That One Scene

Do you remember the last time a scene stood out? I mean Casablanca on the runway, or Charles Foster Kane's traipse around the dancing girls. Everyone knows these and can immediately recall them out of context. In the last 20 years there have been a few new examples: Uma Thurman overdosing in Pulp Fiction, Matthew Broderick's daydreaming in Election, and Dermot Mulroney's critique of Emily Mortimer's body in Lovely and Amazing.


Lovely and Amazing is Nicole Holofcener's second feature. Nicole excels at funny but sad movies, not unlike the best of Woody Allen, and her film examines a family of four women in Los Angeles.

Mortimer and Mulroney's fantastic scene comes about a third of the way through. In bed and insecure, Mortimer asks Mulroney to critique her body, zeroing in on each section and stating even the most minor flaw. Pressed and initially resistant, he does.

'One breast is sightly larger than the other'

'Your hair is kind of limp'

Self confidence is stripped from the viewer as Mortimer confirms her unfounded disgust at her own image. Make no mistake, Emily Mortimer is beautiful, staggeringly beautiful, but instead of being devastated, Mortimer is relieved. Everything that she knew was true, is true. Except, she's of course wrong.

I love scene's like this; talented actors showing themselves raw, or directors giving you something that you’ve never seen before. They make you remember a scene.

So, Blog pals, post the scenes that have done this to you. The ones that may not have made an impression as you walked out, but somehow stuck long after seeing the movie.

Tammy's Top 20 Movies Circa NOW

My list changes a fair bit year to year since I'm still seeing great movies (new and old) all the time. You may notice that my list skews toward more recent movies. Although I've seen nearly every movie that would be considered a classic (most more than once), none of them really resonated with me all that much - and I certainly wouldn't like to watch them over and over again! Maybe some need another viewing now that I'm older and more likely to appreciate them. Anywho, here's my list!

1. Lost in Translation

2. Manhattan

3. The Departed

4. Pulp Fiction

5. Field of Dreams

6. Pleasantville

7. Lord of the Rings

8. Spirited Away

9. Wonderboys

10. Before Sunset

11. When Harry Met Sally…

12. Volver

13. The Wages of Fear

14. Lone Star

15. Run Lola Run

16. Annie Hall

17. American Beauty

18. Dead Poets Society

19. L.A. Confidential

20. Scream

Jimmy Hinckley's Top 20 Movies Circa February 2005

Former blogger, current blog-reader, and perrenial math wizard Jimmy Hinckley requested that I post his Top 20 Movies list for him, and so here it is:

20. Trainspotting
19. American History X
18. Clerks
17. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
16. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
15. Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope)
14. Goldfinger
13. The Bourne Identity
12. Enter the Dragon
11. Fight Club
10. Aliens
9. The Shining
8. Raiders of the Lost Ark
7. The Matrix
6. The Shawshank Redemption
5. The Silence of the Lambs
4. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
3. Pink Floyd's The Wall
2. Cider House Rules
1. The Lord of the Rings

It's Funny The Way People's Brains Work

Both Mike and PeterJ expressed their feelings about how unnatural it seems to them to have lists of "Top 20 Movies" around, as Tim, Boneman, Tammy and I have done for years now. I personally find it very easy and natural to rank "like things", and in fact I do it all of the time without really thinking about it.

And of course one of the nice aspects of doing it periodically is that you can look back and see where your head (and tastes) were at during various periods of your life. I doubt I'll ever put The Ring on another "Top 20" list, but obviously in February of 2005 I'd seen it fairly recently and it'd really freaked me out! Since a truly scary horror movie is a rare commodity, that was enough (at the time) to allow it to break into the vaunted Top 20. I might never have remembered that, without that list...

Preview: Be Kind Rewind

I dare you not to laugh when "the song" plays, and double dare you not to when you see where it goes.

I can definitely see a similar attitude to parts of writer/director Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, although I suspect it's not going to live up to that film (which Gondry co-wrote with Charlie Kaufman). My hesitation also comes from the fact that Be Kind Rewind is being released at the end of January, which can be a sign it's not going to live up to its trailer; check out the movies in IMDb's list of historical box office openings to see the sort of stuff that's released in the dead of winter.

mikem's Top [grumble] Movies Circa Now-ish

I'm with PeterJ. I certainly couldn't give you a ranked set of top 20 movies without some real serious thought. But here's 10 that would certainly be there, off the top of my head...

• A Clockwork Orange
• Natural Born Killers
• Hackers
• Empire Records
• The Matrix (just the first one)
• The Gods Must Be Crazy
• Weekend At Bernie's
• Lawrence Of Arabia
• The Usual Suspects
• Breakfast At Tiffany's
• When Harry Met Sally

A Clockwork Orange is probably my number one, though.



Yes, I am slightly deranged.

Peter J.'s Top [mumble] Movies Circa Now-ish

Jeez, these guys are organized; I'm not sure I could come up with anything like a top 20 list, especially one that ranks the movies relative to one another. I do have an informal list of films that I'll re-watch, though, and a fairly representative excerpt follows:

• Annie Hall
• The Iron Giant
• Lola rennt (aka Run Lola Run)
• Magnolia
• Citizen Kane
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• La vita è bella (aka Life is Beautiful)
• Contact
• Monty Python and The Holy Grail
• TRON
• Wag the Dog
• 2001: A Space Odyssey

I'm a little surprised at the number of flicks listed on the other two lists that I haven't seen: The African Queen, In the Name of the Father, The Cider House Rules, Fearless, Lone Star, Schindler's List and Wonder Boys. Apocalypse Now and Young Frankenstein would've been on that list until about a month ago; neither cracked the re-watch list per se, although I might check out AN: Redux out of curiosity.

Update: Looks like Kimota94 posted another list while I was writing. Add 12 more movies to my haven't-seen list and one (The Godfather) to the just-seen.

Tim's Top 20 Movies Circa February 2005

Posted on Tim's behalf.

20. In the Mood for Love
19. Days of Heaven
18. Seven Samurai
17. Full Metal Jacket
16. Paths of Glory
15. American Beauty
14. Coup de Tourchon
13. Paris, Texas
12. Citizen Kane
11. Touch of Evil
10. Fearless
9. The General
8. The Godfather
7. Goodfellas
6. Chinatown
5. Le Confessional
4. Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould
3. Nashville
2. The Vanishing
1. Wages of Fear

Boneman8's Top 20 Movies Circa February 2005

I knew I still had my list around..and found it. Depending on the day, my list tends to shuffle somewhat -- at least around the middle. My #1 and #2 have never changed (not even position). Here they are for all to ridicule:

20. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
19. The African Queen
18. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
17. Citizen Kane
16. In the Name of the Father
15. The Cider House Rules
14. Reservoir Dogs
13. The Sixth Sense
12. The Wizard of Oz
11. Planet of the Apes (the original, damn it!)
10. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
9. The Green Mile
8. Spider-Man
7. Spider-Man 2
6. The Shawshank Redemption
5. Forrest Gump
4. Pulp Fiction
3. Airplane!
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
1. Casablanca

I'm sure if I had to make the list according to today, there would be some shuffling involved, with possibly a couple dropping out of the list completely.

