It has been noted that since the Pop5 auteurs have joined the evil menace known as Facebook, the postings here on Pop5 have been few and far between. I say that although we may temporarily be distracted by the siren Facebook, we will always return to our true love.

Lessons Learned...

...from The Dark Knight:
It is too bad that Heath Ledger died.

I liked this movie well enough, but I don't think it was as good as the first one. This one seemed crammed full of action, and everything rushed from one thing to the next with no sense of pacing. Heath Ledger did do an incredible job, but his scenes were oddly edited, making me suspect that either they were using every scrap of footage of him or that they would have done things differently if he had been available for reshoots.

...from The X-Files: I Want to Believe:
There shouldn't be any more X-Files movies. Let the characters drift of in the sun, people.

The only charm of this movie was seeing what happens to Mulder and Scully further on in their lives. The "case" that brings them back to the FBI was not very interesting and the FBI's handling of it was not very believable. Both the case plotline and Scully's doctor-ethics plotline seemed manufactured and contrived. I didn't hate this movie, but I think it was solely due to nostagia for the series.

...from The Wackness"
There was once this crazy, magical time called 1994! And it was totally wack, yo! They had things like Kurt Cobain, Biggie Smalls, blunts, and Beverly Hills 90210!

Seriously, I could have done without the trip down '90s memory lane. This movie reminded me of that Simpsons episode they did recently (that wasn't very good either), where they reset Marge and Homer's courtship in the '90s.

The actual story of the movie was unconnected to the '90s, except for a brief, labored metaphor comparing the characters' repression of their emotions to Rudy Giuliani's repression of the seedy elements of Times Square, which made me wish they had just set in the present. I kept waiting for something to happen, before I realized that this wasn't the kind of movie where things happen. It's the kind of movie where the characters talk about their feelings for two hours. I usually like those kind of movies, except these characters had a limited array of feelings -- an ill-defined sadness and a strong desire to get laid. It struck me as perhaps an art-house Judd Apatow movie. Set in the crazy '90s, yo! Where everything was dope!

Finally, I think everyone will enjoy this video of Rush playing "Tom Sawyer" on Rock Band backstage at the Colbert show. Apparently, they scored 31% on expert mode.

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Hey all, if you are pissed off about FISA and have a second, head on over to the ACLU website and sign their petition. They plan to start contesting it immediately after it gets signed.

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The three core zones of the Monarch butterfly biosphere reserve protect eight overwintering colonies of the monarch butterfly in the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico. Perhaps a billion monarch butterflies overwinter here in close-packed clusters every year after a 3,500-4,500km journey. Witnessing this unique phenomenon is considered to be an exceptional experience of nature.

I wonder which ones are 21 and 24?

Link to the slideshow here

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1) Writers are dangerous and untrustworthy.

2) The movie is not as good as the book (although James McAvoy and Keira Knightley are very pretty to look at).

I was interested to see how they would adapt it, because the primary theme in the book is the act of writing and being a writer and what that means. The tragedy that happens comes about because Briony is a writer. She sees things, she notices, and she tries to make sense of it by building a story around it. But the secondary story of the lovers takes over in both the book and the movie, which is again all part of the point. Fiction is more powerful than real life. It seemed almost impossible to me that they would find a satisfactory way to reveal the ending. I can't think of a better solution than the way they chose, other than not adapt the book at all, but I didn't really like it, either.

Posted by Victoria at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Do not watch Jumper.

Posted by Victoria at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Please note that Pop5 now boasts a favicon image in your toolbar and favorites page, designed by Mike. I think it's supercute.

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But first, a dream sequence. Last night, I had a crazy dream where I was driving, and the car engine was making strange noises. In the dream, I started to get concerned...until I woke up and realized that the engine noises were really the sound of my air conditioner, switching between not-cool-enough and too-cold states.

So, on to my dilemma. Everyone here knows how pale I am and how I don't tan. We have all heard the burst-into-flames joke; in fact, I think it's here somewhere on this very website. Before I went to England, I was using self-tanner to approximate the color normal skin gets when it is exposed to sun. Mike (who becomes beautifully tan two minutes after stepping outdoors) made fun of me endlessly for the self-tanner, mostly by calling me "Sunkist."

When I was in England, I stopped using the self-tanner in favor of normal lotion, because even though the weather was nice, absolutely no one there was tan. The English are truly my people.

So now I am back and pale. Mike opposes my resuming the self-tanner, but I do kind of feel like a freak being pale in the summer. What say you, Pop5 - should I self-tan or not?

