Something old and something new...

So yesterday an old Ginger Rogers film, The Major and the Minor, came out on DVD. I just got done watching it a bit ago and I am so glad I invested the twelve bucks to get it. Such a good movie. I realized as I was popping it in that, even thought it's probably my favorite black and white film, I have never actually seen the whole thing. I came in maybe twenty minutes into it the first time I saw it and then ever since have only caught it in bits and pieces. It's a sweet and funny story that probably could not be told today--though I guess Drew Barrymore's Never Been Kissed a few years back had a similar-ish plot.

Ginger Rogers plays a small town girl struggling to make it in New York City in 1941. She finally decides she's had enough and makes plans to return home to Iowa. The only problem is she's wiped out--the only cash she has left is the money she saved for her return trip home--just in case--problem is, the railroad upped the price of the ticket and the bus drivers are on strike. So she gets the brilliant idea to pose as a twelve year-old so as to get a half-price fair and be able to make it home. The train conductors are suspicious of her from the start, and while evading them she meets a Major in the Army who teaches at a nearby military academy. One thing leads to another and she ends up staying at the military academy with the Major's very jealous fiancee and his fiancee's very smart younger sister. Of course she falls for the Major and is faced with the conundrum of how to explain to him that she's not really a twelve year old girl without risking his ire.

Like I said, it's a sweet story, and the cast is pretty dynamic. So if you're in the market to add a classic to your collection, you should pick this one up, or if you are looking for something fun at the video store, this may be the movie for you.

Of course, the reason I watched this DVD tonight and not last night is that last night my husband and I went out to see a new movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Wow. Freakin' funny stuff. Though if you are considering going to see it I must give you two warnings: There's some pretty immediate full frontal nudity of Jason Segel going on (way more than I ever needed to see of this guy, I'm telling you). It's nothing bad or gross or anything, and it's really part of the humor of the situation, but if you're not expecting it, it can definitely throw you. The second warning is that this one gets pretty vulgar from time to time. Again, it's nothing extreme, and is worked into the humor and the story pretty flawlessly, but it's still there.

Those things aside, this movie was absolutely hilarious. My day yesterday was not good and this made me totally forget all that crap for a while, even with the crazy party of ladies sitting in the row in front of me. This was a very real portrayal of a breakup, even if some of the characters are extreme, the emotion behind them, even all of the side characters, is very real. Plus, there's singing vampire puppets.

So if you don't mind some random humorous nudity or a quick walk on the funny vulgar side, this is a great film to check out. Just beware the crazy drunk ladies with the leis who don't get that once the movie starts the audience is supposed to stop shouting to each other across the theater...

Anyhoo, signing off for now, have a great one!

C

It's a Two-For!

One of my favorite shows on television right now, and one I haven't mentioned too often because it is not sci-fi and I'm still climbing out of that specific valley, is How I Met Your Mother.

I just wanted to give a big huzzah! for tonight's episode. There were many awesome moments, from Lily's "revertigo" with her friend Michelle, to James Van Der Beek's appearance as Robin's first boyfriend.

The two most...wait for it...AWESOME moments were these:

--We got a new Robin Sparkles video! Hee hee. I am so stoked by the fact that they decided to make part of Robin's super secret past be that she was a Canadian Teen Pop Star. Not only did they throw that in her background, they aren't just making it a one-off joke. I am tickled to death by the whole concept.

--Robin and Barney totally hooked up! I have been predicting this since season one, and I am super excited to see how this goes. This show is pretty good about not copping out, so even if the pair doesn't end up together for the long haul as I forsee/hope, well, I think we will definitely get a good story out of it, and one that will have repercussions throughout the series.

So yeah. Sweet.

Okay, I am done now. :o)

Babylon 5...

Okay, I just finished watching season three of this series, and I want more! Unfortunately I am going to have to wait until I get paid again and have a little extra $ to order the next/final two seasons. And yeah, I did just find out that episodes are available on Hulu, but man, I am going to want to buy them, so I may as well just wait (and then not have to watch them on my laptop).

Sidebar: If you haven't checked out Hulu, by the way, it's pretty fraktastic. And it just went from being invitation only to all users welcome, so that's pretty sweet. To my point of view, it's a perfect place for catching up on missed episodes of series, getting caught up on a series you came into late, or just getting to watch some episodes of an old show you want to revisit but don't necessarily want to buy on DVD (like, in my case, Doogie Howser, M.D.).

