The Virgin Spring (1960)

  This is my very first Ingmar Bergman film, I think.  I know, I know, how could it have taken me this long to get to a film-maker as influential as Bergman?  I'd never been exposed to it until I started reading about film on my own.  My mother loves classic American movies but she never had the patience for subtitles so we didn't watch a lot of foreign films growing up.  The point is that I watch them now.

I heard about The Virgin Spring on a horror blog.  Last House on the Left is a less arthouse remake of the same plot.  Whenever possible, I like to watch the original influence first so I added it to my queue.  An eternity later, it arrived and I watched it on Sunday.

In medieval Sweden, the daughter (Birgitta Pettersson) of a wealthy landowner (Max von Sydow) is on her way to deliver candles to church when she is raped and murdered by three bandits.  The bandits unknowingly seek shelter for the night at the girl's house, where they inadvertently reveal their misdeed by trying to sell the daughter's dress to her mother (Birgitta Valberg).  The parents must then decide what to do with the men.

Despite being over 40 years old, this movie retains a lot of power.  I liked the use of symbolism and the juxtaposition of Christianity and paganism.  I wasn't expecting that angle but it was welcome.  I'm not going to now say that I'm a huge Bergman fan, after only seeing one film, but I am looking forward to when I get The Seventh Seal, probably around 2017 at this rate.

Despicable Me 2 (2013)

I went back and watched this again, now that I have it at home and it's still super-adorable.  I also watched the three mini-movies that came as extras.  "Puppy" is okay.  Think E.T. but with Minions.  "Panic in the Mailroom" was cute but skippable.  The real stand-out is "Training Wheels", starring Agnes (Elsie Fisher).  All Agnes wants is to be able to keep up with the big kids on their bikes and get some ice cream.  With a little help from the Minions, she gets so much more.

Originally posted:  7/8/13
Nominated for:  Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song    This movie was so freakin' cute I almost died.  

After quitting the evil game, Gru (Steve Carell) has settled down to raise his three girls and make delicious jams and jellies.  Then he is recruited by Agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) to join the Anti-Villain League and help them determine who has stolen a top-secret lab from the Arctic.  Initially resistant, he changes his mind when Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) admits he's had another job offer and moves on to do more evil things.  Gru and Lucy stake out the local mall in order to track down who has taken the lab.  Gru is convinced that the owner of the Mexican restaurant, Eduardo (Benjamin Bratt), is really supervillain El Macho, and not just because his son Antonio (Moises Arias) is putting the moves on Margot (Miranda Cosgrove).  But El Macho was declared dead after riding a shark covered in dynamite into the mouth of a volcano (muy macho), so could Gru be letting his fatherly instincts overshadow his villainous ones?

I can't really say what it was about the first one that was so entertaining, but take that quality and multiply it by 5 for how good this one is.  It completely avoids the sequel slump, even though it is obvious that they were supposed to release it in time for Mother's Day.  Al Pacino originally voiced Eduardo but left the picture due to creative differences.  Bratt stepped in and reshot all of the voicework for the character, which I have no doubt was a monumental task.  He did such a good job, I can't even imagine what Pacino's version would have sounded like. 

It's still suitable for all ages, although it is growing with its audience, introducing a dating element now that the original kids who saw it in theaters are hitting puberty.  It's a smart move for Universal.  I don't know how Minions, which is coming out next year, will affect the series, as it is a spin-off not a sequel, but it already has my money.  We'll just have to wait and see.

Reefer Madness (2005)

  This was so good I had to immediately buy it.  My only issue is that it is only available as DVD and I need this in blu-ray.  I. Need. This.  Someone make it happen.

I've never been into the drug scene, but I'm an adult who attended public school so it's safe to say that I've been exposed to the culture.  As such, this movie is hilarious.

It's 1936, and parents of a small American town have been invited to a special screening of Tell Your Children, introduced by a real government agent (Alan Cumming) about the dangers of marijuana on the unsuspecting youth.  They watch young Jimmy (Christian Campbell) as he falls in with a bad crowd and becomes a dope fiend and sex maniac, jeopardizing his future and his romance with the wholesome Mary Lane (Kristen Bell).

True story:  the musical number with Jesus made me laugh so hard I almost fell out of bed.