Kimota94's Top 20 Movies Circa February 2005

Several of us, including a few of the contributors to this very blog, periodically produce a Top 20 Movies list. These are each person's favourites, not necessarily the films they're holding up as the greatest, or most artistic, or anything judgmental like that (although they certainly might be). And we do them in order, meaning that # 1 is the absolute favourite, # 2 is the next, and so on. We often say that a good criterion for making these selections is imagining that you could only watch one movie for the rest of your life (that's # 1), and then you get to pick another one (# 2), and so on. Or anything else that works.

Anyway, we haven't done it for awhile, but rather than do a new poll now I figured I'd publish my picks from 30 thirty months ago. To be honest, not much has changed for me over that period of time, so today's list probably wouldn't be significantly different (I might bump The Ring out and bring John Carpenter's The Thing back in, after it got bumped from previous lists). I had previously posted this list on my own blog back in November of last year, but since this site's all about movies and TV, I think it belongs here, too! So here they are, from the bottom right up to the top!

20. Best in Show
19. The Ring
18. Dark City
17. Wonder Boys
16. Exotica
15. The Contender
14. Fearless
13. The Matrix
12. Apocalypse Now
11. 12 Monkeys
10. Cider House Rules
9. Schindler's List
8. Young Frankenstein
7. The Day the Earth Stood Still
6. The Sixth Sense
5. Alien
4. Lone Star
3. The Lord of the Rings
2. Citizen Kane
1. Casablanca

I'd encourage others to provide their own list, if they're so inclined. I have Boneman's, Tammy's and Tim's from Feb 2005 which I'd be happy to post, or they could produce a more current one instead. It'd also be great if we got any sort of discussion on this topic going, whether it be debates about inclusions, or questions about why someone put that title so low (or high).

Putting The 'Contribute' Back Into 'Contributor'

Just a mild little dollop of public shaming directed at blog contributors Boneman and cjg to remind them that, while there may in fact be "no I in 'team'", there most definitely is one in 'contributor.'

Love to see some material from you guys one of these days...

The Cut-Throat Business Of Film Review

Ailing film critic Roger Ebert, inspiration to at least a couple of us here, is now in a very public contract battle with Disney, the distributors of his TV program At the Movies With Ebert & Roeper. Roger and Gene Siskel's family own the trademark THUMBS (Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down) that are used to rate the films reviewed on the show, and when Ebert's contract came up for renewal during his convalescence recently, apparently things turned ugly. According to the film critic, when they couldn't initially come to terms, Disney announced that Ebert had demanded the THUMBS removed from the show, when in fact he'd done nothing of the sort. Why oh why do people (or corporations) think it's OK to just make stuff up in these situations, anyway?

You can read the Associated Press report as well as Roger's response here.

TV: John Woo's Once a Thief

1. Mac: Smart as Einstein, legs to die for…
2. Victor: …and her own stun grenades.
3. Mac: The total woman.

Yup, it's been a decade since John Woo's Once a Thief was on the air, but thanks to Showcase Action it lives again. Based on the movie of the same name, it's a likable, campy, funny show that combines noir with martial arts to a Tarantino-esque music soundtrack.

Sandrine Holt and Ivan Sergei play Li Ann and Mac, former thieves/lovers who leave a Chinese "Triad" family known as the Tangs. They're partnered up with disgraced cop—and Li Ann's new fiancé—Victor (Nicholas Lea) to form a team that performs white-hat operations for "The Director" (Jennifer Dale) under the aegis of a mysterious, unnamed government agency. Add in the sadistic senior agent Dobrinsky, spoiled society girl Jackie Janczyk and the decidedly odd assassins/cleaners Murphy and Camier and you've got a stylish action comedy drama that's often just plain weird.

Once a Thief only had a single-season run of 22 episodes, but it's definitely worth checking out. Only the two-part pilot and first episode have aired on Action so far, so it's not too late to get into it. It's shown on a somewhat irregular schedule that I believe is supposed to resemble 7am and 6pm every Saturday and Sunday, but set your PVRs to be sure.

Review: Lone Star - A Perfect Little Movie

Last night Tammy and I had a great time watching John Sayles' mostly-overlooked masterpiece from 1996, Lone Star. For her, I think it was the third or fourth time seeing it; I'm pretty sure I've watched it at least six times by now, in a little over a decade, with the last viewing being sometime within the past year.

The film, which is written, directed and edited by Sayles, is ostensibly a whodunit with the detective work happening forty years after the murder. The story opens with a pair of men unexpectedly coming across a skull, half-buried in a cactus field that had decades earlier served as an army firing range. When the Rio County authorities are called in, one of the first clues to the identity of the deceased that's found is what appears to be a heavily-corroded Sheriff's badge. As you might imagine, that amps up the interest level in the case among the local law enforcement in a heartbeat. As it happens, the area's most infamous Sheriff, Charlie Wade, had "left town suddenly" forty years earlier, making the identification of the body a mere formality: it is, indeed, Wade's remains that are dug out of the ground, pushed up over the years from a burial spot four feet deep. Unless he "hopped the fence, dug down into the dirt on the old firing range, and had a heart attack," current Sheriff Sam Deeds says, then it was murder. Since Sam's father, Buddy Deeds, had been a deputy under Wade, and then was made sheriff after Wade disappeared, Sam can't help but wonder if maybe his recently-deceased parent wasn't responsible for the killing. Not that Wade hadn't made dozens of enemies, with his racist approach to law enforcement in a Texas county largely populated by Mexicans and blacks. But it's the present day Sheriff Deeds' job to find out who killed the man.

That's the setup, and the top layer of Lone Star concerns itself with the murder mystery. I think if I'd been a teenager when I saw it for the first time, that's probably what I would've taken away from it. By the time it's over, you know who killed Charlie Wade, and you know why. And that's about 10% of what Lone Star has to offer the discerning viewer.

This is a film that has so much complexity built into it that I marvel over Sayles' ability to make it all look so easy. Now, I don't mean "complex" as in "hard to follow" or "too cerebral." Rather, Lone Star has exactly as much sophistication as you're willing to take away from it. And in my experience that's pretty rare in movies.

I'm sure I still haven't come close to plumbing its depths yet, because I find new things in it every time I watch it, but here are just some of the additional layers I've noted in it over the years. First, it's a tale about father-son relationships, played out between two generations of Deeds (who we almost never see together), three generations of black Paynes, and even a couple of mother-daughter dynamics that are slyly included for contrast. As is typical of a John Sayles screenplay, none of the relationships are black-and-white; despite there being lots of tension, no one's completely right or unequivocally wrong. And again and again we're reminded of the aching distance between a child's view of their parent and the reality of that parent's life. As just one example, modern day Sheriff Deeds has been carrying around unresolved anger toward his father for an incident twenty years earlier, and only through the course of his investigation does he learn the reason for it. And even then, as much as he may be able to understand why his father did what he did, he still can't really bring himself to forgive him.

