Monthly Archives: July 2008

Don Draper Is Back, Bitches!

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Mad Men returned at the weekend, heralded with breathless articles proselytising about its genius, and interviews with Matthew Weiner treating him like he is the king of all everything ever (not blaming him for that, btw). As I am a sucker for hype, I found myself looking forward to the second season opener quite a lot. Canyon remains unconvinced of the show’s legendary brilliance still, and so do I, though I did end up enjoying it a lot more by the end of that season. There were some terrific moments (Don enacting revenge on Roger Sterling by making him eat all the oysters in New York before fooling him into walking up several storeys was vomity genius), and Pete Campbell is one of the best and most weaselly characters on TV right now, but the thing that meant the most to me was the move from focusing on the glaringly obvious comments on the different morals of the era, to concentrating on the characters and their relationships.


After the first episode we had learned that during the 60s, men were sexist pigs, women were oppressed and treated as chattel, homosexuals were closeted, white Americans were racist, and everyone was drinking and smoking way too much and ignoring the health risks. It was enlightening! And then the next six or so episodes did very little to move beyond these points. Thankfully, by the end of that season, the anvil-banging obviousness of the commentary faded into the background, leaving us with the psychological desolation of Betty, the lopsided rivalry between Don and Pete and subsequent destruction of the challenger, Don’s identity crisis, and Roger’s realisation of his mortality. The character stuff was worth waiting for, and by the end I had started to like the show. Plus, casting Robert Morse in a semi-recurring role was a stroke of genius.


Sadly, the season two opener was business as usual. Even though we have jumped forward two years, we found out little had changed at Sterling Cooper, except that Peggy is now an honorary Mad Man (and total beyotch to the typing pool thanks to her understandable insecurities), and Don can’t get it up now he has lost his access to his mistresses Rachel and Midge (well, Rachel was almost his mistress, but he sure wanted to get with her. Oh, and whats-his-name grew a beard. It was very exciting. The references to the mores of the time remain, but the clanging references to the theme of the episode are even less subtle now than they were last year. Every plot thread was about babies, old age, and youth, often with the crashing and gallumphing effect of someone driving a thumb-tack into a corkboard by firing an exploding elephant at it. It’s impossible to warm to the show when the writers (in this case, Weiner, who, according to this interesting interview, micromanages the show to the Nth degree) refuse to allow the viewer to spot these thematic threads on their own. Betty’s sexual frustration signalled by her sudden obsession with horse-riding a lot? I mean, come on. It’s getting all Marnie up in here (which is apt due to her Hitchcock-blonde appearance, but still).


Anyway, despite my misgivings, there were incidental pleasures that made the episode worthwhile. Peggy’s bitchiness and subsequent comeuppance at the hands of Joan and Lois, Pete’s muttered comment about chocolate prior to watching some sci fi show on TV (the only moment linked to the central theme that I enjoyed), several scenes featuring Don; there was some gold in there. Besides, with Big Love not around right now, this is all that qualifies as “quality acclaimed TV” at the moment. Especially as Tell Me You Love Me has been cancelled, which I’m thrilled and bummed about. Stupid show that makes me have conflicted feelings about its quality!

Of course, Mad Men also featured lots of great Don/Kenshiro Kasumi moments. As I suspected all along (as did anyone who noticed the repeated references to his impenetrable exterior and secretiveness), Don was indeed hiding something about himself, and though it turned out he was hiding the fact that he was a hobo-educated soldier who killed the real Don Draper, I still find that outrageous plot twist less compelling than the thought that inside his head is hiding a second personality that is as violent and dangerous as a man who can make your brain explode just by punching you in the correct spot. At several points during this season opener, this is the commentary I imagined running around behind that rumpled and handsome face of his:







It’s like a never-ending maelstrom of hate in there. Which event of the 60s will make him snap? And who will survive his inevitable bloody rampage?

