The Predator movie I want to see:
May 31, 2008
May 29, 2008
Ginia Bellafante delves into the mysteries of Lost:
“Lost,” which concludes its fourth season on ABC on Thursday night, refuses our passive interest while it denies us the satisfaction of ever feeling that we might confidently explain, to the person sitting next to us at dinner, that we have a true grasp of what is going on — of who among the characters is merely bad and who is verifiably satanic. To watch “Lost” is to feel like a high school grind, studying and analyzing and never making it to Yale. Good dramas confound our expectations, but “Lost,” about a factionalized group of plane crash survivors on a cartographically indeterminate island not anything like Aruba, pushes further, destabilizing the ground on which those expectations might be built. It is an opiate, and like all opiates, it produces its own masochistic delirium.
Very perceptive.
May 28, 2008
Clever video for “Pork and Beans” by Weezer:
May 26, 2008
I can’t argue with the logic behind this:
“After seeing some of my favorite television shows get canceled in the past — as well as the ’save this show’ campaigns that followed — I had the idea that a fan campaign BEFORE the show begins may be the best thing to do.”
Go here to help save Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse—which won’t even be premiering until 2009.
Read a book (NSFW):
May 24, 2008
Iowahawk’s got a good one today: Return to Sender.
(Via Instapundit.)
May 22, 2008
May 15, 2008
The day there was no news:
John Scalzi compares Speed Racer’s opening weekend with the 1977 Star Wars premier, which brought in roughly the same amount of money in inflation-adjusted dollars. It doesn’t look good for Speed:
Speed Racer is doomed: There’s no chance that Speed will get up to speed from here. Tomorrow the family audiences that were supposed to go see it will go flock to Prince Caspian instead, and then the weekend after that, Indiana Jones is back. Speed Racer will be in the second-run movie theaters by the first week in June, with nothing to else to look forward to until its financial afterlife on DVD and HBO. All because of two $20 million opening weekends: Its own, and the one Star Wars had, adjusted for inflation, 31 years ago.
May 13, 2008
Seth Stevenson’s has some advice for young procrastinators:
Dear chronically procrastinating young person,
Slate has asked me to offer you a few words of advice—as I, too, am a procrastinator. Always have been. In college, I’d start 10-page papers after midnight on the day they were due. Half my memories of this period involve screaming at my printer to print faster, ripping the pages from its maw, and then sprinting to my professor’s office with moments to spare, sweat streaming down my face.
Why did I subject myself to so much stress, instead of starting my work earlier like “normal” people do? Well, you’ve no doubt heard all manner of theories regarding the root cause of procrastination. Fear of failure. Crippling perfectionism. Abnormally low type-2 phloxiplaxitus levels.
I’m here to tell you that it was none of these things. The root cause of my procrastination, in technical terms, is this: I’m lazy. Extremely lazy.
Boy, I wish I’d heard this advice when I was younger. It took me an awful long time to figure it out on my own.
By the way, this would constitute my excuse for not blogging lately.
May 4, 2008
How not to respond to a rejection:
This is NOT a form letter. Your reply is rather generic and offers no insight as to what you want. Unless you had ESP there is now way to know what my material is about.
IF you judge talent on a one page query letter I’m sure you have MISSED a lot in life, especially up and coming writers who need a damn break. [La Gringa notes here: this particular agent asks for a writing sample in addition to a query, something this writer had failed to provide.]
If Spielberg, Poe, or another great came to you would you blow them off too? Without knowing what geniuses they are? IF SO; I’m surprised there are any writers at all with your agency. Are they related to you?
I get the feeling you don’t know talent when it stares you in the face or emails a one page query letter. If you base all your judgements on a one minute note, you are either psychic or don’t have a clue that there is much more to this world than your office or small stable of writers who somehow bribed cajoled or kissed someone’s ass to get there.
See? They’re doing it wrong. Here’s how it’s done: