I Should Probably Be Procrastinating

reallyfoxnews: All male panel on Fox News laments women as...

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 02:27:39 -0400

All male panel on Fox News laments women as breadwinners.

Lou Dobbs: I want to turn to a new study from Pew Research, showing that women are becoming the breadwinners in this country, and a lot of other concerning and troubling statistics. But our society is being torn in so many ways right now… we’re watching society dissolve around us.

Juan Williams: What we’re seeing with 4 out of 10 families now, the woman is the primary breadwinner, you’re seeing the disintegration of marriage… but you’re seeing, I think, systematically… something going terribly wrong in American society and it is going to impact our children for generations to come. Left, right, I don’t see how you can argue this.

Lou Dobbs: And you mentioned the children. Those are the children who survive. 54 million abortions since Roe v. Wade…

Erick Erickson: Liberals who defend [women as breadwinners] are very anti-science. When you look at biology, look at the natural world, look at the roles of a male and a female in society, in other animals, the man typically is the dominant role, the female, it’s not antithesis, it’s not competing, it’s a complimentary role… having moms as the primary breadwinner is bad for kids, and bad for marriage, and reality shows us that’s the truth.

Doug Schoan: … this is a catastrophic issue, and sadly no one on the left, right, or center is doing anything about the breakdown of family structure… bottom line, it could undermine our social order.

I watch a lot of Fox News videos, and this is truly unbelievable.

THIS IS HYSTERICAL! OH MAN, I LOVE THE ONION!

… wait…

That Awkward Moment When Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love" Starts Repeating In Your Head At 3:34 AM For No Clear Discernible Reason, So You Post About It On Tumblr.

Mon, 27 May 2013 03:35:43 -0400

Get outta there, Meatloaf! You’ve never even cracked my Top 15 favorite musicians from the 80s!

That’s about right.

Thu, 23 May 2013 06:00:45 -0400

That’s about right.

I have discovered something mind-blowing! This is seriously...

Fri, 03 May 2013 17:37:28 -0400

I have discovered something mind-blowing! This is seriously amazing! REBLOG ALL OVER!

Video

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:23:12 -0400

Andrew Flack's Top 10 Favorite Characters In TV And Movies

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 18:34:54 -0400

So I dunno if you guys watch Nostalgia Critic, but he’s currently doing a continuing series where he details his favorite characters in all TV and Movies, and well, as an aspiring TV writer I think that it’s actually really important to figure out what characters you like the most, and go in-depth about what makes you love them.

So I decided to make my own list.

Now, so far, NC has seemed to only have one rule, which is that the character has to have appeared in a movie or TV show - one of his picks was a real-life cowboy who was depicted in the movie Tombstone. For me, though, I think that’s cheating, because, for example, if I were to pick Mark Hamill’s Joker then it would be a disservice to the comics because what makes his take on the character good was in the original source material, and therefore is unrelated to the medium of television.

With that said, my rule is they must have DEBUTED in TV, and cannot be a direct-to-screen translation of a real person (although a few of my picks were very much inspired by real people).

And now, without further ado, my favorite TV and Movie Characters of ALL TIME!

(Oh, and this should be obvious, but SPOILERS. You have been warned.)

10. Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski - The Big Lebowski

Like I said, some of my picks were inspired by real people, and, according to Cracked, Mr. Lebowski was inspired by a man named Jeff Dowd, and even shares some of his biography. HOWEVER, this does not disqualify The Dude because, for one thing, he has a different name, and because there’s as much - if not more - Jeff Bridges in The Dude as there is Jeff Dowd. Also it’s my list, so fuck you that’s why!

In any case, what makes The Dude one of my favorite characters? Well let’s take a look at this guy: he’s unemployed, spends his days smoking pot, drinking White Russians (or Caucasians), and bowling with his friends. He doesn’t give a shit about anything but doing what he likes with the people he likes, and he only ever gets agitated when people conspire to take him away from his mellow life-style. But even then, he doesn’t get THAT mad.

The Dude gets it, man. He understands that there’s no point in living life if you’re not enjoying yourself while doing it, and that the only thing that you need to enjoy life is to let it wash over you and not worry too much.

But perhaps the thing I like the most about The Dude is the way the plot of The Big Lebowski basically tries to ruin him at every turn. It starts out with some guys sticking his head in a toilet and peeing on his rug, and by the end, his car’s been stolen then set on fire, one of his best friends is dead and his ashes fly into his face, and he basically realizes that almost everyone else from the outside world is just a huge asshole for no real reason. And yet, at the end of the movie, what does he do? Gets himself a White Russian and goes bowling with his best friend Walter. As if nothing ever happened.

I think The Stranger puts it best at the beginning of the movie: “Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s the Dude, in Los Angeles. And even if he’s a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide. But sometimes there’s a man, sometimes, there’s a man.”

9. Gob Bluth - Arrested Development

So I don’t know if you heard about this, but Netflix is bringing back Arrested Development for a fourth season in a few weeks! And I’m so excited, because Arrested Development, to my mind, has some of the best sitcom characters ever created.

However, for this list I arbitrarily decided that I could only choose one character from each work, and so as much as I love Lucille and Buster and Tobias and George Sr. and Michael and George Michael and Maebe and Lindsay, if I had to choose one Arrested Development character who is consistently hysterical and even has a somewhat interesting psychology (I’d say ‘arc’ but the whole point of AD is that none of the characters ever learn anything), I had to go with George Oscar “Gob” Bluth.

… I’ve made a huge mistake…

In any case, what do I love about Gob? Well, for one thing, in a family that is vain and self-obsessed, Gob might just be biggest, vainiest dick around. (I should really get a tape recorder, listen to my phrasing.)

He’s also an idiot, quick to anger, and secretly extremely insecure about every single aspect of his life. When he accidentally gets married to a woman he met one night after getting blackout drunk (played by Will Arnett’s then real-life wife Amy Poehler), and finds that he would be able to get it annulled if he can prove they didn’t consummate it - which as the narrator continually points out, they didn’t - he says they did anyway because he can’t bare to admit that he would marry a woman without sleeping with her first. And then, he DOES have sex with her - right in the lawyer’s office.

Gob is also an extremely incompetent - yet, of course, over-confident - magician, who does all of his shows to “The Final Countdown” and at one point sinks the family yacht - one of their few remaining assets - simply to pull off a decent magic trick.

