I Am Amused

So, I am sitting on the couch with my father. The TV is on. He is reading the news. And I am too.



On my laptop.

Criminal Minds at Paley Center - Introduction

First, Monday night was awesome.

Secondly, I drove, like, all over SoCal that day - including going out for drinks all the way out at Shoreline Village in Long Beach after the seminar. Which means I'm still recovering. Which means this recap is much later than I'd meant for it to be. Which means my memory may be fading already. Which means that in order to avoid misquoting people: *this* means they said something sort of similar to what is between the asterix while "this" means that they said exactly what is between the quotes.

Now - onto the recap!

Before they brought the cast and crew onstage, they showed us tonight's episode, which was very good. It was lots of fun to watch in a theatre full of fans. It also went by really quickly. Even though I watch everything on TiVo now, so I'm used to no commericals, I tend to pause a lot to get up for snacks or even to rewind scenes because they were just that awesome so the ending kinda snuck up on me. (The quickness of it, not the general way it ended.)

But I digress. The ep was good. (Reid tells a joke. To a class full of students. I shit you not. And it goes over about as well as you expect it to. And this week's shoutout goes to Numb3rs. And interestingly enough, it is more of a shoutout than a pointing and laughing kind of thing. There was a little bit of mockery, but much less than CSI got.) The ep was really good, actually. No surprise there.

Even better, though, was when it was over and they brought everyone out!

Kristen came first, then AJ, Ed, and Deborah. Which made sense because then no one had to walk past anyone else to get to their chairs. But then they mixed it all up and out came Matthew (who practically bounded down the stairs) then Shemar, Paget, Thomas, and Joe - except that they all sat in the reverse order. (It may be that Kristen, AJ, Ed and Deborah are the smart ones of the group and Matthew and the rest simply messed everything up by sitting in the first seat instead of the last. Or it may be that the Paley Center wasn't really thinking logistically. dunno.)

The point of this excess of information being that everyone in the front row had to awkwardly squeeze past increasingly more people to get to their seat - which lead to Thomas doing a fake dive past Matthew, Shemar, and Paget towards his chair.

Thomas Gibson? Is an absolute freakin' clown.

(and I mean the funny kind, not the scary serial killer kind.)

Sadly, I shall have to leave you hanging for now.

More to come, I promise!

Edited to correct Deborah Spera's name and to include Paget - how did I forget Paget!!!!!!??????

Swell!

I'm re-watching the first dvd I ever owned - Pleasantville - which I haven't seen in years.

and it's freakin' cracking me up.

not because it's so funny, but bc

1) the logo swish at the beginning of the dvd is for "New Line Home Video"

2) there is no sound on this dvd until the movie starts

3) I'd totally forgetten about Reese Witherspoon and Don Knotts

4) didn't that syrup just spill onto the table?

5) omg! Paul Walker!

6) and Marc Blucas!!!!!

7) how did I miss that lack of toilets in the restroom all those other times I've watched this movie?

8) why does Pleasantville even have a lover's lane? (I guess even Pleasantville needs something to caution their kids about)

9) kids screwing causes a king sized bed to appear at the department store?

10) the portfolio

11) ha! the townspeople that make up the crowd are arranged in neat rows when "Bud" gets his medal

12) dude! Jonathon!

(I always hated how he explained Huckleberry Finn)

13) Pleasantville Public Library - the sign is color!

14) Big Bob is pinning George :)

15) ok, so, the make-up explains the skin, but how did the hair go back to b&w?

(I love that when she asks if it looks ok, he doesn't answer yes, he says that it looks like it did. i also love that Bill is more interested in the impressionists and abstract paintings than the naked people)

16) and David explains the movie to the stupid people in the audience

17) so....the kids don't know what rain is - but the adults do?

18) so.......the national anthem isn't allowed (if it's recorded)?

