The Queen

Forgot my weekend movie review: The Queen.

Condensed version: Pretty bloody good.

Longer: I have to admit that I am of the conspiracy mindset who believes the royal family DID have something to do with Diana's death, so realize I watched the movie through that lens. (I also believe the government shot down United 93, but that's just me).

Anyway, the movie did a great job of showing just how isolated the royals are from real people. As an American is it hard to fathom why these people even exist, but this felt like a rather realistic portrayal of what their lives are like. Certainly makes Tony Blair look good (and his wife, even better!).

I have to admit I thought Helen Mirren was excellent, but I don't see it as the best performance of the year. Guess I'm not into subtlety. Personally, I thought Streep kicked butt in Prada.

Anyway, definitely worth a look.

Crazy

So, this week:
* Have to work on 1 hour speech for entrepreneur meeting. Supposed to be funny. I have a new respect for all comedians. Even the bad ones.
* Have to write my column for the week. Supposed to be funny, also.
* Design the Relay For Life newsletter. Doesn't need to be funny but has to get done.
* Work on Business Writing class I'm teaching next week.
* Sleep (at least a little)
* Play racquetball three times this week.
* Say hi to the little people who live in my house (they keep calling me "Dad" ... not sure what that's about).
* Go to work (darn!)
* Go see "Babel" (until then The Departed is still my pick for Best Picture)
* Sunday is shot because we're going to our friends' house for the Super Bowl (they are HUGE Bears fans ... I don't mean huge bears or that they are personally huge ... they just really like the Bears ... so I will spend the evening consolling them ... HA!)
* Kids basketball...

I just have to keep thinking that in March I will be in in Arizona and Vegas, watching baseball, playing golf and drinking too much... the light at the end of this ugly tunnel!

Dozen

Down 12 pounds so far. Still doesn't show.
Just a drop in the lard-butt bucket, but at least it's progress!

Razz

Well, it is awards season you know so I was excited to see the 2006 Golden Raspberry nominations for the worst movies of the year.

Much like the probable Oscar noms this year, I haven't seen many of the Razzie noms either.

Here's my take on the ones I saw:

Lady in the Water -- Certainly not a good movie. Definitely sad for M. Night who I think is one of the most talented directors ever. But I would definitely not give it the worst of the year.

Santa Claus 3 and The Shaggy Dog -- Both were kid movies that served their purpose for me (this means they weren't so loud so I could catch a nap while they were interesting enough to keep my kids from bugging me for 90 minutes!)

Superman Returns -- I'll admit Kate Bosworth was bad, but I thought Katie Holmes was WAY worse in the last Batman movie.

Review: Firewall and The Descent

With the big play, we weren't able to get out this weekend, but I did end up seeing these two flicks (one on OnDemand and the other on NetFlix).

Firewall -- If you want a fun movie that doesn't really challenge you, this is a good one. Nothing too deep. No Oscar thoughts. Just an interesting story. Harrison Ford is pretty good, especially when he's stumbling and falling as he flees his would-be captors. This isn't Indy, this is a real guy in a crappy situation. Paul Bettany should be in every movie that comes out from now on. Dude is good.

The Descent -- OK, so I'm a horror geek. I love cheesy, awful gross horror movies. This one is not too bad. It's interesting because it's about six women, so you don't get the horror stand-by of having a guy come in and save the girl. The creepy mole people are pretty freaky for the most part, but also pretty dumb, so it doesn't take a lot to take 'em down. Kinda like zombies mole people. The DVD is not bad and they actually have Outtakes which I think all horror movies should have. The dancing mole people in the outtakes were just funny!

A joker and two queens

So, this weekend was mostly dedicated to Andy.

Andy was a rat. Literally.

After auditioning, Andy was chosen to be one of about 18 kiddos playing rats in the Missoula Children's Theater production of "The Pied Piper." He was especially pleased because he was given an additional duty in one of the songs of biting one of the other cast members. So, he was officially "The Biting Rat."

Andy had a great time and really hammed it up for the "Cheese, Cheese" song. I think it's got to be tough to be a little brother, so I was glad he got his chance in the spotlight.

And Alex is crossing his fingers. He and his buddy Kevin tried out for the school talent show with a hilarious Spongebob and Patrick song. He finds out Wednesday if they made it. He's pretty excited about it, so I'm crossing my fingers for him (which makes it very difficult to type BTW).

And in other news, my friend, Dan, and his lovely wife, Kate, are expecting twins! They found out on Friday. This will be their second and third. Both girls. They already have one adorable son, Jayden. My dad is a twin and Tracy's uncles are twins, so we figured we had a pretty high chance of having twins sometime, but we didn't. I am so thrilled for Dan and Kate. It's scary but it's also going to be a blast. Good luck, Bud!

