I really would have like to have found something to like about this movie, it had a lot of elements that could make a bang up summer action flick and I had heard there were a lot of explosions. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a lot of gratuitous explosions. And there was a lot of recognizable name in the credits. Unfortunately for all of the recognizable name stars, there was a surprising lack of chemistry between any of them.
I got the feeling that not a lot of this movie was shot on location. The camera work was more reminiscent of a television show than a movie. I felt that there was a lot of green screen work, and I got the sense that some of the scenes of the big starts were in together were shot on different days, like one actor shot his half of the conversation on Tuesday and the second actor recorded his bit the following Thursday.
Even for an action adventure movie which is expected to have a bad script, this movie’s script failed on multiple levels. It actually makes several false starts before it settles into a pedestrian storyline. The ominous and threatening Bruce Willis character disappears with zero explanation and zero impact on the storyline. An appearance by Schwarzenegger sets you up for a plot twist that never happens. He too must have just been visiting the set on day so they wrote him a couple of lines and threw him in the movie.
And any action movie which wastes several minutes with the heroes sitting around talking about the medical causes of cauliflower ears doesn’t understand the meaning of the word action.
Mickey Rourke seems to have been included in the cast for the one scene they thought would require acting, and that’s all he gets to do. The scene seems contrived to bring in a designated actor for a scene Stallone couldn’t pull off. Part of the appeal of Stallone movies was watching him make a fool of himself trying to act. He could never act, but we liked him for at least making the effort. I guess Stallone is beyond risking making a fool of himself, because in this film he doesn’t even care enough about us to try.
And will someone please stop casting Eric Roberts in anything, particularly as the villain. We’ve seen this so many times.
There were a lot of explosions and a lot of shots fired in this movie. If all that you have to do is show one of your hero’s place c-4 then this would be the action movie to end all action movies. As one of the characters placed what seemed like the 100th charge of c-4 I was actually thinking, “More c-4? Where is he carrying that? Is there that much room in his pockets? I hope they remember to place it all. Gosh it would be a shame if they over looked a brick and left one in their pocket, that would be surprising. You suppose one store had that much c-4 or did they have to stop at multiple stores on the way to the badguy’s castle.” Keep in mind this is during the run up to the climatic fight scene of the movie. Suspense should be building. I shouldn’t be worrying about how many stores they had to stop at to get that much c-4.
Was there anything I liked about this movie? Jason Stratham and Terry Crews had more energy and presence that any of the other stars combined. I kept thinking that those two could do a bromance movie that would kick the Expendable’s ass. Terry Crews and his fondness for his automatic shotgun was one of the few bits of the movie that I liked and that the crowd seemed to react to. Jason Stratham seemed to have shown up for this film, but the script couldn’t seem to decide if he was a central character or not. At times the story seemed to focus on him and then suddenly he would be out of focus and be relegated to a supporting bit part.
I was sorely disappointed by this movie.
(not recommended)
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
23 August 2010
08 August 2010
Winter’s Bone: A Review
A remarkable film that felt almost documentary-like in its realism and the way it captures a culture and a way of life that is more than a step removed from mainstream American culture. The film reminded me a bit of such gritty Oscar winners as No Country for Old Men and Frozen River. (I really thought it was that good.)
It’s the story of Ree, a 17 year old girl carrying the responsibility of caring for her two younger siblings and her mentally ill mother. Her absent father is facing charges of manufacturing methamphetamine and has put up the family home for his bond. As his trial date approaches, dad is nowhere to be found. The sheriff and the bond company come by the house to let Ree know that unless her father shows up, she and her family will need to be looking for another place to live. So Ree sets on a quest to find her father, bring him home, and save the family home. The people she goes to, "family" in the sense that there is some blood relationship, but more business assotiates of her father, are a scary bunch. They don't take kindly to her questions and seem very reluctant to help her. The head of the family refuses to see or talk to her because "talking just creates witnesses". People don't take kindly to Ree asking questions. There is enourmous pressure for her to back off looking and just let her family be taken by social services. But that's not who Ree is.
At 17 Ree is already a remarkable woman and heroic in the sense that she has these incredibly strong values that she’s willing to stand up for. First and foremost she values family and is willing to fight like a lioness when it comes to protecting them. She is willing to do whatever it takes to take care of them. Her strength comes from her belief about doing the right thing whether it’s making sure dinner gets on the table, or tracking down her father. She’s not particularly brave and there is good reason for her to be afraid of the people around her. She acts because something in her requires it of her. As she says at one point, “There is stuff that you are going to have to get over being scared of.”
