At $13.99 a month you can rent up to 2 DVDs at once via Netflix.com. For $3.99 you can rent a new release DVD from Blockbuster for about 5 days. Your local neighborhood video rental store charges between one to two dollars a movie depending on how old it is. All of these are practical, inexpensive ways to catch up on cinematic entertainment. That is until you factor in the library.
On March 19th, 2009, Infinite Et Cetera reported that Pittsburgh would win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship. We regret to inform you the aforementioned statment was based off misinformation and is therefore being retracted. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you.
Some leads, news feeds, quick reads, no anal beads:
With just sixty official episodes over six seasons Curb Your Enthusiasm now owns a spot in television history as one of the greatest comedies of all time. Think about all the sitcoms aired over the last five years. Think about how many were over sixty episodes and how many are just as funny as the canned-laughter would lead you to believe (Two and a Half Men is up to 134 episodes while Arrested Development barely made it to 53. Really?). So for those of you who've yet to see any season, to say you're missing out would be an understatement.
I was on three hours of sleep the last two days and apparently it took a toll on my unconsciousness. In thirty seconds, here's what went down in last night's dream:While playing on a local golf course I casually run into Chevy Chase. He was excited to see me because he mistook me for the voice actor behind Bart Simpson. While pretending to be a huge fan of his work, he said he was an even bigger fan of mine. He rolled up his sleeves and made me sign his giant arm, writing my name and then in huge letters "Voice of Bart Simpson" beneath it while he explained his son was a huge fan. We ended up going to some kind of golf after party with tons of fancy ladies and I eventually woke up.To recap: golf course, Chevy Chase, mistaken identity, Bart Simpson, giant bicep/forearm, after party.
Disney and ABC Family Channel present Roommates, starring Tamera Mowry and "a group of twentysomethings who move in together after college".
"Pocketful of Sunshine" by Natasha Bedingfield is responsible for your nightmares about Pechanga Resort & Casino. Just try to watch a Laker game without getting caught up in the "take me away" part of the chorus.
Manny riding an adult size tricycle at spring training. ESPN has the video [here].
Hollywood, about 10:05pm, Monday night. Clear skies, empty freeways, broken parking meters, all coming together at once. I don't mean to get all Bill Plaschke on everyone, it's just that when you wait less than an hour to order food at Pink's you know it's a good day.
The next official blog is coming soon, so in the mean time here is my second list of recommended links mostly from today:
Slanket. Snuggie. It's simply too much....they're even flying off shelves at stores like Bed Bath and Beyond...but not everyone is cozying up to the Snuggie™!
"It's disheartening when your original ideas are stolen," says Gary Clegg, the inventor of the Slanket.
The Slanket is a blanket with sleeves that looks a lot like a Snuggie™.
"Everything about [the Snuggie™] is eerily similar," says Clegg.
Clegg says he came up with the Slanket 10 years ago in his college dorm room. "It was a cold night and I didn't want to expose even an inch of my body to the cold winter bite, so I cut a hole in my blanket," Clegg tells INSIDE EDITION.
With Watchmen opening in less than a week, I figured it was time to get into the superhero swing of things and present lesser known *!Super!*-heroes.Drew Daniels was born in Amarillo, Texas.. He is working at a cattle ranch when a tornado and radiation from a nearby nuclear reactor affect him at the same time. The net effect was to give him the power to generate tornadoes at will.Safe to say I don't know much about the comic book/superhero universe. But I couldn't help but laugh at the bio of this southern fried dandy in all his baby blue glory. Texas Twister is an expert rodeo rider, mind you. But he's got other battles to fight, as explained further in another entertaining portion of his bio:
Soon, however, Texas Twister returns to the Avengers Compound at a time when Hawkeye was alone, demanding to see the captive demon. Twister declares his love for the demon, which turns back into Shooting Star. Texas Twister went on to explain that the demon had come to him months ago when Twister's powers seemed to be fading, making him afraid that he'd lose Shooting Star if their rodeo act broke up on account of his lost powers. The demon offered to augment the Twister's powers in exchange for his soul, and the Twister agreed, but after his powers were restored he begged to be spared. The demon then takes over Shooting Star instead. The demon proceeds to cast a spell that prevents Twister from telling anyone about this. The spell did not prevent Twister from researching the occult on his own; this is how he finds a way to break the demon's original spell.If Iron Man knew this guy was in S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm sure he would have revoked his membership long ago. So goes the superhero universe I guess, filled with tons of obscure guys just like this. There's definitely too much radiation out there being accidentally used on the wrong people. There had to of been a better human casualty, even in 1976.
Michael Cera finally stopped holding out and agreed to terms for the Arrested Development movie.
I've joined Pete Carroll, Shaquille O'Neal, and Ben Maller on Twitter. I won't be doing anything nearly as cool as any of them, but I'll try to post winning lottery numbers and horroscopes when the moment presents itself.
