Get him to the Greek

Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, how can Get him to the Greek not be funny, right? Well it was funny in parts and it was slow in parts. This movie made me realize the genius of The Hangover. Sometimes it's funnier not to show the craziness, because you are always going to build it up as even more crazy in your mind. In The Hangover, we don't see what happened that night until the credits roll, and by that time we are so hyped we really don't care any more. We have already built it into the greatest night in the history of Vegas.

This is where Get him to the Greek lets us down. We follow Jonah Hill's record industry flunky character as he tries to get rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) from his drug den in London to a come back concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. There is a lot of partying and wildness along the way, as well as some sentimental moments as Hill's character is experiencing girl problems. The thing is that the wildness and partying is never as crazy on screen as it is in our imagination. While it is funny, it's like a sugar rush, it soon fades and leaves us feeling a little down.

The best thing about this movie is the crazy record company president, Sergio Roma, played to the hilt by Sean "P. Diddy" Combs. His character is so believably insane, that you sometimes wonder if they let the camera's roll and he's just playing out his life. He also has one of the best lines of the movie, and as with any Apatow Joint, there are a lot of great lines. He is talking to his staff about needing to make more money, when he says, "I have six kids. Do you know how many Air Jordans six black kids go through?" Who knew P. Diddy was so funny.

Head Injury

This fella was sitting in front of me on the bus today. At first I thought, wow that is an amazingly large scar. Then after a while I started wondering what happened to this guy and if he suffered major brain damage. You know the brain is an amazing thing, you can loose large parts of it, and it often compensates with other parts of the brain taking over. Unfortunately this guy never turned around, or really even moved on the entire trip downtown, so I have no idea how functional he is.

Sushi Mazi

After the fundraiser last night we stopped by a new sushi place called Sushi Mazi on lower SE Division. This area is becoming very popular with lots of new bars, restaurants and some now famous places like Pok Pok and Nuestra Cocina.

Overall the sushi was good. We did not order a lot as we were not super hungry and that was a good thing as the super rock and roll (Shrimp tempura wrapped inside roll., topped with
spicy tuna &crunchy sweet mango and krab) was giant. In fact we could have just had that and been satisfied. The space is small, but cozy and the waitress was very nice. I think it is a great addition to have a sushi place in this area, you can probably eat your way around the world now.

Sushi Mazi
2126 SE Division
503-432-8651

Lost Dogs

Several months ago I was asked to talk on a panel about film marketing. It was a little strange in that everyone else there was making low budget, independent films and all I have worked on is one big budget, Hollywood production. That said, it was still an interesting afternoon. After the panel was over, a producer came up to me and asked for some advice on fund raising for a film she was working on. I had to admit that I didn't know anything about fund raising, but that I'd be happy to help with any marketing as it was about my favorite topic, dogs.

Last night we were invited to a fund raiser to help get the movie finished. It was held at my office and although the turn out was light, the people there seemed very engaged. The film is about homeless and free roaming dogs in Chile and how the government deals with them. In short, they poison them. It is a pretty horrible situation. The director's hope is that the film will raise awareness for homeless dogs and cats around the world. As people become educated to the problem, humane societies spring up, spay and neuter programs get started, and animals start to have happier lives. Who wouldn't want to support that?

If you would like to watch the trailer or find out more info, check out the Lost Dogs website. Be warned it is pretty graphic and a little sad.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

When I finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon I had to double check that it truly was fiction. As the title suggests, it is an amazing story of two characters, Kavalier and Clay, who build a comic book empire during it's golden age around WW II. It is an amazingly well written page turner. It feels like a fictionalized history novel, but the characters are totally out of Chabon's imagination.

I have had mixed feelings about Chabon's books over the years. Wonder Boys was almost unreadable, but The Yiddish Policemen Union is excellent. K&C is one of the best American novels of the 20th century, and I am not alone in this opinion, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.

Storm Drains

Today I met with an Environmental Tech. from the city to get the storm drains that caused our flood cleaned out. She was very helpful and promised to get them cleaned up very quickly, so we'll see how that goes. As it turns out, if you want anything done in Portland, you have to go to your councilman. For years I have been calling the city and leaving messages to clear out the drains and nothing happened, then with one phone call I have someone over at the house making things happen.

As you can see from the pictures I have posted we have one storm drain that is a swimming pool at the top of the street, and the one right under it is plugged too and the water just flows right over it. By the time the water gets to the bottom of the street it doesn't take to much to clog a drain and put a lot of pressure on the one in front of our house. Hopefully this will make a difference.

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played with Fire is the second in a trilogy of books by Stieg Larsson. Unfortunately he died shortly after delivering the manuscripts, so there will only ever be three books, despite his plan to publish 10 or more.

The NY Times recently published a very interesting article about the author, "The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson" which details the fight between his family and his common law wife over the rights to his book. It is actually quite sad, it turns out that Sweden does not recognize common law marriage, despite the fact that no one there gets married, so his "wife" has no legal rights over the published books or an unfinished manuscript. There are also some juicy conspiracy theories that the wife actually wrote or rewrote large parts of the book, because many people just don't believe Larsson was a good enough writer to put this trilogy together.

Here is where I think we confuse good writing with huge book sales. Neither this book nor the first in the trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, is a work of great fiction. They are page turners, they have a captivating plot and interesting characters, but they don't belong on the shelf with Carver and Elmore. They are a great summer read, that probably would never have gotten any noteriety if the author had lived. In fact it took for ever to get them out of Sweden.

So make sure you read Dragon Tattoo before you jump in here, it'll be more rewarding if you know the back story and a few of the characters. That said, there are plenty of new and interesting characters in Fire. Lisbeth Salander, our heroin from the first novel, is implicated in a triple murder and while there was little doubt in my mind that she ever did it, it was a hell of a lot fun finding out who did.