Ms. Fog shown through the lens of my inabilities.

On Saturday, while wandering through Noe Valley with Toby, I tried to take a picture of how weird it really is especially given the angle as to how we often see it, spewing in overtop our town, coming in as if it’s telling us to Go. To. Bed. Now. I’d like to take this moment, before I babble on and on about the number of movies we watched this weekend (again), to somewhat miserably try and capture just how weird this fog really is. I mean, it’s REALLY weird. I could live here a million years and still probably never get used to its weirdness. And for those few folks who are actually FROM here and who may have never seen life through unfogged eyes, I’m here to tell you that Weather? She ain’t normally like this. She ain’t totally mystifying (in more ways than what’s obvious) she ain’t this predictable yet at the same time so unbelievably mind-boggling and spooky.

And now for the movies.

1). Gerry: This was definitely not the feel-good movie of 2002. If you can “gerry the rendezvous” long enough to get through it, the film will haunt you for days to come. I still can’t get the sounds out of my head. It’s like the scene in the Utah salt flats has been literally BURNED on my brain. This movie is to brain what garlic is to mouth.

2). The Cooler: Why is it that William H. Macy plays the roll of the “down-on-one’s-luck” guy all the time? Throw the brother a bone! Give him a place to put that love! And then there she was. Billy Baldwin hires the sexy blond from NBC’s ER into giving him some Vegas Vagina in order to keep his best cooler from leaving the now-failing Shangri La. Knees were broken, as well as hearts and wallets, deals and debts, arms and mirrors. The movie was just below o.k. Especially because of the last 2 minutes.

3). Open Water: First, I must veer off track. I recently noticed that this movie has a great number of movie posters tied to it. There’s this one and this one. There is this one and this one as well.

Now for the movie. The conflict is oddly similar to the one in GERRY. Replace sand with saltwater, video games with career, and a marriage with friendship and you have the same plot-line. Both parties willingly put themselves into said position. Both parties find themselves stuck in the middle of nowhere with no idea which direction as to is out.

OPEN WATER combined my fear of of the ocean (which I have nightmares about constantly) and my fear of waking up alone. And I don’t think I really began to appreciate it until later that evening at 4 in the morning when I found that I couldn’t sleep within the comforts of my bed, beneath the sound of wind and fog beating outside my window. In then end, regardless of the many negative words written by the nation’s most respected critics, I genuinely liked this film. I really did.

4). Porn Star: After feeling totally helpless and sort of sad, I figured Ron Jeremy and his 9 and 3/4 inch schlong would cheer me up. So we rented PORN STAR. It was entertaining. I feel sort of bad for the guy, I have to admit. And I don’t care how many girls he had to have sex with in less than 4 hours, nothing could be more terrifying and impossible and daunting than being surrounded by a hundred drunk frat boys. That scene was truly x-rated.

5). The Magdalene Sisters: Girls who are considered to be “whores” in a correctional convent. Give me jail any day. Money-hungry nuns driven by the rules of Catholicism can scare the Jesus out of or into anyone. This movie is about being trapped as well. It was only o.k. It’s hard when you’ve seen so many movies new ones start to seem formulaic. Even the ones that are based on true events. Excellent acting, however.

6). Veronica Guerin: Like peanut butter and jelly, two things that go well together, Joel Schumacher and Jerry Bruckheimer pair up and become the cinematic wonder-twins. But leaving all CSI and Prime Time jokes aside, VERONICA GUERIN was a great film. Truly. The acting was superb.

And here’s a picture of a dude taken from a bus on our way to see OPEN WATER.