Skaters to the Left

A Guide to Ice-skating at Rockefeller Center

The temperature has finally dipped to acceptable ice-skating levels (anything above 45 just feels wrong), Christmas music is blasting from at least one shop on each block, and that giant-ass tree at 30 Rock has finally been lit. Being filled with the holiday spirit, you naturally want to shell out a hojillion dollars to skate at Rockefeller Center's rink. Before you do, here's a guide to the types of people you will encounter on the ice:

1. The Asshole Figure Skater
Why this guy chooses this particular rink and not, say, anywhere else in the known universe is a mystery. He usually has his iPod on and either works on his tricks in the center of the rink or skates backwards around confused families and generally causes mayhem, because God forbid he interrupt his very serious training because some little nipper has faceplanted in front of him.

Annoyance Factor: 6

2. The SuperCouple
Despite the fact that skating while holding hands doesn't actually provide any stability, these people will never uncouple, even when his partner accidentally pulls him down with her and creates a giant clusterfuck. They'll pick themselves up and continue inching around the rink like the saddest game of Red Rover ever played, and then stop to make out for a few minutes. Yes, do please rub it in, guys.

Annoyance Factor: 4

3. The Littlest BAMF
In theory, you should hate this child. He zips around in his tiny hockey skates without a care in the world, throwing caution to the wind: backwards, forwards, sudden stops; the whole shebang. But you can't hate him, because he is a total badass. Even when he wipes out, he immediately hops back up and continues zipping around, not unlike an electron. Plus, he's usually wearing some sort of adorable hat and mittens.

Annoyance Factor: 0

4. The High School Kids From Arkansas
You'll know them by their letterman jackets and school hoodies. They've either never been skating or they've been skating their entire lives. The latter do everything in their power to coax the former off the handrail so they can laugh at the former's spectacular pratfalls. At any rate, they're usually more interested in stopping to take a frillion pictures than making their way around the rink. Each one has her own persnickity camera that takes five minutes to explain, and each one wants multiple group shots. Be prepared to spend at least fifteen minutes of your life helping these people collect memories if you fall victim to their Picture Ponzi Scheme.

Annoyance factor: 7

5. The Worst. Parents. Ever.
It must be tough to learn your child has no athletic gifts whatsoever. Being extraordinary clumsy myself (on land), I can sympathize. However, you might want to re-think the whole "skating" thing when you see your poor kid can't move a foot without taking a nasty spill. All this does is create a clusterfuck even greater than the SuperCouple's, because now you have both parents (usually just as inept as their progeny), the kid, the kid's siblings, and the Ice Lifeguards all creating a potentially epic pileup every two feet. Furthermore: For the love of God, teach your kids to ball their fists when they fall. Nothing dampens the holiday spirit like an eight-year-old's severed fingers.

Annoyance Factor: 8


There are other types I've missed, I'm sure, but this should serve as a good starting knowledge base.

On #tebowtears

Obviously, I was displeased with the result of this Saturday's SEC Championship Game. Florida losses always hit me like a suckerpunch, but this one was exceptionally brutal, and I truly hate Alabama with a fiery burning passion. Plus, they made Tim Tebow cry:



I hate a lot of things with a fiery burning passion. But what I don't do is: a) wish physical harm upon members of the other team or b) celebrate their tragedy. During the NU-Iowa game, when it looked like the Iowa QB's ankle had gotten snapped in half, I did not cheer, because I am not an asshole.

So when I looked at my Facebook Live Feed and saw the disturbing number of statuses that read, "HA TEBOW'S CRYING. MY LIFE IS COMPLETE. SUCK IT," and "I won't be satisfied with the outcome of the SEC championship game unless someone breaks all of Tim Tebow's limbs," I was filled with rage. Then I saw that, no shit, #tebowtears was the fourth-most-popular trending topic on Twitter, and I began actively seeking a way to smack the shit out of people via the internet.

Say what you will about the Gators, or their fans, or their coach. But one thing no one can deny is that Tim Tebow is one of the greatest college football players of all time (one of; not the greatest). You also cannot deny that he is an incredibly nice, stand-up guy. Yes, he's a bit of a "Jesus freak," but, unlike so many other players (including his own dumbass fucking teammate, Carlos Dunlap), he has never done anything detrimental to his team. He loves the game of football more than anything in the world (aside from Jesus). He's been a leader in the truest sense of the word.

And to have God knows how many people celebrating his failure and wishing him harm? That is one of the most repugnant things I've seen in a while.

Would you people rather he be an asshole? A thug with a bigass arrest record? A guy who takes illegal gifts (yes, I'm talking about Ohio State's Troy Smith)? Why is it that his excellence and general wholesomeness is viewed as such a negative thing?

Everyone loves some schadenfreude now and then, but there's a fine line between "schadenfreude" and "being an irredeemable prick." Apparently no one I know has any idea this line exists, which is rather disturbing.

So go ahead and celebrate. Make your horrible trending topics. Because the next time you fall and break your leg or get laid off, Tim Tebow is going to laugh and call you a bitch for crying.

New Moon by the Numbers

I did not attend the midnight showing of The Twilight Saga: New Moon by choice. I went to support my bestie's burgeoning addiction. And to be amazed at the ridiculous crowd, of course.

As we've all figured out by now, Twilight midnight fans are not Harry Potter midnight fans. The latter are characterized by costumes (I may or may not have brought a wand to Half-Blood Prince), geekery, and an overall aura of joy. The former are rabid, shrieking banshees that tend to fall into the 11-17 and 34-49 age ranges.

(Yes, banshees can get rabies. Because I say so.)

It was actually quite fun to chuckle with Braids. The crowd (minus us, obviously) cheered for approximately 30 seconds when:

The screen started playing that AMC First Look thing.

The previews started.

The Summit logo appeared.

A moon appeared.

And when the title slowly appeared over said moon? They just completely lost their shit. This was not just applause, as you would hear at an HP screening. This was Beatles-level mania. As Braids pointed out: "What, were they surprised? 'Oh damn, you guys, I thought this was going to be 2012, what a crazy random happenstance!'"

And now, a few numbers I kept track of during the actual movie:

Number of times everyone screamed when Lautner appeared shirtless: FOUR. Okay, dude is ripped and totally hot (and also...17; I feel like a goddamn perv, since he's only a year older than my little brother), but after his torso appears once, do we really need to greet subsequent reappearances with a shriek-fest? We do? Fine.

Number of times I had to stifle a guffaw at an inappropriate moment: Six, I believe. Maybe it's because I never saw the first installment of The Sparkling in the theater, but I find the sparkle effect (which has its own theme music) to be just balls-out hilarious. I just cannot take any on-screen action seriously when it's happening. Of course, there wasn't really a whole lot of action (figuratively, in terms of plot), but still.

Number of people I saw asleep in the theater: One. Some woman sitting on the other side of Braids. See above re: general lack of plot which could lead to narcolepsy-inducing boredom, but I still find it faintly absurd that this woman went through all the trouble of going to see a rabid-fan-filled midnight screening and didn't think to drink some coffee beforehand.

Number of times Braids and I said "O I c wut u did thar": Two. Once at the Meadow of Death and...I can't remember the other one.

Number of times I "awwww"d at Billy Burke's sweet and funny Charlie Swan: Four. Charlie is now my favorite. Billy Burke, please do more things that I'll see.

Number of "AAAAH WHAT NOOOOO" screams at movie's end: Too many to count. Braids and I, on the other hand, laughed and high-fived, because how awesome was that?

Amount of money this motherfucker will make this weekend: I don't even want to know.

On Wet Paint

First off, let me just say that I love Sesame Street. I think it is the greatest educational program on television, and I hope it never goes off the air. My earliest memory comes from an earthquake when I was three years old; the clearest part of that memory is the Sesame Street t-shirt I was wearing at the time.

However.

There was one clip that never failed to terrify me as a child. It was a music video called "Wet Paint."



My terror whenever this segment appeared onscreen supplied my parents (and, later on, my siblings) with endless amusement. "It's just paint, Munchkin!" my father would say while I burrowed my head in his shoulder and cried.

I was too young to articulate exactly what it was about this that freaked me out so very badly. And one would think that, now that I've reached the ripe old age of 22, I would no longer be able to describe those feelings, since there's no way it could freak me out now.

But it does.

You guys, it freaks me out so bad.

I saw the clip on Hulu as I was enjoying a trip down memory lane (a.k.a. the Sesame Street Hulu page) and laughed. "Oh man, this used to give me nightmares." I clicked on it, eager to prove to myself just how much I've grown up.

My flesh immediately began crawling.

So now, I will attempt to make you all see why, exactly, this gives me the creepy-crawlies. (Side note: Remember Creepy Crawlers? I always wanted that set.)

