Watched: Submarine

Thoroughly enjoyable bildungsroman. Although I know it's not very nice to describe one piece of art by comparing it to another, this really does have the timeless feel of a Moonrise Kingdom/Royal Tenenbaums (and general Anderson-y vibes)/Harold and Maude/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind/Rocket Science, a blend somewhere between family drama, coming-of-age, mildly tumultuous romance, and celebration of Welshness. Sweet, smart, precious.

Watched: Attack the Block

Fun, funny, and witty blend of Young Disaffected British Hooligans movie, Scary Aliens movie, Horror movie, Stoner Comedy movie, and Quirky Offbeat Touches movie. All in all a rousing success, I'd say, and insanely rewatchable.

Watched: The Kite Runner

Beautifully filmed, fairly true to the book, and yet somehow... kind of a tepid movie. There's nothing wrong with it: the writing's decent, the acting's okay, the cinematography is probably the best part, it's just... okay.

I think I should stop watching adaptations of books I enjoyed. It never seems to go that well for me.

Watched: Riverworld

Exceptionally mediocre entertainment. Which is not to say unenjoyable. Starring Tahmoh Penikett (who I remembered as being decent in Whedon's shitty-then decent-then great-then shitty again series Dollhouse) as Blandy McDudeGuy. He is a tenacious, honest, hard-working, brave (are you bored yet? I was.) American reporter killed while proposing to his girlfriend in Vietnam. As is the girlfriend. Then he wakes up in a river, on a... world... of rivers... created by aliens/gods/blue Alan Cumming WHY so that people can atone for the mistakes. And people from all times in history are reincarnated there, which allows for lots of farcical, generalized attempts at being culturally sensitive. There's some Spanish jerk, and then there's a British jerk, and a Japanese lady samurai, and then the girlfriend turns out to be a jerk, and there's a Senegalese taxi driver/soldier who is kind of cool but gets like five lines? Plus some guy hamming it up as Mark Twain who isn't terrible but... I don't know. Two gay guys whose whole story is that they keep not being together, and the one who's kind of more sensitive, urbane of the two keeps getting kidnapped/hurt/killed so WELL DONE THERE RIVERWORLD. There's just a lot of jerks, a lot of broad, uninteresting characters, and a lot of random plot devices that are either thoroughly predictable or completely nonsensical and unexplained. It's not bad, per se.... but it's not really good either.

 (Caucasus what what!! Even though this sequence is only used to illustrate the violence Matt "Mary Sue" Boringface witnessed while working and makes the Caucasus look pretty brutal, so thanks for that Riverworld. Thanks a lot.)

Is this because the X-Men movies got you hooked on blue paint? What's next, a Smurf movie? Come on man. You're better than this. You're Kurt "Nightcrawler" Wagner, you're Darryl Zero, you're Saturninus, you're Mr. Elton, yo- oh, I'm looking at your IMDB page now and it appears you have indeed done voice work for a Smurf movie. As well as a Spy Kids. And a Garfield. So... never mind.

Carry on. I guess.

 Riverworld... because it's a world, composed entirely of rivers. So. Yes. Quite.

 Stupid nonsense plot twists, ahoy!

Because why not. Maybe the book is better?

Watched: Eerie, Indiana

I don't know what exactly inspired me to go back and rewatch this series. I mean, I know I watched this when I was little because some of the images (in particular, the creepy twins being tucked into their tupperware beds and Bigfoot rifling discerningly through the trash) have been burned into my mind. Their weirdness, and the goofy, very gently sarcastic tone of the show without a doubt had an influence on my still developing sensibilities. The show's not always expertly made, and doesn't always satisfyingly explore the intriguingly off-beat premise it offers (nor does it always provide particularly intriguing explorations) but it does go for broke more often than not, and manages to create a uniquely strange world that reminds me of the kind of kid literature books I loved around the time that this show was airing (thinking of Goosebumps, Wayside Stories, The Bailey School Kids Series, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, in essence; any world in which the kids are hip to strange events happening parallel to normal life, a theme I apparently could not get enough as a youngin and am still rather fond of these days as well).

So yeah, Eerie, Indiana. It's not the best show in the world, it's led by kid actors who range from reliable (the lead, Omri Katz, is mostly decent) to horrible (most of the guests), but amongst its 19 episode run are a handful of suitably weird and exquisitely 90's gems that are not to be missed.

 (Young Tobey Maguire!! And he's still so unlikeable!!)

 (One of the many little touches that I love: An aging Elvis is one of the head honchos around Eerie, and most of his appearances on the show have to do with him trying to get free fried food out of any given situation...)

 Miss Tornado.

 It was killing me trying to figure out where I had seen Jason Marsden (grey haired kid) before, until I realized that where I had seen him was all over late 80's and early 80's tv shows, because he was in all of them at one point or another.

Watched: Wonderfalls

Oh, the wonderful whimsical world of Bryan Fuller. I've been re-watching his shows for so many years that I can't even properly remember which one I started first roped me in: was it Dead Like Me's sardonic take on a mundane afterlife or Pushing Daisies' pie-filled, candy-colored charm and sass? Hard to say. Doesn't even really matter, because both shows, and Wonderfalls as well, remain totally re-watchable little universes unto themselves. I know this makes me a bad tv fan to say, but I'm in some ways I'm glad that each of his shows has had such an uphill battle and not it past season two. What he creates are often shows that are sad, weird, funny, slight-to-extreme twists on reality, and that is not always the biggest seller with tv audiences. But in case you couldn't tell, I love them all dearly.

That being said, and this is perhaps indicative of how fantastically strange all of his shows premises' are, Wonderfalls is probably the most normal. Jay Taylor, a Columbia graduate with a philosophy degree slumming as a funderemployed Niagara Falls souvenir shop clerk and living in a trailer park gets bonked on the head one day and from then on, experiences cryptic messages conveyed to her by any inanimate object with a face (wax lions, teddy bears, brass book-end monkeys, t-shirt decals and lawn ornament flamingos all apply). There's also a cute bartender from New Jersey, lingering in stasis after being jilted on his Niagara honeymoon, a sarcastic waitressing best friend who inadvertently falls for Jay's older brother (played by Lee Pace doing his bemused slacker thing, yay!!!!), slightly demented but loving parents, and an angry lawyering older sister. And then, of course, the usual rotating cast of strange friends and often stranger foe.

 Blanche!

I love that little malformed lion!

Watched: Goon

Sincere. Frill-less. Bloody. There's not much to this one, just your basic underdog sports story. But it's well made, features some stunning shots of Eastern Canada, and does what it sets out to do competently.