Protect Jackie Earle Haley

I'm concerned about Jackie Earle Haley.

We can all agree that he's awesome, right? AGREE, dammit. After a career doing tons of work most people don't know about, he finally got the part as Rorschach in Watchmen and I think we can all agree he was the best thing about that film. Hell he got to utter the best line in that movie: "You think I'm trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me," and then he cuts some dude's arm off with a chain saw or whatever. I don't know. I don't remember that movie that well but I do remember him. The scene was so not really all that necessary to the plot, but oh man was he cool.

And as I have come to really enjoy Human Target more and more now that they've stopped doing episodes based on Bloodsport, I just love seeing him on my TV. He says "dude" a lot. I say "dude" a lot. I can totally relate to his character.

But this thing. This Freddy thing. Oi.

I never really go the whole Freddy thing to begin with. Between my total lack of fear when I see him largely because of his thrift-store sweater and this guy's brilliant point-by-point analysis of the series, I'm just not that frightened by the whole Freddy thing.

What does scare me, you may ask? IT. Fuck Pennywise. He's the reason I weave around storm drains when I go for walks. Also the Candyman terrifies me. He's covered in bees! What the fuck is that about?

I'm not really sure why Nightmare on Elm Street needed to be remade, but evidently it did, and my boy Jackie Earle Haley is Freddy. I didn't know it was him until I saw that preview for the first time when he said "You think I'm in this nightmare with you, but really you're in this nightmare with me. Fuckers." And I was like hey that's that one dude who's awesome.

Earlier today when there were 16 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, Nightmare was up to a big goose egg. As of this writing, Nightmare, with a full 20 reviews, has a big old 7%. Hell, The Hottie or the Nottie had 5, so it could be worse I guess. Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever has 0% so it's not as bad as that film. But I think if I took a horror classic and a big old Michael Bay budget and got a 7% there might be a month of post-film release depression. I'm not sure the knowledge that I'm better than a Paris Hilton movie or what may easily be the worst movie of all time would cheer me up.

So I'm worried about old Jackie Earle. I don't want him to get depressed and stop being cool because this movie sucks so hard.

Then again if it makes a zillion dollars they'll probably greenlight a sequel and with its chief competition this weekend being Furry Vengeance (and what the fuck happened to Brendan Fraser is a whole other post) I think this horrible remake may actually stand a chance.

Personally I'm going to go home and watch Ninja Assassin since it just came on Netflix.

Down with 3D

I do not get the 3D thing. It's fun for like 15 minutes then it's annoying. Don't get me wrong, it was beautifully integrated in Avatar, but Avatar was also like eight hours long and by the time I was halfway through the film I started to get a headache. I kept taking off the glasses to close my eyes for a minute.

Then there's the fact that most 3D movies invent big moments for things to pop out and remind you that you're in 3D, which is just annoying and gimmicky. I just want to watch a good film with a cool story and maybe some awesome shots. I don't need my film to dance like a little kid to get my attention.

And the 3D TV? I don't get that either. Don't you have to sit straight up and directly in front of the TV to see it properly, and still have to wear glasses? I just don't understand who the target customer is for that - rich people who must have every gadget? Those people who want to live on Pandora and can now watch the Blu-Ray copy of Avatar on an endless loop?

I have a feeling this is going to go the way of the laserdisk or virtual reality. Remember when virtual reality was going to destroy us all because we were going to stop living in the real world once we jacked in? Those were the days.

Anyway, I really hate 3D. It's to the point where I will avoid a movie I might have gone to see if it's in 3D. Actually come to think of it, I don't want to see any of the movies that are currently offered in 3D, but I did, I would only see the 2D option. I don't see what's so wrong with two dimensions really. Call me old fashioned.

Nicholl 2010

I decided at the last minute to enter the Nicholl while I still qualify. The only script I've ever entered before was Not Dead Yet. Two years ago it didn't go anywhere, and last year after a number of revisions it almost made the quarterfinals. That script is currently doing what it set out to do, so this year I'm submitting Burnside, my historical martial arts script. I love the script, but I feel like something isn't quite there yet, so I'm hoping to give it one last pass on Thursday and get it in by Friday in case the Saturday rush clogs the servers. The deadline is midnight Pacific time on Saturday. I already decided this is the only contest I'll enter this year.

Are you submitting anything? How do you feel about your chances?

Discipline

I always figured it was no big deal to write a story someone else came up with. After all, you were chosen because you had what the producers were looking for, so you should be able to run with it and have fun without the pressure of coming up with a whole plot or the ambiguity of whether or not it would sell.

But now I'm seeing the challenge. I like the story I've been commissioned to write but there are a few things about it that are out of the norm for me. A male protagonist. PG 13. Supernatural elements. It's all doable and I can definitely see this as a film, but I'm having to stretch myself to make it work. It's a great opportunity for me to grow as a writer, although at the moment I'm still just hoping I'm going the right way with this.

