No gym today: Jon promised me we'll go Thursday and Friday. Hope so.

Nancy reminded me of a woman character I love:

8: Diana Guzman (Michelle Rodriguez, Girlfight )

This movie is about a Puerto Rican girl who lives with a lot of rage and finally finds a good outlet for it by learning how to box. I really liked this character, even though I almost didn't add her because while I admire her strength and will, she really is close to following her father's abusive footsteps. The best thing about this movie is she finds another father; she pays a reluctant boxing coach to train her and he slowly realizes he has a highly talented athlete in his hands. I had a huge lump in my throat when she wins a bout and her coach tells her how proud he is.

An editorial note: I've toyed with the idea of learning how to box; not to learn how to dish it out, but to learn how to take it. I think it would be highly useful to be still able to function while under pain and duress. Boxing is brutal and I really enjoy watching it when I can. I know a lot of people are repulsed by boxers and especially women boxers (don't watch it then, ya mooks). I wish I understood why women get a lot of shit for being physical - I think it's because it reminds people too much of men (sweat, muscles, and blood). What makes me laugh is the stereotypical woman athlete - a ballerina, ice skater, or gymnast, for instance - knows what sweat, muscle, and blood is, too.

For the record since I have started weight training I have had nothing but good experiences and feedback from the men who weightlift in the gym I attend. Remember I live in a really small Southern town.

Last weekend was so awash in mediocrity, I forgot to mention a movie I genuinely enjoyed: the 1961 version of Zatoichi. I was expecting a Japanese Western - you know, lone gunman comes to town and cleans up the place. Zatoichi is different. He is a blind master swordsman. He taught himself the sword precisely because he's blind - he can't stand having people feel sorry or contempt for him.

He comes to this small town at the request of a gang boss; the boss has seen him fight and thinks having Zatoichi on his side would be useful. Zatoichi has no real desire to do any fighting for the boss but he does use his hospitality to freeload some.

Anyway, the boss of a smaller, rival gang has in his employ a samurai from Edo (a ronin, one would presume). Zatoichi and the samurai meet while both are fishing by a small lake and soon become good friends. You can see how it's going - both men were hired because of gang tensions. Zatoichi does not want to fight his friend but the samurai left Edo because he is dying from consumption. He would rather die in a fight with a legendary swordsman than by a lowly gangster or his own desintigrating body.

Zatoichi is so upset at the end of the movie he asks that his sword be buried with the remains of his Samurai friend. However, there's like 10 more movies in the Zatoichi series so I sincerely doubt he has completely hung up his sword-slingin' ways.

There's a whole lot more to this movie - some decently fleshed-out characters and surprisingly little swordplay. When there is, of course Zatoichi kicks major butt in his trademark underhand swordfighting style.

I'll have to watch more in the series. I'd also like to see the recent remake but Miramax is dragging it's collective butt in releasing it here in the states.

Jon and I watched Rounders, a movie about poker players. It features cute as a button Matt Damon and just as cute Ed Norton. Norton impresses me more with every movie I see him in. Here he plays the just out of jail scumbag (aptly nicknamed 'Worm) who cheats at cards to Damon's reformed gambler, Mike.

What interested me about this movie was yes it was about poker, and the difference between being a sharp and a cheat, but the main plot was Mike's flaw wasn't his ability to play poker with the best, but his weakness for a no-good man, Worm. Mike lives with a woman (and she is the reason he has promised to stop gambling) but she is fairly irrelevant. I bet an already interesting movie could have been made more interesting if she hadn't existed altogether simply because Mike's relationship with Worm is so destructive. An undercurrent of homosexual love (or more of one, rather), would have gone a long way into explaining why he puts up with it.

The movie, besides having some cool poker sequences, deals with the theme of 'you are what you is'. Mike is happy playing poker, which he insists is not gambling. He utilizes his skills of keeping track of cards and odds, and reading other players to win. He is a law student, but when Worm gets back into town Mike starts playing again and he realizes what he has missed. Worm is what he is, too. He is a bad man, and it takes them both getting worked over by some angry cops before Mike finally realizes this and cuts that no-good loser loose.

Really, they do make a cute couple.

Here: ANOTHER top 10 list: My Top 10 favorite movies at this point in time:

10: Office Space

I tried hard to think of a comedy to add to this list. Office Space won out because it's the comedy I have most recently worn out. At an earlier age, this slot could easily been taken by Airplane!, Top Secret, Animal House, the Blues Brothers; all movies I have worn out and can still enjoy.