The world of the Missouri Ozarks as portrayed in the film seems a hostile and dangerous place, the men and woman can be hard and dangerous, kind one minute and cruel the next, yet there is a code of behavior that governs it all and keeps order. In the quest for her father, Ree finds herself having to oppose that order more and more, and the more dangerous things become for her.
One of the striking things about the film was the sheer number of strong performances by both the professional and non-professional actors. Professional actor Jenifer Lawrence is mesmerizing as Ree and anchors the picture. There is a particularly strong scene with her and an army recruiter played by real life Army recruiter Russell Schalk. He manages to communicate an amazing amount without ever breaking out of his gung-ho Army recruiter persona. There are a number of other great performances in this picture to watch for including John Hawkes as Teardrop and Dale Dicky as Merab.
There are a lot of classical elements to this story. It is the tale of the hero, the fight against all odd, the quest, and there are elements of Greek tragedy. It’s a tight little story, suspenseful, well-acted, and well told. It’s one of the best movies I have seen all year.
It’s funny seeing this movie right after seeing the summer blockbuster Inception whose sense of amorality has been bothering me more and more. In fact, despite the craftsmanship of that film, I am having a hard time recommending Inception to people. Winter’s Bone on the other hand has a strong moral center and I know why I am routing for Ree. On a number of levels she is very much the old fashioned hero worth routing for.
(highly recommended)
It’s the story of Ree, a 17 year old girl carrying the responsibility of caring for her two younger siblings and her mentally ill mother. Her absent father is facing charges of manufacturing methamphetamine and has put up the family home for his bond. As his trial date approaches, dad is nowhere to be found. The sheriff and the bond company come by the house to let Ree know that unless her father shows up, she and her family will need to be looking for another place to live. So Ree sets on a quest to find her father, bring him home, and save the family home. The people she goes to, "family" in the sense that there is some blood relationship, but more business assotiates of her father, are a scary bunch. They don't take kindly to her questions and seem very reluctant to help her. The head of the family refuses to see or talk to her because "talking just creates witnesses". People don't take kindly to Ree asking questions. There is enourmous pressure for her to back off looking and just let her family be taken by social services. But that's not who Ree is.
At 17 Ree is already a remarkable woman and heroic in the sense that she has these incredibly strong values that she’s willing to stand up for. First and foremost she values family and is willing to fight like a lioness when it comes to protecting them. She is willing to do whatever it takes to take care of them. Her strength comes from her belief about doing the right thing whether it’s making sure dinner gets on the table, or tracking down her father. She’s not particularly brave and there is good reason for her to be afraid of the people around her. She acts because something in her requires it of her. As she says at one point, “There is stuff that you are going to have to get over being scared of.”
The world of the Missouri Ozarks as portrayed in the film seems a hostile and dangerous place, the men and woman can be hard and dangerous, kind one minute and cruel the next, yet there is a code of behavior that governs it all and keeps order. In the quest for her father, Ree finds herself having to oppose that order more and more, and the more dangerous things become for her.
One of the striking things about the film was the sheer number of strong performances by both the professional and non-professional actors. Professional actor Jenifer Lawrence is mesmerizing as Ree and anchors the picture. There is a particularly strong scene with her and an army recruiter played by real life Army recruiter Russell Schalk. He manages to communicate an amazing amount without ever breaking out of his gung-ho Army recruiter persona. There are a number of other great performances in this picture to watch for including John Hawkes as Teardrop and Dale Dicky as Merab.
There are a lot of classical elements to this story. It is the tale of the hero, the fight against all odd, the quest, and there are elements of Greek tragedy. It’s a tight little story, suspenseful, well-acted, and well told. It’s one of the best movies I have seen all year.
It’s funny seeing this movie right after seeing the summer blockbuster Inception whose sense of amorality has been bothering me more and more. In fact, despite the craftsmanship of that film, I am having a hard time recommending Inception to people. Winter’s Bone on the other hand has a strong moral center and I know why I am routing for Ree. On a number of levels she is very much the old fashioned hero worth routing for.
