MY AFTER-HOLIDAY QUICK UPDATE (1/5/09)

Happy (belated) Festivus, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year to you all!

Back in Gainesville after spending the last 2 weeks back home in Miami. Did not get to see any new movies to cross off my pending 2008 list while I was there.

Did not receive anything from my family for Christmas. I did, however, get my father the special edition set of one of his favorite films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and bought my sister two t-shirts that she loved from Threadless. The word from both of them: "I will get you a gift later." I'll believe it when I see it.
Luckily, I did receive $250 cash from 4 of my various aunts and uncles.

The day after Christmas, I decided that I would buy myself a brand new cellular phone to replace the now archaic one that I had had for over 2 ½ years, the Sony Ericsson W600. So, I went to Wal-Mart, which had the best prices for upgrades. For me, the choice was between the Samsung Blackjack II, which was FREE, and the LG Vu, for $48.88. When I had gone the week earlier, the Blackjack II was $18.88. So, when I went to Wal-Mart to buy the LG Vu, the decision became harder on whether or not I should get it.
But, it won. The new cell is the LG Vu (CU920). I LOVE this phone! Full HTML browser, 3G-enabled, one of the first phones to support AT&T TV and CV video-play, TOUCHSCREEN! Since I can afford neither the iPhone nor the plan that I would have to get along with it, this phone is a welcome substitute to it. My only complaints are its battery life - but I knew about that going in - and that, unlike the Sony Ericsson Walkman phone that I previously had, I cannot set an mp3 as my ringtone. Hopefully, there is a hack for the latter.
But it is very sexy...
Another fine Wal-Mart tale occured last Thursday night:
I read a tweet from @todd1985 (the internet's Todd Jurgess) telling of the Martin Scorsese Collection DVD set being $13 at Wal-Mart. At first, I did not believe him. After all, this set is usually $50+ at most retail stores. I had gone to Best Buy a couple days earlier and it was there for $57.99! But, I was sitting at home all day watching the SciFi Channel marathon of "The Twilight Zone" with no breaks. So, I set out to Wal-Mart to call his bluff. And, low and behold, there it was: the last Martin Scorsese Collection box set for $13! I grabbed it, sent a tweet to @todd1985 thanking him for this glorious bit of information, and continued to walk about the Electronics section of my local Wal-Mart.
So, I walk over to the $5 DVD bin to see if anything was in there that I wanted. And there was! In there lay the Zodiac 2-Disc Director's Cut DVD. I picked it up and laughed. There was only one in there. It must have been a mistake. After all, the single-disc version of Zodiac was in the $7.50 rack. I figured that someone must have picked it up from the regular DVD rack and, when they realized that they didn't want it anymore, dropped it in the $5 bin. But, I take it over to the price scanner to see how much Wal-Mart was charging fr it. Everywhere else, the DVD is $25. But, Wal-Mart usually is the first place to lower DVD prices. I was hoping it was around the $13-range as well. But the reading on the scanner displays, "DVD $5.00". I immediately ran to the cash register in the Electronics section and paid for both the Martin Scorsese Collection and the Zodiac 2-Disc Director's Cut, before Wal-Mart realized that they were grossly undercharging me.


The last bit of news is that my father got a call from the mechanic that has my car saying that even if we did get the money to pay for the replacement transmission, the car was also discovered to have a damaged frame. The $1100 that we were going to give to get the car fixed would have been more than what the car was worth. To fix the frame damage would have more than doubled that price. So, I am, for the first time ever, without a vehicle. This week, I will be taking out all of the things in my car before they deliver it to a junkyard.
2008 sucked, but 2009 ain't looking too pretty so far either...

The Death of Pownce

So, yesterday (12/15/08), Pownce shut down. Pownce was a micro-blogging site, like Twitter. But, Pownce was a much better service.
First off, there was no 140 character limit to your posts. Your posts could be as lengthy as they needed to be. The idea was not to make a long blog post, but you could if you liked.
Second, the site was more built around sharing things with your followers and friends. You could upload an mp3 that you wanted everyone to hear, or upload a picture, or a video. Actually, you could upload any file up to 100mb with the free service (250mb for the $20/month service). And when you shared a YouTube link (or various other video sites), the video would automatically embed into your message.
It was a huge upgrade to the Twitter service created by Kevin Rose, Leah Culver, and Daniel Burka (all part of either the Digg or Revision3 crew). With the economy being what it was, Pownce wasn't able to remain open and free. Now, the technology is part of the SixApart system - which handles famous blogging tools like Vox and TypePad.
I was using the site from the beginning and had a Pownce way before I had a Twitter. It was a brilliant service that never got the word out too well and Twitter already had the crowd with them. Pownce was to Twitter what Facebook is to MySpace: a more technologically advanced and more Web 2.0 service that does what it predecessor/rival does, but does it much better and with more flair.
I will miss Pownce and I hope that someone else comes along and takes Twitter's userbase with them to a much better place of more usability and a much more stable environment. I like using Twitter, but I feel that I liked Pownce much more. But, again, Twitter just has all the users.

