Live "Blogging" the film DAYBREAKERS

I've had a hard time getting into movies lately. I don't know why. It's a big time commitment, I guess. Either way, I've had three films from Netflix for three weeks now: Daybreakers, Pirate Radio and Shutter Island. Whoops!

I just popped in Daybreakers and already saw two things I wanna note somewhere. So here we go!

-- Attempt at a cheap scare before the credits. Eh.
-- WORST special effects I've ever seen to open a film. Cool opening idea, though.
-- Willem Dafoe's in it? That's right. Gotta watch Antichrist still.
-- Credits seem TV-ish and I don't know how to better describe them.

And that's it. I'll come back later.

Trout and Octopus

I don't care what he says. I'll listen.

What's the Best Part of This Story?

There's a great story over at BBC News that has so many good elements that it's hard to determine what, exactly, is the best.

Is it:

(A) That someone mooned Hell's Angels?
(B) That said mooner used a puppy as a weapon?
(C) That said mooner escaped on a stolen bulldozer?
(D) That said mooner drove so slowly that he caused a five kilometer backup in traffic?
(E) This quote: "What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell's Angels is currently unclear," a police spokesman said.

Oh, The Irony

I just read a piece over at ESPN.com about a man in South Africa who was beaten to death by his family after putting on a world cup match.

When I first read it, I thought he was killed for turning a match off, not putting one on. Nope. He was killed for putting it on.

But the irony? His family wanted to watch a religious program. How righteous of them, you know, beating him to death and all.

My Favorite Shows

Finally catching up on Breaking Bad inspired me to come up with lists of my favorite shows. It's hard for me to compare comedies with dramas; as Walt says in Breaking Bad several times, "They're apples and oranges." So I made three lists: Comedy, Drama, Both. I tried to list five in each; I couldn't, but at least I ended with 15 total, right?

DRAMA

(1) Lost
(2) Dexter
(3) Breaking Bad
(4) X-Files
(5) Firefly

COMEDY

(1) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
(2) Arrested Development
(3) Mr. Show
(4) The Life and Times of Tim
(5) Futurama
(*6*) Archer

BOTH

(1) Dead Like Me
(2) Nurse Jackie
(3) Weeds
(4) Californication

Thoughts?

Breaking Bad -- And it Feels so Good

(I'm sure THAT pun was never used before. Or at least, not used more than one million times.)

I just finished watching Breaking Bad season three. It took me a little under 48 hours to polish off the 13 episodes. The season was that good. Watching it poses three questions in my mind:

(1) Just how good is Breaking Bad?

The answer to this is rather simple. Very, very good. A more complicated answer, though, deals with question number two.

(2) Where does it rank on my list of favorite shows? What about best shows?

The best show I've ever seen is Dexter. Breaking Bad may come in second. My favorite show, conversely, is Lost. (I think.) But Lost's consistency was up and down. It was sort of the nature of the beast; not every episode was meant to be as gripping and meticulous as Breaking Bad (or Dexter) was meant to be.

Also, I think it's unfair to compare a shortened season of a cable TV show (whether it's AMC or HBO or Showtime) to a broadcast network show. They're horses of two totally different colors, with two totally different sets of rules by which to play.

To be honest, I don't watch a ton of TV. I wait to hear what catches on and give it a shot that way. I think this is a product of the overall crappiness of TV today. This isn't even worth mentioning (as Breaking Bad is probably better than 98% of what I haven't seen), but worth noting solely for the fact that there are shows I know that will compare that I have not seen yet (most notably The Wire and The Sopranos, and to a lesser extent, Six Feet Under and Battlestar Galactica.)

Regardless, Breaking Bad ranks in the top five best shows I've ever seen, and also (probably) my top five favorite shows. But that could all change, depending upon...

(3) How long can Breaking Bad sustain its greatness?

