CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

Bound by Logic

We walked into Sherlock Holmes with the baseline hope of being entertained, and we were not disappointed.  Director Guy Ritchie has created a period/action/mystery film, starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson.  We could not recall a single other Guy Ritchie film that we’ve actually watched all the way through, as we typically find ourselves overwhelmed by the style but underwhelmed by the story, however in this case the film delivers on both counts.

The story revolves around a plot to return England to her glory days as the Empire, including re-absorbing the United States, weakened by the Civil War.  A secret society uses advanced (for the times) technologies in an attempt to give the appearance of supernatural powers, and to then rule by fear.  In a parallel thread, Watson is engaged to be married and is in the process of moving out of 221B Baker Street, much to the dismay of Holmes, who conspires to delay the passing of their close partnership.

Holmes and Watson, of course, work together to uncover the plot and foil the plotters, and the film ends with an obvious setup of the sequel, which will, of course, include matching wits with the infamous Professor Moriarty.

The style is a mash-up of authentic-looking old London combined with modern slow-mo, blow-up, near-super-hero-ish sensibilities.  This could have been a horrific combination, but Guy Ritchie keeps it all just enough in check so that things don’t spin into forehead-slapping territory.

Put it together and it was a solidly entertaining film, and I am looking forward to the sequel.  It wasn’t great or classic cinema by any stretch of the imagination, but you’ll feel like you got your money’s worth, unlike with many (many, many) other big-budget, action-oriented movies.

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Three's A Crowd

First, about the hype.  This is one creepy and disturbing movie.  It may not be the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s in the top ten.  The fact that it delivers such a wild ride but was made for less than $20,000 borders on amazing.

The plot is simple – Katie has been sporadically plagued with things going bump in the night her whole life.  She now lives with her boyfriend Micah, and recently she has started noticing strange happenings once again.  Micah, being the typical male, figures that the best way to respond is to buy some new electronics, and so as the film begins he as just come home with a brand-new, high-def video camera and sound recorder which he proudly explains (multiple times) he has connected via firewire to his laptop to document the events.  Then, if they are actually happening they will have proof, but if the tapes show nothing, it will serve to help Katie understand that nothing is actually happening.

That seems reasonable, except for the fact that Micah’s meddling and problem solving only serve to piss “it” off, and so matters begin to escalate.  They consult a ghost expert, who is helpful and friendly, sort of like Tim Gunn if he were on Project RunAway!  However, once the expert figures out that the malevolent entity is a demon instead of a ghost, he gets the hell out of there, leaving Micah and Katie phoning for help from what appears to be the only practicing demonologist in Southern California (ha!), who conveniently happens to be out of town until after the movie is over.

The entire film takes place on their property, from the opening shots of Micah filming Katie pulling into their driveway, to random handheld shots around the house, typical family films from the backyard pool, and most disturbingly, tapes of them sleeping, filmed with the camera completely stationary on a tripod in the corner of the bedroom, in night vision.  Yes, that’s where the fun begins.

The film does a great job of ratcheting up the tension, night after night after night.  We learn from the film that since this is a demon who is fixated on Katie, it wouldn’t help for them to leave, because the issue doesn’t have to do with the house, but with Katie, and the demon would simply follow them.  So, they surf the web and read books and try to figure out what to do.  How successful they turn out to be I will leave as an exercise for the viewer.

The actors who play Micah and Katie do a great job of seeming like a typical, young, upwardly-mobile couple.  Their house looks freshly decorated, and doesn’t have a “lived in” look.  He’s a day trader, she’s a student, he plays guitar, she does bead-work and knitting.  They seem perfectly natural on-screen, just the way all of us look and act when self-consciously filming ourselves with home video equipment. 

When they wake up, they look groggy and puffy.  When the camera pans the interior of the house, we see awkwardly exposed power cords and clutter, intermingled with furnishings from the upper-price ranges at IKEA.  They have a HUGE television and a pool, she drives a Miata, and they live in what appears to be higher-end-but-still-somewhat-cookie-cutter neighborhood.  It’s all pitch perfect.

The story behind the film is pretty interesting, too.  The director (Oren Peli, also the writer) filmed it in his own house and a very low budget.  He showed the film around festivals and shopped it around, and Paramount ended up buying the rights to the film, but apparently they did so only to get the rights to remake it.  Paramount started showing it to big-name directors trying to entice them into making a bigger-budget version, but Steven Spielberg told them they were crazy and they should just release the original film, albeit maybe with a different ending.

