Entertainment

My wife and I watched "Black Swan" at Salem Cinema a few days ago. Most movies fade from my mind in much less time, but this engrossing flick has stuck with me as I ponder the question that often pops into my mind as the closing credits of an artsy film start to roll: What the fuck was that all about? Now, I considered substituting "#@$!*&" or "f__k" for the fully expressed word, but this would be at odds with the main meaning Black Swan left with me. In short... Questing for perfection ultimately leads to a decidedly imperfect life.…

Ah, tomorrow looks like a great football day here in rural south Salem. It'll probably be raining, which makes for an outdoor chore-free afternoon. Plus, both the Beavers and Ducks football games are televised. Oregon State vs. Louisville and Oregon vs. Portland State University -- here I come! All I have to do is fire up my HD DirecTV, which gets jillions (more or less) of channels for the billions of bucks (or so it seems) I pay for programming every month. Oh. Forgot. DirecTV doesn't carry a certain channel. Comcast SportsNet Northwest, which happens to be the freakin' channel…

Sometimes great performances on So You Think You Can Dance touch a deep emotional chord with me. Last night my wife and I started to make our way through some recorded episodes. We came to Alex and Twitch's astounding hip-hop dance, "Get out of your mind!"We watched it twice. Today I saw it twice more, having been able to find it online. You'll probably have to wait for an ad to finish before seeing the video, but believe me, you need to wait. Then, enjoy.What's amazing is that Alex is an accomplished ballet dancer. Hip-hop seemingly would be way out…

Last year, after a long absence, we returned to the 60's and had a great time at the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta (outside of Eugene). Friday we fired up our Prius and hybrid'ed our way down I-5 again, hoping the mid-90's heat wouldn't mess up our mellow. It didn't. Shortly after we parked our car and started walking across grassy fields (double entendre entirely appropriate), we came across a purple-tailed horse. I instantly felt at home. And wondered what it would have been like to come to the fair in my LSD-taking days. (I would have named the horse "Trippy,"…

I've enjoyed the two World Cup soccer matches that I've watched on TV. Naturally they've both featured the United States team -- when they played England and Slovenia -- because I'm only interested in soccer on the rare occasions when the game means something to my national interest.By "enjoyed," I mean that I followed the tips I shared in How to enjoyably watch hockey and soccer on TV.(1) Record the event.(2) Press "Play." (3) Then -- this is really important, because life is short and you don't want to waste it on meaningless stuff -- immediately press the fast forward…

My wife and I have watched every episode of "Lost" during its six seasons -- which got increasingly confusing the past few years, and not because of our early senility. As Wikipedia puts it:At the heart of the series is a complex and cryptic storyline that spawns numerous unresolved questions.Yeah, no kidding. Even after we finished watching "The End" episode last night, Laurel and I looked at each other and engaged in our traditional post-Lost viewing interchange: "Jeez, what was that all about?" "I have no idea."We aren't Lostaphiles. We don't obsess over details of the show or study Lostpedia…

Somehow my wife and I have missed out on seeing a Cirque du Soleil performance in our sixty-something years. Last night we remedied this hole in our life experience by driving up to Portland in an unseasonably cold rain to see Kooza.After deciding to make this an early birthday present for Laurel, I had to decide whether to fork out $250 ($125 each) for the Tapis Rouge option. Browsing some Cirque du Soleil reviews, I saw that that some people loved it. Others thought it was a waste of money.Our conclusion: loved it!An emotional reaction which, I'll have to admit,…

Having watched the Academy Awards for many years, this gray-haired observer of countless Oscar presentations feels qualified to say, after watching the 2010 show...Bring back the vibe of the good old days: wilder, crazier, less structured, more unpredictable. Somehow this year I felt like a lot was missing from the Academy Awards even though it ran three and a half hours.When Sean Penn walks onto the stage to give an award and is utterly well-behaved, something is wrong. When Steve Martin, the original "wild and crazy guy," is reduced to 99% reading of scripted lines and 1% spontaneity, something is…

Sorry -- this tip is being conveyed too late for today's Vancouver Winter Olympics hockey final. But there will be more hockey and soccer games coming up on TV. Here's how I've found is absolutely the best way to watch them:(1) Record the event.(2) Press "Play." (3) Then -- this is really important, because life is short and you don't want to waste it on meaningless stuff -- immediately press the fast forward button repeatedly until it is at the fastest speed where the score being shown is still readable.(4) Wait a while until you see the score has changed.…

It's not easy watching the Vancouver Winter Olympics from my couch. I've undergone a lot of struggles the past few weeks, or however long the Olympics has been going on (seems like forever).Just in case NBC presents gold medals for TV viewers, I wanted to state my case for one. (1) My wife doesn't care about sports in general, and the Olympics in particular. This means that when I sit down to watch my DirecTV recording of the evening broadcast, which runs 3 1/2 to 4 hours, at regular intervals I hear "Is it over yet?"This disturbs my deep concentration…

Interesting analysis of male-female differences in a New York Times story about cable channels Spike (aimed at guys) and Lifetime (aimed at gals). Here's the conclusion of "Damsels in Distress, Bozos in Heat":

After the first episode of Survivor Samoa I hated Russell Hantz, this season's evil genius. Watching last night's finale, I almost (but not quite) hoped he'd win. At the end of this post you'll find a comment interchange between me, Brian, and Tucson -- a regular commenter on my blogs and a fellow Survivor fan. Since this interchange occurred on a post unrelated to the show, I wanted to copy it to this post-finale pondering about Russell's unexpected second place finish.Tucson and I ended up in basic agreement with a thoughtful NPR blog analysis by Linda Holmes: Russell blew it,…

I've been envious, and more than a little irritated, at Corvallis since I learned that Trader Joe's chose to open a store there rather than in much larger Salem. "What does Corvallis have that Salem doesn't?" I'd wonder. And quickly answer, "Major university. More highly educated people. A progressive, creative vibe." Still, I hadn't spent much time in Corvallis recently. So to get a look at a town that Trader Joe's loves more than Salem, I said "sure" when Laurel suggested we go to the 2009 Fall Festival in Corvallis' central park. Comparing it to the Salem Art Festival, I…

Wow, that was fun, listening to the Oregon State-Arizona football game today on my tinny-sounding Radio Shack portable radio. Since I wanted OSU to win, the game was crappy. And my mood wasn't made better by realizing this morning that DIRECTV has dropped the Versus channel where the game was on. I should sue for bait and switch.Back in January I changed from DISH to DIRECTV after getting irritated at losing the local ABC affiliate (KATU) when DISH and Fisher Communications got into a pissing match over an increase in programming charges.I even got all lovey-dovey with DirecTV after making…

Watching the first episode of "Survivor Samoa" last night was bittersweet. Sweet, because my wife and I are huge Survivor fans. We've seen each episode of every season, so naturally we were looking forward to the fresh drama that plays out as twenty contestants try to outwit, outplay, and outlast each other.Bitter, because this was the most disturbing Survivor show I've ever seen. Plenty of jerks, assholes, and liars have competed for the winner's prize of one million dollars. But nobody like Evil Incarnate Russell Hantz. Usually it takes a while for a contestant to warm up to truly despicable behavior.…