Category Archives: Misc. Media

Morgan Freeman Photos Convey Authority, Win Debates, Certify Anything as Gold

December 17, 2012 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Morgan FreemanDuring the solemn, lamentable weekend following last Friday’s senseless tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, Facebook users who were already struggling with their own reactions, the reactions of their friends, and the fights breaking out between friends of conflicting reactions all found themselves interrupted dozens of times over the course of the weekend by the reassuring face of Academy Award Winner Morgan Freeman, perceived as one of the kindliest, most grandfatherly figures in all of Hollywood. His face was attached to a short essay decrying the culpability of mass media in encouraging too many broken young men to become power-tripping mass murderers because of the seedy allure of posthumous headlines and ten minutes of front-page infamy. Few would argue with the content of the well-meaning essay, but this wasn’t just any old essay written by an ostensibly intelligent typist. This was an essay attached to a photo of Academy Award Winner Morgan Freeman.

Somehow the photo imbued those words with a godlike acumen that transcended all racial, economic, and spiritual barriers. Within seconds one out of every one-and-a-half Facebook users was forwarding the words and picture to everyone in striking distance under the assumption that they naturally had something to do with each other. No need for fact-checking, no verifying sources, no asking why Freeman would release a public statement as if he’s an official White House spokesman — someone they knew forwarded it to them, so it had to be true.

What you saw probably resembled this, except more professionally cobbled together and without my modified attribution:

Morgan Freeman Fraud Sample

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The Songs That Sour My Christmas Spirit

December 7, 2012 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Home Alone Christmas

Detail from the worst Christmas CD cover in my collection. What’s wrong with poor Kevin’s face?

For those stricken annually by some measure of Christmas cheer, we all have our favorite songs for the occasion. I’ve always been partial to “The First Noel”, which is followed by a long list of other classics and obscurities, both hymnal and secular. For my wife, I’m 95% certain “O Holy Night” wins the prize. (If I’m wrong, I’m sure I’ll learn the error of my ways shortly. Updates as they occur.)

When (at least) one of our local radio stations switches to a 24/7 Christmas format in late November, their limited playlist includes a handful of tracks I don’t mind hearing more than once throughout the month-long seasonal commercialization. However, since I’m not their primary listener, they’re also prone to spinning several holiday staples that I wouldn’t miss if they disappeared from heavy rotation forever:

* Eartha Kitt, “Santa Baby” — The first few hundred times I heard this ostensible satire of trophy-wife Christmas greed, I thought it was recorded during an earlier era when pining for material wealth was acceptable in pop music, decades before today’s top-40 artists dedicated entire careers to the subject. Perhaps the line about the platinum mine should have tipped me off sooner to the true nature of Kitt’s unreliable narrator, but how was I supposed to know that our ancestors didn’t really consider platinum mines a must-have? I’ve resented the song ever since for making me think too hard about something so shallow. I’m marginally more tolerant of Madonna’s cover because her Betty Boop impression better suits the satirical bent. I’m not sure what to think of the Everclear cover that transforms the narrator into a spoiled-rotten upper-class gay man.

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A Photo Salute to Green, Before it Retreats into Hibernation for the Winter

November 17, 2012 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 14 Comments

This week’s edition of the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is the first such challenge I’ve ever attempted. It’s not a fierce competition with a major award at stake, but I feel sheepish daring to share a theme with so many top-notch professionals who do this for a living and/or have had extensive formal training. In the spirit of fun, though, I’m giving the Challenge a whirl anyway.

Behold my octet of entrants from my own collection, submitted in the categorical competition of general greenery:

1. Sugar Creek runs through Turkey Run State Park near Rockville, Indiana.

Turkey Run State Park, Rockville, Indiana

2. The Jolly Green Giant, standing tall and proud in Blue Earth, Minnesota.

Jolly Green Giant, Blue Earth, Minnesota

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Pumpkin Flavored Everything

November 7, 2012 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , 5 Comments

The DPChallenge Family!In that blessed golden age when my sister and I still had Dad in our lives, years before we would begin taking turns conducting periodic manhunts in vain, we never saw him happier or more vibrant than when Mom would let him dress us in our Sunday finest so we could walk with him door-to-door around the neighborhood, knocking on doors and extolling the virtues of the Great Pumpkin.

