Lucky In Love

Four movies in the house this weekend:

Sin City is the adaptation of Frank Miller's series of graphic novels. Brought to the screen by Robert Rodriguez of Desperado and Spy Kids fame, there's lots of bullets, sex, blood, and "end justifying the means" type of violence. Mickey Rourke is excellent and Jessica Alba is nice to look at. Watch it if you don't want to think.

Closer is a movie that should have made for adults, but appeals to the 18-25 demographic with its use of language. All of George Carlin's seven dirty words are used frequently, and I about threw up during the cyber-sex scene between Jude Law and Clive Owen. All of this took away from a good story about twisted love and lost opportunity, and the excellent performances by Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman are lost in the muck. To its credit, the movie does not have a happy ending.

After those, I had to clear the palette:

There are good movies and bad movies, and some lurk on the edges. The Last Starfighter is a good bad movie. The first to use a computer (Cray X-MP) for the ships and such, it's aged well in this era of "computer graphics instead of plot." The actors have a good time with their roles and don't take themselves too seriously, especially Robert Preston and Dan O'Herlihy (they steal every scene they're in). This is another movie for the non-thinker, but in a good way.

Adam's Rib is a 1949 movie about married lawyers occupying opposite tables in a courtroom battle over women's rights (disguised as an attempted murder trial). The dialogue is tight and the supporting cast is excellent, but the movie is more about the chemistry between Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. There is genuine affection between the two whenever they're together that goes beyond acting. It is amazing to watch. (My first Tracy/Hepburn movie was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which was made nearly twenty years later. When I first saw it, I sensed these were two people deeply and eternally in love. We should all be so lucky.)

Moving on:

If you don't get "Today's Papers" from Slate Magazine, you're missing a summary of the nation's newspapers and their view on the world of politics, national news, and the strangely important things not found in the local paper. I said yesterday that Hurricane Katrina is now a racial issue. The New York Times adds this the discussion:

"[T]he NYT takes a look at how Katrina laid bare some shameful realities about race and class in America. The pieces says the impoverished residents of New Orleans were left to fend for themselves by an evacuation plan that hinged on residents being able to drive themselves out, in a city in which 35 percent of black households don't have a car."

Chief Justice Rehnquist passed on. A conservative appointed to the court by Richard Nixon and chosen by Reagan for the CJ, he opposed the death penalty, flag burning, and Roe v. Wade, and supported Miranda, school prayer, and rights for gays and lesbians. My bet is Sandra Day O'Connor will be asked to stay on until a new CJ is confirmed.

This may be my next car, but this looks like more fun.

Edit:Waaaay too many italics in this entry. :-)

No riding today (so far)
44 Days Until the USN