Kiss the Girls

Today started with a knock on my door. A voice said housekeeping and I went to talk with the voice. It seems that they had checked me out once again. I will not miss feeling like a squatter when I get home. Even though I rent, I'm not asked how long I will be staying every few days.

I am going to break the fourth wall here by talking to the audience. For those of you reading and have not yet seen the movie Kiss the Girls but are planning on it, skip the next few paragraphs because I am going to reveal the ending. The mystery villian was never a mystery to me. I saw Cary Elwes in the opening credits and he had top billing. Then as the movie progressed I kept waiting for him to appear. He was only a cop and then I thought, no, he has to be more than a cop. Morgan Freeman is the cop, Ashley Judd is the heroine and Cary must be the creep. I was right.

Any fan of the Princess Bride knows Cary. He must want to change his image with this film. The "as you wish" boy, became a creep. I think that Buttercup would be very disappointed.

Yes, I had said that I would not go see this film, but it was an impulse decision tonight. For most of the day, I was in kind of a funk. I had done very little all day and I needed to do something. So I decided to see a movie. I needed to get out of the hotel room for the night.

Morgan did a fine job. It reminded me of his role in Seven. In my mind he will always be from the Electric Co. on PBS many years ago.

Ashley did fine in her role, which I felt was just a little too tailor made for the public. She was the ultimate nineties woman. She was smart, attractive, fit and very sure of herself. From my point of view, she was very two dimensional. You knew that she was there to kick butt. We even get to see her do some kickboxing.

The whole movie was a formula, which I knew ahead of time. The public will love it though and I think that they already are loving it by the weekly box office totals that I have seen in the papers. I will admit that it is entertaining. It is far from original though. No one will remember it a year from now.

So why did I go see it? Well, I was unable to find another theater before it got dark and I think that Ashley Judd is good looking. Yes, I am a guy and I like to look at women. On the other hand, the women can appreciate the fact that Ashley fought back and won. I still think that her winning was a given from the previews. Oh well give the public what it wants.

From the audience it looked like it was a good date movie. There were a number of couples in the audience.

This movie reminded me why I am not in advertising. I have a degree in art and english, both of which would do very well in advertising. My flaw is that I can not bring myself to sell something to people that they really do not need. Nor will I pander to the lowest common denominator. Nor will I be creative for someone else.

Many of my illustration projects were seem as being too cryptic. People could not understand what I was trying to say. This does not make for very effective advertising.

So here I am in Omaha furthering my knowledge of electronic file tranfers. Electronic banking is my life. Well in truth it just pays the bills and gives me something to do during the day.

From the tone of today's entry, I must sound like some intellectual snob. Hey, I like to think that I follow pop culture as much as anyone else, I just try not to be a slave to it. When I see something that I think is weak, I'll say it. There are times when I hold back on people though. I do not take any pleasure from humilating people.

The only other thing that I did today was eat at a buffet style restaurant. I hadn't been to one in years. It was a nice change of pace from all of the fast food that has been playing havoc with my system since I have been on this trip.

The restaurant was packed, but I ate until I could eat no more. A sign of fine dining is wherever they have sneeze guards between you and the food.

Back to Ashley Judd for a moment, if I may. I think that she has the potential to be a very good actress. I liked her in Ruby in Paradise, a small film that I saw a few years ago. Kiss the Girls didn't really seem to be all that much of a challenge for her.

Oh, I have to talk about the previews. One of them was Alien Resurection with Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder. They must have gave Sigourney a fist full of money to get her to do another one. I confess to loving the first one and loathing the second one. Aliens was too pro-military for me. Too many guns.

The other preview was for Titanic. The only saving grace that I can see is Leonardo DaCaprio. He did an okay job as Romeo, but I don't think that I will see this effort on the big screen.

The one film that I do want to see is Great Expectations. Its a modern version with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. I love the Dickens novel and hope that I will like the film. I like Ethan and Gwyneth was excellent in Flesh and Bone.

Tori Amos has a song for the soundtrack.

Movies and soundtracks are so strange today. Sometimes a movie can be a total bomb, but there is a mega popular song from the movie that is played over and over on the radio. That Celine Dion number irritated me for months. I call it the Meatloaf song.

One more comment on Kiss the Girls, before I shut up today. There was very little graphic violence. Silence of the Lambs was much more violent in my opinion. No explicit nudity either.