Today we went to see two very good, very long movies: Munich and King Kong.

Munich (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, and right up there with Syriana in terms of cerebral style and complex subject matter. Spielberg did a very good job of not trying to answer a question for the audience, instead laying out as many facts and viewpoints as he could about the morality of assassination and effectiveness of retribution. The acting was excellent, the story was tense and never action-movie-ish, and the flashbacks recreating the Munich massacre were unsettling (it happened three years before I was born, but the iconic image of the masked terrorist on the balcony has always made me uneasy). I cannot recommend this film enough; like Syriana or Good Night And Good Luck, the film’s subject is as relevant and difficult today as it was generations ago.

King Kong (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was also one of the best I’ve seen this year, but for entirely different reasons: it was pure escapist fantasy, but it was done so expertly and so convincingly that I lost myself in it. It was funny, brutal, touching, disgusting and engaging, and it looked remarkably real. Only once or twice did I think to myself, “Hey, that’s CG,” and that was during the wide shots of people running through the jungle or driving through 1930s New York; the Kong effects were nothing short of mindboggling. Peter Jackson did it again; he took a beloved, oft-told tale and told it again, finding a new — and ultimately truer — way to tell it.

[UPDATE | 3 Jan: I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking about Munich, kept running over it in my head, especially the scenes of the massacre. It’s obviously affecting me even more than I thought it would.]

It’s the last day of our vacation. sniff.

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We watched the entire second season of Arrested Development over the past few days. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…there’s something profoundly wrong with American network TV if Fox cancels that show while Skating With The Stars and Meet Your New Mommy get to stay on the air. I like how David Cross puts it: maybe, instead of canceling the award-winning show, you should fire the marketing department that doesn’t know how to sell it.

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To go along with yesterday being new year’s day, we watched 200 Cigarettes (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It was less than great. Here’s my recommendation if you should find yourself watching it: fast forward through any scene that doesn’t have Paul Rudd or Dave Chappelle in it.

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I’m so tired of political “scandals” like this income trust kafuffle. I like Jack Layton but he’s waaaaaaay off base when he says “[W]hen a minister’s department is under criminal investigation … the minister should step away from his duties until the investigation is complete.” It’s innocent until proven guilty, Jack, remember? If an allegation or suggestion of wrongdoing was sufficient cause to remove a minister, we’d see new allegations pop up every week just to cast doubt on the sitting party. If I go to the newspapers and say that Stephen Harper promises future defense contracts to his favourite male prostitute, should he just step aside until his name is cleared? Of course not.

If an investigation turns up inappropriate behaviour, toss Goodale out. But not before.

If you’ve read this post over on Skirl you’ll see that I’m no longer updating this blog. It just doesn’t make much sense to run two different sites, you know?

It’s been cool to scan back through some of my really old entries, stuff that I imported (kinda) from my old custom posting-software database, like this review of my first Sigur Ros concert in September 2001, this review of a Trail Of Dead show, or this post about a Spiritualized concert in which I make fun of some of my fellow concert-goers.

Head on over to Skirl; I’ll be talking about the same stuff, just mixed in with a bunch of personal crap that you may not want to read. Tough cookies, scooter. Get used to it.

Yesterday we started watching Veronica Mars, and I think we’re hooked. I was already a big fan of Kristen Bell, obviously, but I like the series even more than I thought I would. Unfortunately we also watched A Dirty Shame (imdb | rotten tomatoes) and I’m sooooooo glad we didn’t waste a film festival choice on it last year. What a piece of crap. I should’ve expected it from any movie made by John Waters and starring Johnny Knoxville, but sheezus. Avoid at all costs.

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Yes, you did just read movie reviews up there. Usually I write anything to do with music, movies, books or tv on radioDan, but in keeping my plan for simplifying my blogging I’m now just posting to this one. Until Blogger finds a way to import the 700+ entries (stretching back to September 2001 when I was using my own custom-built software and nobody even know what the word “blog” meant) from that blog to this one they’ll just have to sit over there. From now on all my posts will be here.

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We went on the great gift/purchase return trip yesterday (not for us — we didn’t return any of our gifts — but exchanging duplicates that we bought for people, exchanging sizes, replacing scratched discs, etc.) and were successful for the most part. L’Occitane, however, was a pain in the ass. Long story short, their computer systems are retarded and they aren’t able to deal with said retardedness, so they expect the customer to just be ok with it. Is there a shortcoming with their computer system? Yes and no. From the point of view of their own internal controls, yes, there’s a big frickin’ problem. But from the customer’s point of view? No. I had no problem with their computer, I had a problem with the assistant manager not being able to use her judgment to circumvent a computer screwup. Either there was absolutely nothing that could be done, or she was just a low-grade moron and didn’t know how to do it. Either way, I was pretty annoyed. If I could actually stand to enter that store without a gas mask I’d boycott it.

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I’ve finally taken the big step of putting all my CDs into boxes; now I have to decide whether to store them downstairs in the locker or sell them. Anybody want 483 CDs?

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Speaking of music, I’ve been playing around some more with the Roku SoundBridge that Nellie gave me for xmas. I set up some streaming radio stations today (WOXY, KEXP, SomaFM) and got a little more comfortable with playing music from my computer.

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Happy (almost) new year, everybody!

This story is disgusting, horrifying and tragic. How can anything called an “honour killing” even exist? How could any man be so deranged that allegations of adultery by his oldest daughter would lead him to slit not only her throat, but the throats of his younger daughters (aged four, seven and eight) as well?

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We hung out with CBGB for a bit last night before they leave for a few weeks. We’ve been away for a while and they’ve been packing, so we haven’t seen them in almost a month. Anyway, I think I’ve had too much rich holiday food, ’cause I couldn’t even finish my beer. I need a week of salad just to counter all the chocolate I’ve eaten.

I just finished setting up the Roku SoundBridge that my wife gave me for xmas. It’s so frickin’ cool; I can now listen to my entire music collection (which is in MP3 format on my PC) from my living room with this cool little device & remote. It only took half an hour of messing with my wireless network settings and downloading Windows Media Connect to get it to work. It’s soooooooooooooooooo much fun…

I also got my new MP3 player — a 1GB Sony Network Walkman — all set up and ready to go. It looks pretty slick and it’s only the size of a lighter; it’ll be great for running. Nellie got her Sony bean going as well after a few hiccups.

More recent acquisitions: we did some boxing day shopping where I picked up Revenge Of The Sith, Naomi Klein‘s No War: America’s Real Business In Iraq and Pelican‘s The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw; I also bought The Zephyrs‘ When The Sky Comes Down It Comes Down On Your Head from KarmaDownload yesterday. Nellie bought Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason and picked up the original as well (to replace her damaged copy).

My teams won all three of their games tonight. Barely.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig. Our flight home was uneventful and we arrived around 4:30. The cats are very happy to see us, and haven’t really let me out of their sight yet. Actually, that part’s kinda creepy.

And now…five day weekend! We kicked it off by ordering some dinner and watching a few episodes of Arrested Development; now I’m watching the world jrs (surrounded by cats) while Nellie digs into her Buffy box set. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Apparently my wife has chunks of metal in her jeans, ’cause the metal wand kept beeping around her side. But we got through and found a snack at Tim Horton’s. Funny story: our cabbie knows the guy who runs Florida Jack’s boxing club in Toronto, just around the corner from where we live. Small world.