FOREVER LOST

There are some movies that could never be made again (to remain topical, Ghostbusters). I found myself looking for a clip from one this afternoon and decided that such a flick like that joins Blazing Saddles in the, no way in hell is anyone going to try to pull that off in this age of micro-aggressions and insanity. If you simply youtube the movie Falling Down it is enlightening. "Wait a minute, I'm the bad guy?"

I saw it when it came out in theaters. I met M&M in Del Mar with their friend and we waited for his wife, the Victoria's Secret buyer to appear on the train from LA and then we went to the show.  I thought it was funny that the other guy had something about the size and shape of a shoe box with him because he might have to take an emergency call regarding VW repair. His was the first cell phone I ever saw in reality. Those things used to be hhhhuuuuuuggggge.

LOVE ACTUALLY

I have pigeon holes of infinite depth. Oh yeah, I know. I did my very best to kill the little coooeing shit storms with every erg of my being when I lived in Solana Beach when they lived in my classic orange roof tiles.

I can reread books I love again and again and enjoy watching movies over and over if I really enjoyed them. This one proved harder, at first, to rewatch. Worth it. Again and definitely again. I liked it all, including the first lobster. It reminds me of somebody in trouble and another lobster.

I was disappointed to read about the making of Singing in the Rain. Won't read that kind of thing again. When crafting and selling illusion, stick to the illusion. Way better that way for enjoying movies. I'm not sure why people want to know the greasy details. I never did.

That said, guys like Savile would have met the sharp end of a machete, purely for dramatic purpose.

A CUNNING TRAP

I spotted this last night on the way out of the AMC theater at Courthouse where we watched Spectre. Fortunately, the movie had prepared us and while it was a very clever trap, it just wasn't clever enough.

The ladies enjoyed the movie although they declared that one dress was really ugly and an unfortunate choice. We all had to be convinced after long discussion. That was, apparently, one of the dress's flaws. It was too long. Ah well, we live and learn.

MINIONS

We saw it tonight. We laughed out loud and so did the other 20 people in our private theatre. With an audience that small I was kind of surprised when they all got up and left the theatre without watching the closing credits. I would have thought they were savvy enough to know that there are always out -takes in the closing credits and, let's be honest, ranglers.

MOVIE REVIEW, ROMAN HOLIDAY

Watched it again tonight; one of us for the first time. It is a most wonderful movie about a world and time that never were although one catches oneself saying, oh yeah, I remember that. The story and the acting were fun and left you laughing. Ha! No, I wasn't born when this film was made but ever so close. Next up, Breakfast At Tiffany's!

It was, "most unusual." Roman Holiday will always be a classic. It was filmed in black and white, filmed in Rome shortly after the War, and resonates as a timeless love story. Relax and enjoy. There isn't a single picture or screen capture that does justice to the film.

It starts on classic and old lines,

Lord Byron

CLXXIII. "She walks in beauty, like the night"

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light	5
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,	10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,	15
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

BIRDMAN REVIEW

If you attend the theater to watch amazingly powerful acting, it's worth the $6.00 we paid to sit through tonight's performance. The acting throughout was excellent, the title and credit cacophony was not and the rest was OK. It took me through the second iteration before I began to compare and contrast it with a movie that was very popular on HBO back in its day; ALL THAT JAZZ with Bob Fosse. It will join the likes of GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS and GOSFORD PARK as a movie I won't watch again.

There, I've assured it an Oscar or two.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We laughed loud and often as we celebrated the final day of 2014. We were watching RED2. It enriches the soul to know that RED3 is out there somewhere and due to appear in 2016. We are, thus, a little closer to the day we can watch it.

REALIZATION

I honestly have no idea about http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/383057/the-best-71-second-animation-youll-watch-today/  It is supposedly the best 71 second animation you will see today.

I found it amusing but then I enjoyed the humor of Werewolves of London.

INTERSTELLAR

We watched it tonight and it needed more than an hour of editing. It was like SNL for the last 15 years. It needed serious editing because it just went on and on and on and on. Sequences that could have been done in under a minute lasted 200 minutes.

Total film duration 900,000,000 seconds.

Recommendation: don't bother.

OUR LIBERAL PARADISE

This newspaper article is really irritating to me.

“He told the authorities that he self-quarantined. Detectives then reviewed his credit-card statement and MetroCard and found that he went over here, over there, up and down and all around,” a source said.

Spencer finally ’fessed up when a cop “got on the phone and had to relay questions to him through the Health Department,” a source said.

Where did any law enforcement person ever get the authority to delve into this man's MetroCard? Never mind. Meta data.

You know, when the police have an omnipresence through cameras that can identify you 3 miles away and a robust attitude toward messing around in your life, any crime victim should be able to sue them for negligence. After all, they probably have the entire crime on video and so were negligent in not preventing it or coming to your immediate assistance.

Who is it that supposedly notes the fall of every sparrow?  Yes yes, I know, the EPA, OSHA, Forestry Service, SPCA, all lawyers, and of course, the police.

ecto gamma

AN INTERESTING OLD ITEM

It never gets too old for me. It's a real time comprehensive view of our nation's debt, your part of it, and where it all goes. {It's only your part if you pay taxes to the IRS}

I went looking for it today after reading an article that described how Hamas had placed its headquarters under a Gaza hospital in the hopes that Israel would either show enormous restraint, or massacre hospital patients. The article had more comments than I would have thought and I noticed that one of them asserted quite vigorously that the United States had supported Israel with $132 trillion dollars. I wondered about that.

There is at least one person, maybe two, who believe that we took the equivalent of 14 years of our entire gross domestic national economic output and gave it to Israel so they could keep down the Palestinians.  I enjoy a good conspiracy theory along with the rest but that struck me as ludicrous.

If you enjoy quirky romantic comedies, Conspiracy Theory was a good one.  Spoiler: Jean Luc Picard was the bad guy.