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Disney Acquires Lucasfilm, Announces “Star Wars: Episode VII”, Steals Headlines from Horrible Hurricane Whatsitsname

October 30, 2012 By in Misc. Media, Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Disney + Lucasfilm = $$$$$$$The Internet cracked in half Tuesday afternoon when the Walt Disney Company announced it would be spending $4.05 billion on the acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd. lock, stock, and blaster barrel. Compared to the $4.24 billion that Disney paid for Marvel Entertainment in 2009, Lucasfilm was quite the sweetheart deal. Though many legal approvals and compliance processes are still underway, Disney sweetened the deal by announcing plans to have Star Wars Episode VII in theaters by 2015, just in case government officials needed more incentive to permit the existence of a Disney/Marvel/Pixar/Lucasfilm supercorporation.

The Internet has already spent hours brainstorming the potential ramifications of this creative business arrangement. The usual social networks instantly lost interest in the upcoming election and any major death-related news events. Any long-dormant Star Wars message boards just received a massive defibrillator shock they never saw coming. Within a month or so, expect the mainstream media to hop on the bandwagon and regurgitate all our online blurbs.

Alas, without further elaboration from the parties involved, all we have as of today is unfounded speculation and a long list of questions. So many random thoughts, so little confirmation of what to expect:

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The View from 128,000 Feet

October 14, 2012 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In case you somehow missed it because of football games on TV: today Austrian skydiver and BASE-jumper Felix Baumgartner broke more than one world record by riding a balloon 128,000 feet into the outer reaches of what can still technically be called atmosphere, jumping out of his claustrophobic cockpit, free-falling at speeds exceeding Mach 1, and landing safely several minutes later on the correct planet and in one very relieved piece.

This was his view mere moments before taking one small step for sponsor Red Bull, and one giant leap for mankind:

Felix Baumgartner, Red Bull Stratos freefall #livejump

Nothing I do for the rest of my life will ever be as cool as this. I think I’m getting ill just looking at this.

Temperatures outside the capsule were near zero Fahrenheit. Baumgartner and his beautiful balloon were upward bound for over 2½ hours before maxing out in the upper reaches of near-outer-space. He and Mission Control reviewed an exhaustive checklist of 30+ steps and checks before undertaking his epic plunge, not including what must have been an extensive, tortuous process to arrive at this historic moment in the first place. Cameras followed him as best they could every step of the way, and broadcast their viewpoints via live YouTube feed.

I imagine much of that footage should be reposted by hundreds of impressed YouTube users by the time I finish posting this. As of this minute, no such luck. Please hurry so everyone who missed it can see for themselves, fast-forward through the few quiet moments, and know what daredevil courage looks like in action.

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Updated 4:30 p.m. EDT: video posted at last. Now that’s service!

Internet Commenters Demand Legislation Against Complex Sentences

September 15, 2012 By in Meta, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Hello, readers. How are you? I am hunky-dory.

Today was a good day. I got to rest. I ate good food. I watched some DVD extras. One was a documentary. It was about A Night to Remember. That movie was about the Titanic. The documentary was not fun. The photos were okay. The narrators were all very old men. They talked a lot. Sometimes they talked for many minutes. They talked very slowly. Sometimes there were very long pauses. Then they talked some more. They were nice men. I felt like a great-grandchild. I did not see the last fifteen minutes. I stopped the DVD early. I was sleepy.

Then I got on the Internet. It has interesting pages. I wanted to read a movie review. It was about The Master. I have mentioned that movie before. Joaquin Phoenix is angry and confused. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is charming and maybe evil. Amy Adams is happy and unhappy. I may go see it. I have not decided. My city is not showing it yet. Maybe they will show it in October.

