Touch Me I'm Sick

I watched 'Contagion' over the weekend, and it was a decent enough movie even when you factor in the wildly unlikable Gwyneth Paltrow. Highlight of the movie for me, and this isn't a spoiler, was watching the top of Paltrow's character's head being sawed off during an autopsy.

'Contagion', besides being one very large and effective product placement blitz for Purelle and every other hand sanitizer on the market, was only a mediocre movie. We aren't really given a chance to know or bond with any of the main characters as they just shuffle in and out of the film. Matt Damon's character is oddly immune from the virus, but nothing is ever really done with that info...he just has an incredible constitution. Jude Law plays an annoying Aussie blogger with costume store quality bad teeth and overacts every scene he is in. I was openly rooting for him to die. Kate Winslet, as usual, is solid as a CDC doctor in the field...she's one of the few characters I actually cared about, mainly because she's vested in the goings on. If the movie had perhaps focused a little more on the effect the virus had on every day life and how a society can break down it may have made more of an impact. Instead, Steven Soderberg tried to cram too much of the technical happenings into the story so a lot of details get skipped over...there's a better movie within 'Contagion' that could be made.

So, that was Friday night - Saturday was spent running errands, cleaning gutters, and eradicating moss from the roof. Unfortunately, the Moss Out I had on hand was at least 6 years old, so a lot of the granules had formed super clusters within the canister. I spent quite a bit of time bashing the canister on the roof (while holding on to the ladder for dear life) to break the clusters apart, which isn't nearly as effective as it would seem. Therefore, the Moss Out coverage on parts of the roof was as uneven as 'Contagion'.

Saturday night we invited neighbors over to watch 'Horrible Bosses', which I was prepared to loathe. Not the neighbors, but the movie...the neighbors brought a box of red wine over, so they are good people. Anyhoo...the movie. I liked it much, much more than 'Bridesmaids', a movie that received a baffling amount of good press. That doesn't mean that 'Horrible Bosses' was a great movie, it was just better than I expected as I had very low expectations. The movie worked best when it didn't stoop to crass and coarse humor to be 'shocking'. That means every single scene with Jennifer Aniston is a train wreck of vulgar talk for vulgarity's sake. I'm not one to blush easily, but I cringed a little more than once at some of the writing and lines given to Aniston...so much so I'm surprised she took the part as she most certainly doesn't need the money. The movie is briskly paced to the point where you don't really question the cockamamie reasons each plotter gives as to why they can't simply quit their jobs and find new ones. Jason Bateman is solid, and Jamie Foxx has a very good cameo that plays off some of his earlier standup work, mainly the whole dude sippin' his drink at the bar with a straw routine. 'Horrible Bosses' is by no means a classic comedy, but it worked out nicely as a $1.00 DVDExpress expenditure for the night.

More later, just wanted to get in a quick 'Teeeeeeeeboooooooooooooooooow' before retiring for the night....! Suck on that, Steelers!