Beowulf

Husband and I really wanted to go see this movie in 3D when it was playing at the IMAX over the holidays, but it just never worked out. Having watched it on DVD on our sad little regular-def 19" TV this past weekend, we now know what a tragedy it is that we missed the chance to see this much awesomeness amplified by like a thousand.

We watched the unrated version, which was pretty no-holds-barred with the violence and gore...which is part of what made it so damn awesome, actually. It was a fantastic take on the story, and I was riveted to the screen for most of it, the only exceptions being after the exceptionally cool bits when we'd start geeking out over what a perfect medium this would be for A Song of Ice and Fire; but then that just gave us an excuse to rewind and watch the cool bits again, so that worked out.

As for the animation, at times it was mind-blowingly realistic, but at rarer times it missed the mark by a wide enough margin as to be mildly distracting, but that's a small quibble. This movie has earned itself a permanent spot in our collection. And if it ever makes it back to the IMAX, or even just to a big screen somewhere, we are THERE.

Quickly, before I have to race the sleet and snow home

Links of interest on this dreary Monday morning:

This is quite possibly the neatest web design in the history of web designs.

This free online Tales of the Slayer comic by Drew Goddard is pretty funny. Lo, the spider-eating man-bitch returneth.

Elsewhere in the galaxy of Buffy alumni, Amber Benson directed a Common Rotation video.

Giving away books online seems to be all the rage these days: Go and read Neil Gaiman's American Gods for free.



In Which I Rant About This Year's "Best Picture"

We used my Friday off to finally see No Country for Old Men. The consensus between me, Husband, and Husband's friend: Eh? It felt like two different movies mashed together. One was a quiet little introspective film about growing old while the world changes around you and you feel helpless to stop it, and in the middle of this somebody plopped the first two-thirds of a really kick-ass action/thriller. We loved the action/thriller part--and Javier Bardem definitely earned that Oscar. That guy was CREE. PEE.--that got us all worked up and invested in Josh Brolin's character and his plight, only to have it end abruptly, any resolution having happened off-screen and returning to the introspective old man movie, which also ended abruptly, and pretty much left the three of us sitting there going, "What the eff was that?" That said, the acting, cinematography, dialogue, etc. were all excellent. But I have many, many issues with the story structure and pacing, and I feel like the intent was to play around with story structure in unexpected ways for the sake of ART, at the audience's expense, and really, I can't stand that crap. I want a resolution to my story. What's more, I want a resolution to the story I spent almost two hours getting really invested in. I want characters that exist for more than the sake of getting killed in shocking and violent ways. I don't want to be jerked around and left feeling like I just had my lunch money stolen. Boo, Cohen brothers. Boo.

Previously on Planet Earth...

I'm slowly -- oh so very slowly, because I'm doing it all from scratch, and it's a learning process -- building a new template for this blog. It's mostly for fun, and to teach myself what I need to know about building blogger templates that I didn't know five years ago, and so it's being done in my spare time, which doesn't happen very often. Maybe I'll finish it next month. Maybe I'll finish it next year. But I'm working on it, and when it's done, I'll be proud. For about two weeks until I get bored with it and decide to redo it all over again. Because that's how I roll.

Fizzgigg has a hole in his leg again. I don't know if I ever mentioned the first hole here, but last fall a sore on his front right elbow turned into a gaping, open hole through which you could actually see bone. It looks even grosser than it sounds, believe me. We bandaged it, we kept various ointments on it, we spent a large sum to have the vet sew it up only to have it open up again after the stitches came out, and finally, it closed up on its own and completely healed. And now, almost overnight, it's back. I got another tube from the vet of the post-op ointment that we were putting on it when it healed the last time, and we're keeping it clean and covered and hoping for the best. And Fizzgigg acts like it's the most traumatic thing ever when we change his bandage. This from a dog who was apparently kicked around before we got him, and who has fallen down stairs and chewed his own leg almost to the bone and broken limbs and once had a cat very nearly claw his eyeball out. He's a tough little guy, but man, he hates having to lie still and have his bandage changed.

He hasn't been in the greatest health lately, either. His thyroid is whacked out, and he's lost so much hair and weight that if you saw him and didn't know any better, you'd think we were like those scumbags on Animal Precinct who never feed or take care of their animals. Of course, once you saw his cushy digs, his food bowl that's constantly filled with expensive organic gluten-free dog food, his tiny sweater wardrobe and all of his various vitamins and meds, I'm pretty confident you'd know better. That dog lives better than we do. But he deserves it, because, see above. He's had a rough little life. I just wish we could get him healthy and keep him there.

