Movies '09...

Happy new year! Below is the annual movie list divided into Theatrical and Netflix:

Theatrical:

2012

9

Adventureland

Armored

AstroBoy

Avatar

District 9

Extract

Fantastic Mr. Fox

G.I. Joe

The Hangover

Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

Inglorious Basterds

Jennifer's Body

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Monsters vs Aliens

Moon

The Princess And The Frog

Public Enemies

The Road

Sherlock Holmes

Star Trek

The Surrogates

Taken

Terminator 4

Transformers 2

Up

Watchmen

Where The Wild Things Are

Whip It

Wolverine

Zombieland

Netflix:

Anvil: The Story of Anvil

Away We Go

Battle for Terra

Battlestar Galactica: Caprica

Be Kind Rewind

Blindness

Brick

Bug

Changeling

Charlie Bartlett

Crank 2

Defiance

Doubt

Drag Me to Hell

Eagle Eye

Fanboys

Fantastic Planet

Fired Up!

Flash of Genius

FLCL

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Frank and Ollie

Franklyn

Fritz the Cat

Frost/Nixon

Funny Games

Get Smart

Hamlet 2

Happy-Go-Lucky

Hard Candy

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

I Love You, Man

In Bruges

Iron Maiden: Flight 666

Kiss Kiss Bang

Knowing

Land of the Lost

Let the Right One In

Milk

Miller's Crossing

Mongol

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Observe and Report

Pride and Glory

Push

Rachel Getting Married

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Roadside Prophets

Role Models

Run, Fat Boy, Run

Spaced: The Complete Series

Sukiyaki Western Django

Sunshine Cleaning

Taxi Driver

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Brothers Bloom

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Fall

The Flying Scotsman

The International

The Machinist

The Man Who Fell to Earth

The Mutant Chronicles

The Tale of Despereaux

Timecrimes

Transporter 3

Transsiberian

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Waltz with Bashir

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Will Eisner: Profession: Cartoonist

Will Ferrell: You're Welcome, America...

World's Greatest Dad

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Zodiac

Alice's Restaurant...

For many years here, the local radio station in town played "Alice's Restaurant" on Thanksgiving Day every three hours starting at Midnight. Unfortunately, that album rock station was purchased about 4 or 5 years ago and is now a tejano station. So I am putting the lyrics here since I miss that tradition...

Alice's Restaurant
By Arlo Guthrie

This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Alice's
Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on
Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the
restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the
church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and
Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of
room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room,
seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't
have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be
a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So
we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW
microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed
on toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the
dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump
closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off
into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the
side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the
cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile
is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we
decided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving
dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the
next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid,
we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of
garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And
I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope
under that garbage."

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we
finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down
and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the
police officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the
shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the
police officer's station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at
the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for
being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and
we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out
and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again,
which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station
there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was
both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I
can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid.
Get in the back of the patrol car."

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the
quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of
Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop
signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the
Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars,
being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to
get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of
cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station.
They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and
they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each
one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach,
the getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to
mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put
us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your
wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my
wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you
want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I
said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"
Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the
toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took
out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the
toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie
was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice
(remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few
nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back
to the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat,
and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back
of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up,
and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he
sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the
twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows
and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.
And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry,
'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American
blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the
judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy
pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each
one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And
we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not
what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street,
where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one
day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so
I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to
look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted
to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York,
and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all
kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave
me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down
yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me,
sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections,
detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me
at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four
hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty
ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was
inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no
part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the
last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there,
and I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got
one question. Have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre,
with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all
the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you ever
go to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten
colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on
the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want
you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's
where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after
committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly
looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father
rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And
they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the
bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest
father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly
'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me
and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?"
And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench
there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand,
and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing,
father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of
things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it
up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna-
know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-
you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting-
officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for
forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had
fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there,
and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it
down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the
pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the
other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on
the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the
following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and
said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints
off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a
study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm
singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar
situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a
situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into
the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get
anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if
one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and
all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the
guitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and
sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud.
I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it
for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Excepting Alice
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Da da da da da da da dum
At Alice's Restaurant
©1966,1967 (Renewed) by Appleseed Music Inc. All Rights Reserved

Life lessons learned while watching Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (minor spoilers ahead):

1. Finally found out why they built the Pyramids of Egypt.
2. Archeologists and Art Historians really hate giant robots.
3. The Obama Administration has not completely evaluated or modified the Bush giant robot policy.
4. Michael Bay must have helped an influential Hollywood producer bury a dead hooker at some time in his life.
5. If you are a nerd, and hot chicks are after you left and right, one of them must be a killer robot.
6. GM's bankruptcy has not affected the giant robot market.
7. US soldiers are more effective in stopping giant robots than any other armed forces in the world. This includes Japan, even though they are better at stopping giant lizards.
8. Us soldiers will happily disobey direct orders and risk creating an international incident and/or court martial/going to prison for treason based on the phone calls from teenagers, because they "trust him" and their boss is a jerk.
9. A woman's "mad scarf skills" can save the day when you are in the desert being chased by bad guys.
10. Dogs/old people/robots humping is supposed to be funny.
11. If you are stuck with a plot problem, showing Megan Fox running in slow motion can solve it.

