I really have little interest in Black Friday shenanigans. OK, yes, my ears do perk up a little when I hear of rock-bottom prices on random DVDs and CDs, but those can usually be found just as easily via Amazon, and while we probably can't claim any longer that shopping at Amazon is a weaker example of rampant consumerism or anything, we're also ( Read more... )

...is the name of a Kamikaze Hearts song, apparently? But I was really just thinking of the Mountain Goats song "Weekend in Western Illinois." I'm going to have to check out this Kamikaze Hearts business and see if they name-check Wegman's ( Read more... )

Hey, LiveJournal! How's it going? I'm going to post now!

This is bad. I'm feeling the need to think back and cover what I've missed since my last post. Mostly just the Labor Day weekend, I guess. But I saw some movies before I went upstate. Is that it? That's probably it.

First, this:

Marcus Nispel's remake of Conan the Barbarian is loud, ( Read more... )

Marisa and I took a short vacation upstate this past week, and I think what made it a vacation and not just a trip upstate was that we didn't get that much sleep, like when you're in a new place and you don't want to miss anything by sleeping in (and I really mean "you," because I probably do actually want to sleep in anyway ( Read more... )

As mentioned, I forgot my camera in Brooklyn when I left for Christmas, along with my phone and laptop and medicine. So I have no pictures to show from the trip to Saratoga to Rochester back to Saratoga. You'll have to take my word for it that I saw lots of Rob and Sabrina and Jason and Derrick. Herewith, our upstate events post-Rochester:

A Noah ( Read more... )

It's been a busy couple of days followed by a spectacularly, and typically Rochesterian, Christmas. Here's one way to explain it: I was in D.A.'s in Saratoga on Christmas Eve Eve and ran into my friend Stacy, from Saratoga, who I hadn't seen in years and years, except on Facebook which we all know doesn't count. "Stacy" is not a very specific way ( Read more... )

Before we left town for multiple Thanksgivings, I got most of the Thanksgiving movies squared away. Marisa and I saw Love and Other Drugs so I could review it for PopMatters, and PopMatters also hooked me up with the chance to see Faster and review that, too. Love and Other Drugs may qualify as above-average for its genre, though it doesn't really ( Read more... )

For the last few years, Marisa and I have gone upstate over Labor Day weekend for a trip to the racetrack and/or drive-in, but because of this wedding thing we've got going on this year, we decided to go a month early. We packed a lot of living into mostly the west side of Saratoga between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon: a series of meals with ( Read more... )

Marisa and I went upstate this weekend to see family plus Rob (I think this essentially counts as just family). We wanted to give Lando a break after the Berkshires trip a few weeks ago and any number of upcoming summer jaunts up to and including a driving-distance honeymoon, so for our spring trip to Saratoga we decided to take the bus ( Read more... )

The only big Christmas Weekend movie I didn't wind up reviewing this year was Sherlock Holmes, which I saw tonight with my sister. It certainly ranks in the upper echelon of movies we've seen together on Christmas, admittedly not a tough genre to dominate. I basically enjoyed the movie, but there's something slightly wan about it that keeps it from ( Read more... )