Speaking of tiny sweaters, I finally sold one. Now I just have to make it. So that's what I'll be doing with my weekend. I need to find better beads than the one I used on Fizz's sweater, though, preferably ones that the silver doesn't rub off of when they come in contact with the yarn.

And that's what's happening in my world. Here's some of what happened elsewhere while I was resting my brain and morphing into a YouTube blog:

Remember when I mentioned that Tor was giving away free e-books in exchange for signing up to their newsletter? Apparently, this is just phase one in their re-branding project. The next phase will reportedly launch them into the social networking stratosphere and also offer original short fiction and non-fiction on the web site. The Nielsen Hayden's tend to be pretty awesome, so I expect good things from just about anything they put their collective hand to.

Did you know that George Romero made a new zombie movie? I sure didn't, and I'm not sure how I missed it. Speaking of zombie movies, did I ever mention Fido? It's no Sean of the Dead, as zombie comedies go, but it has its moments, some of which are surprisingly poignant.

The Indiana Jones trailer has already been all over the internet, but it's squee-worthy enough to post again.

Ditto the fact that CBS is offering free streaming videos of the entire run of Star Trek: TOS.

And that's all I've got. Hasta, pasta.

LOST really is a good name for this show.

It's back, and I'm more confused about what the heck is going on than ever. But there were plenty of moments to love, and a whole new mystery to not get any real answers about, and I'm still totally JJ's bitch.

In other news from the Slusho-verse, we met up with a friend of Husband's to see Cloverfield again this weekend. This time, I made Husband stop at a drug store so I could get some Bonine to take before the movie started. Also this time, I tossed my Otis Spunkmeyer a third of the way through. I'll spare you most of the details, other than to say I tried to make it to the bathroom first, but didn't quite. The custodial crew was overjoyed with me, as you can well imagine.

I'm not sure whether the moral of this story is that Bonine doesn't do a dadgum thing for shaky-cam sickness, or that you shouldn't have coffee and a cookie right before going to endure a shaky-cam movie, or both. But if we try to see it a third time, I'm bringing along a barf bag.

I hope you weren't eating anything when you read this post.

Cloverfield

First things first: if you're the least bit prone to motion sickness, you should take your favorite motion sickness remedy before going to see this movie, or else you WILL get urpy and nauseous.

I meant to take Bomine before we went on Saturday. That stuff got me through even the storm-tossiest nights of my honeymoon cruise with nary a tummy flip-flop. But it only works if you remember to take it, which I didn't, so about a minute into the movie, I realized that I was screwed. I spent the rest of the movie with my head bowed and my hand over my eyes, looking up every few seconds to make sure I wasn't missing any cool parts, and forcing myself to keep looking during said cool parts.

So I think I saw all of the important stuff. I at least saw (and heard) enough to say confidently that, physical misery aside, I enjoyed this movie. I thought it was well done. I didn't feel like it was too gimmicky (although I do think that they could have given us a narrator who knew something about how to hold a camera still for two seconds), and it had what all of my favorite horror movies have: a slow build that allows you to get familiar with the characters and their surroundings and develop a sense of comfort and confidence before getting whapped upside the head with the realization that SOMETHING'S NOT RIGHT, followed by relentless action, tension and danger that never lets up for the rest of the movie.

THIS is what a post-modern Godzilla movie SHOULD be, Roland Emmerich: a balls-out disaster movie where you genuinely fear for the lives of your protagonists, NOBODY knows where this thing came from or what the hell is happening, even the military is so taken by surprise that they're disoriented and scared poopless, and you have the sinking feeling that the only hope the rest of the world has is to nuke the dadgum thing to kingdom come, and God help anybody who's left in the way when that happens. It's a feeling of inevitable doom so intense that you know any kind of happy ending would feel like a rip-off, and that makes any of the quiet, caring, sometimes even laughter-filled moments between the characters all the more tragic and poignant. They know they're screwed, YOU know they're screwed, and you know THEY know they're screwed, but they keep moving, keep trying to survive as long as they can. Giving up is not an option, no matter how hopeless it appears to be. And that's the sort of thing J.J. Abrams excels at. It's why I keep coming back to LOST no matter how many times it makes me feel screwed over. Because giving up is not an option. I'm on this crazy ride all the way to the bitter end.

Also: Good on you, Drew Goddard. I'm sure this is just the beginning of your movie writing career.

"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!"

What is Sparkle Motion? That's one of the most popular search strings that bring people to this here blog. What is Sparkle Motion, indeed? Since so many folks come here seeking the answer, I suppose the least I could do is provide it.

"Sparkle Motion" is the name of Donnie Darko's* little sister's dance troupe, immortalized in the quote above, as spoken by the awesome Beth Grant to MY president and Donnie's mom, Mary McDonnell, when she balked at having to chaperon the girls on a trip to an out-of-town competition.

