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Yesterday I had as good a birthday as could be managed under the circumstances. I woke up earlier than I'd intended, which meant I had to run all day on not enough sleep, but it also meant I had time for a leisurely breakfast and some stretching, and also to take my time playing with the new makeup my Big Sis gave me, before my mom picked me up for my birthday lunch at Red Lobster.

Lunch was lovely, although I'm mildly regretting going the semi-healthy route by ordering off the grilled menu instead of going for my deep-fried favorites. Matt and I tend to sink into an unhealthy fast-food-fueled funk when badness happens, so after several days of virtually nothing but McD's and pizza and KFC, semi-healthy was starting to sound good; but I only get my Admiral's Feast once a year so I'm sorry to have forsaken it this year. Oh well. It was still yummy.

Afterwards, we saw Alice in Wonderland. It was really something my mom wanted to see that I felt I could take or leave, but the only other thing out right now that I was interested in was Clash of the Titans, and I'd prefer to see that with Matt. Between Clash and that dragon movie I was surprised we could still find Alice playing on any 3D screens. One theater in town was still showing it in 3D, but unfortunately it was one of the crappier theaters in town, which we remembered once we found ourselves still sitting in a fully-lit theater with nothing on screen a full 10 minutes past the scheduled start time. After my mom went to complain, they gave her just enough time to get back to her seat before launching right into the movie, without any previews, and without turning off the lights or centering the picture on the screen correctly. After the lights stayed on another ten minutes, I called the office from my seat to complain about the lights and the off-center picture. They finally turned off the lights, but never did fix the picture. In short: AMC Southroads 20, you suck.

Despite all of that, I enjoyed the movie better than I thought I would. I don't know why I went in feeling so "meh" about it. I've always enjoyed Tim Burton movies, and ditto the pairing of Burton and Depp, the latter of whom was as brilliant as you'd expect as the Mad Hatter. I'd heard that this movie wasn't what you'd expect, and I guess if you were expecting a live-action remake of the animated Disney version, then no, it's not. But if you'd read, like I did, that it was more of a live-action sequel, then there weren't really too many surprises. Still, it was very pretty to look at, the performances were all solid-to-very good, and the story was about a million times more engaging and interesting than Avatar, and as far as the 3D goes, I thought Alice looked just as good, even if it did rely at little too heavily on the "Look, we're in 3D and we must poke at you with pointy things!" convention in some places. Also, I'd say that this Alice is probably too intense and scary for little kids, which confused me, because there was one brief scene near the end that seemed completely geared at little kids and made me slightly embarrassed for Johnny Depp, but it lasted less than a minute, thankfully, and now I can put it out of my mind forever. At any rate, if you haven't seen it yet, I definitely recommend trying to catch it on the big screen, and in 3D if you can find it, before it leaves the theaters for good.

After the movie, Mom took me shopping. She and Li'l Sis wanted to go in together and get me something to commemorate the baby, so she took me shopping for that first, and that part was hard, and almost led to a breakdown in the middle of Hallmark. But I ended up picking out a really pretty bereavement frame to hold the ultrasound picture, so I'm glad we did that.

After that we went to JC Penney's and found a good clearance sale, and I got a couple of cute tops to wear to church and on the rare occasions when I do social things, and some non-ratty shorts and tee-shirts that I don't have to be embarrassed to wear to the grocery store. Then I picked up my complimentary birthday cookie at the mall food court cookie place, and we called it a day.

Originally, Matt was going to take me out for a Thai birthday dinner, but by the time I got home I was feeling totally wiped, and there were storm warnings all over the news, so we decided to postpone it to tonight. And also possibly change it to sushi. I still haven't decided on that front yet.

