Posts Tagged ‘Miami Vice’

No Concessions: Summer Hits and Misses

It’s Labor Day Weekend, and if you’re like me, you’re off to the movies. What to see: The unstoppable Sandra Bullock in another romantic comedy? Gamer? Hmmm…maybe a double feature, the unstoppable Sandra Bullock in another romantic comedy and Gamer? (What the heck is Gamer? Doesn’t a sequel to The Crow usually fly into this spot?)

No, you’re not like me. But I’ve got news for you: I’m not like me, either. Drag me to hell: I’m not gonna sit on my ass in some multiplex when the best weather of the season has arrived at the 11.5th hour. I’m going to sit outside and taunt the kids who have to go back to school on Tuesday—man, I hated Labor Day Weekend when I was a kid, knowing that the school bus was going to pull up like Charon the ferryman to escort me back to Hades.

Summer. It was good, now it’s dead. And it’s time to reflect on the corpse.

Boxoffice-wise, the top five films of the season were the Transformers and Harry Potter sequels, Up, The Hangover, and Star Trek. I saw the last three. (In a simpler time in my life, say any day before Aug. 25, 2008, I would have seen them all. The franchises got the boot.) And they were good. Well, The Hangover and Star Trek were good; I can’t say I got down with Up, which struck me as minor Pixar, not out-of-gas Pixar like Cars but a little thin. Still, I’ll buy the DVD—except for Cars, I have them all, even Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo—and give it another spin. (more…)

Random-onium: Redd Kross, Chris Isaak, and the “Miami Vice” Soundtrack

This is the first in a series that I call Random-onium!, for lack of a better term. The premise is that I go to a friend’s house and pick a few CDs out of their collection — completely at random– and review them for your reading and listening pleasure.This week, my buddy John was kind enough to allow me access to his collection, making sure to point out in advance that the Natalie Merchant and Bangles CDs belonged to his lady, who thought it would be cool to merge their respective collections soon after she moved in.

“What?” he exclaimed defensively, noticing the expression on my face. I could have said any number of things and laid him out like a punch drunk boxer decades past his prime, but my sly grin and silence said it all. Of course, my insatiable adoration for “the obvious joke” overpowered my restraint and I let loose with a “whip crack” that would have made Michael Winslow proud, for which I paid the ultimate price as John thumped me in the shoulder. Not just my shoulder, though, but the exact spot on my shoulder that hurts like a mother when you knuckle punch it.

After “walking it off,” I promptly closed my eyes and blindly reached into his stack of tracks, pulling out… (more…)