Monthly Movies

These are the movies I watched in January.  I'm not sure if I can do this regularly or if I should bother -- mostly because I don't really have much to say about them.  Commentary, she eludes me.  I'm amazed at columnists who come up with stuff on a daily or weekly basis to write about.  I can say I 'm a sucker for any body/age switching movie like "17 Again" (or, for example, "Freaky Friday" or "13 Going On 30" or "Big", etc.).  "Room For One More" stands out in this (mostly and unusually) fairly recent list, but that's just part of my effort to see all Cary Grant movies.  In February it wouldn't have stood out, since I'm watching lots of old movies due to TCM's 31 Days of Oscar.  I can't say that I hated any of these -- although, how often does that happen? -- but I also can't say that I'm super excited about any of them.  Don't shoot me, but if I had to pick my favorite, it might be "17 Again", which is only listed first because of alphabetical order. I think you'd have to be an environmentalist to be ga-ga over "Avatar", or at least have seen it in a 3-D theater. "Sherlock Holmes" would also be pretty near the top.

+-----------------------------------------------------------+------+
| title                                                     | year |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+------+
| 17 Again                                                  | 2009 |
| Avatar                                                    | 2009 |
| Box, The                                                  | 2009 |
| For Love Or Money                                         | 1993 |
| Perfect Getaway, A                                        | 2009 |
| Promise, The:  The Making Of Darkness On The Edge Of Town | 2010 |
| Room For One More                                         | 1952 |
| Shallow Hal                                               | 2001 |
| Sherlock Holmes                                           | 2009 |
| Spider-Man 2                                              | 2004 |
| Time Traveler's Wife, The                                 | 2009 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+------+

There's No Business Like Snow Business

There's much chatter going on about the blizzard -- except for the people who delight in griping that it's just snow, it's Chicago, get over it.  But while you should be used to snow in Chicago, a ton -- like you hear about in Boston or Buffalo or maybe Minneapolis -- is pretty rare.  And thanks to our hard-working government employees, we can see that as far back as records have been kept (125 years), only 6 times have we seen snowfalls of at least 15":  Chicago Snow History

And, apparently, a "blizzard" means that there are 35+ mph winds accompanying snow that reduces visibility to a quarter mile or less for at least 3 hours.  How about that.