I think I was right about the day out doing me good. I'm starting to feel better today. I'm not feeling nearly as sore as the last time I wrote, and it's almost 4 PM and I've only cried once today, which is progress. I'm also starting to get my energy back. I'm giving myself today off*, because I never give myself enough time off to deal when bad things happen, and that always comes back to bite me. But tomorrow I need to get back into the swing of things and start digging myself out from under this massive pile of backed up projects and housecleaning and yard work that's been collecting during my recovery. Today's a day of rest, though -- real rest, not "too busy being curled up in a ball of pain and grief to do anything else" rest -- before Life Must Once Again Go On.

*Except that over the weekend one of my clients had all of their web sites hacked and infected with malware, so I spent Monday fixing that, and one of their sites is still showing malware warnings, so I need to work on that today, too. But otherwise, resting. And eating yummy Pad Thai or sushi.

Lately

Yesterday, I finished the second draft of This Old Haunt and submitted it to the Round 1 beta readers. I'm a little worried, because it was too short to qualify as a novel to begin with, and the first round of edits saw a lot of words and sections being cut, leaving it even more firmly in novella territory. Hopefully on the next draft I'll find some threads that can be teased out into whole chapters and increase the wordcount without just adding filler. Otherwise, I guess I'd better start checking out the novella markets. Or consider self-pubbing this one.

I'm going to take a week off from fiction writing so I can focus on my various web design projects. Today, I'm attempting to learn how to do this, with the goal to implement the snazzy site redo I mocked up in GIMP. If I feel really ambitious, then next I'll start learning PHP so I can implement the whole thing in Wordpress. I'm feeling a little intimidated by all of that right now, though, so the plan to move everything over to WP has been downscaled from definite to tentative. Right now I'm shopping around for other, simpler free platforms (I'd happily just do everything in Blogger if they, like WP, offered the capability to create non-blog pages and have them all under one domain); but I might just give up on free and look for a cheaper web host instead.

Then again, I really should learn Wordpress, given its popularity, if I want to sell myself as a web designer, which I do. Yes, still. I figure, if I still love designing web pages as much as I love writing stories, and still wish I could do it professionally on the side, 10 years after I started doing it as a hobby, then it really is high time I quit whining about it and just made it happen. With all of the advances since I started 10 years ago, though, I feel like I'm starting from scratch. Thank goodness for all of the excellent free tutorials out there.

What else is going on? Earlier this week I scored a paid blogging gig at Lighting By Lux -- and hey, my first post, The Right (Light) Bulb, is already up. It's not going to get me off of unemployment any time soon, but it's extra grocery money, which is always nice, and professional experience to add to my resume, which is even nicer.

I feel like I've accomplished a lot this week already, which is a nice feeling, and one I haven't felt in too long. It's amazing how something simple like setting my alarm clock for a reasonably early hour can make me feel so capable and in control of my life. And having the laptop's portability and not having to worry about keeping Husband out of his office sure aren't hurting.

At some point today, though, I'm going to have to put the laptop down and get some housework done, since Uncle Joe is coming over tomorrow so he and Husband can show each other their guns. No, that is not a euphemism. Yes, we bought the gun that Husband was pining for, which was only fair, since he was a good sport about getting the laptop that he wasn't entirely convinced we needed. It's a slick-looking Springfield .45 mm with a comfortable grip, and I'm looking forward to firing it. Good thing it came with a one-year membership to the shop's firing range. Now we're just waiting for them to mail us our membership card so we can go get in some target practice. Yeehaw!

What else what else? Oh! I took my mom to see Star Trek for Mother's Day, and we loved it. We laughed, we cried, we both thought it was awesome, bad science and plotholes be damned. I went in with reservations, just hoping not to get pissed off by retconning and character assassination, so it was a very pleasant surprise to find that the retconning was handled in a way with which I was totally fine, and that these characters can be portrayed by other actors and still ring true, and I not only can't wait to see this movie again, but I can't wait for the next installment. Yay!

