"Parlez-vous Olympics?!" and RDJ

Good day,

I realize I haven't' updated this in awhile... probably because I haven't watched any movies lately. (Gasp!) No... like most of the world, I was watching the Olympics for the past couple weeks. They've been over since Sunday night and I'm only just getting back into my normal TV/movie watching routine... I plan on seeing "Hamlet 2" sometime this weekend, so that should be entertaining, to say the least. Steve Coogan is a funny, funny man.

But before I spout off about the cinema, I'd like to put in my 2 cents about this year's Summer Games. I love the Olympics. Like whoa. But, I really only get into the Swimming, Diving, Gymnastics and Track & Field. This is probably because that's all that NBC shows in the evening hours when I'm free to watch TV. I would have liked to watch some soccer, baseball, softball, etc..., but network television doesn't think that the general public is interested in that. Well, we are. Instead of watching all of the NBC affiliates at all hours of the night, my sister looked up on-line who won all of the non-NBC televised events.

As we all know, the Games turned in a Michael Phelps a-thon... which I was okay with. I really enjoy watching amazing swimmers because I like swimming, but I'm not at all awesome at it. It's great that he won his 8 gold medals... but really, no one else but a swimmer (or a very, very, VERY talented Men's gymnast who could manage to get team gold, all-around gold, and then a gold on each of the 6 events) could get 8 golds in 1 Olympics. Michael Phelps is a phenomenal athlete who seems to have respect for his teammates and his mom. (BTW, his mom was the highlight of the games... it was almost more fun to watch her cheer on her son and his relay team than actually watch the event itself). He's supposed to be hosting SNL on September 13th... let's hope he is as entertaining out of the water as he is in the water.

Gymnastics were good to watch... it was interesting to see the Men's team be so psyched about winning bronze and how sad the Women's team was that they got silver. Cheer up chicas, you beat out hundreds of other girls to get the silver! You should be proud. I won't even get into the whole "Those girls from the China team still look like they are in elementary/middle school" debacle... But some of them did look quite young...

Closing ceremonies were all right. I enjoyed the fireworks and those women who had all the bells on. I really liked those guys that were strapped to that tower... that was awesome. How they ran up the sides of it... and then the dudes in the middle of the human flowers who were running on air. So cool!

I'm looking forward to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. My sister wants to go... and so do I, but let's be realistic... that probably costs a ton of $. And in this economy, with my paycheck, that ain't gonna happen. Thank you America... once again I'll be enjoying the Olympics from the comfort of my home/cardboard box (hey, I don't know where I'll be in 2 years).

As mentioned above, I will be getting back into my movie-watching habits now that the Games are over. First stop, Hamlet 2... I've seen the trailer, I saw Steve Coogan on Conan. I am 100% convinced I am going to laugh out loud and thoroughly enjoy the film this weekend.

I haven't seen a movie in a couple weeks. The last thing I saw was Tropic Thunder (in which Coogan co-starred). I did a one-time-only lift of my own personal lifetime boycott of Tom Cruise/Ben Stiller movies to see this film (Mel Gibson is the other person on my lifetime boycott list...).

Honestly, the only reason I saw Tropic Thunder was because of Robert Downey Jr. If he wasn't in the film, I would have avoided it like the plague. He made the film funny. Tom Cruise is getting a lot of hype for his part, but he creeped me out. Like this was some excuse for him to dress in a fat suit and curse a lot and do lewd dance moves. I saw through your guise, Cruise, and you still make me wretch.

But back to Robert Downey Jr... I am so very glad that he is back in the limelight (for a positive thing...). I have been a RDJ fan for many, many years. Even in high school/early years of college, I watch a bunch of RDJ films and realized what a talented actor he is. Chaplin... SO BRILLIANT! And even earlier this summer, in Iron Man, RDJ proved that he can do the action movie but still keep his sarcastic edge in tact. He's funny, but vulnerable and relatable at the same time.

In Tropic Thunder, RDJ took a huge creative risk. Playing a character who goes beyond black-face to play a part in a movie is not exactly politically correct and could offend a lot of people. But, RDJ's character is not making fun of black people... his character is so Method, that he doesn't know of any other way to get into character unless he "gets into character"... from the outside and the inside. He's so wrapped up in himself, that he gets knocked down a peg or two throughout the film by his cast mates. The arc of RDJ's character is the most interesting one in the film, and it's really fascinating to see him dig further and further into his Method hole and then crawl back out and learn some "Life Lessons". (BTW, I'm not knocking Method Acting... I completely respect an Actor and his/her craft/process. The use of it in this film is just extreme and is meant to be laughed at).