The movie itself is quirky, darkly funny, poignant and has strokes of brilliance. Make a commitment to Sparkle Motion. Watch this movie.

*affiliate link

He's the bravest little Hobbit of them all.

Apparently, New Line Cinema kissed Peter Jackson's hairy ass made up with Peter Jackson, who will be making not one, but two prequels based on The Hobbit.

In celebration, I give you The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. It is not for the faint of heart.

Twenty years of wracking my brain finally laid to rest.

Today I finally tracked down the title of a movie I've been trying to find out for decades. Of course, most of my "research" consisted of randomly trying to describe it to people and hoping they'd remember, which wasn't as effective as it sounds. I did this with my husband when we first started dating, and he was positive it was Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, but I was just as positive that wasn't it.

After reading yesterday's Vine over at TN, it occurred to me that somebody, somewhere on the Internet must have tried to track down this same movie at some point. That began hours of obsessive searching through 1970s horror titles and synopses (to the detriment of my NaNoFiMo word count), until finally I followed a link to The Flick Chick, where on the second page I found my not-so-holy grail of movie titles: The House of Seven Corpses. I'm 99.9% certain that this is the movie. It was the dead cat that cinched it for me.

When I was an impressionable grade-schooler in the early eighties, my dad and I had a regular Saturday night ritual of watching the local "Creature Feature" together in the dark. A lot of those movies were pretty forgettable, but this is one that I remember scaring the living crap out of me. I don't even know if I could finish watching it, I was so terrified. Of course, now that I'm all grown up and jaded, I'm sure it will inspire more giggles and groans than anything, but even so, it is now at the top of my Netflix queue. And that's one less mystery that will keep me awake at night from now on.

Cloverfield

Oh noes! The LOST Monster's loose in NYC!!!1!

But seriously... I can't wait for this movie. JJ + Ultimate Drew = HAWESOME!

Happy Halloween!

Lo, I am full of links:

Halloween DIY Project: Make your own zombie! This is a bit more literal than one would expect.

GuyzNite - Have a nice pumpkin! - Because I just can't resist a good (or a just plain silly) Halloween parody.

Jack Baby by Warren Ellis - get creeped out in just 200 words.

Low Resolution has compiled a nice little collection of terrifying movie moments (two of which are on this list). He's also posting running commentary on his self-inflicted Halloween horror movie marathon.

Relatedly, there's a nice discussion of The Descent going on over at Tomato Nation.

Finally, I leave you with this thought: "Sometimes, dead is bettah!"

Repo Man

Three four thoughts upon viewing this preview of Repo the Genetic Opera:

1. ...the hell?

2. Okay, I want--no, I NEED to see this movie.

3. My husband, however, will want nothing to do with it.

4. Singin' ASH is still hot as fudge. Yowza!

Thursday Thirteen: Frightfest

13 Scary Movie Moments That Scarred Me For Life 1. Samara crawling out of the TV. 2. Mike standing in the corner while Heather's camera falls to the ground. 3. Kayako crawling down the stairs. 4. The clown doll grabbing Robbie and pulling him under the bed. 5. Freddy's tongue coming out of the phone to lick Nancy. 6. The shower scene. Yes, that one. That one, too. 7. Jason jumping up out of the water at the end of the first movie. 8. Pretty much the entirety of Jaws. 9. The last half-hour or so of The Descent. 10. Jason Patrick's rice turning into maggots while Kiefer laughs. 11. Pennywise peeking out of the sewers (hi, ask me about my clown issues). 12. Many parts of the original Amityville Horror. 13. "They're heeeere!" Links to other Thursday Thirteens in the comments!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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2007 Halloween Tricks & Treats #5

Because this scene never, ever fails to bust me up.

"Don't Stop Me Now"

Halloween: The Zombie Cut

It's been a while since we've left the house for anything other than work, school or errands, so in lieu of our anniversary, Husband and I decided to treat ourselves this weekend by actually going out to a movie. Anniversary or no, Husband was feeling the Timecrunch of a Thousand Deadlines, so he didn't want to stray too far from home. Being stuck with the smaller, more local theaters meant, of course, a smaller number of titles to choose from, the most watchable appearing to be Shoot 'Em Up, 3:10 to Yuma, or Halloween.

Now, Husband and I are both John Carpenter fans, and I have a particular fondness for the original Halloween. I watch it every year, at least once a year, and I never get tired of it. I've seen all of the crappy sequels, and I've seen about all of the knock-offs, and I continue to love this movie. So my hopes that Rob Zombie's version would do it justice were pretty much nil. And our alternatives included Clive Owen! And Christian Bale! And Alan Tudyk!

