>SUPERVERBOSE

Kristen Wiig plays a recurring character on Saturday Night Live named Judy Grimes, whose schtick is that she's a travel expert, but gets much too nervous on air to give any travel tips. Instead, she just keeps negating herself, making a statement and then saying, "just kidding." As the sketch winds up, she eventually dives into some rapid-fire, bravura, all-in-one-breath monologue along these lines:

I'm fine. Besides, I... can't come back another time because I'm too busy -- just kidding, I'm not busy -- just kidding, I am but I don't have any time for you -- just kidding, I don't know how to make time -- just kidding, but I know how to make pies -- just kidding, I don't -- just kidding, I do, and I'll make one right now -- just kidding, I can't, because I don't have a pan -- just kidding, I do, but I gotta buy sugar -- just kidding, I have what I need, but I don't have a stove -- just kidding, there's a stove under here, it's hot -- ouch! -- just kidding, there's no stove under here, there's one at my house, let's go there right now -- just kidding, we can't all go together, it's hard to travel in a group -- just kidding, we can't do it because my car's not big enough -- just kidding, we're in right now, this whole studio's my car -- just kidding, it isn't -- just kidding, it is -- beep, beep! Get out of my way! -- just kidding, we're not in my car -- just kidding, I wrecked my car -- just kidding, I ran into a tree -- just kidding, it was a bush -- just kidding, it was a man, he was very upset -- just kidding, he laughed -- just kidding, he died -- just kidding, it was a dream -- just kidding, it wasn't a dream, it was a movie I rented -- just kidding, I bought it, and now I regret it, it wasn't very good -- just kidding, it was okay -- just kidding!

This is exactly the narrative structure of David Lapham's Young Liars. Oh, it starts out coherent enough. There's a great premise -- a guy in love with a girl who has a bullet in her brain, which makes her utterly fearless, obedient but unpredictable, and constantly in danger of death. There's a bevy of fun supporting characters. There's a breathless, rock & roll aesthetic, which veers from extremes of violence to heartbreaking tenderness. There's a bunch of compelling, plotty twists and turns, intriguing flashbacks, and dark foreshadowing, with a killer climax at the end of issue #6.

Unfortunately, it then goes on for 12 more issues.

In those issues, Lapham breaks down everything he's built up over the first six to replace it with something else. And then he does it again. And again. And again. Oh, the next part of the story is Sadie's coma dream. Just kidding, it's real and she's an alien from Mars. Just kidding, a different character is the alien. Just kidding, the narrator is a schizophrenic. Just kidding, he's sane but he's being manipulated by a conspiracy. Just kidding, the conspiracy is the aliens. Just kidding, the aliens are taking over the conspiracy. Just kidding, the aliens are just a metaphor for corporate takeover. Just kidding, the narrator is a liar. Just kidding, everybody's a liar. Just kidding, this is all stories told by a psychotic washed-up rock star. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. The first time one of these shifts happens, it's intriguing. Then it's shocking and enthralling. Then it's confusing. Then irritating. Then maddening. Then really, really boring.

I read all 18 issues of Young Liars in one day. Stray Bullets made me a fan of Lapham, so I decided to subscribe to YL, but my time is highly circumscribed, so the series started and ended before I began reading it. What this experience crystallized for me is that I deeply dislike this narrative structure. Don't get me wrong -- I dig some reality-bending in a story. It's a great spice. What I do not dig is when the story's basic reality gets fractured so often or so severely that I no longer know what the story's basic reality even is anymore. If I go long enough with no idea what is real, it turns out I really no longer care what is real, and the whole thing gets much less interesting. Plus, I completely lose faith that interesting plot danglers from early on are going to be paid off in any coherent way.

I read a great dissection of Heroes, which very accurately described it as a narrative Ponzi scheme, constantly borrowing from the future to disguise the fact that it's actually based on nothing. This is Young Liars' problem as well. Between this, the disappointing run on Detective Comics, and the indefinite cessation of Stray Bullets (along with my vanished faith that that series will ever draw its strands together), I think I'm done with David Lapham now. He's a fantastic stylist, but it turns out I'm only impressed by that when it's paired with good storytelling.

Early in my Buffy-watching project, I swore off both DVD extras and Television Without Pity recaps, because they were just way too spoiler-laden. Now that I've finished watching all episodes of Buffy and Angel, I'm (slowly!) going back through the whole saga, reading the recaps and watching the extras.

