Four Years Old!

A happy fourth birthday to Mandu the tux and Chingu the cream-and-gray, the two kitties who make my life a whole lot better than it should be.  They were adopted all the way across the county when I was working at an animal shelter and taking care of my dad in Bellingham, Washington.  Here we are in Frederick, Maryland, and soon we'll be in Sunset Beach, North Carolina.  Technically Mandu is a few days older than Chingu, but that's about all we know for precise dates.

They are my buddies and they shed way too much.

Primetime: Wut I Thunk

The first half plays it safe and straight -- what was it like behind the scenes of To Catch A Predator over 20 years ago?  And there's entertainment (and cringe, and penises) enough there for a decent film.  The second half is something else though, and it requires a bit of buy-in from the audience: What if TCAP was actually a symbol for everything that's gone wrong with America since 9/11?  What if it was simply a mirror to our own neuroses and pathologies as individuals and America as a whole?  Me, I loved it.  I can see how others might not.  In either event, Robert Pattinson is, as always, wholly captivating.

Four flip-phones out of five!

Hearts and Minds

Iranian anti-Trump art is really pretty good.

Hope: Wut I Thunk

Take your pick -- boring and formulaic, or a genre-busting swing for the fences?  With the South Korean film Hope, you're getting the latter kiddo!  And the results are pretty disappointing.  What starts out promisingly as a sort of small town cop meets a village-eating alien is pretty good, with some excellent practical effects and camera work.  But the second act really starts to stretch things out, to the point where we've got a dozen different characters doing their own thing and it's simply too hard to keep track of all of them.  Then there's the final act, which goes in a direction that simply doesn't pay off anything set up earlier in the film.  Individual performances are fine, and there are some funny moments amidst the ultra-violence, but this is a swing and a resounding miss.  Also, way too long.

Two amazing leather cop jackets out of five!

To Stay Or Not To Stay, That Is The Question

My local movie theater now lets you know if your movie has mid- or end-credits.

Like everything Marvel, it's way overdone but I do appreciate the info.

Where Ya Been, James?

Mandu and Chingu both turn four in October.

I'll keep it short -- I put an offer on a house down in North Carolina last month.  Inspection turned up some major issues, including the roof and drainage / standing water.  North Carolina gets a lot of rain, not to mention wind and even hurricanes, so I walked.

I drove down again last weekend and now have another offer out.  It's a nicer house in a nicer neighborhood, and now I'm waiting for another inspection.  If it gets a relatively clean bill of health (roof was supposedly redone in 2019) I'm going to buy it and ideally getting out of Maryland by the end of 2026.

I'm ready to live near, not on, the beach and start a new adventure with these two non-rent-payers above.

Adulting, man.

"that old fear, and that old pain"

"'Lord,' I said. 'Lewis, you're out of sight.'

'Who knows,' he said. 'But I believe in survival. All kinds. Every time I come up here, I believe in it more. You know, with all the so-called modern conveniences, a man can still fall down. His leg will break, like Shad Mackey's. He can lie there in the woods with night coming on, knowing he's got two cars in the garage, one of them an XKE, a wife and three children watching 'Star Trek' as he lies trying to get his breath under a bush. The old human body is the same as it always was. It still feels that old fear, and that old pain. The last time I was near here...'"

-- James Dickey, Deliverance

Mushroom Trail

Seen on a recent walk around my neighborhood.  I can only guess I'm being lured into a cooking pot.  It's been a surprisingly wet summer here in Frederick -- last two summers I swear everything turned brown by the end of July and stopped growing.

Tony: Wut I Thunk

Director Matt Johnson makes some great choices here: three months (a summer) in the life on Anthony Bourdain based loosely on Kitchen Confidential.  Not Bourdain the TV star, the celebrity, the very tragic death by suicide, but just a skinny rich kid who needs to grow up.  This selectiveness is crucial to making the story universal -- because growing up is hard, and learning to love yourself is not always an easy path.  Cue falling for, and chasing, a girl to Provincetown for a summer on the shore and you've got a movie that works best by being a bit incomplete, a bit unfinished, a bit (ahem) under-baked -- always showing more than telling.  Antonio Banderas shines as Tony's reluctant, nearly Puritan mentor who oversees a kitchen pirate crew of burnouts and sex and drug addicts (1975, people).  If not an actual feel-good film, it's certainly feel-decent enough about how downright embarrassing it can be to be young and in love and aspiring to something greater in a world of dirty dishes and crappy customers who wouldn't know a true Lobster Thermidor if it landed on their head.

Five bumps of dodgy cocaine out of five!

Beach Life

Sunset Beach, North Carolina.

I spent the weekend in North Carolina looking at houses.  I found one I like.  If all goes well, I'll be living down here by the end of the year.

I Love You Too

Dolly Parton, dead at 80.

AIDS activist.  Vaccine activist.  Child literacy activist.  Pretty good singer too.