I did the usually foolhardy thing and stayed up last night until around 4am watching movies. Recently we joined Blockbuster for their free two week mail-in DVD program, which is essentially the evil twin of Netflix, even though Netflix is already the evil twin of self-control; you never seem to reach the end of your queue, and you feel strangely compelled to watch as many DVDs as the postal service efficiency will allow you. Then somehow, with the free two week Blockbuster deal, we were provided with two coupons for a free rental each. John returned with not two, but three DVDs, so at this point we have nine movies. After last night’s amazing coup of good sense and a good night’s rest, we are down to just four films left to consume.
Last night began with Four Brothers, which was basically an excuse to give a bunch of racially diverse men guns and have at it on the streets of Detroit, which is apparently completely devoid of actual cops (or every day average citizens). Everyone in it is either a gangster, a former gangster, or an athlete. I’m not complaining though. It was a movie filled with lots of gunplay and violence, padded by that annoying thing called plot. Not even a good plot–the conclusion was about as predictable as a plate of spaghetti.
Next on the bounce was Eli Roth’s Hostel, which was National Lampoon’s Eurotrip without the Pope jokes. It divurges from the lame teen comedy a bit when the two main characters are kidnapped and slowly tortured to death by people who pay for the privilege of erasing another human being in various grisly ways, but it’s got no more gore than Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s certainly not as interesting, though there are a few neat moments. Moral noted: don’t go to Slovakia. Or if you must, don’t go with the intention of sleeping around with every firm-breasted Eurobabe in between getting crunked in rave dives that specialize in blasting spatially distorted bass sound waves through your inner ear.
Then came Downfall, which was a pretty decent depiction of the last days of the war in the bunker with Hitler and his cronies. Bruno Ganz was captivating and utterly convincing as the old softie Adolph, while Alexandra Maria Lara does a wonderful job of playing Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge with pathos and empathy. The entire film has a sense of realism that matches Saving Private Ryan and Das Boot, showing with good depth the situation both in the bunker with Hitler and in the streets bombarded by Russian artillery. Characters are well drawn and the imagery is amazingly detailed and sensory.
We seem to have hit June Gloom early this year, as evidenced by the four days straight of grey clouds and somewhat floopy weather. This makes for good coffee shop time, but lousy for the sinuses. Breathing lately has been closer to snorting pool water, just not as much fun. Oddly enough, it’s worse during the day than at night, which goes counter to the usual medical maxims. Grey sky in morning, asthmatics take warning, grey sky at night, nasal delight. Slightly bastardized, but it’s the heart that counts. Smog may also play into it as well, though part of me refuses to acknowledge that smog even exists, much less clogs our breathing pathways and settles in like a bronchial squatter. Even when I see smog cloaking the downtown cityscape like an vampyric vapour (spoken in an Anthony Hopkins gutteral growl), I think of it as a blanket of protection against the sun’s evil rays. Blessed are the polluters, for they shall inherit the Pale Yellow Lung.
Though for all I know lungs are supposed to have a pale yellow hue. Might explain the phlegm I’ve…
Hey hey!! /Krusty_the_Clown Greeting