AND I WILL STRUM MY MERRY WAY

- I have mixed feelings about this week's 24: On the one hand, it was sort-of boring and not a whole lot really happened. On the other, I actually had a genuine emotional connection to what was going on which I don't think I've really felt about 24 since probably season 4. Jack's inability to help due to his sickness crushes him and that's kind of profound. Jack might be the world's foremost badass but he's also a broken, lonely man who's lost everyone important to him in his relentless quest to project his country. You get the sense that the only thing that defines his existence anymore is his ability to keep fighting and, when that's taken away, there's nothing left, no purpose for him to go on. Sure, there was still some ridiculous shit going on (Starkwell rolls up with friggin' armoured Humvees on a group of federal agents, for one) and the for-the-ladies Jack taking his clothes off bit was, um, odd but this episode actually worked as good drama not as the insane action-thriller piece that 24 usually is. Still, one does have to wonder how the writers will write themselves out of this corner, I hope it's not just a "you weren't infected after all!"-type thing, but that or Jon Voight having an antidote in a vial are the only options I can think of right now.

- Lost gets a "meh" from me this week, which I kind of thought it would going in. I don't really like any of the series' Kate-centric episodes and this was no different. Her flashbacks just filled in bits that we already sort-of knew and her on-island action just seemed well-worn. That said, there were bits I enjoyed: Jack's refusal to operate on Ben mirrors Sayid's shooting of him in that both of them, in trying to destroy Ben, unwittingly contribute to creating him. Hurley and Miles' conversation about time travel was good info-dump. But, in spite of the attempts at emotional resonance peppered throughout the story, I viewed this episode rather academically. That said, next week's episode looks awesome. If this preview doesn't get you pumped then I don't know what to say.

- I'm really surprised at this new Bob Dylan song. It's got kind of a Latin groove to it but it still fits in with the earthy blues tones of his last couple albums. And his voice is closer to that restrained Time Out of Mind mumble than the scratchy attempted-croon of Modern Times, that's a very good thing in my book. I hope the whole Together Through Life album keeps up this level of quality.

If you're following my other blog (and, really, why wouldn't you?) I have read over 150 pages of Twilight but I'm holding off on a post for a couple days to collect my thoughts proper and avoid going off-the-cuff with stuff that'll immediately be contradicted by later parts of the book. But, if you'd like a couple first impressions:

- Meyer really devotes a lot of words to describing how handsome Edward is, huh?
- I don't know if the names sounding Victorian (and it might just be me but Bella Swan and Edward Cullen just sound like names more appropriate to a knight and his fair maiden than anything modernist) is an intentional call-back to Jane Austin-style romances or it's just coincidence, but it's kinda odd either way.
- Hey, here's an odd thought: We know from all those testimonials on twilightguy.com that guys do read Twilight, so, why's there no "I [heart] Bella Swan" (or, uh, one of the girl vampires) thing as a contrast to all those "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" things?
- I may have just thought that last thing because, as much as it pains me to admit this in a public forum, Bella is totally my kind of gal. So, uh, if she ever wants to drop her vampire, I'll be here.
-If you're curious as to which character I relate the most to: It's totally Mike, he's just tries so hard to be nice. He's also sort of clingy and a bit creepy, but, whatever.
- Tonally, it's not nearly as mordant or gothic as I had expected, there's a good bit of levity and petty teen drama to it. Also, Meyer seems to be in love with using really long adjectives, it can be a bit much at times.

That's all from me for now.

IF I WAS YOUR VAMPIRE

This is not the post you're looking for

I HATE MYSELF FOR LOVING YOU

So, guilty pleasures, they're something that everyone has: Things that you know are bad but you like them anyway. Whether it's a bad action movie or a vapid reality TV show or cheesy romance novel, there's just no accounting for taste sometimes. I'm going post some of my guilty pleasures and why I like them (and why I shouldn't) in the hopes that others will too. So, to the two people who follow this blog: You're ON NOTICE. And please don't make fun of me for some of this.

(Quick note before I start: Guilty pleasures entail that you like the thing entirely unironically, it has to receive the response it seeks from you. Thus, I'm not going to put stuff like Bad Boys 2 on this list because I'm laughing at that movie, not with it.)

