heinous : hateful or shockingly evil
Top of the week to you, readers! Julia has an extremely busy week at school, Gabriel returns to school after his spring break, and hopefully I have a busy week too. Will this be the week we get good news - or will be next week... or the week after? We've learned that one of the great truths about life in small-town SE Georgia is that you're always in limbo, always waiting for that one opportunity that will take you elsewhere.
I'm finally going to watch Lincoln this afternoon - I'm expecting a lot of acting and a lot of facial hair.
NBA Playoffs start next weekend. It's hard to envision anyone beating the Miami Heat. Watching them play yesterday, I realized - if I hadn't already - how deep they are. It's hard to make up any ground when their second unit is in: Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, Norris Cole, Birdman Anderson, Mike Miller. From the West, it sure looks like it's going to be the Thunder - maybe a Thunder-Grizzlies conference final.
Total Recall (2012), the Len Wiseman-directed remake of the Paul Verhoeven 1990 adaptation of the Philip K.Dick short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale," is atrocious - atrociously bland, unoriginal, and forgettable. There's nothing in here you haven't seen done better in The Bourne Identity and Minority Report, movies this one apes. Rather than talk about the tedious staging, the boring plot or the overreliance on unexciting CGI-digitially enhanced futuristic worlds, I'll instead pose some questions: Has director Len Wiseman, in his third collaboration with wife Kate Beckinsale, actually done anything to enhance her career - all he does is direct her in junky movies where she is often in a provocative state of undress. Does Jessica Biel ever make any good movies? And, more importantly, how irreplaceable is Arnold Schwarzenegger? In the last five years or so, three Schwarzenegger sci-f tentpoles from his heyday have been re-booted - Terminator, Predator, and now this, all with superior actors (Christian Bale, Adrien Brody, and Colin Farrell, respectively) - and yet they've all stunk and the lead actors have all been less successful in the parts than Arnold was. Goes to show you can't replace an icon with an actor.
Animal of the week:
Fennec Fox
What it looks like: The smallest fox in the world, but with Big Ears, the fox is cream-colored, with a black-tipped tail. It has thick fur and hairy feet and those ears both radiate body heat and keep the fox cool.
Where it lives: The sandy Sahara and throughout North Africa, in small, territorial communities.
What it does: A nocturnal creature, the fox forages for insects, rodents, reptiles, and eggs. It can go long periods without water.
Is it endangered: Likely. Although its population is unknown, its adorable appearance has made it a favorite of the illegal-trade hunters and sellers - deplorable people all.
(Information courtesy of: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/fennec-fox/)
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Finally, an overdue selection to my list of the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time list
Irrfan Khan
as Ashoke in The Namesake (2007)
The great Indian actor Irrfan Khan is probably best known to American audiences for his small parts in Slumdog Millionaire, A Mighty Heart, or Life of Pi. But his best role, his most rounded part, is in this intelligent, overlooked adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's fine novel. Khan and Tabu (also superb) play a young couple who emigrate to the U.S. in the late 1970s to raise a family, and throughout the course of the movie we see this relationship evolve from its cold, scary early days - where the arranged couple hardly knew each other - through the formation of their family. Khan is mesmerizing here, a lifetime of wisdom and accumulated knowledge - disappointment, happiness, comfort - in his eyes and voice, and he breaks your heart too when he tells his son Gogol (Kal Penn) why he was named after the Russian author.
Images courtesy of:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2013/03/fennec-fox-baby.jpg
http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/namesake-2007-tabu-irrfan-khan-pic-3.jpg
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