Quick Thoughts

Just a quick post before I dive into my last day of work before vacation.

It’s been a very hectic week, and so my TV viewing has actually been kind of sparse, as I’ve been busy packing, getting work done, plus living life (working out, working late, being tired, reading a book).

I want to talk quickly about two of the older sitcoms on TV right now, both of which I’ve loved to varying degrees over the years. Both have had good seasons, bad seasons, and GREAT seasons- How I Met Your Mother and The Office. Seasons 2 and 3 of The Office are some of the best ever, and HIMYM had a great start, but got a little lost in tone over the last few seasons.

I couldn’t help but think how both of these shows have changed into something slightly different over the years, and how both, every now and then, remind me of what they once were, back when they were great instead of good.

HIMYM straight up pissed me off this week. While it was clear that there was some kind of plan going on for Barney’s big night, it didn’t feel like an average play, it felt mean. Especially when Robin faked breaking off their engagement- too far. While HIMYM has always exaggerated this group of friends’ interactions and they’ve been tonally true to life while unrealistic enough to say, “That would only ever happen on TV,” I feel they went off the reservation in this episode. It neither felt tonally true to life, in which most people would consider Barney’s “friends” actions downright cruel, nor like true sitcom hijinks enough to make it enjoyable. It just felt mean, and not something anyone would consider “awesome.”

The Office, on the other hand, had an episode so like its earlier self, its great self, I almost wondered if I was watching an episode from season 2 rather than season 9. This show started out being much  more like real life, which a very crazy, needy, insecure boss, mostly normal people just going about their business, and a couple crazies. Every office environment I’ve ever worked in has those personalities in one way or another (my current boss is awesome, not needy/insecure, and the crazy is mostly limited to outside my department.) It was sentimental, but not sappy. We got to see our favorites Officemates act like actual human beings again instead of caricatures. We saw them be compassionate with each other, friendly, supportive. Plus there were a few laughs along the way.

It’s just odd how the longer a show goes on, the less like itself it becomes, but every now and then, if you’re lucky, you get a chance to remember why you fell in love with it. Usually just in time for it to end!

Beginning Again- New and Improved, with more Rants!

Dear three readers,

Sorry I haven’t posted in so long. It’s not like I haven’t had thoughts on entertainment- movies, TV shows, apps- it’s just that I haven’t had the time or, when I have had the time, the mental capacity to write anything.

Today, though, I became somewhat inspired by an article I read (found through another blog I sometimes read) about funding movies through Kickstarter. As I re-posted (over a month ago), the minds behind Veronica Mars were looking for average Joes and Janes to contribute our hard earned money so they could make a movie for us.

And that’s the key there- so they could make a movie FOR US. Yes, it’s for them as well- they love Veronica Mars just as much as, if not more than, we do. After all, they were the ones creating these characters and telling their stories. We just enjoyed them and related to them. But ultimately, if there was no fan interest, the movie wouldn’t be made. But, they gave us a voice, a way to prove that we truly are interested in seeing them continue their story, and that way was to contribute money. No one had a gun held to their head; no one threatened to kick our puppies if we didn’t open up our wallets. The worst that would happen is that the movie wouldn’t be made, and we’d have to watch the same 64 episodes we’ve been watching for years. It was our choice.

I, personally, chose to kick in money. A small but decent amount, but it also comes with perks like a blu-ray copy of the movie, a t-shirt, a PDF of the script. I would’ve ended up spending money on at least one of those things anyway, so why not give the money and feel like I contributed to something I care about? I’ll still give to the zoo and humane society and ASPCA and my college and diabetes research and Stand Up 2 Cancer and the Children’s Hospital as I do every year.

Now, a month or so later, the webernets is up in arms again judging the people contributing to Zach Braff’s Kickstarter project. I’ll admit, his rewards do show a lack of knowing what fans really want (ie a damn copy of the movie, even if it’s just a digital copy), but after watching his video, I decided to kick in some money. A much smaller amount than with VM, but that’s also because Zach Braff movies are fairly iffy for me. Garden State good, The Last Kiss meh, High Cost of Living snoozeville. But once again, I wanted to contribute to making a piece of entertainment, to giving Zach Braff and his brother Adam their voice.

Zach Braff says in his video that he could’ve secured the money through more traditional channels, but it would’ve meant giving up final cut, casting decisions, given the money guys the ability to rewrite key plot elements. This seems to be what’s sticking in people’s craw the most- that he could’ve had the people with tons of money give it to him for just a few sacrifices on his part, and then he wouldn’t have had to ask us commoners without tons of money to give some of it to him. While I can see their point- we all make sacrifices- I also say: Why not help someone keep their artistic integrity? Why NOT help someone avoid the sacrifices we all have to make?