But it was a rainy day, and we were both eager with anticipation for October, and we were also both in a nostalgic state of mind. So we decided to go against our better judgment and give it a chance, anyway.

The verdict? Eh. It wasn't terrible. It works pretty well on the level of being a Rob Zombie movie, with the vulgar, foul-mouthed, white trash banter that he's so good at, and the glorification of the '70s that he's so fond of (to say nothing of the glorification of his wife's bare hinder, but we'll just let that go and move along), and there was plenty of the blood and gore and gratuitous, over-the-top cruelty that Zombie learned how to perfect with the Firefly family, where his Michael Myers would surely have felt right at home. It was fun spotting the usual cast of Rob Zombie Players in new roles, as well as all of the other winks, nods and inside casting jokes. So if you like Rob Zombie movies, this fits nicely into his repertoire.

As a remake of the original, though, not so much. It works more as an homage than a remake, with some nice nods here and there, but even some of his shoutouts to John Carpenter were so heavy-handed it was like he couldn't just put it in for the true fan and let it go. He had to highlight it, and then stand there next to it pointing and going "See? See what I did there? Isn't that awesome?"

Case in point: in the original, there's a neat little scene in which Laurie Strode and her best friend Annie, as played by Jamie Lee Curtis and Nancy Loomis, are driving down the street, unknowingly being followed by Michael in a stolen car, while Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" plays on the radio, in the background as they talk over it and you can barely hear it. Subtle and cool.

In Zombie's version (spoiler alert!), Judith Myers is listening it to it in her bedroom, with headphones, loudly, so that she doesn't hear while her little brother Michael beats her boyfriend to death with a baseball bat in the kitchen before sneaking into her bedroom to stab her seventeen times. At that point I thought, "Oh, heh, it's a shoutout to Carpenter using that song, that's kinda clever." But then when he used it AGAIN in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY when an adult Michael kills Linda's boyfriend and then approaches her dressed in her boyfriend's ghost costume... I can't say "overkill" here without sounding punny, can I?

My other big complaint is that none of the characters were likable. Michael's family were a dysfunctional band of reprobates, Dr. Loomis was a touchy-feely pop-psychologist out to cash in on his connection to Michael, and Laurie and her friends were so vapid and annoying that I just didn't care what happened to them. Michael the child psychopath was the most sympathetic character in this movie.

And that's my biggest issue with this telling of the story. It attempts to explain Michael Myers, to provide a reason for his unbound rage. And it explained it in about the most predictable and cliched manner possible--with a tragic childhood full of dysfunction at home and bullying from his peers. That's almost worse than that crappy sequel that tried to retcon Michael as being the product of a satanic cult who brainwashed and drugged him into being their own personal killing machine. At least that version got a little creative.

It remains the original version of Michael Myers that is the scariest--the inexplicable evil, the Bad Seed who came from and turned on his normal suburban family and became obsessed with wiping them out, along with anybody who got in his way, for no apparent reason whatsoever. To saddle him with an explanation for his behavior is to diminish what makes him such an effective and lasting icon of horror. You might as well take away his Shatner mask and his Big Effing Kitchen Knife while you're at it.

When all is said and done, I can definitely think of worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon, but I can also think of a better way: curling up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn and a copy of the original.

Today's the day!

The Serenity Collector's Edition has officially been released into the wild. Go catch it! Hurry!

But leave me a copy, because I didn't win the contest. Drat! But congrats to the winner, Deborah Lipp. I hope she enjoys it.

Thursday Thirteen #4: Stardust Edition

I should disclaim that I haven't actually seen the movie yet. I really wanted to go last weekend, but it just didn't work out. I have high hopes for this weekend, though. Thirteen Reasons You (And I) Should See Stardust This Weekend The book is wonderful. And while I know that The Movie Is Not The Book, I still also know from the book that this is a wonderful story with wonderful cast of characters, who are played in the movie by an equally wonderful cast of actors. It's a gorgeous movie, which I can tell from the previews and the web site. It should be, seeing as how the look of the film was designed by Charles Vess, who also illustrated the Stardust graphic novel. The role of Yvaine was originally offered to Sarah Michelle Gellar, who purportedly turned it down because the shooting schedule required her to spend too much time away from Freddie. That's not really a reason to go see the film, but let's all pause for a moment to ponder how AWESOME she would have been, and sigh. Despite a not-so-great opening weekend, it's mostly getting good reviews. It's also getting a lot of positive comparisons to The Princess Bride. I didn't really think that when I read the book, but I can definitely see how they compare. Two words: Rupert Everett. If you don't go see it, God will kill Fred the Unlucky Black Cat. Just kidding. Or am I?!!! He'll kill Cabal instead. Okay, that's not true either. Or is it?!!! Beyond being an amazingly and enviously talented and imaginative writer, Neil Gaiman is, by all accounts, an amazing person, to boot, and he deserves not to have his pets killed off because you wouldn't go see his movie to have a lot of success in Hollywood. He's also written many other wonderful things, several of which have already been optioned and lying around in screenplay limbo for years and years, and if this film does well, it will increase the chances of those other projects ever seeing the light of day. Two more words: Michelle Pfeiffer. Maddy Gaiman will give you a stern look until you go. See? What else are you going to see this weekend? Superbad? Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Frigga 2. Nancy Bond 3. Holly 4. Kuanyin 5. Carolan Ivey 6. Spacy Tracie 7. Susan B. 8. So Lost 9. Pat J. 10. Denise Patrick See links to more Thursday Thirteen in the comments!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Bite me, Johnny Depp. Please?

