Bastet

Not an uncommon Pre-Code theme, in my experience (the general idea of not being punished, or perhaps even rewarded, for a film's worth of selfish behavior).

I have the flu (being sick in 90-degree weather is a special form of hell), so anything I have to think about for more than a second is beyond me, but these are instantaneous: 2. Boggs to Mulder in Beyond the Sea 3. Skinner's greatest moment! Skinner to CSM in Paper Clip.

2 is Bambi to Mulder in WOTC. 4 is Mulder to Scully (over the phone) in Chinga. "I was hoping for something a little more helpful." Hee. Episodes where Mulder or Scully actually get some blatant attention from members of the opposite sex?

Amazon's pre-sale price for the Blu-Ray set is $90.99. I wouldn't normally pay that for two seasons and a movie, but with the special features ... I'm in.

My issue is I'm too bored to care. In both the writing and the acting, there is something dreadfully dull about that episode.

They're all non-linear episodes with conflicting versions of events ... that may not have happened at all. 1. I don't speak Nazi. I don't know who Mulder was talking to, either, so that point is still up for grabs. 2. Extraterrestrial visitors from beyond who apparently have nothing better to do than buzz one mountain over and over again for 700 years. Scully to Mulder in Field Trip. ("Sounds like crap when you say it." Heh.) 3. Uh, do you prefer the term "abductee" or "experiencer?" Already answered. God, I love Charles Nelson Reilly. 4. You guys like the name? I wanted to go with either "Aurora" or "Borealis." Mulder to ... The Gunmen? ... in one of the Dreamland episodes. 5. That's a door with a brick wall behind it. Identified already as HTGSC. I think it's Mulder talking to Maurice. 6. You're in charge here, you know. It doesn't have to end like this. A favorite! Scully to Bernard in Monday. Heh; a second too late.

There are quite a few movies everyone seems to love that I'm either uninterested in or actively dislike. I have tried several times to make it through Star Wars, and just cannot do it. Same with Gone With the Wind. I have no interest in Indiana Jones, Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games or any epic fantasy or film based on a comic book superhero. I think Titanic is a visually captivating movie, but there are a couple dozen more interesting ways to tell the tale of its passengers' ordeal than some stupid love story. I don't think Casablanca is anything to write home about. The charm of Audrey Hepburn is lost on me. Die Hard With a Vengeance is the only watchable Die Hard for me, and that's just because of Samuel L. Jackson.

Actually, I think a lot of those films the newly-formed Touchstone Pictures put out in the late '80s - Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune, Big Business, Down and Out in Beverly Hills - are just plain good comedy, not stupid. Silly premises, perhaps, but good stories.

I love the film Boys Don't Cry, based on the life - and death - of Brandon Teena. (I like the documentary as well, but I figure we're talking about dramatizations here.) Kimberley Peirce takes a paltry budget, assembles a terrific cast, and brings me so deeply into Brandon's tale that I can only watch the film once every few years because the emotions stay with me for so long afterward. I'm the same way with Schindler's List and The Accused - they tell the stories so well, they're hard to watch. The Insider goes down easier. Directed by Michael Mann, it stars Russell Crowe as tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand who essentially loses it all for nothing. Crowe delivers an amazing performance, and the film is a scathing indictment of corporate America and mainstream media as bedfellows. I'm a fan of Steven Soderbergh's work, and unlike many people I know I take no issue with Julia Roberts as an actor, so I like Erin Brockovich. Albert Finney is terrific as trial lawyer Ed Masry, and Aaron Eckhart is so good as Erin's boyfriend George it was almost shocking to learn what a complete asshole the real person turned out to be. Milk, Dead Man Walking and Remember the Titans are other favorites of this genre, but I have to get back to work.

