One Man's Trash Is Another Man's Organ...

We had Spring Cleanup again this past week. I love Spring Cleanup week! People throw out good stuff! Would you believe Karissa and I found TWO more pianos on curbs this year?! I didn't get all excited about nabbing them like last year, though, because they were in worse shape than the piano I found last year. Besides, we have Kevin's piano on loan still. But I did a little organ from the 1970's (I'm guessing at the age) with the push-switches to turn on effects. It actually works just fine, just looks like the wood is peeling a little. Isabella likes it, anyway. Pretty soon we'll be up to our ears in churchy organs. I also found a bigscreen tv. It powers on, but doesn't really do anything else. Never a good sign for a tv, but I'm still hopeful. Karissa found drinking chairs. They're just old lounge chairs with orange pleather cushions, but they look like they're for drinking. The last thing I found was a fairly new stereo sans speakers & power cord, but that stuff was easily found. I love junk and stuff...and some junk. Kevin and Iwere gonna look around at stuff, but we're kinda bad at remembering to call eachother, so I guess we didn't.
I'm still modifying the standup bass, I've stumbled upon some great ideas that just might work for it. I've also made up a couple designs for when I feel brave enough to attempt constructing a new body for the bass. Now that I'm through with school, I've been obsessing over homemade instruments more than anything. You wouldn't believe how fun it is to figure out the dimensions of a standup bass. Or maybe you would.
Anyway...
What am I watching?

Lars and the Real Girl- A guy from a Northern Town (seems awfully Minnesotan) suffers from some personal issues and can't stand human touch. As a result, he orders a sex doll and introduces her to his brother & sister-in-law as his girlfriend, Bianca. They take her to a doctor to get "checked up" and are instructed to play along as though she were real for as long as Lars needed. The whole small town is roped into the act, and eventually Bianca is accepted, and even loved by the entire town.
This movie fooled me at first by making me think it was a chick flick, but there's a fucked up element underneath. He's suffering a real delusion, and throughout the movie we find that Bianca's history mirrors Lars' own, and as she becomes "sick", it's revealed that he's subconciously trying to deal with his illness. All the characters have their quirks in this movie, but none are the shallow predictable type you see in a chick flick.
Juno- An eccentric, punky 16-year-old finds herself pregnant by accident. She decides right away to give it up for adoption to a nice couple. She ends up bonding with the husband of the couple (played by Jason Bateman) over music and horror movies, and pushing away her baby-daddy. Towards the end, her relationship with Bateman's character is still platonic, but at times seems ambiguous and disturbing.
The dialogue was well-paced, but the teen-witticism gets old fast.
Also, I'm sick of movies in which the main character, though very young, seems to be an expert regarding particular genres of music and spouting off "educated" opinions as though they were pop-culture fact (imagine a 16-year-old doing a Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) impression).
Night At the Museum- Ben Stiller plays a guy who has trouble figuring out what he wants to do with his life--in his forties. To get his son's respect, he gets a job as a Night Guard in a New York museum. Because of some Egyptian tablet, everything comes to life in the museum at night, and Stiller's character has to try to maintain control.
It's a bit weird since the exhibit characters all know that they're not real, but insist on playing out their roles anyway. It would have been better if the whole Egyptian tablet concept had not been explained. Too much "Ben Stiller" humor, though. Watch any 3 of his movies and you'll find a point where he's making fun of someone. It's not funny and sounds like he's really straining to find good shots to take at his opponents, unsuccessfully. Good Ben Stiller humor comes in the form of Mystery Men.
Raising Cain- A guy with multiple personality disorder commits murders and unsuccessfully tries to frame his ex-wife's lover. That's really simplifying the plot, but it wasn't a bad movie. And let me say that John Lithgow seems most comfortable in the role of a villian. He plays not only Cain, but also Cain's personalities and even Cain's father. His kind of evil is whisky (goes down smooth but with a kick). It bears some resemblance to Sybil (which I'm currently only halfway through thanks to Karissa) in that the disorders are the same, and within the movie, Cain's disorder is also turned into a hit TV miniseries.
Cinderella Man- Biopic about James Braddock, a famous pugilist during the Depression. At first, the movie paints a rosy picture of a family man in the late twenties enjoying his boxing fame and doting on his wife and children. When the depression hits, however, the scene of the story changes quickly into depicting th ongoing struggle to survive in the city on what little one had--but still James was apparently a doting father and husband. He may really have been an all-around good guy, but the way he's portrayed seems to be laying it on a bit thick. I do love the use of photo flashes during punch impacts, it really adds to the relevance of the emerging media presence during those times. And, being the sucker that I am, I was was glued to the TV during his fight with Max Baer (Craig Bierko! That was a surprise).
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde- 1920 silent version. Remember, before there was Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Todd Slaughter, Boris Karloff, or even Max Schreck, there was John Barrymore. John Barrymore is awesome. He started out on the stage and moved to the screen, playing Capt. Ahab, Don Juan, Sherlock Holmes, Svengali, and Prince Chegodieff among others (the last name was actually Felix Yusupov, one of Rasputin's assassins, changed in the movie Rasputin and the Empress for legal reasons). He's captured the insane look that was popular in th silent horror films of the '20's. The best scene in Jekyll & Hyde is when Jekyll is asleep and dreams of Hyde as a giant spider crawling up onto his bed. It was creepy as hell.
Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde- Spoof of the story done by Stan Laurel (pre Laurel & Hardy). Laurel did a helluva job playing up the humor of the role, and the writing of the movie itself was actually pretty funny. Not bad for 1925. I wonder if it didn't influence Mel Brooks just a bit?