You okay, baby?

Okay, first of all, let me just say that it wasn’t my idea to see “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” last weekend. We went out with my brother, who tends to shy away from any movies that might be sentimental, so given a choice between the Smiths or “Cinderella Man”, he went for the big guns.

And big guns he got. I have to say, for a movie with so much action, it was the most banal piece of celluloid I have ever seen. Now, I am capable of going to the movies and suspending my sense of reality, but this movie was so far-fetched that it was impossible to do so. It seemed like the director just wanted to use a whole bunch of cool gadgets, big guns and explosions, and it didn’t matter to anyone involved with the production how everything fit together. The movie had the feel of being written by fifteen different people, though only one writer was credited.

I don’t know where to start with the implausible concepts of this film. I’m just going to put aside the idea that these two people could be married for five (or six – stupid running joke in the movie) years without knowing that his or her spouse keeps an arsenal of weapons stashed in the house. Who knew it was so easy? I’ll tell you one thing – this movie gave me some good ideas about where to hide the Christmas gifts next year.

So, let’s start with the concept of hired assassins. Granted, most of my ideas about lone gunmen come from “Grosse Pointe Blank”, but aren’t these people supposed to be discreet by nature? I mean, it really wouldn’t do to draw attention to oneself in a situation where assassination is involved. So, when a bunch of assassins come after the main characters in a car chase, one would think they’d be driving something other than three matching navy blue BMWs with big white racing stripes emblazoned over their hoods, right? I mean, if you want to surprise your mark, it’s best not to call attention to yourself or your cohorts. Maybe it’s just me…

Then, there was the much lauded fight scene between the spouses. There’s a part of it where Mr. rips out part of the stove and ignites the gas, blowing Mrs. out of the kitchen in a huge fireball. Her hair is waving all about, and yet, she is singed not at all. Then the fight continues, progresses, they make up, get it on (without overlooking the obligatory S&M implications, of course), and the next thing you know, they are sharing a snack in the kitchen. Never mind that the kitchen floor is covered in broken glass and Mrs. is just walking around in her bare feet. I could believe that….but the kitchen was ON FIRE. A natural gas fire does not just blow out.

And also, in that same fight – the two of them are shooting these huge guns at each other. Mrs. is blowing holes in the walls and all. Then when the police show up, they’re just like, “hey, you guys okay?” Yes, we are officers, Brad and Angelina coyly say through the door, each of them still basking in the glow of their renewed love. And the cops just say, okay then, and leave! Are you telling me that gunshots in upper-class suburbia wouldn’t warrant more of a response from local law enforcement?

Then in the end, as they are being chased by the assassins as I mentioned before, they end up in some suburban warehouse store shooting it out with 50 or 60 of their murderous peers. And for some reason, Brad and Angelina are the only ones a) who are wearing bullet-proof vests and b) capable of hitting the side of a barn with their shots. Meanwhile, they’ve broken into this store, and no police show up, no alarm goes off, no one hears the thousands of rounds of ammunition being expended.

But I guess I’m just supposed to let the “art” flow over me. Don’t ask too many questions. What gets me too is how some of the reviews have assumed this movie has something interesting to say about marriage. That, in itself, is amusing. This movie is like a telemarketer. If it has anyting to say, no matter how loudly it’s speaking, I don’t want to hear it.

Ugh. Should have been called Mr. and Mrs. Stinks. And another thing – so much hype with this movie. Were they an item then? Are they an item now? Who cares? But this is what gets me – Brad last week appears in an interview with Diane Sawyer (and you know how I feel about her), and he’s saying how he wants to draw attention to the starving children of Africa….in the week before his movie is released….and he’s claiming that since he gets so much press and the starving hordes of Africa get so little, he wants to use this opportunity to even the score. BULLSHIT. Look, I am totally sympathetic to what’s going on in Africa. I don’t know what the answer is over there, but believe me, until you look at the last two centuries of the continent’s history, you’re not getting anywhere. But this guy – makes a big-budget waste of film every year, takes home twenty mil, makes a movie like this one – with all these weapons being glorified as cool, and he wants to sell me the idea that he’s a concerned citizen of the planet? Get off that, Brad.

And that, my friends, is what I think of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

MOVIE LINE OF THE DAY
(From “True Romance”)
FLOYD: Hey, bring back some beer….and some cleaning products.

Don’t tell anyone I said this, but….

Okay, here’s how pregnant I am:

Tonight I was scooping out a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream for myself, and I thought, if this was the last of the ice cream, and I dropped the bowl on the floor, and the ice cream slid out of the bowl…I’d probably eat it anyway.

Pathetic.

Spent most of the day outside with my boys. I got them a little wading pool, and they went to town! It was fun to watch.

Then tonight, after dinner we were all hanging out in the family room, and the little one slipped into the powder room by himself. I could hear him talking and moving things around. I went in there, and he had moved his little training potty right next to the toilet, and he was saying the same word over and over. I asked if he had to use the potty, and he said, “yeah.” So I took off his diaper and he sat down and went! No one pushed him, no one showed him, no one even really suggested that it was time. He was just ready to try it. Tomorrow we will try some training pants…

I’ll talk about politics and social issues next time. I will say this though: I think CNN should change their slogan to what must be their true mission statement: “No [real] news is good news.”

MOVIE LINE OF THE DAY:
(from “GO”)
TINY: Yo, I told you, my mother’s mother’s mother was black!
MARCUS: Your mother’s mother’s mother, f*** – this ain’t “Roots”, mutha… Man, I wanna see a picture of this Nubian princess. If you were any less black, you would be clear.

p.s.

