Runaway Jury Review

Runaway Jury was a pretty good movie, but I was disappointed by the switch from tobacco to gun control as the central plot. The book worked because the lawsuit was interesting and based on real-life tobacco industry litigation . In the movie, they gutted and replaced the hot topic with a flimsy case involving a single company gleefully selling guns to criminals, with a wicked corporate lawyer as villain. You could have written the resulting courtroom drama with zero knowledge of legal procedure, and that's really not a big draw for Grisham fans. They made a flimsy case and I didn't appreciate the emotional appeal (schmaltzy music and footage of children playing safely in a gun-free utopia, hurray!).

With such a meh Big Bad, the whole cat and mouse game just doesn't hang together as well. It was a damn shame, because that part of the story was riveting and really wanted a grander payoff.

I guess with all the media fascination with school shootings in the past decade, they thought it would be more intense and topical than taking yet another swing at Big Tobacco's all too boring sociopathy. At least I got a page inked during the film. And hey, the book's still on the shelf. As Stephen King once said, "they can't change a word." But don't get me started on the mondo ass rapings he's had to endure with his fiction. I'd be here all night and it's bedtime.

First Eyeroll of the Day

Hahaha, oh god. All the main characters in the Avatar movie are going to be played by white people. Because there just aren't enough roles available already for young attractive caucasians.

Well done, Hollywood, well done. The internet will run on this wank for at least a year.

Zombies Are Love

Thanks to Netflix, I've got like 68 zombie survival horror flicks lined up in my rental queue. I just finished watching Fido and it was pretty amusing. Not as funny, quick or morbid as it could have been, but it was actually kind of sweet and I never expected that. Quirky, a sort of Lassie-as-a-zombie satire.

I also watched Daylight, and was a bit underwhelmed. I like claustrophobic disaster films as much as the next masochistic asshole, but I'm afraid the only character I cared about was the dog. This happens a lot lately, now that the Captain and me are a team.

Speaking of whom, I took him to the vet this afternoon for his last vaccination, a Lyme booster. On the way out I grabbed a cow hoof and a bunch of chew toys. He goes through bully sticks kind of fast with those terrifying scissor-teeth, but the cow hoof has held his interest all day and is still somewhat the same shape as before. Good deal for 99 cents.

I seem to be having a lot of those weird dreams that scratch the fourth wall lately. Last night I had one where I was meeting Jesse and another friend (who shifted identities at random) for dinner at a Chinese place. We were all really hungry but for some reason I had to stop at a fancy dress store to find shoes, and on the way back I got lost and ended up wandering around a trashy neighborhood where the skaters left their gear.

Eventually I found the restaurant but by then it was dark and Jesse and the other friend had fallen asleep at the table. They were pissed and asked where I'd been all day. I was trying to understand how time could have gotten away from me so badly, and realized that my memory of where I'd been didn't match with the amount of time I'd supposedly been gone.

I came THIS close to figuring out that it was a dream and that was why time had gone all funny, but instead I blamed myself for sucking, apologized profusely, and we ordered ice cream since the kitchen was closed.

DID SOMEBODY SAY 'TORNADO OF STABILITY?'

[[ENTRY REDACTED DUE TO RULES 1 AND 2]]

Iron Man

I had never heard about or seen a promo for Iron Man. I didn't even know it was coming out.

I also have never read the comic. I knew there was one by that title and that's it.

But three separate people came to me this week from similar positions of unfamiliarity to DEMAND that I go see the movie NOW NOW NOW, so I figured it might be a nice distraction from the unpleasantness of my actual work, and went tonight.

Conclusion: DEAR GOD YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE. I mean holy crap, it was so much fun. I can't say I have ever enjoyed a superhero movie more in my life, and I'm counting the Matrix and both the first and second X-Men films.

I have a mecha-boner that hasn't gone down for four hours now. Even the babbling of every other person in the theatre throughout the entire film wasn't enough to ruin it for me.

PS - Stay past the credits. They always put something extra in after the credits.

Felidae

I found out today that they made a movie out of the Akif Pirincci novel Felidae. It was decent, although it's been so long since I read the novel that I can't recall whatall was cut off, but it seems like a lot. The script's translation from the German is a little clumsy, but the animation is totally badass.

The language and violence get pretty intense, to the point where I would say DO NOT LET CHILDREN SEE IT, but I recommend checking the film out if you can handle seeing cartoon cats getting killed in nasty ways. The whole thing is available on YouTube.

Nothing much going on today. T'was my day off, but I had a horrible headache so I mostly just sat around and prayed the Ibuprofen would kick in. When it did, I took the dog on a two-and-a-half mile bike run. Now I'm feeling mellow and sleepy.

Tomorrow, I will work on art all day long.