Been a movie weekend while V's been down south. After returning the puppy Thursday evening and trying to catch up on sleep while wracked with guilt, i awoke a bit late Friday and headed off to work after being out the previous day. I made some headway on my first NIH grant, due October 1, and finished off the revisions on my last CMIR paper, accepted with major revisions (meaning essentially that i have to address a few more nonsensical reviewer comments) by the Journal of Biomedical Optics. One of these days i'll also get around to making CMIR_Image Mac compatible. One day ...

Coming home Friday evening i grabbed a sandwich at Togo's and popped into Blockbuster to grab a couple of flicks. After reading Roger Ebert's review of the hotly anticipated Jet Li-import Hero, i was keen to check out some of Akira Kurosawa's work, which i'd heretofore missed. I wanted to see the oft-referenced Rashômon, but that not being in Cockbuster's inventory i settled for The Seven Samurai instead. While struggling for a second rental i eventually stumbled across the Steve McQueen WW2 prison camp piece The Great Escape, and having never seen that either i grabbed it.

I decided i wasn't in the mood for subtitles that evening and went with The Great Escape. As far as i'm concerned Steve McQueen was the coolest guy on the planet in the 60's and 70's ... Bullitt and especially Papillon are two of my favorites. The Great Escape was quite good also, although a little light on the McQueen. The cast was spectacular ... James Garner as the scrounger, Sir Richard Attenborough as the leader, Charles Bronson as the tunneler. It was amazing both as a drama and as a historical document: it's difficult to conceive how WW2 prisoners of war constructed such elaborate escape tunnels while evading detection by their German captors.

Saturday morning i awoke and drove over to Union City, broken Xbox in hand, to drop it off for repair and ... well, i'll still go with "improvement". In the meantime, i headed further down the 880 to Fremont to see my parents. After picking up the super-Xbox only an hour later, we headed across the street to Union Landing for lunch at the Texas Road House (am i allowed to make Patrick Swayze jokes here?). I mentioned my interest in seeing Hero, so we then walked over to the Century Theater, finding it starting within ten minutes. My mom opted for The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, so it was just dad and i. I thoroughly enjoyed Hero. As expected, the cinematics are wonderful, especially the color composition. Wire fighting seems to have become an art form unto itself. What i mean is that in other films of this genre that i've seen wires are used to allow the actors to move and fight as if they have superhuman skills. In Hero, moves on wires are so blatant and heavyhanded that you are forced to recognize them. They still make for fantastic scenes, but are less a tool to create an illusion than a movie component in their own right. The plot unfolds as the hero, Nameless, and the king of Qin debate how Nameless came to defeat three assassins out to murder the king. The story drags in places, but the whole is excellent.

Saturday night i gave my Xbox Plus a spin, and began watching the Seven Samurai but was felled only forty minutes in by sleep. Today i've been Mr. Domestic, washing dishes, towels, and clothes, and tidying the entire house. Now just to pick up V and have a restful Sunday evening so i can motor through the rest of my grant starting tomorrow morning.

Oh yes, Chelsea won again, their fourth straight to start the season. We conceded our first goal of the season only 12 seconds into the match, but fought back to take the match 2-1 over Southampton. Still not looking quite the force that Arsenal is, but we're level on points at the top and have the excuse that our awesome squad is still settling. Watch out!