Naked Hobo

Well, it is over.  I would say it was a success.  Started off slow, but it allowed time to play some one on one with Rob in Carcassonne Castle.  Once the day started moving on Friday though, it didn’t slow down much.  We ended up playing games until 5am.  I am gonna do another post with a list of all the games that got played over the weekend.  I would like to thank everyone that showed up.  So, thank you Rob, Jeff W, Jeff K, Jeff S, Steve, Joanne, Gretchen, Randy, Endo, Andrew, David, Joyce, Kristen, Lynette, Karl, Colleen, Chris, Jammie, Eric, Lori, Monty, Thalia, Connal, Lilly, Jake, and anyone else that I am forgetting, which I apologize for.  Now I just have to truck everything back to my house.

Ambitious, wide-boy Nick Leeson is determined to rise in the world and be more than a simple bank clerk. When his employers, Barings Bank, offer him the opportunity to go to Jakarta to sort out a problem that nobody else wants, he seizes the opportunity with both hands. In Jakarta he meets and marries Lisa and together they go to Singapore when the bank offers him the job of setting up their future options trading operation. To save money the bank allows Nick to operate both the floor trading and the back office facilities and force him to employ cheap, unskilled staff. His first year of trading is a big success and he makes large profits for the bank even though he has illegally broken trading rules and secretly covered up losses. Given more freedom, even more money and continuing unchecked, Nick starts to make losses and again attempts to trade out of them but this time he comes unstuck as his illegal trading generates even bigger losses. After the death of his unborn child Nick completely loses control and gambles without restraint with other people’s money leading inevitably to a complete financial meltdown and the bankruptcy of the bank.  Thanks IMDB.

Okay, so maybe it isn’t the most riveting of films, but I still found it interesting, another one of those, “Hey, let’s look up so more information about all this” films.  Plus, I do like Ewan McGregor a lot, and as such I have been getting many of his older movies from Netflix (though a certain number of never to be mentioned movies by a childhood murdering wretch are not included).  It was a solid movie, with solid performances by most of the cast.  The Asian actors though, at times, seemed like cutouts from a bad kung fu movie, they way they talked seemed like it was poorly dubbed voiceovers.  Still, I enjoyed it, 3 1/2 axes.

and still quite busy.

Things are starting to pile up.  As a result of that, I need to trim some of the excess things out of my schedule.  Now, I don’t blog all that often anyways, but still, every little bit helps.  I am not sure when I will post again, may be a day, may be a week, may be after the summer is over.  So, until next my fingers stroke the keys, peace.

When three generations of a dysfunctional family gather in Rhode Island to bury the family patriarch, members of the Collins clan are at each other’s throats in no time. Son Daniel is a secret porn actor, and daughter Lucy is a lesbian. Lucy totes along her lover Judy to the outrage of Lucy’s aggressively neurotic sister Alice, whose hysterical overreaction to the pair’s marriage plans ought to tell everyone something. Rounding out the delightful crowd are dim brother Skip, whose unfailingly rude twin sons offer caustic commentary on their elders’ infantile predilections; matriarchal widow Charlotte, who becomes so justifiably distraught at the insanity of her children she tries to commit suicide; and Kate, a confused but comely college freshman who juggles preparation of the eulogy with internal debate over what to do with her childhood friend-turned-suitor.  Courtesy IMDB.

This was a fun movie.  The cast is great, Hank Azaria, Rip Torn, Zoey Deschanel, Ray Romano, Famke Jensen.  Now, some of you may be saying, great cast with ray Romano?  Yes, normally I don’t like him all that much, but he was perfect the role he played.  Everyone was cast wonderfully.  The dialogue is funny and crisp.  You get a real good glimpse of a dysfunctional family without it being one stupid joke after another.  It actually seems like a real family.

Bits can be a somewhat morbid, but if you have a dark sense of humor, I think you will really enjoy this movie.  I think it is easy to make some kind of connection with at least one of the people.  I identified with a few of them.  If you want to see a good black comedy, check this one out, 3 3/3 axes.

Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) is a neurotic accounts manager who works in a small cubical filling out billing reports day in and day out. He allows his boss, his girlfriend, and his best friend to walk all over him. To cope with his life, he takes anti-anxiety pills by the bottle full. Wesley has no desire to change his humdrum life, but one day while getting more pills at the drug store, he meets a beautiful woman, Fox (Angelina Jolie), who changes his life forever. Fox was sent to protect Wesley from the man who had just killed his father. Fox tells Wesley that his father died yesterday on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Building and that he will be next. Wesley is recruited into the “Fraternity,” a secret society of assassins that his father was a member. Fox must train Wesley to bring out his special powers that he was born with in order to avenge his fathers death. The Fraternity’s leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), also teaches Wesley the ways of the group, and Wesley soon becomes an assassin just like his father.  Courtesy, as always, IMDB.

I am not familiar with the original comic that this movie is based on.  Therefore, I cannot comment one what changed in the transition from page to screen.  I do know a little from what I have read online before the movie came out, so I kind of knew what to be expecting.  The movie is ridiculous in the presentation of the action  sequences, but it starts off that way and doesn’t vary.  They make no pretentions of this being anything other than a comic book movie, so I can accept the otherwise impossible events, curving bullets to shoot around things, flipping cars through the air and off buses.