Crank: It's pretty much everything I'm against socially in movie form: it's sexist and racist and homophobic and generally reeks of a sort of frat boy, "let's get drunk and laid", nihilism. Add that to the fact that they're are people who take this movie way too friggin' seriously (i.e. seriously at all) and that the action scenes aren't particularly well-staged (it suffers from the all-too-common problem of too many fast cuts in many modern action movies), except for a couple of good gags (the guy falling off of the fire escape, for example), and this movie should be awful, right? Well, there are two things that make this movie work at all: 1) The Statham, 'nuff said. 2) The fact that the filmmakers are just trying to keep topping themselves in terms of out-there insanity. I mean, really, what is there to say about a movie where a guy driving a car through a mall is the least ridiculous thing? In terms of sheer "WTF?"-factor Crank has basically any movie this side of Asia beat. It's also got a certain sense of humour about itself and I love the wild, free-wheeling visual style that incorporates pretty much every little filmic trick in the book to enhance the crazy plot. It's the Annie Hall of action films, in that way. Crank is pretty-much just a teenage male fantasy brought to life but it'll hold anyone's attention in a social setting (if only because they're so offended) and it's probably the purest "guy movie" out there. Still, unless you're of a particular mindset (read: full of testosterone), you're not gonna like this and you basically don't want your wife, girlfriend or mom to know that this movie even exists.

The Notebook: Now, let's take a trip to the exact opposite end of the estrogen-testosterone scale with this movie, an adaptation of a novel by Nicholas Sparks (more on him in a bit) that is probably the most direly cheesy and melodramatic romance you'll ever see. In fact, words like "melodramatic" don't even begin to describe The Notebook; we need to invent new terms just for this movie. But, as I've said before, I'm a sucker for this type of over-the-top melodrama when it comes to romance and I'll admit I caught up in this one. Actually, it's sort of odd because I resisted it for a long time just based on the poster (because, well, yeah) and a plot synopsis. Also, the reviews weren't great. But, in one of those weird coincidences that happens sometimes, I was clicking around the dial one day and stopped to watch for a minute (mostly due to the costume design) without knowing exactly what it was. Before I knew it, I was, against all of my masculinity and better judgement, absorbed into this story. It's bad on any rational level (the characters are cliched, the plot progression doesn't make logical sense, everything is exaggerated to the point of hyper-reality), and a lot of the characters' actions exist in this romantic-in-theory-but-would-be-pathetic-in-real-life area that so many love stories inhabit (the scene where Ryan Gosling hangs off the Ferris Wheel bar to ask Racheal McAdams on a date is particularly eye-rolling). Still, there's a sort of undeniable pull that this movie holds for me; the variety of hyper-cheesy romance pushed here trumps the more-"realistic" fare of, say, He's Just Not That Into You (hi, Lana!) for me because I'd rather be enraptured in a fantasy that allows me to forget about my troubles for a while than have to deal with a more bitter story that makes me, to some extent, confront my issues (exceptions when said relative realism is extremely well-written as in Annie Hall or Say Anything). Also, it's very well-directed with excellent production/costume design and well-acted, for this type of material, to boot. And we all need to indulge our stupid romantic fantasies sometimes, right?



Every Nicholas Sparks novel that I've read except A Walk to Remember: Sparks is really bad writer; I mean that, he's really terrible. He doesn't have a feel for natural speech, he's extremely melodramatic and he repeats himself an awful lot if you read more than one of his books. However, his utterly overblown romantic stories touch a nerve for me (and, clearly, a lot of other people because he sells a lot of copies). They're perfect to lose yourself in if you're feeling bad and, as overblown as his descriptions are, I'm willing to forgive him because he's clearly working on more on an emotional level than anything else. And, if nothing else, he's a master of emotional manipulation, that or I'm easy. But when he wants me to feel sad, I feel sad, when he wants me to feel all warm and fuzzy, I feel all warm and fuzzy. I haven't read the book of The Notebook (I figure it's redundant given that I saw the movie) or Nights In Rodanthe (mostly because I thought that the movie of it looked awful) but otherwise, I have an unnatural love for his stuff. With the exception of A Walk to Remember, that is; I didn't like that one mostly because of the overbearing Christian message of it, which was sort of disappointing because the premise wasn't awful but, I dunno, it just didn't work for me.

There are lots of other things I could put on here but those will suffice for now. Perhaps this will be a running feature on here, who knows.

