11:20 AM

Escaping High School

Posted by Rebecca | Labels: , , ,


Most of my high school career is a big, black ball of nothing. Without getting into the gory details, what I haven’t repressed my bad memory has mostly taken care of. It was mostly horrible and was really close to being completely horrible. What makes it even worse, however, is that movies and television shows had taught me that high school was supposed to be the best time of my life. Sure I was going to go through some drama, but I was going to come out on top with the cute nerd whose actually really cool and popular holding my hand. My friends would have fights, but it would only strengthen our friendship and the whole movie would end with the before-mentioned hot guy and I sharing a perfect, romantic kiss as a pop song played in the background.

Let me put it another way. My high school career coincided with The OC when it was at its most popular. These were the days that on Wednesdays, or Tuesdays, or whatever day the show was on, I couldn’t walk into a classroom without seeing the blackboard decorated by my peers in such a way to remind me that the best show that has ever or will ever be had a new episode that night. I’ll admit it. I watched the show. And I have four seasons of the The OC on DVD back in my room in Michigan. In my defense, I watched the show before it was the popular thing to do and stopped as soon as it got strange and boring. Being the young, romantic, idealist I was, I thought for sure that my high school experience was going to be exactly like that of Ryan, Marissa, Seth, and….crap…what’s her name? Rachel Bilson’s character. Needless to say, it wasn’t.

So maybe I felt betrayed by The OC or maybe I grew up, but television shows and movies that are set in high school have never interested me since. (I don’t count Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this line because every rule has its exception and Joss Whedon can do no wrong. Except Dollhouse. Which just proves the before mentioned rule.) Those old 80’s films are just clichés, and I’m too old and to out-of-college to relate to something like say Hellcats (the pilot of which I lasted twenty minutes of). Besides, doesn’t it bother anyone else that anyone who acts in a high school movie/tv show is obviously in their early twenties? So, when someone who goes unremembered (sorry) told me to watch Easy A, I was pretty skeptical.

The movie centers around Olive (played by future Spiderman leading-lady Emma Stone) who for not-very complicated reasons eventually pretends to be the school slut. Eventually, however, she realizes that being the Hester of her school has some fallbacks. Also making appearances are Thomas Haden Church in, I am ashamed to admit, perhaps the only non-Spiderman role I’ve seen him in; Dan from Gossip Girl because he’s hip and hot; Amanda Bynes because what’s a movie like this without her; Fred Armisen because; and Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as perhaps the most awesome on-screen parents that have ever graced a movie set.

Far from being a movie for high schoolers, this is a movie for me. For those of, dare I say it, The OC generation. We’ve long past left the halls of our far-less-attractive schools behind, and, although we (as a collective, not me as an individual) are now nostalgic for those times gone by, we still have a sense of anger/resentment or “I’m too old for this” about movies set in high school. Olive even points this out and promises that this isn’t your average movie about high school (which it kinda is but not really. I’ll let it go.) At one point in the film, there’s actually a montage of all those old movies that only our generation would really know about. I swear my younger sister would be utterly confused for that entire scene. The script and the director puts a lampshade on almost every scene, making sure that the audience realizes that they know they’re making a movie set in high school.

Easy A is funny and at times even hilarious (see the before mentioned note about Tucci and Clarkson). It’s a movie that’s supposed to appeal to me and it does. I don’t think that I wasted an hour and a half of my life and, if I were richer, I may even eventually buy a copy of it. Maybe. Perhaps. Any real fault I find in it can almost certainly be traced back to what happened being that big, black ball of repressed nothing. So, for those who will admit to being a part of The OC generation and even for those who will never admit that they know where Ryan and Marissa had their first kiss (you are welcome for the link) watch Easy A.

