Snow Day...I Wish

Hey everyone! So far fall has been nice, but today it feels like winter has arrived. We awoke to lots and lots of snow and it was still coming down outside when I left the house. This is our third snowstorm of the year already, but it was the first one that drove me into the the bowels of hell, i.e., the RTD. Yes, me and public transportation were one this morning. My experience with the bus is forever tainted because the only time I get near it is when the weather is bad. So that means every time I ride it it's LATE. This time, I waited 35 minutes. Not fun, but I eventually made it out of Boulder. I then walked to Starbucks, sought solace in a latte, and called Aida to pick me up and take me the rest of the way to work. So it basically took me 90 minutes to go 10 miles this morning. But I arrived safe and sound and I guess that's what it's all about.

In other news, I've seen a few flicks and one totally awesome concert. First, the concert. Cindy and Bob were in Boulder and got tickets to see an Australian band, The Cat Empire, at the Fox Theatre. We'd never heard of this band, but it's one of their son Max's favorites, so we wanted to give it a try. Best live music in forever! Cat Empire plays happy fusion music. One song sounded like it was from south of the border and the next sounded like a polka. All of it was awesome and the CU students were in ecstacy. There was a lot of moshing going on. The band was made up of several members, all of them insanely talented, particularly their trumpet player. Thanks to my formative years playing said instrument, I have a soft spot for trumpet players. And this one did not let me down. I now need to get all my new music recs from Max and Ian.

So movies. The best one easily was The Departed. I'm partial to anything done by Scorcese and starring DiCaprio so I knew this would be one for me. DiCaprio owns this movie. Yes, I know Jack Nicholson and Matt Damon are in it, but it's DiCaprio's movie. He outacts everyone hands down, making him The Best Actor of Our Generation. Yep, it's official. Jack plays psychotic Jack and he does it well but he really does play himself. Matt Damon is an actor I'm not too fond of, and luckily he plays an utterly unlikable character, so that worked for me here. All that being said, The Departed is not in the top tier of Scorcese films. It's not Age of Innocence, it's not Goodfellas and it's not The Aviator, but it's 100% worth seeing and DiCaprio should get a best actor nod out of it. The Departed is a dark movie though and for that reason alone it could never really be my favorite movie of the year. That honor still currently resides in the hands of Little Miss Sunshine.

Next up was Clint Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers. Another great movie that is a must see. I went in thinking this was going to be all about the battle of Iwo Jima. It is to some degree, but most of the movie centers around the repurcussions of the infamous pic taken of soldiers raising a flag there. This picture so inspired the American people that the government had the soldiers in the pic tour the country to raise money to finish the war. Performances were spot on, particularly that of Adam Beach playing Ira Hayes, an American Indian in the photo. I did have a bit of a problem with the execution of the film. Eastwood chose to tell it in a non-linear fashion so this meant tons of flashbacks. And the devices used to segue into these flashbacks tended to be pretty cheesy: lighting flash--->flashback! thunderous applause from a crowd--->flashback! camera flashes--->flashback! You get the picture. It also messed with the momentum of the battlescenes for me. And finally the original music by Clint Eastwood himself drove me nuts. The guy needs to learn to delegate. Still, I in no way want to discourage you from seeing this movie. Flags is a story that needed to be told and I was not bored for a second of it.

And to go back in time, a few weeks ago I saw one I'd really been looking forward to - Half Nelson. And no, this isn't a wrestling movie, except in the sense that the protagonist was wrestling with his soul. Get it. Yeah, that's how I felt during most of the movie. Starring one of my favs and one of the runner-ups to that Best Actor of Our Generation title, Ryan Gosling, HN told the story of a good-intentioned inner city school teacher who spends his evenings doing crack and sleeping around. Yep, it's the whole yin and yang thing. The story ups the ante when one of his students sees him shooting up crack in the girls bathroom after hours. Performances are indeed good, but the story meandered like crazy, was too obvious, at times too uncomfortable for me, and in the end went nowhere. This indie is one that really let me down. If you're a Gosling fan, check it on dvd when you're in the mood to sink one level lower in your current state of depression.

