(in the dark) the shine of small things

Notes: If you're like me, be assured that FernGully IS on this list, it's just hella down at the bottom. The Reluctant Dragon is not on this list. I don't know how you include Pete's Dragon and Mary Poppins but omit Bedknobs & Broomsticks (which I'm pretty sure had more animation than either of those other two). Also, some sequels are listed, but many aren't. Inconsistency, boo.

No one asked, but for completeness' sake, I really liked The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride. Not so much any other Disney sequels I've seen besides Down Under (not counting Pixar sequels).

( Animated films meme )

eta: Oh, you know what else isn't on the list? That random Little Red Riding Hood movie from a few years back. The one that was hilarious, but kind of ghetto fabulous and really weird? I cannot think of what it was called.

- RIP, Harry Kalas. What a rough way to start out a season.

- All of baseball to wear 42 to honor Jackie Robinson. I'm so pleased! I hated hearing of the guys who wanted to participate in honoring Jackie these last two years, but weren't allowed by their organizations.

- If you were a fan of the original Fast and the Furious, I trust you have already seen Fast & Furious (or TFTF4, which is what it really should be called). If you haven't, get thee to a movie theatre! It's all Brian/Dom, all the time. I loved it. I mean, sure, there are a ton of gratuitous ass shots of random women in hot pants, but they do nothing to disguse the fact that this fourth film in the series is really about Brian/Dom. I admit there are plot holes all over the place, and personally, I didn't think the driving was as much fun as in the first movie, but it's still a really good time. One of these days, I need to find time to search for ficcage. And icons.

- [Bad username or site: johnnybvo / @ livejournal.com] doesn't like it, but I am a fan of the trailer for Public Enemies. **grabby hands** Come out, now. Please.

- I need to get caught up on 24; USA Today says it's finally kicked back into high gear.

- If you have any experience with Prozac and Xanax, and are comfortable talking about it, I'd appreciate it if you'd shoot me an email. I have some questions.

eta: Oh, look. Huston blew his first save as a Rockie yesterday and I missed it. **pets him** Trade him, Colorado! Anywhere that is not Cincinnati sounds good.

It's a sloooow day.

( For some reason, I watched a ton of movies in January )

Seen anything worth recommending lately?

+ I can't quite put my finger on it, but at some point in watching episode 1x09 of The Mentalist, I was struck by the realization that I like and am starting to feel invested in the supporting cast. This makes me happy, since Lord knows I don't really watch this show for the cases.

( what's this? supporting cast-induced squee? )

I've also graduated to fic for the show - just Palm, Switch, Steal so far. It's short, but good. Spoilers for 1x10 if you haven't watched that yet.

+ God rest Eartha Kitt. She had a long and brilliant career as an entertainer in several mediums, but I loved her most of all as Yzma in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove. (If you've never seen that, you're missing out. It is hilarious. I haven't seen it in about a year, so it's due for a re-watch.)

+ Saw The Spirit with [Bad username or site: johnnybvo / @ livejournal.com]. I laughed a lot, mostly at it, but occasionally with it. It was really weird, you know, humor-wise? Like Snakes On A Plane weird, although I'm guessing, since I didn't see that movie. It was...I don't know, just really over the top - most often when Sam Jackson was on screen. It had its moments but I wouldn't recommend it. [Bad username or site: johnnybvo / @ livejournal.com] liked it, although he agrees it's a weird movie. So, make of that what you will. Before the film, we got several crappy trailers. Two of them were for slasher flicks, and what do you know, Jared was in one (um, Jason 13 or some such) and Jensen in the other (My Bloody Valentine, I think). So that was kinda amusing, and kinda sad.

+ My mom straightened my hair this morning :/ I'm really perfectly fine with people not taking hot irons to my head, but she was very keen to. I don't know why some people are so concerned about how I wear my hair.

Fiiiiinally watched The Happening. Dumb, and it does not have anywhere near the re-watchability quality of Sixth Sense, Signs, or The Village, but I think it was a slight improvement over The Lady In The Water. Unintentionally so, I imagine, but Mark Wahlberg is pretty hilarious in that movie. His delivery of one line especially ("What? No!") had us in stitches.

Also, four years later, I fiiiiinally got around to watching Wilby Wonderful. It wasn't bad, but I didn't love it as I wanted to. It's no Station Agent, as far as bittersweet comedies go. When the movie was over, mostly I sat there not being able to get over what a terrible person Sandra Oh's character is. As Wilt would say: I'm sorry, but that's not okay!

