This week looks to be mildly busy but without much stress, despite the fact that it's my birthday on Sunday. Thirty-nine is not as bad as forty I suppose, but I do notice myself thinking about my life and my past/present/future more and more. I'm happy, in general, with the who, what, where, and why of me.
I don't have plans for this weekend. But maybe I'll scare up some excitement somehow. :) Maybe I'll run the US bordercrossing in the van -- aka the A-Team van -- wearing a turban and waving a plastic AK47 and yelling "jihad on bush!" "jihad on america!" -- that might raise an eyebrow.
I've been looking forward to seeing a movie called The Lookout which is due out on the 30th. I heard it's an above average crime story, and I dig crime stories.
I saw Shooter last week with Mark Wahlberg which is/was your basic revenge tale, a Hollyweird cash-cow plot that has been done and re-done since the late-seventies. Let me give some basics and see if you've heard it: hero comes back from war disillusioned, tries to redeem himself, gets screwed over, snaps, and gets some revenge big time. It's a convention. Like romantic comedies. Like sports movies.
The key to a good convention movie is in it's execution. For instance, First Blood and Firefox were crap (anything with Chuck Norris too), but Man on Fire was well-executed. The story/director must hit partiular notes to pull it off. Tony Scott (although I can't stand his cinematography and editing) is pretty skilled at hitting those notes.
Well, Shooter wasn't bad overall. The end was necessarily predictable, but it had lots of well coordinated and realistic (to a point) action. I didn't buy Wahlberg's character, however, a character called "Swagger" that had too much swager, too much 'look how cool I am' rather than the down-and-out hero or suffering hero. The script didn't develop him enough (it doesn't take much). So I'd give it a B/B-.