(highly recommended)
01 August 2010
Inception: A Movie Review
Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Inception is clever and absorbing film making and one of the few movies involving long and involved dream sequences that I have ever found watchable or engaging. Set in the near future where the military has created the ability to enter and to interact with a person’s dream, a criminal enterprise has arisen using that technology to pull someone into a carefully constructed dream to trick their subconscious into giving up closely held secrets without the mark even knowing that they have been robbed.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a master thief using this new technology. If you want a secret stolen, he’s the best. So it is to Cobb that Saito, an ultra-rich industrialist, turns when he wants something even more difficult. Saito wants Cobb to break into someone’s mind and leave a thought behind without the mark knowing or suspecting what’s been done, to plant the inception of an idea.
On its face it seems impossible, how do you get someone to think something, to have than initial beginning of an idea, and for them to think that it was there idea all along? But despite the seeming impossibility of the task, it’s something that Cobb is willing to try once Saito finds the right way to pull to motivate him.
The structure and the plot of inception borrow heavily from the classic caper movies combining basic elements from two standard storylines, the reluctant bank robber enticed into one final heist and the -layer within layer confidence scheme. Nolan breathes new life into these storylines and in truth I did not even see the parallels until I was reflecting on the movie later at home.
At 158 minutes, Inception is a long film, but it moved along at a brisk pace and seldom seemed to drag. It’s a visually spectacular film, but oddly one of the things that made the movie work for me was a sense of restraint. Typically I find that when attempt to portray dream states or altered realities they become impressionistic mishmashes that make me vaguely seasick. While Inception has no shortage of special effects that are extremely well done, there is a logical believability to them, mostly because the camera frame is full of everyday objects, even if they are seen behaving in unusual and unexpected ways. Any CGI that was used was held to an almost photo-realistic standard. I didn’t have any moments where my suspension of disbelief crumbled because the CGI was so mind blowingly unbelievable.
And just because a lot of the action takes place in dreams, thankfully the characters don’t get to go around dodging bullets in slow motion or jumping tall buildings in a single bound. Characters are still bound by laws of physics and placed in believable jeopardy. There is a fight scene in zero-gravity that is especially well done. Not only was there a logical reason these people would be fighting in zero-gravity, but it actually looked like a fight that was taking place in zero-gravity. It was good enough that I had to go online to see if maybe Nolan and company had perhaps used an airplane to actually achieve temporary zero-gravity to shoot the scene.
When we go to movies, we suspend our belief to become emotionally engaged with what the director has created. The director has created a world, with sets and actors to manipulate our minds and emotions. There are some similarities in what Cobb and his crew do. They build the set, take on roles, and follow the script. But morally the two things are as different as night and day, and I almost wish the film had demonstrated more of an awareness of that distinction. As the outsider of the gang, Ellen Page’s character of Ariadne does make some attempt to ask ethical questions, but it’s done weakly and she never gets close to any of the big questions.
Not every tale has to be turned into a morality tale to be enjoyable, but on reflection I find making a business of breaking and entering into a person’s dreams and manipulating their subconscious into revealing their innermost secrets a terrible form of assault on the self. And breaking in to leave thoughts the victim would take for their own seems worse. There is enough backstory that we understand Cobb and his motivations, but should that translate into us routing for him and his gang to succeed?
But morality aside, Inception is one heck of an original caper film.
Recommended
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a master thief using this new technology. If you want a secret stolen, he’s the best. So it is to Cobb that Saito, an ultra-rich industrialist, turns when he wants something even more difficult. Saito wants Cobb to break into someone’s mind and leave a thought behind without the mark knowing or suspecting what’s been done, to plant the inception of an idea.
On its face it seems impossible, how do you get someone to think something, to have than initial beginning of an idea, and for them to think that it was there idea all along? But despite the seeming impossibility of the task, it’s something that Cobb is willing to try once Saito finds the right way to pull to motivate him.
The structure and the plot of inception borrow heavily from the classic caper movies combining basic elements from two standard storylines, the reluctant bank robber enticed into one final heist and the -layer within layer confidence scheme. Nolan breathes new life into these storylines and in truth I did not even see the parallels until I was reflecting on the movie later at home.
At 158 minutes, Inception is a long film, but it moved along at a brisk pace and seldom seemed to drag. It’s a visually spectacular film, but oddly one of the things that made the movie work for me was a sense of restraint. Typically I find that when attempt to portray dream states or altered realities they become impressionistic mishmashes that make me vaguely seasick. While Inception has no shortage of special effects that are extremely well done, there is a logical believability to them, mostly because the camera frame is full of everyday objects, even if they are seen behaving in unusual and unexpected ways. Any CGI that was used was held to an almost photo-realistic standard. I didn’t have any moments where my suspension of disbelief crumbled because the CGI was so mind blowingly unbelievable.
