Minions! Assemble!

DAMMIT, I seem to be fresh out of minions. This did not stop us from seeing “Despicable Me” in 3D or D3 or whatever. #fb
Steve Carell: Strange Accents And Subtle Departures : NPR

We’re halfway through the summer, and Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever After have already come and gone. This weekend marks the release of the latest animated kid flick, Despicable Me. It’s about a fellow named Gru — who’s trying very hard to be the world’s biggest bad guy.

TV and movie star Steve Carell (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, NBC’s The Office) provided the voiceover for the film’s protagonist, a top-heavy supervillain with a very unusual accent indeed. Carell says that Gru’s bizarre diction — a “kind of pseudo-Eastern European” thing — came from minutes of inspiration, rather than months of fine-tuning.

“It was always in that realm,” Carell tells NPR’s Liane Hansen. “We just figured that that sounded sort of evil, yet comical at the same time.” And he’s proud of its elusive, nonspecific quality: “I don’t think anyone can really determine what accent I’m doing in the movie, which was my choice, of course.”

One of the accent’s biggest fans is Carell’s 6-year-old son, John, who particularly fell in love with the way Carell’s Gru pronounces “light bulb,” the actor says. (It’s a recurring gag in the film.)

“We’ll be watching TV or doing something and he’ll lean over and say, “Daddy, say ‘light bulb,'” Carell laughs.

It was on account of this interview that we ended up seeing the movie this evening at the nearby Barrington 30 (yes! 30 screens of the same crap, at different times!). I’d been napping half the day and having really weird dreams when I finally woke up and was remembering this interview, and then remembered we’d also seen the trailer for the movie a couple of times and that it had looked funny. So David checked out tickets online for a 3D showing, and off we went.

Half an hour or maybe 40 minutes after the official start time, the commmercials, previews, and “Appropriate for All Audiences” trailers were finally over and the movie began. We’d had to dig our fancy 3D glasses out of the “recycle your glasses here” bin because the theater couldn’t be bothered to provide a couple of staffers to hand out “sanitized” glasses and give the illusion of “never used” to the special, uber-nerdy glasses. I will say that the 3D effect (they call it realD) is crisp and not distracting, with no fuzzy red/blue borders around everything as was the case with the Monsters vs. Aliens movie we ended up seeing a few months back with our niece Melissa. When something is in perspective, it’s got depth, but it’s not stupid looking. The roller-coaster scene at the “happiest place in the universe” is a wild ride, for example, but the most pivotal scene in the development of Gru from bad guy to dad guy takes place after the ride. It’s so FLUFFY!!

You can see all the trailers at the official Despicable.me website…

It’s a fun movie; there are some funny sight gags that only adults will get (read all signs, for one thing). Also, I’m not sure but I think there’s kind of a “nyah-nyah” visual pun on Pixar’s famous logo in one scene – and at least one of the character animators used to work there according to IMDB.

Afterwards we went to the “Lucky Monk” restaurant, which is in the old “Brass” location and is apparently run by the same owners. They’ve remodeled the space to add more, smaller tables – they took out the big central booths and also took out the former buffet area that was only used for weekend brunches. It looks like they’ve either enclosed the brewery works, or taken them out completely, although they still claim to make some of their own brews. No matter, we were both very happy with our big, tall burgers (mine with Tillamook cheese, yum!) but also the fries were excellent and the iced tea brewed strong. Nice meal, glad that the restaurant is there as it’s very handy for the movie-going crowd.

Our server told us that it’s under the same ownership as the former Brass, so I wouldn’t characterize it as “the restaurant that went under” as so many did on Yelp, more of a “re-set and re-do” since the location is can’t-miss. They’ve stripped down their “fancy cuts of meat with fancy sauces” American-style menu to a “burger, pizza and brew” type menu that is probably easier to make a profit with (and no more expensive ingredients aside from a few signature items).