Another dimension to the story involves legends, and their relationship to reality. Through the use of flashbacks, as well as stories told by those who were there, we slowly become familiar with the larger-than-life myths of Sheriffs Wade and Deeds (Senior), despite both being dead by the time the story begins. One man recounts a memory from when he was a boy: "I remember Charlie Wade come to my father's hardware store once. I was just a little boy. But I'd heard stories about how he'd shot this one, and he'd shot that one. The man winked at me. I peed my pants."

Before long, via the artful use of flashbacks, we also see the famous Charlie Wade wink, usually preceding the cold-blooded killing of some illegal immigrant or minority who "didn't know his place." With that sort of man holding the area in his iron grip of fear for years, is it any wonder that the exploits of his successor — maybe killer? — took on such epic proportions in the years following Wade's disappearance. In fact, the county is about to unveil a new statue dedicated to Sheriff Buddy Deeds, and his son Sam is expected to speak at the ceremony. Sam thinks his father's reputation is all myth, and seems quietly determined to tarnish the man's name as payback for the falling out they'd had years earlier. Talking to one of Buddy's old friends, Sam says, "People have worked this whole big thing up around my father. If it was built on a crime, they deserve to know. I understand why you might want to believe he couldn't do it" to which the older man replies, "An' I understand why you might want to think he could!"

As each new revelation comes out, though, we discover right along with Sam the truth about ol' Buddy Deeds, and that he was neither the saint that the town remembers him as nor entirely the sinner that Sam took him to be. In fact, he was simply a man, who tried to do the right thing in some difficult situations, and also made some poor choices, like men sometimes do.

If Charlie Wade was a bigot — and he was — then he wasn't alone in Rio County, as that topic's explored again and again in Lone Star. Racism is rampant in the town, as Mexicans, Blacks and Anglos are all crammed together with little in common and no love lost between them. Mexicans make up the majority of the population, but are only just beginning to get any representation in local government as the story begins. The Black population is all gathered in one area — "Darktown" — and has been for as long as anyone can remember. One of the dozen or more subplots involves a young female army private — familiar to Grey's Anatomy viewers as "the Nazi" aka Dr. Bailey — who, after failing a drug test and facing expulsion from her way out of an inner city upbringing, gives a frighteningly-insightful explanation as to why she thinks the white 'authorities' let African-Americans like her into the Army: "Because they got people to fight, y'know, Arabs, yellow people, whatever. Might as well use us."

Meanwhile a group of local parents are meeting to complain to some of the teachers about the curriculum being taught to their children. The whites don't like the more liberal view being presented about how the land was 'settled', while the Hispanic parents want more material representing their own heritage. One of the teachers calmly explains that they're "just trying to present a more complete picture..." prompting a redneck mother to exclaim, "And that's what's got to stop!"

Incidents like that are woven all through Lone Star, with no easy solutions offered up. As Tim always like to note, a hilarious line is delivered as two men discuss the impending marriage between a white man and a black woman. The woman's parents were convinced she must be a lesbian, when she hadn't married by the time she hit thirty. Now they're just relieved to find that she's going to marry a man, whatever his colour, prompting one of the pair to comment, "It's always heart-warming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice!"

And the exquisite dialogue truly provides another layer to the experience, as Sayles' ear for the ring of truth has never been stronger. When one of the characters is describing her reaction following her young husband's death, she says, "When Fernando died, it was so sudden. I kind of went into shock for a while. Then I woke up and... there was the rest of my life and I had no idea what to do with it." At another point, an old Indian who'd known Buddy Deeds in his wild youth is asked to come up with a name from his past, and instead of answering, he simply says, "At my age, you learn a new name, you gotta forget an old one." And Sam's "high-strung" football-obsessed ex-wife, in a wacky cameo by Frances McDormand, describes the extensive — and invasive! — research that an NFL team performs on a potential top draft pick. "They've been going over it for months, with their experts and their computers. Doctors' reports, coaches' evaluations, highlight reels, psychological profiles... Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they collected stool samples on these boys, had them analyzed. All to pick a football player for your squad. Compared to that," she concludes, "what you know about a person when you get married to them doesn't amount to diddly, does it?" And by this point in the proceedings, we understand the implication: not only was she a little crazy when Sam married her, but he'd never really committed to their relationship because he was still in love with someone else. But neither of them had a clue, unlike those NFL scouts and their doctors!

Even considered on purely technical terms, Lone Star employs some amazing scene transitions, especially in key moments where the action moves between the present and the past, and back again. It's not done in an artsy, look-at-how-clever-I-am way, but rather in the manner most likely to go unnoticed unless you happen to watch for it.

Central to the story, and largely ignored up to this point in the review, is a love story interrupted. A pair of teenagers, one Mexican and one white, had their inter-racial romance forbidden by their respective parents. This Romeo and Juliet — Texas-style — allowed their love to be thwarted; but now, many years later, they've met up again, one a widow and the other divorced. Still living under the shadow of their oppressive parents, they're hesitant about rekindling that old flame, and that story forms yet another subplot running through Lone Star. In a scene that threatens to take your breath away if you've connected at all with the characters — if your heart isn't made of stone — one of them says, "So that's it? You're not going to want to be with me anymore?" making the pause before the other person answers seem much, much longer than the five or six seconds it really is.

And those are just a few examples of what's playing out in this amazing film. I haven't even mentioned the acting yet, which features Oscar-worthy performances by Chris Cooper as Sam Deeds, Elizabeth Pena as Pilar Cruz and Kris Kristofferson as Charlie Wade. Each of them is note-perfect in roles that are both demanding and absolutely critical to the story. Even young Matthew McConaughey commands the screen in his few scenes as Sheriff Buddy Deeds. Sayles seems to always get the best out of whoever he casts, and Lone Star is the epitome of that. This film made me a Chris Cooper fan long before most people had ever heard of him.

If you've never seen this film, do yourself a favour and pick it up at your favourite rental location. I call it a "little" movie because it doesn't have any explosions, car chases, or A-list movie stars, not because it's small in stature. As Tammy commented, there isn't a wasted scene in it, and everything — and I mean everything — ties together by the time it's finished. In fact, it's quite simply one of the best films I've ever seen.

Rating: **** (which doesn't do it justice)

Review: Babylon 5: The Lost Is Found (Again)

[This is a re-post of a review from earlier this month on my own blog. I think it deserves another shot at Life... just like many of us!]

We just finished watching Babylon 5: The Lost Tales and all of its extra features. I'm happy to report that it was several hours very well spent! Here are my thoughts, for the few of you out there who might actually care. (And by the way, Spoilers Lie Ahead, if you plan to watch it but just haven't done so yet!)