Also, reportedly, Spielberg took the screening DVD home with him to view, and after watching it started having his own paranormal problems, including doors closing and locking from the inside.  Things got to the point where he finally brought the DVD back to Paramount in a garbage bag, as he didn’t even want to touch it.  This could all have been cooked-up nonsense to add to the film’s mystique, but it would seem to me that Spielberg has more than enough money to waste his time playing make-believe in order to sell somebody else’s film.

After all that, I do have one big, BIG problem with the film, that almost caused me to shout at the screen, and which caused me to quietly whisper several times to Marie.  If you look at the picture included in this post, you will see that Katie sleeps on the side of the bed closest to the door.  And all through the movie, even when malevolent happenings are happening, even when they see ON TAPE with their own eyes that these happenings pass through their door, she continues to sleep on that side of the bed.  Although it certainly makes us feel more fear for Katie, it was ridiculous to think that any boyfriend/husband would allow his wife to continue to be the first one exposed to known danger by being closest to the door that way.  Hmph.

Other than that, this movie is pitch perfect.  I’ve seen a *lot* of scary movies in my day and am pretty jaded, but I can tell you that I’ll be very happy going to bed tonight knowing that we have three big, fierce dogs in the bedroom with us.

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Jesus Christ, it's the 14th Earl of Gurney!

I am amazed that I had never heard of this film until very recently.  We watched it last night (via Netflix Watch Instantly), and it was one of the most profoundly absurd, amusing, and disturbing films I’ve ever seen.  If you think you may one day have any plans to see it, my advice is to stop reading reviews right now, and come back after you’ve seen it.

Part of the power of this film is that it starts out as what feels like a quirky little comedy, then evolves into a sort of absurdist satire of the English class system, takes a turn into the blackest of black comedy, and then…well…let’s just say that the longer you watch the stranger it gets, until the end when it will elicit from the viewer an involuntary “WTF?!?”, whether one likes the film or not.

And we liked it, very much.  Well, as much as a disturbing move can be liked, that is.  However, I wouldn’t give it a blanket recommendation to every potential viewer, because it’s just so…bizarre.  I’ll put it this way, if you think that a film that is sort of a combination of Eraserhead, Monty Python, A Clockwork Orange, Murder by Death, and Jesus Christ: Superstar sounds intriguing, then this might be a film for you.

The key ingredient that allows this film’s radical elements to coalesce into a near-masterpiece is the transcendent performance of Peter O’Toole, for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor (losing to Marlon Brando in The Godfather).  He enters the film sporting both the appearance of, and belief that he is, Jesus Christ.  When asked how he knows that he is God, he responds, “Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I am talking to myself.”

If you find that quote witty and sublime, you might enjoy this film.  If you find it blasphemous and/or offensive then you may want to skip this movie altogether, because it only gets worse (or better, depending on one’s perspective) from there.  In another example, while reciting his marriage vows he promises to love his bride “…from the bottom of my soul to the tip of my penis.”  Again, if you think you could find that line funny in the proper context, this might be a film you would enjoy.

The basic storyline is that, after his father’s (jaw dropping) death, Jack (Peter O’Toole) returns to inherit his vast estate and title as the 14th Earl of Gurney.  Jack has spent the last few years in and out of asylums, as he is quite mad, but his powerful father would never allow him to be committed, as that would bring shame and disgrace on the family name.  Jack’s surviving relatives begrudge him the inheritance, and so plot and scheme to take control away from him.

That could be the synopsis for a benign and forgettable English parlor dramedy, but it merely provides the framework around which a surreal story unfolds.  If the description of the film thus far hasn’t given you a clear idea of what to expect, I’ll add that, at any moment, in any context, and in any combination, the characters of this film are prone to breaking out into song and dance numbers, which is normally one of my least favorite things in a film, but here it serves to ratchet up the lunacy to ever more scarifying heights.

I won’t share any more of the plot, but I will reiterate that this film will most definitely *not* be for everyone, and I don’t mean that in the “some of you aren’t cool/hip enough to get this film” sort of way, I mean it in the truest sense of the words.  I believe that most viewers will either love the film or hate it, with very little middle ground – think of an exotic dish prepared with unfamiliar spices and ingredients, with a distinctive and powerfully unique taste and texture.  Some will love it, others will hate it, and neither are “right” or “wrong”, it’s just a matter of taste and preference.