And just because a lot of the action takes place in dreams, thankfully the characters don’t get to go around dodging bullets in slow motion or jumping tall buildings in a single bound. Characters are still bound by laws of physics and placed in believable jeopardy. There is a fight scene in zero-gravity that is especially well done. Not only was there a logical reason these people would be fighting in zero-gravity, but it actually looked like a fight that was taking place in zero-gravity. It was good enough that I had to go online to see if maybe Nolan and company had perhaps used an airplane to actually achieve temporary zero-gravity to shoot the scene.
When we go to movies, we suspend our belief to become emotionally engaged with what the director has created. The director has created a world, with sets and actors to manipulate our minds and emotions. There are some similarities in what Cobb and his crew do. They build the set, take on roles, and follow the script. But morally the two things are as different as night and day, and I almost wish the film had demonstrated more of an awareness of that distinction. As the outsider of the gang, Ellen Page’s character of Ariadne does make some attempt to ask ethical questions, but it’s done weakly and she never gets close to any of the big questions.
Not every tale has to be turned into a morality tale to be enjoyable, but on reflection I find making a business of breaking and entering into a person’s dreams and manipulating their subconscious into revealing their innermost secrets a terrible form of assault on the self. And breaking in to leave thoughts the victim would take for their own seems worse. There is enough backstory that we understand Cobb and his motivations, but should that translate into us routing for him and his gang to succeed?
But morality aside, Inception is one heck of an original caper film.
Recommended
25 July 2010
Movie Review: Salt
It seems like such a simple recipe, take a big charismatic star, make them a sympathetic character, put them in jeopardy visa via some unexplained mystery, and have them hunted by what on paper at least should be clearly superior forces. (Think Bourne Identity, Mission Impossible, the Prisoner, etc.) It’s a simple formula, but it seems like only one in a hundred movies are actually able to cook up something worth watching when they attempt this recipe.
With their new movie Salt writer Kurt Wimmer and director Phillip Noyce manage to pull off it off with just the right pinch of originality and the result is outstanding summer movie fare. Angeline Jolie is cast perfectly as Evelyn Salt, the hard to read CIA agent accused of being a Soviet mole. She is beautiful, mysterious, and as hard as nails. (Did I mention beautiful? The filmmakers try hard to pretend that they don’t notice, but it quickly becomes a conceit. The camera absolutely loves Jolie.)
The movie moves at the perfect pace, it gets the ball rolling with few preliminaries, opens up the throttle, and then never slows down or makes the mistake of giving you time to think. If something preposterous happens, there’s no time for the audience to dwell on it, there is already something else exciting going on.
The role was originally written for a man and there is some visual irony in seeing a character being played by Angelina Jolie being physically treated like a character being played by Bruce Willis. (And there is a lot in this movie that reminded me of Die Hard, another great action hero, hunted, up against overwhelming odds movie.)
It’s interesting that the movie had to be completely rewritten in order to let Angelina Jolie step into a role originally meant for a man. According to the Jolie it allowed the movie and her character to become “harder and darker.” Although we like to see Angelina Jolie acting almost hyper-masculine at times, I am not sure we’d be willing to accept a man in the same role without lightening him up, making him warmer, or making him more sympathetic. There is definitely no lightness to Evelyn Salt and there’s more than a touch of the Dark Knight.
One particularly refreshing thing about the movie was a return to real stunt work and a switch away from the heavy use of CGI, which easily overwhelms my ability to maintain the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy a film.
Is it great cinema? Not even close, but for a summer action movie it’s an unexpectedly well-seasoned treat right out of the oven.
(Recommended)
With their new movie Salt writer Kurt Wimmer and director Phillip Noyce manage to pull off it off with just the right pinch of originality and the result is outstanding summer movie fare. Angeline Jolie is cast perfectly as Evelyn Salt, the hard to read CIA agent accused of being a Soviet mole. She is beautiful, mysterious, and as hard as nails. (Did I mention beautiful? The filmmakers try hard to pretend that they don’t notice, but it quickly becomes a conceit. The camera absolutely loves Jolie.)
The movie moves at the perfect pace, it gets the ball rolling with few preliminaries, opens up the throttle, and then never slows down or makes the mistake of giving you time to think. If something preposterous happens, there’s no time for the audience to dwell on it, there is already something else exciting going on.
The role was originally written for a man and there is some visual irony in seeing a character being played by Angelina Jolie being physically treated like a character being played by Bruce Willis. (And there is a lot in this movie that reminded me of Die Hard, another great action hero, hunted, up against overwhelming odds movie.)
