Movie Meme Days 12 and 13: New York State of Mind

First of all, let's give it up for Lori for so generously guest blogging day 11's meme entry. Lori is the bomb, if you're not reading her blog, get your ass over there.

I was going to post yesterday's blog entry, but I was stuck in an Atlanta airport for literally 5 hours, with a "you have to pay" wifi system that I wasn't feeling. I managed to sneak one hour of time, but any more would've pushed my luck. So, two in one. Also, the next four or five days' worth of entries will be live from New York.

31 Day Movie Meme

Day 12 - Best soundtrack/background music in a scene

I'm not even going to lie. Bring it On is one of my favorite movies. I love the energy, the sass, the sarcasm. I've also discussed my love for good choreography, and a movie about cheerleading is all about the dance and movement.

The soundtrack is fabulous. I don't think there's one song on there I don't like. All throughout the movie you get these great songs, not including the original cheer at the beginning that will get stuck in your head faster than a commercial jingle. Parts of these songs play throughout, and you groove on them without realizing it while watching.

Then, in the final cheerleading scene, all of those songs are mashed together to make up the song they perform to. I was absolutely tickled pink by this. From Blaque's "As If" to Smashmouth's "Freaking Me". It's just a great use of a soundtrack, and I think it made the final performance even more fun to watch.

Love. Love love love this movie. And only 3/4 because Eliza's in it.

















Day 13 - Favorite animated movie

This is another one of those that doesn't require a moment's hesitation. I still have the ticket stub from seeing The Little Mermaid in the theater when I was a little girl.

As a little girl, I loved it because Ariel is pretty, the movie is funny, and there's singing. But growing up, the message just resonated so beautifully with me. Who doesn't want to experience something they don't have? There's so much in the world you want to do, and there's always something that's trying to hold you back, and you fight against it.

Ariel didn't want to go to the surface to meet a boy. She wanted to learn. She wanted to know about books and fire and the way humans live. Finding a cute boy was just another thing to motivate her on.

Ursula is my favorite Disney villain. First of all, she's a BBW. Then, she's purple and evil. Oh, she's so much fun.

I got involved with a debate on a favorite website of mine some time back about this movie. A woman didn't like that Ariel has to give up her voice for a boy. She felt it wasn't empowering. I felt she completely missed the point of the movie.

If you listen to the lyrics of Poor Unfortunate Soul, it's telling you right there the anti-message of the movie.

The men up there don't like a lot of blabber
They think a girl who gossips is a bore!
Yet on land it's much prefered for ladies not to say a word
And after all dear, what is idle babble for?
Come on, they're not all that impressed with conversation
True gentlemen avoid it when they can
But they dote and swoon and fawn
On a lady who's withdrawn
It's she who holds her tongue who get's a man

So Ariel gives up her voice. And she meets Eric, and he thinks she's so freaking beautiful, but he really can't get into her because he doesn't know who she is. She can't talk to him. Once she gets her voice back and can speak again, he falls in love with her.

It's a fairy tale way to get to the point, but I like those.

I also love and can sing the words to every song on the soundtrack. I had it on a CD when my niece was very very little with other Disney songs, and my favorite one to sing to her while driving was Les Poissons. I did the overly exaggerated French accent, and she loved when I would shriek the "Hee hee hee haw haw haw!" parts.

And then there's Part of Your World, which you can catch me singing at random sometimes when I think no one is around.

Final note: My hairdresser, who diligently dyes my hair dark red as often as I can afford it, has a gorgeous little girl about my niece's age. I've babysat her before, so she knows my name. But hairdresser has another client with my name, as well. So her daughter has a way to differentiate us.

I'm the one with "Ariel hair".

I love my hairdresser's little girl.

TV Meme Day 15: Reach out and touch...

Day 15 - Favorite female character

A day late, because my niece had her finale playoff softball game last night. We lost, but still. Priorities.

I cannot even pretend this was a difficult decision for me. It would be insulting to everyone who knows me. In fact, when I skimmed the meme before deciding to do it, I laughed when I saw this one.

What was difficult, however, was picking out the pictures I wanted to use for it. I mean, this is my woman. This is my character. How do you pick the best pictures to talk about her?

So, really, this is just a Faith/Eliza love fest in words and pictures. Prepare yourself. Because when I started wading through and sorting, I had 171 pictures. Luckily for you guys, most of them got weeded out, or put into the opening graphic.

TV Meme Day 9: Best Scene Ever

Here's another one that is impossible to answer quickly.

However, unlike most of my friends, I have the advantage here. In that I do not watch enough shows to get a true headache.

Best scenes ever are scenes that garner a reaction from me. Doesn't matter if it's laughter or tears, they have to get a really strong reaction. And the best scenes normally are the ones that have me bawling. After giving this an extremely large amount of thought, I came up with two that I couldn't choose between. So I figured, okay, I'll do both.

Then I went looking for screencaps, and got more ideas. CURSES!

So. Best Scene Ever from Angel (2), Buffy (2), Firefly, and Dollhouse.

TV Meme Day 6: Favorite Episode

Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show

Heh heh. Heh. Oh, god.

Logo TV had a poll to pick viewers' 10 favorite Buffy episodes, and then they did a marathon of the top choices. Myself and my friend Joey were dying trying to choose the top 10. So the idea of choosing all time favorite is giving me a bit of a headache.

Do you choose a funny episode, like Tabula Rasa, Something Blue Or Who Are You? A tear jerker, like The Gift, Amends, or Becoming Pt 2? An epic episode, like Once More With Feeling, Conversations with Dead People, or The Wish? It's practically impossible to choose.

I can safely say Season 3 of BTVS was my favorite season. Almost all of my favorite characters are there (If we'd introduced Tara here, it would be absolutely perfect), and every episode had something. There wasn't a dull episode in the bunch. The season arc was amazing, the villain was one of the best if not *the* best. There's just so much good, the best episode has to come from it.

Now. Which to pick?

After fighting with this for a considerable time, I'm going to pick an episode that doesn't really fall into any of the big episode lists. When it comes down to the average top 10 lists, I think this one gets passed over fairly regularly, and that's a shame.

I'm not broken

To say I am heartbroken about the demise of Dollhouse is to say I am heartbroken by Sarah Mclachlan's ASPCA ads.

The problems with Dollhouse, in my highly biased opinion, didn't have so much to do with the show itself as with the outside factors. So let's begin.