piranesi

The last 2% was covered by the 100% of Michael C. Hall we got tonight.

I just want to get in here before Craig and say that I know I should have hated this. It was a flat out bizarre sequence of scenes of people acting in ridiculous ways. At times it was practically bedroom farce (the hotel room scene with Deb, Hannah, Dexter, and Zach). And at other times it was a weird John Waters-esque black comedy (the dinner scene) and they ran wild with stuff that just evaporated just for a few punchlines... But every other time they've tried comedy on this show I've Haaated it. But I didn't hate this. It was just insane enough and the kid playing Zach was just oddly charming enough. Deb's storyline didn't fit in, or at least her just giving up...and once again they've used a whole lot of tesnion buildup toward something as just a big fakeout....but I laughed. I enjoyed it, especially the dinner in a grotesque way. It's not what this show was ever supposed to be...but at this point, I'll take it because there was no chance of recovering what this show was or could have been. And it had a neat effect of disarming us and hinting at a way forward to set up the twist. My wife was genuinely upset, and I can't remember the last time either of us gave a fuck about what happened to any character on this show, including Zach up to about 40 mins. into this episode. That in itself was pretty clever...short-circuiting us into liking and caring about a character just in time... It's like, if you had dumped this season exactly as it has been in my lap and said, "We need you to make us care about this kid now in one episode enough that this twist hits home." I wouldn't have been able to do it...I probably wouldn't have thoght of using comedy to get there fast. So whoever wrote this episode did pretty good with a pretty impossible task.

Maybe Rip Taylor wants his FUCKING GIMMICK BACK!!!!

It kind of sucked on Dish. They're not carrying the overflow games, even though they were essentially free to air, so no flipping around. One game in the morning, one in the afternoon and no rebroadcasts. Is the crowd at Sellhurst Park always so mental?

The thing I like about JASON X is that there is a way in which it actually is the most "true to the series" thing to do. From a realistic perspective, whatever else the series was, it was an drive-in exploitation franchise, of movies made on the cheap to feed off of teenagers. And what are the absolute most natural things for a true sleazy b-movie series to do once it starts to get long in the tooth? 1) Take 'em to New York City! 2) Take 'em to Space! I like that no matter how much money the series made, and how much horror nerds would wax poetic about it, to the people in charge, it was always and always will be a pure exploitation series. And JASON X is sort of the proof of that.

Yeah. It's pretty bad. I saw it in the theater and was super pissed at how bad it was. It didn't help that in my movie-going that year, it was right in there with some pretty amazing stuff. Offhand from that summer, fall I remember seeing THE FUGITIVE, JURRASIC PARK, and SCHINDLER'S LIST. Now, why I was expecting a F13th movie to hang with those maybe says more about my lack of perspective back then...but, man, 1993 was a pretty amazing year for movies. I think it was the last year I went to the movies to see something multiple times (both JP and SCHINDLER'S LIST). Then a few years ago it was on cable and I thought, "You know, I'm a different guy now. I revel in junk for the sake of nostalgia...I post loving rambles on movies like ZOMBIE HIGH...For God's sake, let's give it another gnope. nope. nope. aaaaaaaaaaaaand no." The commercial looked amazing, though. I remember that.

Aweseome but You're missing Slimon Bros.!

Okay. I just tried to watch the Fox Sport 1 highlight show. "Later in the quarter Blaine Gabbert...Blaine Yo Gabba Gabbert..." ...and I just turned of the Fox Sport 1 highlight show. If I want to be fucked by Chris Berman, I know where to go for that. I actually have a standing appointment every Monday.

Was that in the just the novel, or also the movie? I don't remember that part from the film, they never really explained the monster beyond "it's a haunted car with a jealous streak and a bad temper, just deal with it". Oh yeah. The movie has that prelude scene that shows the car being posessed as soon as it's built. I forgot about that. It's the book reveal that sucks. In the book, the first owner put his own spirit into the car. The movie just leaves it ambiguous. That's actually better and lets the jealousy angle work.