The review was written by a movie critic. Her name is Lisa Schwarzbaum. Her boss is named Entertainment Weekly. She has worked there for decades. She likes itty-bitty foreign films. She also likes movies about sexiness. Sometimes I do not agree with her. Sometimes I do. She uses big words and long sentences. I can usually understand her. Sometimes I also use big words and long sentences. Sometimes she mentions really weird movies. That does not bother me. Sometimes I also talk about weird things.

Ms. Schwarzbaum liked The Master very much. She gave it an A. Her review had big words and long sentences. This was the last sentence of her review:

The cubism of the concluding third of the picture allows a disoriented viewer to consider this singular movie not only as a character portrait, but also as a photographic travel diary, from the days before Instagram, by an important artist following the itinerary of Americans seeking salvation and prosperity when an exterior world war was over but interior psychological battles raged.

The word “cubism” threw me for a moment. I looked it up on the Internet. It has dictionaries and WikiPedia in it. I found Cubism in there. Now I understand the whole sentence. “Cubism” is a good word for a Paul Thomas Anderson film.

Some readers did not like her review. They really did not like her last sentence. A few readers said mean things about her. One reader said this direct quote:

…it is exhausting – why does she have to create super complex sentences with thesaurus worthy big words – it doesn’t impress me, it belittles me. and that last sentence, WTF? I’d hate to be stuck next to a cooler with her, attempting to carry on a conversation about the latest small town drama. Know your audience.

Her audience does not like long sentences or big words. “Entertainment” is a big word. Lisa’s words are mostly shorter than “entertainment”. They should rename the magazine Things Weekly. The audience would like them better.

Another unhappy reader said this direct quote:

“the cubism of the final third……….” this sentence is not only THE most pretentious piece of critical crap I’ve ever read, it also convinced me not see the probable load of “important” blarney that inspired it.

The Internet has many pretentious pieces of critical crap. I have read some of them. I usually do not rank them. Some reviews can be pretentious and not crap. Sometimes I like pretentiousness. That word is even bigger than “entertainment”. It does not scare me. I used to be an English major. Other English majors scared me. One time our class talked about “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. That is an old story about gross murders. One victim was stuffed inside a chimney. One classmate had a theory about the scene’s meaning. He used the phrase “return-to-the-womb motif”. I was very scared. I wanted to leave class immediately. Now I am older. I have conquered that fear.

Ms. Schwarzbaum probably writes how she wants. Maybe she even thinks that way. Her writing made other people sad. She should rewrite her last sentence. It should be many sentences. The sad people might like the new sentences. They could look like this:

The movie shows you things about each character. Some of those things are very different from each other. It takes place in the past. The old places tell one long story. It is better than random photos. The story comes after a war. People were not happy yet. They had a lot to think about. They tried to make money and be saved. The movie is very good. The director is neat.

Shorter sentences can be happier sentences. The biggest word in those sentences is “different”. That word should not be scary. I think Liza Schwarzbaum is a different writer. Maybe I am a very different reader.

Well, got to go. Have a nice day. I will see you all tomorrow. My next entry may have commas and more clauses in it because of pretentiousness. I hope you will not hate my important blarney. I promise I will not read it aloud to you with extra long pauses. That might make it worse.

Using Time Loops to Dream-Cast the “Miss Peregrine” Movie

September 8, 2012 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

DON'T LOOK AT US! DON'T YOU LOOK AT US!

“Mmmm, box office receipts.”

I usually avoid reading recommendations from coworkers because few among them share my tastes. (Twilight? Not really aimed at me. The Shack? ) Not only did I recently make an exception, I’m glad I did so, when I was allowed to borrow a copy of Ransom Riggs’ first novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I’d read a review of it a while back in Entertainment Weekly that stuck in my head because of the unusual creative conceit behind it: Riggs amassed numerous bizarre, disturbing, or just plain head-scratching yesteryear photos of haunting-looking children and developed a narrative to string them together. Granted, anyone with bad vacation photos could muster at least a short story out of their own useless outtakes, but the photos in question elevate the project several levels above that.

