Mulder & Scully are Almost Back!!!!

I really can’t deal with how hot this is:

I cannot wait for this movie to open on Friday.

Fitna

Several Muslim countries are in an uproar right now. Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of Parliament, just released a ten-minute movie called “Fitna” (Arabic for ‘Ordeal’). The movie shows footage of several terrorist attacks spliced with verses from the Quran which encourage violence and Islamic superiority, as well as video of Imams spouting hate speech and violence. Jordanian lawmakers are considered breaking diplomatic ties to the Netherlands, and there have been protests in Pakistan, Iran, and Indonesia, all of whom have requested to speak with their respective ambassadors.

Mr. Wilders, who produced the film under heavy security, has received numerous death threats and requires a security escort at all times. Personally, while I don’t think the film is particularly good, I see nothing deceptive, dishonest, or hateful about it. Therefore, I see no reason why it should be censored, as the Dutch government has attempted to do. Freedom of speech is the bedrock of Western Civilization, and must be protected. However, you are welcome to the view the movie for yourself and make your own determination of whether this qualifies as hate speech, great art, something that looks like it was made by stoned undergrad at USC, or a triumph of free speech.

Showtime’s “The L Word” Prompts $1 Million Donation to Breast Cancer Research

AfterEllen.com is reporting that an anonymous donor sent in a check for $1 million to the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation to fund groundbreaking intraductal research.

The donation was made to honor actresses Leisha Hailey and Erin Daniels. The two played a couple whose relationship on Showtime’s awesome lesbian drama the L Word was cut tragically short by breast cancer.

The donor has promised to match every dollar donated to the Erin Daniels and Leisha Hailey Breast Cancer Fund in 2008 and 2009.

As the ladies at After Ellen so brilliantly put it, “Now THAT’S a Power Lesbian!”

On The Death Of TV-Links.com

So for the past few months, I have been lacking good television. Sure, I TiVo some good shows like Dexter, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and House. And I watch some other quality shows like Aliens in America, and the Office, over the internet legally, as the brass at nbc and cw smartly decided to put their television shows up on the internet.

However, most of my favorite shows still cannot be viewed legally over the internet. I used to get them at tv-links.co.uk, but it was forcibly taken down for copyright violation. Yesterday, I stumbled upon a new website called project live tv which provides the same service as tv-links.

As a blogged earlier, if people want to watch tv shows and movies over the internet, illegal site will continue to pop up until this service is provided legally. In the meantime, anyone with the business acumen, programming skills, and a willingness to take risks will make a nice chunk of change, filling the gap left wide, wide open by the tv/film industry.

Order of the Phoenix Was Not Worth Staying Up Until 3:00 a.m.

It seems that whenever J.K. Rowling writes a book more than 500 pages in length, the movie version inevitably sucks. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — which I saw with Andy and friends at midnight last night — felt so utterly thrown together. There were many places where the filmmakers departed from the tremendous depth of storytelling in the book and relied on stupid contrivances to hold together what was little more than a sequential re-enactment of the most visually stimulating moments from the book.

Here are just a few of the many issues I had with the film:

1. The first chapter was all wrong. The book starts off with an ennui-ridden Harry spending the summer in Little Whinging without a shred of news about the return of Voldemort. His frustration and anger at his wizarding friends, and the massive unfairness of life with the Dursleys sets the tone for the rest of the book, in which Harry is a first-class prat a good deal of the time — as teenage boys are prone to be.

   The movie took away all of that underlying motivation and went straight into the scene in which Harry and his horrible cousin are attacked by dementors. They don’t mention that Mrs. Figg is a squib. They don’t mention anything about Mundungus Fletcher going off after dodgy cauldrons. Rowling sets the whole rising action up so brilliantly in the book. The movie could have done it justice with just a couple extra minutes of screen time.

2. Fudge’s motivation for not believing Voldemort is back is all wrong. They don’t explain until halfway through the movie that Fudge isn’t simply in denial because You-Know-Who was so terrible. His true motivation in the book is his fear and jealousy of Dumbledore’s popularity and brilliance. This pops out unexpectedly with no set-up halfway through the film.




3. Umbridge isn’t nearly evil enough. Actress Imelda Staunton got the false, girlish sweetness down pat. But her performance did nothing to demonstrate the truly evil nature of this woman. In the book, I seethed right along with Harry at the injustice of Umbridge’s rise to power at Hogwarts. In the film, her role was so one-dimensional that she didn’t make me angry at all.
4. No Quidditch. And no “Weasley is our King” either.
5. Nothing about Ron and Hermione being prefects.
6. No Marietta Edgecombe. Instead, Cho Chang is the traitor, and there’s nothing about veritaserum in the book. And no brilliant Hermione’s enchanted parchment.
7. The Weasley’s departure was quite lackluster. No everlasting swamp in the corridor.

I could go on about the many reasons why this movie didn’t live up to the book, but those were the big ones. I don’t think they should be making films of these books at all if they can’t do them right.

The Sopranos Series Finale: Bada Bing! Bada Bang! Bada Bye Bye!

I must confess that I was a late-comer to the Sopranos party. It took the simultaneous interest of my parents and my then-boyfriend to draw me into “this thing of ours.” But like the mafia itself, the show is impossible to escape once you’re in.

Much has been made of its impact on television. The Sopranos was the first series to feature a complex, deplorable person as a protagonist. It was also the first series to challenge comfortable plot lines tied up in neat little bows. Most of my favorite television shows owe their existence, in whole or in part, to Tony and his crew.

