Weblog 332
June 24, 2012~ 12:00 am
After a long, HOT week, Wayne and I settled in to a TWO MOVIE weekend. (Holly and family had gone off camping) so we thought we'd do a double feature of Friday AND Saturday films.... just the two of us
and that great old American standby... the 'picture box'.. and boy! Wayne sure picked stunners for this weekend. On Friday evening we treated ourselves to the second chapter of the 'Downey/Law duo' and watched the Sherlock Holmes highly entertaining, "Game Of Shadows".
I'd heard reports that the first one was better, but we are convinced this one far exceeded the excitement, the cohesiveness, and the moody darkness of the first. There is not one thing that could have been done better-- from casting, to pace and direction, to atmosphere --and it has the perfect blending of just a bit of humor, thrown into a sustained excitement mixture that never fails in the whole of the film.
Plus..... they chose a PERFECT villain in this film's Professor Moriarty.
Jared Harris was thoroughly convincing as the genius, polished psychopath, and his addition to this film was the chill factor that the first movie lacked. (If you saw it, you will recall the 'bad guy' was a power-mad devil-worshipper, high in the British government) but Harris' Moriarity is a 'villain for all seasons'- a strictly for-profit mastermind, whose dabbling in controlling those commodities nations need to go to war, such as arms and technology, and then PUSHING them in that direction, could just as easily have been our own Dick Cheney in the 21th century. It's a much more believable plot, and therefore more engaging.
(By the way, if ever the chance arises, Jared Harris would be my first choice to play General Tecumseh Sherman in any movie planned. JUST LOOK at the guy! He's perfect!) And I didn't know until this evening that he is also the son of the late actor, Richard Harris- a longtime favorite of mine, as well as a character on 'Mad Men'- a TV show that alas, I've never seen- having opted to go 'cable-less'. lol
Moriarty was certainly compelling, but the character of MYCROFT HOLMES was sheer brilliance, played impeccably by the 'big guy'
Stephen Fry, a stellar performer we'd enjoyed once before when he starred in 'Wilde'- a marvelous film about the Irish-born poet and playwright, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.. himself. (Incidentally, if you've not seen that one, do. It's splendid.) One of my favorite Wilde quotes?
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." ~Oscar Wilde
Our choice for Saturday evening was
an ELECTRIFYING film. Wow! Mara Rooney is soooooo convincing as Lizbeth Salander
with her punk style and pale skin, delicate features.... I rather think she'd make an EXCELLENT girlfriend for Edward Scissorhands...LOL!! I see them as 'salt & pepper shaker perfect' together.
I read the book a while back, and this is a close following of the original story. Lizbeth-the-tattooed is a troubled ward of the state, whose photographic memory and computer wizardry make her the ideal partner for an investigative journalist played beautifully by Daniel Craig. He's called to the island retreat of a rich Swedish tycoon family at the behest of the elderly patriarch who wants to find out who murdered his favorite niece more than 30 years before. When Craig chooses the tattooed and troubled wunderkind, he has no idea she has but one object in mind.... to settle the score with any man who abuses females, having had an abusive father herself, so this story snags her like trout on a fishing line.
The movie is heavy on both plot and character, and handles both masterfully- I give this one a 10 out of 10. It holds the viewer spellbound -and Rooney does such a superb job of making an almost 'automaton-like' human being, well..... vulnerable, simply by using her amazingly expressive, soft dark eyes (which could, by turns, look like cold dark steel, or crazy and popping out 'insane'.)
I did find it oddly serendipitous that Friday's movie featured Noomi Rapace as the gypsy cohort of Holmes, only to then have Wayne peg her as the gal who played 'Salander' in the original, Swedish version. How strange that we made those two choices to view together on the same weekend.) They're both terrific actresses..... but I have to say that if anybody would ask me which film heroine would I most like to be, from Guinevere to Scarlet O'Hara, etc...... I'D WANT TO BE LIZBETH SALANDER! No kidding. She ROCKS!
