Monday, February 18, 2008

Some Things I've Been Enjoying Lately

I've just had a two week "vacation" loosely speaking. Lisa had to have knee surgery so I took time off to help. I caught a bad case of the flu and turns out about all I helped her with was keeping her company in misery. We both laid around in pain the first week, although we were able to make it to a movie. We saw Fool's Gold. It was a cute, funny movie. The following week picked up some, saw a few more movies and watched a lot of videos.

My hit list right now consists of 3:10 to Yuma. A trend I'm glad to see coming back is the western. Lisa and I loved The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford from earlier this year. 3:10 is just a good old solid western, nothing fancy but pretty suspenseful. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are awesome. The supporting actors are wonderfully colorful, especially Ben Foster and Peter Fonda. The end was a little far fetched but didn't ruin anything.

I also got to watch Mad Max again. I used to watch this movie once a week on the old VHS copy. It's even better with Mel Gibson's Australian accent. It was originally dubbed for the US. This is the GREATEST MOVIE from Australia EVER! Perhaps the greatest movie period!

I'm also reading The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Robert E. Howard. Man they don't write action adventure like this anymore, partly due to the insane racism. If you over-look that though it's just a good time. Pirates, hidden cities in Africa, an honest to God ju ju witch doctor and a musket packing Puritan with a bowl haircut, what the hell more can you ask?

Finally, I've got Train Kept A Rollin' by the Yardbirds and Joe Satriani, Rooster by Alice In Chains, Melissa from the Allman Brothers and Like a Stone by Audioslave in the heavy rotation category on the iPod. And how's this for eclectic tastes, Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfeild and Mother by Danzig? I love my iPod, especially the shuffle feature.

2 comments:

Gary said...

Man, I've mostly been disinterested in recent movies, but I have lately developed a real itch to see that Jesse James flick. Sounds like it might be the kinda Western I like...as in light on the action but heavy on the atmosphere, cinematography, and relatively "realistic" character potrayal (ala my favorite western of all time The Grey Fox). So are you saying this would be worth my time?

Brian said...

Definitely. I think it's like a three hour movie, it moves at a slow pace but doesn't feel like long at all. The settings and backgrounds are authentic and beautiful. I obviously wasn't there but it seems like that's what the world looked like. It's not as good as Mad Max however.