What the...French?

I saw two very interesting French movies this weekend. The first was called Two Days, One Night (or Deux Jours, Une Nuit for the Francophiles out there). Marion Cotillard starred as a woman who's in danger of losing her factory job unless she can convince at least 9 of her 16 coworkers to give up the bonuses they were promised (1,000 Euros). If the majority of workers agree to forego their bonuses, that money would be used to keep Marion on the payroll. She has one weekend (two days, one night) to track down her coworkers and try to convince them to help her out before they all vote via secret ballot on Monday morning. The movie was fascinating not just because this woman had to basically beg her coworkers, who didn't have much themselves, to forego needed money, but because employment laws must be totally different in France that here in the US. Marion basically stalked her coworkers. She called them if she had their phone numbers and showed up at their homes unannounced. If someone did that in the US, they'd be fired on the spot. You can't hunt your coworkers down and harass them at their homes! Crazy.

The second French movie I saw was called Eastern Boys about a middle aged Frenchman who picks up a hustler of Eastern European descent at a train station and the hustler and his thug friends end up cleaning the Frenchman out. They descend on the Frenchman's condo, proceed to drink his liquor, have a party, break things and then take the things they didn't break (like the artwork on his walls, his TV, computer, etc.). But, even after this, the guy still wants to have a relationship with the hustler who set him up in the first place. He falls for the guy and wants to help him get away from the Eastern Bloc hoodlums he's running around town with. Again, crazy.

Merry Christmas (or Enjoy Your Day Off)

Merry Christmas and for those who don't celebrate, enjoy your day off. I'm just glad I'm not buried under several inches of snow this Christmas. Some folks don't like having a green Christmas, but I'm not one of them. Hey, temperatures in the 40s with a little sunshine sounds great to me. I have to travel next week for work, so I'm looking forward to spending some time doing absolutely nothing. I wish there were better movies out right now to see. I wish the Leonardo DiCaprio movie was out here now because I'd like to see that, but since it isn't, I guess I'll have to stick with Netflix or the Godzilla marathon on El Ray.

Enjoy!

Food and Grog

I blogged earlier about Chipotle and the problems the food chain has been having  but I read an article this morning from Bloomberg Businessweek about the E. coli outbreak that just hit me in the gut. The article featured the story of a man who was sickened after eating a Chipotle chicken bowl. No! Not the chicken bowl! As a fan of the chicken bowl, I was devastated to hear that's what took this dude down. He used to do P90X and his kidneys almost shut down because of a Chipotle chicken bowl. Sad and terrifying.

In grog news, I've recently discovered a great (and cheap) white wine at Trader Joe's that I like (and, no, it's not Two Buck Chuck). It's Espiral and it's tasty.

Free At Last...For Now

Finally, my day job is in the wind for a few days so I can enjoy the Christmas holiday and relax a little. Free at last! It's been a stressful few weeks so I'm looking forward to the break. Maybe I can get some writing done. Plus, the Grinch was on TV tonight and The Year Without a Santa Claus was on earlier this week. (Yea! Heat Miser/Cold Miser!) Good times.

Standing on the Top

I immediately thought of the Rick James song "Standing on the Top" when I came up with the title for today's blog post, but that's not what the post is about. (As a sidebar, I remember where I was when I heard Rick James died. I was at a jazz concert in Philadelphia watching saxophonist Steve Cole and he announced it during the show and played "Give It to Me, Baby.") But I digress. I watch a lot of gay movies and, sadly, a lot of them are bad. I understand gay films can't get the kind of budgets that films featuring straight couples can, but I find it hard to believe that they can't get better scripts. The movie I saw over the weekend was called Monster Pies and it was about two Australian teenagers who fall for each other while they're working on a school project about Romeo and Juliet. Fine, right? Wrong. This movie was such a downer. One kid's mother was brain damaged and confined to a nursing home as a result, that same kid's father was an alcoholic who beat him, the other kid was bullied at school and ended up losing his after school job at a video store after a woman falsely accused him of harassing her (when she was the one harassing him). And, just when you thought things couldn't get any worse, the kid with the brain dead mother and alcoholic father hangs himself in the end. Oy. What a depress-fest. I just wish more gay-themed movies didn't end on such a tragic note. Why can't the gay guys or lesbians come out on top at the end? Why can't they reign victorious and overcome the shit they've dealt with in the movie? Why can't they be standing on the top when the credits roll? I know every gay-themed movie isn't terrible and/or depressing, but a lot of  them are. I know life isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but it's not all gloom and doom either.

Aren't They Over Yet?

I saw Tina Fey and Amy Poehler trotting out their tired Sarah Palin/Hillary Clinton imitations on last night's SNL. Aren't these two over and done with yet? God, I find them annoying. Maybe they were amusing back in 2008, but not now. I find them both smug and condescending and not particularly funny.

As a non-science-fiction fan, I have no desire to see the new Star Wars movie. I keep wondering when some non-Star Wars movies are coming out. Did the studios just throw in the towel for Christmas because of Star Wars? The last movie I saw at the theater, I think, was the Amy Winehouse documentary and that was a while ago. There just hasn't been anything out that I wanted to see.

The Deciders?

I'm tired of states like Iowa and New Hampshire being the deciders in which presidential candidates get pushed to the front of the pack and which ones bite the dust. This archaic process needs to stop. Iowa and New Hampshire have to be two of the least diverse states in the country, yet the citizens of these states (and South Carolina, to a lesser extent) get to be political kingmakers? It's not right. The system needs to change.