American Gangster

I watched a lot of movies this weekend and it was great. Saturday I watched a lot of football and watched the Marquette game on the internet. I'm not sure the video stream is legal but it was nice to be able to watch the game instead of listen on the internet, which I think I'm going to do tomorrow for lack of other options. MU won for what it's worth, we might be in the top ten when the new poll comes out since Michigan State lost an exhibition game.

Today, Sunday, I watched the Vikings get blown out by the Packers until they switched to a more "competitive" game. That hurts when the game is so lopsided they switch away. Depressed about the game I decided to go to the movies. I saw American Gangster, based on a true story about a New York based drug dealer and his rise to power. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe put on a good show and is well worth the inflated price of admission. I learned the best way to remove blood from an Alpaca rug is to blot it with club soda - NEVER RUB! An Alpaca is a dromedary that lives in the high plains of South America and is a close relative of the Llama - fyi.

Two random facts from the first movie - there is going to be a new Rambo movie. Apparently remaking one successful film franchise wasn't enough for Stallone, I wonder if Rambo can fight Rocky somehow or possibly we could get Over The Top II. I heard a quote a long time ago and I'm going to paraphrase it here. 75% of black men in movies are Denzel Washington, Will Smith, and Morgan Freeman, the remaining 25% are Cuba Gooding Jr., Jamie Foxx, and other. Denzel puts on a good show in American Gangster, Cuba Gooding Jr., has a cameo, and Will Smith had a movie in the previews, and Morgan Freeman was doing the voice over / narration in another.

On the way home I noticed this classic cinema was playing Blade Runner The Final Cut. I hadn't seen Blade Runner in since college and having never been inside this retro theater I took the plunge and watched two movies in the same day. This version of Blade Runner is more violent than the version I remember and it had the narration removed. I liked this version a lot with the changes and I was really excited to hear Tyrell in a movie. It's weird to think this movie is 25 years old but I guess everything gets older and looking at Wikipedia and IMDB it turns out this is pretty universally considered a top 100 movie of all time. Both Alpaca's and Blade Runner have Wikipedia articles almost as long as the entry for North Dakota.

I'm a big fan of the Cinerama as a place to watch a movie. I might go see the first movie I ever saw in a theater, Ghostbusters, there in a couple of days. In a few months I'm totally going to see Tron, and maybe Space Odyssey 2001. How can you ignore HAL? I'm pretty sure Tron is not a top 100 movie of all time but Space Odyssey might be.