"Across the Universe" is such the perfect song to end on .....and it makes me want to re-watch Across the Universe

overall, I love the unsubtleness of it all. anvil-sized metaphors and themes to be sure, but back in the dark ages before the internets - before finding people who I could discuss tv and movies with - (and in the absence of any decent media literacy in school) I must admit that I kinda needed the anvil-sized metaphors to help me see that movies could be more intellectual than Sneakers. that's part of why i love Buffy, too. that show taught me more about film as literature than just about anything else out there.

Librarians Invade Disneyland!

Despite the fact that ALA wasn't any more useful professionally than CLA (possibly less), it was vastly more entertaining.

Largely because

1) Holly Black is completely awesome and I am so very cool bc I (and several dozen other librarians) own signed ARCs of her new book - which isn't out until October.

2) Cory Doctorow is even more awesome in person than in cyberspace. I did not think such a thing was possible.

3) Publishers love to give away free books (and posters) to librarians. (or sell them so cheaply they may as well be) We love publishers back. (our feet and back both disagree, however)

4) Authors like to sign the free books. We already adored the authors. We're not sure we can possibly adore them more than we already do.

5) Disneyland!

and best of all:

6) Book Cart Drill Team Championship. This so needs to be an Olympic Sport. I'd travel to another country to see that event.

When Space Westerns and Lifetime Television Collide

Lifetime Makeover - now Dress-up Challenge - includes Princess Leia buns as a hairstyle option.

(and they say girls don't like Star Wars)



Leia, ready for a night out on the town.



I seriously cannot stop giggling.

They No Longer Spend Pitch Meetings Looking for the Button That Opens the Secret Trapdoor

You have no idea how much I wish I had a copy of the recording they did of the panel on Superhero Comics at the Festival.

Its not that I want to listen to it over and over again (it was funny, but not that funny) its that there were tons of hilarious quotes that I can't really quote 'cuz I'm not going to get them quite right. So as you read all the stuff below? Remember that it's being filtered through my crappy auditory memory. Take even the stuff in quotes with several teaspoonfuls of salt. Also, I make no claims to accuracy when it comes to the order in which things were discussed.

With that said, here goes:

The panel was kicked off with each creator being asked to describe how they got from Comics to Hollywood. Mignola and Niles had fairly similar stories. Someone fairly influential liked their comic and wanted it made into a movie. For Niles, it was Sam Raimi. For Mignola, it was Benecio Del Toro - not that Del Toro got things going, more that he kept them going and made sure that things went well. Both at this point and throughout the talk, both Niles and Mignola were very emphatic about having a powerful ally working on the project who was also a fan of the comic itself being essential to it being a decent movie that still resembled their work. Or something like that, anyway.

Loeb said that it went the opposite way for him. He had always loved comics, but started out in Hollywood instead (didn't think he could make a living at comics) and then one day DC called him up and asked him if he would like to write a comic for them.

Before I continue, (1) Loeb is an awesome oral storyteller; I very much fear that my recap will fail to do any justice to his talent. (2) I'm sure there was more to this story than he let on. See #1

Loeb said "of course!" and "Can I write Superman?" "Um, we already have someone for that." "Batman" ditto and on down the line. Turns out they wanted him to do The Challengers. (and yeah, that story is even funnier in retrospect now that I'm more familiar with his resume)

The second question had to do with graphical nature of graphic novels and whether that made them easier to translate into film. All said yes. Having pictures helps studio people visualize what you are talking about, especially when those pictures closely resemble storyboards. Loeb (or Mignola?), mimicking execs internal diologue: "Oh, so you meant this really cool spaceship, not the pencil shaped thing that was in my head." Niles also mentions that, when originally pitching 30 Days, the studio people probably pictured scores of vampires running across the snow in Bela Lugosi capes.

