RhymePhile's Rat Race

The above is my favorite line from the Star Trek film, which I finally saw on Saturday. The GF and I wanted to see the IMAX version, but they were only playing it once that day, at midnight. WTF is up with that? Stupid theatre.

I think I really am the last person on my Flist to have seen it. All I have to say about it is WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AWESOMOSITY.

The acting, the script, the special effects, the action, and even the plot were all fantastic. I think I will call it by its Malaysian English title, Star Trek: The Future Begins. Better.

I was sort of prepared to hate Chris Pine as Kirk. I try not to pre-judge actors in certain things, but I really was ready to hate this kid. But no! He was actually good! YAY. And hello, casting? PERFECTION. Everyone was good!

All those caps mean I really loved the film. Heh.

In other weekend news, I took my new, tuned-up bike for a ride yesterday, to get used to it before I start riding to work in Manhattan. I love biking, and I look forward to saving the $2.25 one-way subway fare (right now it's $2, but it's going up June 28, the bastards), but I am also hyper-vigilant and wary of biking in Manhattan. It's dangerous. Well, I'm waiting on my pretty new Nutcase helmet to arrive, and then I'm takin' it to tha streets!

Lions Gate sent over a copy of the two-disc My Bloody Valentine special edition today. It comes with both the 3D and 2D versions of the film, four pairs of 3D glasses, and a bonus disc with extras, including two featurettes, deleted and extended scenes, an alternate ending, and a gag reel. The film comes out on DVD May 19th.

The gag reel is short (2 minutes 15 seconds), and Jensen is in it maybe two or three times. Once he can't a door open and says with a smile, "It's really closed!"



There's another moment when his character Tom is popping pills and one doesn't make it into his mouth, and Jensen says, "Shit!" and the crew laughs.



And finally, there's a scene where he's walking through a mine corridor and there's a noise off-camera, and he runs away.

I also took screencaps of the behind-the-scenes featurette, "Deep Inside My Bloody Valentine." See those images, as well as the nice things the director said about Jensen, behind the cut.

( Screencaps of the featurette and a quote from director Patrick Lussier )

I don't seem to have an icon to use for this post that is gay yet non-sexual. LOL. Such is the state of my teh sexxxy icons, I suppose.

Here is what all you musical/gay film with cute boys/Shakespeare (really!) lovers out there need to add to your queues for June 9: Were The World Mine.

It's a modern, semi-musical with a gay twist, inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Timothy (Tanner Cohen) is the lone gay boy in his all-male prep school, and when his eccentric drama teacher encourages him to try out for the play, strange things happen. Timothy gets the role of Puck, and while studying the play, discovers the ingredients for a Love Potion. Using his flower, he squirts the magical potion into the eyes of school rugby star and unrequited crush Jonathan (Nathaniel David Becker), who immediately falls in love with him. Then, to make others understand how he's been ostracized and been made fun of for being gay, squirts the flower on everyone in town to turn them all gay (which, truthfully, is the weakest and silliest part of the film).

Now, the movie itself is okay with some minor weak points, but what really sets it apart is the fantastic (and I mean FANTASTIC) musical score, as written by Tim Sandusky.

And, for your convenience in case you're intrigued, here's the title song Were The World Mine, a duet between Cohen and Becker, in MP3. I paid for it and downloaded it from Amazon, DRM-free. No more iTunes for me. Enjoy!

Also, not really related, but last night I had a dream that my dream self was having a dream with me in the middle of an episode of Supernatural. Get that? I don't do things easy, apparently -- even my subconscious is dreaming of dreaming! It did have a totally awesome ending in which Sam used his powers on Dean, who basically freaked out and ran, so that was cool!

This weekend I watched Alix Lambert's documentary Mark of Cain (which I believe lorelei633 recommended at one time), about the significance of tattoos in Russian prisons. The zeks explain why they got tattooed, and when, and what many of their marks mean. They also described life behind bars, and I have a feeling if any of our young offenders here in the U.S. were sent there to straighten up, they'd all be angels by the time they returned to the street. Some of the cells are packed so tightly that the men agree which of them will sleep during the day and which will at night, because there isn't enough room to lie down. They have to take turns standing, all packed into these tiny, dirty, horribly squalid cells. The food is rotten, and many of them look like they're starving. The documentary really was a fascinating look into the brutal world of Russian prisons.

And then I followed that up with Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises. Figured I'd continue the theme. In fact, the documentary gave me insight on the scene in which he gets his "stars above his heart" from the vory v zakone. (Heh, I'm sure the Russian LJ site crawler is twitching at that word).

