30 second review - Tropic Thunder

You know how you type LOL to express amusement, even when, let's be honest, you didn't really laugh out loud ? A lot of comedies get that response. Yes, I find them funny enough, and I'll smile or snort or chuckle a few times, and still think they're good comedies. But Tropic Thunder's opening scene made me LOL so hard I cried, and then I LOLed and LOLed some more.

30 second review - Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I can only despair of a movie that features the line "I love him, but I'm not in love with him". And I can only admire Patricia Clarkson for being able to pull it off without ridicule.

Whew, the week is over.

Started off tired and grumpy, and got worse. My dear friend J's sister died, and talking about it with her brought on a dream of my father, which was a happy dream, from which I woke up sobbing and the next day I just kept tearing up whenever I thought it. And I'm not a teary person.

Work was well, work, and boss n° 1 was terribly annoying - I swear she has a built in alarm clock that goes off at 17:44 every day, when 17:45 is the official quitting time - "oh,I know you're going soon, but could you just..." Now if it's a real emergency, fine. When it's every single day, and it's "just" something she could have asked me to do mid-morning but simply didn't bother to tell me about, and I have to take up her slack, well, it gets old. Real old. When I'm happy and chipper I can deal with it with a smile, when I'm tired and grumpy and over-emotional... not so much.

Damn, I missed it.

Yesterday, apparently - has anyone heard of this before ? - was Love Your Body Day.

I love my body most days. It is, after all, the only one I've got. It's healthy. It's strong enough to allow me to do pretty much whatever I want. What's not to love ?

Clever S.

He's in charge of dealing with the anti-virus for our home computer, which also comes with all sorts of fancy security settings one can fine-tune according to personal internet usage. All well and good.

I may need to have a word with him, though, as when I tried to click through to links of a couple different shoe-shopping websites (just browsing, I swear!), I got the following message:


"This webpage has been blocked by BitDefender Parental Control!

This webpage has been blocked by the Web filter."

Hmmmm.

Shout, shout, let it all out

Walking past a little Italian restaurant in my neighborhood the other day, I notice a little blackboard in the window facing the street. It says "Everything available to take away, including the chef". Thinking it's rather cute and would perhaps be a nice photo to post, I take my little point & shoot out of my bag and am about to take a picture when a man YELLS (WOAH WOAH WOAH what are you doing ?) as he rushes out from the restaurant to the sidewalk.
Just thought the sign was funny and wanted to take a photo.
You can't take pictures without asking permission first.
(Big guy, wearing cook's apron, still shouting).
I say OK, fine, bye, and walk away, thinking to myself there's no way any sane person would want to take that chef home with them.

Wasn't really intimidated but very unsettled - made me realize later I can't remember anyone raising their voice in anger at me before, and I'm certainly more of a sulker than a shouter myself.

No real point to this, and no photo posted, obviously !

30 second review - Appaloosa

Ed and Viggo and Jeremy - oh my. Loved the laconic banter between the two leads. OK, the little cutesy running joke about Ed Harris' character not having a good vocabulary and needing Viggo as Everett Hitch to complete his sentences for him got a bit twee after the 3rd or 4th time. But still, some good lines delivered in fabulous deadpan fashion. And Jeremy Irons makes a convincing baddie, sneer and all.

30 second review - Go Fast

If you love Roschdy Zem, see it. If you love cop/drug dealer movies with lots of fast cars and shoot outs, see it. And even then, you'll be entertained but not blown away. Otherwise, this is probably not for you.