Best of the Week - First Week of May

Once again it's been a while, but there is mostly a reason. My prediction from two posts ago came to pass: I have become an addict. I started Game of Thrones and it immediately took over my life. I burned through the first book and am now about 2/3 of the way through book two: A Clash of Kings. There is no reason to even review or discuss these books in this blog because a) I'm sure everyone that wants to read anything about them can find places on the internet for discussion and b) I am sure to have a monster blog post on it at some point in the future. So unless I actually have something else to post, assume the Best thing I read is A Song of Ice and Fire - whatever book I happen to be on. But I may have to take a break at some point in time as a way to recharge myself to get ready for the next point. But I think I am in love with Tyrion and as a result, I will post my friend Corey's awesome drawing of the Lannister Imp:

But I have gotten back on the movie watching train and have started using my Netflix again. And I have seen some pretty great movies in the last few weeks. I will give my quick reviews on the movies I've watched below:
- The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: As a movie fan, it is absolutely shocking that I have never seen this classic Western from 1965 before one week ago. All in all, this movie was quite great as expected. It is on every "Best of" list for a reason. A few quick observations about it. 1) I was shocked at how funny it was. Especially Eli Wallach's "ugly" Tuco providing amazing comedic touches to this western. 2) Much like the first time I saw Casablanca for the first time a few years ago, I was shocked how much of the movie I already knew simply because I have lived in this pop-culture obsessed world. Many classic scenes have been referenced in numerous other places that I recognized and now can see the reference used in the past. And I'm not even including the classic score of the film. 3) Additionally, I now understand many of Tarantino's influences even more.






- I didn't plan this, but the same week I watched a classic Western, I watched probably the best Western from last year. True Grit by The Coen Brothers was a solid movie from beginning to end. The acting and especially the cinematography was perfect. Again, I'm no expert when it comes to the Western genre, but this movie kept my attention from beginning to end and the little girl really stole the show from such great, veteran actors like Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. I did have a little problem with the ending of this movie feeling it was a little tagged on. But apparently this was more of an adaptation of the novel and I can understand how that ending would have worked in a book where I felt it didn't work so well in the movie version.

- Then last night Aubrey and I decided to watch The Kids are All Right. It's been on my list for a while and it was one of those movies that was 100% enjoyable. Well acted (I have a thing for Julianne Moore and think she can almost do no wrong), and a good little story whose moral (to me) was more for parents to relax and trust that they did a good job raising their kids. In this movie all the adults were fucked up or crazy or controlling while the kids were able to accept all the craziness around them, process it and offer good advice to those that were too stressed to deal with life and make the right decisions for themselves as well. I feel this was more important than anything about the gay family unit which was also presented well. And by "well" I mean presented as any other family with one controlling parent and one, more relaxed parent.

Best Thing on TV: I'm still only watching about four shows/week this summer (True Blood, Curb, Louis & Wilfred) but the best thing was the show I watch every day and never mention since I consider it news and not a TV show: The Daily Show. Jon Stewart has been on fire lately. He's always great, but he always seems to peak around election time. This summer, he is the only person in all media calling into question the stupidity of our elected officials and I don't want to make dorkTASTIC political in any way, but we're pretty screwed (economically) and Jon Stewart is keeping me laughing during some pretty interesting (read: crazy) times in our country's history.