reading:
John Bowe (ed): Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs
Gail Simone: Birds of Prey
Sarah Vowell: Take the Cannoli
Howard Zinn: People's History of the U.S.
So I saw Spider-man 2 at a midnight screening last night, and while there is a lot I can say about it (and the other movies I've seen recently) for now I'll just say, "Yeah, Sam, like that, please" and then fall asleep.
Tired. Very tired. Not due to anything in particular. Okay, maybe the six hours of sleep on Friday night and the seven hours of sleep on Saturday have lead to a bit of a deficit, but no worse than usual. And I went to bed early last night... Okay, early-ish... But still! Eight hours! Of sleep!
Maybe it's the caffeine.
Wait, no.
Dear, sweet caffeine. I'm so sorry. I never meant to speak ill of you. Let's never fight again.
I have a steno pad here at the office that I use to keep track of things; I start a new page every day, and it becomes a quasi-to-do list by the end of it. Today nearly went to two pages, but it was all trivial things - reminders to order a power strip from Office Depot, clean my desk, make labels for various things.
It's been a trivial sort of day. And now the creepy creepy security guard is here to guard the office from wrongdoers - he sits here every night, from 5 PM to 1 AM, working on his screenplays, trying his best to "network" with the show's producers, and creeping out every girl here. He's a nice enough guy, he's just... creepy.
For example, at this exact moment he is reading a vanity press anthology of his own poetry. I know this, because I hear him talking about it with everyone who asks, "Hey, dude, what are you reading?" He's reading it so they'll ask him about it.
Now he's reading his own screenplay. And chuckling. Jeez Louise.
Today, I found a new cover for my cell phone for 97 cents. This is a big deal, because my cell phone is over three years old and looks it, even if it still works beautifully - the new cover is vaguely opaque and a lovely shade of purple, and you can see the lights behind the display light up. It's supersnazzy.
But in order to acquire this new cover, I had to bear the gauntlet of the guys at Radio Shack, who made fun of my dear, sweet phone and tried to get me to buy a new one. "Look at this one! This one's free after the rebate!"
"But my phone's totally fine!"
"Have you seen what the new phones can do?"
"I don't need a camera, I don't need games, I don't even need a color display. I just need my phone."
"This one has over six hours of calling time!"
"Who am I gonna talk to for six hours?"
Admittedly, my phone does get a little tuckered out by a forty-minute conversation with my parents. But the whole experience made me that much more determined to get a new battery for my current phone, rather than acquire one of the flimsy hunks of shiny plastic they hock these days.
It's as simple as this - I drop my phone on average about once a week. And it still works fine. I've reassembled my phone drunk, in the dark, while rushing to catch up with friends, and it still works fine. I know what all the buttons do (even if the lettering's wearing off a little) and I know how to program all the features. Me and my phone have gotten along great for the past three years. And here's to three more.
Wallet a little empty lately? Bank account a little less than zero? Want to make the sweet cash moneydollars that smooth off life's rough edges?
Write TV theme songs. If you write a TV theme song, they will play this song every time the show is ever mentioned, in a hundred different countries around the world. They will hear your song in Croatia. They will translate it into French.
And every time a young Brazilian lass hears her favorite program's opening notes, you'll get royalties. For the rest of your life. For a song that lasts no longer than one minute.
Conversations With a Classics Major: The Cut Stuff I Liked
You never really realize how much you can talk about gay Trojan men in skirts until you transcribe an hour-long conversation about gay Trojan men in skirts. An abridged transcript (skipping over most of the tangents) ran about fourteen pages, and in order to get it to a manageable length I had to cut about half of that. Which meant that some of my favorite bits had to go, especially the most off-topic, but I retrieve them now for your entertainment. Because they're funny.
To me, at least.
Before we get into the hate, tell me a couple of things you liked about Troy.
I thought the casting was really very good -- though whether they were directed well or not is another topic. Y'know, despite how bad a job he did, Orlando Bloom is very pretty. He's the prettiest celebrity we have.
