Weekend Entertainment roundup….

In addition to the aforementioned Doctor Who episode, this weekend also featured a viewing of Ocean’s Thirteen and The Sopranos finale.

Ocean’s Thirteen: Enjoyable — considerably more so than the last film. As a fan of the original Rat Pack version, I was aghast when they announced the remake of Ocean’s 11 — but was pleased as hell to discover that Steven Soderbergh recognized what had made the original work so well: It’s not the plot, which only serves to provide a clever caper as a backdrop….it’s the stars, barely acting, obviously having a blast while filming. 11 succeeded at this. 12 tried to be bigger, but getting away from Vegas didn’t help things. Still fun, though. 13 was back in Vegas, and again — it was obvious that the actors were having FUN. Favorite line….Clooney to Pitt: “You’re too tense. You should lighten up. Have a few kids.” The smirking looks between the two are absolutely NOT ‘Danny Ocean’ and ‘Rusty Ryan’, but obviously Clooney and Pitt. The audience shares in this, and laughs.

The Sopranos: This show started up when and I lived in NYC, and continued when we moved out to New Jersey. I used to be a HUGE fan, but admittedly only kept watching in recent seasons out of a sense of inertia, I think. I think that the show peaked in Season 2, and was on a steady decline since then, which each season a bit less than the one before it. Still, I enjoyed it, and the final episode delivered pretty much what I expected.

Several used-DVDs were also purchased, as part of the FAR WEST inspirational diet: White Dragon, Death Trance and Azumi are added to the Eastern portion (I decided to try out some recent Japanese stuff, since I’m only really familiar with the chanbara films of the 70s — I’m still sticking to China as my main source for inspiration in FAR WEST, but hey, the films looked cool). These join the recent acquisition of The Quick and the Dead, Django and Once Upon A Time in the West to the collection. A view-athon is in order.

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