IF YOU DON'T ANSWER, I'LL JUST RING IT OFF THE WALL

- It's sort of funny how songs that you otherwise hate can become a perfect excuse for dancing around like an idiot given certain circumstances. Case in point: the East semi on Friday, the music played was, for the most part, things I wouldn't listen to privately in a million years but as background rhythm to dumbing out, it's pretty good. Examples of this effect: "Single Ladies", "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" and "In The Ayer". One complaint: They didn't play "Jizz In My Pants", or "I'm On A Boat", or that techno remix of Christian Bale freaking out. I guess those are just TOO HARDCORE for a school function but they played the uncut version of "It's Goin' Down" and that uses the n-word, like, five times. By the way, that song continues to infuriate me 'lo these many years. What the hell is going down, Yung Joc? I assume it's a party or something, but you need to explain your self further.

At any rate, I had a fun time. I went there to dance and act like an idiot and that's what I did and I successfully avoided any stupid drama. I did have a slight regret that I didn't ask for a slow dance with a particular person, but you can't dwell on stuff like that. There's always next time. Also, I sort of looked like a parish priest because I used my kerchief to hold my shirt collar shut because I couldn't find a tie; it ended up looking kind like those collars they wear, when combined with my shirt, so, yeah.

- I'll avoid spoiling Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas, mostly for the benefit of one person who's reading this, except to say that it ends happily but there's some (okay, a lot) of tragedy to get there. The thing I liked about it most though is that, despite its polish of 21st century atmosphere, it's sort of defiantly old-fashioned, written without a trace of irony, skepticism or cynical wit. And, at heart, I'm sort of an old-fashioned guy: being hip and jaded can work sometimes (I love both the book and the movie of Fight Club, and those are filled with cynicism and irony and post-modern technique) but, to me, a romance requires the person writing it to be unafraid to be melodramatic and sentimental, because, as much as people would try to deny it, love is, by nature, sort of melodramatic and sentimental. My issue with a lot of more modern romances (more often it's romantic-comedies) is that they try to have it both ways; they try to be all hip and cynical about relationships but they also try to portray a convincing love story. To me, that just diminishes the impact of both of the elements. I'd be lying if I said that bitterness isn't sometimes appealing to me, I love the majority of Raymond Carver's work, for example, but the thing is that Carver, who often targeted love with his bitter ire, didn't play both sides, he knew what feelings and ideas he wanted to evoke and he did them very well. Similar story with Hemmingway (though I've never really liked his work that much because it just oozes misogyny at pretty much every turn). By the same token, the classic widescreen romances were all about wish fulfillment and sentimentality, they were what they were and they did what the did very well. I think it's partially an issue of the post-modern critical cache making terms like "sentimental" or "overblown" out to be the mark of the devil; I hate to quote Paul McCartney to prove something but I love his statement that "being sentimental means you like things". There's this prevailing attitude, primarily among literary-snob types, that embracing big emotions openly is somehow tantamount to sacrilege; that all writing should be post-modern and skeptical and emotionally numb. Although this raises an obvious question about the life experiences of those critics, that's an irrelevant cheap shot. The real question is: why are denying art that is purely emotionally satisfying and doesn't require a P.H.D in literary studies to understand? I think it's a two-pronged issue: 1) People like to feel smart, so, if someone tells them that they have to be able to "get" a creative work because it's "cerebral" or whatever, people are naturally going to make an effort to understand, or pretend to understand, the work in an attempt to one-up people around them. 2) At some point along the line "populist"got equated with "stupid". I blame Jerry Bruckheimer. A lot of dumb-ass things get really popular (*cough* Transformers *cough*) but being made with a wide appeal doesn't necessarily mean that something is dumbed down. One of those whipping boys for sentiment is Forrest Gump, but that movie isn't dumb; it's certainly intended to appeal to the widest possible audience but there's a good deal of complexity going on there.

But, back to romance: the other reason I see for the influx of 'have it both ways" in romantic comedies is that movies are trying to appeal to a much broader audience of people who's entertainment demands have changed. This is where populism can go bad, where something appeals to a broad audience not by its nature but by marketing design. It's why every action movie is now PG-13 and includes a romantic subplot. It's why romances now have tooth-grindingly bad comedic relief and hit obvious teenage-guy sex appeal buttons ("Hey, let's put some scantily-clad models in here"). I suppose this is an argument in favour of genre solidarity but I go to watch an action movie for the action and, in some cases such as superhero movies, the mythic narrative. I don't need a love story in the middle of that. On the flip side, I go to see a love story to forget about the fact that I'll never have a girlfriend for 2 hours. Obnoxious comedy and skin-flashing distract from that. I guess what I'm trying to say is : know your audience, or at least know the reasons people go to see a particular genre of film.