Ain't It Cool has the new poster for Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp, and it looks awesome.

Speaking of future Deppaliciousness, Johnny's also been cast as Barnabas Collins in an upcoming big-screen version of Dark Shadows, according to Moviehole.

And to think I used to have Detective Tommy Hanson posters gracing my walls alongside Ben Cross's Barnabas, and yet that combination never even crossed my mind.

I want to care.

David Duchovny (why don't you love me?) claims that the new X-Files movie is coming soon. Which leads me to ask myself two questions:

1. Did I know they were making another X-Files movie?

Yes. Yes I did. It's just been so long since anybody's mentioned it that I completely forgot.

2. Do I still care that they're making another X-Files movie?

Yes. Yes I do. Although I had to think long and hard about it to be certain.

In other news:

Your organization's Internet use policy restricts access to this web page at this time.

Reason: The Websense category "Streaming Media" is filtered.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C3f3jieOiI

Woe!

End of Season Pop Culture Round-up

It's a bit late, but here's a smattering of the things that have held my attention over the last couple of weeks.

NOTE: I'm avoiding spoilers up front, but feel free to be as detailed and spoilerific as you like in the comments.

OTHER NOTE: If you don't want to get spoiled, don't read the comments.

OTHER OTHER NOTE: Or the Gray's Anatomy commentary at the bottom.

In Theaters: Bug - this only held my attention because I paid money to see it (or my husband did, anyway) and I was kind of stuck there with nothing better to do until it was over. Dear Lord in Heaven, I can't remember the last time I felt so ripped off by a movie. We actually sat in the theater after it was over debating whether there was a chance that the theater would give us our money back, since we stayed for the whole thing, and decided probably not, since it's not like it was the theater's fault that the marketing for this movie was a CAMPAIGN OF LIES.

I can't really say that this movie sucked, because for what it is, it's technically well done and features some excellent performances. I can give it that. But what this movie is is TOTALLY NOT A HORROR MOVIE, you LYING BASTIGES. Seriously, I spent the entire movie waiting for a payoff that that the movie's marketing led me to expect and that never came, and it pissed me off too much for me to be able to say anything objective about the actual film. Just know if you decide to give it a chance that you'll be seeing a not-that-thrilling psychological drama about domestic violence, conspiracy paranoia, and craaaaazy Okies ('cause we're all craaaaaazy, donchaknow), with some dark humor that may or may not be intentional, depending on how much credit you want to give Ashley Judd's acting skills, and that doesn't contain a single, solitary mutant monster bug. Because did I mention this isn't a horror movie?

Sigh.

Rentals: MST3K: A Touch of Satan. I didn't mention the last Mystie title we rented, Hellcats, a movie so abominable that not even Joel and the 'bots could infuse it with entertainment value. After that, AToS was like a breath of fresh comedy. It's a cheesy (what else?) early 1970s horror-movie-slash-love-story about a pair of witches and the salvation and true love that only devotion to Satan sorry - Mormo can bring. It has enough unintentional humor all by itself that the commentary is almost an afterthought. Also, "This is where the fish lives" is my new catch phrase.

Books: Finished White Night, the latest entry in The Dresden Files, and it deserves its own post, and will get one later. But I loves me some Harry Dresden. Started The Line Between by Peter S. Beagle, and read the sequel to The Last Unicorn contained therein, and cried and cried, and vowed to reread TLU later this year. Also started The Android's Dream by Scalzi. I'm not very deep into it yet, but it's a pretty entertaining read so far.