Posted by Victoria at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Hello, Dolly is a catchy musical. I still have that song in my head.

Seriously, spoilers may be after the jump.

Continue reading "Lessons Learned from Wall-E" »

Posted by Victoria at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Confirmed by Jason Bateman, via Defamer.

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How I was addressed in England:

• Madam
• Miss
• Mum (as in Ma'am, not as in Mummy)
• Luv
• Lass

I was kind of hoping for "milady," but it didn't happen. Also, the already-mentioned Scottish waiter called my beverage a "wee half-pint" (since everyone else ordered full pints). I believe there may have been collective swooning at that. Except for Mike, of course.

The last day might be the easiest day to recap, because we weren't allowed to take photos in the morning, at Westminster Abbey. If you want to see what it looks like, just go back a few entries. Or, you know, use Google.

Continue reading "Day Ten: Westminster Abbey and Hampton Court Palace" »

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Things I miss about England:

• Cider with ice
• Hobnobs
• Having a pub down the street
• Mars Planets candy
• Everyone being polite
• Cadbury chocolate bars (Can you get those here?)
• Trashy British celebrity news. Explanation: For the week we were there, the Daily Mirror was offering Doctor Who stickers every day in the paper. So we bought it, and sometimes I read it, and I became kind of fascinated with the crazy British celebrities that we never hear about over here. How will I find out what Peaches Geldof is up to? And what about Roo and Coleen's wedding?

On Thursday morning, I took an informal poll of the group: what of the things on our list to do was the most important to them? The overwhelming consensus was the Tower of London.

Continue reading "Day Nine: Tower of London and British Museum" »

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If you had asked Mike a few weeks ago where he would most like to live out the rest of his days, he probably would have said somewhere in New England or Arizona. Now, I am fairly sure the answer would be Edinburgh.

I wasn't sure at first if it made sense to take a day trip up to Scotland, because we had a packed schedule as it was, and the train takes four and a half hours. So in the best case scenario, which is how it ended up working, we caught the 8 a.m. train, arrived at 12:30 p.m., and walked around until the 5 p.m. train back. But everyone who has been to Scotland convinced me that I had to go, and I think in the end, everyone was glad we went. It was also nice that we saw the three parts of the island: England, Scotland, and Wales.

Continue reading "Day Eight: Edinburgh" »

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After a week in England, I was very nearly assimilated. Although I didn't have the accent, I had adjusted completely to the time difference. I could distinguish between the many coins with ease. I was comfortable ordering at pubs and deciphering train timetables. But two things continued to mark me as an American: I always asked for ice with my soda and I could not correctly pronounce Stratford-Upon-Avon. I didn't pronounce Avon like the American cosmetics company, but I did tend to give equal weight to both syllables, and it is correctly pronounced by stressing the first.

Thanks to the train and the Underground announcements, I also learned how to pronounce other mysterious things like "Madame Toussards" (strangely, Two-Swords), "Marylebone" (Marry-libin), and "Tottenham Court Road" (Tot-nam).

I also picked up the British habit of saying "Pardon?" when I wanted someone to repeat something to me that I couldn't understand. Sometimes this was due to their accent and sometimes due to cultural differences. A nice Frenchwoman asked Mike and I if she could borrow our Helpy (? some kind of cell phone ?) at the Tower of London. We were flummoxed until we told her we were American, which seemed to let us off the hook.

So, Stratford-Upon-Avon. Apparently some guy named Shakespeare was born there.

Continue reading "Day Seven: Stratford-Upon-Avon" »

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I wonder how the release times for U.S. movies and television shows are determined in the U.K. While we were there, they were showing in theaters movies that had just been released in the States (like Sex in the City), and movies that had been out of theaters for months here (like Gone, Baby, Gone). They were also advertising TV shows that I had never heard of as "phenomenal hits" in the States. Not that I am always on top of U.S. pop culture, but I suspect some marketing genius at work.

This is all working up to say that I forgot to add something else we did on Saturday night: we watched Doctor Who on one of the BBC channels. The episode we saw was three weeks away from being shown in the U.S. So we have seen the future, and it was pretty awesome.

On Monday, we went to Bath.

Continue reading "Day Six: Bath and Doctor Who" »

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1. I did not acquire a British accent while in England. But by the end of my time there, I did notice that my vowels were a little rounder than normal, and I was dropping some consonents. It's hard when you are surrounded by people talking differently. I have perhaps some small sympathy for Madonna now.
   
