Slow weekend over at my house. Got a little sick, so I stayed in and watched a buttload of TV and managed to almost finish a draft for a short script, I’m thinking of filming. So, all in all, not a wholly unproductive weekend.

So I’m flipping around the channels late yesterday morning, when I come across a movie starting on Cinemax. It’s “The Assignment,” starring Donald Sutherland, and Aidan Quinn, and I’m surprised I had never seen this.

Basically, it’s about a CIA operation to have the KGB kill Carlos the Jackal by using a naval officer as a look-alike (Aidan Quinn). It wasn’t all bad. Tons of gratuitous female nudity, so, you know, two thumbs up from me.

Anyway, I’m watching the beginning of the film, where Carlos, the brazen terrorist in disguise, approaches a Paris café and bums a light off Donald Sutherland, the CIA section chief, before tossing a grenade into the café, thus killing dozens of innocents, and sparking a personal vendetta on the part of Donald Sutherland.

Then, a naval officer with a girly first name (Annibal which is mispronounced throughout the film as Annibel) played by Aidan Quinn is wandering the streets of Jerusalem in civilian clothing and is arrested after being pursued by the Mossad. Ben Kingsley plays his interrogator. Apparently, Aidan is a dead ringer for ol’ Carlos, so that gets the wheels a’ turnin’.

Anyway, this has held my interest fairly well, so far, but I’m about to change the channel regardless (still manually. Apparently I lost it pretty well.) when the filmmakers throw me a curveball. Literally.

The next scene involved Aidan, wearing Navy dress whites, stepping out of his car at his eight-year-old son’s little league game. His son is at bat, and when he recognizes his dad’s voice after he shouts out some fatherly baseball advice, he turns to smile at him and the kid gets beaned in the head with a pitch.

I nearly wet myself from laughing. After five more minutes of giggling, I figured I owed the filmmaker for that one, and decided to stick it out. Like I said: Not bad, and lots of gratuitous nudity.

Another odd story. I’m sitting at a restaurant having dinner Friday night. It’s a franchise joint that has NTN available to play at your table. So I sign in, and we’re in the middle of a round of movie quote trivia. Groovy, my forte.

So I’m starting five questions in, and I’m catching up pretty well, when the following quote comes on the screen:

“A royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?”

Now obviously, that’s from “Pulp Fiction,” and I wonder how it is that I am able to make up these points when the fine folks at NTN insist on asking such generic questions, when I hear a child, no older then ten, scream, “Oh that’s easy! It’s from “Pulp Fiction.” I watch that movie all the time!”

And of course my reaction was, “Whuhhhhhh?” and I hesitated putting in the answer. That little fucker cost me 147 points.

What kind of retard lets his child (his child!) watch a Tarrantino film. That film has more “fucks” in it than a Jenna Jameson film.

I can see it all now:

“How’s your breakfast, son?”
“Fine.”
“You didn’t finish your bacon.”
“…”
“Finish your bacon, son.”
“I don’t like bacon.”
“Why not? Bacon tastes good.”
“Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfuckers.”

You may now resume your daily functions.

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