Slowly Going Bald

Sis: ok, a photog just came by and said that he read that the guy from "Weird Science" who wasn't Anthony Michael Hall is now a professor of literature at Angelo State. i told him we should do a story on him. and then i started saying "crazy? insane? insane? crazy?"
me: hahaha
man, i wanna meet that guy
Sis: seriously

me: earlier, my boss asked GTHM to help set up her dvd player. but guess what — IT'S A VCR
i have no idea how this escaped my boss' notice
but it did
Sis: hahahahahaha
that's so awesome
me: yep
her lack of technological know-how is astounding

Roommate: man, i was just thinking how great 80s TV shows were...the fall guy, magnum pi, chips, airwolf, knight rider, dukes of hazzard
simon and simon to a lesser extent
me: Airwolf was awesome
Roommate: jake and the fatman sucked
plus i think all of the shows were on in the afternoon when i got home from school
none of this wait till 9pm at night BS
me: you should travel back in time
Roommate: i've been trying all morning...damn machine doesn't work
i must have crossed the circuitry somehow
me: did you put in a quarter?
there's your problem
Roommate: no change machine
me: damn
Roommate: only takes singles

Roommate: ok, the guy here at work said the movie with kristen bell was pulse...so iduno...never saw it
me: me either
i mean, i could find this out in like 2 seconds w/ google
but my ass would get fired
Roommate: i just looked it up on imdb...said it was pg13...so iduno
me: yeah
your coworker is nuts
Roommate: i doubt topless...sounded more like a quick skin flash while in a tub
me: pssht
Roommate: lol
no pleasing you...even hearing that i was kind of excited for you
me: haha
thanks man
i'm not saying i'm not pleased by the idea. i just think that with my level of love for kristen bell, i would've heard the news
Roommate: well, by your reaction...i think you're gay
me: well, i do love cock

Sis: i'm watching pretty in pink
me: james spader is a badass in white pants
Sis: and wicker shoes with no socks
me: BAD
ASS
Sis: it's true
i don't get why people are so mean to duckie, though
i don't remember there being nerds like that getting hit in the halls and pushed into bathrooms. maybe because i'm a girl
me: yeah, nerd hazing is more typically confined to locker rooms or sporting arenas
then again, it is john hughes
Sis: yeah
james is on!
me: you could never mention this again and call me up in 20 years and say, "hey, what do you think of spader in Pretty in Pink?" and i would say "BADASS IN WHITE PANTS"
it is an eternal truth
Sis: haha
it's so true
Blaine?! that's not a name, that's a major appliance
sorry
man, i need sleep
me: what kind of appliance is blaine?
THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE JOHN

I've been writing for Pajiba for close to three years now, and I think that experience qualifies me to guess that more than a few of the comments on the 21 review will bring up the issue of race, and how characters went from being Asian in real life to white in the movie. It's just a touchy enough subject to bring people out of the woodwork, and it doesn't have a lot to do with how the film performs as a finished product, and those two things make it ripe for commenters.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to be.

Click here for the review.

L.A. Confidential

"Quarterlife"
[Willamette Week]

10,000 BC

Funny Games

Drillbit Taylor

"The West Wing," Season Two

21

Over at Pajiba, I take a look at the second season of "The West Wing."

I watched a few episodes from that season again in preparation for writing the piece, and I'm not at all ashamed to say that I choked back tears several times during "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen." I always do.

This is the last recap for a while. When the show returns, I should be able to return to my practice of making episode-specific references in the headlines on this blog, since by then my friends who are catching up with the series on DVD should be up to speed. (And far be it from me to point out that reading blog posts about a series you're watching seems illogical and unavoidably spoilerish.)

Anyway: Click here for the recap.

A Conversation With My Roommate, Who Also Attended ACU, After Watching Accepted
Me: I wish I'd gone to South Harmon.
Him: I think we kinda did.

An Apatow-produced movie for younger kids. So, all the pain and humiliation, just (slightly) less swearing.

Click here for the review.