Everyone seems to like the horse -- the horse was very good, given that we don't know what the horse actually looked like.
The horse did look like somebody built it from a bunch of boats.
Yeah, the design was really good. And...
Alison's boyfriend: And Odysseus-
Yeah, I liked Odysseus more in the movie than I ever liked him in the book.
Yeah, Sean Bean was awesome. Everyone was joking about wanting the sequel to be Sean Bean's The Odyssey -- now I actually want to see Sean Bean's The Odyssey...
I don't know if he's really the best body type for Odysseus (at the end of The Odyssey, he's the only man who can pull his bow, and I don't see Sean Bean as the only man among big burly men who can pull his bow) but he did a very good job.
Do you think they could ever make a historical biopic where they were very honest about [homosexuality]?
They're doing that!
With Alexander?
Yeah -- Jared Leto's his boyfriend! And he has a wife too, you know.
But in Alexander, aren't Alexander and Hephaestion the same age?
I don't know who his boyfriend was in real life -- they don't have a book like The Iliad that says who was what or anything. And Alexander was from Northern Greece, and who knows what they did up there-
They might just have sex with whomever they like.
What's important about The Iliad and why it matters is that it actually discusses Greece coming together as a country -- the Trojan War is the first time they all came together as a united Greece. And Alexander cemented the united Greece.
And by cement we mean "conquer the shit out of."
Well, it was a united country after that.
Other impressions about the movie? What would you have done differently?
Well, it's always hard to decide what things to keep in and what things to lose -- plus, they wanted to get to the end of the war anyways. But the little Aeneas nod, even though they did it terribly, I liked.
What was the Aeneas nod?
One of the big Roman epics is The Aeneid -- Aeneas is actually a Trojan who escapes and founds Rome, and so at the end of the movie when they're all leaving through that corridor and Orlando Bloom is like, "Who are you?" and the kid's like "I am Aeneas" and Orlando says, "Here, take this sword of Troy, for if this sword is around then Troy will always be around." And so Aeneas then goes and founds Rome. It was a cute little nod to those of us who know it, but it was REALLY cheesy. Plus Aeneas there is 15 and he's not supposed to be, because there's this whole thing where he takes his dad with him instead of his wife -- because he has to go marry the Italians so... whatever, it's another story. But one of my favorite stories that they didn't do was the Ajax story -- 'cause, you know, Tyler Mane-
I know! I was totally like "I can't believe the Hulk could beat Sabertooth in a fight!" And not Hulked out or anything!
But his story is one of my favorites, because when Achilles dies they have to give his stuff to somebody, and it's between Odysseus and Ajax, and Odysseus wins, and this makes Ajax mad, and as a result one of the gods makes him crazy and he goes around slaughtering all of the animals because he thinks they're Greeks. But they can't include everything, even though that's one of my favorite parts.
Wait, so that's with Ajax? He isn't killed in the first half of the story by a non-Hulked-out Hulk?
Making labels right now. Very exciting. Made copies earlier. Even more exciting.
Tonight I may post cut scenes from last month's Bookslut column. This will be a marvelous appetizer for actually writing next month's column.
Fever Pitch, the Colin Firth adaptation, made me sleepy last night. By "made me sleepy," I mean, "knocked me unconscious." That's never a testament of quality (or lack thereof), though.
Another assistant here just got a new phone. She's programming it right now, softly entering numbers and speaking out loud the names. "Jeffrey's cell. Jeffrey's cell."
I've had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song stuck in my head for the past six hours.
So the fine folks over at Whedon Inc have launched a blog to cover the production and etcetera of the upcoming Serenity. Reading it makes me feel a little more disconnected from the whole Whedon thing, alarmingly enough... Maybe it's the yearning to be "in" in some way; maybe it's just a reaction to realizing that the little show that couldn't is gonna be the big movie that possibly can, and thus my little show is gonna be everyone's big damn movie and that should be a good thing, I know...
Ahck. Stupid Whedon.
Now, to go buy Astonishing before the comic book store closes...