Because Harvey Keitel always has to go all Harvey Keitel on someone's ass, from Thelma & Louise: "Your miseries will be my goddamn mission in life." I use a lot of quotes from that movie (I often have to restrain myself from telling clients, "The law is some tricky shit.") I do use "I'm in deep shit. Deep Shit, Arkansas." When watching, I pretty much recite the entire film, especially when they blow up the truck and when they stuff the state trooper in the trunk of his cruiser at gunpoint: Trooper: Please, I have a wife and kids. Thelma: Well, you be sweet to them. My husband wasn't sweet to me and look how I turned out. And these words of wisdom: "You shoot off a guy's head with his pants down, believe me, Texas is not the place you want to get caught."

Good; maybe this episode will make some people realize giving a pet as a gift is a bad idea nine times out of ten.

I probably just need to do it in Firefox, instead; IE seems to hate Tumblr (which I kind of do, too, except when there's something I want to see, heh). Okay, yeah, it works in Firefox. HA! I love that it's not some faux "sorry, I just got up" thing with artfully tousled hair and a layer of foundation.

I can't get it to load, but I can't fault them the fun they're having toying with fans since it is like shooting fish in a barrel. As for going without makeup on camera (something I always notice as someone who hasn't worn makeup for about 15 years), I remember when she attended a promotional event - perhaps even a premiere - for Straightheads with her hair in a ponytail and a fairly fresh face. And, of course, she looked beautiful.

The propogation of this myth has never made any sense to me, since even at the time the show was airing it was well known what was going on behind the scenes. So how the simplistic notion that putting the characters in bed together is what killed the show ever saw the light of day, let alone became a golden rule of television, is beyond me. Glenn Gordon Caron didn't have to write Cybill's pregnancy into the show (and, indeed, thanks to Bruce's filming schedule delaying production until complications necessitated reducing her screen time, she'd already had the twins by the time pregnant Maddie returned from Chicago), and he certainly didn't have to write it in the ridiculous way that he did. The season four presentation of Maddie is nothing short of character assassination. The show imploded because of how David and Maddie were written - separated, and out of character - after doing the deed, not because they did the deed. Linda Holmes laid it out nicely years ago, but the damn rule still haunts television.

The complete series was released on DVD - seasons one and two together, then each subsequent season individually. I own season four but have never watched it, and never even bothered to buy season five. There are some nice special features and the packaging is pretty, so I'd recommend the DVDs for commencing a rewatch. I watched it live, then in syndication on Lifetime, then again on Bravo - back when Bravo actually aired things worth watching, and put together brilliant little claymation interstitials promoting this show - and then got marginally involved in the fan campaign to get the show released on DVD. I met some wonderful people that way, one of whom became one of my closest friends, and the two Lions Gate producers primarily responsible for the release of the season one/two set joined us for a viewing party. So this show holds a special place in my heart.

Yeah, many people who already have a gas line into their house think running an additional line for a stove or other appliance is more complicated than it may actually be depending on the circumstances. I find pros and cons to both electric and gas stoves, and when I renovate my kitchen the ease of cleaning a glass cooktop will probably tip the scales in favor of sticking with electric, but when I was running a gas line out to my new bonus room (which is attached to the detached garage) a few years ago, I went ahead and ran one to the kitchen just in case. For me, it's extremely easy since I have a raised foundation house and thus have crawl space rather than a concrete slab underneath me (going underground to reach the bonus room simply required the extra step of digging a deep trench through the backyard and then I had to bore through the foundation into the room, but it required minimal effort as compared to the reward).

This prompted me to take Being and Becoming out of the bookcase as soon as I got home, intending to just revisit a few of my favorite passages. The next thing I knew, an hour had passed. Since we have some Thin Man fans in the thread, and the instant and life-long connection between Loy and Powell is what makes the films sparkle, I thought I'd share this as an example of the sort of remembrances the book is filled with:

There were the Teen Tournament contestant's "pussy furry" answer and Ken Jennings' "ho/hoe" instead of rake, but I think my favorite is the delightful Chicago columnist's offering "threesome" in place of [love] triangle. Referring to titles, "Cats & Dogs: 'The Revenge of ____ ____" I have no idea what the correct answer was, but that girl may never live down her "Pussy Furry" answer. "This term for a long-handled gardening tool can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker." Instead of "What is a rake?" Ken went with "What is a hoe?" "If Andy yearns for Brenda and Brenda cares about Charlene who pines for Andy, the three of them form one of these." "What is a threesome?" prompted Alex to say, "Kara has obviously had much more experience than I."

