Oz, Debster and Blogblah, not a singing group from the Sixties

I mentioned that I went to First Friday on Paseo and that IonOKmag.com took our photo, but I was too lazy to upload it. Here it is, since I misidentified where to look for it.

About the most interesting thing to happen to me since I last blogged was that MCARP and I intentionally went to see a bad movie. Previously, we had seen Season of the Witch with Nick Cage which was a real bow wow. This time, we went to see “Insidious”, a things that go bump in the night bad movie. I kept repeating as the film unwound: “Poltergeist called and wants its plot back.” Every directorial hack trick in the book crammed into 90 minutes of 35mm film. All the storytelling power of a four year old. Dumber than a box of rocks. Incomprehensible plot holes. At least Poltergeist had a midget to keep John X occupied. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but you have to be in one of those moods or don’t even bother to rent it.

At home, I had the pleasure of putting together a double feature of “Black Dahlia” and “L.A. Confidential”, two 1940s Los Angeles noir films adapting novels by Ellroy, the former directed by Brian DePalma. The books are richly dense with historical figures and materials, but neither have much to do with the central (and real) crimes portrayed because they are mostly character-driven novels about fictional characters with the historical time as backdrop. In other words, both are historical fictions. You can well recognize the books from the films, but the movies don’t even try to follow the novels like Peter Jackson did with Lord of the Rings. They are both just works based on the novels, but both capture the feel and much of the goodness of the books. A great movie evening, for my taste, getting to compare/contrast both the movies and the books back and forth. I recommend both the movies and the books.

I’m not happy with Obama leaving Gitmo open for more years, but I enjoyed listening to him spank Rep. Paul Ryan’s truly awful budget plan. When seniors find out that the GOP intends to not just put their hands on Medicare, but to destroy it as we presently know it, and when independents are reminded that only Democratic Party President Clinton managed to provide a surplus, promptly pissed away by Bush, I’m not so sure that 2012 will be the resurgence of the GOP they presently imagine.

By the way, just like U.S. Sen. Jon Kyle (R-AZ) who trumpeted the statement that 90% of Planned Parenthood is abortions and was confronted by the fact that it’s really only 3%, Nothing in Blogblah is intended as a factual statement. KO’s “Worst Person in the World”, Jon Kyle is being lampooned by Colbert on Twitter over this posture to great comic effect, if you happen to be on Twitter. Funny man, Colbert. Kyle, one supposes, is only elected by Arizonans to the Senate to make McCain seem less like a grumpy and idiotic old white guy.

Blogblah!