It’s a bittersweet symphony, this life

 

“You were very much in love with her. And you're still in love with her. But it amused me to make you ashamed of it. You gave up on the first person you ever loved because I threatened your reputation. Don't you get it? You're just a toy, Sebastian. A little toy I like to play with. And now you've completely blown it with her. I think it's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

So, I assume you've come here to make arrangements. But unfortunately, I don't fuck losers.”

Fifteen years ago, I was a junior in high school. My sister and I decided to go to the movies together. She wanted to see The Rage: Carrie 2. I, being a brand new fan of a television show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was dying to see Cruel Intentions.

We saw both.

We both agreed my taste was, at least in the moment, impeccable.

In fifteen years, this movie has never once been bumped from my top five list. I’ve watched it repeatedly, sometimes multiple times in one sitting. After it came out on VHS (yes, I said VHS), I brought it with me to sleepovers and made friends watch and fall in love with these amazing characters.

              

Sebastian, the damaged bad boy you couldn’t help but love. Celeste, who I think we were supposed to root for, but whose torture I could never get enough of. Ronald, the poor shmuck who got caught in the tangled cluster fuck that was Sebastian versus Catherine. The soundtrack, which is flawless.

I cared little for Annette. She was a goody two shoes, better than thou pretentious twit. But the scene where she makes faces in the car and makes Sebastian laugh was a regular rewind scene that always cracked me up.

And there was Catherine.

Catherine Merteuil. Ice princess. All around Queen Bitch. And I loved her desperately. I loved her at her best, and I worshipped her at her worst. I wanted her life. Her ice blue bedroom, her impeccable wardrobe.

That crucifix.

This movie will never get old for me. And if seeing it in theaters fifteen years ago makes me old, I’m good with it.

Peace out.

(Gifs from Fuck Yeah, Cruel Intentions on Tumblr)

What Do You Mean, You Haven’t Seen…

Forgive my extended absence from the blog. I really haven’t got a good excuse. Since my last update, wondrous things have happened, not least of which were The Hunger Games, Avengers, Catching Fire, The Conjuring. I would’ve liked to shriek with joy about Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and grit my teeth in irritation at the annoyance of my Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s wasted voice in Dracula.

But no. I’m a lazy cow, and have let the blog go to waste. Time to wake back up, dust off the cobwebs, and see if I can’t use my brain once more.

I could make an entire blog series titled, “What do you mean, you haven’t seen ____?” I’ve been scolded repeatedly for my lack of television watching when it comes to the Big Fandoms. See my previous entries regarding Lost and Battlestar Galactica (still haven’t seen the final season). The two major ones, naturally, are Doctor Who and Game of Thrones.

The former is fandom the likes of Buffy back in the day (and to an extent, to this day), so I understand the gasps of horror when it’s discovered that I don’t know which Doctor is which, and when I hear companions, I think Inara, not Rose, Donna, or…those other people. My knowledge is shaky at best. The facts I could state before attempting any watching:

1. There’s a big blue box that they travel in. It is called a Tardis.

2. There’s weird mechanical things called Daleks, that say things like “Exterminate”. Also something about tea, though I think that’s a fandom thing, not a show thing.

3. David Tennant is one of the doctors, and he is very pretty.

4. You are not supposed to abbreviate Doctor.

5. Angels are bad.

6. Fans cry and scream a lot.

Number six is kind of a gimme. Every good fandom is prone to crying and screaming.

Christmas of last year, I made a promise to my friends that I would attempt to watch something of Doctor Who. I never gave it a proper shot because from what I’ve gathered, this show has been around since the 60’s, there’s multiple incarnations of the Doctor, multiple season ones, and that is just a level of fandom I am unprepared for.

“Watch Blink,” they said. “You’ll like it,” they said.

An hour’s worth of screaming later, I decided to give it a shot.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 20 Years

Twenty years.

Twenty years ago, I was 10 years old. In fact, I was 10 years and five days old.

I didn’t see the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer until after it came out on cable. I know, it’s a shocker. I’m so up to date on movies, how can this possibly be?

The first time I watched it, I was immediately in love. I loved Buffy. I really loved Pike. I loved Merrick (the first time I loved Donald Sutherland, certainly not the last). I loved Pee Wee the Vampire. There was no bad for me.

And it was the one and only time in her entire career I liked Hilary Swank.