Our waiter brought us a free pretzel with Dijon honey mustard butter as a first-timers gift, and it was perfect: crunchy, buttery smooth crust, piping hot and tender insides. There were big salt crystals, but the dipping sauce melded perfectly. MMM….. but it was on the check for $2.99 and then credited with a “100% goodwill” notation. Interesting, I would have been totally incensed to pay $2.99 for ONE pretzel, so it seemed like the regular pretzel serving was probably more than one. But it was delicious and I’d be curious to know if they bring out more than one single pretzel if it’s not offered as one of those “compliments of the chef” inducements.

All in all, a nice evening. Now, where are my damn minions? They need to clean up around here…

Quantum of Solace: Magnum of WTF?

‘Quantum of Solace’ stars Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Mathieu Amalric, Olga Kurylenko — chicagotribune.com

Compared with “Casino Royale,” ” Quantum of Solace” is a disappointment. Craig anchors it, and Judi Dench’s M enjoys some fine, stern scenes, but director Marc Forster “Finding Neverland,” “Monster’s Ball,” “The Kite Runner” isn’t much of an action man. There’s plenty, but half the time it’s visually incoherent.

Yep, pretty much. The review goes on to compare the Bond action scenes with the “Jason Bourne” movies’ action scenes, from which they were clearly derived. Actually, a couple of the “gags” were just like ones in Bourne flicks (best example: the leap across a gap between two buildings, right into an open window) but weren’t shot or edited or even focused as well. The action on the screen in several sequences seems to shatter like the glass so liberally sprayed all over Bond and his opponents. And you can’t keep track of who/what/where, let alone when and why.

I liked selected sequences, everything LOOKS good, but the only thing holding the film together is Bond’s smoldering anger over the death of his girlfriend in the previous picture, Casino Royale.

The bad-guy’s organization was so secret, even M didn’t know about it. By the end of the movie, we didn’t know any more about it either, it was so badly laid out in the movie.

Basil? Calling Basil Exposition!

Poetry for Pleasure, Fun Beyond Measure

My husband David and I spent the weekend either running around in the heat shopping for materials for a couple of easily-accomplished home improvement tasks, or dragging ourselves “into the cool” of the house to have a tasty beverage and recover our energy for a bit. Also, there was napping. It was a good weekend for that.

We managed to complete one little project day before yesterday, on Saturday. The guys that poured the driveway had left trenches down the side of the driveway where the wooden forms had been staked into the ground for the pour, and after looking at this for 2 or 3 weeks, we decided that it might look nice if we added some more gravel and some leveling sand and put in reddish-colored pavers. And it does look good, except where I stepped on the one side to “seat” them more fully and ended up knocking out of true a bit – we think there needed to be more backfilling there. Well, they still look pretty good.

And then yesterday, we were pretty sore, so limited ourselves to lighter duty stuff, harvesting tomatoes, and napping.

Today, we went off to Menards and then the Container Store to get some shelving – started with the “do it yourself” stuff at Menards, and then bagged it and went to TCS for the more expensive Elfa system stuff that David’s had good results with before. They’re good there about walking you through the design process and figuring out how many uprights you need and how many shelves, and how wide they should be. David struggled a bit with getting the hanger strip installed – actually, two of them end to end, but then putting the hangers and shelves up was literally a snap. So now a lot of the junk in the garage is up off the floor or arranged neatly on the new shelves, rather than being stuffed onto the smaller, less classy looking shelves we still have on either side of the new unit. We even cleaned off the “work bench” (actually, an old busted hollow-core door) to be ready for another little project this week.

While waiting for the shelving order to be filled, we went up to the “big box” bookstore for a while. I came home with three books:

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within
This already feels like an old favorite, a property I love in a new book. Mr. Fry confesses to a Dreadful Secret: He writes poetry for fun.

