ad hoc.

And the movie section profiles how Hollywood is trying to make so-called chick flicks marketable to men. How about they stop making utter and complete shit?

Are these the meanest girls or the dumbest girls?

I also got the new Ladytron album. Suck on THAT!

I am really speechless after reading this. Fantastic. A superhero story that is aware of the implausability of superheroes. A comic within a comic. Campiness but seriousness. Alan Moore is a genius. A fucking crazy egomaniacal genius.

Of course, there’s a movie coming out and of course I already hate it. However, Zack Snyder is doing it, who directed the awesome Dawn of the Dead and 300. Despite not liking 300, he did stay true to the original graphic novel. Although pictures of the characters already have me doubtful- all of them look like they were redesigned to be “sexier”. And I am not sure if he is going to keep some of the campiness that is in the book. Some things that worked in the book (Dr. Manhattan exiled to Mars) can work in a comic form, but maybe not in a movie.

“I am more interested in what my friends think of me than what I think of myself” is the powerful line delivered by Troy Bolton in the denouement of High School Musical 2, which I finally watched this morning. Is that really supposed to be inspiring?

HSM2, as it’s known to the true fans, could either be a film that lacks self-awareness or is so self-aware it’s all a joke on us. Watching it, I would think it’s a parody of all cheesy musicals. The extreme overacting (I’m looking at you, Corbin Bleu), the hackneyed plot, the horrible musical numbers, etc. I also feel like some of the staging was so bad, why didn’t they reshoot the scene? Sometimes I had to turn away, especially during Zac Efron’s tour-de-force “Bet On It” dance through the golf course.

I don’t like to go on things based on stereotypes, but this was also one of the gayest movies I’ve ever seen. How can Ryan Evans NOT be gay? The fashion sense, the momma’s boy complex, he does musical theater, always hangs out with his sister. Sharpay is practically a drag queen with her makeup, costumes and over the topness. And pretty boy Zac Efron is basically molded from plastic during the movie and is practically the archetype of a twink.

Maybe the creators had this in mind, and wanted to make a campy parody movie. Or maybe they thought they were making a really good musical. Yikes.

And it has to be said, this one pales in comparison to the original, where the songs were catchy and well done, for pop songs. I wasn’t feelin’ any of the songs in this one, except maybe “Gotta Go My Own Way” because it was a bit cheesy and sounded like your archetypal broadway show-stopper.

I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s not something I would have chosen myself, it’s for a book club. Hmmm, don’t know about it. It was a post-apacolyptic world, so you’d think I’d love it, but it read more like a short story than a novel to me. The interesting parts were the descriptions of the actual survival techniques, like how they built makeshift lanterns and the things they savaged from abandoned boats etc. Isn’t this an Oprah book? That means it already is going to be made into a movie…wait, yup it is, starring Viggo. I am not sure how that will work for movie audiences, there is a lot of ambiguity and unexplained plot points in the book, such as the characters don’t even have names, you are not sure if they even survive at the end, and we are not told what was the cause of the world’s demise. I like that, but audiences will not.

Here’s what is next on my reading list:

• An Abundance of Katherines
• Hubert’s Freaks
• Beautiful Children
• Helen of Troy
  

How can you NOT want to see it after gazing at that?

How awesome is the movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula? I just watched it for the first time in about 10 years. The special effects, the costumes, Tom Waits, etc. Okay, so Keanu Reeves’s acting, the weird werewolf rape thing among others was kind of weird, but this is truly one of my favorite movies. Ever.

I really hate these bitches. You already know I hate them individually. But I hate all the smug mdia appearances for their steaming pile of crap movie, The Other Boleyn Girl. I don’t know why I even went to see it, I knew it would blow. But I had no choice, it’s one of my favorite books ever. The book can be construed as a overly dramatic soap opera, however it does show the role of women and claims to political power. In the book, the sisters were about thirteen and their father pimped them out to the King of England to gain status for the family. Esentially, the girls were commanded by their father to allow the king to rape them. There was no love involved. The king was an overly maniacal, aging immature asshole. The rivalry was about happiness and status in the family and their worth in the court of the King of England. It was about their loyalty and struggle with the current Queen, Katherine.

