"School for Scoundrels" opens this weekend starring Napoleon Dynamite himself, Jon Heder. Therefore I had my doubts since even though I like the kind of comedy Napoleon Dynamite performed, I didn't like the movie at all. Luckily, the execution in Scoundrels is better in my opinion. Billy Bob Thornton runs a school to make losers into winners and the first half is filled with hilarious physical gags and some nice wordplay. The second half is a bit of a letdown but all in all, it's a very entertaining film.
Also opening is "The Guardian" representing Ashton Kutcher's foray into the action/drama genre. Kutcher is the hotshot at a school training coast guard rescuers with Kevin Costner as the head instructor. Costner is great but Kutcher is hit and miss. He's very good at the goofy and arrogant parts of his role but the heavily dramatic scenes are really bad. The best part of the film is the amount of respect given to the Coast Guard, the part of the military usually overlooked, and the authenticity of the related scenes.
In Netflix world, Lucky Number Slevin and United 93 gets a thumbs up, Friends with Money and Poseidon get a mixed review, and Scary Movie 4 is so bad, I had to fast forward the last half of the film.
Happy Birthday to Jennifer and Steve, both celebrating birthdays Thursday, and Nancy's is next Wednesday. I know I'm missing one, but my list has also gone missing.
9/25/2006
9/14/2006
9/12/2006
Off the cutting room floor:
I had dinner with my brother at Hungry Hunter the other day and over there, they've got tableside salad service. They ask what kind of toppings you want on your salad. So my brother's up and he starts, "lettuce, tomato..." and I'm like, hello, it's a salad. Of course it'll have lettuce. So as we're waiting for our entrees, I'm looking around the room. There are two floors and we were seated on the second floor. Lots of minorities around us. Mexicans, blacks, Asians, all represented. Except for the white people, which for some reason, were all seated on the first floor. Things that make you go hmmm.
Every time I go to the Silver Legacy in Reno, I always make it a point (multiple times in fact) to make fun of this guy (http://www.silverlegacy.com/dining/victorian.aspx). Not only does he look goofy with his smile, and his arms extended to showcase the massive amount of food, it's just fun to mimic.
Sitting in traffic, I found a license plate with the same prefix as mine but his last 3 digits were 840 and mine is 836. And we both had Mazda 3's. Freaky.
In Berkeley, 3 people were charged with putting marijuana into cookies and serving them to a bunch of college kids in a co-op. After being characterized as suppliers, the defense attorneys vigourously defended these students not as suppliers but as bakers. Yeah, right.
After Steve Irwin's untimely death, it's been reported that 10 stingrays have been killed since then. You heard right folks, we've declared war on the stingrays. We just need President Bush's backing and Congress' approval, two things that should come swiftly since they like war.
Speaking of President Bush, a film has been made depicting his assassination in 2007. The filmmakers, in using President Bush instead of a fictional president, had hoped they would portray the horror that comes from the assassination of a president. It sure does because it shows Dick Cheney taking over the presidency. Now that would be horrific on any scale.
I was listening to the Raiders game on the way home Monday so it was on that station when I turned on the car this morning. They were reading the news when a story about vandalism came up. The newsreader goes: "That punk, Vincent...whoops, I shouldn't have said that."
I know Cal football, coming off a loss to Tennessee and a win against Minnesota, is angling to squeeze any penny it can, but this is getting ridiculous. Hours after the win, they were selling t-shirts that announced the final score and the teams involved. Seriously? A lopsided win over a mediocre team gets a t-shirt. You might've thought we'd won the Rose Bowl. What's on the site now? Get your t-shirt commemorating the upcoming battle between the Golden Bears and Arizona State, a matchup between two run-of-the-mill Pac-10 teams!
Happy belated birthdays go out to Datman, Trang, and Peter and if I don't have time in the future, Christy and Leslie will also be celebrating.
I had dinner with my brother at Hungry Hunter the other day and over there, they've got tableside salad service. They ask what kind of toppings you want on your salad. So my brother's up and he starts, "lettuce, tomato..." and I'm like, hello, it's a salad. Of course it'll have lettuce. So as we're waiting for our entrees, I'm looking around the room. There are two floors and we were seated on the second floor. Lots of minorities around us. Mexicans, blacks, Asians, all represented. Except for the white people, which for some reason, were all seated on the first floor. Things that make you go hmmm.
Every time I go to the Silver Legacy in Reno, I always make it a point (multiple times in fact) to make fun of this guy (http://www.silverlegacy.com/dining/victorian.aspx). Not only does he look goofy with his smile, and his arms extended to showcase the massive amount of food, it's just fun to mimic.
Sitting in traffic, I found a license plate with the same prefix as mine but his last 3 digits were 840 and mine is 836. And we both had Mazda 3's. Freaky.
In Berkeley, 3 people were charged with putting marijuana into cookies and serving them to a bunch of college kids in a co-op. After being characterized as suppliers, the defense attorneys vigourously defended these students not as suppliers but as bakers. Yeah, right.
