Ride, Ride, Ride, Let it Ride

I've totally reached that point of not getting enough sleep for a few days in a row that I am now way more awake than I'd be under any sort of normal sleeping condition. Which works out pretty great 'cause I'm writing an essay on Double Indemnity AND studying for my Intro to Christianity midterm (which is turning out to be way harder than I'd expected).

But the revelation at my noon o'clock Theatre Into Film class that it was serving as the last class before Spring Break for some (which technically starts Saturday) was quite infuriating. Add onto that the realization that I'm actually gonna have a pretty significant amount of work to do over Spring Break (basically two essays). Muy lame.

But, as always, I'm keeping pretty zen about it. At least the Spring Break work won't be interrupted by crap like going to class, so I can keep my ideal hours (it often doesn't much matter what time I go to bed if I can get up at noon or 1).

Holy shit, I don't take off from Boston on Saturday until 6:30. And the dorms close at noon. DAMN YOUSE! At least I won't have a lotta luggage to drag around the city. Or the airport. Yeah, should probably wait around the airport.

What else...I'm seeing Beauty and the Beast at Jesuit on Sunday if anyone's around.

Okay, I should get to work.

A&E - Oscar Night Ups and Downs

First off, fucking hells yes for The Departed. Screw all of you who chose to hate on one of the truly great pictures of the year. Screw all of you who complained that it isn't "great Scorsese." No, it's NOT as good as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Last Temptation, GoodFellas, or The Aviator. But you know what? It stands firmly on its own two feet, and Scorsese shows again just how much command he has over the medium. The Departed taking Picture, Director, Editing, and Adapted Screenplay got me so impossibly excited I can't even describe. We all went nuts when Scorsese took Director. I don't care how clear-cut that decision was ahead of time, seeing it was a beautiful moment. Presented by Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg no less...big set up, yeah, but I don't care because it was one of the truly great moments in Oscar history, putting four legends onstage together (Lucas is not a great director, but he's contributed so much to the form). And though I think United 93 got screwed out of an editing Oscar, you could give Thelma Schoonmaker one every year and I'd be thrilled.

Another award that had me excited as all shit was Alan Arkin getting Best Supporting Actor. Of all the performances this year, not just the NOMINATED ones, he's the guy I'd pick. I was beyond happy when he got that.

Forest Whitaker had a great speech.

The evening wasn't perfect though, basically because Pan's Labyrinth didn't take Best Foreign and Children of Men was robbed even further than it was in nominations (how in the hell do you not give it Cinematography? There's a NINE MINUTE tracking shot through a battleground!...that alone gets it the award).

But overall, this is the happiest I've been about the Oscar results in a long, long time. Mainly for The Departed.

Holy Shit

Last night's Veronica Mars was impossibly good. Seriously. Watch this show. Ignore the part where teenage girls talk about what they liked about the show. The network's retarded, but the show is obscenely great.

Speaking of TV, it looks almost certain that Studio 60 will be cancelled, which really is too bad. I will say that since they came back from the break the show has declined a bit, but I really did like this week's episode and I still love the hell out of the characters, and I can really forgive any other flaws just watch the cast work with their characters and that dialogue, but it isn't the highlight of my week that it used to be (Veronica Mars is though...it's also the most consistant drama around, and any inconsistancies are just it being even better).

Looks like Tony Blair's pulling out of Iraq pretty soon (I say Tony Blair and not Britain because I'm pretty sure he was the only one in Britain who wanted in to begin with). It's a pretty good sign, 'cause now Bush'll have even less people to back him up on this whole thing, but who knows...Bush knows his time in office is limited, and it seems like a pretty good bet that he'll just do whatever the hell he damn pleases.

Not that I'm really crazy about any of the Democratic nominees at the moment (although I'm a big Joe Biden fan, but he's gonna need people to you know...realize who he before he has a snowball's chance against Hilary and Obama). I like Obama a lot, like any other mildly-informed, left-leaning college student right now, but I really for the life of me don't understand the swell of support for him, and I doubt many other people can either. It feels like his whole career over the last two and a half years has been based on the fact that he gave the keynote at the Democratic convention in 2004, but I doubt you could find more than an eighth of the people in the damn "One Million Strong for Obama" group on Facebook who can tell you what the man stands for.

I'm not gonna be one of those guys who says he's too inexperienced to be President, 'cause 1) I'm all for fresh blood in the Oval Office, and 2) Presidents have advisors telling them the best way to eat their eggs. If the man's half as good as he's appearing to be, he'll know when to listen.

But it's all way too early for anyone, anywhere to care, and yet I find myself caring. Lame. I will say that never in a million years would anyone ever vote for John Edwards. He's boring and no one likes him and he screwed his political career when he jumped aboard John Kerry's camp for what was so very clearly a career opportunity. He also looks like he's fifteen.

My internet connection is failing me right now (somehow AIM is running, but I can't get Firefox to connect, and my Justice League download has stopped...only 1.84% to go!). Lord knows when this will end up being posted.

I Belong in the Service of the Queen

Currently listening to...


It snowed this week! I was outside...must have been Tuesday at around 1 AM, beautiful snow all around, and I was like, "tomorrow's gonna be a good day...might go on a walk before class instead of finishing the work." Then I woke up and it was raining. SO LAME. So suddenly, slush was everywhere and every step you took could knock your ass to the ground. I wish I took pictures to illustrate just how ridiculous the difference was between the two, but it was ridiculous. Ri-dic-u-lous. Yeah, I'm retarded.