I immediately want to compare this show to Weeds. This is a simple comparison as both revolve around drug-dealing parents. Like Breaking Bad, the first three seasons of Weeds were very solid (though on a lower caliber than BB, and also with a whole other tone). However, once Weeds "jumped the shark" and changed its focus, things spiraled out of control. Now, we have Andy and Celia running around, doing wacky things just because their characters are too good to let go.

I truly hope Breaking Bad doesn't reach that point. I feel re-assured after reading an article with creator Vince Gilligan over at the A/V Club. He basically says he doesn't know how much longer it will last, but also says there's a question of how much longer can you go and how much longer should you go. That's the real question. Lost could have gone on indefinitely. I would have watched it every week. But did I want that? No, not even with it being my favorite show. There comes a point where things need to end. I hope that when Breaking Bad hits that point, that's when they end it.

Also, Gilligan makes a good point in response to a question about the possibility of Walt and Jesse going on the lam in the middle of season three: he doesn't want to leave Skyler and Walter Jr. and Hank and Marie behind. This is exactly the problem Weeds ran into; Nancy was ready to move on to a new portion, but the rest of the crew had to tag along. Walt and Jesse would need to move on, but the rest of the characters can't just be written off. You'd be left with this whole secondary storyline that the writers would try to work in, and probably fail at. I'm glad it didn't happen.

I'm glad the Breaking Bad writers are as good as they are.

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Best book so far this summer.

Short and sweet, I used Anthem as a gauge for whether or not to tackle Atlas Shrugged any time soon. If it's any indication, I'm going to like Atlas. (My friend, though, says the two aren't alike, saying "I read it's nothing like her other work in length or style, just similar objectivist themes like exploring the idea of the perfect man/human." We'll see.)

Definitely check this one out.

Oh, I forgot to mention. My favorite part? How the copy I read has a cover price of 95 cents. Hooray for old-timey prices!

Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart

While it may be one of the earlier (in terms of year) books of essays I've read by a comedian, Naked Pictures of Famous People is far from the best. I don't know what it was -- the dated references (Hanson, etc.) or the style -- but I found it really hard to get through a lot of these essays. What should have taken me an hour or two to read took far longer than that.

That's not to say it's bad. His Larry King / Hitler interview was funny -- that might have been my favorite essay in the book. (Maybe that was a lot of it -- a lot of Jewish humor. Not that I don't find it funny, but essay after essay with the same theme sort of gets old.)

Either way, it wasn't great. But it wasn't bad, either. The book was about as mediocre as this review.

Splice

In my attempt to go and see more movies in theaters this summer, Splice kicks things off. (I don't count Kick-Ass or Iron Man 2 because I was still in school when they came out.)

Anyway, I'm not sure what I was expecting. I like to go into movies knowing as little as possible, if only for the sake of having as few things ruined as possible. (This is a whole other blog post, about how much trailers reveal. But anyway...) I knew it'd be about scientists creating some sort of human life, but I didn't know much beyond that.

It was so weird. So, so weird. It's definitely a movie that poses more questions than it wants to answer, and challenges contemporary views of the scientific community (as well as more general moral questions). Things take weird twists at the end, and things got so out of hand that the theater was cracking up at points. I'm not sure if director Vincenzo Natali wanted that.

I read a comparison of the film to David Lynch's Eraserhead. I can buy it. Both deal with parenthood, and both are abstract as hell, especially considering they don't deal with traditional children. But I mean, come on. The "kids" in each are weird, but that's where similarities end. Eraserhead is good; Splice is just weird.

A post on Cinematical sums this up well. Quoting film critic Jeff Bayer, Eric D. Snyder writes:

Certain terrible things occur in the last act of Splice. I'm not going to tell you what they are. Suffice it to say that they are terrible. Jeff's point was that while it's possible for a movie to include depictions of these Terrible Things for purposes of shock, horror, or entertainment and still be acceptable, this movie didn't pull it off. In this case, he said, the attempt was laughable, and the Terrible Things were cheapened.

Yes, there are Terrible Things. And yes, they were laughable. And yes, the laughability ruined how terrible they should have been.

Fourteen strikeouts in seven innings?

Are you kidding me?