So that's what's up with me lately. Next week will see me taking some time off for car maintenance, yard maintenance, and helping my mom get her house ready to sell, among other things, but it will also see me getting back to work on The Hero Factor, and I think I know how to fix what was bugging me about that one, so revisions might not be quite as daunting as I feared they would be. Also, I'm almost finished knitting a case for the laptop, and if I can get my old hand-me-down sewing machine working, I'll finish it off with a padded liner and then post pictures. Meanwhile, I'm going to get back to work on that site redo.

Thursday 13 - Oscar Edition

13 Oscar nominees that I have never even heard of before:

1. Milk - Best Picture

2. The Reader - Best Picture

3. Slumdog Millionaire - Best Picture

4. Melissa Leo - Best Actress

5. Michael Shannon - Best Supporting Actor

6. Viola Davis - Best Supporting Actress

7. Taraji P. Henson - Best Supporting Actress

8. Frozen River - Best Original Screenplay

9. Happy-Go-Lucky - Best Original Screenplay

10. Doubt - Best Adapted Screenplay

11. "Jai Ho" - Best Original Song

12. "O Saya" - Best Original Song

13. Defiance - Best Original Score

See all of this year's Oscar nominations here.

Join the Thursday 13 here, and leave your link here in the comments!

But I am the Chosen One.

Have you seen the international trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince? Well, you should. Because it looks very, very good.

On an aside, I saw pics of Daniel Radcliffe in Equus the other day. Oh, my. He has certainly grown up. And he's grown up gooood.

I am a dirty old woman and I'm going to dirty old woman hell.

More sleep-deprived, uncontrollable Dark Knight Gushing

And more awesome: the trailer for Terminator 4



Aside from the fact that it appears to fit nicely with TSCC, these days, if Christian Bale's in it, I'm pretty much there.

Which segues neatly into more raving on Dark Knight, because it will be a while before I can shut up about how much I love this movie. And I realized just a bit ago that the reason I love this movie so much is because THIS is the movie I've been hoping and waiting for ever since I picked up my first Batman comic. Up until then, I had enjoyed the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton movies, and considered myself a fan based on those, but really, I had no idea.

Then, soon after my introduction to the comics, came the ground breaking Animated Series (and it's subsequent movies), and while it wasn't perfect, it was a hell of a lot closer to what Batman should be. That was also around the time that I became, more specifically, a JOKER fan. Mark Hamill's animated Joker was so very different from Jack Nicholson's live action version, and so very much BETTER. He's also still my favorite version of the Joker, ever. Sorry, Heath fans.

So I had reservations about this movie. When I first heard Heath Ledger was cast as my favorite character, my stomach sank. I couldn't even begin to picture it. Then, when the previews and photos began to circulate, I had mixed feelings. It looked like they were taking the Joker seriously. He wasn't going to be a cartoon character. He would obviously be closer to Hannibal Lecter than Cesar Romero. This was a very good thing. But the nitpicky fangirl in me couldn't help a little nerdgassing (^TM Scalzi). He's wearing makeup! The Joker doesn't wear makeup, his skin is bleached! What's with those scars? He's not supposed to have scars! Why aren't they just making The Killing Joke movie that I've been praying for ever since I read that graphic novel? WHY?

But then I talked myself down, and convinced myself that these things don't matter. The writing and the performance are what matters. And, well...

[OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING: The rest of this article will spoil you like Paris Hilton.]




...they had me at "...makes you stranger." Heath Ledger WAS the Joker, pure and simple. He was the embodiment of chaos for chaos' sake, the dim reflection in Batman's dark mirror, the illustration of what Bruce could have become if he zigged instead of zagged when confronted with tragedy. Where Bruce chose to grow stronger and fight the chaos, the Joker chose to give in and embrace it. He's Batman's shadow, and they can't exist without each other. This movie captured that better than I ever hoped. And this Joker was terrifying, and unpredictable, and charismatic, and FUNNY! Everything he should be. I was blown away.

