John Cusack Marathon

The other night, Keri and I got this idea to have a John Cusack movie marathon. He is one of those quirky actors with the hilarious lines that are delivered just right. He speaks fast and very stream-of-consciousness.

We had a $20 giftcard to Blockbuster. So, Keri went and came home with 4 Cusack movies.

Say Anything
Grosse Pointe Blank
High Fidelity
America’s Sweethearts

We have watched Say Anything and Grosse Pointe Blank so far. His movies always have great music in them. (Who will ever associate “In Your Eyes” with, except for a boombox and Cusack?) and plots that are fairly serious, but spun hilariously. Like a teen who has no aspirations, but falls in love with a super-smart scholar. Or a hitman who has lost his desire to kill and goes to his 10 year high school reunion unsure of what to tell people his profession is.

Brad Pitt On Marriage

“Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able” is what Brad Pitt says in Esquire magazine.

Now…I think Brad Pitt is very cool. Did you see him in the movie “Seven?” The agony and angst on his face when he is deciding what to do with Kevin Spacey’s character after Pitt finds out Spacey murdered his wife. Great cinematic moment.

But…I have to take issue with using your relationship as a political tool. Basically, he is saying, “Angelina and I won’t marry until everyone can marry whomever they want.” I believe taking a stand for political and social issues is a noble endeavour. I even feel that way whenever I may disagree with the political or social stance, as I do in this case.
However, I would never do that at the expense of my relationships, especially my relationship with the mother of my new child and the mother of the kids I just adopted.

This is what I think Brad is saying:

• We are celebrities.
• This crazy American culture loves celebrities.
• This crazy American culture especially loves it when two high profile celebrities get married to each other (right, ex-wife Jennifer Aniston?)
• Therefore, since the world would love to see us get married, let’s use that as a tool to make a political and social statement.

Instead of a hunger strike, this is like Brad and Angelina are on a marriage strike. It’s weird.

I Have Angst, pt. 2 will be posted soon.

Nasty Water Spoutses

My youngest, Jerah, is funny at the dinner table.

Today, she said, looking at my juice glass, “I like Winnie the Poohses.”

“Oh yeah?” I said. “Do you like nasty hobbitses?”

“Yeah,” she responds. “And, I like nasty orcses, too.”

If you haven’t seen Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies, you will miss out on the humor of this little bit. A few weeks ago, Jerah said something similar. We were singing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and she got to the “crawled up the water spout” part and then stopped. She looked at me and said, “I like water spoutses.” That’s when I taught her, much to my wife’s chagrin, how to say “nasty orcses” and “nasty hobbitses.”

Batman Begins and The Wedding Crashers

Batman Begins was fantastic. Good action. Great story. I love…the Bat Man.

We also watched The Wedding Crashers yesterday night. Crude. But I enjoy Vince Vaughn immensely.

I recommend the first. The second you could give or take.

Blockbuster Online

Recently, we subscribed to Blockbuster Online. It’s like Netflix, except in my opinion, better. Better for us. Maybe not better for everyone.

We pay a small monthly fee and then rent as many movies online as we can watch. We subscribe to the cheapest plan, we means we can only have one movie out at a time. We get it in the mail. Watch it. Send it back. They receive it and send us another from our list.

With Blockbuster you also receive free “in-store” rental coupons. So, in addition to the movies we receive online, we also can get some at our local rental store. It’s great, because we have one just down the street from us.

Last night, we watched “The Chronicles of Narnia.” Coming up next is “Batman Begins.” We have also seen “Fever Pitch,” “Firewall,” “Fight Club,” and a few others we got in-store that I have forgotten about.

It’s fun. Especially for us parents who haven’t seen a movie in the theater since we had our first child. We are finally getting to see some of these films the rest of you saw 3 years ago.