Of course Hollywood turns it into a LOVE STORY. And even Mary’s first marriage, they had to qualify it in the movie that they were in love. In the book she was 12 and basically sold to the family for the highest bidder. Sometimes I don’t even know why books are made into movies. Because people run out of ideas? And I guess I can’t mad that they changed a lot of plot- the book is like 900 pages. But there were obvious plot holes- like what the fuck happened to Mary’s first husband? And her baby? It was never mentioned! And her marriage to Stafford came out of the blue!

Seriously, it was like the screenplay was based on a book report a fifth grader did and then someone wrote cliff’s notes of that, and then they handed out a script. Maybe they ran out of money paying the actresses, becaue it would have been awesome to see the different castles and homes that everything is supposed to take place in. Plus, how can anyone who not read the book even understand their place in court? There is actually a structure set up for who serves in what court.

The character of George Boleyn was cut to almost nothing. In the book, he was actually gay and having an affair with a man, which was another reason he was executed. How DARE anyone actually mention that in the book.

Seriously? Nice try ladies, but your acting still sucks. Scarlet should never do period pieces. She still talks like she is on the streets of Williamsburg. And they like shaved her eyebrows off or something. Also, she is still a heinous pompous asshole who is auctioning off herself for charity.

Anyway, I’m over it. I really am.

Ignore the cheesy sci-fi poster ad campaign, but oh my god Sunshine was incredible and barely got any sort of theater release. I don’t know why just suddenly in the lat few years I’ve become a sci fi fantatic. Maybe I am getting sick of the unrealistic rom com stupid comedy stuff, and I’d rather have the unrealistic space travel/time travel alien stuff. I love the director Danny Boyle (also did Trainspotting) and with writer Alex Garland makes fucking awesome movies (they also did 28 Days Later and The Beach*). The story is not a new one, kinf of a combo of 2001, Mission to Mars, and my favorite book ever, Season of Passage. I sincerely hope Alex Garland goes back to writing novels, but at a book signing once he claimed that from the paycheck he got from selling the rights to The Beach, he never has to work again. Damn.

* The Beach is a very underrated movie, and one of the better movies adapted from a novel (also awesome).

I don’t even think this is a real movie, I think someone just spliced clips of 27 Dresses The Wedding Planner The Wedding Date My Best Friend’s Wedding Enchanted Sweet Home Alabama together and shat out this abomination. People will not validate my outrage and tell me to get over it, that this is a just a fluff of a movie and to just go and watch it as a guilty pleasure. I’m sorry, relaxing is the last thing I can do when Hollywood promotoes more gendered stereotypes, homophobia as comedy, and the rich white people as the heroes.

Checklist:

• a wedding as a plot device
• womanizer receives validation for being promiscuous
• characters are rich and living in NYC (and are probably ad executives)
• character is mistaken as gay and that’s funny
• shopping montage
• nerds are ridiculed

I guess I have only myself to blame, because I’m the one that voluntarily chose to rent it.

There are no such things as screenwriters anymore. There is a big hat full of movie cliches that someone reaches into and then makes a “plot” out of them. Cutesy pun for a title? Check. Career driven woman unfullfilled with her life until she meets the perfect guy? Check. Takes place in New York with an unrealistic depiction of New York? Check. Character living an an apartment that is way too big for what they could afford in real life? Check. Overly precocious child teaches the adult how to love and live? Check. Using cooking for metaphors for life lessons? Check.

Yea, I feel that way about Across the Universe. I mean, the idea is pretty brilliant, in a Mamma Mia! kind of way. I mean, why NOT use Beatles songs to make a musical about it? But it just didn’t do it for me. Even with Bono singing “I Am the Walrus”. And some kicky trippy, musical numbers. And Jim Sturbridge’s cuteness. Still, I found myself totally bored between songs and then high hopes for the musical numbers and blah. The characters fell flat for me. I felt Lucy was a dumb teenager who went along with war protests because it was popluar and the whole fight between her and Jude because he thought she was sleeping with the protest guy? Snoozefest ‘08.  I really wanted this to be the new Moulin Rouge. But can there ever be?

One, for not having sufficient amount of vowels in your name. Two, for complaining that her character in Knocked Up is offensive to women. Then, after that rant, starring in the monstrosity 27 Dresses and renewing her contract on Grey’s Anatomy. If she is so into having good roles for women, what the hell? Then she signs on to what sounds like to be the straight-to-video sequel to How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days:

A cute but chauvinistic on-air TV stud (Gerard Butler) enlists his perfect-but-somehow-still-single producer (Katherine Heigl) to jump through hoops in the real dating world, thus hopefully proving all his theories about love are right on.