I really liked both of the stories included in this debut direct-to-DVD offering. If the quality of the writing and acting are indicative of what's to come, then I truly hope we get many, many more of these in the years to come. Tammy commented that each of the two segments seemed like they could've been pretty good episodes of the original series, which is presumably what writer-director (and B5 creator) Straczynski was going for. And it was definitely a good idea to have the two plots intertwine, as JMS did, since it allows you to enjoy each on its own - and the DVD setup makes it possible to watch each separately - while still presenting a complete seventy-minute experience if watched together. I wonder if all future DVDs in the series will stick to that format, or if they'll experiment?

The Lockley story did something that, to the best of my knowledge, JMS had successfully avoided in over 100 episodes (and half a dozen movies), which was to come pretty damned close to proving the existence of God (and all that goes with that). I kept expecting that it would all turn out to be a Technomage trick, since the alternative - that the character in question really was possessed by a demonic power - seemed outside the normal realm of B5 lore. In fact, had anyone other than JMS written the episode in question, I'd have imagined him pulling out what little hair he has left upon hearing about it. So that made it interesting in a way that I hadn't expected. As I'd read in an early review of this story, there was a noticeable lack of station personnel in some of the shots. It's not that there weren't any personnel; just that B5 didn't feel like the hustling, bustling port of call that we'd come to know and love over five seasons. I suspect that they simply didn't have the budget for it, although I always though extras worked for peanuts (you do have to clothe and, in many cases, add prosthetics to them, however, so...) At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised by how much more I enjoyed Lockley's tale than I'd expected to. I'm still not a big Lockley fan, but this didn't hurt in that regard. Now if only we could get a new Susan Ivanova tale sometime soon...

And there's no doubt that I had been more looking forward to seeing President Sheridan and Galen in action, because I liked both characters more than I ever took to Tracy Scoggins' "Ivanova-replacement" role. Happily, the second half of The Lost Tales also delivered, as it worked really well on nearly all levels! Both Sheridan and Galen were perfectly in character, with layers upon layers of (sometimes hidden) motivations evident in their actions. Galen sets the leader of the Alliance down a certain path, and even appears visibly angered when it's not followed, and yet we're left to wonder if perhaps he got exactly the result that he'd hoped for. Sheridan, for his part, is put in a position where a very difficult decision is being asked of him, and yet he chooses to side-step it by taking on an even greater - and more personal - responsibility in its place. That's a beautifully fitting outcome, especially where Bruce Boxleitner's character is concerned, as we'd been treated to four incredible years of personal growth over the final four seasons of the TV series. Sheridan's compassion here, tinged with a willingness to "do the deed" in the future if there really were no other choice, just adds further luster to an already-great fictional leader.

I really only had two complaints about this movie. The first is that no mention whatsoever was made about the resolution of the storyline that Crusade's cancellation left hanging. I mean, sure, we know Earth survived the Drakh attack (perpetrated in the Babylon 5: A Call To Arms TV movie and then continuing through Crusade's aborted run) thanks to various glimpses of the future provided during Babylon 5's tenure, but some sort of acknowledgment of how that happened would've been good, especially considering the inclusion of two of the principles to that story, John Sheridan and Galen. That felt like a missing piece, to me.

And the "beyond the rim" classification of G'Kar and Dr Franklin, made by Lockley, were certainly touching enough, but struck me immediately as being in contradiction to what we already know about the characters. G'Kar, after all, was supposed to be traveling to parts unknown with uber-telepath Lyta Alexander, so what had happened to that relationship in the 9 years between Season 5 and this story? Are we to believe he returned, dumped Lyta and took on the doctor, and then headed back out once again? Also, we'd seen Dr Franklin leave for an important 'Xenobiology' position on Earth at the end of Season 5, and then in the final Babylon 5 episode, "Sleeping in Light" (which takes place 19 years later, or 10 years after this movie), Franklin is seen visiting Garibaldi on Mars, and refers to his vital work that's underway on Earth. So the continuity cop in me says, "Huh?" Yes, I know both actors have died and won't be in any future B5 tales, but the story's still king, isn't it?

But those are minor quibbles with an overwhelmingly favourable experience. At $20, I felt like our money was extremely well-spent, especially considering that I expect to watch it a few more times over the next few years. And I certainly hope my contribution was a drop in the bucket and that sales leave no doubt about how viable future editions would be. JMS was quoted as saying that the series has earned something like half a billion dollars over its lifetime (while costing under $100 million to produce) so clearly there's a big fan base out there. I know there were at least three of them in our house tonight!

When Is Good News Not Necessarily Good News?

Well, one example would be this little nugget over at Blog@Newsarama.
There we learn that maybe the Justice League of America movie will be used as a launch vehicle for various and sundry of DC's woefully under-utilized comic properties - Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are mentioned - which sounds like a good thing. But then we read on to discover that equally likely is the rumour that the film will be fast-tracked to get it out as soon as possible, which - I'm sorry - just doesn't exactly scream

Quality Endeavour

to this jaded fan! Am I just being paranoid? Or have I been burned once too often?

And yes, I originally planned to post this over on my own blog, but loyalty to this motley crew changed my mind, damn it!

Okkervil River - The Stage Names

Bought Okkervil River's The Stage Names last week. It is the fourth cd from a band Matt, Vicki and I had the pleasure of meeting a member of in 2006. On the back of the lyrics booklet, the "With love to" section lists Bridgette Andersen and Shannon Michelle Wisley. Who the hell are they and what does this have to do with movies and TV?



Well, the standout track is something called Savannah Smiles. It's also the name of a movie; in fact, it was Shannon Michelle Wisley's favourite movie - a "feel-good" family film starring a child actor named Bridgette Anderson. Bridgette, as Savannah, runs away with a couple of goofy criminals, finding all the love, attention and adventure that she had never received at home . In non-movie life, Bridgette overdoses 15 years after the film is released and passes away.

Heartening stuff, but again, it was Shannon's favourite movie. Enough that when Shannon, seeking love, attention and adventure, runs away and embarks on an entertainment career, she chooses the name 'Savannah' and commits suicide after achieving a dubious fame.

There are purposely no embedded links to Shannon Michelle Wisley's 'Stage Name'. I'm sure you understand why. On the other hand here is the most excellent of songs

Midnight late last week
My daughter’s diary
Didn’t know what it might be til it was open
I only read one page and then put it away
Talk about your big mistakes
Hey Shan, nice going

Photos show no tears in her eyes
All those pretty years gone by
I just cannot believe one could do that to a child

Shannon just flew down
Four day back in town
She sleeps in, lies around and then she goes out
And then one day she’s gone

What should I have done?
Joe turns the TV on with the lights out

Photos on the wall – She’s my baby
She’s my baby doll
Is she someone I don’t know at all
Is she someone I betrayed
It’s a grey day in the Fall and the radio’s singing down the hall
And I rise to turn it off and all I’m seeing is her face
Age eight.

