Movie stuff

I watched Dear John the other night. Even though I swore I would never read a Nicholas Sparks novel, or watch a movie based on one, my love for Amanda Seyfried is STRONG. I was so not in the mood for a sappy love story, but I figured, hey, it's Nicholas Sparks, so somebody's probably gonna die, right? And my faith was rewarded! People dying all over the place! \o/ I was, of course, predisposed to cry my eyes out, even though it was INSANELY cliched, but Amanda Seyfried is adorable as usual.

Last night, I saw Emma Caulfield's movie, TiMER, which was really cute. It's got a sort of "sci-fi lite" premise, which it uses to do some interesting things with the concept of soul mates. Love is now in the domain of science thanks to an implanted device (the titular timer) that tells you exactly when you'll meet The One - an idea that assumes, of course, that there's only one true love for everybody. It was supposed to make things easier - and it has apparently cut down on divorce - but it also raises a whole host of difficult questions: How do you deal with the arranged-marriage nature of forming a relationship with a total stranger you'll eventually love? What if you meet your one at 16? Or what if you won't meet your one until far in the future - do you wait around for them or have sex with no strings attached, knowing it won't go anywhere? If you meet someone you really like, but they're not your one, do you risk the digitally doomed romance? In the midst of all that, Emma's character illustrates how frustrating and scary an uncertain future can be. Her one hasn't gotten a timer, which means that hers is blank, leaving her in the dark about when - or if - she'll ever find her soul mate. Tired of obsessively searching for Mr. Right, she takes a risk on a guy whose timer has only four months left. Now she has to decide - trust the technology or follow her heart?

I also watched Seven Pounds, which was... meh. I tend to feel this neighborly affection for Will Smith, since he went to my dad's high school and all, and he does turn in a decent performance. But the movie doesn't really deliver much of anything. It's kinda icky on multiple levels, and yet not really dark enough to be intentionally disturbing. I'm also confused whether it's actually supposed to be a mystery or not. It seems like they sort of wanted a twist at the end, but telegraphed it so blatantly that it's hardly surprising by the time we get to the reveal.

TV stuff

I think I am losing stamina in my TV-watching project. It is quite a lot of work, but my Netflix queue is hovering at a perilous 499 (the max is 500) and I feel almost obligated to clear it out a bit.

I finally finished Rome. I don't know if it was me or the quality of the show, but I found myself getting bored a little more often in season 2 than in season 1. I liked it, but in a very detached way, such that I really didn't care about any of the characters. I mean, a LOT of people die in season 2, and I can't think of a single one that made me do more than shrug. (And it's not the "history is a spoiler" issue - I knew Caesar was going to die, and it still worked.)

I have noticed a pattern with the painfully long premium channel credits, though. The more I like a show, the more likely I am to fast forward through the opening credit sequence and not waste time getting to the next episode. I never watched the credits with Dexter, I watched them about half the time with Dead Like Me, and I always seem to watch them with Rome because I can't be bothered to fast forward.

I started watching Fawlty Towers, and unfortunately, was not terribly impressed. I can't help thinking it's just not as funny as it thinks it is. Maybe because it's old and all the jokes seem cliche now? I watched up to episode 5, but it felt like a chore to finish it up before moving on to the next show, so I decided to abandon it and skip to something else...

Which was series 1 of The Office (UK). It's weird how there's this sense of deja vu (especially in the first episode, which was almost identical), even though I know the UK version came first. I don't think I have an opinion yet on which is better, though at the moment I lean toward the US version, both because I saw it first and thus it is the standard to which the other is compared, and because I can identify with it better. Sometimes British jokes go over my head. :(

Family stuff

My parents were here last weekend. My mother, of course, brought with her cheeseburgers, broccoli salad, and corn on the cob, which is pretty much a trifecta if she were trying to kill me. :-P If she'd included bran flakes and strawberries, she'd have had Crohn's bingo. On the plus side, I finally managed to go eight weeks without my symptoms coming back (with the exception of certain foods), so we may have finally found the right dose on the Remicade.

While they were here, we finally (FINALLY) went to the Verizon store to get new phones. My parents have been complaining about their phones not holding a charge forever, and I couldn't get a new phone on my own because I'm on a family plan, which means my dad had to be there to sign the contract. Anyway, I ended up with an LG en-V Touch. I don't really know how it works yet. I almost got a Droid, but I didn't want to pay for the more expensive data plan.

A couple days later, I got a voice mail from my mother: "Hi, it's me. I got your call but I couldn't figure out how to answer my phone."

*sigh* Oh, Mother...

I have been delinquent...

And now I have a lot to catch up on.