First, the beat and melody to this song are bone-chilling. One of the beat-makers sounds like someone stepping into quicksand, and we all know what happens to people who step into quicksand. The melody does not indicate the happy fun times painting that the lyrics seem to want to indicate.

Furthermore, the lyrics do not actually indicate happy fun times with paint. There's lots of throwing imagery ("you slosh it all around," "slather it and slop it") and unpleasant words like "gushy," "smelly," "slippy," "sloppy," and "gloppy," which I associate with that horrible fudge monster in Candyland (a game I never liked, incidentally). And I also have to be careful not to drop it on the cold, cold ground? Like the ground that my corpse will soon be in?

But worst of all is the actual imagery. The way the paint plops down the wall in the background, like multi-hued blood; the way the video's title creepily drips down the screen. The be-galosh'd-legs (that look as though they are not attached to any sort of body) slipping around on a ton of paint on the cold, cold ground. And all throughout, occasional sprays and splotches cover the camera lens, blotting out the singers, culminating in an absolutely horrifying orgy of paint that completely covers the lens.

Go ahead and laugh, if you like. But now I know that some fears never die...Including that of wet paint.

On Public Lewdness

This is the face of a grotesque, fucked-up waste of matter.

I was never the biggest fan of New York City. I live here because this is, presumably, where my dream job is/was, and I am tired of moving every six months, so I'm just going to stay put for a while.

Well, maybe not for much longer. I put up with a lot of crap, living in this city. The horrendous smell in the summer, the outrageous price of...everything, the annoying sports fans. But I feel I have to draw the line at sex crimes.

At about 2:15 this afternoon, I hopped on the N train at 59th and Lex to get back home to Astoria. Good ol', safe ol', Astoria. I noticed a creepy Asian dude with a robot in his backpack (...yeah) leering at me from the seat across, but, since that happens pretty regularly, I merely feigned sleep/a deep interest in finding just the right song on my iPod. (Side note: Why are there so many leering creepers in this city? And when I say this happens regularly, I don't mean to imply I'm so attractive I invite that kind of behavior; it happens all the time to all sorts women.)

Once we reappeared above ground on the Queens side of things, I happened to glance up. And got a glimpse of a pretty gross-looking penis. And this motherfucker had the most grotesque shit-eating grin on his face, as though he'd just performed some stunning feat of physical acumen.

Oh my god, no way. This is not actually happening.

Since moving only tends to incite further action on the offender's part, I plunked my head right back into the sand. There were two other people in the car. This is the worst that could happen. Just in case, though, I snapped a picture on my phone under the guise of texting, in case he got away before I could inform the cops.

And then I noticed some movement in my peripheral vision.

No. He is not jacking off. No. This is not actually happening.

It was at this point that I went into some sort of fugue state. My brain was screaming at me to move while simultaneously denying that anything was happening. My body froze.

Just before reaching the last stop, this loathsome waste of matter finally reached his zenith, and aimed right at me.

As soon as the train stopped and the doors opened, I ran to the cop I had glimpsed on the platform and told him, breathless, what had just happened. I pointed the repugnoid out, told the officer that he'd find proof in the first car ("TWO INCHES FROM WHERE I WAS SITTING!"), and offered to stick around to see justice done. Said cop waved me off after I ascertained the creeper's identity. And what did he have to say for himself, this abomination?

"I didn't touch her! I didn't touch her!"

Because that makes it okay, and not a health hazard at all. Of course.

Still unable to believe that this actually happened, I took myself around the corner for a horribly overpriced but much-needed coffee. And, staring out the window at the masses huddled under their umbrellas, I saw...

Him. Walking around as though nothing had happened.

Now, I know things like this happen. People whip out their junk on the train. But...At 2 in the afternoon? On a weekday? And to have actually completed the masturbatory act? That's got to be worth an arrest.

So, thanks, NYPD and Creepy Leering Asian, for making me feel horrifically unsafe and unclean. I'm going to go take a bleach shower now.

Tweet tweet

Well, I joined the ranks of Twitter.

Yeah, yeah. I still don't think my life is interesting enough to warrant it, but...Oh well.

On Normalcy

Image ripped from Wikipedia

There are approximately nine definitions of the word "normal." This rather large number of differing definitions stems from more than just variance from individual to individual; context is key.

In Mathematics:
Being at right angles, as a line; perpendicular.

But in Psychology:
a. Approximately average in any psychological trait, as intelligence, personality, or emotional adjustment.
b. Free from any mental disorder; sane.

(Funny how being different is normal in math, but abnormal in psych.)

I am not normal.

I lie somewhere along the bipolar spectrum. ("Where?" is not a question for which I really have an answer.) I've been this way most of my life; it was a relief to finally have a name--however vague--for what's always gone on in my head.

And after seeing (half) the cast of Next to Normal perform at the Tonys (YouTube clip below), I decided that I definitely needed to see this show. Maybe it would teach me a valuable lesson in finding my way to--well, not complete normalcy, but something close enough.

That didn't quite happen.

The show--about a manic depressive mom and the havoc she wreaks on her stalwart husband and angsty daughter--is magnificent. The cast is unparalleled. The music soars and roars and tugs at the heartstrings more than anything I've heard since The Last Five Years. But it terrified me. That is my future. Mental instability. Psychosis. Laying waste to the lives of everyone I love. Ruining a man whose sole purpose in life is to lift me up.

Of course, this is not something that is guaranteed to happen. (I'm not even sure men like Dan and Henry exist in real life, and you can't ruin an imaginary person's life, so I should be good on that front.) But even the possibility is enough to make you quarantine yourself.

Regardless of how much the show wrecked me, though, it occurred to me that this should be required viewing for anyone who knows a fellow bipolar bear. My hope is that Next to Normal will do for mentall illness (a term I really dislike, incidentally; beyond the stigma that surrounds it, it makes it sound like the flu or something) what RENT did for AIDS. While it's ostensibly about Diana's struggle with mental illness, the real protagonist of the piece is Dan, the long-suffering husband (played to perfection by J. Robert Spencer). It would be easy to write the character off as a codependent martyr (he can't bear to face the world without her; he needs to save her), but there's an earnestness, a sweetness, in him that is impossible to resist. His are the songs that rip your heart straight out of your chest, because you see he's dedicated every fiber of his being to saving his wife. And why? Because forever is forever, for Dan. Because for him, love is stronger than darkness and death.

Like I said before, I don't even know if that sort of dedication exists in the real world. I certainly haven't seen anything like it. And it's hard to imagine anyone who, after seeing the show, would be okay with becoming a Dan. But that's exactly what some of us need, and what many never find.

And for those wondering about those manic/mixed episodes, the descriptions of the sensations are spot on: When a world that once had color fades to white and grey and black/ When tomorrow terrifies you, but you'll die if you look back.

The sensation that you're screaming, but you never make a sound/...Like a refugee, a fugitive, forever on the run. If it gets me it will kill me/ But I don't know what I've done.



This is what it's like for people like me. Every day. But I guess Dr. Madden (played by the super hot and amazing Louis Hobson) is right: "The one thing that's sure is that there is no cure, but that doesn't mean we don't fight."

Ten Ways to Get Rid of Your Vanessa Effing Abrams

Everyone encounters at least one Vanessa Fucking Abrams in her life. These are awful, annoying people who are enthralled by their own hipster-ish lifestyle, act as though anyone who chooses a different lifestyle is crazy/stupid, fuck up the lives of most of the people around them, and manage to offend you merely by existing.

So, I've decided to make your life easier by giving you ten ways to solve the VFA problem*:

1. Shove her into the path of an oncoming F train. ("When you're a Humphrey, you're always on the F train.")

2. Asphyxiation via her own stupid American Apparel "hooded scarf".

3. Get the Chuck Bass in your life to seduce her and give her an especially virulent (and fatal) form of syphilis.

4. Pull a Kevin Spacey in Se7en and chain her to a table while force-feeding her Annie's organic frozen turkey dinners until her stomach explodes.

5. Horrific "accident" involving the espresso machine at the coffee bar she (of course) works at.

6. Run her Vespa down on the Manhattan Bridge.

7. Forced marathon viewings of The City. Inevitably, she will claw her eyes out from boredom.

8. Call up the Blair Waldorf in your life and sit back and watch the carnage, pineapple mojito in hand.

9. Lure her to an impromptu "Save this building!" protest that takes place in a building about to be demolished.

10. Arrange for her to meet Michael Moore, then tip him over so that he crushes her.

Boom. You are welcome.

*These are not things you should actually do to anyone in real life. I am not advocating murder, because, as previously mentioned, I am not a serial killer.

On Beastiality

(How's that for an SEO title?)