Oh my god. Do ya think they get together in the end? Do you think there will be a wacky montage of all her disasterous dates? Do you think there will be a Jewel song on the soundtrack?

Hello, I know I promised to blog from Vegas but damn, I was just having too much fun. You’d be proud, I stayed out past ten every night I was there. Be on the lookout, this weekend I am going to sit down and write about my adventures. I hope you all enjoyed my text updates. Which leads me to…my phone broke! I can’t text! It’s the Armageddon! I’m getting a new phone, stat. May be an excuse to get the Voyager.

I’ll bet you were wondering what French child pop singer Jordy was up to these days. Also, I watched I Know Who Killed Me, and I killed myself. Also watched Shoot ‘Em Up and it was basically Clive Owen porn. Him running around shooting people set to indie music. I could watch that for hours.

Yes, yes, yes, I know Lost premieres tonight and no, I won’t be able to watch it. I’ll dl it and watch it over the weekend. I miss my friends, but not Jack or Kate. I want to see what crazy ol’ Desmond is up to these days. I did catch the premiere, and I was not impressed. I guess watching it week to week is not good, but it crawls along slowly. The whole secret the “Oceanic 6″ is covering up could be interested, and it would be good to see more characters.

Really, were their people hankering for a How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days reunion? The fact that this shit gets greenlighted in Hollywood makes me lose hope for humanity. And it’s not funny. Can the actors actually film this and sleep at night? Isn’t there some gaffer working on this who can’t help himself during filming and declare the suckiness?

Oh my gawd, The Ten is on dvd.

It’s like Wet Hot American Summer 2. THe cast is my wet dream. It includes every member of The State, and a parade of people to perv on, inclusind Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Liev Schrieber, Jason Sudeikas, Ken Marino, Adam Brody, and Mather Zickel (a.ka. Mike Powers). Fucking fantastic. And that’s no goof!

Pretty kick ass. What The Blair Witch Project was attemtping to do but never quite reached. Although it is really hard to care about rich white attractive kids being trapped in their multi-million dollar Columbus Circle apartments. I threw up in my mouth about five times from motion sickness. Although the people behind me declared the ending “gay-ass” (uh) I enjoy movies that don’t spell out everything. Where the hell did this monster come from? Did they kill it? Does Manhattan even exist anymore? What is with my sick fascination of apocolyptic scenarios?

I don’t know where my obsession with 27 Dresses is coming from. And my obsession with hating it. I think for me, it embodies all that is evil in mass pop culture. And Katherine Heigl just got on her high horse complaining how sexist Knocked Up was, decides to lead the feminist movement by doing this movie. Anyway, Jezebel has a roundup of the horrid things about it, which I enjoyed. One reviewer had the same idea that I did, which is going in with a checklist of cliches. Maybe I will do it.

I am also using it as a barometer of if I will be friends with a person or if they are dead to me. I was talking to a friend about the movie and we were thinking of going to see it to make fun of it, and th other people we were hanging out with (mostly women) overheard and gushed, “ooohhh my god I want to see it, it looks sooooooo good!” I no longer talk to them.

I know you gotta pay that mortgage, but why? why? why? This may be more insulting to intellegence than 27 Dresses.

I just rented the So NoTORIous dvds just for Zachary Quinto.

Other fun fact: The Star Trek trailer will run before Cloverfield.

someone who feels the same way I do about Juno. It is hard to find, considering people are falling all over themselves about it.

The shortest teaser trailer? My god, this is gonna blow.

Other tidbits:

You know why I am jealous of inmates? Some get really good vegetarian meals.

I promise that this isn’t about Dark Knight…but it is a cool retrospective of The Joker.

Finally Spin gets something right..”Stronger” is the song of the year. I want a Daft Punk outfit, like right now.

I could watch this on a loop all day.

Arrested Devo the movie? Maybe just let it die. Remember what happened with the Strangers With Candy movie?

Minor Threat…the condiment?

From IMDB:

The film features a few cut songs from the Broadway musical. They are: “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” (and it’s many reprises); “Ah, Miss”; “Johanna” (as sung by Judge Turpin); “Parlour Songs”; “City on Fire”; “Epilogue”. As well as the elimination of singing of the ensemble completely. There are also a few cuts within the remaining songs. The only songs to remain in tact are: “Epiphany”, “Pretty Women”, “Johanna” (both Anthony’s and Sweeney’s), “The Worst Pies in London”, “Poor Thing” and “My Friends”.

