Decline and Fall of Western Civilization

Let's play a little game. I'm calling it "Decline and Fall." The goal is to list ever-declining versions of the same work of art, generally movies and plays and the like. The goal is to start with the best version and work your way down. For instance:

Taming of the Shrew (the play),
Taming of the Shrew (Elizabeth Taylor version),
10 Things I Hate About You,
10 Things I Hate About You (the TV show)
(Note: A shining beacon that all it not lost: Taming of the Shrew in the BBC remake Shakespeare Retold.)

My Fair Lady,
Pygmalion (the myth),
Pygmalion (the play),
She's All That

Freaky Friday (2003),
Wish Upon A Star,
Vice Versa,
Freaky Friday (1976),
Freaky Friday (1995),
It's a Boy Girl Thing

Apparently I'm called a NaNo?

In an effort to be more proactive about having slightly masochistic hobbies, I am attempting to write a novel this month as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). 50,000 words in 30 days. Wish me luck.

On forced smiling and severed feet

Smiling, language stereotypes, and a Ren & Stimpy reference:
Random discussion about whether languages that make you smile more also make you happier and a
hat that stabs you when you don't smile

Meanwhile, this sounds like something out of a TV crime drama or a mystery novel (via boingboing, obv):
Seventh Severed Foot Found in BC

Halloween with Wishbone

It's October, and I'm feeling nostalgic, so have some Legend of Sleepy Hollows, Wishbone style: Link.

Boy I wish there were more Wishbone on DVD.

Quick Round Up

I've seen some movies recently. (Please refrain from expressing your shock.) Here are one (or so) sentence reviews for a few of them:

Blindsight: Documentary about blind Nepali kids climbing up part of Mt. Everest, in which I found the editing strange, the German blind teacher annoying as hell, but the story nonetheless compelling. 2 stars.

Julie and Julia: One movie trying to tell two foodie stories but failing to tell either one completely and vaguely disappointing because of it. Worth watching once, though, because Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci are awesome as Julia Child and her husband. 2 stars.

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not: The "twist" in this movie is utterly ruined if you've heard anything about this movie, or even seen the trailer, so I guess it's not really a twist, but nonetheless it's still stupefyingly predictable. It is fun to see Audrey Tatou as crazy and obsessed, at least. 2 stars.

Criminal: Poor man's Matchstick Men (and probably poor man's Nine Queens, on which Criminal is based, but which I have not seen). Worth it only if you absolutely must watch everything with John C. Reilly or Maggie Gyllenhaal. 1.5 stars

Emma (the 1972 BBC version): Couldn't even get through the first episode. I really don't like Jane Austen as much as I think I should. 1 star.

Norma Rae: Classic unionization story, which deserves its reputation as a classic. Sally Field is great, and frankly I loved the costuming, too -- poor factory workers during a hot summer actually look like it (sweat stains and all). 4 stars.

Seducing Dr. Lewis: Kind of silly but charming Quebecois movie about a small town that needs to convince a doctor to move to town in order to get a factory agree to build there. They decide to trick a doctor into thinking their town is more cosmopolitan than it is, and hilarity ensues. Though it's definitely hilarity of the Quebecois variety. 3 stars.

XKCD goodness

The only change I would make to this xkcd comic: the percentage has got to be higher, at least if you count Punnett squares they make silently in their heads. At least if my friends and I are any indication.

Seven Deadly Sins

Someone at Kansas State just mapped the seven deadly sins in the US (measured by statistics like STD rates for lust and thefts for envy). Apparently my new home in Washington DC has got them all covered.
Link to wired.com

Cadillac Records

Verbatim from my short Netflix review (except for a change from a 5 star scale to my 4 star one here):

The history of Chicago blues deserves an amazing movie -- Muddy Waters, Etta James, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, Howling Wolf, and many others who aren't even mentioned in this movie led the dramatic lives that only bluesmen seem to live, and at the same time changed music, Chicago, and race relations forever.

Unfortunately this movie isn't amazing. It's entertaining enough, and the star-studded cast all have incredible talent, both in acting and in making music (which all the actors do on screen rather than dubbing it in). But the script tries to cram too much in at a time and ends up failing to do justice to these men and women's lives. This movie is too scattershot, with too many characters in the ensemble given too little screen time to explain their presence. If you don't already know who Howling Wolf is, for example, this movie won't really tell you. If you don't already know of him, his character is like an inside reference that you just don't get. At the same time, the movie is too generalized and too historically inaccurate to satisfy real blues fans. And if you know the songs being sung, they are off by just enough to drive you crazy (especially, for me, the Etta James songs, no matter how talented Beyonce is).

I was so ready to adore this movie, because I adore Chicago Blues. Instead, all I can say is that it inspired me to listen to my old CDs with Etta James, Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, and all the rest, and made me want to read a real biography of the Chess family. That's enough to warrant a very solid two stars, but I'm so sad I can't give it more.