Okay, where was I? Oh! Babylon 5! This show is incredible. It is set several hundred years in the future on the titular space station, which is a diplomatic gathering place for humans and other species we have encountered since venturing out into space. It focuses primarily on the exploits of the executive crew of the station and a few of the alien ambassadors, with a backdrop of imminent galactic war and extremely tense political situations.

In some ways it would be so easy to write this series off as cheesy sci-fi at its pinnacle. The dialog frequently reaches cringe-worthy levels of horrible. This show was made in the very early days of CG/green screen technology, so the effects are hardly spectacular, though they certainly could be worse for their time of origin. The make-up is hardly stellar--almost all of the aliens are pretty humanoid, and some are pretty ridiculous. I mean seriously, who came up with the Centauri hairstyles? Though I do have to say I find the Narn to be pretty cool, as far as the various alien "designs" go.

But oh my God, give it a few episodes and all of that is completely blown away by the show's two saving graces: the story and the acting. This series is a truly amazing example of a creative team approaching a show with a definite story arc in mind and then executing that arc with integrity. I know that the original story arc was planned for five seasons and had to be wrapped up after season four due to a short-lived cancellation, so I am really interested to see how seasons four and five turn out based on that, but from what I've seen so far, I kind of think they can't be that disappointing. I'll find out I guess.

Compelling doesn't even begin to describe the story laid out on this show. As events unfold and characters are introduced, given a chance to grow, or even make their exits, the viewer is left both quite satisfied and still wanting more. That takes some talent, in my book.

As far as the acting goes, this cast is just wonderful together. As I said before, the dialog leaves something to be desired, but these people take that and still make you manage to care about their characters and to be able to believe in the story and want to follow it to its conclusion.

So, that's my recommendation for the week. If you're looking for some fun sci-fi that's still extremely good despite a definite cheese-factor, head on over to Hulu and check it out.

~*~

Other notes:

Bones is back! I am not looking forward to the rumors of the pending Zack injury, but I definitely enjoyed the first episode since the strike. The banter on this show almost makes me giddy. I think this week's episode is the one from last season that got yanked from the air due to the Virginia Tech tragedy. It will be interesting to see how it's been reworked to fit in with the current season.

Women's Murder Club and Grey's Anatomy are back on the air this week! More reasons to jump for joy.

Well, that's all I've got for now. I wish you all a happy and healthy week.

C

~*~

No red shirts here--just one hell of a red dress.

"The five are close..."
"What?"
"I can feel them."

Well, Battlestar is back.

(Insert spoiler warning here.)

Wow. Episode one of season four is a prime example of why I love this show. The character development is just insanely phenomenal, especially given how many characters there are in this stellar cast. On every level, from the creators to the writers to the actors, this show has managed to embrace and portray the fact that every single human life is valuable. And no wonder, in this story the human race--just less than 40,000 survivors--is on the run, trying to preserve its very existence. Even some of the not-human lives are worth risking everything for in this universe.

Obviously this is a show in which death plays an integral and recurring role. What I truly admire about BSG is that even though rarely an episode goes by that someone doesn't die, no death is casual. Nine times out of ten the character that dies is someone we've known and followed for quite some time. I very much doubt all of the primary characters will finish out this season. President Roslin has, since the start, kept the current number of people in the fleet meticulously updated on her little dry erase board. It's a sad truth for her that she has to keep it in such a medium, but it is a constantly changing--and mostly decreasing--number. At the start of episode one of season four, one of the ships in the fleet is completely obliterated. The President's reaction is shock and dismay as she immediately calls up the name of the ship's captain and how many souls the fleet just lost with one blow from the Cylons. Even when we do rarely meet someone and lose them in the same episode, we are still given enough exposure to them to be able to feel the loss--or to at least understand how the remaining characters feel their loss.

As Apollo pointed out in the season three finale, many characters have sinned gravely and gotten away with it, even been forgiven, up to this point. What he didn't say, but what has become increasingly evident, is that even forgiven for their actions, everyone is still dealing with the consequences of what they have done, and you can see the reality of that weighing on each character every time a decision has to be made. Of course, that hardly means that the characters are learning the lessons they should be learning or subsequently making the right choices. That's what I find so fascinating about this series. These characters are truly human, there's not a one of them without flaws, and those flaws shape their every day. It is just amazing to me.