My second and final trip to this year's Paleyfest was for the "Friday Night Lights" panel. The rush for the stage was stronger than it was after the Apatow panel, and there were even more collectors there, hordes of people with DVDs and Sharpies who had this weird habit of calling the stars by their first names to get their attention. Still, it was a fun night. And damn if Connie Britton isn't something else, you know?

Also: Seeing Tyra Collette play volleyball on the screen in the Cinerama Dome is an experience I can only describe as transcendental.

Anyway, click here for the full write-up.

I attended the Paleyfest panel last night called "The Comedy World of Judd Apatow and Friends," which despite the vaguely dopey title was a fantastic, hilarious evening. Plus I got my picture taken with Paul Feig. When the panel ended, collectors made a controlled rush for the stage to get things autographed — you would not believe the way some of these bring a Buffalo Bill-level of fervor to collecting autographs — but I headed for the man in the brown suit, dapper and amiable and looking like the nicest math teacher you will ever have. It wasn't that I was overly starstruck, but I couldn't figure out how to thank him without running through every cliche in the book: I'm a big fan, I loved the show, etc. How do you tell someone that the story they made hit you in a place that's indescribably important? And that their work in a way made that place possible within you?

Anyway, I had a good time.

Click here for the full write-up.

But damn, what a good episode. The first season of "Lost" is still its best, as well as being one of the more solid seasons of TV in general in recent years, but the fourth year, and the latter half of the third, are close.

Click here for the recap.

Really not as bad as you think it will be. While I admit that I'm more desensitized than some, I should point out that none of the real violence occurs on screen. None. Aside from a slap across the face and a couple hits to a leg, it's all in your head. Which is, I guess, its own kind of punishment.

Seriously, though, it's pretty terrifying, and the dog dies. Don't see it unless you're writing a freshman-level paper on violence in the media.

Click here for the review.

I don't quite know what I can add to this video, other than to say I laughed to the point of tears at the proverbial money shot.

Just watch it.

And what the hell, here's another good one from last night:

A video made the rounds recently that purportedly shows a Marine in Iraq chucking a puppy off a cliff. I say "purportedly" because even though I've read about it, I can't bring myself to watch it. Some have claimed that it's a fake, but most agree that it's real, and there's even an investigation on to track down the offending soldier.

In one of life's increasingly less entertaining coincidences, this all happened when I was fresh off reading Brian K. Vaughan's stellar and heartbreaking Pride of Baghdad, a graphic novel inspired by the true account of four lions who escaped the Baghdad zoo during the bombings of April 2003. The book plays as a grim fable as the lions make their way through the ruins of the city and attempt to survive amid the rubble and chaos of a world being destroyed. Vaughan's writing is as sharp as ever: He delineates the four main characters and their personalities in a matter of pages before plunging them and the reader into a journey that can only be described as harrowing. I will not here reveal what happens to the central cast, or even to the ancillary characters — including the rest of the animals who escaped the zoo, a giant bear being kept as a lethal pet, and a wise old turtle living down by the river — except to say that, as is the case in the real world and Vaughan's stories, not everyone makes it out safely. However, the real power of the story isn't just the way Vaughan gives it an emotional resonance, but in the way he uses a tragic climax to illustrate a broader point about the war in general. After a few panels of silent scenery, Vaughan simply states that the preceding was based on a true story before concluding with, "There were other casualties as well." And in one moment, the story manages to spiral up and out, taking the pain and joy and nameless other yearnings and focusing them on the human cost of the fighting.

