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Sunday, July 1, 2007

The Sound of Young America

Spent several hours working on the dining room ceiling today, and got nothing done. Mostly, it was the discovery that what we thought was going on with the wiring - the layout of it, that is - had nothing to do with reality. Therefore, my hopes of taking advantage of the opened ceiling to replace all the old (old, OLD) wiring are pretty much trashed. Oh, well. Insurance fire claims, here we come!

In fact, 'getting nothing done' was the day's official motto. Just felt tired, and Yesenia slept pretty much all day. For a while, I took a nap as well - on the theory that when I awoke later, I'd be refreshed enough to tackle a couple of projects for work. Ha! Stayed tired, ate dinner, watched Dreamgirls, and still tired. The legendary second wind never came. Or if it did, it bypassed me and went right to Kiko (our cat), who's had 'the crazies' all night. Those of you who have cats or have had cats know what 'the crazies' are. For the rest of you: you feed the cat, cat goes on tear around house, jumps into open closet, stares at spot on wall, runs up and down stairs, goes into the basement and yowls horribly, runs back upstairs, leaps onto the bed and attacks your feet. Then expects to be fed again.

As for Dreamgirls, it made me want to read a history of Motown, so it had that going for it. Nice, slick Hollywood movie musical with great performances, but mostly forgettable songs. Still, good orchestration and set & costume design, so it's worth your time. As many others have noted, it's nice to see Eddie Murphy turn in a real performance, again. This will be immediately overturned, because the other film we have from BLockbuster is INorbit. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Guy needs to get out of the cross-dressing fat-suits and follow the BIll Murray career path.

Seriously, what is it with black film comedians dressing up as violent, grossly obese matrons? Tyler Perry, Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy - I'm sure there are many more that I'm unfamiliar with. And what is it with black audiences that want to see this? Are they really clamoring for this? If so, this may be the greatest racial divide in our nation, today. There are some things that just can't leap across cultural boundaries. I guess if white people have A Prairie Home Companion, black audiences have Big Momma's House 3:Big Momma's Mansion.

Still, I'm sure we can all come together in agreement that any film written or directed by of Nancy Meyers is an abomination that should never be screened again. And the soul of a nation shall be healed.

D.

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