Geek Friday
Jul 24All right, so I am not going to Comic-Con. I know all of you who listened to our podcast (Matt’s mom, my husband, etc.) were anxiously awaiting the outcome of that little debate. I am totally OK with it, though, and plan to refresh The Beat hourly for updates. I am especially OK with it because Saturday sold out already and the prospect of entering that hot ‘n’ sweaty fray is not a pleasant one.
I am, however, making my Friday as nerdy as possible to compensate. First up is a showing of The Simpsons Movie at the Arclight with a big gang of people. My friend Jenelle, who is the most passionate Simps fan I know, is leading the charge. Incidentally, Jenelle and I are both Oregonians and we are pissed that the Oregon Springfield was not named as the “official” Springfield. Matt Groening was born in Oregon. There should be no question!
After that, some of us are heading to a midnight screening of Wet Hot American Summer. David Wain and assorted cast members are supposed to be in attendance. That movie made me a Paul Rudd fan for life. It’s also the reason that I respond to stuff I don’t like with a hearty “BOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Should I go in costume? I could totally pull off Janeane Garofalo’s awkward camp counselor thing.
Delicious
Jul 16I finally watched the handful of Blood Ties episodes socked away on my TiVo annnnnnnndddddd…I enjoyed them! Somehow, the heady brew of melty fantasy cheese, overheated vampire mythos and soothing Vancouver backlots hits my B-level-genre-TV-loving sweet spot in a way that Painkiller Jane and the non-Claudia Black episodes of The Dresden Files do not.
Part of it is that the cheese is always fairly enjoyable — and when it ventures into “unintentionally hilarious” territory, it’s just over-the-top enough to be kind of awesome. I’m thinking of the moment in the voodoo-themed episode wherein one of the voodoo dudes gleefully sits in a chair made out of bones that look like they were swiped from the Indiana Jones(TM) Adventure Outpost at Disneyland.
It also has to do with Christina Cox, who I LOVE. In the late ’90s, she was a big part of another B-tastic extravaganza, F/X: The Series, which also featured a pre-Matrixcized Carrie-Anne Moss. As tough PI Vicki Nelson, she gives Blood Ties a center and a soul and she always has perfect hair. She’s exactly the kind of charismatic presence a show like this needs.
The show was popular enough to get a second season, which starts in the fall. In the meantime, I plan to check out Tanya Huff’s books, on which the series is based.
Remy 'n' Harry
Jul 13Patton Oswalt is hilarious. He’s also a bona fide geek — during my Bay Area livin’ days, I once spotted him perusing the floor at WonderCon.
This summer, he’s the voice of rat chef Remy in Ratatouille, which I love, love, LOVED. It made me want a plush rat, which I never thought would happen. (Although I do own a plush mouse — the lavender one from Spirited Away. He’s cute, too.)
Anyway, please watch this, which shows us Patton’s historical meeting with none other than Harry Potter.
Resurrection
Jul 08I have revived Great Hera! from the dead. The first couple of posts I’ve tossed up there are sort of fangirl fashion-oriented, so it’s a bit more on the “girly geekdom” side of things. I plan on doing more vintage graphic novel re-reading as well. We’ll see where it goes. Suggestions, comments, etc. always welcome!
Also, I got frustrated with the Simpsons Character Generator because I couldn’t get one to look like me. Husband Jeff, who has more patience, tinkered around with it and made this one, which actually does look like me (though my specs are decidedly less flamboyant).
Even Your Transformer Friends…
Jul 03…get drunk and embarrass you sometimes. Check out the video clip under #6.
The movie, by the way, is exactly the exploderiffic, Baytastic extravaganza you would expect it to be. Any confusion you experience trying to decipher the convoluted allspark mythology will quickly be forgotten as soon as the giant robots start crashing into buildings again.
I do, however, have one quibble, and it may seem like a relatively minor one, but I’m gonna say it anyway. I mostly enjoyed the presence of designated babes Megan Fox (as a car-savvy popular girl) and Rachael Taylor (as a tech savant). I did not, however, enjoy the movie’s need to cover each of them in approximately 16 pounds of make-up. These are lovely ladies, but piling on the bronzer, lip gloss and spidery fake lashes makes for much distraction during all those nostriliffic Bayian close-ups. As Miss J might say, it reads “a little drag.”