Books: Started Hey Nostradamus! the day before yesterday. Remained true to what I'd heard before; namely, that the first chapter is fantastic, and then we get onto the rest of it. Not that the rest of it is bad. I'm liking it a helluva lot more than I did All Families Are Psychotic (by far my least favorite Douglas Coupland book ever). But I am eager for things to start happening again.
Comics: Last week's Birds of Prey is still unread -- I may sit down with it and the new Astonishing X-Men, out tonight, after I get some work done. I did finish Crisis on Infinite Earths, however, which was certainly interesting. A lot of the whizz-bang-multiple-dimensions-technobbabble elements don't really grab me; but there's some interesting character work and it was fun to pretend, for an hour or two, that I was a twelve-year-old gobstoppered by the death of Supergirl. Crisis certainly made me feel the sting of mortality a great deal more than...
TV: This week's Six Feet Under, which totally left me cold. Part of it was that it reminded me of the bad SFU spec I wrote for a class a year and a half ago -- that spec is also replete with sitcom-y dialogue, hamhanded metaphors, and extreme shifts of character, but it's also a first draft. Of a spec. That didn't air on a network.
I'm giving the show one more week. But I have less time these days, and little energy for things that displease me. Especially things that used to be so good!
The Jury, meanwhile, is a pretty decent hour of television -- now that we're a few episodes in, the regular cast members are growing more distinct (though I still have a hard time telling the two brunette defense attorneys apart, especially when the brunette secretary is in the room) and the formula is sitting better with me. Maybe this is just the summation of my deep and intense love for 12 Angry Men, my interest in the legal system, and my own looming jury duty (rescheduled for September). Or maybe Barry Levinson's made himself some damn good TV.
Movies: I'm gonna try to see Dodgeball sometime this week. I have a Saturday matinee rendezvous with Michael Moore planned. And perhaps someday I'll watch one of my Netflix picks. But otherwise, I'm running low on time.
Music: The other night I listened to this guy named Marvin Gaye. He was pretty good.
Wow, it's an actual AIM conversation! It's like I have a new job that has hours of downtime!
I know that normally these are lame and boring. This one, however...
ME: Hee. From the Run Lola Run trivia section at IMDb: After doing one take of the scene in the casino where Lola cashes in her chips and the camera pans up to the clock on the back wall, director Tom Tykwer decided there was too much wall. He told his art director to paint a picture on the wall. Of what? said the art director. Of Kim Novak said Tykwer. I don't know what Kim Novak looks like, replied the art director. Then paint the back of her head, Tykwer told him and proceeded to shoot all the other casino shots while the art director painted. Tykwer says you can see how fresh the paint is because it's so shiny.
ASA: That's awesome
ME: that's the best solution to a problem I've ever heard of
ASA: Everytime I have a problem I'm going to paint Kim Novack
ME: but what if you don't know what Kim Novak looks like?
ASA: Then I'll paint the back of her head
ASA: if I have problems in the near future I'll probably start off with that
ASA: unless I have time to dig up reference photos on the internet
ASA: but eventually i figure I'll become familiar enough with her face and body that I'll be able to paint her fairly well from memory
ASA: so if I get lost in the woods or soemthing i can do cave paintings of Kim Novack
ME: they'll be found, thousands of years later.
ME: "who is this blonde goddess, and why did the back of her head tantalize this artist so?"
ME: civilizations crumble. Novak prevails
ASA: Historians will call it my Novack period
ME: "Clearly, what Asa was trying to illustrate here was the dominion of Hitchcock-esque ice queens is eternal -- note the use of the cave medium, which he calls upon to depict the everlasting nature of rock and Novak -- the back of her head shining, the tilt of her neck just so."
ASA: OK, now I really want to do a painting of a cave painting of Kim Novack
ASA: Or maybe a Diorama
ME: a diorama!
ME: like in a shoebox?
ME: with dinosaurs, and little construction paper trees?
