I can’t wait to be done, or Three days left!
Caller: My sister e-mailed me an obituary, so I’m going to fax it to you.
Me: Actually, if you would just forward the e-mail to us, then you don’t have to worry about us having to retype it and possibly making a typo.
Caller: (aloud) Well, I could do that. (silently) But I won’t, because I am an asshole.
Well, gosh, but it's so much easier for me to print out the e-mail and then fax it to you rather than just hitting forward. Because I'm an asshole.
The sequels I won’t be seeing this weekend
So there’s a The Hangover 2 and a Kung Fu Panda 2.
The Hangover Part II has a monkey in it. I hate monkeys. Almost as much as I hate dolphins. And I hate dolphins about equally as much as I hate Jack Black.
Which is great news, I guess, for people who have anterograde amnesia and can’t make new memories, so they completely forgot they already watched the first films, just like they will completely forget they’re watching the sequels, but they have approximately 10 bucks they really want to waste.
Or a murdered wife they want to avenge by killing ... I don't know ... the usher.
I have nothing against the original films, except, of course, for the presence of Jack Black in anything, but I don’t understand why there are sequels to the damned things.
Jack Black is worse than dolphins.
Oh, except for the Hollywood wanting to make money without exerting much effort thing. Right.
The last hard thing we did was put up this sign. We're still tired. Stop complaining.
Olivia Dunham vs. Dana Scully
Huzzah! It’s a battle of sexy fictional FBI ladies!
On the one hand, we’ve got the leggy Olivia Dunham of the Fringe unit.
She's so tall and pretty.
On the other hand, we’ve got the petite Dana Scully of the X designated cases.
Not so tall, but sooooo pretty.
Our hands are so lucky!
They're the envy of all these other hands.
But as lovely and talented and smart and athletic as these ladies are, one is surely superior to the other, right?
So which one is it?
Physicality. Olivia Dunham is an elegant blonde with a fondness for black undergarments. Dana Scully is a tiny little redhead who wears heels a lot. I’m not sure we ever saw her panties. Winner? I apologize to the classically beautiful Anna Torv, but my loyalties lie with Gillian Anderson. She’s just one fine lady. Dayummm.
I've always loved this photo of Gillian Anderson.
Has a hotter partner? Oh, god, don’t make me choose! On the one hand, we’ve got Olivia Dunham’s team of Charlie Francis (cute, but not my type) (also: dead now), Walter Bishop (adorable, but a bit craggy), Astrid Farnsworth (sooooo pretty, and I covet her hair) and Peter Bishop, who is by far the hottest of the group and thus the one we will be counting as her hot partner.
He can work that unshaven look like nobody's business.
On the other hand, we’ve got Fox Mulder.
Heh. Heh heh heh heh heh.
Boy, are our hands … wait, does this joke seem familiar to anybody else? Anyway, Joshua Jackson and David Duchovny are both fine specimens of the male human being, and I’m not sure I could ever say one is hotter than the other. I’d say we’re going with Olivia, because Astrid tips the scales in her direction, but that wouldn’t be fair to Scully, because she only ever had a team of one other person. Winner? It’s a tie.
Is also a medical doctor? By gum, George, Scully is also a medical doctor. That woman was always doing autopsies and taking people’s pulses with her thumb (… why would she do that? Is it because the actress isn’t a medical doctor?) and other medical-type things. Olivia Dunham is not also a medical doctor, but she did used to be in the marines. But not as a medical doctor. I enjoy typing the words “medical doctor.” Winner? Scully.
Has psychic powers? Scully might’ve gotten psychic powers in those episodes of the X-Files after I quit watching because the show started to suck, but those don’t count. But Olivia has had psychic powers all along, even if they come and go and she’s not always that good at using them. Winner? Olivia Dunham.
Is fighting to save the universe? Though Scully doesn’t realize it at first, a large number of the X cases are part of a larger conspiracy to destroy the world! Or prepare it for an alien invasion. Or something. Look, they really didn’t explain it that thoroughly until the show started to suck. Though Olivia Dunham didn’t realize it at first, a large number of the Fringe cases are part of a larger Pattern that was completely dropped as a plot point after the first season, but are all somehow the result of Walter Bishop … who might have caused the eventual destruction of the universe! Winner? Olivia Dunham, because I said “fighting to save the universe,” not “fighting to save the world.”
I would like to visit the alternate universe to watch their movies, though.
Has better fashion sense? Due to her participation in the Cortexiphan trials as a young child, Olivia Dunham likes to blend in through the prodigous use of greys and blacks in her wardrobe. Possibly navy on occasion, but only if she’s feeling especially kicky. Scully, as a medical doctor and an FBI agent, also wears a lot of dark-colored suits. But sometimes she wears skirts. Winner? Scully, for showing off those gams. (Gams are legs, right? I don’t speak 1940s so good.)
