Once a legitimate blog. Now just a collection of memes 'n menz.
Childhood's End is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi books. So many other stories have borrowed (or outright stolen) images and ideas that Arthur C. Clarke came up with decades earlier.
It also doesn't hurt that easy-on-the-eyes Mike Vogel is in a starring role.
I'm looking forward to December!
After being bombarded with promos at work (at one point it was the company-wide forced Windows wallpaper), out of curiosity last year we started watching Showtime's Penny Dreadful. I have to admit that the story got off to a rather slow start, but it was intriguing enough that we stuck with it, and it's now become one of my most anticipated viewings every week. As we were watching the last episode, I realized how much I liked the theme, Deminonde, so I went off to iTunes and grabbed the whole album.
No regrets whatsoever on that purchase. I can only describe it as atmospheric. Kind of moody, kind of reflective, with a contemplative undertone running throughout. It immediately became my go-to commute music, offering a nice, quiet counterpoint to the abrasive stupidity I encounter on Denver highways, and great music to write to.
I'd never heard of this particular composer, Abel Korzeniowski, but I'm hearing a lot of different influences in the music. In Street. Horse. Smell. Candle. I almost felt he was paying homage to James Newton Howard's Signs soundtrack.
PENNY DREADFUL Soundtrack Will Unsettle and Disturb
Showtime's Penny Dreadful provided a story caught between horror and poetry with long monologues, superior acting and immaculate costume work. These aspects created a very strong tone, but the score was the final touch — solidifying the never ending, disturbed and unsettling mood. Composer Abel Korzeniowski (A Single Man, W.E.) proves that he is more than adept at creating a horrifying, creeping tingle that will climb up any listener's spines. The Gothic horror sounds of the orchestra Korzeniowski uses transport listeners to a dark old London where the walls are alive and the hairs on their neck stand on end.
There is a very clear overall feel to the soundtrack. The order of the songs could be randomized and the tone would remain the same. After the opening with "Demimonde" (the opening theme of the show) the listener will be treated to a crushing song, "First Blood", delivering a haunting sense of impending doom. It will be hard for some listeners to sit still with the strings and drums pushing their ears and minds to run as fast as they can. Many of the tracks are beautiful (particularly "Dorian Gray"), nearly appropriate for what one would imagine dancing was like in old London. These tracks, though less creepy, never lose the dark tones, there is always an impending sense of horror, darkness and futility.
Penny Dreadful's soundtrack is everything that a film composer wants. It not only fits within the tone of the show but can create it without any visuals. Korzeniowski has proven himself as a TV Drama series composer with this album and will hopefully return for the second season. The vibrant sounds of this album are sure to please any fans of classical or soundtrack music, as well as anyone seeking to be unsettled with beauty, after all "to be beautiful is to be almost dead."
If you haven't seen the series, check out the teasers below:
Via Buzzfeed:
1. Home renos WILL lead to arguments.
2. And possibly divorce.
3. Or, at least, some of those couples should definitely break up…
4. Basically, happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (h/t Leo Tolstoy)
5. Countertops can only be made from two materials: granite or marble.
6. Counter space is ESSENTIAL, even if you know you don't ever cook.
7. And you better banish the thought of renovating a kitchen without adding an island.
8. The larger your kitchen cabinets are, the better a person you are. It's a fact.
9. There are no two people in the world who can successfully share a bathroom in the morning.
10. Literally, EVERY time two people attempt to gather over one sink, the world threatens to implode.
11. If only every bathroom had double sinks, world peace would be achievable.
12. Showers that can fit multiple people are totally necessary.
13. Even though no one will acknowledge the only situation in which that would even matter.
14. Sex. I mean sex.
15. Although, again — some of these couples are clearly not ~getting it on~.
16. No matter your budget, the only option is to renovate a fixer-upper.
17. No matter your budget, there is a 0% chance that it will cover everything you hope to do.
18. Computerized renderings of interior design are way more exciting than they should be.
19. Carpet is the devil.
20. Hardwood floors are an angel sent from heaven to rectify our sins.
21. Tile floors are kind of in between, like the purgatory of flooring options.
22. The only word that can be used to describe floors is "flowing," as in "Let's install some beautiful hardwoods flowing throughout the open-concept first floor."
23. Any time there is more than one person working on something at once, there will be heavy sexual tension between those people.
24. Literally, no matter who the people are, it will be there.
25. To specify: Love It or List It is actually not a show about home renovation, but is the slowly developing tale of the greatest love story of all between Hilary and David.
