This is a blog?

This just seems to be an online protestation that I'm not writing online with every new entry. Still... I keep coming back. I guess it's all okay because no one really reads any of this stuff anyways.

Got around to posting on The Studio again, mainly because of my recent DVD haul. I got "Shake Hands With the Devil" (my review), "Eastern Promises", a four-in-one Steven Segal special ("Glimmer Man", "Fire Down Below", "Under Siege" and "Above the Law"), the wrong version of "Blade Runner" The Final Cut" and, my special weakness, a Criterion 2-pack version of "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro".

The "Blade Runner" I wanted, and didn't realize I didn't have until I got home, was the special edition that has all four cuts of the film (European theatrical, US theatrical, director's cut and the director's "final cut"). I hadn't seen Blade Runner at all until 1999 when a good friend from university hauled out the director's cut (the one without the voice-over). He helped me along, which was great in the limited time I had to digest it the first time. I've wanted to watch it again, but I haven't searched out the film. I saw the special edition and thought the time was nearly right. As is standard with such discoveries, not acting on them can lead to hassle later on. I postponed the purchase, but the internet informs me that the correct version is in stock somewhere near by.

The Kurosawa films "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro" recalled the "Blade Runner" find - once I found them I had to get them. I ignored the price and just carried it to the checkout. I am looking forward to watching "Sanjuro" as I haven't seen it, but "Yojimbo" I know well. I have seen it a couple of times but also in its other incarnations "A Fist Full of Dollars" and "Last Man Standing". Oliver Stone gives a writing credit to Kurosawa and does an excellent job transposing the ronin with mob gunman-for-hire in the '20s.

Gotta get my act together and send off my tax return. I'm hoping for a decent refund, but then again who isn't? Guess it is very Canadian - pay your taxes and wait for the government to grudgingly return a few bucks. Don't get me wrong - I don't begrudge paying my taxes. I get many things, large and small, tangible and intangible, for that money. But it would be nice if I could keep more of that money to pay my own debts, rather than the debts run up by people now long gone.

Now that the spring-tax-rant is done, I have to get my act together a little more and get myself to bed and (later) off to hockey.