Double Weekend Blog Shot: What I’m…and The Point Game

What I’m…

…Renting: A History of Violence. I’m so sorry I didn’t get a chance to see this prior to all my best of lists for 2005. Easily a top ten film from last year. The first 30 minutes struck me as formulaic but in a good way. The set up of the family life of the main characters is what really makes this film work the rest of the way. My one gripe is that at Oscar time all the hype was around William Hurt who snagged a Best Supporting Actor nomination while Viggo Mortenson and Ed Harris were overlooked for two equal if not greater performances.

…Renting But Regretting That I Did Not Buy: Justice League: Season 1. Growing up I was always a Marvel Comics fan and except for the occasional Batman book I steered clear of DC. In my older age I’ve begun to enjoy the DC characters and one reason is the amazing work of Bruce Timm. His Batman and Superman Animated series from the late 90’s breathed fresh life into characters that had come off of horrible movies and were burdened by overly complicated storylines in their respective comics. Timm expanded that formula with Justice League and also expanded the roster. The first season DVDs feature Bats, Sups, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Flash, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter. Timm’s show once again gives us a classic interpretation of the characters and makes the show very accessible for neophytes by painting in some broad strokes and fan boys by revisiting some classic storylines.

…Listening To: NoFX-Wolves In Wolves Clothing
Top 5 Tracks and Lyrics Off The New NoFX CD
1. The Man I Killed- “I heard a thousand people screaming while three billion others cheered.”
2. Leaving Jesusland- “The average weight is well over 200 pounds. I hate to generalize but have you seen the thighs.”
3. USA-holes- “We see the iceberg from 15 miles away. The captain orders the ship to stay the course.”
4. We March to the Beat of an Indifferent Drum- “The wall was built to keep them out while keeping us in goose step parades.”
5. 60% (Reprise)- “I supposed that’s how we’ll go out, played out and way after our time.”




The Point Game
+2: iTunes Free Downloads- While the free downloads consist of a hodge podge of types of music and has varying degrees of quality I still got to give Apple props for providing these. Every so often you find a free download that gets you going and it doesn’t hurt to always give them a listen because after all they’re free.
***Speaking of which check out this week’s download by Damone. Its got this crazy speed metal guitar track and it rocks hard!****

+0: Blowout- I can’t make up my mind about this. On one hand I’m clearly getting dumber for watching even 5 minutes of this show. On the other hand it’s funny as hell watching Jonathon compare himself to Batman and explain that going from his assistant to a stylist is the equivalent of Tiger Woods turning pro. The best part of all this is that he actually believes all his hype.

+1: Gilmore Girls- On Tuesday’s episode Lorelei used the Battlestar Galactica slang term “fracking”. Always nice to see one quality show acknowledge another.

-500: The WB and Amy Sherman Palladino- I’m not sure who’s at fault here but there’s plenty of points to spread around. On Thursday, the WB announced that when The Gilmore Girls becomes part of the new CW network next fall, series creator Amy Sherman Palladino won’t be coming with. The Gilmores without ASP is like West Wing without Sorkin or Buffy without Whedon. Now there have been many fine writers that have worked on the show and it might still be worth watching but I’m worried that we’ll not see the series go out the way it was originally intended to. ASP has made it very clear in the past that she has a clear picture of how the show ends. Let’s hope she and the management patch things up by next spring when the show will most likely wrap up its last season.