Movie Night At Home

There is something about being home alone. Whether you are Tom Cruise in “Risky Business”, Mc Cauley Caulkin in “Home Alone” or one of over 234,000 young girls who have succumbed in various horror movies over the years... there is just something about it. For me at 49 it was a matter of my wife being in Florida visiting her folks, my daughter being on a youth gathering with the church and my son Jon (recently moved back home) being back at college visiting his girlfriend. My other son Pat is safely in Kirksville and not likely to turn up. Jon was supposed to have been home and among other things were supposed to consider shopping for rings for his intended.

In my younger days this would have been an excuse for a weekend of poor choices. But no more. Now I worked, played a little poker, worked, had lunch with a friend, worked, went to a movie and rented a movie on line. I enjoy watching movies alone. I even enjoy it more at home when I keep the computer off my lap and concentrate on... the movie. Going to the movies is always problematic. I enjoy going to movies with Sandy, especially when we can have a coktail at the theatre but I enjoy action and heavy themes which often center on a lot of very graphic violence. I do not mean shoot em up violence but abusive violence, one and one. often a man and a women but just as often two men, or two women. She has no stomach or heart for it. Likely this is one of the things I love about her but I do not like it as far as movies go.

So “True Grit” was supposed to be awesome, so off i ran to the 4:30 show at the dying “Crestwood Court” AMC Cinema. There is nothing creepier then a dead shopping mall. It all seems like a movie set from a zombie movie it is all so unnatural. Going in there to see a film is an adventure in itself. So it is a Coen Brothers film and these guys really seem to know what they are doing. They make movies lovingly in a cinematic way that is just frankly lacking. I remember the first movie with John Wayne and yes, I had even read the book and this movie was an awesome replication of the book. The language usage and the dialogue are really awesome and the scenes that they film as they ride around Indian territory are really impressive. It is a story of female empowerment and a 14 year old girl and Jeff Bridges who in playing Rooster Cogburn is actually seeming to play....Tom Waits. It is definitly one of the best movies of the year.

Then I came home. I baked a chicken breast in an iron skillet with a little wine, butter paprika and butter and chipotle chile and...butter. It was really good and while it was cooking I got on U-Verse and rented “Winters Bone”. Everyone told me that this was the must see movie and I certainly understand why. it is a bleak movie in an ozark landscape that features another girl, this one 17 and it is just a tense, dark movie that does not go anywhere and tells a huge, huge story. The general feeling I got out of it was how hard life is for some people in ways I can never understand. This girl is trying to take care of her family and find her missing meth cooker dad who has a court appearance and if he does not show, they lose the house he posted for his bond. She never leaves her county and it still takes her to darker and darker places. In the end... it ends happily...I guess. But you should see this movie but you need to be able to tune out a little bit during some of the more troubling scenes.

Then I went to bed. It was good day.