Hey, good news, everybody! We DO get to see her underwear.
Faces an eviler old man? You know who’s a pretty evil old man? The Cigarette Smoking Man is a pretty evil old man. You know who else is a pretty evil old man? Walternate. But you know who wins? Olivia, because she’s got two Walter Bishops to deal with.
Dear John Noble, you are brilliant and I love you.
Hooks up with her sexy partner? Oh, my, yes, these ladies are no fools. They both hooked up with their sexy partners like mad. Winner? Everybody wins, especially the ‘shippers.
Fights aliens? Scully fights aliens.
Fights her alternate universe self? Olivia Dunham fights her alternate universe self, and steals her boyfriend back from the hussy.
It's like if your twin sister stole your boyfriend and also tried to destroy the universe.
Has a better opening theme for their science fiction show? The X-Files theme is a classic, what with that spooky music and all. But you know what Fringe has got? Fringe has got a retro theme for that episode that was set in the ’80s. I love that theme. Winner? Olivia Dunham.
Overall winner? In a big fat surprise to me, who was secretly rooting for the beautiful Dana Scully, Olivia Dunham takes home the prize, probably because her show hasn’t started to suck yet.
Also because this picture is awesome.
I am surely bound for hell
For, lo, when I received an obituary on a gentleman who went by the initials “O.D.,” I said, “It really is a shame that he didn’t, you know, die of an overdose.”
And then I tapped my fingers together and said "Excellent" while laughing evilly.
Goody! Another Pirates of the Caribbean movie!
It’s the fourth one, didja know?
Cool poster.
That’s a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. In fact, one might go so far as to say that’s an excessive amount of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Especially since two of them were so goddamned boring.
On the bright side, though, more Johnny Depp, which is something this world needs.
He's like the perfect storm of talented and hot.
On an equally bright side, no Keira Knightley this time! Instead, we’ve got Penelope Cruz, who, with all that eyeliner on, actually looks like Capt. Jack Sparrow’s long-lost sister, so I’m not sure if they’re trying to play her up as a romantic interest or what.
Eh, even if she is his long-lost sister, it's still got to be better than kissing Keira Knightley.
Ooh, and Ian McShane! And Geoffrey Rush!
And Ian McShane is playing Blackbeard? Be still, my beating heart.
And did I hear someone say zombies?
Sometimes I wish I were clever enough to come up with things like zombie pirates, and then I could be sitting back and watching the money roll in. Other times, I think: Zombie pet store.
Dammit all, Disney, I think you’ve just gotten me all aflutter for the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. That’s some good marketing right there. Bravo to you. Bravo.
I mean it. I'm really impressed!
I’m so happy, I could kiss a pig
Knowing that Keanu Reeves won’t be in Akira: The Unnecessary Remake that No One Wants is just the best news ever! I feel so lucky, I am going to go out and buy a lottery ticket right now! Whooo!
And, after I've won the lottery, I'm totally having a motorcycle custom-made for me.
Vampires are scary again? Also: Paul Bettany’s abs
Priest opens this weekend, and thus continues someone’s quest to make Paul Bettany into an action star. I’ll forgive them for it this time, because his abs are awesome in the trailer.
Also, it was nice to see scary vampires leaping all about and just indiscriminately slaughtering the hell out of people, because monsters are so much better when we’re not humanizing them. Except for Frankenstein’s monster. He’s all right.
Oh, the HUMANITY!
Ooh, and is that Maggie Q in it? She’s got great legs.
I'll admit I'm a little scared of the woman.
And when you check out the cast list, Brad Dourif is in there and also Madchen Amick! It’s nice to see them earning paychecks.
Wasn't Mssr. Dourif great in that one episode of The X-Files?
But why does the movie tout that it’s “From the Acclaimed Graphic Novel”? I hate when movies do that, like if they admit it’s a comic book and a Korean one at that, then no one will love them or something. Also, was Priest really acclaimed? I never even read it, so I don’t know.
Acclaimed?
And that doesn’t even really matter, because this movie looks terrible.
Post-apocalyptic world? Check.
Look at that! I mean, how post-apocalyptic is THAT, you know?
Rebellious hero? Check.
Anti-hero, maybe? He is wearing a lot of black.
Evil ruling society? Check.
The same movie you’ve seen a million times before except Paul Bettany and his fabulous abdomen is in it? Check indeed.
"I've got a script for Priest here. Someone get me Paul Bettany on the phone and see if he can salvage this thing."
I mean, it all could have been done in a new and interesting way, but I don’t think it was.
Well, it does have these floating motorcycle things, so that's something.
I always forget that Jill Hennessy has a twin
So, before Jerry Orbach died, Law & Order: Original Flavor was one of my absolute favorite shows. After Jerry Orbach died, I tried to keep watching it, I really did, because S. Epatha Merkerson and Sam Waterston. But it just wasn’t the same.