Beauty and the Beast came out when I was about four years old. I don't remember seeing the movie for the first time, but my parents tell me I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

I do remember begging my parents--in that entitled, naggy way four-year-olds have--to buy in on VHS. (Side note: Remember VHS? Good times. Then again, you can't have commentary or extras on VHS, so really, I'm glad we've moved on to DVDs.) Though I didn't watch the tape to the point of destruction, it's fair to say my mom (and dad) soon came to hate "Be Our Guest," and looked forward to the start of the school year. They did, however, indulge me and buy me a really awesome Belle costume for Halloween. I looked pretty adorable:



My attraction to Beauty stemmed primarily from my love for its heroine--a love that only grew as my childhood years passed. Belle wasn't like previous Disney princesses. She loved her kooky inventor father and, most of all, books.

(Also, I totally loved the Beast. To the point where I preferred him in his Beast-ly form and lovingly treasured the plastic model of him I got at Pizza Hut. Even at that early age, I was weird. Though I think it was mostly that I didn't like Human Beast's long hair. And his fur looked soft.)

But here we have a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Did I become a bibliophile because my natural inclination toward reading was reinforced by a positive role model, or did I just pick her to model my life after?

If the latter is the case, I'd like to take this opportunity to give the entire Disney operation the finger, because I've suffered quite a bit of disillusionment and heartbreak because of them and, more specifically, this movie. Don't get me wrong: It is my second-favorite 2-D movie (Lion King represent). Hell, it got nominated for Best Picture that year. But Belle's ostracization from her peers was romantic, even a little glamorous. She didn't seem to suffer all that much from being smarter than most of the people in her town. Yeah, some old hens sang about how odd she was, but she seemed to get along pretty well in life. And--spoiler alert!--she's rewarded with an awesome life in a huge castle with a dream library and a pretty cool (if a little hirsute) dude for a husband.

Granted, this sort of thing happens in every other Disney "princess" movie. With Beauty and the Beast, though, it feels like more of a betrayal, because I'm Just Like Her. So, if we follow Five-Year-Old-Girl Logic, all those things she gets should also be mine, right?

But in the real world, the Beast is never a Prince in disguise; he's only a Beast, and no amount of wishing or loving will change that. Castles are pretty expensive, not to mention damp and drafty even in the summer. And if you read Lord of the Rings every year and love Battlestar Galactica and read books about superstring theory, people will only ever see you as a Nerd.

On the Emmy Noms

THEY'RE HERE! THEY'RE HERE! Oh boy oh boy ohboyohboy!

Oh. Boy.

Look, I'm not one of those people who constantly rails against the mob nature of our society. I do think it's silly that some of the real quality shows on TV go largely unwatched, but I have a basic sense of how the world works, and that's fine.

But the Academy has seriously lost its brain. Again. SOME MORE. These people are supposed to love TV just as much as I do...Or at least know as much about it, if not more. And they go and nominate Tony Shaloub again for Best Actor in a Comedy?! Guys. You made the right call kicking The Piv the fuck out of the nominations--and I'm grateful for that because, seriously?--but there are so many others out there that are deserving. Shit, I would rather see Josh Radnor in there, and he's not even the best part of How I Met Your Mother.

(It is nice to see HIMYM get some love, though. Best Comedy! NPH as Best Supporting in a Comedy! I like to attribute this love to the fact that I started watching the show a month ago. Also, Dr. Horrible is nominated for an Emmy. Awesome.)

Funny that Kiefer gets a nod only for 24: Redemption, but I would have been more than happy to see him out of Best Lead in a drama if that meant EDWARD JAMES OLMOS would make it in. But no. ZERO Battlestar Galactica love, which is absolutely unacceptable at this point in time. Not to shit all over Simon Baker, because he is hotter than a young sun, but...Over Olmos? Really, voters? Same with Mary McDonnell. This was perhaps the best season yet for her character, and...nothing.

Continuing with the appalling Drama nonsense...No Connie Britton or Kyle Chandler? Get rid of Mariska Hargitay (sorry, Mariska; nothing personal, I assure you) to make room for Britton, and Simon Baker or Hugh Laurie for Chandler. THE HAIR DESERVES ITS DUE. (Laurie is amazing, don't get me wrong, but we get it, already.) And to leave the show out as well? Take Dexter out; the third season still didn't live up to the greatness of the first, and Friday Night Lights had a fantastic season. Furthermore, get House the fuck out of there and put BSG in.

The writing and guest-acting noms are a little screwy as well. Four episodes of Mad Men seems like a little overkill, no? And three of the guest comedy noms are for 30 Rock.

...


Guys, is 30 Rock the Will & Grace of the Emmys, now? Oh, God. RUN, TINA. RUUUUUUUUUUN!

Welcome to Geektown

Joss Whedon, Ron Moore, Seth Green...Be still, my nerdy heart.

The Good, The Bad, and The Interesting

So, after immersing myself in a world of hilarity and pathos, I decided my next adventure in the land of "TV Shows I Should Have Started Watching A Long Time Ago" would be...Heroes.



No, I didn't suddenly take leave of my senses. I had heard all the reasons to not watch. I mean, I was working at EW when the story ran that explained everything that was wrong with the show. And everyone I talked to said, "Nonono, that way lies badness. There is no happy ending there." But, being one of those people who has to figure these things out for herself, I decided to take the plunge anyway and catch it on Netflix's instant whatever. Also, I would be lying if I said half my reason for watching the show wasn't just to see Zachary Quinto in action. (What? He was really great in Star Trek, okay? It's not just because he's incredibly attractive.) I did promise myself I'd stop after the first season.

(For those who care, my promises apparently mean nothing, as I promptly rushed through the rest of the series as fast as the episodes could load. Definitely a mistake.)

After I got over my initial, brutal disappointment that Quinto wasn't in the first seven effing episodes of the first season, I immediately knew why I hadn't started watching the show before: It was absurdly addictive. And it somehow didn't feel like a complete retread of X-Men. I'm not altogether sure how the showrunners accomplished that, but, y'know, props. Anyone who can get me to zip through an entire season in a 36-hour period deserves that much, at least.

I did have a few problems with the first season (and many, many more with the subsequent ones), but they mostly followed from the show simply having too many storylines going; and worse, the characters in those storylines were boring, and had really poorly defined powers. (Seriously, can anyone tell me what the fuck Niki's power was, other than...being a multiple personality? Super strength with that one personality? Whaaaaat. Ever. Also, Greg Grunberg, I love you, but you need to smack some bitches over there for making you really irrelevant most of the time. Get Jaybrams to write you into another pilot or something.)

On the whole, though, I was enthralled for all 23 episodes. While some of the credit goes to the pretty riveting Bennett family saga and my inexplicable love for first-season Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar, you are also delightful to look at), I have to lay the rest at the feet of my new favorite TV serial killer: Sylar. (Sorry, Dex.)

Sylar is literally the only reason I'll continue watching this shell of a good show next season. Well, the hope of Sylar. God knows what the fuck is going on, with that third season finale. Again, I love Adrian Pasdar, but not at the expense of Quinto.

The funny thing is that Sylar shouldn't be an interesting character at this point -- but he is. He's had several chances at redemption and fucked all of them up -- purposefully, for the most part. He's pretty much just pure evil, and pure evil gets old rather quickly. But the way Quinto plays it is just... delicious. The spark in those alternately soulful/less eyes when he's stalking his prey is magnetic; I could watch him glare at people all day. (Seriously. I thought David Boreanaz had the Evil Glare down as Angelus, but Quinto just brings it to a whole 'nother level. Maybe it's the amazing eyebrows?) And you can still see the tiny part of him that made that noose after his first kill, and how deep he buries it. You can see the part of that spark that's built on ambition and the need to be special.

Clearly, I'm not a serial killer. I don't really have that capacity in me. But on a fundamental level, I understand Sylar because I've felt that way every day of my life. I know I'm not alone, too; everyone wants to be special. But people like the fictional Gabriel Gray and I, we have this crushing need to be superlative. Not just special: the special-est. His struggle to balance that hunger with the reality that there comes a point when you really just can't be any better...That's one of the oldest human struggles. Remember Cain and Abel? Abel didn't die because of some serpent's curse. He died because God named him superior to his brother. That ate Cain up inside--how could God want fruit and vegetables instead of fresh lamb?--until finally a lightbulb went off over his head and fratricide was born.

It could also be that seeing Sylar get the shit kicked out of him is always good for a laugh. Seriously. It's somehow very cathartic and funny whenever someone stabs him in the face, because he screams in an immensely satisfying way and then glares and starts with the bloodletting. (Incidentally, I love that Sylar wears Converse a lot of the time. Like, he may be a serial killer, but damnit if he doesn't love his Chucks. Is he secretly a hipster? I know he was supposed to have grown up in Queens, but maybe his murderous rampages come from having spent too much time in Williamsburg? He did kill that guy in the Ramones shirt...)

