Day: December 21, 2005

Dance versions of pop songs are DJ Sammy’s specialty, and with Heaven he gets quite a few right. I first heard about him when watching a few kids play Dance Dance Revolution on a Playstation 2 (at the Metreon in the City). The dance version of the Bryan Adams hit "Heaven" is included in the game.

Aside from accelerating the old pace of songs of the sixties and seventies, DJ Sammy adds a lot of riffs and beats, and makes the sound overall more danceable. It’s fun to listen to a new reading of "California Dreaming", and the old "The Boys of Summer" sounds amazing with a bit of beat behind it.

Waiting for more!
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Some movies are just not meant for you. Brokeback Mountain was certainly not meant for me, and I had a hard time separating the movie’s impact on me from the movie itself.

My friend J. and I went together to this remote theater, one of only two showings in the whole city of San Francisco. Stonestown Galleria is a suburban shopping mall, and the tiny theater on its edges seemed to be an unlikely place for what was hailed as a groundbreaking movie.

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My friend D. just called with horrible news: the wonderful, wonderful powder of last week is disappearing under heavy rain! The snow level is at about 8000 feet, making it impossible to ski in the lower elevations of the mountain. Actually, Squaw and the other (lower) resorts are having a ton of trouble, while the top of Monument Peak still seems to be fine.
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Short story: lame.

I confess I kept the movie as a particular treat in my Netflix list, and I was looking forward to a funny movie. "Meet the Parents" was stuck in my brain as an incredibly laugh-worthy movie, and I though that Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand would just be a hoot together.

Not so. Amazing. I don’t know what happened. Even Robert de Niro lost all his funny bones in this sequel. The only one that still stands out is Blythe Danner, who has the same charming ditzyness that made her so vital to the success of the first movie.

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