On an overly reductive level, it’s a WWII-set X-Men vs. Groundhog Day. Jacob Portman is a present-day 16-year-old misfit who finagles his way to an obscure island near Wales to investigate his sketchy family history after his grandfather dies under violent circumstances. A trail of mystery and oddities leads Jacob into a place outside of time where a most unusual headmistress presides over a coterie of kids with impossible powers and features, here called “peculiars” instead of “mutants” — living in secret inside an endlessly repeating day for their own protection. There are super-powers, magical feats, disgusting things, poetic moments, terrifying evils, an open ending that begs for further journeys, and that mad, mad picture collection. I was left satisfied and ready for more.

According to the author’s official website, as of February 2012 the book has been optioned for big-screen adaptation, with big names attached such as director Tim Burton and screenwriter Jane Goldman, between whom I can easily see this being renamed Big Fish: First Class.

Please note the Courtesy Spoiler Alert at this point, where I’m about to delve a little further into character specifics. If this is still on your reading pile, now’s the time for a graceful exit, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

…

…

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Today’s Unrelated Things: Joss Whedon, Action Hero; and “The Killing”, Inaction Victim

July 29, 2012 By in Misc. Media, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

For Rosie Larsen, justice was served far, far too late.

Last Friday AMC announced their cancellation of The Killing after two controversial seasons. What launched as a grim-‘n’-gritty crime drama with a unique tone and a promising premise strained to sustain viewer patience, culminating in a season-one finale that launched a thousand ‘Net-fits when it ended To Be Continued. TV fans raised on the complete, self-contained, season-long arcs of superior shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars were unaware that any showrunners in this age would still rely on the ancient TV model of ending a season with a DVD-boxed-set-ruining cliffhanger. We former might have been more forgiving if the season had been more satisfying. Alas, ’twas not the case here.

Before season two premiered, my half of a conversation with a friend digressed into a diatribe about my discontent with the show and my bold plan not to watch a single episode of season two, despite the thirteen hours of my time already invested without benefit of closure. My tantrum went like so:

I patiently allowed myself to be strung along for thirteen hours’ worth of watching one truly original character, several mopey characters, and one aggravatingly incompetent protagonist. I labored under the delustion that the season would be a fulfilling story in and of itself. I waited it out through thin and thinner, enduring unbelievable acts of stupidity committed in extreme slow motion by characters that would’ve been fired or murdered long ago if the same had happened in real life, under the expectation (fostered by precedents set by other, better shows, not to mention 99% of all other whodunits throughout recorded entertainment history) that closure for the simple question of “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” would be forthcoming in a timely manner.

When the show revealed itself to be an extended tease for a resolution that might or might not occur in some future season, unless they decide never to solve it, which they totally could if they wanted to, meaningless press releases in recent months notwithstanding, and when showrunner Veena Sud confirmed that they never intended to solve the mystery in season 1…I was not remotely happy.

And it wasn’t just for my own sake, but for my wife’s, whose reaction was even more vehement and scary than mine. She and I rarely watch any new TV shows together, but just this once she had trusted my recommendation and given The Killing a shot. It was fun to watch the show together, to compare our notes and thoughts on a shared experience.

So that blew up in my face. When the finale ended with the complete non-solution and the one original character betraying us, she instantly swore off the show, and she’s not fully trusted a TV recommendation of mine ever since.

So thank you, Veena Sud, for helping me not spend more time with my wife. I’ve never been this excited about not watching a TV show, but now I’m zealously anticipating any and all Schadenfreude I can derive at your show’s expense.

…but I’m feeling much better now. I honestly expected this to be a minority opinion that would long forgotten somewhere around the show’s fifth season. Apparently I wasn’t the only upset customer who upheld their promise, refused to tune in again, and passed the time until the finale aired and online news sites reported the mystery’s solution.

For what it’s worth, my wife bought me season one of Sherlock for our eighth anniversary a couple of weeks ago, in hopes that we’ll have time to enjoy it together. Neither of us has seen an episode yet (I’ve watched one brilliant scene online, under the title “Sherlock Holmes, Grammar Nazi”), but trustworthy people keep recommending it. Here’s hoping.

