If a blog falls in the forest and nobody notices, does it make a difference?

My blog was hacked. Not difficult to figure out the who or why.  Despicable muddy foyers.

The sad part? I actually had a moment when I said to myself, “Oh. Well. At least I don’t have to come up with a post idea today! Woot!” That’s rather pathetic, I know.

I dropped the coin to buy the extra security service from GoDaddy.  If I have to restore my web site twice a week to keep the truth about the Fucktards available to search engines, so be it.

The missus and I enjoyed that which I call an “Eight P.M. Shower” Weekend. You know what I’m talking about. The Saturday where you’re still in your pajamas at dinner time. Then around eight p.m. you start sniffing your T-shirt and thinking, “Geez. I should probably shower off this funk before I go to bed.”

It was glorious.  My Beautiful Wife made a pot of homemade chicken soup and we grazed our way to the bottom of the kettle over the course of two days.

At nine p.m. Sunday evening MBW said, “I’ve got a craving for vanilla sandwich cookies.”

“You got it, Toots!” I said. “I don’t mind running to the store if it makes you smile.”  I yanked on some proper pants and a coat. I shuffled outside to the truck and…

Holy shit. The truck was cocooned in ice and snow. That’s when I realized the totality of our sloth; how long it had been since we even thought about leaving the house. Frickin’ Glorious.

Here are the movies we saw:

Hollidaysburg. Rotten Tomatoes: 75%. A low-budget indie about the first confab after the high school graduating class of last year returns home from college on Winter break. Lots of neurotics and quirky stoners. The success of the movie turns on whether or not you buy the full-frontal charm assault of Tobin Mitnick as Steve, the guy with a hairline so low one wonders if he just shaves the strip of his forehead between his eyebrows and his coif.

My douchebag-o-meter was pegging in the red zone, but somehow Mitnick won me over with the sheer insistence of his je ne sais suave. 

Props also to writer Dan Schoffer’s ponderous script that — as Peter Griffin would say — “insists upon itself.” The viewer should be prepared for a brickbat of dimestore philosophy to their face, but more often than not, it works. Somehow, it works.

As a counterpoint: St. Vincent. Rotten Tomatoes: 74%.  Bill Murray as a miserable misanthrope who, upon deeper reflection, just might have a heart of gold.

No. Sorry. No. This is another movie with a full-press charm offensive (emphasis on the word “offensive”) from the protagonist. I laughed. I enjoyed the movie. But… No.

As a writer, I’ve long obsessed with the experiment of how awful you can make a protagonist and still bring them to redemption with the audience in the end. It was the central theme of my Masters Thesis/screenplay, Chump Change.  St. Vincent is Chump Change, albeit much funnier and much more skillfully written.

Among my litany of pet peeves is kid actors who can’t act. No problemo. Eleven-year-old Jaeden Lieberher absolutely kills as Oliver. He’s a natural.

Naomi Watts steals the movie with her portrayal of pregnant Russian hooker, Daka. She’s gold. Every time she opened her mouth she triggered a belly laugh.

And yet… No.

St. Vincent and Hollidaysburg were two movies that insisted on manipulating me. I succumbed to Hollidaysburg. I nodded politely at St. Vincent and went on my way. Perhaps I put my thumb on the emotional scale owned by the indie upstarts and figured Bill Murray could fend for himself without Shawn’s worthless blessing.

And then there was RDJ in The Judge. Rotten Tomatoes: 46%.

Meh. Not bad. Another misanthrope (Robert Duvall). Another cast of quirkies. I didn’t hate it. I barely recognized Vera Farmiga in a white trash barmaid getup. I completely missed Leighton Meester, one of my celebrity crushes, as Vera Farmiga’s trampy daughter.

Duvall’s character was such a self-destructive prick, it was hard to feel sorry for him or empathize with RDJ’s need to save him from himself. If you’re willfully in the mood to be emotionally manipulated, The Judge might deliver.

Anybody seen any of these movies? Weigh in. We could use a good blog debate. Surely somebody will take me to task on St. Vincent, right?