After Steve Irwin's untimely death, it's been reported that 10 stingrays have been killed since then. You heard right folks, we've declared war on the stingrays. We just need President Bush's backing and Congress' approval, two things that should come swiftly since they like war.
Speaking of President Bush, a film has been made depicting his assassination in 2007. The filmmakers, in using President Bush instead of a fictional president, had hoped they would portray the horror that comes from the assassination of a president. It sure does because it shows Dick Cheney taking over the presidency. Now that would be horrific on any scale.
I was listening to the Raiders game on the way home Monday so it was on that station when I turned on the car this morning. They were reading the news when a story about vandalism came up. The newsreader goes: "That punk, Vincent...whoops, I shouldn't have said that."
I know Cal football, coming off a loss to Tennessee and a win against Minnesota, is angling to squeeze any penny it can, but this is getting ridiculous. Hours after the win, they were selling t-shirts that announced the final score and the teams involved. Seriously? A lopsided win over a mediocre team gets a t-shirt. You might've thought we'd won the Rose Bowl. What's on the site now? Get your t-shirt commemorating the upcoming battle between the Golden Bears and Arizona State, a matchup between two run-of-the-mill Pac-10 teams!
Happy belated birthdays go out to Datman, Trang, and Peter and if I don't have time in the future, Christy and Leslie will also be celebrating.
9/07/2006
The kids are responsible for all the wars in the world.
Ok, maybe not, but they've been really grinding my gears for the past few days.
School started for most children this past week and all that means is more and more traffic for poor folks like me. Commutes for me have taken a good 25-30 minutes on most days...just a quick trip on 85 then up De Anza to work. This week...nooooo. If traffic on 85 starts before 87, then I'd take 87...sure, there's plenty of traffic, but it's only 4 miles...I can take it because 280 is usually free and clear. But 280 was pretty busy today. This necessitates a move to Stevens Creek (Valley Fair) up Scott or San Tomas to Central which is right outside my workplace. Result? 55 minute commute today. Looking forward to tomorrow! Ugh.
I was at Safeway yesterday, and remember on The Simpsons when Bart sold his soul to Milhouse. Bart went to the Kwik-E-Mart but the doors wouldn't open? Happened to me. Why? Some kid was standing right in front of the door. Out of the way!
Reno was good. I made back what I lost in Vegas a few weeks ago. The first day there, we were witness to the Rib Eating Contest where eventual winner Joey Chestnut (2nd to Kobayashi in the Hot Dog eating contest) ran through a little less than 3 trays of ribs in 12 minutes. A tray has 3 racks. That about 4.5 lbs of rib meat. The record is about 8, so he has a long way to go. On our way home, traffic was at a standstill in Auburn. While we're stuck there, some teen driver puts his gears in reverse and goes backwards down the exit lane to hit the side streets. Sure enough, plenty of people are following his example. It moved us up but still, that's illegal, right?
Finally, kids must be running the show at MGM considering the number of old sequels they're going to produce for TV. On the good side, WarGames finally gets a sequel. On the iffy side, Legally Blonde 3 is being made without Reese Witherspoon. Then there's just the bad...Species 4...Into the Blue 2 (only good if we can see more of Jessica Alba this time)...and finally The Cutting Edge 3. Did they even see number 2???
Ok, maybe not, but they've been really grinding my gears for the past few days.
School started for most children this past week and all that means is more and more traffic for poor folks like me. Commutes for me have taken a good 25-30 minutes on most days...just a quick trip on 85 then up De Anza to work. This week...nooooo. If traffic on 85 starts before 87, then I'd take 87...sure, there's plenty of traffic, but it's only 4 miles...I can take it because 280 is usually free and clear. But 280 was pretty busy today. This necessitates a move to Stevens Creek (Valley Fair) up Scott or San Tomas to Central which is right outside my workplace. Result? 55 minute commute today. Looking forward to tomorrow! Ugh.
I was at Safeway yesterday, and remember on The Simpsons when Bart sold his soul to Milhouse. Bart went to the Kwik-E-Mart but the doors wouldn't open? Happened to me. Why? Some kid was standing right in front of the door. Out of the way!
Reno was good. I made back what I lost in Vegas a few weeks ago. The first day there, we were witness to the Rib Eating Contest where eventual winner Joey Chestnut (2nd to Kobayashi in the Hot Dog eating contest) ran through a little less than 3 trays of ribs in 12 minutes. A tray has 3 racks. That about 4.5 lbs of rib meat. The record is about 8, so he has a long way to go. On our way home, traffic was at a standstill in Auburn. While we're stuck there, some teen driver puts his gears in reverse and goes backwards down the exit lane to hit the side streets. Sure enough, plenty of people are following his example. It moved us up but still, that's illegal, right?
Finally, kids must be running the show at MGM considering the number of old sequels they're going to produce for TV. On the good side, WarGames finally gets a sequel. On the iffy side, Legally Blonde 3 is being made without Reese Witherspoon. Then there's just the bad...Species 4...Into the Blue 2 (only good if we can see more of Jessica Alba this time)...and finally The Cutting Edge 3. Did they even see number 2???
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