April’s DVD reviews, Part I
Desperate Housewives: Season 3, Disc 6 - Nice season wrap-up this time around. Decent closure mixed with enough cliff-hangers to string you along much in the way token gifts on anniversaries do for actual housewives.
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2, Disc 1 - Not really all that good. Or great, I suppose if you liked the first season a whole lot. For me, it’s getting old faster than I can watch them in FFwd.
Diggers, 2006 - Not so great, and this is coming from Paul Rudd’s biggest cheerleader who isn’t a fat girl. It’s okay, but I saw potential in the material that the rest of the crew ironically didn’t dig for.
Turk 182!, 1985 - From the director of Porkys and Porkys II, the idea here was a socially conscious take on Porkys. It ends up being an series of improbable and not-terribly-imaginative pranks to no conceivable political effect whatsoever. Oh, and no nudity, so that’s two strikes for a Bob Clark movie with Kim Cattrall.
Umberto D., 1952 - Hailed as one of the greatest movies of the 20th century, it’s one of the most forgettable movies of the 20th century. I saw it about five years ago and blanked on it.
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 4, 2006 - I have almost as many issues with this series as the title character has about, well, everything, but I have to admit that it has a quality to it that rises above most of my criticisms and makes it more engrossing than it should be, possibly because the chick who plays Dex’s sister is hot.
Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!: Season 2: Disc 1, 2004 - Piled higher and deeper. It’s nice to hear them publicly rip on those who most deserve it. (Most of you and Diana in particular will enjoy the bit in here where they go off on the Men Are From Mars guy.)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 3: Disc 1, 2006 - You know how I’m always right? Well, I hadn’t seen this show in a while, so I had some trepidation about whether they still had the momentum to lift off from the emotional dregs of last season. Guess what? They did and I’m still always right. They should just change the name of the show to Battlestar Fucking Galactica to avoid any confusion that it’s COMPLETELY FUCKING AWESOME.
Tom Green: Inside & Outside the Box: Disc 2, 1997 - More of the desperate antics of an unoriginal comic. Truth is, the desperation took him places on stage and on the streets and wherever else there was a camera that few were willing to attempt.
Under the Cherry Moon, 1986 - The much-maligned Prince movie that almost no one ever saw, it’s commercially unviable in that it’s the exact opposite of Purple Rain in every way: It’s in black & white; With only a couple exceptions, the songs are all but buried as background or source music; Instead of being a tragically misunderstood introverted character, he’s an over-the-top blend of every comic film character from the ’20s through the ’50s. And you know what? It’s a pretty damned good movie for all that. The one criticism I have is that the screenplay is a bit all over the place so you can’t see the story arc, but I’m okay with that because I like not knowing where a filmmaker is trying to take me. If nothing else, the cinematography is at least as gorgeous as Prince thinks he is.
Knute Rockne All American, 1940 - Enjoyable enough even if you’re me and don’t like football or Ronald Reagan (who’s only in it for his very famous 5 minutes, don’t worry).
Ultimate Avengers: The Movie, 2006 - Animated film that follows the re-envisioned comic book series so closely that I’d recommend just reading the source material instead unless you’re in that much of a hurry that you’re waiting for the film adaptations instead. Geez.
Cars, 2007 - Remarkably awesome. I’m not much of a Pixar fan, but this is actually good on just about every level.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: I rarely agree with The Office’s Dwight Schrute about anything, but if you aren’t watching Battlestar Fucking Galactica, then you’re a complete idiot. Also Cars rocks and Under the Cherry Moon deserves a chance that you never gave it the first time you passed on watching it.
I am not good at making friends…
…just at making people mad.
Here’s a brief conversation I had with “sandra” (would couldn’t be bothered to capitalize her own name).
—————– Original Message —————–
From: Alexplorer
Subject: RE: OMG!
Body:
You did NOT post a car as your main picture? Why, girl? Why?
-Alex.
p. s. You’re friends with Tom? Me TOO!!!
—————– Original Message —————–
From: sandra
Subject: RE: OMG!
Body:
because it is my dream car and I finally got it.
—————– Original Message —————–
From: Alexplorer
Subject: RE: OMG!