George Thorogood was right...

Posted this on Facebook, but figured I'd put it here too. We had to take photos for work, and the bosses STRONGLY suggested I get a little trim. The pic on the left is Friday at 6 and the one on the right is Monday at 9.

...At least my barber is cool.

Pop Culture Update #9...

Summer Movie Roundup...Wolverine, Star Trek, and Terminator Salvation...Star Trek is the best of the three, thought it was amazing movie, which not only appeased the fan-boy in me, but also found a great way out of the dreaded "prequel trap", by developing this alternate future concept which I have always found extremely interesting. Unfortunately, Wolverine and T4 fell square into the "prequel trap", which takes all the suspense out of a film because you know every one's gonna live to fight another day. They are not absolute god awful films, they are just *gasp*, average. 2 1/2 stars out of 5 for Wolvie and The Terminator, and 4 1/2 stars out of 5 for Star Trek.

Netflix...God, I love this service. Get movies at the house or on the computer that you either couldn't find at the video store or were too obscure for the theater (heck, half the movies at the Blockbuster by my house are only in Spanish.) Recommend the following:

1. Documentaries - Expelled, King of Kong, Man on Wire.
2. Comedies - Role Models (the last 15 min. are hilarious if you are a Kiss fan), Fido (a loving story about a boy and his pet zombie), Priceless (a French comedy with Audrey Tautou, who is amazingly attractive and funny to boot)
3. Thriller/Horror - Blindness, Zodiac, Let the Right One In (Swedish Vampires!)
4. Classics - Bridge on the River Kwai, Taxi Driver, Silent Running, The Man who Fell to Earth (this one's pretty trippy!)

something for everybody!

Music Roundup...picked up the new Green Day, Tori Amos and the Indigo Girls. Odd mix. Always liked the dark lyrics of Tori and the guitar work and sound of the Indigo Girls, and got into Green Day from the American Idiot CD. Was really surprised by it, that they were not just a pop-punk band after all, and the new one is just as good.

More later....

Crawling from the wreckage...

Haven't posted here in a while...Crawling out from under work and other bits and pieces of life's busy-ness.

Have had an odd week...

1. Went to Austin last weekend for a work-related convention, had the "Austin Experience" on 6th street, and was amazed at seeing these people who were way older than me stay up all night and drink like frat boys on spring break. I was impressed and way out of my drinking level league, so I had to fake it, which I think I did pretty well. I do find it humorous that our company sent the three people in our office who are the most socially inept to go and socialize with the people who give us the work. We have the older quiet guy, the person who is uncomfortable around humans (me) and the guy that says off color things when he gets a little buzzed. It was a miracle it went surprisingly well...

2. Had a guy that I haven't seen in about three years, since he found a woman and got hitched. (don't need the single guy friend anymore, which I have found to be a typical pattern with a lot of people.) Anyhow, he "Facebooks" me, and it turns out he now has a little girl...

3. Had another friend that I hadn't seen in about a year, e-mail me out of the blue to see what was up...turns out she got married a couple of months ago...

"The times they are a-changin..." - Bob Dylan

Movies 2008...

Happy New Year! Just got back from seeing my older bro and his wife and two lil' ones. Good trip and the kids are getting more interesting as they get older and develop their personalities. Saw a neat museum exhibit, went ice skating a few times and played the Wii for the first time and I must say it is a pretty cool piece of tech. My brother and I had a lot of fun with Rock Band after the kids went to bed!

Anyhow, as always, the annual list of movies I saw in ”ought eight"....

Rambo
Jumper
The Spiderwick Chronicles
10,000 BC
The Bank Job (an excellent old school heist movie!)
21
The Forbidden Kingdom
Iron Man
Speed Racer
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Kung Fu Panda
The Incredible Hulk
Wall-E
Wanted
Hancock
Hellboy 2
The Dark Knight
X-Files 2
Pineapple Express
Tropic Thunder
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Death Race
Traitor
Burn After Reading
Righteous Kill
Appaloosa
Max Payne (Worst movie of '08!)
RocknRolla
Quantum of Solace
Bolt
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Spirit
Valkyrie

Less than last year, but still quite a bit. I missed a couple but will get on Netflix, which is pretty darn cool..