Illium

I'd start with the simple...but what fun would that be?

My Christmas plans are a little up in the air right now.  I'd originally intended to start early at my mother's to open gifts with the kids.  They're still young enough that they want to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and start pulling wrapping paper apart to get to their goodies.  I envy the joy it gives them receiving gifts.  It's been entirely too long since I enjoyed getting a gift.

Next we were supposed to head over to Aly's house for Christmas morning with her parents...except apparently they want it to be a family only thing and I somehow don't qualify for that.  I'm not so much offended, I understand that they want to spend time alone with their daughter, as I am surprised.  There seems to be two types of things with them...things I am absolutely required to be there for and things I'm not allowed to be  there for.  I like being invited places, I'm not as big of a fan of being required to be in places or banned from being in places.  It's not a big deal.  Aly's family is fantastic.  I love being around them.  They're just really good people and they've always been very kind to me.  This just wasn't how I expected Christmas to be.

So from the looks of it I'll drop her home after my mother's and I'll head over to my father's for a bit.  Then I'll end up doing dinner with either my mother or father and meet up with Alyssa later at night to exchange gifts.  Of course that could all change.  Quite a bit, quite quickly.

Don't you love the holidays?

Last night we went to see the new David O. Russel film The Fighter.  I like David O. Russel, I like Christian Bale, I like Mark Wahlberg, I like Amy Adams.  I liked the movie.  Got it?

Wahlberg was really good for the most part, although he did have several Mark Wahlberg moments.  You know the ones.  Where no matter what character he's playing, no matter how great his performance is, no matter what the context of the scene all of a sudden he's just Mark Wahlberg again.  It's like he forgot where he was and what he was doing.  A line comes out of his mouth, not in the same accent or character that he's been in for the better part of the last hour, without any conviction or nuance.  I like to imagine that immediately following the director saying "cut" during these scenes Wahlberg looks around and goes, "What's with all the cameras?"  He really is a good actor, and I really enjoy a lot of his work.  But every single movie he is in has at least one of these scenes...hell the entire film The Happening was just one big scene like that.  I don't blame him.  All actors have bad takes.  I blame the directors.  There's no way they don't see it to.

Christian Bale was great, although sometimes I wonder if his character was a little over the top.  Having seen Dicky Eklund on TV before I'm inclined to believe that it was pretty damn accurate.  I think Russel included the candid scene with Micky and Dicky during the credits just so people could see how fucking wild Dicky really is.  The guy is, and from all accounts always has been, totally fried.  He and my mother would get along.

Amy Adams was really good too.  She looked great and the scene in which she was getting in bed with Wahlberg was hot.  Considering she's a pale bony ass redhead playing a somewhat white trash character she looked like a damn sex goddess in that scene.  And she held her own with some overwhelmingly scene stealing characters in the form of Ward's sisters.  So good job there too.

I remember watching Ward-Gatti I and just being in absolute awe of these two guys destroying each other in the ring.  And then I remember being both stunned and impressed as they did it again twice more in the next year and change.  Between May of 2002 and June of 2003 I watched these two guys go at it three times.  I'd never seen anything like it.  Nobody has three fights like that in a year anymore.  Nobody.  And anyone that goes to see this movie being a fan of those three fights will enjoy it a little more.  Even if it is a little off putting that Wahlberg looks nothing like Ward.

And finally, I've bene listening to a lot of Christian Radio over the past few days.  Gearing up for my Antioch Talk.  I think I may be on to something.  I think it could be really interesting.  Really intersting.  Like Leviticus level interesting.