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Since I’m not really in the mood for a complete downer of an entry, enclosed below is something completely different. If you’ve already seen it six times in the last week because your friends flooded all your Internet inboxes with links to it, I’ll understand if you groan and fire up your escape pod now.

From the producers of The Guild, a new Web series called Written by a Kid springboards from simple storytelling segments with children ages four to nine, who still say the darnedest things after all these years. Whereas Bill Cosby would only allow each of his interviewees a brief moment in the spotlight, Written by a Kid moves one step beyond and turns each child’s improv short-story into an animated tale of whimsy and wonder.

Episode one is called “Scary Smash”, about a one-eyed monster on a milkman-murdering rampage and the SQUAT team captain that takes seven days to stop him. Starring Dave Foley (Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug’s Life) as the dead milkman, Kate Micucci (stuff I’ve never seen) as a latecomer to the war, and, in his first starring action role, TV’s Joss Whedon (TV’s Angel, TV’s Firefly) as that steadfast captain, Gerald by name, who wields a sword and a shield and a gun and a small gun.

…and now you know how to count to ten hundred.

If you watch as many YouTube shows as my son does, you may also recognize some of Gerald’s poor, ineffective soldiers in split-second cameos, including YouTube stars Rhett and Link, and executive producer Felicia Day herself.

For a first effort, it’s not bad. It may be the last time in this kid’s life that he will know the joy of having a script produced without a rewrite by a meddling studio hack.

Y’know what I liked best about it? It told a complete story in four minutes flat.

“Fight for Space” Documentary to Ask: Whatever Happened to the Final Frontier?

July 28, 2012 By in Misc. Media, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

At the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, KS, this sign looms over you as you descend the steps into the main exhibit hall in their basement, where rests a comprehensive collection of rockets, spaceships, and aeronautical paraphernalia from various countries that share an active or tangential history with space travel. Man’s quest for space has been fraught with skepticism, debate, setbacks, and major disasters. “Difficulties” is an understatement.

That basement location is an apt metaphor for the state of American spaceflight today, compared to other agendas and priorities that garner larger headlines and weigh on us more heavily in the moment. What once seemed like a top-shelf objective for purposes of scientific research and frontier exploration is now a set of mostly forgotten toys boxed up and forgotten in some dark corner. A few weird kids still cherish them and try to make the most of them, but no one else is interested in watching them play or buying them better toys.

The Cosmosphere has one small section dedicated to the current state of space travel aspiration, including photos of several independent companies and programs (not just American) dedicated to continuing the work that NASA started but now seems too crippled to pursue alone. I had passing familiarity with Virgin Galactic and SpaceX before we visited the Cosmosphere on this year’s road trip, but I was surprised to see that several other would-be pioneers have tossed their hat into the ring to see what they can make happen.

I’m not surprised at my relative lack of awareness. I first learned about the 2010 mothballing of the Space Shuttle program from a 2009 exhibit at Chicago’s Field Museum. I couldn’t believe that such a declaration of retreat hadn’t somehow caught my attention before. A tiny shuttle diorama had to break the news to me. When events and successes occur in or about space, they tend to be reported in the back section of your few remaining local newspapers (the same section containing “news” such as “College Study Shows Eating Causes Fat”), or in an easily overlooked article link buried among two dozen other such links in the “Stories with Ten Hits or Less” section of your favorite news site. If we’re not actively hunting for space news, our odds of keeping tabs on it by casual happenstance are nil.

Filmmaker Paul Hildebrandt is working on a new feature-length documentary called Fight for Space that aims to update us all on just what happened to the space race, where it is now, who does or doesn’t care, and why America’s support for it has all but withered away. Hildebrandt and his crew have already conducted numerous interviews with scientists and non-scientists alike, with plans and hopes to keep adding more diverse viewpoints to the mix that would push the movie even closer to fairness and balance.

