Movie Hopping: Lovely Bones & When in Rome

Went Movie Hopping yesterday and saw two films, which is actually one less than I normally opt to see. Especially at the prices theatres charge nowadays. The first film I saw was When in Rome, which while not horrible was not all that good. Despite the fact that it stars Kristne Bell, whom I love from her good ol' Veronica Mars days. The film was obviously edited and re-cut more than once, as the sudden changes in characters behavior and the general theme or pacing of the movie was apparent.


The next film I saw was The Lovely Bones, a much darker theatrical fare by far.

Pee Wee Herman Live at Club Nokia

UPDATE: Get the $20 RUSH tickets to this event if you can. The theatre wasn't even full when I saw the show, and there were plenty of good seats left. So getting the last minute and much cheaper RUSH tickets is definitely a good idea!


In just a few short hours I will be seeing Pee Wee Herman live at Club Nokia! It should be an interesting night! I have made it a point to try to see and do more things in the Los Angeles area, as I have been living her for over 10 years now. I use to go out and do something in the city every weekend, but now I am lucky if I get out once or twice a month. Hence I am trying to see as many things as possible, and to get back into the whole Los Angeles entertainment scene as it were. Since Los Angeles has a lot to offer if you only take the time to look.


I would post pictures, but apparently there is no photography allowed at the show. Which is why I really need to invest in a cell phone that has a decent camera attached. More info about the show to follow and more post coming this weekend.

This is utter nonsense!

I think I wrote a little blurb about Brittany Murphy and her untimely death awhile ago, and how I really wasn't all that surprised to hear of her passing. For awhile now there have been weird stories and rumors circulating surrounding her and her equally bizarre behavior around Hollywood. So hearing that she died because of a mixture of stress, emotional/mental issues, drugs and whatnot, was really not unexpected at all. What is somewhat shocking now is hearing that her apparently equally demented husband, Simon Monjack, is claiming that Warner Bros pictures is responsible for the death of his wife and he plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the company.


Mr.Monjack claims that Brittany Murphy was devastated after reportedly losing a role in the sequel to "Happy Feet." Which I had actually forgotten that she had a role in. Monjack believes that losing the movie caused Murphy to have a heart attack. WTF?! Seriously, she was so distraught over not getting a speaking role in an animated film that she had a heart attack? Who does that and if even if she had a heart attack because she was disappointed, how is that Warner brothers fault? Plus I don't think you could even prove that the new actually caused the heart attack. Which was drug related by the way! Healthy young adults do not have heart attacks out of the blue without either a n undiagnosed problem or some some of drug issue. I hope this case is bounced out of court and the idiot Monjack is forced to pay all the associated legal fees tied to this nonsense and then some!

Junk Postings

Just so everyone knows, if you are a legitimate reader and wish to post feedback, then by all means please do so. But today I found some comments made by people who only wanted to post links to their dubious business ventures or scam offers. I will delete every single posting of such a nature, so please do not waste my time or yours. This site is for fun and entertainment value, and not for anyone to hock their voodoo wares as it were. Please keep this in mind for the future.

Late Night Wars

I guess because of all that has been going on in the late night wars, I am definitely with team CoCo. Though if you ask me the whole thing is rather silly. Right from the get go people knew that having the Jay Leno show at 10pm was going to be a failure as well as cost hundreds if not thousands of jobs in the entertainment industry by removing all the 10pm shows from the line up. And personally I prefer to see a good drama, cop or otherwise at 10pm rather than Jay Leno being insincere to his guests. Which for the most part have not really been all that interesting, but I am not exactly in the Jay Leno's shows core demographic as he tends to skew a little bit older nowadays than Conan does. Whom I frankly find more entertaining to begin with, as I like his more dark sense of humor or bite if you will when compared to Leno mostly vanilla act.

Hell Freezes Over

I have actually read the below article before, but my understanding is that a student in Norway or somewhere in Scnadinavia who wrote this, and it might have been a lot longer and more in depth than this is in it's current incarnation.


The following is an actual question given on a University chemistry final exam.

The answer by one student was so “profound” that the professor shared it with colleagues via the Internet, which is why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law that gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that, if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.

Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell. Because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay constant, the volume of Hell must expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Sandra during my freshman year, that “it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,” and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is endothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is extinct…leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being - which explains why, last night, Sandra kept shouting “Oh God!”

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY “A”.

Legion

This film unfortunately was crap, even if I didn't pay to see it, it was still a piece of crap! Initially I really liked the film and the whole Angels vs. humans general theme of the movie, but it just couldn't live up to the hype. The first half of the film was interesting as they start to set up the film, delve into the various characters and set up to the film's basic premise. But pretty much as soon as the actual Angel(s) shows up, the film just becomes a disaster! There is not enough character development to make you really care about anyone in the film, and the film's savior, former Angel Michael played by Paul Betthany is just not as interesting as he could have been.


