pinkasphalt

I am really enjoying the advertising for True Blood’s upcoming season:

Minisode #1

Promo poster:

I am watching Constantine for the umpteenth time while I obsessively research tents (because I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t obsessively researching something). The plot is not the strongest, but I love the look of this movie and I think some of the casting and acting is brilliant: Tilda Swinton as Gabriel, Gavin Rossdale as Balthazar the demon, Peter Stormare as Satan. What is perhaps more surprising though, is that Keanu Reeves doesn’t suck, in fact he is pretty good. Most surprising of all is that Shia LaBeouf is not so annoying that I am forced to turn the movie off.

I think this is one of my favorite comic-book to movie adaptations. I just wished they showed Constantine on TV more often, instead of X-men and The Fantastic Four (cough)shit movie(cough), which seem to be on endless rotation lately. Alright, must continue reading tent reviews. Anyone have any strong opinions about canvas tents? Don’t all answer at once, OK

P.S. The third episode of the new season of Doctor Who was great! And although the new Doctor is not really my type, Amelia Pond is definitely the bees knees.

Tonight we watched the first episode of Treme. I have to admit that after The Wire, I have pretty high expectations for this show. Although it is too soon to say if Treme will manage to reach the heights The Wire achieved, I feel optimistic after episode one.

There are some great actors, including John Goodman and Steve Zahn, as well as a few favorites from the Wire: the actors that played Bunk Moreland and Lester Freamon. The characters so far are teasingly tantalizing. They reveal glimpses of themselves in this first episode and promise fascinating stories to come. The music of New Orleans is another character that you look forward to getting to know better as the story unfolds. And of course the city of New Orleans is a constant character, destroyed and yet at times still majestic.

There is a great Elvis Costello cameo where a music geek is standing next to him in a bar. The geek wants to chat but is trying to be cool and not surprisingly ends up looking like a dork. You want to laugh but then you wonder if you would be any cooler if you found yourself in a bar standing next to one of your musical heroes.

To me The Wire was largely about emotions and about the human condition. Treme looks like it might be the same. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that even though this is David Simon, what predominates so far seems to be hope and the endurance of the human spirit.  I love stories about hope, and endurance is just one of the many faces of stubbornness, which is a specialty of mine. All that to say, I think I’m going to like watching this story unfold.

Jus’ opinion is more succinct than mine: “I like it. I like anything with the whore from Deadwood. Plus it’s got Bunk. And John Goodman; he was in the Big Lebowski, he was friends with the Dude. Also, he was in Raising Arizona.”

So there you go: two thumbs up from us for episode one.

Here are a few favorite bits of dialogue I typed while watching. They might not be word-for-word perfect, but the essence is there.

- That’s because the media, and no offense but you are one of the worst offenders, likes a simple truth that they and their viewers can get their simple minds around.

- This is not a natural disaster, this is a man-made fucking catastrophe of epic proportions.

- You telling me all you want to do is get high, barbecue and play trumpet in fucking New Orleans your whole damn life?
- That’ll work.

- You’re doing this [for me] because …. I dated your sister for three months.
- My sister says you’re an asshole.
- Oh yeah, I can see how she might say that.

- [After stealing some CDs] Justice aside, this shit is karmatically mine, cause mine got stolen from my car. (Note: I plan to use this from now on, as I go around taking possession of shit that is karmatically mine.)

Glee‘s Jayma Mays, as mysophobic Emma Pillsbury, has nailed every blush, sigh, and wide-eyed look of the hopelessly besotted. She manages to be completely charming playing a character that in the wrong hands would have quickly become cloying. Her cast mate, Jane Lynch, is also excellent playing the ferocious Sue Sylvester. Love, love, LOVE her.

Can’t wait till this show starts up again in April.

I have always loved drag queens, and although I haven’t been to a drag show or hung with a drag queen in years, the love lives on. I just finished watching RuPaul’s Drag Race and I especially liked the bit at the end, where he tells the contestants that if the comments from the judges make them feel terrible and they can’t get over the comments, it’s because they themselves have forgotten who they are and have let others dictate how they feel.

So, here for your viewing pleasure and personal edification, is some advice from RuPaul, to be remembered and repeated to oneself when addressing crowds, making grand entrances, or at any other occasion requiring a bit of balls and attitude.

But why … bother? Does it really matter if the Yangtze river dolphin, or the kakapo, or the northern white rhino, or any other species live on only in scientists’ notebooks?

Well, yes it does. Every animal and plant is an integral part of its environment: even Komodo dragons have a major role to play in maintaining the ecological stability of their delicate island homes. …. Ironically, it is often not the big and beautiful creatures but the ugly and less dramatic ones which we need most. …

There is one last reason for caring, and I believe that no other is necessary. It is certainly the reason why so many people have devoted their lives to protecting the likes of rhinos, parakeets, kakapos and dolphins. And it is simply this: the world would be a poorer, darker, lonelier place without them.

- Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams & Mark Cawardine

Tonight I watched the first episode of the new Last Chance to See. Sigh.

Another guilty late-night pleasure: watching Oscar acceptance speeches. A great Oscar speech is just as good as hanging out at the arrivals gate. For sheer, unbridled enthusiasm, I like to watch Cuba Gooding Jr and Roberto Begnini (who brings a unique Italian flavor to the proceedings); for the kind of charm only a French woman can exhibit, Marion Cotillard; and for unexpected eloquence, Tom Hanks, who won for Philadelphia, a movie that killed me when I first watched it in 1993 and then killed me again I finally got up the courage to watch it a for a second time a few weeks ago.

So, if you find yourself looking for something to do on a sleepless night, check out the Oscar speeches. They are full of little treasures: Bette Davis’ hat, Frank Sinatra’s jab at the Academy for not asking him to sing, Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson when they where young and svelte; and on and on and on.

(As an aside, my second viewing of Philadelphia found me touched by this movie in a new way. The final scene is a series of shots from the main character’s wake and ends with home videos of the main character when he was a little boy with curly brown hair. He is young and carefree and innocent, and still untouched by the hardships he will face as a man. Since the first time I watched this movie, I have fallen in love with a little boy with curly brown hair, whom I foolishly want to spare from all unbearable hardships, no matter how impossible or undesirable this may be.)

P.S. Martin, I updated the broken video link to my first guilty pleasure, in case you care to watch.