Not that I think the Democrats should expend any kind of energy campaigning for a national election holiday. Frankly, it’s not that great an idea — in fact it won’t solve too many (if any) of the problems that have plagued the last two elections. Besides, isn’t is supposed to be a holiday already?

Frankly, I kind of wish Dean would get off the pundit circuit, because being out there his name gets bandied about as a possible candidate for 2008. And let’s face it — that’s a bad idea.

If you want to lesson in soft core journalism, check out Meet the Press this weekend. Tim Russert is not asking the questions he should be, or following through on anything that might be considered hard news.

Al Franken is right

Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. And I have to say, so is anyone who would listen to that windbag.

I mean, what kind of a moron do you have to be to say that Democrats don’t need an election holiday because “most of them don’t work anyway”??? Get back to us when you’re finished fighting your drug charges, Rush. When this dickweed says stuff like this, it makes me think he has yet to kick that habit.

If a liberal said something this vitriolic about conservatives, that person would be drawn and quartered by the opposition.

Here’s what I have to say: SHUT THE F***K UP!!!!

MOVIE LINE OF THE DAY
(from “Weird Science”)
CHET: How ’bout a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?

Mein Ass!

In a recent poll of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders, “The Communist Manifesto” beat out “Mein Kampf” to be voted the “Most Harmful Book” of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Check out the list of the top ten at:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=7591

Also, Check out this footage of John Bolton expressing his true feelings about the United Nations at:

http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/boltonun_56k.mov

Pretty interesting stuff…..

more Deep Throat

Another thing I find amusing is how various conservative pundits are arguing whether Mark Felt is a hero for providing info to Woodward and Bernstein and helping to expose the Watergate scandal. Some pundits are even arguing that it is Felt who violated the law. Only under an administration like George W’s is this a topic for debate. My favorite quotes on the subject come from those like Gordon Liddy, who served time for taking part in the scandal. These crooks have the gall to question Felt’s integrity. “Yeah, that guy had NO RIGHT ratting us out!!” Boo-fucking-hoo.

It makes the world go around

Plus, it looks now like this whole “Deep Throat” revelation thing is a big money grab. The family of Mr. Felt was pushing him to reveal his role in Watergate so that they could capitalize on the publishing rights, which I guess is okay. Afterall, why should Bob Woodward reap all the benefits by himself. It’s just funny how the whole secret that’s been kept for thirty years has been just blurted out now. I guess the time (or the price) was right.

By the way, I doubt yesterday’s movie quote (or many of the ones I choose to write here) will be included in AFI’s Top 100 Movie Quote list later this month….

MOVIES LINE OF THE DAY:
(from “I Love You To Death”)
JOEY: Okay, some guy in an Abraham Lincoln mask tries to brain me with a baseball bat, and that’s it, that’s the whole story.
NADJA: Yah, yah. Did you see what he looked like?
JOEY: Yyyy-eah. He looked like Abraham Lincoln…comin’ up to bat.

Deep Throat

His revelation is like a summer blockbuster – what a letdown. I mean, never heard of the guy. Can’t wait to read the Vanity Fair article though.

Two-year-old is teething. There are a lot of tears around here.

Paris Hilton’s engaged…that means procreation can’t be too far off. Scary.

MOVIE LINE OF THE DAY
(from “The Ladykillers”)
GAWAIN: Fuck you and the Swiss Miss!

strange neighbor

About a month ago, my neighbor (let’s call him “Gene”) mentioned to me that he is planning to put a privacy fence between our back yards. Okay, fine, I said. It’s not a big deal to me, in fact, it might even be an eyesore, but my feeling is that it’s his property. If he wants to build a fence, I’m not going to war over it.

Now, I want to reiterate that the privacy issue for me is not a big one. We rarely run into each other out there, and when we do, I’m fine with the polite “hello”/wave and even the occasional chit-chat. A few of the landscape bids I had entertained included some kind of screening foliage there, but it wasn’t that big a deal, so I opted not to go with that. Instead, we went for a bigger patio.

However, we did end up with an evergreen privacy screen along our back fence. The fence itself is about waist-high and made of wrought iron, so it didn’t really provide any privacy. In fact, from my kitchen windows, in my pajamas, I’d developed a “hello”/wave relationship with the garbage men who pick up the trash twice a week in the alley back there. The arborvitae that we planted works really well. Not that I won’t miss the garbage men, but the pajama aspect of the relationship was really making me uncomfortable.

The other night, after 9, we were sitting here watching TV in our jammies when the doorbell rang. I didn’t move, but my husband answered the door to find the neighbor. “Gene” complimented our new and improved yard and specifically pointed to the arborvitae. My husband thanked him for the compliment. Gene then explained that he had discussed a privacy fence in the back with me, and he wanted to know what my husband thought of planting arborvitae instead of installing the fence. I could hear their conversation, and I was all for that idea. Trees beat fence like paper beats rock. But here’s the weird part: Gene wanted to know whether we would be interested in paying for half of his arborvitae project. We were like, “what the hell?” The trees are going in on your property, right? Hence, they’re your trees. Why would we pay for them? I didn’t ask our neighbors in the back (or the garbage men) to chip in for the arborvitae there — nor would it have occurred to me to do so. Can’t figure out where Gene’s coming from.

Is it me?

Be afraid, be very afraid

This season’s finale of “American Idol” got 378 MILLION MORE votes than the 2004 U.S. presidential election. I realize that that’s more votes than there are citizens, (I guess some people voted more than once — but didn’t that also happen in Ohio in November?) but the fact that people get MORE INVOLVED in it than the presidential election is absolutely frightening.

Sometimes, I seriously think I must be going insane.

MOVIE LINE OF THE DAY:
(from Singles)
EXPECT THE BEST GIRL: Debbie, he’s only like the next Martin Scorseeez.