rivercityvibe   “Puerile, smutty, schoolboy nonsense” – My Mom

I went to see the Quantum of Solace at AMC Orange Park on Friday. My buddy and I made it in and out of the theater unscathed through a carefully practiced scheme of pairs fire-and-maneuver. It turned out we did not need the cover of smoke, on this occasion. The movie was awesome (it grossed $70 m over the weekend), but there was an added bonus – the new Star Trek trailer.

I have not, previously, had any truck with the Trekkie community. My preferred attitude toward them is “disdain” mixed with “amazement”. I have to say though, the new movie (another re-set/prequel I’m afraid) actually looks great, in conception and execution.

Some public spirited-geek-with-a-camera, has posted this bootleg version, online:

Pretty good, hey?

I hope you liked the fact that I repeated the statement in the headline for this post twice. I was attempting to add enhanced geek-appeal by making it more like an announcement on a starship’s speaker system.  If I could have made it flash red I would have.

Battle stations!

This lady’s name is Jessica. Jessica Biel, to be exact. We are overlooking, on this occasion, the likely German origin of her name (as we did for Klum), because she is so smoking hot:

Square head?

The usual source identifies young Jessica as an actress, although the films it lists are ones I have never heard of.

But who gives? Welcome to the rivercityvibe community, Jess!

I have been remiss the last few days. I promised to post while I was in California. I did not do so. You deserve to know why.

Certain elements conspired to make it highly unlikely that I would keep it together enough to tend to rivercityvibe. Those elements were, variously, a Sacramento brew pub, a hardcore jazz bar, a three hour  time difference, a profound lack of sleep and my habitual enthusiasm for utterly kicking the ass out of any new opportunity to misbehave.

Basically, my message is, though this place has delicious beer, avoid it:

DANGER!

Normal service shall now resume. Thank you for your patience.

I am about to leave (on a jet plane) for California, where I am needed to sort things out for the Governator. Consequently, I am pushed for time. In situations like these, I rob from Seth. This is known.

Here are some amusing emails:

Very amusing

I’ll report from 90210. In the meantime, be good.

Page Six is reporting that we may not have seen the end of our lovely Sarah Palin. Apparently she is being courted by talent agencies who hope to turn her into a “White Oprah”.

But hot.

Naughty, naughty!

The paper says:

SARAH Palin won’t be vice president, but she won the hearts of talent scouts and literary agents who are scrambling to sign her to multimillion-dollar contracts.

CAA, ICM, William Morris, Paradigm and other agencies “smell books, talk shows and commentary for Fox and CNN” as possibilities for the Alaska governor, West Coast PR man Hal Lifson told us.

There is one agency, however, that has no interest in her whatsoever. It’s the agency run by Ari Emmanuel, the real-life inspiration for Entourage’s Ari Gold (another classic last night, folks). Mr. Emmanuel’s brother,  Rahm has just been appointed President-Elect Obama”s Chief-of-Staff.

Boom!

We’ve all been drunk and done things that, half-remembered in the cold light of the following morning, make us uneasy. We tentatively question our friends in an attempt to work out just what happened , praying, hoping that it was not too bad.

[I once, to my eternal shame, stole a radio out of a police car in an attempt to impress the girl I was with (it worked, but she was AWFUL). Apparently, it was an encrypted one, worth about a bazillion dollars, so I woke the next morning to a full door-to-door search, cars, helicopters, you name it. I asked the girl’s roommate what the activity was all about while I helped myself to raisin bran. She told me,  and the full horror of the situation dawned on me. I became dizzy and nauseous and had to sit down. I’ll tell you the rest some other time but it did not end well. For the public-minded among you it was 15 years ago, in another country, and besides, the wench is dead]

Something similar happened to this fellow. A UK journalist who made some ill advised comments to a video camera regarding his job (including resigning and telling his boss to fuck off) which the kind individual who made the film posted on youtube, the very next day:

Ouch. I feel for this guy. His follow-up, filmed the next day, while sober is pretty interesting too. A case-study in how to make things a weensy bit better. Though not, obviously, get his job back….

There’s a lesson here, readers.

Jaime Pressly, who I had never heard of until she played herself as one of Vinnie Chase’s pieces of strange in Entourage, has apparently split up with her boyfriend, resulting in her questionable mugshot being posted all over the interweb.   I have to say, I am not impressed. Am I the only one that finds her a little …. man-ish?

I will no doubt get called out on this point. I can see the conversation now:

Misguided fool: “But she’s beautiful. Her features are ‘elfin'”

Joe Bones: “Yeah, I hate ‘elfin’. Apart from the pointy nose thing, it is often used as code for  ‘no tits’.”

Misguided fool: “Oh”

To misquote the Bee Gees, I win again!

Don’t go breaking my heart
You take the weight off me
Honey when you knocked on my door
I gave you my key

Nobody knows it
When I was down
I was your clown
Nobody knows it
Right from the start
I gave you my heart
I gave you my heart

So don’t go breaking my heart
I won’t go breaking your heart
Don’t go breaking my heart

And nobody told us
`Cause nobody showed us
And now it’s up to us babe
I think we can make it

So don’t misunderstand me
You put the light in my life
You put the sparks to the flame
I’ve got your heart in my sights

Apparently, writers on websites like these are supposed to adhere to the golden rule of not ‘clustering’ stories on the same subject together, instead spreading them out over decent periods of time. In normal circumstances, I would comply, but right now, I am so fucking bored with this election, I must post about Heidi Klum again or remove my ear drums with an oyster shucker.

I know, deep down, that Heidi is a vacuous, over-serious, German bore with an annoying child’s sense of humor. These are all minuses in my book*. She has big pluses, though, in that she is no-holds-barred hot and she keeps doing things that I respect. One of those things is this ad (for God-only-knows-what), based on Tom Cruise’s CLASSIC performance in Risky Business (1983):

Awesome. I know some ladies who would benefit greatly from studying the techniques used in this very carefully.

(*Kommen! Kann nicht sie einen witz nehmen?)

I went to see RocknRolla this weekend, primarily to express support for Guy Ritchie in his hilarious divorce battle with Madonna. It is what critics since the Italian Job have referred to as a ‘British crime caper.’ (Indeed that is the only use of the word ‘caper’ you will see these days. The word has become solely associated with violent but funny movies that claim to be about the London underworld. It’s true. I’ve checked).

The bottom line is, if you liked Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, you’ll like this –  I did. There are some interesting elements to it. The role of a Russian oligarch, clearly based on Roman Abramovich (right down to the soccer stadium offices) was a nice touch. I liked his use of ex-Russian military hardmen who spend their downtime comparing wounds gained fighting in Chechnya. They pursue the likable protagonists Terminator-style, providing some of the most unpleasant violence of the movie and some of the best laughs.

Great characters abound. As in most of his movies Ritchie manages to sketch them out in a pretty short space of time.  In the running for the best is the character of Johnny Quidd a crack-head rock star who has a reputation for consistently faking his own death (a reputation Bones once shared. But that’s for another time…..)

Good movie. Go see it. Remember, if visiting AMC Orange Park, use the buddy-system and be prepared to break down into pairs fire-and-maneuver at a moment’s notice….