Then I came up with this awesome idea for a spec last week that I'm dying to run with - one of those where the scenes just write themselves with very little effort on my part. It's just exactly the kind of story I need to write and could be a good candidate for a sale. My thoughts keep drifting off to this new project while I need to keep them focused on the more challenging piece for the producers. Since I'm still taking this class for work and now my vacation is almost over, I don't have time to do both projects at once.

So I've got to enact some discipline. If I want to get paid I need to write the more difficult piece, no matter how much I want to work on my new story.

Also I really don't want to go back to work. Like really really don't.

Bacon Egg Maguffin

I got a new idea the other day so I'm compiling the necessary ingredients for the story so I can start a new script soon. It's a chase movie, one of those stories where the protagonist has a maguffin the bad guys want.

So I've been thinking a lot about maguffins. In case you're new on the scene, maguffins are objects that serve as a catalyst for action and it doesn't really matter what the object is, just that someone wants it.

It's getting tough to think of one that hasn't been done. There's only so many video tapes and flash drives and incriminating photos and ledgers available for use in screenplays. I think I've come up with something interesting, but I'm a little concerned it's too complicated for a maguffin. At the same time I think I can use it as a weapon during a key scene in the story so that would be cool.

I think my favorite maguffin is the briefcase in Pulp Fiction which may or may not contain Marcellus Wallace's soul. What's yours? Let's make a list of maguffins.

Easy research

I don't like calling people on the phone and I don't always trust the Internet for research. So I think for the rest of my career I'm just going to keep writing about shit I can research by asking my loved ones. Burnside is a historical script about a period of history in which my mother is an expert so every time I needed to make sure my story was accurate or I needed an idea I just called her up. Then I asked her to read my script and give me notes on inaccurate stuff. I did read a couple of chapters of a book she recommended, but I got most of my good ideas from her.

The project for the producers is rooted in what The Beefcake does for a living, so whenever I come to a point in the treatment when I'm not sure what happens next I just ask him what someone in his position would do if someone else did this other thing. Then I go add whatever he said into the script.

I gotta tell you, it's a great way to go. If you know somebody who's an expert on something cool you should write a script about it so you can just be like Hey, what would you do if this thing happened? It really helps if that person is currently in the backyard weeding.

It saves time.

Paranoia? Not if it's true.

As I left the meeting with the producers of the project on which I am currently hard at work, they said they'd send me a one-sheet of the idea as we talked about it in the room. Weeks went by and I didn't get the one-sheet but I figured no big deal, I know what I want to do and they told me to run with it anyway and they wouldn't have given me the task if they didn't like what I could do.

Eventually I asked them if they could send it and they said it's not really that big a deal, it's just what we talked about and hey send over what I've already got so they can give me some feedback. I figured cool, if it's what we talked about in the room no big deal. I did go a really clear direction with their idea but I'm pretty sure they'll like it. I sent over what I had.

But then I got the one-sheet five minutes later and there were several things that were completely different from what we talked about in the room and I was all a panic that maybe now they were going to hate me. And then I remembered this comment one of them made about Not Dead Yet: "I really liked some of the decisions you made" at which point I immediately wondered if she meant the decisions I actually made or the advice I followed from a writer who guided me. What if she liked his decisions and I'm really a hack who got lucky and they hate my idea omg.

I haven't heard back yet, so naturally I'm convinced that they're just waiting for the right moment to fire me, probably after they've invited me to stand on a stage in front of a bunch of people I admire and then dump a bucket of blood on my head and laugh at me. And then they might stab me to death with a spoon covered in dog poop. Then rape my corpse. Then let a monkey rape my corpse.

In the meantime I continue to work on the treatment just in case they don't plan to rape my corpse.

A confession

The Internet is a funny place. We read these little snippets of information and think we know people. I know someone I've met in person and liked for the most part, but when I read a comment he posted on a board I used to frequent I was so disgusted with him I immediately turn off when his name is mentioned. I know people who think I am a super bitch based on things I've said online, and when they meet me are completely shocked that I'm not a harpie.

Hell, in person I'm gentle as a lamb most of the time. I stop arguments from happening. In the classroom I am deft with words in the midst of brewing conflict and have talked angry boys out of punching each other. I've been called a bitch by teenagers and gotten them to apologize without any yelling on either side.

But here on the Internet I get more angry than I do in my life. Why? I guess it's because we don't have the benefit of a whole conversation or facial expressions or intonation so one comment can spiral out of control thanks to different writing styles. And we have these personalities - not our real personalities, but these creations we're developed on the web. If I were to suddenly start talking about how I actually liked The Notebook, would anyone believe me? Would people make fun of me? Would that change the persona I've developed?