Now - if only they would make "Satan's Alley" into a real movie... starring RDJ's character and Tobey Maguire. That would be PRICELESS.

Well, I should get going... maybe watch a movie or something (?)

Have a fantastic day and I'll cya at the cinema :)

All Aboard the Pineapple Express (and other happenings this weekend)

Good day,

Like many other people in my age bracket, I went and saw the latest Judd Apatow production this past weekend - Pineapple Express.

I laughed. A lot. And I'm not even someone who supports pot-smoking (I think it's gross and not a good way to spend your time or money - but that's just my opinion). But, I am a fan of Apatow's films, especially those featuring (and/or written by) the very funny Seth Rogen.

Pineapple Express was not a "good" film in the way that Knocked Up and Superbad were good films. Those films had strong plotlines and characters you could really care about. Pineapple Express was labeled a "weed/action movie", and that's really all it is. It's a weed movie with action sequences (guns, car chases, fight scenes, explosions, etc...). But Pineapple Express doesn't teach you life lessons like Apatow's other films of years past (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Instead, Pineapple Express gives you plenty of material to laugh at without you, the audience, having to strain your brain cells.

Even though it's not a "good" film, Pineapple Express is a fun watch. It was so refreshing to see James Franco in a comedy. To be honest, I find him aesthetically pleasing, so I've seen a bunch of his films over the past few years... and to continue being honest, most of them suck. A lot. (Spider Man 3, Annapolis, etc...) He's been doing the Spider Man movies or dramas for awhile now, it was nice to see him re-embracing comedy. (Remember "Freaks and Geeks" from 2001? You should. And if you don't, then go find it on DVD and watch the whole season and you'll see what I mean. Comedy.)

Franco and Rogen made as great on-screen team - probably b/c their friends off-screen as well. Everything that came out of Franco's mouth was hilarious. So, props to Rogen (and his screenwriting partner, Evan Goldberg) for writing good material and props to Franco for bringing it to life. Loved that Jaws shirt and those striped pajama pants... they went so well with the laid back/stoned off his ass attitude. In a way, I was reminded of The Dude. Good times.

Beside Pineapple Express, I watched a LOT of the Olympics. My sister and I have been recording everything on NBC and then going through it (God Bless the DVR... fastforwarding and rewinding television is GLORIOUS). We're big fans of Swimming, Diving and Gymnastics, so that's mostly what we've been paying attention to. We actually went to highschool with one of the men's swimmers. He didn't medal, but he made it to the Finals for the 100m Breaststroke, so that was cool.

The highlight so far has been swimming - last night when the Men's team won the 400m Freestyle Relay... HOLY COW that was INTENSE!

The USA was in 2nd place until literally the last 20 feet of the race, and then the USA guy punched it into overdrive and won by, like 8 hundreths of a second. It was awesome. We were cheering so loud! Luckily we don't have neighbors, or else we'd have woken everyone up with our shouting and hollering for Team USA. Yay America :)

This afternoon, because my sister is at work and I would feel wrong for watching the Olympics w/o her, I decided to check out "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog". For those of you not familiar with this little piece of wonderful, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog" is an on-line series of 3 videos created by Joss Whedon (the guy who made Buffy, Angel, Firefly, etc...)

I had heard about Dr. Horrible and read about it in my EW, but had to check it out for myself. And I'm so glad that I did! Dr. Horrible stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillian and Felecia Day and it's a musical about an evil scientist named Dr. Horrible (NPH) who has a crush on a girl from the landromat (Day) who ends up dating his nemesis, Captain Hammer (Fillian). The songs are actually really catchy and the cast is great - Neil Patrick Harris is awesome. I haven't gotten the chance to see him live on Broadway yet, so seeing him in this little on-line video series was awesome. I know people are hoping there will be more installments - I'm hoping right there with them!

I'm a relative newcomer to Joss Whedon's work. The only Buffy anything I've ever seen was the 1992 film (which Whedon wrote, though I wasn't aware of who he was when I saw it... I was in elementary school!). I haven't seen Firefly or Serenity (though I think I'd like them). I recently started watching Angel (I got hooked on David Boreanaz from Bones, so this was the next logical series to watch, I thought... too bad I didn't know any of the Angel backstory from Buffy - whoops!), and I'm almost done with the whole series. So, I'm trying to get on the Whedon bandwagon :)

Well - I must be off. There is a lot of job hunting to do, as well as Olympics to watch.

Have a good one!