But, if you are intrigued by the prospect of a film that is absurd, engaging, dark, surreal, funny, musical, and tragic, then you may want to put The Ruling Class on your Halloween movie list.

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Zombieland Rule #1: Cardio

To survive in Zombieland, you have to follow the rules:

Rule #1: Cardio.  These are fast, famished zombies and they will run you down…unless you have speed and stamina.

Rule #2: Beware of bathrooms.  You’re exposed and encumbered, and there’s usually only one exit.

Rule #3: Seatbelts.  When you’re whipping around trying to run over and/or shake off zombies, you want to be sure that *you* stay put.

Rule #4: Doubletap.  Shoot ’em once to stop ’em, shoot ’em again to make sure they stay stopped.

And so on.  These are the first few of an ever-expanding set of rules that Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) has derived for survival in Zombieland.  It seems that mad cow disease mutated into a more immediate and vile infection, one which causes the infected to become black-goo-spewing, human-flesh-eating, fast-running, not-very-smart zombies, who roam America looking for their next man-wich. 

Columbus is a nice young man who is trying to wend his way back from his dorm in Austin, Texas to his parent’s home in Columbus, Ohio (hence his nickname).  He meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), who is a hard-bitten, hard-driving, hard-hitting, zombie-killing machine (with a cool hat, more on that below).  The unlikely duo decide to join forces for as long as they can stand each other, and along the way manage to get conned by a couple of grifting sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who take the boys’ Escalade and leave them stranded.

The tale unfolds from there, and I won’t say much more about the plot.  Zombieland is both a zombie film and a comedy, and it does both genres very, very well.  It compares vaguely to Shaun of the Dead, but it has a much different vibe, and is better as both a zombie film and a comedy. 

And the laughs are big…BIG.  After the film, my throat hurt from the laughing and hooting I’d been doing throughout almost the entire film, which is amazingly short at 83 minutes.  There was even an eye-misting interlude shuffled in between the carnage and mayhem, which was suprisingly effective and well-done.

The film also earns its R rating, as the violence and gore are excrutiatingly high-def and are often presented in super-ultra-mega-slo-motion, so that you can practically count the droplets in the spray of zombie-ejecta, and count the shreds of flesh between their teeth.

However, if you can handle over-the-top-gore and convulsive laughter, then Zombieland just might be the picture for you.

Oh, and stay all the way through the credits.

The Real Deal

Okay, now, about the hat.  Woody Harrelson’s character is wearing his hat (seen to the left) in virtually every single scene.  And I can tell you from direct experience that that is one cool hat.  It’s made by a company called Real Deal Brazil, and they make them from reclaimed/recycled tarps used on trucks that ship goods across the Brazilian rain forest.  Marie and I each have had one of these hats since long before we had heard about Zombieland, and they are perfect for working out in the scorching Central Texas summer heat.  The hats are tough and so far are indestructible – in fact, their motto is that you don’t take care of the hat, the hat takes care of you.

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Lies Scene

The Informant is a *real* movie, made the way movies should be made.  First of all, the script is amazing.  Second, the acting is phenomenal.  Third, the score is perfect.  Fourth, the costumes, locations, and make-up are flawless.  And fifth, the directing and cinematography are beautiful.

And sixth of all, it’s funny as hell!

The story is loosely based on the events surrounding the Archers Daniels Midland price-fixing scandal of the 1990’s, primarily involving lysine, a food additive.  Matt Damon plays a fictionalized version of real-life whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, a high-level ADM executive who turned informant for the FBI.

As imagined in The Informant!, Mark Whitacre is a mildly sociopathic, self-deluding, compulsive-lying, white-collar criminal.  When Whitacre blames his own failures on sabotage by competitors, the FBI is called in to investigate.  Lead agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) develops a rapport with Whitacre, and eventually hears about much bigger malfeasance being perpetrated by ADM themselves.  Whitacre’s wife guilts him into revealing the sordid details to the FBI, seemingly because it is the right thing to do.

And over the course of the next few years, Whitacre is run as an undercover agent by the FBI, wearing wires, eliciting damning statements from competitors and co-workers who are being secretly videotaped, and providing substantiating documentation of the global price-fixing being organized by ADM.  And, when they finally have enough evidence to convince the Attorney General’s office that the case is solid, they swoop in and make a bunch of arrests.