Body:
I have an emerging hypothesis that only people who post cars as their main picture lack the ability to receive sarcasm as such and return it in kind. Your thoughts on the matter before I pursue a pilot study on the subject?
-Alex.
Trilogy: What’s the opposite of a love triangle?
[All names have been changed to protect even the idiot characters depicted herein.]
My friend Shanna used to hang around with the strangest types when we were in college. Even though she was an honors student all her academic life, she still kept up with her friend Cammie long after the latter dropped out of high school and took a different course in life in every other way. I never liked that crowd of Shanna’s friends for several reasons, but I have to admit they were collectively a good source of stories.
Specifically, Cammie was a loser magnet. She used to date a guy named Trent. In case you can’t tell from the name I’m saddling him with, Trent was a dweeb. Cammie tried to break up with him, but he kept calling her and coming around and just being a huge pain in the ass for months after the fact. When Cammie’d finally had enough of trying to blow him off on her own, she resorted to gettting a bigger boyfriend named Ryan. This kept Trent at bay insofar as he quit showing up at her house, but that didn’t end the pestering. Trent didn’t have the good sense to leave well enough alone, so he kept calling Cammie.
One day Cammie put Ryan the phone when Trent called.
“You don’t quit calling her, I’m going to kick your ass,” Ryan told him.
“Oh, yeah?” said Trent. He was a scrawny guy, but his mouth seemed oblivious to that fact. “I’d like to see you try, you stupid fuck.”
“Well then, come on over.”
“Alright, I will! Me and my crew are coming over there right now.”
With this news, Shanna and Cammie’s plans to hang out at her apartment for a peaceful afternoon while Ryan ignored them and watched tv were shattered. Now Ryan’s on the phone calling up his friends, rounding them up for what is apparently going to be a huge gang war. Cammie’s freaking out, so she starts calling the cops because there’s no telling how far this is going to escallate. Within about fifteen minutes Ryan and at least a half dozen of his friends are outside the apartment along with several police cars and a group of neighbors worried about where this is heading… but there’s no sign of Trent or his supposed faction.
After waiting around for maybe half an hour, the phone rings. Cammie answers. It’s Trent.
“Where are you?” Cammie asks.
“Awwww, I’m not coming over,” he says. “Yeah, none of my friends felt like going over there and kicking Ryan’s ass.”
… … …
Every once in a while around this time, Shanna and I used to go out to this frat/sports bar not very far from campus. It wasn’t my scene at all, and it wasn’t really hers either, but she frequented it because Cammie and that crowd liked it. Again, this is really odd for the obvious reasons that there were plenty of other bars, but this was a college bar in a college town. Like I said, Cammie and her boyfriend(s) were high school drop-outs, but they went anyway. I didn’t realize it when we first got there, but it wasn’t so much that they liked the scene as that they liked making a scene.
If you’ve ever seen Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King, you probably remember the segment where Robin Williams’ character is pursing the girl he’s in love with through a crowded train station. She doesn’t know he’s following, and he wanders through the crowd love-struck. Of course, much of the film takes place from the delusional perspective of his character. As a visual metaphor for the love he’s overwhelmed with in that moment, the throng of commuters spontaneously begins to pair up and waltz around the station floor. It’s a beautiful scene, but it paralleled a very different one from one night at the bar when Shanna’s, um, colorful friends were around.
Having little else to do there, I was at the edge of the room watching a guy setting up trick shots on the pool table. The dance floor opposite us is packed as the DJ pumps out the Spin Doctors or Soul Asylum or some other generic frat rock. All of a sudden in the middle of the crowd, two guys start spinning around together throwing punches and trying to knock the other down. Within half a second another couple of guys are doing the same, and so on until there are at least four or five couples wailing away at one another and just as many about to join in when the security starts pulling everyone apart and putting them in a headlock as they’re dragged out. It was over almost as soon as it started, but the speed of the chain reaction was faster than any montage of shots of this phenomenon you’ve probably only seen previously on The Dukes of Hazzard.
It turned out this wasn’t anymore spontaneous than the tv version. Shanna knew the crowd and filled me in. Most of these guys arrived planning to get in a fight with whatever frat boys they could take a swing at. Often they were in and (thrown) out of the place in a total of fifteen minutes which hardly sounds like a bargain for a group that wasn’t averaging much above minimum wage. If you do the math figuring the cover charge they were paying for a thirty second scrap, their wallets were hit at least as hard as anyone they sucker punched that night.
