Yet Another Lazy Sunday (And Saturday, And Friday)

Image from MyCatHatesYou

Wow, what a wasted weekend! I almost feel guilty for what little I've accomplished. Almost. But while The Other Half's been away, I've enjoyed a little alone time. Besides a little computing time and a few errands, all I have accomplished is to watch a boatload of Angel episodes on DVD. It's the easiest weekend project I've worked on, really. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Haven't even gotten the Jeep top off yet, and didn't really care.

I did manage to squeeze in the Sunday morning political yak-fests, but they were all even less interesting than usual. More of the Sotomayer blabber we've been hearing all week. Nothing new there either, with the same single quote from 2001 being lobbed into the air as "proof" that she's a horrible, unstoppable racist. Or something.

Anyway, no matter how you slice it, I've been spending waaaayyyyy too much time in front of one type of screen or another. So before I actually develop a wave of guilt, I suppose I should accomplish something. I may be back later.

Another Lazy Sunday

Image from DeanKoontz.com

It was another lazy Sunday here at chez Greenlee. I got up late, watched Saturday Night Live on the DVR (host Tracey Morgan showed a distressing lack of range), as well as zipping through several of the Sunday morning political shows. Nothing much there to report. Almost all of the discussion was on the economy, obviously. But the talking heads and political types don't sound to me any more credible than CNBC's Jim Cramer.

So, I put away the clicker, and did what lazy Sundays are best for: I read a book. Actually, I started reading Dean Koontz's Your Heart Belongs to Me yesterday, but read the bulk of it today. It was a breezy read, and I quite enjoyed it for the most part. The typical Koontz setup of guy-meets-girl/couple deals with supernatural crisis/golden retriever was broken here with different narrative style.

I'm a pretty big Koontz fan, but this book confounded me in its last chapters. The resolution left me wondering if I'd missed a huge amount of subtext, which is ironic since the main character supposedly missed the same thing. I never suspected the true nature of the main "villain's" motives, so I had a hard time faulting the "hero" for missing it too.

All-in-all, though, I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon. A comfy couch, and a book is a nice change of pace for me, even if it means fewer hits to the blog.

Final Destination Sunday (DVD Review)

I expected, with The Other Half away today, to get quite a bit of blogging done. But I got up late, and then I got kinda lazy. Since I rewatched Final Destination on Friday afternoon, I decided to watch Final Destination 2 and 3 today. As you can see, I'm a real aficionado of classy art pictures.

I did my duty this morning, watching most of the political shows, on DVR with a handy fast-forward button. But I wasn't inspired by anything said there. So, why not review the movies I watched today? This is my blog after all, so here we go.

Final Destination (2000) - The first film centers around a teenager who has a vision as he's boarding a plane to France with his french class. A very vivid vision, which involves a horrific chain reaction of events which leads to the plane exploding. When he snaps out of it, and details start to match his vision, he freaks out and is removed from the plane, along with several friends, and his teacher. This was before 9/11, which is a good thing, because nowadays they would probably ground the plane, and hey, no movie.

After the group disembarks, the plane does explode, but the group that escaped starts dying one-by-one in the order they would have originally died had they stayed on the plane. A theory is cobbled together, that the characters "cheated death," and that death was working to set its plan right. But death doesn't just get them by natural causes. Death constructs elaborate Rube Goldberg-ian ways to do them in.

Final Destination 2 (2003) - The second film follows a similar setup, with a girl foreseeing a horrific multi-car pileup. It departs from the usual "kill the teenagers" formula by incorporating adults who are prevented from entering the flow of traffic by the girl. And it is linked to the previous film in a very novel way.

Final Destination 3 (2006) - Part three again has a girl with a vision, this one predicting a roller coaster disaster, and preventing several friends from riding. It is only tangentially related to the other two parts, since 1 & 2 pretty much tied everything to each other.

Parts 1 - 3 work very well when watched in sequence. The hook to all of them is the elaborate ways in which the characters are killed off, and the fact that there are both foreshadowing events, as well as red herrings. For the most part, the acting is well done and believable. And the effects are pretty spectacular.

None of these films is particularly scary. In fact, because the death scenes are so wacky, it almost works as comedy. The setups (plane crash, car crash, amusement ride tragedy) are relatable. Very few of us have not imagined such a scenario happening to us when we fly, drive, or pull the safety harness down. So they are unnerving. If you have any phobias about these thing, you may actually get a jolt. But mostly, the special effects and gore are pure entertainment. If you're into that sort of thing!

