I feel like this is my fault

I knit (I may have mentioned this before), and I like to watch tv shows when I do. I prefer shows that have been on for several seasons, so I can just plow through the episodes, without having to wait a week for the next installment. Right now I’m watching Eureka, which I’d never heard of before another knitter told me about it last week. It’s a quirky little show whose low budget mostly-Canadian appeal warms my heart. I had been watching Psych while I knit, but it got too stupid for me to enjoy.

Although I do own far too many tv shows on dvd, I primarily watch my knitting-montony-relieving shows through Netflix’s streaming option. I currently have the 2-disc-a-month plan, and I always mean to watch the dvds that I order, but it almost never happens. On Saturday I went to the Netflix web site to see if I could switch to a streaming-only plan. To my surprise, they didn’t have any such thing! It seemed like offering the option just to stream content would be a no-brainer, but maybe the Netflix people had too much in the way of brains, because that wasn’t the case. Anyway, I switched to the 1-disc-a-month plan.

Imagine my surprise then when I saw in the newspaper today that, beginning December, Netflix will offer a streaming-only plan (that article said January, but the email that Netflix sent me said December). Yay! So I switched again. When I do want dvds, I can easily get them from the library, and even if they’re rentals, that cost plus the cost of my streaming Netflix subscription won’t equal what I paid for 2-discs-at-a-time (not that that was terribly expensive, either). Netflix is also raising the cost of all of its disc plans by a dollar. That’s not a ton, but I’m sure it hurts a bit. I know that to have all of this in place, the final decision about this had to have been made long before Saturday, but since I had just looked into this, I feel the tiniest bit responsible.

So, dear internet, I apologize for the increase in cost of your Netflix subscription. Unless, of course, you’ve moved to Streamland like me, in which case I welcome you to my broadband-dependent country.

Overthinking zombies is kind of fun

I enjoy well-told  zombie stories, regardless of their format. Recent zombie stories that I have enjoyed were Zombieland and the book Feed, by Mira Grant. I like the idea behind zombie plots, namely that dead is not always dead, and that lingering in some not-human form isn’t necessarily better than being truly dead. These two works took totally different views of zombiedom, both in terms of how zombies are made and their capabilities, but I enjoyed each of them a lot. Feed, in particular, struck me as one of the standout books for 2010. No, I’m not exaggerating, but then again, I have strange taste in books.

Anyway, although it probably sounds like I do, I do not in fact spend much time thinking about zombies. This guy does, though, and his multi-part post that considers the implications behind the SPEED of zombie movement in different movies puts my zombie-pondering to shame.

Anything can be turned into a horror film

Simply by changing the order in which events occurred, redirectig the focus, and adding some ominous music, Office Space becomes a thriller.

Reaching?

I know that James Cameron’s Avatar may not be everybody’s cup of tea, and I’m not a doctor, but it seems like a bit of a reach to blame this man’s death on watching the film.

There’s no substitute for good film-making

I saw The Surrogates yesterday, and I really wanted to like it. The premise is interesting: what would happen if everybody in the world could use an idealized representation of him or herself to interact with others? Also, the awesome Rosamund Pike (who will forever be for me Jane Bennett) somehow agreed to be in it, which I thought spoke highly of the film. I forgot, though, that even serious actors need to eat.

Anyway, It seemed like this could be a good movie. The rating at Rotten Tomatoes was 37%, but I don’t ALWAYS agree with the reviewers there. Elizabeth Banks and her husband, Max Handelman, who, based on nothing but their twitter feeds, seem like cool people, produced this movie, so I hoped it would be awesome.

It was not. Seriously. If I had a surrogate, I would have used it to see this movie, so that when I started to bang my head on the wall immediately upon exiting the theater, I would have suffered no lasting effects. The more you think about this movie, the less it makes sense. The intro laughingly suggests that such technology would cure communicable diseases and racism immediately. Riiiight. So because you don’t know whether the black surrogate you’re talking to is actually a black person, you suddenly begin to love black people, because they secretly might be white? Doubtful. How can EVERYBODY afford a surrogate? What happens to the poor people who can’t? If surrogates need to charge, what are the operators doing in that time. Does nobody go out at all? What happened to all the gyms? How can people have medication, if they don’t go out? The surrogates can’t be checked for conditions, so what gives? Are doctors now making house calls? And the big one – SPOILER – Why does one measly control station somewhere in the US have access to the surrogate network for the entire world? WHO THOUGHT THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA????

A relevant review from Rotten Tomatoes:

The script is by the team that gave us “Catwoman” and the last two “Terminator” movies, which tells you all you need to know. The direction is by Jonathan Mostow, who did a couple of good genre movies early on, and then went off the rails with “Terminator 3.”

“Surrogates” continues the slide. — Stephen Whitty, Newark Star Ledger (full review)

Also, when I checked this morning, the movie was down to 35% fresh. Exactly.

Julie & Julia

I saw this movie over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I think that Amy Adams is awesome, but the real star of this movie is Meryl Streep, who is delightful as Julia Child. And Stanley Tucci! This is probably the first time I saw him in a role where he did not give me the heeby-jeebies. Warning: watching this movie will probably leave you very hungry.