… … …
Fights like this being a regular occurance here, you could reasonably expect to find trouble in the place pretty much any time without even looking for it. Trent went one night and, being a scrawny guy, some of the jackasses there kept messing with him as an easy target.
Although Trent wasn’t especially bright, he had enough street smarts to make quick alliances. In this case, he found the first big guy there who’d listen and offered to buy him drinks for the duration of the night if he took out any of the other guys who were messing with him. The big guy was just the type who came there for fights anyway, so an offer of free drinks from a guy who also served as bait was a doubly ideal situtation.
As it turned out, nothing much happened that night. The presence of big guy was enough of a deterrant that the punks left Trent alone, and in fact he and his one-time body guard for the evening hit it off. They hung around together until last call, then both went home without incident.
When he got home, Cammie asked Ryan what he’d been up to.
“Nothing much,” he said. “I mostly hung around with this little dude all night. He bought me drinks to beat up these guys he said were fuckin’ with him, but they never did.”
Cammie wasn’t so swift herself, but it started clicking almost immediately. “Wait. Was his name Trent?”
“Yeah…”
“Did he have blonde hair, kinda scrawny?”
“Yeah…”
“You dumb fuck! That was my exboyfriend Trent that said he was going to come over here and kick your ass!”
Ryan was flooded with a mix of emotions. “That fucker! I’m going to… actually, um, he… he was kind of cool.”
Surprise, Surprise!
Personally, I don’t like surprises, but Dani doesn’t like planning things. By default of both those corollaries, she’s the one of us who’s going to get surprised and it will be by something I’ve planned. Usually she’s surprised that her ADD partner can plan anything. Odds are you’ve already heard several stories about the wedding surprises I pulled on her (starting with the proposal right on through the reception), but now everything was coming together all at once again.
See, I always have to work pretty hard around this time of year. Dani’s birthday is 12/1, then there was our old (i.e., before the wedding) anniversary on 12/22, and then Santa needs to show up on 12/25. That’s a lot of gifts to gather together in a short period of time. I never ask Dani what she wants either. It’s a game I play with myself that presents are always a surprise. Of course, it means I have to listen for ideas all year long, but that’s part of what makes this fun for both of us.
One thing I knew was this: Dani loves horses, and a horseback trail ride has been among the things I’ve wanted to surprise her with for the last couple of years; it’s just always been so cold (and rainy sometimes) that outdoor activities are not an option by the time her birthday arrives. I thought that was a great opportunity for a birthday party, just one that would happen a couple weeks early this year… precisely when she wouldn’t be expecting it.
I emailed a group of friends and asked if anyone was interested in going on a trail ride. I got Mark and Brindle and Kristen to meet us out there. I didn’t tell Dani; I just told her to put tennis shoes on.
“But I’m on call for work,” she said.
“No you aren’t,” I replied.
By now she knows not to argue because I’m going to make her happy. The proposal, the wedding surprises, Halloween after Halloween, I’m all about making memories. That’s my job, and it’s the one thing I’m good at. She didn’t know it, but I had one of her co-workers cover for her for a few hours. I just steered her to the car and pointed the way from there.
The ranch is only about five miles from our place on the southern edge of FW. I had scouted it earlier to see exactly where it was, how long it would take to get there, etc. We scheduled the trail ride for 1pm and got there about 15 minutes early with the liability forms filled out and everything; they were under the seat.
As we got right up close to the place, it finally dawned on Dani where we were heading. I told her where to park and she was like, “You’ve been here before?!” As we got out of the car and walked up to the place, Mark and Brindle were standing in front of the main office waiting for us. Dani was still reeling from the fact we were going riding, and then a couple friends were there as well. A few minutes later Kristen showed up. Not long after that, we were riding on the trail. It was a group of about ten or so of us counting a couple of the guides. I’m not into horses, but I’m always up for new things.
The ride itself was fun, and easy enough for a first-timer (like most of us were) to handle. It was just an hour heading out into a well-trodden path through the woods that the horses have done about a thousand times. These guys are more or less retired from anything but this monotonous job, so they were pretty easy-going. Dani loved it just the same. She’s never been into anything more adventurous than that.