Everything in this movie is pure gold.  Do yourself a favor if you're having a rough day and watch this movie.

Blitz (2011)

  This was a fun little movie.  I don't know if it ever got released outside of England but it's worth checking out.  I really like Paddy Considine more and more as an actor.  He has that ineffable ability to completely change everything about himself to fit a part.  Some of you are probably thinking "duh, that's what acting is" but think about how few people actually manage it.  Jason Statham, for example, is pretty much just Jason Statham in every movie he's in.  It works for him, but you're probably never going to see him playing a chess grandmaster in an Oscar-nominated drama.

Anyway, Brant (Jason Statham) is a London cop with some serious anger issues.  The unit has no time to deal with his attitude problem, however, because a serial killer targeting cops is loose.  The top brass brings in Nash (Paddy Considine), a former top cop currently being ostracized for being openly gay.  These two must work together to find out who is knocking off bobbies before one of them takes a bullet.

This movie also has a supporting turn from Luke Evans.  Hollywood has been trying to make Luke Evans happen as a star for the past three years and it just doesn't look like it's going to stick.  I wondered why they were pushing because I frankly didn't see a lot there, but he really pulls focus in this film.  More than he has any right to as a supporting character.  I think, now that I'm really thinking about it, the difference is that he actually had a chance to just relax on screen.  Most of the characters he's played in other films -- The Raven, Immortals -- have been really tightly wound.  I know he has that broody dark-browed face, but I think we the public would collectively fall for him if the studios just let him be a little more inviting.

In other news, I binge-watched season 2 of Mad Men.  It went down smooth as silk, smoother even than season one.  I liked Peggy a lot more this time around.  It just seemed like everyone was really settling into their roles.

I also went back and skimmed through season one of Desperate Housewives.  That season was so good it actually made me wonder if I had judged the subsequent ones too harshly.  I remember watching seasons two and three back to back and just being really irritated at the whole thing.  Maybe  I'll give it another shot.

127 Hours (2010)

  So, you guys know how much I hate James Franco, right?  You're probably wondering why I even bothered to watch this movie.  It's because I'm so dedicated to you people.  I said I would watch all the Oscar nominees for 2010 and this is the absolute last one in the Best Picture category.  It was nominated for a bunch of them but I don't really know why.  Out of all the movies released in 2010, how did this one make the cut?

Based on the true story, hiker Aron Ralston (James Franco) falls down a crevasse and his arm is trapped under a small boulder.  He is stuck there for a little over five days before sawing his arm off to escape.

This is why you should always hike with a buddy.

Now, I'm not going to talk about the real person because I have no idea what he is actually like.  I am strictly discussing the character of Aron Ralston as played by Franco in this film.

Seeing as there's very little real action for most of the movie, as our main character is trapped under a rock, Danny Boyle exercises some of his trademarked surrealism.  He really likes acid yellow-tinged flashbacks and lucid fantasies.  In some of these, we see Aron's memories of his family, his regrets over breaking up with his girlfriend (Clemence Poesy), and his speculations of what his family is doing now.

It is interesting from a film-making point of view, because Danny Boyle takes very unexpected paths to tell a story, but I didn't enjoy watching the movie.  I didn't feel the catharsis that is supposed to happen when Aron finally gets free because I didn't care about him as a character.  I felt very detached from the whole affair.

If I remember correctly, Christy saw this when it was relatively new and she said that the arm-cutting scene was almost too much for her to watch.  She is much more squeamish than I am, though I will say that the sudden discordant bursts of music whenever he tried to cut the nerve made me grate my teeth.  As always, your mileage may vary.

Desert Commandos (1967)

  I got this as a double feature with a movie called Ransom Money from Rob, who got it for free.  Thank God nobody paid for it because it is a terrible movie.

A German commando unit is dropped into the Sahara Desert with orders to trek to Casablanca and infiltrate an Allied meeting in the hopes of assassinating Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt.

Now, I'm not one of those who believes an entire population has the same viewpoints as the people in charge.  I'm fully aware there were German citizens who risked their lives in the Resistance because they did not support the Nazi agenda.  However, this is not a movie about that.  These are loyal soldiers out to do a mission to the best of their ability.  And it makes me curious who precisely the target audience was for this film.