Gob Bluth may in fact be one of the most despicable characters ever portrayed in a sitcom, and yet because he’s just so naive about everything and has such a soft-side to him that comes out every once in a while, he also manages to stay lovable. If that doesn’t earn him the #9 spot on this list, I don’t know what does.

8. Stringer Bell - The Wire

Speaking of somewhat despicable yet lovable characters, here’s Stringer Bell from The Wire. Stringer is a Boston druglord, one of the two heads of the Barksdale Organization - the other one being his best friend Avon Barksdale - and one of the main antagonists of the show for its first three seasons. He’s also played by Idris Elba, who might just be the coolest British guy in Hollywood right now.

Now a lot of people all over the place have talked about The Wire and how it’s the greatest TV show ever and has amazing characters and drama and an epic serialized 5-season story and all that stuff. But to me, The Wire, at its core, was a show about two things: what makes a man go into crime, and what makes a man want to chase after those who do. In that regard, Stringer Bell might just be the purest example of that dichotomy.

On the side of “what makes a man go into crime” we learn that Stringer grew up with basically nothing but his friendship with Avon Barksdale. The two of them continually dreamed of one day ruling over the city that seemed to have turned on them at an early age. But whereas Barksdale wanted to do things his own way and tell the rest of Baltimore to get on his side or fuck-off, Stringer had a different idea. He wanted to use the drug trade to get himself into a position where he could eventually seize true power the honest way. As a business man. As a politician. For him, Baltimore’s infamous “game” was simply a means to an end, while Barksdale saw it as a way of life.

On the “what makes a man chase those who commit crime” end, Stringer has the distinction of being de-facto protagonist Jimmy McNulty’s number 1 target. To McNulty, being a detective is about finding the smartest criminal out there and outsmarting them, and while at the end of Season 1 he and the other detectives who would one day become the Major Crimes Unit had taken down Avon Barksdale, Stringer remained - because he was the smartest criminal. They could never get anything on him because he never left a single trace; this infuriates McNulty and he obsesses over it all the way until Stringer is killed at the end of Season 3. And then, even after that, the fact that McNulty never got his man still lingers, all the way until the last episode. That’s how powerful Stringer Bell was.

But beyond all of that, Stringer was just a likable, and, dare I say it, kind of noble guy. I said before that he wanted to get into legitimate business; when he takes over the Barksdale Organization while Avon’s in jail in Season 3, he starts running it with as little bloodshed as possible. To ward off silly turf wars, he calls all the major crimelords in the city and brings them all into one UN-like organization where grievances are brought up in a reasonable way. For a while there at least, Stringer had effectively eliminated the violent aspects of The Game. But of course, it’s The Wire, so just like Bunny Coleman’s Hamsterdam experiment in the same season, it doesn’t last. Avon comes back, sees what Stringer’s done with his organization, and doesn’t like it because it seems too civilized. Stringer dies because his best friend puts out a hit on him, and McNulty never gets his man. A pitiful, yet strangely fitting, end to an amazing character.

Oh and before anyone says anything - yes Omar is awesome too, I just think Stringer has a more interesting character arc. So sue me. This is my corner! My corner, yo!

7. Marty McFly - Back To The Future

And now for something completely different. Unlike Stringer Bell, Marty McFly is not particularly deep or complex. He definitely has a character arc, but it’s a little hamfisted (nobody calls me yellow!). He also deals with his share of conflicts, with him trying to prevent himself from fading out of existence, prevent Doc from getting shot - twice, or simply trying not to get killed by Biff or one of his relatives, but all of these are pretty simple and don’t have many layers.

No, what’s great about Marty McFly is actually that he and the basic story of the Back To The Future films are not very complex. He is the epitome of a classic everyman protagonist, designed to keep the audience invested when things get a little science fictiony and strange. His objectives and motives throughout the trilogy are extremely clear: get parents back together, prevent son from committing crime, get back Almanac, bring Doc home. This leaves tons of room for relationships and some simple fun. Because while Marty himself is not extremely deep or complex, the people he meets on his journey are, and his relationships with them are fascinating.

Take his relationship with Doc Brown, pretty much the centerpiece of the franchise. There is absolutely no reason why these two should be friends; they’re multiple generations apart in age, one’s a brilliant scientist while the other one is probably barely passing high school, one is a recluse while the other seems to be a generally well-adjusted socially competent kid with a hot girlfriend (be she Claudia Wells or Elizabeth Shue). And yet… their pairing just seems so right! They compliment each other, as Doc’s eccentricity is balanced by Marty’s groundedness, and Marty’s stress and confusion about all the time travel is balanced by Doc’s togetherness. They are the perfect duo, and what’s perhaps best about it is that, despite their difference in age, they don’t really have a “father-son” relationship; they really are equals, which I think is endlessly fascinating and says some things about the nature of friendship.

But really, the thing that makes Marty one of my favorites is the first thing I said about him: his everyman quality. His reactions to realizing he’s in the past in the first movie are so relatable, from the initial daze - yeah, he was in a time machine, but it doesn’t really click until you actually, you know, travel through time - to his constant accidental anachronisms (“Why are you wearing a life vest?” “Why is everything so heavy in the future?”), to his reaction the first time he realizes, yep, he’s sitting next to his father… and he’s a dweeby teenager. All of it is spot-on, and it really feels genuine, like, this is what a teenager from the 80s would act like if he ended up in the past.

Back To The Future is one of my favorite film franchises of all time, and it wouldn’t be half as good if it weren’t for the strength of its central character, everyone’s favorite everyman, Marty McFly.

6. Captain Malcolm Reynolds - Firefly, Serenity

Firefly’s another one of those shows where it’s so hard to pick a favorite character simply because they’re all so well-drawn and likable. I mean I could probably pick any of the 9 series regulars and make a case as for why they deserve to be on the list. But if I have to pick just one - and, that being my arbitrary rule, I do - I have to go with Mal. No contest.

Malcolm Reynolds is an interesting character because he has so damn much going on. He was a war hero in a civil war where he fought for the losing side, and so he constantly finds himself at odds with every manner of folk just based on that alone. But beyond that and because of his disloyalty to the regime in charge, he’s also a smuggler and a thief who’s not above killing people if it’ll get the job done. However, though he’s willing to kill, he’s not a cold-blooded murderer, as evident by one of my favorite lines from the pilot: “If I were going to kill you, you’d be awake, you’d be facing me, and you’d be armed.” He’s a man of honor in a fairly dishonorable world. A would-be loner who ends up surrounding himself with a ragtag family because, in order to survive the way he wants to, he needs the help. Joss Whedon once said that the other characters on the show represent things that Mal lost in the war: Wash is his humor, Book is his faith, Inara his romantic side, etc. So the fact that Mal keeps them around - nay, needs them around - says a lot of very interesting things about him as a person. He recognizes what he’s lost, but he can’t let them go, because he’s afraid of the man he’ll become if he does.

