Picket Lines and Picket Signs, Don't Punish Me With Brutality

(Marvin Gaye, What's Going On)



Check out this headline from CNN.com. Dozens of people? Dozens? What do you think they're saying out in Hollywood, while they're reading this article online?

DOZENS! THERE ARE LITERALLY 36 PEOPLE PROTESTING OUR MOVIE!! WE'RE FINISHED IN THIS BUSINESS!! I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO LAW SCHOOL INSTEAD!!

Blood Runs Through Your Veins, That's Where Our Similarity Ends

(Editors, Blood)

Just so nobody freaks out (Brandy), I'm not going to be watching Top Chef tonight, b/c we're headed over to casa de bloomfield to watch There Will Be Blood. I have to say, I'm very excited to see this movie, in no small part due to Daniel Day Lewis's robust mustache, and I'll check out Top Chef as soon as I can.

I Make the Bed, I Change the Sheets, I Even Learned How to Use the Washing Machine

(Wilco, Hate It Here)

Amanda left for D.C. yesterday morning, and I am so bored. I mean, I've had a ton of basketball to watch yesterday, and this afternoon, and I've gotten a lot of work done. I also did 3 loads of laundry, went to the grocery store, did the dishes, and I'm actually hoping to iron some shirts. I've also listened to a bunch of new music I picked up from a friend at work, and I'm sure I'll end up posting some of that soon, but man, when she leaves me to my own devices, I either get a lot of stuff done, or I end up eating popcorn and snickers bars for dinner. This weekend, thankfully, it was the former.

Right now I'm watching 3:10 To Yuma, and it's pretty good. I didn't think I was a big fan of westerns, other than Tombstone, and my feelings about Russell Crowe haven't changed in close to a decade. He's a great actor, but why does he have to be such a grumpy son of a bitch all the time? Would it kill him to smile? Ever? Amanda and I saw American Gangster in the theater back in the fall, and that's the first of his movies I've seen in the theater. I will always rent them or watch them on tv, but I had a moratorium on paying for his box office intake, but I lifted it for American Gangster, which I enjoyed. The dude is in some good movies, that's for sure. It's just too bad he's such a douche.

Texas played a hell of a game against Kansas today, but ended up losing the Big XII Tournament. We ultimately scored a 2 seed in the South region, though, which gives us games in Little Rock, Houston, and San Antonio, should we get that far. That's pretty damn awesome, if you ask me. Unfortunately, we play Friday, and I don't think I'll be able to see the first round game.

Ok, I'm done rambling. The rest of this movie's all that stands between me and hitting the sack. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to some of this new music.

'Cause London Is Drowning (and I ... Live By the River)

(The Clash, London Calling)

Man. Last night, before watching the finale of Project Runway (say what you will, but it's a damn good reality show, which is pretty much all that's on right now), Amanda and I watched Eastern Promises. I'd heard it was a pretty good movie, plus there was the Best Actor nomination for Viggo Mortenson, so we decided to give it a shot. It's basically the story of some Russian mobsters who do some nasty, nasty things, and the hot fiesty blond doctor who's not afraid of them, played by Naomi Watts. Honestly, I'd see just about anything that she's in. (I even saw King Kong, but I probably couldn't sit through it again.) She's not really a bad actress at all, when she's not playing opposite ginormous monkeys.

So, anyway, these Russkies (who conveniently live in London, thereby giving them a reason to speak English for most of the movie), they're really bad dudes (dey will spleash de pot venever de fack dey pleezze), except for, you guessed it, Viggo, who's just sort of a bad dude (after having sex with an underage prostitute in front of another guy who just stands there and watches, he discreetly gives her some money so she can leave town and avoid the unpleasantries which are certain to befall her otherwise - what a sweetheart!). Turns out he's also quite a badass who, while being attacked by 2 Chechenyans in a bath house, manages to disgustingly break some of their bones before slicing them up with their own blades, after being sliced a few times himself, and all the while, with his wang hanging out. Could have done without the wang, but the rest of it was pretty cool.

If you can get past the rather realistic gore and violence, I'd say you should definitely see this movie. Honestly, it was a great story, unlike, say, A History of Violence, which also starred Viggo and was also directed by David Cronenberg. (That one was pretty slow, boring even, with a rather ironic lack of any violence until it was too late for me to care anymore. Actually, I remember leaving the theater with friends and saying that the movie should probably have started where it ended, that it would have been a much better story that way.) Eastern Promises was, in a disturbing, need a shower, sort of way, a really great movie. If you're a fan of a good story, Russian mobsters, ultra violence, Naomi Watts, or bath house wang, then check it out.