26. And you know what, Hilary and lead contractor Eddie have some chemistry going on as well.
27. No one in the world is able to monitor their children successfully without an open-concept floor plan.
28. For real, before the idea of the open concept took hold, 99% of children died due to their parents being unable to care for them properly.
29. Knob and tube electrical wiring is the worst atrocity that has ever occurred.
30. Structural changes are actually wicked expensive.
31. And apparently no one has ever built a home up to code unless the process was televised.
32. Essentially, your home is probably a death trap just waiting for you to fall prey to its merciless, murderous ways.
33. YOUR PLUMBING CANNOT BE TRUSTED.
34. If you don't have a patio outside, it is impossible to enjoy your backyard.
35. Only men are able to mow the lawn. It's just science.
36. Only women have enough clothing to fill an entire closet. Again, science.
37. If a home doesn't have an entire room to do laundry in, you might as well just smear mud on all of your clothing and wear it like that.
38. And having laundry in the basement is perhaps worse than having no laundry room at all.
39. Unfinished basements are where the ghosts live, you know?
40. Every single person in the world needs a home office.
41. And also a guest bedroom.
42. But those two rooms may NEVER be one and the same.
43. The wooden framing that's used to create walls is sometimes blue, and that's actually pretty damn cool.
44. That foam insulation that you spray on seems like it would make a fun toy.
45. You have a previously undiscovered desire to take a sledgehammer and just pound it against whatever surfaces you can find.
46. You have a previously undiscovered desire to simply watch the Property Brothers take a sledgehammer to whatever surfaces they can find.
47. No one likes both Property Brothers equally. Even their parents definitely have a favorite.
48. At least once during every home renovation, one of the homeowners must express dismay over the designer's choice of wall color.
49. Because, as we all know, wall color is an irreversible decision.
50. Children are able to vanish into thin air during the entire renovation period and then return once the renovation is over.
51. And no one will question where the children have been this entire time.
52. You physically can't watch a home renovation show without spending the entire time planning out your own imaginary reno that will likely never happen.
53. No matter how annoying they can get, you'll never be able to stop watching home renovation TV.
It's been called The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits for our age, and after watching the incredibly short first and second seasons on Netflix, I have to agree.
Black Mirror creeps the adult me out the way TZ and OL did when I was a kid. It hooks into our subconscious fears about the reach of technology in our lives in the same way the threat of nuclear annihilation and space exploration did in the 1960s.
Probably the most disturbing episode for me has been Fifteen Million Merits.
From Wikipedia:
A satire on entertainment shows and our insatiable thirst for distraction set in a sarcastic version of a future reality. In this world, everyone must cycle on exercise bikes in order to power their surroundings and generate currency called Merits. Everyday activities are constantly interrupted by advertisements that cannot be skipped or ignored without financial penalty. Obese people are considered to be second-class citizens, and either work as cleaners around the machines (where they receive verbal abuse) or are humiliated on game shows.
Bingham "Bing" Madsen (Daniel Kaluuya) has inherited 12,000,000 merits from his dead brother and has the luxury of skipping advertisements. In the toilet he overhears Abi (Jessica Brown Findlay) singing; he encourages her to enter into the X-Factor style game show Hot Shots, which offers a chance for people to get out of the slave-like world around them. Bing persuades her and, feeling there is nothing "real" worth buying, purchases the ticket for her. The judges (Rupert Everett, Julia Davis, Ashley Thomas) and the crowd enjoy her singing, but they state there is no room for an 'Above Average Singer' and instead give her the chance to become an adult actress on a pornographic TV station. After goading from the judges and the crowd, and drugged on a substance called "Cuppliance" (compliance in a cup), Abi reluctantly agrees.
Bing returns to his cell without Abi and any merits. When an advert showing Abi performing a sexual act appears on the screen, he can't skip it (as he doesn't have enough merits) and desperately tries to escape his cell, ramming the door until the glass breaks. He hides a shard of glass under his bed and earns another 15,000,000 merits to enter the competition. He stops buying food and pedals for months until he has enough to buy another ticket. He stands in the Hot Shots waiting room every day without expression until called to compete.
On stage he interrupts his performance, draws the shard of glass and threatens to kill himself live on the show. He tearfully rants about how unfair the system is and expresses his anger for how the judges took away the only thing he found that felt real. The judges, instead of taking his words into consideration, are impressed by his 'performance' and offer him his own show, where he can rant about the system all he likes.
Bing accepts and is shown finishing one of his streams in his penthouse. He stands staring out over a view of a vast green forest stretching to the horizon. It is unclear whether this is real or just another screen, and it is up to the viewer to decide if all Bing did is find himself in a larger cell.
It disturbs me because I can easily see this happening…
Anyhow, if you have Netflix, check it out.
