Christmas Fog (Resulting)

There is too much something in the air right now to properly string together a coherent entry. Too much good food, too much time off, too many cool new presents to play with, too many sports to watch, too many warm Christmassy feelings. It's all very nice, but not conducive to either proper posts, or my waistline.

So when all else fails, we fall to a quick series of reviews, and hope that the fog lifts later on.

I knew I was doing that Movie Roundup too soon. I've seen four new movies that will have to be edited in to the list, found one that I missed, and will probably see at least 2 more movies before we officially hit 2007. Which means that the 61 figure is actually more like 68, which...yeah we're not going to think about it.

In no particular order:

• My Super Ex-Girlfriend: My God, this is a bad movie. Horrible. Do not, under any circumstances, including being paid for the effort, watch this movie. No no no no. I hope we're clear.
• Slither: This movie is something of a conundrum. Because on one hand, it's not very good. Too short, a little choppy, some weirdly forced moments, slow in the wrong spots and too quick in the important ones, it's such a strange little movie. On the other hand, Nathan Fillion is great, some of the jokes are just lovely, and the whole B-movie camp factor is deliciously high. Can you really go wrong with a movie about slugs that jump into people's mouths to turn them into zombies? I can't in good conscience recommend it, but I sort of have some serious affection for it. Weird.
• Happy Feet: A sort-of good movie that is ruined by the weirdest ending that one can imagine in a children's feature length cartoon. I am mandated by some unknown higher force to see all movies starring Elijah Wood. This is unavoidable, we know this. The whole thing is not bad entirely bad, though. Robin Williams is only the slightest bit grating, which is the highest praise one can ever give him these days. I like penguins, I like dancing, and the music was pretty good. The whole shoehorned environmentalism last 20 minutes though... Yeah, I got nothing. Not as horrible as expected, but certainly not good either.
• The History Boys: Now this is a good movie. More particularly, this is exactly my kind of movie. Full of words, and literature, it's the story of a set of senior boys in Britian who are studying for their final entrance exams to the college level. There is a Dead Poets' Society sort of vibe going on (a couple of beloved quirky teachers are the focal point of the movie) but not in a sucking kind of way. In a cool, literate, and thinking way. There are some ridiculously hilarious moments, a lot of painfully uncomfortable ones, and pretty much everything in between. It's obviously (and in some cases badly) adapted from the stage version of the play, but by keeping the principle actors from the original cast, you get a very good sense of character, even when the boys sort of become a blur in the condensing of the story. Highly, highly recommended, unless you have a case of gay panic, in which case I recommend you stay far away from this movie (and me).

Christmas Bird

I have had the same alarm clock radio since I was 13 year old. Which is a bit of a deceptive title: only the clock works, not the radio (or the tape deck). But the alarm is the most annoying and loud thing in the world so I've never had the need to look elsewhere for my waking up needs.

Until this morning, when it inexplicably decided not to work. Instead. I woke up on my own approximately 4 minutes before I was supposed to be in the office. Which is something of an issue, seeing as the office is 15 minutes away, and it takes me something in the area of 20 minutes to get ready in the morning. I require a shower, a shave if I don't want to look homeless and drug-addicted, and the process of clothes picking can take a good 5 minutes. Or more if I have to scrounge for socks.

In my bleary state, I decided to scrap all of that, forgo everything and just put on the first thing I grabbed out of the closet. I was out the door in about 5 minutes, no shower, no shave, a too-small striped shirt and yesterdays pants barely in place as I raced to the TOM.

I made it all the way to the highway before I realized that my left contact was in wrong. I had initially thought I was just squinting a lot because I was not prepared for the bright lights of the morning. Instead, it turned out that my contact was actually folded over and slightly jammed under my eyelid. Apparently rushing through the process of sticking things in your eyes is not the best course of action. Particularly when you are doing so on about 2.1 minutes of awakeness.

Somehow without crashing, I managed to remove the offending contact from my eye, at least getting the painful factor out of the way. Replacing the contact in my eye while driving down the highway would be more of an issue. When one regularly cannot nagivate his own living room without banging his knee into the coffee table, he should not be poking at his eye while driving at 60 miles per hour. So I sort of just held the contact on my finger for the remainder of the drive, down two highways and 3 side streets all the way to my office building, and just drove with one eye open.