All of that fantasy fare was just what we needed this weekend. This has been a ROUGH WEEK for Wayne. He finally got his official letter that his position is terminated as of June 29th.
It's been a YEAR of uncertainty and discomfort, a year long torture of rumors and machinations within the department of human services where he works. Then two weeks ago, after rumblings for months that there'd be cuts, all the County workers got their letters in the mail with the end of June as the termination date. (Wayne's job is technically an 'out-sourced' one, working in the department but not officially a 'county' employee.) The county people raised such holy hell that management backed down and decided NOT to let them go. No.... there were only two people chosen to be sacked. Wayne.... and another older female, both from the 'out-sourced' personnel. Why let only two employees go if the issue was budgetary restrictions and a restructuring that originally called for the DISMANTLING of the ENTIRE DIVISION?
Well if you ask me, after all that fuss and the 'behind the scenes chatter' that went on for a whole f*cking YEAR, I think they cut loose a couple of unlucky personnel because
SOME ASSHOLES DID
NOT WANT TO LOOK
TOTALLY RIDICULOUS! -that's why. "Hell!! Fire somebody... not COUNTY, because they have connections and there's Union involved, but S-O-M-E-body....we can't look like COMPLETE MORONS after all this fuss!"
That's my take on it.
Politics politics... where that's the way of things. (It's also possible that since the two terminated employees BOTH have names that begin with 'W', they decided to crop the last two off their alphabetical list, then said, "Fuk it. That's something, right? Now we have money. When's the next golf outing?"
To add insult to injury, the terse, two-paragraph letter he received asks him to 'please return any and all materials issued to you'.....whaa the??? (Perhaps they're referring to the unused lipstick he refused to put on and kiss ass while he worked there... yah. That must be it.) And now that a locally bloated, disfunctional government agency has had the razor keen foresight to reduce its hideous bulk by TWO......two employees.... I'm certain the precarious budget situation at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services has been saved by a gnat hair, and doubtless by some crackerjack numbers crunchers.
Whew!! To think our local ship practically sank! LOL!!! Morons.
So what'd we do? We chose some rip-roaring movies to lift us out of our funk.
As the British like to say, there's nothing more to be done but....
And a great deal of laughter helps too. And hugs. And being grateful for what we DO have... which is 'each other'.
June 27, 2012~ 6:15 pm
I have TWO MARVELOUS links for you! The first...... is an artist who considers himself a 'doodler'. The link will take you to the work of
David Fullarton
- a Brit who's lived in the U.S. for 16 years and has found that here, "EVERYONE apologizes for everything and where he comes from, no one apologizes for ANYTHING." (*Don't you just hate people who say things like ...'Brit' and 'U.S.'? LOL!!!)
Anyway, here's the link that'll get you to his FLICKR stream of images. They make me howl.
Second up.... my NEW FAVORITE CHARACTER on YouTube. (Yes, I know I can't watch YouTube on this computer, but I go into work early and watch it there. It's my secret vice.)
Up till now, my favorite was the Honey Badger, but now..... NOW.... IT'S
Gayle!
She's the ÜBER-FEMINIST-PERFECTIONIST who LOVES competition. She'd compete in a BM match. She snarls constantly, inhales her breakfast cereal 'cocaine style'- and vacuums her ceiling. (She is also the standing president of M.A.R.H., Mothers Against Road Head. Yes, it's exactly what you think it is.)
The link here takes you to Episode One, but I'd encourage you to quickly follow up with 'The Christmas Card' installment.....it's comedic GENIUS start to finish!! I LOVE IT!!! (Oh... and see how I filled in those little squares at the top and the bottom of Gayle's picture to make it look like film?? See how crooked and unevenly spaced some of them are?) If Gayle were here......
she'd be chasing me with a boning knife right now!