It’s interesting that the movie had to be completely rewritten in order to let Angelina Jolie step into a role originally meant for a man. According to the Jolie it allowed the movie and her character to become “harder and darker.” Although we like to see Angelina Jolie acting almost hyper-masculine at times, I am not sure we’d be willing to accept a man in the same role without lightening him up, making him warmer, or making him more sympathetic. There is definitely no lightness to Evelyn Salt and there’s more than a touch of the Dark Knight.
One particularly refreshing thing about the movie was a return to real stunt work and a switch away from the heavy use of CGI, which easily overwhelms my ability to maintain the suspension of disbelief necessary to enjoy a film.
Is it great cinema? Not even close, but for a summer action movie it’s an unexpectedly well-seasoned treat right out of the oven.
(Recommended)
11 July 2010
Despicable Me: A Movie Review
Despicable Me gets a thumbs up from me for summer fun. It has super villains, a super scientist, a super weapon, a super rivalry, a super evil plan, and not one, not two, but three super cute orphans to tug at your heart strings. And what would a super villain's life be without a lot of minions? MUHAHAHAHA!
The minions in question belong to Gru, voiced by Steve Carroll, is an evil doer extraordinaire who is in danger of being shown up by a Johnny-Come-Lately by the name of Vector (who for some reason kept reminding me of Bill Gates). Vector steals a super weapon from Gru that he needs for his big come back. In order to retrieve it, Gru adopts three orphans as part of a plan to steal it back. The danger, if you are a despicable super villain, of getting to close to super cute adorable orphans is they might start having a deleterious effect on your cold calculating evil-minded despicability.
This movie is strictly a comedy. It has a smaller dose of pathos and wit than you will find in the really great animated movies that can capture an adult audience along with the kids. It's just out to have a good time which it succeeds at completely. If I was going to overanalyze it looking for some kind of message, and why don't I just take a minute to do that, I could make the case that it's all about the importance of having minions. Gru's life is greatly enriched by the presence of his minions and his unexpected feelings for the orphans. Vector on the other hand is strictly a solo bad guy. He might have power on his side, but is power any match for an army of minions?
If you are interested, I strongly recommend finding a kid to take with you to see this movie. There are movies you can enjoy watching as an adult, and then there are movies that you enjoy vicariously through the kid you brought with you. I think Despicable Me would definitely fall into this latter category. It was fun seeing it with a friend, but I thought it would have been better if we had a kid to borrow and take.
The minions in question belong to Gru, voiced by Steve Carroll, is an evil doer extraordinaire who is in danger of being shown up by a Johnny-Come-Lately by the name of Vector (who for some reason kept reminding me of Bill Gates). Vector steals a super weapon from Gru that he needs for his big come back. In order to retrieve it, Gru adopts three orphans as part of a plan to steal it back. The danger, if you are a despicable super villain, of getting to close to super cute adorable orphans is they might start having a deleterious effect on your cold calculating evil-minded despicability.
This movie is strictly a comedy. It has a smaller dose of pathos and wit than you will find in the really great animated movies that can capture an adult audience along with the kids. It's just out to have a good time which it succeeds at completely. If I was going to overanalyze it looking for some kind of message, and why don't I just take a minute to do that, I could make the case that it's all about the importance of having minions. Gru's life is greatly enriched by the presence of his minions and his unexpected feelings for the orphans. Vector on the other hand is strictly a solo bad guy. He might have power on his side, but is power any match for an army of minions?
If you are interested, I strongly recommend finding a kid to take with you to see this movie. There are movies you can enjoy watching as an adult, and then there are movies that you enjoy vicariously through the kid you brought with you. I think Despicable Me would definitely fall into this latter category. It was fun seeing it with a friend, but I thought it would have been better if we had a kid to borrow and take.
05 July 2010
Cyrus: A Movie Review
Good actors are fun to watch and I think that is what makes the movie Cyrus so much fun. John C. Reilly, a terrific character actor, plays John a sort of beaten down everyman whose wife took a turn for the worse seven years ago that culminated in being left by his wife who early on in the movie announces she ‘s getting married. Spurred on by his ex-wife and her new fiancé, John goes to a party and disastrously, at first, tries to mingle. Despite the odds, and they are steep odds, he meets Molly, a beautiful and sweet woman played by Marisa Tomei and falls heads over heels for her.
