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I Saw Movies
I've seen some movies this summer. Here's what I think.
Down here in New Orleans, where men are men, except in the Quarter, where sometimes men are women, and you start questioning your sexuality, or the just the general idea of sexuality, because you really couldn't tell the difference, obviously you couldn't, the way you were staring at that woman (who turned out to be a man), surely a manly man could tell the difference, and eventually you console yourself with some laissez faire rigamarole like its only a chromosome or two separating the sexes anyway so don't be so hard on yourself, live and let live, go to a chick movie if you want. And back and forth and back and forth I went just to get up the nerve to go see Possession with Gwyneth Paltrow. I have two words for the movie: ick.
After all that though (my indecisiveness concerning Possession went on for days), I was all steeled up, so it was nothing at all for me to go see The Good Girl with Jennifer Anniston. Two observations: pretty damn accurate portrayal of housepainters, and, Jennifer Anniston is ok when she's not on TV.
Staying with the theme of chick movies I also this summer saw XXX with Vin Diesel. Vin, as you may know, is a homosexual. I read that on the cover of a tabloid at the grocery store. I went to work with that news and said, "Jerry, did you know that Vin Diesel is a homosexual?" Jerry said, "No, Come on!!??" "Jerry," I said, "live and let live man, what do you care who the man buggers?" Jerry said, "I really don't care, I liked that last movie." So there you have that.
I didn't see Like Mike but I recommended it to my friend from France and she, stranded for seven days in Dallas, took her 12-year old son who is a basketball and hip hop fan. They thought it sucked. Too Disney-like. Time constraints, at least, prevented them from accepting my offer to round up some of the Dumaine kids for a street game during their short visit here last month. And I'm sure Cadillac Shelton would have consented to blaring the rap from his most adequate sound system. His taste in modern urban music--like I'm any kind of judge--is actually pretty decent. Of the crowd that would have likely been sitting on stoops that night, one is dead from a (possibly suicidal) motorcycle crash at the corner of Galvez and Orleans, one has seven recent bullet holes in his body, and one is in jail for car theft, a count of murder, and two counts of attempted murder. Nothing Disneyesque about the Sixth Ward of New Orleans.
Road to Perdition was slick, maybe a tad too slick, and stylized, but I liked it, at least partly, if not altogether, for the same reason I liked A-I--that reason being--Jude Law.
Speaking of Tom Hanks, I saw the Greek Wedding flick, because Jerry at work said he laughed his ass off. Jerry is dating. People who date tend to laugh their asses off for reasons that are not entirely clear to the rest of us. But single people, like myself, huddled alone, by themselves, wallowing in singularity, attempting to assure themselves that singularity is greaaat, require actual funny material to make them laugh. I did not laugh my ass off but did not either feel like I should be refunded my money. I'm happy for the lotto-esque success of the Greek standup comic/female lead.
I saw some other stuff, can't remember it though, but can say with the utmost certainty that it was all either ehh ok, or, hey man who you think you dicking with laying off crap like that? Oh yeah, Signs, with Mel Gibson, two words--yawn.
And Slim really liked Undercover Brother, gives it his one very enthusiastic double jointed thumb up.