Idle Ramblings: 12/01/2003

Bleck!
This is one 70s TV-based movie I'll stay away from.

Review of the King
Just got back from ROTK and here's a brief and useless review. It's a good thing this was the best of the trilogy and one of the best films I've ever seen, cause, if the Two Towers deviated from the book, Return of the King threw it totally out the window. I can't wait to see the next sequel, Return of the Jedi King.

Two days...
...and counting to Return of the King. I already have my tickets.

Holiday spirit
Nothing gets you into the holiday spirit quite like listening to Snoop Dogg's Christmas offerings. Because, as AOL tells us, we white, middle-aged, middle class folks are what Snopp is all about.

Moore interview
Here is the comeplete Ron Moore interview. I haven't finished the whole thing, but what I've read is pretty good.

Exagerated death rumors?
More info on the possible fate of Enterprise.

The ratings are in
It seems that Battlestar Galactica did pretty well in the ratings. I would think that if Stargate SG-1 has been a success as a series, BG could do well, especially if they follow along the same track as the mini series and keep it dark and edgy. It reminded me a lot of Space: Above and Beyond, which I thought was also a pretyy good series.

Is this the beginning of the end of the beginning?
I've seen articles confirming the trimming of Enterprise's season to 24 episodes. The rumors of Enterprise moving to Friday nights is apparently untrue. Ron Moore has some good thoughts about the franchise and, though they aren't new, he does know Trek as well as anyone out there and has had some post-Trek success.

Frak you all
Okay, here's what we got so far:

Shazbot (Orkan)
Frak (Battlestar Galactica)
Felgarcarb (BG)
Smeg (Red Dwarf)
Belgium (Hitchhiker's Trilogy)
Verool (Romulan)
pah'tak (Klingon)
Pudu (Huttese)
Smurf (Smurf - not technically alien, but amusing)
Marklar (South Park)

Thanks to Lain for his contribution to intergalactic courlorful language.

Seeing Battlestars
I know already I'll probably be in the minority on this one, but I thought the Battlestar Galactica miniseries was great. I had my expectations set pretty low. I just wanted it not to suck. And I thought it went well past that. The story was a simple one, Man creates Cylon. Man has sex with Cylon. Cylon tries to destroy all mankind. Though it started out kind of slow and really horny, it picked up in the second hour of the first night and went from there. And even though I thought Edward James Olmos was a worse idea for Adama than a female Starbuck, he really worked in the role. I also liked the dark edge to the story. It didn't shy away from the darker side of war and in some way reminded me of some of the better DS9 moments during the war with the Dominion. The approach with filming the live action and the effects scenes was also done in more of a raw, "war fotage" kind of way that I thought also worked really well.

Like I said, I'm probably in the minority on this one, but I would like to see them carry it over into a series, or at least another mini series.

Anyone else?

Intergalactic Cussing
In trying to come up with a comprehensive list of alien curse words, I so far have:

Shazbot
Felgercarb (I'm not sure of the spelling)
Frak (or frack)
Smeg
Belgium

If there are any more you know of, please let me know. I've grown bored with our human curse words, including the ones I know in languages other than English. So please help expand everyone's vocabulary.

What high definition TV was created for
Forget movies, concerts, and sporting events. What will make high definition television really shine is porn. Because you know in the porm industry, quality is always job one.

Tivo rules!
I was skeptical about Tivo. After all, I had a VCR and it recorded shows whenever I needed them recorded. So what was the big deal? Was it that Tivo could record something on one satellite channel while you watched another? You couldn't do that with the VCR. No, that's not it. Is it that you can record two different shows on two different channels at the same time while watching a third channel. Nope. Was it that you could tell your Tivo to record an show anytime it came on and not have to worry about programming a VCR? That's not it either. Is it that after a while Tivo tells you not only what shows you like through its "suggestions," but can automatically record them and watch them for you, thus leaving you free of having to watch television at all. Yep, that's it.
We've had Tivo a week now and it's watched hours and hours of television for us. Right now, its watching both 24 and South Park for me. Later it'll watch The Shield and The Daily Show for me, leaving me free to spend my time constructively by playing Bejeweled, watching a DVD, posting to my Blog or maybe just wasting time altogether. Of course, at some point, I guess I'll watch all those Sex in the City episodes stored on Tivo's hard drive along with this week's Enterprise and half a dozen or so South Park episodes, but not until I'm good and damn ready to. After all, who do these cable people think they are telling me what to watch and when to watch it.

The holiday spirit
It's been a while since a truly enjoyable holiday movie has hit the big screen. Scrooged comes to mind. But, it of course has the fatal flaw that Scrooge finally finds the true meaning of Christmas and becomes a nice guy. What a wuss.
So, much to my glee, we now have Bad Santa, a movie with no lovable characters, no heart-warming holiday message, and, above all, no life-changing true meaning of Christmas message.
It's crass. It's mean. It's obscene. And most of all, it's one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time.
Billy Bob Thornton practically reeks of booze, stale cigarettes and sweat-stained Santa suit. Tony Cox and Thornton play well off each other and John Ritter makes the perfect nimrod. But it's Brett Kelly, who plays the kid, that really spices up the mix basically by just standing there and letting all this insanity go on around him.
Bad Santa is not for everyone. It is a very dark comedy and the people who went to it because Elf was sold out were in for a big shock. Especially the ones who walked out after about five minutes with their young kids in tow. (That's why they have ratings folks.) I'm actually surprised that the movie was made in the first place, but boy am I glad of it.
So in the spirit imparted to me by this moving holiday film, I give it two great big middle fingers up. And I'm really glad it didn't suck because it's the only movie I've seen in the last six months. I've got to get out more.

Need some extra cash?
Then sell your soul. Mine's worth $40,963.90 (U.S.) and is purer than 60% of the people. That's amazing for a journalist, since only slightly more journalists than lawyers actually have souls.

Square Pegs quandary
In the Square Pegs Christmas episode, Muffy Tepperman is seen organizing and conducting the Christmas activities at the school, yet, we know that Muffy is, in fact, Jewish, because Devo performed at her New Wave Bar Mitzvah. It seems to me that Weemawee High School might be in line for a lawsuit, or at least some diversity training.

Idle Ramblings

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Thursday, December 11, 2003

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Monday, December 01, 2003

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