A recent interview I read mentioned that some of the actors revealed to be four of the final five Cylons are having a hard time coming to grips with this turn their characters have taken. Some of them lament that they didn't know where their character was headed because it would have caused them to play a scene differently if they had only known what their character truly was. I have to applaud the decision to keep it from the actors however. These characters had absolutely no idea they were Cylons. Having the actors have no idea as well means they played their characters as human as they could--which is exactly what the sleeper agent Cylons are programmed to do. I think it also adds a genuine sense of absolute shock for the characters having this revelation thrust upon them.

One character I have really come to enjoy during my rewatching of the series is that of Sam Anders. He started out as this confident professional Pyramid player who managed to pull his team together and form a resistance to the Cylons occupying Caprica after the initial attacks. He had no reason to assume his efforts would be successful or have any kind of lasting effort, but he became a rally point for all of the civilian survivors left on the planet. He managed to win over a hard sell like Starbuck to the point where she convinced the Admiral and the President to send a rescue operation back to Caprica for the survivors, despite the expense of life and supplies such a mission had to cause for such a potentially limited payoff. On New Caprica he quickly became one of the leaders of the insurgents and even his wife's infidelity couldn't really shake his cocky demeanor. But now he's a nugget--a Viper pilot newbie--and add to that the realization that he's truly a Cylon--it has left his completely shaken. The unflappable Anders has been flapped. He is completely out of his element, and I am loving it. I was a little concerned about Apollo leaving the service (more of that character development I keep yapping about), but I have to admit that having Anders step into the pilot world is really making up for it in my humble opinion.

I especially enjoyed his panic before getting in his Viper and joining the fray during the opening battle scenes. His uncertainty in flight was very well done. And his reaction to Starbuck's return. Oh man. The poor guy is really hoping she's the last Cylon, and even then he know's he probably still lost her once she finds out about him. Her line at the end, about if she found out he was a Cylon. Wow. You can almost hear the man's heart breaking.

Also, coolest moment of the entire episode: When Anders is facing off with the Cylon raider and can't get his weapons to fire, then the thing scans him and they get this close up of his eye, and you just see it flash red, and away go the Cylons. Hell yes.

So, there are my initial thoughts on the new season so far. Is it Friday yet? I am already geared up for the next episode!

Take care,
C

Why do we even have that lever?

Mr. Picasso Pants:
"Carl, I hate to tell you this, but you've got llama face."

Carl:
"It's okay dude, I'm cool with it. C'mon, let's start the movie."

~*~

Do you ever get into a cycle where something makes you get the urge to watch a specific movie you've already seen oodles of times? Then, when you watch it, it makes you want to watch another random movie, which makes you want to watch another, and so on...

I am in one of those cycles.

It is kind of a double-fueled cycle, too. First off, I got the hankering to rewatch The Emperor's New Groove. Totally wonderful movie. The whole concept should have bombed but it completely rocked instead. My only real quibble was how they threw in that "Lord of the Dance" moment that every movie made in that time period had to have. I mean, seriously, why? Now that we've gotten past that stupid fad, as was certainly bound to happen, that whole scene is just pointless and no longer even funny. I mean, it pertains to absolutely nothing else going on in the film. Sigh. I digress. Anyhoo, still, a great movie. I mean, come on, talking llama. Previously to watching this movie, however, I had watched (three times, actually) an episode of The Big Bang Theory guest starring D.J. Qualls. He is a weird, squirrelly little dude, but he is funny. So that in combination with Patrick Warburton's excellent voice work in Emperor got me wanting to watch Big Trouble again.

Wow, what an incredible movie. I am completely in awe of Dave Berry and his mad crazy writing skills. If he ever decided to go into writing sci-fi or fantasy, he'd totally give Terry Pratchett (and possibly even the late great Douglas Adams) a run for his money.

Watching Big Trouble and being amused by the antics of D.J. Qualls and Zooey Deschanel then got me wanting to watch another movie featuring those two, The New Guy, so I popped it in. Of course, that has made me now want to watch Bring it On and probably also Get Over It, which will bring me back to the start of the cycle, I guess, with Ben Foster's connection to Big Trouble. Of course it also has the possibility of making me want to watch Orange County next...

Circle, circular, round...yeah.

So...anyhoo, that's where I am at right now. Unfortunately, I won't get to watch any of these tonight. Not that I regret that, I'm about to head out to an Eve 6 concert. If there is ever a band I am glad got back together, it's those guys.

So anyhoo, yeah. I hope you all have a lovely evening and week.

Until next time...

"You owe me a new acorn."
"Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeaker...squeakin."

Peace, y'all,
C

July just got AWESOME...