You know, I think I owe myself a young Jerry Orbach marathon.
And during those years when I watched L&O: The First, and Best, One, there was a revolving door letting in assistant district attorneys to Sam Waterston. And the first of these (that I can remember) was ADA Claire Kincaid, aka Jill Hennessy. (Well, the character wasn’t aka Jill Hennessy, but that was the actress’s name, and … you know what? Never mind.)
I seriously can't remember who was Jack McCoy's assistant before her.
After leaving L&O in a blaze of car-crashing, affair-with-Jack-McCoy-revelating glory, Hennessy went on to star in Crossing Jordan, aka that show I only watched a couple of times when there was nothing else on and books just seemed too heavy and complicated and I swear, I didn’t wait every week for it to come on. And after that …?
Let’s find out, shall we?
Jill Hennessy was born in 1968, along with her twin sister, Jacqueline, bringing joy to lovers of attractive brunettes everywhere. Well, eventually, because if you rejoiced when they were babies, then ewwww.
It's perfectly fine to ogle her now. Rowr!
Her first role was in 1988′s Dead Ringers, which is a movie about twin gynecologists, which means you’ve lost me right there. Apparently, it’s quite good, but twin gynecologists. In 1989, she moved on to a television show called The Hitchhiker, which I can only assume was about someone who hitchhiked around America either solving crimes or committing them, with everybody learning a nice little moral lesson at the end. She was in two different episodes under two different names, so possibly two different characters? In 1990, she moved right on along to the role of Hooker on C.B.C.’s Magic Hour. Possibly it was a character whose last name was Hooker, but probably not.
Speaking of hookers, her first role on the Friday the 13th television series (I know! I’d completely forgotten about it too!) was Spanish hooker. I don’t think she’s really Spanish, though. She also played Vampire Woman, Secretary and Lifeguard over the course of 1989 and 1990, because somebody at Friday the 13th either really liked her or didn’t realize they kept hiring the same woman repeatedly. Also, there used to be a War of the Worlds television series, which I had no idea!, and she was in two episodes with two different names again.
Hooo boy, they didn't try very hard with that logo, did they?
A few more TV series here and there and then, boom, catapulted to fame by 1993′s Robocop 3. Ha, no, I’m just kidding. Nobody watched that. But she was in it, if it shows up one of these days and you’re just too lazy to change the station. (Seriously, though, don’t get caught in that situation.) Also in 1993, she was in some German film that I don’t care about (sorry, Germany!).
But most importantly in 1993, Law & Order: The Best One of All!
Remember when these guys were on it? Ha, ha, yeah, no one does.
And then also in 1994, some movie called The Paper, and in 1996, I Shot Andy Warhol (is the name of the film and not a thing I did).
Ooooh, I didn't know it had Lili Taylor in it.
After her stint in Law & Order, she went on to a bunch of movies that I don’t feel like listing, except for Komodo, which I swear one of my other “Whatever happened to…?”s was in too, as Victoria the Shrink. Seriously, there are a lot of them, and I’m not listing them and you can’t make me.
Here's a poster for Komodo, though.
In 2001, NBC picked up a show about coroners who solve crimes, and I blame CSI for that. That show was Crossing Jordan, which I only watched a few times, and mostly for Miguel Ferrer and Jerry O’Connell. Also? That show was on for six seasons, so I am feeling even less embarrassed about the few episodes I watched because I thought it was only on for two or three years, so I very definitely did not watch all of them.
Nor even most, nor even many.
Anyway, in 2007, Crossing Jordan bid the world of television adieu, and Jill Hennessy went on to some indie film called Lymelife before taking a two-year hiatus until 2010, which saw The Roadie and Small Town Murder Songs, which actually sounds like it should be a Nick Cave album.
Hell, maybe it is.
Since 2010, I’m not quite sure what she’s been up to, but she did release an album in 2009 and sang at 2010′s Lillith Fair, so let’s just go with “she’s concentrating on her music career.”
Just a girl and her guitar.
The concept of “daily” is, apparently, really hard to grasp
Example #1:
Caller: Are you a daily newspaper?
Me: Yes, we are.
Caller: Which day is that?
Me: All of them?
Example #2:
Caller: Are you a daily newspaper?
Me: Yes, we are.
Caller: So, Saturday and Sunday too?
Oh, I'm sorry, you must have meant "weekdaily."
I told you they hated me, and here is proof
So, not only a live-action Akira movie (why???) but also they’re thinking of casting Keanu Reeves (WHY????) as my frakking hero KANEDA (WHYYYYYYYYYYY??????)!!!
Goddammit, this is the end times, after all.
And we deserve it if we are going to cast Keanu Reeves as Kaneda, because that casting makes the baby Jesus cry.