And then the fun really begins.  I won’t divulge any of the rest of the story, but suffice it to say that The Informant is an engaging and laugh-out-loud black comedy, made with near-perfect craftsmanship.  Matt Damon added 30+ pounds to meet director Steven Soderbergh’s one-word description of the look we wanted for the character – doughy.  Add the 80’s styled hair and porn-star-ish moustache, and Damon is transformed into a grifter extraordinaire.

And if there was an Oscar category for Best Stream-of-Consciousness-Narration, this film should win, hand’s down.  As played by Damon, Whitacre is placed into many stressful, dangerous, and scary situations, but his running mental commentary is…sublimely detached and egocentric, as if he was having an out of body experience, and while his body and voice stay engaged with the real world, his thoughts wander to trying to figure out how polar bears realized their black noses made them stand out against the snow, and so cover them with a paw while lying in wait for prey.  Did they see their reflection in the ice or the water?  Did they notice other polar bears were conspicuous with their black noses?  That seems like a lot of thinking for a polar bear.

It certainly does.  And this movie will cause a lot of thinking from the audience, because the story moves fast, the plot is serpentine, and there are no dramatic zooms or musical flourishes to alert the audience that Something Important Is Being Conveyed Right Now.  In this film, the plot twists and turns based on casually uttered phrases, and you end up asking yourself, did I just hear that?  But doesn’t that mean the exact opposite of what we already know?  Now what?!?

And I have to admit, it felt really, really good to be engaged both by the humor and also by the complex story.  Too many movies today are either Serious or Funny, but this movie is both.  It’s like a bizarre clone that combines the DNA of Michael Clayton and A Fish Called Wanda, but in a good way.  I mean, the plot revolves around a bunch of execs from a global conglomerate who conspire with their international competitors to fix the price of a food additive.  That’s not exactly a gold mine of possibility, but Soderbergh and company have taken it and crafted one of the most unique and enjoyable movies I’ve seen in years.

To put it in perspective, this is the kind of film where you’re watching a scene where the biggest, baddest, silver-haired ADM exec has come down to face-off with and intimidate his conniving underling, and as the scene unfolds you ask yourself…do I recognize that actor…no…wait…can it be…is that…is that Tommy Smothers playing the executive?!  Yup.  And later on, is that Dick Smothers as the judge?!?  Yup again.

So, directed by Soderbergh, exec produced by George Clooney, starring Matt Damon, story about boring food additives and price fixing, main character is a compulsive liar, there’s a guy from 30 Rock, a guy from Quantum Leap, The Smothers Brothers, and there’s even a gratuitous Cusack in this film (I didn’t know there was a third!).  Put it all together and this is a film.  A Hollywood film.  A piece of cinema.  Not a packaged deal.  Not a marketing campaign.  Not a merchandising machine.

A film.  By film makers.  For film watchers.  Go and enjoy.

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Hello, It's Me

If you think you might end up going to see Moon, I strongly suggest that you stop reading this (and all) review(s) and just go see it.  Really, you don’t want to know what happens before you see it.  Trust me.

However, I read reviews all the time for movies I’m planning to see, because how else is one to figure out which movies to see, particularly if you don’t have time to see as many of them as you would like?  So, for the benefit of those of you who are trying to figure out if you might like Moon, the following paragraph (and *only* the following paragraph) will represent my attempt at a spoiler-free review/guide.  Remember, the paragraph after this next one will start to reveal plot, so only read this next paragraph if you haven’t seen it yet.

First of all, if you are looking for some light, late-summer fare to while away an evening with mindless entertainment, this isn’t it.  This movie is very challenging, the storyline is purposely confusing, the scope of the story is very small, and the ending is…well…not a typical Hollywood ending.  To give away a little of the flavor of the movie, it is set in the reasonably near future, and, as you may have guessed from the title, it has something to do with the Moon.  This is not a space opera (like Star Wars), it isn’t an breathtaking allegory of the ascent of man (like 2001: A Space Odyssey), and there aren’t any aliens (like Aliens).  All of the technology in this film is easily extrapolated by taking current technology and extrapolating it forward to the time the film is set.  And although the special effects are stunningly well-done, this is a movie based on the character(s) and their interactions with each other, and themselves, and the effects merely serve as just that…effects, not as the story itself.  And the story is incredibly well-done – well-written, well-acted, well-filmed, and well-directed.  So, if you can enjoy serious, small-scale character films that are well-done, and also just happen to be set in the future and off the planet Earth, this might be the film for you.