After the trail ride, Kristen took off to go visit her mom, but the rest of us headed over to a park down the street. Once we got there, I popped the trunk and pulled out a carrot cake and drinks for everyone. (Actually I had a separate vegan cake for Mark and Brindle, no eggs or something; I don’t know what was special about it.) Dani was shocked that so much planning went on without her knowing about it. Superheroes are good at things like this. For example, how many of you know my real name? See. There you go.
Part(y) II
What Dani didn’t realize was that the trail ride was smokescreen. Every time she would bring up something about her birthday coming up (which was surprisingly often for her), I would say, “Hey, you already had your birthday. Don’t be greedy!” This was especially funny in light of the fact she forgot my birthday when it came around a few months earlier. The whole morning of mine I kept saying things like “Could you make me breakfast in bed like it was my birthday?” and “Could you give me a massage like it was my birthday.” Her response was to tell me to go fuck myself; I didn’t deserve anything special. The guilt set in around 2pm when it finally dawned on her what the date was.
Like I said, the ostensible reason why I did the trail ride two weeks before her birthday was because I didn’t know what the weather would be like on the actual date. In fact, within a couple days of the trail ride, winter had arrived and it just as cold and rainy as I expected it to be. I got the timing exactly right this year and finally crossed something off my “to do” list.
Of course, if you’re one of Dani’s friends, you know that the next Monday I started sending out Evites to the surprise party I was planning. This involved a lot of digging around and calling because Dani does the worst job of almost anyone when it comes to keeping her address book up to date. The evite itself linked to this page which prospective guests were alternately frightened by or found absolutely hilarious, but yes, I would have ruined the lives of anyone who spoiled the surprise.
Once I had a decent enough idea how many people were coming, I had to sneak around shopping. A few days before the night of the party I was able to buy anything that didn’t need to be refrigerated (e.g., chips, party plates, etc.) and just leave that all hidden in my trunk. However, I couldn’t sneak anything into the fridge like, say, a veggie tray without Dani knowing something was up. I talked to my neighbor Linda and asked if I could use some space in her fridge. She was cool with that (no pun intended). Since she was going out the day of the party, so she let me borrow her keys.
I spent the morning finishing straightening up the place. For the three days or so leading up to this point, I had Dani helping me clean around the house on account of the supposed fact that my OCD was flaring up and only she could help keep me out of the ICU. We decorated for xmas, got piles of junk that needed putting away finally put away, and washed all the accumulated laundry and dishes. While she was out, I gave the place a clean sweep both literally and figuratively and cleared lots of space to put out food, etc. for later that night.
Dani loves carrot cake, so I knew she would welcome a second helping in as many weeks, but of course that was the one thing Target didn’t have when I went out that afternoon for everything else I still needed. I’m driving around with a trunk full of groceries looking for this one last thing. I end up at the grocery store down the street from us, but no luck there either. I’m on my way to the third store hoping to end this scavenger hunt when the cell phone rings… from my house. Worst possible news: Dani is home. She tells me there isn’t much going on at work so she decided to take the rest of the afternoon off. I’m like, “Oh, shit.”
I lie and say I’m out hitting pawn shops in search of still more guitars, that I’ll be back in a little while. It turns into the French Connection as I give Linda a call and we end up doing a hand-off of the groceries in a shopping center between where the two of us happened to be at the time. She loads it all in her fridge when she gets home. In the meantime, I go home and hang out with Dani for a bit, but around 5:30, as planned, her friend Jessica swings by and picks her up to go out to eat and to do some early xmas shopping.
From the time Dani leaves, I’m in a mad dash to get all the crap out the car, out of Linda’s fridge, and all set up. Fortunately and at my request, Tracy came over ahead of the rest of the guests and handled the cooking (okay, microwaving) and we put up most of the decorations before people started showing up (plus lots of folks blew up balloons once they got there).
When Dani finally arrived, she was just about floored when we all yelled “Surprise!” as she came through the front door. She stood there for several minutes speechless trying to get her head around what was happening. Honestly, I was a bit worried until just then because I really didn’t know if she had found out and was just playing along, but it worked. The secret was safe until the proper moment. Moral: When in doubt, Dani won’t notice most things hidden in plain sight, but it’s best to play it safe anyway.