Man, Taker really got in touch with his feminine side after that first WM match with HHH.

Yeah, that's usually a pet peeve of mine. Especially in those moments that're supposed to be funny, like a cheesy oldie being played over brutal violence for a horrific/comedic effect. The weirdest thing is that sometimes the obvious choice can work; for example, I just saw Christine for the first time. Every song the car's radio plays is the most thunderingly uncreative choice possible, but somehow John Carpenter (who's always been great with his use of music) made it genuinely effective. Now those I thought were great. Those songs were Christine's equivalent of Freddie's winking to the camera. It was like her little joke with us, and it was great how the actual people never got it. I remember I complained about WATCHMEN using all the most obvious musical cues until some smart ass "reader" had to point out that most of them were in the original books. Dammit. Thinking of CHRISTINE. What I hated was the explanation they gave. I really wish they had gone with the car actually being a demon, a female demon, who just wanted to bond with a human and drive. It makes it so much more emotionally wrenching and makes Arnie less of a fool. Like, if you go that way, it really is every one else's fault. All Christine wants to do is drive...and live in harmony with a driver. And all Arnie wants to do is drive her. They could have been utterly blissful. The two of them could have been perfectly happy just driving the backroads forever. But all these busybodies had to get in the way because Arnie was becoming abnormal or whatever...he wasn't following society's plan for him. It becomes a great metaphor for, like, outcasts or alternative lifestyles or something or stifling social mores or something. Instead they went with a guy using the car to...do something...be immortal...it was just some asshole guy who deliberately inhabited the car...like with a spell or something? how boring.

Funny how we were just talking about cocaine.

Shit. Do you have their twitter? I'm ready to get started. Fuck it, I'll just search for @RealPersonX

dammit.

I hate when directors or whoever actually have enough money to buy the most obvious choices. When musical cues are that, sort of, standard I guess, I always feel cheated...like I could have thought of that. My fucking dad could have thought of that.

That last part does betray a certain lack of confidence. Like, what do you say when your killing machine asks you "Why did you design me to feel pain and fear death?" and at best maybe you'd be like, "Look, I like you Icthyan murderbot, but why should you get off the hook?" "Fine, but why did you program me to wish I was an architect? You know I can't ever be an architect! I HATE YOU!"

It looks like he's trying to do the Cena thing as he hits the ground...like he was going to, but he was too late...but then he couldn't stop his body from comically doing it anyway. I know that's not possible. But it's all I can see now.

It all seems pretty shady. They're just spreading the same content (less actually as they lost EPL) over more channels and demanding more money. Because there's "more"...but there's not, really. There's less.

These words right together make me uncomfortable. I have the urge to say very clearly, "No. No, Oprah. No rub."

Best part is the Hoff will watch and when he does he will say out loud to someone (and hopefully tweet), "I'm glad they were able to build off of what we started..."

My awesome wife just came back from the store with this: In the background Arsenal are losing getting fucked by a bald cunt referee.

...said John Lithgow.

So, clearly you meant to type "why wouldn't you make it roar?" So, I thought I'd just throw that up here so no one thinks you're out of you rmind.

I've had one since May and have had pretty good battery life. I go through and shut off apps periodically...don't know if that makes a difference. But I'm also not like a "power user" using it for business all day. The most taxing thing I do is stream music for a few hours a day, and I still have a healthy batt. life at the end of the day.

Sweet. Holy shit, he also directed a movie with his dad in it along with Clu MOTHERFUCKING GULAGER!!! I just watched the MST3K of PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR and was pleased to see that they gave Keenan his props, yelling out "Hey, It's Keenan Ivory Wynn!" and quoting one of his lines from DR. STRANGELOVE. I like this little tidbit from Keenan's dad Ed Wynn's Wiki page: Because Ed Wynn's dad was a high-falutin hat salesman...so, you know, the shame. Unfortunately, I think there are too many parts of Evil Ed's career that are not safe to Gif on this board.