It wasn't until I was making the final turn to my floor of the parking garage (and I passed by a nice woman who gave me the filthiest look ever) that I realized that I had just spent the last 20 minutes with my hand in the air holding my loose contact on my middle finger, so as not to get it snagged on anything. In other words, I spent my entire ride to work unintentionally flipping off every single person I passed by, all the while with one eye closed in a deranged wink.

So yeah, Merry Christmas to you too!

Big Damn Movie Blog

UPDATED 1/4/07: I've added in the huge influx of movies I saw in the last 15 days of the year, just for completeness's sake. Not that anyone will ever notice.

Hey, so remember last year when I exhaustively went down and itemized every single movie that I had seen that was released in 2005, and then ranked them by some arcane system known to no one, not even myself?

It was a lot of fun (and occupied plenty of my time) so I'm doing it again. I'm really scared to see how many movies I've seen, and absolutely dreading that fact that I'm probably going to break last year's mark (which was already better than one new movie a week). Although I have been much less theatre-going, for sure. Maybe I've become less of a movie whore than previously thought.

(Again, the movie must have been released in 2006. And I divide the movies into 5 distinct categories: Movies that I Actively Hate, Movies that I Only Dislike, Movies I Don't Hate But Also Don't Recommend, Movies That Were Good, and Movies That Were Excellent.)

Movies that I Actively Hate
68. London (Seriously, one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Ever.)
67. Lonesome Jim
66. Final Destination 3
65. My Super Ex-Girlfriend
64. Find Me Guilty (Find me guilty? More like Find Me Boring! AMIRITE?)
63. Aquamarine (Mermaid in the pool? Oh hell no.)
62. Ultraviolet
61. X-men III: The Last Stand (Not actually this bad, but gets a huge demotion because of the massive amounts of disappointment that I feel. Way to screw up the un-screw-up-able, Ratner.)

Movies that I Only Dislike
60. The Break Up (The most depressing Romantic Comedy in the known universe)
59. Scary Movie 4
58. Hostel (Soft-core straight porn followed by horrific gore. Yeah, I'm definitely outside the demographic on that one)
57. Silent Hill
56. You, Me, and Dupree
55. The Benchwarmers (I...wait Rob Schneider is supposed to be the jock? Wait...what?)
54. Date Movie
53. FAQs (Almost verbatim line from the movie - "Two guys kissing is more powerful than an atomic bomb")
52. Crank
51. The DaVinci Code
50. The Lake House
49. Adam & Steve (Another movie that is unfairly hated on by me. Some brilliant things (Parker Posey!) interspersed with some of the worst ideas possible in a movie.)

Movies I Don't Dislike But Don't Recommend Either
48. Clive Barker's The Plague (Dawson! Where have you been. Do you see what happened to Joey the second you let her alone? She married right into crazy. I blame you.)
47. Imagine Me & You
46. Freedomland
45. Art School Confidential
44. A Prairie Home Companion (Aww! Robert Altman. I'm sorry I didn't like your last movie. Cookie's Fortune was awesome, though.)
43. Accepted
42. Stay Alive
41. Winter Passing
40. The Hills Have Eyes (Look how far we have come. From "most vile thing I have ever seen" to "don't dislike." Apparently time does heal some wounds.)
39. The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green (I feel like I should like this movie either far more or far less than I do.)
38. Over the Hedge
37. Something New
36. Another Gay Movie
35. Running Scared (Another movie that I cannot categorize. Should probably be higher on the list.)
34. Running With Scissors
33. The Last Kiss
32. Clerks II
31. Happy Feet