Today's quest for shelter was an interesting one. I came across some very nice one bedroom spaces that are going for $950 a month. Granted it's a tad out of my price range but I've saved enough to hopefully spare me the experience of sleeping in my living room (and probably on this!)
The End Is Almost Nigh
by David N.
So this past Wednesday I was one of a few lucky people to be invited to the MTV Spoilers screening of Zack Snyder's WATCHMEN. So naturally a friend of mine and I made the trip to the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. The place itself was not a place you'd picture for a movie premiere. I could only describe it as cozy. Picture the smallest theater you've ever been in and cut it in half. The aisles were worse than getting through to get a hot dog at Dodger Stadium. This would insure that MTV would not get anyone walking up during the movie. Also, I've never been in a theater that didn't allow or serve food.
As you can guess, the line to get in was a mix of rabid fan boys and douches that just go to things that seem popular. This became apparent when we were still waiting to get inside and two cute production girls were trying to get people in line to sing My Chemical Romance songs. At that point those ladies lost their appeal. Overall, not including the third world hunger I got after about 5 hours of MTV holding us hostage, it was a unique movie-going experience.
But let's get to the main course, the film itself. Coming in at about 2 hours and 40 minutes, Watchmen is not for the stamina challenged (like the owner of Infinite Et Cetera). Luckily there are very few parts that drag on. There's two ways of looking at this movie; those of us that over zealously read the graphic novel and those of us that have never heard of Watchmen before. This reporter is the ladder, I've read this book twice in my life, loved it both times but was only mature enough to appreciate it once. If you'll remember, I placed this at number two on my top ten all time list. With all the trailer, panel and previewmania we all went through in the build up, it is needless to say I had high expectations.
So, does the movie deliver? The short answer is yes in that what it delivers is intended to be a short adaptation of Alan Moore's epic masterpiece. By that I mean there are certain parts you won't see in the theaters that are some of the best of the book. For example, Hollis Mason's death scene was one of the more tragic moments of the book, but you wont see it on March 6 (luckily Zack Snyder filmed this scene and it will be seen on the DVD release). While the subtle differences from the book to the movie were a deterent for me, (I think Rorschach's prison scenes should have been longer, and some Mars dialogue is left out), Zack Snyder does an amazing job of expanding the fight panels from the book. It's like going from Mortal Kombat in the 90's to the Mortal Kombat games we have now, taking beautiful violent images into something more artistic. (The best one being the Nite Owl and Silk Spectre alley fight)
As for the controversial ending to the movie, while others have said the overall ending is not lost, while others have said it's better than the book. I disagree with both; through the movie there was always the tone of the original book dialogue. The moment you see where this new ending is beginning, it takes a 45-degree turn away from the book. While the ending does do the job of leaving you with the moral question from the book. You can almost tell where Moore's dialogue ends and Snyder's compromise begins. The reason I have a small problem with the end is because the movie was done so well that with a few more dollars Snyder could have done an astonishing squid and made it relevant. I think changing everything to nuclear destruction was taking the easy way out. The inclusion of Nite Owl in one of the death scenes was a good directors touch though.
The acting…well some performances were astounding, other's felt like they were just there. For the most part, it really felt like Silk Spectre was just there; her performance even made Nite Owl less of a standout (exception being the alley fight). Dr. Manhattan, while the character is supposed to be void of emotion, Bill Crudup even dragged this out the moment on Mars when he's suppose to reconnect. If you don't believe me compare the movie to the book, in terms of the Mars scene. The truly standout performances were from Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian and Matthew Goode as Ozymandias. Perhaps it was because Snyder overdid it in making these characters badass.
Overall, it's a great movie experience but it doesn't deliver the epic scale that Snyder teased for the last two years. Ultimately it suffers because it's no Dark Knight in the way that Lost Planet is no Gears of War. It's not as though Lost Planet was a bad game, but it's curse is that it came out 3 months after Gears of War had just set the bar for how stunning Xbox games should be.
So, if I didn't know what Watchmen was about before, would I recommend this movie? Yes, without a doubt. I can't stress enough that this is a great movie! You will enjoy it, everyone will. Fan boys and the non-alike. Watch MTV on Feb 21 at 8pm to witness the reaction to the cast as it was well deserved because you can't find better actors for these parts. What disturbed me the most was during the directors Q and A was that it seemed like everyone was ready to link Snyder's name to Watchmen more than Alan Moore. It was a 20 minute brown-nosing session. No one bothered to ask about having such well fitting music during the movie only to be followed by My Chemical Romance covering a great Bob Dylan song during the end credits. Do I think Alan Moore would like this movie? No. At some point in his life when he puts it in his Insignia Blu Ray player I'm sure he won't like this interpretation. That's my main problem with the movie; it's just not Moore.
