I've had my laziest day in a long time today. Given the regular six-day weeks combined with a search for recreation that takes me on relatively long drives on the 7th day most weeks, I have been pretty constantly on the go. Even my recent vacation involved cramming in two trips with two long drives, two days with a lot of flying, two days of volunteering, etc. I'm not complaining--God knows this beats last September when I was sitting around the house waiting for the phone to ring all day and watching an unhealthy amount of FX--but it did mean I was ready for a day that was mostly collapse.
Here is a rough synopsis: midnight-9 a.m.: sleep; 9-11 a.m.: MST3K ("Prince of Space"--probably the best SciFi Channel episode); 11 a.m.-2 p.m.: Boggle and cards with my mom and aunt; 2-4:30 p.m.: light nap/watch VH1 "I Love The '80s" episodes for roughly the 114th time; 4:30-8: Saw Italian Job with dad/Ate $6 Burger at Hardee's; 8 p.m.-present: pretty much this.
The Italian Job was one of the better movies I've seen in a long time. It may not be a classic in the making, but it is a great summer action movie, and after A Fish Called Wanda it may be my second-favorite heist film ever. I thought the writing was about as sophisticated and clever as you can get without dragging down an action film, and the action itself was very well done. Charlize Theron actually seemed like someone who can act her way out of a paper bag for once, and Wahlberg, Green, and Norton contributed their usual high-quality performances. I don't know that an understanding of Los Angeles geography is central to understanding or liking the climactic scene, but it certainly helps; when they turned onto Highland, for instance, I knew exactly where they were going and why. I'd recommend it to most anyone,