kdiddy.org

Did I mention that we went to see No Country for Old Men last week? I got out of work at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, so we went and caught a matinee in Squirrel Hill. We both really liked it. I must say that I’m really glad that Josh Brolin appears to be working steadily on quality projects now. He’s an incredibly decent actor and pulls off the austere dude very well. Unfortunately, I can’t help but want to yell, “Brand! Braaaaand!” whenever I see him. Old Goonies die hard.

Anyway, despite all of its glowing reviews, I get the sense that a lot of people won’t like No Country for Old Men and I don’t say that to be snobby. It’s just very…still and dark and quiet and gently terrifying. There’s no music. Just the desert and some men and some money and the modern world marching into town to plant its flag. The villain is just evil personified and messes with his victims’ heads. And nothing pleases him more than when they play along.

Because I’m a sucker, I went next door and picked up the book right after the movie was over. Hey, winter break will get here eventually and then I might actually get to read something! I read the first few pages the other night. I’ve never read any of McCarthy’s other books, though I am a fan of the Southern Gothic. He has a lot of sentences that are like, “The deputy left Chigurh standing in the corner of the office with his hands cuffed behind him while he sat in the swivel chair and took off his hat and put his feet up and called Lamar on the mobile.” This and this and this and this. Mental block, as I can’t think of what that’s called at the moment. I’m not sure what purpose that device serves and I’m not sure that I like it but somehow it fits the whole atmosphere.

I also still want to see American Gangster and I’m curious about I Am Legend. I saw a preview the other night for Charlie Wilson’s War which was intriguing, despite having the wild combination of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. Having a couple of sweethearts like that in a movie together could either be surprisingly brilliant or a really unfortunate failure (and a waste of some Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Completely unrelated to anything above but it keeps running through my mind, Modern Marvels did an episode about pigs last night and talked about the pork industry’s genetic…whatever. Not modification just selected breeding, dig? Anyway, this requires artificial insemination and there are people in this world whose job it is to, erm, assist the pigs when it comes time to collect the…specimens. And there are some things in life you can’t unsee. Obviously, they didn’t show the whole act but they showed enough and later when we were watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, my mind kept wandering. It was really weird. “Hark the herald handjob piiigs!” I’m easily distracted, I guess.

That said, I am deeply grateful to the pig fluffers of the world since they allow me to have tastier pork chops. Big ups, takin’ one for the team.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 10:28 am and is filed under plop culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.