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10:55 PM

I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Posted by Elizabeth | Labels: , , , , , , , , ,



You’ve been there. You’re at a party, someone says something outrageous, and before you can clamp the imaginary hand over your mouth, you say, “Inconceivable!” Before you know it, you’ve started off a chain of Princess Bride quoting and nostalgia. After about three hours of this, you being to sympathize with Oppenheimer and think--“What have I done?” The truth of the matter is that mass media has forever tainted words and phrases, forcing your mind to make the connection almost against your will. This is our ever growing list of words we can’t say.

“Run” Glee may have little to no artistic value, but damn can it churn out a catchy cover. In the episode “Bad Reputation,” several of the characters try act differently than they usually do (you know, in their previous, totally consistent characterizations). For some reason, this involves singing a terrible, terrible hit from 1975--“Run, Joey, Run.” But now in the Schmitfer house, every time someone says “run,” this song must immediately be sung. Mulder’s getting backed into a dark alley by Krycek? “Run, Mulder, run!” Low on Hit Points in a video game? “Run, Shepard, run!” Accidentally turn on an episode of Glee? “Run, everyone, run!”

“Eagle” This one can be really annoying--especially because it’s one of those references that a lot of people may not know. Zach Braff’s “Eeeeeagle” can ruin a movie (like the new Channing Tatum movie that we weren’t planning to see but we could never actually see because every time they said “Eagle!” we would laugh), a scientific discussion about our national bird, or a car trip when one happens to see a bird out of the window that could possibly look a little bit like an eagle. We have yet to go the distance and actually do the Turk and JD routine, but it’s probably one of the greatest running gags on Scrubs.

“Maybe” As indecisive people, we say “maybe” a lot. And every time, this excellent Flight of the Conchords song must be sung.

“We’ll do that!”  from one of the greatest Star Trek films ever made, Galaxy Quest. This narrowly beats out, “Miners, not minors!”--what can we say, it’s a quotable film. But for sheer frequency, “We’ll do that!” wins. We say it any time we make a plan…or decide what to have for dinner.

“Delete” “Exterminate” “Assimilate” Damn Daleks, Cybermen, and Borg. If you guys ever got together, you could rule the world. And our vocabulary.

“3PO?!? Where could he be?!?!?!?” Ah, the dulcet whine of Luck Skywalker. This phrase has only increased in usage after Elizabeth named her Droid Incredible “C-3P0.” Whenever he gets lost, out pops an inevitable Mark Hamill impression. (BTW, yes, we name our inanimate objects. Deal with it.)

“Would You Kindly” Just the mention of this phrase gives us the shivers. We wouldn’t dare spoil this for anyone who hasn’t played the game, but Bioshock will forever ruin this phrase. And 50s music.

“…in the world.” Oh, Jeremy Clarkson. Need to comically overemphasize the greatness of something you love? Just tack on this phrase to your favorite superlative, and you’re good to go.

“Stop.  Pooping.” From Parks & Recreation’s “The Flu.” Now, whenever we look at Rob Lowe, that line is all that we can hear. This should make for interesting future West Wing viewing. “Mr. President: Stop. Pooping.”

“Blondie.” What’s wrong with a mildly amusing strip from the Sunday funnies, you ask? Oh, no, no, no. Every time we hear it, we think “Kiss me, James” from the Lost finale. It makes us cry. Every single time. Curse you Darlton.

“Doctor!” No, not a physician, THE Doctor. This moment in Doctor Who history lives in all fans heart as the time when John Barrowman could just not keep a straight face. The over-the-top ending to an otherwise pretty excellent season is more then a little groan-worthy, and tarnishes perhaps the best acting David Tennant does in the entire series five minutes later. The fact that Barrowman must have thought the same makes us smile every time the word comes up. BARROWMAN!!!

Bonus Word: Epidemic. ’Nuff said.

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10:17 AM

Traffic Light

Posted by Rebecca | Labels: , ,

Considering the amount of new television shows that magically start airing on television, I would have completely missed Traffic Light if my favorite blog hadn’t reviewed it. I don’t usually watch FOX, now that I’ve stopped watching Glee, and I haven’t really been paying attention to mid-season shows (with the exception of Parks & Recreation). But it got reviewed, I’m in the midst of “funemployment,” and I thought, what the heck? It could be the next Arrested Development and I could say I watched it back when no one else did.

