My Blog In the Middle of Your Net

It’s the time of year when everyone is busy with their holiday festivities.   It’s December.   Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and all of that fun stuff.   People get to see their families again.   There’s joy and music and lots of fun things.   There’s also a lot of shopping. In honour of the extensive shopping that people will be doing in order to buy gifts for other people, the marathon theme for December 2012 will be movies set primarily in malls or stores.   Do you know what that means?   I get to watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop again!   Woohoo! There’s not much explanation that is needed for the theme.   Let’s get right to the movies.   This is going to be in no specific order.   There will be twelve movies, each set primarily in a store or a mall.   Here they are: Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) Mallrats (1995) Observe and Report (2009) Career Opportunities (1991) Chopping Mall (1986) Scenes From a Mall (...

I have no idea what I can say about This is Spinal Tap that hasn’t been said a million times over already.   This is one great comedic force.   There is no getting around that.   When a comedy gets it right, it rarely gets it this right. This is Spinal Tap is a fictional documentary about a made up band called Spinal Tap.   It chronicles their latest tour and the problems that the band faces during the tour.   Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, and Michael McKean star as the titular band.   There’s music, there’s laughs, and there’s just an all around great time. The three lead actors are perfect in their roles.   They bring the depth and shallowness that each character requires.   They go all out to portray these characters in ways that few comedic actors would have been capable of.   I can’t see anyone else playing the roles better.   That’s the way it should be.   All movies should star people who aren’t afraid to put...

At around this time last year, I was typing up a little something about the Charlie Chaplin classic, The Great Dictator.   It was a movie filled with fun comedy.   The comedy was provided through the dialogue, the physicality, and the situations.   This year I decided to go farther back into the Charlie Chaplin filmography as part of my Mustache Marathon.   The movie I watched was The Gold Rush. I want to start off by saying that I didn’t watch the original version of The Gold Rush from 1925.   Rather, I saw the rereleased version from 1942.   I don’t know all of the differences, but there is narration in the 1942 version, and some stuff was cut out of it.   The plot of the rerelease, which I think would be about the same as that of the original, involves Chaplin’s tramp character going to the Yukon, running into some prospectors, falling in love with a girl, and searching for riches. Like in The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin excels when...

I’m going to begin this regular feature on the blog with one of the most interesting things I’ve witnessed while I’ve been at work.   I never expected to see anything like this, but it happened.   It’s something that I never thought to put on my bucket list.   Why would I think of putting it on there?   You can’t answer that question since you don’t know what I’m talking about.   At least, you don’t know yet. Let me preface this with a little something.   You may or may not actually have read or heard this story before.   I’ve told people about it.   I know I have.   If you’ve heard it before, I’m sorry for the repetition.   Also of note, this isn’t the most exciting story in the world.   It’s fairly short and it’s more of a “look what I saw!” than an actual story.   It’s something interesting that I saw at work.   It’s something I want to share.   If it’s pointless, boring, or meaningless, I don’t care. ...

I’m going to get more into writing on the blog, outside of the marathon stuff.   I want to.   I don’t only want to be putting up stuff about the movies in the marathon.   In the next few days, a few new recurring things will be showing up.   I’m going to go over a couple of them here.   Ignore me if you want.   Read some of them when they come up.   I don’t care what you do.   I want to get more stuff up, and these are some of the ideas. The first idea is sticking with the theme of movies.   And it’s pretty much going to be the same as a marathon, except not.   I’m sure it will evolve into its own thing.   Basically, I’m going to put up a poll with three movies.   Each movie is going to seem like a bad movie.   I’ll watch whatever one wins and get back to you guys on it.   Basically, you’re telling me which one you would want to read my opinion of.   And I’ll have to watch some horrible stuff, most likel...