There, that concludes the generic review/recommendation, such as it is.  I know it contains some nuggets of information, but it couldn’t be helped – and, anyway, if you didn’t want to know about this movie you wouldn’t be reading this in the first place.

So, on to the more detailed review, which will also reveal the plot.

Again, please don’t read any further unless you want spoilers.

Not kidding now, here we go.

One last chance for you to go back.

Okay, if you’re still here, Moon stars Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, the lone worker at a helium mining facility located on the far side of the Moon.  He has signed up for a three year contract to work there alone, with only a talking computer called GERTY (voice by Kevin Spacey) as his only day-to-day companion.  When the story begins, Sam is nearing the end of his three year contract and is getting ready to head back to Earth, and to the wife he loves and misses and to the daughter he has never met.

It’s also made clear that the satellite that is normally used for real-time communications back to Earth is malfunctioning, so Sam doesn’t have any interaction with other humans in real-time, only via taped messages which are bounced off of Jupiter and so take quite a while to send and receive, leaving Sam in a sort of limbo-like state.

But, all that is about to end with the completion of his contract.  He shaves his scraggly beard and cuts his scraggly hair, he puts the finishing touches on some of his office crafts, and sends delayed messages of love and longing to his wife, who responds with messages of love and confusion.

But Sam is also beginning to lose it, mentally.  He’s seeing visions and making mistakes, and he eventually crashes his rover when he’s out on the planet surface checking on a mining robot.  But we see him wake up in the infirmary, looking none the worse for wear, and he can’t remember his accident, recovery, or recuperation.  In fact, Sam is so confused by his recent past that he slips away and finds the wrecked rover, and in it he finds the still-living body of Sam Bell.  He, and we, are confused by this, and Sam is feeling mentally unstable enough that he’s not sure he’s seeing what he’s seeing, either.

What is revealed through the story is that Sam(s) is(are) part of a chain of clones, each with a functional lifespan of about three years, after which they start to break down mentally and physically.  It turns out that their employer/owner/creator/master has stocked the outpost with a large supply of Sam clones, each waiting to be awakened by GERTY when the previous one gets into the chamber that they think will prepare them to return to Earth, but which really just cremates their failing bodies.

The two Sams exist in a strange existence – one fresh-faced, healthy, robust, and naive – the other wizened and decaying – and they don’t exactly hit it off.  For example, to whom to the slippers belong?  Whose wife is sending them video messages?  Who is the father of their daughter?  What can they do now? 

The good news is that they at least understand their plight, the bad news is that a “rescue” ship is headed their way, and these “rescuers” certainly aren’t going to let two Sam clones live when they know about each other, and about the other clones waiting in stasis.

At this point I’ll leave the storyline for you to discover, but it unfolds in very interesting ways.  And Sam Rockwell does a Oscar-nom-worthy job of portraying the two stages of Sam.  Note that this film is basically a one-man show, albeit with that one person playing two copies of himself.  There are other characters, but none of them are presented live, only via tape delay, memory, dreams, or hallucinations.

Moon is the kind of movie that, in my mind, should get a wide release and put a lot of butts in the seats.  However, Hollywood has decided that movie-goers don’t really want to think, and so continue to shovel crapload after crapload of dreck for our mindless entertainment.  And I’m all for mindless entertainment, some of the time, but I think Hollywood is missing the opportunity of mixing up the menu a little bit, and putting some more exotic fare out there for us to nibble on.

And that’s what Moon is, something exotic and strange, and it frankly won’t be to everyone’s taste, but if you’re the kind of person who, when they hear that a film is character study clones in the near future on a base on the far side of the moon, think it could be an interesting trip, then Moon is probably for you.

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Sympathy for the Bossman

When we heard that Mike Judge had a new movie coming out, we knew it was a must see for us on opening weekend.  His previous films Office Space and Idiocracy are considered to be works of genius in our house, even though it took us a while to discover and appreciate the masterpiece-i-ness of them both.  But we now know and love them, and regularly quote both on a daily basis.

For those unfamiliar, Office Space told the story of downtrodden workplace drones who rise up to throw off the shackles of their e-dentured servitude  and stick it to the man, while Idiocracy tells the story of the evolutionary decline of mankind into mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, mono-syllabic morons.

