Just so you aren’t confused, this is not the John Cusack movie Gross Point Blank. Gross Point is actually a movie I am a rather big fan of and you should check it out if you get the chance, but it’s not quite Top 100 material. Point Blank came out 31 years earlier in 1967 and stars one the all time bad asses, Lee Marvin. To give you an idea of the type of movie this is, the tag line was…
“There are two kinds of people in his up-tight world: his victims and his women. And sometimes you can’t tell them apart.” Read the rest of this entry »
I have to preface this by saying that I understand how lucky I am. Not only for the fact that I can afford a vacation in Hawaii but that I am able to take a week and half off from work and still have plenty of vacation days left to play with for the rest of the year. Also, I want to make it perfectly clear that I had a fantastic time on the vacation; great food, great drinks, amazing place to stay and a ton of great friends to enjoy it with. With that said, my first 3 days back at work have been pain stakingly miserable. While a normal day at work is bad enough, your first week after a long vacation couldn’t be worse. Your email inbox is slammed, your voicemail is packed and you keep having people coming up to you asking, “I know you’re just getting back, but can you take a look at that email I sent you back on the 9th and let me know if…” or “we need you to put together a spreadsheet and…” or “contact sales and figure out…” or any other number of mundane requests you get at an office job. You’ve hardly had a chance to run through any of the projects that were assigned to you while you’ve been gone and new stuff is already pouring in. You are out of whack from the time change, exhausted from your horrendous flight home, bloated from all the huge meals, uncomfortable from the sun burn on your neck, it looks like you have dandruff because you’re pealing from the sun burn on your bald spot and your head is still floating in that My Tai you were sipping on (or gulping down) by the pool. This begs the question; are these vacations even worth going on to begin with? It’s not like I have come back to the office relaxed and recharged. I am more exhausted than usual. And all I think about is that for the rest of my life I’ll be getting these little teasers of what life is like when you don’t have to work, but eventually it’s always going to be back to the daily grind. I seriously think the only way to fully recharge yourself is to take a week off and stay at home. Watch a couple of movies, go to a ball game or get some of those errands done you can’t do during the week while you’re at work. Most importantly, sleep in. But even when you do that, the alarm clock on your first day back in the office is going to be a punch in the stomach and your inbox is going to be a disaster. I am not the only one who feels this way. Here are a couple of quotes from friends of mine who went on the same trip… Read the rest of this entry »
Most concert movies are fairly standard. The band gets up on stage, plays some songs, the crowd cheers and it’s over. There is the usual quick shot of someone in the crowd rocking out and pumping their fist, then the wide shot of the band with occasional close ups of the various members doing their thing. Sometimes the music is good, sometimes even really good but the excitement of the live performance sort of gets lost in its transition from concert to movie. This is definitely not the case in Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Talking Heads concert film directed by Jonathan Demme. Some say this is the best concert movie ever made. While I would probably call it the second best, you’d get no argument from me. The energy in the performance booms through your television and don’t be shocked if you find yourself shirtless and jumping up and down on your couch somewhere during the mid point of the film. Maybe that’s just me, but none the less it is hard to stay sitting down at times. Read the rest of this entry »