Movies That Were Good
30. Monster House
29. Slither
28. Superman Returns (Decided I was a little unfair in my review, now that I've had some time to consider it.)
27. John Tucker Must Die (All for you Sophia Bush. Call me! I hate Chad Michael Murray too!)
26. Just My Luck (I love this movie with reckless abandon, and still it is only 23. LiLo just cannot catch a break anymore.)
25. Stick It
24. Strangers With Candy
23. Goal! The Dream Begins
22. Eight Below
21. Underworld: Evolution (Vampires! Werewolves! Scott Speedman! Must use exclamation points!)
20. Inside Man
19. American Dreamz (Dreamz with a Z, indeed. I wish I knew how to quit you, Mandy Moore.)
18. Glory Road
17. Mission: Impossible III (Man, do you think that Felicity wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes and just thanks God that it was Katie Holmes and not her that got sucked into the Tom Cruise system? I feel like she just barely dodged a bullet.)
16. The Science of Sleep
15. Last Holiday
14. V for Vendetta
13. Akeelah and the Bee (My most randomly spouted movie line of the year: "I wanna win the National Spelling Bee!" No, I don't know why.)
12. The Devil Wears Prada (Ask anyone, I both love and hate this movie at the same time to such frightening degrees that it looks like I'm going to have a stroke while it's on.)
11. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Oh, shut up. LOVE.)

Movies That Were Excellent
10. Thank You For Smoking
9. Dreamgirls
8. Stranger Than Fiction
7. The Prestige
6. Cars
5. The Descent (The best horror movie I have seen in AGES)
4. She's the Man (I said shut up! Amanda Bynes, you complete me. Make more movies.)
3. The History Boys
2. Little Miss Sunshine
1. Brick (No exaggeration: I have seen this movie 5 times. I am so weird. But I love it unconditionally. It is like my child.)


AHGH! 68! For those of you keeping score at home, that is 15 more than last year. 15! Good goddamn.

Maybe 2007 will be the year I actually go outside every once in a while. (Unlikely)

Guilty Pleasures

I love me some pie.

Most everyone knows this. Pretty much any type of pie will do: cherry, blueberry, buttermilk, chocolate, pecan, pumpkin...okay I'll stop because I'm sort of drooling now. When I was in my college days I used to keep a whole pie at my desk for a week at a time while I slowly whittled it away into nothing, to the utter horror of my crazy germophobic roommates. I may even have in my possession a T-shirt that was personally made for me that says "Pie Whore." Because I will do pretty much anything for a good piece of pie.

Currently my favorite pie (excluding ones made by my mom, because come on) is the single serving slices of Lemon Meringue Pie they sell at Chick-fil-A. It's some of the most perfect pie in the world, all sweet graham crackery crust with real lemony filling, an obscene amount of whipped meringue topping AND two fresh vanilla wafers.

I'll just go ahead and say it: Anyone who is not craving pie after that description is a Communist. Or a zombie. I'm sorry, but it's the truth.

Anyways, so that was what I had for lunch, a slice of pie from Chick-fil-A, because I am very, very, very poor right now and a slice of pie is filling and nutritious and costs less than $1.50. I ran through the drive thru, because I had some work to take care of back at the office, and brought my delicious pie to my desk to enjoy at my leisure. And it was delicious in a very literal sense.

So good, in fact, that I may have gotten a little overzealous in my pie consumption. Uh...to the point that I may have licked clean the little plastic container that it came in.

What? It was really good.

And yeah, in any case I wasn't so much concentrating on the pie eating, I just remember that it was awfully good.

Unfortunately, my entire office apparently knows exactly how good it was too, since I had to run a bunch of things up and down between my office and the mail room this afternoon, and did so without the knowledge that I had a good portion of that delicious meringue hanging off the tip of my nose. Because that's how I roll: like a dog that snuck some food off the dining room table.

I learned this fact approximately 45 minutes after I finished eating, when I happened to catch my reflection in the shiny door of the elevator. People in my office are awesome. And by 'awesome' I mean 'bitches.'

So, yeah. Rock on.

