The Christmas Season is upon us, and I have returned from Sri Lanka in one piece. I actually got back a week ago, but I've spent that time recovering from jet lag, trimming holiday trees, and clearing out some phlegm.

I've been somewhat out of the media loop for awhile, so I don't have much to report on that front. I did, however, watch "The Illusionist" with Ed Norton and Paul Giamatti on the plane ride home, and it was pretty darned awful--strange considering the personnel involved. I then flipped through the airline media guide to find that Richard Roeper gave the movie a thumbs up, further confirming my suspicion that the film was utter garbage.
I also watched "The Night Listener"--a creepy movie with Robin Williams where, ironically, he doesn't play the creepy character. Instead, he plays a gay late-night radio show host, who comes across a dark novel written by a young boy. No...really...I swear Williams doesn't play the creepy character. Anyway, the film was good, if not a tad disjointed.
Finally, I saw M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water" (There were some looong plane rides). Though not without its flaws, I simply don't understand why it got panned so badly by critics. It was a nice movie with a nice story, which is what the director said he set out to accomplish from the very beginning. Funnily enough, for all the magic creatures and fairy-tale-ness of the film, I simply couldn't suspend my disbelief during this one scene where Paul Giamatti holds his breath underwater for an exorbitantly long time. Seriously, the man's not in good enough shape to do that; he gets winded from simply speaking in that movie.

Now I've got to catch up on all the movies in theaters now. I haven't even seen the new Bond yet, though they were already selling bootleg copies of the film in Sri Lanka before it came out. The only problem was that the first few minutes were in Russian and then the sound dropped out altogether (and the Thai subtitles weren't very helpful). Really, Sri Lanka's an ideal place to go if you're looking for useless junk--they just sell it on the streets there. You can get anything you want, just so long as it will never actually be helpful to you. For example, there were hoods which had been removed from Columbia rain jackets to be resold for 20 cents a piece. My friend laughed so hard he bought one.

That's all there is to report in this edition. I will leave you with this awesome picture of a record which I can only dream to someday find, because it looks like it would be freaking amazing:




Happy Christmas.