Entertainment--It's Contaigious!

TODAY's lunch is in part inspired by the Wifey's compul-sive viewing of food related shows on the Travel Channel, specifically Adam Richman's show Man Vs. Food. On one of his bizzaro jaunts through some town's eateries lead him to a joint where they made grilled cheese sandwiches with basically whatever cheeses they could find-- or so it seemed to me-- and every once in awhile the memory of watching those sandwiches being made will inspire me to do something like this. This amounts to a seven cheese grilled cheese sandwich, American, two different levels of cheddar, and the four cheese Mexi blend, which, yeah, I know: that's cheating. But then it's on rye bread. With two kinds of mustard. And bacon and slices onion. He he he he he.

This is not particularly the movie of the day, but it was on while I was waiting to make, making, and then having lunch. I can watch this dumb tub of crap anytime. The science is not precisely junk, but it sure as hell ain't far from it. The whiteboard scene in particular, where they're trying to hone down a pool of victims to try and find Patient Zero, well, um, no, that's not precisely how that works. Besides which, having read the book from which they derive their source material . . . Ah, forget it. The list of bitchings is just too long. But if I am in precisely the right mood, then I can watch the performances and dig to the dialogue and only every once ion a while break out laughing out loud at the fact that I am watching fuckin' Outbreak.

This is also not the movie of the day, insofar as I did watch it, but more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. I heard, when it came out, that it was both brilliant and damned near impossible to watch, and figured that vsooner or later I would end up giving it a run. But then, having enjoyed Michael Shannon's wonderful, dark, increasingly unhinged performance on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, the final tumbler fell and I stuck it in the Netflix queue. With the result that, dear God, what a superbly well acted, amazingly well written, meticulously constructed chunk of the willies! The best way I can sum this up is to say that, several times, I had to remind myself that yes, there are people out there that believe about 80% of the conspiracy theories being spewed throughout the film as justification for the characters' increasing mania, and to just calm down, all that blood is fake. (And no, that wasn't a bug on my leg just now.)

So do I recommend it? Hell, yeah. Have a grilled cheese on rye. Add bacon. Turn off the part of your brain that knows how the CDC and the Army actually function, along with whatever knowledge you have of virology or weaponizing bugs, and watch Cuba Gooding Jr. pretend to fly a chopper. And you'll probably never want to watch it ever again-- and make sure it's daytime, or else keep the lights on, and plan on getting up and walking around from time to time-- but Bug will keep you crawling. Hate them willies. They oughta call 'em the sams.