Television/TiVo: The Gilmore Girls finale made me cry, in the good way. I still feel a little cheated that they waited until the last minute to reunite Luke and Loralei, but their reunion was so perfect, and the entire episode felt so right. The Veronica Mars finale (and the four episodes leading up to it) made me sigh. I actually thought the last part of the season showed signs of improvement, and now I'm sad that the threads that were left hanging will never be resolved. And I still love Logan. What will I do without my Logan fix? Sigh.

The two-part Supernatural season finale also made me cry a lot, in addition to kicking about twenty different kinds of hinder. This is dangerously close to becoming my official favorite show. It's only real competition at this point is...

Heroes, whose season finale did not disappoint, and kicked an equal amount of hinder. And also made me cry. Do you sense a theme? I want to hug the Petrelli brothers. Among other things.

Gray's Anatomy (SPOILER ALERT!)

So let me get this straight: You have a couple who's getting married, and the bride is totally into planning the big wedding, and the groom would really prefer something simple and low-key, but he goes along with the hullabaloo in the interest of making his would-be spouse happy, and this is... completely normal; but if you reverse the genders on this equation, then it's a sign of a fundamental flaw in the relationship and proof that the one who wants the big wedding just doesn't love his intended enough to be down with her non-girly ways? Is that the message I'm supposed to be getting? Or is it that Burke's an artard?

But I can't pick on Burke, because I'm not any more irritated with him than I am with the rest of the entire cast. Except Alex, because he actually did the right thing choosing not to be a home wrecker, Izzie Stephens, and by the by, if you are truly George's friend, and you truly love him, then you do NOT burden him with your inappropriate (and still unbelievable) feelings and ask him to throw away his marriage so that YOU can have a stab at happiness.

Dear Marti Noxon (and company): Please don't make me hate Izzy. I finally made my peace with "Seeing Red" (see two posts down), but I'm not ready to give you so much credit that I trust where you're going with this George business. So just stop it right now, pleasekthxbai.

I guess really the only other people who suck right now are Derek and Meredith. Particularly Derek, because he knew she was self-absorbed going in, and he waited until a particularly stressful and horrific time in her life to decide he's not okay with it. Kind of reminds me of a certain Initiative soldier who waited until his superheroic girlfriend's mom had a brain tumor to decide he couldn't handle her independence and wanted her to be needier. And I will stop making Buffy comparisons now. Promise.

But I can't promise to stop blaming everything on Marti. Old habits die hard.

And I am officially caught up on my television viewing for the 2007 spring season. Now I'm eagerly awaiting July and the summer season, particularly Big Brother (yes. Shut up.) and Dr. Who. In the meantime, methinks my temporary Blockbuster discount card will be getting a workout.

Weekend Pop Culture Roundup, Part 1: The Non-TV Bits

In theaters: Mama Mia! - this would be in the actual theater, pronounced "thee-ah-tah" if you're kind of pretentious. I love this show like I love Abba, which is an unabashed lot. This is the second time I've seen it, and I think I liked this cast better, and not just because the male lead reminded me a heckuva lot of Nathan Fillion. I thought the actress playing Sophie had both a better voice and more chemistry than in the last production I saw, plus, not to imply she had anything but a lovely figure, but I appreciated that she wasn't a twig.

On Netflix: Near Dark - yes, I thought of Nathan Petrelli the entire time I watched this, because it's not as if Adrian Pasdar has had a long and varied career in between now and when this movie first came out. Even so, I started to get the sense that he's getting typecast: likeable, well-intentioned guy with understandable aspirations (getting laid, becoming president... same difference [insert your own Clinton joke here]) gets in over head with evil, murderous group who wants to make him a pawn; he doesn't really want to go along with it, but he doesn't exactly stand up to the bad guys, either, at least until his family becomes threatened. Yes, methinks Pasdar had some prior experience at playing that role. But besides that, Bill Paxton is cheesier and more over-the-top than ever in this movie, and I can't help loving it.

Croupier - this one was a pick from Matt's queue. Clive Owen stars as a writer turned blackjack dealer who's really researching a book, except that secretly he really wants to be dealing, and he almost unknowingly sleeps with his step-mom-to-be... or something. Clive Owen is pretty. That's what I mostly remember. That, and he needs to give The Edge back his hat.

In comics: - I'm slowly but surely catching up on Astonishing X-Men. I read #s 16 and 17, and so far, I'm with Kitty: "YeahbuhWHA?" I need to track down issues 18-20 so I can understand what the heck is going on. What I can say for sure is that I adore Joss's treatment of Wolverine, and also that he's made me love Kitty almost as much as Buffy. And, I hope Emma's not really evil, and has a good excuse.

Bug

Matt wants to see that bug movie with Ashley Judd, the one they're advertising as "from the makers of The Exorcist. He might have to find a buddy to go see it with him, because just the trailer makes my skin crawl. This looks like one that could leave me with nightmares.