"Too many cooks spoil the story."
I don't even know where to begin with this one.
Maybe I was a sucker for believing the buzz that this was going to be the next Battlestar Galactica, but after suffering through three nights of Ascension all I have to say is, WHAT. THE. FUCK.
The premise of the show that SyFy was throwing out was that this was going to be a story of the passengers and crew aboard a Generational Ship secretly launched in the 1960s en route to Proxima Centauri. Instead, at the end of the first night we found out that wasn't it at all; it was some kind of secret, elaborate, possibly psychological experiment run by some shadowy organization that may or may not be affiliated with the government.
The fact it was cast with a group of B-, C-, and D-List actors should've thrown up red flags. But then, prior to the BSG reboot, how many people had really heard of Jamie Bamber, Mary McDonnell, or Trisha Helfer? And speaking of Ms. Helfer, her presence in this production initially led me to believe this might not be a complete waste of my time.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Mess doesn't even begin to describe Ascention. Too many storylines. Too much unnecessary soap opera drama that didn't make any sense in context to begin with. The "ship" has been in "space" for fifty plus years, and sexual dalliances and interpersonal tensions are just now coming to a head?
Obviously trying to piggyback on the popularity of the Mad Men aesthetic, we have retro 60s fashions and vacuum-tube television technology, but it's interspersed with LCD displays and advanced MRI imaging. WHAT?
Paging continuity! Please pick up the white courtesy paging phone!
Okay, to its credit SyFy did come through with enough eye candy to at least keep me coming back, even after I felt like I'd been bent over at the end of night one and thoroughly penetrated (and not in a good way). I mean there really wasn't anything else on…
And just to make sure the story is current and culturally hip, there's the requisite lesbian character—but not part of the ship's complement—because—it was explained that on board the "ship" there are no homosexuals. (It was "launched" in the 60s, after all.) No homosexuals? Have they figured a way to breed it out of the genome in only two generations? Even with the current, very conservative 3% metric, with 600 souls on that "ship" there should be at least 18 boys and girls who aren't interested in pushing their genitals up against those of the opposite sex.
By the time we got around to night three and had learned of the onboard prostitution ring, the simmering class warfare, and the fact that the guy whose father engineered this whole psychological mindfuck (the experiment itself, not the miniseries) apparently isn't producing results—whatever they might be—fast enough for the shadowy organization overseeing and apparently financing this endeavor. Much drama ensues as it appears he is to be removed and put six feet deep into a cornfield somewhere.
But then BOOM! The "star child" (yes, she was really called that) who somehow knows this is all an elaborate ruse, manifests her power and we learn that this is the whole reason for the 50-plus year charade being perpetrated on the passengers and crew of Ascension.
Really?
How many tired tropes can you stuff in one show, SyFy?
Anyhow, as things start falling apart and apparently the 50 years of peace our "travelers" have enjoyed draws to a close, the lawyer from Ally McBeal (yeah, that guy) regains control of the project just as the shadow organization orders the extraction of the star child from the ship and sends in a standard thug from central casting to bring the girl out.
More drama ensues as thug-from-central-casting reaches star-child and another semi-important character who was having an affair with the press-on-beard guy's wife arrives just in time to engage in a bit of rolling around in the muck. Star Child is having none of this and fully manifests her power, making both of them disappear.
Cut to her rescuer finding himself on an alien planet (with a double sun—of course—but apparently not Proxima Centauri), and everything fades to black.
So in short…
…that Z Nation killed him off.
Such a provocative title.
I don't hate all television, and I don't hate the medium in and of itself. I hate the way networks have decided to push out series in 8, 10, 12-episode increments and then go on hiatus for what seems like years before returning. (I'm talking to you, Mad Men.)
It's not just Mad Men; it's pretty much any dramatic, scripted show these days. It seems that once you get hooked on something and really start getting into the current storyline, it's the end of the season's run—or worse yet, they split a single season up into two parts.
Pretty much everything we watch (or have watched) on a regular basis falls into this category:
Nurse Jackie
Helix
American Horror Story
Z Nation
The Strain
Doctor Who
Masters of Sex
The Walking Dead
Now I realize the cost of producing a full 30 episodes of a series like networks used to do when I was young is astronomical these days—especially when you factor in many of the shows we enjoy are heavy on special effects, but c'mon people. 8 episodes followed by a year-long hiatus? What's the logic in that?
I mean, it's gotten to the point that we cancel our premium channels for half the year because everything we watch is missing from their lineup. That's costing you money, HBO & Showtime.
