Belligerent and Numerous: Seasons in the Sun

Monday, August 01, 2005

Seasons in the Sun

So in addition to watching every movie available to my grasp that did not star Jessica Biel and Ray Charles as jet plane pilots up to no good, I also did some cooking this weekend.

Specifically, I baked a pie. It was a cream-cheese blueberry pie and it was completely awesome. It is a pie of legacy, in that my mother passed down to me the very complex secret recipe required to instill the proper amount of deliciousness. (The secret step: Now stir in at least one full cup of pure granulated sugar. Maybe more.) I managed to eat all but two slices of the thing in the course of about 30 hours. I now weigh more than your average oil tanker. That's another part of the secret recipe. And I still have enough ingredients to make at least one, possibly two more pies at a later date. Although the creation of pie #1 involved the exploding of my new electric mixer that I bought specifically for the occasion, so I will either have to get a new one, or learn how to wisk things incredibly fast. It's never a good sign when a small appliance starts shooting sparks at you within 30 seconds of turning it on for the first time.

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I was also involved in a hideous car crash this weekend, which I am happy to report was not entirely my fault. By which I mean it was not my fault at all, since the fool decided mid-turn to slam on his breaks and then back up into traffic and also into the front left side of the TOM. Luckily, there was no damage except a crack in the little yellow casing on the light. I think it greatly disturbed Sean who was passengered on the voyage and will probably never ride along with me again. I just take these sort of things in stride, however, as people love to run into the TOM. I believe this makes the it the 3rd time since January? And yet, the little guy still soldiers on. He's such a trooper. But it does instill in me the desire to actually get around to getting a new car and finally let the poor TOM retire to a farm where he can run around in a big field and have fun chasing squirrels and whatnot.

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Where My Opinions Count

(500) Days of Summer - Let's start with the caveat that this movie is nothing but a stacked deck against me. You've got Joseph Gordon-Levitt (seriously my favorite actor in the world), in a funny role of a guy unsure of what he wants to do with his professional life while his love life is in constant turmoil. Oh, and Regina Spektor songs keep playing in the background. If there is such a thing as a movie marketed directly to me, this is it. But y'all, this movie is so good. Not in a traditional storyline sense. Or even in an acting sense (although JGL is on fire the entire way through). It's about the feeling it gives you - liberally borrowing from every cliche available - musicals, old black and white cinema, jumping timelines, everything - all working in concert to give you the feeling of a relationship as it ends, and the things you remember. The overrall impression is so great that I forgive the minor quibbles I have (hammy sidekicks are over the top, Zooey Deschanel is playing her stock character #2, much as she has for the last 4 things I've seen her in). This is my movie of the year, right here. Absolutely stunning.
Push - So much better than I was expecting that I may have wrapped myself so far around that I actually enjoyed it. There are some terrible, terrible parts (the Casio-grade Music of Love that they played every time that Chris Evans and Camilla Belle were in the same room, for instance). But Dakota Fanning was pretty great, and I'm up for anything that gives Cliff Curtis or Ming-Na more work. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's kinda too bad that it tanked - I could totally be up for a sequel.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Got my nerd on and wrote a whole boring essay on it.
Let The Right One In - A good movie that gets better the more I think on it. Despite being a mildly gory vampire movie, it's surprisingly subtle. They don't try to hit you over the head with anything, it's all underplayed. The mother's soft neglect, the father's hints of homosexuality, even the parallels that can be drawn between particular characters - nothing jumps out at you. That, combined with the natural way that Oskar and Eli's relationship is handled, paints something like a real life picture that just happens to have a vampire somewhere in there. It's more than a little unsettling, especially the way the bullying keeps escalating as the movie continues. Overall, the movie's a little methodical for my tastes (I like my supernatural horror scary, not just ungodly depressing) but it's undeniably a great film.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - So bad I exceeded the character limit. If you care enough: Go Here
The Hangover - Delightfully vulgar and meandering. That's pretty much my the sum of my thoughts. "Genuinely and shockingly funny" is another soundbyte I could add in there as well. After seeing his Fiona Apple music video, I always assumed Zach Galifianakis would remain an unacknowledged American treasure forever, since the combination of that plus his standup act had still left him in obscurity against all odds. But I am gleefully overjoyed to be proven wrong. May he blossom and go on to larger-scale fame. He made this movie.