I used to run before I had a foot injury, and one of my favorite songs to haul ass to was Brittney Spears' "Toxic." Yes. Brittney Spears. And I own a Rage Against the Machine album but it's a lie. Don't tell the Beefcake, but I don't actually like Rage. I only bought that album to help maintain my badass image in college, but I find all that aggressive screaming less enjoyable than a Justin Timberlake / Nelly collaboration. Do I like to kickbox? Absolutely. Do I cuss like a sailor and watch movies with explosions? Yes sir. Is my kitty's litterbox pink with hearts on it? Why yes it is. Know what else I like? John Mayer. Fuck off. He's talented.

I have layers. Like an ogre.

I had a Facebook page for like five minutes until someone I barely know sent me like fifty thousand flowers and kisses or whatever. I got the hell out of there. I had a Myspace for ages but never stopped worrying that my students would find it. Today I deleted it. I stopped posting to a popular message board months ago after I realized I was getting angry more often than I was laughing. I have fallen for many a troll in my day because I don't like to keep my mouth shut when I see shit that pisses me off.

But now I'm thinking about the whole thing. This blog. All blogs. Craig Mazin's most recent post to Artful Writer made me think about it even more. Which is kind of ironic.

I'm not trying to get people to say "Oh no, don't leave we love you" or whatever. I actually don't enjoy that kind of thing. What I like is honest discussions that don't get personal, where people are polite and respectful of each other and their opinions. When I think someone's being disrespectful I'll call them on it when I guess I should just ignore it or delete it entirely. There's no reason to let someone else's Internet persona upset my reality. My goal as a person is to become a zen being.

I like this blog. It's weird sometimes when I remember how many people I've never met have an idea of who I am, but then I remember how many friends I've made through this thing, and how much I've enjoyed having this outlet for my thoughts that can lead to a discussion of ideas. But I have to think about where I want it to go in the future and what kind of person I want to be when I'm here.

Do you guys know what I mean?

Jane Goldman on Kick Ass

I would like to direct your attention to this terrific interview with Jane Goldman, co-writer of Kick Ass, one of my favorite scripts of the last year. I admit even though I adored this script and loved the Hit Girl character and introduction, I was a bit nervous about an 11-year-old girl perpetrating this much violence. Jane Goldman does an excellent job of pointing out that we frequently see young girls as victims, but suddenly when they're the hero it's a little shocking.

As I was reading that I suddenly remembered that I had a little girl in my zombie script who eventually picks up a gun and shoots zombies and not once did it ever occur to me that it was objectionable. Yet here I was, a little uncomfortable with a heroic girl in someone else's film doing the same thing.

It's an interesting topic to me and I enjoyed reading her take on the whole thing. She also makes some great points about how women are not expected to like films like this, an expectation she finds to be quite silly. I agree.

I love this poster

Look at that poster. Look at it. Just take a second and bask in its glory.

It looks better in billboard form hanging over the road, but still. Look. This poster tells you everything you need to know and looks fantastic doing it.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is the clear focal point, followed shortly by Zoe Saldana who simply could not look any cooler. A good design tells you where to look when, and this image clearly does that. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is looking at me all sexy while he blows away a bad guy, and look at that expression on his face. BAM! In your face all like "Heeey girl. Look at my gun. Look at me killing that dude behind you. Don't worry, I got it." Plus there's a big black dude with a knife.

Look at the colors. Bright, bold, just like a comic book. And the squares resemble comic book panels, so you know right off this is a comic book movie. That means fun. The whole damn poster looks like fun. Absurd, sexy fun. Plus there's a big black dude with a knife.

Read that tagline. "Anyone else would be dead by now." Oh hell yes. These people are badass. And fun. Especially that big black dude with the knife.

Two shows I like

I'm really starting to enjoy Stargate Universe. It's a whole lot darker than its predecessors, almost a reflection of the times. Notice how everything is getting darker? That suits me fine, but it's interesting to mark the trend. I think it was pretty smart of Syfy to follow the direction set by Battlestar Galactica. It's got some similarities with that show - military vs civilian leadership, chased by aliens across space, dealing with lack of water/air/whatever supply they need this time - but it's on a smaller budget and with fewer characters. It's very different in tone from the original series, which was more of a comedy much of the time. Then there was Stargate Atlantis, which I feel failed because it could never figure out what it wanted to be. There were some terrific ideas for episodes that never really lived up to their expectations. This show so far is pushing the envelope a bit more.

Then there's Justified. Every episode I like better than the last. I'm not gonna lie - it may have something to do with how much I want to rub my hands all over Timothy Olyphant, but I just love the vibe of the show. It almost feels like this casual, smirky production with a poignant lesson at the end about human nature. I'm not sure how he's going to get away with shooting someone every single episode and still keep his job, but I look forward to seeing the problem solved. For me, this show has just the right balance of serious drama with playful fun.