It's an Italian production, which partially explains why the entire movie is poorly dubbed.  The worst part is that you can tell most of the characters were speaking English originally but either the sound quality sucked or they were unintelligible due to an accent.  At any rate, this is a terrible example of spaghetti film-making.

The Defender (1994)

  This is horribly dubbed but I love it anyway.  There isn't even an option to hear it in the original language.  Eventually, I'm sure I will find a copy that has a language menu but for now this will do.

Michelle (Christy Chung) is the only witness to a murder.  Her rich boyfriend (Wai-Kwok Ng) hires an elite bodyguard named John Chang (Jet Li) to guard her in addition to the police presence.  Michelle initially hates Chang for being so inflexible but, as the assassination attempts mount up, becomes grateful of his talents.

Jet Li is amazing.  Always has been, always will be.  He is one of my absolute favorite martial artists and this film, while light on plot, showcases his speed and precision.  It's not as flashy as his American work but it's still definitely worth seeing.

Deception (1946)

  This was not a good movie.  It came as part of a Bette Davis box set but I'm very tempted to get rid of it.  The only thing stopping me is the special features.  They are adorable.

Musician Christine Radcliffe (Bette Davis) was in love with cellist Karel Novak (Paul Henreid) before WWII but lost track of him during.  She tried everything she could to locate him and bring him to safety in America but to no avail.  Years later, by chance, she found that Novak had lived and was doing concerts at small colleges.  She meets him and they immediately reignite that old flame.  But, fearing his jealousy, she hides the fact that she has been mistress to a notoriously cruel composer, Alexander Hollenius (Claude Rains), for the past couple of years.  Jilted and angry, Hollenius threatens to reveal everything to Novak, causing Christine to devolve into a cycle of paranoia that can only end in violence.

I normally like Bette Davis but here she's playing such a stupid woman that I just can't get past it.  Christine doesn't let a moment's worth of rational thought interfere with her fearful delusions and it annoys me beyond all measure.  Hollenius is a schoolyard bully, all puffed-up arrogance and threats, but it works because she allows it.  Novak is repeatedly referred to as having an "artistic temperament" but that really just means he's unpredictable and petty.  None of these characters are worth the time of day and I just can't be bothered with them.

The special features include a line-up called "Warner's Night at the Movies", leading off with a newsreel about frozen TV dinners, followed by two shorts and a cartoon.  They're so hilariously out of date that they elevated the entire disc from "hated it" to "meh".

Death Trance (2005)

This movie made not a goddamn bit of sense and plays like a bad dream you can't wake up from with a soundtrack of German death metal.  It was produced by a company called Fever Dreams, which is the most appropriate thing I can think of.

I don't know what the hell was going on here.  There's a guy and he's dragging a coffin covered in chains around with a creepy little girl following him.  A monk is trying to get the coffin back because the Goddess of Destruction is inside and opening it is the end of the world.  There's a guy who looks like Sid Vicious and a random badass chick who just goes around telling everyone how unsuited for everything they are.  There are spider people in the woods, tiny CGI dolls that dance around, and a dude in fetish leather wielding the world's largest kitchen knife.

Remember when I reviewed a random movie called Versus?  No?  Click the link.  I'll wait.

Ok, so this was made by the same director and stars the same guy so I thought it was going to be as good.  Nope.  This was just weird.  It was like they were trying to make a fantasy movie with katanas but just couldn't quite get everything to work.  With a little more character development, I think this could have been spectacular, but there's no fixing it now.  The sad part is that I have actually had this disc since 2007 and never opened it until a few days ago.  Not only did I spend money on this piece of crap, the case is cracked so I can't even sell it back.

The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995)

  I've never cared overmuch for Hugh Grant as an actor.  I don't think he's attractive, and that mumbling neurotic bit he does is obnoxious, not charming.  I don't know why he got top billing in this, even as the titular character.  It's not really about him.  If there were any justice in the world, that poster would have Colm Meany in 14 pt font and Hugh Grant in 12.