Dr. Emma Frost, I Presume

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The trailer for X-Men Originals: Wolverine and Sabretooth Snarly Snarly FightyMuch has been leaked onto the internet since its first showing at Comic-Con (which, once more, I have been unable to attend ::sniff::), and I have to say, even though Wolverine bores me greatly, it looks pretty nifty. Things explode, mutants pose in front of carnage and yet seem unmoved by it due to their utter coolness, and Liev Schrieber, my sworn enemy, gets knocked through some windows. To quote Jean-Claude Van Damme, dat’s gotta hurt!

Much as I would much rather have a Kieślowski-esque decalogue exploring the psychology of my favourite childhood X-Man Cyclops (what??!?), I guess this will be fun too. I may not be berserker crazy about Wolverine, but I really enjoy Hugh Jackman’s interpretation of him (even though, seriously, stop crying in every movie, Logan). Whether David “Mr. Amanda Peet” Benioff’s script is better than his work on Iliad-Lite aka Troy, or Gavin Hood’s direction extends beyond the growling-into-the-camera or walking-away-from-’splodey shots we saw littered through that trailer, we’ll have to wait and see. However, I do have one question. Who the hell is this?


Yeah, I get that it’s meant to be Emma Frost, everyone’s favourite bitchy psychic who isn’t Miles from Lost. She’s been in a holding pattern waiting to turn up in an X-Men movie, and now is her chance, and I really hope she gets more of a shot than Colossus or Jamie Madrox, because she is a fantastic character, especially when written by Joss Whedon or Grant Morrison. However, who is the actress? IMDb has no listing for her right now, and she looks really familiar, a bit like Julie Benz, except not (her Marvel involvement so far begins and ends with a part in the surely unnecessary Punisher: War Zone). Can someone help me out? It’s been driving me out of my mind. Not unlike what would happen if Emma Frost herself were to use her incredible brainpowers to attack me.

So yeah, I’m glad she’s in the movie, and is being played by someone who visually fits the part (i.e. an attractive blonde woman), yet though I understand this is an early leak, and it’s a crappy YouTube copy of a mobile phone video, but seriously, this…


…looks like an effect discarded from the Roger Corman Fantastic Four movie. Please let her diamond transformation look better in the finished version. Still, that irked me, but at least I’m not an obsessive Deadpool fan angered to the point of insanity by the casting of a non-disfigured Ryan Reynolds, or a Gambit fan stamping his or her feet at the inclusion of that card-flinging dickhead in the wrong context (“Waaaah! He was never in Weapon X! How is he supposed to fall in love with Anna Paquin now?”). I can handle a potentially improvable effect, and might even overlook the casting of Dominic Monaghan as a featherless Barnell Bohusk (though I love that character, I can understand the reluctance to keep him the same as in the comics). Besides, check this out.


It’s Keamy! Playing The Blob! And, from that crappy screen-cap, about to fight Ray Liotta. OMG YAY! I love The Blob. I guess the Kevin Durand fans who checked this blog out a month ago (::waves at Kevin Durand fans::) will be very upset to see the great man obscured by even more latex than Vinnie Jones as the Rubbernaut in X-Men 3: The Last Straw, but hey, it’s still terrific news. Consider me excited over yet more mutant shenanigans.

Letter of Complaint (Evan Almighty [3])

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Here’s the final letter of complaint against the makers of Evan Almighty that I’ve found online. Apparently it was written on a large stone tablet. Surely by the time this turned up some major warning bells would have been sounding.

Dear Tom Shadyac and Steve Oedekerk,

Re: your recent ode to banality Evan Almighty, I wish to lodge a complaint about how you have interpreted the events surrounding a flood I unleashed upon the heathen scum populating the earth several hundred years before my son was born. In your movie you had this way dumb scene with me talking to Steve Carell, during which I explain that I hit Earth with a huge flood in order to bring Noah’s family closer together. I guess you can take that one of two ways; the Bible is a bunch of self-help metaphors and not the Word of Me, which is blasphemous enough to tick me off, or that I’m a total wuss. Well, congratulations, because your efforts to portray me as a cuddly-wuddly My Little Deity have incurred my wrath even unto the ending of the Earth!!!