And then, Harvey. My second favorite member of the Rogue's Gallery. The tragedy of his transformation into Two Face was played up so well. Harvey Dent the D.A. was portrayed so well by Aaron Eckhardt as an all-too-human hero, a flawed man who believed in doing the right thing, willing to sacrifice himself for it. But being forced to sacrifice the woman he loved was too much, and it was so believable, and so tragic, and I cried when I saw it coming, and I cried when Two Face woke up in the hospital, and again when he confronted Gordon, and I'm tearing up a little as I write this.

And then we got the nods to the two books that formed the basis of my personal definition of Batman and the Joker, with the rescue of James Jr. by Batman (Year One), and Joker's failed attempt to prove his point to Batman, that people in general are walking cesspools of self-interest bent on self-preservation at all costs; that the average person is as fragile and breakable as the Joker himself turned out to be. The boats-full of strangers he tested his theory on weren't nearly as heart-wrenching and effective as Gordon insisting on doing the right thing, in The Killing Joke, after being physically and psychologically tortured by the Joker; but it got the point across, and it showed how broken and bent the Joker really is, and it showed me that this film's creators get it, and I actually felt gratitude to them for giving me these versions of these characters.

Awesome. There's just no better word to sum it all up. I want to hold this movie tight and never let it go...except to give Batman a hug, because he really needed one by the end.

This week is full of awesome!

On a personal level, it's been not so awesome and hella stressful and exhausting, hence the not blogging. But thankfully the entertainment sector chose this week to dump a whole bunch of awesome sauce all over the internet and movie theaters.

First, The Dark Knight, because I'm still fairly fresh from the midnight showing. It's... I have so much to say about this movie, and yet I'm speechless. I think I need to see it five or six more times to fully process it. ;) But I think it's safe to call this the Empire Strikes Back of the new Batman movie franchise. Its hype is well deserved.

And as if that wasn't enough awesome packed into two and a half hours, this premiered before the movie started:



There is not enough squee in the world.

But that's partly because so much of the squee is reserved for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog! Maybe it's because it's been so long since we've had any fresh live-action Whedony goodness, but just thinking about what I've seen of this so far fills me with indescribable glee. And I've had the chorus of "Stop the World" playing constantly in my brain for the last 48 hours. If, like me, you have a burning need to learn every song by heart, this person has been kind enough to transcribe the entire thing.

Go watch Act I!

Then go watch Act II!

You'll have to wait till Saturday to catch the third and final act, and then it will all be taken down Sunday night, which is where the awesomeness ends for me, what with not having good access on weekends. It will be released on DVD, so I'll get to see it eventually, but waiting till Saturday was going to be hard enough, and I'll likely be pouting all weekend over its being taken down so soon.

I guess I'll just have to go see The Dark Knight again to take my mind off of it. Damn!

Hilarity ensues.

Intentionally Hilarious

Bear Grylls would also bite the head off of Gollum for a snack. And I would watch and retch while my husband laughed at me.

Hellboy gets around -- I saw the Ghost Hunters one during the Twilight Zone marathon this weekend, and I laughed and laughed. I love Ron Perlman.

Unintentionally Hilarious

Things I swear I'm really going to get around to doing someday, honest:

Organizing my Flickr account, with tags and commentary and an upgraded account and everything.

Posting all of the crap we need to get rid of before we move on eBay or Craig's List or Freecycle.

Cleaning the mud dauber nests off of my bike and airing up the tires so I can start riding again.

Dry cleaning my wedding dress.

Finishing my novel. I really mean it this time.

America is older now.

We celebrated our Independence Day by giving our potential new house another look-see and writing up an offer. Of course, as soon as we walked out of the realtor's office, Husband started having second thoughts about that house and seeing the merits of another one we looked at that he thought he didn't like as well. But our offer was pretty low and is likely to be rejected or countered, anyway, so I guess we'll just wait and go from there.

