I'm feeling a bit under the weather today -- the after-effects of overindulgence.
Overindulgence in Scrubs, that is.
It's important for me to remember that I'm not very good at moderating my TV show intake when I'm able to watch episode after episode. Quite how "I'll watch a couple of episodes" became "I'll watch eight episodes, plus three commentaries", and it'll end up being half-past one in the morning" is not completely clear to me, though that may be because I'm really pretty tired. :)
The commentaries were pretty interesting. I hadn't realized that so much of the Janitor's material was ad-libbed, for example.
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Someone at work uploaded the latest William Shatner album Has Been, which turns out to have been produced in association with Ben Folds (formerly of Ben Fold Five). It's more than a little surreal hearing his version of Pulp's "Common People"; the album in general is much more spoken-word ramblings with musical settings. I can't help remembering Fametracker's assessment of Shatner... huh, listening to the album in the background, and he namechecks Tom Waits and Joey Ramone in a pseudo-spiritual called "You're Gonna Die".
Good old "weirder than you can imagine" universe. :)
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I know it's old hat, but I'm reassured to find that I
am an effective cleaning product -- that is, I can take on "tough soap scum" in a Googlefight and come away victorious.
Oh, and speaking of fights: Roger Ebert's review of Duce Bigalow: European Gigolo is almost certainly more entertaining than the movie itself.
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I've got to decide whether to have a big going-away party for my French flatmate in the near future. I doubt she'll particularly mind either way. Maybe I'll just suggest going out for drinks or something -- that way, I can put off tidying up the house just that little bit longer. :)
Oh, and I've actually got to think about getting a flatmate to replace her. Bah. I'm quite tempted to simply turn the room into a study -- it's not a time when there'll be a lot of people looking, and I never really enjoy having to work out whether I like people on the basis of email and a quick interview. Well, I guess I've got a couple of weeks to dither about it. It's times like this that I wish I'd bought a one-bedroom cottage, rather than a three-bedroom house.
I suppose I could get someone for a couple of months from work, but contracts finish early November, and it'd be nice to get someone slightly longer term. Ah well, no point borrowing trouble -- maybe I'll be lucky. :)
Posted by svend at August 15, 2005 10:12 PMDo you know what you should do?? You should give your house to Anthony and I, and then you should come and live here. And, you should also give me your ROTK jacket :0)
Posted by: Sproke :0) at August 16, 2005 8:19 AMCan I borrow your new powers book? And the scrubs DVDs you seem to have acquired? Please?
See you tonight for Star Wars.
Posted by: Jenni at August 16, 2005 3:40 PMYeah, Ebert's review was brilliantly bitchy. It was like a good version of his review of Orgazmo, where he made some rather embarrassing suggestions for "witty jokes" the filmmakers could have used.
Posted by: Pearce at August 16, 2005 5:23 PMYou can tell Roger Ebert keeps himself up at night thinking of biting comments for the next time he sees a really bad movie. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against the man. But I still get that vibe from him, and most other movie critics..
It doesn't make reading reviews of bad movies any less amusing, though. It must be tough being a critic...you see a terrible movie and you're practically obligated to be extremely witty and vicious about it.
I mean, I'd just be thinking, "This movie just sucks, everyone knows it sucks. And now I have to figure out a way to tell people how bad it is with little witisisms and clever wordplay. Great."
But they've got to save their review somehow, right? Anybody who's reading movie reviews probably isn't likely to have any interest in these kinds of movies, anyway. You're not trying to change anybody's mind. You're trying to make people chuckle and think they're as clever as you. "Haha," they'll think, "I totally knew that movie would be bad!"
...Maybe I'm reading too much into it. I don't know. Anyway, I hate Rob Schnider more than I could possibly say. Deuce Bigalow is one of the worst movies ever. I've been forced to watch that movie TWICE. I can't believe they made a sequel. That's just sad.
Also, Shatner is cool. Comes from Canada, you know. Horray! ^_^
I also really like Ben Folds and the song Common People. That rocks. ^_^
And I totally get what you mean about tv shows on DVD. I did the same thing with Arrested Development. Scrubs is great, too...I'm probably going to buy that one next.
Posted by: Paige at August 17, 2005 8:17 PMIt's a shame we can't have more movie reviewers like Pauline Kael. I disagreed with about 80% of her reviews, but she was always analytical and intelligent, and while she was good with a witty put-down it never came across as bashing bad movies just to make herself look good.
It probably helped that for a lot of her career, she was able to choose the movies she reviewed herself. Hence she didn't bother reviewing movies starring "comedians" like Rob Schneider.
Her opinions could be pretty bizarre - she wrote significant essays on horror movies, blaxploitation, Citizen Kane and Clint Eastwood which all suffered from a kind of willful ignorance - but even these misfires were great tor ead, because a fascinating mind getting it wrong is interesting in itself.
Kael was once fired for writing a negative review of The Sound of Music - a movie that's like torture for me after being forced to endure it approximately 75,000 times at my Catholic primary school (there's more to that story, but I won't tell it here) - which endeared her to me no end.
Posted by: Pearce at August 18, 2005 12:32 PM