A small town in Wales is visited by two English cartographers during World War I.  Anson (Hugh Grant) is recovering from injuries inflicted in battle and Garrad (Ian McNeice) was sent because of the injuries he inflicted on other people's livers.  The town is a charming coal mining community whose one claim to fame is that they have the first mountain in Wales.  Anson and Garrad measure the peak and find that it is unfortunately 18 feet shy of mountain status.  Rather than have the town succumb to crushing disappointment, local barkeep and general scoundrel Morgan the Goat (Colm Meaney) organizes everyone in a mad effort to pile enough soil on the hilltop to qualify.  He enlists local beauty Betty (Tara Fitzgerald) to keep Garrad's attention from wandering but she finds herself drawn more to Anson, instead.

My mother recommended this to me as one of the funniest comedies she had seen in years.  I find myself hard-pressed to say otherwise.  The movie is charming, heartwarming, and utterly endearing in spite of Hugh Grant.

Death Race (2008)

  As completely unnecessary as this remake is, it's still a fun time to be had.  I had watched it once before, although the particulars of when escape me, so this time I watched the unrated version.  Normally, something is "unrated" because the MPAA had to cut language or nudity.  The only part that seemed new to me was the background on his life before the prison.  I don't remember that part being there except in flashbacks, but I could be wrong.

Jensen Ames (Jason Stathem) is framed for the murder of his wife and sent to Terminal Island, a privatized prison run by Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen) made famous for their broadcast of the Death Race.  Convicts are given the opportunity to win their freedom by participating in a no-holds-barred car race, complete with machine guns, defensive measures, and even arm candy.  Jensen has been brought in to secretly replace the current fan favorite, Frankenstein, who died on the operating table.  He and his pit crew must find a way to stay alive long enough to win the race as well as take down the corrupt warden.

Paul W. S. Anderson directed this and you could easily say this is where it all started to go downhill for him.  Before this, he did Resident Evil, Event Horizon, Soldier and Mortal Kombat.  After this, he did the Resident Evil 4, 5, The Three Musketeers and Pompeii.  That is not a good trend.

I am a little surprised at how much of his oeuvre I've actually watched, as a side note.

Anyway, if you're going to watch a Paul W. S. Anderson movie, stick to ones made before 2009.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

  This is the most perfect double feature with Deliverance.  Two sides, same coin.  Seriously, watch Deliverance and then watch this right after.

Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) are two easy-going rednecks off to enjoy a vacation at their "summer cabin" (which might be the same one from Evil Dead).  They rescue a co-ed named Allison (Katrina Bowden) after she hits her head while skinny-dipping and take her back to the cabin until she wakes up.  Unfortunately, Allison's friends immediately assume Tucker and Dale are chainsaw-wielding inbred hillbilly psychos and mount an assault on the cabin to save Allison.

This movie had so many laugh-out-loud moments and it is a crying shame that it does not have a higher profile.  It's just a fantastically funny movie.  If you liked Cabin in the Woods, you'll enjoy Tucker & Dale.

In other news, I finished season 3 of Deadwood and I'm really sad now that was how it had to end.  I wanted more from the characters.  I guess that's all you can ask from a show, though.

Deliverance (1972)

  Don't let anyone tell you differently:  this is a horror movie.  You can tell because if you hear dueling banjos, your butt tightens automatically.  That alone puts this film right up there with Jaws for ruined vacations.

Lewis (Burt Reynolds) convinces his friends Ed (Jon Voight), Bobby (Ned Beatty), and Drew (Ronny Cox) to go canoeing down a river that is about to be dammed for a power plant.  It's the last time anyone will ever see this pristine wilderness before it is ruined.  Except for the eccentric, estranged locals who lived undisturbed until these four idiots wandered into their territory.  All of a sudden, a pleasant trip outdoors becomes a life and death battle against man and nature.  It's also a great movie about how panic can make you fill in a narrative that rational thought would have written another way.

You'll notice there are no women on this trip.  That's because any sensible lady would have taken one look at the gas station people and noped the fuck out.  I know I would have.  I damn sure wouldn't have antagonized them.  This is why men don't live as long.

If you've never seen this film, go ahead and watch it.  Don't go camping after, but go ahead and watch the movie, if only to see where the lines you've heard in other shows and movies originated.

Ironclad (2011)

  It took me almost all week to finish this movie, not through any fault of its own, but because I was so busy.  It was actually pretty decent for a film with such a small release. 

