Night Train - pretty good for a B movie

I grabbed this flick at Blockbuster the other night on a whim. I knew little of it. It's a decided B-movie without, as I later found out, even a single review at Rottentomatoes.com. My biggest concern was the cover, which suggested it might be a gruesome, mindless slasher film. It isn't. It turned out to be a pretty good choice.

Night Train is a story of three strangers that meet aboard a train on one snowy night -- one with ridiculously few passengers and not much of a business model. Danny Glover is the train's conductor, Leelee Sobieski is the hot, but unhinged med student, and Steve Zahn is the scheming, eccentric salesman. When a nameless passenger dies shortly after boarding their car, Zahn and Sobieski discover he was carrying a box containing a fortune in diamonds. Together they plot to dispose of the man's body and keep the box's contents for themselves. All manner of paranoia, double-crosses and murder follows. There also may be something more sinister and mysterious to this box than any of them suspect.

The movie is a homage to movies of yore -- dumbed down Hitchcock. The scenery and setting is very appealing. The characters are beguiling. The ending, however, is absurd, and ruins what could almost have been a fantastic movie. Overall, it is still worth a watch.

Putting the band back together, sort of

I lost all interest in blogging for a while and wanted to take a break, but I'm thinking of getting back into it. I like the idea of keeping a journal.

Topics will be a hodge podge of whatever interests me at the moment. It will be niche oriented and in flux. I suspect I will probably be writing about things like Phoenix restaurants, film, comedians, options trading and professional sports. I've been gone from Saipan for a year now, so that won't be a topic.

The school year is over and I'm in the midst of doing a number of things like shopping for my first house, getting some health problems evaluated and I'm planning on taking a comedy course that concludes with a set at the Tempe Improv. I'm also hoping to really explore Arizona, and will probably drive out to Las Vegas, which will be my first time there. If fate should smile on me, I'm hoping to get out to either Belize or Roatan to do some diving and to try ziplining. I don't even have a passport right now, which shows how life has changed for me. I applied and that problem should be fixed. Travel to even the Caribbean is impossible without one now.

Alex just completed kindergarten and his growth amazes. He reads up a storm and is very inquisitive. He asked me the other day if God was real. I heard him use the word "addicted" in a sentence -- in his case a reference to his feelings about a videogame, which I thought a pretty impressive word choice for a six-year-old.

My Ashley is developing quite the personality. I can't get over how fast she is growing. I take her in the pool most every day. She walks around "supervising" the place constantly.

U2 - Magnificent Live on David Letterman

This is my favorite tune off the new U2 album. It's truncated, and Bono is losing his voice to an extent, but it's still cool.

U2 No Line on the Horizon out today

I got my copy of the new U2 album from Amazon already. I've just finished my first listen, and so far I'm impressed. I'm also looking forward to seeing these guys in concert, as is Cynthia. They have some clunkers of course, but I still find their recent, and not very frequent, albums generally very impressive and not just a nostalgia act.

Mitch Fatel

I saw Mitch Fatel last night at the Tempe Improv. What a fantastic show. He had a packed crowd on a Sunday night and I talked to him a few minutes after the show. Cool dude and great comedian.

How does anyone hit major league pitching?

The weather hit like 90 degrees, so it seemed like a pretty good time to take in my first Cactus League game. There is a real quiet to the crowd, which was small, and an intimacy to these games, at least versus the regular season. I was able to get right up on the bullpen, where I remain astonished that anyone can get even a foul tip in major league baseball. The ball comes in like a blur, and this guy throwing isn't exactly Nolan Ryan by major league standards. Omar Vizquel, the wizard at shortstop, was the big attraction for the Indians fans.

The Wrestler is a haunting film

I'm not a fan of professional wrestling, and other than a brief period in the early '80s, never was, but the movie "The Wrestler" blew my mind. A week after seeing it, the stark realism of this film, most notably in its highly relatable and sympathetic main character Randy 'The Ram' Robinson, still haunts me. Wrestling is the backdrop, but the movie is really about being lost as a person, clinging to the familiar, simple survival in a rapidly changing world and searching for human connections.

Randy pursues a stripper nearing the end of her run named Cassidy, played brilliantly by Marisa Tomei. Her embrace of change stands in contrast to Randy's more innocent and naive approach to life. Both use their bodies to make a living, and time is the enemy of both, but the difference is Randy genuinely loves what he does and can't think of what else to do. Cassidy doesn't like what she does, but can't think of what else to do, either.

The fact that the movie is set in New Jersey, and filmed in a particularly grim winter with a typically plain yet powerful Springsteen tune as its theme song, adds even more -- at least for me personally.

The film displays much insight into what the real world of professional wrestling is like -- especially on the "has been" circuit in local school gymnasiums, as well as the physical toll the sport takes on a body. Wrestlers often find an early grave, which is documented here. I remember attending a few of these bouts at my local high school when I was a kid. I recently watched the extensive Charlie Rose interview with Mickey Rourke and the actor really does come off as similarly chastened and longing to "get back" as the character he plays. This was one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

Laser Floyd hits Phoenix

Laser Floyd came to Phoenix this weekend. The tickets were pretty reasonable, getting around and parking in Phoenix is much easier than the typical big city, and it was quite a display.

All Star Jam Session Crazy Dunk

The NBA All Star Game was in Phoenix this weekend. I went to NBA Jam on Monday and saw this dude pull one crazy stunt -- a backflip slam dunk