Joss Whedon is incestuous and I'm a big nerd

I've been watching both season 7 of Buffy and the one and only season of Firefly, both creations by Joss Whedon (here i genuflect). But to make the connections I am now going to make, you have to have seen Angel, the Buffy spin off, as well, which makes me one big nerd!

River, from firefly first played an enchanted Russian ballerina on Angel (a special episode directed by Joss)
Malcolm Reynolds, from Firefly, guested on Buffy, with the same atrocious Southern accent. although in buffy he's an evil, misogynistic mockery of a priest.

Joss likes his actors!

I'm sure I'm missing other connections (hello, that's what imdb is for), its just hilarious when I'm out of episode order and Mal pops in a random Buffy episode. he he

Buffy love

So i've had time recently to catch up on the last season of Buffy, ie the season of the First. And it's a little more serious and dark than usual. But the humor remains. And reminds why I love Buffy so much- no matter how complicated the plot gets, or how far it withdraws into the mysterious Buffyverse, the writers always manage to pull out the humor and a some meta commentary. this reflexiveness tames the series and reassures me, as a fan, that someone is in control and up there balancing the scales of drama and comedy. the same continues in Firefly.

like replacing "hostage" with "guestage" as Andrew says


I heart Joss Whedon

Gordon's a No Show

I was super excited because through Craigslist I got invited to come eat lunch at the Black Pearl, where Gordon Ramsey, celebrity chef, was doing the latest Kitchen Nightmares (if unfamiliar, its on the Fox website). So I went with my posse, and we ate a very uninteresting lunch and then lingered hoping for a glimpse. No such luck.

Where are you Gordon?

PS I really enjoyed Maze.

cosmo, meet jezebel!

i thought this was hilarious and wanted to share. find the real thing at:
http://jezebel.com/357764/ooooooh-mommy-cosmo-said-the-jay+jay-word

nothing like a good old feminist tear down of postfem culture!

sorry, nolte. i know you love the cosmo.

Across the Universe

Everyone should rent this movie right now.

Don't care if you don't like the plot. You only have to watch the first half.

It's gorgeous Beatles songs! omg, faint!

Three course meal

Project Runway: This fluff of a show makes a perfect appetizer, teasing me with bits of drama and frothy fabric creations. I mildly care who wins, but take more delight in the pomp and circumstance, the over the top clothes/characters, and Tim Gunn walking around saying "Carry on."

Lost: remains the same, working its strong points (the tension within a single episode, the hook) and relapsing into its weaknesses (the inability to maintain a coherent overarching story). It's the meaty chunk of television that feeds my soul. Of course I want to know who the Oceanic 6 are and of course I'm digging the flash forwards. But as always, I wonder why none of the characters ever ask why!

Why, Ben, do the people from the boat want you?
Why are they here?
Why does no one ask?
Why shouldn't they leave the island?

I'm sure if they did ask why, no one would get a straight answer. But three seasons in and I still have no real idea why Ben doesn't want to leave the island and why the other's shouldn't want to be rescued. And that's not good. Ben, Ben, Ben!

Big Brother, Til Death Do Us Part: is so awesomely craptastic. it's like multiple reality shows bred and had a big squalling kissy baby. its the big plastic wrapped twinkie of television.

drum roll...

2 for 1!

Patrick Stewart
&
Maggie Gyllenhaal

Woot!
Both seen while i was catering at BAM, where Capt Picard is starring in MacBeth. Maggie and I did the double-take dance and then I pseudo-stalked her for the rest of the night. Plus there was this other guy there who was uber-gorgeous, and perhaps famous. a sort of adrien grenier/gossip girl mix. mmm.

tonight, my friends

I was catering for 10.5 hours yesterday, so quite busy. i will write about it at length tonight when i have more time. but for now, here's a teaser:

"To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before."

ha!

Julia Stiles!!!

This is the awkward way it went down:

Faith and I went to the 14th St YMCA to look for a bathing suit that she had lost. We walked into the dressing room and I saw three women talking. One of them looked like a well-scrubbed Julia Stiles. I said to myself, no, couldn't be. But then from behind me I heard her voice- that low pitched, news caster type of voice. JS has a very distinctive way of speaking as well. At that point I was 85% certain it was her. My heart beat a little faster.

Because here's the thing. I've seen some celebs in NYC. But I haven't really had a run in with someone I'm a real fan of. I mean a genuine I bumped into a celeb moment that gives you a little high. And that was what this was like. We made eye contact, I did a double take and she gave me this look, like not again.

So we left her in the dressing room to go talk to the security guard who suggested we look again in the dressing room. So we returned and I passed JS as she was leaving. Once she was gone I asked the woman in the dressing room if she knew JS since they had been talking. She shook her head in confusion.

We left again and this time I asked the security guard, who gladly told me that yes JS was a regular along with Robert Rodriguez (yay Austin) and Amanda Bynes (at this point Faith finally got excited).

The pic is from 10 Things I Hate About You, JS's breakthru movie with Heath Ledger. I immediately thought about Heath when I saw her. They were so cute and original too- they genuinely had that extra something that defines a movie star. whatever it is that makes someone so compelling on screen. I think its their very strong personalities. JS and Heath both have this strength in their acting which also offers a vulnerability. I also LOVED that movie. I wish Hollywood would revive the classic literature-into teen film equation like Clueless (Emma) and 10 Things (Taming of the Shrew). There was an Amanda Bynes movie doing Twelfth Night, but it was sub par.

It was genuinely cool. Today NYC is my favorite place in the world. :)

BB!

can i just say that one good thing has resulted from the writer's strike:

BIG BROTHER 9
FEB 12

Let the addiction begin!

oh and there is the new survivor with fans. might watch the first episode if im bored.

the soup

can i just say that i love the soup? its an amazing show all about television, with all the mocking edge i usually have to work at. i can just sit back and watch all the most absurd bits of tv.

plus i love their digs at tmz. its so snotty, b/c tmz is so much more successful.

but thank you e for the soup. although i still miss aisha.

tv bashing

recently one of my best friends started in on a long television bash. To some extent, I was surprised how it made me feel so darn angry and even queasy. actually sick to my stomach.

and of course she had some decent points- how reality shows can be devoid of real content (aka trash), how mainstream america comes home from work and spends their life in front of a tv, a simulacrum of life

but mostly it was astonishing to me how much tv is still a stigma. to her, it retains all of its passive, zombie qualities that strip the watcher of independence, life, reaction. it is still essentially feminizing, capturing and sucking lifesource from the viewers who are helpless to leave and stay enslaved on the couch, gaining pound after pound and losing brain waves

in shorts, it like the government campaign on pot. one puff and you're a mindless drug addict. a slippery slope to disaster.

what can i do about this? nothing really. i cant change her mind. i cant even defend the pleasure (the wrong pleasure, apparently, the lazy/stupid/wasteful pleasure) i get from television. the nightly family guy, the fun of american idol, the challenge of Lost, the wit and tropes of Veronica and Buffy- all this is dismissed as my inability to go outside and play like a healthy kid.