#7: All That We See or Seem

 I've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like, is any of this for real, or not?

It had been the ongoing yet never fulfilled big plan of the summer. Go see Inception. Ever since I saw a synopsis I wanted to see it. Man with a mysterious past manipulates other people’s dreams and plants ideas. Good enough for me. Throw in Christopher Nolan as director and a great cast (mmm, Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and it’s a bonus. Add a plot that is so mind-blowing that invokes a continuous hour-long+ discussion on the ride home, and… wow. It’s been a very long time since I saw a movie on the big screen that left me speechless. Eventually I got a few one-syllable words out, but that took a while. It was very “Fire bad. Tree pretty.” It took me an arrow-abundant diagram and a good night’s sleep to sort it all out, and I’m still confused – the plot keeps spiralling off into fractals that get ever more intricate: dreams within dreams within dreams within dreams and maybe a few more on top of that.

So yes, here it is, sorted out, more or less. More less than more, I’d wager, but I gave it my best shot. Read and take heed: there be spoilers ahead. And I don’t know about you, but I hate spoilers, and I hate even more the people who insist on bringing them out into the open. Which is why I’m not.

So note: SPOILERS.

Dream on, if you dare…

RAM #2: Summerfling

Been a while, eh? Can’t say I’ve been overwhelmingly busy, but something always draws me away from the computer in the summer months. Case in point:

So far Season 2 is surpassing Season 1. I'm happy.

I’m catching up on the Being Erica episodes I missed last fall due to Season 6 of So You Think You Can Dance. I really like the whole philosophical attitude of this show and how applicable it is to real life. And though I don’t relate to the urban Eastern Canada vibe it has, I definitely get the regret and lack of fulfillment. Season 2 is even better than its predecessor: I like seeing the ever-expanding world of the time-travelling psychiatrist. Or is it psychologist? I always get those screwed up. Anyway, happy I’m seeing it finally… and mmm, Kai is cute. A prig, but cute. And I am still jealous of Erin Karpluk’s hair.

#6: DSing Things

It was with some trepidation that I got a Nintendo DS. After spending six years with a Playstation 2 and, well, six more before that with nothing except an ancient Super Nintendo, in a way I felt I had outgrown anything Nintendo could offer. I was never a Mario fan, and after seeing Windwaker Link, I wasn’t keen on playing any more Legend of Zelda anytime soon. Add on top of that the endless pile of crappy kiddy titles most mainstream stores seem to stock… and I had this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that I was never going to get my money’s worth out of this contraption.

Call it a pleasant surprise, but a few good games later, I have. There are diamonds in this rough. And other positively-vibed clichés. Some are better than others, some are better than expected, some are worse. All that I’ve had a decent go at are here. And you may consider discovering them yourself.

RAM #1: Supernatural Dancing at the World's End with Henry

Figured I'd flesh out my more coherent, thoroughly researched posts with a few random thoughts that might merit further exploration at some future date. Random-Access Memories, if you will - you probably won't. But if that's the case, just nod and smile benignly.

• I finally finished The World Ends With You for DS. At first I was weirded out by the shameless Japaneseness of the game - there was statue-polishing and evil frogs involved - but this has got to be one of the best video games I have ever played on the DS. It's inspiring a new entry here, methinks - one about the DS games I've managed to root out of the endless pile of "Pony Princess" and "Penguin Olympics" kiddy sort of crud that seems to come part and parcel with this system. There are good DS games - they're just really hard to get a hold of.

• I watched Regarding Henry last night, and though it's nowhere near the epitome of Harrison Ford movies, it wasn't as bad as some things I've read made it out to be. Basically this jerk lawyer gets brain damage and learns to be a better person. It had the potential to be sickly sweet, and I'm glad it never went there. And bonus - Harrison Ford has nice hair in this movie. This coming from a smitten fangirl, but meh. Check another off the list of "Harrison Ford Movies To See."

