Category: Movies

  • Earworm Thursday: Knights of the Round Table, but in Lego, and…

    And for comparison…

    And you know…

  • Man, Am I Tired

    Not sure what happened. I went to bed at my normal-ish time last night. I did stay up and watch the Oscars, so maybe that had something to do with it.

    I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the Oscars, but it has been over 15 years since I have seen all the best picture nominees, let alone half of them. But I am a movie fan, and I like the spectacle, and it is something fun to debate with friends, and I wanted to see what Conan would do. With all of that said, it was a rather dull affair. My kid wanted to stay up and watch it with me, which I agreed to, but she was out by 9pm.

    When the Oscars were over, and the kid off to bed, I started to watch Becket. I hadn’t seen it since high school, and I didn’t get too far into it. I found Peter O’Toole’s Henry II grating on my nerves, which I understand was the point. Then I thought about watching Lion in Winter, which is also about Henry II but at the end of his life and with succession being the driver of that plot. Though Lion in Winter is not a sequel to Becket, with O’Toole playing Henry II in both films, it sort of very loosely, kind’a is.

    I bring all of this up for no other reason than it occurred to me last night.

    And this morning, I just felt off. Very tired, a little anxious, and all around uneasy about myself and the day before me. The last time I felt like this was when I was working a particular job that I started to despise, and knew it was time for me to leave. But I couldn’t pin down why I was feeling this way, especially on a day like today.

    But there is a very harsh reality with being the age that I am and also having responsibilities of my family; I had to push through it. I had to make breakfast for the gang. I had to get people up and on their way. I had to do laundry and clean up. I had to making chicken stock for dinner, and lunch for the wife. In a little bit, I will take that chicken stock and tech my kid how to make Greek Lemon Soup.

    I just have to keep pushing through, but that feeling hasn’t gone away today.

  • The Power of Patrick Swayze (Unedited)

    So, I was all gearing and ready to go, to sit down and knock out a blog for today. My wife had left the tv on as she was finishing her lunch, and being that I was planning on working on the couch, I needed to shut the tv off to concentrate. But what was on tv was the final fifteen minutes of Red Dawn. The real Red Dawn. The 1984 John Milius directed Red Dawn that started among many, Patrick Swayze. It had been a couple of years since I had seen it, and the ending is pretty good, with the brothers on the bench Ikiru style.

    And then Road House came on, (I guess it was a Patrick Swayze marathon) and I totally got sucked into that movie. Make no mistake, and I have written about both Road House movies before, the original Road House is a bad movie. But man! It sure is a fun bad movie.

    BUT… I had work to do, so I thought it best to talk about the Power of Patrick Swayze.

    Actually, I wanted to talk about bad movies, and how I find myself needing them more than ever.

    And I love movies. I love seeing them in a theatre. I love watching them late at night. I love reading about movies, and how they were made. And I agree with the notion that good movies, even gut wrenching, tragic, everyone dies dramas, will always leave you feeling better than when you started.

    But right now, with the way the world is, a bad movie that just wants to be entertaining, and that is what Road House is, feels correct for these times. Bad yet entertaining movies know they’re bad, and not good for you. But I know that eating ice cream and cookies for dinner is bad for me, but some nights, it’s what I need to make it to the morning, and try all over again.

  • Discovering Stelvio Cipriani’s Music

    I will admit that it bothers me, on a serious existential level, that the YouTube algorithm knows me so well. The other night it sideswiped me with a song, “Mary’s Theme,” which is from a 1969 Italian erotic thriller, “The Laughing Woman.” (I will say this, you are on your own when it comes to watching this movie. The description is problematic, to say the least.) I wasn’t searching for music, nor was I doing some deep dive into world cinema. Nope, this just showed.

    I was rather taken with the piece, and had to find out more about the composer Stelvio Cipriani. Oddly, I feel like there are a few similarities between Cipriani and Vince Guaraldi’s music. Over all, Cipriani’s music is sweeping, and romantic and so very Italian Cinema that it makes my nerdy cinephile heart swell with excitement and spurs my imagination on.

    If one get’s the chance, check out Stelvio Cipriani music. It’s quite entertaining.

    And for no other reason, here’s a really cool picture of Vince Guaraldi from 1967…

  • ODDS and ENDS: Couch or Sofa, Tottenham Fans, and “Hundreds of Beavers”

    (‘Cuz you woke up in the mornin’ with initiative to move…)

    Do you use the term couch or sofa? Do you use them interchangeable? In fact, a couch is an informal – less structured piece of furniture, while a sofa is more formal in function and design. I say all of this because I am going couch/sofa shopping this weekend. Yeah, our livingroom couch is on its last leg being that it’s kind’a broken just enough to let us know it needs to be replaced, but not broken so much as to be unusable. The wife and I are about the spend a morning, and possible an afternoon, asking ourselves the “Fight Club” question; “What kind of couch defines me as a person?” I’m going with gray, or a navy blue; That defines me quite well as a person.

    I have written before about my odd interactions with other Tottenham fans in New York. Most of the time, I see someone with Tottenham gear on, and I’ll say something to them about the team, or say “Come on you, Spurs!” They react by saying, “What?” or “This isn’t mine, I’m borrowing it.” But the other day, as I had my Tottenham scarf on, a woman yelled at me, “How about that Liverpool match!?!” She was talking about the Carabao Cup match on Wednesday where the most confusing team in all of football, Tottenham Hotspur, managed to beat one of the best teams in the world – Liverpool. But… I wasn’t able to watch the match or see the highlights, yet I knew that they had won… All I could say to the woman was, “I didn’t watch it, but I know they won!” Not the stirring response she was looking for, I know.

    And I want to end with a movie I just watched, and I might review later. It is one of the most original comedies I have seen in a very a very long time. It’s called “Hundreds of Beavers.” Just… just watch the trailer, is all I ask.