After that, we went home, where my Big Sis and BIL were waiting with their adorable and adorably precocious granddaughter, and I was thrilled, because I really cannot get enough of that kid. Then we ate hot dogs, and then we both lay down for a long, long nap, and then we ate more hot dogs and drank some beer and watched some Twilight Zone and teased the cats while listening to our neighbors shoot off fireworks. Not the most exciting July Fourth I've ever had, but certainly not the worst.

I hope you guys had a good Fourth, too, regardless of what country you live in.

Movies, and etc.

Only a few weeks ago I was in such a fantastic mood, feeling girly and pretty and wanting to take the time to dress myself up with coordinated outfits and accessories and makeup and hair curled just so, and it was fun and I felt fabulous. And then death and illness and one rainy, stormy week after another, I'm back to can't-be-bothered mode: hair out of my face, clothes that are clean and don't clash, and I don't stink. This is my current standard for leaving the house.

I took slightly more care with my appearance when we went out Friday to see Iron Man, mainly for my husband's sake, and for the sake of not scaring away his friend. Though, honestly, I don't think either of them noticed or cared. Boys.

The movie was every bit as much fun as all of the reviews I'd read led me to expect, and will be a keeper once it hits DVD. Even though it has Gwyneth in it. Gwyneth generally bugs, but she didn't in this movie. At any rate, this movie made me care about Iron Man/Tony Stark, which is something no comic or animated series has ever been able to accomplish. And now I'm really looking forward to the Avengers movie.

Also looking forward to, based on previews shown before the movie (minus Indy and Batman, because those are a given): The Incredible Hulk, which I didn't even know about until a week ago, and looks about a million times better than the first movie; The Happening - it looks scary, and I loves me some M. Night (yes, even The Village and Lady In the Water), and although I could do without his propensity to play key characters in his own movies (Hitchcockian cameos are one thing; see: Stan Lee, but, c'mon.), the trailer instilled a NEED to know what THE HAPPENING is.

I guess all of this is to say that I'm back. Actually, I think it mainly says that I'm a great big dork. But also that I'm back. Hi.

The Ruins

Husband wanted to take me to a movie for my birthday. The current movie offerings are pretty dismal, so we almost skipped on the movie altogether, but finally, we settled on The Ruins, figuring if it was as bad as we expected it to be, at least we'd have something to make fun of for a while.

Sometimes it pays to set your expectations really low, because then if they're not met you get to be pleasantly surprised.

This movie was both better than and different from what I expected. I guess it's a sign of my older-gettingness that I really wasn't looking forward to a movie about barely-out-of-their-teens twenty-somethings getting eaten or slaughtered or whatever horrible thing was bound to happen to them, and I expected a lot of mediocre acting. My hopes on that front raised when I saw Jenna Malone and cutie Shawn Ashmore, and the other kids all held their own pretty well. That the characters tended toward the idiotic can't really be blamed on the acting, but I don't think it's a flaw in the writing, either, since it made for some pretty darkly funny scenes. I wasn't sure whether the dark humor was intentional at first, but seeing that it was produced by Ben Stiller convinced me.

My only real criticism is that it stuck to certain horror movie conventions so much as to be predictable in its outcome, but then again, those conventions have been played around with so much in the last two decades that it's actually kind of surprising when they're adhered to so faithfully.

At any rate, it was a refreshing change from torture porn and J-Horror remakes, and with plenty to make you squirm, gasp and jump out of your seat, it's a nice little addition to the horror fold.

Beowulf

Husband and I really wanted to go see this movie in 3D when it was playing at the IMAX over the holidays, but it just never worked out. Having watched it on DVD on our sad little regular-def 19" TV this past weekend, we now know what a tragedy it is that we missed the chance to see this much awesomeness amplified by like a thousand.

We watched the unrated version, which was pretty no-holds-barred with the violence and gore...which is part of what made it so damn awesome, actually. It was a fantastic take on the story, and I was riveted to the screen for most of it, the only exceptions being after the exceptionally cool bits when we'd start geeking out over what a perfect medium this would be for A Song of Ice and Fire; but then that just gave us an excuse to rewind and watch the cool bits again, so that worked out.

