More Snow Whites than you can shake a stick at!
Q. So we get two Snow White movies this year, and one has to have Julia Roberts in it?
A. Are you guys sure we needed two Snow White movies?
Or even one?
Why am I ambivalent about Awake?
I want to like Awake. I want to like it a lot more than I do.
I mean, I was really looking forward to this show. Really looking forward to it. Back when they showed the 2011-2012 season previews, Awake was the only thing I was excited about.
“Ooooh,” I said. “A man gets in a car crash and, in one version of his life, his wife is killed, and in the other, it’s his teenaged son instead? And he’s living out both versions of his life, and one of them is possibly a dream? How interesting!”
I see what they're going for with this poster, but I don't like it one bit.
(I often recap things when exclaiming in wonder to myself.)
So, with bated breath and all, I awaited the pilot episode, which finally aired, like, 27 months after the trailer. Or only five or something, I don’t know. And the pilot was awesome. The main character (a detective played by the very excellent Jason Isaacs) explains his predicament to two different psychiatrists, both of whom are convinced the other psychiatrist is the dream, deals with losing his wife, or his son, except actually not at all.
In the world where his wife is alive, he wears a red rubber band on his wrist, and it’s all shot in shades of gold and red, and Fez from That ’70s Show is the rookie partner who’s been assigned to spy on him. In the world where his son is the survivor, he wears a green rubber band, and everything is shot in shades of blues and green, and his partner is Steven Harris, who is just as scary as ever and also, I think, doesn’t age.
I mean, look at him! He looks exactly the same as he did when he first showed up on Homicide back in the last millennium! I mean, FEZ looks older than him! (And, yes, I'm calling him Fez because I can't spell Wilder Valderrama's last name. Double letters are my Kryptonite.)
My favorite bits in the pilot episode come near the end.
The first is that the main character’s wife is aware he’s been dreaming (?) about their son, and in his dreams (?), their son is alive and well, and moving on with his life. And she doesn’t want to hear about her husband’s dreams (?), because, to her, their son is dead. But at the end, as they get into bed for the night, she turns to her husband and asks him to tell their son she loves him. It’s a really beautiful moment.
I'm also very fond of the robe they keep putting her in. It looks so soft!
And the other is when the psychiatrists are trying to “cure” Michael of his split realities, and he’s like: “Um, look, I don’t want to be cured, because if this is some sort of mental illness, it’s one where I still have a wife and a son, so, you know — I’m good.” (Only he says it more moving than that.)
So, yeah, the pilot was supra-great!
And then it gets all kind of mediocre-y after that. Like, not living up to the promise of its premise, and other slant rhymes, I’m sure. And I keep waiting for it to be as awesome as it could be, instead of a kind of boring procedural with some rather obvious plot points (like the son beats up his friend after the friend accidentally breaks the son’s tennis racquet and no one can figure out why he would do such a thing, and I’m all like, “Duh, characters on television, it was obviously his mom’s tennis racquet!”) and a few places here and there where the different worlds seem to leak into one another. (And this leaking doesn’t have as dire of consequences as on, say, Fringe. It’s more like the main character sees something in one world and it helps him solve crimes in the other world! And then everyone’s like, “How did you think of that?” And he’s like, “Uh, I’m Batman?”)
"You know, because that sounds less crazy than 'I saw it in a dream.'"
So, yeah, I want to like Awake as much as I was hoping to like it, but it’s really got to work a lot harder to earn my love.
Like, B.D. Wong and Cherry Jones could meet in one of the worlds and totally fist-fight over who's a better psychiatrist.
Yeah, I'd watch that show.
Nooooooooooooooo!
I just …
I can’t …
This is even worse than a possible live-action Akira, you guys. I mean, it’s so much worse. So, so, so, so much worse.
Are you ready?
I know you think you’re ready, but you couldn’t possibly be ready because this is some of the worst news ever.
