1 turkey, some cream, and a few crazy crackers

The long holiday is over and we kept it low-key -- not-food-oriented at all -- mostly movie-oriented. The weather was rainy and chilly and made my nose run, so we nixed the late-night stuff like music clubs. (a glass of wine and a couple of benedryls make an excellent sleeping aid).

Thursday we went to the new Alamo Drafthouse downtown at the Ritz (had pizza and beer for Thanksgiving) and saw No Country For Old Men, which is very, very intense. I was white-knuckled holding the armrests. Recommended. It's a modern-day Western (set in the 80s, but close enough to modern), the characters are interesting, and the movie will stir up discussions afterward over the ending.

[This paragraph contains a spoiler for the movie "Performance". That's your spoiler alert]
Friday we settled in with DVDs, starting with Stoned. I was interested in this one because of being a Stones fan, and especially of the group's founder, Brian Jones. First of all, not a good movie. The acting is marginal, there wasn't Rolling Stones music in it, and resemblances to the real characters are not good enough. The portrayals of the rest of the band are completely flat and forgettable (tell me that Mick Jagger or Keith Richards in the 60s can be forgettable, or Anita Pallenberg), and the main character is not good-looking enough to be Brian and didn't look like him... but... I will say this... the wardrobe dept. was perfect! They had his clothes down to a "T". Brian's story needs to be better told, probably in a documentary with a good filmmaker. It's a good story. One thing that struck a chord with me about Brian's story is the coincidental parallels between Brian's story and the one told in the movie Performance, which starred Mick Jagger and Brian's main love of his life, Anita Pallenberg: aging (and/or) retired (and/or) out-of-it rock god has life invaded by non-rockstar guy, who envies (and/or) resents (and/or) hates (and/or) want-to-be-him-but-can't so he ends up killing him. Performance is rather surrealistic, but I imagine that Brian's world was too. (I am not putting down Performance. In fact, I love that movie AND the music in it.)

Next was a documentary about local music phenom Roky Erickson (13th Floor Elevators) called You're Gonna Miss Me. Roky has sufffered over the years from schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness, but that's not what makes you want to tear your hair out when watching this... it's his mother. Bad crazy, dysfunctional, OMFG it's a wonder any of those kids turned out sane -- and they did -- just not Roky. You can't blame drugs alone for real mental illness, and the fact that she didn't believe in giving him his prescribed drugs (she told the court she thought yoga would be more helpful, and... it gets worse!! much worse) -- between nature, nurture and other factors the whole thing was a trainwreck. If you are looking for a pair of flicks on flipped out Austin musicians, pick up this one along with The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Both are really good films and will make you shudder at the crap that real people go through and put their loved ones through, whether intentionally or not.

Saturday we opted to stay in again with a hobbitty fire, cozy blankies and kitties, and watch one of our extended disks of Lord of The Rings. These things are long and require a time commitment. Always a pleasure and I never get tired of them.