Part 2 was my favorite, because of the novel way they wove the storyline together with the first. And the car crash is spectacular (as is a surprise event that happens right after). This movie had the best fake-outs, making you wonder exactly how they were going to do the characters in. And it takes risks that divert from the usual scary movie pattern.

Part 3 disappointed me the first time I watched it, because the link to the other two is tangential, and frankly unbelievable. But upon review--if you suspend disbelief on how quickly the protagonists figure out what is happening to them--it's actually not bad, and a decent entry into the series. And it takes the ultimate risk, with a surprise ending that goes totally against the horror movie rules.

If they make a Part 4--and they probably will--they will be challenged with creating a different but still relatable disaster. And they'd be smart to try to tie Part 3, or even all 3 into the storyline, to make it feel cohesive. Failing that, they need to drop all reference to "Flight 180" from the first film, and have their characters discover what's going on in a different way.

In conclusion, if you like elaborate, gory special effects, and you are tired of mindless slasher pictures, any of these films will satisfy you. And while the characters die in horrific ways, this is not Hostel or Saw-type torture-porn. Unlike Friday the 13th-type movies, you don't need nostalgia to have fun with them, and don't have to settle for "so bad, it's good." These flicks are actually well made. Just have your remote at the ready! You'll want to slo-mo something in all three movies!

Final Destination: Recommended

Final Destination 2: Highly Recommended

Final Destination 3: Recommended

Another Lazy Sunday, and John McCain

Photo from AttyTood

Sorry I haven't been around today, but it has been a profoundly lazy day in our household. I skipped most of the Sunday morning talk shows, though I did catch some of This Week with George Stephanopoulosi, and got to see an interview with John McCain.

In the interview, he comes off anything but natural. He smiles--quite insincerely--at odd times, and he blinks at odd times. When the b-roll footage of McCain on the campaign trail was shown, he looks stiff and a bit doddering, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other like--well--an old man. I've thought that a lot of the digs at McCain's age were mostly for comic value, or sometimes just plain mean. But if this guy has to go up against Barack Obama this fall, age will be a far more obvious difference than race. And have you seen how white McCain is?

Anyway, I hope to be back in a little while with some new posts. I just have to shake the lazy bug.

Sunday Afternoon: What I've Learned

Photo of Town Square, Las Vegas from their official web site

After a morning that left me uninspired, Sunday afternoon was illuminating. OK, that's not true, but it was fun! For a change of pace, we actually got out of the house. And after a little while out in some unseasonably warm weather, here's what I've learned.

#1 - Las Vegas has a new "fake" but cool marketplace, the new version of a mall, called "Town Square." We knew this was coming, they levelled Vacation Village (a dump) to build it, right in the armpit of the I-15/I-215 interchange. But I must say, it was a very effective use of space. And it has a view of the Mandalay Bay and Luxor. Cool. We didn't stay long, but I saw--to my astonishment--that it includes a book store; something my area of town hasn't had for the entire 13+ years I've lived in Las Vegas. Woohoo!

#2 - Libraries are fantastic, but watch the late fees. Really, I have no idea how I racked up $2.50 in late charges. That was embarrassing. But worth the money! Seriously, if you don't have a library card, you are missing out. But why are they holding church services in the auditorium there? Isn't that at Constitutional violation? And a passion play? In Spanish?

#3 - Little things in life that bug you can often be fixed with very little investment. While we were at Town Square, we went next door to Fry's Electronics, the enormous media/appliance/electronics/compter store/restaurant. While there, I got it in my head to buy a new mouse for my computer. I got a very nice Microsoft optical jobbie for under $20. I thought my old jittery mouse problem might be more serious than just the mouse itself. . .but no. The new one works perfectly, and my problem is solved*.

#4 - Shrek the Third is better than everybody said it was. While at Fry's, we picked up the third Shrek movie (along with Spiderman 3), which neither I, nor The Other Half had seen. Everyone told us it was no good. So, we lowered our expectations, popped some corn, popped in the movie and watched. And we both liked it, very much. Sure, the novelty is gone, but it was entertaining, and the computer effects (which we all take for granted now) really stood out on our HDTV--a TV set we bought after seeing the original Shrek playing on it at the store. More on Spiderman 3 after we've watched it.

*And a note on those cheap investments. We've struggled with the interior door to our garage for ten years. Guests and visitors always thought it was locked, but no, it was just difficult. Yesterday, it broke. One day earlier, and we would have been locked out of the house without a key. Anyway, I ran to Home Depot for a replacement. $8.95 and twenty minutes later, and we had a wonderfully working door. For under ten bucks. We should have fixed it years ago. Why do we do that to ourselves?