31.1.08

My Hearing

Just to let everyone know -- my hearing in my right ear is slowly getting better. I still can't discern voices with my right ear, but I can hear noises! It hurts when I hear the noises, though.

So I'll be on a lot of Prednisone for the next month. Not looking forward to that.

Now I think I'm going to sit down and read some Sherlock Holmes. I loove Sherlock Holmes.

27.1.08

No Country for Old Men

Well I finally got to go see No Country for Old Men on Saturday, and I have to say. I loved it.

It made me think, which makes it the first movie in a loong time to do that.

I'm definitely going to purchase it on DVD just because I have to see it again. It was an exceptional film, and as many (professional) critics have said -- the Coens have grown up.

I'm not going to review it, just because you can get so many professional reviews, and I'll just say the exact same thing they do. My opinion is of the positive, and I do encourage you to go see it.

Still bummed it's not up for a Best Music Oscar, though.

Also -- my parents just bought me the Complete Sherlock Holmes, and I already whizzed right through A Study in Scarlet. Exceptional reading, in my opinion. I have a nice, leather-bound edition, too. Really snazzy. I have awesome parents.

Now I think I'm going to write a short story. Maybe.

25.1.08

Break a Leg Review - Ep. 4 & 5

Hello all and welcome to the day where your host (Mr. Nick Taylor -- in case you forgot) actually remembers to do something.

Well, more like I'd feel really guilty if I "forgot". At any rate, I just finished watching both the new episodes of BaL for the fourth time, and I think I'm ready to tear it apart. With scissors. Well, maybe not with scissors. Critically, though. I'll tear it apart critically. With my great grammar. (Because, y'know, all sentences need to have just two adverbs to count -- remember that, kiddies)

In all seriousness, however, I have thought long and hard about these two episodes, and to be honest, I kinda liked them. I didn't really like them, but I kinda liked them. Although, my thoughts may be swayed by Monday with the release of episode six. We'll see, and I'll post a review on that, too.

In the meantime, time to dissect the wonderfulness that is Break a Leg. Luckily with these two new episodes, we haven't had to wait excruciatingly long for them. Unlike episodes 1, 2 & 3, we've had massive amounts of content thrown our way by the gracious Break a Leg crew, and for that, I am grateful. As you (most likely) know, there have been conversation episodes so we don't feel lonely and without our internet sitcom Friends. I mean Groomates. I mean Break a Leggers.

At any rate, these conversations have been highly effective in delivering characterization, but not much else beyond that. What we need now is story. Let's move on. What happened after the U-Haul explosion at the end of Episode 3?

Well, that's (sort of) where Episode 4 picks up. The cold open for Episode 4 is a brief little show called ¿K?. As you can no doubt guess, it is a parody of the show E! in real life. If you did not guess that, well I apologize for taking the joke away from you. (I won't tell you the second joke. Although all the Spanish-speaking people are probably laughing their asses off by now. Well, maybe not.)

So during the ¿K? sequence the Break a Leg crew successfully recap us in a tightly edited, seizure-inducing way. Is it annoying? Yes. Is it a successful parody of E!? Hell, yeah.

Also during the ¿K? sequence there is another short Broomates claymation clip. If you don't know, Broomates is the rival show to Groomates on the network Pox. Remember those spies from Episode 3? They like to cause trouble for David Penn and his fledgling crew of soon to be Groomates.

So, after the ¿K? sequence (I love typing Alt-0191 over and over. If you're on a PC, go and do it. I'll wait. Wasn't that cool? I know.) we have our lovely title sequence, and then we switch over to...(drumroll please) Groomates! Seriously, we start a scene of Groomates. Then we shortly find out that they're in a school. Interesting.

The school scene with Jennifer directing and David being showrunner shows us some more of Jennifer's weird bohemian directing style. He's got the beret, the mustache, and the love of completely randomness to permeate his project. It's some more nice characterization, but it's also kind of two-dimensional. There's got to be more to Jennifer than bohemian stereotypes. I hope.

Of course, this is a very, very satirical show, and I may be looking too far into it. Now, however, comes my one really big issue with this episode (in case you forgot, I'm talking about episode 4 still). There's a really long sequence with David trying to get Chase Cougar to come back to the Groomates production. While there's some genuinely funny shtick, and it obviously shows that Justin Morrison can act his way out of a shoebox (no, I'm not being sarcastic, he's actually pretty good) it just felt too long. I really, really hope that's the last we see of that kind of shtick for a while, because they stretched it about as long as spandex can stretch. It was funny, now let's move on.