I have written this book because over the past thirty-five years I have derived enoumous private pleasure from writing poetry and like anyone with a passion I am keen to share it. You will be relieved to hear that I will not be burdening you with any of my actual poems (except sample verse specifically designed to help carlify form and metre): I do not write poetry for publication, I write it for the same reason that, according to Wilde, one should write a diary, to have something sensational to read on the train. And as a way of speaking to myself. But most importantly of all, for pleasure.

This seems like a pretty auspicious beginning; I chuckled quite a bit over the Forward and the chapter entitled “How To Read This Book,” and so I think that I’ll be able to overcome my English major’s background (the dreaded “How do you respond to the daffodils?”) and give it a whirl. I always enjoyed writing comic verse but never gave myself enough of a leash to write a “real” poem. I’m feeling inspired enough to at least try some Blogon Poetry again just for fun, because the random nature of mining your own site statistics for weirdly disjointed phrases makes for some odd yet slightly interesting verse.

After that, I’ll be reading the next book in the “Harry Dresden” series, Grave Peril (The Dresden Files, Book 3). I’m still irked that they cancelled the SciFi Channel TV series, but the books are of course richer, deeper, darker, and sexier than they could have put on American TV, even on a cable channel.

It’s really annoying to be a citizen of a country founded by several dozen boatloads of religious cranks, you know? A lot of us have gotten over this, but still that stubborn Puritan streak keeps showing up in the way we react to news or entertainment or public servants who get caught in an improbably wide stance in an airport men’s room. This reminds me of a visual gag, now that I’ve been reminded of it by re-reading about Mr. Fry’s brilliant career in British television. Sadly, Stephen Fry wasn’t involved in “Blackadder III,” appearing in only one episode, although he returned as General Melchett for the whole run of Blackadder Goes Forth (BBC Radio Collection)

How’s this for a wide stance, Senator Craig? And in wigs and knee pants, too! That’s Hugh Laurie in the middle as Prince George, son of Mad King George and about the thickest git in three counties. That’s a manly stance, now!

widestance2.jpg

There, I feel better. That joke won’t get old for a good long while yet.

Anyway, after reading the Jim Butcher book(s), I’ll be starting this:

I like Neil Gaiman’s stuff, and Stardust seems like a natural. We’re going to try to see the movie before it scrolls off the local megaplex screens.

Better Late than Never

I finally got around to viewing the DVD, which I purchased from the Field Museum’s shop – they have an entire section of their very large shop devoted to fair trade items and environmentally-sensitive gifts. In spite of my pre-2000 dismissal of former Vice President Al Gore Jr. as a slightly dorky wonk, I was very moved by his presentation and the lifelong passion he’s had for learning about the environment, and for raising the alarm about climatic change. Yes, it’s annoying that he uses buzzwords and talking points, just like the Republicans, but also it’s incredibly frustrating and sobering to think “what might have been.”

Especially since I had recently viewed Dan Rather’s HD.net expose of iVotronic electronic voting machines, and later on touches on the notorious “hanging chads” paper ballots in the Florida election of 2000, that probably cost Gore the Presidency. I won’t hare off after the latest conspiracy theory, but there may be something in the idea that the electronic voting industry needed a boost, and that making sure paper ballots were discredited was one way to get money flowing to electronic voting manufacturers for the next round of elections. And it’s always troubled me that industry executives were so cozy with the Bush campaign. The interviews from the former paper plant employees, and their demonstration of how the poor quality card stock they were stuck with before the 2000 election contributed to “bad” ballot cards was pretty eye-opening. Why was the company’s upper management so bent on using the crappy stock that they kept having it re-delivered to the plant after it was rejected by the workers? Why was quality control so questionable in the months leading up to the national election? Was it cost-cutting gone horribly wrong, or was some other entity screwing around with their paper deliveries, ensuring poor quality product? It’s a little troubling.

What might have been? Hard to say, but I think the world would be a better place if Gore had been President for 4 years, or 8 years. I doubt we’d be at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I seriously doubt whether 9/11 would have happened quite as it did, or when it did. I also think the response to 9/11 would have been vastly different, and we wouldn’t be completely and totally politically polarized as a nation as a result.

