Sick Weekend

Hello, no I'm fine and dandy!

Andrew, unfortunately, was not. We found out Saturday morning (after 3 or 4 days of a high fever) that he has pneumonia! Wahoo! WOWIE ZOWIE! No.

Now, he was supposed to leave yesterday for his latest 9-week stint in Detroit, but as you can guess that didn't happen. No, he's leaving tomorrow instead! Boo.

This is how we spent our weekend. We hit up Blockbuster... hard:

305:

A cross parody of 300 and The Office. Wait wait wait, you say, surely that's total CRAP. I mean, LOOK at those guys!

Yes, look at them. And then watch this movie! I mean it. I was totally sure that I would get through the first 5 minutes and then turn it off in disgust and wonder why we had agreed to rent it. But no. 88 minutes later, I was still laughing my ass off.

It's a decent (and hilarious) plot, well-parodied acting, and very impressive artistic direction for the budget. Rent it. And then buy it. I swear, I haven't laughed harder! Well, until...

In Bruges:

Going into this, I wasn't all that familiar with the writer/director Martin McDonagh. Now it doesn't surprise me that he also wrote Lt. of Inishmore currently running at Signature (which I have friends working on, and whose London production went through 5 or 6 gallons of blood per show!)

The writing is brilliant. Of course, Irish accents are hard to follow, so you really have to pay attention. You love these guys, you really do! Which makes this movie that much harder to watch. Brendan Gleeson is amazing, of course.

Can't get better than a potential shoot-off in a residential little B&B where the owner refuses to get out of the way. Unwilling to injure her, both men (Colin Farrell, and a delightfully creepy Ralph Feinnes) resolve to take it outside. "Promise?" "Yeah, of course I promise." "When I go outside, which way do I go, left or right?" "You go right dammit, it's a huge fucking canal!" "On the count of three then." "Right." [awkward pause] "Who's counting, you or me?" HILARIOUS! Oh, but there's blood. LOTS and LOTS of blood. Beware!

Then, Leatherheads. All I can say was it was definitely what it was. It was cute, it was a period flick, and it was about the birth of professional football. Other than that it was a tad uninspired and flat. Who casts John Krasinski as someone you're not supposed to like?! Can't happen. Sorry, but it wasn't the greatest we watched.

We were going to end the evening with 21:

All in all, not a bad flick. It also delivered what it promised: Blackjack in abundance, the story of a poor smart kid who cashes in on a talent, his criminal professor, and intrigue, and sex. Wouldn't be a nice Vegas flick without sex, huh? Sure.

Anyhoodle, I thought it was flat as well. Tad predictable. Not that exciting for me. But dontcha love looking at Jim Sturgess? I do.

Well, we did end the evening with it. And then went back for more.

Juno, I'd already seen. So I fell asleep to it while we camped in the living room eating ice cream and animal crackers (great weekend, did I mention?)

Finally, after some work for me (last time at WSC!), and a Redskins win for Andrew, we watched the last movie of the weekend.

Hot Fuzz:

I had heard that this movie was very good. And I loved Shawn of the Dead, so I was all sorts of ready for this... I thought...

First of all, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are just about the best buddy pair ever. They play off each other so well, even if the relationship was a bit too familiar from Shawn. And the plot. Slightly.

However, this semi-parody of Cop-Buddy films (which they openly admit in references to Point Break and Bad Boys II... repeatedly) is the funniest thing we watched all weekend. Yes, more shock-blood-humor. But the twist was (for me) so VERY unexpected I didn't know what to do but keep laughing. I did not stop laughing for the last 45 minutes of the movie. Wonderful.

So that's that. Back to work, Andrew leaves tomorrow, etc.

But a whole lotta movies just made my new Netflix queue!