I’m just sayin’, is all. You’re not ready.
Hollywood wants to make a Lone Wolf and Cub live-action film.
C'mon, Hollywood, there is no way you will possibly get this right, so why are you even trying, other than you hate me?
Yeah, yeah, I know. You think that’s as bad as it gets, right, because it’s going to SUCK SO BAD BECAUSE HOLLYWOOD IS JERKS AND HATES US, but that’s not all.
No: they’ve signed on the director of Fast Five to direct, because of course that guy would be able to craft an epic samurai revenge story.
Now that it's been pointed out to me, the similarities are so obvious. Like the samurai and the ... guys in cars. And the bushido and the ... guys in cars.
Goddammit, Hollywood.
You bastards.
Seriously, Hollywood, don't you get tired of being THIS EVIL?
You got your peanut butter in my healthcare!
And you got your healthcare in my peanut butter!
... And why are we protesting better healthcare again?
A less impressive crime spree
I think Bonnie & Clyde’s reign of terror wouldn’t have been quite so awe-inspiring were their names more like: Bonnie and Donnie.
Or Bonnie and Ronnie.
So, a bunch of kids get murdered, you say?
Yeah, I won’t be watching The Hunger Games this weekend.
Even though I do think Young Mystique is really pretty with dark hair and a bow.
(I also won’t be reading it, it turns out, even though it appears to be a well-written, interesting book.)
I've heard the writer was on some sort of crazy diet when she wrote it and had some sort of crazed obsession with food, which probably explains the title a bit.
I know, I know. “What is your problem?” I can hear you guys asking. (That, or I’ve had a psychotic break. Whichever.)
Anyway, my problem is this: When I asked all the teenagers I know (which is, you know, several teenagers), “Do all the kids die in the end?”, they were all like, “Well, yes, actually.”
And here’s the thing: I read Battle Royale. Or I tried to, anyway. I couldn’t finish it, because they kept killing all those kids. (And, yes, I know it was stupid of me to expect anything else from a series with a premise like “So a class of kids is taken off to this mysterious island, where they participate in a battle royale, leaving only one survivor,” but I kept thinking, “But not the basketball player, right? The basketball player’s a good kid! He’ll get out of this all right, won’t he? Right? Right?” [Spoiler alert: the basketball player does not get out of it all right.]) So I had to give up Battle Royale, unfinished. (I really liked the basketball player.)
Now, I don't mean to ruin the ending for anyone, but I'm pretty sure almost everyone dies. You know, premise and all.
And now you tell me The Hunger Games has a bunch of even younger kids facing off against each other in a … Battle Royale of sorts?
Do any of them -- *sniffle* -- play basketball?
So, yeah, I think I’ll be skipping it.
(Because I’m a wuss, that’s why.)
"One of the kids drowns in his own blood after he's shot in the throat with an arrow," the teenagers I know gleefully told me.
Jerks.
“Do you need a grownup to help you?”
So I was running a man’s credit card the other day, and he didn’t have enough on it to cover the transaction. So he gave me a different card … which also didn’t have enough on it.
“Dammit,” I said, preparing to go back and ask him for yet another card.
“Do you need a grownup to help you?” said the apprentice.
"Ha, ha, boy, that sure is funny, the way you implied I'm too immature to work a credit card machine, ha, ha!"
Yes, your new shoes are haunted
There’s no doubt about it. Your new shoes are haunted. Hell, they couldn’t be more haunted if they tried.
So how did you end up with a pair of haunted shoes?
(Really? You can’t remember? It must be all the possessing of your soul that’s been going on.)
Here’s the story of how you ended up with haunted shoes, told in 10 easy steps, because I’m running out of supernatural beings for teenaged girls to date:
1. We told you not to go to the murder house. But would you listen to us? No. No, you would not. “Don’t go to the murder house,” we said. “What’s that?” you replied. “I wasn’t listening, because I’m too busy going off to the murder house.”
