I'm easily distracted by small, shiny objects.

There are a handful of things that have been distracting me from my Summer of 1000 Movies. Some of them are, in no particualar order:

A. The NBA Playoffs. Being a diehard Celtics fan (I inherited this love from my father who was a big Russell/Cousy fan) it's nice to have the C's back in the playoffs. They've stunk the joint out in recent years, so I make an effort to watch every one of their games in a lame attempt to make up for lost time.

B. A Song of Ice and Fire. George R. R. Martin's fantasy historical series is knockin' my socks off. I'm currently digesting book four...and that's a problem. There will be seven books in this series but only four have been published as yet. Five is out in September (allegedly, there have been delays before) and I'm about to pee my pants with excitement.

C. Work. Currently rockin' two jobs (the better to pay my bills with) and that takes a lot of time and effort. Luckily, on certain nights, I can read or watch movies while working at Hertz. Don't tell my boss.

But enough of my bellyachin'.

Bradley Bridget Jones Barrett update: I have lost another pound! Woo hoo! I've truly only put a half-hearted effort into my dieting, and I have yet to exercise in any meaningful way, but I've lost three pounds in three weeks. Current weight is 237.

And finally getting to my Summer of 1000 Movies, I watched a few good ones this week. In the order that I watched them...

4. A couple of months ago I got Sunshine from Netflix. I watched it and sat, stunned, in my chair letting my amazement settle. I then drove to the post office, mailed it back, and drove directly to Hastings to purchase my own copy. I then sat down and watched it again. So my buddy Larry (nee Jerry) was over and he'd not seen it so I made him watch it. It's the story of a future Earth, where the sun is dying and a space mission has been launched to reignite the sun thereby saving us humans from imminent death. Along the way the usual life or death situations occur. I have to say, that there was nothing wholly original about this movie (there's only so much you can do with a realistic-style space movie) but there are parts that exceed their grasp in an excellent way. The direction was strong, the writing economic and lively, and there was nary a bum note from the cast. Overall, one of the most well made, interesting, and entertaining movies I've had the pleasure to watch. A-.

5. Not to be on a mini sci-fi run, but I watched Alien for the first time in a bazillion years. I think the last time I watched this film it was a VHS copy. I remember really liking this one, but I'd forgotten many of the specifics. I'd also forgotten that Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) played science officer Ash. What a wonderful exercise in claustrophobic atmosphere and tension. And while set in space, this is really a horror film. A really well made horror film. I can't imagine that anyone who reads this will not be familiar with the plot, so I'll leave the summary to others. I love this film. It's one of the best of its kind. A.

6. I remember the first time I saw the Mel Gibson vehicle Payback. I thought it was fun, dark, and kind of odd. An intersting use of bad-guy-as-sympathetic-guy dynamics. I gave it three stars when I was filling out Netflix reviews. I found out recently that there was going to be a director's cut (seven years later!) and that because of studio interference during the intial production director Brian Helgeland was being given the opportunity to cut the film the way he originally intended. Ugh. What folly. After noticing a different variation of the opening, the only thing that was improved upon was the score. I'm not kidding. Most of the movie was either unchanged or not changed enough that I noticed. But the real problem was the ending. While the earlier version had a sense of fun and dark humor, the director's version was overly simple and humorless. Bleck. If you feel a burning need in your loins to see this movie, get the version originally released and not the directors cut. Original version C+, directors cut D-.


7. Watched a delightful horror/black comedy movie called Severance yesterday. It's about a sales team for a weapons manufacturing company embarking on a "team building" weekend in the Hungarian wilderness. Yeah, kinda goofy, but in this case it works just fine. As the team arrives in the woods, things begin to go awry, and then they start getting picked off, as you'd imagine, one by one. Some excellent British humor moments that had me laughing my proverbial knickers off, some well done jump-scares (one even made me slosh my cereal all over my lap), and some gore/boobs/satisfaction-when-the-dumbass-dies moments. Not art, but fun and etertaining. B-.

That's all for now. Buh bye.