(spoilers after the jump)

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The Queen, the Demolition of the Barrier Between Public and Private, and The New Web

Andy and I watched Helen Mirren’s impeccable performance in The Queen (iTunes) this evening. He wasn’t as enthusiastic to see the film as I was, but we both wound up enjoying it.

The film got me thinking about issues of transparency and how far our culture has moved from Her Majesty’s heyday. Technology — first the television, now the “personal” Web — has brought human flaws and struggles to the forefront and pushed institutions into the background. Corporations whose goal was once to preserve brands now use new media to humanize themselves. The same must be true of the monarchy if it is to survive in Britain.

Never was this gap in the generational understanding of the public/private divide made more clear than in the days after Princess Diana’s death. As the movie illustrates, Her Majesty was never brought up to wear her heart on her sleeve. “Duty first, self second,” she states primly to Prime Minister Tony Blair as the film nears its end.

What she didn’t understand was that her duty changed as technology changed her people. Diana was so beloved in England because she put a human face on an institution that has sought to submerge humanity beneath layers of protocol since its inception. Her great physical beauty and poise, and her compassion for ordinary people only made her foibles more endearing. She was photographed — quite literally — to death. The exposure of her every move cemented her role as “the people’s princess.”

The newest phenomenon of people using the Web — it has been variously styled as “Web 2.0,” “emerging media,” “new media,” and “consumer generated content” — to tell their personal stories is a natural extension of the global culture that lauded Princess Diana and decried the Queen for her lack of public empathy with the people. Companies, and corporate communicators in particular need to understand that.

The Koalastar Rises!

I met Esther Mira in the fall of 2002 when an ex of mine did something rather embarrassing at a party and I was feeling a bit down on myself. She and her friends stayed up with me all night long drinking vodka and talking about just how stupid boys were. Even the boys agreed.

Now, being strong-willed, hard headed opinionated women, Esther and I have had our share of disagreements. But when I tell you there’s no sexier woman in the universe, you must believe me. You’ll also never find a more talented actress. She just finished starring in a dark thriller about a stripper named September and she’s off and running to more exciting projects. I’m very proud of her.

I recently had the privilege of building a Wordpress blog for Esther and I’m very very excited to read about her many adventures. You should all check it out!

Why Doesn’t iTunes Have the New Battlestar Galactica Yet?!?!?!

It’s been almost 24 hours since the most recent episode of the best show EVER aired. It’s an episode about Cara Thrace, too. Which makes me want to watch it EVEN MORE!!!!!

Usually, iTunes puts them out by the morning after. But this time, no BSG. What gives, Steve Jobs?

I Can’t Wait To See The New Titanic Movie!! OMG!

Once You Go Mac You Never Go Back

The Trailer from Esther’s Movie is Up!

My girl Esther Mira recently finished principal photography on a movie called The Stolen Moments of September. It’s a story of redemption about a stripper named September, and so far, it looks awesome:

Stolen Moments of September teaser

Thank GOD they Cast Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway!

Steve can call her the “Starfleet Academy librarian” all he wants, but Kate Mulgrew is hot! And she’s especially hot when you compare her to the absurd first choice of Geneviève Bujold:

So here’s to Kate Mulgrew. Best. Captain. Ever.

I Met Leeta and Langley!

The forces of geekery converged on Steve and I yesterday afternoon. While grabbing lunch at an obscenely overcrowded food court in the North building at the convention center, we came across a really hot woman in a really, really low cut gold top. I felt weird about staring at her, but something seemed so very familiar.

And then it hit me. “That’s Chase Masterson. She was Leeta, the really super, mega hot Bajoran Dabo girl on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The one who was inexplicably attracted to Quark’s younger brother Rom.” She was hanging out with this goofy-looking blonde guy who looked equally familiar, but whose identity I sadly did not recognize until she introduced him as Dean Haglund. He played Langley on the X-Files.

Needless to say, between the gadgets, the bloggers, going to Star Trek: The Experience with Steve and meeting those two, my geeky needs hve been satisfied for the next millennium or so.

Happy Thanksgiving! But Not for Bree.

I’m having a fun Thanksgiving, but Bree a.k.a. LonelyGirl15 went to the movies. She doesn’t even seem upset that it’s Thanksgiving and her parents have been kidnapped by a scary cult and she has no idea if she’ll ever see them again. This “on the run” shit is getting old.

Technorati Tags: LG15, Lonelygirl15, Thanksgiving

The Conservative Soul, Sarah Buxton and the Bond Movie

Did I mention that Daniel Craig is lickable? I think so.

Technorati Tags: Sarah Buxton, The Conservative Soul, James Bond Casino Royale

The Michael Moore of Stem Cells

Tonight, Andy and I went to a party to celebrate the work my friend Alex Goldberg is doing on his film about stem cell research. He’s been called “the Michael Moore of stem cells” by Al Gore himself.

The film itself isn’t a finished product, but Alex showed us several clips that he’s put together. Apart from the obvious message that this research has the promise to cure a number of serious diseases, there was some real artistry in the way that the visuals were put together.

In one particularly memorable scene, the mother of a diabetic child walks towards her daughter’s school while the heavens above flash through textbook descriptions of the illness and how stem cells might be used to treat it. The juxtaposition is truly remarkable.

The evening was really a fundraiser for the University of Washington’s stem cell research department. They have an incredible group of men and women, and they’re in desperate need of private funds to carry out work with embryonic stem cells - which the current administration will not fund.

I encourage you to get in touch with Marilyn Dunn, vice president for development at the University of Washington to make a donation to this important cause. She can be reached at (206) 543-2565.

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