beadgirl

Heh. But I don't think she meant to be cruel for the sake of cruelty; I think she actually did care for her daughter even if she did a piss-poor job of showing it. I do hope the father and daughter can develop a good relationship, and I hope her own child can bring her happiness. And speaking of the father, I was surprised at how forgiving the housekeeper (I forget her name) was of him, given her general approach to life and human frailty. I thought the way they portrayed the doctor was interesting -- he was so utterly sure of the correctness of what he did. I (and apparently Sidney and Geordie) thought what he did was wrong, but he will never think so. Ugh, Amanda. I know to be careful to judge her by today's standards, and her unwillingness to rebel against her father/class/expectations is understandable, but she needs to commit to her decision. Stringing Sidney along, involving him in the wedding, and ignoring how he might feel about all this is cruel and selfish. Poor Sidney; everyone makes cutting comments about how he can't understand love.

I really like this show! I'm generally wary when tv tackles religion, and especially clergy, but they seen to be avoiding cliches both offensive and banal. I especially like the relationship between Sidney and Georgie -- after their first encounter, I was worried they would fall into a pattern of clever Sidney figuring out all the crimes and unimaginative Geordie always threatening to arrest him for interfering. *cough*FatherBrown*cough* And true to life, too! Regardless of personal experience, clergy learn a tremendous amount about the world via their parishioners, and are rarely fazed. Hmm, I like that and I hope the writers of the show do it. It would be a nice change of pace.

"Foil," also by Weird Al!

This show keeps getting better and better; I don't even miss the POI-of-the-week right now. Strong acting, strong writing, and a hell of a story. I loved seeing more of Control this episode. She genuinely loves for her daughter but wouldn't break despite Root's threats to the girl. She commits great evil, but because she wants to protect innocent people. She is incredibly arrogant and confident, but is willing to consider that she might be wrong or in the dark about something, and rather than just trust the people around her she tries to learn the truth. Once Control sides with Team Machine, I don't think Samaritan will stand a chance. And I am really looking forward to that. That creepy kid -- exactly how is Samaritan controlling him? I don't care how powerful and all-seeing it is, if it were whispering into my son's ear, there's no way it would be able to get him to obey for more than five minutes. Is it promising video games or candy or something every time the kid parrots it's message?

I'm always annoyed by the parents whose bratty spoiled teens do awful things, and not only do the parents not seem at all bothered by it, they try to keep their kids from telling what they know about the crime (that someone else committed -- I get parents invoking their children's 5th amendment rights). Which is why I loved one episode where the bratty spoiled teen mouthed off to the detectives, only to get slapped upside the head by his father and told to cooperate.

I may or may not have a playlist called "girly pop hits" that may or may not have such songs as "Baby One More Time," "Genie in a Bottle," and "Complicated." Mr. Beadgirl loves to tease me about my teenage love-affair with Def Leppard, but I just counter with his love of Wham. And yes, I do have the greatest hits of both Neil Diamond and Howard Jones ("No One is to Blame"! Certainly not me!).

I'm ridiculously excited about this show, especially because I plan to watch with Beadboy2 who loves both silliness and knights in shining armor. Both The Princess Bride and Monty Python's Holy Grail are staples in our house (to which I must add Robin Hood: Men in Tights, I just realized).

The other anti-social playlist -- insult songs: You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch -- Thurl Ravenscroft You're so Vain -- Carly Simon We Will Rock You -- Queen Ballad of a Thin Man -- Bob Dylan Nowhere Man -- The Beatles Masters of War -- Bob Dylan

If that's the message they wanted to send (aside from the primary message of "buy Old Navy crap") they went about it the wrong way. That "Mom says you buy extravagant gifts because you don't have a boyfriend" line tells me Mom is a horrible, judgy person who thinks a life without a man is pathetic. Add in the Poehler ad about how everyone is spending Thanksgiving day shopping at their stores, and they suck. The eat-a-snack commercial is funny, I must admit. As long as they acknowledge that "eat a snack because you're hungry" is ok!

I say that every time my cat meows in my face. Also, I will never not say "Or-eh-GA-no? What the hell?" when cooking. (I use oregano a lot, too.) My kids are affectionately (and sometimes not-so-affectionately) called "my damn wiener kids."

