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Between work and the band, I've hardly had a second to do much of anything else in the last few weeks, but over the past couple days I've made up for it:

Factotum: As a fan of Bukowski, I was a bit let down by this adaptation. Matt Dillon was a very good Chinaski, but maybe a little too "pretty." They shot the movie not in a gritty 1970s Los Angeles, but in modern day Minneapolis, of all settings. I could overlook those nitpicks, but for me the killing blow for the movie was its failure to capture Bukowski's wit -- the boozing and women are pretty easy to get across on film, but Buk's knack for simple, offhand humor just didn't surface for me. Oh well. Get it on Netflix when it comes out.

Jackass 2: I haven't laughed so hard in a theater since the first one.

Mastodon: Holy shit, they are good. I don't think I'll ever see them top their Bottom of the Hill show from a few years ago, but that was largely a product of the intimacy of the smaller venue. They were certainly better than the last time I saw them at Slim's, without the dumb stage banners and bad sound holding them back. The house mix was way better (maybe they tour with a sound person now?), and those dudes can play the shit out of their instruments. It was reassuring for me to see that they still suffer the same problems that we mere mortal bands do, though -- they actually got completely lost during their finale rock-out and their drummer had to break out of his insane off-time beat to get them back on track, which is exactly what we do when we get in the same situation. I don't think most people in the audience noticed.