Once you're all laughed out, trust me, you'll sleep like a baby. (Works for me at the office. :)
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
After a long, HOT week, Wayne and I settled in to a TWO MOVIE weekend. (Holly and family had gone off camping) so we thought we'd do a double feature of Friday AND Saturday films.... just the two of us
and that great old American standby... the 'picture box'.. and boy! Wayne sure picked stunners for this weekend. On Friday evening we treated ourselves to the second chapter of the 'Downey/Law duo' and watched the Sherlock Holmes highly entertaining, "Game Of Shadows".
I'd heard reports that the first one was better, but we are convinced this one far exceeded the excitement, the cohesiveness, and the moody darkness of the first. There is not one thing that could have been done better-- from casting, to pace and direction, to atmosphere --and it has the perfect blending of just a bit of humor, thrown into a sustained excitement mixture that never fails in the whole of the film.
Plus..... they chose a PERFECT villain in this film's Professor Moriarty.
Jared Harris was thoroughly convincing as the genius, polished psychopath, and his addition to this film was the chill factor that the first movie lacked. (If you saw it, you will recall the 'bad guy' was a power-mad devil-worshipper, high in the British government) but Harris' Moriarity is a 'villain for all seasons'- a strictly for-profit mastermind, whose dabbling in controlling those commodities nations need to go to war, such as arms and technology, and then PUSHING them in that direction, could just as easily have been our own Dick Cheney in the 21th century. It's a much more believable plot, and therefore more engaging.
(By the way, if ever the chance arises, Jared Harris would be my first choice to play General Tecumseh Sherman in any movie planned. JUST LOOK at the guy! He's perfect!) And I didn't know until this evening that he is also the son of the late actor, Richard Harris- a longtime favorite of mine, as well as a character on 'Mad Men'- a TV show that alas, I've never seen- having opted to go 'cable-less'. lol
Moriarty was certainly compelling, but the character of MYCROFT HOLMES was sheer brilliance, played impeccably by the 'big guy'
Stephen Fry, a stellar performer we'd enjoyed once before when he starred in 'Wilde'- a marvelous film about the Irish-born poet and playwright, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.. himself. (Incidentally, if you've not seen that one, do. It's splendid.) One of my favorite Wilde quotes?
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." ~Oscar Wilde
Our choice for Saturday evening was
an ELECTRIFYING film. Wow! Mara Rooney is soooooo convincing as Lizbeth Salander
with her punk style and pale skin, delicate features.... I rather think she'd make an EXCELLENT girlfriend for Edward Scissorhands...LOL!! I see them as 'salt & pepper shaker perfect' together.
I read the book a while back, and this is a close following of the original story. Lizbeth-the-tattooed is a troubled ward of the state, whose photographic memory and computer wizardry make her the ideal partner for an investigative journalist played beautifully by Daniel Craig. He's called to the island retreat of a rich Swedish tycoon family at the behest of the elderly patriarch who wants to find out who murdered his favorite niece more than 30 years before. When Craig chooses the tattooed and troubled wunderkind, he has no idea she has but one object in mind.... to settle the score with any man who abuses females, having had an abusive father herself, so this story snags her like trout on a fishing line.
The movie is heavy on both plot and character, and handles both masterfully- I give this one a 10 out of 10. It holds the viewer spellbound -and Rooney does such a superb job of making an almost 'automaton-like' human being, well..... vulnerable, simply by using her amazingly expressive, soft dark eyes (which could, by turns, look like cold dark steel, or crazy and popping out 'insane'.)
I did find it oddly serendipitous that Friday's movie featured Noomi Rapace as the gypsy cohort of Holmes, only to then have Wayne peg her as the gal who played 'Salander' in the original, Swedish version. How strange that we made those two choices to view together on the same weekend.) They're both terrific actresses..... but I have to say that if anybody would ask me which film heroine would I most like to be, from Guinevere to Scarlet O'Hara, etc...... I'D WANT TO BE LIZBETH SALANDER! No kidding. She ROCKS!
