A Statement of Neglect

Hiya, Everyone-

It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but the novel is done!  Hooray!

So now that that's "over," and other things should start calming down, more posts for everyone!  Hooray!

Feel the excitement in the air...

A Statement About the Actual Twilight Movie

Not too much to say, except that it was more or less as expected (see previous post).

That said, we need to take a moment to discuss Edward, aka Robert Pattinson.  After reading a few interviews he seemed a bit pretentious and overrated, but I have to confess, he was the most pleasent surprise in the film.

I don't know about his future acting prospects, but he embodied our anti-hero quite perfectly; gorgeous, dark, and intense.  Some have called his acting wooden, but I have a feeling that was done on purpose...

It's a good thing he was there, quite frankly.  Because as in the books, the centerpiece of the film was the relationship between Bella and Edward, and as in the books, Edward was the centerpiece of the relationship.

Now I promise, no more Twilight.  On to something with substance.

A Statement About How I Met Your Mother

As is becoming my common practice, I have been reading a lot about shows (mostly courtesy of Mr. Ausiello), and then downloading a couple of eps from iTunes to check them out.  I have had some disappointments (hello, Chuck!), but most recently have had great success with a little show called How I Met Your Mother.

At first glance, this show has all of the elements that would make it distinctly uninteresting: set cameras, Friends knock-off setting (five friends live and love and laugh in New York City; they congregate in the bar downstairs from the apartment where three of them live), and a pretty standard premise (boy meets girl, boy pursues girl, etc.)

Imagine my shock, then, when this show turned out to be actually one of the funniest shows I have seen in quite a while.  A great deal of the credit goes to Neil Patrick Harris' Barney, an obnoxious ass who uses words like "legendary" and "awesome" and believes that no week is complete without strippers.  He adds an element of sheer absurdity to HIMYM, and "NPH" as he is called, keeps his character fresh and funny without ever straying into the realm of "too much."

While the basic setup is fairly familiar, HIMYM changes the gameplan enough to make a tired subgenre seem new again.  We flash forward to Ted Mosby ("the dad") telling his kids the seasons-long tale of, indeed, how he met their mother.  And the episodes act as parts of the story he tells them-- comprehensive and well-ordered, but not always in the right order, leaving for plently of surprises and twists.  In this way, HIMYM has learned from the "new" comedies (Arrested Development, 30 Rock) and built stories that we aren't even aware of yet.  An example of this was seen at the end of season 2, when it comes to light that Barney is the reason Lily (Ted's roommate and fiancée of his best friend Marshall) returned to New York at the beginning of the season.  At the time we had no inkling that that occurred, but when it came to light at the end of the season, it made perfect logical sense.

Another bit of refreshment from the HIMYM playbook is the gender-reversal roles.  Robin, the girl Ted falls for in the pilot (before promptly telling his kids, "And that's how I met your Aunt Robin"), doesn't want kids, and isn't even particularly sure she wants to get married in general, while Ted is all about finding the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with.  When they breakup at the end of season 2 (no spoiler alert, kids... we know she's not the mother!), it's because they realize that he wants things that she doesn't.  

In all, How I Met Your Mother is thoroughly charming, often hilarious, and a great source of reassurance that the sitcom is not dead.  If the genre wants to continue in the old tradition and not switch to single-camera inside-joke fests, How I Met Your Mother makes a fabulous transition.

In fact, I think I'll watch an episode right now.

A Statement About The Tone

Yo-

So I was reading an article today, and one of the comment-ers said of the writer, "Everything she writes is so negative!"  And I thought, "Well, hell.  My past two entries have been pretty damn negative."

Thusly, the next post will be something positive... Maybe something about how Quantum of Solace kicks ass (I haven't seen it yet, but is there a doubt?), maybe something about the new little gem I have found, How I Met Your Mother.

Aren't you just dying from the suspense?!

A Statement About Zack, Miri, and Their Porno

So this one time, I went and saw Zack & Miri Make a Porno.  I was fully prepared for the vulgarity, the rudeness and the sheer offensiveness of the whole endeavor.  I was not at all prepared for how terribly ordinary it was.

I adore obscene humor.  Or "boy humor," although I don't think it's fair that they're the only ones who should get to laugh at movies like Old School, Super Troopers, and Harold & Kumar.  The thing about each of those movies was that they were all relatively unique.  At the very least, they took an old concept and put a spin on it so that it felt new and fun.  The humor is outrageous in each, and different.

Which is where Zack & Miri falls short.  There are shocking moments, but they are not so shocking as to make the film itself stand out.  Full frontal male and female nudity (which makes it fun for everyone, not just the boys... or maybe, especially boys depending on your preference), lots of references to anal sex, gay porn, oral sex, etc., etc., etc.

And these run-of-the-mill attempts at "offending" the general public do nothing to hide the monotony of the plot.  Zack and Miri have been friends forever and live together.  Zack and Miri go to their high school reunion to judge the people who tormented them.  Zack and Miri don't know they're in love with each other until the possibility of having sex with other people comes up.  They have sex.  They get awkward.  They fight.  They separate.  They get back together.  The End.

Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks both make it watchable, at least.  Rogen doesn't act in this as much as other films (see: Superbad), but rather reprises his role from Knocked Up, another superior comedy filled with "boy humor."  Banks actually adds acting credibility to the whole affair, bringing Miri to vulerable, messy life both at the reunion (her high school crush is now out and dating a gay porn star), and in the porno shoots.  Miri's reaction to Zack going alone into his bedroom with one of their costars is particularly affecting.  It should also be noted that when Zack and Miri actually do have sex, aside from being a revelation for them, is a revelation for us; we see two people realizing for the first time, on camera in front of six other people, how they really feel about each other.  It's a brief flash of everything the film should have been.

If only the film had tried harder to be good instead of shocking.

A Statement About the Twilight Movie (A Post of Skepticism and Procrastination)

Well, we have already talked about the Twilight series as books, but we haven't yet talked about the impending film, set for release on 21 November.  This week Entertainment Weekly (themoviegirl's Bible) dedicated their cover to the subject (for the second time this year), and so I feel it is time for us to discuss it here.

Before I start, I want to reiterate my enjoyment of the books, and the fact that I plan to read them again in the future.  I have nothing against the books, but I am less convinced that they are classics worthy of such attention, than they are flash-in-the-pan filler for what was a gaping hole in the market.

Back to the movie.  17 million copies of the books have sold, mostly to girls and their moms, but also to a reasonable amount of boys.  17 million over the course of four books.  This is a lot, a great deal more than I or you will ever sell, and Stephenie Meyer has done very well for herself.  Again, tapped in to the market, etc.  That said, it does not bode well for big box office.  Most of people seeing that trailer, and most of the people who spend LOTS of money at the movies, are probably unfamiliar with the story.  Not that the story is a big draw for those people to begin with, but we'll get to that later.  

To start with, the choice of actors is a problem.  I have nothing against Robert Pattinson or Kristen Stewart, and I do not doubt they are the right choices for their respective roles.   The rest of the cast I find questionable, especially since there is almost zero recognizibility.  As a further draw for a film that has a built in (and not terribly huge) cult following, known actors needed to be cast who would help draw in the crowds.  The dude from Fastlane and Jane Doe from Grey's Anatomy do not exactly carry audiences with them everywhere they go (see: Elizabeth Reaser's recently cancelled CBS show).  There is not a single marquee name to show, even in cameo, in the movie trailer.

It is the job of movie trailers to tempt viewers into the theater.  They should give a taste of the story without giving away the whole plot.  A trailer should intrigue.  The Twilight trailers were really only "good" for people familiar with the plot of the book.  They show Edward and Bella, as well as the bland introduction of James and Victoria as The Bad Guys.  There is nothing indicating a deeper mythology, or even a presentation of a coherent plot.

Which brings us back to the story issue.  Twilight is a love story.  Plain and simple.  There is nothing wrong with a love story, but it is awfully hard to make a mainstream movie (or bestselling series) on that basis alone.  The "other" plot for Twilight is easy enough: rival vampires threaten Bella's life.  There is also the ongoing conflict between the vampires and the werewolves (hello, Team Jacob!), both territorially and for Bella's affections, but that doesn't take off, really, until the second book.  The "serious" threat, to everyone in the series, is also introduced in the second book, goes away almost entirely in the third, and is resolved so laughably in the fourth as to lose all credibility.  

I don't like the ongoing rivalry between Twilight and Harry, but there is honestly no comparison.

I don't wish bad things for the Twilight film, and I will certainly go see it, just as I will read the books again.  But I don't see that it will become the phenomenon it needs to become to spur further sequels.  And I don't think we'll still be talking about it a decade from now.

A Statement of Weakness

Hi Everyone-

I am officially feeling the NaNoWriMo Second Week Drag!

I've written enough that I am still more than "on course," but the past three or so days have felt completely uninspired both to write and by what I have written.

Statements of support ("You can do it!") and judgement ("If you don't do it, you will be a ginormous loser!") welcome.

Thanks!

A Statement of Relief and Happiness

Yay, Obama!!

A Statement About NaNoWriMo

Just a quick note about beaucoup excitement in the month of November...

Aside from being the month containing my favorite holiday (hello, Thanksgiving!), November is also National Novel Writing Month.  This is an annual challenge, designed to encourage participants to write a 50,000 word novel over the course of the month.

So that's what I'm going to do.

I wrote about 7,100 words over the weekend (to finish exactly on time, we are told we need to write an average of about 1,660 words per day), but I was on a roll and, as was pointed out to me by the wise Lady Liberty, better to write more when you're in the zone than to worry about those days when you're not.

So encouragement welcome.  According to most participants, the second week is the hardest, so I'll probably be asking for some help next week.

That's all!