I suppose I should just give up complaining about this because the companies that produce what we watch don't give a shit as long as the advertising dollars (or paid subscriptions) keep rolling in, but sooner or later if enough people just flat out cancel their premium channels for half the year they might wake up and take notice…
Michael Welch of Z Nation
…enough on the inside!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Especially after seeing that little douchebag's deposition…
A lot of people with very important opinions did not much care for this past season of American Horror Story.
I, on the other hand—in spite of some glaring plot holes you could drive a truck into—found it completely enjoyable and of the three seasons, definitely the most entertaining. It was always on my "must watch" list and something I always looked forward to seeing.
Whatever shall I do now that this particular story is finished?
Granted, there wasn't much horror (per se) this year, but I loved the scenery chewing, the set design, and the performances of all involved. Maybe I just have low standards.
Or perhaps not.
From tv.com:
Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk's American Horror Story is a national treasure. When you watch as much supposed "prestige" television as I do, you realize just how special and audacious something like this is. AHS doesn't care about coherent storytelling or logic or reasonable pay-offs. (Most shows ONLY care about those things.) This one operates firmly in dream logic territory because guess what? That's where horror lives too. And guess who horror's next-door neighbor is? Comedy. Both genres thrive in that weird subconscious level below rational thought. Explain a joke and it's no longer funny. Explain a villain's motivations and he's no longer scary. Anybody complaining about AHS's lack of coherence is not only judging it by an incorrect rubric, they're really just admitting being uncomfortable without the safety net of traditional storytelling and they're mistaking that admission with criticism. This is the rare show where both plaudits and disdain are accurate responses, but the fact that that effect is intentional is what pushes it into genius territory. Nothing is less cool than using someone's self-deprecation against them, and that's what the worst critics have been doing: "It's stupid, it makes no sense, it's silly." THAT'S THE POINT.
The most difficult part of any week was staying away from the spoiler-laden reviews on Thursday morning since we rarely stayed up to watch the show when it was actually broadcast (11 pm is rather late for a school night when one has to be up at 5 am the next morning). I confess, I strayed into one of reviews today without having seen the season finale, and wasn't especially surprised when I read who became the next Supreme. (It was an idea I'd been tossing around in my head for weeks.)
I was sad to see two of my favorite characters meet their ends in this final episode, but was also delighted to see karma doled out to two other characters who so richly deserved it.
Again, from tv.com:
Well, that's that. This season is dunzo. I loved it with all of my heart. What a true celebration of actresses and comedy. Don't listen to bozos who complain about it being "a mess" or "it didn't add up" or "it was not as good as previous seasons." Those are FALSE COMPLAINTS. Television doesn't have to conform to some kind of formula. It doesn't have to set things up nor pay them off. It merely has to set off dazzling fireworks in our brains. I don't know if I've seen a drama as brave and hilarious as this one, nor something that trafficked so heavily in dream logic and, uh, nightmare imagery. I am always suspicious of people who think "it made no sense" or "it was unsatisfying" is a legit criticism. What they are really doing is stating a plain fact of a certain kind of storytelling: Few things are as unsettling as surprises, and that's what this show is about.
It will be interesting to see what Messers Murphy and Falchuk come up with for next year.
I cannot wait.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
RIP, Mr. Johnson
Who knew that How It's Made could be so entertaining?
Thank you, Erik.
I had to change themes, but at least it's displaying the way I want it to now. More or less.
 |
 |
 |
 |
But seriously…I couldn't resist.
I liked Season One. I loved Season Two. But OMG. Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson and Patti Lupone all in Season Three? I think I just left a wet spot.
And this? Just a small part of The Holy What The Fuckery.
Scenery will be chewed.
Or is that Tardii?
Accessing Platform 9¾ is child's play for the Tardis…
Sometimes you find the strangest stuff on YouTube…
I didn't think it was bad. As re-imaginings go, it looked better than that 1998 movie monstrosity.
So I just started watching The Walking Dead.
Yeah, I know. Late to the party as usual.
The past few days AMC has been running a pre-season 4 marathon, and since there was nothing else on, I thought what the hell…find out what everyone's been raving about.
Now my DVR is full, goddamnit!
Love the story, even though I've never been a big Zombie fan. But the characters are engaging and I got sucked in. Trouble is, it's so intense I can only take about 3-4 episodes at a time before I have to turn it off.
Speaking of sucked, Hello Rick!
But with all Zombie stories, I have one question to ask: What happens when everyone who is not a zombie is eaten and/or converted? The ecology just isn't sustaining. If Zombies can't eat Zombies, what happens when their food supply runs out? And won't they all just eventually decompose anyway?
I guess it's kind of like parasites or bacteria that kill their hosts.
