I think I have some sort of summer flu. Last night I felt awful--ached everywhere, shivering with bone-deep chills. It's normal weather for August, and my fingertips are numb. My husband's prescription was a hot soak and blackberry brandy. We have a hot tub, but it's out on the deck, and I was not going to be wet outside. So I drank the brandy and climbed into the tub. But I needed a loooong soaking to kill the chills, so I took a book along. PALE IMMORTAL had given me chills the night before--or maybe it was that awful storm--so I took it with me to the tub, figuring it would be like covering my head with a blanket. The ghoulies can't get you when you're under a blanket, you know.
Reading in the bathtub was one of my favorite forms of relaxation when I was a teenager. If nobody pounded on the door (we only had the one bathroom) I'd add hot water when things started to cool off, happily turn myself into a prune, and read for hours. Haven't done it in years. It's sooo self-indulgent. But it's lovely, especially when you're reading a delicious chiller like PALE IMMORTAL. I highly recommend it. Just be careful not to get too much steam going. It can melt the glue.
A few nights ago we watched 16 BLOCKS on dvd. I really wanted to get out to a theater, but life's been too crazy, so Blockbuster it is. But there's a sad dearth of decent new releases this time of year, so it's hit-and-miss, mostly miss. Now, Bruce Willis is not one of my husband's favorites, and I still think "Moonlighting" was his best gig. (Am I forgetting anything more memorable?) But this movie was pretty good. It has the wild chase stuff going, which generally bores me, but I thought the pacing in this was pretty good--left room for a little character development. Mos Def is quite good. Willis plays the kind of hero I really go for--tortured. He's made some really big mistakes, but this time he's going to get it right. What's fun about the dvd is the alternate ending. After you watch it, you know what the alternative will be. Interesting they should choose the one they did. Has anyone seen it? Which one do you think works better?If I get to the theater in the near future, I want to see "Little Miss Sunshine" and "World Trade Center." Will I be disappointed?
6 comments:
Ah, yes, Bruce. Gotta love him. I liked him in all of the above. . . and also in The Fifth Element, a much underrated flick.
WTC was a good movie. Very personal, very tough to watch in places, but very real and vivid. Everyday heroes. Worth the money.
Haven't seen Little MIss Sunshine, yet. . . it came out here just in the artsy theaters. . . limited release. Don't know why. Go anyway. . . great cast.
And reading in the tub? One of my favorite things, too. I used to write in the tub in the early days. Following in the great tradition of Winston Churchill, who wrote all of his major speeches in the tub while smoking cigars and drinking brandy. Ahem. No cigars for me and I'm not a big drinker. . . but I still claim the tradition!
Haven't yet, but would like to see both WTC and Little Miss Sunshine.
I did watch 16 Blocks on video and also watched the alternate ending, which is something I rarely do, so it's interesting, Kathy, that you would ask about that. I thought the theatrical ending was best because I think they flubbed the alternate. The alternate would have worked better if Mos Def's character had known what happened to Willis' character, I think.
Anyway, Bruce Willis is one of those actors I wish I could hate, but just can't because he's so good at what he does. I loved all the movies you guys mentioned, but I have to say one of my favorites of his was Sin City. Unfortunately, he hasn't had a good comedy out since Moonlighting. The Whole 9 Yards was so-so, not a great movie in general.
Has Willis done a romantic comedy on the big screen?
"Bandits" with Cate Blanchett and BBThornton was pretty funny. I made everybody mad when we went to see "The Sixth Sense" in the theater and I said "he's dead" when the camera backed up to the ceiling or whatever. Well, it was so obvious. I liked Sin City, too.
Oh, but I didn't mean to be a killjoy over "The Sixth Sense." It slipped out. Clyde says it's embarrassing to go to the movies with me sometimes. I remember seeing "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" together in ND, which I thought was hilarious. I laughed until my sides ached. I was the only one. It's justn't the ND brand of humor. And when I cry, there's sniffling and Kleenex and then the lights come on and people look to see who was doing all that sniveling.
thanks for the cover, kathleen!
i've never read a book or magazine or anything in the bathtub! i absolutely don't understand it!!! water + books?
how did it start?
when i was growing up 3 of us had to use the same bathwater. so it was in and out, next kid. maybe that's why i never developed a bathtub reading habit.
This is a really late post, Kathy, but I just saw LIttle Miss Sunshine and really dislike it. Yean, I know. . . me the cinema-file. . . I was primed for a comedy, even an offbeat one, and got. . . something really depressing. Strange movie. NOT funny. Highly disfunctional people every one. Normally that can be very satisfying in a comedy, but these people were just plain depressing. The plot takes twists you don't expect and aren't sure how to handle and the ending! Well it's clear by then that the entire thing was a set-up from the start to make a point about the whole beauty pagent thing. By then the actions of the characters were lame and over the top at the same time. It made me cringe.
I hate movies where there the character arc is hidden at the end like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. . . basically you never see it and aren't sure if it really exists or not.
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