King John (Paul Giamatti), angry at being forced to sign the Magna Carta, hires Danish mercenaries to revenge himself on the barons that drafted the document.  A small band of soldiers led by Baron d'Aubigny (Brian Cox) and a Knight Templar named Thomas Marshal (James Purefoy) take Rochester Castle for defense to keep the king from controlling all of southern England, until the Archbishop (Charles Dance) can raise troops from France.

Essentially, it's The Magnificent Seven:  Medieval Edition.  The cast is top-notch, the story straightforward, and the time period interesting.  There is a lot of shaky-cam going on during several of the battle scenes, but that's really the only negative thing I have to say about it.

I started season 3 of Deadwood Thursday.  I never got to see the final season when it aired so these are all new episodes to me.  I'm hoping for a good finale.  Normally, I wouldn't watch three whole seasons back to back, because it tends to fuck up the number of posts I get to write, but I hadn't watched the show since 2007 and I needed a refresher.  I'm glad I did, too, because it turns out that I had never finished season two, and the final episode is where they really introduce the character of George Hearst.

Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

  Why would you ever put Clint Eastwood in prison?  He'll just glare people to death and then break out.

Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood) has broken out of several lesser prisons and when he is sent to Alcatraz, he is determined to add its name to his list of previous addresses.  Despite the warden (Patrick McGoohan) smugly proclaiming that Alcatraz's security cannot be breached, Morris begins to formulate a plan to get out before something bad happens to him.

This is based on a true account.  Frank Morris was a convicted criminal with a near-genius IQ who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962.  Whether or not his escape was successful is the point up for grabs since that would imply he survived the attempt.  Morris was never arrested again so there's no official proof that he made it out of the bay alive.

The movie is a dramatization, of course, but not as wild of one as you might imagine when you see it.  This falls under the "truth is stranger" column.  As a film, it holds up extremely well.  I would put it in the top three prison movies I've ever seen, after The Shawshank Redemption and The Last Castle.

The Warrior's Way (2010)

  This was one of those visually stunning movies that makes you glad we moved beyond radio.  I got it from Netflix as a DVD but I think blu-ray is the way to go here.  When I buy it, that is definitely what format I would prefer.

Yang (Dong-gun Jang) is the greatest swordsman in the history of ever but he gives everything up rather than kill a baby.  He takes the child to the Wild West and moves into a circus town run by Eight Ball (Tony Cox).  The town is periodically plagued by an outlaw Colonel (Danny Huston), but knife thrower Lynne (Kate Bosworth) is planning to take him out for murdering her family.  Yang doesn't want to be involved but he finds the people start to grow on him, even town drunk Ronald (Geoffrey Rush), so he starts training Lynne, even though he knows this will draw out the assassins after him.

It's cowboys and ninjas.  What's not to like?  And did I mention it was gorgeous?  This flew under the radar for the most part and that is a damn shame because it really is worth watching.

In other news, I'm on season two of Deadwood.  Normally, I would just cherry-pick particular episodes to re-watch since I've seen the first two seasons before but it's been so long I'm having to re-acquaint myself.  I take breaks between discs to watch other things but I'm still fighting the urge to call everybody a cocksucker.

Dead Man (1995)

  It took me three tries at three separate points in my life to be able to watch this movie all the way through.  The first two times were almost a decade ago and I found it to be inaccessible to the point of incomprehensibility. This was it's last chance before it went on the "sell back to Amazon for a penny" pile.  Once you get past the weirdness, and there is a lot of weirdness, it's a fantastic film.

Bill Blake (Johnny Depp) is a Cincinnati accountant who travels to the frontier after being offered a job by the John Dickinson Mining Company.  However, upon arrival, he discovers that the position had been filled in the interim and Mr. Dickinson (Robert Mitchum) is not the type of man to change his mind about a decision.  Broke and jobless, Bill wanders around town until he meets a friendly flower seller named Thel (Mili Avital) and spends the night with her until her ex, Charlie (Gabriel Byrne), shows up and shoots them both.  Blake shoots Charlie in return and then runs, collapsing into the woods.  He is saved by a giant American Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer) who is exiled from his tribe and who thinks Bill is English Romantic poet William Blake.  Once Bill is well enough to travel unassisted, he discovers that Charlie was John Dickinson's son and that he, Bill, is being hunted for a double murder.  Dickinson hires three killers (Lance Henrikson, Michael Wincott, and Eugene Byrd) to track Bill down and bring back his body.