So! In conclusion! Fixing Heroes is pretty easy: Less characters and repetition, more Quinto and Sylar. Boom. You are welcome.

How I Met Battlestar Galactica

There's no denying the fact that the last...six months or so of my life have been somewhat less than awesome. In fact, the I've spent vast majority of that time either in a state of complete mania and panic or catatonia. I always knew adult life posed its own unique challenges, but this has all seemed a bit excessive. I fucking get it, Universe.

So, with the collapse of my entire life plan (boyfriend, career, housing, financial whatever), and without any sort of employment in which to immerse myself, I naturally returned to my first, best method of coping: TV.

I love Friday Night Lights more than most people, and it really is very relatable, but for some reason it was more of a Band-Aid than actual healing tissue. (I'm talking about biological tissue here, not Kleenex.) Apparently my worldview was so thrown off-kilter I needed two radically different four-season-long shows to get it back on track. It took Battlestar Galactica to put my problems into context, but it was How I Met Your Mother that taught me how to solve them.

I started out with my beloved Battlestar Galactica. [SPOILER ALERT for the next paragraph, if you haven't watched the show all the way through.] The concept of having your home eradicated, your species' entire future in doubt, spoke to my melodramatic streak, and I adopted that feeling. I wallowed in it. And the episode after they discover "Earth" is nothing more than an irradiated cinder, that their reason for living was all just a lie (4x11, "Sometimes a Great Notion")...Well, a character's death was never more poignant for me than when Anastasia Dualla--a character I didn't even like, mind you--pulled out her gun after one last happy moment and put a bullet in her brain. She worked until they wouldn't let her; she loved until her heart gave out. She fought until she couldn't. And that was the feeling I was struggling with: Once your life is blown all to hell, and everything you've ever believed has been proven a lie, how do you go on? How do you find another reason? Are there any other reasons?

Again, I wallowed in these questions for a while. It was only natural. (Gossip Girl's funeral episode also contributed to this period of deconstruction. What happens when you're measured and found wanting, but you never get another chance to be measured? What happens when you're just not enough?)

I didn't intend to leave my existential crisis anytime soon, but thankfully the TV gods intervened and sent me the first three seasons of How I Met Your Mother on DVD. (Well, they sent my roommate the first three seasons. It amounts to the same thing.)

Of course, I blew through those three seasons (and SurftheChannel'd the fourth) in no time and loved every hilarious, sweet, realistic second. Granted, these characters are a good six to ten years older than me, but they're wrestling with the exact same issues as I am.

Logically, I knew the odds of staying together with the first person you ever dated, or keeping the first job you ever have, are astronomically small, but for some reason I always had this horrific sense of shame that accompanied thoughts of that not happening. HIMYM finally got it through my thick head that it is okay for you to be unlucky on the first try. That it does happen with some (Lily and Marshall), but that even those who seem really well-suited for each other don't make it (Ted and Robin). Oh, and [SPOILER ALERT if you haven't gotten through season three] that sometimes what you really wanted was in front of you all along (Barney and Robin, which, by the way, I am such a fucking fangirl 'shipper for them it is ridiculous: "But with you, the trouble doesn't seem so...troubling." God bless you, NPH).

The fourth season continued drilling those ideas into my head, but one of my favorite moments in the entire show came in the finale:

Ted: This is a disaster. How am I going to come back from this?
Lily: Okay, I'm just going to ask this. Do you really want to come back from this?
Ted: What's that supposed to mean?
Lily: Architecture is killing you, Ted. And it's killing us to watch it killing you. You're like that goat with the washcloth. You want it so bad, and every time the world tries to take it away from you, you keep grabbing it. But, you know what? It's just a washcloth. Why do you even want it?
Ted: Because I have to be an architect! That's the plan.
Lily: Screw the plan! [...] Look, you can't design your life like a building. It doesn't work that way; you just have to live it and it'll design itself.
Ted: So I should just do nothing?
Lily: No. Listen to what the world is telling you to do...And take the leap.

What my leap is remains to be seen, but at least I'm not holding on to that washcloth anymore.

The Bro Code

Just hop on over here and take a listen to the as-narrated-by-NPH-as-Barney-Stinson Bro Code.

Also, I should never listen to commentary tracks on TV shows, because they just make me unfathomably jealous of everyone who works on them. I want to hang out with them.

...I guess maybe it's not too late to get into showbiz? I'm still only 21, after all.

Neil Patrick Harris Is the Greatest

Having finally gotten around to watching How I Met Your Mother and concluding that it is, in fact, legen-

(wait for it; and I hope you're not lactose-intolerant, because the second half of that word is...)

-DAIRY, I naturally fell totally in love with Neil Patrick Harris. Granted, I was already sort of in love after the wonderfulness of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and his SNL episode, but he's so fantastic as Barney Stinson that I'm able to forget my current heartache (long story). In less capable hands (both in terms of writing and acting), Barney would be just another cad. But his evolution this last season into the conflicted, adorable--though still masculine--man has been completely natural and believable. So, you know...Kudos.

And now, after YouTube-ing his magnificent Tony closing number, I came. Across. This:



This must be integrated into the show. Maybe we can have an episode where they all want to go see a show on Broadway, but they each want to see a different one and somehow Marshall and Barney find common ground in their Les Mis love. Look, I don't care how it happens, it just needs to. So, uh, CALL ME, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas. I'll help you out.

Supervenous Without Pity

I found Television Without Pity via some old site called Bored.com. I was 15 years old and just beginning to start my journey to Obsessive TV Watcher Land, so you can imagine my utter delight in finding people like me. TWoP taught me snark and told me it was okay to love something as "trivial" as TV.

(Now, of course, I'm confident enough to make the argument that TV is not trivial. While there's been a pretty steep decline in quality--or maybe just a steep increase in shitty shows--I maintain that TV is a pretty important part of our culture, and those that dismiss it need to understand that this is just the medium in which we get our epics these days. Well, when it's done right.)

During my years as a pretty frequent poster on the TWoP boards, I learned the ins and outs of the TV business. It's how I can now talk about the differences between Jeff Zucker and Les Moonves and not sound like a total rube.

The recaps themselves were fantastic. The writers and editors--Sars, Wing Chun, and Couch Baron especially--distilled my favorite shows into reasonably-sized summaries with just the right balance of detail and commentary. This commentary was pretty freakin' funny (see: Uncle Arvin's Office Of Over-the-Top Technical Treatises, etc.), and actually contributed somewhat to whatever "voice" I currently have, if I actually have one. I dunno. Anyway.

Understandably, the creators realized what an awesome thing they had, and when Bravo came along and offered to buy it, they accepted.

Thus began the not-really-all-that-slow and steady fall of an empire.

Previously, each show had its own little woodcut-like graphic related to the show's premise (but not actually a direct representation). Buffy's was a garlic bulb. You know, stuff like that. But then those went away and were replaced by actual pictures of the show. And then my favorite recappers started leaving after their shows ended...or even before that happened; they were replaced by people who (forgive me, current recappers) just aren't that funny or deft at the art of recapping. The creators left.

Then, the number of shows recapped exploded...because they started recapping sitcoms. The old TWoP didn't recap sitcoms because: a) They're already pretty short, and b) Why would you try to make jokes about something that's actually funny? Proving that theory correct, their comedy recaps are indeed irrelevant.

After that came Movies Without Pity, and video blogs, and news items and slideshows that have turned what was once a safe haven for intelligent people who just wanted some snarky recaps into a smorgasbord of crap that lacks the charm and wit of the original TWoP.

So thank you, Bravo, for killing one of my favorite things in the world. Well done.

Dear MotherZucker...

Dear MotherZucker,

We are recent college grads, but we could run your network better than Silverman. Why, you ask? Well, first, we are 22 years old and, therefore, have that whole "binge drinking" thing out of our systems. (Or we save it for appropriate times, like one odd Saturday night a month.) We also have never been big fans of white tigers outside of the zoo. (Or even in the zoo.) We may not have any real scheduling experience, but hey, neither did this douche when you hired him.

But why should you hire us? Because NBC can't really (really, really) get any worse, so why not put it in the hands of two post-grad TV junkies? We anxiously await your call, Jeffy.

Hugs and puppies,
O and Brady

P.S. "SyFy"? Seriously? Way to make your network sound like VD.

There Are No Words

SILVERMAAAAAAAAAAN!



(That voice has got to be rough on Silvertooth's ears.)

Oh, and there's even more:



God, I love that man. And by "love" I mean "am disturbingly fascinated by."

Flora and Fauna, Part II

In second grade, and every year after in February, my class would go to Blue Spring, a refuge for wintering manatees. (Incidentally, don't believe the park brochure when it says "warm" waters. As a former swimmer, I know 72 degrees is actually pretty fucking cold for swimming.) Manatees are not very exciting creatures. They're adorable in their own way, but they're not splashy like whales or clever showoffs like dolphins. They just sit and vegetate, and every once in a while a boat will run over them.