One girl in all the world. Sure, she had to put up with unsightly birth marks, and extremely painful crampy radar, but she was a badass. My love for acrobatics in movies started early, so all of her tumbling and cartwheeling was some of my favorite bits.

And she was funny! I quoted that movie so much, my friends threatened physical violence.

“I have no sense of history?! He wears a brown tie!”

“Does Elvis talk to you? Does he tell you to do things? Do you see spots?”

“We’re immortal, Buffy. We can do anything!” “Oh, yeah? Clap.”

Yeah, I was a very, very big fan of the show.

Which is why, five years later, when the WB announced a television show was going to premiere, based on this movie, my answer was a big, fat, resounding oh hay-ell, no.

It took about two years for me to give it a shot, and realize I was a moron. And in the twelve or so years I’ve been a fan of the television show, I’ve come to realize that the opinion regarding the movie is extreme. Most people hate it. With a firey passion.

I still love it. Unironically, in fact. I acknowledge that Joss hated it, and in comparison with the TV show, it is pretty awful. But it doesn’t stop me from loving the ever holy hell out of it.

I’ve been a fan of Buffy, in one form or the other, for 20 years now.

Yes. I feel awfully old. But it’s a proud old.

Side note: I told my niece we were watching something very important tonight, for the sole reason that as of today, it’s been out 20 years.

As I was putting it in, I said, “This is the movie that started it all.”

“…is that the name of it?”

 

And lastly, here’s a picture of Seth Green from a deleted scene. Dorky vamp FTW.

Guest Blog: Love is All Around

I recently finished a rewatch of all seven seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

I love that show. That and Dick Van Dyke were two of my favorite situation comedies on Nick at Nite growing up. I love Mary Tyler Moore, both as Laura Petrie and Mary Richards.

When watching the episodes, I knew I wanted to blog about it. I even started collecting pictures.

But as we all know, I have become The Missing Blogger, and I suck. However. My friend Meltha, who is as smart as she is funny, is also a big fan of the show, and I asked her to write something up for me.

She sweetly obliged. Her thoughtful and intelligent blog post can be found under the cut.

Movie weekend - Based on a True Story

I’m a bit rusty when it comes to blogging.

It’s just been too long since I updated regularly. Sad, considering I saw the two best movies of the year (decade), The Hunger Games and The Avengers in their opening weekends, loved them enough to shriek about them, and yet.

The entries are coming. Probably next year. Le sigh.

But in order to exercise my blogging muscles, let’s have an entry about the movies I’ve watched this weekend. Some newish, one older. I just finished the book Based on a True Story, which takes movies famously based on a true story, and dissects them. It added a rather large amount of movies to my must-see list, including the first one under the cut.

Without meaning to, the following three movies are all based on true (or could-be-true) events. It was an accident, but a happy one.

If nothing else, this entry may reawaken my love to ramble.

Lost

So, I have a list of shows I won’t watch, for one reason or another. Glee, is, as previously mentioned, high on the list. But another has always been Lost.

I don’t really know why I refused to watch it. It just honestly never interested me. Plane crash. Desert island. Okay. Gilligan’s Island without the wacky 60’s vibe?

However, I have a show that I demand people watch. At every available instant, I angrily insist that they are awful people for not watching Leverage. Awful. And stupid.

My friend Meltha is neither awful, nor stupid. And she and I worked out a deal, wherein she would watch my Leverage, if I would watch Lost.

Meltha has been converted, she is an official Grifter. So, that meant it was my turn to fulfill my end of the bargain. My librarian slid the DVD over the counter at me, and I headdesked. She offered to take it back, and I just smacked my hand onto it and said it was fine.

Over the course of the last many months, I’ve watched seasons 1 through 6 of Lost. At first, I intended to write an entry for each season, much like I did with Battlestar Galactica. But considering my lack of blog postings, I figured that wasn’t a good try. And considering that Lost is a very interwoven show, it was probably best to do all of them at once.

As of about 10 minutes ago, I’ve finished Lost. My thoughts below the cut.

Audience Participation: Coworker Education

I consider myself a pop culture buff. I love talking about pop movies and television shows, finding out random bits of knowledge that no one ever needs to truly know. I excel at the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game.

But I’m not a very good pop culture buff. For an example of a good one, please see RyAn. What I like, I really genuinely like, and what I feel too snobby to watch, I don’t bother with until friends strong arm me into it. See my future entry about Lost.

