Brokeback Mountain

I watched this last night for the second time, and it held up incredibly well. This movie made me cry the first time around, and it set the tone for my whole day today. It's incredibly beautifully made, the lead actors are brilliant, and the supporting actresses kick ass. It's a real shame people think of this as the "gay cowboy movie", because it's just a damn good love story, gay or straight. In fact, I'm getting this vibe lately that gay cinema is doing the love story more justice than straight cinema, which, frankly, is kind of trite. Plus, there's always the exploitative way to view this film: just as dudes get all turned on at the idea of two women together, so can women get turned on by the idea of two men together. Two men so in touch with their feelings that they can be passionate *towards each other*. Whoa! We're talking mythical creatures here. But I digress... This movie has made it into my top 5 favorites.

Peachy Canyon 2005 Zinfandel

This is the "Incredible Red", as the bottle goes...
I really really love Peachy Canyon's Merlot. In fact, that's the wine I brought back to Greece a couple Christmases ago, so my family could try a California wine, and we all loved it. So, naturally, I decided to try the Zin, and I wasn't disappointed. It's really sort of thin, which I think American wines are in general afraid to be, even if it's true to form, and very peppery. It went exceptionally well with a dish I made the other night: brown rice rotini, with shrimp, roasted red pepper, capers, lots of garlic and black pepper.

"Flannel Pyjamas" and "Easy"

These are two relationship movies from the early oughts, if I remember correctly. The first is an unhappy ending and the second is a happy ending. I liked the second a little better than the first, but then again it had Emily Deschanel in it, and I'm very fond of her.

9 1/2 weeks

When I was little my family had the soundtrack of 9 1/2 weeks in CD, and I remember asking my mom if the movie was worth watching; she said no. My mom's and my tastes aren't always aligned, but in this case I'll have to agree. I can see why this was such a big deal when it came out. I can also see Mickey Rourke's appeal, though to me it looks cocaine-fuelled and I learned in college to be very apprehensive of that. But it wasn't a very good movie overall...

Airlink 101 KVM switch

I recently sold my mac mini to a dear friend and went back to just my windoze laptop and linux homebrew desktop. Having 3 OSes at home was overkill and just the difference in control keys was driving me insane. I wanted a KVM switch so that I could use my laptop and desktop with the same kb, mouse and monitor, and after wasting an inordinate time at Fry's trying to cook up a low cost solution using $5 USB hubs and a 2-to-1 USB switch, plus $4 A-to-B USB cables, the corner of my eye caught the Airlink 101. This is a USB kb and mouse, VGA monitor, and 3.5mm audio in and out KVM with a button on top through which you choose computer 1 or 2. There is also the possibility of using hot-keys to toggle, but I think you need special drivers for that. When I opened the box my heart sank, because the connectors are completely nonstandard. On the KVM end of the PC side both VGA and USB go into a single DE-15 connector. The audio in and out come from standard headphone jacks into a mini-USB connector. Clearly whoever designed this was a connector freak. So I figured this would definitely take special drivers to work, and good luck with linux. Wrong! It just does. Monitor, audio and input switching work flawlessly for both windoze and linux. I'm SO impressed!

Venus

I watched this a couple nights ago on DVD, and thought it was a masterpiece. The recursion and irony of Peter O'Toole half-dead, playing a half-dead actor, who plays a dying man in a sitcom to pay his bills was too too sweet. And the cruelty of the young woman, recast halfway through the film as victimization, was also brilliant. And O'Toole's wheezing throughout, and the way he dies. It was friggin brilliant!

Lust, caution

I watched this at Campbell last night, and I was lukewarm on it. I thought it was technically flawless, but brutal. It was the second movie I've ever seen which had serious amounts of sex, yet wasn't hot. However, I know a few people who violently hated it, and lots of people who plain didn't get it.