Random thought for the morning -- how many of us TV afficionados can name the networks on which our favorite shows air? Yeah, I thought so. But another question -- how many of us can name the studios that produce our favorite shows? It's not always the same. Dharma and Greg may have aired on ABC, but everyone who worked on the show was an employee of 20th Century Fox. The West Wing and a ton of other NBC shows are produced by Warner Brothers, and Angel belongs fully to Fox, despite airing on the WB and shooting on the Paramount lot.
You can find out who produces the show by checking the title cards at the end of every episode -- something you'd normally overlook. But it can mean the world to whoever's working on these shows. For example, the Unnamed Studio that employs me doesn't give screen credit to administrative staff. (Which includes me.) So, fortune and fame are a few years off.
Well, this would be Day 6 of my employment at UHS, and so far the show hasn't been canceled and the studio hasn't burned down. I haven't even been fired! Life is pretty sweet.
Went home for the weekend (my first time flying back and forth, and surprisingly smooth -- Burbank to San Jose isn't glamorous, but the economy lots are priced Just Right). Great to see the family, including a young man who is one-fourth done with that whole college thing (congrats, Eric!). Oddly, the weekend was Chock Full o' Baseball -- on Saturday, we went to the Giants/Red Sox game, where I experienced the new sensation of cheering for a team that managed to win; however, I'm sure that the bad karma my support brings will hit them sometime during the playoffs. And on Sunday, there was Eight Men Out in the morning, Field of Dreams in the evening, and the second Giants/Sox game in between.
So. Baseball. I have a lot of fondness for the sport, even though I prefer the pace and grace of basketball. It's a game for warm blue skies and sunshine. And I've been craving these things, recently, especially on the weekends. So I'll go for walks. I'll sit outside a cafe with a drink. I'll check out a street fair. I'll hang out in Griffith Park.
Yesterday I got a little sunburned -- just enough to make my skin tingle. It's been a really long time since I got burned. And while I'll be more careful with the SPF 30 in future, I find that I don't mind the sensation so much. It makes my skin feel warm. Makes me feel like the sun's still shining on it.
Grey and cloudy today, and they still haven't fixed the thermostat. It's cold, inside and out.
Last night, instead of falling asleep at 10 PM watching Daily Show (this has happened twice so far this week) I went over to a house of friends to watch my brand spankin' new copy of Pitch Black. I'd seen this about a year ago, because C. told me to, and C. was right to do so -- it's a wonderfully character-driven little horror movie, with a great use of sci-fi elements. If you haven't seen it, you should. If you don't normally like Vin Diesel, you will (at least, to some extent). If you want to see Chronicles of Riddick (as I did, last weekend), you should see this first. It's The Hobbit of what director David Twohy wants to be a three-film LOTR. And Riddick, a decent little sci-fi epic with a fair number of problems and a lot of good elements, has a lot of potential. I kinda really dig the ending, and look forward to seeing what happens next.
This afternoon, I was sent to go get a Variety from the newstand on the Unnamed Studio Lot. (The office UHS's writing and production staff occupies is across the street, in a big fancy building.) It was cool outside, cloudy and crisp, and I was glad of my cardigan until I got lost in the midst of the fake buildings and streets, my pace increasing, my deoderant under assault.
So I squinted at my map, trying to figure out if the street I was on could possibly be Midwestern Road (as opposed to Brownstone Avenue), until I turned a corner and found the soundstages behind the facades, emblazoned with numbers that, like stars, oriented me towards the north.
It was only when I saw the soundstages that I stopped worrying about jaywalking across those empty streets. It's summer, and TV production hasn't started up yet. Traffic is light.
I found the newsstand quickly after that.
When I got back to our building, I saw that what could only be the writing staff of Unnamed Hit Teen Drama (their offices are on the same floor of ours) was still sitting on the steps outside the building. The writer's assistant took notes on a laptop, and the writers discussed character names I knew in passing as they enjoyed the strong breeze, the flat grey skies.
Upon my return, I delivered the Variety, the 21 cents in change, and the receipt. And then I got back to work, filing and sorting office supplies. (Which are just like the office supplies in any other office. Except that we have TONS of them.)
Three days in, and sometimes the office feels like just another office. But then I remember what's actually going on.