Oh, well (and what a completely useless and fatuous statement that is).

I was very deeply moved by the presentation of “An Inconvenient Truth” in spite of myself, and liked and respected Gore for his committment to environmental concern more by the end. Also, I laughed out loud more than a few times – he’s much funnier than I remember him being while in office. He covers a lot of ground in his presentation, and in the more introspective linking sections. There’s quite a bit about Katrina and the aftermath, and some tasteful yet hearty smacks at the present administration, and also quite a bit about world poverty, the clean water issue, and more.
We do a few things around here at Chez Gique to be environmentally sensitive and save energy – especially when it’s a savings of money, but also just because it’s the right thing to do, and it’s not inconvenient at all. It turns out we’re doing quite a bit if measured by the standards laid out in the promo materials for An Inconvenient Truth.

  • change a light
  • drive less
  • recycle more
  • check your tires
  • use less hot water
  • avoid products with a lot of packaging
  • adjust your thermostat
  • plant a tree
  • turn off electronic devices
  • be part of the solution

At this moment, there are a couple of fluorescent bulbs in use – one in the hall light, and one in the retro lamp on my desk. We have quite a few.

I haven’t been able to make good on my threat to ride my bike to work this summer; it’s just too hot and gummy and there’s no way to shower and clean up at work, plus the route is not that safe or pleasant a ride.

We recycle a large amount of paper products, cans, and whatever plastics are marked with the triangular recycle-sort label, mostly because the village makes it worth our while.

I haven’t checked my tires and should probably do that this weekend, but David keeps on top of that on his car. We do own one hybrid car, however, and my car is only driven about 50 miles a week or less.

We could conserve more hot water by showering together more often – now there’s an incentive! But we don’t use that much to begin with.

We sometimes can’t avoid packaging, but when possible we like to purchase non-perishables in bulk, which often come in larger packages instead of lots of little packages.

We have a programmable thermostat which works summer and winter to regulate the temperature during the day so that we save money on power bills.

We could certainly plant a tree, or three – I’ve been thinking about doing just that in the very sloppy wet back corner, which might like a nice river ash or something – and the neighbor guy just cut down the little spruce that was on the edge of his lot, which is a shame.

We’re not very good about turning off electronic devices, though – computers in every room, fans, home entertainment system, and lots of other things on standby with little red, green, or blue LEDs glowing away merrily.

But I’m trying to be part of the solution.

Here’s the deal: I decided to start composting everything I could from home, and also from work. About a month and a half ago I made up some little plastic snap-lid containers with a label explaining that I was collecting used coffee grounds for use in my garden, and that tomatoes grown in the garden would help feed the hungry through my church’s food pantry. All was good – I started getting a fair volume of compost from my little activity, and then I ran across this.

Well, okay, if Starbucks want to give it away for free, I’ll be happy to take it off their hands. And give it away they do – when I stopped a couple of nights ago on a whim, the local caffeinery handed me NINE large bags of espresso grounds through the drive through window, which look like gigantic pipe dottles when I dump them out. Sadly, the bags are not recyclable; they’re these silvery plastic things that were originally full of coffee beans, but at least they get reused by Starbucks for the compost program, with little stickers to seal them up.

I’d recently bought a second compost bin, because I’m actually gearing up for next year’s garden, which will probably be expanding next year both at church and at home. The second one is almost half full already, mostly with grounds but also with discarded kitchen cuttings and anything else “brown” to improve the carbon/nitrogen balance of “brown” versus “green.” Oddly enough, grounds are considered “green” in the composting world. But I must say, it smells wonderful – especially the batches that I get from the one break room at work where somebody always brings in hazelnut coffee. One weird thing is that the grounds seem to be the ideal habitat for a bright salmon-pink mold of some kind for the first week or so, but it breaks down pretty quickly. Sometimes the Starbucks bags have it, too.

