Serenity trailer. Buffy and Angel repeats are on all the time ... it's the Firefly DVDs I keep popping in though. (Did you know Giles is on Monarch of the Glen now? The Ripper project may not be dead, he says.) So, yeah, I'm looking forward to the movie. Looks like Summer gets to channel Michelle Yeoh for a bar fight. Good stuff.
Am itching to check out the HHGTTG movie this weekend but we're doing the Rebuild Providence thing tomorrow, followed by Mission of Burma, which means I'll be sleeping 'til noon on Sunday and scrambling to get the usual errands done before crashing early to be to work for 6 o'freaking clock Monday morning.
The Next Novel Can't Come Soon Enough I'll read anything by Kim Stanley Robinson, even a drier than toast admonishment of UC Davis's building plans in his local paper's Op-Ed section.
A1phie over at YOY found this hilarious bit about the shatner. I feel like there ought to be a clever way to tie a lyric from the Wedding Present's "Shatner" into this post but it's just not coming together.
There's a new Boneyard up, 24 Hours, More Torture Than You Can Count. It's about, well, 24 and all the torture. If you've been watching 24, you know what I'm talking about. If not, I'd like to say that none of the torture sequences mentioned are invented. It took me a while to write because every week the show tops itself with further endorsement of torture. In fact, I just got done watching the latest episode where the President, realizing he was kind of a pussy, offered to resign. And Audrey got all bent out of shape because Jack's latest torture was against the President's explicit orders. Huh? I sort of assumed all the previous torturing was against, if not an explicit order, at least some sort of rule somewhere.
The George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection is the result of one man's donation of his personal 25,000 book collection of pulp, noir and old-school sci-fi. And before you ask, yes, he was married. Anyway, in case you can't get to Buffalo, the website is cool. Kelly posts his own top ten including Raymond Chandler's Finger Man. I swear C-Dog had that same edition on his bookshelf for years. (Link via Ultimate Insult.)
Goin' all Blue State By a strong 85-63 majority, Connecticut became the first state to approve civil unions without pressure from the courts. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes between "marriage" and "civil union." Many of the dying breed of moderate New England-y republicans voted for the bill, especially after they forced on a silly and legally unnecessary amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman. By signing this, our republican governor will increase her chances of election dramatically. (It's not "re-election" because we never elected her. We elected the guy currently in jail.) She insisted on the amendment. Once upon a time, wasn't the left supposed to be the language police? Don't expect gay people to say "Will you civilly unite me?" or "We've been civilly united for two years." Still, the republicans needed this amendment so they could ward off the mouth-breathing base of the party with "Look! I defined marriage!"
Our wacky "liberal" Hartford Courant decided to use the second picture under "Photos" as their front page image. (Sorry, there's no direct link, but you should click it for the full view.) If you painted horns on Rep. McCluskey he'd look like a devil straight out of a Rennaisance painting. Way to note a landmark decision, guys.
Next for Eccleston? According to Dark Horizons, he may be up for Silas (the albino assassin) in "The DaVinci Code." I dunno ... I wouldn't consider that a plum part. Is Creepy Villain that much better a career path?
We Know Who the 10th Doctor Will Be David Tennant will replace Eccleston after this season. Billie will stay on as Rose. I was thrilled when I learned Eccleston had the job; not knowing a thing yet about Tennant, except that he looks like a cross between Sylvester McCoy and MacAuley Culkin, I am a bit underwhelmed. I suppose I ought to be glad he is, like Eccleston, out of Davies's stable (Tennant is Casanova in the BBC3 series) and grew up a fan of the series. I'll have to see if I can pull an ep or two of Casanova down and see how he handles himself. Part of me wishes they could get Tom Baker out Monarch of the Glen and convince him to have another go.
Ask Me Tricky Questions This is an Old Fogey Crypto-Muso Alert ... Mission of Burma are going to be at the Living Room in Providence on Saturday, 4/30. Not interested? Then you'll have to stay just as far from me as me from you.
Wild Animal Crossing Driving into work this morning two animals darted in front of my car. The second was a wild turkey, of which I see a ton, so that wasn't too exciting, but the first a moment earlier was something I don't think I'd ever seen before. It was like a big ferret. Long, low to the ground, with a long sort of bushy tail, but definitely not a fox. It was dark brown or maybe even black and it moved quick. I've been driving myself crazy trying to think what animal is like a big wild ferret ... mongoose? polecat? People are trying to tell me it might've been an otter, but I've seen otter and this was no otter. Mink maybe? According to Encarta: "Although white-tailed deer are considered Rhode Island’s only large wild animal, moose and black bear occasionally cross the Connecticut and Massachusetts border in the state. Among the smaller animals native to the state are the raccoon, gray squirrel, woodchuck, and muskrat. Skunks, opossums, mink, coyotes, and red foxes are also numerous, as are salamanders, turtles, and snakes." I'm thinking mink.
