Texas!

Word of the day : 

exiguous :  excessively scanty, inadequate


Well, Julia leaves tomorrow for her last job interview of the year - at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.  Hope she gets it, I really, I really do.  Gabriel and I will go about our business here - fighting off allergies, playing, reading, watching the NBA playoffs and art history docs.  

Julia and I had a double feature last night: Alex Cross and The Guilt Trip.

Alex Cross, the third James Patterson tale to hit the screen, is most notable for its swapping of Morgan Freeman's Dr. Cross for Tyler Perry's.  Perry isn't that bad in this film, doing the best he can with some really risible dialogue.  Honestly, no one is served well by the dialogue or some of the ludicrous plotting, which has Perry and his partner (Edward Burns) racing around Detroit trying to stop a crazy assassin (Matthew Fox, crazy-eyed and pumped-up) from killing important businessmen.  It's a serviceable action film, a long way from great, but watchable enough, with the enjoyably over-the-top Fox easily stealing the show.  It co-stars Cicely Tyson (Cross's mom), John McGinley (Cross's boss), and Jean Reno. 

The Guilt Trip features Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand as the Jewish son-and-mother combo we've been waiting for our whole cinematic lives - even if we didn't know we were waiting for it.  It's a perfect set-up for a road comedy from hell: Rogen is an inventor who has to drive cross-country to try and sell the cleaning product he has invented, and Babs joins him, nattering in his ear the entire time. Babs is the whole show here.  At 70, she looks great and her comic-timing is still spot-on; she manages to be charismatic even when her character is supposed to overbearing.  She has terrific chemistry with Rogen, but at times I wish the movie around them was a little better.  It's never quite as hilarious as you want it to be, though the mother and son encounter some amusing obstacles along the way, including a nearly five-pound steak.  It's a thumbs-up nevertheless - good but not great.  I've liked all of director Anne Fletcher's films so far: Step Up, 27 Dresses, The Proposal, and this one, although they've all been critically panned!  

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Three new movies opening this weekend: 

Iron Man 3  Perhaps you've heard of this one? 

What Maisie Knew An 1897 novella by Henry James is the basis for this modern-day film about a child caught in the middle of her parents' nasty, complicated divorce.  Julianne Moore is the rock-star mother who is poison for her daughter (6-year old newcomer Onata Aprile, reputedly incredible) to be around; narcissistic, self-absorbed, philandering dad (Steve Coogan) isn't much better.  True Blood's Alexander Skarsgard is Moore's new boyfriend, the one sympathetic figure for the girl to relate to.   A painful movie about divorce and the young people caught in the wake of it, it's getting good reviews.  (Yes)

The Iceman Michael Shannon is supposed to be Oscar-worthy and riveting in this violent drama about real-life Richard Kuklinsky, a hitman for the mob who was arrested in 1986 and later claimed to have killed 100 people for the mob over two decades.  Winona Ryder is his wife, Ray Liotta a crime boss, Chris Evans a competitor hitman who works in an ice cream truck by day, James Franco as a victim, and David Schwimmer as a dim-bulb mobster.  Critics are mostly approving of it, though it's a tough sled to want to follow - let alone relate to - such an irredeemable man. 

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Julia and I have noticed a lot of dead armadillos down here along the sides of the roads and highways.  Before moving to Georgia, I don't think I had ever seen an armadillo outside of a zoo.  Now I see them quite frequently.  Here are 5 facts about them: 

1) They have very poor eyesight, relying more on their noses and ears to detect predators and find food. 

2) They are very good swimmers, able to hold their breath for four to six minutes. 

3) They have strong claws and very few teeth. 

4) They have low metabolic rates and almost no body far, reasons why they don't live in cold climates.  Most armadillos can't survive in a cold climate (even if it's only cold for a few days) and don't conserve or store their food and must forage for food every day.



5) Only one of the 20-plus varieties of armadillos is able to roll itself up into a ball to defend itself from danger.  All others scuttle away or dig a hole for themselves to escape in. 




Image courtesy of: 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QYp6eAO6UYc/TqXylmcoSWI/AAAAAAAAA3o/gEaCF7NqEno/s1600
/armadillo.jpg

Information courtesy of: 

http://armadillo-online.org/facts.html