In Bringing Up Baby, when David has accidentally ripped the back panel off Susan's dress, leaving her exposed, he keeps trying to use his top hat to cover her up. Unaware of her wardrobe malfunction, Susan is obviously bewildered and annoyed by his actions. The way Katharine Hepburn asks, "What is the matter with you?" is perfection, and I use her inflection whenever asking that question. Gillian's delivery of "What are you doing?" in the perfume-sniffing scene has always reminded me of that. A seemingly little thing, and impossible to convey on the page, it's just sublime.

I love Mulder and Scully under the influence of the cosmic G spot; Scully gets great lines (I still use "Sure. Fine. Whatever." whenever possible), and I love the way she asks Mulder what he's doing as he's sniffing her perfume. Gillian is particularly delightful when Scully is frustrated with Mulder, and here we get a whole episode worth. I'm sorry.

And how! Emily Leider's posthumous biography, Myrna Loy: The Only Good Girl in Hollywood, is quite a good one as celebrity bios go, but so much of it is just a rehash of the memoir. And, fundamentally, if an extremely private person nevertheless offers the world a frank auto-biography, I'm a bit uncomfortable with someone coming along later and expounding on the very few things she chose not to get into. Getting back to Being and Becoming, I can't praise it enough, and I say that as someone who rarely reads celebrity memoirs, even those of artists I like. Myrna Loy has long been a favorite of mine, as an actor and as a person, and if time travel is invented during my lifetime my first use of it will be to meet her. Her outspokenness in Hollywood was one thing, but the actual hands-on work she did to make the world a better place is so inspiring. Of course, the history of Myrna Loy also takes one through the history of Hollywood - the transition from silent films to talkies, the pros and cons of the studio system and its eventual demise, pre-Code, the Code and its aftermath, redbaiting and blacklisting, unionization of actors - and SAG deals that screwed the industry's "living legends" out of residuals - and more than 60 years worth of famous names and faces. It's a terrific read.

I don't know; I got sick of Ken about halfway through his original run. Even Alex took longer than that to drive me batty. Fundamentally, host and player involve two different skill sets, so Ken would be far from my first pick to take over hosting one of television's most venerable game shows.

I created a Syndication Edits thread here.

This topic was raised in another thread, and since the show has been syndicated for so long and by so many networks, there is much grousing to be done about what has been left on the cutting room floor over the years to make way for more commercials. Jokes cut off before the punch line, bits deleted while later dialogue referring back to them was retained, content-based censoring by the puritans at Hallmark Channel ... complain about the syndicators' tinkering with perfection here.

I, too, have been sans dishwasher for the almost nine years I have lived in this house (vintage 1938). The dishwasher I had at my previous place, where I lived for eight years, was a piece of crap, but I now take back every profanity I hurled at it. Because my lower cabinets and counters are not deep enough to accomodate a dishwasher, I can't put one in until I redo such things (I looked into smaller, portable options, but they seemed more trouble than they're worth). At first it wasn't a big deal, but since I am someone who can't go to bed if there are dishes in the sink, it quickly became a chronic cause of grumbling. The first night I can just load up the dishwasher and head to bed, I may actually weep with relief. I do love my 1950s GE oven/range, however; the burners heat up really quickly (and one is a "sensi-temp") and there are two side-by-side ovens, one full-sized and one about 1/3 that size -- so easy to cook multiple things at once, and nice to be able to only heat up a small oven when that's all that is needed. I refuse to consign that thing to the scrap metal heap when renovation time comes (and if it was possible to design a new layout around it, I would, but I just can't achieve what I want by keeping it); things were made to last back then, so I will search high and low to find someone who wants to give it a second life.