5/15/06--Happy Mom's Day....and a couple of reviews

First of all....I would be horribly remiss if I didn't mention that yesterday was, of course, America's tribute to the greeting card industry, or as we call it.....Mother's Day.
I managed to sneak in under the wire and send my Mom a nice arrangement of flowers, thereby ensuring that I remain in her good graces.....if not for the entire year, at least until her birthday in June.  My beloved was taken out for a nice Mother's Day dinner on Saturday night, primarily to avoid the insanity of taking ANYONE out on the evening of Mother's Day......two or three hour waits for a table?  No thanks.  But we got her out on Saturday evening and had a nice evening--which is good because she might have killed me if I didn't acknowledge what a great mom she is.  By the way.....Father's Day is coming in June.  (cough)

So I have been catching up on some DVD and movie watching this past weekend.
I have FINALLY (Good Lord I do mean FINALLY) finished season #1 of the terrific HBO series "Deadwood".  Holy crap, what a great show.  If its not my favorite television show, it don't take long to count the list.  Not only terrific storylines with great dialogue (and I don't just mean the cursing), but a real gritty feel that makes you almost want to take a shower after each episode.  And I mean that in a good way.
Top notch performances abound, with special mention going out to William Sanderson,
Keith Carradine, Timothy Olyphant & a career defining performance by Ian McShane as the legendary Al Swearengen, owner of the Gem Saloon (and make no mistake about it---Al is THE most ruthless character on television.  He makes Tony Soprano look like a giant wuss.  Al not only kills his rivals, he then feeds them to flesh eating pigs for God's sake.  I don't think anything more needs to be said).  Suffice to say, this is not only the best western in television history---its epic filmmaking.  A MUST SEE  *****

A few years ago I watched a movie called Dogtown & Z-Boys, which was the highly entertaining documentary about a group of teenagers in the Los Angeles who almost by accident created the skateboarding craze that began in the mid 1970's.  Following up on that is the movie Lords of Dogtown, which basically takes the original story, fictionalizes it just a bit, sets it to an absolutely AWESOME soundtrack and features a trio of very good performances by some young actors.  I found myself totally reminded of my own teenage years in the mid 70's.  I found myself remembering kids EXACTLY like the kids in this movie.  The documentary was outstanding filmmaking--this is a good movie, that combined with a terrific soundtrack make for a fun, diverting couple of hours.****

One of the young skaters featured in the above movie was Stacey Peralta.  He ended up becoming quite a young filmmaker, first with the documentary previously mentioned and then with an incredible look at the origins of surfing to those who sought out only the biggest of waves.....Riding Giants is a terrific movie, even if you could care less about surfing.  Really.  Its pretty fascinating stuff, with the stories of the carefree beach bums of the late 50's who were around before the surfing craze of the early 60's, who continued to search for, not the "perfect wave", but the "larger wave".  Their quest was to continue to test fate by finding bigger and bigger waves.  The story takes us through the modern day quest by guys such as Laird Hamilton, a man literally born and raised to be a big wave surfer.  The footage of Hamilton and his crew chasing waves as large as 70 feet high is absolutely stunning--your breath will be taken away.  Very highly recommended, not only for an interesting story, but the terrific camera work.  ****1/2

Later,
Jeff