March’s DVD reviews, Part II
Broken English, 2007 - Normally I don’t give away much in a synopsis so you don’t know what you’re in for (unless you read the mouse-over pop-ups on Netflix instead of blindly adding it to your queue just because I said so), but this is an awesome movie about falling in love. Yeah, every movie has that, but this one is good and it’s real and it’s true and that’s something movies so rarely are. It’s a bit scattered in places, much like Parker Posey who is in it and who I’m in love with, but it’s well-acted the whole cast through, and here’s a side of her even fans who have seen nearly everything by her (read: me) hadn’t seen before. It’s the real thing that you’ll totally get if you’ve ever been in love. No, make that if you’ve ever fallen in love.
28 Weeks Later, 2007 - Unnecessary. Not badly made, but completely pointless and unsatisfying. A waste of good talent that turned into a mob of raging zombies chasing after money.
Ugly Betty: Season 1, Discs 1&2 - It’s basically a live action cartoon that unapologetically rips off The Devil Wears Prada. Surprisingly though, it’s got heart. There’s no substance to the show whatsoever, but you find that you care just the same.
The Hoax, 2007 - Another cartoon, but one I didn’t find especially enjoyable. This is in spite of having a great true story on which to base this failure so that it wouldn’t be just that.
Grey’s Anatomy: Season 1, Discs 1&2 - Third in a series of live-action cartoons. It’s fast-paced enough that you don’t really notice that how little human interaction there is among the principles in the series. It’s all cut together with medical emergencies and faux-witty dialog (i.e., it’s delivered fast and unrealistically) to break up the viewer’s attempt to get a close enough look at what they’d otherwise diagnose as a mediocre show.
David Gilmour: Remember That Night: Live at the Royal Albert Hall: Disc 1, 2007 - Lots of Pink Floyd classics bookend a complete performance of Dave’s latest solo album (though nothing from either prior solo album which tells you how good his solo albums are typically). Pretty good show all around, even if you aren’t a die hard fan (which I’m not so much anymore; sorry, Dave).
The Train, 1964 - Burt Lancaster. They don’t make action heroes like this anymore. Not the best movie he’d ever been in, but you can’t go wrong with most of them anyway.
Catch and Release, 2007 - Wow. Complete crap, and that’s my opinion even after looking at an hour and forty minutes of Jennifer Garner. To answer the question the screenwriter/director was pondering about how to make a romantic comedy about a fiance’s death and sudden appearance of an illegitimate child, my advice is this: Don’t.
Deathproof, 2007 - To draw from the immortal words of web film reviewer Neill Cumpston, “It’s a taquito buffet that you puke up after getting hit with a motorcycle, and it turns into a bikini chick that blows you and kills your boss with a hammer.” If that sounds like a positive review to you, then you’ll love this. If not, enjoy Catch and Release instead, lameass.
The L Word: Season 4: Disc 3, 2007 - Speaking of taquito buffets, while this show has actually been pretty good about avoiding gratuitous lesbian sex scenes (unlike most else Showtime is known for after 11pm), I have to say I especially liked this disc for the fact it that got just a tad little sleazier than usual.
Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 7 - Takes us up through the ’80s when the show was actually more a metaphor for the Regan-era reality we were being pranked into at the time.
Elvis: The Miniseries, 2005 - You’d normally think of Elvis as a role for bad actors (read: impersonators), but Jonathan Rhys Meyers makes him genuinely believable as a tragic character in an otherwise rushed made-for-tv production.
Dune, 1984 - Say what you like here, it’s still David Lynch and Frank Herbert. Granted, it’s something of a disaster in that it’s inaccessible to many viewers, but there’s so much to love for those who make the effort or just naturally wade into the material. Additionally, this release has quite a bit of footage compiled recently and with new interviews from just a couple years ago. Many deleted scenes included that weren’t even in the Alan Smithee version that rabid fans like me sat through repeatedly to savor even the most ill-conceived frames.
