Summer Is Here

Currently Reading: Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

And away we go, summer is here. I know, not OFFICIALLY here, calendar hasn't said anything about it yet. Still not hot outside. Sure. But we're about to start Memorial Day weekend, most places will be closed on Monday in observance of Memorial Day and Friday, the 30th, actually IS Memorial Day and that's pretty much when summer starts. Even in Hollywood they're talking about the start of the summer movie season.

Now, before I forget, as a sort of public service, for those of you who forgot what Memorial Day is supposed to be about (no, not sales at the mall and bar-b-que) here's a quick reminder:

Memorial Day is a United States Federal Holiday that is observed on the last Monday of May (observed in 2008 on May 26). It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in military service to their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include those who died in any war or military action. One of the longest standing traditions is the running of the Indianapolis 500, which has been held in conjunction with Memorial Day since 1911. It is also traditionally viewed as the beginning of summer by many, since many schools are dismissed around Memorial Day.

Ok, so there ya go.

Speaking of cook outs and movies and stuff, CC and I are heading over to my parents' house for Memorial day. We're cooking the steaks. CC makes a killer steak using some spice packets she gets from the Filipino store. This weekend we'll be sharing that with everyone else.

And movies. Well I did mention movies. That's because I actually saw a few this past week. No, not at the movie theater, though we DID get to see Iron Man (it ROCKED by the way, go see it). No, we saw Knocked Up on cable and then last night I watched the Korean movie The Host. Knocked Up was actually a lot funnier than I expected from the previews. Not a bad flick though I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much in the theater.

The host, now that one was definitely interesting. Imagine Cloverfield. Ok, now make the monster about elephant size or maybe, even better, great white shark size. Think of Jaws, but on the ground instead of in the water. That's pretty much it. But unlike Cloverfield, you don't have all that jerky camera motion and the gimmick about it being shown in first person.

With the host, it starts out pretty simple actually and doesn't mess around with a big setup. In fact, the whole setup is actually just some American doctor at the military base telling the Korean doctor to pour a bunch of old chemicals down the drain. The Korean protests because the drain eventually runs into the river, but he does it anyway. Yeah, I know, kind of a big hole there right? I mean, these guys have been dumping chemicals down that drain for AGES, how come THIS time it leads to giant, mutant lungfish? But hey, it's a horror movie. You don't ask for too much sense in a horror movie.

Anyway, fast-forward to present day where we're now at a park on the river. People notice something hanging from a bridge. What could that be? Hmm? Oh wait, it fell into the water. Cool it's swimming over. Maybe we should kinda back off. No, wait it doesn't look too bad. Oh crap. It's a giant, mutant lung fish! Oh crap, it's coming out of the water! Oh crap, run!

And there ya go. Lots of running from the monster. Military guys show up and try to keep everything quarantined. Eventually there are some attempts by normal people to kill the thing and, amazingly, they seem to work MUCH better than the military's dropping "agent yellow" gas on the thing. Ok, probably the gas weakened it so the normal people could kill it the rest of the way. But again, horror movie. You don't put too much stock into the science there.

It wasn't a bad flick. In fact, as horror movies go it was pretty good. After watching it, I'm thinking the guys who did Cloverfield ripped off a LOT of stuff from this one (which came out first). Different size monster. Different little details but there are way too many similarities in there. I suppose it doesn't matter anyway. I mean, just look at the slate of movies fixing to come out this summer. Remakes, sequels and plots ripped from other sources. Nothing they do in the movies is original anymore anyway :-)