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boring useless details
Wednesday, 23 November 2005
places like hogwarts, the bayou, rome and wal-mart
Now Playing: kevin & bean on KROQ

been a few days, so i'll get on with the boringness:

  • harry potter and the goblet of fire take one - before i get to the movie, i'll whine, cause all that money it made and selling out audiences and whatnot cost me the chance to see the film on friday night. one theater was telling everyone there might be seats in the front row (which if i'd been alone would have been fine, but i had two of my kids with me), the theater a block away was sold out. so, we got out of the parking lot within the free first half hour and went home to watch the film the next day
  • and went home to watch willie wonka and the chocolate factory - certainly not as visual as the remake but still holds up quite well. plus, it was nice, me and sarah defending the film to the kids who were, like all modern children, bored by parts of the film (cause if there isn't hilarity and fantastic visuals every damn minute, then why are we bothering watching it, right?)
  • then came masters of horror - "jenifer" - a predictable but horribly fun little hour with classic showtime style--that is, plenty of sex and nudity to balance out the gore, violence and deformity. it was like the hunger was on again--and that show was more consistently good, so that sort of comparison is a good thing in my mind. i should mention that this episode might have played better if i hadn't noticed that steven weber wrote it (or adapted it anyway). seems a bit narcissistic writing your own role in a sex filled romp, at least when not in the porn business... not that porn isn't narcissistic for those involved, of course
  • then saturday we got to harry potter and it was a damn fine film, not just the best potter film but one of the better films i've seen, with only a couple editing flaws (one of them a bit annoying, the other only barely so):
    1. at the yule ball, there's a brief spat tween hermione and ron, but cut to after the ball, she's angry at him for ruining everything, when we've seen nothing of her everything being ruined. as far as we can tell before that, she had a fine time with krum. it seems like something's missing
    2. at the end, we get dumbledore telling the students (and us) that, while he's announcing that voldemort is back, the powers that be at the ministry don't want them to know that (setting up the plot for the next film), a fact that would have come off better if, say, fudge had taken a moment to tell dumbledore that they can't announce that sort of thing without some evidence. not necessarily an editing problem but more of a lack of content. we get the information but not in the best way
    but, all in all, the film works and works well, with some great dark, scary bits, some nice adventure and wonderful real life relationship type stuff, the main characters problems getting dates to the ball and ron and hermione's budding relationship and all the related parts
  • and saturday night was time for skeleton key, a film that should have been so much better. i mean, peter sarsgaard is in it; how can it be bad? the plot is ok, but the dialogue is attrocious and the direction is horrible--for example, main girl (played by kate hudson, who won an award for acting before right? so what the hell happened?) runs to get out of the secret room in the attic before old lady gets upstairs to the attic, big tense scene, will she make it, will she get caught and all that, then what was it--a whole scene later?--she admits to having been up there, making all the tension a stupid display for the audience. and, for that matter, why does lawyer guy act like a lawyer guy at all? main girl doesn't know him from adam (as they say), so why is he playing a part that keeps him away from the house so much? SPOILER AHEAD OF COURSE: i mean, if he's the old black guy, why is he posing as a character that main girl hasn't even met and throwing out characterization like mad to make us care (or trying to, anyway)? who cares who he is, as long as he isn't acting like an old black guy? and, did main girl's friend suck at reading her lines, or was that just me? i swear i fell asleep during the damn climax, it was so boring. but, i'll recommend the film to everyone i hate
  • and so there was sunday, a trip downtown, some time at a sports bar watching some steelers and a brief trip to the galleria and the lego store to get meself an advent calendar (which i proceeded to open completely upon getting home, of course), then came the simpsons, a funny episode--i remember laughing a lot--but i can't recall much specific about it.
  • then, while recording family guy and american dad, i watched me some rome finale, ie some damn fine television, with the expected death of caesar coming off particularly violent, gruesome and tragic, veranus' bit with his wife pulling at the emotions like pullo's bit with the arena last week, and a strangely happy ending for pullo and eirene
  • then was grey's anatomy, with a quite funny thansgiving episode, but still with the tragedy (even if it was a bit predictable with the coma guy dying). unlike tv guide, i didn't think it was particularly notable that bartender friend was gay... or maybe i did, since i just noted it. fuck
  • and then i finally got to last week's alias, a nice little hour reminiscent of classic season one episodes. it was great to have sloane acknowledge his blackmail then act on it anyway in the end, having his cake and eating it too
  • prison break - the escape looms and everything's going nicely, pudgy fbi guy even finally turns against his own plot (which you just know is going to lead to his death), then abruzzi gets cut and a little bad timing gets lincoln dragged away and to be continued in next week's "fall finale"
  • and i recored house and threshold while off with sarah to see wal-mart: the high cost of low price. a nice enough documentary, a bit too much editing in a few places (as many a documentary these days is wont to do), but it gets its point across. and, one of the editors and one of the researchers were there after to answer questions
  • then home to nip/tuck, with the kimber/christian wedding coming and matt hooking up with a cute little nazi (played by brittany snow, and i'd just like to point out to the folks behind this show that's she's over 18, unlike her character here and here characters on american dreams, so more skin would be fine) to match his haircut, and quentin IS NOT AT THE WEDDING PEOPLE, so of course he's the carver when it's blatantly not sean who comes to kimber's dressing room... but i get ahead of myself. kimber and christian dance around the julia issue and some wedding jitters--personal note: drive off to vegas without much planning and there aren't too many jitters (and no carver interruptions), trust me--and there's talk of the homogenization of humanity as a bad thing (a deliberately racist notion that still makes some intriguing points about plastic surgery and dovetails nicely into the carver's return. not that we get to see him return, mind you. but, we all know it's him (or her, if you think it's it liz, as many, including myself, have been thinking). but, QUENTIN WASN'T AT THE WEDDING, PEOPLE! HOW CLEAR DO THE WRITERS HAVE TO MAKE IT?! plus, quentin has good reason to be angry with christian, hence dragging out this carver attack, adding abduction and that letter ruse with kimber from next week's promo. unless the carver is kit, of course. made a huge thing of accusing christian then gets herself cut just to rule herself out as a suspect. toying with the audience, she was, methinks. all around, a fun episode. can't believe the season is almost over already
  • and today is the day before genocide day, and that means it's baking day for some. me--i'll be making a birthday cake oddly enough, to be consumed at the family thanksgiving gettogether tomorrow
  • and i am wondering if i can fit rent into today's schedule

  • Posted by ca4/muaddib at 9:28 AM PST
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