There's good reason the IMdB plot keywords have "extreme violence" and "stabbed in the eye" in there. Eek. Ew. GAH. But I knew to expect that from David Cronenberg. If you have a weak stomach for violence though, definitely skip it.

It's funny, I know everyone was talking about the steam room scene where Viggo is naked and fighting off two guys, but honestly, I was barely paying attention to his peen. The fight scene was that damn good. I didn't see any stunt man for Viggo either, which was impressive. Besides, it's not like he stood up and purposely thwapped his wang around right in front of the camera. He was fighting off two guys!

Also, I know I'm sort of biased when it comes to constantly imagining homosexual undertones to everything I see, but I swear Viggo Mortensen had more chemistry with co-star Vincent Cassel (as Kirill) than he did with stiff, boring Naomi Watts (as Anna). I mean, is it wrong that I positively giggled when Cassel stuck his finger in Mortensen's dimple on his chin? CUTE disturbingly violent RUSSIAN MOBSTERS!

Aside from all that, I thought the overall plot was a bit weak, and they could have tossed Naomi Watts into the Thames and I would have been fine with it. Next time, more naked Russian mobsters and less boring ancillary characters.

I'll try to do this without mentioning spoilers.

Remember when I was discussing my spoiler-heavy X-Files: I Want To Believe review and I mentioned a certain controversial part in the movie that really rubbed me the wrong way, yet I couldn't explain it eloquently enough?

Well, gay site After Elton did in their review for the film.

It follows my thinking exactly. Go read it.

Metacritic has a roundup of newspaper and website reviews on X-Files: I Want To Believe, and I thought I'd offer a soundbite or two.

( Some minor spoilers behind the cut )

Obviously I'm going to put everything under a cut, because I'd like to talk at length about the film. When you see the film, come back here to read my thoughts.

( All about the X )

Do do do do do doooooooooooooooo, dun na na na na na, dun na na na na na, doo doo doo!!!

That's me singing the X-Files theme song. Y'know, I wasn't really excited about the film at first for some reason, probably because it was so far off, but now that it's premiering tomorrow I CAN'T WAIT. All my old XF fangirly squeeishness is coming to the forefront! Mulder! Scully! Aliens! YAY! I even got out one of my old T-shirts (and I mean old, from 1995!) to wear.

I am also completely unspoiled. COMPLETELY. Which means, shhhh, nothing in the comments, please.

In honor of the movie, I put two episodes of the show onto my Playstation Portable. I used a great, free piece of software called DVD Catalyst that converts DVD files into mp4. Mp4 is also the format needed for iPod video. In a few minutes you too can have Mulder and Scully on your iPod or PSP, for free! I put "Bad Blood" and "Small Potatoes" on there, and they look fantastic.

*bounces*

And here's a great article about Scully from Slate writer Rebecca Traister (thanks to dashenka).

I'm going to see it tomorrow night. *squee*!!!!

I'm not much of a moviegoer, since my weekends are mainly occupied by copious amounts of sleeping and lying around, so last night I actually watched 300 on HBO. It also marks the first time I've sat through something on HBO that wasn't The Wire or one of their great documentaries.

( Spartans! Eat hearty, for tomorrow we dine in hell with Rhyme, who rambles about comics and what she thought of the film! )

Ahh, Mondays. I just did a skip=320. Cuz that's how I roll, y'all.

Some minor things of note:

1. Battlestar Galactica on Friday. I love Aaron Douglas as Chief Galen Tyrol. However, seeing him face off against Edward James Olmos -- a notoriously Bring Your A Game Actor -- was icing on my luv cake. Did I mention I bought a Tyrol action figure autographed by him at Comic Con?

2. Children of Men was effin' depressing. I was looking for something sci-fi-ish to watch this weekend that didn't include whiny hipsters and shaky camera work (Cloverfield), or anything (I Am Legend) starring The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (because Big Willy, you will always be the Fresh Prince to me, I don't care what you say). I rented CoM for the sci-fi factor, but also for the Clive Owen factor (and I enjoy his work so much I even watched Bent). I get the whole end of the world, dystopian no-babies future, but GAH, depressing!

3. I cleaned out the large fish tank this weekend which previously held Big Guy, my huge freshwater shark that I had for almost 8 years. When I got him he was the size of my little finger, and eventually he outgrew two tanks and was over a foot long. He died Thursday. I didn't feel like posting about it then because yes, I cried over a fish, okay? I might have cried a lot, in fact. He barely fit in the Amazon box I used for his fishy coffin. *sigh* I'm still sniffly over it.

