Posterior Posterity

I went to one of my Mom's basketball games (she's the coach) to take pictures of the team in action. I took many, many pictures and unfortunately, most of them have a referee's rear end in them. It was like they knew and would slide into view as soon as something happened to get a tush into frame.

And I know they always have to move to see what's going on and since I am moving to get a good shot, we are going to cross paths. I swear I'm not stalking you, Sam Waterson-esque referee! Or you, Jesse L. Martin-esque one. Loved you both in Law and Order*! At any rate, both of their backsides are well-documenterd.






*Not really. I hated that show. There was a time when it was all that you could watch on tv.

Went to see Ghost Rider 2.

Ok. The first one was better. For one thing, it had Sam Elliott. There are good things about part 2 though, and I'll start there. While the lack of Mr. Elliott is lamentable, the second one does have Anthony Head being smug and Christopher Lambert covered in tattoos. And a funny twinkie joke. The special effects were better. The Rider actually looks like a charred corpse and his jacket bubbling like hot tar was cool. I liked Idris Elba's character, Moreau. I liked the demonic quarry-digging machine. I usually don't like it when the plot is completely reworked (the circumstances of Johnny's deal) but I did like the fallen angel angle. I don't think it started out as an angel in the comics, but an Angel of Justice fallen and twisted into a Spirit of Vengeance is kind of awesome. I also liked the blue fire.

Things I didn't like? Well... little things. I didn't like the way the Rider moved. It walked like its leather biker pants were too tight. It jerked its head around like a blind parakeet listening to something scratching in the wall. Nicholas Cage can have a giggling, crazy-eyed spaz attack like nobody else and there were times in this movie when he didn't look good. I've worked in the public schools too long to appreciate a bratty precociousness in child stars, but I have to admit the kid in this wasn't annoying. Blackout was.

The best part about the whole experience were the people I got to sit with. I didn't get their names. It was two older ladies and an older man, and they were all dressed up as if they had come from church. I wondered if they had come to the wrong theater by accident at first, but as soon as the preview started, I realized I was dealing with serious scifi/comic book movie-watchers. When the John Carter trailer was playing, one of the ladies said "Wait... I know that name. John Carter was in that other movie. With the robots." "You mean John Conner," the other lady said.

"Right! Transformers!"

I had to grin a little bit. We saw the trailer for Battleship and Wrath of the Titans and the ladies began to list off all the movies with Liam Neeson in them and wow, there's a lot. We watched the trailer for the G.I. Joe movie (see below) and one of the ladies perked right up at the sight of The Rock.

"Don Johnson!" she said.

"Dwayne Johnson," said her friend. They were adorable. And at the end of the movie, one of them leaned over to me and said.

"I didn't see Stan Lee in this one, did you? He usually cameos..." I hadn't even thought to look! I gotta watch more movies with that bunch. They were worth the price of admission themselves.