The next question (I think) had to do with whether or not it's easier to pitch Superhero movies now than it used to be. Everyone's reply can be boiled down to "duh - you have seen the figures for the Spiderman movies, yes?" (I kept thinking, don't forget LoTR! It's success certainly helped as well. Geeks Unite!) Someone - Mignola or Loeb, I think - pointed out that time has helped as well, that it it's not just a single hit, but several successful movies, and people getting used to the idea of Superhero movies, untill finally Superhero movies are treated as just another genre rather than an unknown. (File this thought away, it will come up again later.)

They said that it was still hard to pitch comics as movies, especially if you aren't pitching one of the big names (Spiderman, Superman, Batman) but that "It used to be that they seemed to be looking for that secret button that open the trapdoor under you." Not anymore.

One of the other things that helped, obviously, has been the advances in cg. There was talk about how they used to say that movies would never replace comic creators, because there was stuff they could do that would just look dumb in movies. You could never get Spiderman to swing from a web and make it look real! Loeb: But then (?) and I went to the screening of Teminator 2 at Comicon. Beforehand, we weren't really sure what it was going to be like because Schwarzenegger actually had to talk in this one. We left the screening and I turned to him and said "we're screwed."

They still fuck everything up, though, apparently :) (shocker, I know) Niles talked about some guy who was working on 30 Days in the script stage. Nobody seemed to get why the Vampires were in Alaska. (wha?) So this one guy suggested that maybe Vampires were searching for a diamond that was buried underground in Alsaka. (wtf?) A diamond that would make them daywalkers! "He doesn't work there anymore. Not because of that, but I think he tried pitching the diamond idea for every movie." There was also mention of certain people wanting to call the Hellyboy sequel HB2 Instead. (why, exactly would one want to do that?)

This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzier, but the conversation at some point turned to DVD sales, what is still hard about pitching Superhero movies, and how much money movies actually need to make. The gist of that part of the conversation was: studio people don't pay enough attention to DVD sales because DVDs and movie production are different divisions, but it's getting better. They always want to change lots of things, some of which needs to change because comics are so much longer than movies, some of which is completely in opposition to the heart of the story, and some of which is necessary in order to appeal to a larger audience. "The truth is that even the best selling comics only have a fraction of the audience that movies need to make money." Or something like that.

I don't remember when or why, but the topic of what terms people prefer came up (ie, comics, graphic novel, etc.) and they all agreed "comics." Niles joked about Raimi referring to comics by some complicated term "graphical something or other." Someone (Loeb or Niles) made the amusing remark to a studio person that it was ok to call them comics, "graphic novels was the term we made up for you guys!"

It was also established that we were all "geeks." "You all know the difference between geeks and nerds, right? All of you in this room right now, you're all geeks, not nerds." (I beg to differ, but then I'm the idiot that didn't even know he worked on Heroes before he mentioned it, so I think he'd make an exception for me.)

At some point Loeb told several amusing stories about working in Hollywood:

The first movie he worked on was this low budget film called Teen Wolf (cheers from the crowd) While working on it, he'd tell people about it and mention who was in it and people would say. "Oh, that kid from Silver Spoons, right?" But then two things happened, Family Ties was moved to directly after The Cosby Show and Michael J. Fox was picked to be the star of a little movie called Back to the Future. heh.

That lead to the story about the movie thought he was going to be able to retire on: Firestorm. It was starring Howie Long. No reaction from the audience to that name, prompting Loeb to say that we obviously weren't football fans. That prompted some laughter. :) He explained who Howie Long was and that the great thing about Howie Long was that you knew he could talk. Anyway, things were going well and it was getting closer and closer to the release date, and then an Important Studio person broke the bad news. The studio had just finished making the most expensive movie ever made. And it was going to completely flop. Loeb knew he was telling the truth because people were literally packing up their offices in cardboard boxes and leaving. It was going to be that bad. So they needed to release a bunch of other movies at the same time to cover their losses. Firestorm was moved from fall to January. That's ok, Loeb thought, it should still be ok.

So, the flop? Was Titanic.