And that was my biggest complaint! Sure, they needed to cut back for timing, but some of the awesomeness was the ensemble/”Greek Chorus” parts. And they changed the plot a little: Sweeney builds his own chair instead of orders it, among others. And how can they leave out “City on Fire” with the lunatics running the streets of London? You’d think Tim Burton would be all over that. The cuts of songs made Johanna have an absolutely useless role. And can we get an epilogue please? It was so needed. It is hard for me to judge the movie because I know literally every word and every note so I cringed when something was left out. Also, they seemed to cut out the humurous lines. Yes, there are several hymurous parts to i, but I guess Tim decided to go with horror movie, not black comedy.
But otherwise, it was good. Johhny Depp’s best work, I think and it was cool to see Sweeney/Ms. Lovett as a younger goth couple. Sacha Baron Cohen, pretty good. Costumes/makeup- should win the Oscar hands down. The singers were not strong, but whatdya goin’ do? But Sweeney Todd is probably my favorite music ever so I don’t think anyone can live up to the expectation.

For those of you that don’t know, I was in the orchestra for my high school’s production of the show (I know, what high school does this? Luckily we had a great music/drama program) and it was the one experience in high school that I actually enjoyed. High school musicians playing Sondheim? It totally improved my playing about 300%. Sondheim is awesome to play, even after a thousand times. I loved the experience and I loved seeing it put together. I don’t really remember the actors who were in it, but I remember them being good. I wonder how a high school production sounded? The music is pretty difficult. To me, it sounded awesome. The year after that we did South Pacific which sucked so, so badly and was so boring to play (the cello had some down beats for about 5,000 measures and barely any melodies) and the show was horrific.

There also seems to be a trend of musicals being made into movies, which really irks me, because it totally cheapens the musical experience. The only musical that I would LOVE to see as a musical is Assasins, another Sondheim musical. Can you imagine the possibilities? It will never get made because some conservatives may find it innapropriate (It’s a musical about people in the past who have assasinated/attempted to assasinate US presidents, and they all interact with each other and give their reasons why).

Judd Apatow really needs to get over himself. Ok, he did two good tv shows and some mediocre, subliminally sexist movies, but he is not god’s gift. Example: The Pineapple Express looks horrendous. However, Seth, I still love you.

Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey are going to be gay together! The only thing better would be a movie where Ewan does it with Christian Bale while wearing eye makeup. What? That exists? Little known fact about me: I find Jim Carrey oddly attractive. I know! Ew! We are not talking Ace Ventura era, we are talking post-2004, Jenny McCarthy-dating, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Jim Carrey. I’ll bet they are going to change the plot where the two guys are just bffs, not lovers. But a girl can dream.

This movie makes me want to rip out my ovaries and stomp on them until they are bloody pulp, if this is what being female is all about.

The “plot”:

A young woman (Heigl) who has made a career out of being a bridesmaid but never a bride faces her worst nightmare when her sister (Malin Åkerman) becomes engaged to the man of her dreams. Luckily, the wedding brings around the man (Marsden) who will change her bridesmaid status for good, along with the help of her nephew Brett (Ryan Laskey).

How much do you want to bet there will be montages set to Kt Tunstall or some shit like that? Or I’ll bet there will be a zany chase scene and the couple finally meet up on a busy street, stopping traffic, and when they kiss the whole city will cheer. Oh, how about a scene where the main character gets depressed and some girlfriends arrive with some chubby hubby to cheer her up. Maybe an overcontrolling mother? Probably a sterotypically gay wedding planner in there too. I’ll bet the sister will have cold feet the day if her wedding but Katy Heigl will calm her down and convince her to go through with it, even though she loves James and it will be the most selfless.act.anyone’s.ever.committed. Oo, ooo, oo, I’ll bet James will realize he loves Katy Heigl right when he is at the latar before he says “I do” and announces his true love to everyone, devastating the sister, but then they will get married but the SISTER will have to be the bridesmaid. Hardy har! I could go on forever.

But damn you James Marsden! Stop being charming and wasting your hypnotic bone structure in these crappy movies. You are cyclops! Cyclops doesn’t deal with this shit, he fucking kills people with his eye lasers. Get a grip.