Johnny Suede, 1992 - Even the director sees this as a failure, but it isn’t bad exactly, just less than it might have been.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: I rarely watch movies a second time. I watched Broken English more times until it was over due at the library than Mark David Chapman’s read Catcher in the Rye. Either there’s something very, very wrong with me or there’s something very right about this seemingly meandering little independent movie. Both probably. You go see it while I go see a shrink and we’ll compare notes. While you’re loading up your queue, Deathproof kicks ass on four wheels and you have to see Dune if only for the kick in the ass it will give you to read the novel to answer the question most uninitiated first-time viewers have afterward. Namely, “What the fuck was that all about?!”
People I hate…
…just for starters.
People who make hand gestures while talking on a Bluetooth. It’s bad enough that I can’t tell if you’re on a cell phone or having schizo moment right out of Fight Club, but when you’re gesticulating and speaking in the general direction of NOBODY’S THERE, I’m going to assume the latter and avoid the fucking fuck out of you.
People who jump up and stand in the aisle the moment the plane comes to a halt at the gate. And then they stand there. Hey, jackass, you aren’t going anywhere. We’re twenty rows back. It takes you all of two seconds to get your bag from overhead. What’s your hurry to go absolutely no fucking where? Have a seat and find something to do. You telling me someone as bright as you finished this whole issue of Skymall already?
People who work at Wal-mart. This would take more time to go into than they’ve wasted of mine.
People (guys, actually) who throw/spit gum in urinals. Are you too fucking stupid to see it won’t fit through the screen? How do you think it gets out of there? Yeah, by the hand of a janitor who would very much like to return it to its asshole owner’s mouth in its urine-soaked state.
People (girls, actually… and it’s always girls; let’s not pretend) who can’t talk about sex without getting freaked out. They’re still in sixth grade. To them sex is icky. Sex is dirty. Why won’t everyone leave them alone with this awful “sex” business?! They’d happily sew their snatch shut if it meant they didn’t have to think about the subject again. I don’t know if they came from the factory with these defects or whether it’s the product of an upbringing featuring some combination of religion and/or more physical varities of molestation, but please stay the fuck out of our lives so we don’t have to tip-toe through conversations with you.
People who say the word “nuclear” with three syllables. You should be exposed to radiation in the vicinity of your gonads.
People who stop walking when they get to the escalator. Hey, idiots, pretend it’s stairs with a bonus. Because that’s what it is. Or if you are going to downshift to ABSOLUTE LAZY, then how about you GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY?!
People who don’t get back to you when you ask someone something directly in an email. I know I’m sarcastic sometimes and maybe rhetorical occasionally, but if a sentence ends with a question mark and it’s directed to you, I’m probably curious about something and would appreciate your answer.
People who make a veer right just to turn left. What the fuck is wrong with them? It’s a Toyota, not a school bus. If your turning radius is really that broad, that piece of shit you’re driving ought to be taken off the road.
People who call you back when they see you’ve left a message… that they never fucking bothered to listen to. The message is right there. You want to know what it says? It says you don’t need to fucking call me. It says if you call me, you’ll fucking wake the baby, ruin the surprise party, etc. Just listen to the goddamned message before you call wasting my fucking time. Why are you making me tell you the same fucking thing twice, fuckwad?
March’s DVD reviews, Part I
Totally Awesome, 2006 - Not really all that awesome (although I’ve had a crush on the female lead here since the new Battlestar Galactica), but if you grew up in the mid to late ’80s, you’ll appreciate all the pop culture references they crammed into this one. Incidentally, I never thought I’d say this, but Chris Katan is in fact totally awesome here.
Epic Movie, 2007 - I turned this off after 20 minutes (about 10 minutes real time since I was in 2x). I looked it up just to see if I was missing something. Nope. Everyone on the internet agrees with me; it’s in the IMDB Bottom 100.
Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 6, 1949 - You’re only going to make it up to this disc if you love this series already, so I’m probably preaching to the choir here.
The L Word: Season 4: Disc 2, 2007 - I’m surprised that the quality is holding up here when you’d think the series would have gotten stale. It was never great, but somehow I’ve never been able to turn away even when there weren’t gratutous lesbian love scenes.
Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar, 2004 - Unless you’re following along with sheet music they don’t bother to include with the Netflix rental here, you aren’t going to learn jack just watching this.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2007 - Better than the first one, but that’s not saying much. They did at least start to mold the characters according to how they’ve always been written, something so classic in comicdom that it hardly seemed like I was seeing the FF in the first flick. If they get that right next time around and have a decent story, then they’ll really have something.