His last story was about the call that got him working on Heroes. A Hollywood buddy of his called him and said he needed some advice. Loeb figured that he was buying a vineyard and retiring or something, 'cuz he couldn't think of what this person would need his advice for. So they met and it turns out that this buddy had the brilliant idea of doing a Superhero type show and needed to talk to someone who knew Superheros. They spent hours talking, with the guy pitching ideas and Loeb responding by saying, that sounds fantastic, but you can't do that, it's (insert name of character) Marvel/DC will sue you. Repeat for several hours.

That's it. that's all I remember. Recordings will be available in a few weeks, I might try and clean this up when they are released for sale.




Oh, wait.......you were wondering why I was left yelling (well, muttering, really) Wonder Woman.

Yeah, so, at some point near the end - it might have been during the questions - Loeb or Mignola made some comment about Superhero movies needing to appeal to non-comic readers in order to make money. Loeb added "like how do you get women to go see your Superhero movie?" (Or something like that anyway.) To which I muttered Wonder Woman! and started ranting in my headspace about how the arguments made earlier about Superhero movies and needing to let people get used to seeing them as just another kind of movie and not a fluke can just as easily be applied to movies with female action heroes.

Ditto for non-white (and non-kung-fu-asian) action heroes, as well, of course.

Personally, I still think Runaways would make a kickass movie. The ending is a disappointing in terms of racial diversity, but it's still a step in the right direction. (Especially if it does well enough to warrant sequels.) Plus, I think it would not only appeal to a larger audience, it would appeal to that teenage audience studios are so hung up on. Provided it's done right, of course. That's always the catch. But seriously, while the point about comic sales being only a fraction of what the movie needs is valid, better-selling is better than not-better-selling. And better-selling to a wider audience (ie, bookstore patrons, not just comic store patrons) has got to be huge plus as well. So here's to hoping Twilight is the insane success I think it will be, and to studios everywhere mining the YA lit for ideas.

Students Back Obama and McCain

That's today's headline for my local paper, and it's completely cracking me up right now.

It's actually referring to the local results of a statewide mock primary that students at my local HS (and one of the local middle schools) participated in. Obama won the local mock Democratic nominatiion and McCain won the local mock Republican nomination.

(Now, keep in mind as you read this that I live in a rather rich, conservative, religious section of one those nice big red counties on the CA map.)

What I find really funny is that if you look at the actual numbers, you see that Clinton - despite losing by a landslide - still got more total votes than McCain did.

These are the results:

Obama 299
Clinton 132
Edwards 25

total Democratic votes: 456

MCCain 96
Romney 38
Paul 32
Huckabee 26
Giuliani 23

total Republican votes: 215

Wow. I mean, I'm used to the current under 35's -especially the under 24's - leaning towards the Democrats by a big amount. But by a supermajority a usually Republican district? Damn. That's just pathetic.

Seriously, look at that. Obama got more votes all by himself than all the Republican candidates combined. Obama, all by himself, beat the combined votes for Republicans by more than 10%.

heh.

I Love Stephen Colbert

He's filling out the paperwork to run in South Carolina as a Republican and Democratic candidate. Which is all very silly and would be very stupid, except that the main point of the joke is the very real fact that it costs $25,000 to run as a Republican, but the Democrats only require $2,500 - which can be waived if one gets enough signatures on a petition.

heh

(I am curious though. I wonder if Republican's usually charge candidates more, or if the cost of running depends more on which party holds more power in that state, and the average income of each state.)

Look Ma! A New Class of Vertebrata!

Dear Jellvision,

Rodents are mammals too.

I think the word you were looking for is....um....Badger, actually.

Who doesn't know jack now?

Now I'm Never Going to Get Any Work Done

Thanks, Lyle

Btw, when you sign up (which you don't have to do to play, just to kep a record of your scores), the choices for gender are:

M
F
MTF TG
FTM TG
Not sure

Than it asks

What is your sex

Which is a fill in the blank question

I'm guessing it's mostly there as a joke, but it's kinda nice to see something besides "male or female" in any case. And hey, I'm all for smart jokes that point out that "sex" and "gender" are not the same thing.