Things that are lame:
1. ( Spoiler cut in the event anyone on ye olde f-list is still making their way through the second season of the BBC's Robin Hood )

To which I say....what? I knew there was a reason I stopped watching this show after the first season. And the worst thing is, you can't unknow this. It just sits there, in the back of your head. Why oh why did I flip to BBCA last night?

2. Disney's The Black Cauldron, which I was DUPED into buying by virtue of its cover art indicating it is a Disney Masterpiece. I was like, what's this? A Disney Masterpiece I haven't seen? INCONCEIVABLE. Sure, I was little unsure about a story involving a clairvoyant pig, but if anyone could make that work, Disney could. But it turns out no one can make that work. So bad! It only cost me a dollar at Goodwill, and I wanted my dollar back.

3. Ellis spending his last two months as an A on a team that looks on pace to have an ugly end to the season.

4. Manny blathering on about finding peace of mind in LA and wanting to end his career there. Dude, shut the fuck up. You have been there for all of A DAY. God. Just shut up and play some baseball and hope you can con some sad bastard into giving you an obscene amount of money for the privilege of putting up with your obnoxious ass.

A thing that is hilarious:
5. The A's are going to spend the remainder of the season auditioning Huston's replacement. Ahahaha.

"I would say I'm extremely unhappy about it," Street said Saturday. "(Closing is) what I've done my whole career. Do I think I've been as good as I've been my whole career? No. But I still think there's two months left in the season for me to prove myself . . . or prove myself to them."

Yes, please take it personally, Huston. (Okay, I do feel a little bad for him, because it's just so BLATANT, but oh well.) Also, lolz at the idea that the A's are doing this to "help" his confidence.

Things that are of the yay. I think.:
6. Zito's line: 8.0IP, 3H, 5K. The walks are never gonna go away, apparently (4BB last night), but not a bad night's work in front of his hometown peeps. Isn't he due for another sitdown with Urban this weekend?

7. Chris Kirkpatrickyou can get your ass kicked is going to be on the second season of Gone Country. I resisted the first year, even though they had Baltimore's own Sisqo on board, because I hate reality tv. Haaaate. But Chris? Seriously? I give in, CMT. I will watch your dumb reality show.

Judge and Sec are not here. You know what that means!

Snurched from [Bad username or site: sdwolfpup / @ livejournal.com]:

Below the cut is Entertainment Weekly's list of the top movies of the last 25 years. Go through their list and BOLD the ones you have seen and underline the ones you own on video or DVD.

I'm adding: Italicize the movies you plan to get around to seeing...at some point.

( the great big list )

In what universe is The Bourne Supremacy a better movie than The Bourne Identity? And I wouldn't have put The Bourne Identity on this list. Especially at the expense of a good movie like Dances with Wolves, the omission of which is a joke.

All nine seasons of SG-1 will be on sale Sunday and Monday at Circuit City for $17.99 (each). Also on sale for $17.99: three seasons of Arrested Development, seven seasons of Buffy, four seasons of The Shield, and Firefly.

Best Buy will price-match if you have the CC circular, but if not, take heart, because they have Arrested Development and SG-1 on sale for $19.99. And several seasons of X-Files.

In conclusion, m-y-r i-s b-r-o-k-e.

Oh! So I saw Dreamgirls. I loved it! The audience broke into applause twice during the movie (after Hudson's awkwardly staged but still awesome rendition of And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going and after Beyonce's Listen) and again when it was over. And again when Keith Robinson's name appeared during the credits and again for and introducing... Jennifer Hudson It was great. First AM show on a Friday and it was pretty packed. And Jim from The Office was in it! :P For two seconds, BUT STILL. I've never seen the stage show and I so want to, now. It was good, good times. Beyonce didn't annoy me at all, which was, like, amazing. I really enjoyed the historical aspect of it, the way you see/hear the music transforming over time? To be honest, I think maybe I enjoyed watching the story of the music even more than what was going on with the characters. But that's alright, I don't really think it detracted from the emotional impact of the film. At least not for me. I really recommend it, highly. Yay for leaving a theatre feeling fulfilled ^_^

Eid Mubarak to those celebrating! Hilariously, I hear some Muslim communities have declared the Saudis WRONG and are not celebrating the holiday today, but plan to celebrate tomorrow. Like, life would be so much easier if we just gave up on the lunar calendar, guys. It was a fairly good one - early prayers at the new mosque in Columbia and then we hung out at a friend of my mom's house with loads of people and basically sat back and ate lamb as they pulled it off the grill. Because we are lazy like that. The only downside was my mom driving me NUTS all day with Al Jazeera and Saddam this and Saddam that and I will be really glad when Al Jazeera decides they have other things to talk about.