I didn’t create a flood to help a family bond. What am I, Dr. Phil? I hit planet Earth with a billion billion billion extra gallons of water to punish the heathens for their sins. Why wouldn’t I? You’re just an ant farm with the odd good book by Philip Roth to distinguish you from the rest of the beasts. You’d better believe it. You’ve only seen what happened back then by watching Cecil B. DeMille’s excellent documentaries about the period, but even those didn’t show the extent to which humanity had screwed the pooch, with the fornication and idolatry and whatnot. You don’t do that on my watch and not force me to bring the thunder, and I brung it. Brought it. Ugh, stupid English. Why isn’t everyone speaking French by now? It’s a much nicer language.

So yeah, Humanity 1.0 had so many glitches I had to hit Ctrl-Alt-Flood, so you better believe I did the do in order to kill a whole mess o’ peeps. I’m the Old Testament God! It’s what I do! I tell guys to kill their kids and send nasty plagues down just the fun of it. And believe me, Humanity 2.0 had better start taking a good look at itself, or this asteroid I’m holding is getting aimed right at the Midwest, and Bruce Willis and William Fichtner ain’t gonna save your asses this time.

That fluffy-God crap annoyed me more than the fact that the laughs really dried up in the final act of your stupid movie, and that you totally wasted Lauren Graham. Why did you bother casting someone as spunky as her if you’re just going to make her the boring wifey who gets mad at her husband? Between this, having noisy sex with Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa (or, as we call it up here in Heaven HQ, Bad Film!!!), and spending eight years being the only non-sucky thing on that P-O-S show Gilmore Girls, she just can’t seem to catch a break. Time for an Eleventh Commandment; Thou Shalt Not Waste Lauren Graham’s Talent.

Oh, and re: casting Morgan Freeman to play me. Nice work! Who doesn’t like Morgan Freeman? He can even make penguins seem noble and interesting. I couldn’t even manage that, and I spent .000054 picoseconds longer designing them than I did humans. Those were some frustrating little ice-birds. So yeah, that casting was the one thing I liked about your movie, and that’s why I only made the stupid thing tank instead of having you covered with boils and locusts and stuff. You got lucky, jerkoffs. Now make another Ace Ventura film, and I might reconsider letting Lucifer nab your souls. I really loved that pet detective.

Yours sincerely,

Da Old Testament God, yo!

A Bridge Too Far

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The advent of a new Will Ferrell movie is not cause for quite so much excitement for me as it is for my fellow bloggers, but I am a fan of the Ferrell. He rescued Wedding Crashers and Old School from total mediocrity; he taught Kevin Smith’s coterie a thing or two about comedy in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back; he turned Elf from a potentially squicky schmoopfest into an adorable festive gem; Anchorman obviously fucking owns, and is a lot cleverer than it’s given credit for; I frequently need more cowbell; and, of course, he invented the piano-key tie. Despite his occasional tendency to coast, generally I think his success is one of the most pleasing things about the US movie industry today. It’s great to see people making risky comedies (by which I mean not that they are somehow ‘dangerous’, but that their material walks a fine line between audience-pleasing yuks and weird, even surreal humour that might easily miss the target) and it’s even better to see that people genuinely like them and go back for more.

It is with some sadness, then, that I must bring an end to my Ferrell appreciation. I was watching The Daily Show this week on More4, and received a nasty shock when Ferrell and John C. Reilly appeared on the programme to promote Step Brothers.

Your eyes do not deceive you, gentle reader: Ferrell is indeed wearing a Chelsea FC replica shirt. Chelsea! Of all the clubs! Chelsea, the upstart, nouveau-riche braggart of the English Premier League. The club bankrolled by a man who bought and bullied his way to enormous political and financial influence. The club captained by that charming John Terry. The club that spent over £50 million in fees and wages on a waning Ukrainian striker just to show off to everyone else that they could. The club that epitomises the rapacious, tawdry, mercenary, ultra-capitalist, self-serving free-for-all that English football has become.

