On this day in 2006, we saw the departure of Aleksadra, M's best friend from Poland. She stayed 10 days in our apartment and we actually all got along quite well. As I might have mentioned before, we really love having visitors here (for shorter than 10 days hopefully) and love showing them the occasionally bizarre face of life in NYC. This last visit was no exception, topped with a very fine, scantily clad Mermaid Day parade in the driving rain out at Coney Island. Aleksandra, like many Polish people, had some very interesting comments about life in America as she sees it. Mainly they pertained to the freedom with which we slouch about and behave strangely on the train. But actually she thought that Americans in general are inspirationally free-spririted, a trait that expresses itself in a multitude of ways from dressing as a naked Merman to bombing the snot out of anyone we want. The only negative thing that happened while Aleksandra was visiting was that she was shocked by the rats running around in the subway tracks. Unfortunately we told her the story of the massive rat that tried to eat its way through the kitchen door at our last place and she couldn't sleep afterwards. We told her that of course she was safe from rats at our new place and hoped she would never think to actually read this blog. People concerned with vermin rarely distinguish between rats and cheese-house building mice who occasionally climb up to my keyboard to write an email.
After saying good-bye to her at the Newark Express bus stop (which has been moved from inside the Port Authority terminal to outside, across the street. There is literally a man in a yellow vest sitting on a stool on the sidewalk) we returned home and relaxed and watched movies in newly appreciated silence. This silence will be broken soon as our French friend Benoit will be coming to visit in two days so we felt we had to appreciate it.
The two movies we watched were Monsters Inc. (Inspired to see again after watching "Cars" the other day) and the Paltrow-Affleck flick "Bounce". Actually Bounce was pretty good despite a title describing Affleck's financial situation these days. Go see Cars by the way. It's been the victim of Pixar backlash. That is, Pixar has been making such good movies that I think people ratchet up expectations at every release, if this had been their first one it would certainly score more than the paltry 78% it's getting on Rottentomatoes.com right now. So irked was I that I wrote my own review on IMDB.com which I present to you here:
This movie is so much better than the reviews are giving it, currently around 78%. That's a C+ where I come from and Cars is WELL above average. Lushly animated, rich vivid colors, amazing characterization, the story is high-end Disney, slightly sappy but always with enough spice to keep it from becoming too saccharin. It also busts out of the well worn 'redemption' formula in a few refreshing places. I'm sure Pixar and Disney will make a load of money on this movie, which is great, but they deserve amazing reviews too. This is what movie making should be today, visually stunning, heart-felt, and need I say, original. Heaven forbid that Disney look at the C+ and decide it's a safer bet to make Herbie the Love Bug XIV than it is to make a fresh amazing, original feature like Cars.
Unfortunately I named this review "Cars Is Awesome", which I regret now, not that it wasn't but I think it lost some of the gravitas that it might have had otherwise. Thinking back, I should have called it, "Cars is Awesome, Dude".
Posted by ian at June 25, 2006 05:45 PM