4. I'm taking my mother to go see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Mom can fangirl with the best of them.

5. I'd like some of that Doctor Who Adipose stuff so I can lose like 30 pounds before May 31st. I wouldn't even mind those cute Tribble-like blobs of fat!

The winner of the free movie tickets to see Semi-Pro is: tye_dyed_daisy!!!

My girlfriend drew your name out of the hat. Congratulations!!

Please e-mail me at rhymephile (at) hotmail (dot) com with your address, and I will put them in the mail on Monday.

I'm giving away two free tickets to see Will Ferrell's new movie, Semi-Pro later today, so if you haven't thrown your name into the pool, you still have time!

Go to my original post over here and follow the directions. Easy! And you get two tickets.

Right now there are only three people in the raffle, so why not add your name?

In semi-related news, I hate the Oscars and they haven't even aired yet. Gah. SO MUCH STRESS IN WORK. Oh, and it's also SNOWING today. Double gah.

It's okay...chocolate can cure anything.

I haven't been able to keep up with LJ this week, so I hope everyone is doing okay. The main reason? The Oscars are on Sunday (I'll be here, in New York City, in work, covering them and updating the Big Dot Com's website as the winners are announced) and I've been super busy.

You wouldn't think it should be such a stressful time; last year went off without a hitch and ran smoothly. Maybe this year I'm a bit stressed because MY BOSS DECIDED NOW WAS A GOOD TIME TO GO ON VACATION. Gah!

Within the next week he's off there's the Oscars, a huge sale, and now I have the responsibility to look after all of DVD, on top of completing my own pages (which I haven't even started yet). And since he won't be here I can't take Monday off. I'm going to be up until 1 a.m.-ish...I wanted a comp day.

I did stop and buy myself some Entenmann's chocolate frosted donuts last night. I soothe stress with fattening products. Mmmmmmmm.

*deep sigh*

Oh, quick note about the season finale of Nip/Tuck, which I watched last night: It's like stawberry-flavored blow. It's so wrong, yet so tasty. Also? "I can't believe I have to say this, but stop sleeping with your sister!" BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAAAAAA!!! Christian gets all the best lines, fo realz.

Anyway, I'm also reminding everyone who didn't hear about it to check out my Free Movie Ticket Giveaway Drawing that's occurring tomorrow. You get two free tickets to the new Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro. Details and such are available by clicking the link.

My girlfriend and I spent the entire weekend setting up my new TV. Friday I cleaned; Saturday she built the TV stand and component stands while I unhooked the old stuff; I needed to move my 27-inch TV from the bedroom into the living room while getting rid of the ancient 19-inch I had in there already; we had to move a giant bookcase, VCR cabinet and fish tank; she put the books back while I hooked up the new stuff; I was going crazy trying to hook up the receiver and speakers until she figured it out; Sunday we had to disassemble my old heavy wooden entertainment center; and this morning we both had to work even though it's a FEDERAL HOLIDAY. Sheeeeeeet.

Anyway.

To celebrate my beautiful new TV (which, by extension, means celebrating the fact that I have a job and the ability to even purchase said TV), I will be giving away two (2) free movie tickets to the upcoming Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro!!! YAY!!!

Now, the fine print:

1) You must go to http://www.hollywoodmoviemoney.com and plug in your ZIP code to see if there's a theatre near you that accepts the Hollywood Movie Money tickets. Not all do, so please visit the website first.

2) You must comment here for the tickets, and I will put names in a hat and draw on Friday, February 22. You don't have to be on my Flist, but you do need an LJ account (to make it fair). Oh, and in the comments, say something like "Please add my name to the drawing" or something like that so I know.

3) You must use the tickets before they expire on March 30.

4) Each ticket is good for up to a $10.50 movie ticket (which means even in NYC you're covered)

5) The movie comes out February 29, and although it's not yet rated, chances are it's going to be an R. Keep that in mind.

The 8-year-old in me is grinning, and the current-age-I-am is SQUEEING with both excitement and nostalgia. Oh, pleasepleaseplease don't suck. Please

Oh, Heath. I actually heard about it early this afternoon when the news first broke, but I didn't get around to posting about it.

As some of you may remember, back in December of 2005 I was able to attend one of the first screenings of Brokeback Mountain in Chelsea, before it went wide across the U.S. Many people on my Flist were excited about it, so I brought a notebook and pen with me to the movie to write down every little tidbit about the film.

I posted the review to my blog, and I know I met many new people because of the review.

