52 Week Shootout

Last night my wife and I are on our nightly walk through neighborhoods with houses we could never afford. They are the mansions where we would throw fancy pants Christmas parties with family who, like us, know nothing about fancy pants. All of us in bad sweaters drinking boxed wine amid crepe paper decorations, listening to Leon Redbone. It is a fantasy walk we take. A walk of future plans, intentions, and goals. It is our dream stroll through possibilities.

"I would love to read more of your writing," she says as we pass the Haunted Mansion.

"I'm writing," I defend. "I've got 30 pages down on Jobs."

Jobs is the not so super secret screenplay I broke ground on earlier this summer. It is a highly referential, semi autobiographical journey through our occupational struggles since getting married. CLARK, a painter in his mid 20s who loses his job the day after he gets back from his honeymoon with his writer wife, MARIE, must go on a journey through many jobs until finding... Needless to say, I am excited about the new script...

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World vs. The Switch

I don't know why I keep doing it. I will see a movie I like and then go to Aintitcool.com to see what those critics thought. And then I am surprised when they don't see it my way. When they use extremely crass and vulgar language to describe their distaste in the film. When they would rather not explain their view from an educated standpoint, but rather use the barrage of four letter words to express their opinion. Their reviews read as if the movie punched them in the face, took their wallet, and insulted their mother before the end credits rolled. More than anything I guess I've officially grown up and away from aintitcool and now need a new film review site to peruse, because I am tired of reading reviews from critics who loved "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" and hated "The Switch"...

Shivering Timbers: The Treatment for Pirates of the Caribbean 4

Recently we purchased "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Legend of Jack Sparrow", a mediocre, old PS2 game. While the game wasn't very good, it did get Audrey and I talking about the film franchise and how badly the series ended. Specifically what happened to Keira Knightley's character Elizabeth Swann, who if you made it though the disastrous last chapter "At World's End" is forced to live alone on an island and wait for her love Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) to return for one day every ten years so they can... well, you know. As Audrey put it, "that is an anti-climatic, slightly sexist way to leave your female lead." Audrey also said (and I'll have to paraphrase) "she had these great adventures, became the Pirate King, all to end up as a single mother stranded on a deserted island."

To that I raised my coffee mug and said "Arrr, you know what they should do to fix both of those characters' crappy endings?"