   After I had been there for a few days -- especially in Oxford, where there were mostly British people about (most of the other places we visited in London were such tourist landmarks that you heard accents from all over the world) -- I did start to notice that my own accent sounded strangely nasal to me. I'd read that was the case with American accents as compared to British, but I had never noticed it until I was actually speaking with my own accent while surrounded by Brits.
2. I did not actually stalk David Tennant while in London.
   
   
   
   However, I did put myself in places where he might be likely to be. Unfortunately, this didn't work.
3. Number of times I was told to Mind the Gap: 6,879,892
   Number of times the gap needed minding: 5
   Number of people tragically injured last year for not minding the gap (at least according to the posters in the Underground): 57
   Number of those that must have been completely wasted at the time: 57
   
   Apparently, you used to be able to carry and drink alcohol on the Underground, and that law was recently changed. I think this makes the Underground the only place in England where you can't get a pint. Seriously, the snack trolleys on the trains carried alcohol.
4. I wasn't listening to a lot of music while I was over there, but the following songs were constantly in my head: various parts of Sweeney Todd (more understandable since we had just seen the movie), "A Foggy Day in London Town," and "Wouldn't It Be Loverly." Apparently these are the songs my brain associates with London.

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So one of the best things I think we did on this trip was buy BritRail passes for the week. We had planned a bunch of day trips, so it was cheaper to buy the passes than to buy the individual tickets, for one thing. It was also more convenient; once you had the tickets validated at a station the first day, you could just hop on and off the train for the rest of the week. It also came in very handy when your plans change suddenly, as happened on this day.

Continue reading "Day Five: London (and Stevenage)" »

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--
OK, so we are already back in the States. But I am going to post these by days anyway. After we moved on to London, the combination of infrequent internet access and long, long days of sightseeing killed my plans of frequent posting.
--

Day Three

Day Three was the conference day. It seemed to go pretty well, and I have high hopes of coming back next year. There is the chance that this will become an annual event.

Continue reading "Days Three and Four: Oxford and London" »

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Today I actually had to do work. We ordered in room service for breakfast (scrambled eggs, croissants, toast, oj and a pot of Earl Grey), and Mike and I walked down to the professor's office for a meeting. I didn't mention this yesterday, but I got lost trying to get back to the Business School to inspect the conference room. While trying to get to the meeting this morning, I got lost again. Usually I am pretty good at finding my way around, but Oxford is defeating me. The names of the streets change every time there is a cross-street, my map was incorrect, and there are all of these little alleys and backways that defy comprehension. Fortunately, I left early enough that I got to the meeting on time, despite getting lost.

Continue reading "Day Two: Oxford" »

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We arrived yesterday completely exhausted. The flight can be summed up in two quick sentences: There was an unnecessarily loud group of twenty-somethings seated all around us, and I did not sleep at all. Mike slept for at most 10 minute intervals before waking up. So by the time we landed, I had been awake (with only six hours of sleep on the previous night) for over twenty-four hours. Barb and Kris, I know you are planning to be ready for anything on Saturday after you arrive, but trust me. You will be ready for one thing only: sleep.

Continue reading "Yes, We Really Are in England" »

Posted by Victoria at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

From Sweeney Todd:

Okay, so if you are going to make a movie based on a musical that is almost entirely sung-through, it doesn't make much sense to me to cut out almost half of the score. The score of Sweeney Todd is fairly complex, and even the set-piece "songs" that were extracted sounded strange to me out of context, even though I like the musical and the music taken as a whole.

Also, considering the fact that none of the actors could sing*, why didn't Tim Burton just make a movie of the play that the musical was based on? The atmosphere and the story seemed to be what interested him, and you have gotten that without the music. Either that, or filmed the entire musical, with people who could actually, you know, sing.

* Strangely enough, I wasn't bothered so much by Johnny Depp as I was by Helena Bonham Carter, whose breathy little-girl singing voice was just crazy inappropriate.

From Interiors:

I really, really would like a Long Island beach house. Seriously. I don't even remember anything else about this movie except my lust for the house it was filmed in.

Other stuff:

I put some photos of the Wild Ponies of Corolla from our North Carolina week of vacation up on Flickr (right sidebar). Evan scolded me while we were down there for not taking notes on the witty conversation like I did last year, and I am regretting it now. I feel like there were so many quips that could have been immortalized, but instead have been forgotten.