Next up for me: Marie Antoinette, Running with Scissors and Borat. And since I have tomorrow off (yippee!), I plan to take in one of these.

Boulder Bumpersticker of the Day: May the forest bewitch you.

-sunday

Battlestar's Back

Hey everyone! Thomas and I kicked off the weekend by heading over to Rich and Melissa's to watch the season premiere of Battlestar Gallactica. Yep, we were in full-on geek mode. Thomas is a fan of all things sci-fi and as ever, I am open to all forms of entertainment. From its initial mini-series, BG has exceeded expectations. It is so much more than sci-fi. It's to sci-fi as Deadwood is to the western. If you haven't seen either of these shows, just trust me. It's genre-bending. It also has a great cast and explores complex issues from religion to abortion to terrorism. Plus there are spaceships. What more could you want? That said, I was a little disappointed in the season 3 premiere. Part of the problem was that we kicked things off by watching the 10 webisodes of BG that were released on scifi.com to whet its viewers appetites over the hiatus. Each webisode was between 2 and 3 minutes. And they were all boring and pointless. The Office also did webisodes this summer. I haven't watched them yet, but hopefully they pulled it off better than BG.

The problem with the premiere itself is that it was two hours, rather than the standard one. This amount of time just wasn't called for. It prevented the show from being as tightly scripted as it could have been and resulted in me being a tad bored during the middle portion. It didn't help matters that one part of the crew is stuck on a planet that's being occupied by Cylons (robots) and the rest of the crew is floating about space trying to plan a rescue attempt. So this year instead of the crew all being on the battlestar kicking ass, a good chunk of them are instead living as civilians/insurgents on Cylon-occupied Caprica. This gave the writers leeway to make some ill-fitting parallels (humans = Iraqis, complete with suicide bombs and Cylons = USA). This was way too much of a stretch for me. On top of that it jolted me out of the storyline itself. This is happening all too often in tv and movies these days. If I wanted to hear about politics or Iraq, I'd watch the news. I seek entertainment and escapism in my shows, not to hear yet another screenwriter's take on What's Happening in the World. Maybe I'm alone in this, because it's happening more and more.

Don't get me wrong though. BG planted enough seeds and stirred enough interest that I'm sure it will pull off another great season.

-sunday

Dinner and a Movie

Hey everyone! Ok, so I didn't actually go to this particular dinner and this particular movie at the same time, but I wanted to write about both. Thomas just wasn't up for a movie called, The Last Kiss. Shocking, I know. But this is a title pretty much guaranteed to draw me in. Romantic comedy, I'm thinking. Turned out to be not too romantic and not too much comedy either. This was kind of a poor man's remake of my beloved Beautiful Girls. Except that Beautiful Girls is beyond wonderful and Last Kiss was OK at best. It too was about a group of guys in their late twentys having a quarter-life crisis. First we have Zach Braff living with Jacinda Barrett (the Aussie model from Real World London). She gets pregnant so he decides to step out on her with college girl Rachel Bilson of the OC. Then we have Casie Affleck who is cursed because he's married with a baby, then there's some other guy who's suicidal because his girlfriend dumped him, and finally a guy who's bummed because all the women he meets actually want a relationship and not just a one night stand. These poor, poor guys. They have it rough.

The tribulations of Zach Braff of course hog the lion's share of this movie. And the premise here is just plain flawed. I'm sorry, but this guy is way too goofy looking for me to believe a super model and a hot college girl are fighting over him. In my review of The Family Stone, I noted that Sarah Jessica Parker did not have a face for the big screen. Zach Braff is the male version of her. On Scrubs, a show I just can't get into, that goofiness could be somewhat acceptable given the right amount of alcohol. But on the bigscreen....yikes! Enough wiuth the closeups already. Aside from the fact that Braff just isn't hot, the entire movie seemed to be written and performed by people who wanted the institution of marriage to be abolished. This was like a marriage horror story. If you're engaged, do not go to this movie. If you're pregnant or your wife/girlfriend is pregnant, do not go to this movie. It will depress the hell out of you. The final thing that bugs me is why does almost every movie these days have to have a guy as the protagonist? I read that Entertainment Weekly did a cover story on this recently. Only something like 8 or 18% of movies released by big studios this year had a woman as the protagonist. This is ridiculous. I like my share of big studio blockbusters just like everyone else, but women do account for 50% of the population and we need more Family Stones, more Bridget Joneses. One a year just ain't cutting it. Rant over.

