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2008-The Year of the Rick Roll.

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

-Nietzsche

Actually, I conquered the idea that I could do 2 jobs and maintain a sense of sanity a long time ago.

1 day down.. 2 to go.

So how was your holiday? Mine was good- lots of family, lots o’ gifts  including a most excellent coat (thank you, Sis) and my boys had a good time which is what it’s all about.   The poll on the right side says that most of you were ready for the whole thing to be over with and I understand that although personally, I didn’t OD on the Christmas cheer this year.

I am doing the Fox thing, Mon-Wed, for Chip so it should be a long day today.  And I still have no idea what i am going to do for New Year’s Eve (if anything).  But enough small talk let’s get the Monday DVD Pick-Wanted.

SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS: Based on the poster, you would think this movie is all about Angelina Jolie and her elegant tattoos but our story is more focused on young Wesley Gibson working at his dead end job with an overbearing boss and a girlfriend who cheats on him with his best friend.  He also takes anti-anxiety medicine to combat panic attacks.  Turns out, he’s the son of long line of assassins that have special traits including the ability to see in super slo-mo  (He could be the perfect referee!) Gibson meets fellow assassin, Fox (Jolie) in this spectacular shootout in a drug store that ends up as an unbelievable car chase.  Fox tells him that his dad was killed by a rogue assassin and that Gibson is his next target.

He follows Angelina (who wouldn’t) to the “Fraternity” where there are no keg parties but they do have weavers who make nice shawls and occasionally spell out in thread the name of the next target for the assassins to kill in order to save the lives of countless others.  Yeah, it’s a little confusing.  Morgan Freeman is the head guy and we meet a few other members of the team. Gibson starts his training (use the force, Gibby) and learns how to control his panic attacks and “take back his life”.  There is a double cross and a few twists and turns at the end that I don’t want to ruin for you suffice to tell you that there is a train and bridge and things blow up real good.

OVERALL: I rented this movie for 1 reason only. I wanted to see some cool special effects/action sequences . And that’s what I got.  Really really cool stuff.  Car flipping over other car in slo-mo.  Guy jumping out of building and across the street into other building in slo-mo.  Angelina Jolie getting out of a pool with fake tattoos on her sitting muscle in slo-mo.  Seriously awesome stuff.   I don’t need F-bombs every few seconds or the gratuitous sex scene but that’s in there too.

RENT IT?: This is not a family film. This is not a date flick.  It’s a guy movie. Grab a few beers and a Slim Jim and enjoy the beauty of a slo-mo shoot out and the curving of bullets.

UPDATE: I wasn’t aware that the source material for this movie was a comic book.  A few reviewers have said that it strayed to far from the comic but for the most part, it was well received. According to Box Office Mojo, ‘Wanted’ debuted in 3,185 theaters and got $50,927,085 on its opening weekend, putting it at second place under ‘Wall-E’. The film made $134,327,125 domestically and has $207,430,122 so far from foreign theaters, putting its current worldwide total up to: $341,757,247.  No word on a sequel (or prequel) at this point in time.

So happy that I get to go outside on the coldest night in 2 years in Dallas Fort Worth and go to work.

Here’ s to not freezing on the way in.

PS: Monday DVD review returns next week with a look at “Wanted.”

Merry Christmas.  Refresh the page and check the top banner if you don’t see a little holiday cheer!

• Filling in for the Chipster on Fox 4 starting Monday.  I think that may be why I had a dream last night that I was doing traffic on the Radio for K104 and KLIF.  Timing is everything in Radio and I remember that K104 went late and KLIF went early and so in my dream  I was trying to finish up my report on K104 and after I did the traffic i couldn’t read the commercial and I was stumbling through it. I mean it was cringe-worthy emergency break type of stuff. I think I said the word hamburger for no reason. Thank goodness it was dream. 
• I just had 5 teenagers in my house shooting a PSA for a school project. It was actually kind of amazing to see how easily these kids just act and talk in front of the camera.
• I made pumpkin bread last night. 3 cups of sugar will make anything taste good.
• I had a chance to go to the Cowboy game this weekend and but I already made a commitment to go to a Christmas party with somebody.
• Finished my Christmas cards and they are going in the mail today.  Almost as good as last year’s.
• The Big Bang Theory is becoming one of the funniest shows on TV.
• Speaking of Cowboys (earlier), I made a comment last week about Tony Romo.  I hope to take back that comment in full and make a public apology as soon as the Cowboys win a playoff game again.
• I can’t believe gas is less than $1.50 a gallon.  Crazy. Of course my 401(k) is worth about $3000 less than it was a year ago.
• I have migrated most of my social habits to facebook as opposed to myspace for what’s it’s worth.

