Tue, June 24, 2003
A weekend spent out of town and - blissfully - largely away from the Internet. Not that I don't love the many-headed beast, but at times a little loss of content can be just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, it means another trip down Bullet Lane:
Owning Mahowny - This was a fine film, solidly crafted and endowed with three rock-solid performances by actors who could not have been cast more perfectly. Philip Seymour Hoffman stars, in the role he was born to play (and thus plays in about three movies a year), a meek, struggling lifetime loser who has just enough self respect not to fall asleep with his head in an oven. This time, it's Dan Mahowny, a banking executive with a gambling problem who we meet just at the point where he starts mixing business with pleasure. His girlfriend Belinda, loyal to a fault and so sweet you actually find yourself feeling sick just watching her predicament, is played by Minnie Driver. (She's as subtle as a child's eyelash and beautiful in her 1980s poofy hair and colossal tinted eyeglasses.) And John Hurt is riveting as the calculating Atlantic City casino manager who reads Mahowny like a book and helps him believe he's the high roller he'll never be. It was a fun movie to watch, and the churning anxiety it fosters is more like Fargo than Rounders, but as tantalizing as either.
Roger Dodger - Just finished this one on DVD and loved it. (You're going to have to throw a pretty bad Campbell Scott movie at me for me not to love it.) There will be a review on pH7media.com as soon as I've enjoyed the special features, so I'll keep it short here except to say that - intentionally or not - it delivers precision insight into the world of dating and sex while simultaneously making a mockery of both the male and the female approach to it.
Atlanta - Hot, hot, hot! Plenty attractive, which I knew, and fun enough in terms of available opportunities and people. But, hoo boy, I never thought I'd need reminding just how much I prefer L.A.'s climate to just about anyplace in the South, but there it was! This is the kind of place you really want to have a butler who goes and starts the car to get the A/C running even if you only ran in to buy a pack of gum.
The Braves - 10-2! Go, Bravos! If you have to only attend one baseball game in your life, you could do a lot worse than Turner Field. Sure, you could do better - it lacks the sense of history that some parks have - but at least in Southern California, you could do a hell of a lot worse.
My sister - Spectacular. What a champ. She really holds her own, but not to the exclusion of being a part of the team and needing to reach out to others once in a while. Someday, she should have her own article on pH7media.com, but then again, like so many things, I often want to keep my feelings about her just between her and me. Suffice it to say that she's amazing.
Reducing a person to a bullet point - kinda feels wrong. Well, anyway. I know she'd understand.
The Athletic Reporter - This was my first weekend completely out of touch as it went live. By and large, this was not a problem due to some preparation beforehand (as opposed to preparation after the fact?), but co-creator Joe did have to do some Photoshopping which is a shame. Hopefully, we'll learn from this experience and be ready for it the next time I'm unavailable.
The Hulk - We saw Owning Mahowny instead. I'm told I should avoid The Hulk, but it's actually doing okay on RottenTomatoes.com and all the articles I read about it before its release made it seem really interesting. I'll probably see it soon, anyway, just so I know. (I'm not going to try heroin "just to see what it's like," but I'm okay with that approach to a movie.) I'm planning to write more about this on the main site, so I'll shut up now.
Joe's wedding - I had almost forgotten, but I have about another week to go and sign up for my tux. Fortunately I already have my measurements from the last go-around, so it should be a breeze.
Poppy's wedding - Received my invitation over the weekend, which is odd since Joe's wedding is two weeks earlier. Hm. The reply card has two boxes to check:
_ accept(s) with pleasure
_ decline(s) with regretI was giggling about the fact that they presume to know with which emotion I accept or decline, so I was tempted to draw little arrows, to indicate that I "accept with regret," but then I figured she'd probably take it as half-serious, since we all know I think she should be marrying me instead. Which isn't the kind of thing you want someone thinking when they're planning their wedding. So, I decided against getting all cute.
Apple WWDC - Steve Jobs gave another of his wildly enthusiastic keynote addresses to the Mac faithful on Monday and I was too busy hurtling westward through the sky to experience it firsthand. Sometimes the recap is less exhausting anyway. The good news is that we have some excitingly powerful new computers to look forward to, and the upcoming Mac OS X release ("Panther" - they're going through the jungle cats so fast we'll be seeing promos for "OS X: Abyssinian" in no time) looks pleasing, if still somewhat unworthy of another $129. I liked it so much I kind of forgot I'm still running Jaguar for at least the next four months.
Thanks again to the Beallsvonian for showing the bullet-recap path. It's good in a pinch.
