(Amanda)

Planet B-Boy. An AMAZING documentary. See it. All of my dance crew movies ~ they have brilliant dancing that is often jaw-droppingly cool. This film is FILLED with dancers that put them fictional characters to shame. And extremely good human-interest elements, as well. Great characters + exciting dramatic structure + face melting b-boy moves = A hell of a good time at the movie-watching place of your choice. If you don't have an arty house in your neighborhood, put this on your queue immediately.

(Amanda)
Speaking of drinking games... ~ Once I played Cups with a bunch of people ~ they were all drinking wine and beer, I was drinking water. I drank so much water that I got to a point where I was over-hydrated and started FAKING my water sippage.

There have been some great season finales recently. I've followed Desperate Housewives through their first season of greatness, their second and third season of not-very-goodness, and now, season 4, has turned out to be pretty baddass. The finale was quite wonderful all the way through. I got choked up, I got scared, I laughed, and I did whatever else one does when one watches a show that one really really likes. THEN they caught me completely by surprise (because I hadn't seen any spoiler promos) and had a 'Five Years Later' montage. It was AMAZING. Each main character was shown in the future and, oh lordly, pure amazingness all around. I can't wait to see if the show continues from the present and we get to find out how they get to their unpredictable futures ~ or will it take off from the completely re-shaped future? It was almost Lost-like in it's narrative table-turnage.

LOST ~ the last 2 hours air in a week. The first hour of the three hour finale was last week and it was mind blowing. I wept. I almost hyperventillated. I grabbed various legs and arms of those seated around me. I probably shrieked a lot. We all did. That show ~ I won't even begin to get into its genius or I'll start flipping out right here, right now.

The Office ~ everyone expected/demanded a Jim/Pam engagement but, nope. Their season story ended mildly. This was very brilliant ~ nice work, Office-making people. That fantastic couple is doing really well, have always talked as if it is permanent, so it's not like an official engagement will really change anything. I mean, more talk about invitations and colors, I suppose, but that's not all that excited. Anyway ~ a great finale with much unexpectedness.

30 Rock ~ probably the funniest show on TV. Ended as the funniest show on TV should ~ with extreme funniness.

Solid.

(Amanda)
First off ~ genius drinking game, Debby. I have a friend (Andy ~ you met him, Tall Skinny of the Gingerich brothers) who is going to Louisville this summer for a Big Lebowski conference. He references that movie in almost every conversation. He will love you for this idea.

I just finished watching a movie I was REALLY into in fifth grade ~ Troop Beverly Hills. I remember exactly ONE moment from the movie (race starter gun shot in air, bird falls out of air). The movie is terrible. Badly written and badly delivered jokes all the way through. The sets ~ often fancy-pants homes ~ are shockingly bad. It looks like they found a crappy pre-fab house with kind-of big rooms, got some shit furniture at Thrift Town, and put one to two pieces of furniture and one to two 'decorations' in each room. Amazing! How did I fall for this pile of pooh? And, seriously, how could it not even seem slightly familiar???

(Debby)
Well, Amanda, you know I’m not much for drinking games. So I’m feeling conflicted, because I have been inspired by what may be a Great drinking game. (Or maybe not - I don't really have enough experience to know. But I think it could be Great...)

The key ingredients:
1) people who know and love The Big Lebowski
2) a copy of Tron. Yep, the Disney movie from our distant youth.

Jeff Bridges, the Dude, is the main protagonist in Tron. Every time he seems to be channeling the Dude (says something the Dude would say, sounds like the Dude, is extremely Dude-like in his gestures), take a drink. It’s not non-stop – but every now and then the Dude totally jumps out.

Voila!

(Debby)
(thanks for the post, amanda!)

not so awesome:

- Aliens (the movie) – Yeah, it’s okay, but I don’t feel like it added much to my life. I mean, Sigorney Weaver is awesome. But I actually got a bit bored, and I didn’t like seeing the aliens. Especially that Mother. ew.

- The Boys from Brazil (the book) – When I am knocked off-balance by life, I re-read books. Recently this happened, and I decided to try to break out of at least one mold. So here is a library book, new to me, although written by Ira Levin and I’d read The Stepford Wives so not a complete unknown, but still, a start. The book is about Nazis and genetics and it was a disappointment.

awesome:

- TREASURE ISLAND! (the book) - Man, I am so excited about Robert Louis Stevenson. People! It’s a cracking good adventure. I am thoroughly enjoying it. Great characters!
Side note: I guess all I ever read were watered down re-tellings of Treasure Island (and Kidnapped) they make into kid’s books. Someone needs to stop publishing those things.
Side side note: Do you think of Long John Silver as being swarthy or blonde? Dude, he is totally BLONDE. With an extremely honest and gregarious visage. A total charmer. He’s one-legged, but he doesn’t have a peg leg – he gets around with a crutch. So let’s wipe our idea of him right on out of our heads.

- Alien:Resurrection (the movie) – is AWESOME!! Way on back in the day I saw it and I just didn’t get it. But now I do! Directed by one of the French dudes of the pair who did City of Lost Children and Delicatessan and Amelie, and I just love their lighting and the actors they use and the way they film people and people in motion. Yeah! And guess who wrote it… Joss Wheddon! I did not know that. Total Joss Wheddon character archetypes, themes, even dialogue, and just the way he took on a tired series and built on the backstory to make a brilliant plot. Sigorney Weaver rocks it out, and Winona Ryder at least doesn’t totally drop the ball.

(Amanda)
When the thousands of blog fans bombard me with complaints about my lack of posts, what can I do but placate them with another pithy yet oddly life-changing entry. Just kidding ~ but when one co-blogger bombards me with a 'post, dammit!' e-mail, well, I blog.

Um ... if you want to see one of the most adorable male-friendships ever caught on film, I'd highly recommend the immensely popular 'Superbad'. My favorite comedic kid, Michael Cera (one of many geniuses that made up Arrested Development) and another deadpan genius, Jonah Hill, play two high schoolers who really want to get laid but, truthfully, are just trying to distract themselves from the fact that soon they will graduate and be forced to split up. I have this fascination with the male-best-friends dynamic. Recently I heard that when my brother left after visiting Paul, a best friend since elementary school, Paul was SO choked up that Mark was gone he couldn't speak. I find that to be unbelievably beautiful. So, yeah, Superbad satiates my fascination with this hidden phenomenon of male best friends that truly love each other. Plus, the movie is FUNNY AS HELL. Every scene with either of the two leads is unbelievable.

(Debby)

Three Day Road – Joseph Boyden

A really, really well done story. Right up there with Fugitive Pieces. I don’t know what it is about Canadian authors, but they write differently than anyone else. I suppose part of it is that they come from a different country. But UK writers are writing in English also, and yet somehow I don’t sense the same break between US American writing and theirs. Good Canadian writing – Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Anne Michaels, Rudy Wiebe and the other really good “culturally-Mennonite” writers…somehow it is different from other nationalities, and it is different in a similar way. It achieves a very specific resonance, or at least it does within me.

This is an excellent book of war – World War I, a Canadian Cree fighting for the Allies in Europe. I don’t tend to take well to war books – they tend to aim to show the ‘grittiness’ of war, but then veer off into sentiment and reassurances. This book is honest and respectful and a really well told story.

(Debby)
Oh, hey, did you hear a THUMP a few weeks ago? Yeah, that was me. Falling out of my chair. When Amanda pointed out that the Edward James Olmos of Battlestar Galactica was the same Edward James Olmos from Bladerunner. MAN! I totally should have figured that out on my own! There are only so many AWESOME and spectacularly ugly and yet attractive men acting out there.