Yup. A Christmas Carol is not, in fact, a love story, contrary to Hallmark's and Lifetime's opinion. In A Diva Christmas, didn't Vanessa Williams's character have a romance with the Bob Cratchit character? He did move on and marry and have kids, and once Ebony has her change of heart, she helps his sick child and makes sure he can spend Christmas with his family (breaking up his marriage wouldn't have been very Christmasy, I guess).

I love it, too. In our house a few years ago, Beadboy2 dubbed him "Frosty what doesn't talk." It's based on a gorgeous, wordless book.

Holy crap, that's awesome! Better than the version I have, by Joan Osborne, which is very bluesy. I love the Pearl Jam cover of "Masters of War"; too bad it's also still relevant. And Robert Plant's "Girl from the North Country" -- I really wish he'd release a proper version of it.

Um, what? Beadboy3 decided to throw up all over his crib just as the husband thrust the cure into his wife's back; clearly, I missed a whole lot after that. Can someone fill me in?

The Nose was awesome. Especially how he dodged Watson's attempt to get his name. But my absolute favorite part was finding out Sherlock got accidentally arrested because of his elaborate plan to find the cleaner. Sherlock's intellect is both brilliant and fallible, and it makes this version my favorite modern depiction of the character. "One can't judge the quality of an idea by it's execution."*HA! *Or words to that effect. That's what bugged me. I'm sick of tortured, complicated characters with tortured, complicated lovelifes. I want to see Watson find a smart, decent guy, have a real, meaningful relationship with him, and eventually get married. BUT all this happens in the background -- no jealousy over her relationship with Sherlock, no putting him in peril where Sherlock and Watson have to rescue him, no "it's me or the job!" nonsense. Just a scene here and there showing she has a happy, low-key personal life. Sherlock's lovelife is tortured and complicated enough; add Gregson's divorce and I think we have enough relationship drama.

I lasted all of ten minutes with Mr. Miracle -- what the heck was Morrow doing? Or was it the director's fault? His character was so odd and creepy I had to delete the movie. I keep trying to see the 12 Dates of Christmas, but my on demand function isn't working; maybe they'll air it on regular tv and I can watch it that way.

That's his reason for opposing abortion? And here I am, opposing it because I think it kills a human life. Ooh, me too. Or rather, I'm fine with Santa appearing in kids' movies because duh, but in grown-up movies it just throws me out of the story, because I start nitpicking all the real-world problems with a Santa creature (logistics, the meanness of neglecting kids who don't believe in Santa or aren't Christian, the disparity in gifts for rich kids and poor kids, etc.) ABitofFluff, I also like watching all sorts of Christmas Carol variations; in fact, last year I set out to watch as many as I possibly could. I like the Sims version, and Patrick Stewart's and Kelsey Grammer's, but I confess my absolute favorite is A Muppet Christmas Carol. I also like "modern" versions -- Scrooged being the best, but A Diva's Christmas Carol is up there. There are also some awful ones, though. I remember one I watched (can't remember the name) where the Scrooge character was a young ad exec who was horrible and selfish and petty, but the script forcused entirely on how mean she was to her ex-boyfriend and how she had to reform to get him back -- no thought was paid to all the non-boyfriend people she treated like crap. Scrooge had to learn to be charitable and kind to his fellow man lest he end up in hell; this chick had to learn to be a good girlfriend lest she end up lonely. Quite the devolution in message, there.

Called it! Although I will miss Theresa, and I hope she comes back for an episode or two periodically. They have to resolve the key thing eventually, don't they? I'm really hoping that tear and sniffle were for a wistful thought of what might have been (a child), and not a pregnancy. The writers need to just let her and Nick be for a while. Cute goblins! And I checked wikipedia -- apparently the Greek community of Mari do have some tales of goblins wreaking havoc for the 12 days of Christmas, but there was very little info. What kind of wesen were they supposed to be? Any animal or mythological analog?

