Tag: Jim Carrey

Enter The Cable Guy

Last night as I was leaving Nashville, as my laptop, wallet, belt, shoes and other personal belongings were in three plastic trays ready to be x-rayed, my cellphone started ringing&#185. I reached into the machine, pulled out the cellphone and answered.

Helaine was calling. She had just returned from Atlantic City. The cable modem was out, again. Did I have a quick fix?

I couldn’t talk then, but I was so flustered I walked through the magnetometer still holding the phone! Beep!

There was nothing I could tell Helaine that would allow her to regain service. This has become a nagging problem, getting worse by the day. Luckily, the cable guy (how much must they hate Jim Carrey for that movie) was scheduled to be here this morning.

Helaine woke me when he got to the house. He was about 12 (OK – he was in his mid-20s) but seemed knowledgeable and confident. I have yet to meet the first Comcast employee who has disappointed me. That’s why, even though this problem persists, I have not been overly angry.

First stop was upstairs to my office. With Steffie gone, it is the only room in the house that looks like it’s been ransacked.

I fired up the PC and he looked at the diagnostic screens from the cable modem. As with toothaches, having the cable guy scheduled is normally enough to make the problem go away. Our signal was low, though acceptable.

I explained how this was an intermittent problem, seemingly weather related. He looked further. Then he went outside.

When I next saw him, he was up on the pole outside the house, tools in hand, crimping a connector on a piece of RG-8U cable.

The connector on the pole (15 years old) had signs of corrosion. He would replace that and then, run a totally separate line which would only serve my cable modem. He’d need to drill a hole in my basement wall, which was fine with me.

It didn’t take long. Pretty soon we were back upstairs take measurements. There was a huge improvement.

A cable modem is pretty much all or nothing. If it has enough signal, you’re going to get all the speed promised. If you don’t have enough signal, you get nothing.

But, as I said, this was an intermittent problem. The jury is still out.

&#185 – No phone actually rings anymore. Mine plays the ABC Contemporary Network news logo from the 60s and 70s.

Bad Movie – What Were They Thinking?

Steffie wanted to go to the mall, and we didn’t want her to drive there, so Helaine and I spent the evening at the movies. Last week we had thought about going, but there was nothing that interested us. This week there’s the new Jim Carrey movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I can’t remember a movie I have enjoyed less – not recently, certainly.

Forget the plot for a moment (because, even if I wanted to, I don’t think I have figured out what the plot is). In a love story, and this is a love story, the characters should be … lovable. Clementine, as played by Kate Winslet, is someone I avoid at all costs in real life. An alcoholic who is psychotic, flighty, cruel and manipulative. Need I go on?

Carrey spends the entire movie fighting his good sense, staying smitten with her. Why? He dumps an unseen live-in-girlfriend for her. Why?

I don’t know. And, with this movie squarely in past tense, I don’t care.

The movie is ‘cut’ in a very edgy style and past and present are tantalizingly juxtaposed. But technique is not enough to support a film. There is no meat on this turkey.

To me, this is the strangest revelation. As much as I disliked this movie, I continue to like Jim Carrey more and more. He, as Kate Winslet, played a character who never enticed me to know him more. Yet there is something charming about him which jumps off the screen. There is a special ‘it’ which some people have which allow them to light up a screen and overshadow those around them Jim Carrey has such a presence. But his character gives him little to work with, and left me cold.

As I was looking for some detail to put into this entry, I stopped by the movie’s website. There was a quote from Karyn James of the New York Times. That was strange because the film was reviewed in the Times by Elvis Mitchell. I wonder how far out of context the quote was taken?

I have often wondered if there’s a point of no return in the movie making process. Past that point, when the movie’s true quality is revealed, it’s too late to stop the production. Now, Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood and the others will go and promote it.

We went to see this at the Showcase Cinemas in Orange. To add insult to injury, it seemed like the theater wasn’t heated at all. The concrete floor was incredibly cold, and as the movie wore on, I did everything I could to keep my feet up.

Other than that, it was great.