Tuesday

Recently, Nuevo Leone's governor asked the army to set up anti-narco checkpoints on likely drug routes through the state (and the state's capital). The day after, a man was found killed in Santiago, off Mexican route 85, the road the Tampico. The body was apparently left with a note promising more drug-related execution-style killings are coming soon. Too neat? Red herring? Now Monterrey is "crawling" with 110 federal police officers (federales), apparently patrolling high-notoriety areas. Not that Santiago was counted among these areas--and neither is San Pedro, frankly. Adding one hundred and ten new officers to Monterrey is like writing a new analogy at an analogy convention. There’s a new one, sure, but what were we taking about? We ate Italian again tonight, at the tolerable Italiannis, and then we finally made it to see Piratas del Caribe: El Cofre de la Muerte which started here last Friday. It was amusing enough to watch, although I sensed clear story edges between set pieces; times where I could distinctly imagine the writers saying "okay, now how do we get them back to the boat again?" And who was it that tossed the old Dr.-Livingston-I-Presume "when the natives return with the captive, he discovers that his quarry is their New! Leader!" onto the table in the plot meeting? Among the many, um, homages in evidence throughout this movie (from old Crosby and Hope yarns to Excalibur and beyond), it was this Star Trekish goofballery that particularly annoyed me. Still, I think I would have liked it a lot if it had fulfilled its promise to actually swashbuckle some in and around the wheeling animation. I'll take what I can get in these dry times, but where oh where is the new dashing Hollywood hero? [Cavin]