Febuary 1st

If you live in southwest Idaho, are home during the day, and don't have cable, then you would have been screwed yesterday in regards to daytime television (I mean more then usual). You see Middelton High School burned down, causing the local channels news divisions to highjack there schedualing and go on endlessley about what is really an open-and-close story, i.e. "the school burned down", enough said. Luckily for me I have cable, and better yet I have movies:

I mentioned The Asphalt Jungel in a recent blog, and its appereance as a random wiki artical prompted me to give it the number one slot on my netflix list. However by the time it arrived I wasn't in the mode and didn't really enjoy the film, despite it's having an excellent cast including James Whitmore, Jean Hagen, Same Jaffe, and Marylin Monroe. I listened to the first few minutes of Drew Caspers audio commentary on the thing, and he said that the avarge viewer only catchs about 40% of the goings-on the first time through, so maybe that's why I didn't like it, though I consider myself an above avarge viewer. I've also decied I don't like Sterling Hayden in anything Kubrick didn't direct, he goes for intensity but really comes off anoying, he's still great as the crazy general in Dr. Stranglove though: "You ever heard of fluoridation Mandracke, floridation of water?"

That evening I went to Boise's historic Egytian Theater for an evening of silent film. Social idoit that I am, I non-the-less have a perfect tract record of finding young women to go to these things with me (meaning of I've done it twice). It was a good introduction to, (or slice of as the case may be) silent cinema, two slapsticks and a childrens fantasy with iconic imagery. Each 'short' had an orignal score performed by the Treasure Valley Youth Symphony (for whom this event was a fundraiser), all compostions were good, but particularly memorable was the middle selection. For those who might like to know the program it was as followes: Big Business a particularly funny Laurel and Hardy piece from 1929, The Land Beyond the Sunset, a childrens fantasy whose content is very much a product of that particular era of film making (1912), and a solid Chaplin 'the tramp just escaped from prision' short intitled The Adventure (1917).

To wrap it all up I watched Little Miss Sunshine before I went to bed, and I quite liked it. I think that's probably your best picture winner right there, but I'm going to wait until I see The Departed tomarrow to make my final call on that race.