The best part is the guy who works the grill at the diner (his name's Todd) totally called the whole thing last Sunday. Wise beyond his years.

Valentine's Day was once again spent...well, not really alone...I played Halo with the boys, and got a wonderful phone call that night, so I guess I'm batting better than average. Not that I care. I do what I want!

Aaron Eckhart has been cast as Harvey Dent/Two-Face in the next two Batman films that'll continue with the Batman Begins team of Christopher Nolan directing, Christian Bale starring, with Michael Caine and Gary Oldman along for the ride. Katie Holmes WILL NOT be back, thank God, and right now it looks like she'll be replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal (as unnecessary and the character as, Maggie Gyllenhaal is pretty damn great). And right now it looks like Morgan Freeman won't be back either, which is really too bad 'cause his character was in a really good place at the end of Begins. Oh, and Heath Ledger is The Joker...which we'll see about. Also, Nolan made a good call and pulled his brother, Jonathon Nolan, who wrote the story that inspired Memento and co-wrote the whole script for The Prestige, to write the primary draft of the screenplay. Awesome.

But I can't express how perfect the casting of Eckhart is. Eckhart had a damn good year in 2006 with strong performances Thank You For Smoking, Conversations With Women, and The Black Dahlia. I highly recommend watching the first one there, mostly 'cause it's a great movie, but also because Eckhart's charismatic as hell in it and it pretty much shows how much he IS Harvey Dent. Dahlia shows a darker side and gives a hint at what he'd be capable of when the Two-Face thing goes down (which probably won't happen 'til the third film, which is how it should be...Harvey Dent's the man).

But yeah, I was excited for that movie before. Now summer 2008 is so very, very far away.

Chapter 98: In Which Scott Watches the Worst/Best Movie Ever and Heaps Praise Upon Cartoon Superhero Shows

CURRENTLY WATCHING...




Man, what a week. The last two, in fact, have been ah...let's say different, eh? Yeah. Good times.

I finally figured out how to use Torrents, and am currently in the midst of downloading the entire series of Justice League/Justice League Unlimited (in was changed to Unlimited in season 3), which say what you will, but it's definitely my favorite superhero show ever produced, and one of the best comic book adaptations (I have a hard time ranking that, Spider-Man 2, and Batman: Mask of the Phantasm; never let anyone tell you Batman Begins is the best Batman film ever made, because MOTP just hands it its ass). I love Batman: The Animated Series to death, but JL came about at a time when audiences were used to a different breed of TV show, and they could finally build and weave storyarcs that sometimes took more than one season to resolve. The 3-part "Starcrossed" that finished off season 2 is one of the best pieces of television I've ever seen, certainly in the realm of sci-fi/action/adventure; it really is just stunning, awesome work.

Unfortunately, these things are slow as hell and it'll probably take a month to finish up. Yeah. Balls.

This Is Retarded

People who know me can tell you that it really takes a lot to get me actually riled up about world affairs, the justice system, politics, etc. For the most part, it just amuses the hell out of me. But this recent business in Boston just pisses me the hell off.

I speak, of course, of the great Mooninite Scare of '07.

For those who don't know, as a move of guerilla advertising to raise support for the excellent TV show Aqua Teen Hunger Force (which is about to be turned into the best movie you'll ever see), a team placed these around major metropolitan cities across the U.S. (including Portland, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, and Philadelphia).



That's a Lite Brite, a toy that lets you put these little pegs into whatever arrangement you please and create lighted pictures. For this particular move, they used the Mooninite, one of the more bizarre (and catchy) characters to show up on Aqua Teen.

These were up for a few weeks until suddenly, on Wednesday I believe, they were believed to be bombs in the city of Boston, MA. Huge portions of the city were shut down so emergency crews could "secure" the city from these things.

So far, all of this is pretty funny.

But now, Turner Broadcasting, parent company of Cartoon Network, which broadcasts Aqua Teen, is paying $500,000 to cover the costs of the massive operation, and two employees of the marketing agency Turner hired for the campaign are being arraigned on CRIMINAL CHARGES. Seriously, what the HELL? Just because a bunch of idiots (in the city that's second only to New York in trying to convince the rest of the world of how much more brilliant and progessive and culturally aware they are than everyone else) can't tell the difference between a toy and a bomb!

Pisses me off.

Got To Get You Into My Life

I woke up this morning at around 11:30, laid around for 45 minutes, ate some waffles, came upstairs and logged onto Aint it Cool News and found THIS.

I love the Beatles but am not a hardcore fan. Interpretations like this are fascinating, but I hope they use more original tracks. Sure, it looks weird, but it also looks pretty damned fantastic. Anyway, I watched it twice and have been listening to the Beatles all morning.

I'm not too crazy about this new Blogger format with the Google and so forth, but I'll deal.

Back when there was a massive JHS Xanga community (something I still mourn the loss of), I always enjoyed Xanga's option to say "Currently listening to..." or "Currently watching..." etc. I'm gonna bring that back right here. For example...

Currently listening to....


This should be fun.

(and before anyone says anything, yes I know "Got to Get You Into My Life" isn't on Let it Be)