I just finished season three of Buffy for the second time, and am amazed anew. What a marvelous achievement. It's just such great television, and this time through I found myself appreciating a couple of things that had passed me by the first time:

( Here begin the spoilers )

I became an Etta James fan in kind of a backwards way. Being quite the dedicated Eurythmics fan back in the 80's, I even paid attention to their quirky little side projects. One of these was the soundtrack for a 1989 movie called Rooftops, which I never saw but was apparently fairly awful. Dave Stewart did some songs for it, and one of these was a track called "Avenue D", on which Etta was the vocalist. I didn't really know who she was, aside from the fact that I recognized her name and knew she'd been around a while. I did read a little article saying something like, "Dave Stewart does his best work when paired with a soulful singer, and James certainly fills the bill." I was at NYU at the time -- I actually remember listening to the 45 at Tower Records, liking the song, and buying it. I really dug her performance on that song. I looked into her a little more (which in those pre-Internet days meant just paying attention to what records of hers were in the stores), and found that she had done a comeback album the previous year called Seven Year Itch. A friend and I split the cost of the cassette, and I really liked that too. I bought her next couple of records, then lost track of her for a while.

10 years or so later, I became conscious of "At Last", again in a backwards way -- Stevie did a cover of it at a benefit concert where everybody sang standards. I fell in love with the song then, and heard Etta's version later in the movie Pleasantville, and loved it again. Still, I never got around to pursuing her further, until this past Christmas, when I put The Essential Etta James on my Amazon wish list, and received it. I'd been listening to it a lot in the car when I heard that she was coming to Boulder in concert. I decided that I needed to go, and I found a fantastic ticket online: 2nd row aisle seat.

( Peculiarity ensues )

I've just seen Watchmen again, this time in IMAX, and now I think I'm ready to write about it. There are a number of people (say, for example, Adam) who found the Watchmen graphic novel to be one of the best things ever. I do not fall into this group. Don't get me wrong -- I love Alan Moore, and I liked the book very much, but I didn't find it overwhelmingly compelling and revelatory in the way that some people do. To me it felt like a good, well-written story that resisted superhero clichés in some interesting ways. A solid B or B+.

Now, I think there were a couple of things working against me at the time I read it. One was the fact that I read it in the mid-90s rather than the mid-80s. By that time, various aspects of it had been frequently imitated in various ways, and what was revolutionary and groundbreaking about it no longer seemed so.

Laura has a story about being assigned Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler in a college class, and complaining to the professor, "These guys write in such a clichéd style, it's driving me crazy!" To which her professor of course replied, "No, no, see, these guys invented this style. It was their thousands of imitators who turned it into a cliché." Well, I had a bit of the Hammett/Chandler effect going when I read Watchmen, even though intellectually I understood that Moore was the originator. His ideas just couldn't have the same impact on me that they would have had if I'd read them first.

My other disadvantage is the fact that the book is so highly and universally praised. Reading something after hearing bunches of people call it The Most Awesome Thing Ever I Mean Ever can hardly help but be a slightly disappointing experience. It's the expectation theory.

Well, having read quite a bit of the press around the movie and how it compares to the book, I think it's safe to say that I missed entire layers of that book in my first reading. I'd really love to reread the graphic novel, perhaps with some kind of Annotated Watchmen alongside it. (Okay Watchmen book, go stand over there in the line marked "to read." Yes, I know there are 112 books in the line. Hey, I pick randomly from the group, so maybe you'll get lucky.) Like the book, I think the movie benefits from repeated viewings. I know I was catching things this time around that completely passed me by on the first viewing. However, my overall opinion remains the same, which is that it is a very enjoyable superhero movie, with a great story, some excellent writing, magnificent visuals, and a couple of sublime performances, but it is also significantly flawed in certain ways.

( From here, it gets a little spoilery )

It occurs to me, albeit many years later than it should have, that when I have some writing appear elsewhere on the net I should probably post a pointer to it here.

So, in that spirit: I've written a review of Peter Nepstad's epic IF game 1893 for IF-Review.

Oh, it's a sad, sad day. It's now official: I've seen every episode of every Joss Whedon show. I suppose it's a happy day, really -- it's been a very satisfying journey since the day I saw Serenity (October 1, 2005, as it happens.) Still, I can't help feeling a little grief at the fact that I'll never watch another new episode of Buffy or Angel.

