IOWA!

or anything from my wishlist

run 4 miles, abs 200, triceps 3 sets of 16

So, yeah, the thing is there's a shortage of things for me to write about. I have *a lot* of work. I'm working a lot. Football season is busy season, combined with increasing work for Client B. Client A is feeling neglected, despite the fact that last week I billed Client A for 58 hours, and I shorted those hours. So I feel no sympathy, plus at the moment, Client B has more fun stuff. And also, Client C got a whopping 2 hours of my time but 24 hours of Amazing's time last week. So nobody should be bitching. But I saw movies. Lots of Movies. Enjoy.

Mad Hot Ballroom
This is a darling 50-minute documentary that somehow got made into a tedious two-hour movie. Let's be clear, I think little ten-year-olds doing the merengie is adorable too -- for the first forty minutes. Then, you know, I've seen that. There's some tension and some story, but it's almost exclusively shots of little kids ballroom dancing. You know, you should see it, because it is just as adorable as it sounds, but rent it, people, so you can fast forward through the fifteenth rendition of the merengie.

Crash
Yeah, I know, it took me long enough. So, this is enjoyable and very lyrical and like watching a song on film, really. As a commentary on race relations? Well, hmmm. You know, here's the thing: The type of racism that's being shown in this movie is of the most extreme type short of violent beatings. The type of racist verbal comments are of the most extreme type short of the "N" word. It's like, how many times have you met a person who, if they crashed into an Asian driver, would immediately start to mock that Asian person's accent? How many people do you know who would really be so racist as to have their locks changed because the guy who installed the first set of locks was Mexican? I mean, it's all a little bit much. But, then, on the other hand, you have to wonder if it would be possible to make a film that was commenting on race relations if you only used subtle racsim as the plot driver. And also, perhaps I am just naive. The whole thing is, that while I really enjoyed the film, as a whole, it leaves you a little unfulfilled because it's a little over done on the "contrived" factor. But that said, it's worth it because:

• Don Cheadle. And not just because he is as good in this as everybody says, but also because he has the best line of the year in a movie. I won't tell you, I'll only tell you that it happens when he's having sex with his Latina girlfriend.
• Matt Dillon: He is so under-rated as an actor. His character in this film is really the only round character in the film. And he gives this amazing performance that nobody was talking about afterwards. He was so good.
• The movie is like a song. It really is. Sure, it's a contrived song with a predictable chorus, but it's a pretty song. Like that Anna Nalick song.

Cinderella Man
Oh, I know, it took me forever to see this, too. This is really three movies:

The Sports Movie: We all know I LOVE sports movies. Can't watch enough of them. The Rookie? LOVED it. Miracle? LOVED it. Every Kevin Costner baseball movie ever? LOVED them. Any Given Sunday? Okay, you have to draw the line somewhere. The sports movie portion of Cinderella Man? LOVED it. Wished there had been more of it. More of the struggle to learn to hit with your left hand because you had to use your left arm when you got kicked out of boxing and had to work on the docks. More of the conflict with each of the fighters. More about your struggle when you were fighting through your hurt and losing streak. But the part that was a sports movie? LOVED it.

The Historical Retrospective: There's a lot in this movie that has to do with living through the Great Depression -- and you know what? It's really well done. You really get a sense of people losing everything and being totally desperate. There's this most excellent sequence where Jimmy is walking home past a high end apartment building and he's contrasted against these wealthy people, and then in the next scene Mae goes to visit Jimmy's manager who lives in one of these buildings, and he's sold all his furniture because they, too, are poor. And as a historical retrospective, it's just really well done.

And it got me thinking that probably my generation is the last generation that can feel any real connection to the Great Depression. How weird is that? I mean, I didn't live through it, but my grandfather did, and his oral history was full of stories about it, and he was a real connection to it. You really felt like even though you didn't live it yourself, because it impacted him so much it had impacted you, too. But beyond my generation, that last string of connection is gone. For me, the Great Depression is something that defined my family and my parents and our lives in a tangible way. For AshleyPooh, for example, it's a thing she read about in The Grapes of Wrath and doesn't really comprehend how it had a human impact. It's just a question on a history test for her. Weird, huh?

Also, historically, by the way, Max Baer was not that kind of jackass in real life. It's one thing to play something up for drama. It's another to just take a real person and turn them into something else. His family has every right to be upset.

The Ron Howard Love Story and Emotional Epic: Don't get me wrong. I love Ron Howard and his sincerity and ability to make me cry in any movie he directs. That's skill, yo. But I will have to say this: This is perhaps the first Ron Howard movie I have ever seen where the emotional epic element of it was just a little too much for me. The May and Jimmy love story? About the time she uttered the line, "You are the champion of my heart," it was all too much. There's this half ass story line about a friend Jimmy makes when he's working at the docks, and there's no point to this story except to pull at your heart strings when the guy dies in Hooverville in the end. I mean, I like Ron Howard, but he's taking this whole emotional epic thing a little too far. More sports story, more historical retropsective, tune it down on the scenes where Jimmy struggles to feed his children for the twentieth time.

The Perfect Man
Shut up. It was chick flick night. What happens when Sarah Jessica Parker as a sassy city reporter is replaced with Heather Locklear as a struggling single mom who decorates cakes for a living...Mr. Big's profession is changed from investor to restaurant owner...Hilary Duff is included in the mix and you throw in a Styx cover band for good measure? The Perfect Man, or as I like to call it, THE PERFECT MOVIE. Shut up.