The weather has forced me to fall back in like with indoor training, so I’m joining Schmalz in blogging the last bits of my winter training, done to Netflix’s limited instant streaming catalog.

2/14/13 Midnight in Paris
Despite my attempts to kill myself on the bike yesterday I gained three ithlete points, so it’s back to the salt mines today. Internet service was spotty and the three twisted Asian thrillers I queued up all froze, forcing me to peruse Time Warner’s On Demand selection. Midnight in Paris was the only acceptable option but by the time I got it started I was already 37 minutes into the ride. That’s really cruel. I watched it on the bike for about an hour and finished it up after a shower. About 100 minutes with 3 5 minute intervals.

I grew up with Woody Allen comedies and can probably still recite Sleeper, Love and Death, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, etc. verbatim. But then he became a rich Upper East Side douchebag and his on screen persona followed suit. I was with him ‘til Radio Days and have since found him increasingly abhorrent. If I wasn’t a prisoner of the rollers there’s no way I’d watch Midnight in Paris.

Midnight stars Owen Wilson as a Hollywood screenwriter wannabe novelist who’s in Paris with his filthy rich fiancé and her parents. Unlike him, they’re nasty Republicans who don’t appreciate Paris or the French, so he goes off on his own on midnight adventures. Do I need to tell you he learns something about himself and his novel during these escapades?

Liz Lemon’s annoying boyfriend also shows up in the role of an annoying friend of the fiancé. That actor’s totally going to be typecasted, but he has a face you just want to punch so maybe he’s just making the best of his talents. Also, I pretty much wanted to punch everyone in this movie.

Rollerflix Rating
I can’t stress enough how much this movie sucked ass or how much it offended me. I’d include a spoiler section but let’s face it, we all know how this is going to end, right? The characters are utterly two dimensional and predictable, a-a-and t-t-t-to be in a Woody Allen movie m-m-means you have to speak with his c-c-cadence. It’s almost as if Wilson is punking him by doing him on set.

BUT, it was surprisingly good for the rollers – it’s well paced and something’s always happening so the time passes quickly. And THAT’S a surprise ending, which is something you won’t find in Midnight in Paris.

2/15/13
I dropped 3 ithlete points, which still leaves me in the clear for a hard workout. The weather was perfect so I headed for the orchards with Aaron K., running into Mike B. along the way. (BTW, calling people by first name and last initial makes me feel like we were cloned for organ donations.)

Aaron is way faster than me and Mike’s even faster than that, so it was a painful 4 1/2 hours. But I did manage to ride their coattails to a most undeserved 8th place on this Strava segment.

2/16/13
I fully expected that ithlete would grant me a rest day after yesterday’s efforts, but I somehow managed to GAIN 3 points. I’d already planned to be off the bike with my daughter playing a tennis match, then going to a tennis clinic, then playing some more with me and my wife.

2/17/13 Battle Royale
Down 5 points but still in the clear to ride. I set up the TT bike on the LeMond trainer as my usual spot in front of the TV with rollers was taken by my daughter. Here’s my internal monologue for the first 40 minutes: “Wow I’m doing 30-40 more watts just spinning gotta reset the zero offset hey it’s for real I’m really doing more watts with no more effort this is awesome I’m just better on a TT bike.”

Here’s the monologue for the next 70 minutes: “Fuck fuck fuck my legs hurt in all new places let’s just spin for the rest of the movie god I hate this fucking saddle.”

I took a reader suggestion and watched Battle Royale, and was pleasantly surprised to see it stars Takeshi Kitano, who’s known for his comedy in Japan. I find this hard to imagine as I’ve only seen his film work, where he often directs himself in totally badass, extremely violent roles. Also, half his face is partially paralyzed, which isn’t terribly evident as his acting style is best described as ‘inert’.

Battle Royale is kinda like the Hunger Games, where 9th graders have become so out of control that periodically a class is randomly selected to be abducted to a remote island and forced to kill each other off until only one survives. Unlike the Hunger Games, it’s not set in a dystopic future, it just looks like present day Japan and there are no crazy haircuts. It’s also unclear why this is done – none of the kids know about the program, so it’s not as if they’re being made examples of to scare other kids straight.

Anyhoo, Kitano is their teacher. He despises them and they rebel against him by skipping class and, you know, stabbing him in the ass. When they’re taken to the island he gleefully oversees the Battle Royale, dispatching a student with a knife in the head when she interrupts his explanation of the games. Then it’s time to start the battle, with some students discovering their inner sociopath while others form alliances and try to avoid committing any violence.

Rollerflix Rating
Most excellent! There’s hardly any boring exposition, and with 42 students in the class, someone gets offed every couple minutes. I didn’t even check the Garmin ‘til I was 25 minutes in. If it wasn’t for that stupid TT saddle/torture device I would’ve breezed through this. The movie does a great job of making many of the 43 students memorable, and even though the ending is unsurprising in hindsight, you don’t see it coming thanks to a some clever misdirection. Also, schoolteachers might enjoy this movie a little too much.