Weekend of Weddings

As we do every year, Kathy and I had a great time at Sharon and Andrew’s New Year’s Eve party; I don’t have much more to say, except thanks, of course, to our gracious hosts, and Happy New Year to all who weren’t there. Especially if you couldn’t be there because you were sick or in prison… I mean, Indiana. Pistola Grande!

Since then, though, it’s been a weekend of weddings—on film, anyway. Kathy and I wound down our New Year’s Day by watching About Schmidt on DVD. It’s a quietly funny sad movie about a lonely guy (Jack Nicholson) who retires, soon becomes a widower, and decides to road-trip to Denver in his Winnebago to stop his daughter from marrying a guy who he’s certain in no good for her. I don’t really know what to say about it. There are some great scenes – Kathy Bates is particularly funny as the free-spirit mother of the groom – but the movie as a whole is more affecting than entertaining. It made me think about where I want to be when I retire, and what I want to have accomplished. That’s probably better than simple entertainment, and definitely appropriate for the first of the year.

Today, continuing our Alexander Payne mini film festival, Kathy and I went to see a matinee of Sideways. It’s a terrific movie. Paul Giamatti plays Miles, a frustrated novelist taking a bachelor’s-last-week trip to California’s wine country with his soon-to-be-married college roommate Jack, played by Thomas Hayden Church. Miles is a depressed wine lover, and Jack is an unrepentant horndog who want to get them both laid before he’s married. It’s the plot of a TON of movies, but Giamatti, Church and costars Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh bring such humanity to their roles that you can’t help but love it. It’s a terrific movie, buoyed by a terrific jazz soundtrack.

Once we got home, we watched an episode of Teen Titans on the tube – one in which Starfire is called back to her home planet to be married to an alien creature resembling a cross between an green elephant and a gob of mucus, all to prevent an interplanetary war. Not one of the best eps, but it kept the theme rolling.

Using the show to start a new theme, Kathy and I played a game of The Awful Green Things from Outer Space, in which she soundly kicked my ass. And when I say that, I mean it was a freakin’ rout. But it’s a fun two-player game, and worth seeking out.

And that’s this month’s “Reviews of Stuff I Did Today, Roughly.” I hope your new year’s had as pleasant a start.

UPDATED: Kathy wanted me to add the she kicked everyone's butt in what might be the longest game of Deadwood ever the day before. Trounced us, really. This is looking like her year, gamewise. (Maybe she should come to Vegas with me this month after all!)

Rob