Now, a lot of people seem to dislike the Firefly movie, Serenity, or at least a lot of my friends who are Firefly fans do. I personally love it, however, and one of the reasons is that I think the film represents the perfect rounding out of Mal’s character arc. Because by the end of the movie, he has gotten some of himself back - he’s gotten his purpose back. The 14 episodes of the show, as a whole, are about Mal aimlessly wandering from job to job, adventure to adventure, simply trying to keep flying, without giving much thought as to why he wants to do so. After the events of Serenity, when he learns the extent of The Alliance’s atrocities, he’s suddenly reminded: because, though the war is over, the fighting can never stop. Because so long as the wrong people have power, the wrong things will keep happening. Because it’s not enough to just keep yourself afloat; it’s your duty as a human being to do your part in keeping everything else running too.

But beyond all of that depth and darkness and meaning, there’s one other reason I love Malcolm Reynolds: because, at the end of the day, he’s just fun to watch! He may have his issues, but he’s still a swashbuckling space pirate who kicks ass, takes names, and usually has a wisecrack or two prepared for almost every situation. He may not take as much joy in his humor as someone like Wash does, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come out. He’s also one of the few TV characters I’ve seen who’s ever had much of a knack for self-deprecating humor, which is one of my favorite types because it proves you don’t take stuff too seriously. So while deep down he may still be tortured and depressed, on the outside he still manages to do his job and even maybe steal some fun for himself on the way.

5. Walter White - Breaking Bad

I have a saying that I like to stand by when it comes to fiction: You don’t have to like a character to like a character. What I mean by that is, just because a character is a despicable, unsympathetic, horrible asshole, doesn’t mean that you can’t like the fact that he exists. You don’t have to want to be a character’s friend for him to be a good character. With that in mind, let’s talk about Walter White.

Walter White is not sympathetic. He puts on the illusion of being sympathetic at the beginning, but as Breaking Bad progresses we begin to realize just what kind of man he’s probably always been. Power hungry. Angry. Controlling. And possibly just downright evil.

At the start of the show, we’re shown a Walter White who has been forced to take two jobs - one as a high school chemistry teacher and the other as an assistant at a car wash - in order to support his family which includes a disabled son and a marriage which’s flame seems to have gone out a long time ago. And then he gets lung cancer. And at first, we feel sorry for this poor, nerdy old loser. The world just keeps shitting on his face again and again, one thing after another. So he turns to cooking crystal meth using his chemistry skills because he wants to leave something behind for his family when the cancer inevitably kills him, and we the audience sympathize yet again, because given the circumstances, it seems like a reasonablish idea. And then by the third episode he’s murdered two guys and dissolved their bodies in hydrochloric acid. And we think: “Okay, that was pretty heinous, but what else was he supposed to do?” And then tries to kill a druglord with ricin - a pretty sinister substance for him to have thought of immediately. And we think: “Justified as well! Self-defense! Come on!” And then he lies to his wife and tells her he was in a fugue state. “He had to lie! What else could he do?” He doesn’t save Jesse’s girlfriend from choking on her own vomit. “Well… is inaction really as bad as action?” A plane crashes because the girl’s father, who is a flight-control operator, is too distraught to work. “That wasn’t directly his fault, though…” He starts working for a major druglord who we eventually learn uses kids as soldiers. “But he didn’t know that!” He then has Jesse shoot a man in cold blood because he’s paranoid about his job preservation with said druglord. “Yeah… that seems a little… but…” He goes to great lengths to kill this druglord, including poisoning a kid and convincing an old man to become a suicide bomber. “Um…” He partners up with a guy who he sees shoot an innocent child right in front of him, kills a fan-favorite character, and then orders a prison hit on 14 different people simultaneously in the name of preserving his meth business, a long time AFTER he’d already made more than enough money to provide for his family. “Yeah… Walter White’s an evil asshole.”

And that’s what I kinda love about him. His decent into pure evil starts out so justified, but then escalates and escalates over the course of the show. His initial motive gets muddled, and you quickly realize that he’s only interested in gaining and sustaining power at all costs. And yet… a lot of that makes sense. He is a man who constantly was belittled by the world, even as he has one of the most brilliant scientific minds of his day. He won a Nobel Prize, for Christ’s sake! And yet, he was a nobody Chemistry Teacher because his friends screwed him over. So now he sees a chance to finally regain his position in the world, and he’s willing to do so at all costs. Including, in my humble estimation, possibly killing his own brother-in-law… dun dun dun! I can’t wait for the final season.

It’s a classic “good man becomes bad man” story, like The Godfather, but told at its own pace over the course of many hours of television. And I love every minute of it, almost as much as I love to despise Walter White.

4. Walter Bishop - Fringe

What is it about Walters? I noticed a little while ago that a lot of my favorite shows have a character with the first name “Walter” or “Walt” in them. Walter White, Walt Lloyd, and now Walter Bishop. I need to make sure to include a Walter in every TV show I ever create; they seem to be good luck.

In any case, Walter Bishop. What can I possibly say about Walter Bishop? He is the heart, mind, and soul of Fringe. As far as functionality goes, here is a character that is able to act as exposition, comic relief, emotional center, and even antagonist (though that’s an alternate version of him). As far as likability goes, he’s one of the most lovable, sympathetic, understandably flawed characters ever written for a TV show. He’s a man who at one point thought he could play god, and ended up hurting himself and the world for it, and is now spending the rest of his life trying to atone. But even when he fucked up way back when, he did so with the purest intentions; saving his son’s - or a version of his son at least - life. Did it take a little hubris on his part to think he could mess with the fabric of the universe and kidnap his double’s son in order to save him? Yes, of course. But time was of the essence, and he didn’t have time to think about the consequences; he just had to act. Because that’s what a father does when his child’s in trouble. And yet, while he saved his son, he ended up ruining his marriage and turning the other universe’s version of himself into a monster. He ended up destroying the balance of the universe so much that both worlds would have to spend decades cleaning up. And yet, after all that, he finally decides that it was all worth it. Because his son was alive. And because it all worked out in the end, even if he had to sacrifice himself to do so.

