"Life Moves Pretty Fast."

Well, another holiday season has come and gone. I'm sure, by now, all you loyal readers have shaken off the last remnants of your holiday hangovers and have gotten back to work/school/whatever. Since I haven't been the best blogger these last few months, I'm gonna take this opportunity to recap a few things that have happened to me over the holidays.

Christmas
Christmas started a little earlier than usual for me this year. My sister and her husband came down a week before the big day, so we exchanged a few gifts early. As for C-Day itself, I certainly can't complain about the haul this year. I got a new flat screen computer monitor (which I haven't hooked up yet), a few choice DVDs (hello, Dracula 75th Anniversay Edition), a couple of books, and lots of other odds and ends.

When I was a kid, we used to get a stocking full of little goodies to prep us for the main stuff under the tree. As time went by and Christmas became less about getting toys, the stockings got bigger and bigger. It's progressed to the point where I find myself faced with a large garbage bag sized sack of stuff. While the sack itself has trumped a plethora of other gifts, I can't complain about unwrapping a few dozen little things versus a couple of bigger items.

Boxing Week Madness
Some people wait all year long to snap up the deals during boxing week madness. Me, I just use it as an excuse to buy a whole lot more stuff than I would during a normal week. Allow me to highlight what I picked up at Wal-Mart:

2/$5

Gamera: The Ultimate Collection
For the princely sum of $2.50 plus tax I netted myself a three pack of Gamera flicks. For those of you not in the know (and I'll assume that's most of you out there), Gamera was a giant nuclear powered turtle that alternately destroyed and saved Tokyo. Much like other Japenese giant rubber suited monster movies (kaiju films to you movie nerds out there), Gamera movies are an acquired taste.

Jack Nicholson - Cult Classics
This set features three early Nicholson flicks from his pre-Easy Rider era. I bought this set primarily because it has the original Little Shop of Horrors on it. I might have paid upwards of $5 for that movie alone.

2/$20

Bullitt
No matter what anyone tells you, the best car chase ever committed to film comes from this movie. Fuck The Fast and the Furious, fuck Gone in Sixty seconds, fuck all those CGI enhanced wannabes. This movie has the grandaddy of all car chases. You shouldn't even be allowed to have an opinion on movie car chases if you haven't seen this flick.

True Romance
It's Quentin Tarantino and yet it's not Quentin Tarantino. Highlights from this movie include Christian Slater taking a prostitute to a Sonny Chiba film festival and Bronson Pinchot (aka Balki Bartokomous) getting busted with a burst bag of coke all over himself.

Some Kind of Wonderful
I haven't seen this one yet, but it has two things going for it right off the bat: it was written by John Hughes and it's got Eric Stoltz in it. Apparently, the movie is more or less a remake of Pretty in Pink but with the gender roles reversed.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Is there anyone out there who hasn't seen this movie yet?

THX 1138
George Lucas' pre-Star Wars sci-fi epic. I haven't seen this one yet, but seeing as it's an early 70s sci fi flick, I imagine it's long, slow, and somewhat boring. But what kind of a movie geek would I be if I didn't have this flick in my collection?

Forrest Gump
Only ten bucks for Gump? Not too shabby. For me, this movie is all about Gary Sinise as Lieutenant Dan.

The best deal of the day - $3.33

Cobra
These days, Stallone might be trying to revitalize his acting career but if you go back twenty years you can find a few movies that almost killed that career. One such movie was Cobra. The origins of this movie lie in what would become Beverly Hills Cop. You might not know it, but Stallone was the first choice for Beverly Hills Cop, but his involvement never got past the development stage. You see, Stallone had all these "great ideas" for Beverly Hills Cop. So many "great ideas" that he thought he could make a much better movie on his own. So, he wrote the screenplay for what would become Cobra. And I guess I don't have to tell you which movie ended up being more successfull.


(It wasn't Cobra.)

New Year's
The thing I probably miss the most about when I was living in New Brunswick are the good friends I made while I was there. Good folks I only get to see once or twice a year now. So, when the opportunity came up to go to a New Year's Eve party in Moncton, I did everything I could to make it happen. The party, hosted by the lovely Danielle Pellerin, boasted an ample assortment of good friends and Moncton hipsters. I believe a good time was had by all. I know, by the time my head hit the pillow at 5 am, I had had about as much of a good time as I was capable of having.

And that, my friends, was probably more than what you wanted to know about my Holidays. Until next time...