Well, at least I had a good sendoff. I was quite pleased with this season of Angel. Like season 7 of Buffy, the show found its feet again after a dreary and depressing previous season. It was both funny and thrilling, with a solid premise that was low on the endless angst and high on the superheroics of old. Not only that, it had a lovely elegiac quality, bringing back moments and characters from previous seasons like some kind of victory lap, or maybe a greatest hits album.

( Do I even have to start with how spoiled you all are? )

And thus it ends. But hey: only 74 days to Dollhouse!

The crowd at the Boulder Theater on Wednesday night was largely composed of a) hipsters and b) young gay men. There is a fair amount of overlap between these groups. Thick glasses, retro fashions, and big sideburns were much in evidence.

The show was a lot more like a recital than a rock and roll concert. All acoustic instruments, all players seated. From house left to house right they were:

Shirley Simms (vocals only)
Claudia Gonson (piano & vocals)
John Woo (guitar)
Sam Davol (cello)
Stephin Merritt (bouzouki & vocals)

Gonson did most of the talking, and she did it in this very spacey, random, funny persona, which she blamed on lack of oxygen. Merritt threw in the occasional deadpan remark. There was quite a bit of talking between the songs, which I enjoyed very much. A dominant theme was the invention of narrative connections among the songs in the setlist -- for instance, after "The Nun's Litany": "And why did she enter the abbey? Well, you see, one year earlier..." leading to "All My Little Words." There was also quite a bit of comedy interplay, like so:

GONSON: This next song is about Stephin's dog, whose ears are... huge. They're like... they're as big as his head. Would you agree, Stephin?
MERRITT: His ears are *part* of his head.
GONSON: Yeah, but... you know what I... well anyway, it's called "Walking My Gargoyle." One, two, three, four...

For the rest of the show, chihuahua references ensued. "Let's pretend the narrator of this song is also a chihuaha! All the characters are chihuahuas -- then it could be made into a number one movie. Maybe if they remade Pieces Of April with an all-chihuahua cast..." (Merritt did the soundtrack for Pieces Of April, the mention of which also led to much musing on what Oliver Platt is doing these days. Quoth Merritt: "One of the worst things about being on tour is that sometimes you want to look something up on IMDb, but you can't, because you're on stage!")

Even though their new album is all heavy distortion (hence its title) and fuzz, everything sounded totally clean at the concert. It was beautiful. All the cleverness was out there to shine, and the sad and lovely parts were heart-piercing. Apparently Merritt suffers from hyperacuity in his left ear, meaning he's quite sensitive to certain frequencies, including applause. I could see him hold his ear whenever the clapping began, and he kept slipping a silver earplug in and out, including the time when Gonson was rambling to him about some topic, and after a couple of minutes he pulled out his earplug and said, "What?"

The set list was great too -- a healthy mix of old and new, Mag Fields and side bands (Gothic Archies, 6ths, etc). I was thrilled to have some of my all-time favorites included -- "No One Will Ever Love You"; "Yeah! Oh Yeah!"; "Drive On, Driver"; "Grand Canyon"; "The Book Of Love."

All in all, a very good time was had by me. Too bad I had to go to work the next day when I should really have been sleeping!

My first exposure to Marillion came in 1985, when a local radio station started playing "Kayleigh" semi-regularly. I adored that song, and my friend Kevin was a fan of the band, so I taped the Misplaced Childhood album from him. Well, I liked that album enough that when its sequel Clutching At Straws came out in 1987, I bought it right away. I even had a big poster of the album cover in my room, thanks to my job-at-the-time with a record store. Both those albums stayed on heavy rotation throughout my high school years. The driving, Who-ish music was great, but what I loved the most were the poetic lyrics, passionate intensity, and thrilling voice of the lead singer, a chap who went by the handle "Fish". (His real name is Derek Dick -- I guess I'd pick a pseudonym too.)

Sadly, after Clutching, Fish left the band, and I stopped paying attention. Marillion released more stuff with a new singer, but it didn't captivate me, and as far as I knew, Fish disappeared completely. If only the Internet had been around in those days, I'd have learned soon enough that he'd done no such thing. Instead, he came out with a solo album a mere 3 years later, but I never saw that album -- Fish is Scottish, and I guess as a solo artist he didn't have a big US distribution deal the way Marillion did. He then went on to release eight more solo albums, the latest of which, 13th Star, came out earlier this year. I never bought any of these, even once I knew they existed, because as imports, they all carried high price tags. Since post-band solo work is often inferior, it felt like too much money to spend for the risk involved. However, when I saw he was touring the US for the first time in 10 years and playing a lot of late Marillion material, I decided I needed to go. Even better, I figured out that I could download 13th Star from iTunes for almost half of what Amazon wants for it. Thanks, Internet!