MY [Late] QUICK UPDATE (12/16/08)

These posts are supposed to be written on Saturday. The last one I wrote was on a Sunday and last Saturday, I was out the entire day and forgot to write one up. Hopefully, I'll get back to doing this thing right.

Got to see Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York on Friday! Probably may be my #1 film of the year. At least out of the films I've seen thus far. As much as I love seeing his scripts through the eyes of other visual directors, Charlie Kaufman should continue to direct his own scripts.

Been working on a list of my Top 10 Films of 2008 lately. What I found interesting is that the list of movies that I need to see is almost as long as the list of movies I have seen that I feel might belong on my Top 10. This is going to be much harder than I thought.



On Saturday, I had a cookout with a few friends over at a friend's apartment complex. It was an event I had come up with and planned for the film club that I am in, FUF, and it was a blast. I called it the "FUF End-of-the-Year Potluck/Cookout".
At first, it took us about 45 minutes to actually get the charcoal on the grill to stay lit. But, in that time, we had quite a few very large fires. I find that nothing impresses men more than more fire. THe more fire, the more we grunt, drink beer, scratch ourselves, and abuse women make sexual jokes at the expense of women.
I made a rockin' potato salad - inless all my friends were lying to me to protect my feelings - and made a few hot dog rollups. If you are unaware of the hot dog rollup, click the link. It will change your life forever, but not necessarily in a good way. There were pictures taken of me making the hot dog rollup, but I am not in possession of these photographs. Hopefully, I will get them later and post them as an update to the post.
My friend, Adam "A-Train" Isaacs, made some surf-n-turf (shrimps and steak) that were unbelievably amazing. And Todd Jurgess' wife, Stephanie, made some great cheese dip that we were all devouering throughout the night.
Great night!

Trying to trooper through Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander. I've gotten through the first two episodes, of four. The second episode made up for the first one quite a bit. The first episode mainly dealt with all of the adults in the story rather than the child characters whom the film is named after, Fanny and Alexander. I believe each of them had around 5 words each throughout the 90 minute first episode. But, the second episode really developed Alexander's character a lot. This episode was still mainly about the adults, but how their situations were seen throughout the children's eyes.
So far, it is growing into something great. I cannot wait to finish it!

Alternate Teaser Trailer for WATCHMEN

As anyone who knows me knows, I am NOT looking forward to Watchmen at all. I will most likely see it on opening night - maybe even at midnight - but I'm planning on it being pretty awful.
I do not think that Zack Snyder will succeed where Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky, and Paul Greengrass (three of the best living directors ever) failed.
Anyway, here is the alternate teaser trailer for Zack Snyder's Watchmen. I personally think that it is better than the first. Less Snyder slo-mo shots. They are still present, but there are less. Also, a few more interesting shots, in general.
So, here goes...

"Pushing Daisies" to be Brought Back to Life by the Touch of Other Mediums

"Pushing Daisies" was canceled. I am personally distraught (but not surprised) by the news. Bryan Fuller has since signed a writing deal with Universal. First, he will return to NBC's now-failing "Heroes" to finish up the third season. After that, it is not said whether he will continue with "Heroes" or if NBC will set him up with his own new show...that will be canceled most likely in its first season.
"Pushing Daisies" will, however, live on. First, in a comic book published by either DC Comics or DC's imprint, Wildstorm. Then, if all goes according to plan, Bryan Fuller will bring "Pushing Daisies" to the silver screen. I'm glad that one of Bryan Fuller's works will live on beyond cancellation. I loved "Dead Like Me" and "Wonderfalls" a lot and hope that they, or at least "Wonderfalls", gets a second chance on another medium.
Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8" and "Angel" comics have given new hope to continuing television shows. I see this becoming a new way for television show creators to continue their storylines and universes. After all, comic books are to literature what television is to film. Comic books are the best way to continue a serialized story.
The unfortunate thing is that actors Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Kristen Chenoweth, and Chi McBride cannot continue their characters in the comic. So, hopefully, a studio picks up the "Pushing Daisies" movie.
As the show's tagline goes, "life. death. and life again."

MY QUICK UPDATE (12/07/08)

Haven't written a post in a while. Mainly, because I've been 75% complete with the latter half of my "90210" review for 3 months and have yet to finish it. But, I feel the need to keep this damn thing up-to-date and the best way to do that is to continue the weekly "MY QUICK UPDATE" posts. Hopefully, this will spark me to finish that damned review (which would be good because I said I would not continue the series until I finished said review). I'll try and cover these last 3 months very succinctly.
So, here goes...