Question: Text Around Pictures

In my double review post below, I had to insert about 15 blank lines after my pictures to get the text to not do that annoying side wrappy thing it wanted so badly to do. Suggestions for another way to get around this?

TVTMEB

Or better known as TV That Makes Eyes Bleed.

One of the side effects of having a laptop is that you can't control it and the remote at the same time! All too often I find myself immersed in something to look up and ask Ally "what the hell is this crap that you're watching?!"

Tonight it was Army Wives. Oh, yes.. the show is clearly as boring as the title sounds. What's the opposite of good? Oh yea, that's bad. Let's write a show about bad. I guess the byline "from the executive producer of Grey's Anatomy" should have tipped me off.

Maybe I'll actually do a real post about this series sometime, but right now I cannot stand thinking about it any longer. Kim Delaney officially makes me want to cancel my cable.

We've posted a lot of picks over the last month, but what about some pans?

HD Wars

Maybe I should have used the title The Return of the HD DVD. Or perhaps The HD DVD Strikes Back. Meh.

Both Paramount and DreamWorks Animation SKG today announced their backing of HD DVD, which will entail exclusive use of the HD DVD format. The decision will see movies from Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films available in standard definition DVD and HD DVD, exclusively.

via ars technica

Can someone please explain to me why this format war even matters? Are these decisions being made in dark rooms behind layers of cigarette smoke by crooked execs that are trying to kill off both emerging technologies? Is the DVD industry doing the same thing that the car industry did with the original hybrids, doing their damnedest to kill off any appeal for the majority of consumers?

Here's a very next-next-gen idea for you... maybe we should go formatless and just agree on a codec and distribute content electronically. Or perhaps the industry could go with BOTH and allow the consumer to decide! In reality, how much more would it cost to publish in both formats?

Bah, maybe I should just secretly patent a player that handles both and live off of the royalties. Or maybe HD DVD and Blu-ray will both go the way of the laser disk for a better alternative.

Double Review: Knocked Up (2007) + Superbad (2007)

I was fortunate enough to see both of this summer's new Judd Apatow comedies in the same week. Considering how much I enjoyed his former work, 40-year Old Virgin, I was very excited at the promise of this double feature.

First on my docket, Knocked Up features Alison (Grey's Anatomy's very talented Katharine Heigl) as a career woman unintentionally impregnated by the slackalicious, porn website-running Ben (Seth Rogen). The story follows their forced, but sweet attempts at romance and preparations for their newfound responsibility. Alison questions Ben's commitment when he fails to read the baby books or protect her from a minor earthquake (he forgot she was sleeping over that night!). This is one of the most realistic comedies in years, tackling the unpopular subject matter with impressive dedication to balancing rompish humor with down-to-earth sentimentality. You get the sense that somewhere, these people actually exist and you may even know a couple of them. Although every Paul Rudd scene is pure hilarity, some of the jokes fell flat and the plot dragged on toward the end (the film is a meaty 2 hr 15). But all said and done, Knocked Up always had its heart (and head) in the right place.

Superbad continues this streak of people you might know in events you may remember. This time, Apatow goes all the way back to the last days of senior year where Seth and Evan, buddies from before the womb, are worried about college and their chances of getting laid before high school runs its course and they are faced with the unpleasant idea of having no experience for college - when girls might actually sleep with them! This may sound just like the typical teenage movie fodder you have earnestly avoided in the past, but don't stop reading just yet! Superbad has all of the heart of the best of the genre (i.e. The Breakfast Club), a million times more humor, and none of the cheese or contrivances.

The movie is filled with dirty, adult references humor and a lot of sexual humor, the vast majority of which was cracking up the whole theatre ... I guess penis jokes work for everyone.

Some of the scenes are outlandish: one underage nerd (McLovin) is confronted by cops when he attempts to buy alcohol, but proceeds to ride around with them drinking and shooting at things. Although I enjoyed seeing a twist on the standard 'cops are grim-faced bullies' theme, and McLovin certainly McPleases (even if you never see the movie, you will soon know who McLovin is), this was just too much. In fact, the whole section is removed from the plot and tends to drag.

However, when it counts, Superbad recalls a few situations you (or, more likely, someone you know) encountered in your glory days - and treats them with an appreciable honesty and elevated wit.

Apatow has proved that he knows how to take realistic characters and events and transform them into comedic gold; the former is more likely to please a broader crowd, but Superbad is just superfunny.

Knocked Up: ***
Superbad: *** 1/2

Veronica Mars Has Hidden Skills

Earlier, I reported to Matt that Kristen Bell (the late, great lead of Veronica Mars) was rumored to make an appearance on Lost next season. The internet had been aswirl with such hopes after Darlton issued a casting call for Charlotte, a "hot twentysomething who is said to be precocious, loquacious and funny... a very successful academic who also knows how to handle herself in the real world." For those who have never seen the show, that's basically our VM in a nutshell.

But, alas! Such glorious dreams were shattered a couple of weeks ago when KB herself denied the rumors, citing a possible Broadway run as the reason. However, it appears she has found a window in her busy schedule in which to make an appearance on another of TV's most popular cult shows - Heroes!

Little is known about Bell's character except that she is slated for a multi-episode arc and will have ties to Peter, HRG, and Claire. Looks like I might actually have to keep watching :(

Popularity's Relative

Just thought I'd mention that I just got my first full day's worth of Google Analytics data for this site, and couldn't help but compare it to the same for my own blog. Interestingly enough, we got 36 visits here (from unique IP addresses) and I only received 33 at Kimota94's Place. So we're getting some nice traffic levels already!

No more TeeVee tag

In favor of some consistency, I've removed the TeeVee tag (renamed instances to TV), as the TV label in the cloud was larger than the TeeVee label. Heckle away.

Review: John Carpenter's The Thing

My ever-indulgent wife and daughter just finished watching this great film with me. For them, it was probably their second or third viewing; for me, it had to be at least the seventh or eighth time, dating all the way back to seeing it in the theatre in 1982. To say that I love this movie would be putting it mildly.

While I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's a perfect film, it's probably about as close to a perfect horror movie as I've ever seen. The only other candidate for that distinction is the original Alien, by Ridley Scott. Those two classics of the genre tower above the rest, for my money. That's admittedly not a terribly high bar, considering how many awful horror films have been produced, typically dumbed down to a movie-maker's idea of the lowest common denominator in terms of the intelligence of an average teenager. Looked at from that viewpoint, it's amazing we ever get any good scary flicks!

John Carpenter's The Thing, on the other hand, positively challenges its audience to keep up! In fact, I've had people tell me that they didn't enjoy the film because there're too many characters and they can't keep track of who's who. While I can appreciate that complaint - I remember being overwhelmed by trying to follow it all when I saw it for the first time - it's the sort of thing that rewards you more with each subsequent viewing. And to screenplay writer Bill Lancaster's credit, each of the dozen characters who make up the ensemble cast have a very distinct and recognizable personality, rather than just serving as cannon fodder for the beastie.