And this week’s website is an addicting game that’s kind of like Tetris but the goal is to buld a tower and the blocks get all wobbly and …well just play it for yourself.  99 Bricks.

I am pretty sure that I’ve mentioned LOST on here before so it’s no secret that I am really looking forward to the ABC show starting up again next month.  Yeah, sometimes it gets a little pedantic  but when you realize that you have invested almost 4.5 years in watching this thing and not missing an episode well by golly, you are going to finish it. And by you, I mean me.

FUN FACT: Did you know that the Lost two-part pilot episode that aired on Sept 22, 2004 was the most expensive pilot ever shot?  Reports peg it around $12 million. (Average hour long pilot cost 4 million which is nothing to sneeze at, jeez!)

Anyway, for those of you who can access youtube, here is sneak peek for the new season.

Hey did you catch the snow yesterday here in Dallas/Ft Worth?  I’ll say it again: If it’s going to be below freezing, it might as well snow. Or fog.

Really? Freezing fog? Sounds like a cheesy horror movie. “BEWARE OF THE FREEZING FOG!”

Yeah, that's a lot of snow.

Here’s your picture for Wednesday. It’s my son, Tanner making a snow angel after we got trapped in Denver during the great blizzard of 2007.  Shut down the airport and the roads.  The boys and I made the best of it and went out to the parking lot of the hotel we managed to secure after trying to get to the airport.  The drifts were up to 4 to 5 ft deep and we built snow caves and had a snowball fight and made tiny snowmen then crushed them with the snow boulders.  It was really a lot of fun and quite memorable.  Although it certainly made some people a little stir crazy. Ended up driving the entire trip back to Dallas straight through all night.

“If you’re walking on thin ice, you might was well dance.”

-Unknown

You know, it’s days like today that I am glad that I don’t have to get up at 3am just to go in early and do a 4:30 show and talk about ice on the roads.

I mean, sometimes it was kinda cool to break up the monotony and actually show somebody sliding down the High Five.  (high 5!) I remember last year Good Day’s reporter Adrian Arambulo actually showed an 18 wheeler sliding off I-35E in Denton County LIVE on the air during his report. It was AWESOME. Especially since nobody got hurt.

As they used to say on Hill Street Blues,  “be careful out there!”

So I saw Get Smart this past week starring the awesome Steve Carell and the lovely Anne Hathaway. I was kind of excited about this movie simply because I was a casual fan of the old TV show.  Would you believe this new version “missed it by that much?

SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS: Maxwell Smart (Carell) is a top analyst at CONTROL, a secret American intelligence agency.  His goal is to be a field agent but the Chief finds him too valuable at a desk to allow him to leave his current post. An attack by KAOS exposes all the agents except for Smart and Agent 99 (who recently had plastic surgery to protect her identity).  Smart and 99 go to Russia to uncover this nuclear weapons plot expose the bad guys and then come back to LA and stop a nuclear bomb.

OVERALL: I really wanted to like this film.  Wow that’s kind of a giveaway on how I feel, huh?  Here’s another bad sign. The boys and I started watching it on Tuesday, got about half way through it and stopped to go to bed.  We didn’t finish watching it until Thursday.  I think one of the things that bothered me was that I had a hard time figuring out Steve Carell’s take on this character. I mean, in one scene he’s a bumbling fool shooting miniature blow darts through his nose and in the next, he an ace shot escaping from the bad guy without a scratch.  No problem with Anne Hathaway, btw. Wow. Seriously wow. Beautiful and funny. I saw her on SNL earlier this year and I thought she was great.

One more thing, the film does have a few knowing nods to the TV show including some funny cameos that I enjoyed.

RENT IT? If the movie you really want is not available and you’re looking for a comedy then yeah.. go ahead. But this is not a strong recommendation. Sorry Anne. I still love you.  No really, please call me.

UPDATE: This thing has made over $230 million bucks so it should come as no surprise that on October 7, 2008, it was reported that Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures are producing a sequel. Steve Carell is set to return, but the status of other cast members has not yet been announced. Let’s just hope that Anne plays it “smart” and returns for another go round.

Rock me.