Thursday, 24 January 2002 3:00pm

ast week, Cami, Jeff and I headed up to Cami's folks' place in Camarillo to celebrate Trista's birthday. On the way up we stopped by Disneyland for some lunch at the Blue Bayou. Gosh, their prime rib is so good! Anyway when we got to Camarillo I discovered the Chan's had a trampoline in their backyard. After about five minutes of jumping on that thing I realized just how out of shape I really am, because for the next 30 minutes or so, I still had problems breathing and my heart was still pounding.

I think I need to get my ass up off the couch and away from behind the computer screen or something before I get some kind of heart attack or something, because it really cannot be a good thing for me to be this out of shape! If my dad saw me in that state I think he would be very not proud. Yes, it's time to take action...

Anyway, Cami's mom prepared a fabulous dinner for all of us and I had a great time hanging out with everybody and stuff. It's always a joy visiting the Chans.

Hmmm, so what else has been going on in my life? Hmmm. Oh earlier this week I hooked up some cheapo speakers in the kitchen so you can hear the tv (or music or whatever) in there without having to blast the volume in the living room, and other than that... not a whole lot has been going on. I haven't even watched that many new DVD's, but here's one for you:

The French Connection
The movie: This is a movie that I've also heard about for a long time but had never seen before. It won Oscars in 1972 for best picture, best actor (Gene Hackman), best director, best film editing, and best adapted screenplay. This is a great detective movie based on a novel which was based on a true story. It's got a really great car chase scene (which was shot in real traffic, even the car crash was real and unplanned!), and a masterfully made and suspenseful "lose the tail" sequence. Many people consider this to be the best detective movie ever made.
But. In my opinion, it took a really long time to get going. The last third of the movie was incredible. I was glued to my seat... I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next, but the first two-thirds of it were kind of slow and I was wondering if anything was going to happen at all. But that last third of the movie was really worth it all.
The DVD: This is part of Fox's Five Star Collection, however, because I rented this movie from Netflix, I only have disc 1 of the two disc set. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is very clean (but 1970's grainy), with no (or very few) instances of dust and scratches and whatnot. The color looked great too. Visually, I think this film was nicely restored. The 5.1 soundtrack was mostly frontal on the soundstage, but was very clear and crisp. I was quite surprised that a movie of this era could look and sound so great.
The menu's were pretty cool, without being over-the-top. Nothing sucks more than having to wait forever for an animated menu to stop before you can do anything. As far as special features go, this disc had a couple of commentary tracks, and a theatrical trailer. All the rest of the stuff is on the second disc, which as I mentioned before, I didn't see, but if the quality of the first disc is any indication, I'm sure the second disc is chock full of interesting stuff.
This is a pretty cool movie to watch and it's full of 70's goodness, and some really great chases and action sequences. The DVD looks and sounds great, so if you are a fan of this movie you won't be disappointed. All in all, a DVD worth checking out.