I am not above imposing my beliefs on others, though. Thus leading to the Great Coworker Movie Education of 2012.

A week or so ago, I discovered that my coworker, who we shall herein refer to as Tiffany, hadn’t seen the original Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My question, quite naturally, was “Who raised you?!”Further discussion on the topic led to the fact that she had never seen Mommy Dearest. What? No more wire hangers? Tina, bring me the axe? This is insane.

Thus, she is being indoctrinated in the “Bunny will ensure I watch every movie she finds important” club. So far, only TBF and the niece are members.

What she has seen thus far:

Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Mommy Dearest

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Clue

Boondock Saints

Mmm.

Future titles will include:

Across the Universe

Donnie Darko

(500) Days of Summer

Party Monster

The Labyrinth

She’s seen quite a few that I consider crucial, Fried Green Tomatoes, Mean Girls, A League of Their Own, Bring it On, Moulin Rouge, The Neverending Story. But I’m not sure I can trust someone who hasn’t seen Mommy Dearest to have seen the important movies.

So I am now taking suggestions for movies that she must see. It is our duty and our responsibility to help the uneducated of the world.

No one's coming back from that

I have not blogged in a very long time.

Understatement? Possible. In my defense, I have three partially written blog posts raring to go, including one for Hunger Games that is yanking at the bit, growling at me for not releasing it to play.

You can thank RyAn for getting me out to play. He pointed me in the direction of Nathan's Hit Me With Your Best Shot series, which invites readers to post their favorite shot from the chosen movie. Seeing as how this chosen film was Serenity, it was highly unlikely I wouldn't come out of hibernation to make my voice heard.

I made a rather haughty statement on Twitter that I didn't need to rewatch the movie to pick my favorite shot, I knew it already. As Ry so accurately pointed out, one doesn't need a reason to rewatch the movie. He is naturally right, as I've just popped the DVD in to go to this specific scene to get a good feel while I type this hurriedly, as some of us have work in the morning.

Usually when I do something Ry has done before, he does it better than me. And while I agree that his choice of favorite shots is superb, I have to make a loud angry honking sound at how wrong he is. While he also chose a shot featuring River (or, at least, a part of her), it is nowhere near the best shot of the movie.

I saw Serenity twice in theaters, by the way. It chose a very inconvenient time to come out. September 30, 2005. Inconvenient because Hurricane Katrina hit at the end of August 2005, rendering the movie theater in my hometown of Slidell, LA fairly useless. I drove 30 minutes to see this movie. Then another inconvenience, my car being smashed into and being rendered fairly undrivable.

So much of the movie has stayed with me over the years. But more than anything was a single image, one that I even had as a Livejournal icon. Remember when livejournal was cool? I'm old.

I hope that in the short time I've been doing this blog, it's become apparent that I have a very deep affinity for strong female characters. You rarely get stronger than this. The doors opening on a partially lit River Tam, standing over dead Reavers with blood streaked weapons.

The battle scene that precedes it is amazing in its own right. Just the sight of her being dragged away by Reavers as the doors shut is powerful. Then the slow motion-sped up scene of her effortlessly killing the mentally damaged Reavers. Summer Glau's amazing ballet skills have never been put to better use.

The look on her face afterwards says it all. Yes, Jayne is a girl's name. Yes, Mal is latin for bad, and yes, your bible is full of false logistics. Do you have a problem with that? Because nothing in the 'verse can stop me.

And when I said I could kill you with my brain? You should have listened.

Yeah? You and whose army?

Deathly Hallows, Part 2. The end of a fandom era.

Reading Deathly Hollows was a swift blow. Tears and laughter and joy and all the more tears. No more books. But we still had the movies left to enjoy.

And now it’s done. The last movie has been released, and short of locking JK Rowling in a cellar and making her write more (and believe me, we all have ideas), there will be no new Harry Potter.

It’s sad. And it may explain why I cried more during this movie than I have at some funerals I’ve attended.

Many people, including TBF’s hubs, have said they were disappointed by the film. They expected more. I am rewatching the film as I write this (which accounts for the horrendous cam-quality pictures I’ll be interspersing throughout the entry), but I cannot see anything in this film that would cause me to be grossly disappointed in it. The bits that were left out were for obvious reasons, and what I was annoyed about most pales in comparison to what I loved.

So, let’s begin.

