Movies, Food, Fights, and that Burning Sensation Redux

Wolfboy is coming home. He's lonely in Corsicana. I'll get him tomorrow afternoon. I'll be glad to have him back home.

MOBB and THEGIRL come home tomorrow too.

***

So I decided today to see a bunch of movies. Here's a modified version of an email I just sent Toland about them:

The Dark Knight was, at times, bloody brilliant. Heath Ledger is the kind of bad guy who makes my spine stiffen every time he is on the screen, just wondering what sort of psychotic thing he'll do next (like Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men). It's terrible and great at the same time.

The script is overlong though, and there are some things that left me scratching my head. There are way too many times when Batman appears in a perfectly well-lit room to attack someone. The fact that he just shows up in the shot isn't stealthy, and requires a bit too much suspension of my disbelief. Everyone at the party would have seen him enter, and he could not have surprised Joker. And after the fall out the window with Rachel Dawes, he just goes on his merry way, leaving Joker upstairs with a roomful of rich people. La-dee-dah, scene over?

And Lucius Fox gets crossways with Batman over something that doesn't seem like THAT big of a deal. They work a little too hard to mine the moral ambiguity the Dark Knight is purported to have.

Still, when it pays off, which is often, it is riveting. Again, Ledger... wow. No backstory per se, and after we hear his second explanation of "the scars" we realize that, despite his insistence to the contrary, he's probably not in touch with reality at all. I probably enjoyed seeing Batman pummel Joker a little too much.

So... I give it a B+. A little disappointing.

Hancock can't quite decide what it is. Still, I had a few belly laughs. After 2.5 hours of Batman, the 90-minute Hancock seems to be over in about 20 minutes.

I liked Hellboy II quite a lot. I didn't see the first one. The sheer imagination in this is just... dumbfounding. I loved the look, loved the action. This was my favorite of the three, which I didn't expect. It was fun.

***

BB's current therapy: "Searching" by Chicago, again. I listen to it over and over, with eyes closed sometimes, taking it in. Gorgeous.

***

It was during Hancock that, for the second time in my life, I ended up dousing my nether regions with jalapeno juice.

Sigh.

***

The first time was a simple mistake not all that long ago. Yours truly was slicing peppers in the kitchen, and took a break to use the toilet. Some parts of the male anatomy don't respond well to capsaicin. After squirming and wondering about the burning sensation, I took a glass of milk into the restroom, stood in the bath tub, and poured it over my nether regions. Worked like a charm.

***

Today, see, was altogether different. I'd bought some nachos. Man, movie theater nachos are terrible these days. It was literally a bag of Tostitos-like tiny chips, about two ounces of a cheese-like liquid, and a tub of jalapenos.

It wasn't until I wondered why my lap felt wet that I realized I'd spilled the tub of peppers. It had soaked through the cardboard nacho tray, through my shorts, through my underwear, and... bullseye on what my buddy Derrick used to call the "chilito."

It wasn't BAD, necessarily. I got through all of Hellboy with a mild burning sensation. I also spilled my Coke Zero on my shirt.

So between the drink on my shirt, the stain on my shorts, and the burning crotch/sore knee pain combo that had me limping out there, I must have looked like I was IN that Hellboy movie.

***

I came home, poured a cup of milk, and... you know the rest.

***

Thank GOD for dairy products. Still, that milk was cold.

(I'm going to get shrinkage jokes in the comments, aren't I?)

***

Had a terrific evening with the Baums. Is that redundant? We ate shrimp curry, drank iced coffee, ate cinnamon fudge brownies, and watched fights.

Anderson Silva made very, very short work of James Irvin in a light heavyweight non-title fight. I'm not sure it even last one minute.

I appreciate their friendship and hospitality beyond measure.

***

I'm tired now. I hope you all have had a terrific weekend.