Walter Bishop is Fringe. Olivia Dunham may be the protagonist, but Walter is the show itself. His struggle to atone for his past sins is, in the end, what the entire show is about, and his random quirks with drugs and music and cows and food is what the fans love about it. Without Walter, Fringe may have just been the X-Files clone people were calling it when it first debuted. But because of him, it not only became a better and more interesting show than the X-Files; it became, in my opinion, one of the best science fiction shows of all time. And in the end, it’s all because of him.

3. Leslie Knope - Parks & Recreation

When I first made up this list, I was kind of distraught when I realized that I only had one female character on it. I thought, “Really? Out of all the TV I watch - out of all the Joss Whedon I watch - I could only put one single woman in my top 10 characters? Man, I must be secretly sexist; I can’t post this on Tumblr! People are going to kill me!”

But then I thought about it. I thought about it long and hard. And I realized, it’s not my fault. TV and movies have a general dearth of really really good female characters. And when there ARE solid women - Fringe’s Olivia Dunham, Juliet Burke from Lost, almost any female Joss Whedon’s ever written that isn’t Echo - there’s usually a more interesting man who I needed to put on the list first (like the above Walter Bishop and the below… well, you’ll see in a minute). And I do feel like that’s a shame. We need more outstanding female characters who can hold their own, don’t get overshadowed by the male characters on their shows, and earn their place on a Tumblr top 10 list. We need more women like Leslie Knope.

Leslie Knope is not only my favorite female character and my favorite character on Parks & Recreation (I’ll get to that, don’t worry), but probably my favorite sitcom character of all time. Why? Well, a lot of reasons.

For one thing, she has a personality that is unique and not immediately a set-up for tons of jokes, like most sitcom characters. Leslie’s thing is that she’s uber competent, headstrong, optimistic, and ambitious. She rarely gets too upset about anything, keeps a positive attitude in all situations, and is generally a ray of sunshine at the center of the show. You’ll notice that none of these qualities are inherently negative. This is extremely rare in comedy, simply because comedy, at its core, is about “A” making fun of “B” for “C“‘s enjoyment. Seriously; all comedy pretty much stems from that, it’s that simple. Don’t believe me, take anything you think is funny and try to break it down - just know the letters don’t have to represent people. In any case, because of this formula, a lot of sitcoms are built around characters with pretty obvious flaws that the writers can keep coming back to in order to exploit for laughs. But Leslie Knope doesn’t have any obvious flaws. Initially, they TRIED to make her into a Michael Scott-style boss-from-hell, but that characterization didn’t work because that’s not who Amy Poehler is to her core. So instead, they did the opposite.

So, you might be asking, if Leslie Knope is so likable and competent, what makes her funny? Well the thing is, she’s likable and competent… in a town that is the exact opposite. The citizens of Pawnee Indiana are morons who don’t know what’s best for them, work completely within the mindset of mob-mentality, and hate anything that’s new and different. They like laws that have been outdated for centuries, prefer fast food joints to parks, and take everything they hear anyone say on TV at complete face value. And so, the comedy an conflict of the show comes from Leslie’s increasingly desperate attempts to govern the ungovernable and satisfy the unsatisfiable. And it’s always hysterical!

Now then, you might be wondering why I have Leslie Knope on this list and not everyone’s favorite Ron Swanson. And while I fucking love Ron Swanson, think he’s also one of the best sitcom characters ever, and try to live my life as close to his ideals as I can without moving to a cabin, at the end of the day, I hate to say it, but he’s just not quite as interesting to me as Leslie is. Don’t get me wrong; he’s great, hilarious, and has some pretty deep moments every once in a while, and Leslie is probably a lot more likable for her association with him - considering they’re almost polar opposites. I just personally find the fact that Leslie keeps going after all the adversity and opposition she’s faced over the years to be a lot more interesting and to make her a lot more likable.

And really, if I wanted, I could make this whole list just Parks & Rec characters, because I pretty much love everyone on that show. But I’m not going to do that… that’s a project for next week.

2. James “Sawyer” Ford - Lost

If you know me at all, you knew this was coming. How could I do a best character list without mentioning Lost? And especially, how could I do a character from Lost - when I only get one - without making it Sawyer? The real surprise here is probably that he’s only #2, but I think it’ll make sense when you see my #1 pick.

Now, granted, Lost is another of those tricky shows to just pick a single character from. And I did mull over for a while who it would be… I went through Locke, Desmond, Ben, Richard, Hurley, Charlie, even Mr. Eko and Juliet briefly… but then, I realized that, no, I couldn’t possibly choose anyone but Sawyer.

Sawyer - along with Stringer, Mal, Walter White to some extent, and my number 1 pick - continues my trend of morally-gray badasses. So what makes Sawyer so special in particular?

Well, in my opinion, good ol’ Lafleur might just be one of the best developed characters in the history of television. He, out of the Lost characters, is the only one that seems completely consistent throughout all 6 seasons, and who seems to get the same amount of character development no matter what. He isn’t like Jack, who kind of stalls out in the middle of Season 2. Or Charlie, who also becomes pretty annoying and samey during Season 2. Or Locke who can become kind of whiney, mostly near the end of Season 2… actually, as I think about it, fuck Season 2 of Lost. It’s the worst. But I digress… Sawyer is the rare example of a character who starts out badass, gets some backstory pathos and a little character development, and stays badass. Compare that to Spike from Buffy and Angel - but mostly Buffy - who starts out really badass but then gets neutered in Season 4 and stays as a whiney twat - save for a few glorious moments of badassery here and there - until his reappearance in Season 5 of Angel. Writers seem to find the need to “tame the savage beast” when it comes to fan-favorite badasses, either to “improve their sex appeal” or just to deepen them, but often this attempt just serves to castrate what made fans like the character in the first place.

Not Sawyer, though. Sawyer starts out as a cold, selfish, kind of douchey badass in Season 1 who gets a little sympathy after we learn his backstory in “Confidence Man”. He begins to warm to the group after a while, and slowly but surely becomes a bit more heroic. Then Locke introduces him to Anthony Cooper, a man he knows better as the original Sawyer who conned his parents and is indirectly responsible for his dad shooting his mom and committing suicide. He kills Cooper, completing a task that he’d set for himself for almost his entire life, and this changes him. Initially one of the people who most wanted to leave the Island, he becomes one of the most vocal ones opposing the Freighter in Season 4, partially because he believes they’re dangerous, and possibly because, with Cooper dead, he feels he doesn’t have a place in the outside world anymore. And then he ends up in 1977, where he joins the Dharma Initiative, becomes their head of security, and begins a relationship with one Juliet Burke. This is the moment of most growth for his character, and also the moment where most other similar characters go off the rails. Sawyer is finally living a happy, mostly content life. He’s in love - which he once told Kate he’d never been before - and he has a comfortable job with a decent amount of power. People even respect him. He belongs. And then Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Sayid show up and fuck all that up. Sawyer’s actions from that point until the end of the series all stem from that moment, because there is nothing more devastating than having happiness snatched from your arms by fate.