I say all that because reaction to the video generally fell into three camps. Most everyone was appalled, and a few people even expressed something like sad resignation that this had happened, as if being away from home and fighting in a war is all the excuse you need to mindlessly kill a harmless animal. But many people used the video as a way to turn the focus back toward the human lives lost, saying that it doesn't make sense to get all worked up over a dog when people are dying. This is the right idea, but the wrong execution. It's wrong because it assumes that a dog's life is worthless and should serve as a reminder that real people are dying every day, when in actuality that dog is the best way for people who don't have any connection to the war to see it for just what it's doing to those who are affected by it. The war has become a senseless thing, a lumbering and unjust beast whose appetite for willing soldiers and innocent civilians is impossible to satisfy. But seeing a dog, a pup whose only mistake was to find himself in the hands of the wrong Marine, killed with the kind of offhand you never want to imagine someone having — that's affecting in a way that death counts and press spin could never be. That's why we're right to get worked up about the video. The human cost suddenly comes screaming home, and not because the dog was just an animal; it's because it was alive, and that life ended in a place where people are killing each other every hour.

Over at Pajiba, I've got a review of Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me, an essay collection that's definitely worth picking up.

The title of this post is taken from a fantastic and also terribly depressing essay David Simon recently wrote for Esquire. You can read the whole thing here. When you're done, hop on over to the sites listed below for a broader view of the general unrest and unhappiness that's worming its way through the industry and the medium.

Excerpts from AngryJournalist.com:

Angry Journalist #1106: I’m angry because I work so much that I can’t get a decent date to save my life. Then I take a day off to go to the doctor, who says I’m stressed and charges me $150. His recommendation: Have more of a social life. Thanks genius for completing the Catch-22.

Angry Journalist #1107:
I’m angry because print journalism is dying, internet journalism doesn’t exist yet and there’s just not much else to do for someone who’s young, energetic and loves to write. I’m angry because the medium is committing suicide as fast as it’s dying and the people who should care the most — average people and readers and thinkers — don’t give a shit. I’m angry because in the age of information, I’m being scared off the only profession I’m suited for.

Angry Journalist #1272:
I’m angry because as a music journalist in the UK, there will be no realistic job prospects for me when I get to my mid-30s, by which time I will have fulfilled a lifetime ambition but still won’t be able to afford to live in anything but a shared house or contemplate such things as saving for a pension or, in fact, getting a taxi back home from a night out instead of the night bus with the crack-heads.

Angry Journalist #1268:
2/29/2008
22 out at the L.A. Daily News (buyouts and layoffs)
9 at the Daily Breeze (layoffs)
8-9 at Long Beach (layoffs/attrition/consolidation)

Also, Headsup: The Blog is a great resource for info and gripes related to copy editing. Then again, I'm the kind of person who can talk about how happy he was when AP made "fundraiser" one word in all instances, so the site's right up my alley.

If you need a happiness chaser, there's also Happy Journalist, or this puppy howling.

Apparently even just mentioning characters names in the headlines of blog entries can send people over the edge when it comes to perceived spoilers, but you know I'd never spoil you, baby. I'm 'a take care of you.

Click here for the recap.

The word is definitely.

Do you spell it "definately," or some other such perversion? Congratulations, you need to repeat junior high.

I realize that (obviously) I mostly come across this typo online, where any mouth-breather with a keyboard can just type away, but come on. Let's all get together on this one.

This movie sucks exactly as much as you think it does.

Click here for the review.

Over at the Willamette Week, I take a look at "Quarterlife," which was bumped from NBC after one episode. Who knew that bland white people blogging about twentysomething angst would be a tough draw?

Click here for the column.

Because we at Pajiba decided we didn't have quite enough to do, we've launched another series, this one aimed at examining what could best described as modern classics. The whole definition is pretty nebulous, but it's basically carte blanche to write about the high-profile, great movies of the past 15 years or so. The series began with American Psycho, and today I write about L.A. Confidential, which gets better every year.

Click here for the review.

Things are now up and running over at Titlepage, a site dedicated to "passionate conversations about books." Just going there will make you smarter, and once you're there you can sign up to receive updates about the show. There's also Loud, Please, the site's blog. Really, you should stop reading this and go check it out already.

Short version: "The Constant" was just completely kickass. Obviously, in my recap, I go into necessarily great detail about the episode's plot and also (hopefully) fire off some decent analysis, but just in case you're in a hurry, know this: It's a great episode.

Click here for the recap.