To that end, Hildebrandt launched his Fight for Space Kickstarter campaign last week to fund his efforts beyond the initial investments. At their current rate of acceleration the project should be fully funded by Monday, so a desperate call to arms and wheedling for more money is hardly necessary. Regardless, pledges are still accepted, the reward packages are generous, and I’m curious to see if extra support would make the movie even snazzier.

The Kickstarter page has a short video with excerpts from some of the interviewees already in the can — the likes of Neil Degrasse Tyson, the inimitable Bill Nye the Science Guy, Star Trek: Voyager‘s Robert Picardo, and several studious-looking science guys that some of you probably know and love. (I wasn’t kidding about my ignorance.) The same page also informs us of PBS’ officially piqued interest; shows us a 2013 US government budget projection that would provide NASA with just enough lunch money for half its staff; and links to an hour-long speech from Tyson, who I’m told may be the coolest astrophysicist of all time.

I’m not sure I foresee the Fight for Space campaign becoming another Order of the Stick, but I look forward to seeing this movie, and I wouldn’t mind if they had the chance and the resources to make it even bigger and better. At the very least, maybe they can use the extra petty cash to buy NASA the largest Christmas turkey in the shopkeeper’s window.

They Might Be Giants Dance Number on “Bunheads” Wins My TV Week, and It’s Only Monday

July 23, 2012 By in Misc. Media, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 10 Comments

Apparently because the showrunners can peer inside my mind and divine all the right ways to earn an instant thumbs-up, tonight’s episode of Bunheads concluded with Sasha (played by Julia Goldani Telles — in Archie Comics terms, she’s the Reggie of our four teen heroines) and two backup dancers performing a routine set to They Might Be Giants’ classic “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. It pains me to realize their version of the song is now over twenty years old and therefore qualified for “classic” status on age alone, despite complete lack of Top-40 love or common-man opinion, but there it is. I owned a copy of Flood long before the song was famously featured in an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures.

Their Malcolm in the Middle theme notwithstanding, any other chance to hear TMBG tunes outside the Internet or my CD collection is a rare major event in my life. I have zero (0) local friends who get them, not even my own family. In all their years of existence I’ve heard Indianapolis radio play exactly one TMBG song exactly one time, and why that honor went to a single rotation of “AKA Driver” I cannot even begin to speculate. I’ve seen them twice in concert — once at the now-defunct Music Mill and once at the Vogue — and in both cases I had to attend alone. Hence their headline status tonight. For me this is huge, even if it’s just for me and only me.

To the show’s credit, tonight’s episode was full of fun concepts even before the epilogue. Concept #1 provided the episode title, “Movie Truck”. Our main characters spend an evening grouped separately by age inside a full-on movie truck, which I gathered from the background glimpses is like Indianapolis’ own food trucks, except instead of food they serve a cinema inside a truck, walled with gypsy quilts and furnished with interior seating for a fair crowd. Someone must invent this if they haven’t already.

Trendsetting concept #2 in dire need of widespread acceptance and franchising: the cupcake ATM. When Michelle’s birthday night-on-the-town threatens to end before dawn because of Paradise’s small-town closing hours (I’ve known this pain, albeit without Michelle’s love of alcohol), a blessedly sober Truly is still enthralled by night-on-the-town fever (in an increasingly bubblier performance by Stacey Oristano as a meek-girl-gone-slightly-less-mild) and offers to drive them out to a rumored 24-hour cupcake ATM over in L.A. One scene later it’s dawn, they’re still awake but a little less toasted, and they have cupcakes thanks to the invention of a Redbox stocked with snacks instead of flicks. I can only hope the contents of this magical bakery-vending machine aren’t facilitated by an evil preservative formula that maintains freshness from within the product, like a reverse Hostess wrapper.