15 Lessons Learned from Gingerbread HouseParty 2006

In no particular order:

1. One should always go shopping for party supplies earlier than 57 minutes before the party is scheduled to start.
2. When constructing a from-the-box gingerbread house, if the instructions say 'wait 15 minutes for frosting to harden' you had damn well better wait the full 15 minutes. Those instructions were written by goddamn gingerbread house engineers, they know their shit.
3. In the interim drying period referenced above, it would be best to set up a specified area cordoned off by yellow police tape in which to hold the drying house, so as to keep it away from drunken partygoers, who by definition do not have frosting-drying patience.
4. Always plan for at least 10 extra guests than expected. Never underestimate the drawing power of edible houses and hot chocolate.
5. Buy more rum. Trust me.
6. Also, buy more pizza rolls. Can never have too many pizza rolls.
7. In a pinch, powdered apple cider from little one-serving-size packets is an acceptable substitute for the real stuff. Especially when trips to 4 different grocery stores fail to deliver the goods. Seriously, is there some sort of boycott on cider this year?
8. Rum filled cider? Delicious. Kahlua filled hot chocolate? The most delicious thing ever.
9. If house-building fails due to a lack of cordoned area and inebriated party guests, sugar cookie decorating is an acceptable substitute. Also, they are way more edible than the house, which may actually be made up of gingerbread cement rather than cookie.
10. "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," is not just a song from Avenue Q. Refer back to #5, only add the words "a lot" somewhere in the instructions. Consume and repeat.
11. Always double-check to ensure that your blender is properly assembled and tightly screwed together before letting partygoers utilize it.
12. Failing #11, make sure you have plenty of OxyClean carpet cleaner available. Ain't nothing quite as awesome as OxyClean.
13. When someone turns on the TV and puts in your copy of a transexual rock musical, it is not necessarily a party-killer.
14. But when someone follows it up with an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Time for last call.
15. I know it's said every time there is a party, but for real this time: Clean up on the same night. I don't care if it's 3:00 am. You will thank me for it later. Or you'll be cleaning dried frosting out of the carpet 48 hours later and cursing my name. Either way.

Christmas Mix

Y'all, have I mentioned lately that I love Christmas?

'Cause yeah.

Tree is up, Gingerbread party is tonight, and it is nice and wicked cold outside. All is well.

In honor of my festive spirit, I present to you the most awesome Christmas Mix Tape in the history of time and space. Said mix tape will also be playing at the gingerbread party tonight, to keep the level of Christmas spirit as high as possible. And considering we have an actual house-making kit from a store ready to go tonight, I can't help but think that this will be our most successful outing ever.

Jason's Awesome (and Slightly Emo) Christmas Mix Tape 2006

1. Bright Eyes - Blue Christmas [The best Christmas song in the world. Sung a little off key to make it even more poignant.]
2. The Long Winters - Christmas With You Is the Best
3. Wham - Last Christmas [Ain't nobody messing with Wham. Also, you can substitute the Jimmy Eat World cover of the same song, if you have no soul.]
4. The Eels - Christmas is Going to the Dogs [I'm not sure about this song, but I include it for its sheer ridiculous factor.]
5. The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song [Awesome. Second best song on the mix.]
6. Mariah Carey - All I Want for Christmas [Just try and listen to this song and not rock out. Oh that's right, you can't!]
7. Melissa Ethridge - Christmas in America [I can't believe I just admitted to listening to this ridiculous leftist song. I am weak-willed in my old age. Give me a break, it's catchy.]
8. Ron Sexsmith - Maybe This Christmas [Otherwise known as The OC Christmas Anthem.]
9. Death Cab for Cutie - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
10. Christina Aguilera - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas [Almost too much Aguilera-ization but still very good. Got to have the standards in here.]
11. Jars of Clay - Christmas for Cowboys [I sort of love this song, in a Brokeback kind of way.]
12. Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby [Very specific here, you need the live version of her singing it with her jazz orchestra. Every other version of this song that exists in the world sucks like a vacuum.]
13. Pilate - Fairytale of New York [As far as I know, the only Christmas song to contain the phrase "cheap lousy faggot" and still be pretty awesome.]
14. Ivy - Christmas Time is Here [To end of a really pretty and calming note.]

Keep an eye out over the weekend for the party recap.

Oh You're In for It Now

It's a Friday and I still don't have anything to talk about. You know what that means - Poorly Thought Out Review Day! And I haven't posted in a month, so there is no end to the things I can review.

Movies

Superman Returns - What the hell happened to this movie? You have a bunch of really good elements: A perfectly serviceable new Superman in Brandon Routh, a competent, if weirdly wooden Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey as a horrible, horrible Lex Luthor, the always awesome Parker Posey, and poor James Marsden in his eternal role as that cuckolded love interest.