RIP Amy Winehouse

All I can ever be to you,
Is a darkness that we knew,
And this regret I've got accustomed to,
Once it was so right,
When we were at our high,
Waiting for you in the hotel at night,
I knew I hadn't met my match,
But every moment we could snatch,
I don't know why I got so attached,
It's my responsibility,
And you don't owe nothing to me,
But to walk away I have no capacity

He walks away,
The sun goes down,
He takes the day but I'm grown,
And there's no way, in this blue shape,
My tears dry on their own,

I don't understand,
Why do I stress a man,
When there's so many bigger things at hand,
We could a never had it all,
We had to hit a wall,
So this is inevitable withdrawal,
Even if I stop wanting you,
A perspective pushes true,
I'll be some next man's other woman soon,

I shouldn't play myself again,
I should just be my own best friend,
Not fuck myself in the head with stupid men,

So we are history,
Your shadow covers me
The sky above,
A blaze only that lovers see

I wish I could say no regrets,
And no emotional debts,
Cause as we kiss goodbye the sun sets
So we are history,
The shadow covers me,
The sky above a blaze that only lovers see,

He walks away,
The sun goes down,
He takes the day but I'm grown,
And in no way,
In my deep shape
My tears dry

RIP Amy Winehouse. You were too talented and too smart. I looked forward to your next album, and I'm horribly sad I'll never hear a new song by you.

Pre-Potter

Yesterday I worked early at the boring job so I could see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the evening with TBF, her hubs, and a friend of ours from high school (who should have a better title, but that’s what he gets).

This was me before, at work all day:

This was me during and after:

If there’s one thing you should know about me, I take my time on blog entries, so the Deathly Hallows entry isn’t done cooking yet.

I do, however, have thoughts on the trailers pre-Potter.

Birthday Girl (Writer)

If Joss Whedon is the King of TV Writing, Jane Espenson is the Queen.

Sharp and witty, with such deep heart and sincerity, her writing is always deeply felt, and can pull the heart strings and punch the tear ducts.

Jane has had her fingers in so many scripts from my favorite shows. Anytime she’s involved in something, I sit up straighter, because I know she’s going to give me beauty.

Most importantly, it’s thanks to her Twitter Writing Sprints that most of my blog entries get written. Yes, blame Jane Espenson.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode 5x12 - Checkpoint

“I’m fairly certain I said no interruptions.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode 3x18 - Earshot

“My life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it. Sometimes more than I can handle. And it's not just mine. Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own. The beautiful ones. The popular ones. The guys that pick on you. Everyone. If you could hear what they were feeling. The loneliness. The confusion. It looks quiet down there. It's not. It's deafening.”

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Episode 3x06 - Band Candy

“Oooh... Copper's got a gun.”

And my newest fandom, which I got into solely so that I could watch Caprica, a show helmed by the lady herself.

Battlestar Galactica Episode 3x10 - The Passage

“What you did was harder than facing a bullet. And you did it without putting one other soul in harm's way. Don't know if I could've done that. I wish there something more that I could give you.”

Forcing myself to stop with just these. See her IMBD page for all of my other favorites. Seriously.

We love you, Jane. Have an amazing birthday.

Bloglet: Traumatizing Childhood Movies

I thoroughly enjoy watching movies from my childhood.

I was an 80’s kid, and I lapped up all of the great 80’s movies. Including ones I never should’ve watched at that age (Sixteen Candles, anyone?)

There are some truly traumatizing children’s movies. I mean, have you seen Old Yeller? Bambi? Even E.T., with it’s cute short little alien with the extendable neck. Go re-watch the scene where he’s white and dying. Last time I managed to make it to that part, I was sobbing so hard I was hyperventilating. That was in my 20’s.

But the most traumatizing movie scene is one that is very rarely mentioned when you talk about upsetting movies. And it shocks me, because I was so upset by it as a child. It broke my then-fully-intact heart.

The Red Shoe - Who Framed Roger Rabbit

I don’t believe any one scene from a supposedly children’s movie has ever upset me as much as this scene did. And I am a soft-hearted freak. I ran over a rat the other night and was in near hysterics.

First of all, shoes come in pairs. They’re partners. Friends. Compatriots. Lovers.

(Don’t think of your shoes being lovers, it’ll freak you out.)

So, this poor little shoe’s partner? Is now alone. What’s that shoe going to do? It can’t find a new partner, all the other shoes are already paired! Plus those sassy purple heeled boots look like bitches.