As for the animation, at times it was mind-blowingly realistic, but at rarer times it missed the mark by a wide enough margin as to be mildly distracting, but that's a small quibble. This movie has earned itself a permanent spot in our collection. And if it ever makes it back to the IMAX, or even just to a big screen somewhere, we are THERE.

Quickly, before I have to race the sleet and snow home

Links of interest on this dreary Monday morning:

This is quite possibly the neatest web design in the history of web designs.

This free online Tales of the Slayer comic by Drew Goddard is pretty funny. Lo, the spider-eating man-bitch returneth.

Elsewhere in the galaxy of Buffy alumni, Amber Benson directed a Common Rotation video.

Giving away books online seems to be all the rage these days: Go and read Neil Gaiman's American Gods for free.



In Which I Rant About This Year's "Best Picture"

We used my Friday off to finally see No Country for Old Men. The consensus between me, Husband, and Husband's friend: Eh? It felt like two different movies mashed together. One was a quiet little introspective film about growing old while the world changes around you and you feel helpless to stop it, and in the middle of this somebody plopped the first two-thirds of a really kick-ass action/thriller. We loved the action/thriller part--and Javier Bardem definitely earned that Oscar. That guy was CREE. PEE.--that got us all worked up and invested in Josh Brolin's character and his plight, only to have it end abruptly, any resolution having happened off-screen and returning to the introspective old man movie, which also ended abruptly, and pretty much left the three of us sitting there going, "What the eff was that?" That said, the acting, cinematography, dialogue, etc. were all excellent. But I have many, many issues with the story structure and pacing, and I feel like the intent was to play around with story structure in unexpected ways for the sake of ART, at the audience's expense, and really, I can't stand that crap. I want a resolution to my story. What's more, I want a resolution to the story I spent almost two hours getting really invested in. I want characters that exist for more than the sake of getting killed in shocking and violent ways. I don't want to be jerked around and left feeling like I just had my lunch money stolen. Boo, Cohen brothers. Boo.

Previously on Planet Earth...

I'm slowly -- oh so very slowly, because I'm doing it all from scratch, and it's a learning process -- building a new template for this blog. It's mostly for fun, and to teach myself what I need to know about building blogger templates that I didn't know five years ago, and so it's being done in my spare time, which doesn't happen very often. Maybe I'll finish it next month. Maybe I'll finish it next year. But I'm working on it, and when it's done, I'll be proud. For about two weeks until I get bored with it and decide to redo it all over again. Because that's how I roll.

Fizzgigg has a hole in his leg again. I don't know if I ever mentioned the first hole here, but last fall a sore on his front right elbow turned into a gaping, open hole through which you could actually see bone. It looks even grosser than it sounds, believe me. We bandaged it, we kept various ointments on it, we spent a large sum to have the vet sew it up only to have it open up again after the stitches came out, and finally, it closed up on its own and completely healed. And now, almost overnight, it's back. I got another tube from the vet of the post-op ointment that we were putting on it when it healed the last time, and we're keeping it clean and covered and hoping for the best. And Fizzgigg acts like it's the most traumatic thing ever when we change his bandage. This from a dog who was apparently kicked around before we got him, and who has fallen down stairs and chewed his own leg almost to the bone and broken limbs and once had a cat very nearly claw his eyeball out. He's a tough little guy, but man, he hates having to lie still and have his bandage changed.

He hasn't been in the greatest health lately, either. His thyroid is whacked out, and he's lost so much hair and weight that if you saw him and didn't know any better, you'd think we were like those scumbags on Animal Precinct who never feed or take care of their animals. Of course, once you saw his cushy digs, his food bowl that's constantly filled with expensive organic gluten-free dog food, his tiny sweater wardrobe and all of his various vitamins and meds, I'm pretty confident you'd know better. That dog lives better than we do. But he deserves it, because, see above. He's had a rough little life. I just wish we could get him healthy and keep him there.

