Catch up

Well, I seem to be posting about once a month nowadays. But one big project is now completed so I should start regaining some free time.

As for now, it's a lovely Saturday! I'm sipping hot tea and eating jelly beans. Brachs classic ones, not those crappy other inedible kinds and brands that never should have been created. The winds are howling and blowing over the trash cans and everything else lose in the neighborhood. Strange things have been sailing past my window. No one on a broomstick, and no cows, so not that strange. Flinx, the coolest rescue cat on the planet, is playing in the top of the cat tree, amusing me with his silliness. Kit, the most frustrating cat on the planet, is lying on his back in my lap, belly exposed, purring and kneading in the air. Don't be fooled by the apparent awww-cute-sounding factor of Kit. He's just in Jekyll form right now.

I have managed to watch only two complete movies in the last month. Wichita, with Joel McCrea, and Anne of the Thousand Days, with Richard Burton. Wichita was an average Western. Had some good moments, had some bad moments, but was overall lacking, even with Joel McCrea. I didn't realize it was Wyatt Earp movie until it got going, and when Joel's character first introduced himself, all I could hear was the line from the Spike Jones song, "Wyatt Earp? He makes me burp." And what's up with Vera Miles? She always seems to be such a cold fish. She plays the love interest in this film, but I couldn't figure out why Wyatt was attracted to her, other than the script told him to be. Rest of the supporting cast was great. Edgar Buchanan, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, Jack Elam, Robert J. Wilke were all fun. Particularly Peter Graves as Wyatt's brother. My favorite scene was where Edgar Buchanan mistakes Peter Graves and John Smith (that "glass of milk" from We're No Angels, LOL!) for gunfighters he sent for to help get rid of Joel McCrea, only to find out they're also Earps. Woops. Mwah-hah-hah! That was fun.

Anne of the Thousand Days continues my Henry VIII binge. I finished watching all available eps in the Tudors series (not hard as there're less episodes in all three seasons then there are in a normal season for the older shows). I enjoyed the series a lot, particularly the second season. Whether it's historically accurate or not, it's still a very pretty show. It's so nice to see something modern that's colorful, not all washed out and shades of brown and grey. I think the thing that fascinated me most about the series was how it kept making me change how I felt about the secondary characters. I liked Sir Thomas More, then hated him, then absolutely loved him at the end. Charles Brandon.... my sympathies for him have been all over the board. Liked him, hated him, loved him, and finally really really despised him. Other characters, too. Up and down. I don't know if this is the intent of the creators or not, but it's rather odd to me. A few characters I loved consistently, like Queen Katherine and Thomas Cromwell. Good series though. Not one I'd want to own, but one I've enjoyed watching. I'm looking forward to the fourth season, though who knows how long it'll be before it comes to Netflix.

Which brings me back to Anne of the Thousand Days. Richard Burton makes a particularly fine Henry VIII. I enjoyed this movie a lot, though it was really weird, coming off the Tudors, to have basically two whole seasons I'd just watched condensed into two hours. Seemed so... abbreviated! I wanted more. But I liked a lot of what it did better than the series. They played the motives of the characters slightly differently, and I liked that.

Now, what I'm really in the mood for is some George Raft. Need to go check out my Netflix queue see what I have coming up.