Saturday, March 03, 2007

The Ice Harvest

(Movie Review)

Ever since “High Fidelity” came out, I’ve been a big John Cusak fan. Before “High Fidelity” I had never really heard of him (I can be a bit out of it sometimes), but after “High Fidelity”, he has been one of two actors whose face on the box alone can be enough to make me rent a movie. (Kevin Spacey being the other one).

Of course that can be a dangerous policy because John Cusak has been in as many stinkers as successes, but fortunately this time around “The Ice Harvest” is highly watchable. It’s a suspense about a mob lawyer who tries to steal money from his boss, and then finds he can’t trust a lot of his friends as well. A lot of dark comedy is thrown in as well. The dark humor aspect of it reminded me slightly of “Things to do in Denver when you’re Dead.” And Billy Bob Thornton is pretty good in this movie also.

Not anything I would recommend you go out of your way to see, but if you’re looking for a video on a slow Wednesday night, you could do a lot worse.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
Modern fantasy literature has revived the elves as a race of semi-divine beings of human stature. Fantasy elves are different from Norse elves, but are more akin to that older mythology than to folktale elves – they are unlikely to sneak in at night and help a cobbler mend his shoes. The grim Norse-style elves of human size introduced Poul Anderson's fantasy novel The Broken Sword from 1954 are one of the first precursors to modern fantasy elves, although they are overshadowed (and preceded) by the Elves of the twentieth-century philologist and fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien. Though Tolkien originally conceived his Elves as more fairy-like than they afterwards became, he also based them on the god-like and human-sized ljósálfar of Norse mythology.

Link of the Day
Today, the local antiwar group ACTIVATE delivered a packet to the Grand Rapids Press calling on the Press to take specific steps to improve its coverage of the Iraq War. Citing an analysis performed earlier this week as well as numbers compiled at various points since the start of the war in 2003, ACTIVATE is asking the antiwar movement and the citizens of Grand Rapids to send an email to the Grand Rapids Press demanding that the Press utilize an increased variety of sources, that the Press report on the human and economic costs of the war, and provide improved coverage of the antiwar movement. ACTIVATE has scheduled a meeting with the Grand Rapids Press and is seeking emails from the public as a means showing that concern over the Iraq War coverage extends beyond their group.
(Full Article Here)

The Ice Harvest: Movie Review (Scripted)

2 comments:

Whisky Prajer said...

So yer first Cusak flick was High Fidelity, eh? Ah, you youngsters. I can remember watching him in The Sure Thing and thinking, "Now this is an actor in my age-range that I actually *want* to watch." Then he went and knocked it out of the park with Say Anything, which was pretty much THE GenX date movie for the next decade on.

I like High Fidelity, too, but my standing Cusak fave is Grosse Pointe Blank. An assassin returns to his high school reunion and reconnects with his former too-cool girlfriend (Minnie Driver) ... movie magic.

inertbat said...

Hey, sorry for not getting back to you sooner! I haven't checked my blog in over a week. I see you don't have your e-mail as a contact link... me neither. Guess we're both afraid of junkmail surfers. Here's an address I use to sign up for games and stuff.

asdfusagi@yahoo.com

After I hear from you I'll send my keitai info (^_^)v