Thursday, July 14, 2016

Live and Let Laugh

Began the day at work. Thankfully, it went far better than yesterday. I rounded up carts when I arrived and for about an hour after break, but I mostly did returns and mopped. It was just as well. We weren't really all that busy, never more than steady. (Though surprisingly the carts were low at noon.) It started out cloudy, but by 12 PM, the sun had come out, and it got beastly hot and humid.

I went straight home after work and spent the rest of the afternoon writing. Leia is escorted to Jabba's ship palace by two of his shark men guards. After she insults him, he gives her a task. If she can get through his maze, he'll let her and Han go free and restore Han's human form. He tells her that a fearsome Beast guards "her heart's desire" in the center. She must kill the Beast to complete the maze and rescue Han. She agrees to it - she only wants her father's treasure back and to see her lover again.

The nasty sea slug has a platoon of slime-covered creatures surrounding him that attend to his every whim. One watches Leia the entire time she and Jabba talk. Leia sees a flash of sandy gold hair under the muck, and thinks he seems familiar...

After I broke for dinner, I had leftovers while watching Spy. Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) is a CIA analyst and computer specialist. If that sounds glamorous, she also works in the basement and deals with an infestation of bats on a regular basis. She mostly gives back-up to her partner on the field, Bradley Fine (Jude Law). When he vanishes on what seems like a routine mission and other agents are compromised, Susan steps up to take their place. She may be plump and quiet, but appearances can be deceiving. She's far tougher and more resourceful than she looks. A rather ditzy rogue agent (Jason Stratham) refuses to believe anyone can be as cool as him at anything and continues to dog Susan and make quite a mess of things. What starts off as a decidedly non-glamorous surveillance mission turns into something far more complex as Susan pursues an arms dealer (Rose Byrne)...and discovers just how hard a spy's work really is.

This is the second spy comedy I've watched in a row that I ended up really enjoying. It reminded me a lot of the raunchy slobs vs. snobs comedies of the 80's, with a far sharper script than most of them had. (Also like that both the heroine and one of the main villains were women, not to mention the tough martial artist. You don't often see that in these kind of movies.)

Major warning that, cute though this is, it's not for little kids. Blood, violence, some sex, and a ton of swearing makes this for teen comedy lovers on up. If you're a fan of the cast or love action comedies, this was a huge hit last summer and gets a hearty recommendation from me as well.

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