First, foodie things. Ever since I got sick, I've been eating a lot less red meat, because it does icky things to me, and you know, as much as I like chicken and fish, I can't really eat it all the time, so I've been trying some vegetables (I know!).

Anyway, every summer I crave fried eggplant. When I was a kid, my mom and I used to make it together - she'd do the slicing and battering, and I'd do the frying in a portable deep fryer out on the deck in the backyard. It's one of those things that's not really hard to make, but it makes me feel grown-up to be able to make it myself simply because I associate it with my childhood. I don't know how that works exactly, lol, but it makes sense in my head.

I don't think you really need a recipe - slice, dunk (in egg, then bread crumbs), and fry pretty much covers it. I, unfortunately, had to make do with frying them in a big pan on the stove, which I worried would be terribly messy, but it actually worked out pretty well. I love to eat 'em plain when they're hot and crispy right out of the pan, but I saved some to make eggplant parmigiana, too.

The other thing I have been super excited about is spaghetti squash. I don't know, maybe it's not a novelty to most people, but I just discovered it and thought it was the coolest thing ever. It's squash that acts like spaghetti, how awesome is that? I found a recipe for Spaghetti Squash with Ricotta, Sage, and Pine Nuts and was dying to try it. Sadly, I'd had a lot of trouble finding said squash in order to make it. My regular supermarket didn't seem to carry it, but I tried a different store one weekend and lo, there it was!

It was almost as exciting as I'd anticipated, although cleaning out the seeds reminded me why I don't usually bother carving Halloween pumpkins, lol. But there was this total "OMG awesome!" moment when I scraped it with the fork and it came out spaghetti-like. (I'm easily amused.) It's super easy to make, although I noticed the recipe doesn't say anything about draining or wringing out the squash before mixing with the cheese... there was a bit of a puddle in the bottom of the bowl with my leftovers. The other quibble I had was that the recipe was a little bland. I couldn't find fresh sage (WTF, supermarket?) and used dried instead, so that may have been a factor.

I did a stupid thing...

I was warned.

When I went to Becky's house for 4th of July - Becky, of course, being the one who's been telling me to watch Dead Like Me - I mentioned that I had finally seen it, and I was almost done with season 2, and she said, "There's a movie. Don't watch the movie. You're gonna want to watch it, but don't. It will make you want to gouge out your eyes. It ruins everything."

But I thought, "How bad can it be, really?" So I did it. I watched Dead Like Me: Life After Death.

Holy shit, was I wrong.

It really is that awful. I know you're skeptical, but TRUST ME ON THIS ONE. Think of the worst possible continuation of the show imaginable, and then multiply it by ten, and that's how bad it is. Let's just skip to the hail of bullets, shall we?

Things I hated:

• No Rube. Who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea to do a Dead Like Me movie without Rube? Honestly, I can't blame Mandy Patinkin for wanting to stay far, far away from this dreck, but I want to know who thought it was a good idea to go ahead without him in the first place.


• Daisy. Seriously, what the fuck? I didn't think they could make Daisy MORE awful, but you know what? THEY DID IT. Y'all know I hate Laura Harris, right? The only way they could possibly have made it worse is if they replaced her with Sarah Wynter. So, of course, that's what they did. (Although I did get a tiny bit of amusement out of the fact that they played sisters on 24.) She always looks constipated, she's horribly wooden, and she has NO idea how to play a character like this.


• What was even the point of Cameron? I totally did not understand why he was there. I mean, I realize they had to replace Rube with someone, but generally you'd expect there to be a purpose behind choosing someone else. What exactly was his plan? What was he trying to achieve by leading the Reapers astray? Does he just get a kick out of evil?


• There was a lot of potential in Reggie finding out about George, and they totally wasted it. Not to mention the fact that they blatantly violated the rules - they were VERY CLEAR that George couldn't tell her mother who she was. She was literally rendered speechless when she tried, and later Rube confirms she's lost the memory she tried to share with Joy. And yet, George has absolutely NO problem talking to Reggie. Why couldn't they just have Reggie figure it out without George blurting out a bunch of memories?


• I can accept that they had to get new sets after five years, and although Happy Time was way too posh, I could've lived with it, but THEY BLEW UP DER WAFFLE HAUS! AND DIDN'T TELL US IF KIFFANY WAS OKAY! I am now incredibly worried about her.

Things I... nope, there's actually just hate here. Oh, I suppose the one positive thing about the movie was the return of the "Boom Boom Ba" song, which was totally stuck in my head for all of season 1. I missed it in season 2, so it was nice to hear it come back at the end there. But it was so not worth watching the whole movie when I've already downloaded it and can listen to it without being assaulted with horrible characterization and plot holes.

This is one of those situations where they really should've just left well enough alone. Other than Reggie finding out, I don't see how the movie adds to the show in any way (and it sure detracts a whole hell of a lot). It wasn't for "resolution" or "closure" because it doesn't leave things in any better of a place than the last episode did, and in fact introduces a whole mess (and I do mean mess) of changes that don't relate to the TV show at all.

Dead Like Me (again)

Or should it be Dead(er) Like Me? Either way, I finished season 2 and liked it more than season 1.

Um, these are mostly criticisms (I really did like it, I just don't have much to say about the good parts). But they're in bullet form!

• I really hated Daisy's religion kick. I dislike Daisy enough already, making her self-righteous on top of being self-centered and airheaded is just cruel.


• I thought it was cool that we got some background on Rube. Unfortunately, the show didn't last long enough to really do much with it.


• I love Mason (apparently "snarky British fuck-up" is a kink of mine), but he is really annoying when he's mooning after Daisy. I can't decide if it's just because I hate Daisy or if he really gets whinier around her. Either way, I could really do without it.


• Roxy's bad-ass. We need more Roxy. Especially when she's threatening Mason with bodily harm.


• What is up with George's sudden abundance of midriff-bearing shirts? News flash, George, this:
  
  
  
  is a vest. You're supposed to wear a shirt UNDER IT.


• What is the deal with Misty the office slut? The show has somewhat toned down the over-the-top stuff, which makes her stick out like a sore thumb.


• I had some SERIOUS Friday Night Lights flashbacks with the whole Ray murder thing. Didn't Mason learn from Landry's five-state killing spree that violence doesn't solve anything?


• What the actual fuck happened with Ray? Was he possessed by the graveling, and that's why he was such an asshole? Was the graveling trying to provoke Mason into killing Ray? Why? And why was there no actual follow-up on the death without a post-it? Isn't that breaking the rules? Shouldn't there be consequences, aside from an annoying graveling? (Oh, right, I forgot, this show doesn't bother with "rules" anymore.)

Happy anniversary to me!

Well, this is quite a landmark weekend for me. First, July 3rd was the one-year anniversary of my move to DC. Yay! Second, obviously, was the 4th of July. I celebrated by going to the pool, then heading to Becky's house for a barbecue and watching fireworks on the Mall, which was pretty awesome.

I tried a new stir fry which was simple and delicious - Honey Walnut Shrimp. I started with this recipe and made some modifications. I used 12 oz. of shrimp, 1 cup of carrots, 2 cups of sugar snap peas (I don't like zucchini), and maybe a 1/4 cup of walnuts, which made about 2 servings. I also ended up adding extra honey (maybe another tablespoon?) when it was in the pan because all I could taste was the soy sauce. I probably could've added even a little bit more, but it still tasted good as is. I served it over rice.

Also, I finished season 1 of Rome. I liked it, but I have very little to say about it. I will admit, I had a lot of trouble following it in the beginning, because I couldn't tell the characters apart. The only people I recognized were Polly Walker (from Caprica), Suzie from Torchwood (whose real name I don't remember), and Kevin McKidd (whom I completely can't buy as an ancient Roman. He's just so... Scottish). Everyone else was a jumble (too many old guys, mostly), and so I had to follow along with the Wikipedia episode summaries to know what was going on. After a while, it got easier, once they used people's names enough times to match them up with faces. (Am I the only one who thinks that the guy playing Caesar looks like Alan Rickman, lol?)

Pretty much my entire knowledge of Roman history comes second-hand from my college friends who were classics majors (um, I remember Catullus), so I don't know how historically accurate it is, but the costumes and sets sure look spectacular.

Doctor Who

I think this is quite possibly my favorite season of Doctor Who yet. There were definitely some dud episodes, but I'd say it had the same number of brilliant ones as usual, and I thought the pay-off in the finale was much better than RTD's brand of wrapping things up.

The only thing is that I wish they'd set up Amy's parents coming back a little better. I don't mind the happy ending, and it was mentioned in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it sort of way that Amy's parents had disappeared because of the crack, but it would've been nice to build that up a little bit more.

But I loved the Doctor bopping around in time, I loved the fez (and I loved River for blowing it to bits), and I loved that Amy's memories could bring back the Doctor - this show has played around with memory a lot, in mostly negative ways (most prominently with Donna), and so it was a nice reversal to have memories actually save the day. Plus, the Doctor's subliminal message using the "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" to describe the TARDIS was clever.

Overall, I loved the different feel of the season, less sci-fi and more fairy tale - which is weird, because I'm way more into sci-fi than fantasy, but for some reason it suits Who better. I think it's because of the aura of the Doctor as an age-old legend, like River's line about hating good wizards because "they always turn out to be him." There's always been that sense of the Doctor being present throughout history, someone people called on in times of trouble, but this season really crystallized it.

