V, N, and i (G is off on yet another business trip, this time to Hotlanta) took in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence last night in downtown SM after dinner at Bombay Garden. V and N came out complaining it was way too clichéed, and to be honest they have a point. I really wanted to love this movie. Cronenberg obviously set out to look at the lamentable but often necessary role of violence in American society. The story centers on Tom Stall (former Strider/Aragorn Viggo Mortensen), proprietor of a diner in a small Indiana town. He's forced to defend himself and his employees when two thugs try to rob and murder them late one night. Tom responds by killing both with brutal efficiency. From there, questions begin to surface about Tom's past as a cadre of Philly gangsters (led by crazy dead-eyed Ed Harris in a great performance) come looking for Joey Cusack, a long vanished foe whom they recognize as Tom after his sudden ascent to hero status. These initial parts i found enthralling ... Cronenberg examines Tom's son's reaction to violence as he is bullied in school, and how he changes after seeing a side of his father he'd heretofore not witnessed. There are a bevy of wonderfully framed shots ... i especially remember a blood stained Tom hugging his son, a touching scene until his hand comes into the frame holding a shotgun. However the second half of the movie, as Tom's buried alter-ego Joey comes to the surface, slogs a bit. There's a particularly pointless episode which seems to have been added simply so Cronenberg could point out that sex and violence are often synonymous. Viggo Mortensen does a good job handling the two sides of his character's personality, exhibiting a wild-eyed stare as his psychotic old self rises to the fore. He's perfectly cast, as his appearance fits with both the small town bumpkin and the deranged Italian mobster. The basic problem with the film is that at some point it loses its credibility as a story and begins to serve as simply the vehicle for Cronenberg's message. It's not a bad message, but the delivery in the second hour is somewhat clunky and inelegant. Oh well ... on to checking out Green Street Hooligans next (more reflections on violence).

Chelsea made my weekend by knocking the snot out of those Mersey f@#ks at Anfield, 4-1. Didier Drogba put off his naysayers (for a week or two anyway, as Mourinho was quick to point out) by setting up all four goals and generally carving the Liverpool defense apart. Hopefully this will quiet the stream of bulls@$t coming from the scousers ... "they're afraid of us!" was particularly ridiculous. My favorite was the claim that we play unattractive, long ball tactics. Just last week an independent reviewer compiled statistics about long ball play in the Premiership and found that Chelsea ranked 20th out of 20 teams in terms of number of long balls played. And guess who ranked first? Liverpool, of course ... a team lobbing balls into their 6'7" striker should not be accusing others of ugly tactics. Somehow the "mighty" reds continue to plow forward in Europe, but can't string two decent results together in England.

The weekend also included the continuation of our dining room paint job. The red is now reasonably homogeneous, and we're now letting it dry for a couple of weeks so we can apply the gloss stripes. Hopefully this week we'll also paint our long neglected bedroom French doors, and catch up on our yardwork. Like living in a damn forest, i tell ya.