I hastily researched but couldn’t confirm the existence of a movie truck in real life (yet). To prove Bunheads isn’t secretly a science fiction show, I did find the following evidence of an alleged cupcake ATM sighting that doesn’t appear to be an SNL Digital Short or College Humor offering:

Concept #3 wouldn’t be my thing if it were real, but I won’t be surprised to see it exist within a year: Mountain of Arms, the R-rated movie-within-the-episode that I assume is like The Crawling Hand crossed with The Human Centipede. Our Four Teen Heroines obtain movie-truck passes and sneak out to see this future Criterion Collection classic without permission, all the better to escape an unfortunately epic rumble between Sasha’s troubled parents. I never had the wherewithal to pull such a stunt when I was a teen, but there was the time when I was eleven and snuck over to my friends’ house to watch Friday the 13th parts 1 and 3 on a surprise snow day when parents had to work. I recognize this ritual even if I naturally don’t condone it as an adult. (The moral: kids, do as I say now and not as I did then. And that’s…one to grow on.)

Between the majority of the above and an amusing sequence of movie-truck musical chairs, I found this a great character-building episode tonight (and I think I finally have all four girls’ names memorized now), even if it ended on a downer of a note, as relations between Sasha’s parents hit a new low, and a fateful letter in the wake of last week’s Joffrey Ballet auditions brings rewarding news that threatens to separate one of our lucky heroines from her best friends. I’m not sure which part of that is meant to be symbolized by Sasha’s non sequitur “Istanbul” set. Some deep thinking might be in order.

ABC Family will post the episode for online viewing on Tuesday, so another run-through of Flood will have to do until then.

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Updated 7/24/2012, 7:30 EDT: Someone’s posted the “Istanbul” segment online! Enjoy before Disney or ABC Family shoot it down:

Updated 8/2/2012, 8:05 EDT: As expected, the YouTube user took it down days ago. I’ve left it up for posterity because I hate being too much of a George Lucas with my old posts.

Updated 12/9/2012, 7:00 EST: Oh, what the heck — here it is anyway:

US Postal Service Rewards Old Snail-Mail Diehards with Classic Film Directors’ Stamps

June 14, 2012 By in Misc. Media, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I’m no stamp collector, but even in this modernized world, my wife and I remain regular USPS customers for a variety of purposes, and not just for receiving grocery circulars or avalanches of unread political ads during every election season. When it’s time to restock our stamps, I prefer not to settle for buying the commonest sets available because I’m enamored of the notion of stamps as a decorative flourish, even if they’re affixed to envelopes that no human will ever directly see or handle. I appreciate that the clerks at our regular post office are patient with me whenever I ask to see all the available varieties on hand. I especially appreciated their tolerance the year my wife and I exercised a random whim and mailed some of our Christmas cards using a sheet of Hanukkah stamps. They certainly had plenty of sheets available.

The USPS previously captured my attention and fandom with stamp series devoted to super-heroes and Pixar. Now they’re blatantly baiting me again with their new Great Film Directors sheet, which celebrates four legendary men and one each of their celebrated films: Frank Capra and It Happened One Night; John Ford and The Searchers; John Huston and The Maltese Falcon; and Billy Wilder and Some Like It Hot. I refuse to believe it’s coincidental that they chose four films I’ve actually watched and liked. Someone in the Postmaster General’s Office is clearly angling for me.

The stamps are available online now, but I’m resisting the urge as of this moment. If I do yield to temptation and buy a sheet, the hard part will be letting go of them when their time comes. Like it or not, I’ve already come to terms with knowing deep down that I don’t have the predilection for full-time philately. I accepted this after coveting the Pixar stamps for months, letting them stay in my greedy possession and gather dust in an out-of-sight drawer, until I finally relented and set them free to serve their intended purpose. I try to kid myself that if just one mailroom intern at just one of our utility companies glanced at our monthly payment and felt a frisson of delight at the sight of Sheriff Woody’s twinkly smile in the middle of their humdrum workday, then setting those stamps free was worth it, I guess.

Either way, I appreciate the efforts of the USPS to atone on behalf of the AMPAS for The Searchers‘ complete shutout at the 29th Academy Awards. How ’bout them apples, whoever made Around the World in 80 Days for me to snooze through? Have fun waiting for Cantinflas ever to grace the corner of my mortgage payments.