( Good thing I did, too! )

The Hulk isn't a superhero. He exists in a world of superheroes, and he was created second (just after the Fantastic Four) during the most legendary superhero-creation-spree of all time, Stan Lee's run at re-envisioning costumed crusaders for the 1960s. But he's not a superhero, any more than Godzilla, Frankenstein's creature, or the Wolfman are superheroes. (Though they, too, were all adapted into comics form by Marvel.) He's a monster. He comes out of the tradition of monster comics that Lee was writing just before he invented the FF, and although the Green Goliath constantly encountering Spider-Man, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, and so forth, as a character he has very little in common with any of them. He was one of the original Avengers, but there's a reason why his membership only lasted two issues.

Superheroes are people (or entities who might as well be people) with extraordinary abilities, trying to do good. The Hulk, at least in his most famous incarnation, lacks the mental capacity to form such an intention. Although superpowered (what with being the strongest individual in the world), he is no hero. He's a pure destructive force, extremely dangerous to anyone and anything he encounters. Sure, he's misunderstood, and he's constantly trying, unsuccessfully, to be left alone, but the Army is right to try to neutralize him. He's like an unstoppable, indestructible, infintely strong, emotionally abused toddler who lacks any sort of parental figure. The only control on him is his alter ego, who (understandably) is constantly trying to eliminate his greenish tendencies, but of course, if that happened, there would be no story. So it's never going to happen in any permanent way.

All this presents quite a problem when you're making a Hulk movie. You're stuck with a monster movie that you have to somehow sell as a superhero movie, because in the mistaken public mind, the Hulk is a superhero. So what do you do? You make him sympathetic (not hard given his misunderstood quality.) You make Banner really likeable and tie the two together so that it's clear that the Hulk, dangerous as he is, is a cage that's wrongfully imprisoning a good person. You taint the intentions of the Army, who really ought to be the heroes of this story, so that they turn from protectors of humanity to destroyers of it. Finally, you provide a villain who's as powerful as the Hulk but is genuinely evil rather than just rampant, so that we must root for the Hulk to emerge, becuase he's the only thing that has a chance of stopping this other force.

Louis Leterrier does all these things successfully in The Incredible Hulk, but he does one more thing too: he stuffs the movie with so many sly references to comic and TV lore that it firmly establishes itself, especially in the wake of Iron Man, as a clear attempt at putting the Marvel Universe on screen. For me, at least, that was where the fun really came alive.

( HULK SPOIL!!! )

Overall, The Incredible Hulk was a whole lot of fun, especially considering the lukewarm buzz behind it, and it got me very excited indeed to see what's next from Marvel Studios.

Season three of Angel had a great arc, and a cliffhanger ending. Season four resolved the cliffhanger well enough and managed a couple of strong episodes, only to descend into a disappointing spiral, full of bewildering choices, shredded continuity, and the same kind of personal disintegration that characterized season 6 of Buffy. As a whole, these episodes had less humor and fewer highs than ever before. The show recovered some ground for the final third of its season, luckily, and wound up in a head-scratcher of an ending that certainly piques my interest in the beginning of season 5.

( Turgid, supernatural spoilers within )

If you don't know who Northern State is, and you very well might not, here's the lowdown. Northern State is an indie hip-hop group with an unusual composition. They're three white college-educated women from Long Island (their name is after the Northern State Parkway, a Long Island highway) who've made three ridiculously fun records. Think of the Go-Go's crossed with the Beastie Boys. Their handles are Hesta Prynn, Sprout, and Spero. They write rhymes like this: "My name is Sprout, née / Now call me Tasia Mae / And don't miss the buffet at my birthday soiree / I'm a workaday gourmet / I sauté and flambé and purée / from Broadway through Norway and the UK / If you like my wordplay then enjoy my essay / And forget the thruway cos we rep the parkway / And I've got cachet and a blue beret / And I'll wear it while I ballet in your chalet."