Maybe it’s because I’m vaguely creative with a vaguely creative job and know what it’s like to have a vision for a project only to see it brought down by people needing to make their mark, have their input, cover their asses with legalese. Maybe it’s because I’m an entertainment junkie who loves good stories, and I think Zach Braff and Rob Thomas and Charlie Kaufman/Dan Harmon and Casey Wilson/June Diane Raphael (all rich, Hollywood people who make more money than I will see in a lifetime, but whose Kickstarter projects I’ve backed) will tell a good story.

Most importantly, I wonder, why do you, random person on the internet, care how I choose to spend my money? I don’t care if you spend yours solely on porn, Cheetos and video games, so why do you care if I spend mine on making movies through Kickstarter?

The Veronica Mars Movie Kickstarter Campaign: Don't You Dare Feel Bad About Chipping In

Reblogged from TVLine:

• 

Sometime between 10:30 am Wednesday -- when the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter campaign was announced -- and 11 am, something unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable, happened. People started getting kicked for kicking their money in.

What started off as a celebration of the impassioned TV fan turned into a condemnation of those who, I like to think, have a say in how their own money gets spent.

Read more… 535 more words

This article perfectly encapsulates why I gave money to the Kickstarter campaign- I love Veronica Mars, and I wanted to be part of something, to contribute and help create something new from something, to bring a part of the (recent) past back.

Not Dead Again!

Once again, I’ve fallen into the sucking black hole that is having too much work to do, and too little energy to do anything worthwhile while at home, so the blogging has, clearly, fell off a bit. Apologies, 3 readers!

So, where to start, where to start, SOOOO much to say.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first, shall we?

Last month, October 19th was finally upon us. Yes, if you remember my last blog post from way back when, I was excited for the return of my beloved Community, and kicking myself for having made plans for that night.

Well, turns out, it was totally okay to have plans that night. Not only was Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience (a 70-minute play of all 7 of the Harry Potter books) a HILARIOUS show- seriously, my cheeks and sides hurt from laughing so much!- but turns out the premiere of Community was somewhat lackluster. Oh, sure, it was nice to catch up with my old friends who I’ve missed dearly since last May, and the Hunger Deans was a fun spoof of Hunger Games, but overall I just felt underwhelmed. Then the Valloween episode was… underwhelming. The spoof of Scooby Doo was fun, and it was nice to see Gilbert again, but I was underwhelmed. A couple chuckles, no LOLs, and definitely haven’t felt the need to rewatch the episode multiple times.

But, then I thought to myself, ‘Well, with season 3 I wasn’t immediately impressed with the first three episodes. I didn’t feel the mojo was completely back until “Remedial Chaos Theory”, which was the 4th episode, so I’ll give myself until the 4th episode to pass judgment on the new Community.’

So, I had the Inspector Spacetime episode, and it was also chuckle a few times funny, but still underwhelming. There was just a spark missing, that je ne sais quoi just wasn’t there. But, again, I thought ‘Give it to the 4th episode.’

Well, last night was the 4th episode. I would love to tell you that it blew my mind like “Remedial Chaos Theory” did, or reminded me of why I’ve LOVED this show so dearly. I would so, so love to tell you that. Instead, I’ll tell you I chuckled a few times; I wished they’d been able to get Nick Kroll back instead of his character’s brother, and I went from watching that to re-watching my fave episode of The Neighbors, “The Gingerbread Man.” Seeing Larry Bird freak the crap out of the PTA mom with his robo-controlled gingerbread man and her freakout later at the soccer game is just TOO GOOD. Really, if you’re not watching The Neighbors, you’re missing out. Skip that god awful first episode- the humans move into a condo development and find out their neighbors are aliens from a place called Zabrovnia, there, saved ya 22 minutes of meh- and jump straight into the wry, dry, surprisingly heartfelt and yet often satirical awesomeoness that is The Neighbors.

So, in short, Community is fine, but not the community it once was; The Neighbors rules, and Potted Potter is hilarious.