Also, we leave tomorrow evening for the ten-day England adventure. I am hoping to have internet access so you can play along at home, kind of like Pax did in L.A. However, I am also lazy. We will see which wins out.

Posted by Victoria at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1) The probability that this movie would not contain the Black Sabbath song was, for all practical purposes, zero.

2) I hear from others better informed than me that Gwyneth Paltrow's character does not exist in the comic book. There is then no good reason why she should be named "Pepper Potts." Please, people.

The Summer Movie Season is upon us, and for those keeping score at home, here is the list of movies that I have been informed we must see:

May 9: Speed Racer
June 6: Kung Fu Panda
June 13: The Incredible Hulk
June 20: Get Smart
July 11: Hellboy Two: The Golden Army
July 18: The Dark Knight
July 25: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Did I miss any?

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As you may or may not know, Bobby Flay won last night against the Pop Shop. Bobby Flay's award-winning creation? White bread, goat cheese, brie, sliced green tomatoes, and watercress. [The Pop Shop owners, after tasting it, asided to the camera that it was going to be on their menu next week.]

The Calvert - the Pop Shop's sandwich - was rosemary focaccia, monteray jack cheese, smoked turkey, smoked bacon, avocado, and balsamic mayo.

The judges made a big deal that both sandwiches were really good, but I think we all know that this is a case like Delilah's, where the Food Network obviously did some under the table deals to make sure Bobby Flay came out on top. The crowd definitely seemed to prefer the hometown favorite.

Of course the primary function of the show has been fulfilled: now I am really craving the Pop Shop. Anyone in for this weekend?

Posted by Victoria at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Fast Times at Hero High

Posted by Victoria at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Throwdown with Bobby Flay where Flay takes on our beloved Pop Shop with his goat cheese and blue corn chips will air on Sunday, April 13 at 10 pm.

Posted by Victoria at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The answer to the excellent question, "Why did you watch Reign of Fire?" is that it came on after Fellowship of the Rings on TNT (usually the Law and Order network), and we were too lazy to change the channel. Since we were watching in real time (not Tivo), it was also a rare opportunity to see commercials. The following exchange happened after a toaster pastry commercial which said their product was better than PopTarts.

Mike: No they aren't. PopTarts are good. Too bad they're bad for you.
Me: Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's no food item worse for you than a PopTart.
Mike: They're dangerous, too.
Me: What?
Mike: Have you ever microwaved a PopTart?
Me: Noooooo. I've put them in the toaster.
Mike: Not the same. I'm telling you, if you put them in the microwave, the gooey stuff inside? It becomes burning hot, and it sticks to you. It's like napalm.

So that's our public service announcement for today: PopTarts. Not only unhealthy and not nutritious, but also a handy household weapon.

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Lessons Learned from Reign of Fire:

1) I do not recognize Gerard Butler (This is SPARTAAAHHHHH!) when he has hair. But he is hot either way.

2) Under the right circumstances, Matthew McConaughey could be mistaken for a professional wrestler.

3) What the hell is Christian Bale doing in this piece of crap?

Posted by Victoria at 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is easier to negotiate with the mob than with a multinational corporation, and you will be treated more fairly by the mob.

Posted by Victoria at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Steve and Morgan and Mike and I went up to the New York City International Auto Show on Saturday. You can see my photos here. The verdict? Not that great. Only slightly better than Philly's annual auto show, and not worth going again next year. There were more hybrid/electric cars, but that is probably just because that's where the trends are going. There were certainly no shortage of monster trucks and SUVs. Also, there was Newman and that guy from Office Space.

Mike got me Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii for my birthday, which pretty much guarantees that I will fail all of my classes this semester.

Posted by Victoria at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Which crazy-ass Sicklerville couple caused yours truly to have a two-hour commute last night? Which actually should be considered lucky, since I was right at the last exit before the bridge, so I was able to get on 95N, crawl my way past Ben Franklin bridge traffic, and get across the Betsy Ross?

If you said this crazy-ass Sicklerville couple, then you are correct.

Also, WTF, NJPD? All they had were a baseball bat and a "'a very realistic' airsoft pellet gun"? I have the feeling that however much they fine this pair of idiots, it will be not be enough.

By the way, as of today, I have officially lived longer than Jesus.

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Yesterday was the first time in recent memory when I awoke in the morning with nothing to do. Since Mike was in Ohio, I saw it as a kind of test. I could find out what I would naturally revert to doing, without his influence.

