I got yer enthusiasm gap right here.

Omaha and I filled out our cheat sheets last night, and this morning at 7:10 our signed and sealed "safety envelopes" went into the drop box.

If you haven't voted, do it today. Do it NOW.

RED (movie, review)

A friend and I went to see RED, a silly little comic book movie starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren (as well as Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich) as retired government agents who find themselves the subject of assassination teams. Teaming back up, they fight back.

All very standard.

The battle scene at the airport is so far more over the top than other fight scenes that it stands out for inappropriate levels of silliness. It weakens the rest of the story, which is fun, the cast is obviously having a blast being kick-ass in middle-age (although Willis at 55 is playing a character who's 66, and the difference is striking). Mirren plays a weapons expert and watching the queen grab a .50cal and pound away at the president's limo, it's obvious that she's having too much fun escaping the dreary, serious roles she usually plays. Willis's opening fight scene, one old guy against six black-clad and heavily-armed soldiers, is much fun, as is the final caper. Karl Urban (who I last saw playing an awesome Bones in the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot-- best casting decision in that entire damned film, and that includes hiring Leonard Nimoy to play Spock!) does great work as a CIA field agent and assassin. Even Ernest Borgnine looks happy to be in front of the camera once more as he explains that "RED" stands for "Retired, Extremely Dangerous."

Still, it doesn't hold together as well as it should. At times it feels like they're trying to deadpan funny an action-adventure, at others its closer to a Hellboy-like comic book. Plot holes big enough to drive a starship through come and go with regularity. The plot itself ticks along, but the feel of the film seems to have passed from editor to editor without someone to impose full coherence.

Thankfully, the film avoids many of the cinematographic trends that make movies look terrible these days. There's no ramping in this film (attention, Hollywood: Only Chris Nolan is allowed to ramp, ever again), color correction is more true than false, there's no 3D and no attempt at documentary moments. This is pure old-school action-adventure, and if you like that sort of thing, RED is the sort of thing you will like.

Pebbles Flintstone at 17...

I'd forgotten, probably for all the right reasons, that there was a show when Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm were 17: The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, yet another attempt by the suits to extract every last dime they could out of any property.

So maybe a Pebbles Flinstone "sexy" costume is only a tiny touch perverse, rather than really, really sick.

But to blow my mind even further, Pebbles was voiced by Sally Stuthers, and Barney Rubble by Mel Blanc. Bugs Bunny and Mrs. "Won't Somebody Think of the Children!?" in the same studio.

Election results

The citizens of the State of Washington have elected to defund the State of Washington.

Ah, well. It was a nice state while it lasted.