Your Lingering Unpleasantness Quizo Update

I've had this minor, pissant little cold since that wedding I was at two weeks ago. It's never bad enough to really lay me out and make me actually take an entire day to actually seriously "rest" and get rid of the the damnable thing. Just enough to be a stupid little annoyance. Imagine having the sniffles for two weeks. Yeah, I'm less than thrilled about this.

However, this is also the first time in 4 years I'm not doing a show over the holiday season and I'm terribly excited about the prospect. Back in college and in the years after I would always hit all the big art-house Oscar-type movies in this giant, weeks-long orgiastic frenzy of moviegoing stretching from here to the Angelika in the West Village. I started off last ngiht when I finally saw the movie Gone Baby Gone after very much wanting to since it came out. The book it's based on is a favorite of mine and the movie did not disappoint in a pure "quality" sense. The film is outstanding, though it's not particularly easy to watch. I had this conversation after getting home:

Me: The movie's great, but it's really, really, REALLY sad. Not, like, end of Gladiator cry like a little girl sad, but more like after you get home you just want to sit in the dark and eat ice cream and wish you were dead sad.

Her: So are you sitting in the dark eating ice cream?

Me: No, I didn't have any ice cream, and I have terrible night vision.

I was worried that, since I liked the book so much, the movie was going to be a crushing disappointment. Thankfully it was not. In another thankful sense, I am glad I have never really seen the original Speed Racer cartoon, since after watching the trailer for that this weekend I am sure that were I a fan of the original show this upcoming "film" WOULD be a crushing disappointment of perhaps not Star Wars Prequel levels, but something close to it. The Speed Racer trailer is really something. I recommend you find it online if you can and watch it, if only to see what the rest of us have been laughing at the last few days. My friend Stephen put it best when he described it as "it's like a gay Japanese clown dropped acid." That really does sum it up perfectly. You've been warned.

JLK