Movies re-reviewed.

Linda got an unexpected day off, and took the opportunity for a long weekend in Portland to visit the boys. Revealing as I can be about myself, I don't like talking about my family, for some reason. Both Todd and Toby are going through some major changes right now and I wish there was more I could do.

Anyway, I've been batching it for the last 3 nights. I'd thought I'd drink some beer, but as usual I ask myself if I really want to, and the answer seems to be no. I wake up every morning kinda grateful I didn't. It just seems to be too hard on me anymore.

I've been even more of a couch potato than usual. Free to flip channels to my hearts content.

For some reason I've started watching Old Movies again, after not watching them for years. I've found I treasure my memories of movies like Bonnie and Clyde, The Wild Bunch, Clockwork Orange and so on, and that new viewings usually don't measure up.

I watched both French Connection and French Connection II a week or so ago, and found that they're good movies -- but not the great movies I remembered. What seemed so real and gritty then seems kind of phony now. The violence seems toned down. The acting more mannered.

Speaking of which, I managed to sit through Heaven's Gate...sort of. Caught the last hour, then went and caught the first hour, and still haven't seen the middle. Every bit as bad and muddled as they say, but it had such possibilities.

10,000 BC: An absolutely ludicrous movie that somehow hit the spot. I've never thought Roland Emmerich was much of a directer: I pretty much despised Independence Day; and everything he's done since. But as a popcorn movie, it was fine.

I started to watch the first five minutes of Kings, out of curiosity.

It totally grabbed me. I think it's one of the best things I've seen this year. I'm hooked. David and Goliath. David and Saul. In the modern world. Cool beans. What does it say about our eternally messed up human nature that this story can be totally believable in the modern idiom?