Here are some photos showing the rather shabby state of my garden, with its one sprawling monster tomato plant, 2 pepper plants, and assorted herbs. Next year, I plan to cage up the tomato plant(s) as I never really got around to that, and also I didn’t nip off the “suckers” as I should have. We’ve gotten some nice tomatoes and peppers, and I donated quite a lot to the Elk Grove Village food pantry, with additional tomatoes from the Holy Moly garden. We’ve also eaten some, yum yum! Great flavor.

IMG_0048.JPG

Also: my compost bins, let me show you them!

IMG_0053.JPG

Oooh! Compost be warmz. Note pink mold on fresh dottles of espresso coffee grounds (just since yesterday). This is the newer bin, manufactured from recycled plastic by Miracle-Gro. It was literally a snap to put together – no tools. The lid is hinged, and it’s made in 3 stacking sections so that when ready to grab compost, you just lift up the sections to where you can dig it comfortably. I added some “greenz” yesterday – leaves only, no weedz. Need more brownz, but autumn comes soon. One of the ash trees on the side of the house dropped a lot of leaves before all the rain started, so that helped.

IMG_0056.JPG

This is the original bin, one I’ve had for a couple of years. It had to be screwed together, and the lid has to be unlatched and completely off, but it has 2 sliding access doors so that finished compost can be raked or shoveled out of the bottom left and front sides. It’s got a fair number of chunks of rock mulch, so I’m thinking of getting or making a compost screen.

IMG_0057.JPG

Note pink mold peeking out of the sides. I am reasonably sure this stuff isn’t harmful, but make sure to compost it thoroughly to kill it off (the heat of the process eventually does this, I think).

IMG_0055.JPG

Detail showing 3 stages of coffee compost: bean, grounds with dottles, and rot setting in. Doesn’t happent to show the “work” coffee grounds, as they’re buried at the moment (filters and all).

IMG_0060.JPG

And here’s the garden at church:

IMG_0047.JPG

And here’s “Farmer Bill” with some of the harvest he took to the local food bank – he’s the “master gardener” at church this year, having finished out his term on the Bishop’s Committee with panache:

IMG_0045.JPG

For more information on global warming (at least from the reality-based, scientifically grounded point of view) visit climatecrisis.org.

One last note: see how green the grass and gardens are? We’ve had a LOT of rain this summer, and it seems like it’s rained heavily every day, or every other day for 2 weeks. Nobody’s talking drought in our area this year. This probably means we’ll have a heavy winter snowfall, too.

[tags]An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore Jr, ecology, global warming, gardening, recycling, compost, coffee[/tags]

This Isn’t Us: The Thriller That Dares To Be Political

My husband David and I saw “The Bourne Ultimatum” earlier this afternoon -and it was a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours’ worth of entertainment, thrills, and surprisingly apt commentary that transcends mere “spy movie” convention.

The Trib had this to say about it, and it cheers me to see that I also picked up on the three important little words that boost this flick from “ho-hum second sequel action movie” to “great thriller that dares to be political.”

It’s (pant) not just (pant) a chase movie (whew!) — chicagotribune.com

People may be drawn to the film by the promise of thrilling chase scenes, but what makes it deeply satisfying are three words of dialogue. Admittedly, audiences haven’t even had a chance to hear those words before they fork over the admission price. Yet good movie dialogue can be prescient; it can capture the zeitgeist so well that when you hear it for the first time, it already sounds like an echo — an echo of what you, and millions of your fellow countrywomen and countrymen, have been thinking for a while.The three words: “This isn’t us.” (emphasis added -Blogula Rasa)

They’re spoken by CIA officer Pamela Landy Joan Allen, when asked why she’s helping the bamboozled fugitive known as Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). She means: Yes, covert action is crucial in a dangerous world, but there is a line. A line you don’t cross. Because if you do, you’ve broken something more critical than a window. Something precious and irreplaceable.