Insanity. Sheer insanity.

Stephen Strasburg's debut for the Nationals last night was all anyone could ever ask for... and more. His performance was mind-boggling. The closest thing I can relate this to is LeBron's debut with the Cavs against the Kings. With all the hype, each of these two stepped up to the plate (literally or figuratively, your call) and knocked it out of the park (this one's more figurative).

Jayson Stark wrote a better piece on ESPN than I could here, so check that out. I know that I'm waiting until Strasburg's next start. Hoo boy. Must see TV!

Frankenstein: Dead and Alive by Dean Koontz

Dead and Alive marks the end of the first Frankenstein trilogy Koontz penned. It's the first of the three to be solely authored by the man. A new trilogy begins next week, hence my rush to finish this book.

The first two in the series were good; for the most part, this was great. It can't really stand on its own as a novel, but it does an incredible job of wrapping up the myriad storylines the first two novels created (or merely alluded to).

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What was weirdest about the book (and the trilogy) for me was picturing Detective Carson as Deb from Dexter the whole time. Is that weird, or is there just a lack of spunky female cops in the realm of fiction today?

GAGA -- "Alejandro"

Tonally, it's wholly different from her other stuff. I still dig it, though.

The Summer of Reading Continues

At a job with a lot of downtime, there's plenty of time to read -- and plenty of time to talk about other books. My friend recommended three books to me... or at least mentioned three she was looking into reading:

-- Jazz by Toni Morrison
-- Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
-- My Dreams Out in the Street by Kim Addonizio

I've never read any of these three books. I've read three books by Morrison -- The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon and Beloved -- and liked each on varying levels.

Let the Great World Spin follows Philippe Petit's tightrope walk from one Twin Tower to the other. The film Man on Wire was great, so this book should be good, too.

The last is the title I'm least familiar with all around.

Like I said, I've never read any of the three. I'm just throwing them in here so that in case they're good, you have someone to thank. You're welcome, Internet.



Man on Wire is totally awesome, though. Check that out for sure.

Bad Twin by Gary Troup

Being the avid LOST fan that I am (if you need proof, just scroll down the blog), I was really excited to read Bad Twin by Gary Troup. The "author" was a flight on Oceanic 815, and was killed off in the pilot. The book was peppered with small references to the show (Hanso, Widmore, Paik, Mr. Cluck, 8-15-16, Cindy the stewardess), and Troup's name is an anagram for PURGATORY. With the way that the flash-sideways played out in season six, I thought it'd be cool to get through.

Boy, was it a chore.

It was cheesy, bad noir. The detective was a coward, constantly unsure of himself. Why should I root for someone like that? Likable characters were few and far between -- and when they popped up, they weren't in the story for very long.

In the entire book, one paragraph (p. 98-99) was worth reading. It shined some light on what Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof's perception of purgatory might be. I won't ruin it here, though -- go make your way through this sludge on your own.

A Tumblr Without Tumbling

I've come to the conclusion that this is what this blog is. It's a Tumblr, except without the followers or the likes or whatever. It's just where I put my thoughts, my pictures, whatever. With that in mind, I like it more. It gives it purpose! Sort of. Huzzah!

The Next 15 Books I'm Reading (Update 2)

I'm updating this again so I can access it more easily and so I can separate what I've read.

READ:

(1) Breathless by Dean Koontz
(2) Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman
(3) Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman
(6) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
(14) Frankenstein: City of Night by Dean Koontz
(15) Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
(--) My Custom Van by Michael Ian Black

READING NOW:

(--) Bad Twin by Gary Troup

ON DECK:

(12) Death of a Blue Movie Star by Jeffrey Deaver
(--) Frankenstein: Dead and Alive by Dean Koontz
(--) Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
(--) Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart

HAVE YET TO READ:

(4) Under the Dome by Stephen King
(5) Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
(7) The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
(8) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
(9) House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
(10) Focault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
(11) The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
(13) Lynch on Lynch, edited by Chris Rodley

So... so much for next fifteen. How about we change it to fifteen books I'm reading soon?