Oh, yeah, and, I don't know jack.

So, I'm vaguely remember, at some point, that Dan Savage said something that made me mad. Right now, I love him far too much to care:

Now this is a fake letter.

About half of the fake[ letters] I get follow ADAM's script: Man walks in, discovers his wife/girlfriend/sister getting it on with a dog. Usually it's peanut butter all over her crotch, so give ADAM a tenth of a point for creativity.

What if ADAM's letter didn't include that tired old story about a dog eating pussy—would we still be able to tell that it's a fake? You bet.

First, there's the piling on of unnecessary details in a self-conscious effort to make the letter seem more plausible.....

Most revealing, however, is that ADAM wants us to believe his wife is in her mid-20s. Not just because it's sexier—ostensibly—to picture a nude 25-year-old woman "spread-eagled on the couch" than, say, a nude 55-year-old woman, but because this letter, like most of the fakes I get, is really about the sexual degradation of desirable women. ADAM has issues, as they say, so he ran a fictional woman through a degrading sexual scenario in a letter to me. He hoped that I would run his letter in my column and in his mind this would somehow avenge the slights he's suffered at the hands of all the women who have ever rejected him.

HA!

(via Pandagon)

ddr in schools

Just in case anyone hadn't heard this story yet, one of the bits of information given to us at the workshop I went to today (on Gaming @ Libraries) is that Virginia middle schools are using Dance Dance Revolution in PE classes.


Apparently, the kids love it.

So far.

:)

Beware the Attacking Linkblogs!

This is probably not important enough for a post, but I cannot stop cracking up about this.

I think that the part that keeps giving me the giggles is that they registered a third contributer named "WFA" (who has no profile, as of yet) just so that they could sign the post "WFA" instead of "Kalinara" or "Ragnell the Foul."

'Cuz just when I start to get annoyed at the people that prompted the post, I picture Kalinara and/or Ranell realizing "oh, wait, we totally need to sign this WFA!" and then bothering to create a new contributer just so that they can get the point across. Which is just so awesome and so funny.

LOLYA

(like lolcatz - only, with YA book covers)

From Justine and Scott, guest blogging at Inside a Dog.

Here are the winners.

Here are all the entries.

Wherein I Get Sucked Into the LOLCATS Phenom

Kitteh has broken an axle.

(no, none of these are mine, they just cracked me up.)



going to chambr of sekrets brb





pow pow power wheels





poysin mouses





align right

(sigh)

Hide Your Little Yellow Thingies!

Oh dear god.



LOL

The internet is a lovely place, is it not?




hat tip to imaginary_guilt

via jade reporting

I Also Find it Funny

When people say stuff like this:

Debate sex and sexism in comics, sure. I'm all for it. Come out with a bingo card as a shorthand for people too busy to actually listen or consider opposing viewpoints ("oh we're sick of repeating ourselves"), and you're filed along with all the other crackpots who, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, can't change their mind and won't change the subject.

Listen girls, you only get to make jokes if they poke fun at just you, not other people as well as yourself. Most especially when those other people happen to be less emotional and more grounded in reality than you are. (What, me, sexist?) Plus, we we all know feminists aren't funny by definition - so stop trying to be. And completely ignore the irony that you now have bingo!.

PS - from WFA, that evil hive mind of feminist rantings.

On a Lighter Note

Go see, if you haven't already.

May favorite is the one with Robin and Spoiler*, just because it reminds me so much of the actual imagery tampon commercials use whenever they are doing the "active and beautiful" theme.

Has When Fangirls Attacked already linked to this and I just missed it, or (gasp!) have Ragnell and Kalinara not seen it yet?

*I am right and that's Stephanie and Cassie? right? Sorry, I'm still just starting to branch out from manga and Runaways. Some of the superheroes that have had multiple secret and real life identities still confuse me.