Speaking of tiny sweaters, I finally sold one. Now I just have to make it. So that's what I'll be doing with my weekend. I need to find better beads than the one I used on Fizz's sweater, though, preferably ones that the silver doesn't rub off of when they come in contact with the yarn.

And that's what's happening in my world. Here's some of what happened elsewhere while I was resting my brain and morphing into a YouTube blog:

Remember when I mentioned that Tor was giving away free e-books in exchange for signing up to their newsletter? Apparently, this is just phase one in their re-branding project. The next phase will reportedly launch them into the social networking stratosphere and also offer original short fiction and non-fiction on the web site. The Nielsen Hayden's tend to be pretty awesome, so I expect good things from just about anything they put their collective hand to.

Did you know that George Romero made a new zombie movie? I sure didn't, and I'm not sure how I missed it. Speaking of zombie movies, did I ever mention Fido? It's no Sean of the Dead, as zombie comedies go, but it has its moments, some of which are surprisingly poignant.

The Indiana Jones trailer has already been all over the internet, but it's squee-worthy enough to post again.

Ditto the fact that CBS is offering free streaming videos of the entire run of Star Trek: TOS.

And that's all I've got. Hasta, pasta.

LOST really is a good name for this show.

It's back, and I'm more confused about what the heck is going on than ever. But there were plenty of moments to love, and a whole new mystery to not get any real answers about, and I'm still totally JJ's bitch.

In other news from the Slusho-verse, we met up with a friend of Husband's to see Cloverfield again this weekend. This time, I made Husband stop at a drug store so I could get some Bonine to take before the movie started. Also this time, I tossed my Otis Spunkmeyer a third of the way through. I'll spare you most of the details, other than to say I tried to make it to the bathroom first, but didn't quite. The custodial crew was overjoyed with me, as you can well imagine.

I'm not sure whether the moral of this story is that Bonine doesn't do a dadgum thing for shaky-cam sickness, or that you shouldn't have coffee and a cookie right before going to endure a shaky-cam movie, or both. But if we try to see it a third time, I'm bringing along a barf bag.

I hope you weren't eating anything when you read this post.

Cloverfield

First things first: if you're the least bit prone to motion sickness, you should take your favorite motion sickness remedy before going to see this movie, or else you WILL get urpy and nauseous.

I meant to take Bomine before we went on Saturday. That stuff got me through even the storm-tossiest nights of my honeymoon cruise with nary a tummy flip-flop. But it only works if you remember to take it, which I didn't, so about a minute into the movie, I realized that I was screwed. I spent the rest of the movie with my head bowed and my hand over my eyes, looking up every few seconds to make sure I wasn't missing any cool parts, and forcing myself to keep looking during said cool parts.

So I think I saw all of the important stuff. I at least saw (and heard) enough to say confidently that, physical misery aside, I enjoyed this movie. I thought it was well done. I didn't feel like it was too gimmicky (although I do think that they could have given us a narrator who knew something about how to hold a camera still for two seconds), and it had what all of my favorite horror movies have: a slow build that allows you to get familiar with the characters and their surroundings and develop a sense of comfort and confidence before getting whapped upside the head with the realization that SOMETHING'S NOT RIGHT, followed by relentless action, tension and danger that never lets up for the rest of the movie.

