Contraband

Tonight I watched "Contraband" starring Mark Wahlberg. Yes, it was an action film centered around smuggling, blah blah (not that that's a bad thing, but I know the premise immediately turned Lisa off - and good. I'd hate to spend my life with a woman who has anything but a grudging tolerance for boy movies). But this is a smart, mostly blood free film (excluding one Panamanian shoot-out not involving the main characters) that has a protagonist worth watching. I greatly enjoyed it. Rent it. Grade: A

How I Spent my Day Off

Had a great day off. Forced the kids to clean the living room and watched part of the Indy 500 with them. Later the grown-ups napped before we took Lu window shopping for her bedroom re-do. Then we picked up tacos for the kids and parked at Billy Mitchell airport to watch the planes. While Lis went over to her friend Nancy's for a bit I got to enjoy a post-bedtime quiet house and watch the last 100 laps of the CocaCola 600. (No, I don't like NASCAR or Indy, but it was sports and the only other alternative was watching golf. Blech.) This was followed by an evening drive, a Redbox movie and some "Don't Forget the Lyrics" on Netflix.

Very late last night I also watched "Nazis at the Center of the Earth" starring Dominique Swain and Jake Busey. It is as tasteless and poorly done as you imagine, with UFO's and cyborg soldiers and prisoners being skinned alive - and even worse, at times you're forced to watch Swain try to act. BUT the Hitler scenes rocked. Grade: C

Reality of Love

The movie to break my string of lousy rentals: 'Reality of Love' starring Bradley Cooper and Jason Priestly. Cooper plays the best friend and manager of fading star Jason Priestly, who in a last ditch effort to save his acting career stars in a Bacheloresque reality show to find his 'true love'. But is the girl of his dream in love with him, or has she fallen for Cooper off-camera? It's a cute little movie made for ABC Family, and I thought the ending showed a fair bit of 'awwww'. Grade: B

Grilling Out!

The Woman in Black

I watched "The Woman in Black" last night, the Edwardian horror film starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. I was eager to see it but was disappointed, which is becoming a sad theme with my recent rentals. It's a bunch of scary music, sleight of hand and horror cliche slapped together under the illusory guise of being a 'literary horror flim'. Bah. Episodes of Scooby-Doo are scarier. 

Grade: C

The Fern

Here's the fern on our front porch

 

Donald Driver for the Win!

If you are not watching Dancing with Stars, you are a soulless, heartless wretch of a human being. Go Donald! Bring that Mirrorball home!

DONALD DRIVER!!!!!!!!!

Smiley pulls his own tooth

In happier news . . . I also came home to find out that Smiley had lost his 'other' front tooth, this time by yanking it out himself. He was ungodly proud of his action and asked if this meant another gift from the Tooth Fairy (which he doesn't believe in). Seeing as I'd bought him a 10 episode DVD of both the original He-Man series and BraveStarr this morning, the answer was heck no. 

The moral of the story: if you intend to perform surgery on yourself for profit, make sure someone's willing to foot the bill first.

My Uncle Chester has passed

Sad news - my cousin Mick reports that my Great Uncle Chester has passed away. Oddly, I just drove by his nursing home an hour ago (a good distance from home) and thought of stopping in. I bought this house from him five years ago, and long ago lost track of how many times I asked him to come over and check out the remodel, but even when his health was stable he showed no interest. I'm sure he'll finally pay a visit tonight.

RIP Uncle Chester, and say hello to my Grandma.