In counterpoint to those films (particularly Office Space), Extract tells the story from the perspective of “the man”.  Jason Bateman plays Joel, who is the owner of a successful food flavoring extract company.  While he was in college he developed a unique way of creating extracts that retain their flavor when heated, leading to tastier results.  Through years of hard work he has parlayed his breakthrough into a moderately large factory, which he runs from his office overlooking the shop floor.  He’s so successful that General Foods is sniffing around and thinking about buying him out lock, stock, and barrel, which would allow Joel to retire a relatively wealthy man.

However, even with his professional success, Joel is not happy.  He and his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) have drifted apart, and Joel finds himself lusting after the flirty new company employee Cindy (Mila Kunis) who seems to be fascinated by the world of flavoring extracts.  But, Joel is honorable and can’t bring himself to be unfaithful, so his spacy bartender friend Dean (Ben Affleck) suggests that he secretly hire a gigolo to seduce his own wife.  If she goes for it, then Joel is then morally free to also cheat, and if she doesn’t go for it then he’s learned a valuable lesson about his wife’s fidelity.  So, in a fit of chemically-enhanced miscalculation, Joel hires the himbo gigolo to “clean his pool”.

And then – everything goes wrong for Joel.  His wife Suzie jumps at the chance to jump the new pool guy’s bones, Joel’s Idiocracy-like workers perform a ballet of OSHA violations that result in a sprung bolt performing a half-masculation on his floor supervisor Step (Clifton Collins, Jr.), who decides to sue big, which scares General Foods into delaying their buyout until the lawsuit is settled.  Add to that the fact that Cindy, the cute new employee, is also a sociopathic grifter who is pilfering the purses of her workmates while she dates Step and pushes him to sue for bigger money (which she presumably plans to get her hands on).

Jim Adler, the Texas Hammer!

To help Step score the big civil case win, Cindy hires bombastic lawyer Joe Adler (Gene Simmons – yes, *that* Gene Simmons) after seeing his number painted on the back of a bus stop.  As an aside for those of you not from Texas, “Joe Adler” appears to be loosely based on real-life, bombastic lawyer Jim Adler, self-described as “The Texas Hammer”.  The picture of him to the right is from his web site.

And to top it all off, Joel’s ungrateful and woefully ignorant employees think that they’re entitled to some of the money they assume he’s about to make by selling to General Foods, and decide to stage a walkout if they don’t get stock options prior to the deal.

So, here’s a man who had it all, built a company using his own brains and hard work, beautiful wife, nice house, and a lottery-sized buyout coming, and early retirement while he’s still young enough to enjoy it.  But then it all starts falling apart.

Suffice it to say that, by the end, things get wrapped up pretty satisfactorily.  The acting and directing are solid, and the script is pretty funny.  There isn’t a huge message being delivered in this film, unlike Idiocracy, but it’s a good message – don’t sacrifice the truly important things in life in the pursuit of “success”.  Success is happiness, not wealth or material things. 

The other message is that, while blue-collar types might not realize it, in many (if not most) cases the bosses that they like to insult and ridicule are their bosses because of hard work and smarts, not because of who they know or because they got lucky.  Hollywood has a tendency to demonize bosses, and it’s refreshing to see a film where a business owner is shown as a sympathetic character instead of a money-grubbing soul-sucker.  In the film you can see that Joel cares about his employees, he strives to run a safe plant, he encourages his employees to improve their positions, and he really does want to make the best darn extracts that he can.

So, while I’d put this as Mike Judge’s third best film, that’s still a big compliment.

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Asian Cajun Bar and Grill

18088 State Highway 105
Washington, TX 77880
(936) 878-2224

Between Navasota and Brenham, on Highway 105, on the south side of the highway, nestled in the trees stands a unique dining and drinking experience for the intrepid – the Asian Cajun Bar and Grill.  As you can see to the right, it looks like a typical Texas ice house, but it’s not.

First, a little back-story.  We live in Brenham, and circumstances often dictate that we have to head up to College Station.  Marie made that journey a couple of times in the last few weeks, and took a different (and more efficient) route than we usually took, and upon her return one day she mentioned seeing an establishment out in the middle of nowhere that claimed to serve both Asian and Cajun food.  We made a half-hearted mental dog-ear to remember to try the place out, but we figured that given the combination of factors it was probably a long shot that we’d end up liking it.

Tonight we headed to College Station to see a movie (Extract), and on our way up there we passed the joint again, and agreed that if it was still open on our way back we’d stop and check it out.  It was, and we did, and we’re glad we did.