Murder houses are the Disneyland of hauntings.
2. “And if you must go to the murder house, don’t buy anything at the estate sale,” we suggested.
But you were all hot to buy something at the murder house, weren’t you? “If I buy something at the murder house estate sale, then I’ll be the owner of something that I bought at the murder house estate sale,” you said, both logically and repetitively.
"Also, I can't WAIT to hold one of those little numbered signs."
3. So you went to the murder house estate sale, despite our strenuous objections, and there you began bidding. Really, you wanted to get the murder house steak knife set, which wasn’t actually used in the commission of any murders in the murder house, but still seemed pretty cool and possibly like it might be worth something on e-bay. “Genuine murder house steak knife set,” you considered as a listing.
4. Unfortunately, the bidding went a little beyond your price range, and someone else ended up with the steak knife set as well as the dead-eyed porcelain doll. To tell you the truth, we think you dodged a bullet there. Haunted shoes are bad enough, but those porcelain dolls are instruments of Satan himself.
"Why, yes, I do house thousands of horrors inside my tiny, porcelain body. How did you know?"
5. But when the haunted shoes came up, you managed to score them. “What’s a little blood on shoes?” the auctioneer said, while his assistant held up the blood-stained shoes while wearing a thick pair of gloves. “It gives them personality,” the auctioneer encouraged.
Let it not be said of you that you couldn't be easily persuaded by an enthusiastic auctioneer.
6. So when the estate sale was over, you went home with a pair of bloody shoes. “In fact,” you thought to yourself, “there seems to be even more blood on them now than when I first bought them, sort of like that elevator of blood in The Shining.”
After working at a mortuary for several months, I find myself desensitized to things like elevators of blood. Hell on my clothing, though.
7. And that’s when the haunting began. First it was the ghostly rapping and footsteps, and then it was the brief appearance of apparitions standing at the edge of your bed just as you were about to drop off to sleep, and finally it was the possessions.
Gah! I'm being haunted by a red, downward-pointing arrow!
8. That’s right, I said “Possessions.” We told you and told you: “Don’t wear the blood-stained shoes you bought at the murder house estate sale. Are you crazy?” “But they fit so nicely, and they’re quite stylish,” you said, and slipped them onto your feet, and slipped off into some kind of fugue state.
Your fugue state is less like a collection of short stories and more like a "how the hell did I get here and where did this head I'm carrying come from?" sort of thing.
9. And that’s how you ended up here. “Here?” Yes. In the murder house, gripping a set of steak knives and a dead-eyed porcelain doll. Also, you were moaning something about your eternal slumber being disturbed and how all must pay and something about “this soul now belongs to us.”
10. So, anyway, yes, your shoes are haunted, and, yes, your soul is now in the possession of the spirits that haunt the murder house. But if you manage to get control of your faculties long enough to throw the haunted items out the window to us, we promise we’ll put them up on e-bay in your memory.
Don't worry! We'll make sure you're memorialized as stupidly as "Arson," the little girl who "ironically" died in a fire.
I’m tempted to purchase a vanity plate
Now that my car’s license plates are affordable (whoo for being over 10 years old, car!), I want to get vanity plates that read 2221-B.
And then everyone who stops and tells me, "I get it!" will be my new BFFs.
Sherlock Holmes vs. Batman
Why, you ask?
Because I’m really running out of fictional characters that I’m familiar with to vie off against each other.
Also, because Batman and Sherlock Holmes are awesome.
Eh, I still prefer the Planetary crossover.
Now shut up or make fictional character battle suggestions in the comments.
Battle on!
Physicality. Sherlock Holmes is a tall, thin, somewhat homely fellow, except for when he’s portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., who doesn’t seem that tall (and totally isn’t, according to IMdB) or when he’s portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is tall and super good-looking and perfect and I wuv him! (Wait, what was my point here?) Right, right. Batman is tall, dark and Bruce Wayne-y, and sometimes looks like Christian Bale, who is the epitome of masculine beauty. Winner? This, my dear friends, would be a tie except see the bit about Benedict Cumberbatch above, whom I love as much as a crazed fangirl can love a man who portrays her favorite fictional detective ever. Sherlock Holmes.