Another typical complaint about the show, made by folks as esteemed as Roger Ebert, concerns the gore level of many of the transformational scenes. I have to admit that one of the most attractive aspects of this version of the story for me, as compared to the original 1951 Howard Hawkes version (also a favourite of mine), was the originality and courage shown in presenting a truly alien alien! If those scenes make your stomach churn, I've always thought, then good! That's exactly what you'd expect to feel if you ever found yourself in that situation, after all.

Watching The Thing again tonight, I was struck for the first time by just how brilliant and yet utilitarian the opening several minutes of the film really are. The arrival of the not-quite-right dog, pursued by the seemingly-crazy Norwegians, all the way through the trip to the Norwegian outpost and back, serve several important purposes that never really occurred to me until tonight. Sure, it's setting up all of the events that follow, and doing so in an oblique enough manner so as to leave the audience scratching their heads, but it's so much more than that. Revealing the fate of the group that initially unearthed the frozen Thing provides foreshadowing of what's in store for the men that we're just getting to know, as well as making the story circular, in a way. The Norwegians have already had their adventure, and with that opening scene they unintentionally pass the torch to their successors, and it begins once again. That's a pretty clever storytelling trick! And to top it all off, the first of two homages to the Hawkes 1951 version is paid when the Americans review the videotapes retrieved from their neighbours' camp, and we see a circle of men out on the ice, surrounding the buried spacecraft. This is a direct recreation of events from the previous film, and makes this tale feel almost like a sequel, rather than re-make, to 1951's The Thing From Another Planet.

The central appeal of the movie, of course, is trying to figure out who's a Thing, and when they become one. (Much of the discussion after watching it seems to revolve around just that activity.) Since this is, for most of the film, the same activity that the characters themselves are engaged in, it makes for an interesting empathy between viewer and viewee. And, for once in a horror tale, the people in the thick of the terror are at least as smart as the rest of us. We've been trained to expect them to refuse to believe what's happening to them at first - that doesn't happen here - and then to be incapable of doing anything to help themselves, with the notable exception of a hero or two. Fortunately, this is a different kind of deal, and it's all we can do to follow the connections that the characters draw, as they initially fall into mutual distrust, before eventually determining a clever way to rebuild their broken bonds. By the time the group has been winnowed down to four, and they all know they're humans, you can feel the energy between them as they work together to fend off any chance of further contamination. If only they hadn't lost track of Blair along the way...

The second homage to the original version, where a flaming Thing is lit on fire, bursts through the outpost's door and races out onto the snow, still gives me shivers every time I see it. More than anything else, though, it reminds me of just how much more depth there is to this film. The original Joseph Campbell short story, Who Goes There?, upon which both movies are based, is much closer in tone to the remake than the original. In Campbell's ahead-of-its-time yarn, the difficult question of "Who can you trust?" takes on a more diabolical importance than readers were used to at that time. Carpenter's version perfectly captures that aspect, which was largely ignored in Hawkes' more conventional take.

One of the best lines to be found in John Carpenter's The Thing occurs when Palmer, upon seeing Norris' upside-down head, running away on spidery legs, absolutely deadpans: "You've got to be fucking kidding!" That scene immediately follows the most memorable image for many, which is that of the doctor trying to defibulate Norris after an apparent heart attack. Those who've seen it will probably never forget the sight of Norris's chest levering open to reveal a giant set of teeth, with which the creature chomps off the doctor's arms just below the elbows! Amazingly graphic stuff!

While scenes like the one described above will probably make it impossible for some people to enjoy John Carpenter's The Thing, for me it's one of the greatest examples of its genre. From the opening, bone-chilling musical tones, through to the intentionally-ambiguous ending that challenges you to draw your own conclusion, there's just not an off-note to be found. I say that after eight or so viewings, over the span of a quarter of a century. And that sort of thing doesn't happen very often in my experience.

Rating: ****

Review: Stardust

The Family Three headed out to see Stardust last night, and what follows are my thoughts on it. Perhaps Tammy will supply her own take on the film at some point. (Depending on your definition of such things, Spoilers may follow.)

There's always a challenge - for me, anyway - in evaluating a movie that's based on something that I'm already familiar with. Clearly, a huge part of the success of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy came from his ability to satisfy not only the newcomers who came to the theatre having had little or no experience with the books - myself included - but also the Tolkien enthusiasts who were almost certainly expecting to find the adaptation lacking. It was interesting to me that, with each successive film, the amount of time the fans spent talking about what was missing or changed decreased in lockstep with their appreciation for the job that Jackson had done in distilling the spirit of each book into a mere three (or four) hours of thrilling story. For that reason, I think The Lord of the Rings, regarded collectively as a twelve-ish hour masterpiece, stands as one of the greatest movie adaptations ever, in terms of the complexity of the source material and its success with fans and non-fans alike.

Adapting Stardust, the graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, represents something of a similarly daunting task. While nowhere nearly as deep or as long as The Lord of the Rings, the tale of Tristan and Yvaine, in its own way, embodies the antithesis of what you'd expect to find in a typical film. For example, the division between reality and fantasy appears at first glance to be simply the low stone barrier that separates the village of Wall from whatever lies beyond its namesake. And yet there's less difference between the two than you might think, as author Gaiman makes clear in his text. He certainly wasn't writing the classic "down the rabbit hole / over the rainbow / into the wardrobe" story in which everything changes upon passage from one realm to another. Instead, he was juxtaposing the two more closely than that, and perhaps suggesting that a hundred and fifty years ago, they were more intertwined than separate. And how do you convey a message as subtle as that in a film? (In this case, I'd say they didn't.)

Similarly, the love story within the graphic novel doesn't really bloom until its final pages, when the hero finally, unquestionably understands that it's Yvaine he loves, and not Victoria. Until that point, he's rather singularly followed his original quest, which was the retrieval of the fallen star and presentation of it to the object of his desire. We, the readers, appreciate the folly of his path, both in terms of the unlikelihood of its success and the worthlessness of its achievement, but Tristan is achingly unaware of these things right up until the end. That sort of delayed gratification is out-of-step with today's movie audiences, and so, not surprisingly, the decision was made to speed along the romance and even show its consummation prior to the story's conclusion.

And there are other impediments that resulted in significant changes upon moving to film: almost the first quarter of the original story concerns the misadventures of the eventual father of the hero, delaying the central character's arrival well beyond what one would normally expect; for all of his innate goodness, Tristan just isn't the brightest bulb in the pack, and at times is as likely to stumble onto a solution as he is to divine it; and so on. In each case, what showed up on celluloid was more standard fare, losing some of the charm of the graphic novel, for those who knew it.

So as I sat in the theatre watching Stardust, the movie, play out before my eyes, I was trying not to compare it to the source material that I knew so well. Instead, I wanted to regard it as a standalone tale, and like, love or loathe it as such. Since I was in the company of two women who had never read the original, I was also taking some of my cues from how they reacted to it.

