And thus the month long hiatus filled with paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork has ended. The villagers rejoice!
There's still packing and cleaning to do so it might be a little while longer before this place gets regular updates again, but I figured this news was worth an emergency post.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Disney Pictures
So I know I promised Disney pictures in my last post, but it seems that the great Apple Computer has chewed up the hundreds of pictures we collectively took and has spit out 13. That's right, we have 13. Don't ask, because honestly I have no idea how this happened. Needless to say, that's the last time I ever let someone else use their computer as a repository for my pictures.
I think we still have some on the memory card in our camera. I'll take a look tonight and see if there's anything worth posting. Anything there would be from our last morning in the Animal Kingdom, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope.
I think we still have some on the memory card in our camera. I'll take a look tonight and see if there's anything worth posting. Anything there would be from our last morning in the Animal Kingdom, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
I'll Make You an Offer You Can Refuse
So, yeah... wasn't expecting this to be my next post, but we've officially made an offer on a lovely south Minneapolis house. If you're among the interested, let me know and I can send you the listing so you can see pictures and such. Nothing's a done deal obviously as there are still inspections, appraisals, and all to be done, but at the moment we're feeling pretty good.
I'll follow up with more as soon as we know more. Pictures from Disney to follow once I get them in the mail, too.
I'll follow up with more as soon as we know more. Pictures from Disney to follow once I get them in the mail, too.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Brothers Bloom
Meaghan and I went down to the Uptown last week to catch writer/director Rian Johnson's new con man film, The Brothers Bloom. If you're not familiar with Johnson, he's responsible for 2006's brilliant high school noir Brick. If you have seen Brick, leave your preconceptions at the door as this movie is nothing like it.
Brothers Stephen (Mark Ruffalo - Zodiac, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Bloom (Adrien Brody - The Pianist, The Darjeeling Limited) were foster children. Bouncing in and out of homes during their youth, Stephen quickly discovered that the only way to cope with his life was to write it for himself. He would concoct elaborate plans (complete with flow charts) and Bloom acted out whatever part the plan called for.
Over the years, with the help of the enigmatic Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi - Babel), the brothers become the best con men in the world. They have it all: money, women, fame. But Bloom doesn't have the one thing he wants more than anything in the world: an unwritten life. He's been playing roles in Stephen's schemes for so long that he doesn't know where the role ends and he really begins. At the top of their game, Bloom walks away to find out exactly who he is.
Two months later, Stephen tracks Bloom down for one last big con. If all goes well, they could walk away with millions, and Stephen will promise to finally leave him alone. Enter the fabulous Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener, The Fountain) as the unwitting and completely eccentric million-dollar mark. The rest of the film, which I won't detail here, is the story of the final con of the Brothers Bloom.
Equal parts mad-cap comedy, action flick, and touching character piece, The Brothers Bloom walks the tightrope well somehow managing to balance all of its disparate moods. Quirky and stylish, at its heart you're still able to feel Bloom's pain and the love that the brothers have for each other. Even though the acting is superb throughout (the 3 principals are among my favorite actors working today which never hurts), the real star of the film is Johnson's sparkling script. Scene after scene leaps off the screen until the bullets from Chekhov's gun are finally fired in the final act.
In a world full of poorly written work, it's always a joy to find something so well done. I highly recommend you track this down in the theater, or at the very least add it to your queue.
Brothers Stephen (Mark Ruffalo - Zodiac, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Bloom (Adrien Brody - The Pianist, The Darjeeling Limited) were foster children. Bouncing in and out of homes during their youth, Stephen quickly discovered that the only way to cope with his life was to write it for himself. He would concoct elaborate plans (complete with flow charts) and Bloom acted out whatever part the plan called for.
Over the years, with the help of the enigmatic Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi - Babel), the brothers become the best con men in the world. They have it all: money, women, fame. But Bloom doesn't have the one thing he wants more than anything in the world: an unwritten life. He's been playing roles in Stephen's schemes for so long that he doesn't know where the role ends and he really begins. At the top of their game, Bloom walks away to find out exactly who he is.
Two months later, Stephen tracks Bloom down for one last big con. If all goes well, they could walk away with millions, and Stephen will promise to finally leave him alone. Enter the fabulous Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener, The Fountain) as the unwitting and completely eccentric million-dollar mark. The rest of the film, which I won't detail here, is the story of the final con of the Brothers Bloom.
Equal parts mad-cap comedy, action flick, and touching character piece, The Brothers Bloom walks the tightrope well somehow managing to balance all of its disparate moods. Quirky and stylish, at its heart you're still able to feel Bloom's pain and the love that the brothers have for each other. Even though the acting is superb throughout (the 3 principals are among my favorite actors working today which never hurts), the real star of the film is Johnson's sparkling script. Scene after scene leaps off the screen until the bullets from Chekhov's gun are finally fired in the final act.
