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Quarantine Viewing

Entertainment

Both New Wife and I have a problem when it comes to movies:  we are not enthralled (to put it mildly) by anything that smacks of science fiction or fantasy — although I loved the brilliant About Time, that was more because of Bill Nighy’s performance, which dragged the movie out of the generic time-travel dreck  — and that dislike of fantasy extends to horror movies of the Chainsaw Massacre  type.

Thus, a compendium along the lines of These 10 Underappreciated Movies Make for the Perfect Quarantine Viewing Experience is of little use to me, mostly because of the list’s reliance on sci-fi / fantasy / horror formats.  (Of that list, I’d seen only a couple, and liked only Surveillance.  The rest… forget about it.  Didn’t see;  won’t either.)

So I thought of creating my own list of underappreciated movies, only with a principle theme of adult (in its original sense) entertainment.  Some are available on Netflix, Prime and the like, while others may have to be rented or purchased.  Here they are:

  1. Montana (Kyra Sedgwick, Stanley Tucci) — bleakly redefined the gangster-movie genre;  both Tucci and Sedgwick are great.
  2. Sideways (Thomas Haden Church, Paul Giamatti) — a “buddy” movie about a trip to the California wine country:  seriously?
  3. Elizabethtown (Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst) — black comedy/romance, and the story’s occasional missteps can be safely ignored.  I even enjoyed Free Bird, which says something.
  4. The Matador (Pierce Brosnan) — absolutely one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and Brosnan is beyond words.
  5. A Good Year (Russell Crowe) — I’ve talked about this one often, and it’s nearly time for me to watch it again.
  6. Sliding Doors (Gwyneth Paltrow, ) — when a movie can make Goats ‘N Monkeys Paltrow look good, you have to know — and Scottish actor John Hannah is brilliant, as always.  And yes, it’s a time-shift piece, but like About Time, that’s just the background noise.
  7. O Lucky Man (Malcolm McDowell) — rent it at Amazon Prime, and it’ll be the best $2 you spent all week.  The best of Malcolm McDowell’s early-70s movies (alongside A Clockwork Orange and If… the latter being almost as good).  And while we’re on Malcolm McDowell…
  8. Aces High — best WWI movie ever made, better than All Quiet On The Western Front, even.
  9. Coldblooded (Jason Priestley) — Priestley sheds his pretty-boy image forever.
  10. Paper Man (Jeff Daniels) — Jeff Daniels has given us several fine performances, and this one is up there with the best.
  11. Red Road (Kate Dickie) — saddest movie of the lot, set in the bleak (and since-demolished) eponymous public housing complex in Glasgow.
  12. The Last Seduction (Linda Fiorentino) — another black comedy (anyone sense a theme, here?) but with wicked twists and turns in the plot.
  13. Criminal (John C. Reilly) — how do you con a conman?  And Reilly, as always, is amazing.

Of course there are others, but these are the ones which came to mind immediately.  Feel free, as always, to add your suggestions in Comments — just please, please  avoid the aforesaid sci-fi, horror and fantasy genres.

Auction Time: Choice #2

Drive Time

1968 Iso Grifo GL Series I:

For those not familiar with this monster, here’s the background (from Sotheby’s):

The Iso Grifo was created by a powerhouse of Italian engineering talent, including former Ferrari chief engineer and “father of the GTO” Giotto Bizzarrini; designer Giorgetto Giugiaro; and revered coachbuilders Bertone. A muscular gran turismo, its Bertone-built coachwork surrounded an advanced chassis with de Dion rear axle and inboard brakes, a configuration that reduced the unsprung weight compared to a live rear axle. Power was provided by a Chevrolet 327 V-8 of the same specification used in contemporary Corvettes, endowing the Grifo with ample performance and fine reliability. The model remained in production into the early 1970s and saw a total run of 413 examples in all configurations.

Excuse me, but “engineered by Bizarrini, designed by Giugiaro and built by Bertone”  just about checks all my boxes.  Also, “Chevrolet 327 V-8”  means I could get its oil changed at the local Chevy dealer for $50 instead of paying two grand to have the same thing done by Ferrari on one of their engines.

And it’s beautiful.  Good grief, I would get a tingle just from seeing it parked in my garage when I went out in the morning — even if I wasn’t going to drive it.

Finally, note that the interior is wonderfully devoid of all the modern electronic shit that confuses, clutters and just subtracts from the MTBF (mean time between failures).  And a stick shift… performance, simplicity and elegance all in one package

News Roundup

Bad News

All the news that’s fit to summarize.


…which worked SO well in the Middle Ages against bubonic plague, didn’t it?  And btw, the world was doing just fine until the godless Chinese started spreading yet another pandemic around the place.


…into what?


…meanwhile, in the real world where people have to eat…


…just as long as said undocumented workers can produce a 2019 or 2020 tax return.  (FIFY)


…you had me at “Mitt Joins With A Democrat”.

Coronavirus Bulldozes the 2020 Race Out of the Media Spotlight

…cloud, silver lining, etc. etc.


…oh, and Harry:  you know that $25 million yer Dad is going to send your way each year?  You get to pay U.S. taxes on it, when you eventually do have to get your green card in order to stay here full-time.  Welcome to America.


…told ya.


…and only a few dozen million of them were put together or handled by people infected with the virus.  Prove me wrong.

And finally:  


…and I didn’t see a single one.

Hoofbeats

Bad News

When the downfall of Western Civilization is chronicled in centuries to come, and historians say of us as we say now of the Roman Empire:  “How did such a thing happen?”, I would suggest that they first examine things like this, and the society which gave birth to them:

Belching Beaver Brewery’s ‘Viva La Beaver’ Mexican Chocolate Peanut Butter Stout

It is difficult, even for me, to enunciate just how much Wrong is inside one simple line of text.

Time for some restorative measures to take the taste out of my mouth… and it’s not even 7am CDT.

Auction Time: Choice #1

Drive Time

I promised to reveal my top 5 choices, following on from Saturday’s Auction Time post.  Here’s #1, the 1993 Land Rover NAS Defender 110:

I don’t know if I’d ever need to go off-road for any reason, but it’s nice to know that if I did, I’d have one of the best-ever vehicles for the task (with a proper 4-wheel drive, not that “all-wheel” nonsense) at my disposal.  (Maybe I’ve been influenced by Doc Russia’s Doom Wagon — here and here — just a little.)

Also, Mr. Free Market has one of these LWB 110s, and when I was Over There we put many  mile on it, en route to the various shooting ranges.  Apart from the kidney-shattering ride, I loved the experience — and it sure was nice to be able to throw muddy boots and such into the back without any misgivings about damage or dirt to the interior.

So yeah, that’s my #1 choice.  Its only serious competitor (in the utility vehicle category, that is) was the FJ Company’s (smaller) Toyota FJ43:

…which would be my backup pick should the Landy’s price get bid out to the stratosphere.

The rest of my choices will follow over the next four days.