McAvoy, I think, played the dweeby loser turned assassin quite well.  Jolie, well, she has played the assassin type before, and she plays cool killer quite well.  Morgan Freeman, well, it is a little odd seeing him in a role like this.  He does fine, I don’t think he is capable of a bad performance, he just felt…out of place for me.

Taking this film for what it was, and what I was expecting out of it, they delivered a decent movie.  Is it great?  Well, no, but it is better than the last Indy flick, 3 1/2 axes.

I was a huge fan of the original tv show, “Get Smart”.  What?  You didn’t know there was a tv show that came before the movie.  Leave.  Now!

They gone?  Good.  Now we can continue.  As a fan of the original I was both happy and apprehensive about this project.  Who could ever fill Don Adams shoes as bungling super spy Maxwell Smart?  They cast Steve Carrell.  Okay, maybe he can pull it off.  And he does, he does a remarkable job playing the smooth yet ridiculous Agent 86.  Anne Hathaway looks good as 99, and the Rock, well, you just gotta like the Rock.  Alan Arkin as Chief, perfect.

I was very pleased with the outcome of this one.  There is some slapstick, some sophomoric humor, but the film didn’t soley rely on them.  True, I could have done without the vomit scene.  I was also pleased that the scenes I saw in the trailer were not the only funny scenes in the movie.

One does need to accept one thing though, this is a not a copy of the original show, it is a re-envisioning of the show, an homage that has been updated for the times.  They do well in this regard.  The humor may have been a bit thin at times, there were many little laughs and smiles, but not a whole lot of huge belly laughs.  Still, I enjoyed it, I think they did a good job bringing Agent 86 and his battle against KAOS into the new millennium, 3.73 axes.

Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan. He does so by buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and he comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. As a result, his product is superior to what is currently available on the street and his prices are lower. His alliance with the New York Mafia ensures his position. It is also the story of a dedicated and honest policeman, Richie Roberts, who heads up a joint narcotics task force with the Federal government. Based on a true story.  Courtesy IMDB.

So you have Denzel and Crowe, two very good actors, and a wonderful supporting cast, plus directing duties done by Ridley Scott, and yet at times I felt more bored than I should have with all these people involved.  The movie wasn’t bad by any means, it just seemed to plod along at times.  I felt my mind wandering in thought as the film moved on.  I also think that Crowe did a better job making his character truly believable than Denzel did.  He had the accent, the mannerisms, he was his character.  I love Denzel, but often he just seems to be Denzel.  I don’t think this movie was as good as other people told me it was, but I still enjoyed it, 3 1/2 axes.

The less said about this movie, the better.

Tight-lipped Englishman Alex Hughes (Alan Rickman) arrives in Northern Ontario on his way to meet the woman with whom hes had a son. Hes bullied by an altogether unconventional but lovable 19 year-old hitch-hiker Vivienne (Emily Hampshire) into giving her a ride to her hometown of Wawa. When the car is hit by a truck on the outskirts of her home town, Vivienne dies instantly. Alex finds himself, for the second time in his life, grieving for someone he never knew.

Shocked and stranded in snowbound Wawa, Alex is drawn to seek out Viviennes mother, to talk to her in person about the fate of her daughter. He also goes armed with trinkets and childrens amusements that Vivienne has picked up along the way for her mother. Alex knocks on the door and comes face to face with Linda Freeman (Sigourney Weaver).

Linda is no ordinary Mother. Alex soon becomes aware that Linda is an adult autistic, albeit a high-functioning one. He becomes increasingly involved in Linda’s life and the community to which she feels complete indifference, in large part because of her condition. Linda in turn becomes attached as attached as she is emotionally capable of to Alex and what he can do for her.

Alex also forms a relationship with Linda’s sassy independent neighbor Maggie (Carrie-Anne Moss), and is the object of scrutiny by the ineffectual local law enforcement officer Clyde (James Allodi), who, besides being jealous of Alex’s relationship with Maggie, believes hes discovered a dark secret in Alex’s past.

When Alex finally gets back on the road he has exorcised his inner demons, and the town he leaves behind has also been transformed. He had been tempted to stay and make more of his relationship with Maggie, but knows that it wouldn’t suit either one of them. He must return to his life and holds out a faint hope that Linda and Maggie may become, if not exactly friends, then at least more accepting of each other. As the snow melts, each characters memories remain intact but are changed forever by their experiences with each other.  Courtesy IMDB.

Sigourney Weaver, of whom I am not a real big fan, does an extraordinary job in her portrayal of Linda.  Now, I don’t have tremendous experience with autism, and even less with adults that are autistic, at least not since my childhood.  Still, I think the way she spoke, acted, even the way she moved her eyes, everything she did served to further the belief that Linda was autistic.

Alan Rickman, on the other hand, I am a big fan of.  This role is not the usual type of roles I have seen him in.  He isn’t the bad guy, or a hard drinking angel.  He is a simple man that has a lot of grief in his life.

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.  You got a real sense of attachment to the main characters, you truly felt like you were getting to know them.  You watch the film and you can’t help question things in your own life.  The simple pleasures that Linda can enjoy, the coming to terms with grief that Alex goes through, the simple growth one can achieve just by meeting new people.  I was pleasantly surprised, 4 axes.