In a world full of poorly written work, it's always a joy to find something so well done. I highly recommend you track this down in the theater, or at the very least add it to your queue.
Ker-smash!
This is the sound I would have heard last Wednesday night had I awoken when both of our parked cars were hit by some idiot. Have no fear, though, they drove off without leaving a note. Instead, we got a sadly incomplete white paint job on our nice blue Neon, a broken side mirror, and something wrong with the left front wheel that makes it go clunk-clunk-clunk when I brake hard. I'm going to try to limp over to the shop later this week to get the official diagnosis.
[I'll punch this up with an awesome picture tomorrow, if I can figure our newish camera out.]
The Caliber survived mostly intact with a mere 7 in chunk taken out of the rear bumper. You know, the bumper that was just replaced in January after our run-in with a semi over Christmas. You can't say we're not doing our part to help the auto parts industry, whether we like it or not.
The police have it narrowed down to a rusty white sedan. The errant driver was decent enough to leave behind a broken headlight of his own, so I suppose they could probably figure out a make from it if they wanted to. Considering the fact that I saw five rusty white sedans on a recent walk to a local restaurant (none of them had our stolen blue paint -- I looked), I think it's only a matter of time before the police find our man.
[I'll punch this up with an awesome picture tomorrow, if I can figure our newish camera out.]
The Caliber survived mostly intact with a mere 7 in chunk taken out of the rear bumper. You know, the bumper that was just replaced in January after our run-in with a semi over Christmas. You can't say we're not doing our part to help the auto parts industry, whether we like it or not.
The police have it narrowed down to a rusty white sedan. The errant driver was decent enough to leave behind a broken headlight of his own, so I suppose they could probably figure out a make from it if they wanted to. Considering the fact that I saw five rusty white sedans on a recent walk to a local restaurant (none of them had our stolen blue paint -- I looked), I think it's only a matter of time before the police find our man.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
#95: Schindler's List
I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I'm way behind on 1997 movies here. If you're like I was and you've never seen Schindler's List before, stop what you're doing now and add it to your Netflix queue. There's a reason it's on everyone's "Top 10 Movies of All-Time" list.
The acting is superb throughout, but then what do you expect when you put Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley together in the same film? It manages to be emotionally affecting without dipping into Spielberg's usual bag of tricks to manipulate the viewer. Thankfully, he understands that you don't need to add any pathos to the Holocaust to make it a truly horrible thing. When he chooses to play things straight like this, he really can be a brilliant filmmaker.
The movie actually came out in 1994, so you might be wondering what it's doing as part of this project. When it made it's much ballyhooed TV premiere in 1997 it was as a "Director's Cut", so that's what I watched here. From reading on the Internets, there doesn't look to actually be anything different in the Director's Cut other than an extended closing credits sequence in which cast members and Schindler survivors place stones on Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, I'm glad I continue to make exceptions like this. If I didn't, I probably still wouldn't have seen this remarkable piece of work.
Coming up hopefully soon as I've already watched them:
#96: Marvin's Room
#97: Strays (written and directed by Vin Diesel? It's true)
#98: Enchanted Tales: Hercules
The acting is superb throughout, but then what do you expect when you put Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley together in the same film? It manages to be emotionally affecting without dipping into Spielberg's usual bag of tricks to manipulate the viewer. Thankfully, he understands that you don't need to add any pathos to the Holocaust to make it a truly horrible thing. When he chooses to play things straight like this, he really can be a brilliant filmmaker.
The movie actually came out in 1994, so you might be wondering what it's doing as part of this project. When it made it's much ballyhooed TV premiere in 1997 it was as a "Director's Cut", so that's what I watched here. From reading on the Internets, there doesn't look to actually be anything different in the Director's Cut other than an extended closing credits sequence in which cast members and Schindler survivors place stones on Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, I'm glad I continue to make exceptions like this. If I didn't, I probably still wouldn't have seen this remarkable piece of work.
Coming up hopefully soon as I've already watched them:
#96: Marvin's Room
#97: Strays (written and directed by Vin Diesel? It's true)
#98: Enchanted Tales: Hercules
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Return of Chuck
My TV watching has been cut down pretty dramatically of late, but one of the shows that I continue to enjoy week in and week out is Chuck. This season ended on a Matrix-esque cliffhanger (spoilers), but because of NBC's budget-cutting and insistence on trotting Jay Leno out there at an earlier time slot no one knew if it would be coming back next year.
Until now. Woo hoo!
Until now. Woo hoo!
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