, I'm considering getting her something else. The first track is a Kris Kristofferson cover whose first lines are:

Lord, help me walk
Another mile, just one more mile
I'm tired of walkin' alone

Then later on there's "Down on the 309," the last song Cash ever wrote. It's about taking the pre-emptive measure of getting placed on that last train...

Take me to the depot, put me to bed
Blow an electric fan on my gnarly ol' head
Everybody take a look, see, I'm doin' fine
Then load my box on the 309

Man. Grandma's tough as hell; she still lives at home and works at her town library. Still, I don't know if she needs an album's worth of reminders of mortality from the Man in Black. I mean, I'm pretty healthy and I was getting a little depressed. I'll probably stick with this present, but she can't have so much as a cold when listening to it.

Movie Log 2006 #101-107
I have nothing to say about this batch. Rules of Attraction was the worst of the bunch; it happened to be on IFC when we were at the in-laws'.
The Last Detail
The Year of the Yao
V for Vendetta
The Rules of Attraction
You Can't Take It With You
49 Up
MST3K: Overdrawn at the Memory Bank

an interesting confluence
We got an email at work today saying that a sister division is consolidating and relocating its offices in Itasca and Addison. That's not the odd part. The new offices will be in the Rolling Meadows building which housed (and actually still does house the shell of) my former corporate masters.

Ways to Cheat at Monopoly
as unsuccessfully practiced by Kirsti's 10-y.o. second cousin:

*misread die rolls
* "Oh, I drew this card by accident but *this* is the one I should have drawn"
*shortchange nearly every payment
*shift your evenly-spaced houses to 1-2-3 when it suits you
*lowball your estimated income tax payments
*pilfer from the bank (an audacious move when you aren't the banker)
*best one ever: go upstairs for a moment, cash in hand; then come back and try to pass this off as a C-note:


This was all in one game, mind you. Kid pulled out all the stops, including claiming that landing on GO awarded you an additional $200. This was at least applied evenhandedly, so I consider it more of a lame house rule than a cheat. Still, truly a virtuoso display of chutzpah.

Movie Log 2006 #89-100
These are no longer in any order.

Cat Ballou - This was probably a lot funnier when Westerns weren't a moribund genre. I liked the bit about the dad (who would later end up with a horse's head in bed in The Godfather insisting that the Indian character was one of the lost tribes of Israel and could speak Yiddish.

It Should Happen to You - This was pretty cute. Judy Holliday wants to Be Somebody, so she puts her name up on a number of NYC billboards. Just her name. Of course, life imitated art many times over ever since, with Angelyne in LA, and various internet/You-tube quasi-celebs. Jack Lemmon makes his film debut, and is his dependable self.

Severance - Dumb, predictable British horror that wants to be Hostel meets The Office, but isn't in the league of either.

The Host - The last, and best, thing I saw at the Chicago FF. An excellent Korean monster movie.

Top Hat - Another of the interchangeable Fred Astaire movies; more enjoyable this time because it lacked blackface.

Attack the Gas Station! - A few years ago at Gen Con I briefly checked out the Hong Kong marathon and caught the very end of this Korean (not HK) tale of a seige at a gas station. I was completely confused, and also didn't know the title. Well, it's aptly-named.

Broadway Melody of 1938 - This was on TCM the other day. Apparently Eleanor Powell was a big deal back when. Also, Judy Garland shows up. What an unappealing pig-nosed girl.

Home Movie - A documentary by the makers of American Movie, this sprung from a series of commercials. The homes I'd most like to live in had the most annoying owners, and vice versa.

Space Mutiny - An MST3K movie that used stock footage from the original Battlestar Galactica and had Reb Brown cavorting with some woman who could have been his mother. Good times.

The Constant Gardener - Well done overall, but there are still bruises from where The Message hit me.

College - We bought the in-laws a DVD player. Kirsti's dad had picked up a couple of DVDs at the dollar store, and this Buster Keaton feature was the first thing we watched.