Don't Read This Post! Vacuous Nonsense Abounds!

A waterfall photo! How cliche! How gauche! How uncouth!

Actually, it's kinda pretty. Must be why I chose to use it, eh! See? There's a methane to my madness!

I think that's how the saying goes...

So, look.... yes, I did some "acting stuff" since last we spoke... the ridiculously short version is, class on Thursday (yay!), Cast meeting for web series Sunday (Yay!), Christmas play rehearsal Sunday (Yay!), film shoot for student film Sunday (meh...) and that's that...

But enough about that! My mom always said, if I don't have anything nice and interesting to say, move on to another blog topic!

Care for a swim?

So I saw four films recently that I want to mention by name to you! I don't want you to see any of them! Two were truly awful, and two were terrific! But I don't want you to see them either! Gee, I'm so edgy!

The remake of the old eighties flick Red Dawn was the first of the Awful Offerings... wow, what an absolutely abysmal effort. Thor was the only saving grace of this film... the rest of it was a trainwreck of near-biblical proportions... so what do you do when you watch an awful film? What else!? I immediately followed it with a viewing of a movie approximately 3 orders of magnitude worse. It was called Killing Season, featuring Robert DeNiro, John Travolta, and a bizarre combination of the worst beard and worst attempt at an accent ever foisted upon an unsuspecting public (thanks JT!). I will NOT subject you to a clip of either... all I can say is that I watched both films to their end credits, and endured the accompanying stomach pains, marveling as the moments trickled past that dozens of people GOT PAID big money to generate such unbelievable dreck! How DeNiro ever got roped into contributing to such a turd, I'll never know... maybe he owed the producer a big favor or some such...

Those were the turds. Avoid both of them at all cost, under the threat of grueling intestinal pain.

The two terrific movies I watched the following evening. The first is called Killing Them Softly, starring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta and other actors you may not have heard of... this film is my definition of an "Actor's Dream"... so many roles that were so ridiculously well-crafted, I couldn't decide which role I would have loved to act myself... HOWEVER! It is a gritty, ugly movie, with offensive elements making appearances at regular intervals. But the dialog was so juicy (from a craft perspective) and the character creation so textured, it was a joy to watch...

Film two was the most recent, infamous Tarantino effort Django Unchained. Again, typical Tarantino dialog, for the most part, wonderful. Let me say, first off, if you haven't seen this movie by this time, you probably won't ever watch it, so I'm not going to try and dissuade you of that. If you were going to see this movie, you would have by now. So, that having been said, I watched it with some level of trepidation, but that trepidation was unneeded. Great film making, Christoph Waltz was amazing, all the cameos were fun, DiCaprio and Sam Jackson and Jamie Foxx were top notch... but not all was sunshine and roses... Taratino's music choice was a little too hipster and self-satisfied for my tastes.

So, yeah, Red Dawn and Killing Season were turds of the first order. Killing Them Softly and Django Unchained were awesome. Don't watch any of them.

And now, here is this year's effort at the Black Friday Prank, well done.



On a completely unrelated note, there's no one on earth like Russell Brand. The man's mind is staggering. And I've mentioned before, as much as I marvel at the man's mind, I would not like to meet the man in real life... honestly, I wonder if there's something biologically different about his brain. How... does... he... do... that...?

OK, enough of that...

So, what else?

Finished reading The Darwin Elevator by James Hough. 3.75 stars. A good sci-fi yarn. Good characters, nice dialog, good story construction... but stretches of dullness threatened to derail my interest on occasion... and it just unceremoniously ended midstream, sort of mid-story... not sure if I'll continue on to the next book or not...

Currently reading the Infinity Blade novellas by Brandon Sanderson quickly before tucking into The Red Knight later in the week.

Gee, fascinating, eh?

I bought a few "Complete Collections" this week for a buck each... got the complete Anne of Green Gables collection (99 cents!), the complete William Shakespeare collection (99 cents!), the complete Sherlock Holmes collection (99 cents!), and the complete Jane Austin collection (99 cents!)... dollars well spent! I already have more digital books than I could read in three year's time! Why not add more!?!?!?!

On a completely unrelated note, I hope I can somehow channel on screen one-tenth of the coolness that Benedict Cumberbatch carries with him on a daily basis. Man, is that the coolest cat on the face of the earth, or what?

The only way Benedict could somehow be cooler is if he was a jet pilot, too...

OK, whatever. I have no idea why I'm rambling on so.... I realize it is tedious to wade through... I applaud your efforts...

I hope to have some actual interesting content to impart unto you the next time we meet (virtually, of course, in this bizarre forum), so you can perhaps feel a bit of satisfaction in visiting this virtual rumpus room...

What the heck am I talking about? I know not...

Gonna go to bed and regroup. Adios for now.

Dave the Addled
aka Dave the Needlessly Long-Winded
aka Dave the Going the Heck To Bed