I assume that Ferrell did not grow up on a council estate in southwest London being taken to Stamford Bridge every Saturday by his Blues-mad parents. Had Jon Stewart asked him what he thought about Luiz Felipe Scolari’s appointment as coach or if Didier Drogba had a future at the club, I doubt he could have answered. So why is a 41-year-old American prancing around in a Chelsea strip? Thirty seconds’ further investigation shows that this is not an isolated incident – he’s been pimping that shirt everywhere. Here’s Ferrell at a party for the release of his friend Danny McBride’s movie The Foot Fist Way:


Here he is on ABC News talking about Step Brothers:

Here he is on TRL:

I am baffled as to the reasons behind this newfound support for the most reviled sporting institution in England. While some comedians court and even thrive on hostility from their audiences, Ferrell is not that type. His characters are sometimes aggressive or unpleasant, but his overweening characteristic is “lovable”. He’s a puppy with a hat on, peeping out of a cardboard box and offering to do your ironing. That’s how lovable he is. He’s a jolly, friendly, cuddly, lovable comic… in a Chelsea shirt. No. No, that doesn’t work at all.

So why did Ferrell turn to the dark side? I suppose it’s possible that the club is paying him to wear the shirt for exposure, although this is unlikely because he would have been given the new 2008-09 season’s shirt, rather than the five-year-old version he’s twatting about in. Or maybe he really, really likes to Fly Emirates – but wearing the shirt won’t get him too many free tickets, since Chelsea ditched the airline’s sponsorship deal in favour of a more lucrative offer from Samsung. (Surely Arsenal, whose home is the Emirates Stadium and who play more attractive football and who, you know, aren’t Chelsea, would be a more enticing option.) Maybe he just likes blue. Frankly, that’s not good enough. Why not choose an eminently more likeable team, such as Colchester United? Or Peterborough United? Or Birmingham City? (Well, perhaps not Birmingham.)

The only way I can come to terms with his choice of club is to assume it’s some form of performance, that he’s playing the role of a Chelsea fan to gauge public reaction. Clearly he’s desperate to get one of those roles playing a serial killer or a corrupt police officer or a flawed father figure so that, like so many comedians before him, he can show range and get an Oscar nomination. He can’t be any of those bad people in the real world, so this is the next best thing. Can he walk around clad in his unholy finery and retain that lovable persona? Has he generated sufficient goodwill to prevent the masses turning on him with pitchforks and torches? Are memories of Mugatu and Ron Burgundy and Buddy enough to deflect attention from his apparent journey into the heart of darkness? If so, then he can play a mass murderer without permanent damage to his celebrity!

It’s literally the only explanation that makes sense.

But plenty of likeable actors have done the playing-evil thing and come out unharmed. Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley. Kevin Bacon in The Woodsman. Robert Mitchum in Night Of The Hunter. Ferrell’s got it the wrong way around. I would happily have watched him take on a challenging role – but now I think of him as a Chelsea fan, I don’t think any amount of residual affection can atone for such an egregious misjudgment. He could spend a year wearing the colours of a nicer, fluffier club – like Unicef-endorsing Barcelona or fan-owned Ebbsfleet United or, I don’t know, Hell Bastard Rovers – and it wouldn’t be enough. He’s gone too far. It’s over.

Over.

Letter of Complaint (Evan Almighty [2])

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Here’s more indignation aimed at the makers of the soul-freezing entertainment void that was Evan Almighty, a film that made Bruce Almighty look like The Producers (original flavour).

Dear Evan Almighty creators,

I am writing in protest about your use of the acronym ARK at the end of the movie known as Evan Almighty (EA). Kindness Dissemination Technologies appreciates the efforts of Universal Pictures and the numerous production companies to distance the movie from the generosity generation meme popularly referred to as Random Acts of Kindness, which, as you will know following the correspondence between our lawyers, is a registered trademark of KDT.