At this point, if you didn’t know anything about the story you would be asking, “Where’s the catch?” The catch turns out to be Molly’s twenty two year old home schooled live at home son who has had an exclusive monopoly on mom for the last twenty two years and who isn’t above using a little emotional manipulation on mom to try to keep that monopoly.
There is some genuine humor here in patterns that get established in families that seem perfectly normal to those that are in them, but look completely different when seen from the perspective of an outsider. I found a lot of cringe-worthy moments, the kind only induced believable situations and characters. The movie respected its characters and never crossed the line into cheesy for the sake of the cheap laugh. From the previews I was a bit leery that the movie would do exactly that. There was one brief visual that went for the cheap laugh which I found both annoying and striking a false note, but otherwise the movie was consistently funny.
The film resonated with me on a couple of personal levels, the biggest being that I am now of the age and marital status that it’s not inconceivable that I could find myself dating a single mom with a son or daughter that age. And I am not too ashamed to admit it, I love Marisa Tomei.
22 March 2010
Sunday Day 80 2010
Coffee and then breakfast the Pot and Pan. There I forgot to check in on Foursquare. Afterwards I went to see Green Zone @ Phipps with Vick and a couple of new acquaintances, Fallon and Nathan, who are here in town attending managerial training for Teavana. After the movie Fallon and Nathan took us to see the Teavana store in Phipps. They have some pretty delicious tea's there, but my first love I think will remain SBUX's for the time being.
Green Zone was not bad for a war movie, technically it was great, Matt Damon is a solid action star. The shaky cam eventually became a bit much as did all of the extremely dim night shots. The story was relevant and topical. Everything was nice and tight. But I didn't really like the movie. I was hoping more Borne Identity and less Big Red One. It could be that I don't like war movies or just Iraq fatigue on my part. I am sick of being at war/fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A movie is going to have to be pretty compelling to cut through my natural dislike, and this wasn't that movie. I was also vaguely annoyed because the trailer I saw in the theater didn't seem to match up with the movie I saw very well.
So post movie I headed home and proceed with the mundane tasks that I actually kind of like. I finished doing the laundry, got it folded and put away, I vacuumed the house, scooped the litter, made a smoothie for lunch and later heated up a can of black bean soup and made a spinach salad for dinner. I had just finished eating and was debating if I wanted to try to get anything else done when I heard a noise indicating that I had caught another squirrel in the attic. I turned out that it was not much more than a baby. Not so small that I felt bad about driving it cross down and setting it free somewhere else, but pretty darn small. It was pretty hysterical at being trapped in a cage and kept making this ear-splitting whistle which I guess was some sort of distress call. I kept looking over my shoulder as I climbed out of the attic for mommy squirrel and and company.
Out of consideration for the squirrel's feelings I didn't make it wait overnight for release, I got in the car and drove it across town and released it in a school parking lot. I got caught in some serious rain showers driving back home, saw some really interesting skies as the sun was going down, stopped at Trader Joe's, headed home and called it a night.
Green Zone was not bad for a war movie, technically it was great, Matt Damon is a solid action star. The shaky cam eventually became a bit much as did all of the extremely dim night shots. The story was relevant and topical. Everything was nice and tight. But I didn't really like the movie. I was hoping more Borne Identity and less Big Red One. It could be that I don't like war movies or just Iraq fatigue on my part. I am sick of being at war/fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A movie is going to have to be pretty compelling to cut through my natural dislike, and this wasn't that movie. I was also vaguely annoyed because the trailer I saw in the theater didn't seem to match up with the movie I saw very well.
So post movie I headed home and proceed with the mundane tasks that I actually kind of like. I finished doing the laundry, got it folded and put away, I vacuumed the house, scooped the litter, made a smoothie for lunch and later heated up a can of black bean soup and made a spinach salad for dinner. I had just finished eating and was debating if I wanted to try to get anything else done when I heard a noise indicating that I had caught another squirrel in the attic. I turned out that it was not much more than a baby. Not so small that I felt bad about driving it cross down and setting it free somewhere else, but pretty darn small. It was pretty hysterical at being trapped in a cage and kept making this ear-splitting whistle which I guess was some sort of distress call. I kept looking over my shoulder as I climbed out of the attic for mommy squirrel and and company.
Out of consideration for the squirrel's feelings I didn't make it wait overnight for release, I got in the car and drove it across town and released it in a school parking lot. I got caught in some serious rain showers driving back home, saw some really interesting skies as the sun was going down, stopped at Trader Joe's, headed home and called it a night.
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