The Rabbit Hole

Over vacation, I managed to catch a nasty cold that pretty much flattened me when I let it. I'm at that not-quite-recovered stage where I still sound stuffed up but can breathe. Cough's better, but still very gross-sounding on occasion. At least I don't get those coughing fits so bad that I hurt any more! Woo?

Other stuff happened:
-I got an A in statistics despite bombing the final. There were questions about older material that I didn't know to expect because he didn't send out an e-mail to that effect until after I'd taken it (since I took it earlier). I'd be aggravated except that I got a good grade overall, so that's a wash.

-Finished Prison Break, otherwise known as the most ridiculous TV series outside of Heroes or Smallville that doesn't have either of those series' excuse for its re-cock-ulousness. The mastermind who engineered the first of all the prison breaks became MacGuyver and then Jesus in that last season. It was nuts.

-Speaking of Heroes---CANCELLED!!! Oh thank you. I don't know who to thank--the assorted hosts of Heaven or Hell?--but I thank you. Oh thank you thank you thank you. I'm free! Free at last! For real, I almost cried. I hugged darkling1 when he told me. So much joy!

This does not mean the show will get better. This does not mean the show will get better. This does not mean...


But...but...but...Ray Park! And and and Robert Knepper! Robert Knepper, playing Samuel in that clip, is absolutely mesmerizing. If he weren't kinda weird looking, he'd be a huge star. As it is, I've enjoyed him in everything I've ever seen him in. He makes the practical impossibility of a man a) having his hand chopped off b) while on the run as a fugitive c) before getting it sewn back on by a veterinarian with no anaesthesia d) only to have to pull the stitches out with his teeth and remove the re-attached hand....seem oddly plausible. (Prison Break was such a fun show, sometimes.)

All right, show. You've piqued my interest. I'm still watching the premiere drunk, though.

...and Prison Break. No one is more surprised than me by this news.

However, I am sort of pleased in a way: it means that, despite being canceled, the next season of Prison Break will, indeed, feature another breaking-into/breaking-out-of a prison! You didn't think they could do it a third time!

Also, I really hope this is true even if the Prison Break guy isn't involved, because, COME ON, a BioShock movie? Could be entirely made of fucking awesome.

...another thousand movies I've watched. No, not really. Since I can't possibly capture your attention or wow any of you with my books-read-this-year total, time to do my annual recap of media I've consumed in 2008.

There seems to be a cap fast approaching, as I saw only three more movies in 2008 than I did in 2007. Television, however, fell off dramatically (25 seasons this past year versus 46 in 2007), and frankly, I'm astonished. I've been exercising regularly while watching episodes of television since July. I suppose the caveat there is that since I've been forcing myself not to watch shows when not exercising, I haven't been breezing through entire series of shows in a weekend. (::coughcoughDoctorWhocough::)

My recs and trends beneath the cut!

( Movie magic )

( Boob Tubing )

( I said I wouldn't write about books. Naturally, I wrote THE MOST about them. )

And that's the year that was.

Happy Halloween every one! I'm having a goodish sort of day. I've received lots of compliments on my violently orange and black-striped tights, so I feel pretty good. I saw a little boy dressed as Indiana Jones cracking his fake whip and I melted a little. (Stupid fucking ovaries! Die!) So I hope all are enjoying their day before the Day of the Dead.

I'm bored at work (surprise) so I'm just going to talk about stuff. Here goes.

Television!
( Still playing catch up it seems. (No spoilers.) )

Movies!

I want to see Max Payne still. And feiran and I need to go see Saw V. Why? Because. That's my only reason.

Oh, and I finally saw The Iron Giant and it was adorable. I love Brad Bird.

Books!

It will take me forever to get through Nixonland, but the eerie similarities to politics nowadays is making it hard to get through at any speed. I get chills and have to put it down. It's also a little densely written.

I finished My Lobotomy which was a horror show in slow motion. A quick read if you want something to make you be glad that mental health medicine has progressed even as far as it has.

No, there are lots of words. Most of them have four letters and roughly a bazillion question marks and exclamation points after them. I think I've just about had it. This episode wasn't the worst what-the-fucking-fuck? episode so far this season or anything, but it's just the straw, you know?

For heaven's sake, Prison Break is more realistic and I just spent another season's worth watching them attempt a break out from an entirely different prison. (SURPRISE.)

I think I've also had it with the acting choices on this show. (These aren't spoilers, these are just my thoughts so far.) Just because someone can cry doesn't make them a good actress. (Looking at you, Panettiere.) Milo Ventimiglia is just torture every minute he's on screen. Sendhil Rammamurthy never was very compelling; his latest incarnation is less so. Jack Coleman is pretty much the only person I love and that's because he plays Bennet with a sort of smirk that I can pretend is really Jack Coleman laughing at this goddamned show.

And I think I finally understand why I fucking hate Peter's fucking guts. I credit ivy03 for pointing this out about Smallville. Her theory of why that show often fails is that it unflinchingly backs up anything Clark says is right or wrong whether or not those of us living in a reality-based mentality believe that he is correct about his declarations. The same is true of Peter. Yes, he's gone a bit "dark" right now, and, yes, he constantly fucks up, but he's still the hero. He says things and they're true--we're supposed to aspire to his level of courage and dedication (though not, I would hope, his level of intelligence--unless you're in one of those "pro-America" states). He's like Hiro, but Hiro is played for laughs. The show backs up Peter without ever laughing at him. Peter is trying, and that gives him a pass on the endless stream of dickish or narcissistic things he's done. Minus a few decapitations, and he's basically Sylar with a hero complex. They were on the same path to different ends for a while; this season just made it explicit as to why. Fuck that noise.