So, it's 7:45 PM, and I'm still at work. To be honest, "at work" is a funny way to put it. I've done nothing productive for hours, as there has been nothing for me to do.
My new bosses, however, do not care one whit about me screwing around on the internet. I excel at wasting time online, so it's not like I'm bored or anything.
This will become a pattern, I'm sure, here at Unnamed Hit Sitcom (that'll be UHS in the future, you nerds). I have to learn how to manage my time better. Or acquire a zip drive for my home computer, as there's Final Draft 6 and a zip drive on this snazzy computer they let me use.
Maybe I should go ask if they still need me. They just may. Or not. I don't know.
This having-a-new-job thing is surreal. I'm getting the hang of everything except the phones. I fear the phones. Ever time there's a ring, a chill shoots down my spine. Usually, it's not for my office. But tomorrow I'm sitting by myself on the lines all morning long, and I expect nothing but rings all night long.
I like it here, though. I finally relaxed enough to do so. It was pretty awesome.
Now I just need to stay up past 10 PM tonight. It'd be nice if I existed outside of work, in some small way.
So, in about ten minutes, I'm going to go upstairs, pick up my final paycheck, and officially bring my employment at USC to a close.
I liked working here: the short hours, the quiet, the relaxed atmosphere, the great people. Leaving isn't something I was necessarily given a choice about (my position was to expire at the end of the month, through no fault of my own), but I start a new job next week, and I'm certain I'll have more to say about it later.
I'm certain I'll miss it here. But regret can come later. I'm looking forward to Monday now. Looking forward to a new chapter.
In the meantime, I have to go. I leave you with a little Nina Simone:
It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life And I'm feelin' good
On one of my message boards, we're talking about Reagan's funeral. And I was writing this, and I realized that it got off topic, so I decided to post it here instead:
When someone dies, the nature of memorializing and mourning means that we start looking at the summation of a life. A lot of Reagan debate has run fallow for a while (we as a nation have had plenty on our minds, after all) and we're seeing it all rush back so fast now. People are still really really angry about a lot of the things that happened during the Reagan years. So it's brought all that to a head.
I've actually enjoyed a lot of the debate I've been hearing on the news over the past week -- there's been a lot of respectful acknowledgement of Reagan's accomplishments, without downplaying his less-accomplished moments. I've learned a good deal more about that era of history than I had before (tinted heavily by a six-year-old's hazy recollection of things). And that's always a good thing.
The only thing that's really annoyed me over the past week is the fact that Clinton, a former President and a man who's spoken quite eloquently on Reagan's achievements, has not been invited to speak -- neither has any other former Democratic president. It's not that I have a sekritfangirllove for Clinton or anything (he's not my type), but I know I'm not the only one who thinks it wrong that a state funeral, an occasion for nonpartisanship if ever there was one, has been transformed into a campaign event for Bush. It's not fair to former President Reagan, it's not fair to his family, and it's not fair to the people who called him President for eight years.
I forget where I heard this quote, but I liked it: "When you're elected president, you go from being a representative of a party to a representative of the American people." Because this is what I always liked about The West Wing: the way it honored the traditions, the symbolic actions, the significance of the office. I mean, over two hundred years ago, men died for the right to elect their own leader, to not have edicts passed down by a government across the ocean that had no room for their voices. They weren't saints by any stretch of the imagination, and the various justifications for the revolution are a lot more complicated than what the teacher said in the third grade. But it was still a thing that was done.
When the politics get petty, this is what I think about. Because not inviting one former president to speak in honor of another, because of party affiliation, just feels wrong somehow.
There are reasons to like the two-party system. This is definitely not one of them.
You can watch the first-season Gargoyles episode "Deadly Force" online, apparently. I remember seeing it and being pretty blown away. Didn't realize they weren't rerunning it, though.
Another note regarding Bookslut -- this month's Fear Factor refers to Steve Niles as "the talented, if overhyped, writer of such projects as 30 Days of Night." And I'd just like to say to Adam:
Thanks so much for saying it. Talented, yes. Overhyped, oh god yes.
