This morning I woke up at 5am. Again. Gazing at the clock in despair I realized I must’ve fallen asleep by 9pm. Again. That’s when it hit me…the unstoppable force of the earworm. Dolly Parton’s Nine to Five busted its way into my brain, and it was all over. Which reminded me…I recall being brought along to see the movie when I was a kid. Much of the humor was incomprehensible to my six or seven year-old self. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as the time the rents dragged us to the divorce drama, Kramer vs. Kramer, the year before. Haven’t seen it since, but certain scenes stayed with me…like the horror of the little kid gashing his head open at the playground and bleeding all over the place. Then there’s the actual horror genre. In that same era an edited-for-teevee version of The Exorcist was on. Dad insisted I sit and watch it with him, to toughen me up and whatnot. He also had a subscription to Fangoria magazine, and kept the issues laying about the house. Every now and then he’d pick up a copy and try to point out to us how movie gore was made and how obviously fake it was. I’m sure he’d seen enough real gore on the job (as a cop) that it seemed as harmless as dinner table ketchup to him. Needless to say, I try to be more careful with what the little man comes in contact with. In more current movie news…yes, we all know what today brings. And even though I’ve become a morning person, I have to say 8am seems too damned early to be watching any movie, let alone The Matrix Revolutions. Then again, the fangirls and fanboys who gathered in this morning’s predawn chill, waiting to be the first Minnesotans to see the final Matrix installment, are likely to be the same sort of folks willing to sit through the all-day LoTR marathon on December 16th. I must be getting old. I love these films, and eagerly await The Return of the King…but the thought of watching them all back-to-back makes me weary to the bone.