I was having it out with one of my female friends about this a couple months ago when Australia came out. She thought that the movie looked awful and I asked why. Her response was that it was that it looked really cheesy and unrealistic (Note: I sometimes remember things wrong, so, since I know that the person I'm talking about will read this, if I say something that isn't right, please correct me). My response was that I liked my romances as cheesy and widescreen and epic and unrealistic as possible. It's better to be overblown when you're dealing with an emotion as grandiose as love. I know of few other feelings that have caused so much to happen in human lives and history. Doesn't that emotion deserve to be rendered in a way that is as outsize as it feels when you experience it?

I also might have said that Australia was my sort of romance because the chances of me being in a relationship are so unlikely that I may as well watch something that's purely fantasy than something that's more realistic. Australia and, to choose a favourite of hers, Must Love Dogs are equally unlikely for me, one is just a lot more fun because it's so ridiculous.

Please note that I haven't actually seen Australia yet, and neither has she, this is just us going by the trailers and commercials. For all I know, she was right and the movie is terrible.

Well, that was a long-winded way of making an obscure point. To summarize, Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas is a good book and if you need something that'll make you feel halfway decent about life, you should read it. Also, "sentimental" isn't a four-letter word, or, at least, it shouldn't be.

- Quick Lost bit to wrap this up: Last week's episode was decent but kind of slow. Also, not nearly enough Sayid. Next episode is all Locke, all the time, it should be awesome.


Final thing: All of my blog post titles are quotes from song lyrics. If you can spot what this post's title is taken from you will know what song I always liked but never truly understood until this weekend.

I HAVEN'T SEEN SANDY, AND JOHNNY OR MARY

- 24 was sort-of boring last night, not a whole lot really happened and overall it just felt like an episode of the writers moving all the pieces into place for the next set of episodes. But this sort of downtime is necessary to set up the more action-packed episodes, so, I remain hopeful for next week. Also, Janeane Garafalo was particularly sexy this week (mostly because she was all pissed off at everyone) and I'm willing to forgive a lot for that.

- SHOOT THE GLASS

- Hans brings sexy back

- There are few things better on Youtube than this

- This article says a lot of what I was trying to say about Mad Men in a much more intelligent way (even if I disagree with the somewhat blunt assessment of the show's characterization of its female characters as misogynistic)

- Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas persists in being pretty good stuff. Some of the language is a bit too flowery for its own good and the characters seem to speak in poem a lot of the time but I still like it a lot.

God, I don't have very much to write about today. Somebody needs to give me a topic to go off on.

MY EYES DRIFTED OUT THE WINDOW, DOWN TO THE ROAD BELOW

- Micheal Crichton might have been kind of a pseudo-science hack, but he wrote some pretty entertaining stuff. Evidence of this: his novel Next, the last he published before he died. I'm about a third of the way through it, and I'm digging it so far. Some of the scientific descriptions can be overly dry at points but there's generally enough movement to keep things interesting and fast-paced. In fact, this could make a really good movie or TV mini-series, if someone were willing to invest the large amount of money that would be needed to make that happen. I've always liked the off-the-cuff feel of Crichton's work, it feels like he's just taking ideas and issues he wants to talk about and wrapping a fast-paced thriller around them (in this case, it's genetic testing); he feels authentic passion for his subject matter, even if the way he presents it is very pulpy. Of course, the standard complaints about Crichton all apply: there's a lot of assumed logic and leaps of faith in terms of storytelling, he can't write female characters for crap, he can be overly verbose and his prose style is intensely hokey. Also, I could do without the graphic sex scenes. Still, I'm liking it a lot more than I liked State of Fear and it's about as good as Prey, thus far.

- Cell is a pretty good Stephen King book. Even if it does remind me a lot of the beginning part of The Stand. There's not a whole lot I can say about it though; it's a interesting story hook and King fleshes it out enough to keep you going. Really, everybody likes at least some of the things King has written, so, I just need to say it's a good Stephen King book and that's all that really needs to be said.

- Our school's REACH team had a tournament today, we won two of our games and lost one game by ten points.

- I don't want to be all "Woe is me!" but I am sort of sad that I'll be spending Valentine's Day alone. It's no big deal though, I guess, I've got my James Patterson romance novel and my stuffed Hershey's rabbit to keep me company, I'll be good.

