In a World
Nov 28Alright, Heroes. Ya got me. I am UNDER YOUR SPELL. I might even kind of love you. These past two eppys have been stellar. But can you do me one favor? Can you somehow lose the awful, bombastic voiceover guy on the promos? The one that sounds like a bargain basement version of the dude who does all the movie trailers?
Honestly, I think that guy epitomizes the overly-serious, condescending element that sometimes sneaks into the show and sort of put me off of it in the first place. Like, when the show first launched, he couldn’t shut up about all the “blogs” and advance hype it was getting. And now he’s like, “in a show known for its SURPRISE ENDINGS…”
Argh! Listen, Bargain Basement Announcer Man: We all KNOW the show has surprise endings! You do not need to TELL us what one of the series’ trademarks is. It makes it way less cool when you say it out loud like that. What if the promos for Buffy were like, “In a show known for its WELL-CRAFTED METAPHORS FOR TEENAGE ANGST…” Or the ones for Smallville said, “In a show where we RE-IMAGINE THE EARLY YEARS OF SUPERMAN AND THERE IS LOTS OF HOMOEROTIC TENSION…”
Gah. We are not dumb, OK?
Be Honest.
Nov 26We’re a couple weeks behind on our Battlestar Galactica, so I just now watched “Torn,” the one where Baltar goes to the virus-infested Cylon ship and Starbuck and Tigh drink themselves into bitchiness on board Galactica.
Am I the only one who half-thought, and half-HOPED, they were setting us up for ol’ Tigh and Starbuck to knock some boots? I’m almost ashamed to say it, but I really really wanted that to happen.
I’m almost ashamed because thoughts of such things are wrong and sinful, according to our Parent God Xenu. Also, Tigh’s wrinkly ass never needs to enter my brain. Ever.
Donald Westlake interview
Nov 21The Onion AV Club has an excellent interview with mystery novelist Donald Westlake.
AVC: One school of thought says that “American crime novel” is essentially a working-class genre.
DW: I think it is. The British were doing [crime stories] first, but the British thing is a very different thing. There, the stories are about restoring a break in the fabric of society. The American thing has never been worrying about breaks in the fabric of society, but about people doing their job, whether it’s police procedurals or criminals or whatever. Yeah, that is working-class. Although there’s another thing—years ago, there was a director who going to make a movie from a Richard Stark novel. It never happened, but in our discussions at one point he said, “You know, you write like a Frenchman.” I said, “What does that mean?” He said, “In American mystery novels, the bank robber robs the bank to pay for the operation for the little girl in the wheelchair. In French novels, the bank robber robs banks because he robs banks. You write like a Frenchman.” I said, “I’ll take it.”
Matt, tell Hockensmith to hurry up on his third book – if the second is out in March, I’ll be looking for something new to read by April.
Ow. Ow. My side hurts. Stitches. Ow.
Nov 20
I don’t know what to say. I can’t stop laughing.
