Things from this week

I'm so happy to see that Final Girl is blogging again. For a while it was out of service- no new posts and, even worse, there was some cheap ad banner under the header. I was bored last week and when I feel that way I like to go to the review archives and read or re-read old posts. It always makes me wanna watch movies I haven't seen yet, like Alice Sweet Alice and The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Last night I watched this week's episode of The Newsroom. There are only 2 more episodes coming. If there's one thing I don't like about series on cable it's that their seasons are so short. It feels like The Newsroom just started. And it seems like Nurse Jackie does one month of new episodes and then ends for the year. I understand: they're well-made, well-written, expensive shows. I don't care. I think the seasons should be at least twice as long. This afternoon my friend took me to Burger King and I got a Coke and a Rodeo Burger w/out cheese. This is the first time I've asked them to leave the cheese off and it was so good- just BBQ sauce and onion rings. It was the perfect lunch and because it was so hot out the Coke was soooo good. Sometimes when I'm feeling depressed (and I have been) I like to watch something scary to take my mind off things. I went to the FearNet On Demand station and nothing looked good. My only choices were Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer- it's supposed to be good and I heard a lot about it when it came out, but it came out in the late 80s; I figured it was gonna be too dated- or Midnight Meat Train. Just the title alone is pretty upsetting. It was 2am and I figured I'd watch it, go to bed, and then sleep late because I'm off today. I started watching the movie and at first I was worried that it was gonna be too scary and upsetting but then I saw all the CGI special effects and that's what saved me. CGI doesn't scare me at all. It looks so fake that it has no effect on me. So instead of being disturbed by the murder scenes I could just watch and follow the story. I didn't realize that Bradley Cooper was in this movie. I was also surprised to see Brooke Shields. I'm not sure what to say about this movie. Did I like it? I don't know, it was OK. Would I recomend it? I guess- or at least I wouldn't tell someone not to watch it. Was it scary? Yes, it had it's moments. I realized last night that there's probably nothing scarier than having the good guys sneak into the home of the bad guy when he's not there. So it's 5:30pm. I've still got laundry to do and some cleaning so I'm gonna get back to that. Good night.

"The Newsroom"

I've seen every episode of The Newsroom and I like it. It has all the things I like and dislike about Aaron Sorkin projects. I have something to say about this week's episode, "Bullies", and I'm not sure if it's a complaint or just something I noticed... Now, if Sorkin had some ideas that he used on Studio 60, his behind-the-scenes-at-a-late-night-comedy-show that lasted one season on NBC a couple years ago and he wanted to re-visit them on The Newsroom then that would make sense. Not many people saw that show. But Sorkin is copying who episodes of The West Wing and a lot of people are familiar with that show. In the second season of The West Wing, Josh needed to see a psychiatrist. He was very reluctant to tell the guy anything and initially Josh lied to the guy and the guy caught it got pissed. It was revealed that Josh flipped out in the Oval Office and was suffering from PTSD after being shot. The psychiatrist figured out Josh's problem at the very beginning of their conversation and revealed his diognosis at the close of the show. The psychiatrist was no-nonsense and Jewish (Adam Arkin, he's great- I felt so bad when he got killed in Halloween H20). In this week's episode of The Newsroom, Will goes to see his psychiatrist because he's having trouble sleeping (a lot like the West Wing episode "Five Nights"). Here it's revealed that Will's had an angry outburst on the air when he went after a gay Rick Santorum supporter. Will is very reluctant to talk but his no-nonsense Jewish psychiatrist figures out Will's problem at the beginning of their conversation. Like I said, I'm not complaining; it's just something I noticed. This isn't unusual for Sorkin. Before The West Wing he wrote a Michael Douglas movie called The American President. At one point in the movie the US is attacked and Douglas is in the Situation Room with his military team. He doesn't like their plan: a proportional response. In the first season of The West Wing there was a similar scenes- but more fleshed out- in an episode called "A Proportional Response". I read somewhere that a lot of left over storylines from the movie were used for the show.