a weekend at the movies...

Friday evening came with the sweet promise of a weekend with nothing to do. It feels like ages since I've had a weekend like this, and what a welcome weekend it was. The time was filled with good eats, the typical amount of sleep, which sadly isn't much, and the time forgotten lazy afternoon at home. I even cooked dinner with legitimate fixings! A very welcome weekend indeed.

The above title is a lie, though I did watch a few movies. The first was "Jackie Brown", the third film directed by Quentin Tarantino. The only of his movies I'd not seen, it was a smart tale of a street-wise flight attendant and the arms dealer who pays her bills. Not as raw and over the top as Tarantino's other work, the story is well told, written, and acted, featuring a terrific cast including the always welcome Michael Keaton, Samuel L Jackson, Robert DeNiro, and Bridget Fonda. I liked it.

Yesterday, Ryan, Scott and I went to see "Diary of the Dead", the fifth film in George A Romero's "(Noun du jour) of the Dead" franchise. An attempt to comment on the violent depravity of men, the story of a group of college film students documenting their flight from the un-dead falls short of other recent zombie flicks like "28 Weeks Later", and the remake of Romero's own "Dawn of the Dead". I confess that I like movies about zombies, but the script more or less sucked, as did the acting. So in other words, it wasn't great.

Speaking of movies, my ever more creative, not to mention funnier and better looking, companion Sarah presented me with a fabulous suggestion we will soon be undertaking. In the wake of my humiliating upset at the Oscar's (see the below reminder of my humorless obsession), Sarah, no doubt aiming to restore my pride, proposed we start watching the Best Picture winners, all 80 of them. We quickly got excited and committed ourselves to the task, and soon we will start to work our way through the movies in reverse order from "No Country for Old Men" to 1927's "Wings", plus the first two installments of "The Lord of the Rings" to catch Sarah up to speed. We both have our reservations, Sarah dreading "The Silence of the Lambs", and I "Titanic", but we're looking forward to starting. Sarah tells me I have much to learn about "The Sound of Music", and I will certainly post updates along the way.

That's all for now, and I best get to bed. Right now people the whole world over are restoring their strength so they can wake up, call and complain about their iTrip, meaning I need all the help I can get. Cheers!