Banlieue 13 (District 13): YES YES YES! Even the fight scenes featuring the guy who doesn't use Parkour to get to work in the morning were fun and intense. There were plenty of WHOA! moments. I wish there'd been more, but still, good fun.
Taledega Nights: Fun, good natured, entertaining. Not as hilarious a Forty Year Old Virgin, but funny enough in it's own way. And John C. Riley is an absolute hoot.
The Curse of the Golden Flower: If this is the director's happy phase, someone get this guy a bottle of Prozac. It's beautiful, it's complex, it's entertaining, but there's not enough Fu for the Fu fans and too much military action and blood for people who want an art film. Still, there's an allegory here that's nearly as deep as the one for Hero, so I'm going to explore this one in depth later.
1.06.2007
1.02.2007
Pennies from Heaven
For Xmas this year, my parents rented a house in Beacon Hill in Seattle, and the whole clan (Mom, Dad, Bros. Middle & Youngest, Daughters-in-law, Middle Bro's son and daughter, and Youngest Bro's dog, Gunther) moved in for the week. It was a blast. Mind you, it would have been better if it hadn't a) rained 80% of the time we were there, and b) been so goddamned cold all week. I mean, really, people, we _knew_ Seattle had a reputation for rain and clouds on a level that makes life wonderful for merpeople and vampires, but did we really need a demonstration of such during the one week we all gathered to enjoy Seattle's bounty?
Apparently, yes.
Anyway. On Saturday, having had it with the gloom, we moved, as a family, to go see movies at Pacific Place. However, as my Seattle-ite brother and his loverly lady are neither of them huge consumers, finding the place turned out to be harder than we thought, and we arrived fifteen minutes for one feature and 1.5 hours (not fifteen minutes) too early for the other. Well, hell. So instead, my Mom and Dad, my ~5 year-old niece, and Yoko and I meandered on down to the cafe on the ground floor to get something nice and warm to tide us over.
No sooner has my niece settled into her seat than a FIFTY DOLLAR bill floats down from somewhere way up above and lands in her lap. A five hits a table nearby, a ten near that. People are gobsmacked, all staring up like baby birds. And the kicker is, there was no one up at the top shouting, "My wallet!" or "Oh, no!" or even "That's what I think of your money, creep!" No, it's just money from the sky. The woman at the table where the fiver landed says to me, "I think I saw something land in those poinsettias at the top of that lightpost over there." I thought about it for a moment and realized that there was no way for any _other_ than me to get anything down from there without a ladder, so I pulled over a chair, climbed up, and descended with a HUNDRED DOLLAR bill.
I know, I know, I'm capitalizing like some 419 scammer, but sometimes circumstances call for it.
I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to the fiver woman, explaining that there seemed to have been some change attached. It seemed like the thing to do.
I had the fifty and hundred verified at a liquor store later, and they both passed the highlighter test, so there you go.
Now how is my brother ever going to convince his daughter that no, honey, money doesn't just fall out of the sky or grow on trees?
Apparently, yes.
Anyway. On Saturday, having had it with the gloom, we moved, as a family, to go see movies at Pacific Place. However, as my Seattle-ite brother and his loverly lady are neither of them huge consumers, finding the place turned out to be harder than we thought, and we arrived fifteen minutes for one feature and 1.5 hours (not fifteen minutes) too early for the other. Well, hell. So instead, my Mom and Dad, my ~5 year-old niece, and Yoko and I meandered on down to the cafe on the ground floor to get something nice and warm to tide us over.
No sooner has my niece settled into her seat than a FIFTY DOLLAR bill floats down from somewhere way up above and lands in her lap. A five hits a table nearby, a ten near that. People are gobsmacked, all staring up like baby birds. And the kicker is, there was no one up at the top shouting, "My wallet!" or "Oh, no!" or even "That's what I think of your money, creep!" No, it's just money from the sky. The woman at the table where the fiver landed says to me, "I think I saw something land in those poinsettias at the top of that lightpost over there." I thought about it for a moment and realized that there was no way for any _other_ than me to get anything down from there without a ladder, so I pulled over a chair, climbed up, and descended with a HUNDRED DOLLAR bill.
I know, I know, I'm capitalizing like some 419 scammer, but sometimes circumstances call for it.
I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and handed it to the fiver woman, explaining that there seemed to have been some change attached. It seemed like the thing to do.
I had the fifty and hundred verified at a liquor store later, and they both passed the highlighter test, so there you go.
Now how is my brother ever going to convince his daughter that no, honey, money doesn't just fall out of the sky or grow on trees?
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