Before I get back to work (sigh!), one last fun thing- this past weekend, I went to Evil Dead: The Musical at the Omaha Community Playhouse. So, so funny!! The movies are great- hokey and campy and fun- and the new Evil Dead movie looks super creepy (I’m rarely scared by horror movies, but I’m hoping this one will live up to the trailer and make me want to sleep with the lights on!). Evil Dead: The Musical is an experience unto itself. It follows the basic plot of Evil Dead, of course, but with awesome music. Hokey and campy and fun, for sure, but in a different way than the movie. The local actors did a great job, particularly the guy playing Ash and the girl playing Cheryl- who at time had an annoying shrill voice, but landed her jokes every single time. If you’re in the Omaha area, it’s playing at the Playhouse until March 17th, I believe.

And with that, I bid you adieu. I hope not to wait so long until my next post; I cheated a little and started my March book last night and am already over halfway done; I hope to finish it this weekend and then will be posting reviews of it and my February read sometime next week.

Have a great weekend, 3 readers!

The New October 19th

I couldn’t have said it better myself, though I’m also a dumb dumb who has tickets to see Potted Potter tonight, so I don’t actually get to watch the premiere until, oh, midnight or so. Whoopsies! (But I DO get a fancy steak before the show- a FREE (for me) fancy steak, so it works out, IMO.)

 

The New October 19th.

Deja Vu

I am having the most awful sense of déjà vu!

Many moons ago, in October, I was excited for a week to be over so that we could get to the premieres of The Walking Dead and Community, two of my favorite shows. Well, The Walking Dead went off without a hitch, and was a spectacular first half of the season. Community, on the other hand, was unceremoniously yanked from the schedule a mere 9 days prior to its premiere (October 19th).

Well, fast forward 4ish months, and and here we are again, with me excited to get through the next couple weeks so that we can be at the premiere week of Community (February 7th) and The Walking Dead (February 10th) again.

Fingers, toes, legs, arms, and eyes crossed that February 7th proves to be October 19th and we don’t get the shaft again!

Speaking of the shaft, a moment of silence for Don’t Trust the B- in Apartment 23 and Ben & Kate, both of which have been pulled from the schedule, and Last Resort, which airs its series finale tonight.

Community Season 4 Sneak Peek: Abed Stresses, Britta 'Therapizes,' Annie and Shirley Pull a Prank

Reblogged from TVLine:

It's been a good long while since we last hung out with our friends on Community, but it's nice to know that once the Greendale gang is back in action, very little will have changed. Need proof? Check out the following first looks from the NBC comedy's Season 4 premiere (airing Thursday, Feb 7 at 8/7c), one of which finds our beloved Britta still attempting to "therapize" Abed.

Read more… 81 more words

I don't want to jinx it, of course, but we're down to only 2 weeks and 1 day!

I am, in fact, alive!

I know my lack of posts since the new year would suggest otherwise, but, here I am alive and well-ish. I was in a car accident a couple weeks back that left me with whiplash, but otherwise all is well in the world of the Indoor Cat.

I’ve actually been keeping myself pretty busy between work and play. For work, I’m crazy stressed and have a few major projects going on right now, plus smaller ones that keep popping up over and over. This is the real reason I haven’t been posting lately. Don’t tell anyone, but I usually post from work, and so I really haven’t had time lately.

And what a shame, because I’ve been a busy little bee when it comes to shows and movies. I’ve done a few marathons lately- I caught up on Downton Abbey before the new year, and LOVE it! I think it’s well written, well acted, and I really get into the story lines. I have definitely have my favorites (Anna, Mrs. Hughes, Mr. Carson, Sybil) and a few characters I HATE (Thomas and O’Brien, though she’s growing on me now that she’s a little softer around the edges and her nephew is around), and a few characters I keep going back and forth between liking and hating (Mary, Edith, Daisy, Isobel, etc.).  I think my BFF is happy I’ve finally caught up, because now we can talk about it. And I made my sister catch up, so she and I can talk about it. And I ordered the season pass from Amazon, so I’ll get the rest of the season on January29th, so I’m going to see if those girlies would like to join me to watch the final few episodes early so we don’t have to rely on notably unreliable DVRs.

Last weekend, I did a Homeland marathon. It was amazing, another really great show. The first season started a bit slow, but picked up a ton after Brody and Carrie go to her cabin. After that, it’s a bit of a whirlwind roller coaster ride of mistrust and deceit yet with hints of honesty. SPOILER ALERT for anyone who hasn’t watched any of it yet, but plans to someday. So, I spent the whole first season knowing the Brody was, in fact, a terrorist, which gives everything a very different feel than if I hadn’t known all along. I kept wondering, since I knew details about season 2, what made Brody change his mind about the attack at the end of the first season. SERIOUSLY, SPOILER ALERT, LOOK AWAY IF YOU EVER PLAN TO WATCH! Turns out, he DOESN’T change his mind! HE FLIPPED THE FREAKING SWITCH ON THE SUICIDE VEST! Thank goodness for faulty wiring! So then, the second season moves amazingly fast- it’s crazy to think how much has happened from the pilot to the second season finale. And I keep thinking, is Brody really innocent this time and being framed, or did he in fact do it? I mean, he had time to move the car; he made sure to get Carrie and himself away from the blast zone, and he DID help kill the VP, after all. I CAN’T WAIT FOR SEASON THREE!!!

