From Minnesota–the adoption state–comes stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody and her debut movie, Juno, about a teenage girl who gets pregnant and decides to place her child for adoption (notice a theme?). It’s got Rainn Wilson, Michael Cera and some other folks (somebody named Jennifer Garner?), and the trailer is funny.
Which is often a sign of sure disappointment with the movie itself, so relish these great lines from the trailer in case the movie sucks:
Juno (pregnant teen): “If I could just have the thing and give it to you now, I totally would. But I’m guessing it looks, probably like a sea monkey right now, and I should let it get a little cuter. ”
Vanessa (potential adoptive mother): “Your parents are probably wondering where you are.”
Juno: “Nah… I mean I’m already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?”
But personally, I’ve got high hopes. While the offensive factor is pretty high, adoption humor is a vast untapped reserve of comedy. And as Joshua Cody pointed out yesterday, it’s nice to see adoption modeled as an alternative to abortion.
Jason Kottke posed an interesting question on his blog: In what order should a parent show their child the Star Wars movies? Kottke rarely opens his entries up to comments, but for this one he opened the floodgate and so far has 138 comments. It’s a ridiculous poling of geekdom, most suggesting viewing the movies in original release order and quite a few suggesting parents never let their kids see the prequels.
Quite the geeky discussion, but that’s OK. I love it. Seems like I’ve blogged about this before and how interesting it would be to never think of Star Wars in terms of originals and prequels, but just six movies (is that even possible, considering the vast technical differences?). Seeing the movies in internal chronological order (prequels then originals), as opposed to release order (originals then prequels), shifts the focus from Luke to Anakin/Darth Vader, which is kind of bizarre. The prequels do naturally lend a whole new perspective to the originals.
In addition to my blog bender, I’m on a bit of sci-fi bender of late. I’ve always liked sci-fi. For the longest time Star Wars was my favorite movie and it was only dethroned by another sci-fi flick (Serenity). But I’m a casual sci-fi fan. While I’ve watched Star Trek, I’m hardly a Trekkie. And my reading list of sci-fi is fairly short. Until this weekend I had never read Orson Scott Card, and I’ve read nothing but short stories by some of the masters like Isaac Asimov.
But I do enjoy the genre. Specifically, I love space stories (Star Wars, Serenity, etc.) and post-apocalyptic fiction (Mad Max: The Road Warrior). I find something tremendously captivating about these stories, both the realism of a future in space and the harsh reality of a world gone wrong in a post-apocalyptic era. I can’t put my finger on it, but I love those stories.
Went to see Pirates 3 on Saturday night (if you want my take you can check my quick review) and I think my favorite part had to be the collective groan when the title was revealed at the end of the Bratz trailer. Apparently the 9:15 p.m. showing is not at all the target audience for that one. Nice try.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I worked for an organization that produced the movie Last Flight Out. I’ve talked before about how horrible the movie is and perhaps it holds a special place in my heart because I had a chance to read and comment on the script. The fact that the final product was so bad pains me because it had a tiny glimmer of potential to be something more. Not that my comments or input could have saved it (I don’t know if my comments were even read), but it’s just another example of squandered potential.
Anyway, about the time Last Flight Out was coming together there was a made-for-TV movie called Ice Bound that featured a 20 second clip that pretty much sums up Last Flight Out. Now that we have YouTube it seemed time to share.
Read this little bit about the fan promotion of the movie Serenity (best movie ever) and how the studio reacted:
As the release date neared, fans tried everything to raise the film’s profile, from holding bake sales to selling amateur-designed T-shirts. Once the box office returns were collected, Universal Studios (who produced the movie) sent out a series of cease and desist letters to the fans and, in some cases, sought to collect retroactive licensing fees for the production of T-shirts featuring Serenity icons. The fan community responded by tallying up the time they had spent in promoting the show and then sent Universal an invoice for more than $2 million (28,030 man-hours). Universal quickly backed down.
Based on the info from the Star Wars prequels, we need to reinterpret the originals and it appears as though R2-D2 and Chewbacca are incredible Rebel spies. I also love the part about everyone being freaked out about Luke and Leia.
It’s been a bit mad around here lately. After returning from our 2,500-mile holiday (that’s about how many miles we drove) we kicked into high gear getting our house ready to sell. Then Abby got sick. Nevertheless, we struggled on and last night sat down with our realtor to sign lots of paper and get the for sale band wagon moving. Hopefully by the end of this week we’ll be able to put our house on the market. Know anybody who wants a beautiful home in a wonderful location? May the financing be with you.
That struggling on included cleaning every last thing that could be cleaned and stripping our piles of crap down to the barest of the bare. All so we could get that nod of approval that our house is ready. A nod we thankfully received: Shiny. I’m not sure what I would have done if she told us we needed to do more. Probably given up. Perhaps reclaimed my office from Lexi so I could have a door. Or perhaps not.
It is my great and happy privilege to inform you that season one of The Tick is now out on DVD. Spring to action at once! Get yourself to the nearest DVD distribution center and buy that DVD!
Where else can you hear that familiar cry of flatware–“Spoon!”? See the epic battle between a sneezy, not-healthy Tick and the oozing mucus Tick–cloned from a kleenex, no less! And hear that understated exclamation before a friend becomes dino-sized, “Bad move, Neil!” I’ve got my copy on it’s way.
You know, evil comes in many forms, be it a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin. But you can’t let the package hide the pudding. Evil is just plain bad. You don’t cotton to it. You gotta smack it on the nose with the rolled up newspaper of goodness. Bad dog! Bad dog!
For an upcoming assignment I had to go see the new Lindsay Lohan movie, Just My Luck. And I think that sentence works equally well with or without the italics.
A work-at-home dad wrestles with faith, social justice & story.