I think the posters look pretty benign, though, especially this one (left). I guess it sets a dark mood, but unless you find Ashley Judd's face disturbing (you'll have to insert your own joke there, folks; I've sworn off mean comments, even for comedy's sake), I don't think it quite conveys the creepiness of the movie. The other poster, though (right), I think does a better job. I don't know why, but I have a more visceral reaction to that one. Maybe because it reminds me a little of the posters for Silence of the Lambs that show Jodi Foster with a death's head moth covering her mouth. At any rate, I think it does a better job of saying "Hey! This movie is creepy and disturbing and will probably give you nightmares! Good times!" At any rate, they've got me convinced I might not be able to handle the bug movie, although if my husband insists, at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing he'll be kept awake by my nightmares, too.

Weekend Pop Culture Roundup

May is probably not the best time to start a regular feature that mainly focuses on what I watched on TV, considering that the current season is about to wrap up. But summer will bring with it plenty of its own TV goodness, plus we're sure to see more than our usual share of movies, so I'm sure there will still be plenty to talk about once May is over. At any rate, here are brief, single-paragraph reviews of the things that fed my brain over the weekend. All but the first two entries contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen/read them and don't want to be spoiled, just don't read past the title.

In theaters: Hot Fuzz - The reviews were split for this one in the Bauhaushold. It's not quite the laugh-out-loud hilarity of Shawn of the Dead, but even so, I loved it. Matt, however, didn't, and thought it was a major let-down. He thought this movie had less heart than Shawn, but I think it just had its heart in a different place. Where Shawn was, in essence, a romantic comedy, Hot Fuzz is in essence a classic Buddy Cop movie, and I thought it hit every note it was trying to hit perfectly. Also, I laughed. A lot.

From Netflix: Casino Royale - Not a huge fan of Bond movies, but I liked this one. Mostly because Daniel Craig is a beautiful specimen of manhood, and I am a shallow, shallow gal.

On the TiVo: Heroes - First, I was relieved to find out that Sylar, and not Peter, was really the man-bomb--and not just because future Peter was Teh Sexay--until I found out he wasn't, and that he was posing as Nathan, at which point I actually shouted "OH MY GOD!" at my TV, and then I couldn't decide whether I was more sad that Nathan was dead or relieved that he wasn't an evil genocidal hypocrite. The sad thing, of course, is that I totally believed Nathan could turn into an evil genocidal hypocrite. Also: Bennett's still my daddy.

Grey's Anatomy - The part of the show that was actually the show was rather meh. I have to say, I heartily do not approve of this Izzie & George business. This has Marti "Let's make Buffy a rape victim!" Noxon written all over it. Also, yes, we GET IT: it sucks to be Meredith. As for the part of the show that was really a pilot for Kate Walsh's new spin-off vehicle, I'm in favor of anything that heavily features both TimDaly AND Taye Diggs. Did you see the part up there where I'm shallow?

America's Next Top Model - ...speaking of shallow. Man, Brittney was my girl, until she went and unequivocally proved her immaturity to her haters and made a complete embarrassment of herself and anyone rooting for her. Now I think I'm actually kind of secretly rooting for Renee, mainly because I think she's achieved more self-awareness than anyone else in the competition this "cycle," and because I can't help feeling for the girl that everybody hates, even if it is because she started out being a heinous bitch to each and every one of them. But if you ask me, I'll probably say I'm rooting for Natasha, because only the hardest of hearts could remain untouched by that level of naivete.

On live TV: The Amazing Race - Up until last week, I was rooting for Danny and Oswald, so for me it once again came down to trying to decide which would be the least objectionable victory. I actually went with Eric and Danielle, only because they had so much bad luck thrown at them over the course of the race, and managed to get yielded TWICE, and so I thought it would be damned impressive if they won, which they did, so... yay, I guess?

In comics: Buffy: Season 8 #3 - HA! It was Ethan, which also triggered MY "barflex." And triple HA! to Buffy's threesome fantasies. Really, who can blame her? Of course, the big question is, who kissed her? I don't believe it was Xander, as he's obviously moved on to yet another Slayer crush. Also, Warren: Eek! And eew.

Supernatural: Origins #1 - Even wee Dean is a total woobie. I'm sure that comes as a surprise to no one. I liked this... it's an intriguing story, tracing a believable path from how Daddy Winchester went from a stunned and clueless victim to badass vengeful demon hunter. I just wish I could say the same for the artwork. Yuck-o.

Of course, if you're following any of these series, I would love to discuss them with you in the comment thread. Here, let me get you started: Dean Winchester, Peter Petrelli, or James Bond: who's prettier?