Sawyer is a constant wild card in a show that was often centered around groups and allegiances. He grows to become one of the most noble and heroic characters on the show, without losing his penchant for kicking ass and giving nicknames. He works as an antagonist just as well as a protagonist, and he never makes a decision that doesn’t seem grounded in who he’s always been as a character. On a show that had almost 40 credited regulars through its run, Sawyer managed to consistently be one of its most beloved. And that’s why James “Sawyer” “Lafleur” Ford gets my number 2 spot.

1. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce - Buffy, Angel

Surprised? Then you don’t know me very well. Wesley is my favorite character of all time for a number of reasons: he’s badass, he’s smart, he’s sympathetic, he’s charming, he’s funny, he’s relatable, he’s in love with a character played by Amy Acker, he’s Wesley. I could go on and on and on and on about how amazing the character of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce is, but I’ll try to keep this manageable.

First and foremost, he, like Sawyer, is amazingly developed. The man that Wesley is at the end of Season 5 of Angel is not at all the man we’re introduced to in Season 3 of Buffy. And yet, never once does it seem like the writers ever went off the rails or forced anything to make him more likable. He develops from a wacky incompetent foil to Giles into Angel’s badass, stoic right-hand man in the most natural believable way that sort of transition can happen, and yet if someone had told me that that would happen when I was first making my way through those two shows, I never would’ve believed it. In fact, I didn’t.

When I was first watching Season 3 of Buffy and Wesley popped in, I hated him as a character. He was clumsy, naive, and bumbling, and clearly just there to show how much of a better Watcher Giles is. When he loses control of Faith and she becomes The Mayor’s dragon, it makes complete sense: well, DUH. He’s terrible! But, after a few episodes, it became clear to me that there was a little more going on. He seemed to be a little less naive than he at first appeared, and actually had a decent handle on demonology. He also started an awkward one night romance with Cordelia that was admittedly pretty funny. And then he disappears, apparently stripped of his Watcher credentials by the Council because he still kinda sucked at his job, even as he became more likable.

I didn’t think much of him, but then as I was starting Angel, I did a little bit of research and found that he became a series regular on that show, and that he was a fan-favorite character. What? That didn’t make any sense! So I started watching.

When he first shows up on Angel, he’s calling himself a “rogue demon hunter”, and seems like the badass he would become, but then it turns out he’s still as incompetent as ever. He joins Angel Investigations and, for the time being, provides some needed levity to the group. Then sometime in Season 2, there’s an episode when Angel is busy so Wesley has to handle a case himself, pretending to be Angel so the clients will still pay. What follows is a very funny episode where he has to choke down a cup of blood and pretend to be burned by sunlight and holy water, while also taking on Angel’s trademarked brooding. But then about halfway through, he actually has to do some fighting, and at first he gets his ass handed to him, but then the confidence of his ruse sneaks in, and he sort of becomes Angel. From that moment forward, he starts honing his skills and eventually actually becomes one of the more valuable brawlers on the team, along with Gunn. When Angel goes solo in Season 2, he becomes the new leader and actually does a pretty good job of it, keeping the position even when Angel eventually returns. And then, Angel becomes a father. And Wesley reads a prophecy that suggests that Angel will kill his son. And Wesley decides to act. He kidnaps the baby, gets his throat slashed (though not mortally) and causes Angel to turn on him and kick him off of the team. Then throughout Season 4 he goes back to being a sort of “rogue demon hunter”, working to solve the ensuing apocalypse on his own terms and literally sleeping with the enemy. He gets brought back into the group by the end of the season, but by this point he’s a completely changed man. Dark, cold, distant, he starts making hard choices that nobody else can. And in Season 5, when everyone’s memory of Angel’s son is erased, the writers were luckily smart enough to keep Wesley’s character pretty consistent. He becomes slightly more comfortable on the team again, now that he can’t remember the worst months of his life, but he still has a very cold side to him - emphasized in the episode where he kills a robot replica of his dad, without knowing it was a robot. By the end of the series (and his life) he had become by far the most complex and sympathetic character on the show, constantly punished for just trying to do the right thing but always doing it anyway. His short-lived, tragic romance with Fred still managed to be one of the key relationships on the show, and the scene where she dies, replaced with the demon Illyria is devastating. But perhaps most devastating of all in the tragic life of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, are his final words: lying in a room with Illyria, suffering from a mortal knife wound, he looks at the demon inhabiting the body of the love of his life, and says, “Lie to me.” She takes the form of Fred and cradles him in his arms as he dies.

Wesley is everything I love in a character. He’s deep, he’s complex, he’s badass, he’s tragic, he has a sense of humor. He works wonderfully paired up with any of Angel’s main characters, and he is an essential cog in the team and in one of my favorite shows of all time.

But most of all, he’s proof that even a bumbling incompetent can become a tragic badass, so there’s still hope for me yet. All you need is the right set of TV writers.

Women. I just… I can’t anymore. I mean, I’ve been working under the assumption for...

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 22:43:35 -0400

Women. I just… I can’t anymore.

I mean, I’ve been working under the assumption for years that you guys are just people with a few different body parts, but more and more I’m starting to really think some of you must be descended from a completely different species… I mean, logic just doesn’t seem to work the same way for you guys as it does for us! Neither does gallows humor, which is rather unfortunate because when I get into an awkward situation - often brought on by a woman, interestingly enough - my normal escape is to joke it off. But DEAR LORD was that a mistake… my god.

WHY AM I SO ATTRACTED TO YOU? YOU DRIVE ME INSANE!!!

I’m just gonna leave this here and see what happens…

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 23:10:14 -0400

I’m just gonna leave this here and see what happens…

God… what in the hellfuck is wrong with me?

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:07:45 -0400

God… what in the hellfuck is wrong with me?