Matt Smith has totally grown on me, especially in that way he has of conveying alienness and incredible age while looking so young. I hesitate to say he's better than David Tennant (whom I think of as "my" Doctor) - he's just different, and it's such a delight watching him.

Amy is by far and away my favorite companion, no matter what age she is. I love her feisty, outspoken attitude - even at seven she's giving the Doctor what for. And, this needs to be said, I love her red hair. She's... a lot like Donna, actually, but with less baggage. And I especially loved the dynamic of having Rory around. Would you believe it, I've finally found a Who ship! I am so in love with Amy/Rory it's not even funny.

I am one of those people who thinks the Doctor should be asexual. I do recognize the attraction of a hot, funny, brilliant guy who's basically the awesomest awesome who ever awesomed, so I don't mind companions crushing on him, but (a) when it's whiny and schmoopy "twu wuv" angst like Rose and Martha, it's ANNOYING, and (b) the Doctor should never, ever return the attraction.

I was worried there for a while, when it seemed like they were not only setting up Amy's attraction to the Doctor, but even after Amy chose Rory, it seemed killing him off was a convenient way to shuffle Rory off-stage and make way for a Doctor/Amy romance. So I cannot tell you how happy I was to see Rory come back. (OMG HE WATCHED HER FOR 2000 YEARS!!! They are EPIC!) I liked how the finale echoed their earlier exchange, when Amy calls them "my boys":

Rory: [scoffs] We are not her "boys."

The Doctor: Yeah, we are.

Rory: Yeah, we are.

Then later, we get:

Rory: I'm not Mr. Pond. That's not how it works.

The Doctor: Yeah, it is.

Rory: [glances at Amy] Yeah, it is.

This time, it's not about the three of them - it's Rory and Amy, with the Doctor on the outside. As it should be. And I am super-excited about a married couple as companions.

I even liked River Song, and her relationship with the Doctor intrigues me. I can see how she could be annoying, being better at Doctoring than the Doctor, and how she's all coy about the future, but she's also kinda badass and I like that. At first it seemed very Time Traveler's Wife-ish, which was a pretty terrible movie (I didn't read the book, but I hear that was terrible, too), but I think it's way less creepy of a set-up here. River is a time traveler, too, and not just living solely for the Doctor, and that makes a huge difference.

Dead Like Me

I've finished season 1 of Dead Like Me. I liked it, but it's not something I'll dwell on very long.

Things I liked:

• George. She's snarky, which is always a plus. I liked that the first few episodes were about her learning lessons on being dead and being a Reaper, and the family dynamic of the Reapers is cute. As with most teenage characters, I am torn between being older and wiser and finding their teenage angst juvenile and at the same time feeling sympathy for them because I was just like that when I was that age. Ellen Muth seems young for an 18-year-old, though - I know she's not (I looked her up on IMDB and she was 22 when Dead Like Me was on), but she looks young.


• Mandy Patinkin!! You know how someone can play an iconic role, and then forever after it's impossible to see them in anything else without thinking of that character? This is like the opposite of that. It probably helps that he's older and heavier and has better hair, so he doesn't really look much like Inigo Montoya anymore, but every once in a while, he'll say something or make a facial expression that reminds me of Inigo, and it makes me happy.


• Mason. He's cute and British, need I say more? He seems kind of David Tennant-ish, but dumber and with poorer hygiene.

Things I disliked:

• The excessive quirkiness. Now, I like dark humor (I did just watch Dexter, after all), but this seems too over-the-top sometimes. Like the wacky and ridiculous accidents that kill people. It's funny once in a while, but when it happens every episode, it starts to get old. The same joke will only be funny so many times. I also thought George's family was too OTT, like Reggie's toilet seat obsession (and honestly, killing George with a flaming toilet seat from space was one of the most ridiculous deaths of all. It would be funny if it were unusual, but it seems that in this 'verse, it's an everyday occurrence).


• The inconsistent world-building. I mean, if you're gonna make up rules, at least stick to them! I realize that there were issues and Bryan Fuller left and so things changed, but it's really annoying when they've established something and then contradicted it in a later episode.


• Daisy Adair. I kind of hate her. This is partly because I'm bitter that they replaced Betty, and partly because I have loathed Laura Harris ever since she played the whiniest terrorist ever on 24. As with quirkiness, a little bit goes a long way, and Daisy's self-centeredness and her stories about her sexcapades got old really fast. (I minded her a lot less in the last couple episodes, where she was being less obnoxious and played off Mason and his issues instead.)