Good Gravy - Part II (2, not 11)

August 6, 2013, again: Well, it worked. I saw it with my own eyes ... and this brings us to the second part of an ongoing series that's only vaguely related to gravy. And needless to say, I already find myself regretting this whole commitment. I mean, why do I feel any allegiance to any of you to devote my time to doing this? During my six-week absence, did even one of you think to ask about my welfare, except perhaps Cara M., who was pleasant to me at Starbuck's recently but in the end only wanted me to buy her a latte. Damnit, what is with you people?! Is that all this Blah-ugh! is to you? A joke? Something to AMUSE you?! ... Well, if that's the case, you're far worse off than I ever imagined. Which brings me to another question of whether, if I were gay, would I fall harder over Tom Cruise or Denzel Washington? It's a close race, as you know. Anyone who's seen Jack Reacher, which really has to be the gayest name, would have to bet on Tom. It's a delightful movie with great examples of mystery and violence, and it just left me grinning from ear to ear. And yet my recent history involves a couple of enjoyable Denzel -- (and by the way, what the hell kind of name is that?!) pictures that had me admiring not only his acting ability, but his ease with both wearing a suit and blowing up cars. This one called Man on Fire is about this guy -- this man, actually -- who becomes really angry and sort of figuratively catches fire and starts killing everyone. It's all happy, really, because we're all rather in agreement that he should be killing everyone because they're all these evil types and they caused him to catch fire (figuratively). (Part of it involved them shooting him, and none of like to be shot.) For me the story culminated when he put a large explosive device up a man's rectum and gave him three minutes to answer some questions before he blew him up. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, it worked on so many levels. On the opposite side of these films, I rewatched some old movies that I used to swear by and I was really kind of disappointed to find how lame they were. Among these were The Omen, The Seven-Ups, The Boys from Brazil, and most recently The Marathon Man. What is it with movies with "The" in the title?! These were films my memory saw as so exciting and interesting, but when I sat my son down recently and, over several nights, forced him to watch these, he was hardly smitten. It's was almost comical, in fact, to see what the industry got away with in terms of quality back in the 1970's. The Boys from Brazil in particular was just so much unchewed Strasbourg sausage, and while I liked the part where he attacks the guy at the dance and then later tends his wounds, it just didn't hold butter. But I digress and it's getting late, and I still need to renew a movie online. Let's see if I make a Part 3 after all ...