However, despite our legal threats, we (KDT) feel not enough was done to differentiate between the two memes, and as such the final scene with the deity referred to as God exhorting the lead character to practice Acts of Random Kindness, which has been a bone of contention between us for a period of months, remains problematic. KDT holds copyright on this meme, and is unwilling to cede intellectual ownership of this meme to a deity, be it fictional or actual.

KDT is also worried that the popularisation of this altered meme will lead to confusion about the dissemination of such generosity, a potentially damaging distortion of our concept and, potentially, ruinous to the public reputation of our company. Random Acts of Kindness denote acts of kindness that are actualised randomly. Examples of such include:

  • Paying for the coffee of a stranger
  • Cleaning the windows of a neighbour’s house when they are on holiday
  • Purchasing a computer for a school

    • Regrettably, altering the name of the meme to Acts of Random Kindness, in its attempt to distance your meme from that of KDT’s, renders it unusable. It instead refers to acts of kindness that are random in nature, not randomly enacted. Here are some examples:

  • Paying a toll for a car-less tramp
  • Purchasing coffee for a cat
  • Mowing 50% of your neighbour’s lawn

    • Literal enactment of this modified meme would render the concept meaningless, which could negatively impact upon the share value of KDT. Such an outcome is unacceptable. While we regret to involve our lawyers again after our previous round of ill-tempered debate, KDT feels it has no choice but to begin further legal action in order to clarify how kindness is to be disseminated throughout the world. Any efforts on the art of the makers of Evan Almighty to jeopardise the random purchasing of coffee or payment of toll charges is seen as an act of corporate hostility, and will be met with the full force of our legal powers. Consider this the beginning of a new legal battle. Keep the example of Pay It Forward, and the subsequent careers of its three leads in mind. Our legal resources are more formidable than you can possibly imagine.

    Hugs!

    Ben E. Volence – CEO Kindness Dissemination Technologies (legal letter redeemable for free coffee at all participating Starbucks, coffee must be handed to nearest indigent)

    Final letter to come on Friday.

    Letter of Complaint (Evan Almighty [1])

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    A couple of weeks ago we endured some pretty shoddy movies, and by that I don’t mean amusingly dreadful like Cassandra’s Dream or The Happening, but just flat-out godawful movies that made us mad. One of them was Dreamgirls, which made me froth at the mouth (those weak, repetitive Motown/Stax pastiches were an insult to the original work), and the other was Evan Almighty, which failed on every conceivable level, but most importantly, failed from the moment of conception.

    I would have complained, but thanks to some internet sleuthing, I found out that far more impressive and forceful letters were sent by people with more clout. With their permission, this week I shall reprint my favourites here. I have no idea whether the makers of Evan Almighty ever responded.

    Dear the makers of Evan Almighty,

    I recently had the unfortunate experience of watching the movie Evan Almighty, starring the former Daily Show correspondent and, I assume from that, member of the Communist Party Steven Carell. Though the casting of someone as gallingly liberal as that would normally deter me from watching such a movie, I was swayed by the thought of a Hollywood project featuring a man of God working within government to better the world through the expansion of housing developments into areas of wildlife protected by those tree-hugging, pagan, sun-worshipping, eco-fascist Wiccan welfare scum who make the otherwise pleasurable job of acquiring billions of dollars such an uphill struggle. At last, the liberal hankie-fluttering nancys of Hollywood seemed willing to show the benefits of combining Church and State into one Holy Temple of Might, Money and Morality, and seemed to be so eager to do so that it dropped a significant amount of dollarage into the project (well, almost as much as a deposit on a Bilderberg Group membership, but a sizable amount for a movie).

    So you can imagine my disgust when the Congressmen in the movie are not affiliated with any political party. What were you thinking? That man from King Ralph was obviously playing a Republican like myself. Did you decide against naming his colours because his actions would offend the righteous American heroes of the Republican party? As a Republican, I would be proud to put my name on such a brave housing bill. But oh boo hoo! The animals might die! Do animals vote? No. So what’s the problem?