It turns out that it is exactly what it seems, which is a combination of an ice house (which for non-Texans is a particular type of open-air, laid-back neighborhood bar), a sports bar, a Cajun restaurant, and an Asian restaurant.  The place appears to be run by a Cajun man and an Asian woman.  Our assumption is that they are a couple-type couple, but that’s just an assumption.  The place had a nice feel, and the proprieters were friendly.

I had the fried shrimp and Marie had the fried crawfish, and we also ordered some fried dumplings, and had a couple of Shiner Bocks to round out the meal.  The piece de resistance was that the Dallas Cowboys game was on in the dining room.  The food was excellent, the beer was cold, the service was good, and the Cowboys won (beating the Vikings in preseason!).  All in all, an excellent evening.

We’ve already made plans to go back, and foresee the Asian Cajun Bar and Grill becoming part of our regular dining rotation.

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BT Longhorn Saloon & Steakhouse in Brenham, Texas

In Brenham, TX there are only a handful of non-chain, sit-down dinner restaurants, and the BT Longhorn Saloon & Steakhouse is one of our very favorites.  It’s high up in our dining rotation because of its combination of good food, friendly service, and kitschy atmosphere.

The Longhorn is located in historic downtown Brenham, and is just a block off of the main street, meaning that it’s convenient both to us Brenhamites whose day-to-day activities regular take us downtown (court house, banks, shops, etc) and to visitors, who typically tour the Blue Bell Creamery and then head downtown for dining and shopping.

It’s located in one of the historic old buildings (pictured at right), and the interior has soaring high ceilings, the floor is wood planking, the decor is upscale western kitsch, and they have a massive, beautiful wooden bar.

The service is also very friendly, and usually prompt, although they are sometimes slammed at the height of tourist season.  But even with a small wait, the food is worth it.  We’re addicted to their crab cakes, which comes with fresh wild greens and a delicious creamy sauce.  I typically have a steak, and it’s usually very good, and have also delved into other offerings and specials, like fish, pork chops, chicken, burgers, sandwiches, etc, and all have been very, very good.

Also, their offerings run from moderately priced fare like burgers and sandwiches, up to surf and turf with lobster and filet mignon, so you should find something that fits with your particular dining budget.  And although some of the higher-end items are pricey, the overall atmosphere is casual and friendly, but with some style and polish, so whether you’re dining mid-scale or upscale you should expect a very enjoyable experience here.

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Wonderful Weagle - the Gentle Guardian

We have three dogs, but Weagle is definitely the queen/alpha.  She was our first, and we got her from the pound when she was just six weeks old and was so tiny she could snuggle in the palms of our cupped hands.

Her name has evolved over time – her given name is Princess Buttercup, but when she was a puppy she had a distinctively Beagle-esque face and howl, and since her exact ancestry was unknown we figured she was some mix of Rottweiler, Beagle, and who knows what, and we started referring to her as Rottweagle (Rottweiler+Beagle), which eventually got shortened to Weagle. 

Weagle is now 8 years old – not ancient for a dog, but her muzzle is getting whiter, her bones are getting creakier, and she’s getting crankier.  But her primary directive is, and always has been, securing and protecting the pack.  She is ever vigilant for trespassers and ne’er-do-wells, and she has never quite accepted that the mailman clambers up onto our porch every single day, in a gross display of border aggression that she meets with strongly worded warnings.

She also is a creature of habit, and if the household routine doesn’t run on schedule, she lets us know with hoots and chuffs – and even barks, if things go completely off the rails (by her definition).  For example, if we stay up later than normal, she’ll go stand in the dining room and chuff at us, prancing and lowering her head like a Lipizzaner.  We can hush her up for a while, but she can get quite bratty about it, and her ultimate insult is to go to bed without us.   She doesn’t sleep, she just lays there petulantly so that she can glare at us when we finally do close up shop for the night.

And although Weagle is a gentle and loving soul with us, her pack-mates, I have no doubts that if an intruder were to enter our house with ill intentions, he’d have a lot of trouble on his hands, as well as blood on his clothes, and either he’d run off to live to fight another day, or Weagle would fight to the death to protect us.  There is something quite comforting and primal in knowing that our household is protected by such a vigilant and capable guardian.

Another example of this is that wherever we go, however our furniture is arranged, or if we stay elsewhere, Weagle always goes to bed laying so that her eyes (and teeth) are pointed at the door.  Always.  It took us a while to figure it out, because she would sometimes contort into such inefficient positions on the bed, but we finally saw the light and now factor her protectiveness into our sleeping logistics.

