Sandman

What was up with Bane's voice, anyway? Who thought Bane should sound like Charles Laughton?

I find Meet the Parents so utterly mean-minded and gross I can't even express how appalling I think it is. Thank goodness I'm not the only one who doesn't like it. Partly it's just the style of humour -- I've never been one for the kind of jokes that make you wince as much as laugh. The physical cruelty inflicted on Greg just makes me squirm. And Jack is straight-up abusive. It gets to the point in the first movie that I actually felt like no one told De Niro he was appearing in a comedy. I'm pretty sure De Niro is acting in a different movie -- one that ends with everyone dead. ETA: On a different note, does the title (or subtitle) of a movie count as a moment that can angry up the blood? I thought the third (and blessedly final) installment of The Hobbit was to be subtitled There And Back Again. (Did I just imagine that?) But apparently The Battle of the Five Armies is what they're going with. Here's the thing: Nowhere in the book is the battle called "the Battle of the Five Armies." Tolkien called it "The Battle of Five Armies" consistently. Only one "the." The damn movies are so bloated and mistakenly epic in tone that they should carry the disclaimer "LOOSELY based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien," anyway. Please don't make me hate your movie from the title onwards, PJ.

This comparison highlights the reasons why (or some of them) I never bought all the talk from Davidson and the showrunners about how great the writing is for Kristen. The character was meant to be self-serving and a little bit campy, I think, in her original run. In her previous appearances she had become a nasty, stupid caricature. "Crazy" hardly covered it. Even then, the writing for Kristen (and pretty much all the characters around her, enabling her destructive, easily avoidable tantrums) was senseless. Now? I can't watch her at all. And I don't know what all y'all are talking about with Billy Flynn. The one scene I saw between him and James Scott was, well, kind of ridiculous. Lil' bitty Flynn trying to muscle in on Elvis's action as the Dimera scion? Pff. No. Even Deidrick gave Stupid Chad more charisma and more gravitas.

I think Hayden Panettiere has huge presence -- just not on a musical stage. It's an odd conundrum of this show that the two biggest stars (in-story) are portrayed by performers who are the two weakest singers in the cast. Juliette doesn't seems as magnetic as she should on stage, given what the narrative is telling us about the effect she has on an audience. (Scarlett, on the other hand, has the boundless capacity for holding attention usually exhibited by the more spectacular sort of train wreck. She's never onscreen without giving the impression of being a few thready heartbeats away from a full-scale implosion.) Maybe it's a showing vs. telling problem that's built right into the premise of the show. But Juliette's star power, or Rayna's for that matter, is not totally without basis: Panettiere herself is undeniably charismatic, and is a magnetic actress. We want to root for Juliette even as she acts a fool in an increasing number of ways. Connie Britton is an indifferent singer, but she's an unshakably likeable actress. Do I buy that Rayna's combination of raw talent, restlessness, ambition and an almost utter lack of self-knowledge ever took her to the top of world of hurtin' songs? Only partly. I want to empathize with Rayna, if only for the sake of Tammie Taylor. The writing makes it hard sometimes. A lot, actually.

There's a funny Zach Galifianakis? ::rimshot::

It'd be kind of funny if Howard slept through the whole "Let's trash the office just to get Diane's goat" gambit, and just woke up one day to find that the new firm had sprung up around him in his sleep. I don't think they were bribing him with the financial gain of the partnership per se, but flattering his ego with how much respect he'd command (... I know.)

But didn't they bribe Howard with a partnership in order to get him to be her proxy? (Partner or not, I still don't get how it can be retroactive: Howard's been there the whole time, of course, but he can't have been acting in Diane's interest before Kalinda and Diane approached him.) I seem to remember an exception to the hearsay rule for things said on one's deathbed. I honestly can't remember if there has to be an expectation that the person making the statements will soon be dead, but I think it's something like that.

Without direct evidence, I'd say it would be easy to cast doubt on the source of the money; it and the relationship between Trey and the lab tech are circumstantial evidence, and Kalinda can't testify about whether what the lab tech told her was true or not without breaching the hearsay rule; I'm pretty sure the deaths of the two sources don't change the impact of the rule. ETA: needschocolate's proviso has put an image in my head of Kalinda (and the Boots) before a jury: if we hear an expostulated "work it, girlfriend!" does that mean her convincing powers have a wider reach than we thought? Politically, isn't the meaning of Anissa's abortion really more on the level of "family values"? Not what Alicia had the right to do about it, if anything, but whether Zach is a "good kid" (in a very old-fashioned sense, admittedly) and whether Alicia knew (and covered it up) or didn't know (and is an uninvolved parent).

Yes! Gil in particular feels very one-note.

