Deserted Cities of the Heart (Lewis Shiner) 1988

Another one of If Shiner's first novel weren't Frontera, it's hard to see how this book would be classified as SF instead of "mainstream" magical realism.  I thought it was a great title, but apparently it's a Cream song.  The Falling Woman won the Nebula the previous year; was there a run on Mesoamerican themes in the late 80's?

You Again (2010)

There's a great movie somewhere in there trying to get out, but while it has a few good moments, it doesn't really deliver on the promise of the premise and ends up squandering the talents of Kristen Bell and Sigourney Weaver. 

Potential problem: the end credits are the most visually interesting part of the film.  It's a romantic comedy, so it's not a killer.

Bigger problem: if Joanna is truly reformed, why does she seem to go out of her way to taunt Marni?  Why, because the writers couldn't figure out how to manufacture plausible conflict.  Moo.

glee: Season 1 (2009)

Finally getting around to watching season 1.  I'm conflicted, because some of the musical numbers are great, but the story writing is terrible.  I'd complain that the characters are all shallow caricatures, but that's actually rather low on the list of problems with the storytelling.


*** mild spoilers below (but really, it doesn't matter if you know the story in advance, we're all really here for the musical numbers) ***


The biggest problem is Will.  He's Jekyll and Hyde.  One moment he's smart and sensitive and a great music arranger, the next he's an idiot learning again and again the lesson that he should lean on his students' talents and trust them to help make decisions about the direction of New Directions.  The next biggest problem is his wife and the whole hysterical pregnancy subplot that forces the introduction of the clichaic teen pregnancy subplot, which all detracts from actually developing the kids' characters.  But maybe that's for the best -- even when they try to develop Kurt by exploring his relationship with his father, it's ugly (Kurt's dad has "known" Kurt was gay for years and yet let Kurt grow up completely insecure of his father's love for him, and yet they'll try to present Kurt's dad in a favorable light as a "decent guy who isn't ready to have a gay son" and we're all supposed to be okay with this?).


Can you tell I'm still pissed that Kurt didn't get the lead for "Defying Gravity"?  Rachel has a great all-purpose voice, but Kurt's is perfect for this song.  Even if he actually couldn't hit the high F (instead of the b.s. about him needing to protect his father from getting anonymous phone calls), when someone's voice is otherwise so perfectly suited for a song, you simply CHANGE THE NOTE.  Will was triply an idiot in this episode for (1) simply assigning parts instead of auditioning them, (2) outright ignoring Kurt's request to audition the part (really *all* the parts should be auditioned), and (3) not realizing that Kurt sounds like he's defying gravity singing that high.  It's like April vs. Rachel on "Cabaret".  Rachel sounds great, but April's life experiences made her a better performer of this particular song.  Rachel simply isn't world-weary enough.  And again, it's like when Will tried to give "Tonight" from West Side Story to Tina.  Tina has a funky voice.  Arrange something indie-rockish and watch her go.  (note: they finally get this right at the end of disc 3 when she has the lead on "True Colors"  Tina: She's so Unusual!)


So, I'm still watching because of the musical numbers and the occasional Sue Sylvester scene.  She might be a caricature, but the actress has absolutely nailed the part and sometimes the writing is hilariously worthy of her.  Likewise, Brittany (the dumb blonde cheerleader) is perfectly written.  She might have a single line per episode, but it's always absolutely right for the character (Will: "Can anyone tell me what a ballad is?"  Brittany: "A male duck.").

Lego SW vs. KotOR

Connor got to a video game prize the other day, and while setting him up on the computer, Sarahmac accidentally clicked on the shortcut to start Knights the Old Republic instead of the Star Wars Lego game, and then left the room during the boot sequence.  At first he complained that the splash screen wasn't right, but he did it in such a whiny tone that Sarahmac declined to respond from the other room.  I came in from shoveling a few minutes later, just after Sarahmac had figured out what had happened and was starting to shut down KotOR and start up Lego SW.  It was clear that something was "weird" on the screen, but Connor wasn't complaining anymore.  Later that night at bedtime, Connor wanted to know when he'd be old enough to play KotOR, and opined that he had "been doing really well" against the sandpeople (which was where the last saved game happened to be).


The interface is considerably more complex in KotOR than SW Lego, but (as long as your character tends to choose "good" actions and build up light side force powers) it's actually harder to do "evil" things than in SW Lego (where you can easily choose to be Dooku, Vader, or the Emperor and force choke/lightning people), so we might be doing KotOR sooner rather than later, depending on how much of it he can run himself...

Going the Distance (2010)

We're watching this instead of the Super Bowl.  There are some funny moments.

Part of the trouble here is that Drew Barrymore's character states she is 31, but she plays Centipede and listens to music that only a 35 year-old would listen to.  Those four years are important.

Secondly, these people are wusses.  Seriously?  They're away from each other a few months and are having trouble coping?  Sarahmac and I were on different freakin' continents for a year without e-mail or cheap telephony (it was $1/min to France), much less vchat.  That was followed by a year and a half in different states, 8 months together, and then another year in different states.  Seeing each other every three months isn't a relationship?  Bull.

All Good Things

One of my all-time favorite games, Little Green Guys with Guns, is going down at the end of the week, as Wolff explains here and here.  This is very sad, and I'll miss it.