All of that fantasy fare was just what we needed this weekend. This has been a ROUGH WEEK for Wayne. He finally got his official letter that his position is terminated as of June 29th.
It's been a YEAR of uncertainty and discomfort, a year long torture of rumors and machinations within the department of human services where he works. Then two weeks ago, after rumblings for months that there'd be cuts, all the County workers got their letters in the mail with the end of June as the termination date. (Wayne's job is technically an 'out-sourced' one, working in the department but not officially a 'county' employee.) The county people raised such holy hell that management backed down and decided NOT to let them go. No.... there were only two people chosen to be sacked. Wayne.... and another older female, both from the 'out-sourced' personnel. Why let only two employees go if the issue was budgetary restrictions and a restructuring that originally called for the DISMANTLING of the ENTIRE DIVISION?
Well if you ask me, after all that fuss and the 'behind the scenes chatter' that went on for a whole f*cking YEAR, I think they cut loose a couple of unlucky personnel because
SOME ASSHOLES DID
NOT WANT TO LOOK
TOTALLY RIDICULOUS! -that's why. "Hell!! Fire somebody... not COUNTY, because they have connections and there's Union involved, but S-O-M-E-body....we can't look like COMPLETE MORONS after all this fuss!"
That's my take on it.
Politics politics... where that's the way of things. (It's also possible that since the two terminated employees BOTH have names that begin with 'W', they decided to crop the last two off their alphabetical list, then said, "Fuk it. That's something, right? Now we have money. When's the next golf outing?"
To add insult to injury, the terse, two-paragraph letter he received asks him to 'please return any and all materials issued to you'.....whaa the??? (Perhaps they're referring to the unused lipstick he refused to put on and kiss ass while he worked there... yah. That must be it.) And now that a locally bloated, disfunctional government agency has had the razor keen foresight to reduce its hideous bulk by TWO......two employees.... I'm certain the precarious budget situation at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services has been saved by a gnat hair, and doubtless by some crackerjack numbers crunchers.
Whew!! To think our local ship practically sank! LOL!!! Morons.
So what'd we do? We chose some rip-roaring movies to lift us out of our funk.
As the British like to say, there's nothing more to be done but....
And a great deal of laughter helps too. And hugs. And being grateful for what we DO have... which is 'each other'.
June 27, 2012~ 6:15 pm
I have TWO MARVELOUS links for you! The first...... is an artist who considers himself a 'doodler'. The link will take you to the work of
- a Brit who's lived in the U.S. for 16 years and has found that here, "EVERYONE apologizes for everything and where he comes from, no one apologizes for ANYTHING." (*Don't you just hate people who say things like ...'Brit' and 'U.S.'? LOL!!!)
Anyway, here's the link that'll get you to his FLICKR stream of images. They make me howl.
Second up.... my NEW FAVORITE CHARACTER on YouTube. (Yes, I know I can't watch YouTube on this computer, but I go into work early and watch it there. It's my secret vice.)
Up till now, my favorite was the Honey Badger, but now..... NOW.... IT'S
She's the ÜBER-FEMINIST-PERFECTIONIST who LOVES competition. She'd compete in a BM match. She snarls constantly, inhales her breakfast cereal 'cocaine style'- and vacuums her ceiling. (She is also the standing president of M.A.R.H., Mothers Against Road Head. Yes, it's exactly what you think it is.)
The link here takes you to Episode One, but I'd encourage you to quickly follow up with 'The Christmas Card' installment.....it's comedic GENIUS start to finish!! I LOVE IT!!! (Oh... and see how I filled in those little squares at the top and the bottom of Gayle's picture to make it look like film?? See how crooked and unevenly spaced some of them are?) If Gayle were here......
she'd be chasing me with a boning knife right now!
Once you're all laughed out, trust me, you'll sleep like a baby. (Works for me at the office. :)
(Return To Weekly Archives)
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