I like this four-days-off / three-days-on thing. I could get used to it.
Saw Baby Driver this weekend at a 4 pm showing, and the theater was packed to the brim. As an added bonus, I got to see the trailers for both It and The Dark Tower beforehand, the first time for both on the big screen. Of the two, I would say The Dark Tower generated more buzz among the audience, for whatever that’s worth.
Baby Driver is a heist/chase movie set to a soundtrack. The main character has tinnitus, so he listens to music on iPods (he has many) most of the time to drown out the constant noise. He’s gotten himself in debt to Kevin Spacey and is working it off by driving the getaway car from audacious heists—and he’s a very good driver. Everything that happens happens to the beat of whatever he’s listening to at the time. Every tire squeal, every gunshot, every door slam, everything. The movie is high-energy, non-stop action, as Baby goes from one scheme to the next and manages to fall in love in the middle of it all while looking after his deaf foster father to boot. Highly enjoyable, although the bit with John Hamm at the end was a touch too horror-movie generic. Thoroughly enjoyed it, though. Jamie Foxx is terrific as the self-professed crazy Bats.
We collected the last several episodes of Doctor Who to watch over a couple of evenings. I was able to avoid most spoilers (and forgot any that I couldn’t), so it was a good way to watch Capaldi’s final run. Mostly very good stories, and it was great to see the “round-faced” Master again and the interplay with Missy. The appearance of the pilot was more than a tad on the deus ex machina side (the first episode of the season feels like a long time ago, so it was a stretch expecting us to remember everything about that character), an overly simple way to solve a complicated problem, but all in all we liked how things worked out. Although we mourn the loss of Capaldi, who started out as a cold, unfeeling Doctor and ended up one of the most sensitive of them all. (I’m fairly certain he is the first Doctor who I’d seen in other things before I saw him in Doctor Who.)
I won two tickets to see Steve Earle and the Dukes at the House of Blues on Monday night. I’ve been a fan of his ever since he was on Treme, especially his album The Revolution Starts Now. The opening act was The Mastersons, a husband-wife duo who are also part of Earle’s band “the Dukes.” They got half an hour to show us their “solo” chops before the band started rocking at 9:00. It was a great show. The band is highly talented and Earle’s gravelly voice is still in fine form. He did several songs from his new album, the Waylon Jennings inspired So You Want to Be an Outlaw. He chatted a little between songs, but half of what he said was unintelligible to us (in part because of the chit-chat going on around us, and in part because he tends to mumble). This was their first gig of the tour, and it went off pretty well, with a minimum of glitches.
We don’t always go out into the crowds to see the fireworks. Our community has a number of venues where they can be observed, and some are easier to get to (and away from) than others, but this year we decided to dive in. Five parks had live performances, and we chose the one at the waterway (our faux Riverwalk) that is next to our favorite pizza joint. We went early to get parking, had dinner and then took our portable chairs to the park and settled in for the evening. It was pretty hot, but we found a shady patch and there was a breeze every now and then, so it wasn’t too bad.
Music was supplied by Level One Band from Kingwood (except for one park where the musical offering was country, most of the options were R&B/Motown acts). They were good, interactive, talented, and it was fun to watch the small kids playing around and hopping and dancing to the beat. The fireworks went off at 9:30, and we had a ring-side seat for them. I have to echo a sentiment tweeted by my writing buddy Michael Marshall Smith, though. He wrote: “If I’m honest the ideal fireworks show would last two minutes and be perfectly visible from wherever I already was.” I’d be just as happy if the whole shebang went off at once rather than drawn out over a 15-20 minute stretch.
The local online radio station did a simulcast to synchronize all the locations where the fireworks were being launched. Either someone simply googled songs containing the word America without scrutinizing the lyrics too carefully, or there was some top-notch trolling going on. The first song was “Fortunate Son,” followed by “Pink Houses” and “Born in the U.S.A.”
