Yays and Nays

Yay:
"Feast of the Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa. A pretty wonderful writer, a pretty savage book, not for the weak of heart or those looking for appropriately intellectual warm fuzzies... but one that has inspired me to do some reading up on Rafael Trujillo, dictator of The Dominican Republic.

Nay:
"Norbit" After working in the yard and doing some other assorted things, as Dolli and I were about to do yet something else, this appeared on my TV. Dolli (a Buchtel High Grad so something of a sista to start), I think, fascinated by Eddie Murphy as a fat bitch, me finding it interesting to watch Thandi Newton clearly follow her Director's orders, "Be cute and give me a ton of energy. Nothing but!," plus Eddie wearing pretty much the exact same make up he wore as an old Jew in 'Coming to America, ' this time being a Chinese character, along with my co-dependent approach to leisure time of "I'm With Her," we gave in to gravity and actually watched it. I'm sorry. Just wasn't myself. Truly a Godawful movie.

In the middle, but leaning heavily towards Nay:
"Semi Pro." OK, since "Ladies' Man" I'm always happy to see Tim Meadows. Will Farrell is a really funny guy with great timing. "Anchor Man" is a Top Ten, his role in "Old School" genius. In a slightly less stellar film, his character in "Zoolander" made me wonder if he's safe to be around in real life and his turn in an even lesser film, "Night at the Roxbury" was also pretty damned funny, creating something where there was mostly nothing. "Emilio!!!"

This one is sort of like "Blades of Glory," a really interesting character but not really good enough to make you want to cringe through the movie more than once. Not exactly the nominee for the AFI 10-worst-pieces-of -shit-you-were-stupid-enough-to-watch-thinking-it-was-one-of-those- so-bad- it's-good- and-how-bad-a-car-wreck-can-it-be-if-Chris-Walken-is-the-guy-wrecking-the car...list, like"Balls of Fury" here, but moving down that path...and the fact that they're kind of , sort of, stealing the deal from my favorite sports movie and Paul Newman's greatest role EVER : "SLAP SHOT"... pisses me off and now, that Ive thought about it, gets a resounding NAY!