Madonna, Catwoman, Roger Sterling Headline Naughty-Old-Folks’ Week

June 12, 2012 By in Comics/Lit, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Usually I skip past any news article whose title contains the words “to Pose Nude”, “Flashes Nipple”, “Sex Scandal”, or “Brokeback Pose”. I get testy whenever the media tries using sex or nudity to compete with my wife for my attention. Anyone signing up for that competition is gonna lose.

It’s downright aggravating when the incidents flock together, regardless of whether or not it’s the kind of nekkidness-based stunt that would actually do anything for me if I were single and in need of sinful stimulation. Oddly, this week’s early contestants are nowhere near the under-30 demographic that readers and viewers usually prefer in their eye candy. To wit:

* Madonna, age 53: Entertainment Weekly cheerfully posted footage of an apparent reprise of her “Justify My Love” post-glory days. I have no plans to watch or post the video (I feel conflicted enough merely linking to the article linking to the clip), but I’m prepared to take a tremendous leap of grossly unfounded assumption and just induce/deduce/whicheverduce that the clip features Madonna singing some old song no one wants to sing along to, rolling her eyes as the audience’s attention wanes, doffing the right article of clothing, yelling “Artistic relevance!”, and then tearing a photo of Janet Jackson in half, all while the audience brandish their earbuds and Google “lady gaga videos” on their smartphones.

* Catwoman, age 72: DC Comics announced their September 2012 initiative of revisiting their 1994 zero-issue stunt with their entire 52-series lineup (plus a few special guests). Standing out among the sample covers is Catwoman #0, striking one of the most improbable poses of her decades-long career, displaying a kind of extreme yoga that would have snapped all of Julie Newmar’s ligaments and rent several muscle groups asunder even in her prime. DC loves its male-majority audience, presumably doesn’t care if women read Catwoman or not, and will no doubt argue that her impression of Stretch Armstrong is somehow empowering. The fact that her face is in the picture at all is, I’m guessing, a concession to appease the licensed-merchandise division that has action figures to sell based on her entire body, not just the artist’s favorite parts.

* Roger Sterling, age 49. Last Sunday’s Mad Men season finale had its share of memorable moments. For me, the most indelible was the haunting tongue-lashing of Megan’s mom, intended to crush her daughter’s enviable ambition. For too many others, it was the sight of Roger Sterling dropping a second hit of LSD while gazing at his window reflection in his birthday suit. I don’t think this actually garnered any mainstream headlines; I’m just using this space to plead for some magical way to unsee this. I suppose I should be grateful that Sterling’s gold was mercifully facing away from the camera. One could debate it’s a telling sign of Roger’s deteriorating emotional state, but having him inexplicably don Howdy Doody boxers or maybe a Bo Peep costume in his stupor could’ve also accomplished that, albeit with a differently scarring effect.

A Moment of Anti-Silence for MCA

May 4, 2012 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Today the Internet reposts its favorite Beastie Boys videos as tribute to Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, passed away too young at 47. The group notified fans on their official email list about his cancer a few years back, when it arose during the original Hot Sauce Committee recording sessions. I thought it had gone into remission months later. I was unaware of the unfortunate status change.

My vote for tribute is the first song that convinced me they had any intent of becoming Serious Artists instead of languishing as party-chasing musical pranksters. Licensed to Ill seemed at the time like novelty rock. I never “got” Paul’s Boutique, though I can understand why it has its fans. To me, Check Your Head seemed like a stronger leap forward, particularly the first single, “Pass the Mic”, though our local corporate alt-rock station prefers endless revisits to “Sabotage” and “So Whatcha Want”. It’s a rarity of sorts in that MCA leads off for once instead of batting cleanup.

One last pass of the mic, then. Note the dominoes at the end for unintended, retroactive gravitas.

To be honest, the first apropos tribute that sprang to mind was “Bodhisattva Vow”, the closest he ever came to a solo performance (as far as I’ve experienced, anyway). My beliefs aren’t Buddhist by any stretch, but I was intrigued by the passion that drove him to compose such a complex expression of what drove him. Sadly, the only linkable upload I could locate was a live version with muddled sound. My own copy of Ill Communication is a dub cassette that does it little justice.