Don't get me wrong--I keenly felt the pain of "Scarback" and "Halftail" and all the other poor maimed animals and wished violence upon the boat owners who didn't heed the Save the Manatee speed limits. But there is a reason the manatee is also called the sea cow.

I didn't generally have to go on a field trip to see some new, exotic Floridian creature. Our old house, situated by a "charming" little "lake" (Lake Rogers, an overambitious retention pond), had a large backyard that was not in any way speaking a yard. Sure, there were some patches of grass here and there, but most of the area was covered with large oak trees (live oaks, specifically; festooned with pounds and pounds of Spanish Moss), various shrubs that defy identification, and the ubiquitous Saw Palmetto. The palmettos were the main source of my and my siblings' various abrasions during early childhood. The neighbor kids and I would get it into our heads to use them as fans or swords, and we never remembered until our hands were being ripped open by the fronds' spines that this was a terrible idea.

Before my parents enclosed our back porch, all sorts of interesting critters would walk up to the our sliding glass door. Yes, we had a large squirrel nest in one of the oaks, and the little rodents would frequently wander around the concrete porch floor. But quite possibly the coolest animal event occurred when an armadillo calmly walked up to my mother as she was sweeping. My toddler brother and I pressed our little noses to the glass and giggled with delight as my mother gave a startled "Dios mio!" and, after words failed to shoo Army (as we came to call him), began buffeting him with her broom. Army promptly rolled himself into a ball, and so he and my mother invented the sport of Dillo Ball. Unfortunately, that was the only game of Dillo Ball ever played, and my mother won in what ended up being more of a rout than a game.

From that point on, I made it a point to bring scraps of food out with me every time I went out back to search for Army's jungle home. We only saw him a few times after then, and we only discovered his lair after my father decided to "do something" about the jungle. (Army lived under the bent trunk of one of those saw-toothed plants of Satan.)

The impetus for this bushwhacking came from the events of a particularly muggy Sunday afternoon. (All afternoons in Florida are muggy, but this was an extreme level of humidity.) My parents, wanting to live vicariously through their children, had provided us with not only a swingset (complete with two swings and a pair of rings, as well as a platform whose only apparent purpose was to provide something off which to jump), but also a truly cool clubhouse.

The wooden clubhouse was raised some six feet or so off the ground and came with a ladder, yellow slide, fireman's pole, and one of those cruel knotted ropes kids always have to climb in the gym class of popular films. (I never had to climb a knotted rope in P.E., nor do I know of anyone who had to do so.) Oh, and it had a tricolored plastic sheet roof: blue, red, and yellow. Since ours was the first family on the street to have both a swingset and a clubhouse, we naturally had a lot of visitors in the form of neighborhood urchins. Most of them didn't take the trouble to ring the doorbell and ask if I could come out to play; they just waltzed into our backyard and clambered all over everything while I ran onto the porch and glared. My mother thought she could keep this "riffraff" out by planting some large shrubs around our borders, but when that didn't stop them, she forced my father to put up an intimidating fence.

This particular afternoon saw me pushing my three-year-old brother in the special baby swing. After growing bored with that particular activity, I took him out and set him on the ground, instructing him to watch as I performed an elegant leap off the platform. Of course, as soon as I had climbed up to the platform, a large group of black hornets swarmed out from under me. Speaking as someone who is terrified of being stung by a bee, wasp, or hornet despite never having been stung by one, I am not ashamed to admit I frantically executed my leap and ran into the house as fast as my little legs could carry me, probably emitting little embarrassing shrieks along the way. My assumption that Daniel would follow me was incorrect, and by the time I looked out from the sliding glass door the bugs had done their work.

He somehow managed to escape multiple stings, but when my mother saw his right eye swelling shut, she feared for the worst. After ascertaining that the same luck that saved him from the wrath of the swarm had also saved his eye (he'd only been stung on the eyelid), she rounded on my father and insisted he start child-proofing the backyard.

Even after my father and I cleared out most of the alien flora (read: any plant my mother didn't want to survive)--a task that took at least two years--we would get strange visitors. One rainy afternoon saw what we later discovered was a Red-tailed Hawk perching on our swing set. Having only seen vultures and buzzards feeding on roadkill, with maybe the occasional cardinal thrown in, I was agog at this magnificent raptor's presence. She sat there calmly despite the drizzle until, just as I was starting to get bored, she dove toward the ground, picked something up in her talons, and regained her perch. I gasped as I saw what was writhing desperately in her right foot: a Black Racer.

As previously mentioned, the Black Racer isn't venomous. Chasing one into the bushes therefore provides an adrenaline rush without the actual fear of death. And here was one of them unwillingly taking part in a retelling of the story of the Mexican coat of arms, as the hawk proceeded to messily devour the snake. But while I felt sorry for Mr. Snake, I was also giddy with delight at having seen Nature In Action. Consequently, when friends came over, I regaled them with the story and proudly showed them the blood on the swingset.

On Flora and Fauna

As previously mentioned, I grew up in Florida. While I do not consider myself a Floridian, and I have a passionate hatred for all things Florida (excepting only Gator football), I've recently been forced to conclude that it wasn't really that bad a place to grow up.

Sure, there's the lack of snow. And the heat is absolutely unbearable most of the time. And it's boring. But little kids seldom raise a stink over the fact that there aren't any good bars around; and even if there were, you'd have to drive to them, which would mean you couldn't get nearly as drunk as you'd like.

But where else can you find a building shaped like giant gator sitting on the side of the road in a town called (shit you not) Christmas? No, seriously. This actually exists.



Field trips in elementary school were therefore incredibly entertaining. We went to the aforementioned Jungle Adventures in first grade. The memories of that trip, actually, come mostly from visiting Fort Christmas, some old outpost erected around the time the US decided to try to make something out of this godforsaken swamp. While at first my classmates and I were chagrined to see that the fort had none of the features a decent fort should have (slides, hidden passageways, maybe a ball pit or a rickety wooden bridge), we were soon distracted by the candy in the gift shop. When my mother picked me up that afternoon, she immediately relieved me of my bounty: an eight-inch phallus of solid sugar. Of course, at that point in time, I just thought it looked like a unicorn horn.

We did see some gators on that trip; in fact, somewhere in a junk heap in my parents' closet I'm sure there's photographic evidence. It was actually the proudest moment of my young life: None of the other children would go near the baby gators we were supposed to be looking at, but when a scraggly "guide" asked me if I wanted to hold one, I voiced my affirmative with no hesitation. After plopping one into my outstretched hands (jaws rubber-banded shut, since apparently even their tiny teeth hurt when they're crushing a six-year-old's finger), I grinned and he snapped a photo. The little gator then peed on my forearm, which, if you know kids at all, only cemented my status as The Awesomest Kid Alive.

That same year, I kept my Awesomest Kid Alive title by bringing in a snake's head to Show and Tell. This was no ordinary snake head, obviously. While there are a plethora of snakes in Florida, most are harmless. My friend Eli and I would chase after Black Racers with reckless abandon. The Coral Snake, on the other hand, caused quite a stir when he appeared in our neighborhood.

There had been a few sightings before that hot February day, and all the parents and pet owners were on high alert. We kids were taught the old "Red to yellow/ Kill a fellow/ Red to black/ Venom lack" trick of distinguishing the venomous Coral from the benign King. My mother had taken it upon herself to plant some flower or another in the front yard, part of her lifelong quest to tame the Floridian spirit of "ugly." (And yet we still had St. Augustine "grass"...) The aforementioned Eli and I were catching frogs and giggling as they peed on us in fright, after which time we would dangle them by the leg for a few seconds and lob them back into the grass. (Children are cruel. And weird.)

The snake came slithering out of a nearby palmetto cluster, and after ascertaining it would, indeed, kill a fellow, I ran to my mother and told her the exciting news. I expected her to turn tail and run to my father, who would then take care of the situation with his usual aplomb, but instead she grabbed the large shovel lying in the driveway and followed my directions. Then she calmly raised the shovel over her head and, much like a medieval headsman, brought it down with a dull thunk.

"MAMI! YOU CHOPPED ITS HEAD OFF!"

My father, hearing the commotion, came outside, saw the body still wriggling, and picked it up and tossed it back into the brush. "Why don't we put the head in this little jar, eh, Munchkin? You can take it to Show and Tell." After making the usual noises associated with excitement, I watched as he carefully filled a small, clear jar with rubbing alcohol and, with even more care, picked the snake's head up (thumb and forefinger just behind the corners of its mouth) and plopped it in.