THIS is what a post-modern Godzilla movie SHOULD be, Roland Emmerich: a balls-out disaster movie where you genuinely fear for the lives of your protagonists, NOBODY knows where this thing came from or what the hell is happening, even the military is so taken by surprise that they're disoriented and scared poopless, and you have the sinking feeling that the only hope the rest of the world has is to nuke the dadgum thing to kingdom come, and God help anybody who's left in the way when that happens. It's a feeling of inevitable doom so intense that you know any kind of happy ending would feel like a rip-off, and that makes any of the quiet, caring, sometimes even laughter-filled moments between the characters all the more tragic and poignant. They know they're screwed, YOU know they're screwed, and you know THEY know they're screwed, but they keep moving, keep trying to survive as long as they can. Giving up is not an option, no matter how hopeless it appears to be. And that's the sort of thing J.J. Abrams excels at. It's why I keep coming back to LOST no matter how many times it makes me feel screwed over. Because giving up is not an option. I'm on this crazy ride all the way to the bitter end.

Also: Good on you, Drew Goddard. I'm sure this is just the beginning of your movie writing career.

"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!"

What is Sparkle Motion? That's one of the most popular search strings that bring people to this here blog. What is Sparkle Motion, indeed? Since so many folks come here seeking the answer, I suppose the least I could do is provide it.

"Sparkle Motion" is the name of Donnie Darko's* little sister's dance troupe, immortalized in the quote above, as spoken by the awesome Beth Grant to MY president and Donnie's mom, Mary McDonnell, when she balked at having to chaperon the girls on a trip to an out-of-town competition.

The movie itself is quirky, darkly funny, poignant and has strokes of brilliance. Make a commitment to Sparkle Motion. Watch this movie.

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He's the bravest little Hobbit of them all.

Apparently, New Line Cinema kissed Peter Jackson's hairy ass made up with Peter Jackson, who will be making not one, but two prequels based on The Hobbit.

In celebration, I give you The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins. It is not for the faint of heart.

Twenty years of wracking my brain finally laid to rest.

Today I finally tracked down the title of a movie I've been trying to find out for decades. Of course, most of my "research" consisted of randomly trying to describe it to people and hoping they'd remember, which wasn't as effective as it sounds. I did this with my husband when we first started dating, and he was positive it was Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, but I was just as positive that wasn't it.

After reading yesterday's Vine over at TN, it occurred to me that somebody, somewhere on the Internet must have tried to track down this same movie at some point. That began hours of obsessive searching through 1970s horror titles and synopses (to the detriment of my NaNoFiMo word count), until finally I followed a link to The Flick Chick, where on the second page I found my not-so-holy grail of movie titles: The House of Seven Corpses. I'm 99.9% certain that this is the movie. It was the dead cat that cinched it for me.

When I was an impressionable grade-schooler in the early eighties, my dad and I had a regular Saturday night ritual of watching the local "Creature Feature" together in the dark. A lot of those movies were pretty forgettable, but this is one that I remember scaring the living crap out of me. I don't even know if I could finish watching it, I was so terrified. Of course, now that I'm all grown up and jaded, I'm sure it will inspire more giggles and groans than anything, but even so, it is now at the top of my Netflix queue. And that's one less mystery that will keep me awake at night from now on.

Cloverfield

Oh noes! The LOST Monster's loose in NYC!!!1!

But seriously... I can't wait for this movie. JJ + Ultimate Drew = HAWESOME!

Happy Halloween!

Lo, I am full of links:

Halloween DIY Project: Make your own zombie! This is a bit more literal than one would expect.

GuyzNite - Have a nice pumpkin! - Because I just can't resist a good (or a just plain silly) Halloween parody.

Jack Baby by Warren Ellis - get creeped out in just 200 words.

Low Resolution has compiled a nice little collection of terrifying movie moments (two of which are on this list). He's also posting running commentary on his self-inflicted Halloween horror movie marathon.

Relatedly, there's a nice discussion of The Descent going on over at Tomato Nation.

Finally, I leave you with this thought: "Sometimes, dead is bettah!"

Repo Man

Three four thoughts upon viewing this preview of Repo the Genetic Opera:

1. ...the hell?

2. Okay, I want--no, I NEED to see this movie.

3. My husband, however, will want nothing to do with it.

4. Singin' ASH is still hot as fudge. Yowza!