Shadow of the Real World

A few musings from Kansas by a high school literature teacher. Over the past few months, this blog has turned a commentary on media. I will probably continue to focus on film and television, but books and music might sneak in... By the way - If you would like me to post on a regular basis - please comment, even if it's just to say, "Hi." If my audience disappears, I lose the motivation to write! Thanks!

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Comments and DVDs

Hello Everyone - It's Saturday and I don't have to go in to work. Oh Happy Day!! :-) I honestly can't wait for the end of May. While I do love my students and teaching, there comes a point in the year when exhaustion takes over. I think I reached that point about two weeks ago. :-)

BTW - I would like to give many thanks and a shout out to a hero who came and fixed my wireless network a few nights ago. He spent a good three hours cleaning up the mess I had made of my computer. You know who you are -- thanks so much!

Several people have asked me about the website where I catalog my DVD collection. It's called dvdaficionado.com. It's a great free site where you can catalog your DVD collection and keep track of what you have, what categories your movies are in and other people can log on to see your collection. I use it for people who want to borrow one of my movies, but don't want to come over and stare at my shelf for 20 minutes trying to make a decision. :-) So - if you know who I am and are one of those people who do like to borrow my movies, just log on and do a search for my user name. It's "withjoy".

Okay - random question - the period is supposed to go inside the quotation marks, but if I had put it inside those quotation marks, it would look like my user name included the period. Aggghhhh... Sometimes the English language drives me nuts!

On another note - if you are reading this and find it helpful or mildly entertaining -- could you put a quick comment up? I am enjoying running this blog, but if no one is reading it, then I probably won't continue. The only way I know that an audience exists is if you comment. I changed the settings so that anyone can comment. You don't have to be a member of Blogger.com.

I watched the series finale of Jag this morning. (It was on last night, but I was meeting with a group from my church.) Anyway - I gave up on the show several years ago. I just got so completely frustrated with the Harm and Mac dynamic. They kept the UST (unresolved sexual tension) going between those two for FAR too long. It just got ridiculous and I got too frustrated. Anyway - I wanted to see how they ended it so I recorded the final episode last night. Interesting. They used a lot of flashbacks to remind the audience of the "moments" the two had shared over the past eight or nine years. (Harm had a different partner who I liked a lot better in the beginning.) The flashbacks frustrated me. It's the LAST episode of your show! Don't take up the limited time you have with showing pieces of other episodes. Yes - it was a nice tie-in to previous choices, but the same purpose could have been served with Harm and Mac actually talking through their issues. The writers gave us almost nothing for a resolution. They did get engaged, but we didn't get to see any of the character growth. It all happened off screen and we are just supposed to accept that they resolved their issues with a coin toss. Hmmm. Yeah, right. Also - does anyone else notice that they seemed to have cloned Bud for NCIS in the character of Tim McGee? (Although I like McGee better.)

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Serenity Trailer

Hi! The Serenity trailer went live on Tuesday. You can view it at www.apple.com/trailers. Shiney. :-)

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Firefly mini-marathon

Yesterday I got together with some friends to watch four hours of the far-too-short series Firefly. For those of you who haven't seen it - get up out of your chair *right now* can go rent the first disk! (You'll probably buy the set at that point.) :-) The thought behind our marathon was to introduce new people to the series. It actually ended up to be people who had already watched most of it, but who cares? We were all up for it again. :-) (If you are interested, we watched the two part pilot, "Our Mrs. Reynolds," and "Trash.")

I had forgotten how perfectly balanced the humor and drama are in Firefly. Once again, I must acknowledge the genius that is Joss Whedon. Although I can't help wishing that someday, some character he writes will be happy! I know it's a pipe dream - Joss is all about "all misery, all the time."

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Comic Book Movies

I have always been fascinated by movies based on comic books and graphic novels. There are several coming out soon that I am particularly excited about. Batman Begins is opening on June 17th and should be a much better interpretation of the character than the past few movies have been. (Anything after the first Michael Keaton movie was just a waste, in my humble opinion.) Christian Bale is playing the Dark Knight and I can't wait to see what he does with the character. Check out the website if you're interested -- www.batmanbegins.com

Batman has always fascinated me as a superhero because of the fact that he doesn't have any superpowers. I love that. No flying, no invisibility, no super-strength. (Although he does have the coolest toys...) He is driven to fight crime and evil and that is where the story lies. Why does an ordinary man become so obsessed? Ahh, the angst. And when it comes to a good angsty story - the darker, the better for the most part. A truly conflicted hero is so much more interesting than a squeeky clean one...

Which leads us to Superman. I confess that sometimes Superman seems a little boring to me. I am so excited that Brian Singer has taken the helm for Superman Returns. I loved what he did with the X-Men movies, esp. X2. The actor that he has cast for Clark Kent, Brandon Routh, certainly looks the part. I have confidence that Singer hired someone who can act, so this should be quite the movie. I only hope that Routh can do justice to the utter dorkiness of Clark. That is one facet of Christopher Reeves' performance as Superman that was brilliant. He was just a complete dork! He didn't seem to hesitate in looking truly idiotic at times. Yet, you never lost sight of the fact that Clark had to put on that character as a disguise. Hopefully, Routh can pull it off. It's tentatively scheduled for theaters on June 30, 2006. Anyone want to wait in line with me?

As for other comic book movie news - there is the Fantastic Four coming out on July 8th. I'm not sure what to think of this one. I have never followed the Fantastic Four, so I don't have any pre-conceived notions. I must admit that I have fairly low expectations, although I do like Jessica Alba. We'll see.

The movie in development stage that I am most looking forward to is Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman. Although I am sad that he apparently passed on X3, I can see why Wonder Woman is the perfect choice for him. He certainly has experience with girls who kick butt and take names! (Buffy, Faith, Illeria, Zoe, Ripley, etc.) Joss' genius is in his character development and voice. If he is given free reign to tell the Wonder Woman story that he wants to tell -- it could be amazing.

Honestly though, the movie that I am looking forward to most overall is Whedon's Serenity. I don't know if it's going to change the face of film making as we know it -- but I am pretty sure that it is going to knock something off my Top Ten Movies of All Time list. :-) September 30 everyone! September 30!! Here's a few sites to keep you interested...

www.serenitymovie.net
www.serenitymovie.com
http://whedonesque.com

Well, that's it for me for today. Take care!

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

My new obsession

Well - I've turned into one of those people who is a little crazy over their pets. At least I haven't become the "crazy cat lady" yet. (Of course, I think it's only because I am severely allergic to cats!) Anyway - the point of this story is that I recently adopted two guinea pigs. It's a little funny how much I am enjoying them. They are so entertaining! They love to run and jump around. It's truly adorable. Here are some great sites if you are interested in having a new pet.

www.cavycages.com
www.guinealynx.com

Need a good book recommendation?

Well, I must confess that I haven't been updating as often as I thought I would. I am going to try to do better! In the meantime - here is one of my favorite websites!

http://www.wjduquette.com/exlibris/

This site is a husband and wife team who do casual reviews of all the books they read every month. It's a great place to find suggestions and I have enjoyed every book I have read on their recommendation. Go forth and read!