I proudly recounted the story to my classmates at school the next day, perhaps embellishing a bit and saying it was "thisclose to biting me," then taught them that useful little rhyme.

On Celebrity Love

Despite my undying hatred of the celebrity-obsessed culture in which we are currently ensconced, I am not immune to celebrity crushes. These tend to be of a more cerebral nature; the guy is usually attractive, but it's mostly the characters he plays that draw me in. Or maybe I had a personal experience with him.

At any rate, apparently all bad news concerning these "crushes" just bounces off me.

Case in point.

I'm no stranger to belligerent drunks. While I'm an affectionate (very affectionate) drunk, I've run into my fair share of these people. But when I first read this story, I didn't think "My God, Kiefer. What the hell?" No. I thought, "You know, most belligerent drunks would settle for a swinging fist. But not my boy Kiefer." Because, seriously, who head-butts someone outside of a soccer match? But since this is the guy who plays Jack Bauer, I give him a free pass in the court of my heart. (This sort of gets into the idea of merging an actor and his character into the same being, but that's a post for another time.)

Another of these "You Can Do No Wrong" crushes is none other than Mr. Jeffrey Scot Tweedy. (This is definitely a more intellectual crush, because boyfriend is the very definition of "homely.") I've heard he's kind of a dick sometimes, and allegedly kicking the drummer out of your band by having the manager call him is pretty cold. But even with all those stories, I can't dislike the guy. Every time I see him onstage I want to run up and give him a hug. (Also, Tweedy doesn't have a producing credit on I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, so it really does seem like Jay Bennett is suing the wrong party.)

I know I'm not alone in this, though. If this were a PopWatch post, this is where the customary "What about you, PWers?" would come in. But it's not. So yeah.

Oh My God, This Is My Life

Post Grad.

Except I don't look like Alexis Bledel, and I haven't so completely run out of options that I've moved back to Florida. But still. There but for the grace of God...

It's Time for the Ellies!

Tonight, the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) hosted its presumably swank National Magazine Awards ceremony (the aforementioned "Ellies") at Lincoln Center. For all twelve of you out there who care, you can find a full list of the winners over at the ASME site.

For those who don't care, just know that Foreign Policy magazine (this magazine does, apparently, exist) beat out Time Out New York, Mother Jones, Paste, and Los Angeles. Oh, and Field and Stream beat The New Yorker. Look, ASME. There's a difference between "Giving The New Yorker Every ASME Award Possible" and "Completely Ignoring Quality Publications Just to Break the Mold." I mean, really. Reader's Digest? That shit has not been relevant since about 1973.

Sumner Redstone Lays the Smackdown On...Everyone

I think Sumner Redstone just beat out (Not) Ben Sylverman as my favorite entertainment exec. The Hollywood Reporter gathered a bunch of quotes from him from his appearance on Larry King and some other even in LA.

The best ones are:

"CSI will beat the hell out of [Leno]."

"I'm not going to die. I'm going to live forever." (He's 86, so he just might.)

I mean, he's completely right about Leno going down. Old people (and my parents) love their CSI. But is this how you get to be a hojillionaire? That sort of confidence is almost enviable. And it's not like he's spouting off about how The Unit is going to change the ratings landscape. He's got his sure bets (Paramount will probably have a really good year), and he's not afraid to rub them in your face.

Wilco the Blog Post

I won't say I've been "anxiously" awaiting word on what the next Wilco album (coming out in late June, apparently) will be called, because I've got many anxiety-inducing things going on in my life and an album name is not really up high on that list. I will say I was "eager" to hear, though.

Well, now word is that it'll be called "Wilco (The Album)". It's clever, what with there being a track called Wilco The Song on it and all, but I'm just a teensy, tiny bit disappointed. I mean, check out the track listing (in order, according to the band's site):

Wilco The Song
Deeper Down
One Wing
Bull Black Nova
You And I
You Never Know
Country Disappeared
Solitaire
I'll Fight
Sunny Feeling
Everlasting

"Bull Black Nova" is a totally boss song name. The album name is still cool, but...eh.

Anyway, I absolutely cannot fucking wait for this to drop, if only because "You and I" is going to be the greatest song of all time. Jeff Tweedy + Feist? I don't think it gets any better than that. Oh, and when they played "Wilco The Song" on The Colbert Report, I greedily lapped it up. Late June, where are you?

On Transgenesis

I didn't particularly enjoy last Tuesday's Fringe (I thoroughly enjoyed this week's ep, though). Fringe, like all Jaybrams shows, requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. (Yes, even Felicity; they had that fucking Time Warp thing in the last season.) But there are some things that are just too goddamn out there to take. On this list you'll find transgenesis.

Transgenesis in and of itself isn't unbelievable--researchers have been doing it for a while now. Take a gene out, put one in from a different source, blah blah DNA-cakes. But actually making some sort of chimera? No. No, no, no. There is a reason these beings are mythical, people. But if you're going to go all mythical, don't just go for broke. What's wrong with starting with, like, a unicorn? That's more realistic. ("More" being a relative term, here.)

Of course, now that I've roundly dismissed the possibility of a "frankenrhino" (as Pacey called the creature in the show), I find out they're making fluorescent puppies.

I'm not really a militant animal rights activist. I eat meat. I eat meat from fast-food restaurants that probably treat their cows horribly before slaughtering them in an inhumane fashion. This is because, when you have no money, you cannot afford to buy free-range bison steaks from those guys in Union Square. You can afford one McChicken sandwich off the Dollar Value Menu.

But this just doesn't sit well with me. I know, I know, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette (or cure cancer), but...Puppies. Cloning. Can't we stick to cloning rats?

Don't shit where you eat

That's a fairly common aphorism, no?

Apparently not in Taiwan.

(Suddenly, I want some Tasti-D-Lite. Does that make me gross?)

On Eerie Similarities

So, back in October, while still in the delightful EW cocoon, I had an idea for a sort of JJ Abrams checklist. I noticed how ridiculously similar Fringe was to the rest of the Jaybrams oeuvre, pitched it, and got it. The list of similarities I came up with was pretty extensive, but of course, what with the limitations of print space, only a few categories saw the light of day. That box was my first byline in EW, so I remember it well. It looks stupid in its online form, but whatever.

Two minutes ago, I go to check out Television Without Pity (as you do). And I see...this.

I know, I know. It's not the exact same thing. TWoP's is focused on characters (and has more errors--Peter Bishop isn't actually an MIT grad, guys; his degree is fake), but...I still feel a little ripped off. It's almost like TWoP's slideshow is...Fringe...and my box is...Alias ZOMG SO META.

Anyway, I just thought I'd point that out.

Nein!

I've been obsessed with 9 since I first saw the trailer.

I even tried to pitch a feature on it, since the story behind the movie is fascinating. I mean, think about it: This nobody director (Shane Acker--no offense intended) makes a CGI short film called 9 back in 2005--it actually premiered four years ago today, at the Indianapolis International Film Festival. It gets nominated for an Oscar. Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov (two Tims, no waiting!) scoop it up and have Acker turn it into a feature-length cinematic experience with lots of famous people doing the characters' voices. How often does something like that happen?

The short is definitely worth watching; haunting and ever-so-slightly uplifting at the same time:


And now MTV's got its hands on two minutes of footage from the movie. Is it September yet?

God bless Funny or Die

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

Jack Bauer...in 1066

No, seriously. From Publishers Marketplace:


"James Wilde's HEREWARD, about a medieval Jack Bauer, single-handedly beating back the enemy in this brutal novel of war and revenge set in England during the Norman Conquest: rivers run red, disease stalks the land, and ancient prophecies fall into place - it is a time of ghosts, curses, demon-dogs and angels: a time for heroes, THE DEVIL'S ARMY, and END OF DAYS."

I suddenly can't wait for Spring of 2011.

On The Half-Blood Prince

First of all, I know you just said you were streaming it, Hulu, but...some of us were watching The Office at 9 p.m. EDT, and waited until the commercial break. So, that was sort of a dick move. "WATCH IT HERE SO EXCITING ZOMG WE'RE NOT EVEN GOING TO TAKE DOWN THE 'WATCH THIS NOW' MARQUEE!" Lame.

As for the trailer itself, well:

This is going to be the most awesome movie ever since Iron Man. (I loved that movie with an unhealthy, greedy love.) While I still have a few doubts about various little things (shut up, Fairy Voldemort*), visually, it looks like it'll be fantastic. Draco looks appropriately haggard and sickly, "Groovy" Dumbledore is always awesome, and the Inferi are apparently Smeagol clones.

*I don't mean Voldemort is gay, I mean he literally behaves like a fairy, flitting about and talking in that completely unmenacing voice that completely ruins the entire experience for me. Seriously, all Ralph Fiennes had to do was talk like he did in Red Dragon or something, and it would have been great. Oh, and not move around like a mythical female bug thing. Sigh.

