This time with intensity

The woman in front of me at Starbucks just ordered, <dave barry> I am not making this up </dave barry> a "Three pump melon, six scoop [unintelligible], double blended, green tea frappacino". I stepped back away from her after she ordered it because i fully expected a giant bolt of hellfire to come shooting out of the ground to smite her, but it didn't happen. Instead the barrista just looked at her and you could tell that the barrista just wanted to say "No", but instead said "Can you repeat that?"...even though the order was repeated four times, i never picked up what there were six scoops of...it sounded like Nachos or Gatkes.

I think the eleven word starbucks order is the final nail in the coffin for the united states. If you're ordering six scoop nachos, you're not going to be on the cover of "lasting empires of the world".

We are on a roll....several really great films in a row and I can now add 25th Hour to the list. Great performances and Spike Lee captures New York at its heart wrenching post-9/11 new yorkiest.

I just saw a preview for the new Miami Vice movie, and I can hardly wait to see it even though, in the words of the producer in Barton Fink "this movie practically writes itself". The real crime is the plot summary at IMDB. Who writes this stuff?

"Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born Intel analyst Trudy (Naomie Harris), as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders. Sonny Crockett (Colin Farrell) [to the untrained eye, his presentation may seem unorthodox, but procedurally, he is sound] is charismatic and flirtatious until - while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group - he gets romantically entangled with Isabella (Gong Li), the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker. The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. The intensity of the case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one - especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves"

I think is was Seneca who first said "The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged".

Fortunately, there won't be so many words in the movie and it will be more about nightclubs, gunfire, and drug trafficking, with brief periods of witty-in-the-face-of-danger banter.

I recently read these two books. One silently to myself and one aloud and repeatedly to my four year old. When the NYT recently announced that Roth had written 27 of the 25 best works of fiction of the last 25 years, I decided to try reading him again, although i'd never liked him before. I found Dont/pigeon/bus to be more compelling because you can count on the pigeon to always want to drive the bus, but you can't  count on Roth's characters to behave in a manner that's consistent with the context he's created for them.

Postscript: I told my wife that I didn't care for Roth's writing and this has confirmed for her that I am a complete idiot.

Game, Set, Oscar! (I used to love those Walter Monheit reviews in Spy Magazine)

This movie was far better than I expected, and one of Woody Allen's finest efforts of late. I have a feeling he's got an inappropriate affection for Scarlett given that she's to appear in his next movie as well, but then he stopped caring about inappropriate affections about four exits back up the road. Outstanding work by the supporting cast. Highly recommended.

Reminded me of David Lynch in many ways...Kind of a buddy/road movie with the problem being that one of the buddies is dead before they set out on the journey. I loved it.

My daughter just had her 8th birthday - opening a final present that was obviously a wrapped hardcover book, we asked our neighbor's daugher, 4 years old, what she thought it was. Her answer: "I think it's the wizard of oz popup book". Good guess, nice and specific. We then asked our 4 year old son Michael what he thought it was. "I think it's a chipmunk!".  Oy....gonna have to work on the fundamentals a bit more with this one.

Directed by Sean Penn, which guarantees that whatever you're in for, it will be uncompromising, so if you accept that going in, the movie works. A kindred spirit to The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada in the "slow decent into madness" category. Hall of Fame cast with brief turns by Benecio del Toro and Vanessa Redgrave.

The director of Memento goes film noir (or "neo noir" as the netflix jacket says, but I don't think i know what that means). Awesome movie. Highly recommended.

Mini-Review: Ray, but with eyesight. If you saw Ray, you've seen walk the line. If you've seen walk the line, you've seen Ray. Hollywood loves a formula.