All Quiet on the Patrick Front

My three-day weekend was uneventful. My wife and I spent some time with friends and caught up on some reading. We watched a few episodes from the DVD collection of the 5th season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. We had dinner with my folks and a Taiwanese friend of the family who was in town on business. That sort of thing.

We also watched the Jet Li film Hero. It is a beautiful film. The use of color to help distinguish different versions of the same story was clever and well done. The fight choreography was superb (although I thought the wire work looked goofy - but that is a common problem with martial arts movies). I am not sure I agree with the ultimate message of the film: that peace can only be achieved by placing the needs of the masses over those of the individual. There is definitely a sense that the end of the story was also the end of an age of heroes. But I still recommend it whole-heartedly. I might even buy the inevitable DVD.

I also listened to A Kind of Blue this weekend. Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderly and John Coltrane. Can it get any better than that?