This weekend we were pretty low-key, which was not too bad, even though I tend to get a bit stir-crazy when I’m bored at home on a weekend. The days of calling up the boys for last-minute Saturday-afternoon beers are mostly past ---- Brian and Nate have children, Marty moved and has kids, Jay’s bartending in Colorado (wtf!), and Ben was out of town.


So Kristin and I ended up watching a LOT of movies this weekend.
And because you are so incredibly interested, this is my take on them.

The Help:
This was much better than I expected. I tend to have the standard liberal dislike of Hollywood civil rights movies, because they always require a white hero to help the black folks. This was no different.
But the acting was excellent, the story entertaining, and it wasn’t offensively naïve, just normally naïve. Viola Davis was great, as was Octavia Spencer, and I especially enjoyed seeing Jessica Chastain as a much different character than her Tree of Life mother.
Honestly, though it wasn’t civil-rights related, the most well-acted scene was when Jessica Chastain shows up to play bridge at Bryce Howard’s house and the women all hide from her. That was raw.



The Hangover Part II
Have you seen the original Hangover? Then you’ve seen the sequel, too. Nothing to write home about ( or blog home about), except for Zack Galifinakis throwing the anchor off the boat at the end. After he drove it ashore. Hilarious.


Ides of March
Is it possible to be too cynically naïve? This movie pulls that off. Somehow we have super-manipulative campaign directors doing triple-backflips because Ryan Gosling sat down at a bar with an opponent’s campaign director. They do that all the time. Who cares.
Also, Clooney, as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, gives speeches that Aaron Sorkin in his clumsiest moments wouldn’t have first-drafted. They end up reflecting poorly on Clooney himself, since he’s clearly saying things that he himself wishes Democrats would say.
Overall though, good solid movie. Paul Giamatti up against Phillip Seymour Hoffman, both up against Ryan Gosling? Can’t-miss.


No Strings Attached/Friends With Benefits
These are the same script, the same movie, and everything you expect to happen will happen in precisely that way. It was streaming, anyway
I'd say that Justin Timberlake is better than Ashton Kutcher, but Kutcher's character was better than Timberlake. And Mila Kunis is almost always better than Natalie Portman.


On another note, our basement and garage are looking much nicer these days. This is almost all due to Kristin, of course. She has set up shop in the basement with her sewing machine, and with things hanging and rugs on the floor, it is starting to look less scary. Someone might even want to sleep on the bed there someday!

We also are now drivers of a very nice 2010 Corolla, which we bought from my folks. I found myself actively wanting to "take a drive", so last week on a slow afternoon I just cruised Lakeshore drive south to Hyde Park, then drove around there a bit past Jackson and Washington Park, then back up north on Lakeshore until I hit the end of the city, and then headed back. It was great! That car drives like a dream.

Since we have a car that I want to take good care of, I cleared out the garage a bit, hung up an old license plate on the wall, stuff like that. A car needs a clean home.

Might have to take another drive soon. . .. it's supposed to be 52 degrees tomorrow.

We Take Care of Our Own

The new single from Bruce's new record, "We Take Care of Our Own."

Well, this is some incredibly serious dramatic irony from the most important artist in my life.
I'm guessing that folks will hear this as "We look out for each other," but I'm pretty sure it's intended as "Americans abandon their needy and only look out for their own."
The line "from the shotgun shacks to the Superdome" is pretty biting.

Glad to see Bruce back in fighting shape. It gets me back into fighting shape too.

gotta keep the fire burning

“There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.”

---- Annie Proulx in Brokeback Mountain

2011 Streeties

Movie:


This. Was. Hilarious.


Album: Eric Church, Chief
This is probably the first and only Nashville-country album I've been able to really enjoy, wire to wire. Church uses a lot of the genre's cliches but he doesn't rely on them ---- there's a decent amount of "ice cold beer/old girlfriend/Night Moves-ripoff nostaligia" throughout the record, but not enough to drown it.

The production is pretty decent (and I'm grading on a heavy, heavy curve here. Nashville production is pretty much based on a template of 80s hair rock combined with mandolins).

The absolute killer for me on this record is the wordplay. Co-writing all of his songs (again, for Nashville that's a big deal), Church fits in little contradictions left and right without emphasizing them too heavily, so that you catch them on a third listen and chuckle a bit. "You looked at me and I was done, but we were just getting started." "I'm tired of this seesaw merry-go-round, so Mary you can go to hell." "Here's to all us haters of old lover' new last names."
Even the little touches are enjoyable ---- the sung guitar chords to kick off the album, or the "back when I was gasoline" line in 'Springsteen.'

Oddly enough, I've listened to this album far more than anything else this year.





Song: Wilco, "One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)

Glad to see Wilco return to form.






Television: Parks and Recreation

Pretty much what my work environment is like, on a good day.




Book: The Hunger Games. Yeah, I know they've been out for a while, but I read them just this summer, and the first book is the best of the three. Frankly, I enjoyed it better than any of the other books I read this year, fiction or non-fiction, though Too Big To Fail was an interesting case study on the world of assholes.