Fueled by this chance to be in front of the fan base for once, I’ve watched all five episodes to date. The story centers around three close friends all at different points in relationships. David Denham’s Mike is married with child, Nelson Franklin’s Adam just moved in with his girlfriend, and Kris Marshall’s (that guy from Love Actually--right, the part you don’t really watch) lives with his dog and has a new girl every episode. He’s basically the fun single guy in a group of five friends (hey…why does this sound familiar?)

So I’ve seen five episodes and last night, and as closed the browser tab on the Hulu link, I finally asked myself if this was something that I wanted to be at the front of the fan base of. Sure, the series has its good moments. The relationship between Mike and his wife Lisa (played by Liza Lapira) isn’t always the typical comedic marriage. Sometimes Mike is actually allowed to be in the right and the couple has some chemistry that makes you believe that they would actually marry each other. Adam has that sarcastic sense of humor that’s totally in right now and Ethan is British. But there’s nothing within these plot lines and characters that really make me care. By five episodes in, I know that nothing terribly drastic or unexpected is going to happen anytime soon. They aren’t going to throw in a divorce, Adam will survive if he breaks up with his girlfriend, and even if Ethan ever enters a long-term relationship, we’ve all seen that plotline many times before.

Add to this the fact that the show’s writers seem to be able to write, at max, one good storyline an episode. There’s usually three arcs going on at once, and although Plot A is usually pretty solid, Plot B and especially Plot C are usually pretty blah. Plot C could even be called Plot Ethan. Perhaps because he’s the most stock-character of them all, Ethan gets the most familiar, and thus boring, of storylines. It almost seems that sometimes the writers think, “Oh! He’s British! Let’s just have him talk Britishly! Storyline written!” and then pat themselves on the back for a job avoided. Although one good plot can cover many faults, it doesn’t take more than a couple of episodes for viewers to wise up and see the Ethan.

Traffic Light has its funny moments, it may even have a couple of hilarious moments, but there is nothing new or fresh about it. Instead of the step forward that I wanted the show to be, its quietly settling into the predictable and mainstream. It is far from the unexpected brilliance of Arrested Development, and its understated humor doesn’t come close to Flight of the Conchords. It’s a fine show, it may even be a better than average show, but with so many other comedies out there, and with so many more original and exciting characters, I’m pretty sure that I won’t be starting a fan page anytime soon.

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1:38 PM

Square One

Posted by Rebecca | Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Every year or so, I suddenly get the urge to watch Scrubs. When and why this happens is unexplainable, but in any case I’ve been watching a lot of it the last couple of days. And, as I’ve been skipping around from season to season to episodes that I don’t remember that well, I realized how much I wish I could watch the entire series over again for the first time. When it originally aired on television, I would watch an episode here or there, or I may even have tuned in for a couple of weeks running. But my Scrubs watching was sporadic to say the least. Even when I started to watch it through on DVD, I inevitably ran into a patch of episodes I had seen, got bored, and stopped.


Looking back on it, Scrubs deserved better from me, a television viewer. Sure, it’s far from the best show in history. The insecurities of Elliot and her annoying boyfriends get boring and may or may not make you nauseas. Jordan has more bad moments than good, Carla get’s a little controlling, and sometimes you just wish that J.D and Turk would spin-off onto a different show. But the series can surprise you. What Scrubs is good at, and which gets perfected in later series (like Community) is showing that sometimes you can’t have comedy without a little bit of tragedy. For example, I will always remember The Fray’s “How To Save a Life” not for the Grey’s Anatomy moment, but for that great scene when Cox almost gives up on medicine. The series finale (that is the real finale. I have chosen to believe that that one season when Sacred Heart was a strange med school didn’t actually happen) was beautiful and poignant for all the right reasons.

