I watched Tape by director Richard Linklater last night, another Netflix delivery. Three actors in a motel room meeting for the first time ten years after high school and you'd think from this description, well, OK, been there, done that. Right? Well, not quite: Nicely and surprisingly done and I recommend it.

That's it? You recommend it? Why? Sex? Drugs? Photography?

The two men spent the first half of the movie picking up on what was a close, but dysfunctional friendship, some part of their story centered around the third character, a woman (played by Uma Thurman) whom they both dated in high school and at this point in the film I'm nodding my head and thinking, I know how this is going and then the woman shows up and I find out I don't know how it's going at all. A turn of the screw: a shift in reality that brings the whole thing into a sharp and different focus, and I found it surprising and satisfying.

The phrase that led me to rent the film was Tape “examines the vast differences in how men and women interpret the same event.” and I thought when I read it OK: Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, I'll give it a try. It was better than I had any right to expect. Now, is this description any more informative?

Not really. I still have no idea if I'd like this movie or not.

Which is why I kept it short, gave it an eight: it's got a beat and you can dance to it. What more is there to know?

Similarly, instead of vegetating here inside this Friday night (TGIF etc. etc.) as is my usual pattern, I walked down the way and had that chicken Caesar salad I dodged the other night and watched Collateral Damage at the Grand Lake theater. Nice flick. Nothing to write home about, interesting in what it attempts, but not as interesting as Tape, Tom Cruise notwithstanding. Out to a movie on a Friday night, though: unusual happenings here in Oakland.

One of the fantasies I had in buying the Element was to attend a race or two at Laguna Seca, remembering one I attended some ten years ago camped out on the grass in the middle of the race course with who knows how many thousands of people. I thought maybe a good place to shoot pictures. There's a race next weekend and, although that's too soon (the car still hasn't finished its break in period, I need to buy a sleeping bag, some other stuff) there's another the month following and I think I'll buy a ticket. More excitement. Here in..., well, you get the drift.