There has been numerous films about Angels and almost none of them make the whole religious mythology of angels interesting, or as interesting as they could be. The only film to come even remotely close is the film The Prophecy starring Christopher Walken. The Angeles in this film are boring and one dimensional at best, their look also leaves something to be desired as well. As they look almost exactly like the Hawk Men from the old campy Flash Gordan movie from the 70's.

Test Screening: Beastly

Yesterday I attended a test screening of a film that I really had no interest in seeing, especially given the subject matter. The film was called Beastly and it is based on a series of young adult/made for teenagers books of the same name by Alex Finn. The story centers around a popular high school senior named Kyle at an elite and prestigious college preparatory school and how through his superficiality, cruel behavior and superior attitude, he is cursed by a witch to be as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside. Only to be free of his curse if he can find at least one person to utter the words, I love you within a year lest his curse becomes permanent. Hence this film is obviously an updated and reworked version of Beauty and the Beast, replete with a catchy soundtrack filled with all the latest song from pop culture. The films stars Alex Pettyfer as Kyle and the Beast, Vanessa Hudgens as his would be love interest and Savior, Mary-Kate Olsen as the witch who curses the Beast, and Neil Patrick Harris as Kyle's blind tutor Will.


The film as a whole was much better than I expected it to be and I rather enjoyed it. The make up for the beast and his overall look were really well done. Though this film is definitely made for little girls, and anyone who is male or over the age of 18 is not really going to enjoy themselves as much as they could. I think I would have enjoyed it more if wasn't made by CBS films, whom I didn't even know were even in the business of making Theatrical films. Which is probably why the film looked and felt like the film was a made for Lifetime Television or some sort of straight to DVD fare. Though the music they used was substantially better than what is usually featured on anything shown on television, most likely because of the exorbitant licensing fees for such songs. Still the film noticeably lacked all the qualities that would have distinguished itself as a real theatrical production. In fact it was my understanding that Beastly was going to be an actual television series and not an actual movie. Though I am not sure how they would have Neil Patrick Harris on both series at the same time, especially since his character in this is only a slightly watered down version of Barney from How I met you Mother fame.


I hardly ever check my emails associated with this account and only recently thus noticed that CBS has emailed me asking me not to comment on their film since it was a test screening and not the finished product. Seeing as I have not posted any copyrighted material, nor signed an actual release stating that I would never discuss the film. I legally do not have to comply with their wishes, and since my review is not actually negative, I do not see any reason why I should have to take down my posting in the first place. Sorry CBS, but I actually haven't broken any laws. Plus you would think that you'd like all the publicity you can get for your films, online or otherwise?

Cell Phone Update: Number 8

While waiting for the bus today I had the pleasure of listen to two fine upstanding examples of the very best that humanity has to offer. In this case an elderly Asian man talking about the quality of food in prison, and a whithered Hispanic woman who apparently also did a little bit of jail time and is now nursing a severely injured leg. From her mainly complaints I was able to determine that she was repeatedly stabbed by an ex boyfriend, dealer or some other low-life scumbag she associated with. Normally I would have not concerned myself with the rambles of people I considered to be social pariah, but these two society outcast were talking so loud that it was impossible for me to read my book in peace or ignore them. Making me wonder why anyone would choose to have such a conversation in public is beyond me. Some people I will just never understand.

Fringe

Not too long ago I attended an event at the Paley Center that featured almost the entire cast from Fox's Sci Fi FRINGE TV show. We were shown an episode of the series, followed by a discussion panel, questions and answer session and treated to a little bit of an autograph and photo op at the end. The entire cast was very entertaining and quite funny, especially Joshua Jackson whom is quite well known for his sense of humor both on and off set.





For those of you who do not follow the show, it is about an FBI agent Olivia Dunham who has been paired with a very eccentric and possibly insane scientist Walter Bishop and his some equally brilliant if not somewhat directionless son. Peter Bishop. As they investigate unexplained phenomena, and what is referred to as fringe science. real mad scientist sort of stuff, illegal experiments, psychic phenomena and much more.




One of the things about the show that I have latched onto is the whole alternate universe thing. As several of the main characters are aware of an alternate reality and a few of them have even freely traveled there. In fact Doctor Walter Bishop even went so far as to kidnap his deceased son from the alternate reality, just so he would continue to have a son in his reality. Something that has some very intriguing storyline aspects that has not really been dealt with as of yet. We just know for the time being that in Universe A Peter Bishop died at a very young age of a typical child hood illness ( measles of something to that effect), and that his father Walters traveled to another alternate Universe/reality to get his son back. So far no one other than Walter knows his son is not actually his original son, so some characters are starting to suspect something.