The three words summarize the national discomfort over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, over the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. It’s a discomfort that knows no party or ideology. It is part of being an American, of believing in the uniqueness of our ideals.

A movie is just a movie. Occasionally, though, in the midst of a fiction thats slicing through the streets on hyper-drive, something odd suddenly shows up in the rearview mirror: reality.

It’s a breathtaking moment of bravura; after more than an hour of hyper-fast chase scenes on foot and by every other form of transportation known to man other than a unicycle, the action stops on an ordinary American street, in front of an ordinary building that hides an extraordinary facility, a woman with lines of strain on her face tells a man “This isn’t us.” It’s as if she’s admitting the shameful truth to herself for the first time, and confessing it to the younger agent who’s been so terribly damaged by his “committment to the program.” There’s a moment of confusion, and relief, on both their faces, as they take in the reality of the statement, and for a moment you feel an unexpected surge of hope and belief that things will somehow correct themselves and cancel out the excesses committed in the name of “freedom” or “security.” And that somehow, this will happen in reality as well as on the screen. Joan Allen was perfectly cast – again. Nobody else could have pulled of that little scene with Matt Damon in quite that way.

And then the moment is over and the turbo-charged drumming starts again, and Jason Bourne is off, chasing or being chased, and it’s an action movie again – albeit a very exciting one.

The car chases were amazing – topping even the last movie, that ended up with Karl Urban‘s dirty cop/spy character chasing Matt Damon’s amnesiac straight-arrow through Moscow’s streets, train stations, and access tunnels.

This time the biggest chase is saved for the Big Apple. You will believe that a car can be driven like a skateboard, and do many of the same tricks.  Also, in one of the “exotic locale” cities, motorcycles can go into even tinier and steeper alleys than a Mini Cooper can.

The hand-to-hand combat — which was a feature in the first two movies that really blew your hair back if you like that sort of thing — was even more intense, grueling, and physically taxing than before. Yep, good actioner.

But those three little words make “The Bourne Ultimatum” an ultimately satisfying movie, because the act of speaking the truth presages the rule of law trumping the “black ops” programs, and shining a little light on what’s really been going on since the beginning of the series. And it shines a little light to the people sitting out there in the darkness, who weren’t expecting a tiny bit of political commentary with their popcorn.  No more need be said, or the effect would be ruined and the movie would just become a sloppy hash of “democracy wins out” in the end – not that there aren’t a few satisfying scenes of Senate hearings and perp walks.

At the very end, the incessant drums-and-horns spy-guy soundtrack abates again for one little “zing!” of feminine strings, a little pizzicato of joy for a moment just before the credits roll, and there’s time to think “there could be a sequel, but why ruin a perfect ending?”

[tags]Bourne Ultimatum, Joan Allen, Matt Damon[/tags]

Live Earth: Spinal Tap Reunites, Breaks Up, Reunites

Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis

Spinal Tap is back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.

The mock heavy metal group immortalized in the 1984 mockumentary, "This Is Spinal Tap," will reunite for a performance at Wembley Stadium in London as part of the Live Earth concerts scheduled worldwide for July 7.

The original members of Spinal Tap will be there: guitarist Nigel Tufnel (played by Christopher Guest), singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer). Rob Reiner, who both directed "This Is Spinal Tap" and played the fake documentarian Marty DeBergi in the film, will also be in attendance.

Reiner created a new 15-minute film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York.

Video: Watch the new "Spinal Tap" film now

Pretty funny, looking forward to the big reunion if they don't break up 16 more times before then. Also: Mac must have paid a promotional fee, the serene glow of white apples is in almost every screen.  

 

Indy: Oldest. Whippersnapping Archeologist. Evaarrrr.

NPR : Harrison Ford Returns As Indiana Jones

Another graying action star is reviving an old role. Harrison Ford will once again crack the whip, 18 years after Indiana Jones' last adventure. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are also back, directing and producing. Excited fans do wonder if, at 64, Indy can still do the stunts.

