For two days, people had covered their homes, bought out most of the bottled water available, purchased enough canned food to open cafeterias and run the grocers out of candles and batteries. Blockbuster movie rentals are a favorite pre-storm visit. With late fees eliminated, it’s a perfect place for renting distractions. We got Nip/Tuck Season Three, Ultraviolet and V For Vendetta. If you’re one of the millions of suckers who also lives in South Florida this time of year, keep an eye out for the popcorn that we have pictured here. In the office, we found ourselves surrounded by groceries from Deerfield Farms. Amazingly, this popcorn is the best -est damn butter flavor popcorn we’ve ever had! And it’s little bags are four for a buck!
Nip/Tuck began with a bang in Season One. Gore and ultra-realistic surgery slicing and dicing entranced a huge audience. Season Two dumped me and ran dry as far as I was concerned. The family dramas got old and it just wasn’t something I cared about. I was indifferent going into Season Three. But WOW! The writing, pacing and overall patterns are all switched around to match and exceed the draw and intelligence behind Season One. And the gore and surgeries are even more lifelike.
Ultraviolet is one of those movies based on a comic book that slipped through the cracks. Milla Jovovich seems stuck in a sci-fi life. Thank God too! She’s killer cute and is never asked to talk a lot and usually appears nude once. What’s interesting about UV is that it’s a Vamire flick that disregards its vampire comic roots. Only after the movie did I think, “damn, the whole time, she was a vampire.” The film runs a filter over Milla smoothing out focused details; in PhotoShop it’s called Smart Blur. You’ll think you TV is out of focus, but it’s not. The sooner you agree to that, the sooner you can enjoy mindless shoot’em-up near-ninja fun with a great bad guy.
V For Vendetta should request that you ignore that the Wachowski Brothers directed it. Thankfully, Warner Brothers stuck a big budget to big talent rather than industry shaking effects. Hugo Weaving never reveals his burned face in this comic book turned movie. The idea of big brother has gripped England after the World has gone down a path of violence not unlike the news we see on TV today. “V” is rich beyond fathom, strong and quick thanks to government testing and caught on celluloid at the moment he falls in love thereby becoming more than just a messenger of Liberty. Our most skeptical movie watcher was floored by the brilliant writing and matching non-sensationalism progression of the movie.
I’ll take any excuse to read a book. The grocery store had Tourmaline on sale for $7.99 and the dust jacket spelled out a summary that sounded pretty promising. Ten pages into it, I had more about the history of an island that seemed to have no bearing or lead into the story I thought I would be reading. Tourmaline is literate and sets mental pictures with those tiny little stream of consciousness sentences that writers love. The book on the table. Wet rings from coffee on the glass. I saw the cover. This book is closed and would remain so. No rain. Where is Ernesto, I wondered.
I’ve been dying to write about this book! Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke might be the surprise book of the century. Everything about writing that you find in Irving Stone’s The Agony and The Extacy can be found here. Atmosphere like that in any Sir Author Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes story can be found here. Wit and imagination like what can be found in The Lord of The Rings can be found here. Incredible structure and literacy of thought like can be found within good translations of Victor Hugo, can be found here. Misanthropic characters and keen observations of character rule the first tenth of this novel. If you dislike the similarities above, you’re sure to hate this book. If your interest is piqued, I swear to you that its worth a dose of courage to buy this book. Courage, you ask. Yes; Courage enough to get you started on a one thousand and forty-eight page journey.
As an impulse purchase, nothing beats a battery powered massager. This puppy takes three triple-A’s, has red lights on the feet and is strong enough to give you a headache if you’re dumb enough to rattle your skull with it. The previous generation of this gizmo had little slipping cloth feet that picked up dirt while skirting across shirts. After movie time, during book time, during computer fixing time, almost anytime is a good time for massage time. This thing is a bull too at just ten bucks. Most other massagers for ten bucks suck the batteries dry before you feel anything. We could do without the goofy red light feet, but it’s easy to forgive after sixty seconds of tripod pounding.