Find a cartoon with a peg leg, who only needs one shoe? Well, yes, he could do that, but all his life, he would feel the emptiness of his missing partner.

Did you see the eyes on that shoe as he was put into the dip? Ignore the cartoon open mouthed screen. Look at the third screenshot. That is a broken shoe. That looks painful. And he screams.

Seriously, I think of this scene and it upsets me, and I really love this movie.

This is, by far, the most traumatizing moment from a children’s movie. Ever.

I don't make suggestions. If I want to toss a baby out an airlock, I'd say so.

In May of last year, I wrote an entry about how much I loved Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica. How the ending was so incredible, and had definitely sucked me in, and snagged me for Season 2.

Promptly after the entry, I popped in Season 2, and watched hungrily. I was ready for more Cylons, more Starbuck and Six, what was going to happen to Adama, and Sharon’s baby. I was READY.

And I watched it. And thrilled. And tweeted, and screeched, and gasped, and cried. My friend Joey gave me the entire series on DVD, mostly because he got a set free, but also because he rocks.

And then nothing happened for over a year. I became distracted by other TV shows, other movies, other life. The DVDs stared at me, accusingly. Jamie Bamber started on Law and Order: UK, and I had constant reminders of how great the show was, and how much I was not watching it.

So, out of nowhere a couple of weeks back, I decided it was time to jump back in, feet first. I set up with my work phone and knitting, and was determined to finish a Season 2 rewatch, in preparation for Season 3.

Took over a week, then even longer to finish this entry. But wheeeeeeeee, BSG.

I worship at the Whedon Altar

I’m not the kind of person who would celebrate a celebrity’s birthday as though they were someone I actually know. Wish them happy birthday on Twitter, yes. Acknowledge it publicly and personally, and do a little happy dance that they’re still in the world, and were born at all?

Pfft. That would never happen.

::cough::

Today is Joss Whedon’s 47th birthday. And I can’t think of a better person to get their own birthday blog entry.

Technically, I have been a Joss Whedon fan since I was 7 years old. I watched Roseanne religiously as a child, and he wrote for that show. Even before that, I watched the old school Captain Kangaroo, and you couldn’t tear me away from The Golden Girls. And that was his father. Not to mention? As a Nick at Nite child, I was a huge fan of The Donna Reed Show, and The Dick Van Dyke show. Guess who wrote on those? His grandfather.

Love for Joss Whedon is in my blood, and I didn’t know it on a random day in 1997 when I flipped through TV channels and saw John Ritter on my screen. I stopped to see what it was. Hmm. Robot. That’s odd. Oof, he just went flying down the stairs. Wow. And I changed the channel.

It wasn’t until Season 3 that I started watching the show, and I think it was more the sexy brooding guy and extremely sexy bad girl that got me coming back. But there was no denying this show had something special. And it was all thanks to the man behind the Grrr, Argh.

My love for the show grew with each episode. By 1999, I was an internet junkie, and I devoured every bit of information I could about the show, and its creator. By 2001, I had found a board on AOL to discuss the show with other fanatics, and it was really only then that I learned who Joss Whedon was, and got to discuss how amazing the writing and actors and everything was.

I didn’t watch Firefly at first. It was more a technical error than anything else. I set the season premiere of Buffy and the series premiere of Firefly to record that day, and neither came ended up recording. (Anyone remember VCRs?) Naturally it didn’t stop me from watching the Buffy, but I let Firefly fall by the wayside. It wasn’t until 2005 that I finally watched the entire series, and nearly cried from losing such greatness. After the pain of losing Dollhouse, I’m actually glad I wasn’t there for the original loss of Firefly.

RyAn is a much braver person than I, and he listed his top 10 favorite Whedonverse characters. This will not happen, as my brain is perfectly content not exploding. I will say that in the Whedon realm, nothing tops Buffy for me. It was the first, it was the best. Despite what happened when Marti Noxon took the helm.

With one glaring exception that RyAn will be quick to point out, I will and have watched everything Joss Whedon is involved in. Like many obsessive fans, he can essentially do no wrong in my eyes. I am not a comic book fan, but I will watch The Avengers, and I am genuinely looking forward to it.

Happy birthday, Numfar. Thank you for being you.

I’m right on top of that, Rose

Dammit, RyAn.