I eventually updated the review with screencaps, which have since been removed just because the film is a couple of years old now. But at the time my review was one of the first that covered the entire film from beginning to end.

You can read the review here, which I present as a kind of memorial to Heath Ledger's amazing talent in the film.

This is a sad day for his fans and for Hollywood in general, considering we've lost two actors in as many weeks, the other being Brad Renfro. This shit has got to stop.

It's snowing/sleeting/raining at the moment. My bus ride home (80 miles) is going to be simply lovely.

Only in NYC: A guy walking his dog this morning let the dog pee on a Christmas tree that was for sale on the street! God, this (among other reasons) is why I hate people.

Only in NYC2: We have a Flavia coffee machine here in work. To use it, you take a packet of whatever you want (tea, coffee, hot chocolate), place it in the machine slot, and out comes the drink.

While I was heating my lunch, three executives, one after the other, came to get themselves coffee and were seemingly befuddled by the "Please Empty Bin" sign. The machine opens so you can toss out the used packets. There's even an instruction sheet, with pictures, tacked RIGHT ABOVE THE MACHINE. Each executive walked up with a cup, saw the blinking notice, pressed all the buttons on the machine blindly, and then walked away. Jebus Case. They all get paid God-knows-how-much, but they don't have the common sense to read instructions so they can have their coffee.

Wanna see what Heath Ledger looks like as The Joker in the new Batman movie?

Would you also like to see images from the new Indiana Jones movie?

I was watching the Supernatural episode from two weeks ago online, the one with the ghost ship (the title of which I can't be arsed to look up because it was so boring I shut it off), and thought I recognized the Yellow House shooting location from back in Millennium days.

Turns out I was wrong, and this Millennium fan site told me so.

While there, I happened upon info on the new X-Files movie. Apparently it's being called "Done One" (heh) for casting purposes. The Millennium fan site linked to some casting info...no actors yet, but characters are listed.

Find it here.

This movie starring Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson is filming on our block today outside my office in New York City. They shut down half of 16th Street so that all the huge trucks could park there. The cool thing is that the NYPD has to post these bright green notice signs to the poles in the area to let people know they can't park there, and on those signs they always list what production is working that day. That's the only reason why I know it's that film.

I don't particularly care for either actor, so it's not worth sneaking down there during lunch to see what they're doing, although I still get impressed that they're shooting a movie and all. Hell, I'm from New Jersey and I feel like a rube when I come into New York. Now, if SVU was going to be filming, I would have to play sick or something and stake out the block.

Speaking of, I watched Celebrity Poker Showdown -- or whatever the hell it's called that airs on Bravo -- that I taped just to see Chris Meloni. I have thus come to realize three things: 1) a goofy Chris Meloni is one that I love more than any other, especially in that porkpie hat; 2) I really, really think poker is boring, and I fast-forwarded through most of it; and 3) my hatred for Sarah Silverman has, if possible, increased ten-fold. She simply embarassed herself, and everyone seemed uncomfortable after she made those bizarre, unfunny jokes about rubbing herself on the poker table. I just...I dunno. My hatred for her burns like a thousand white-hot suns.

My friend Bill went to see a press screening of King Kong last night and gives a short report at his blog here, for those of you interested in seeing the movie, which opens tomorrow. Apparently people with bug fear should steer clear (hey, that Rhymes ;-) -- or keep their eyes shut for about an hour of the film.

I ordered a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H1 digital camera from Amazon yesterday (it's a birthday present to myself, late though it is) so that I may spread photographic joy to my Flist when it gets here. I didn't pay what is advertised at Sony's site, however, because Amazon is the bee's knees, yo. It should get here before Christmas, along with a 1-gig Memory Stick to plug into that sucker. I went to Best Buy just to see what was out there, and when I picked up this camera and saw the huge LCD display I fell in love. My near-blind eyes thank you, Sony!

Along with my new super-geek hobby of turning X-Files episodes on DVD into MP3s so I can listen to them on my iPod, I also went hunting across the web for other sound bytes people have made. Lamentably, many of the best sites have gone away, but I did find almost 300 wavs and MP3s that I have set to shuffle on my iPod. This means that I heard "Do you think I'm spooky?" before Allison Krauss and Union Station sang me a song, which was quite bizarre.

And on the fic front, I'm in the final stages of my M/K lyric wheel story. Huzzah! It took me forever because writing in a notebook is deceiving, as it makes a story look longer. When I typed up what I had it only came to two pages. Unacceptable! More angst was needed! Hopefully I'll have it completed by this week.