Flannel Shirt

Beauty and the What?

When they film these days, half the time one or more of the characters is going to be manipulated by CGI (computer-generated imagery). The guy on the right is going to be replaced by a Beast, as in Beauty and the Beast. 

A fifties movie poster

Lamest alien in science fiction

San Andreas opens

The movie, not the earth.

The Big Lebowski dream sequence

Looking over the hedge

Noah

A fascinating article in a religious review about the movie "Noah" and the problems with literalism and Bible stories.

Bob at the movies: "Enough Said" and "Gravity" (in 3D)

Just got back from seeing "Gravity". I'm not sure how old Sandra Bullock is but she still looks good floating around weightless in her underwear. 

It was a good adventure flick, and the 3D actually worked well. The 3D glasses they handed out worked well over my real glasses. I don't want to spoil anything if you haven't gone yet and plan to see it, but suffice it to say that Sandra and George Clooney are orbiting earth fixing an orbiting telescope when bad things happen. Then more bad things happen. Bad things keep happening for the whole movie, and when things go flying they go flying right at you, in 3D. It was also good because there were only really two characters. In movies with lots of characters I sometimes get confused as to who is what and their relationships and all. It bugs Joan if I ask, "What did he say?" or "Is that her younger sister?" or something else. No problems when you're floating around in a spacesuit.

We saw "Enough Said" about a week ago. It's a small movie, no car chases. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini. This was Gandolfini's last movie before he passed away, and there is a sadness knowing that the guy we loved as Tony Soprano is gone forever. At least he ended up hooked up with the gal in the film.

It's actually a sweet movie. It's the perfect film for old farts such as ourselves. Two people at midlife who are sending their kids off to college. Very nice.

Blue Jasmine

Joan and I had a date night Saturday night, had dinner out and then went to see Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine". It was interesting and enjoyable, not Allen's old slapstick way, but in a kind of perverse, voyeuristic way of looking into people's lives. And who would have thought that Andrew Dice Clay and Kate Blanchett would ever end up in the same movie?

Most of the action is set in San Francisco, so it was like a little vacation back to my old stomping grounds, seeing places I knew and where I had lived a large swath of my life. If you see the film, the guitar shop that Blanchett goes into to find her son is the same guitar shop where I sold my Gibson Everly Brothers acoustic.

I bought that guitar in 1972, on my first leave from Fort Dix during my military internment. That guitar stayed with me for thirty-eight years. It survived two marriages. I finally sold it when I was separated, sleeping on floors, with wrecked hands from postal repetitive stress. I couldn't play it anymore and I needed the money.

Springsteen & I

From my homeland of the Jersey Shore.