The same goes for Alias. I think I missed the majority of the first season, and then expected that if I started the second season I would eventually figure it all out. I kept hoping that this would happen for the rest of the series. Add to this the fact that I think I may have missed quite a few episodes here and there, and that this was in the days before I had a DVR, Netflix, or easy access to the Internet, and you eventually get to a finale that I mostly got but not really. To be fair to me, however, I think that there are more than a couple of problems with the series as a whole and J.J obviously could have used a little Darlton help. Although I believe a show should challenge and surprise, a show should never be a mess of confusing names and impossible mythology that, let‘s just admit it, doesn‘t actually work. I knew enough about the characters to be more than a little disappointed at what they all became by the last season. All this being said, I know my experience with the series would be better if I could go back and watch more of that first season, and I know I would have loved the series instead of just liking it.

As I was running through the before-mentioned clips of Scrubs, I took a break to look at clips of Gillian Anderson, X-Files, and David “I-Never-Look-Ugly-Even-When-I’m-Crying” Duchovny winning Golden Globes, SAGS, and Emmys. Hearing the nominees for each category, I was shocked at how few of these 90’s actresses/actors I knew and also about how many of the nominations were for E.R. Although I think we can all admit that E.R was dead long before it was given a proper funeral, I think that what it became has overshadowed those first seasons when it was actually really good. E.R is another one of those shows that I caught every so often, and I actually have no memory of the first two seasons. But believe it or not, this is where George Clooney really made his first mark on the entertainment business and this is where Julianna Margulies spent all that time before she showed up on The Good Wife. The show quickly went downhill after Clooney, Margulies, Anthony Edwards, and eventually Noah Wyle left the series, but when they all existed all the screen at the same time, there were some incredible episodes. Season six’s two-parter “Be Still My Heart” and “All in the Family,” for example, still ranks up there as some of the greatest episodes of television I’ve ever watched. That, and I still can’t hear “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” without crying.

Lost/Firefly/BattlestarGalactica/Doctor Who/The West Wing. I admit that these are all cheats. I’ve seen every episode, loved all of them* and count them all as my collective favorite television series of all time. It’s not that I regret watching them when I did, but more that I wish that I could have all those moments of shock, awe, horror, surprise, etc. back again. I don’t want to know anything about the Island, want to believe that more episodes of Firefly will eventually happen, agonize over the identity of the Final Five (I swear--it’s the ship.), cry for the entire last portion of “Doomsday,” and smile at the brilliance of Aaron Sorkin. I want the experience of watching these shows for the first time back again.

*Jack goes on vacation, “Black Market,” “Daleks of Manhattan,” and the latter portion of The West Wing being the exception that proves the rule. Firefly, however, is perfect…except for the lack of more episodes.

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10:48 AM

Diary of a Madman

Posted by Rebecca | Labels: , ,

This past weekend, we both went to see Geoffrey Rush in "Diary of a Madman." Although a full review may, eventually, fill this spot when we both get together and have time to write it, it is enough at the moment to say that we both loved it, loved Geoffrey Rush, and loved the entire experience of being in a theater in New York City.


More, perhaps, to follow.

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6:19 PM

The Search For A New Franchise

Posted by Rebecca | Labels: , , ,


After the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, it was inevitable that something would come along that would try to capitalize on Johnny Depp’s success. Enter Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It has the whole swashbuckling, adventure, PG-13 appeal that audiences loved in POTC…at least the Black Pearl. But, as one would very much expect, it hardly lives up to it’s half-brother.


The story, basically, is that as a young child Aladdin…err…Dastan (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) does some fancy moves escaping from some guards (you know, one jump ahead…) and is rewarded by becoming a prince of Persia. He grows up into his ruggedly handsome, yet still Caucasian self, finds a dagger that rewinds a minute of time, picks up an annoying princess, and gets framed for his father’s murder. It was a long day. He then has to avenge his father, fall in love with the annoying princess, stop Armageddon, and stay Caucasian for the rest of the movie. It’s a long movie.