Talk about Supernatural!

I'm within shouting distance of the end of season three, and I've had a pretty decent time of it. Surely, Bobby is a better character than ever John was. I don't even loathe Ruby. (Bella, on the other hand, couldn't suffer a fate worse than death too soon for my liking.) I just came upon the episode with ( still a spoiler for some, I guess )

Anyway, whining from Sam and angsting projected upon Dean aside, I have enjoyed season three thus far. But, being as far behind as I am, I'm fairly spoiled for the show, so I'm already aware that this guy is in season four. Someone please explain to me--reassure me that they're being awesome enough with him to justify filching John Constantine's wardrobe. Otherwise, me and show are going to have words. Words with pointy ends.

And please, do so in as un-specific a way that I am not spoiled any more than I was by learning his name, m'kay? Okay, SPN fangirls on my f'list, take it away.

I don't do the year-in-review memes so much. This is more my own tally of new-to-me pieces of entertainment consumed.

I see that I managed to outdo myself on the number of movies seen this year versus last year. I've seen 50% more movies in 2007 than I did in 2006 (120 versus 81). 120! Crazy! Television seasons completed, despite there being fewer arcs of Doctor Who viewed and rented, increased almost as much (46 to 33). I didn't quite manage to double the number of books read in 2007 as I'd resolved to do for New Year's 2006, but I came within shouting distance of it. Had I not been entertaining a baby by myself for much of the vacation that was not otherwise devoted to a wedding, I might have made it.

Not that anyone cares about that, nosir. Here are so recommendations based on what I read/saw and enjoyed (or didn't!) in 2007.

( Cutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcutcut... )

Prison Break: WHY!?!

( Spoiler )

*

Heroes at least did not hurt as much. ( ABOUT GODDAMNED TIME! )

*

Listening to Dexter in the Dark is just not going to happen. Jeff Lindsay isn't the best writer in the world, but his prose moves along snappily enough that I'm always breezing through it. Listening to the audiobook of the third in the Dexter series is just painful. There is no acting to it. I'm totally spoiled by the voice-over work by Michael C. Hall on the show, I do realize that; I'm so used to his interpretation of how Dexter's inner monologue runs, the cadences and dryness and wryness of it that anything else has a jarring falseness to it. Even so, this audiobook performance is barely more animated than someone reading the lines off the page into a microphone. Dexter isn't an animated character, I realize, but there are ways to bring even his flat cynicism to life and whoever it is doing the reading is just not trying.

Also, this book starts off with more negativity about Rita than the other two books combined had throughout their pages. I get that Book-Dexter is a lot less adorably human and dependent in his relationship than Show-Dexter, but there's no need for the meanness to Rita because she's been snowed under by Book-Dexter. He literally loathes her, and there's this unnecessary, unsuccessful attempt to make her look a moron so that his loathing is justified. Instead of the more natural progression which would be having him admit there's only as much stupid and inane about her as there is to the rest of humanity in his opinion. It just feels needlessly mean to harp on her quite so much.

This is not going to be the security blanket to keep me until the next new episode that I'd hoped it would be, I guess.

anarchicsquirrl was on Jeopardy! She won! I nearly threw my drink at the TV when she missed a question about Dexter. My God, the answer was "Michael C. Hall from 'Six Feet Under' plays the eponymous character in this show.." something something AND they had a friggin clip of Dexter playing with his blood slides. Of course, after telling her this, she felt obligated to remind me that it's really my fault that she didn't know that, since I got involved with the show far too late to have posted rants about it on my LJ for her to read and absorb. Nonetheless, she was cooler and cuter under pressure than I. I only wish I could look that good on TV. Well done, you!

On an unrelated note, I totally know what I want to get you for your birthday. I must see if I can still find it.

*

Prison Break requires liquor at this point. It's not even that bad--not bad for the show. I'm just still reeling over the fact that the plot of the show is still about breaking out of prison. Another prison. Wentworth Miller remains fantastically hot and has the Blue Steel of Sexy Eye-Fucking that makes me not care what all else is going on. So, with that and alcohol, I'm sure I can just laugh off whatever else is coming. I'm just not feeling the same tension that I did with the first two seasons. In the first prison-breaking-out scheme, there was a time factor set by the one brother's scheduled execution. With the second season and the cons being on the run, there's a never-ending tension for the fact that if anyone stops at any time, they go back to jail for, like, ever (if they don't die). Now? Not so much. Coming down off the momentum of season two is a little depressing. Here's hoping for better and more as time goes on.

*

So, Heroes thinks it can buy my love and mitigate my pouting over the fact that there wasn't any Sylar action in the season premiere by making the already re-cock-ulously pretty cast even prettier. Well, it can't. It can, however, ease my suffering of having to listen to Mohinder by making him blindingly, incoherently beautiful. I just sat and drooled. I didn't hear a word he said. Genius! I might survive the season even if he continues with the voice-overs of inaccurate doom!

Nope, still not distracted. I wanted Sylar, damn it. I want to know how the boy is alive, when I can expect to see him shirtless again. I don't care about shirtless Peter. I mean, he was also stupid pretty without those awful bangs, but he's not what does it for me. What does it for me is the slobbering psychopath with the eyebrows of bushy doom!

Not a bad episode. Mr. B rocked hard-core, and Claire's new friend is cute (though his self-diagnosis of being an alien is a bit uncanny as there's something not quite human about him). And I love that I spent almost the entire dinner conversation at the Bennets trying to remember the name of the damned dog. Eventually, my former roommate helped me out. I can't believe I forgot Mr. Muggles.