The answer (perhaps unsurprising): about 60% reading, 10% cooking, and 30% messing around on the internet. In particular, I signed up at stumbleupon.com (you can see my favorited stumbles here). I think you said you were stumbling, Rob, so let me know and I will friend you.

Although I am usually aware of the up-to-date social networking and other kinds of websites, I usually don't bother using them because I don't know many people in real life who do. But yesterday I signed up for Twitter so that I could follow Barak Obama, who[se communications team] is twittering. I had heard that Obama is the most internet-friendly of the candidates, and this was confirmed for me because after I signed up to follow him, I got a message back saying that Obama was now also following me. Smooth move, communications team! I may have to get an account at Facebook so I can make him my friend. I will so have an in at the White House come November.

UPDATE: Now Obama's made me a contact on Flickr. Seriously, should I ask for a cabinet post?

Posted by Victoria at 7:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was at the grocery store this evening, and there was a woman in the line next to me who had seven cartons of eggs in her cart. Noticing this, I thought, "What the fu...oh. Oh, yeah. Okay."

Also, the universe conspires against me. As I was driving to the grocery store, I thought to myself that it was great that the grocery store was kind of out of the way, and I was unlikely to run into anyone I know there (because I am fundamentally anti-social). And then at the store, I ran into -- and was forced to acknowledge because I couldn't run away fast enough -- someone I would have been quite happy if I never saw again in my life.

Posted by Victoria at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I was in North Carolina over this past weekend because my friend Kristen (who makes so-low-budget-that-they-don't-have-a-budget independent movies) had a short film in the Gate City Women's Film Festival in Greensboro. I attended both nights of the competition screenings and I have this to say: the absolute worst films screened were the ones that won the most awards. It reminded me of the Oscars, in a lot of ways.

Also, although I did see all of the films, the program provided didn't engender a lot of enthusiasm. Here's the description Kristen provided for her film in the program:

A short film that explores sibling dynamics through the eyes of the over-achieving older sister and addresses the expectations (both good and bad) we have for each other.

[You can see the movie here]

But after reading the other film descriptions, I am convinced that she would have won if only she had described it thusly:

This experimental and personal documentary explores themes of immigration, death, and media. It is a sensual visionary encounter that is bold and evocative and covers themes related to African-American culture. Conceptually, this work examines personal and collective histories through the symbolic language of Jungian archetypes. This film examines how beauty can arise from the ashes of intolerance. in a surrealist world where she has no control, a young girl reveals the harsh realities of life in a West African village, even as she expresses optimism for the future. The filmmaker offers viewers a delicious and disturbing six minute dance with issues of memory construction, patterns, seduction, and sexual identity formation.

[These are actual quotes]

In short, the best things about the South are sweet tea and the Waffle House. That is all.

Posted by Victoria at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

• Toilet reservoir dislikes refilling after flushing
• Hairdryer shuts off after 3 minutes and sparks
• Next-door neighbors have frequent headboard-banging sex
• Perpetually barking dog in nearby room
• Lack of electrical outlets for laptops and cell phones
• Soda machine in hallway both empty and broken
• Has apparently never heard of fitted sheets
• Unordered wake up call at 7 am
• Bathtub stuck in undraining position
• Paltry array of toiletries

Posted by Victoria at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Australians were asked to vote on the Gayest Songs of All Time. The winners are after the jump.

Continue reading "The Gayest Songs Ever" »

Posted by Victoria at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

...is pretty damn funny.

Posted by Victoria at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I voted this morning, and I checked for Mike - if you are a registered voter, but unaffiliated with a party, you can go to your voting place and declare an affiliation to vote today. They even have a form you can fill our immediately afterwards to unaffiliate, if you want. But this only works if you are unaffiliated. You have to file ahead of time if you want to switch parties.

The following should not be construed as a partisan message, but look! Young, hot celebrities endorse Obama. Clinton only gets the old, lame celebrities.

Posted by Victoria at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I know Buddy has a crush on Sarah Silverman, but clearly he has a rival for her affections.

Posted by Victoria at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a quick note to let you all know that I have updated the sidebar, adding some new things and rearranging the order. I wanted to point out that I have put in a feed from my del.icio.us page, which will update automatically. If you don't know about del.icio.us, it's a site that allows you to bookmark pages and articles that you find interesting.

If anyone else is interested in using del.icio.us and posting their feed to Pop5, sign up for an account here, and let me know.