The problems are outstandingly long
and not-very complicated. The banter between Aladdin and Annoying Princess does not involve one little bit of chemistry or humor or real writing. There is no stirring musical score by Klaus Badelt (Sorry Harry Gregson-Williams. I don’t blame you.) The special effects seem created to just sorta pass themselves off as authentic. Ben Kingsley is forced to play yet another villain. The movie gets pretty boring near the middle part when everything stops so our characters can tell us a couple of really long stories in which the barely-passable special effects kick into as much drive as they have. Basically--the movie doesn’t have a Jack Sparrow and it suffers mightily for it.

I haven’t actually placed the Prince of Persia video games, but I’ve watched my brother play the second one. It seemed/seems to me that the joy of the game is in figuring out a way to get across a collapsing corridor or use the knife in an exciting way. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its cinematic moments (I remember thinking it was pretty exciting), but the story was sometimes the means to awesome fighting. It reminds me of the Assassins Creed video games that way. There’s a pretty cool story behind everything, but some of the best parts of it are the cool swordplay/jumping/swinging parts. All this is to say that a lot of the excitement of the game is lost when it’s transferred to the screen. There’s something far less fun and exciting about watching Jake Gyllenhaal run around and figure things rather than you as a video game player.

By about an hour into the film, I had pretty much reached a “blah blah stuff is happening wait is that an ostrich?” mindset. I was pretty sure that Aladdin was going to win the day and kiss Annoying Princess and had long since given up hope that Johnny Depp was going to make a guest, surprise appearance. So I did what I always do when I felt obligated to at least finish the movie--I played Tetris.

Movie To Watch: X-Files: Fight the Future. Seriously. It’s epic.

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1:46 PM

Five Reasons

Posted by Rebecca | Labels: ,


I give up on books more than I should. Something usually irritates me within the first fifty pages (common problems: use of a second person narrator, boring subject matter, pretentious language, television marathon) and the book goes back onto my bookshelf, usually with a bookmark fifty pages in marking my failure. But I hardly ever give up on a book once I pass the magical “fifty page” mark. I figure that if I’ve devoted so much time into a book, I may as well finish the thing. But now, 302 pages into JONATHAN FRANZEN’S Freedom, I find myself looking at the empty place on the bookshelf and thinking about abandoning the book and its remaining 260 pages. But this is a MASTERPIECE a NEW YORK TIME’S BESTSELLER a TRIUMPH a YADA YADA YADA! How dare I? My reasons are as follows:

1. THE MESSSAGE: I hate books that shove the message down your throat over and over and over again until the very title makes you want to gag. By a couple of seventy-two page chapters into FRANZEN’S Freedom, the message is pretty clear. Freedom isn’t everything. In fact, too much freedom can destroy a family. FRANZEN basically has one of his characters scream the message, but we are left to be frequently reminded of it every couple of pages or so. It gets old. Fast.

2. THE CHARACTERS: Every chapter follows a different unlikable character after a different unlikable character. At page 302 I’ve just reached the last remaining good, likable character’s first time as the center of the narration and I’m already beginning to hate him.

3: EVERYTHING AND THE SOAPBOX: Besides the whole “Freedom can be bad for you” message, FRANZEN takes the opportunity throughout the book to bring in as many other hot-topic issues as he possibly can. Religion, politics, drugs, environmentalism. It quickly begins to seem that the reader is being preached to. This is annoying. Very annoying.

4. NO END IN SIGHT: The chapters are long, okay? Really, really long. There are no breaks from the preaching, message shoving, unlikable characters. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve paged forward looking for the magical chapter break only to find its another one hundred pages or so. I then almost cry out of complete and utter despair. This is an entirely rational complaint.

5. STUCK: I can’t read more than ten pages at a time without throwing the book to the side, opening my computer, and reading blogs for twenty minutes. At this rate, it will take me until July to finish the thing.

The book is still on the table by the futon. I’m not giving up yet. But I really wish that I was.

Books to Read: Anything. Else.

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