I like the writing, though I don't love it yet; and I think I had warmed up to Happy Endings more by this point in its first season. In theory, I have nothing against Caspe's using or re-using some elements of Happy Endings, since the point at which playing to your strengths ends and self-plagiarism (or self-parody) begins is open to debate. But -- and it's a big "but" -- I don't like very many of these characters. I like Annie and Jake; I like Annie in particular more than the pilot suggested I was going to. I think Kay's funny; but Dennah and Gil bore me. I don't find either one funny or interesting. I just don't care. I find Annie's parents (and Jake's mom, from the little we've seen of her) funnier than the two friends, who feel kind of like placeholders to me. I'm still not convinced that both of Annie's dads needed to be named "Kevin," but it's a lot less cutesy than I thought it would be. Also: Derrick is my least favourite of the tertiary characters in Happy Endings. I am not a crackpot either. I swear! I do love the hair helmet image that Batt Mastersly posted above -- one of my favourite moments from that show.

I think "worked herself into a monologue" might be my new favourite thing. I agree that Viola Davis is awesome, but the character of Annalise is untenable.

And RoboJohn was different from Regular John ... how, again? Maybe Theresa could just keep whacking him in the noggin with that fireplace poker until someone actually interesting emerges. ::bonk:: "No, Robot. Try again." ::bonk:: "No, Pawn. Once more." ::bonk:: "Ack. Father John Black! Again!" ::bonk:: "Nope: Santo! Crap." ::bonk:: "This one thinks he's Colleen! This isn't working!" "Can someone else take a turn? My arms are getting tired, here."

Oh, I know that's what the show is going for; I just don't believe that "candidate" is such a new role for her that her brain essentially ceases all recognizable cognitive function.

At first I thought maybe Geneva Pine had it out for Cary (still), but I don't think that makes a lot of sense. Then again, speaking of things that don't make much sense, I don't buy that Alicia is so new to "playing politics" that she completely lost her mind in the interview with Un-Niles. It's not like Alicia's unused to thinking on her feet or articulating nuanced ideas easily, or offering persuasive counter-arguments on the spot. She's a trial attorney! This is what she does for a living. I can't imagine that she's never appeared at a press conference or had any media training other than lessons in smarm from Eli and Johnny-Come-Lately. If this plot-derived stupidity is supposed to make Alicia's ill-considered foray into politics more compelling, or, worse, calculated to make the Johnny character seem relevant, it isn't working.

I loved Best In Show, but the most I can say for Parker Posey is that I forgot that she was in it. (Which I guess amounts to a rave review?)

I think Brady has the emotional IQ of a turnip, though slightly less intellectual power.

And, personally, I thank my lucky stars that the Parker Posey character zeroed out fast. Cannot stand Posey. At all. Ever. In anything. (Not really loving the Stephen Pasquale character, either, to be frank. But I think the level of smarm is quite intentional.) I'm assuming that Bishop has had a tail on Kalinda for a while and he used her to find and eliminate Trey Wagner and Crime Lab Lady.

Isn't that always a good idea?

Ewww. Why is Grotty getting it on with Crazy? Why did Box of Hair Black just walk in and stand there gaping like a goldfish? Why did I tape that episode, and not the one where Sami leaves? What's wrong with these people? Why couldn't I have just left well enough alone why wwwwhhhyyy?

This could essentially be the tagline for the whole show. There's a whole lotta not giving a damn involved in its creation. I guess the writers get credit for being frank about how little they care about story logic, the legal process or actual human motivations? Asher's pretty entertaining, in his un-evolved way, but this show continues to be so resolutely terrible I can't even enjoy it in a "it's fun to hate-watch" way. The most fun I had was watching Bonnie get her Paris Geller on ordering the police sergeant around over the confession tapes.

I think Ben Stiller is a crashing bore and the Fockers movies are hateful.

To be fair, there are LOTS of people on this show who could profit by the same advice. 'Course, if people on the teevee acted like grown-ups ...

Honestly, I wouldn't put it past these writers to have Bubba the Hobo Genius Songwriter tell her "Lawzy, Miss Scarlett, I don' know nothing 'bout writin' no Top 40 songs!"

You're probably right, but I couldn't help thinking that Coulson called her "Agent Morse" after he, well, made her one. ETA: On rewatching, I noticed Coulson does refer to Morse as "one of our best agents," so she's not new to S.H.I.E.L.D.

In the comics continuity, Bobbi Morse (well, at least one version of her) is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent of long standing; is it possible that the show's version of Bobbi hasn't been one until now? Coulson said he was going to offer her a place on the team. I took her insistence on being called "Bobbi" rather than "Agent Morse" as an indication that she wasn't actually an agent before the end of the episode. If she were a contractor before, does that degree of distance from S.H.I.E.L.D. possibly make her undercover identity more plausible?