    Even worse, Congressman Evan Almighty is put in conflict with Congressman King Ralph over the fates of the bunnies or whatever it was. This would never happen. Republicans never fight against each other, not while there are terrorist-worshipping Dummycrats around. And yes, you didn’t say that Congressman Evan Almighty was a Republican either, but God talks to him, so it’s obvious. The Republican God I worship doesn’t talk to Democrats. He makes jokes about their weaknesses and spits on them. That’s what rain is. Why do you think we refer to them as “wet”? No Republican has ever been caught in a rainstorm. That’s a fact hidden from common knowledge by the liberal media, knowing that their own, inherently treacherous kind would flock to our banner just to stay dry.

    So, if you go ahead with making a sequel, maybe one featuring that Molly Shannon lady like it seemed you were hinting at (Yeah, we caught that she was called Eve!), please be sure to give flag lapel pins to the Righteouslicans and have them properly labelled as God-fearing pro-dollar heroes. We deserve the credit for our endeavours, you deviant Commie schmucks.

    Yours in frothing indignation,

    Quintus “The Moneyman” Zirkman, CEO Dollar Absorption Incorporated (a subsidiary of SoulAnnex plc.).

    More to come on Wednesday.

    HORRIBLE!!!

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    Beware: Mild Dr. Horrible spoilers (but surely you’ve watched it by now; the final part’s been up for about 45 minutes!)


    If you’re wise, you will already have been following the wonderful web experiment of Joss Whedon and his Mutant Enemy cohorts known as Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which has been amusing us greatly this week. In a fit of Whedon-love we stayed up to catch the third and final part of his musical masterpiece that isn’t Once More With Feeling or the theme to Firefly, and if the previous two installments were hilarious, this was hilarious and heart-breaking. Really heart-breaking.


    This year we’ve only seen a couple of Whedon projects come out, and both featured tragedy. The final issue of Astonishing X-Men was gut-wrenching, with Whedon giving his favourite character, Kitty Pryde, a heroic moment that dooms her to eternal torment, and Dr. Horrible ends on a note that echoes the final scenes of both De Palma’s Blow Out and Coppola’s The Godfather. (Yes, I’m comparing Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog to The Godfather. What of it?)

    So, I ask this seriously. Mr. Whedon, if you accidentally wander across this blog post on your journeys through Netland, I’m offering to come to LA and give you a really big hug and a blueberry muffin if you will, just once, not have one character in your work suffer horribly. I understand that it adds a lot to the impact of the story, and with Dr. Horrible it was a nice play on that awful Women in Refrigerators device lazily used in comics, but really, you’re killing us here with your beautifully structured sadism. You big, brilliant, disgustingly talented meanie you. (P.S. Thank you for 45 minutes of genius.)


    ETA: And by Whedon, I of course mean the Clan Whedon, including his brothers Jed and Zack, and honorary Clan member Maurissa Tancharoen. You’re all wonderfully evil, and I simultaneously thank you and damn you. Mostly thank you, especially for the Thoroughbred of Evil joke which has delighted us so much this week.

    The Wahlberg Awards – The Usual Suspects

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    Though there are no shortage of terrific Wahlberg-Award-worthy film moments out there, I’d like to draw attention to a very interesting candidate; Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie’s The Usual Suspects. This notorious and almost obscenely entertaining movie doesn’t just satisfy the expectations of the judges in terms of “Oh Shit!” moments, but also manages to meta-comment on those moments, with moments so twisted around themselves that the judging panel had their minds bent out of shape trying to assess it all. It truly is a remarkable movie. The first award is a deviation from the norm: Best Non-Response By Pete Postlethwaite To Repeated Threats By A Born-Again Christian:









    That confrontation leads us to the second award, this time for Best Fake Response To A Revelation About The World’s Naughtiest Criminal Made By The World’s Naughtiest Criminal Within The Fake Narrative He Has Created To Flummox Chazz “Calogero” Palminteri And, As A Consequence, The Audience:


