End of Season Pop Culture Round-up

It's a bit late, but here's a smattering of the things that have held my attention over the last couple of weeks.

NOTE: I'm avoiding spoilers up front, but feel free to be as detailed and spoilerific as you like in the comments.

OTHER NOTE: If you don't want to get spoiled, don't read the comments.

OTHER OTHER NOTE: Or the Gray's Anatomy commentary at the bottom.

In Theaters: Bug - this only held my attention because I paid money to see it (or my husband did, anyway) and I was kind of stuck there with nothing better to do until it was over. Dear Lord in Heaven, I can't remember the last time I felt so ripped off by a movie. We actually sat in the theater after it was over debating whether there was a chance that the theater would give us our money back, since we stayed for the whole thing, and decided probably not, since it's not like it was the theater's fault that the marketing for this movie was a CAMPAIGN OF LIES.

I can't really say that this movie sucked, because for what it is, it's technically well done and features some excellent performances. I can give it that. But what this movie is is TOTALLY NOT A HORROR MOVIE, you LYING BASTIGES. Seriously, I spent the entire movie waiting for a payoff that that the movie's marketing led me to expect and that never came, and it pissed me off too much for me to be able to say anything objective about the actual film. Just know if you decide to give it a chance that you'll be seeing a not-that-thrilling psychological drama about domestic violence, conspiracy paranoia, and craaaaazy Okies ('cause we're all craaaaaazy, donchaknow), with some dark humor that may or may not be intentional, depending on how much credit you want to give Ashley Judd's acting skills, and that doesn't contain a single, solitary mutant monster bug. Because did I mention this isn't a horror movie?

Sigh.

Rentals: MST3K: A Touch of Satan. I didn't mention the last Mystie title we rented, Hellcats, a movie so abominable that not even Joel and the 'bots could infuse it with entertainment value. After that, AToS was like a breath of fresh comedy. It's a cheesy (what else?) early 1970s horror-movie-slash-love-story about a pair of witches and the salvation and true love that only devotion to Satan sorry - Mormo can bring. It has enough unintentional humor all by itself that the commentary is almost an afterthought. Also, "This is where the fish lives" is my new catch phrase.

Books: Finished White Night, the latest entry in The Dresden Files, and it deserves its own post, and will get one later. But I loves me some Harry Dresden. Started The Line Between by Peter S. Beagle, and read the sequel to The Last Unicorn contained therein, and cried and cried, and vowed to reread TLU later this year. Also started The Android's Dream by Scalzi. I'm not very deep into it yet, but it's a pretty entertaining read so far.

Television/TiVo: The Gilmore Girls finale made me cry, in the good way. I still feel a little cheated that they waited until the last minute to reunite Luke and Loralei, but their reunion was so perfect, and the entire episode felt so right. The Veronica Mars finale (and the four episodes leading up to it) made me sigh. I actually thought the last part of the season showed signs of improvement, and now I'm sad that the threads that were left hanging will never be resolved. And I still love Logan. What will I do without my Logan fix? Sigh.

The two-part Supernatural season finale also made me cry a lot, in addition to kicking about twenty different kinds of hinder. This is dangerously close to becoming my official favorite show. It's only real competition at this point is...

Heroes, whose season finale did not disappoint, and kicked an equal amount of hinder. And also made me cry. Do you sense a theme? I want to hug the Petrelli brothers. Among other things.

Gray's Anatomy (SPOILER ALERT!)

So let me get this straight: You have a couple who's getting married, and the bride is totally into planning the big wedding, and the groom would really prefer something simple and low-key, but he goes along with the hullabaloo in the interest of making his would-be spouse happy, and this is... completely normal; but if you reverse the genders on this equation, then it's a sign of a fundamental flaw in the relationship and proof that the one who wants the big wedding just doesn't love his intended enough to be down with her non-girly ways? Is that the message I'm supposed to be getting? Or is it that Burke's an artard?

But I can't pick on Burke, because I'm not any more irritated with him than I am with the rest of the entire cast. Except Alex, because he actually did the right thing choosing not to be a home wrecker, Izzie Stephens, and by the by, if you are truly George's friend, and you truly love him, then you do NOT burden him with your inappropriate (and still unbelievable) feelings and ask him to throw away his marriage so that YOU can have a stab at happiness.

Dear Marti Noxon (and company): Please don't make me hate Izzy. I finally made my peace with "Seeing Red" (see two posts down), but I'm not ready to give you so much credit that I trust where you're going with this George business. So just stop it right now, pleasekthxbai.

I guess really the only other people who suck right now are Derek and Meredith. Particularly Derek, because he knew she was self-absorbed going in, and he waited until a particularly stressful and horrific time in her life to decide he's not okay with it. Kind of reminds me of a certain Initiative soldier who waited until his superheroic girlfriend's mom had a brain tumor to decide he couldn't handle her independence and wanted her to be needier. And I will stop making Buffy comparisons now. Promise.

But I can't promise to stop blaming everything on Marti. Old habits die hard.

And I am officially caught up on my television viewing for the 2007 spring season. Now I'm eagerly awaiting July and the summer season, particularly Big Brother (yes. Shut up.) and Dr. Who. In the meantime, methinks my temporary Blockbuster discount card will be getting a workout.