Holiday Movies

Now that we've watched it two years in a row, I guess A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas is officially going to be a family holiday tradition.

Another quickly developing tradition: Picking out a couple of movies I expect to be pretty bad and watching them. This year's selections:

Slipstream: I'm not sure why I never noticed this 1989 flick before. It was mentioned in a (very negative) review of the new Star Wars movie as being the previous movie that the reviewer had walked out on (I can't find that review at the moment; when I do I'll come back and link to it -- update, here it is). Somehow the filmmakers managed to get Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, Ben Kingsley and F. Murray Abraham to appear in this turkey.

Dear God, it's bad. How bad? I can't even begin ...

The premise is that around the turn of the century (almost 17 years ago now), an environmental disaster turned the winds loose, wrecking civilization as we know it, making long-distance ground travel impossible and flying very dicey (it seems to me that it would be the other way around, wouldn't it?) and now everyone is anti-technology and Mark Hamill is a bounty hunter and Bill Paxton is a small-time outlaw, and ... well, it all just goes downhill from there. The only really memorable or good line comes from Paxton, in the background, while two other characters are talking in a museum. If you watch the movie, and I don't recommend that you do, you'll know it when you hear it.

Deadfall: Another star-studded disaster, but the reason for it is, well, reasonable (see below). I found this one in Vudu's digital bargain sale bin for $2.99 and after reading an old Los Angeles Times review decided that it's always worth that price to see "a way-over-the-top Nicolas Cage."

Why star-studded? Well, it was directed by Cage's brother, Christopher Coppola, who, like Nicholas, is the nephew of Francis Ford Coppola. Presumably that name was the reason James Coburn, Henry Fonda, Talia Shire, Michael Biehn, Mickey Dolenz, and Charlie Sheen made themselves available for it.

It's bad, but not in the way that Slipstream is bad. It feels an unsuccessful attempt to turn channel David Lynch for a combination film noir/caper movie. The "way-over-the-top" Cage moments don't save it, but "well here's to Sam F**king Peckinpah!" makes it worth $2.99.

Ironic Stomp Box Project

The last part I was waiting for arrived (see previous post about late packages), so ...

Wooden Box -- $1 at a yard sale

Piezoelectric Pickup -- about $1.90 (1 of 5 to a $9.49 package) from Amazon

Decorative License Plate -- $6.99 from Amazon

Not happy with the sound yet. Not sure if I need to repurpose a different kind of pickup, move the existing one, or perhaps put some other stuff in the box to create more of a racket, or maybe cut out some emptiness underneath the plate.

I probably should have paid more careful attention to this video:


I'll get it right eventually.

It's Not The Late Package That Bothers Me

I just kind of assume that Amazon Prime "free 2-day shipping" packages may run late this time of year.

The holidays usually are a package delivery clusterf**k. In fact, this year I see a guy in a golf cart pulling a trailer around the neighborhood delivering packages every afternoon. I'm guessing that he's some kind of neighborhood-level sub-contractor for US Snail or one of the private sector parcel companies -- dump a load with a contractor and go get another load instead of the main truck having to go house to house. Which says to me that volume is even higher than in past years.

What DOES bother me is that I'm repeatedly getting this after my Amazon order ...

... even though I'm still getting this before my Amazon order:

"Prime, yada yada, Want it Wednesday, Dec. 20? Order within X hrs Y mins and choose Two-Day Shipping at checkout."

This time of year, they should switch things up and go with something more like:

"Prime, yada, yada, Want it Wednesday, Dec. 20? Order within X hrs Y mins and choose Two-Day Shipping at checkout and we'll do our best, but you know, the holidays are usually a package delivery clusterf**k so it may not work out like that."