I'm wondering, too. I'll never forget the time I saw the first Indiana Jones movie, which was around New Years when I was still in college. I've been a fan of Harrison Ford's since American Graffiti and Star Wars (okay, yes, I've had the hots for Harrison since 1977. Deal). I found the second movie mostly diverting ("Hang on, lady! We go for ride!" ), albeit repulsive (Bugs! Monkey brains! Kate Capshaw shrieking in a sari! ), and I totally adored the third movie (aw… Indy's dad is Sean Connery, how geriatrically hot was that?). Why risk screwing all those great cinematic moments up??  Harrison, my Harrison, why risk the humiliation of being described as "another graying action star?" But hell, Connery is older than he is, and he's still sexy. So what the hell.

I still remember a time before Indy. It was the 80's, Reagan was President, and Star Wars had been firmly embedded in the American psyche (they were up to the second movie by then, when Han gets embedded in that carbonite stuff, and I was heartbroken). Then these great comic-book style posters and full page ads started showing up in the movie section of the local paper. On the Sunday before the opening, there was a full color one, I think… it was all very mysterious. I think it just had the hat and the whip and some old-timey movie serial copy, but no title. I saw Harrison Ford's name in the "mystery" ads and thought "Oh, boy!" Then I saw the full-cover poster with the hat, the whip, the open shirt, the holstered gun, and I thought "Holy CRAP, somebody hose me down."

My girlfriend Debbie and I went, after having drunk part of a bottle of pink champagne (and spilling most of it when we had a catastrophic failure in the uncorking procedure). We rode bikes downtown to the one big fancy old theater, wobbling a little as we went.

We were enthralled. Beguiled. Debbie gleefully translated all the German swear words. The first action sequence, with the rolling ball, totally exhausted us, and that was in the first 15 minutes.

But I fell irrevocably in love with Indy when he came running over the hill, trailing cobwebs, the dust of centuries, and an entire tribe of pissed-off Amazonian Indians and their poison arrows. When he jumped in the passenger seat of the little floatplane… and got totally freaked out to find his buddy's snake in his lap, I lost my heart completely. That's when I knew we we'd better strap in and hold on, because the rest of the movie would be a hell of a ride.

What with the wine and all, both Debbie and I had to take breaks in the middle of the movie, at different points in the story. I tell you, I nearly didn't bother to take the break, which would have been nasty for the cleanup crew. I didnt want to miss anything. Neither did Debbie.

No problem… we just sat through it and watched a second time. The theatre guys never said a word, they just cleaned up around us as we discussed the movie and caught each other up on what had been missed during breaks. And we weren't the only ones to watch it again, either.

A few years later, Temple of Doom premiered. I remember seeing it sitting in the balcony, up high and to the left of the screen, but I don't remember if Debbie was there, or if she'd moved away by then. I just remember getting all shaky and a little nauseated during the human sacrifice scenes. It was revolting, but aside from that sequence everything else was great except for Kate Capshaw. I laughed loudest when she was freaking out while Indy and Short Round were playing poker, and ran, shrieking merrily, around and around their camp before finally knocking herself out… I think by running into an elephant? Either way, "Bwah!"

After I moved to Seattle, The Last Crusade opened Memorial Day Weekend in 1989. As it happened, several old college friends all happened to be together. Debbie and Aleta were staying with me for the Northwest Folk Life festival, Arne came into town and surprised them, and Kevin was in law school at the UW. We all drove to the theater in 2 little cars, singing the main theme and testing the theory that humming the Indiana Jones music made you drive more recklessly. We weren't all able to sit together, as the theater was packed out. Didn't matter. We had a blast, and then drove around again real fast (I think we ditched Arne because Kevin was driving too "Indy," sorry about that).