Miss Potter, 2006 - Meh. Sometimes interesting lives don’t necessarily translate into interesting life stories when they’re put on the screen.
Rome: Season 2, Disc 1 - Picks up where the previous one left off, so it’s more of the same only bolstered by some minor upheavals resulting from the end-of-season cliffhangers, but you know what I’m talking about since your history book is full of spoilers.
Psych: Season 1, Disc 2 - You know that great show Monk? So do the producers here, and they try to capture its magic and fail in most regards. The cast never gels and the premise (he’s really a great detective but pretends to be a psychic because they’d never believe he’s just a really really detective… huh?) is so worn after just a few episodes that you can tell it walks with a limp that it tried to disguise so as not to attract attention when fleeing the scene of the crime.
Desperate Housewives: Season 3, Disc 5 - Still pretty good.
The Office: Season 3: Disc 4, 2006 - End of the season. I loved it. LOVED IT! I’m not going to tell you how it wraps up, but I loved it. LOVED IT!
Dexter: Season 1: Disc 3, 2006 - This lures you in. Be careful. Mace won’t help you either.
The TV Set, 2007 - I only rented it because Judy Greer was in it and I want to marry her. I can’t say this movie was terrible, but it was so far from good that it (unintentionally, I’m sure) resembled the level of quality and cycle of artistic compromise it tried to lampoon so much that it shot itself in the foot.
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 6: Disc 1, 2007 - Pretty good. Pretty pretty good.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: I am amazed that Curb Your Enthusiasm never gets old. It’s such a small, unambitious show, and yet it always works for me in spite of the fact it’s about me. And, seriously, either you’re watching The Office by now or you’re an idiot. Yes, seriously.
Stuff I Hate…
Individually wrapped candies. They’re single-serving one-way tickets to Type 2 diabetes shrouded in bite-sized bits of pollution. Besides, I want immediate gratification. I don’t want to fool around with this much cellophane for one piece of candy at a time. Give me Skittles or Reeces Pieces any day of the week.
Trucks. Sure, I’m always happy to have a friend who will lend me his when I have issues with moving or getting new furniture, but why would you buy a truck? Gas too cheap for you to drive a vehicle that gets decent mileage?
Sunglasses. I can’t read your expression, and if you surprise me wearing them I won’t even know who the fuck you are. It isn’t that bright and you aren’t that cool. Take them the fuck off.
The sun. It’s too hot when it’s up, then it’s always too low in the sky for most of the day, so it gets in my eyes. I hate sunglasses on other people, so I don’t wear them myself. Why can’t it just stay night all the time like it is when I’m awake?
Hugs. I’m not Howard Hughs, but I’m just not a touchy-feely person. I don’t initiate hugs or even handshakes. Sorry. Really, I don’t hate you or think you’re covered with germs (though you are, really). I just hate hugs.
The sound of women peeing. When a guy takes a leak, it just sounds like running water to me, and that’s no big deal. When a girl goes, it sounds like an ass on a toilet, and that’s just gross.
The sound of my neighbor’s dog. The neighbors are okay, but their dog is a fucking idiot. You know these dogs that bark at EVERYTHING? That’s this dog. They’ve lived there for six months or more, but every time the mail-lady walks by, he barks like a fucking idiot. Every time I go in my back yard (which is often because we have dogs of our own who need to be let out), he barks like a fucking idiot. And it isn’t just a bark-bark-bark; it’s a panicked succession of syllables strung so closely together that it’s almost a cross between a howl and a scream from a fucking idiot dog.
Apples. The fruit. I don’t especially like the computers either though.
Hotel showers. In addition to many of them being unnecessarily confusing (e.g., why only *one* knob/lever/whatever for both hot and cold? Okay, only at the ones that are more than $30 a night, obviously), the thing I hate most is there’s no way to predict how many geometric degrees of rotation are equivalent to how many degrees Fahrenheit. You barely touch it and the temperature goes from tepid to scalding. Once you factor the emergency room bill in, that vacation was no bargain after all.
