Sloth, Maybe?

  On Sunday, February 26th, my wife indulged my fondest wish for the beginning of the moviegoing year.   We went to see the much ballyhooed Cocaine Bear . Now I have seen two films this year prior to Cocaine Bear.   There was the three hour epic Avatar: The Way of Water .   I went into the theater for that film with great trepidation.   I had had my fill of three hour epics since Avengers: End Game and wanted no more of it.   However, I had been surprised by how well James Cameron mapped out the flora, fauna, astronomy, and culture of the various tribes of Na’vi of the moon of Pandora.   It is a lower tier Middle Earth, but it had me ask questions of the clash of cultures and how our own local astronomy helped mold our cultures and psyches. Wait, was I talking about Cocaine Bear ?   One more digression. Todd Field’s film TÁR , the tale of the rise and fall of a fictitious musical conductor played by Cate Blanchett is another exploration into an e...

If you asked me at the age of seven why I thought the taciturn bounty hunter Boba Fett was so cool, I probably couldn't come up with more than, "He's got a rocket pack!  And a flame thrower!   And his helmet doesn't look like Darth Vader or an off the assembly line stormtrooper's!"  He only had a few brief appearances in The Empire Strikes Back , but I had high hopes for the character. In Return of the Jedi , he exhibited more of his strong but silent character.  But at last during the rescue of Han Solo, we got to see him actually use his jetpack!  I remember the audience oohing and aahing at the spectacle.  We got to see him use his whipcord!  We got to see him actually look-- Aaaaaand then we were let down by his embarrasing "death" at the hands of a blind Han Solo.  Solo whacks Boba Fett's jetpack at a sensitive point, send him flailing into the air, smashing against Jabba the Hutt's sail barge, and tumbling into the maw of a creature cal...

While we are on the subject of dreams today, I think it’s appropriate if I share a series of nightmares revolving around the same theme:   Crime and the threat of punishment. Stock Image A few years back, I had a very vivid dream where I was an accomplice in a sexual assault.   I didn’t know who the victim was or the prime suspect with whom I was an associate, but I   was pretty damn sure I was guilty of something. I called into a talk radio show much in the Howard Stern vein.   The host asked me some hard hitting questions about being a suspected accomplice.   I made what I believed to be a light hearted, self effacing joke, but the host made it clear that he did not find it funny.   He added that he believed none of his millions of listeners found it funny either.   I was weighed down with dread.   I found myself seated in a car on a Metro North train.   A large man was seated next to me with his face buried in a newspaper.   He turned...