So, today yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. One of the greatest comedies of all time, with a cast that, with two exceptions, has slunk into blissful oblivion, yet will always, in my mind, be associated with this movie that I loved and cherished and was just thinking about last night as I was trying to go to sleep and ignore the cat pouncing on my head.

And RyAn chooses MIDNIGHT to inform me of this knowledge.

RyAn is a fucker. But I love him. And of course, he takes the only real promo image available, so I’m stuck with a watermarked title image. Really, love him.

I remember exactly where I was the first time I watched this movie. It was almost immediately after my parents’ divorce, and my mother, sister, and I were living in our first place away from Psycho Puppy Killer. We watched this movie, and I nearly peed myself laughing. As I grew older ('Cause I was 8?), and kept watching, I’d catch things I’d missed, and find it even more hilarious.

I loved Sue Ellen. And as a child of the late 80’s-early 90’s, thought she was so stylish.

 

Commence mockery in 5…4…3…2…

 

 

But apart from the horrendous fashion in the movie, this is truly a classic. I have bonded repeatedly with people over this. This is a movie where, if I bust out a quote in a random situation, and no one gets it? I know I am surrounded by idiots.

Walking through a grocery store with my friend Ashlie.

“Every girl over 25 needs a cucumber in the house.”

She got it.

Working at the horrible cable company, stressed out of my mind, and I get asked a question.

“I’m right on top of that, Rose!”

Peals of laughter. It became the new office catch phrase. We wrote it all over the office.

And of course, the classic line that can never be overused.

“The dishes are done, man.”

Whatever happened to these people? With the exception of Christina Applegate and David Duchovny, they have all been relegated to “Hey It’s That Guy” status. Which, to be frank, is sad and appalling.

(WARNING. That link goes to TV Tropes. Unless you have an extremely strong willpower, or 8 hours to spend on the internet, don’t click it)

I can never see this movie enough. And I wish someone had told me earlier that I should’ve watched it to celebrate today.

If I owned it on DVD. Which I just realize I don’t. Damn.

Notoriety for whatever reason, never seems to benefit the noted, only the notees

The first time I saw the trailer for Easy A, I knew I was going to love it. No, really. If you go back through my Twitter feed to last year at some indeterminable time,  you’ll find my tweet. It was even responded to.

I say this not in the Hipster, “Oh, I liked that waaay before it was mainstream” way. I say it because this movie was released in September of 2010 and I took my precious damned time in watching it.

I begged people to see it at the theater with me. (Yes, I am one of those people) I got it from the library twice. I returned it, put it back on hold, and felt like an overwhelming failure.

But HA HA, I finally watched it. Suck on that, Hipsters!

If the lion knows its own strength, no man could control it

In honor of the sweetness that was the wedding of William and Kate, it is only fitting that I finally post my thoughts on The Tudors.

My love for all things from the Tudor dynasty started at the end of 2008, when I read The Other Boleyn Girl at the recommendation of my friend Dawnie. The book is hilariously thick, but I devoured the pages. I love reading about history, and royalty, but it tends to be very dry, and that rubs the nerves. I figured out I am a fan of historical fiction, not so much the nonfiction.

I’d never seen the television show The Tudors, however, until the idea to get it from the library popped randomly into my head. I got Season 1, watched it voraciously, and immediately put Seasons 2 and 3 on hold. I would’ve made an entry after Season 1, but I was too focused on getting the next and next and next. I decided halfway through Season 3 I would just write an entry about the entire series.

The show is beyond phenomenal. Though to be fair, I’m not watching it for historical accuracy. I know about as much about England’s political history as I do about it’s political present. It’s sad, really. I knew Kate and William were getting married, Harry dressed as a Nazi, and the royal prince wanted to be a woman’s tampon. That’s the knowledge I retain.

Anyway, back to more pleasant matters.

I take it you think everybody is who they say they are

Recent tragedy in my life has pretty much cut me off from watching TV or movies for the past two weeks. I tried to watch a few different things, Season 4 of The Tudors, which I’ve been waiting for from the library for months. 12 Angry Men. The Last Samurai. Okay, I didn’t try particularly hard to watch that one, only pretended to.

But I finally got a weekend “to myself” (read: at home working/moping rather than trying to run around putting out fires), and a couple of brand new (to me) movies. To celebrate this momentous occasion, I blog.

I saw the trailer for Shutter Island movie during whichever Scream Awards it premiered on. I thought, “Wow, a suspense movie by Scorcese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio? This is going to be great! How could it not be?”