So Chase comes back, makes a classic Chase Cougar comment that still makes me laugh (especially the reaction to said comment) and that's pretty much the end of the episode.

So now what?

Well, if you're still reading, obviously I'm either a pretty damn good writer, or you're genuinely interested as to what happens in episode 5. Well, at this point, I've decided that I'm going to write a post a week for these suckers, because 4 seems pretty damn long thus far.

Anyway, Episode 5 opens with a scene that I personally didn't like too much. There was a classic line in there that was definitely funny, but the scene seemed to break the continuity that Episode 4 had started. It probably wasn't the best cold open in the world. We go from the school in Episode 4 to the exploded U-Haul at the beginning of Episode 5 back to the school during the rest of Episode 5.

This episode, I felt, didn't really have too much content. A lot of it was restating what had already happened, which kind of weighted the eight minute episode down a bit. Not in the good way, either. There was definitely some funny moments (a great Claudio-Humphrey moment) and an excellent Jimmy Scotch scene, but the episode itself...I don't know. I'm not a spy person, I guess.

The whole episode was about determining what to do with the spies and the guild war. I personally don't like the guild war too much. It's unfortunate, because it seems like a device that could definitely work, but us viewers don't quite understand it too well. Don't get me wrong, I still love the show, but I like the idea of David Penn trying to wrestle with a dysfunctional crew while trying to get his show up and running, rather than wrestle with some creepy spies that are stealing trade secrets. Well, stealing ideas. Which is legal, believe it or not. That's beside the point, though.

Before I conclude this rather lengthy post on Break a Leg, I just want to point out a few things. First- what the hell happened with the whole "Jimmy wants Chase fired" storyline? That just...ended...it seems like. Who knows, it may come back in the future, but it did strike me as odd.

In conclusion, I just have to say that I really do think the show is funny, but it feels like it has gone a little off track from where it started. Rather than have a bunch of dysfunctional artists trying to put a television show together on a shoestring budget, we now have network espionage stealing ideas and starting guild wars. I'm curious as to where the whole thing is going, but personally I'd say I just really like the dysfunctional artists trying to get money to start a sitcom bit more than the guild war bit.

But what do I know? I'm no professional critic.

23.1.08

Break a Leg Ep. 4 & 5 Review - Coming Soon!

Yeah, I know, I need to watch the new BaL episodes, and I will. I will review them, too. But right now, it's a bit difficult with only one ear working and weird nausea thing goin' on. So...I will review 'em, just not right now.

22.1.08

The Lord of the Rings

You know when you watch a movie, and it just gets stuck with you forever?

That's what happened to me with Lord of the Rings. I sat down and watched "Return of the King" this past weekend, and man. Epic. The soundtrack, everything, is just stuck in my head.

They need to re-release these into theatres sometime again. I would totally go to that.

17.1.08

Huh?

Seems I lost the hearing in my right ear recently. I will go to the doctor tomorrow to get it sorted out.

I've found that it sucks having half your hearing go kaput. No more directional hearing. No more belting out Billy Joel's "Piano Man" at the top of my lungs without feeling really self conscious. It is a shame, really. Not much I can do about it though.

Really hard to talk to people. That's what I've found. Especially in crowded places. It's like, I have to ask people to shut the fuck up. They won't. It drives me crazy. (Please note: My social skills aren't so inept that I actually tell people to shut the fuck up. Yet.)

Anyway, life goes on. I can still hear out of my left ear, which is good. Well, have a good day, everyone.

14.1.08

Break a Leg - Back To School (Episode 4)

In this exciting new episode of Break a Leg, the cast, somehow managing to survive a horrible explosion, begins shooting their sitcom, Groommates, in secret. Writer David Penn must get lead actor Chase Cougar back before the production can continue.--Expect a review from me next week, alongside Ep. 5. And for all of you readers out there who haven't watched this show...tell me...why not?

read more | digg story

8.1.08

New POST.

No -- I do not mean the "

" kind of post, either. You geeks.

I'm here, and I have nothing really to share. I saw I am Legend the other day. Good movie, Will Smith rocked as usual, and it had a great ending (for a Hollywood movie, that is). I enjoyed it, and I bet you will too.

Yes, you.

I'm in a TV Production (basically filmmaking for TV) class at my school these days, and I have to say, all the kids in that class really have no appreciation for the art of filmmaking. They all think slo-mo and hues of colors all over the screen in post makes for a great music video.

I appreciate their postmodern expressionism, but I think only they get it. And that they're not doing it on purpose.

I'm actually writing again, I finished a rewrite of a short I wrote a while back. Everyone, of course, likes the original better, but, y'know, whatever.

I'm going now.