An interesting look at gas prices for those of us in the Dallas area:

With refineries performing spring cleaning, the removal of MTBE, the switch to ethanol, and the summer vacation season coming, it doesn’t seem like these prices will be turning around any time soon.

Academy Awards season, if nothing else, puts great (according to whom?) movies back at the box office and fosters the desire to indulge in one of America’s favorite pastimes. Although only half of the movies I watched this weekend in Victoria were nominated, that may be because the other half were new releases.

After my Saturday morning reintroduction to cable (still no TV at the apartment), Mike, Jen, and I went to go see 16 Blocks with Bruce Willis and Mos Def. Bruce had forgotten to get a haircut and thus had more hair on his head than I can remember. Mos Def was perfectly cast and ate up the role. The movie itself was a better than average cop drama. The plot twists, however, were fairly predictable.

The next two movies were DVD choices at Mike’s parents house. Pride and Prejudice was, well, an 18th century romantic story that felt just like that. Once you get over the overelaborations and the dramaticism, the movie was well done, especially Donald Sutherland. Walk the Line came as close to perfect as a movie biography can get, considering a career that spanned 50 years with as many gold records. Let’s leave it to Mike’s mom to truly set the record straight and note the largest imperfection of the movie when she commented that June and Johnny wished they looked that good in real life.

The nightcap of the evening was a movie I did not anticipate seeing, maybe due to the fact that I had only seen on short preview for it and was still unsure of the purpose or content. Dave Chapelle’s Block Party was a fantastic surprise from the moment it began and the list of musical guests was plastered on screen. To hold a block party in Brooklyn, get Michel Gondry to document it, and invite performers such as Mos Def (yeah, twice in one day), Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, Jill Scott, Big Daddy Kane, Cody Chesnutt, The Fugees (reunified) to perform all backed by the musicality of The Roots is a once in a lifetime show to be sure. Chapelle’s comic punctuations and the musical background combined to form a great music documentary that anyone who enjoys hip hop will no doubt be thrilled to watch.

All in all, I’m still not caught up on AA movies, but sometimes a weekend filled with movies and friends can be worth the six hour drive!