Next weekend, just FYI, is going to be a marathon of the final season of Fringe. I knew I’d go crazy waiting week to week, especially with hiatuses, so instead I used a bit of self-control for once and waited until the entire season was over so I can just watch episodes back-to-back. Can’t wait.

So, I’ve also seen a few movies in the past couple weeks. Last weekend I saw Gangster Squad, which was a fun movie, though not great by any means. The violence is a little more than I expected, especially right at the beginning, though it gets a bit more tolerable later on. Ryan Gosling’s voice is… odd. But he’s adorable, so I can forgive it. I feel like the main character should’ve been played by someone a bit younger than Josh Brolin, but he did a good job as the leader of the squad, so I can let it go. I hope the include the alternate ending where they shoot up Grauman’s  Chinese Theater and Brolin dies on the DVD.

This weekend, I saw Zero Dark Thirty. There is zero chance I’d ever choose to sit in the dark and watch that 30 hour movie ever again. It was just surprisingly… I dunno, dull?  I feel like it spent too much time concentrating on the less interesting parts. Plus, the scene where they actually start the raid on bin Laden’s compound was so dark I couldn’t make out any of the details and couldn’t follow what was going on. I’d rather have had the whole thing in night vision or at least up the light enough to be able to see who was doing what and signaling what. Whatever. I can’t place my finger on it, I just wasn’t impressed. And, as a Jessica Chastain fan, I felt like the praise over her performance in this movie was a bit much. I feel like you could’ve put a couple dozen other actresses in that role and ended up with the same performance.

I rented For a Good Time, Call… this weekend with my sister. I was worried it would suck, since most of the indies I watched last year did. However, I was very pleased with it- it was really funny. It had a very similar feel to Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I think Justin Long was a bit annoying, but Ari Graynor and Lauren Miller were awesome. It’s all about these two girls who hated each other in college but are forced due to financial issues to become roommates. Lauren’s character finds out Ari’s character has been working for a sex phone company and convinces her to start her own so she’d make more money. It’s really very funny, plus there are some good sentimental arcs between the girls eventually becoming friends and Ari’s character starting to date one of her callers.

Switching gears, I spent the first couple days of the year reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Great, quick read. If you’re into Lifetime movies or true-crime shows (think Unsolved Mysteries or Deadly Women or anything on the ID channel, really), you’ll probably like this book. It intercuts the investigation of a missing woman with her husband’s perspective and her personal journal diaries. Like I said, great read. Now I just need to figure out what I’ll read in February!

There are four new apps I’m really into lately. The first is  StitchSketch, an app that allows people to create pixel art or, in my case, cross-stitch design. It can also be used for creating knitting patterns or bead art designs. Since I’ve been using it for cross stitch designing, I can tell you that in the color palette section, you can actually select DMC and see all the different colored floss DMC has, which is awesome. The designs I’ve done so far are pretty basic, so I’m not sure if it can handle things like quarter stitches. Supposedly you can add lines for back stitching, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to make that work yet. I would totally share the designs I’ve made, except they’re for my BFF’s husband’s birthday, and while I doubt he reads the blog, I don’t want him seeing them over her shoulder or anything like that. The other design is for my sister’s birthday, and she does sometimes read the blog, so that’ll have to wait until March.

The other apps have to do with pixel art. uPixel has you rotate a 3D collection of pixels until you recreate the icon in the corner. It’s pretty easy until you get to the higher levels. In Pic-a-Pix (and there are many other versions of this game out there), you try to create a picture by filling in the squares of a grid using boxes along the axes that tells you how many squares in that column/row are filled in, and for colored pictures, which color to use. It’s kind of like Sudoku meets paint by  numbers. The final is PathPix, where again you’re recreating a picture, this time by connecting the “dots”, which are actually boxes. You have to match like to like for both color and number, while filling in the same number of squares as the number. So, if the box is an orange 3, you have to connect it to another orange 3 while filling in 3 squares. Again, the first few levels are really simple, but it gets more complicated in the higher levels. I was stuck on #144- the graduation cap and diploma- for a few days!