I started watching the movie Saturday night. And fell asleep. Several times. Finally gave up, hoping that watching it Sunday morning it would be more interesting. Fell asleep again. Between this and The Depahted, Martin Scorcese is losing some serious points with me.

The worst part is, this should be a movie I would love. Creepy mental asylum, total mind fuckage where you suspect something is going to happen, but have no idea what it. Creepy doctors, all worlds of mystery and suspense. This is totally my genre!

Except I didn’t give a damn about any of the characters. As a matter of fact, the only semblance of sympathy I had through the entire movie was for the characters at Dachau. From the jump, I didn’t care about Teddy’s dead wife. Then when he started seeing her everywhere, I pretty much had it figured that he was, indeed, one of the looney bin occupants, and this was an elaborate dream world. The only part I didn’t see coming was the children being his, and that the doctor had planned it.

I seriously may never watch another Scorcese flick again. At least not a new one.

Salt, on the other hand, not only lived up to every expectation I had, it blew them all out of the water and brought my Angelina fangirling to a brand new level. It was not hard to surprise me, though, seeing as how my knowledge of the movie was extremely limited. Originally a male lead, rewritten specifically for her. Bond/Bourne-esque, and The Operative from Serenity is in it. That’s my knowledge.

I always make the error of watching Special Features before the film. Not all of them, if it looks like it’s obviously going to spoil me, I won’t do it. And of course I wait until I’ve viewed the film once before watching any commentary. But I watched a couple of featurettes which pretty much caught me up on the basic premise, without giving really anything away.

Similar to Mr. And Mrs. Smith, we start out with a very domesticated Jolie character, with the knowledge that she’s anything but. I have never liked her as a blonde, not even when she was macking on Christian Kane. And the blonde wig here was just tragic. But the moment the camera rounded her and we saw the black hair, the payoff was well worth it.

As much as I love emotional scenes with this actress, her real talent is in the action, and this movie is crammed with enough fight porn to fill even the most macho of macho men’s quotas for the year. And the best part is that these fight scenes don’t feel choreographed, like with Mr and Mrs Smith, but spur of the moment, vicious and mean and brutal.

And that sums her up in a nutshell. Evelyn Salt/Natasha Chenkova was mean. And that’s what makes this stand out next to other action movies. In the original script, it was a male lead, fighting to fight, yes, but also to rescue his wife and child. Angelina immediately said, “Erm, yeah, fuck that, no kid.” We got a little heart and spirit with her quest for her husband, and the heartbreak on her face for that split second after they murder her husband is very real, and extremely painful. But she snaps back, and keeps going, and turns into the baddest badass you’d never want to run into, male or female.

The pacing of the movie felt weird. It didn’t feel like there was really a beginning, and the end was strange and abrupt. Obviously leaving an opening for a sequel, which I am not averse to. But still, I watched it twice, once with commentary, and still didn’t feel there was a middle. Then again, I don’t watch a lot of Bond-esque movies, so maybe I’m just not used to it.

My Angelina fangirling is safe once more. Amazing.

My Leonardo love is in serious jeopardy, and may not recover.

I Remember My Dream Now

When the promos for The Walking Dead first started making their way into my internet world, I was less than impressed. I enjoy a good George Romero film as much as the next person, but a TV show about zombies? Really?

Two things changed my mind. The first, that this show was going to air on AMC. This is the channel that airs Mad Men. It’s hard to believe that it would waste air time on a show strictly about mmmm, brains. Secondly, in watching the promotional trailers, I noticed it was from the creators of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Now, both of those movies are the brain children of Stephen King, and they’re both very intense, and beautifully done. Never in a million years would I watch either of those and think, “Wow, these people really need to put a new spin on the zombie genre.”

When I mentioned on Twitter and the book of face that I was considering giving it a shot, I got bombarded with WD comic love. Oh. This is a comic? That got my attention. So I set my DVR to record the series, and promptly forgot about it. Well, to be more accurate, I was so bombarded with other things to watch that I didn’t carve out time to watch it. Then the New Orleans Comic Con announced three actors from the show were coming, and I realized if I didn’t watch the show, I was going to be that person. “Oh, yeah, the show looks great. I have it recorded. NO idea who you are. Nice to meet you, though.”

So, I set the weekend before the con aside and watched the six episodes that comprise season one. And then screamed in rage that it only lasted six episodes, and I had an entire nine months to wait for the next season.