Bruinsfan

I tried to watch The Hurt Locker and found myself bored to the point of switching to some mindless fare on cable TV. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled that the Motion Picture Academy flipped James Cameron the bird by giving it all those Oscars, but ideally I'd like for a Best Picture winner to be compelling enough that I actually feel motivated to keep watching until the end. (Movies like Driving Miss Daisy and The English Patient certainly had no difficulties in that regard...)

YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT A SQUIRREL

The problem is he's so Method he's been unable to break that character even when filming new movies. I loved him in Ed Wood and found him enjoyable to watch in The Ninth Gate, but he's become a big Do Not Watch warning sign for his recent movies.

Gerard being the Benefactor is the only way I can square away Kate being among those contacted as potential assassins rather than on the hit list itself.

I'm pretty sure they have been. Kevin Durand had medium brown hair in Mystery, Alaska and his guest stint on Dead Like Me. Apparently nothing less than the inky black of Boris Badenov would do for this show.

I do recall hearing the expected celery crunch when Eichorst caught Gus' fist. Anyone care to lay odds on evidence of his broken hand bones showing up in any subsequent episodes?

Seriously, on most of the episodes I watch she looks like the food she's eating is not only not to her liking in the present, but also ruining her memory of meals she's enjoyed in the past.

I thought that was a requirement for a dish to be edible? You'd think the judges were all vampires, based on how the taste of blood seems to be preferable to anything else you could season red meat with. Another taboo I saw this week: creating a great-tasting sauce or accent but only using a small amount on the plate, thus preventing judges from eating their fill. (Really? You want a dish to fill you up when you've got a couple of other entrees and a selection of desserts to sample in the next half hour?)

Weird Science played on some basic cable channel last night, and of course I found myself unable to switch the channel. Most of it doesn't hold up well on rewatch, but it was worth it just to hear the Oingo Boingo theme song again in its entirety.

In a way, I'm glad I haven't read YA fiction since SE Hinton's heyday because it isn't the cherished book series of my adolescence that are being ineptly mined for potential movie franchises these days. Being a comic fan leaves me more vulnerable on a different front, though I think Marvel is doing a superb job of adapting the core essence of their characters into enjoyable movies, even if all the particulars don't match up to the source material. I also found Constantine to be a good movie in its own right even if it bore little more than a surface resemblance to the source material. (I actually liked Tilda Swinton's Gabriel much better than the comics version - she was the best part of that movie to me.)

I don't think the show has ever lived up to the description of the Argents being led by women in the family. Chris seemed to have at least as much authority as Kate or Victoria in Season 1, and Gerard was clearly calling the shots throughout Season 2. The only example we have of a real hunter matriarchy in practice is the Calaveras, and that might just be a case of Araya being the best leader among their current ranks rather than a longstanding tradition.

Maybe the characters are thinking her prediction powers will somehow help her avoid danger? If so, they're sadly mistaken, as she tends to zero in on the dangerous people/creatures and make a beeline towards them with no regard for personal safety. Though even if that weren't the case, it'd be pretty difficult to anticipate attacks from the hired assassins of someone who knows people are going to become supernatural creatures before they actually do. Unless that was Lydia's predictive power at work, and she was including people like Liam who weren't actually known to the Benefactor or on his hit list at the time she "copied" it.

What Dreams May Come is another one to see if you want an example of Williams' more serious capabilities. But I agree about the too manic thing - the very last of my patience for those improv riffs wore out in the middle of Aladdin.

1 - Night School. I thought it really ratcheted the tension up well, and was all-around enjoyable. 2 - Ice Pick. It has that great double date at the ice rink, Derek's recruiting drive, and Victoria Argent demonstrating that she's scarier than any supernatural creature. 3a - Motel California. Interesting looks into the minds of each of the characters, and that wonderful final scene where Stiles talks Scott down from self-immolation. 3b - I don't know, I really didn't like much about these episodes. Maybe the 1940s flashback, or the one where Derek breaks up the blacklight party kids are throwing in his apartment? 4 - 117 of the ones so far, but there's room for improvement.

I thought the picture was among Meredith's effects that Lydia had been given for whatever reason, and the big "gotcha" was her realizing it had been taken in her grandmother's soundproofed room.

You'd think Scott's school nightmares would be more along the lines of being called on in class when he's spent the whole period blissfully oblivious to the lecture.

Kate being offered a chance to get in on the killing rather than being another name on the list keeps Gerard Argent as suspect #1 for me. He seems more likely than anyone we've seen so far to want all supernaturals wiped out in Beacon Hills.

My favorite part of "Earshot" was when Buffy would overhear Cordelia's thoughts and then an instant later we'd get the audio of her saying the exact same thing out loud.

I thought Glory was actually very promising in her first appearance. The combo of the writing for that episode and Clare Kramer's performance really gave the sense that this was some vast alien thing that had folded itself into human shape, but could only poorly mimic linear human thought and was barely holding itself together. But the show squandered that initial impressiveness, making her seem pedestrian with her Miss Piggy-esque focus on being pampered and with the main characters referring to her as a "hellgod" in the same tone of voice one would describe annoyance at being ticketed by a meter maid. Later attempts at somewhat similar characters on Angel worked much better, but they had the benefit of hindsight and vastly more talented actresses in Gina Torres and Amy Acker.

Is this the same network that OK'd Sikozu's drastic change in appearance between the series and Peacekeeper Wars? So the audience might not recognize Aeryn if her hair was a bit shorter, but Sikozu suddenly being replaced by Peter Pan was no problem at all...

I too regarded Moya John as the "real" John on a gut level, even though the show took pains to refer to them as equally valid. (Both likely being copies of the destroyed original as millahnna said above.) I do wish that instead of having them be antagonistic to each other prior to separation, the show had instead depicted them as thrilled to have someone with a common frame of reference to talk to. Imagine all the in-jokes they could have shared that none of the rest of the characters would understand! And they could have encouraged each other's crazy plans!

Ouch. I think I felt better for Mackenzie Astin after hearing an account that he was waiting tables a couple of years ago.

Adding to the Disney and other children's movies trauma pile: the scene from Peter Pan where the alligator is repeatedly swallowing Captain Hook, and the scene where the Skeksis drain the podling's life energy in The Dark Crystal.

The lower angels seemed covetous of being able to feel in human bodies if Claire's mother is anything to go by. Which raises the question of just how much of a paradise Heaven actually is, if its residents are eager to pointlessly scamper around in post-apocalyptic Nevada wearing stolen meat-suits rather than staying home in their natural state.

The sun's only completely blocked out for a few minutes during an eclipse though, so the vampires won't have much time to do their thing. As opposed to the hours of safe darkness for moving around at night.