    At the end of the movie, that fake narrative comes to an end, and a moment later we get the iconic and infamous moment that wins our third award, Best Response To Realising You’ve Just Spent Ages Listening To A Bunch Of Hooey Woven By The World’s Naughtiest Criminal, And Broke Your Favourite Mug In The Process:


    Of course, Chazz Palminteri was only speaking for all of us, and so with that same revelation of the naughtiness of Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects wins the Lifetime Achievement Wahlberg Award for Services to Generating Meta-Shock in Worldwide Audiences Through The Clever Manipulation of Narrative.


    Truly the awards panel is awed.

    No Love For Big Love

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    Quick comment, and then I’ll eat some more Hot & Spicy Cheez-Its; though we’re happy with many of the Emmy nominations, especially those of Michael Emerson, Lee Pace, everyone on the Recount team, and Michael C. Hall (aka the only reason to watch Dexter), there were problems. Eclipsing my astonishment at seeing nominations for those monuments to mediocrity that are The Andromeda Strain and Tin Man, and amazingly, overshadowing even the disgust of the entire Shades of Caruso team at the dismissal of the mighty Connie Britton, who has been peerless on Friday Night Lights, I’m sickened to my actual guts to see nothing at all for Big Love. I’d like to think that’s because the season ended before some kind of arbitrary cut off point, but wasn’t it on at about the same point as that critical favourite Mad Men? I could be wrong, and if so will bow my head. However, I’m not as wrong as the super-wrong decision to treat Big Love as the embarrassing cousin kept in the shed out back, when in fact it should be showered with lotus petals and given expensive presents. Or, more accurately, lots of awards. If there is a rule forbidding its inclusion in the nomination process, aren’t rules meant to be broken? And shouldn’t they? As often as possible when it comes to this show?


    We love you even if no one else does, everyone who works on Big Love!

    ETA: Ah hah! It’s not all bad news. The proper full list, not the “full” list as promised by stupid stupid Yahoo News, shows Ellen Burstyn has been nominated for her guest performance in the superb episode Take Me As I Am, which is terrific news. However, it also proves the show was in contention for more Emmy nominations, and the lack of them irks even more now. I get that Men What Are Mad and Glenn Close Is Damaged! have taken the Prestigious Cable Drama slots in the main categories (with the other three slots going to network shows, as tradition demands), but surely there could have been some love for the rest of the cast. As good as Burstyn was in that episode (and OMG she was amazing), what about Jeanne Tripplehorn, who was equally amazing? Your day will come, Big Love.

    Blog Slowdown Commence (2008 Edition)

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    It’s a holi-holiday, and we’re in chillax mode for a little while, meaning some pre-arranged content of varying quality popping up sporadically while we watch movies, play Crysis and Boom Blox (both awesome), and get toasted thanks to the powerful rays of the sun. In the meantime, feel free to ponder these two statements; Wall*E = Idiocracy for kids?

    Plus, Kung Fu Panda > Wall*E < Ratatouille. That said, that statement does not mean I think Wall*E < Cassandra’s Dream or anything terrible like that. More that Wall*E most things. Here is a list of further Wall*E statements.

  • Wall*E > In Bruges
  • Wall*E > Finding Nemo
  • Wall*E = Oobleck
  • Wall*E = Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
  • Wall*E > Iron Man > Indy 4 > Jumper > Hancock > Wanted > The Happening > Cassandra’s Dream < Dog Poop Soufflé

    • Perhaps that makes things clearer. Or not. I’m all a-dither right now. It’s not very often I come out of a movie of such artistry and such powerfully metaphorical or mythical resonance and have a (relatively) mild reaction, but that’s how it is. For now, Kung Fu Panda remains number one in the hearts of two-thirds of Shades of Caruso. Let’s see if The Dark Knight really is as good as everyone says (i.e. A PANACEA FOR THE MORTALLY WOUNDED WORLD SOUL, YOU WORTHLESS SCUM!!!).