We just finished watching Thank You for Smoking. Hilarious look at big tobacco from their side. Most entertaining movie we’ve seen in awhile. A-.
Three Day Weekend
Berck had a three-day weekend (because of that glorious of all holidays, Columbus Day). He also has this coming Friday off. But he has to work Saturday the next day.
We traveled down to Pueblo on Friday evening for dinner with Berck’s buddy from work who just got a job down there teaching ROTC students how to fly. They served us a huge pile of homemade wontons. Berck and I love wontons, but we’re used to eating maybe two at a time from a Chinese restaurant. We did our best but still couldn’t finish the pile. And they were better than what you usually get too.
When we got there, Berck’s buddy held up a bunt pan and said, “You guys wouldn’t want this, would you? It came with the apartment.” Berck laughed as I nearly went into conniptions. I’ve been asking for a bunt pan for years. And I got one for free! I made cheddar monkey bread on Saturday and a pound cake on Monday. Berck didn’t think he liked pound cake until he had some of mine.
On Saturday we drove up to Denver and had dinner with Berck’s college buddy Neal. Then we went to an Eddie from Ohio concert. Neal hadn’t really heard much of them but wanted to go so he could hang out with us. Eddie puts on a great live show… the four of them are just tight… and when they walked off stage, Neal jumped to his feet applauding.
We had pretty good seats. The venue is an old church building that now houses a non-profit that shows folk music. We sat in the front row of the balcony, which meant that we got to see everything, even if it did get a little hot up there.
Next we drove around trying to find a liquor store still open so we could buy real beer (not the watered down stuff they sell in the grocery stores), then settled on Neal’s porch and listened to music on his crummy laptop speakers and conversed. Around 2, we went to bed. Berck and I had brought our air mattress and bedding which made for a comfy night away from home.
In the morning, well, nearly noon, Neal shared what meager breakfast foods he had on hand from his bachelor kitchen and then had to run off for an ultimate frizbee game. Berck and I found a middle eastern place called the Jerusalem Restaurant that Neal had pointed out the night before and stuffed ourselves on gyros and fries and something fried and tasty but that looked like a huge oblong hushpuppy (the name of which I obviously can’t remember).
Next we found the Denver Air Museum, housed in a hanger of the old Air Force base up there (and home to the Air Force Academy from 1955-1958). It’s a pretty good museum. It’s got an X-wing in it and a B-1, which was cool to look at, having just seen one fly over our house the day before.
On Monday Berck futzed with computer stuff pretty much all day. Berck got a call before we went to bed telling him not to show up the next morning until 9 because of weather. Sure enough, we woke up to snow covering the ground. Fortunately, the roads were clear. It had been rain turned to snow, so everything was coated in white. Berck got another call after he’d gotten dressed saying not to bother to come in until 1:30. Of course, by then the sun was out, the snow all melted, and it was starting to get quite warm.
Today it kind of got hot, and tonight we have all the windows open again.
Game day at the Academy
B-1
F-15
Taken from our balcony. Saturdays in the fall are fun. They got a lot closer on their final pass, but I wasn’t taking pictures then.
Movie Update
We just watched Winter Passing and really enjoyed it. Part of its appeal for me is Zooey Deschanel, my latest movie star crush. If I were to give you a plot outline, it would sound horribly boring since it’s a character movie. And the characters are, perhaps, a bit overplayed, except for Deschanel’s, since all of her characters tend to be quiet and understated, with the exception of the disgruntled store clerk in The Good Girl. B+.
Though I’m sure the film makers would argue the point, Eulogy was a better family-oriented, indie version of The Big Chill (which Jonah really liked, and I more or less liked. B.). Eulogy too stars Deschanel who is probably the best thing about it. Jonah like this one better than I did as well, but I certainly enjoyed it. I’ve never been to a funeral, but I like watching movies about them. B.
I’ve also realized that even writing blurbs this short about everything in our Netflix history is unlikely to happen.
Election wasn’t bad, but wasn’t worth recommending. Average Hollywood fare. C.
I keep renting foreign films that annoy me. Aside from the steamy sex scenes, Lower City wasn’t very interesting. A plot about a weird love triangle that wasn’t weird enough to be intriguing. C.
SLC Punk is one of those movies I rented just so Netflix would stop recommending it. Since I expected it would probably be awful, I was pleasantly surprised. It was, from time to time, very entertaining. It was at least different and vaguely thought-provoking. Also very indie. B-.
Joanna and I both thought Secretary was brilliantly done. It’s a movie about two people who engage in sexually abnormal behavior, but the point, I think, is that they’re perhaps not as abnormal as we pretend they are. B+/A-.
If The Celebration wasn’t Dogma 95, it certainly looked and felt like it. I don’t like watching movies that were filmed on a camcorder. I realize that a lot of people probably disagree with me, but I think movies should be shot on film. At the very least. Production values aside, the plot was awful, the subject matter was unappealing and the subtitles hopefully didn’t do the Danish justice. D. (That said, Ben might like it.)
Under the Tuscan Sun is a typical hollywood woman-power story. Based on the memoirs of a loud feminist. C+.
Beautiful Girls is a decent indie film. Good characters, some excellent moments. And it’s got Natalie Portman in mittens. Always a plus. And now I’ve seen it twice, because I didn’t realize when I rented it that I’d seen it on IFC. B+.
Electoral-Vote.com
The Votemaster is at it again. Electoral-Vote.com tracked polls during the 2004 presidential election and is tracking Senate races this time around (he also tracks House races, but not as much). This is the best source of polling data out there. You hear on the news each day about such and such poll over the whole nation swinging this way or that. But the truth of the matter is that there are only a few Senate races out there that will affect the outcome of the election. I read it every day.