Relevant review:

A consummate entertainment that echoes the rhythms and attitudes of classic Hollywood, it’s a satisfying throwback to those old-fashioned movie fantasies where impossible dreams do come true. – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

That was unexpected

Thursday was a friend’s birthday, and so last night I treated him to dinner and a movie. I told him that he could pick whatever movie he wanted to see, and I wouldn’t make any sort of jokes about it or be a bad sport at all, but despite having been given carte blanche, his first choice, 500 Days of Summer, was something that I would really have enjoyed seeing. Unfortunately, it isn’t playing anywhere in NJ, so he had to pick another movie. He said he wanted to see I Love You Beth Cooper, but that he couldn’t do that to me. Since I still don’t really have any idea what that is, I was sort of like, “Whatever, thanks,” but it really can’t be worse than some of the other movies he’s gotten me to see, such as Hot Rod. Two years later, and I still shudder when I think of that horrible excuse for a film.

He decided that he wanted to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’ve never read the books, but I have seen the whole or parts of the previous movies in this series, and have have never really minded the experience. I wasn’t expecting much, but I quite enjoyed the movie. I haven’t seen the previous movies recently, but this was much, much better. The was believable teen-romance angst, and a level of violence that I had not anticipated at all. The only thing that kept bugging me was how easily Harry & Co. gave up searching for the identity of the Half-Blood Prince or the meaning of his name. I think that I am eventually going to read the books, so I’ll check to see if this part of the story plays out the same way in the novels. To revive an old tradition of mine, here’s an excerpt from a couple of reviews that most closely mirror my thoughts on this film.

The strangest thing about the new Harry Potter movie is not that it’s unusually good, which it is, but that it unequivocally illustrates just how poorly we’ve been served by the previous five instalments in the franchise. — Kevin Maher, The Times Online

Harry Potter is getting darker, angrier, distinctly more wicked. It has an edge. Scary Potter?  — Gary Wolcott, Tri-City Herald

I Love You, Man

Remember those beer commercials? Yeah, neither do I. But I did got see the Paul Rudd and Jason Segal movie this weekend, and definitely enjoyed it. My love for these actors is only slightly more fervent than my desire not to witness anything really embarrassing ever, but that edge was all it took to make me want to see this movie. I’m not sorry that I went; when I wasn’t covering my eyes with my scarf so that yet another deeply shameful moment went unseen by me, I was laughing pretty damn hard. I really will watch Paul Rudd in anything (this is true: I watched all of I Could Never Be Your Woman a few weeks ago).

As is my habit, here is an excerpt from a review that kind of matched up with my experience in watching this film.

Is the premise of “I Love You, Man” thinner than the paper Maxim is printed on? No doubt. (It’s never clear why, if Peter is close enough to his brother to ask him to set him up on a series of “man dates,” he can’t just ask his brother to be his best man.) Does the movie feature a by-now yawn-inducing quota of jokes involving masturbation, projectile vomiting and flatulence? Positutely. Does Paul Rudd make the whole thing worth it? Totes magotes. — Ann Hornady, Washington Post

I would like to pretend that I don’t understand why a movie like this placed a distant second to that thing that Nicolas Cage crapped all over the box office this weekend, but I do: people are morons. Speaking of Nicolas Cage, I will now share with you the best thing that you have ever seen. Behold:

Things I didn’t need a psychic to figure out

I’m not surprised that Nicolas Cage’s new movie, Knowing, scored a fresh rating of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. No, I’m shocked that such a high percentage of people were able to come out of that movie believing that it wasn’t a waste of effort, money, and minutes of their lives. No Nicolas Cage movie in years has been worth watching (yes, this includes the first National Treasure), and this seems like more of the same hokey crap. Usually I go see a movie and then post a pertinent snippet of a review, but this time I’m going to skip the trip to the theater and go straight to the bashing.

Enjoy.

As Knowing gets increasingly preposterous, and Cage’s stony deadpan acting seems even sillier in context, a kind of slack-jawed joy may overtake you. How on earth did this movie get made? How did anyone involved think they had a story worth telling? And, as always, what is Nicolas Cage thinking? — Leanne Cari, Cinema Blend

There is not enough alcohol in the world

A friend of mine wants to go see He’s Just Not That into You. He really really wants to see that movie. He has asked more than once, and begging was involved. I said no every time though, because I suspect, in a 2009 that has brought viewings of The Unborn, My Bloody Valentine 3D, and The Uninvited, that He’s Just Not That into You could very well be the worst of the bunch. I have to be honest that his intense, totally unironic desire to see this movie makes me think poorly of his tastes in films (this is, after all, the same guy who got me to see Hot Rod). As if I needed further reason not to see He’s Just Not That into You, I found a hilarious post over at Que Sera Sera about seeing it. I appreciate that Sarah was able to make a drinking game out of the movie, but I think I’d probably put myself in an alcoholic coma if I tried this.