Shoup Airlines

Merry Christmahanukwanzakkah!

Well what it do, nephew?

Whatever yo’ punk ass celebratin’ diz season, Sweet Chocolate Crackalaka’n Flava wishes youz and all yo’ beyotches a Merry Chrizzles and a Bootylicious Nizzle Yizzle.

I’m kickin back wit da ho’s and a 40 o’ malt nogg countin the ice that red suited pimp left fo my blingin’ grill. Word!

Go pimpafy yo’ own crackalacka and mo’ shiznit over here at this green-thumb’d foolz crib!

For shizzle my nizzle!

You ever get déjà vu in a break up?

Why does Denzel keep attaching himself to horrible movies?  He can pump out stuff like Glory, Philadelphia and Training Day but then he gives us The Preacher’s Wife, Virtuosity and Deja Vu.  Reading the script beforehand would have made my head explode, trust me, watching the actual production did.  They had potential with the basic idea.  In fact, had the producers watched the trailers and then built the film around that, it wouldn’t have been half bad.  Instead, they took our already suspended disbeliefs on time travel and so convolute them that you can’t help but disbelieve.  Doc Brown is clutching his hair somewhere and screaming, “Great Scott!”  But I fester…

Denzel Washington plays an ATF agent that seems to be the ONLY official amongst hundreds scouring the accident area, in CSI fashion, that can immediately piece together what happens when a ferry carrying Naval personnel explodes.  This attracts a covert FBI group headed by Val Kilmer (he could use a little time travel the way he’s looking these days) reprising Chris Knight had he conformed to Prof. Hathaway and Adam Goldberg who has built a niche around playing the sarcastic geek scientist that has to explain everything to the audience. 

Washington’s character joins the team and quickly finds out there is more than meets the eye. Too bad Washington can’t do the same with scripts.  Pushing through the digression, the standard action movie rules set in: bad guy does evil, good guy makes it personal upon realization that hot chick is involved, good guy saves hot chick, hot chick doesn’t listen and stays with good guy to fight bad guy, bad guy loses, good guy and hot chick drive off into the sunset laughing.  Why this movie wasn’t a summer release no one will ever know. 

Oh, before I forget.  Jim Caviezel is the only redeeming quality about this movie, it’s unfortunate that his screen time is so scant.  He portrays a deranged bad guy to the hilt which is interesting for two reasons.  First, it’s kind of funny watching Jesus play a terrorist, especially a real creepy one.  Second, Jim was in the much better film that tackled this reaching through time concept, Frequency. Anyone getting déjà vu? 

Anyone feel like squirming oh so uncomfortably?  Go take your significant other to see The Break-Up.  I really hate movies that have trailers billing it as something it is not nor never will be.  I always thought it was the production companies that created the trailers but I found out recently that they’re made by independent companies that strictly make trailers.  I would like to take a bat to whichever company did The Break-Up.  Billed as a comical viewing of the breakdown in a relationship, watching this movie is like being the friend caught in the middle of a meltdown and you can’t leave.  Sure the characters that play friends in the movie get to leave, but you can’t. 

Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston play a couple that are very much in love and then in the first five minutes throw every relational stereotype at each other and you get to watch the not funny whatsoever erosion of their happiness.  Even the outtakes aren’t funny. 

You yearn for the tiny amount of comic relief that comes in guy talks between Vaughn and Jon Favreau.  The comic genius you saw between these two in Swingers is there beating at the door but strenuously subdued.  I have no idea why.  Vincent D’Onofrio plays his typical eccentric character but seems strained and muted as Vaughn’s brother.  The only impressive character is Justin Long’s.  So good is he as the extremely flamboyant and two fries short of a happy meal assistant to Anniston that it took me a couple minutes to realize who he was.  Hopefully someone recognizes the potential he has outside of typecasting as the resident loser in the likes of  Accepted, Waiting, Dodgeball, Jeepers Creepers, Galaxy Quest, Ed and the latest Mac commercials. 

You definitely see familiar territory get breached if you’ve ever been through a break up, so you kind of smile at the realization of being a veteran of love.  However, you walk away from the movie without that needed feeling of closure.  Instead you get that feeling of being the friend, with hands tied, forced to endure the disintegration of a happy couple whose easily fixable problems you can see along the way, but no matter how loud you scream no one will listen to you.  I ask you, is there anything else more frustrating?

“26 miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is the place for me”

Connelly, AKA Mike, AKA The Canuck, AKA the loud college student, AKA a long string of expletives I can’t really say here came to visit this weekend. I suppose I should tell the story the loud college student before I actually refer to it, but then that just wouldn’t be me. Especially when I’ve alluded to writing the story before. But I digress…

Of the usual shenanigans that ensue when said Canuck arrives we also had some adventures of the lofty kind. We hopped over to Catalina with some friends for a buffalo burger. The rest of the photos are up in the gallery with many thanks to Connelly for providing.

For those not in the know, Catalina is a sleepy little island 26 miles off the coast of Southern California. Avalon, Catalina’s main and really only town, is a mere 3 miles square in size and a weekend getaway for many a SoCal’r with some beautiful snorkeling and beaches. Catalina is also unique in that it has buffalo and wild boar roaming the island. You can’t find that anywhere else in California! Most travel over by boat, the lucky few arrive at the “airport in the sky.”

Long string of expletives also captured the video. I apologize for the unsteadiness, I promise that’s not the skill of the pilot but the camera man’s mad skillz. I guess you truly get what you pay for.

Anyway, here’s a good look at an approach into Catalina. They shaved the top off a mountain and then put a tiny runway on it with cliffs at either end. Always promises an interesting ride for the passengers!