Why Office Space then? Because I work in a cubicle. This movie is dead-on about the life-sucking experience of working in such an environment. Ron Livingston (someone once described him as looking like Charlie Sheen without the scumbag factor, and that's pretty accurate) plays a cubicle denizen who is at wit's end because he hates his job so much. Gary Cole's coffee sipping boss from hell is worth the price of rental alone.

9: Toy Story

One Pixar movie had to make it on the list and this is it because it was the first. I was *blown away* by the animation values. Plus it had a great story, it's wickedly funny, and filled with wonderful characters.

8: The Right Stuff

This movie about the Mercury astronauts did not get the box office it deserved. Scott Glenn, Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Sam Shepherd and Lance Henriksen - the cast is a who's who of character actors from the 80's. Favorite line: "Our Germans are better than their Germans." This movie should be seen on a double bill with Apollo 13.

7: Goodfellas

My favorite gangster movie. Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, and Lorraine Bracco give us the flip side of mobster life. The Godfather showed us vicious but somewhat noble gangsters; the characters in this movie are vicious thugs who wear bad clothes and like to cook a lot.

6: Spartacus

This is one of the few historical epics that successfully touches on the human elements. Kirk Douglas is a god. And Tony Curtis was *hot* when he was young! No wonder Laurence Olivier wanted to get under his skirt. Uh, see the restored version to understand what I'm talking about. Character of note: Charles Laughton's Gracchus, a corrupt but surprisingly sympathetic Senator.

5: The Year of Living Dangerously

Mel Gibson at his finest (mmmmmmmmmmmmmm). This movie is beautiful to look at. If one can classify this as a chick movie, then this is by far my favorite chick movie. A good bookend movie is Peter Weir's Witness - which had Harrison Ford at his finest. Both movies are hypnotic with great chemistry between the leads (something that wrecks more often than not most chick movies).

4: Hard Boiled

My Hong Kong actioner entry. John Woo directed this and it features Chow Yun-Fat as a hard-boiled cop. Look, it has a 45-minute shootout in a hospital at the very end; what more do you want? It just is a kick ass movie.

3: Dawn of the Dead

This movie is gory. I'm talking heads exploding, guts being ripped out, chunks of flesh being pulled off limbs gory. They just don't make movies like this any more! The thing this movie had going for it (and its sister movies, Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead) were characters you could care about so it is far more than a special effects extraveganza. I've been criticized for liking movies like this. I don't get it. Yes, it looks awful real, but those actors washed off the moulage and went and had beers after the director yelled 'cut'. It's not real, folks!

2: Jaws

Spielberg at his finest hour. More than a movie about a shark terrorizing a tourist town, this movie shines because of the dynamics between Richard Dryfuss, Robert Shaw, and Roy Scheider on board a little boat in a big ocean.

1: Aliens

I have declared this to be my favorite movie a bazillion times. Obviously I love action, war-oriented movies. In this movie even the women were sweaty, square-jawed, and heroic. This movie rises above the mindless action movies because each character is given enough time to not be just a faceless casualty. I love them all: Vasquez, the supercool tough hispanic chick; Hudson, the excitable wiseass; Hicks, the supercompetent, quiet NCO who finds himself in charge; Bishop, the android who turns out to be quite human; and Newt, the not annoying spunky little kid. And I can't forget the sleazebag company man Burke. And of course there's Ripley. She faces her fears and finds a second chance when lone survivor Newt is discovered on the now-colonized planet where the infected spaceship from Alien originally crashed.

I promise I'll eventually talk about other things. But in the meantime I have plenty of mindless entertainment saved on TiVo to watch and bore you with. Speaking of, The Forsyte Sage part II started last Sunday on PBS. I haven't had a chance to watch much of it (Jon is not into Masterpiece Theater, plus he found out how much I pant over Damian Lewis {happy birthday, you hot redhead, you} and is a little jealous).

I did see enough to know Soames hasn't changed that much; he treats his second wife badly but he dotes on his daughter. I do feel bad for the uber-uptight, repressed Soames. I swear when he sits down to take a crap he shits rebar. I can't wait to see how he reacts when he finds out his daughter falls for Irene and Jolyon's son. For that matter I can't wait to see how Irene and Jolyon react.

Oh, god, I'm caught up in a soap opera. Sheesh!