• I also interrupted watching of said movie to skulk out Dancing With The Stars. Yeah, I'm really drawing from the bottom of the barrel here - but thankfully, it's the last week, and the dancing is actually quite good. Can't say, however, that those freestyle dances were anywhere near the quality of those I've seen in the past - Shawn Johnson's is still my favourite:

• And I've finally managed to acquire Supernatural Season 4 for a reasonable price, so I'm happy to say the Jensen Ackles drought has ended. There's never anything good on Peasantvision these days. Anyway, I'm up to episode 11, and eager to keep watching (though the Goddy stuff is a bit of a turnoff for me), so I'm a gonna go do that now.

#5: The Chosen One (Part 2)

On with the show – Seasons 4-7. 

If you missed out on Part 1, do read it here.

Season 4: Random and Restless

Buffy: “You know what? I think you don’t want us to let you go. Maybe we made it too comfy here.”
Spike: “Comfy? Do I look comfy? I’m chained in a bathtub drinking pig’s blood from a novelty mug. Doesn’t rate huge in the Zagat’s guide.”
– “Something Blue”

High school is over and done – a smoking ruin on the Sunnydale horizon. Buffy (and most of her friends) have moved on – either to university, or (in Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley’s case) L.A. Everyone feels a little lost and out of place, suffering from all sorts of things: loneliness, overbearing roommates, behaviour-modification chips… the list goes on. On the plus side, Buffy gets a new boyfriend in nice-but-boring-Iowa-farmboy Riley Finn, Willow gets a new girlfriend in nice-but-quiet-albeit-not-too-boring-witchy-woman Tara Maclay, and Xander and Anya’s relationship finally becomes more than just the love/hate variety. But demons and vampires are still running amok, and – for some unknown reason – being hunted down by military commandos working out of an underground base, which houses a nasty new experiment…

#4: The Chosen One (Part 1)

Giles: “As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in all the world – ”
Buffy: “He loves doing this part.”
Giles: [speeding up] “All right: They hunt vampires, one Slayer dies, the next is called, Buffy is the Slayer, don’t tell anyone. I think that’s all the vampire information you need.”
– Breaking it down for Willow and Xander, “The Harvest”

I usually start these things by saying how underqualified I am to write them. This is no exception: I was not, nor probably ever will be enamoured with vampires – I enjoy the fantasy element, and that’s about it. Nor was I such a rabid fan of this show when it was still on TV – my mom gave me the choice of watching either it or Xena, and since Xena was about as fantastical a show as you could get at the time, naturally I went for the leather, over-the-top swordfighting, and that earsplitting scream. Though I don’t fully regret that choice – nostalgia has a high value – yet another Boxing Day splurge has taught me to never judge a book by its cover. Or a TV show by its title.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer isn’t the campy-horror-hokum its name suggests. It is, however, one of the best damned (ha ha) TV shows you ever will see. Its humour and wit rivals that of M*A*S*H (which I believe to be the best-written TV show ever – and I don’t make superlatives lightly), and its suspense and drama can compare to the best of the silver screen. It may even have surpassed Charmed as my favourite TV show (though the jury’s still out on that one – I don’t make favourites lightly either). In short, this story of a supernaturally gifted teenage girl and her lovable, oddball friends is brilliant, one-of-a-kind, humourous, heartwrenching, and not-to-be-missed.

#3: The Master of Suspense

I don’t really know how it started – but it probably began late at night – technically early morning. I have no idea why I was still up, but I was flipping through my meager number of channels, looking for something to watch for a short while. The only thing on besides infomercials must have been the old movie on CBC – a blonde woman with an updo, sitting in a boat, “crossing” a body of water – an obviously fake background, but hey, old movie, whatever. It all seems so benign – that is, until a seagull swoops down and takes a nice nummy swatch of skin from her forehead. Okay. Weird. But cool. Enough to make me look up just what movie I was watching. And I decided then that – next chance I got – I’d rent The Birds and give it a proper watch. That’s when I started loving Alfred Hitchcock films.

This appreciation of Hitchcock is something I can’t quite explain. When it comes to movies, for the most part, I’m a fantasy/sci-fi junkie – I like being sent to worlds I can’t visit on my own. I’m also not a fan of horror movies – I haven’t seen many, but I feel the ones I have were poorly acted, predicable, and a sorry excuse to spew blood and gore all over the screen. But Hitchcock movies are different somehow. Yes, they’re older, and therefore more strictly censored. In a way, though, that makes them better. They’re all about what you don’t know and what you can’t see – and what you make up in your head about what’s really happening is far more intriguing (and sometimes terrifying) than anything that could be splashed across the screen. I also believe these films were made in a time when movies weren’t just produced for profit, and directed by a man who planned everything so meticulously and thought everything out so well that the final product is nothing short of classic – and something everyone should see.

