Vacation-at-Home #2 Days 1-3:

Well, so far the pop culture wallow has been a big disappointment.

I had high hopes for “Inside Man” by Spike Lee with Denzel Washington. They’ve done some pretty excellent work, together and individually. This unfortunately was a standard hostage-caper flick that could just as easily have starred Colin Farrell and been directed by Brett Ratner. With Jessica Biel probably playing the Jodie Foster extended cameo. (WTF was Jodie F doing a walk-on in this flick for? I’m guessing it was the cash.) Even Christopher Plummer seemed to be sleep-walking through his role. It wasn’t at all bad, but compared to stuff that is on even basic cable drama shows, this was nothing out of the ordinary. In my opinion, TV lately has been the raising the bar in cop/adventure shows, and if you can’t keep up with the kinetic pace of “The Shield” or the thrills of a good episode of “24,” you might as well not make your movie.

“Transporter” 1 and 2 try really hard to meet this new bar. I saw the second one first and decided it was just big, fast and loud enough to rate checking out the first one. It’s the kind of enterprise where I was actually expecting the first one to be named “Transporter 1.” Synopsis (either film): Bald vaguely euro-dude drives a really cool car really fast and hooks up with a hot chick leading to karate fights and more fast car driving. Bad guys get shot. Roll credits. Each film clocks in at a brisk ninety-ish minutes and if you just don’t give a shit about car chases no matter how cleverly executed and filmed, there’s plenty of time to read USA Today.

Another movie that lagged compared to its TV brethren was “Freedomland” with Sam Jackson and Julianna Moore. A fine movie and all, but it just seemed like an episode of “Special Victims Unit” on ‘luudes. I saw everything coming miles ahead in excruciating slow motion.

And oh God, how many times am I going to get fooled by Michael Madsen’s name on the cover of a DVD. What the fuck? Does he tire easily or something? He’s got to be my favorite actor whose movies I absolutely hate! With the few obvious exceptions, everything else The Missus and I have ever seen him in, the movie either is so bad it’s unwatchable, his role in it is negligible at best, or both. Even knowing all that, I still rented “The Last Drop” because it’s a WWII actioner starring Michael Madsen. What’s a life without hope? Well, it’s gotta be less nerve-wracking anyhow. I didn’t make it through an hour of Billy Zane’s ridiculous Canadian ‘accent’ (“What’s that aboot, eh?”), endless exposition and occasional glimpses of Madsen as somebody who cusses a lot before going away again somewhere for a long time.

If they’d just release “Vengeance Unlimited” on DVD, I could stop renting movies I know are going to be awful!

I had also planned to watch the 4-hour director’s cut of “Kingdom of Heaven” – had it ready to roll for a couple months now. Got through the first disc (of two – it’s long!) and here’s the thing: Director Ridley Scott makes every frame is breathtaking to behold. But when Orlando Bloom is cluttering up the front of so many shots with his bland, sincere pretty boy posing, it takes me right out of the twelfth century and into a cover shoot for Vanity Fair. It’s like Oliver Stone wrecking “Alexander” by casting the aforementioned Mr. Farrell and Martin Scorsese ruining his last handful of films by casting vacuous pretty boy Leo DeCaprio in the lead roles. I keep asking myself, “What does Scorsese see in this kid that I just don’t?” He wrecked “Gangs of New York” as well as “The Aviator.” Hopefully Nicholson will have the lion’s share of screen time in Scorsese & Leo’s latest, “The Departed,” out in the next couple months.

Anyhow, I’ll finish “Kingdom of Heaven.” I like the story and it’s gorgeous to look at. There’s just a big, pretty hole in the middle of it. Hey, maybe he’ll get killed at the end. Shit, now I have to watch it!

The trip to the comic store was a fiasco. Not a damn thing of interest. I don’t think I even spent $15. And the regular guy was out and his Igor-like assistant kept trying to talk to me. Ugh! I felt like if I just threw some original “X-Men” animation cels in the corner or something, maybe he’d go away and leave me alone.

Here’s a couple flicks I’ve seen lately I want to recommend: “Thunderbirds” with Bill Paxton. The live-action kids’ flick from last summer. I won’t go on and on about it; it’s kiddie fair and unabashedly so. That having been said, it’s just faithful enough to its original puppet-based source to give oldsters like me a giggle, and just enough pastel-colored family-friendly confection to make it a damned pleasant way to waste ninety mintes with the kids. Ben Kingsley, who seems to have a rule – one ghastly piece of shit (“BloodRayne”) for every brilliant star turn (“Sexy Beast”) – does his ghastly piece of shit thing here, but tonally for the flick, he somehow gets it just right. I didn’t recognize many of the other faces, but they played marionettes quite convincingly (except for Sophia Myles as Lady Penelope, who seriously brings on the hotness). It’s got some fun, colorful action sequences and there’s always something going on. Your kids will love it and you’ll be able to endure repeat viewings.

Finally “Confederate States of America” is out on DVD. A pseudo-documentary ala Ken Burns’ “The Civil War,” it imagines the South having won the Civil War and tells the story from the time of Lincoln (who’s run out of town in blackface on Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railway) to the present day. Now, I’m a sucker for historical “what-if” scenarios. I read a whole series of Harry Turtledove novels on what would have happened if the world had been invaded by extraterrestrials during WWII, and those Goddamned books went nowhere!

“CSA,” as its called, isn’t a perfect piece of entertainment, but it is jam-packed with ideas. It’s been a week, and I’m still pondering it. It’s allegedly a comedy, but unfortunately, so many of the slight tweaks they give to history hit way too close to home for this guilt-ridden white boy. (Understand, although I am guilt-ridden, it doesn’t really have anything to do with being white. More just with being me.)

Due to this crappy island I live on, I have to wait till 3 pm to catch His Malignant Majesty Darth Cheney on “Meet The Press.” I’ve already skimmed the highlights on the news pages, but I like to watch these things myself. I want to see what I see, not the sound bytes the media feeds me later on. It should be a howler. “Greeted as liberators.” “Death Throes.” “WMDs.” Stop it, you’re killing me already…

Speaking of howlers, I can’t wait for tonight’s ABC-TV movie allegedly based on the official bipartisan committee’s report on 9/11. Apparently they make up some scenes in the first half to make the Clinton administration appear even more culpable than they arguably were and Mr. Clinton is hopping mad over it. I’ll watch it and draw my own conclusions. Besides, as a student of history (okay, more of a fan-boy of history), I’m always interested to see what effect the era a film was made in has on the period events represented therein. It’s why Turner Classic Movies is my favorite television channel.

Other than all of that, I’m happy to report the vacation is going exceedingly well. I’ve updated The Man Cub’s home page, caught up on some news magazines, slept my ass off (and I’m about to head back) and have begun to miss the chaos and disorder and inconvenience that will inevitably accompany the return of the Missus and Man Cub tonight.

I may even get all weepy over them, at least until the 9/11 movie starts at 8. That’s when Daddy goes back on vacation.