Maybe it's because I'm Catholic I'm more aware of his awful, cheesy, theologically-wrong religious films, and so he has a greater presence in my mind. I agree his sister seems more low-key about her faith. Shoot, I missed the Toy Story special; I wanted to show it to my kids. Will they be airing it again? We have the DVD of the Peanuts Christmas special, but I'll keep an eye out for the one on the 16th, since I don't think we have the shorts. And finally, Mr. Miracle is on my to-be-DVR'd list too, since I like Rob Morrow and I have a weakness to the Mrs. Miracle movies. I've even considered getting the novels from the library, to see what more there is to the stories.

A Diva's Christmas Carol is one of the good ones, definitely. I wish I could get Vanessa Williams's version of "Sleigh Ride," too, but it's not on any of her Christmas albums. And I'm behind the rest of you, but I finally saw Nine Lives of Christmas and I really liked it! Likeable leads; cats; an asortment of school friends, work friends, and family rather than one multi-purpose supporting friend; a minimum of stupid manufactured drama; cats; a great multi-generational rapport amongst the male characters; no suggestion that the female lead's career ambitions were less important than a man; and cats. My only complaint was the cartoonishly selfish girlfriend. I wish Kirk Cameron would go away. Stop giving Christians a bad name!

I may or may not have had a huge grin on my face when Nick finally got his powers back. And how convenient that both Monroe and Hank ended up in (separate) pits, so that Nick had to take out all three by himself, to make sure we all knew he was back! I suspect they are saving that for the confrontation with the racist Wesen. He was furious at the beginning of the episode, his eyes red and on the verge of woging. Given the rapport between Josh and Teresa, and the fact that Josh will be in danger until this key thing is resolved, I'm now assuming that that's how Teresa will (temporarily) leave Portland/the show -- she will become Josh's bodyguard. No pregnancy, PLEASE. I like Juliette, I love their relationship, I want them to have lots of kids some day, but they really need to have a good two seasons or so of no drama. That said, I don't think she is pregnant, because when would a preview be that obvious? Having the voice-over guy say "could she be pregnant???" makes me think that she isn't.

That's what makes him so compelling -- I'm no mob-apologist, but there is a real decency to him; remember how great a teacher he was! I see Elias and I think what he could have accomplished if he had used his powers for good. Although, not gonna lie, I'm really looking forward to him taking out Dominic, and I suppose that could be considered a good thing ;) . He's a remarkably complex character, especially compared to Dominic, who basically has no characterization at all. It doesn't help, too, that I don't think the actor is very good at this role -- Dominic seems to have such a flat affect, which, come to think of it, might be on purpose and tied to his failure to inspire any kind of loyalty. "I always just called him Scarface" and "Lucy and Ethel" are tied as my favorite lines. And Fusco schooling Martine was the best. Fusco manages to be utterly ordinary and totally awesome at the same time, and I love it. And yeah, I really did expect Greer to literally plug Martine into Samaritan.

AWESOME. I adored that Teddy was the voice of reason -- it's about pecking order, not Thanksgiving taking its revenge or turkeys rising up to rule the world! And Regular-sized Rudy continues to delight, with his interference to make sure the bottle hit the button, and his inhaler. I'm now kinda hoping that 20 years from now he and Louise get together. I just about died with Bob's "That's a perfectly good note. That doesn't sound drunk at all." The Turkey Mafia hit my mom's town in W. Pennsylvania, too. Too bad my father died years ago; his turkey impressions were dead-on, accurate enough to scare and fluster a whole farm's worth of turkeys.

"Roses Blue" by Joni Mitchell "Blood Roses" by Tori Amos "China Roses" by Enya "Una rosa es una rosa" by Mecano "Elephants and Flowers" by Prince "Flowers Never Bend with the Rain" by Simon and Garfunkel "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" by Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand "Flowers of the Sea" by Dead Can Dance "Daisy Dead Petals" by Tori Amos "Daisy" a song sung by my mom but I have no idea who wrote it and Wikipedia couldn't help me

Word on Johnny Cash's "Hurt," and a lot of the others you guys mention. "Mad World" by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules is far better, in my opinion, than the original by Tears for Fears. I also enjoy the Indigo Girls's cover of "Tangled Up in Blue" far more than Dylan's version. Actually, I have a whole playlist of Dylan covers -- as a awesome as he is, I often prefer his songs done by others.