Posted by Victoria at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This might only interest history geeks such as myself, but HBO will be airing (March 16 - April 27) a seven-part miniseries on John Adams, based on the David McCullough biography. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney will star as John and Abigail Adams, and I am pretty sure that casting decision could not be topped.

Clearly someone needs to Tivo this for me. Don't make me wait for the DVDs, people.

Posted by Victoria at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

[Since I have not yet restored Buddy's login, I will take the opportunity to steal some news he sent us and post it as if it were my own.]

So apparently Bobby Flay, best known as Rob's arch-nemesis, was in Collingswood on Monday night to "throwdown" with the Pop Shop on an issue near and dear to my own heart: grilled cheese.

The Pop Shop offered up the Calvert: "a grilled cheese special featuring Monterey jack cheese, roasted turkey, apple-wood smoked bacon, avocado and balsamic mayonnaise on rosemary focaccia bread." I don't know if anyone from Pop5 has tried this one, since our ranks of meat-eaters have been depleting rapidly.

Bobby Flay's "featured goat cheese, brie, bacon, watercress and green tomatoes piled onto a Pullman loaf." No word on whether he served it with a side of blue corn chips, and covered it with cilantro.

The article doesn't reveal the winner, but all of the quotes favor the Pop Shop. On a personal note, GRILLED CHEESE SHOULD NEVER BE MADE WITH GOAT CHEESE. It had to be said. I love almost all types of cheese. Almost.

Posted by Victoria at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mike, Evan, Buddy, and I went to see the "Final" Cut of Blade Runner this evening. Blade Runner is usually near the top of every critic's Best Sci-Fi Movies Ever list, and we realized that it is indeed a unique movie in that even though we had all seen previous versions of it, no one could really remember what happened in any of them. Even Mike, who can usually quote verbatim movies that he last saw twenty years ago, couldn't remember the plot. We had all heard, though, that this new cut was being offered because Ridley Scott intended to make clearer hints that Deckard himself was a Replicant. But we watched the new "Final Cut" movie tonight, and at the end, we couldn't figure out what was different about it. However badly we remembered it, we didn't spot anything different from what we remembered.

Thanks to the internet, we find that Ridley Scott added a sequence where Deckard dreams of a unicorn, and this was supposed to suggest that the dream was implanted and therefore that he was a Replicant.

Note to Ridley Scott: having a character dream of unicorns does not suggest to the audience that he is a really a remarkably humanistic robot. It usually suggests that he is really an eight-year-old girl.

Please remember this five years from now, when you release the "New Final Cut." Maybe you can add some more red tints or something to Harrison Ford's eyes. Or more shots of buildings in the rain, or of the smiling geisha, or of Rutger Hauer chewing scenery. Because there's definitely not enough of that already.

Posted by Victoria at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While looking for updates on the new season of the Venture Brothers - Season Three won't be aired until June 2008, boo hoo - I found this little track available for download.

The Monarch & Dr. Girlfriend :: Fairytale of New York

I think Dr. Girlfriend is singing the boy's part and vice versa.

Posted by Victoria at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I haven't really been following the primaries until recently, so I did an internet search and found this handy-dandy chart summary of the candidates' views on issues of import.

Click here

A few comments:

• It seems the candidate who best represents my views is Kuchinich, who is widely regarded as too liberal to ever get the nomination.
• The main differences between the top three Democratic candidates - Clinton, Obama, and Edwards - are slight. Obama's the only one against the death penalty, and against No Child Left Behind. He also is the only one with "mixed opinion" rather than "supports" the option of military force with Iran. On the other hand, Edwards is the only one who doesn't support the idea of a border fence. So at this point, frankly, what I am most looking for in a Democratic candidate is the ability to win a national election. And I think either Edwards or Obama have a better shot at that than Clinton. Although it would be nice to have a woman president, personally, I prefer either one to Clinton. But this is all to say that any Democrat would be better than any one of the Republican nutjobs.
• I am amused by the straight column of red X's under Ron Paul's name. Apparently, the dude doesn't support anything: abortion rights, the death penalty, No Child Left Behind, stem cell research, not even net neutrality, etc. etc. His platform consists entirely of negatives. The only things that he can be said to support are drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, a border fence, immediate withdrawal from the Iraq war, and that the gay marriage issue should be left up to the states. Although I can't really get behind him, it's always fun to have a Republican wildcard. Really, the Republican primary will be the most fun to watch. At this point, I can't figure out who will get the nomination, and whoever it is, at least half the party is going to be pissed off about it.

Posted by Victoria at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)