Updated the sidebar, because I finally finished Edible Woman and started Fever Pitch, and commemorating that felt right. Especially since it feels like the only thing I really got done last night... Well, that, and the rest of this week's coverage. Oh, and I also started a new stripe on Scarf the Latest, which is ribbed! And not even meant for me! (It's being knit as a trade for comic books -- I know my price.)
New Bookslut is up, and the redesign is lovely. Everything is good, and those of you who know Alison Veneto will be charmed by our little tete a tete regarding Troy. Sadly, I had to cut the stuff where we squeal over the Hulk beating Sabretooth in a fight. Perhaps I'll post it here later.
Two thoughts upon looking at my ought-to-be-revamped design for Lizlet Designs:
Yeah. That needs some work.
Holy crap, my hair used to be LONG.
It now comes down to about my shoulders. It looks much better on the average. But still. Looking at that old picture really makes me want that hair back.
When I was in England, I pulled up the site on Caz's computer, and the first thing I said was, "yeah, this is really orange." She agreed. The question of "too orange" wasn't fully discussed. But there certainly is such a thing. And white space is pretty. White space is where it's at.
I'm not sure about the blog sidebar yet, I know that the link color needs to be tweaked, and tehre are probably some other technical problems I haven't worked through yet. But I like the look of the subpages, and I think this showcases the header pretty well.
I never feel like I've really hit my peak with these designs. It doesn't help that I know some crazy talented designers who could kick my ass with an arm behind their backs. I'm still using image slices and tables, which is pretty obsolete methodology. But it works for me. So whatever, I suppose.
In other design news, I'm very excited to see what the new Bookslut design looks like. It'll roll out with the new issue, hopefully in the next day or two. And it'll be SPIFF.
Leaving her options open is something Ms. Lansing has been known for ever since she produced "Fatal Attraction" and shot a new ending after test audiences expressed a craving for revenge. When the first, three-hour cut of "The First Wives Club" played poorly, new scenes were written and shot and a voice-over narration by Diane Keaton added. The movie grossed more than $100 million, cementing Ms. Lansing's reputation as a savvy purveyor of mainstream "zeitgeist" movies for women.
Pardon me while I go scream into my pillow. Go read Backlash if you don't understand why.
Can we have more awards ceremonies where the only running gag is how much everyone present wants to make out with Hugh Jackman, including the puppets and Nathan Lane?
That'd be swell. And throw in the gold lame, while you're at it.
Today's felt off key somehow. Disjointed. Breakfast at 12:30, diner coffee during daylight hours on a patio so thoroughly shaded it felt like the indoors, but for the breeze. Sunshine and wet dog smell at the Los Feliz street fair. Emptying my wallet of cash for art. Writing a scene for my screenplay in a Starbucks. Fifteen minutes late to the library. Too tired from walking around to go to the gym. Covering screenplays; asking the writer if Miles Davis really deserves to go to heaven. The season finale of Six Feet Under, seven days before the season premiere. Nina Simone, stuck in my head. A desire to drink red wine.
Nothing quite as it usually is.
Good to have a day like this, every once in a while. But the effort of keeping up with life gone awry wears me out.
Tomorrow, I'm quitting my job. In a week, I start a new one.
The pieces, they fit together. The same old song and dance.
You know what'd be an awesome, AWESOME way to end the remake of The Stepford Wives? That'd be a total twist on the concept, without subverting or betraying the themes?
Nicole Kidman pretends to be a robot to escape being murdered. And then she has to keep pretending to be a robot. Forever. She can't escape, she can't take down the system from within (perhaps because of her children -- they're hostages or something). She's just trapped in this perfect sunny existence where she has to pretend to be happy and loving and nurturing and self-sacrificing all the time. And so the last shot of the movie is Nicole smiling at the camera, big plastic smile, and we go close on her eyes and they look to be on the edge of tears. Or perhaps there's no expression at all. Just... blank. She's still human, she's just... blank.
