Predictable

The wife and kids have been gone this week to Glendale, Arizona, so my son can attend a summer camp for children who have Asperger’s Syndrome. One of the pleasant side effects is that I can go see movies after work is over, without the risk of offending someone. This evening’s offering was The Proposition starring Guy Pierce, Emily Watson, and with a brief but superb turn by John Hurt. I had heard almost nothing about the film except that it was good, and more often than not, I prefer to walk into a movie ignorant. With the movies my kids want to see, invariably there will be previews of the movie more than a year before the actual release of the movie, so by the time I actually get to see the movie, there will be little about it I haven’t seen or couldn’t guess. With The Proposition, I wasn’t sure how it was going to end and so I was pleasantly surprised when it did not end the way I expected.

I wish the same could be said for For Better or For Worse, which grows more and more predictable as each strip appears. One thing that is certain about Grandpa Jim is that whenever he is in the strip he completely dominates it. He even trumps Elly as far as lines and getting the final joke of the strip goes. So, when he shows up, you know that every strip is going to end with him having the punch line and he will invariably say something mildly offensive or something with supposed wisdom and sometimes both. I look forward to more of the same tomorrow and Saturday.