Most jarring, for me, was the "amping up" of the Captain Shakespeare character, as portrayed by Robert DeNiro. Transforming him into an overt homosexual/transvestite, while delivering lots in the way of comic relief, felt very un-Gaiman-like, as well as several times more over-the-top than just about anything else in the production. I'm not convinced that anything was added to the experience by that change, and it seemed to push the movie into silly territory, rather than being funny.

Other than DeNiro's scenery-chewing, the acting was uniformly good throughout. Michelle Pfeiffer, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for allowing herself to be made to look as ugly as she did. Charlie Cox and Claire Danes were both believable in their evolving relationship, which is obviously critical to a central romance. No one really "wowed" me among the cast, but that's OK when everyone's doing their job.

In the end, I think that Stardust's a very good movie, but not a great one. It captured a lot of the humour, adventure and compassion of Gaiman and Vess's superior work, but missed the mark as far as tightness of plot is concerned. One of the hallmarks of a Neil Gaiman story is that virtually nothing is thrown away. The most casual piece of dialogue or plot development magically ends up having some greater significance by the time you close the book for the last time, and even knowing that about him, he still catches you off guard more often than not. In the film, the places where part of his idea was retained but not all of it stood out like sore thumbs. The spell that the witch queen puts on Madame Semele, making it impossible for Semele to see the star, for example, has essentially no payoff in the film, whereas in the original story it was pivotal to saving Yvaine at one point. Simiarly, the burning of Tristan's hand provided a means for the two leads to form a stronger bond, almost none of which made it into the adaptation. And the unicorn, so important to several events in the novel, seems completely inexplicable in its existence (and lacking in closure as far as its eventual fate) in the film version. Those are just three examples among many, but they're the sorts of moments that resonate with a reader; I can't help but wonder if their absence still allowed for as magical a movie-going experience. Or, put another way, is 50 - 60% of Neil Gaiman's genius still worth seeing? I think it definitely is; it just could've been so much better.

Rating: ***

The Comic Genius Of Bob Newhart

As a purely serendipitous happening, one of our channel surfing expeditions while in Chicago landed us on an extended biography of the career of comedian Bob Newhart. Fans of the funnyman know that he comes from the Windy City, and yet this seemed to be a national, rather than local, broadcast. Just a lucky coincidence, I guess.

I was a fairly devoted fan of the 1970s sitcom, the Bob Newhart Show, in which he played psychologist Bob Hartley. Being a pre-teen and then teenager during its run, the wacky patients that Bob was visited by each week were probably the biggest draw for me at the time. Years later, watching it in re-runs, I loved the satire that they worked into each show, as well as the marriage-of-equals that existed between Bob and Emily. Most sitcoms, then and now, tend to portray the husband as the butt of all jokes, and the wife as long-suffering, or possibly just window dressing. Here, for once, was a loving couple whose lives didn't revolve around children - they'd chosen not to have any - and who respected each other, for all that they might spar from time to time.

When Newhart launched in 1982, this time serving up Bob as a Vermont innkeeper, I was less devoted to the show. I've probably seen most of the episodes, but I tended to drift in and out from season to season, depending on how interesting the supporting cast proved to be. Certainly, if nothing else is remembered from its 7-year run, Newhart's provided at least two sublimely hilarious additions to the TV sitcom annals: "Hi, I'm Larry, and this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl" and the final scene from the series.

For anyone who's managed to never hear the story before, Newhart closed out its run with an episode in which innkeeper Newhart and his wife, played by Mary Frann, decided to sell their property to a set of Japanese investors. It seemed as though everything had wrapped up quite nicely, and then the show returned from its final commercial break, to a darkened set. A bedroom light was turned on, and the studio audience - along with the viewing public - gasped upon realizing that Bob was in bed with Emily once more (a frequently-used setting from the previous Bob Newhart Show)! Bob proceeded to wake Emily up to tell her about the crazy dream he had just had, in which he'd been running a Vermont inn, hired a handyman who never seemed to make any sense, and had to deal with these three strange brothers... Poking fun at the then-current events of Dallas, in which one season was completely obliterated by use of an "it was just a dream!" opening, Newhart and his writing staff bottled all of their most recent adventures into a framing sequence supplied by the earlier show. Pure genius!

As was noted in the biography, the notion of a stand up comedian having not one but two hit TV series, each lasting a half dozen seasons or more, was unheard of at the time. (And we tend to forget that he started off doing stand up, with a debut album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, not only winning the Album of the Year Grammy in 1961, but also outselling Elvis Presley!)

While he never made the big splash on the silver screen that he's made on TV, several generations of movie-goers have come to know Newhart as the people-averse Major Major in Catch-22 as well as Papa Elf (to Will Farrell) in Elf.

And throughout his career, which has included at least five TV shows and several decades of touring, Newhart has consistently refused to 'dirty up' his material. Vicki was considerate enough to get us tickets to see him years ago when he appeared locally, and his act was hilarious without being in the least bit offensive. That's a pretty good to pull off (just ask Michael Richards)!

Star Gazing

During our two days at the Wizard World Comic Convention in Chicago last weekend, in addition to briefly getting to see Tricia Helfer, star of the current Battlestar Galactica TV series, we also caught a glimpse of Michael Madsen (shown here), the infamous "Mr Blond" from Reservoir Dogs. Why was big screen tough guy Madsen at a gathering mainly devoted to comic book and science fiction geekitude, you rightly ask? Apparently he's acting as consultant on a new comic series of some sort. Haven't you heard? Comics are cool right now. No, really, they are. Just ask anyone.

TV: Namaste Yoga

I fear being called a Dirty Old Man. It means I've aged and the eye is still wandering.

But geez, I've found the new version of the 20 Minute Workout. It's not that the moving lad magazine of the 80s was good or watchable, but as far as making an exercise show almost NC-17, it was one of the first. Which bring me to Namaste TV. I follow along with Lily, Koralee, Erin and Evangeline for exercise purposes, learning new poses and harder variations of old ones. Yoga keeps my back aligned, my fitness level up and balances my Karma. However, a show with a tag line of 'Gentle, Flowing, Sensual' is the equivalent of that big haired, pout-fest from the 80s. I'm not a dirty old man. I'm not, damnit, but hold that pose Koralee.

6:30 am weekends on the City TV stations if you feel like following along too.

Say, aren't you...

Stretching the mandate of the blog once again, I've recently met two people who remind me strongly of movie and TV actresses.

First is London singer-songwriter Karla Rexer, who I initially (and still) think could be Rosalita Whyte's twin. When I saw her the other night, though, I realized that there's another striking similarity, which Matt will appreciate: she's got the same crooked smile as Tina Fey. (Who, by the way, wrote the script for Mean Girls, a movie which featured London-born actress Rachel McAdams, who I once met walking along Queen Street West in Toronto while I was there to see Lenni perform and stupidly didn't think to invite to the show.)