Oh and the part where I checked my school email and I had a research assignment waiting for me. That was not so fun. Ew, effort. As Leanne likes to say.

++ In the continuing saga of [Bad username or site: ayrdaomei / @ livejournal.com] and Her EverShrinking F-List, I've done another cut. (But hey, some credit! It's been...like two months since the last one.) As ever, no offense intended. I've just been finding myself with less and less to say about more and more journal entries on my friends view.

++ You know, my not posting much about myself? It's really not for lack of trying. Yesterday, I got about half a sentence into a heavily, heavily filtered post. Spent about 10 minutes trying to reword just that half sentence. Decided posting about myself and things unrelated to fandom is for the birds.

++ Okay, I will say this: HA! Pert stuff aside, sounds familiar.

++ Been to the movies a bit in the past week:
( Blood Diamond - minor spoilers )

( Charlotte's Web - no spoilers )

( Casino Royale - spoilers )

++ In books: Robert B. Parker has a new Spenser novel out! The Spenser stories have been on the decline for a long while now - you read them in like a half a day, and Spenser's funny, and beats some sense into some people, but nothing more gripping than that. Still, I always get excited when I hear Parker's written another, always eager to get my hands on it. There's always such potential for goodness before you've opened a book, you know? And rather surprisingly, since it's been out less than a month, I found one of the copies still on the shelf at the local library. Good times. Course, my dad always calls first dibs on any Spenser book I bring home, so I also picked up the next in Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas collection. Oh, and [Bad username or site: johnnybvo / @ livejournal.com] got me Pride of Baghdad, which I heard made Playboy's list of the seven best fiction books in '06. And if that's not a compelling endorsement, I don't know what is ^_~ Leisure reading, yay.

++ Has anyone seen Mandy Patinkin in concert? He's coming to the Lyric Opera House next month and I'm seriously thinking of going. Balcony seats are just under $30, which is a bit much, but I think it might be worth $30 to hear Mandy perform some of my Sondheim favorites live for once in my life. Jim Gaffigan is doing a comedy show the night before and as much as I love Jim, he's come a ways from his Improv days it seems. Tickets for his show are rather pricey considering I'm fairly sure he's still not a real mainstream name in stand-up. Or maybe he is, I dunno. At any rate, I won't be seeing him again.

++ Doesn't look like we'll be getting any snow this coming week :/ I know, I shouldn't talk when people are buried under it in some places. But. I just find rain especially draining this time of year. If it's going to be wet, I wish we'd get some snow.

[Bad username or site: soupypictures / @ livejournal.com], are you still looking for 2x11 of Lost? It's shown up here.

Either because I am a moron or because Moviefone likes to play tricks with my mind, Babel wasn't even showing at the local theatre when we went yesterday. Stranger Than Fiction was showing, at the same time that I thought Babel was showing, so we saw that instead. I liked it, though it was a little hard to take seriously around the end. There was one part in particular where the audience kept laughing and I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be laugh out loud funny stuff. Ooops :P

I find that I really like Will Ferrell in his mixed serious/comedic roles. If you've seen Melinda & Melinda, he plays a very similar character in STF. Since I find his character in M&M kind of adorable, I was fine with watching him play mostly the same person. It's kinda like Topher Grace in Good Company and Win A Date With Todd Hamilton.

All the trailers we got beforehand sucked (Balls of Fury? Oh, Mr. Walken. I love you, I love you, I love you. But sometimes you make it soooooooooooooo hard), except The Pursuit of Happyness, which continues to make me cry every. time. I see it. DAMN YOU, WILL SMITH.

Hope everyone's having a pleasant Saturday :) I have a lot to do, but for some reason, I am not freaking out just yet. One thing at a time, yeah?

eta: Yesterday, someone shared the following on one of the music meme comms, and since it keeps cracking me up ~ Get Set Go - I Hate Everyone.