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Two for the Road: DVD Picks of the Week & Lost and Found, the Story of a Boy and his Bike.
(June 4, 2006) DVD Picks of the Week New: With weak fare like Firewall
(Paul Bettany plays a baddie in this Harrison Ford snoozer, just like he does
in The Da Vinci Code. With a miscast
Tom Hanks, Code
could have used the everyman likes of Ford, whose career in turn, is in
desperate need of a box office lift) and Underworld Evolution
(though it will satisfy fans of the first installment, Underworld—and
besides, who can resist Kate Beckinsale in those hip-hugging, black latex
outfits?), the picks are the real life coaching success of Don Haskins (Josh
Lucas) in Glory
Road, and Sarah Silverman’s tough Jew chick, comedy shtick in
the concert film, Jesus is Magic. Reissue: You can’t go wrong with the classic Newman-Redford
western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(1969) or Richard Linklater’s retro-hip stoner high school comedy Dazed and Confused (1993) which boasted the
likes of Ben Affleck, the lovely Mila Jovovich (The
Fifth Element and Resident
Evil) and Matthew McConaughey as a horny ex-jock who lurks the
high school premises in hopes of rekindling the glory days. Dumbo (1941) and Fried
Green Tomatoes (1990) are lesser, but solid sentimental choices.
As far as chick flix are concerned, FGT has
always been a dirty, secret pleasure of mine. Lost and Found, the Story of a Boy and his Bike After
drinking in an early round of March Madness at the Cambridge Common,
I let my friend Jim talk me into capping off the evening with a scorpion bowl
at the Hong
Kong in Harvard Square—a
place I hadn’t been to in nearly fifteen years, primarily because I was at
least ten years older than most of the students who frequented the cheap
Chinese restaurant cum hip night club. Jim thought it would be a goofy good
time. Turns out, after a terse bowling excursion, the goof was on me: my
newly retooled DeVinci
commuter bike had been hocked from in front of the Harvard Book store. After much agonizing
(deciding not to claim the bike on my insurance, because they said a claim
could lead to them dropping me) I wrote the red
DeVinci off and bought a hip new Red Line single
speed. Then, on this day in June, as I was cruising through Harvard Square
(actually we were on our way to the Harvard Book Store and I was curious to
find the Grolier Poetry Book
Shop because of a recent article in the Boston Globe), what do I see
leaning on the wall between the bookstore and poetry shop? That’s right! The red bike. That’s three months later. What
happened? Well for one, I obviously did not lock to the city provided bike post
as I thought I did; the wheel and my helmet were still locked to the frame.
But the good condition (someone lamely made an attempt to take off the
wheels) of the bike seemed to indicate it had been inside all the time.
Perhaps some Harvard student lifted the bike and then, packing for the summer
(early June is the exact time the mass exodus from Harvard yard occurs) dumped it back, near
where he procured it. Strange, yes, but very likely. She’s back now, where she
belongs. See the Pee Wee-esque
odyssey. - TBM |
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