Cyberstalking is Fun with Good ol' Mike

Last night, I treated myself to a little Taco Bell and watched Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. It's about as bad as I remembered it. My favorite is Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. It's the one where Freddy's victims realize they have powers in the dream world, too, so they fight back. The 4th film is also great; it continues the story from 3.



Speaking of those movies, I still haven't seen the remake from last year. Is it any good?

We went and saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes (worst title ever) the other day. It's very entertaining. The cgi was well done, not perfect, and the story was clever. Also, one of the actors in the film was David Hewlett who played Rodney McKay on Stargate Atlantis.



Then, yesterday I got the Planet of the Apes Blu-ray box set featuring the five original films. As a completist, I think it would have been cooler if it included that Timmy Burton version, but I can always just pick that one up separately.

Planet of the Apes Marathon, anyone?!

Last night, I sat down with my new boyfriend Apple TV and watched an early 90's classic, Poetic Justice.



Starring screen legends Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur, Poetic Justice was the much-anticipated followup to John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood. Like a lot of directors (M Night), lightning didn't strike twice for Singleton. Unless you consider Michael Jackson's Remember the Time. (Kidding, by the way. That video stinks.)

The movie is pretty awful and has no point whatsoever, but there are a few well done scenes. My favorite part, and I quote it all the time, is when Aisha goes in to the gas station to buy malt liquor, but finds out they don't carry Old English 800. "You ain't got no O-dees?!"

Maya Angelou, the most overrated poet ever, has a cameo in it. Turns out she wrote all the poetry used in the film. Ready to barf? The movie is called Poetic Justice because the main character is named Justice and she writes poetry. Cheese balls.

Tone Loc was in it too. He was actually looking kinda sexy.



Had me thinking, "Whatever happened to Tone Loc?" And then I remembered...

Last night, Japes jpinsd, Dave pinner123, Brian kingfuraday and I got together for a very impromptu movie night.

The first movie was How to Train Your Dragon.





The guys all worship this movie because it was co-written and co-directed by Dean DeBlois, whom they all know in person. He's like the definitive bear. Check him out.

It's actually a fine film. Very beautiful and well-written. I had seen it before, but it was a second movie at the drive-in, so I slept through most of it. Seeing it on Blu-ray, wired on Rockstar Energy drink is definitely a much better way to enjoy it.

The second film we saw was the infamous Bear City, which just came out on DVD and has a reputation for completely missing the mark with regard to its portrayal of the bear scene. I'm certainly no expert on the bear scene, but it did seem pretty inaccurate.





We were extra excited because Dave's picture is in the movie for a brief moment. Also, Brian's picture shows up during the credits, and our friend Shannon Grady has a song in it at the end.

Virtually every actor in the film is very skinny, with the exception of one character who appears to weigh 400+ pounds. **Spoiler Alert** He decides to get the lap-band surgery, which seems like a very good idea in his case. But in the end, he chooses not to so that his "hot" chubby-chaser boyfriend (who calls him "gordito". barf.) won't dump him. That's pretty jacked up.

As bad not-necessarily-a-classic as it was, admittedly it was still entertaining to some extent. Good times.

Next movie night with the guys? TRON (the original!).

Yesterday, for me, was one of those straight-up bad luck days. My morning run didn't work out, then my truck rolled in to my fence and damaged the driver-side door pretty badly and work was particularly nasty.

But, next thing I knew, it was 4:30, which means "I'm on weekend." I kept telling Mark that I was depressed because I had had such a bad day. (I'm a pretty upbeat guy, so when I say I'm depressed, it's almost a joke. However, I was a tiny, little bit blue.)

Mark's solution was to take me to Onami (all you can eat sushi, that's right!) and the movie I've been wanting to see for weeks, Inception!



I had heard that it was weird and hard to follow. I'm certainly pro-weird. I had also heard that it's similar to The Matrix. Fine with me; I love that movie.

Turns out, it is all of those things. Plus, I thought Leonardo Decaprio was really great, despite looking like an aging man-child. Also great? Ellen Paige, Kitty Pride. I think I love her; she is so charismatic. There was also a buff European guy for Mark to get excited about.

What I really liked about it was the complex story. It was so dense. The audience is really expected to pay attention to key details, laid out early in the film, that come in to play later in the film. I really enjoyed having to work out what was happening. Most movies these days are much more dumbed down.



For the first third of the movie, my body was working out all that sushi I had eaten, so I was having trouble focusing on the story. Plus there was the non-movie-theater-volume conversation happening right behind us:

"Do you want to try to get a refund?"
"Do you want me to keep waking you up or do you want to just sleep?"

But at one point, I was fully engaged, and the movie seemed to get better and better all the way through to the super thrilling and intriguing conclusion.

I guess I'm excited about this Chris Nolan guy. He's very hot right now; hopefully he keeps up the great work. Oscar buzz? I vote yes.