The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

The Good:
Dark Knight isn't as good upon the second viewing! Why is this a good thing? Because it means there's room for improvement. Don't get me wrong, Dark Knight is still an amazing movie, but it has problems and almost all of them are either Batman or logic related. The good parts of the movie are still good. The Joker continues to be the most interesting film character since Jack Sparrow, the action is still loads better than Batman Begins, etc. etc. But there are a few times where the viewers disbelief is suspended to nearly the breaking point (cell phone, bullet building/fingerprint finding computer, Batman's miraculous immunity to falling off buildings). I could go into more detail, but the chances are that if you see me in person, I'll will probably list all the flaws of the Dark Knight without you asking me to.

The Bad:
Step Brothers is bad. It was a lazy movie. There was pretty much no plot to speak of (which isn't inherently a bad thing in my book). It was pretty much a riff-fest, with a point the camera at the funny style of shooting. This film did no one any favors.

The Ugly:
They showed this preview before Step Brothers.

Pushing Daisies Update

Ok, so last night I put Pushing Daisies on my list of three things that are awesome. I just watched the second episode and am a little unsure of my prior pronouncement.

Problem 1: Chi McBride. He played the tough as nails principle on Boston Common (and on an episode of Boston Legal). He played the tough as nails millionaire benefactor on the first season of House. And he's playing the tough as nails private investigator on Pushing Daisies. Anyway, it doesn't really matter who he is playing, I don't really like him. I know I'm being a little hard on him, as I've only seen him in two episodes, but I don't really see him being much different from the characters I have seen him play historically. I don't really see him doing anything interesting with the character.

Problem 2: The show appears to be a murder mystery show. But the mysteries so far have been of Monk-like caliber where you more or less have them figured out by the time they introduce the first suspect. Again, I've only seen two episodes, but I kind of have a feeling that this is going to be representative for the rest of the series because I'm kind of a genius.

I'm going to watch the third episode before I go on. Wait a second.

Ok I watched the third episode, and it's not that the mysteries themselves are dumb (the one in the second episode was though) it's that they wrap them up in sort of lame flashbacks.

Problem 3: Everything and everyone in the show is a little too adorable.

The show is like Murder She Wrote if it was directed by Tim Burton, but not Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton, Big Fish Tim Burton (which isn't really a good comparison, because Big Fish Tim Burton has only made one movie, Big Fish, whereas Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton is responsible for every other movie in Tim Burton's career). The point is I can't really figure this show out. It's quirky, but without rules to it's quirkyness. Wonderfalls was quirky, but it had rules. Pushing Daisies doesn't have a lot of hard and fast rules, except for the three that have been stated at the beginning of every episode so far (one touch brings them back, a second touch kills them again, and if something is brought back for more than a minute something else has to die). Other than that... not so much. It's a world where a body that bad been dead in the ocean for a while, suffered little to no sign of decomposition, then it goes to a mortuary and isn't preserved in any way noticeable, because when the love interest is brought back from the dead, she shows no signs of being worse for wear, she doesn't complain of having all of her organs sucked out. I mean, I understand that would sort of make it a bit more disgusting for her and the main character to have a physical relationship, but they never even address these points in the show.

All the dialogue on the show is quick and witty, but the stories for the murder mystery parts of the show seem kind of forced and dumb. Aesthetically the show seems to be geared toward women, but then every female character wears extremely low cut shirts (which, I assume, is for the male viewers). I guess it's a case of trying to be everything for everyone. Overall I like the show, but it perplexes me.

I just read that the girl who plays Chuck on the show is David Thewlis's (Professer RJ Lupin) ladyfriend. Way to go Mr. Thewlis. Anyway, I'm going to bed because I'm tired and it's past my bed time.

Three Things that Are Awesome

1. The Dark Knight. Believe the hype. This is the best movie I've seen all year. It is an intense and exhausting movie, but well worth it. It isn't a perfect film, but it's not far from it. As with Batman Begins, Christian Bale's Batman is the weakest part of the film. The way he speaks as Batman is just ridiculous. His delivery makes some pretty good dialogue seem laughable. There is also some gadget nonsense that is really unnecessary (the cell phone thing, if you've seen it). The movie would've been just fine without that, I don't know why they put it in their. But yeah. The Dark Knight is what a Batman movie should be.

2. Walcott by Vampire Weekend. I've been listening to this album a lot lately. Mostly just this song actually, but the whole album is pretty good. Really.

3. Pushing Daisies. I've only seen the first episode, so I might be jumping the gun a bit by declaring it awesome. But I really like the first episode and I needed a third thing for my "three things that are awesome post". I suppose I could have included "My Custom Van" by Michael Ian Black, but I'm still not sure about that one yet.

Anyway there's your update on things that are awesome. Deal with it.

Batman ate my neighbors

Dark Knight opens tomorrow. I have every reason to believe it will be as good as it should be. Bob said that it's 2 and a half hours long, which is nice. There are supposed to be trailers for Harry Potter and The Watchmen in front of it. I saw the Watchmen trailer. It concerned me, but only a little.

In other news Hellboy 2 was not a good movie. Hellboy is a good movie. Believe it.

So I'm off this weekend. I don't really know what I'm doing yet, but it's nice to have to not have plans.

Also I finished the script for the short film I'm working on, but I think I decided it will be a three part film, so... yeah. That'll be fun to write.

Anyway, I'm hella tired and partly distracted by Batman Begins, so I'm going to end this post now.

A Post about Dogs.

My dog Buster died Monday at about 1 in the morning. His kidneys had been failing and he had developed a heart murmur. He had been deteriorating pretty quickly these past couple of weeks, and late Sunday night he got to the point where he was in a lot of discomfort. My mom's friend Karen, who is a veterinarian, came over and administered something to help with the pain and he died not long after.
It's been fairly well documented that I get pretty emotional about the death of pets, and Buster's passing was particularly hard for me. Buster was a very misunderstood dog, and it was pretty much all Geoff Seyer's fault. A couple of days after my mom brought Buster home from the humane society I had a few friends over, and as they were coming in the house Buster was getting pretty excited, he was barking playfully and scampering around my friends as they came in. Then Geoff came in and responding to Buster's barking by kicking at him and making his own barking kind of noises, not maliciously, he wasn't actually trying to kick Buster, regardless, ever since that day Buster treated all people that came into the house as enemy combatants (with a few exceptions).

On Thursday my mom brought a puppy from the humane society. His name is Tobias (Toby).
He's the one that's not a shoe.

My Keyboard is on the Fritz

The $3 keyboard I bought with my computer 6 years ago quit working last week, so I am using the old keyboard from my mothers keyboard. It will not let me type apostrophes or quotation marks, so you will have to deal with my incorrect spellings and punctuations.

We played DnD tonight. It was fun. I rolled a Warlock and kicked major quantities of rat and zombie ass. At first I was a little worried that the guys were not going to take it serious enough, but once we started combat it was all business, the business of blowing up rat swarms.

On another note, Katy Segal almost single handedly ruins the fourth season of Futurama, by being involved in it.

Um... not much else to report.