(Whew, all the name-dropping and run-on-sentencing has tired me out!)

Second, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, I met Holly Rancher this evening. It doesn't quite come out in this picture, but she could easily have doubled for Kirsten Dunst in the Spider-Man flicks.

Review: Weeds (Season 3 teaser)

Hi, my name is Mike and I'm addicted to Weeds.


Croptop takes credit for introducing me to the show. I had never heard of it, but he spoke so highly of the show that Ally and I decided to catch up on it during the summer void last year. We were hooked right away.

Weeds is one of those shows where you could watch a handful of episodes in a given sitting and then watch them again. The one thing I'll hold against the show is that the episodes are disappointingly short, just shy of 30mins long w/o commercials. Likewise, the seasons are short, only about a dozen episodes each. Sure, it's quality over quantity - I just want more quantity of the same quality! Aside from that, the writing is top notch, the dialog is very edgy, the characters are engaging, the story is completely off the wall, and the show has one of the best opening credit sequences I've ever seen in a series.

Mary Louise Parker (drool) does a great job as the leading lady. Sure, sex sells, and her ba-donk-a-donk certainly doesn't hurt the show. Her acting is great, too... she seems to have a great sense of timing. Yea, timing. :)


(sorry, i couldn't resist posting the above photo once i found it)

But, IMO, Weeds really marks a comeback for Kevin Nealon, as I think he steals a lot of the show. I heard somewhere that Nealon refuses to let his family watch - he doesn't want them to see his character. Ha! There's an outrageous scene in season 3 where Nealon and one of his friends challenge each others' manhood and... well.. you just have to watch it. I guess I wouldn't want my family to see that, either!

It looks like Showcase has offset Weeds to the fall lineup from Showtime, which has just started airing the third season. Bummer! The first four episodes of Season 3 have been leaked online. Seasons 1 and two are there as well... but also available on DVD. The cliffhanger ending to season 2 is possibly one of the best season finales that I've ever seen - ever.

Rating: *** 1/2

It looks like Season 3 is going to be on par with 1 and 2! Now there's some real danger that it could fall short - one of the Olson twins has been cast to play Silas' girlfriend at some point this season. We'll see how that goes... *have faith in the writers*have faith in the writers*

Oh c'mon, you know you want some... maybe just a little? Once you start, you might not be able to stop.

Label clouds are cloudy!

You might notice that I've made a small tweak to our template in response to the prior post about formatting and tags. The Labels widget is now a Label Cloud widget, courtesy phydeaux3.

The formatting for this can be changed to show all labels (current configuration), labels with a given number of posts or greater, a limited number of labels, etc.

It was a simple edit to make (likewise simple to undo) ... whaddya think?

Dear Harvard

My friend Claire Jenkins has placed three songs from her upcoming album, Crow's Nest/Nid de Pie, in the pilot of a program called Dear Harvard. According to sources it's “a riches to rags drama about a privileged New York high school girl whose life falls apart when her father is arrested for insider trading.” I haven't been able to find much more online except for casting notices, a note that Danny Gerber will play Carter, and the information that it's being executive produced by Anne Jarmain. I'd guess a network like CW is the likely target... and it just so happens there's a Veronica Mars-sized hole in their schedule....

Speaking of CW, a few months ago I sang with—okay, near—Claire and James Carrington, whose song Ache appeared in a sixth-season episode of Smallville titled Noir. You can't hear the result yet, though; that's not because the song is on Claire's unreleased CD, but because it's on Lenni Jabour's! Until you can listen for yourselves, remember: don't go hustling people strange to you, even if you do got a two-piece custom-made pool cue.

Make With The Cross-Promotion, People!

I'd love to see those of us who have another blog maybe, I don't know, mention The Studio Has Some Notes there? Perhaps add it to your list of links (if your blog supports such features) or even give it the proverbial "push" via a special post on it? You never know who'll land on your personal weblog and possibly follow a reference right over to here, so why not at least give it a try?

I've already taken care of both of those suggestions on my blog... and I'm on the road!

Formatting Note: Tags

We might want to consider slimming down the breadth of tagging we do. Just thinking if we continue on this pace of tagging directors, titles, and more than one category we'll likely soon have a list that can't fit on our main page! Thoughts?

Review: Ugly Betty, Season 1 (2006-2007)

Ally and I have a new tradition of spending the summer catching up on a full season (or two) of a series that we haven't watched throughout the year, but wanted to. Thanks to bitmetv, we've been able to do this for a number of TV series. Last year it was Corner Gas and Weeds during the summer, with Lost in the winter. This summer, we've spent time catching up on Ugly Betty.

In a City Slickers meets She's All That meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding kind of way, Ugly Betty is a clear fish-out-of-water story where we follow Betty (America Ferrera) as she navigates her way through the saucy New York fashion magazine scene. The premise of the show itself is kind of thin; Betty is hired as assistant to notorious playboy Daniel Meade by his father Bradford, so that Daniel isn't tempted to sleep with his new assistant at the chic and hip Mode magazine in New York. I can almost hear the sighs in the boardroom during the pitch right now!

The geek in Betty is probably how I relate best to the show, but maybe that's one of the things that this show does best - it is very easy to relate to. I mean, who hasn't ever felt out of place before? Ugly Betty tries to go after them all... fashion, body image, sexual orientation, cultural background, etc. The show probably isn't for everyone, though, as I suppose I've absorbed some culture references (through Ally) that help me understand some of the quips in the show. The dialogue can be fast and sharp (in a Sorkin-esque sort of way) but remains easy to follow at all times. "You can't just come back from the dead" someone says, to which Wilhelmina (played fantastically by Vanessa Williams) responds "sure you can, Donna Karan does it all the time". Ohhh, snap!

While the cast of the show itself is very strong and carries great chemistry, I think that the writers are going to have to work hard to keep the series fresh in the future as the whole fish-out-of-water/ugly-duckling formula can become a little tiresome after a while. The mid-season addition of Rebecca Romijn certainly didn't hurt the show (wink, wink), but there's only so many times you can play that card. One thing remains clear, though - amongst the sea of superficial beauties, Betty is able to turn ugly into the new beautiful.

Rating: ***

Movie scripts

Dave Shea has found a number of typography + motion experiments on YouTube and elsewhere. Of the whole set that Dave links to I think the two movie clips are my favourites, because they're not just about making the words move, they're about telling the story with the type. (Note that the Brazil one isn't related to the movie, which is disappointing; I'm sure there's a "What does Marsellus Wallace look like?" scene that could be re-visualized to good effect.)

Curious Peter

For some reason I may never divine, today TVWish decided that I wanted to watch Curious George. Not the 2006 Will Ferrell movie—that I could almost understand—but the kids show narrated by William H. Macy. And not just one episode, but the four that were on at various times today and three more upcoming occurrences.

Maybe it's because I just added Ingmar Bergman to my wishlist? Yeah, that's probably it.