I came across them in 2003, pretty much by accident, and have become a big fan. This is sort of an odd thing. I'm basically a rock and roll guy -- rap really never interested me much at all (MC Frontalot's "It Is Pitch Dark" being an IF-geeky exception.) Somehow, though, Northern State captivated me from the first time I heard them -- the fuller story is here. Anyway, living in Colorado as I do, I had to wait until November of 2007 to see them live, when they came to Boulder opening for Tegan and Sara. It was worth the wait, though -- I had a marvelous time at the show, and vowed to see them anytime they came here. Just this month, that opportunity came again as they swung through on a headlining tour. That night was even better than the first, so much so that I want to be sure to capture some of those memories in writing. It's really one of those journal entries that's more for me than anybody else, but somebody might enjoy it.

( So here goes. )

I've never been a fan of Robert Downey, Jr. Not because of all his personal struggles (though his judgement has certainly been less than impressive many times), but because I felt like he was a one-note actor who could only play smarmy jerks. Also, Iron Man himself has always been a character I could take or leave. I never had much against him, but never sought out his adventures either. Consequently, I wondered if seeing Iron Man would be an unpleasant repeat of the Ghost Rider experience -- an actor who annoys me playing a superhero I don't care about.

Well Robert, all is forgiven. You were fantastic. And Shellhead, you're more interesting to me than you've ever been, thanks to this movie, a note-perfect film distillation of Iron Man comics. The movie does an absolutely stellar job of making Iron Man an emblematic hero for our current historical moment, and makes Stan Lee's concepts seem smarter and more prescient than they ever were (not that they were dumb!)

( They say the best movie is one you never have to spoil. I prefer the movie you only have to spoil once. )

Highly recommended.

Season 6 of Buffy was all about degradation -- the characters debased themselves, their relationships disintegrated, and the Big Bad herself was a nightmare version of Buffy's beloved friend. Season 7, on the other hand, exudes synthesis and uplift. "I have so much strength, I'm giving it away," says Buffy, and strength is what we see, both within and without her. Friendships mend, and it's once again the strength of Buffy's team that allows them to fight the forces arrayed against her. The routine of Good vs. Evil battling it out in Sunnydale has become a bit worn by now, and consequently this season can't quite reach the peaks of the show's extraordinary middle period (seasons 2-4.) Nevertheless, I was really happy with season 7. It was a satisfying and well-executed end to a terrific journey.

( And now, all the spoilery specifics )

I liked season 1 a lot, and I liked season 2 even more, but season 3 was where I came to really love The Office. The show does many many things well, and at the front of the line are plotting and characterization. The former takes spectacular advantage of continuity to provide some deeply satisfying moments, while the latter provides hundreds of funny and subtly moving gems. As a bonus, the whole thing also provides some fascinating food for thought about the camera-aware culture of Reality Show America.

( Oompah-loompah-doompity-doilers. If you click here, then you will read spoilers. )

I became a Rilo Kiley fan when I heard "Portions For Foxes" a couple of times on my Launchcast station. I loved that song in so many ways -- it became one of my favorites of the year, and when I bought the album, I was delighted to find that pretty much the entire thing was great. I resolved then that the next time they came to Denver, I'd see them.

Well, on Sept. 11th they arrived, at a little theater called the Ogden. Unfortunately, they were touring in support of their new album, which I think is Just Okay. The musicianship is still good, and Jenny Lewis's voice still sounds great, but above all it's lyrics that I care about, and in that department this album is bland as bland can be. In addition, they seem to have shifted away from indie rock and alt.country to a more generic AOR sound, with disco accents. Not that there's anything wrong with that sound, mind, but it's a little less exciting than what they'd been doing previously. Just about any song on More Adventurous is more interesting than the entirety of Under The Blacklight. Really, any verse of "Portions For Foxes" is more interesting than the whole new album.

So their set was focused heavily on new songs, which made the show a little more blah than I wanted it to be. On the other hand, I enjoyed the old stuff quite a lot, and I thought the band in general sounded great and had a good stage presence. There's a strong meme going around the rock critic world that Rilo Kiley is the new Fleetwood Mac (my taste seems to be consistent, if nothing else), and while I think the comparison is pretty overblown, I could see some similarities at the show. Blake Sennett is like a cross between Lindsey Buckingham and a movie college professor, essaying wild guitar solos into the crowd while dressed in tweeds and bow tie. And Jenny Lewis may not have much on Stevie Nicks lyrically, but she's got a great voice and she does play an instrument.