HOLIDAYS:
Halloween - Watched some horror movies with friends. No parties this year. Kind of regret that.
Thanksgiving - Went to Miami for the break. Spent the better part of the holiday hanging out at my friends' Starbucks drinking free drinks and receiving a large amount of free food that my family ate. On the way back to Gainesville, I got in a bit of a car accident ruining my transmission which now needs to be replaced.

Have not had a car for a week and have been forced to take the bus wherever I need to go. Luckily, I have some friends that are willing to give me rides to certain destinations.

I saw Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon at a free screening playing on campus. It was genuinely a good film. With some of Howard's latest, I was a gladly surprised.

I also got a chance to see David Fincher's newest film, based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, at a free advanced unadvertised screening put on by Paramount Pictures and FilmMetro. A GREAT film! Review to come (?).

Went to the of Montreal concert last Friday (12/5) with a friend. One of the best concerts I've been to! I've always heard of Montreal concerts to be very theatrical and they definitely lived up to the hype. I would recommend that, if you have the chance, you should go see one of their concerts. You wouldn't regret it.

Currently trying to convince my father to get me this car. Isn't taking too much convincing because, like me, my dad loves sports cars. He just wishes to see and test drive the car before buying. Now, if the seller would just e-mail me back...

My Newest Guilty Pleasure: "90210" [Part I]

Yes, that's right! This is going to be "Part I" of my review of The CW's re-vamp/spin-off of popular '90s primetime soap, "Beverly Hills, 90210": "90210". "Part I" will essentially be my reasons for actually watching "90210". I tell, not to make a justification for why, but to help me understand why I did. "Part II" will actually be my review of the 2-hour premiere of the show.
Shockingly, it isn't as bad as I assumed it would be...


Reasons I Checked Out "90210":
The pilot for the spin-off was written by three writers - two writing teams - whom I have come to really like in the last few years.
The first team, the executive producers and head writers of "90210", are Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs. This team held supervising producer credits and wrote two episodes - "I'm With the Band" and "The Garage Door" - of the geek-loved, cult TV show "Freaks and Geeks". They also developed the 2004 teen drama series, "Life As We Know It" - which started off well, but floundered in the latter half of the series' only, 13-episode season.
The third writer of the pilot, entitled "We're Not in Kansas Anymore" (will explain later), is none other than the creator of one of my all-time favorite series and favorite teen drama, "Veronica Mars", writer Rob Thomas (not of band, Matchbox 20). Most likely, since Rob Thomas is working on so many other television projects - including a re-vamp of his first created series, "Cupid" - he will not be returning to write anymore episodes of the series. At least, not this season.
In addition to the series' writing staff, what got me to tune in at 8pm on Tuesday was childhood memories. "Beverly Hills, 90210" was one of my mother's favorite television shows when I was first discovering the world that is primetime television. One of the things I always liked about my parents' view on first-time child rearing (I was the first child, a.k.a. the test subject) was that they did not like a lot of the public broadcasting children's shows. My parents hated "Barney", and so did I. They liked "Sesame Street", though. So, I ended up growing up on primetime television shows. Shows like "Seinfeld" (anyone who knows me knows that), "The Cosby Show", "A Different World", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Cheers", "Fraiser", "Full House", "Murphy Brown", "NYPD Blue", "Law & Order", etcetera, etcetera. Now, I also watched a lot of Saturday morning cartoons of the early-to-mid-1990s, but those shows are meant for another post. One of such shows was "Beverly Hills, 90210". Unlike most of the shows on the list, I didn't complete the show to its final airing. It started when I was just two-years-old, but I watched whatever was on TV at the time. That theme song is as grained into my memory, as was the "Seinfeld" theme and Where Everybody Knows Your Name from "Cheers".
And, while I watched "Beverly Hills, 90210", I ended up becoming increasingly attracted to Shannen Doherty. Why? I don't know. Besides the fact that Brenda was hot as hell, Doherty was also a bitch. One of the many reasons why she was written off. So, when I heard that she would be making a short episode-arc return on "90210", I had to tune in! I mean, I watched "Charmed" for 3 seasons. You know, until she was written off for being a bitch...


Surprises That Came While Watching "90210":
Many shocking revelations came to me while watching "90210". And not a one of them came from the plot.
I did not know that Jessica Walter - Lucille Bluth, or Gangy, of "Arrested Development"- and Lori Loughlin - Rebecca "Becky" of "Full House" - would show up on the show!
Also, Shenae Grimes - who played Darcy from my summertime guilty pleasure, "Degrassi: The Next Generation" (Danny showed me that Canadian melodrama is fucking hilarious) - plays the main character, Annie Wilson (more on her later).

"Part II" to come soon...