I haven’t seen every Hitchcock film out there – not even close – but I’m working on it. In the time being, though, you might want to check out these ones yourself:

#2: Hearts, Keys and Paopus, SOLDIERs and Weird Moons

Originally Posted: December 3, 2009

The 1st Day

It was otherwise an obscenely boring day, but I remember it quite clearly. My parents were shopping for a clothes dryer. My brother and I were tired of watching them do so. So we trekked down to Zellers and went video game shopping. He bought Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, I bought Kingdom Hearts – my first real video game purchase since my SNES days. You see, my other brother had just gotten himself a brand spanking new PS2 – and for the most part, we don’t share tastes in video games, so if I wanted to end my six-year video game drought, I had to find something of my own to play. And to a 16-year-old Disney freak, Kingdom Hearts seemed like a safe bet.

On my first day playing it, though, I was a bit apprehensive. Who were all these androgynous anime-esque characters with weird names? Where were all my beloved Disney characters? And why the HECK won’t they let me off this stupid island? It took a little while, but eventually I got what I came for – and so much more.

#1: In My Fortress of Solitude...

Original Post Date: September 12, 2009

The first thing you should know is that I’m not a rabid comic book geek. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read a single superhero comic book in my life. What I did do, however, is see the original Superman movies near the end of junior high – probably the summer of 2000. Superman III and IV were crap, but the original movie was awesome (especially given its age – though admittedly the 70s corniness occasionally shines through), and Superman II became my favourite superhero movie ever (remember, this was before 9/11 and the sudden influx of superhero movies that followed). I don’t know why I ended up liking Superman in particular (especially given the existence of Tim Burton’s Batman and the illogic of Superman being able to hide his identity with ugly glasses), but for some reason, I did.

Aiding and abetting this (at the time) infatuation, was Smallville, which showed up on TV in Fall 2001. Superman in high school – and gee whiz, I’m starting high school too (I love teenage logic)! It was pretty much love at first sight, and looking back, the first season wasn’t all that bad (as first seasons go). Clark likes Lana Lang, Clark can’t have Lana Lang because Lana Lang’s with Whitney Fordman (and she wears a kryptonite necklace – you can see what that would lead to), Whitney Fordman hates Clark, Lex Luthor likes Clark a bit too much, Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross are oblivious meteor-freak magnets that Clark constantly has to save – and round and round we go. It was shallow and repetitive fare, but it was good shallow and repetitive fare.

Ambling Preely – A Preamble

I started making posts like these way back in September in my Facebook Notes, then realized that I really didn't have a very wide audience in that arena. Though I'll keep up the tradition there, I figured I could expand my horizons (and – fingers crossed – get a few more readers) here. So, without further ado – my purpose, my mission, the reason why we're all (more or less) here:

The Original Preamble:

I’ve seen a few other people try this in their notes – write about something that could be considered trivial but matters to a greater or lesser extent to them – blogging, I guess. As a stewing pot of mounds of useless trivia, I think about less-than-important things all the time, and yet I usually have no sounding board for these random thoughts, so I tend to drive myself crazy batting them about all day long until I find a listening ear who may – or, usually, may not – know what the heck I’m getting all excited about.

So… this is supposed to be not only for my benefit, but also for yours. It’s unbelievably frustrating to discover wonderful obscure things out in the big wide world that – it seems – no one else has heard of and/or no one else cares one lick about. People usually don’t know what they’re missing, and I hate when they end up missing out. So whenever I find something amazing (and bear with me, amazing usually means some sort of sci-fi/fantasy thing that reeks of geek – but NOT always) that I think other people should have a look at, I’m going to talk about it here. So even if you aren’t as over the moon about the subject at hand as I am, please be supportive, give it a read, and leave a comment so I feel like I’m actually accomplishing something while I waste time. ;->

On with the show.