Don't eff with an effer, Hulu

EPIC FUCKING FAIL, HULU. WHERE IS MY TRAILER?

On Dick Armies

There really isn't anything I can add here that'll be better than this:

"The Phone"?

What the what?!

Whilst tearing through Friday Night Lights on Hulu (yeah, yeah, I know I'm late to the party, but I like doing things on my own time), these ads for MTV's new reality...thing...keep playing. Is it just me, or does this look absolutely ridiculous in a really bad way?

Shut up, MTV.

On Midtown

Thoughts on a morning stroll through midtown today:

• I'm used to spring being winter-lite in Chicago, but isn't New York supposed to be warmer than 34 degrees in the middle of April?
  
• Everyone coming out of Grand Central during rush hour looks absolutely miserable. I'd love to see those "Free Hugs!" people from Union Square try out their schtick in Grand Central. Best case scenario: Grouchy commuters become less grouchy. "Worst" case scenario: Someone gets punched in the face. There is no bad here.
  
• Wearing absurdly tall heels and then walking from 40th and 5th to 60th and 3rd is not, perhaps, the best idea. Not a bad workout, though.
  
• If you are a potential employer, why would you ask a potential employee to bring her resume and then make her fill out a six-page application in which you list all the information on your resume? Is this not horribly inefficient?
  
• I officially crossed the line into Grammar Nazi territory when I actually erased an erroneous apostrophe from a sidewalk sign. Though in my defense, it was fairly egregious: "New Yorker's Don't Like Waiting!" I don't have a "Don't Like Waiting;" do you, bitch?
  
• Since when is breakfast over at 10 a.m.? I call bullshit.
  

New Word!

Thank you, MTA, for bringing scratchiti into my daily vocabulary.

On Egregious Advertorials

So, you think Ben Silverman will give this Adam Stotsky guy his own set of chimes? Maybe one of Silvertooth's cubs?

(Seriously, though. "Today's consumer is sophisticated enough to pick up on these things"? What consumers have you been talking to? Because the last time I checked, there were a whole lot of stupid people running around in this world. People are, by and large, dumb. Take a look at the ratings for Two and a Half Men and compare them to those for 30 Rock, then talk about how "sophisticated" consumers are today.)

On Privileged Children

Okay. It is one thing to take a fictional world (i.e. Gossip Girl's UES; The O.C.'s...Orange County) and turn it into a reality series (MTV's Laguna Beach; and now, apparently, Bravo's NYC Prep). It is an entirely different thing to make your reality show the exact same thing as its fictional counterpart, which is precisely what they're doing on NYC Prep. No, seriously. Look at the bios.

(Side note: How stupid a name is that? You really couldn't come up with anything better, Bravo? I know The City was taken and all, but sheesh.)

My love for GG is well-documented. But this love mostly stems from the intricate plot threads that (...usually) weave together seamlessly, and from the well-developed characters. I mean, I'm starting to develop neutral feelings for Vanessa Abrams. Vanessa. Fucking. Abrams. And that is happening because the writers are making it happen. In real life, you don't often see those layers, and people don't generally change that much. The date-rapists don't evolve into caring monogamists over the course of just a few weeks; nice girls from Brooklyn don't throw yogurt at people's heads. (Okay, actually, that last one does happen in real life.)

So, the trouble you run into with a reality show--especially one where all your players are essentially ripoffs of characters on a drama--is that there is no reason to watch your show. Odds are these people are boring, and what drama they do have is probably not interesting enough to hold someone's attention for an entire half hour. So what you'll probably do is construct various situations for your cast which will be (marginally) more enthralling. However, they will not be nearly as well-written or engaging as the plotlines on the counterpart's show, so the audience will say, "Why am I not just re-watching season one of Gossip Girl?" and you will fail. (Hopefully.) Granted, it's not hard to top GG in the ratings, but still...What the fuck, Bravo?

Kings: For Whom the Chimes Toll

Well, NBC (SYLVERMAN!) has officially pulled Kings from Sunday nights. And replaced it with another hour of Dateline. Yeouch.

As though to pour a giant container of salt in this wound, NBC is going to run out the show's clock ("Hey, you got your football terminology in my TV commentary!") on Saturday nights, which is pretty cold. I wonder if Ben Silverman has a special dirge he plays on his chimes when he kills a show.

Granted, I didn't like Kings. Critics seemed to receive it well enough, but for me, it was all just too goddamn heavy-handed. Your protagonist's name is David Shepherd? And he's the son of Jess(i)e? And then he destroys a tank called the Goliath. OKAY. We. Get. It. At some point it stops being a Biblical allusion and turns into an overwrought Sunday school lesson. Also, apparently everyone loved Ian McShane's performance, but all I saw was some intense scenery-chewing.

(To be fair, I did like the "gay Crown Prince" plot, and not just because I love Sebastian Stan. It was a ten times more poignant than any other storyline on the show.)

So, what's next on the chopping block over at 30 Rock? My guess is Southland.

Hey, CW? Can you just mosey on over here for a sec? We need to talk.

Look, we all know you've had it pretty rough the last couple years, what with just being created and all. And it's not like you inherited any ratings giants (when Cuidado Con El Angel is outperforming your shows, you know you're in trouble). But I think it's high time you embraced your status as a niche network. A niche network for teens (and "grown-ups" like me who still have that adolescent mindset). Granted, the "revival" of 90210 is both a critical and ratings failure, but everyone seems to have high hopes for the Melrose Place revival, and Gossip Girl is truly transcendent.

However, like a couple other nets with shows that tend toward niche audiences (Fringe being the first one that comes to mind), you have fucked up intensely in your scheduling. I know things have been weird this year. February sweeps got moved, and you started your shows incredibly early.

I also know nets are panicking about having to have fresh programming all the time. So I get why you premiered your key shows so far ahead of everyone else. But for the love of God, stop fucking up the momentum of your shows.

There are shows with which you can get away with that sort of thing. But serial dramas? Momentum with those is meant to build up over the course of an entire season. This is why the first season of Veronica Mars was so fantastic--besides a few "mystery of the week" eps, everything built to this wonderful climax at the end of the season. But when you put Gossip Girl on hiatus for months at a time, then show three new eps, then put it on hiatus for another month before showing the last couple eps? That ruins the effect considerably. I can't believe I'm actually writing these words, but...Try taking a page out of Fox's book. (I know, I know.) Instead of dragging your shows out over a nine-month period, just run everything straight through. 22 episodes all at once.

Boom. You are welcome.

The Ocho

I love reading stories about Chad Johnson Ocho Cinco. Seeing a phrase like "According to Ocho Cinco's contract" never fails to bring a smile to my face.

In Defense of Boys

...My Boys, that is.

(No, this isn't an April Fool's joke.)

Normally I'm the first person to dismiss these stupid basic-cable sitcoms. Hell, I'm usually the first person to dismiss all sitcoms. (Pipe down, HIMYM people.) But I love My Boys. There. I've said it. I feel like Starbuck and Apollo that night on New Caprica.

I won't say it's perfect. Last night's ep suffered from a few groan-worthy running gags (though personally I found the idea of a mustache contest to be both realistic and hilarious), and sometimes PJ's VO's fall flatter than any Gossip Girl punnery could.

And I will admit that half my love probably stems from the fact that the show is based in Chicago, my favoritest city in the entire universe. (Suck it, New York.) It's kind of like Chicago porn, really. You've got Cubs references, shots of the loop and the river (those Yankee Hotel Foxtrot buildings!), an Old Town setting. It's comforting.

The dialogue's not half bad, either. And it's refreshing to see a sort-of tomboy who can actually adapt and function in adult society. So often we only see girls who are too much like "one of the boys," and they never get any guys and are relegated to perpetual friend status. And they only ever wear dude-like clothes. Here, PJ has a girl bestie, dresses up occasionally and goes on dates, drinks and plays poker with her boys, and balances it all with grace and charm.

Basically, it gives all of us non-Conde-Nast-like women hope. Except instead of sports, I'm into LotR. It's...almost the same? Sort of?

On Creepy Demon Children

I made the mistake of watching the trailer for Orphan the other day.

This was a mistake for a couple of reasons. Now, I'm not by any means a chicken. I might wince at gore or startle easily (really, really easily), but in general I tend more towards the former response in "fight or flight."

But there is something about creepy demon girls that just gets me. The girl in The Ring? Absolutely terrified me. And I know I'm not alone in that fear, but honestly, I shouldn't have been scared at all. Her face looks like an orc's!

Samara:


An orc:


And I am certainly not afraid of orcs.

