Mokka mit Schlag » Pop Culture

Wow. What a disappointment. I was looking forward to this one for months, but I guess I should have known Hollywood couldn’t do this book justice. I just had no idea how badly they’d fail. I mean, I knew they were going to water down the anti-religious message. (The Golden Compass was flat-out heretical. The Subtle Knife was actively blasphemous, and by the time the third book arrived, the series was bordering on satanism. No way Hollywood was going to follow that plot line.) However, I didn’t know they were going to open with massive spoilers.
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The Brooklyn Public Library allows unlimited renewals as long as no one requests a specific book. That means books tend to pile up in one’s living room since you never have time to read everything that’s worth reading. However, before moving to California next week I have to bring all these back. This is to remind myself what I still have to get to:

The Golden Compass was sold out at our local movie theater last night, which proved fortuitous since it meant we saw Juno instead. Wonderful movie! By all means, go see it. The dialog was extremely clever, even verging on Whedonesque. The basic story is about 16-year old Juno getting pregnant (after what seemed like her first time, though I don’t think that was definitively established) and then giving the baby up for adoption. I do wonder a little about a girl as intelligent and strong-willed as Juno not figuring out how to use reliable birth control, but I guess that was necessary to get the plot moving.

Of course, the movie had the obligatory, girl-goes-to-abortion-clinic-but-decides-not-to-go-through-with-it-at-the-last-minute scene. Otherwise it mostly avoided clichés. At least it didn’t go with the usual television cop-out of Juno magically discovering she wasn’t pregnant after all.

Still, just once I’d like to see a movie about a teenage girl who gets knocked up, has an abortion, and lives happily ever after, just like thousands of real teenagers do every year. (more…)

I’m trying to transfer my Blockbuster Queue to my new Netflix queue but I’m runnign into a couple of problems:

1. There’s no way to import a list of movies. I have to add each one individually. That’s a pain for 700+ movies.
2. Every time I add a movie, Netflix creates an annoying popup window. Anyway to turn that off? The popup blocker doesn’t seem to stop it.

Anyone know of a solution for either of these?

In Chicago last month I happened to catch Men in Trees on TV. It was mildly amusing, but I liked it better the first time I saw it. You know, when it was called Northern Exposure.

I almost never watch ESPN, but tonight they’re venturing into new territory with a miniseries entitled the Bronx is Burning. They’ve been hyping it heavily, and I’m actually interested in New York in the 70s, so I was all geared up to watch it. Then I turn it on at the advertised time of 10:00 P.M. and what do I see? The National Home Run Derby.

I have no idea what this is, nor do I much care. If it were an actual baseball game I could almost see the point; but some silly, made-up event that does little but fill dead air? For this they preempted their new flagship show?

Screw it. If the miniseries is any good, I’ll watch it on DVD in a few months, but I probably won’t bother with ESPN again for another ten years.