What? WHAT? Speak up, I can't hear over all these crickets!

I didn't go to the gym today. I'm feeling a time crunch here at work and I just wasn't comfortable with the idea of leaving the office for a whole entire hour. But that's okay, because yesterday, according to my trusty pedometer, I managed to burn twice as many calories just running around this place trying to get my work done than I normally burn in a single cardio session at the gym, and I expect to repeat that performance today. At any rate, I'm already way over the weekly quota of calories-which-must-be-burned set for me by SparkPeople, so I'm not too worried about it.

So what did I do with my hour instead? I performed the ueber-productive tasks of blogging elsewhere and watching YouTube. Specifically, I watched the Film Pigs' review of Grindhouse (The Film Pigs, if you don't know, are made up of former TWoP 'capper Stee and a couple of his friends, who go see movies and then videotape themselves standing around and talking about them afterwards. Genius!), which pretty well lined up with what Matt and I thought of the movie. As you can see, that was an hour well spent.

Now, I'm going to mostly disappear from the 'webs for the rest of the day so I can tackle some of the things here on the job front that are stressing me out and keeping me from being able to focus entirely on the novel in the mornings. The piles are closing in, and I fear they're going to bury me if I don't pay them some attention soon. As it is, it's getting pretty claustrophobic here in my cubby hole.

When I come back I'll start addressing the requests and questions posed here... that is, if I ever get any. By the way, much thanks to my comment regulars for all of the love and praise, and right back atcha. But for those of you in the silent majority who aren't so satisfied with the status quo or have any particular topic they'd like to see addressed more often, or at all, in this here blog, now's your chance to speak up.

If you're thinking of missing Grindhouse... Don't!

I'm alive. And in case you're wondering, I had a pretty nice, if hectic, long weekend, once Matt recovered from his thing, his stomach nastiness failed to jump to me, and I got over my headache and general bleah-ness. It involved, in random order, the following: getting taken out for Chinese food, getting taken out for Indian food, getting the previously mentioned pedicure (my toes look so pretty!), exchanging Easter baskets with Matt, going shopping for girly stuff with my mom, getting to pick out some clothes and makeup on her dime, going to see Grindhouse, getting to shop for jewelry on Matt's dime (my new gold dragonfly necklace is also so pretty!), visiting the in-laws, eating cake, eating more cake, eating a canole, eating candy, and eating many other things that just aren't good for me. What it did not involve nearly enough of for my liking was sleep, and vegging out, and getting things done around the house. It was fun, but it was really too much fun for one weekend, and I could use a day off to recover. But since I won't get one, today I'm just focusing on getting back into the swing of things. Productivity can wait until tomorrow.

For the record, we loved Grindhouse, although we both loved the Planet Terror half more than the Death Proof half, and not just because the former featured one of our honeymoon destinations, although that was pretty awesome right there. We both mainly felt that Tarantino could have tightened up the pacing a bit, and Matt was downright disgusted with Kurt Russel's characterization toward the end, but I can't say more without spoiling it, so I won't (other than that I've loved Tracie Thoms since Wonderfalls, and I love her still). Even so, it was the most entertaining movie either of us has gone out to see in a good long while.

Unrelatedly, Whedonopolis has a very Buffy-centric interview with Jim Butcher, author of the Dresden Files novels, wherein he confesses that in his fantasy casting, Smidge plays Murphy. This makes me inexplicably happy.

Not an Oscar post

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I actually didn't set out to watch the Oscars last night, considering that I haven't seen a single one of the movies nominated this year. But since every satellite receiver in the house last night was otherwise occupied, cutting me off from my SciFi Sunday, once TAR was over I went ahead and switched over for the remaining few hours. Jennifer Hudson's speech made me verklempt, but otherwise it was all pretty "eh." I did put Little Miss Sunshine on my To See list, though.

Speaking of Little Miss Sunshine, wasn't that Abigail Breslin a cutie? Unsurprisingly, she's already got another movie coming out March 9. The trailer for it looks good. It looks to be a little sleeper film with a big, Pay It Forward-style message about the importance of giving and the idea that the best way to lead a blessed life is to spend it blessing others.

This is the official site of the movie "The Ultimate Gift" and the grass-roots movement it's starting to help charities and give to others. Apparently, pre-screenings of this film, as well as the book on which it's based, have already sparked giving movements across the US, including a teen philanthropy initiative called Show of Hands. The production company, along with Fox Film Fund, is even hosting a Weekend of Giving during the film's opening weekend, during which $1.00 of every ticket you purchase will go to the charity of your choice. It's nice to see a big studio movie that's about the message and not about the box office.