It's a start

Well without a real plan except to drink tons of water, avoid ice cream and eat more "real" foods (fruits and veggies) on top of doing some light exercise every morning and playing racquetball twice a week, I have managed to lose eight pounds in a little more than a week.

Tracy tells me I don't want to lose it too fast because my body will freak out, but I'm such a lard-butt right now, my body doesn't even notice eight pounds.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy so far. It's not real painful so I hope that continues.

Crack

I'm fairly certain that the makers of LEGO put crack or meth or some other drug in the plastic for their pieces because my sons are addicts. Alex will only talk about LEGO and even created a LEGO-themed hat for New Year's. Both boys ordered some stuff from the LEGO site (thanks to a gift certificate from my mom, who I will now refer to as "The Pusher.") and the stuff arrived two days ago. Our living room was turned into a LEGO assembly area.

But at least they're happy.

I'm planning to go break everything they have put together because we have another snow storm coming and I want them to have something to do!

Movie review: Children of Men

Not to be confused with Little Children or Children of a Lesser God or In the Company of Men.

So, we saw this on Saturday. Quick thought: Eh!

It was visually a very interesting movie, but that's about all I can say for it. It starred Clive Owen. My wife loves this guy. And I have no idea why. To me he has done nothing that is remotely interesting. He looks half asleep in everything he does. His King Arthur was so laid back I figured he'd say "Yeah, Lancelot, go ahead and take her."

My other problem with it was the ending. And I wasn't the only one. When the credits started to roll, someone else in the audience said rather loudly, "What?" and many others laughed.

I know this flick is getting some high critical praise and I have absolutely no idea why. I thought it was boring and pointless. Then again, I'm not much for big "message" movies. I go to movies to be entertained; not enlightened. And this movie was NOT entertaining.

I did rent "Me, You and Dupree" (thanks NetFlix) and while it wasn't a great movie (or even a good one), there were some laughs and the DVD has a special parody trailer which I thought was hysterical and actually made the whole thing worth it for me. So, yes, this was WAY better than Children of Men.

HOFs

So, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees are decided. Gotta say that I agree with all of them (although I still think it's too early for REM) except for the Ronettes. Only thing I can see they did was sing backup to the Righteous Brothers and sing "Be My Baby" which was used partially with the help of Ronnie Spector in Eddie Money's version. That's not HOF material in my book, but I guess it helps when Phil Spector is one of the "experts" coming up with the nominations (which STILL have not included Kiss, Rush or Genesis.

Anyway, I can't wait to see who is singing for Van Halen at the ceremony. The big news is that Eddie's son, Wolfgang, has replaced Michael Anthony on bass in the band. Not that there really is a band right now anyway, but still...

The other big HOF is baseball. Tomorrow the inductees are announced. Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. are no-doubters. With the backlash against Mark MacGwire, it looks like another of my favs, Goose Gossage, may make it in. I'm crossing my fingers. To see Gwynn and Gossage in on the same year would make me consider making a trip to Cooperstown.

Just hoping.

'Nuff already

This one was going to be light... "nothing like the last two" ... "Just a dusting." ...

Well, we woke up to ANOTHER four inches of snow today. In the past 11 years, I would venture to say 4 inches was probably our biggest storm every year.

So, again my neighbors and I griped as we shoveled our walks and driveways.

I love winter and I love snow. But c'mon!

Good/sad

The Good news: The Police may be getting back together.

The Sad news: It's been 30 YEARS since "Roxanne" was released! (Holy crap, I'm old!!!!)

Back

Long time, no blog.
Just got back from an extended holiday break thanks to the biggest snow storm I've even been in. We got about 2 feet of snow and basically shut down everything. It's been fun driving around. Greeley looks like a ski town with the big drifts everywhere.
Mom and Dad were here over the holidays (although a bit delayed thanks to said storm). We had a great time and the boys were happy to have them.
Now it's back to the grindstone and it's pretty tough to get started again.
But it's a new year, so I figure I better make some resolutions:
1. Lose weight. Seems like a cliche' but I really need to and I'm going to do it. Promise.
2. Get queries out to agents for my novel, Wrath. I know this book would sell well. I just need to do it.
3. Get organized. I have come to the conclusion that I can't trust my memory for anything longer than about 2.4 seconds. So, I need to get better about writing stuff down I need to do.
4. Enjoy the boys. Like everyone, we are so busy and the boys are more independent now so they don't NEED me to help out with everything. So, I need to make a more concentrated effort to be involved even though I don't NEED to be.
5. Lose weight. Just needed a second reminder.