Blaaaahhh...!

For the first day in over two weeks, I didn't have to go to work. I was REALLY looking forward to spending the day doing stuff I wanted to do and having fun.

And then I woke up in the morning and was sick with a fever, sore throat, runny nose...the works. I was lethargic all day and got nothing done.

Of course in some ways it is good that I was sick on the day I didn't have to work, but it still sucks not having the energy to do anything but lie around and be lazy. Now I'm feeling a bit better, but of course now I have to go to work tomorrow! Oh well.

I didn't completely waste the day though. Like a good film student I watched Akira Kurosawa's "Ran," the only one of his films I've seen that is in color. One of Kurosawa's major strengths is his use of light and shadow in his black-and-white films, and he utilized color very well here too. However I found the movie to be the least engaging of his films I've seen (and I've seen most of his best I think). Perhaps this is due to the absence of Toshiro Mifune's awesomeness.

Of course, while I've enjoyed every Kurosawa film I've seen, my ranking of them generally goes opposite of what everyone else seems to think. "Seven Samurai" is considered by most to be his best, whereas I didn't like it as much as his others. And hardly anyone I know has ever seen "Red Beard," which I personally thought was his best.

Anyway, as a rank-o-phile and just for kicks, here's my Kurosawa list as it stands now:

1) Red Beard
2) Yojimbo
3) The Hidden Fortress
4) Sanjuro
5) Rashomon
6) High and Low
7) The Seven Samurai
8) Ran

Adios. And stay healthy! (not like me right now...sniffle cough cough)