The Pirates!

This weekend we saw The Pirates! Band of Misfits - it was really fun.  It's made by Aardman Animations, which does Wallace and Gromit, that wonderful claymation video.  Here's a great featurette if you're interested in that sort of thing. It's very funny and witty and we had a good time.  Hugh Grant does the voice of the Pirate Captain, but, for some reason I was like, Oh, Hugh Grant would never do animation... so the whole time I was trying to figure out how else had a voice as buttery smooth as HG.

I kept expecting them to break into song - something from The Pirates of Penzance, which I really really wish were on DVD, or, better yet, HD streaming on Netflix*.  If you haven't seen this movie, let me tell you... it is amazing.  Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, Angela Frigging Lansbury and that guy from The Greatest American Hero.  Know who I mean?  With the hair?

Anyway, it's great.  Here's one of my favorite songs:



* Hey!  It turns out it IS available on HD streaming on Amazon Instant whatever that is.

I watch too much tv

Is anyone watching Awake?  It's about this guy who lives two realities, post car accident - in one reality, his wife's dead, in another, his kid's dead, and he doesn't know which one is real.  It stars Jason Issacs, who is... guess who?

Mr. Malfoy, that's who!  Turns out he's wicked handsome when he doesn't have Stevie Nicks' hair.  

I really like Awake, although I'm worried they're going to do something stupid.  So many shows just haven't really thought past one season and then they poop out.  I can't even watch Smash anymore, I just fast forward to the songs.  Eww,  I'm watching it right now, actually, and that weird Bollywood bit sounds more like the death toll of Smash on my DVR.  

But, back to Isaacs, if you're recording Downton Abbey, you're probably getting all the Masterpiece stuff, which is so great.  I first saw a post-Malfoy Isaacs in Case Histories, based on a novel by Kate Atkinson.  I'm a big Atkinson fan and have read everything she's written.  Case Histories was great but a little hard to follow, and some of the Scottish accents were so thick it was kind of hard to follow.  In Awake he does an American accent. Back then I just spent the whole time going THAT'S MALFOY?????   

So, on Awake, in both realities, he sees a therapist, and one of his therapists asks him to open a book and read it randomly, and, it turns out it's the constitution - and she says, well, that proves THIS is reality unless you have the whole constitution memorized.  And then they sort of dropped it.  For some reason that kind of captured my imagination because like, say you're dreaming, you can do anything - speak foreign languages you've never studied or whatever and your brain just smoothes out the inconsistencies for you.  It would be funny if there were a third reality where he was a blonde wizard.  

The Cabin in the Woods (no spoilers)

This weekend we saw The Cabin in the Woods - I really wanted to see it because it's written by Joss Wedon.  It's nice for any Wedon fan because it's basically like a really great two-hour episode of Buffy meets Dollhouse meets the last episode of Angel.  It's partly a commentary on traditional horror movies and the standard stereotypes that are included (the jock, the nerd, the virgin, etc) and how we conform people to meet expected stereotypes and there's also this whole other element that I won't mention for fear of spoilers, except, I will say that I wish the trailer hadn't given so much away.  It's really interesting that this movie came out the same season as The Hunger Games, they have a lot in common.  Well, it's really interesting movie and I'd recommend it.  BTW, it's not really scary, at least not I-can't-sleep-now scary.  Remember when Scream came out and everyone said what a brilliant movie it was, social commentary, etc?  Back then I was like, We've got to see this movie! and then, I couldn't even so much as walk to the bathroom by myself in the middle of the night for the next six months, I was so freaked out.  M was like, Are you SURE we should go see this?  So, it's jumpy-scary in parts and and over-the-top gross in others, so over-the-top that it's funny.  I wouldn't like, recommend it to my mom, but I would to my sister.

The Killing

I got crazy addicted to season one of The Killing on AMC.  Remember that red-haired twin on Big Love that married whatshisname's brother?  She's in it.  Season 1 is really good and I almost watched the whole thing in 1 day.  Only (mini-spoilers coming) it was such a drag that they didn't say who the murderer is at the end.  I thought they were totally going to do like a Veronica Mars/new mystery every season sort of thing.  Now it's like... what? The mystery will never be solved?  I can't stand that sort of Lost/Heroes nonsense.  But, what I don't understand, and if you do, please tell me - how can it be that the mayor-candidate is not the killer when he's the one who sent the creepy emails to the high-class hookers?  Too many shows, I'll tell ya', just plan out one great season, then they get renewed, and it's like, oh shit, we have to think up some more ideas?!?!  

Don't just sit there, Draw Something!

So, I started playing Draw Something this weekend and it. Is. Awesome.  Will you please play with me?  I cannot get enough games going.  I drew like, a totally amazing Katniss and M got it.  Although, something funny happens in my mind, where I get a clue like Rabbit, for example?  And what I picture in my mind is something like this:

Durer

and what I actually draw is something like this...

me