(Aside: No, seriously, James Marsden should be studied: 3 X-men movies, The Notebook, Heights (okay, not technically on this one, but very close), and Superman Returns. In each of these movies he somehow loses his girl to another guy, despite basically being a good guy at heart. That is pretty much everything he has starred in, except that horrible gay movie with Scott Speedman that I sort of liked. Can you really make a career out of being the conventionally handsome foil who always loses the girl? I am very impressed for some reason.)

These are the component pieces of a movie that could be very awesome if put together properly. There is a huge camp factor all over the place - just the presence of Parker Posey alone is enough to set off the sense, and when you factor in just how bad Kevin Spacey is, you can practically feel it oozing out of the screen. But instead, it is just about the dullest romp through dullsville that you can imagine.

Even the action sequences are sort of dull. I understand that yeah, he's Superman, he's mostly invincible, but come on. He literally looks bored throughout the entire movie.

Also, I was really appalled at the lack of Clark Kent they had going on in this movie. I don't know why I enjoy the cover-up identity more than the secret one, but I do. And this movie contained many 10 minutes of Kent. I was not amused.

And okay, I get that Clark is supposed to be sort of a non-entity, which is how people never make the connection - omigosh no glasses, he's totally different! and all - but seriously. Lois Lane is now a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. And yet the fact that the reappearance of Superman on the exact same day as Clark Kent sets off exactly zero bells for her? Or Jimmy, or anyone else on the Daily Planet staff? Combined with the fact that they both left at the exact same time? Jesus-Tapdancing-Christ, give me a break. I get suspension of belief to a degree, but the movie was so boring I had plenty of time to reflect on this matter and it just really bugged me.

So yeah, I was sort of disappointed. High hopes, dashed.

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Clerks II - On one hand, it was sort of lame. Lame plot, some bad acting, some stilted dialogue on occasion, and beastiality.

On the other hand, it was sort of really funny. And Rosario Dawson is ridiculously hot. And that little diatribe about Star Wars and Lord of the Rings cracked me up uncontrollably. I can't reasonably hate a movie that made me laugh out loud several times.

God help me, but it wasn't that bad. Kudos Kevin Smith, you apparently still have some weird sway over me. Well played, indeed.

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Stranger Than Fiction - Very enjoyable, from beginning to end. Seriously. Usually I can't deal with Will Farrell, but apparently this is his month for not pissing me off. He and Maggie Gyllenhaal are great, Dustin Hoffman makes through an entire movie without driving me crazy, and Emma Thompson is amazing. The only character that doesn't work is Queen Latifah's, and its not necessarily her fault, there just doesn't seem like a purpose to her being there.

But the plot is gimmick-cute without being over self-satisfied (something that is usually only accomplished by Charlie Kaufman when you're talking gimmicks). It sets up the plot and then just goes on with the story. There are some genuinely cute moments (Flours? No, seriously, I was the only person in the theatre to laugh at that line. I felt bad at the time, but come on, that's hilarious), some touching moments, and a little bit of a lesson. It's not a crime for a funny movie to make you think a little.

Heartily recommended.

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The Prestige - First off, I think the movie has been out long enough that I can do a little bit of spoiling here without engaging too much wrath. It's a really good movie. Much better than I expected. 19th century magicians in blood feud? With Scarlett Johansson all up in there? The hopes were not high.

But they pulled it off remarkably well. Michael Caine continues to do no wrong, and everyone else pulls their own weight just fine. (Shout out to David Bowie, you just do your thing, sir. Hats off to you.)

The plot is all twisty, as you expect, but not overly so. There's nothing horribly cheap lying in wait, so long as you're okay with a little sci-fi thrown in to your magic for good measure. The only thing that didn't really work for me was the double-secret-twist at the end that was supposed to be the real shocker. It's set up pretty well: telegraph what looks like the big shock so that when the real one happens they're not expecting it. Only I had the "Ohhhh, I get it" moment back about 45 minutes before the reveal, so I was a little sad.

Still an excellent movie, though. And it had Piper Perabo. Never can have too much of her.

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I'll spare you the book reviews for now. But if I get bored later, watch out.