Change

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 02:28:00 -0500

This past month I have:

- Spent the night with an attractive woman for the first time
- Found out I’m going to be an accidental uncle
- Figured out that, yes, I actually can be charming and attractive despite (or because of) my nerdy, goofy tendencies
- Learned that I’ll be graduating a semester earlier than I thought
- Applied for a fancy internship at NBC
- Made the most headway I have in forever on numerous scripts and pet-projects
- Come back to stand-up after a year-long hiatus
- Found a whole new approach to this whole “life” thing that involves putting my nose to the grind and DOING things

February. The shortest month?

One Possible Beginning For One Possible Novel

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 02:06:50 -0500

People always tell me they wish they had my job. They tell me that the Capital must look oh so gorgeous from the sea, and that it must be wonderful to get to travel every day! But they’re tourists; they make the journey up the coast to Balmer for a weekend getaway, do the touristy things, see the shops and the shows, then come right back down to their comfy little houses in the Triangle City so they can do their cushy little government jobs. If it rains, they reschedule. If there are reports of pirates, they stay home. They think the rapier at my belt is just for show.

Now, I’m not saying I hate being a boatswain. I do enjoy the ocean breeze, and old Captain Wilhelm is a decent enough guy. And I don’t think I’ll ever have a job as bad as the one I had over at the Dry Sculch – I’ll never work as a barmaid again as long as I live – but the whole thing has just made me kind of jaded. Heading off to sea loses its charm after about the third time you do it, especially when you spend half of your time at sea cleaning up aristocratic vomit and the other half praying you don’t get hit by a pirate’s stray musket shot. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m all for adventure; I’m just sick of taking the same one over and over again. And also I don’t want to mop up any more rich-people refuse.

So here I am lying in my cot on the third floor of the Reinhold Lodge, trying to decide whether or not I’ll actually clock in for work today. I have this argument a lot, and usually the need for money and the guilt of disappointing poor old Wilhelm leads me to sigh, get up, and run down to the docks… but today is different. Maybe it’s something in the air, maybe I’ve just finally reached the last point at which my body can stand to live a measured, monotonous existence, but today when I roll out of bed, I don’t immediately head toward the docks. Instead, I find my feet moving me in the opposite direction, toward the Western gate.

One of the guards recognizes me. “Hey Nova,” he says, “Isn’t your boat leaving today?”

“Uh… possibly,” I reply.

“Well… shouldn’t you be on it?”

“Look, Quinn, do I tell you how to do your job?”

“No… I just…”

“I have the day off.”

Quinn looks me up and down, as if I was one of those brats who keep taking apples off of Old Lady Gilford’s apple cart. I might’ve smacked him if he didn’t have the power to arrest me.

“So… where you going?”

“Out.”

“… of the city?!”

“That’s where out is.”

“But… it’s dangerous out there. There’re monsters and stuff!”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I really don’t think a lady such as yourself… as a gentleman, I…”

“Go be a gentleman somewhere else, Quinn.”
I brush past him without giving him another look and push through the gate. Now, I’ve been out of the City before; I’ve made my career out of leaving the City, after all. But for some reason, I never realized quite how massive this continent really was until that very moment. There, standing on the Takoma Bridge – which has some sort of significance from some sort of war I’m sure – and looking out upon the vast Mantua Prairie, I felt that, at last, after 23 years, my life had finally begun… and it was going to be interesting.

sacredkarcram:

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 02:05:23 -0500

sacredkarcram:

My Life Really Is A TV Show...

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:51:38 -0500

I think I just started my Mulder & Scully, Jim & Pam, Chandler & Rachel, or Peter & Olivia relationship…

Currently back at status quo, but mutual feelings were expressed for sweeps ratings, so we’ll see where the writers take us before the end of the season. The shippers are on the edge of their seats right now!

you can be a sensible person and still make terrible music- mellifiedman Overruled by the fact...

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:13:31 -0500

you can be a sensible person and still make terrible music
- mellifiedman

Overruled by the fact that the Dave Grohl quote you reblogged is championing the non-existence of guilty pleasures; ergo, I like the Foo Fighters, I think they’re great and your opinion doesn’t matter because it’s not terrible music if someone likes it! And lots of people do! Because the Foo Fighters are awesome!

So take that and shove it down Morrisey’s pipe and smoke it! Or whatever the metaphor is!

"I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you fucking like something, like it. That’s what’s wrong..."

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 00:14:55 -0500

“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you fucking like something, like it. That’s what’s wrong with our generation: that residual punk rock guilt, like, “You’re not supposed to like that. That’s not fucking cool.” Don’t fucking think it’s not cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” It is cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic”! Why the fuck not? Fuck you! That’s who I am, goddamn it! That whole guilty pleasure thing is full of fucking shit.”

- Dave Grohl (via austinkleon)

Ha! My friend who hates the Foo Fighters just reblogged a Dave Grohl quote! Consider myself vindicated!

More Ideas For That Fantasy Novel...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:07:09 -0500

A long long time ago (at least a year, maybe) I said I was going to work on writing my own fantasy novel. Well, since then, I have made absolutely zero progress. However, I just had a moment of inspiration that I thought I’d like to share with you guys. Two things, and they both have to do with the structure:

#1 - I’ve realized lately that third-person is not my strong-suit. As my friend Chris has pointed out numerous times, I’m very much a script-writer first, and so I tend to think in terms of dialogue. As such, I’ve decided to write my fantasy novel largely in the First Person Present, which has the advantage of both being a style I’m more comfortable in, being more dialoguey, as well as setting it apart from most other fantasy novels (especially those inspired by Tolkien) who tend to go for a more regal, omniscient narrator tone.

#2 - That all being said, I realized there’s one major problem with going at this from a First Person perspective, and that is that in such a form you’re pretty much limited to what the main character knows, and when you’re creating a unique world like I’m trying to, that can make exposition a bit difficult. Therefore, inspired by Watchmen of all things, I’ve decided that at the end of each chapter I will also be including about a page or so of actual “documents” from this world to kind of flesh it out. None of it will tie-in directly to the story, so the casual reader should be allowed to skip it, but those who want to see evidence that I actually thought out every little detail will be able to enjoy those. It’s also a bit of a rebuke to Tolkien whose most annoying quality was always to break off from the action to tell you about some tree that you don’t care about; this way, when I decide I want to talk about a tree, it’ll be at the end of the chapter away from the stuff that actually matters - i.e., the story.

An Ad

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 04:03:43 -0500

Short, white 21-year-old male seeking 18-22-year-old female of a nonspecified race and height.

Must consider self to be a nerd/geek in one or more of the following categories: video games, comic books, movies, television, comedy. There will be a quiz later, so please be honest in your nerdom.