The Unquiet Dead Third episode of the new Who is also quite good, I'm happy to report. It may not sound like praise (it is though) but I swear these shows are like Intro to Philosophy class sophmore year with Dr. Bergen (sp?) and a bit of Mr. Abelon thrown in. The writers throw around some ethical dilemmas and let the characters take different tacks at 'em. In the end, the show's not fantastically deep or anything but you can tell the writers and actors take joy in being just a bit smarter and more mischievous than the audience expected; it's infectious fun. And I know some TCers would appreciate the punning, sSome of which is clever, some truly groanworthy: during a seance the Doctor tells an uncooperative Charles Dickens to stop antagonizing Gwyneth as she tries to contact the cadaver inhabiting aliens, "I prefer a happy medium."
Sleeper Video Pick Certain movies, especially urban cop movies, wind up being called realist, even if they don't truly fit into realism. Narc is one of these. When people call it realistic, they mean it's gritty and violent and has swear words. The cops are casually brutal and the criminals mean and generally stupid. Jason Patric plays Nick Tellis, a former undercover cop who ended his career terribly, called back in to investigate the murder of another undercover cop. He's forced to work with Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) who may be merely a bitter brute of a cop. It's easy to forget what a good actor Liotta can be because there's few movies to use as evidence. (Exhibit A: Goodfellas. Exhibit B: Goodfellas.) Liotta and Patric are terrific and they work well together. This is almost an anti buddy movie. They more Tellis gets to know his partner, the less he likes. There are a couple of cliches. Has an undercover cop ever had a wife who understood and supported his work? Has a police captain ever said, "You know what? The evidence does suggest we arrested the wrong guy!"
The strengths outweigh the weaknesses though. The acting, direction and even the production values are way above the usual level for an indie. You have to like gritty noir to like Narc but if you do, check it out.
Willie Nelson, a street musician who plays trumpet outside the Bushnell, collects tips in a Corona beer box. A story on Page D1 Wednesday incorrectly said it was a cigar box.
It raises many more questions than it answers. How could somebody mistake a Corona beer box for a cigar box? Who would complain about the mistake? Does Willie Nelson get any royalties from "Bridge Over Troubled Water"? I know he had tax problems, but that song was huge.
A three disc retrospective from Yo La Tengo? I hoped it would be a Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo outtakes collection of everything since Genius, 'cause I love the Genius. Alas, Prisoner of Love is a two disc retrospective with a third disc of outtakes and songs from movies. It's the songs you know, just arranged in reverse chronological order. Anyway, you can enjoy this extensive list of annotated YLT songs. They put the organ in "Sudden Organ" because the song was already called "Sudden Organ." Okay then.
The End of the World Second ep of the new Who's got a premise no doubt inspired by the end of the universe party from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: lots of big shot aliens gathering to watch the Earth be consumed by the sun. Nice touch: the purported last human (a 'bitchy trampoline' as Rose calls her) brings an artifact to the party, a jukebox she misidentifies as an iPod. They fire it up and play Soft Cell's "Tainted Love". One of the alien partygoers has a murderous agenda has unleashed some murderous spider-robots and the Doctor's got Rose in a pickle.
The Tardis it turns out has a telepathic translating function which conveniently explains how the Doctor and Rose can communicate wherever they go. Another nice touch: the Doctor is a bit cold-blooded. "Everything has it's time and everything dies," is what he tells Rose as he stands by and lets the last human explode. We also learn that Gallifrey was destroyed in a war and the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords ... a decided break in the continuity quite obviously ripe with time travel paradoxes. Not sure that was a good idea but we'll see how much impact it has going forward.
The next ep will be set in 1860 and apparently involves Charles Dickens and some sort of zombie-ghoulie. Looks more than a little like "Talons of Weng-Chiang." I'm digging the scene.
Back from Spring Training The missus and I got back from sunny Florida this afternoon. We had a great trip. Saw the Sox play at Brighthouse Field [virtual tour/ Tif and I in the stands]against the Phillies while visiting with family in the Tampa area. My Aunt Linda showed us a painting she's working on for me that I am very psyched and geeked up to receive in the mail shortly. I'll be posting a picture once it comes. Think chimps.
From Tampa, we moved down the Gulf Coast to Sarasota and took in a Cinci v. Minnesota game. We also went to the beach at Siesta Keys while there. Very nice.
From there, we went a little farther south to Fort Meyers and saw the Sox again. Directly from that game we drove across Florida (flat and boring, like northern Ohio and Indiana) to Stuart (just north of West Palm Beach). We were there for a friend's wedding but I got to take in another game at Tradition Field -- Mets vs. Dodgers. I'm pretty sunburnt.
The games were all a blast and I'll be putting some photos up on Flickr after we unpack the camera and memory cards. While we were down there, I caught a matinee of Sin City. It was OK but didn't exactly blow me away. The groom showed us NASA's World Wind program -- easily the coolest satellite imagery tool I've seen so far.
Come back to find that not only do I have a hammerlock on the bragging rights bracket challenge at ESPN ... I stand to pull in some scratch if UNC wins tonight in this pool where my name is misspelled. Go 'Heels!
