[cross-posted from BIG ACTION!] As I'm (hopefully, hopefully) approaching the end of the limping, beat-up days of my injury, I wanted to drop another batch of media that's been keeping my mind oscillating between states of numb and spritely. Has it really been five weeks?
So Many Comic Books. Because my friends are awesome, and because my friends are nerds, and because my friends live nearby, I've been surrounded by piles of comics and graphic novels. Read me some of Marvel's Civil War, the surprisingly good Captain America: Winter Soldier, All-Star Superman, the Ultimates, um ... Darkman vs. Army of Darkness (thanks Leeds!), and on and on.
The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Michael Chabon describes every location, every corner, every passing character in great detail, so the first 100 pages are slow. Rich, slow, and well worth your patience. Once the murder mystery kicks in, though, this thing's packed with more crazy ideas and twists and esoteric Jewish conspiracies than, um, most other books.
Fast Food Nation (the movie). Fucking boring.
Inside Man. Clever heist flick, great characters. Would love to see a whole movie about Jodie Foster's fixer or whatever she is. I'm left with a whole lot of questions that I shouldn't have, though, like, who's Clive Owen really and how did he know the things that he knew and why did he do what he did?
The Breakfast Club....but not really. Recorded this off TNT or something, and the cleaned-up, dubbed-over dialogue was so distracting and wrong I couldn't handle it. Had this come during my Vicodin haze, I might have let it slide.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. With video games, I usually don't have the patience for RPGs, with all the talking and keeping track of party members' powers and whatnot. I'd rather shoot stuff. But this totally hit the spot. Also, it kept me out of Warcraft. Seriously. I almost went there. Thanks a lot, Lisa.
Sesame Street. Been watching this with Zev. He likes it too, but mostly Cookie Monster and Elmo's new, 20-minute minishow, which is weird. Having been away for, what, thirty years, the place is still very familiar, and I'm shocked to find Maria and Bob still in town (except Maria hasn't appeared to age, while Bob's 120). It seems less random and oddball than it used to be, with a smaller, more consistent cast of Muppets, most of them unfamiliar until last week. And sadly, no Kermit.
Blink. Malcolm Gladwell basically profiles a bunch of cool psychological experiments, and the people behind them. Guys who can watch you and your wife have a conversation and, within three minutes, know how long your marriage will last. That sort of thing. Love it.
More Star Trek: The Next Generation. Is is a coincidence that the G4 syndication run aired "All Good Things..." parts I and II this week? Also, any episode about Worf's romantic life feels like fanfic.
Nine Minutes of Ratatouille that showed up randomly on my TiVo. Animation looks great; trying to determine if Zev should go, as his first in-a-theater movie. Too early? Too wordy? Not enough giant robots?
The Devil Wears Prada. Wow do I have such a crush on that Anne Hathaway. Maybe I'm just a sucker for any funny brunette who'll open up a job interview with "I was editor in chief of The Daily Northwestern..."
Snakes on a Plane! A few scenes of total mayhem, and then nothing worth you and me even talking about. Would have been more fun had I seen this in the theater, dressed like a plane with, like, snakes on it.