I mean, this ending could never ever happen. Too dark, etcetera. But I still want to travel back in time and make it happen somehow.
Regarding the movie that is... The trailer is horribly conflicted, as they don't really blend in the dark with the comedy too well. But the modern touches are interesting. Like, they've added a gay couple to the town of Stepford. I'm kinda intrigued by how that'll play.
Not that I'm likely to see it. I got a date with a man named Riddick that weekend. I'm just saying.
His bizarro word rhythm and gleeful disregard for punctuation makes even his most banal utterances sound dramatic. At the grocery store, he stared at a plump tomato and then put it back. ''I DON'T. Buy the tomatoes with. The stems. On them. They don't. Degrade. They go. Down the sink. And into the WATER. Then. They get lodged in the throats of little. OTTERS.'' -- WALKEN
And last but not least... Noah Wyle is... THE LIBRARIAN.
"Michael Jackson was the most popular and famous singer in the entire world."
"If you wanted to watch a movie, your parents would have to drive you to a video rental store, where for the price of a candy bar you would get a plastic cassette the size of your new computer. It didn't have special features or anything, and you had to wait for all the trailers and advertisements to play. When you were done watching it, you were supposed to 'be kind and rewind.' You very rarely rewound."
"Coffee came in one flavor and three sizes. If you wanted it sweeter, you'd add powdered saccarine that gave lab rats cancer."
"We used to use lab rats to see what could give people cancer. We hadn't yet found out that lab rats have the always-be-getting-cancer gene."
"People thought it was weird to elect an actor to political office."
"People thought you could contract AIDS from toilet seats. This included government officials in charge of the AIDS crisis."
"People thought that people like your Uncles Tony and Carl were going to hell."
"People thought $6 was too much to pay for a movie."
I saw The Day After Tomorrow on Friday, like it was just any other movie. And it totally was. How can a movie destroy the city I live in, not to mention the Northern hemisphere, and still leave me feeling completely cold? Perhaps it was the overabundance of lame effects. Perhaps it was the obvious greenscreening. Perhaps it was... just... lame.
Though my favorite part, by far, was when Jason broke Anartica. A close second was when the characters were being chased by weather. Wacky fun.
It's subaverage movies like these that make me want to remember what it's like to look forward to potentially good movies. Which means that it's time for a round-up of What Liz Is Looking Forward To This Summer:
June 4, 2004: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Wherein we learn that the secret to making a good Harry Potter movie is To Not Let Chris Columbus ANYWHERE NEAR IT.
June 11, 2004: The Chronicles of Riddick. I enjoyed Pitch Black a great deal, so I'll give this movie some love as well.
June 30, 2004: Spider-Man 2. I'm not a huge fan of the first movie (call me crazy, but I like it when a screenplay has THREE ACTS) but the quality of the trailers has convinced me to keep an open mind. I swear, though, that if there's another stupid "New Yorkers throwing garbage at the villain" scene, I'm done with this movie franchise.
July 16, 2004: I, Robot. I mean, sure, I feel bad about the raping of Asimov. But I also really miss the Will Smith summer action extravaganzas that dominated the 90s. I mean, they were never very good -- but damn, were they fun. Plus, it's hard to go wrong with killer robots -- especially killer robots modeled on Alan Tudyk!
July 23, 2004: The Bourne Supremacy. I really liked the original, and there needs to be more Franke Potente in the world. This could be a real fun matinee.
July 30, 2004: Garden State. As good as Manchurian Candidate might be, by this point in the summer I'll be much more interested in taking a chance on something indie and strange.
And after that, there's really nothing I'm excited for until... November. There are certainly movies that I'll end up seeing (Dodgeball is a likely candidate) but these are the ones for which I'll make the effort.
The one thing that's on my mind, the one thing that I want to write about, is the one thing I don't feel comfortable discussing on the internet quite yet. It's not a huge deal (I don't have cancer or anything like that) but it would not be prudent to say anything at this time.
So, I'm in flux. I know where I am at this moment. Where I'm going to be a week from now? A month from now? Unknown.
