Sonnet 87 » Gym Shorts

Who Has Two Thumbs

WordNerd — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:15:50 +0000

And went to gym with a mismatched pair of running shoes? This girl!

I am oh so stylin' . . .

As you can tell from the shoes, one is part of a very old pair (of New Balance 859s) and the other is part of a relatively new pair (of Asics Gel Cumulus 10s). And yes, I did complete my entire weight workout while walking (hey, alliteration!) around so seriously mismatched. Meh, whatcha gonna do?

“Tyrone Tanic”

WordNerd — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:41:23 +0000

When I saw there was a Titanic-related entry on DCBlogs yesterday, I burst out laughing—I too had succumbed to the awesome power of Titanic on Sunday. It was on during my run at the gym. I thought it was the perfect movie for the second entry in the Gym Shorts category (2008 was a bad year for watching movies at the gym, wasn’t it?). However, I must sheepishly admit I was too sucked in to make fun. Perhaps it’s because I missed the cheesiness that is the first half of the movie—the heavy-handed lessons about class struggles, the sickly-sweet moments of Jack and Rose falling in love, the hilarious dance party. I tuned in at the point where the ship begins to sink. I did get to see a ton of “Jack!” “Rose!” back and forth, though.

That movie is Sunday afternoon movie crack.

When I finished my run and met IP at the door, I confessed I had been watching Titanic throughout my run (which made it go by fast!). I then found myself in full-on confessional mode by admitting that, in 1997, my sister Dorkus and I had seen the movie . . .

Drum roll, please . . .

A total of . . .

Drum roll again, please . . .

Seven times at the theater. Yep, that’s right. We paid seven times over for the privilege of seeing a historical romance take on the R.M.S Titanic’s 1912 sinking. At one point we took our mother with us, who was horrified by the movie. “Why do you want to watch people dying so many times over?” she gasped in disbelief.

It’s less about the sinking than the love, Mother. True love! That we hold to, dammit.

Thus ensued some Titanic-related nostalgia. Hey, Dorkus, remember when we saw it at the theater seven times? And we each had a copy of the soundtrack? And we each bought the collector’s edition of the VHS release (mine was tragically stolen by nefarious thieves—who I caught red-handed, by the way, but they were never pursued by UM’s Department of Public Safety because DPS never has suspects)? Memories of watching the 1997 Academy Awards surfaced, remembering how shocked and angry we were that Leo didn’t get a nomination for best actor, aghast when neither Gloria Stuart nor Kate Winslet won the Oscar in their respective categories (for the record: Go, Kate, go! in 2009). Delighted that the movie won Best Picture. Woot! Vindicated!

And how, slowly but surely, embarrassment began to creep in with regards to our Titanic obsession. We were so embarrassed that we felt we must eclipse the number of times we’d seen this movie at the theater with another, higher quality film. We found that film when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came out. You know us, we just upgrade!

However, mulling over Titanic for the past two days led us to watching the brilliant MST3K clip from the Academy of Robots’ Choice Awards Special held prior to the Oscars. Observe its awesomeness:

And don’t forget Titanic: Two the Surface (which I would so watch):

It also led us to realize that, you know, it’s been a while since we’ve seen the movie together. And you know, I’ll be in Michigan very soon, so it’s the perfect opportunity to re-watch Titanic in all its Best Picture glory. So we’re getting snacks, drinks and plopping ourselves in front of the television to watch Titanic when I visit. Best part is that I’ll be there on Valentine’s Day, so we’ll watch some tragic romance mixed with history that day. Ah, twue wuv . . .

My heart, it will go on. I just need to get some Dr. Pepper lip gloss first.

Daytime Television — Ugh

WordNerd — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:25:45 +0000

Three reasons why I’m happy to not have to endure daytime TV at the gym on a regular basis:

Sitcoms like the abhorrent Kings of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond on TBS (I hate Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton with the passion of a thousand burning suns; ditto Leah Remini)
Bonnie Hunt talking to and hugging creepy Elmo from Sesame Street (is that supposed to be endearing and quirky? and why does Elmo make me fear for my supposedly immortal soul?)
Inane interviews with talentless celebrities (who are these people? and why am I supposed to care? and why must everyone be so skinny?)

Getting a TV would be good for one thing: Wii play. A day working from home with a TV on would fry my brain; IP would come home to a soulless husk of a fianceé.

Gym Shorts: Con Air

WordNerd — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:15:03 +0000

For 2008, I have decided to come up with a new category, based entirely on my runs at the gym and . . . drum roll, please . . . the horrible TNT movies that happen to be playing at the time. I have decided to call this category “Gym Shorts” because these posts will be movie reviews based on the visuals that I see for 30 to 45 minutes playing in front of me. Because I am a merciless bitch and want to base it all on action on screen, I will not even bother to listen to the dialogue; these will also occur mostly over weekends as that’s when TNT stops its endless rotation of Law & Order to endlessly run bad movies. And because it’s fun, I will make note of the music I’m listening to as the bad movie plays (and that means that I have to come up with another workout list because you can only chuckle so many times when a chase scene coincides with Jonathan Coulton’s “Ikea”.