All right, three readers, there ya go. Three weeks of entertainment for this Indoor Cat. Hopefully work calms down a bit so I can post more regularly! Or, I start remembering to post from home… Eh, we’ll see.

Happy 2013!

Happy New Year!

As the majority of people do, I have a few resolutions for this year. They are quite typical:

1) Eat healthier.

2) Begin working out regularly again.

3) Stick to my budget.

Good luck with your own resolutions or goals for 2013!

Best Movies of 2013

I did best shows, and now on the final day of the year, I’ll do a quick post on the movies I enjoyed most in 2013.

1) Argo. I was on the edge of my seat during the airport scene! I thought the tension in the movie was amazing, considering I know how it worked out since it’s based on true events. The cast was fantastic; Ben Affleck did a great job directing it. Great film.

2) Silver Linings Playbook. Oh sure, it’s a little bit depressing as first. Bradley Cooper’s Pat is deluded that he’s going to get his wife and his old job back and has so much trouble relating to his family- it’s all a bit heartbreaking. But, eventually, the movie starts to show that silver lining and gives us a happy ending.

3) Celeste and Jesse Forever. Again, heartbreaking. The whole movie is heartbreaking. I watched with tears in my eyes as two people who truly loved each other and cared for each other tried to move on from each other. Seeing them hurt each other, both intentionally and unintentionally, was truly difficult. A great, great movie, but if you’re a bit bummed, watching Celeste and Jesse may make you kill yourself!

4) Lincoln. A late addition to the list- I just saw it this past weekend- but a great movie. Daniel Day Lewis is exceptional as Lincoln. The way he truly transformed himself is really remarkable. I will be shocked if he doesn’t win best actor. Tommy Lee Jones was also great, playing Thaddeus Stevens.

5) The Dark Knight Rises. The anticipation for this one was high, and it didn’t disappoint. Anne Hathaway was good as Catwoman (if a bit overrated), but the movie was a great conclusion to an epic story.

6) The Avengers. I was a bit concerned about Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk, plus I wasn’t sure how the movie was going to balance all the superheros. But, the movie was excellent, everything you’d expect for a summer tentpole movie.

7) The Bourne Legacy. Another movie I was concerned about, I wasn’t sure how the transition from Matt Damon to Jeremy Renner was going to go. Could Jeremy Renner really be a Bourne level action star? Well, yes he could. Renner was great, and his chemistry with Rachel Weisz was very natural.

8) Safety Not Guaranteed. Most of the indies I watched this year were very disappointing. They’d either end with no real resolution, or were just so damn boring! Safety Not Guaranteed was the exception. A real ending, though my sister and I disagree on what really happened in the end, and a real, intriguing story. Some of the details are weird and even a little confusing, but it was a story I could get into with characters that I could get behind.

9) Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Long title, good movie. I liked Keira Knightly and Steve Carrell, and I kept wondering how the movie was going to end. (SPOILER ALERT) I mean, in real life the end of the world has been predicted numerous times, and yet here we are. In movies, disasters like the asteroid in SAFFTEOTW are defeated by a couple good looking people. Seeking a Friend doesn’t pull punches though, and the asteroid does indeed hit, which was surprisingly unexpected.

10) 21 Jump Street. Comedies this year were mostly eh, but 21 Jump Street was full on hilarious. I mean, this was the year of Channing Tatum after all! He and Jonah hill have a great bromance, and it’s funny with just the right amount of nods to the original.

11) Madagascar 3. Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh Afro duh duh duh duh duh duh duh Circus. Afro Circus. Afro Circus. Polka dot polka dot polka dot afro! I personally think this is the best of the Madagascar movies. It was fun, funny, and cute.

12) The Five-Year Engagement. This is another somewhat heartbreaking movie. Your heart breaks a bit for Jason Segel’s Tom, who just can’t find his place in the new world of Michigan, and even when he does find a place can’t accept it. He is unsatisfied, left wanting more out of his life, feeling he’s better than his current situation and never seeing the good in it. You heart breaks a bit for Emily Blunt’s Violet, who feels guilty for uprooting Tom and his unhappiness, guilty in her own happiness that she is able to pursue her academic dreams. (SPOILERS AGAIN) When they finally split, your heart breaks that these two people who clearly love each other can’t get out of their own way in order to make it work. Luckily, there’s a happy ending for us, and one of the most adorable ones ever in my opinion. It’s definitely a study in accepting that life you have and finding the good in it, rather than comparing it to the life in your head (your expectations) and constantly being disappointed. In my opinion.

What was your favorite movie of the year?