Like I said, it's super-weird.  If you can let that float over you without focusing on it, you'll find that this is also a beautifully spiritual film about friendship and the journeys we take in life.  It also has an all-star cast list that, frankly, adds to the weirdness quotient by a lot.  We're talking Alfred Molina, John Hurt, Iggy Pop, and Billy Bob Thornton all in the same movie.  There's cannibalism, cross-dressing, poetry, and a grown man sleeping with a teddy bear.  It is that kind of movie.

Lolita (1962)

  I've never read the source novel for Lolita, nor have I ever seen either of the adaptations previously.  I chose this, the Stanley Kubrick feature, over the one starring Jeremy Irons for the director's cachet.  I felt like it was something that I should watch, if for no other reason than the title character being a pop culture reference.

Professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) moves to a small New England town for a summer before he begins lecturing at a college in Ohio.  He rents a room from a ditzy widow (Shelley Winters) because he finds himself completely enthralled by her jailbait teenaged daughter, Lolita (Sue Lyons).  After a hasty marriage and an accidental death, Humbert winds up Lolita's legal guardian and uses the opportunity to express his affections.  But he finds himself growing ever more possessive and paranoid, especially since there seems to be someone out to get him.

Probably because I associate Russian literature with the 19th century, I assumed the book was written in the late 1800's, but I just checked and it was published in 1958.  This is an important bit because I was going to compare it to Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll for subject matter and I incorrectly, as it turns out, thought Baby Doll was a reference to Lolita.  It actually came out two years prior to Nabokov's novel.  Also, the eponymous Baby Doll was supposed to be 19 and Lolita is 12.  One of those things is a lot more okay than the other.  People protested Baby Doll.  I can only imagine the firestorm that happened with Lolita.

Anyway, movie.  They don't actually show anything untoward happening between Humbert and his very underaged ward.  Which means everything you don't see is conveyed by James Mason's sweaty, disheveled, unbelievably guilty performance.  The man was a masterful actor.  And yet, he is completely overshadowed by Peter Sellers.  It's like Salieri and Mozart all over again.

I meant to have this bonus post for the holiday up earlier but I had homework to do.  I've already lost power once tonight as I type this (thank God for auto-save!) because of thunderstorms in the area so this will just have to do.

Dead Alive (1992)

  For once, the tag line isn't a lie.  This is probably one of the goriest films you'll ever see.  Not scary so much, but if you don't like gallons of fake blood and dozens of severed limbs you probably won't enjoy this film.

After his mother (Elizabeth Moody) is bitten by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey, Lionel (Timothy Balme) notices a marked change in her personality.  Specifically, her sudden demand for flesh.  She soon infects her nurse, some punk kids, and the local minister, putting a severe crimp in Lionel's would-be relationship with the local grocer girl, Paquita (Diana Penalver).  It's hard to tell a girl you like her when you're trying to keep the town from finding out that your mother has become a flesh-eating zombie.

This was before Peter Jackson got all classy with his literature adaptations.  This is not high-brow cinema, or even mainstream, really.  Just good old-fashioned splatter comedy.  Bon appetit!

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

  This should look really pretty against my background.

Global Warming:  the Movie!  Not quite at the level of prophecy yet, but a lot closer to the mark than 2012.

Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) delivers a strident warning to a UN Council on Global Warming about the possibility of a mini-Ice Age arising and is promptly laughed at by the U.S. Vice President (Kenneth Welsh).  A fellow scientist from a Scottish way station, Terry Rapson (Ian Holm), confesses to Jack that he thinks the Atlantic Jet Stream is shifting.  Meanwhile, Jack's son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is in New York City for a school function when Manhattan is flooded, trapping him and his schoolmates in the New York Public Library.  The flood almost immediately freezes, leaving the kids with very few options.

And this, kids, is why I will never live farther north than Maryland, if I can help it.  Today is Labor Day, the official end of Summer, and even though it is 90 degrees outside I know Fall is coming and it makes me sad.  I hate being cold and last year's Winter lasted damn near six months.  Normally, I like to put myself in the place of movie characters and try to think about what I would have done in their shoes, but not this movie.  I don't want to even pretend being that cold.