This inaugural installment features the movie Con Air, a 1997 convicts-in-the-sky romp that stars the eternally fugly mouth-breather Nicolas Cage. It also has John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, John Malkovich, Ving Rhames and Prince imitator Dave Chappelle dancing about its fringes. I say fringes (knowing, for example, that Malkovich is the big bad) because I am always distracted by Cage’s mouth-breathing in his acting. Man alive, close your gaping maw!

I joined the movie in its last 30 minutes, so this is going to be one post in which I get to see the movie’s end—whee! At this point in the movie, the plan of the bad guys to hijack their prison transport plane and fly it out of the country is going astray. When I first get on my treadmill, Malkovich is holding up a bunny and threatening to shoot it (he is insane, folks!)—but lo! Behind him! Military planes trying to shoot him down! Of course, they miss him and that’s when all hell breaks loose.

I must admit that it is at this precise moment that I choose to pay attention to the McLaughlin Group because a) it has closed captioning, b) it reminds me of the Dana Carvey SNL skit (“Wrong! You all had Special K with banana.”) and c) they’re talking about Mike Huckabee wanting constitutional amendments to ban abortion and gay marriage. Fuck you, Mike Huckabee. I will have my kids when I want and how I want. Should I get invited to the marriage of a gay couple? Great! I’ll be stealing ideas for my own wedding, just like I do at all my friends’ bashes. I am not a Christian and I’ll be damned if I’ll live in your theocracy. I then fervently pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Mike Huckabee withdraw from the race post haste and never run the New York City Marathon the years that I run it again, iwisse (look that word up in the Middle English Dictionary). Once the praying is done to my pasta lord, I turn back to Con Air.

Rwoh-roh! The plane’s going down, and it’s headed straight for Las Vegas. They dodge the Stratosphere but end up hitting the Hard Rock guitar. The plane then makes a hard landing on the Vegas Strip, careening down the road as cars frantically dodge the plane. (Question: Since it seemed that the military and some local police were in on this, wouldn’t some kind of warning be issued to the poor civilians and tourists of Las Vegas? I had the impression that the plane was maneuvered towards the Strip purposely to provide a makeshift longish runway.) I then muse about how nice it would be if only the landings at DCA were as smooth (hah! I keed!). Meanwhile, the song that I envision as my recessional is playing, and it is oddly appropriate for this scene—“Fireworks” from the Order of the Phoenix soundtrack (when Fred and George Weasley leave school at Hogwarts for all of those not in the know).

They finally come to a stop after passing by every goddamn hotel and casino on the Vegas Strip (advertisers love exposure, even if it’s in a bad movie). Chaos ensues and in the process Malkovich’s character (who I thought had been sliced to bits by a propeller during the crash, but my bad!) escapes on the top of a fire truck (because he must be seen—he couldn’t just squeeze into the cab of the truck that his crony hijacked to be less obvious). Of course, Cage’s and Cusack’s characters spot him, and off they go, commandeering Vegas police motorcycles to do so. “Theme From New York, New York” starts to play, and I keep up hope that they’ll drive by the mock Statue of Liberty. Alas, they do not, but I guess that’s because they made the movie before New York-New York opened.

This is where everything gets fuzzy—the satellite signal at the gym started to go out. However, I gather that Cage and Malkovich fight while Cage hangs onto the fire ladders and Malkovich tries to knock him off (oh, those manly muscles holding Cage up—barf). There is crash, obvs, Malkovich’s crony dies, and right as Malkovich is about to get his head crushed, the satellite signal goes (the aforementioned “Ikea” is playing at this moment—everyone has a head, but if you don’t have a head you can buy one there!). The signal comes back and Cage rescues the bunny previously threatened by Malkovich from going down into the sewers, where they all float down there. Signal goes, then Cage is trying to give the bunny to whom I presume is his little girl. She recoils, but Mommy steps in and the happy family hugs. Awww. “Buddy Holly” starts on my iPod, and I gather from the interwebs that the opening lyrics of that song pretty much sum up why Cage’s character is a convict on parole: “What’s with these homies dissin’ my girl? / Why do they gotta front? / What did we ever do these guys / that made them so violent?” Too perfect.

I remember then that this is the movie that gave us the Trisha Yearwood version of “How Do I Live” and I nearly lose my Corn Flakes—good god, I hate that song, no matter who performs it. I remember that the song lost out to Titanic’s “My Heart Will Go On” for the Best Song Oscar and, for a moment, I love Titanic again. But only for a moment.

I’m doing a 45 minute run, so “Flight of the Order of the Phoenix” begins as The Legend of Zorro starts to play, and I see my boyfriend staring up at the screen from his elliptical perch to drool over Catherine Zeta-Jones. I only have 15 minutes for this movie, though, and don’t get much into it—I gather that Zorro is jonesing for some crime-fighting after a period of contentment with the missus and she’s pissed, even going as far as throwing her alcohol into the fireplace. Is she insane? That’s probably some quality stuff! Well, who knows, but my point still remains—it’s alcohol and not to be thrown away lightly!

What movie will it be next week? Will I have the pleasure of riffing on Zorro a bit more, or will I be treated to replay of Domestic Disturbance, the painful John Travolta/Vince Vaughn vehicle that was playing the weekend before last? Perhaps I’ll get to make fun of the Lord of the Rings movies! However, if Jurassic Park is played, I will refrain from posting a Gym Short. Well, Jurassic Park or Jurassic Park III, that is; Jurassic Park II is fair game. I’m just saying.