yoga, books, movies, tv & too many crime procedurals – not necesarily in that order
OR… My Phone is Fucking Awesome, part 462.
Yesterday I had a schedule gap before meeting up with the spouse and, for whatever reason, made the boneheaded mistake of leaving my Kindle at home. I’ll spare you the ad nauseum of how much I love the Kindle but I guess I just forgot to put it in my bag. I was looking at about an hour to kill so I decided to finally download the Kindle app for my Droid Eris.
Within about a minute, I was logged in and reading Feed (by Devon Monk). Dude. FUCKING AWESOME. 1. Do I love tinyscreen? No. Changeable fonts help but I don’t really love the backlight. 2. Nope. That pretty much covers it.
I spent the hour soaking up zombie-hunting goodness and then read some more on the Eris at work today during my lunch break. The best part is that when I got home tonight, I turned on my Kindle and syched it and then picked up EXACTLY where I’d left off on my phone.
In short, I love technology. The Kindle is still my favorite reading option but the Droid app is wicked handy in a pinch. Very nice option.
Related, Feed is ENGROSSING. It started a little slow but within a couple of pages I was hooked. I’m about halfway through it now and can’t wait to read the rest. Though there will be a break for a new ep of The Closer.
Not even halfway through the second episode and it’s perfectly clear: Rizzoli & Isles would make a better drinking game than cop show.
1. Drink when Jane sounds hysterical.
2. Drink when Maura can’t relate interpersonally.
3. Drink when Jane disagrees with her mother.
4. Drink when her partner gags.
5. Drink when you hear a Boston accent (actually you should do a shot because it doesn’t happen all that often).
6. Drink when Jane acts hysterical.
7. Drink when Maura uses big scientific words no one will understand. Unless you’ve been a drug rep or taken anat & phys.
8. Drink when Jane disagrees with her boss. I’d be hammered already in this episode.
9. Drink when the whole ‘girls can be cops too’ trope comes up. Ugh. Double shot if “affirmative action” is used.
10. Drink when you hear any of Jane’s “quirky” ringtones. DOUBLE Ugh.
Did everything right that Rizzoli & Isles did wrong:
1. Set up some ‘agency’ to help suspend disbelief
2. Introduce backstory in a ‘necessary’ way
3. One outlandish element
4. Good action/good story/interesting characters that aren’t beating you over the head (too much- the bathroom scene was a little ridiculous)
5. Then they even explained away outlandish element in a believable way! This was double-bonus as I’d already enjoyed the show enough to actively ignore it!
Definitely a win. Fun entertainment.
It’s a great premise. Really. Buddy-chicks solving crime. I’m TOTALLY DOWN for it. BUT.
This pilot was a hot mess.
It started out with a nicely ominous montage of a crime. And then went downhill rapidly.
P.S. WTF is it with every show set in Boston needing to have some vaguely Irish music for its theme. I mean really.
Right off the bat we get the nosy family and I’M A TOMBOY WHICH MEANS I DON’T KNOW HOW TO ACT AROUND PEOPLE. Grr. Don’t love it but I can live with it. Then the puking homicide detective. Really? He wouldn’t have known dead bodies make him puke before the promotion? And they would promote him anyhow? WTF.
Then we get the creepy dude who’s always the creepy dude and it’s a dead ripoff of Silence of the Lamb so can we PLEASE STOP DOING THIS, what with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins having pretty much KILLED IT? You won’t do it as well. Please stop trying. Also, WTF with giving the guy EXACTLY what he wanted? And her dude partner having to stick up for her all the time? I mean, what kind of shitty tomboy IS SHE.
Oh, she’s the kind of shitty tomboy who’s a TOTAL CUNT to her mother. WTF was THAT?!
Meet our quirky and interesting Coroner who is very quirky and interesting! She doesn’t wear jeans! She has a turtle! She’s quirky! And interesting! Feh.
Of course there’s a guy so BOTH female leads must be interested because penis = attraction. Seriously, people. WTF.
Then she’s the dumbest cop ever. WTF. Leaves the car, running through the woods yelling, apologizes for DOING HER JOB and tackling what should have been the bad guy. Dear guy cop, if you don’t want to get tackled you should tell the other cops that YOU’RE IN THE FUCKING WOODS. Suck it. I’m actually totally annoyed that she was all sissy about having done it and then APOLOGIZED. IT WAS HIS FAULT. YOU ARE THE WORST TOMBOY EVAR.
Also, the tantrums. Because seriously, this female cop who needs to be better than all the guys because she is the only girl was seriously throwing TANTRUMS about people not telling her stuff. Stomping her feet even. And then when they finally tell her, she whips out some bullshit “this isn’t in the report but I know it because I’m so much smarter” crack the case crap. WTF. WHY WOULD THAT NOT BE IN THE REPORT.
The van. I’m not even sure what to say about getting in the van other than, really WTF.
And the finale – let’s not forget that – where she TURNS HER BACK on the twitchy bad guy to cut herself free rather than SHOOT THE FUCKER because he’s twitching. Really? I mean, WHAT THE BLUE FUCK. I’m pretty sure that if someone tortured and almost killed me and then tried another shot at it and I’ve got a gun, I’m capping his ass before I worry about the duct tape. For reals.
I get that they were trying to be all ‘establish character’ shit but MAN was I disappointed in the ENTIRE SHOW. Spouse actually said “We don’t have to watch this anymore do we?”
I’m willing to give it two more episodes but DUDE. CHOCK full of SUCK.
That is SO my new ringtone. Last night’s True Blood served up equal parts hawt, horrifying and funny – as per usual. What I love about the series (both books and TV) is that you never get to pretend that vampires aren’t bad thing what want to eat you for dinner and maybe play with you a little beforehand (and even during). They’re actually MONSTERS. I dig that.
I have seen a lot of kvetching with regard to “oh noes, wimmen are victims.” To this I say: our media is a reflection of our society. Women are more often victims of crime (violent and not) and to pretend that would be otherwise with monsters who prey on the weak would ridiculous. Do I love it? No. But should it make you think? Absolutely. In fact, in this particular episode, Sookie WASN’T a victim and Tara was doing her best to fight back in a really really bad situation. Is it perfect? Of course not. On the other hand, show me someone fighting – someone trying – and I’m willing to go along for the ride. None of the women on this show are PASSIVE. That’s what I like about it.
Unrelated, I fucking love Lafayette. I heart Lafayette with the fire of a thousand suns. If the entire show consisted of Lafayette’s cooking in that bar I would still watch.
In other TV news, finally saw the Haven premiere. It could be good or complete crap – I’ll wait my decision on a couple of more episodes.
Tonight is new Closer AND Rizzoli & Isles! I’m inordinately excited about summer crime TV. I didn’t know that R&I was based on a crime novel series until I caught a very brief interview with the author on NPR this afternoon. Something to check out if I dig the series.
Yesterday’s movie marathon included TiMER, which was cute and interesting and I really enjoyed it. I also watched Daniel Tosh do standup (hilarious), Bright Star (Keats bio-pic-ish) which was very good and Suspect Zero which was…better than I expected. A bit predictable but all in all a decent film.