Good news, Mr. Cumberbatch! London is much too far away for me to actually stalk you.
Better detecting abilities? Batman is the best detective in the whole DC universe. Like, what, his only competition is the Elongated Man, anyway. Sherlock Holmes is the best fictional detective of all time, ever, I don’t care what you mystery readers say, he always wins. Which means: Winner? Sherlock Holmes.
I just enjoy this picture very much is all.
Better arse-kicking abilities? Sherlock Holmes is a cerebral sort of guy. Not that he’s not willing to pugilize (shut up, I’m making new words) a few ne’er-do-wells here and there, or bend a few iron pokers or what have you, but he’s more than happy to sit back and armchair detect if that’s all it requires. Batman, on the other hand, will hurt you so bad that 20 years ago, your momma feels a sharp pain. Winner? Batman.
Also, once he beat up Superman.
More iconic costume? I know everyone immediately thought of the bat-nipples, and I want you to know that’s OK and I forgive you. Bat-nipples aside, the Bat costume sure is iconic. Although, toss on a trench coat, deerstalker cap and smoke a pipe, and everybody knows who you are at Halloween. Winner? Batman, by a bat-nipple.
Whoo, boy! Now that's what I call iconic.
More faithful sidekick? Batman’s faithful sidekick is Robin, except that Robin isn’t always the same person, and sometimes is a girl and sometimes gets killed and then brought back from the dead and then I don’t even know what. On the other hand, Sherlock Holmes’ faithful sidekick of lo these many years is, and always will be, Dr. John Watson, the faithfullest sidekick to ever kick. Sides. Whatever. Winner? Sherlock Holmes.
Lately, I've had a bit of a crush on Martin Freeman. Sure, it pales in comparison to my crush on Benedict Cumberbatch, but the light of the sun pales in comparison to that, so there you go.
Cooler means of transportation? Does the word Batmobile mean anything to you? And, if not, you need to mainline some DC comics, stat! Winner? Batman.
Once, my daughter got her picture taken in a Batmobile replica, because I am the best mom ever.
Is a rational, reasonably functioning human being? Ha ha ha ha, question I came up with, you make me laugh. One guy dresses up as a bat to fight crime. The other is Sherlock Holmes. On a scale of 1 to rational human being, these guys are 1/10 of a percent short of being the Joker.
Speaking of the Joker, who has a more deadly arch-nemesis? No matter how much Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to play up Moriarty, he really hadn’t made that much of a splash in the Holmesian London scene prior to The Final Problem. On the other hand, the Joker murders people like serial killing is going out of style. Winner? Batman.
Now I feel bad, because Heath Ledger is dead.
Holy crap, could Batman take this thing? Ha, you’d like to think so, wouldn’t you?
Hasn’t been ruined by Kevin Smith retroactively destroying everything good about Batman: Year One? I’ll never forgive you for that, Kevin Smith, you rat bastard. The goddamned Batman doesn’t wet himself. Winner? Sherlock Holmes.
I curse thee so hard that, years from now, your progeny will still feel the effects. Provided you have any progeny, because I'm too angry at you to find out.
Doesn’t have to be in dark and brooding movies to be awesome? Only on an excellent BBC series, amiright??? Winner? Sherlock Holmes.
Now you’re just stacking the questions. I am, at that.
Overall winner? Sherlock Holmes, by a slightly biased nose. That’s my nose. Biased. Right there. Biased. Whooooo! Go, Sherlock Holmes!
Also Benedict Cumberbatch. Go, Benedict Cumberbatch! Whoooo! ... Maybe my mom is right. Maybe I do need a real boyfriend.