Must not be a Tea-Party Republican. Preferably not Conservative at all, but politics aren’t a deal-breaker. Unless you did/would’ve voted for Sarah Palin.

Preferably eats and enjoys meat, especially beef - vegetarians aren’t deal-breakers, but must not attempt to change my diet, because I like meat too much.

Those who recognize the obscure subtle reference I made in the last sentence are ideal candidates.

Must know who Joss Whedon is. Must also recognize Jay Leno is a hack.

Must love The Muppets, or, barring that, must at least respect them from an artistic standpoint and recognize their impact on society. May be asked to write a seven page essay on this subject. And/or Joss Whedon.

Similarly, must be able to form a reasoned, supported argument as to why the films of Quentin Tarantino are a lot deeper than a lot of people give him credit for, because, seriously, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained are both really interesting movies that are trying to do so much more than just be fun bloody revenge-thrillers about two awful times in history.

Must have seen at least one movie directed by Christopher Nolan that does not have Batman in it.

Preferably watches/watched one or more of the following shows: Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Lost, Freakazoid, any of the first 8 seasons of the Simpsons, Breaking Bad, Parks & Recreation, Community, Fringe, Louie, The Walking Dead, South Park, The Office until Season 6, 30 Rock, The Wire, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Flight of the Concords, Arrested Development.

Must be amenable to sitting through marathon sessions of any of the above shows that she hasn’t seen.

Must prefer Coke to Pepsi.

… I think that should cover all my bases… I’m not picky.

Oscar Is A Terrible Name (Part 1 of 2)

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:11:00 -0500

Well the Academy Award nominees were just released today, so as such it is time for another annual Oscar-Gripe-Fest!

Last year the only category I was marginally interested in was Best Original Song because of The Muppets and The Muppets and Captain America and The Muppets, but this year a number of actually good movies came out that are actually nominated for actual awards, so I’m going to go through every single category and tell you how the Academy is going to fuck everything up. Let’s begin, shall we?

BEST PICTURE

The Nominees:

Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Who Should Win:

Now, anyone who knows me well knows that my favorite movie of the year was The Avengers. However, even I can recognize that it probably wasn’t the best movie of the year, and certainly wasn’t Oscar-worthy, and I don’t disagree with its lack of a nomination here.

Out of the films that were actually nominated, Django Unchained was my favorite, but once again I recognize that it’s not really Oscar-worthy. Tarantino did deserve an Oscar for Best Picture at one point, but that was in 2009 for Inglourious Basterds. As it stands, Django is a great, fun, awesome movie that I want to see so many more times, but it’s not his best by any means, and if he didn’t win for Basterds, he shouldn’t win for Django.

No, the movie on this list that most deserves the Oscar for Best Picture by my estimation is Argo, also known as “the most intense thriller I may have ever seen in a theatre.” If you haven’t seen it yet, go see it. Now.

Who Probably Will Win:

Lincoln. I’m 95% sure of this. It just has too many things going for it: Spielberg, Williams, Kushner, an all-star cast, a palatable “issues” drama set in a historical time period. It’s also really really boring, but that hasn’t stopped the Academy before, and it probably won’t stop them now. Finally, the thing that sets it over the top is Spielberg’s nomination in Best Director. See, dirty secret about the Academy: they don’t know the difference between Best Picture and Best Director, so they pretty much lump the two categories together and 90% of the time, they go to the same movie. Plus, the other Director noms are from smaller Best Picture noms that just don’t have enough clout to get by. So, sorry, fans of Beasts of the Southern Wild, Spielberg’s going to stomp all over you.

BEST DIRECTOR

The Nominees:

Michael Haneke, Amour
Ang Lee, Life Of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts Of The Southern Wild

Who Should Win:

Joss Whedon for pulling together an unprecedented movie that should’ve been doomed to fail but succeeded financially and critically, surprising everyone. Paul Thomas Anderson for shooting a gorgeous movie that flows like a piece of finely crafted classical music. Rian Johnson for creating a wholly unique world and still managing to ground it so that mainstream audiences could get it. Christopher Nolan just because, goddammit, he’s deserved it since Memento and was snubbed for Inception and The Dark Knight. Basically any number of directors not actually nominated for anything. And also Ben Affleck.

Who Probably Will Win:

Steven Spielberg for Lincoln, for every reason I listed in Best Picture, specifically the whole thing about how the Academy gives these awards out in tandem (how else do you explain Tom Hooper’s extremely bland directing winning for The King’s Speech).

BEST ACTOR

Nominees:

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Who Should Win:

Denzel Washington. In Flight, Washington plays an alcoholic airline pilot who has to deal with his personal demons after successfully landing a plane that was going down, and saving the lives of all but a few people on board. Bloodwork taken after the crash report shows that he had alcohol in his system when the plane went down, and, miraculous save or not, he is now in danger of losing his job and going to jail. The film absolutely hinges on making Washington’s character both the most despicable and likable human being, all at the same time, and he walks that tightrope with remarkable skill. It’s a tough role to play, and all I know is that it takes a hell of a good performance to make an audience audibly gasp when your character opens a minifridge. Unfortunately, Denzel probably won’t win this one because…

Who Probably Will Win:

… Daniel Day-Lewis already has this locked up. He’s an Academy favorite, already highly regarded as being one of the greatest actors ever, working with Steven Spielberg, and playing one of the greatest American presidents. Plus, for whatever reason (probably because he’s Daniel Day-Lewis), his one-note, doddering performance as Abraham Lincoln has already gotten universal critical acclaim. And even if, by some miracle, he doesn’t win (though I’m seeing a threepeat this Award Season), Denzel will still probably get snubbed because everyone who’s not talking about Day-Lewis is talking about Joaquin Phoenix’s really bizarre character from The Master. Remember: showiness will always beat skill at the Academy Awards.

BEST ACTRESS

The Nominees:

Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Who Should Win:

I actually haven’t seen any of these movies, so I’m just going to say Jennifer Lawrence because I have a huge celebrity crush on her.

Who Probably Will Win:

For once, I might not actually have a problem here because the only buzz I’m hearing about this category is about how Lawrence has this pretty much locked up. So, yay! Though I also wouldn’t count out the woman from Zero Dark Thirty…

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

The Nominees:

Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Who Should Win:

Supporting Actor is often my favorite category in the Oscars, simply because they have a long history of actually getting this one right. Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men, Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, and Christian Bale in The Fighter all rightfully deserved the little golden men they received for their performances.