The most exciting part of the show for me, though, was the first opening band, a San Diego group called Grand Ole Party (a terrible name, but whatever.) They set up with a guitarist and bass player on either side of a short drum kit. The woman who sat in the center playing the drums was also the lead singer (using a head mic a la Britney Spears), and wow, what a singer. Her name is Kristin Gundred, and she was like one part Moe Tucker, three parts Grace Slick. Her voice is just astonishing, and throughout their set I kept finding that my mouth was literally hanging open. I even bought their CD at the merch booth after the set, which is something I don't think I've ever done before for an opening band. Gundred herself was selling them, and I asked her if she hears the Grace Slick comparison a lot. She said, "well, I was obsessed with Grace when I was 13-14 years old, so it's not a big surprise." Keep an eye on this woman -- she's incredibly talented, and if there's any justice in the world, she's going to be a big success. (Assuming she doesn't somehow self-destruct, that is.)

After watching season 1, I expressed the hope that the element of pain and suffering remains in the show as time goes on, saying that "its satire would be pretty toothless if the characters weren't actually in pain." Well, in season 2, the characters are still in pain, but much work is done to rehabilitate our feelings towards those who inflict the lion's share of that pain. By the end of the season's first episode, it became clear to me that the show was taking a turn away from vicious, biting satire and into a softer, more traditional sitcom feeling, albeit with generous doses of that uncomfortable spirit that is the hallmark of season 1. All of the characters gain more depth; we gain more sympathy towards the "villains", see flaws in the "heroes", and get to know a wide range of quirks in the surrounding characters. And yeah, as a result, the satire loses some of its sting.

I worried when I saw this turn taking place. I thought that maybe the show would turn its back on the savage spirit that made it so dark and funny to begin with. That doesn't happen, really -- it just adds some sweetness to the cocktail, morphing from a straight shot of whiskey into more of a Manhattan. The writing stays sharp, the jokes stay funny, and a little grace is thrown into the mix to stop us from ever really hating any of the characters. And here's the thing: it turns out that I enjoy a good story with ongoing characters and clever jokes even more than I enjoy razor-sharp satire. Thus, to my slight surprise, this season of The Office worked even better for me than did the first. So let the notes begin:

( Not that there's anything wrong with spoilers. If they're consensual. )

I'd always heard that the British version of The Office was hilarious, but I never got around to watching it. When the American one premiered, I heard great things about that too, but I didn't really make the time for it, basically because I already had enough shows to watch. This was to the mild chagrin of my two closest friends at work, who are big fans and would love to share it with me. Well, now that a member of my family is working on the show, I figure it's time to catch up so that I can fully enjoy season 4. Towards that end, I've bought the DVD sets of the first two seasons (no idea yet what I'm going to do about season 3), and I've just finished the first one.

I have to say: I really, really like it. I'm shocked at how different it is from what I think of as a sitcom -- no laugh track, very naturalistic acting style, mostly handheld camera. It's so refreshing, so dark, and so funny. I find it heartening that a show like this can actually be a success on network TV. I also kind of can't believe for Ryan's sake that he actually gets to work on a show that's really good. The odds of getting a job as a TV comedy writer seem long, but the odds of getting a job on a good show seem EXTREMELY long. I'm still kind of stunned.

Anyway, here are a few semi-spoilery notes:

( I wish every day was Spoiler Day )

My friend Trish gave us this book shortly before Dante was born. She'd read it when her daughter was an infant, and found it tremendously helpful. Lamott's a very Trishy writer -- I can see why she felt reflected by it. In a fine emblem of my life, I never managed to get around to reading it until after Dante had turned two. Then again, Dante was a relatively easy baby -- good sleeper, not colicky, only occasionally subject to fits of rage. Perhaps if he'd been different, I would have sought solace in Lamott's words. I'm pleased to have read it at last, though, because I enjoyed it a lot.

( More within )

Amid the depressing degeneration that characterized season 6 of Buffy, it was a pleasure to watch season 3 of Angel. It didn't grip me the way that some previous seasons of Buffy have, but it was solid, enjoyable television, with lots of good surprises and dramatic twisty turns. Strangely, though, it wasn't the main plot that I found most compelling, but rather the thematic unity that draws together some of the season's most important events aside from the main plot.

( It's about the spoilers, bro. )

I wasn't a fan of the first Fantastic Four movie, so I went into this one with trepidation. I suppose a more rational person just wouldn't go at all, but I am not that person. I'm a big fan of the FF, and the last movie did provide some things I liked, so I'm not going to just stay home. I went hoping to find some enjoyable moments, and I did. I found some enjoyable moments, surrounded by a sea of suck.

( The spoilery breakdown )