And now for the dinner. Luckily it was a big improvement on the movie. This past Sunday was the official kickoff of birthday month so Thomas took me to L'Absinthe, a newish French restaurant in Boulder I've been dying to try. All I can say is YUM. To kick things off right, I ordered absinthe (sans the wormwood, more's the pity). Several years ago Cyd and I developed a bit of an absinthe obsession, Cuban passport stamps be damned. I'm not sure what stirred our interest, as it wasn't available in the US, but thanks to our lack of absinthe spoons and OCD, the myriad of steps required to properly prepare the drink were never followed. So the taste of our version could be described as medicinal at best. On a trip to London, we did go to an absinthe bar where Cyd swears we watched the bartender prepare the drink with spoons, fire and all, but I recall absolutely none of this. Anyway, I was thrilled to have our divine Chilean waiter prepare the drink and light it afire right before my eyes. He also told me that absinthe spoons can still be procured. Who knew? Though the first sip was a little too like licorice for my taste, the aftertaste was pleasing and the rest of the drink went down well. The waiter said it's original use actually was medicinal and it's recommended if you have stomach problems. As for the rest of the meal, I got the prix fix dinner - mussles then trout in beurre blanc sauce. Both were excellent. We will definitely be back. This weekend we're trying Le Chantecler in Niwot wtih Eddie and Larissa so my French food fixation will be sated.

Boulder Bumpersticker of the Day (straight from the seventies): Just wink....I'll do the rest!

-sunday

It's Fall-tastic!

Hey everyone! Fall is my favorite time of year in Colorado. Right now I just wish I could hit the pause button because it's so beautiful and I know it can't last for long, especially since the wind is starting to return. Luckily we've been able to enjoy it of late thanks to our Indian Summer. My parents were in town this past weekend and it was in the 80s - almost too hot for me. My mom has been wanting to go to a hockey game and as luck would have it the Avs were playing the LA Kings. I used to get to go every once in awhile with Cyd back in the day when she could score free tkts, but it's been awhile. This time I actually watched part of the game. Luckily we were seated next to the the world's most passionate Avs fan and he answered all of our questions while sitting on the edge of his seat. Important facts: Joe Sakic is the captain and has been forever and the goalie is Jose Theodore who recently dated Paris Hilton and is known as a ladies man. How lucky was I to actually sit next to a man who even knew some gossip. Our seats were up high, but they were right in front of the goal where all the points were scored so it was very exciting for mom and me. We got a bird's eye view of six goals. My almost fav part tho was when the camera pans the crowd and people have to dance or kiss. This was soooo much fun to watch. And finally, in case you're interested, we won - 4 to 3!

Last weekend, Thomas's dad was in town and he and Thomas took me to an early bday dinner at a new restaurant (for us, anyways) Praha in Longmont. Thomas and I both LOVE Eastern European food and this is now the best place to go for it. The atmosphere is romantic, the service was excellent and the food was beyond wonderful. If you're in the neighborhood, check it out.

Not much has been playing in the movies these days. Thomas and I did check out Flyboys, primarily because he's a fan of any war movie. It was way too long, the acting wasn't too great and had a few pointless subplots, but the action scenes were spectacular. Also of note, the movie was financed by Larry Ellison's son, David who is an actrobatic pilot in real life and amazingly he also gets to star in the movie.

Next up for me are Half Nelson (if it's still playing.......please!!), Black Dahlia and All the King's Men (even tho reviews for the latter two are fairly hideous).

Boulder Bumpersticker of the Day (courtesy of Mom); Kinky Friedman for Governor

-sunday