But this year is different, because this year the Best Supporting Actor was not nominated. His movie was, but not him. I am, of course, referring to Samuel L. Jackson’s transcendent performance in Django Unchained.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Waltz was expectedly great, and, given the actual nominees, I wouldn’t be at all upset to see him walk away with another trophy for another Tarantino movie. But Samuel L. Jackson was AMAZING, not just because he was playing a damn good character damn well, but because he did so while not stepping into his standard Samuel L. Jackson performance. Don’t get me wrong: you can still tell it’s him, and he launches enough motherfuckers to make sure the audience never really forgets it’s him, but the menace, the sadness, and the pure fucked-upness of his character is something that we simply have never seen out of him. I’m not sure if Jackson’s ever won an Oscar, but if he hasn’t, this is the role he should’ve won it for, and it’s a shame he’s not even in the running.

As for the actual nominees, well, I already said I liked Waltz, but I also liked Jones a lot too, though I feel like he was basically just doing his Tommy Lee Jones schtick again. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is always great in everything he does, The Master being no exception. I’m not entirely sure why Arkin is there for Argo; not saying he wasn’t entertaining, and I did love the movie as a whole as I’ve said, but if anyone should’ve been nominated for acting in that movie it was John Goodman. In any case, I liked all the nominees enough that I wouldn’t be extremely upset if any of them won, but it really should have been Samuel L. Jackson.

Who Probably Will Win:

Honestly, I have no clue. I feel like it’s basically anyone’s game, although my money is either Hoffman because he’s a favorite, DeNiro because the Academy does like comeback stories, and he hasn’t been nominated in years, or Tommy Lee Jones because Lincoln. It could also feasibly be Waltz again, because he’s just so damn likable. So… I really don’t know…

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

The Nominees:

Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

Who Should Win:

The Master, plain and simple, was Amy Adams’ movie. Oh sure, Phoenix and Hoffman got the top billing and the Oscar buzz, but the performance that Adams gives is incredibly creepy, complex, powerful, and compelling. It’s implied that she’s pulling the strings behind Hoffman’s vaguely-early-scientology-resembling-cult, and you believe every second of it. Now I might be a bit biased, since Adams, like Lawrence, is another one of my celeb-crushes… but then again, The Master not only makes her frightening, she’s also downright unattractive in a few scenes… including one where she gives Hoffman the most horrifying handjob ever… so I don’t think that’s influencing my opinion on this one.

Who Probably Will Win:

Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables. Now, I haven’t seen Les Mis yet - and after hearing middling to bad reviews for it, I’m not sure if I really want to - but even the bad reviews have noted that Hathaway gives an amazing, if Oscar-baity, performance in it, and most people have her as a shoe-in to grab Supporting Actress this year because of it. Now, normally, in circumstances like this where there’s someone who’s clearly wonderful without actively baiting the voters, like Adams, versus someone who’s basically just hitting all the right notes, like Hathaway, I vehemently side with the person who’s not trying so hard. But, goddammit, Hathaway’s deserved an Oscar for years now, so I can’t really blame her for going the obvious route to get one. Also, I just really like her in general, her being yet another one of those celeb-crushes, so while Adams is probably the better choice, if Hathaway does take this category, I’ll be almost as happy for her. And hey, at least Meryl Streep isn’t nominated… again…

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Nominees:

Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom
Mark Boal, Zero Dark Thirty
John Gatins, Flight
Michael Haneke, Amour
Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained

Who Should Win:

Do I even have to say my preference here? Tarantino wrote a screenplay this year: who do you THINK I want to win? However, in honor of fairness, I’ll also note that Flight had a really good screenplay, too. Also, in non-nominees-territory, Rian Johnson deserves a mention for Looper. But seriously, Django.

Who Probably Will Win:

Not Tarantino. I mean, anyone with sense knows that he wrote the best screenplay of the year, and will pretty much always write the best screenplay in every year he has a movie out, but once again, if he didn’t win this category for Basterds he probably won’t win for Django. With that upset in mind, I’m going to put my money on Zero Dark Thirty, simply because the same guy who wrote Hurt Locker wrote it, and if he beat Tarantino once for a script filled with half-assed “grunt” dialogue, he can do it again. Also because the Academy always gets this category wrong. Always.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Nominees:

Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin, Beasts Of The Southern Wild
Tony Kushner, Lincoln
David Magee, Life Of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Chris Terrio, Argo

Who Should Win:

Joss Whedon for The Avengers. No, really. A good adaptation, to my mind, is marked by how well it translates its source material to the screen so that it both makes a good stand-alone movie that you can enjoy on its own, and makes fans of the original remember why they liked that story in the first place. With that in mind, The Avengers is, quite possibly, the best adaptation not only of this year, but of the last five or six years. Unfortunately, the Academy doesn’t really care when superheroes are involved, so instead my pick from the actual nominees is Argo.

Who Probably Will Win:

Lincoln. Again. Even though it doesn’t really adapt its source material very well (Team of Rivals is more about Lincoln’s cabinet than it is about Lincoln himself, and talks about a lot more than just the passage of the 13th Amendment) and even though the movie feels more like a lecture than a film, it’s Tony Kushner, it’s Steven Spielberg, it’s going to walk away with most of the other awards it’s nominated for, they might as well give it this one too.

___________________________________________________________________________________

And that’s it for now, kids! We still have 16 categories to go, most of which nobody really cares about, but a surprising number of which I actually have an opinion on, so I’ll go through those sometime at a later date. Until then, happy arbitrary entertainment awards season!

Yes.

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 22:40:49 -0500

Yes.

Of All Possible Worlds

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 21:56:01 -0500

They say we create universes

Every time we make a decision,

Branching timelines sprout from the mundane.

An infinite amount of mes

And an infinite amount of yous

Finding new ways to play the same game.

In one universe you

Stood me up on our first date.

The waitress took pity and bought me a beer.

You ate a Lean Cuisine

And watched Timecop on TV

While she whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

In another we broke up

The night I got smashed

And totaled your dad’s Cadillac.

After a few meetings

I earned a chip with a number

But I never would thank you for that.

Then there’s the one
Where you don’t exist

And I eat a bullet, unfulfilled.

There’s also the one

Where I don’t exist

And you can be you without guilt.

Finally there’s this world.

It’s not the one where
I learned to apologize
I’m not sure that that one exists

So instead I’ll just say
No matter what world you’re in

Beloved, you are dearly missed.

- Andrew Flack