I just got all kinds of updates on DVD releases coming up in July and was so excited I had to share with y'all! Here's what we're looking at:

July 8: Stargate Atlantis season four
Psych season two

July 15: Eureka season two

July 29: Stargate Continuum
BIRDS OF PREY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy frak! I never thought I'd see that last one on DVD. I am so jazzed.

So is Mr. Picasso Pants. Look, he's all strapped in and ready to go to the store.


Silly jinxlet, I am still trying to explain to him about the internet and how the existence of Amazon.com means that we don't have to go get the DVDs, the wonderful UPS man will bring them straight to us.

Looks like I know what I'm doing after work for the entire month of August.

In other news, I just watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. It was okay. It was a cute family-friendly flick. I am still not one hundred percent sure about Jason Lee as Dave, but I have to say this--the chipmunks themselves were absolutely perfect. The animation, their attitudes, their voices, all spot on. Though I wonder why they went to the trouble of getting big(ish) names like Justin Long (who will forever be known in my heart as "Galaxy Quest Boy") and Jesse McCartney to do the voices of the titular characters when they were just going to make them sound like, well, chipmunks. Anyhoo, I don't regret the ninety minutes of my life spent watching it, and I will probably watch it again, so there you go. I think my favorite moment is the very opening where they're singing, of all things, Daniel Powter's "Bad Day," which is just an awesome song. Of course, now I really want to rewatch the chipmunk movie that came out when I was a kid. Or go ride in a hot air balloon, either one really.

New Battlestar tomorrow! Huzzah!

Enjoy your weekend, y'all. Peace.

C

There must be some kind of way out of here...

Ooh...can you feel the excitement? Only three days left until season four of Battlestar Galactica premieres!


Warning! The following post contains spoilers for the season three finale of Battlestar Galactica, and wild and crazy speculation about season four!

I spent a very large chunk of my weekend watching almost all of season three of BSG. (And the only reason it wasn't all of it is because I had already watched the first disc and a half). Every once in a while you've just got to be a lazy bum I guess, and this was definitely for a good cause. Man, this is such an incredible show. After I got into the reincarnation in between seasons two and three, I went back and watched some of the old school series and I just can't believe the difference. Original BSG is cool and all, but it's a fun campy rip off of Star Wars and Star Trek. The Ron Moore BSG is just something else entirely.

I'm definitely going to be sad to see this show go off the air once season four wraps up, but as it's pretty much been definitely announced that we're getting a split season, at least it will be quite some time before the show is over for good. Besides, as I've mentioned here before, I am kind of glad overall that we know this is the last season. I completely respect that TPTB said, "this is our story arc--season four completes it, therefore, season four is the last season." They are finishing this story on their terms and I believe that means they are going to deliver the best possible conclusion for the series because they are getting to tell all of the story that they want to tell. There's something to be said for coming up with a complete story arc and then sticking to your guns and saying "nope, sorry, that's all there is to tell."

So, what do we have to look forward to in season four? In the "big picture" we can (hopefully, because I seriously doubt Moore feels the need to wrap up every loose end) expect to find out what "Earth" actually means in the BSG universe. Is it OUR Earth, here and now? Is it our Earth in our future, some other planet that has nothing to do with humanity as we know it in real life, or maybe something back in our past, or some other thing I haven't even thought of? We can also definitely expect to find out the identity of the final cylon. I don't even think I have a guess on who it will be right now, but in my spare time I like to run through the list of possible culprits and weigh the possibilities on if they fit the bill or not. We'll also probably, maybe, find out what the deal is with Hera--and how she's connected not only to Caprica Six, but to the President as well. Then there's an answer we might get sooner rather than later--and that's to the question of where the frak Starbuck disappeared to and how did she end up back in her viper when Lee saw it 'splode?

Those are the big revelations, I think. I'm also very intrigued to see how the four cylons revealed in the season three finale deal with being cylons. Also, are they going to address the fact that Tyrol's baby is also a half human-half cylon like Hera? Unless, of course, Cally is a cylon too, in which case they've got the holy grail of the cylons right there. Not that I think Cally is the final cylon, but supposedly the hylon baby is a rare rare thing.

I also am very much looking forward to seeing Anders (played by Michael Trucco, as shown in the picture above) as a pilot. I completely missed that he joined up in the last few episodes. I guess someone's gotta step up and be the hot cool-guy pilot now that Apollo's going into the civilian sector...

Anyhoo...that's about all I've got for now. Until Friday I am just counting down...

Until next time,
C

P.S. Ooh, in other exciting news, now that it's April, we've got new Bones and Dr. Who coming up, sweet!