After seeing a few trailers for more Asian-based horror flicks (side note: Why are Asian horror movies so fucked up? They're the only horror movies I've seen that are actually...horrifying. Is it a culture thing? They do seem to have a penchant for creepy demon children), I tried to posit that maybe it's just the way these characters move that makes my skin continue to crawl hours after seeing whatever clip/movie they're in. They always have that weird crab-walking kid, or one that sort of awkwardly teleports, like you're playing a particularly dangerous game of "Red Light, Green Light."

But the girl (Esther) in Orphan does not move this way. And yet, I still had a dream that night in which she tried to kill me. Repeatedly.

Of course, that's not the reason I won't see this movie. It's the same demon child story as all the others, and probably not worth shelling out $12.50. Still, way to creep me right the fuck out, Warner Brothers.

P.S. Vera Farmiga? More movies about Boston mob politics, less movies about creepy demon children. I say this out of love.

Billy what now?!

People who call Williamsburg "Billyburg" are why I refuse to live in that neighborhood.

That's all.

(A friend alerted me to that "Meet Up" thing. I don't actually use that stuff--I prefer to be a hermit.)

The Adventures of (Not) Ben Silverman

[Note: What follows is an entirely fictional account of Ben Silverman's day-to-day life, the thought process behind his decisions, etc. There's no harm meant by it; my excellent friend Braids and I simply thought it would be hilarious to blame everything bad in the world (and NBC) on him, even though in real life, this probably isn't the case. So, again: Light mocking along the lines of the Girls' Bike Club over at Tomato Nation.]

Int. 30 Rockefeller Plaza, 13th Floor. (Not)Ben Silverman, male, mid-30s caucasian, enters, flanked by his two white tigers, Silvertooth and Moonbeam.

NBS: Dave? Davey? Bro, where you at?

He plays the official NBC chimes hanging from his belt. Dave Howe, President of Sci-Fi, runs out of an office.

Dave Howe: Ben! What are you doing way down here?
NBS: Oh, just chillin' through. Wanted to see how you're dealing with the name change.
Dave Howe: Name change?
NBS: Shit, we didn't tell you?
Dave Howe: Tell me what?
NBS: Well, Davey, Zucks and I got the best fucking idea last night, bra. You know how we can't put that little ^TM thing after Sci-Fi?
Dave Howe: Sure.
NBS: Yeah man, we can't have that wack shit. So from now on you're "SyFy^TM." Zucks even said I should change my name to "Sylverman." Tight, yeah?
Dave Howe: Is that...really going to boost our ratings?
NBS: Are you questioning me, Davey?
Silvertooth growls.
NBS: Silvertooth thinks you're questioning me, Davey.
Dave Howe: Oh, no.
NBS: Because I greenlit The Office, you know. And Parks and Recreation.
Dave Howe: I heard the focus group numbers were pretty ba--
NBS: You heard shit, man. Everyone knows that shit is bogus.
Dave Howe: Why do we bother, then?
NBS: Man, I don't know. Fuck this noise, I got some ladies waiting for me up on Fiddy. Sylverman OUT.

He mounts Moonbeam and, playing his official NBC chimes, bounds away.

B.T.

Thanks to my dear friend Eddie for introducing me to this:



Now, I'm the first person to complain about Twitter. I never understood the point--yes, some people use it for quick news blasts, sometimes your friends say something funny (theoretically, that is; I'm not actually on Twitter). But honestly? People do not need to know the minutiae of your existence. No matter who you are--celebrity, journalist, accountant, or copy machine from an awesome show--your life is probably not that interesting. The people who do seem to care about Ashton Kutcher's Tweets are, I'm sorry, the sort of people with whom I do not wish to interact.

But Twitter just recently blew the fuck up. Before that, there was Facebook. I loved Facebook. Way easier to keep in touch with people than, say, via e-mail. And the introduction of status updates was kind of fun for a while, too. I'd put up random ones like "...is dead" or some apropos song lyric. I never put up actual locations or said what I was actually doing at the time because, um, who cares? Yes, I would roll my eyes whenever I saw someone using it in that exhibitionistic way, but it was easy enough to ignore. Of course, the new Facebook design makes it impossible to ignore, so thanks for fucking that up, Faceberg.

Even before Facebook, though, people had this compulsive need to share shit about their life to people who are, essentially, strangers. See: Xbox Live.

That leads me to believe this is a generational thing. If Generation X was the "me" generation, then we, the so-called "Millennials" (God I hate that term) are the "me, me, me!" generation. Life is no longer about connecting with people and interacting with them in a meaningful fashion; it's about people seeing you interacting with people on an entirely superficial, fictional level. It's like throwing a surprise party for someone, but inviting only your friends instead of theirs. You don't want to see the look of surprised joy on your friend's face, you want to see your friends' reactions when you tell them about this great thing you're doing for someone else.

And that just makes me sad.

Hell bra, this is the best!

I'm going to go ahead and ask we retire "bromance." It is the new "cougar," and I can no longer stand to read it on a daily basis. 'K?

On the other hand, I am totally down with "Guy Love" (below).

Cloudy With a Chance of Crap

Sigh.

Okay, so I think we can all agree that this whole "taking all the symbols of my childhood and raping them for profit" thing has gone way too far. Granted, the poster for Where the Wild Things Are (below) looks pretty awesome.



But for every WtWTA, there's a Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. The just-released trailer is over here.

How horrendous does this look? Let's put aside the idiotic 3-D whatever for right now (hell, that deserves its own post) and just look at it from the point of view of a child and/or adult who's read and loved the book:

The whole point of kids' books is that they look awesome. Cool illustration is what separates the Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothings from the...Well, I can't think of any crappily illustrated children's books off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are plenty out there. Once you take away the unique style of illustration (something Spike Jonze appears to not be doing, thank God), you're left with...a story. A story that is very, very thin on plot. And while a lack of plot sometimes works for books (coughmostofTwilightcough), that's really hard to get away with in a movie. So, the director comes up with a plot. This plot is usually banal and overdone (The Cat in the Hat, anyone?), and the entire experience turns out to be no different from any other crappy kids movie (see: most animated movies not produced by Pixar/Pixar alums).

So why not just...let sleeping books lie? How about we come up with a rule that says, "If you have to invent a plot that is not contained in the source material (be it children's book or game), you're not allowed to make that movie"? Yes?

Come on, WB.

While being unemployed certainly sucks quite a bit, it does come with one small perk: After compulsively refreshing Mediabistro's job listings page every five minutes for five or six hours, you can take a break and do whatever you want. For me, this break usually involves me watching an episode of some TV show or other. Lately, I've been in a "Season Four of ER" mood, which, thanks to the periodic weeding of EW's TV on DVD collection, I have all to myself. But sometimes, you need a little Veronica Mars to help yourself remember that you can indeed be a badass if you want to. (Also, watching too much ER makes me want to go to med school, which would probably be a bad call on my part. Though it would make my mom very happy.)

Obviously, you can watch anything you want via STC's links, but sometimes those links take way too long to load, or are really finicky, or they're dead. So when The WB (and all its great teen-y shows) was resurrected a while ago via TheWB.com, I was ecstatic. VMars! Everwood! My life was now complete!

Except the site is terrible. It's gone through a few makeovers since the launch, but the design was never the problem. The problem is that none of the damn videos will play properly. Which...sort of defeats the purpose of the site. I'm perfectly willing to watch eps with ads in them, but I do want the eps to actually load. Of course, the ads all load and play flawlessly. Convenient.

It seems to me that it would be easier for these shows' studios to just put their episodes up on Hulu. I don't know the financial intricacies involved in cutting a deal with the Hulu people, but it has to be worth it. Anything has to be better than losing potential viewers because your site doesn't work.

Therefore, TheWB.com, I implore you: Just put your shit on Hulu. It'll make life better for everyone. I promise.

Weird Craigslist Post of the Day

I just...WHAT?!

The picture is what really sells it, I think.

Jack Bauer Is a Farmer

No, seriously.

While perusing Variety (shut up), I noticed a quirky little story about a couple studios fighting over a Dutch show that may or may not be too similar to a German show. The Dutch one is Bauer, ledig, sucht (Farmer, Single, Looking), while the German one is Bauer sucht Frau (The Farmer Wants a Wife).

I don't really care about that potential copyright infringement or whatever. What was really cool to me--a language nerd--is that I had no idea "Bauer" meant "farmer."

Obviously, my mind immediately went to a wonderful place wherein the next (and last) season of 24 finds our intrepid hero, Jack Bauer, forced once again into hiding--this time, on a farm. The first half of the day promises to be full of action (and shirtlessness!), with wheat to be harvested, cows to be milked, and fields--both literal and figurative--to plow (oh yes, I went there)*, despite the threat of a cattle raid. Of course, Jack Bauer will fuck up those raiders single-handedly, armed only with a pitchfork.

Hear that, producers? Yeah. You're welcome.