My relationship with Muse is a
troubling one, because it is in many
ways a band that I should despise,
reason number one being the lead
singer, but I end up enjoying it.
So for the three of you that
haven't sent me messages this week
asking me about Defcon, here
is a
link to the
demo. It is a
delightfully eerie exercise in
mutually assured destruction, and I
hope to have a review of the game up
sometime later this month, if not
this week.
Saw Little Miss Sunshine
and Hollywoodland over the
last week or so. I have a soft spot
for period piece detective stories,
so I thoroughly enjoyed
Hollywoodland,
where just about every single person
in the movie turns in a great
performance, including, and even
especially, Ben Affleck as George
Reeves. Adrien Brody plays the
absolute perfect downtrodden private
eye, with all the fast-talking quips
you would expect from a heel of a
character and the all-important
moments where he gets the crap
kicked out of him.
Little Miss
Sunshine was an
immensely entertaining film, to be
sure, but I didn't find it as
laugh-out-loud funny as I had been
told to expect. There are many
genuinely funny moments in the film,
followed rather sharply by some
heavy drama, but to me the
"hilarious" climax of the film felt
like they were trying too hard. I
spent much of the film hoping
someone would punch Greg Kinnear's
character in the face, and Alan
Arkin pretty much steals the movie,
even if he isn't there for half of
it.
Though my experience with the film
may have been hampered by seeing it
at the Kenrick theater. I wanted to
go there as part of my slowly
progressing quest to have visited
every theater in the metro area and
I think with screening that I've
finally accomplished my goal, but it
certainly didn't end with a bang. I
like theaters that are aesthetically
pleasing, something that shows they
actually give a damn and I don't
feel like I'm just sitting in a
concrete box or a garage with seats,
and the impression I got from the
Kenrick was that it was actually
supposed to be shut down a decade
ago and somebody forgot to tell
them. Not quite as bad as my
experience seeing Phone Booth
at the Esquire, but close, because I
think a middle-aged secretary
convention sprang up in the theater
and they didn't know they were
showing a movie.
I'm thinking of taking my
experiences and slapping together a
little movie theater guide to St.
Louis sometime soon.