Which brings us to the inspiration for this post, which is an incident that occurred last night.  Yesterday (Sunday), we had a brief visit from The Girl, who came by for a quick pre-semester visit and to pick up a donated vacuum cleaner for the townhouse she just moved into (and out of the dorms).  Weagle *loves* when she comes to visit – in fact, if we tell her that Annalisa is coming to visit, Weagle will perk up, ears up, eyes wide, tail thumping, and begin pacing and counting down until her arrival.  And Weagle is at her most happiest when The Girl is here on the couch, and Weagle can lay up against her.  When Annalisa is here, the pack is complete, and Weagle can finally be content that she is protecting everyone.

The girl headed back to San Marcos yesterday afternoon, and we finished up some home projects, and went to bed at a fairly reasonable hour.  Weagle was in her normal position on the bed (up higher than the other mere dogs, of course), and we all settled in.  But then Weagle got up, jumped down off the bed, and started pacing around the house.  This usually means she needs one last trip outside, so we opened up the back door for her.

After 15-20 minutes she still wasn’t back, and when I peeked out at her through the window, she was laying in the middle of the back driveway – just…laying there.  This is *very* uncharacteristic behavior for her.  I called her in, and she hopped up and came right in, and I locked up the back and headed to bed.

But Weagle wouldn’t get back up on the bed.  She kept pacing around the house, not quite agitated, but also not relaxed either.  We figured that maybe she was having belly troubles, so opened the back door back up and went to bed, figuring she’d eventually get it figured out and come to bed.

But she didn’t.  Marie went to check on her, and she said that Weagle paced over by the front door, and kept giving her imploring looks and wags.  We figured that maybe she was waiting for The Girl to return, but Annalisa is quite the academic vagabond, so she’s always here then gone, or home late, so Weagle would not have had any reason to expect her back.

So we left Weagle to her patrolling, but after a while I was starting to get worried that something was seriously wrong, so I finally went looking for her, and she was laying in the dining room – a place where she never lays.  I pulled up a chair and tried to figure out if she was ailing in some way – note that her behavior was now unprecedented, she follows the household routine 100% of the time, so for her to not be in bed, but also not be outside tending to business, and just laying in an uncharacteristic spot was a worrisome combination of factors.

I started having fears that she might be feeling so ill that she was heading off alone, as animals tend to do.  But she seemed completely awake, alert, and not physically ailing in any way.  I left her in the dining room and went back to bed, but after another hour or so I had to check again, as her behavior was just so strange (for her).  She, again, seemed to be comfortable from a physical perspective, but wanted to stay right where she was.

I finally cajoled her into going to bed, which she did with some hesitation.  And, after another 30 minutes or so, Weagle jumped down again and ended up spending most of the night sleeping on the bedroom floor just inside the door – again, *very* uncharacteristic behavior.  But, from that point forward she (and we) slept through the night relatively normally, and I was prepared to chalk up her behavior as either her missing The Girl or her having some type of physical issue that wasn’t serious, just discombobulating. 

Today also happened to be garbage day, which means that one of the first things I did upon waking up was to head out the front door with garbage bags – and that’s when it all became clear to me.  The front door was not locked – in fact, it was slightly ajar, by about a half an inch.  It was still caught by friction with the door frame, so it wasn’t in danger of flapping open, but it was unlocked and slightly ajar.

Although we now live in a smallish country town, we’re city people, and we always lock up tight every night.  But somehow last night we missed checking the front door – but Weagle didn’t.  She had even paced over there with Marie and stood and wagged, but in the darkness it wasn’t easily seen.  So, Weagle had resigned herself to laying in the dining room, which also is on the route from the front door to our bedroom, and protecting us from our own forgetfulness by remaining in the potential path of any intruders.

I’ll stop here and say to those of you who feel I might be anthropomorphizing and/or reading too much into the circumstances, that you don’t know Weagle.  When I told Marie about the door, she also *immediately* knew that this is exactly what was causing Weagle’s restlessness last night.  Weagle is a constantly vigilant guardian, and over eight years of living together one gains insight into the behaviors of the other sentient beings of the household, and she was definitely trying to tell us about the door, and when we didn’t ‘get it’, she resigned herself to being extra-vigilant.

Needless to say, she got a whole lot of extra love and praise this morning, which she accepted with characteristic equanimity.

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