- Finally, because I promised to write this: MR. OAKES IS A COOL DUDE.

JUST A LITTLE LATE, YOU FOUND ME

- Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas is a really good book so far (I'm about halfway through it). I think that Patterson has a really deft touch with whatever he's writing and it's odd but the rhythms of his writing style really works in the context of a romance. It's like he's writing chick-lit as a suspense thriller, if that makes any sense. I guess it's just because Patterson honed his craft doing all those Alex Cross novels but he knows how to make you keep turning pages, even if the concerns are less crazy kidnapper masterminds and more heart-rending emotional moments. He's certainly not high art but he knows pop-lit like nobody's business. Small annoyance: "It's not you, it's me" is used at one point. I'm waiting for "it's not me, it's you", which I'll probably have said to me at least once in my life.

- Hannibal, the book, sort of sucks. Not as much as the movie, but, still. Thomas Harris is a brilliant writer in a technical sense but I seriously think that he doesn't understand his characters, or at least their appeals, at all. Here's a hint: Hannibal Lecter is interesting because he's never explained (or, as he puts it, in Silence Of The Lambs, "Nothing happened to me, I happened"), tacking on a stupid backstory about his dead sister only weakens him by providing a pat psychological explanation for his crimes (and don't even get me started about Hannibal Rising). Also, part of the terror of Hannibal is that we never see what he does to his victims; the brain scene and the mirror scene might work as gross-out moments and/or dark comedy but they seriously weaken Lecter's capacity to frighten. And his dialogue often crosses the line from "darkly funny" to "campy".

Furthermore, while I buy that Clarice would be burned out after ten years in the FBI, I don't buy that she would become Hannibal's lover to get away from that life. There's certainly a romantic underpinning to their relationship but as full-on romantic companions, I just don't see it happening. Though this may only be because I want Clarice Starling to always be single because she's my dream girl and I like to feel like I have some weird "chance" with her (even though she's, you know, fictional and all that), I dunno.

I sort of have to give Harris credit for sticking all manners of insane shit into the novel, though. I know of few writers who would think it's a good idea to have a guy cut his face off with a mirror and feed it to his dogs, or have that same dude get killed by having an electric eel stuffed down his throat by his lesbian sister who he used to molest with candy bars as a kid. And you have to respect an author who can get away with that and call it legitimate literature, to some degree.

- 24 was pretty sweet last night. Highlights:
- Colm Feore getting his finger lopped off
- Jack's brilliant retort to Larry ("The rules are what make us better" "Not today")
- Dubacku's conversation with his girlfriend ("You're kind enough for the both of us")
- Jack speeding into oncoming traffic
- Renne being a hardass ("I will shoot you where you stand"), and being very attractive while doing it, I might add.
- Presdient Taylor being a hardass (I might also add that it's interesting to see the typical spouse-kidnapping plot having the genders reversed), not looking as pretty while doing it
- Jack deploying his white-fu against a corrupt Secret Serivce agent
- Jack imitating Chow Yun-Fat while taking out a group of terrorists.
- A car getting blown-up with an RPG
- Janeane Garafalo being all sexy when she gets pissed off at that weaselly computer programmer guy. Let me tell you two things: 1) Janeane Garafalo can critique my work habits any day of the week, if you catch my drift and 2) That guy, and Larry, to a lesser extent, are stone cold idiots; they've got Janeane Garafalo (who is, presumably, single) there and they're ignoring her in favour of cheating on their wife with an FBI programmer in an uncomfortably short skirt and pining over a girl who is presumed dead, respectively; morons.

My only real complaints were that Dubacku leaving right before Jack burst in was a little too convenient for my taste, that, yet again, the terrorist hideout is in the back of a store and I still wonder how they're gonna keep going, given that the terrorists have zero leverage over the White House now. Also, they (maybe?) killed Colm Feore, this makes me sad.

- Those Robin Hudson mysteries are really good if you're looking for a relatively light read. They're short, they're funny and they're femme-noir (my new term I just made up for a film noir-esque thing with woman as the main character). And, really, is there anything more sexy than a red-headed lady journalist solving mysteries and being all wittily cynical about everything? Yes, but only if that lady journalist is also Janeane Garafalo.

That's all I've got to say for now, I'm seeing Gran Torino tonight and I'll report back on that tomorrow. Leave a comment if you'd like.