Good times. I wonder if arranging for a reunion to see the premiere with everybody is in the cards? Kevin and his family live a ferry ride from Seattle, Arne and his family live in Colorado, Debbie lives in Washington DC, and Aleta is living in California, I think. The movie is supposed to open in May, 2008. Hmm. Memorial Day? Folk Life in Seattle? Driving around in MUCH nicer, much faster cars, singing "Ba da-da DAH, ba da-daaaaah. Ba da-da DAH, ba da da da DAH!" Not losing Arne?

I can't really imagine how this next movie might play out – Wikipedia suggests the working title per George Lucas ought to be "Indiana Jones and the Ravages of Time." Heh. George isn't normally that funny, or good at dialogue (including his own). According to the backstory now constructed via the TV series for Indy's life, we know he ends up in New York as a 90-year-old man with an eyepatch and a cane, buttonholing strangers to tell them about his adventures as a lively young whippersnapper.

Yes. "Ravages of Time." Indeed. For all of us.

Here's some other suggested titles: "… and the Temple of Prunes"
…and the Adventures in Geritol (or: "…and the Search for Adult Diapers That Don't Leak" )
and my entry: "Grandma-Panty Raiders of the Old Adventurer's Home."

And here's some hopes and fears. Some of them reportedly Ford's own:

Fan favorites such as Karen Allen, Sean Connery, and John Rhys-Davies are rumored to reprise their familiar roles in the new film. Ford himself is said to have blocked Lucas’ wish to cast his wife, Kate Capshaw, in the role of love interest, as he did in Temple of Doom. “Kate is a friend of mine” said Ford “but if I have to spend another year of my life hanging off of a vine while she shrieks in my ear, I’ll freaking let go and end it all.”

Spit take! BWAH! Oh, Harrison, I still love you, a little. You rock.

What We Did Yesterday

David and I celebrated Jewish Christmas yesterday with my in-laws; we went to a movie and then drove around looking for a Chinese restaurant that was open. Actually, we never did, but a sports bar was open, so that's where we ended up eating.

The movie was "The Good Shepherd," which was extremely layered and nuanced. You really had to pay attention to details, and the foreshadowing was there for the ending, but it was so subtle that when I pointed it out to my husband David, he was amazed. Matt Damon's performance as CIA man Edward Wilson was masterful; you'd think he was a cold-hearted, soulless bastard except for his love of playacting and poetry.

Robert DeNiro appears as William Sullivan, a character based on the real-life founder of the OSS, "Wild Bill" Donovan. DeNiro's direction is masterful – the film runs a bit long at the end, but there's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of hidden layers to uncover, so I couldn't fault him there.

Damn, good movie. I'm still trying to work out what the significance of the title was – there's a lot of religious symbolism going on… ah. Got it. He's a Yale man, a member of Skull and Bones, and is present a couple of times when the Wiffenpoof Song is being sung, a traditional Yale song. His own son as an adult is a member of the Yale glee choir. The last verse is also a comment on what spies, especially well-connected Ivy League spies, can expect in eternity, and Edward as the eventual spymaster of CIA is the "good shepherd." His KGB adversaries probably code named him "Mother" for the same reason.

The Wiffenpoofs' Song
To the tables down at Mory's,
To the place where Louis dwells,
To the dear old Temple Bar we love so well,
Sing the Wiffenpoofs assembled
With their glasses raised on high,
And the magic of their singing casts its spell.

Yes, the magic of their singing
Of the songs we love so well,
"Shall I wasting," and "Mavourneen,"
And the rest;
We will seranade our Louis
While life and voice shall last,
Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest.
We're poor little lambs who have lost our way:
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little lost sheep who have gone astray:
Baa! Baa! Baa!

Gentlemen songsters off on a spree,
Damned from here to eternity:
God have mercy on such as we:
Baa! Baa! Baa!

There's a good review here that doesn't give too much away.

The LeeVees:Goyim Friends:Hanukkah Rocks[3:16]