Doctors office forms that ask for your DOB and your age. Do the fucking math, you fucking morons! I seriously cannot trust you jackasses with my bill or anything involving prescriptions if you cannot carry the one and figure out how old I am.
2girls, 1finger, and some more reaction videos
Remember that 2Girls1Cup video? Apparently there’s something worse… judging by these reactions.
“So there went my dinner…”
The return of Kevin and Ronald
Meet Bruno
Two different chicks watching two different chicks
“This isn’t shit, Blaine; this is throwup.”
Share any you find that are on par with these.
February’s DVD reviews, Part II
Titus, 1999 - Remember how cool Baz Lurman’s Romeo & Juliet was in the late ’90s? This was a misguided attempt to replicate it. This film is plenty over the top to the point that it gets just plain ridiculous, but I kind of liked it for that. More interestingly, I was surprised to find that Shakespear was pretty fuckin’ brutal in some of the plays we never got to read in high school!
Time Code, 2000 - Remember how cool Christopher Nolan’s Momento was because it had a gimmick but didn’t let everything ride on it? Well, here’s another time-distorting gimmick only without the substance. Skip it and save your time.
Classic Albums: Judas Priest: British Steel, 2001 - I like the band (but not in a gay way… not that there’s anything wrong with that), but there’s nothing interesting to report here.
Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 5, 1949 - The date is deceptive here as the disc actually goes through the ’70s. Most surprising thing caught on camera here: Allen Funt’s wardrobe. WTF?
Weeds, Season 2, Discs 1&2, 2007 - It’s kind of a cartoon, but no one has thrown these elements together in quite this way, and that makes it interesting even though it really isn’t challenging. It isn’t a sitcom, just something different. I think that’s HBO’s motto or something.
Jaws, 1975 - A lot of people regard this as a classic, but it really is an absolute classic. I hadn’t seen it since I was maybe ten, so another trip to these waters was long overdue. Same goes for you.
G’n'R: Use Your Illusion II, 1992 - This is more embarrassing on so many levels than the fact I’m admitting having watched it. The performance by all is lackluster at best and, frankly, pretty bad in spots. Axl is a parody of himself with his costume changes literally every other song. This is so from removed what good management and therapy should have pulled out of these guys that it’s more tragic than Titus.
Thinner, 2003 - Really bad adaptation of the first Stephen King book I tried to read and never bothered to finish.
Riding the Bullet, 2004 - Really, really bad adaptation of something else I never read by Stephen King.
Black Sabbath: The Dio Years, 2007 - Just a VH1 special that’s all talk and no music.
Baadasssss!, 2003 - The made-for-cable true story of some badass filmmaking.
Disturbia, 2007 - Rear Window meets The Burbs meets American Pie. However, in spite of the obvious sources, the movie itself is surprisingly compelling thanks to a likable performance from that kid in Transformers and a great ass on his next-door neighbor. That is, until it starts to get stupid toward the end.
Jesus Camp, 2006 - You ever have a mentally ill friend or family member and constantly find yourself torn between anger at the situation and pity for the fact they’ll likely never find a way to pull themselves out of it? If you enjoy that kind of rush of conflicting but entirely negative emotions, this is the film for you.
Desperate Housewives: Season 3, Discs 3&4 - Better than the second season, not as good as the first. Felicity Huffman’s still my favorite though, I don’t care what you say.
Twin Peaks definitive edition, Discs 9&10 - I rented it for the extras (having seen the series at least three times through by this point). And the extras are awesome! …at least if you’re a big Peaks-freak like myself. One of the best and most thorough collections of interviews, promos, and other goodies and leftovers (not many deleted scenes though, sadly). Well worth the seemingly interminable wait for Lynch to get his shit together here.
Away from Her, 2006 - Quiet little movie about Alzheimer’s by (unexpectedly) first-time director Sarah Polley. Slow (though appropriately so), but very good.
The Science of Sleep, 2006 - Michel Gondry’s rehash of leftover ideas from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Lots of good stuff here that never gels.
PICKS OF THE LITTER: Titus is such a train wreck in some ways and genius in others that it ought to be rediscovered and Disturbia does a great job of elevating mediocre material through good direction and fun performances. And the last gasp from Twin Peaks is a treat for those imprinted by the series in the ’90s.