And those are the two shows I have found myself excited to watch over the past few weeks.

Thoughts on the film: Inglouriousz Basturdzes

After an eternity of Netflix telling me I couldn't have Inglourious Basterds I finally got it this weekend and watched it last night. I read the screenplay back in the day and tried really hard to not let the fact that Tarantino doesn't proofread distract me from the story. There were some really brilliant scenes - the whole sequence in the basement tavern being the best of them - but they were sandwiched in between really dull talky scenes that took me away from the story I wanted to know more about. And the change in historical events came as a complete shock. I figured, though, since Tarantino was directing, that some of this would be cleared up on film.

I mean, this is the man who made Reservoir Dogs, and there are few films more perfect than Reservoir Dogs. I'm still waiting for that man to come back.

So Basterds. The fact that it's a fairy tale is much more apparent on screen than on paper, and again there are some really brilliant moments, but I still felt like there weren't enough scenes I wanted in the film, and some that made me really disappointed. There's this brilliant moment when he played up the obvious spaghetti western element and had a slow motion shot of a German officer walking toward camera. I was blown away by the brilliance of the shot and thought, okay, here's Tarantino, this is why everybody thinks this movie is so good.

But then it suddenly turned into a blacksploitation film with random voice over and I was completely ripped out of my happy moment. It felt like mishmash of styles. I do think the film is easier to watch if you think of it as a series of short films, but I still think it was just so inconsistent in tone and style that I lost all the great scenes to the weak ones.

I know a lot of people - many of whom I respect - who absolutely adored this film. I've heard more than one person I generally agree with who said it was the best film of the year. But I just don't get it. I thought it was a bit of a mess.

So enlighten me. If you loved Basterds, please tell me why. I really want to understand.

My article at The Story Department

Lookit - I'm a guest poster at The Story Department! The article is called The Road to Representation and it won't help you find representation at all.

If you don't know about The Story Department, you should read that stuff. They have awesome taste in articles.

Clarity

Clarity. You should always be searching for clarity in your writing. I read a script the other day where two characters had very similar names, which of course made them easily confused. For me, I don't even usually give two characters the same first letter of their name, but that's because I'm lazy and I just like to hit "B" and let MovieMagic fill in the rest. It won't do that right if there's more than one B. But I always try to make sure my names are very different from each other because you don't have an actor's face to help you differentiate.

It's not just names, though. Take a war movie. All those white brown-haired men with helmets on and dirt on their face get really tough to tell apart. Give each one a personality trait we can all cling to and somehow they become individuals. Saving Private Ryan does an excellent job of this.

That extends sometimes to production stuff as well. I was watching The Eagle Has Landed the other day, and the cast consisted of Americans, British actors and probably some real Germans, and they were all playing Nazis. Robert Duvall wore the stereotypical German uniform, had an eye patch and spoke with a very clear German accent. Okay, he's German. But then another guy came in with a very distinct British accent dressed in a uniform most people are unfamiliar with - I believe it was a German naval uniform but wasn't sure - and they discussed kidnapping Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill is British. This guy was British. I was confused. Is he a spy? It took me like four minutes of careful listening and thinking to realize he was supposed to be German as well. Then we got a scene of Michael Caine, who is also British, with some kind of hybrid accent and wearing a completely different unfamiliar uniform, and he's saving Jews from concentration camps. Then Donald Sutherland shows up and speaks with an Irish accent. But he's actually playing an Irishman.

It took a good while for me to sort this mess out in my head. That's casting and the actors more than the screenwriter, but I think one of the big problems I had with this mix of characters is that the beginning of the film was so talky. They keep naming characters who aren't in the scene so when we finally meet those characters I'm not sure - is this the guy they were talking about? Is he German too? I don't know because he has a British accent. This is something the writer can head off.

We can't always control the cast but we can control, to some degree anyway, what comes out of their mouths. We need to make sure it leaves no room for confusion.

A piece of advice about notes for the first-time writer

This is probably the best advice in the world I could give to new writers. Have you just completed your first script? Do you think it's better than sliced bread? Are you telling everybody it's the best thing ever written?

I know you did because we all did. Everybody falls in love with that first script. Everybody feels like it's the most brilliant thing ever put on paper. EVERYBODY.

Know why? You're proud. You finished. You worked your ass off and devoted hours upon hours to this thing and it's a creation of your mind. It's an accomplishment, and now you want your reward.

You give it to your mom. She loves it! Look what her baby did! Yay! You give it to your friend, the one who writes poetry. OMG this is the best script he's ever read. It's the only one he's ever read, but man it is amazing. You're feeling pretty good. Everybody says it's great! I'm great! This is the best screenplay ever and I'm going to sell it for a jillion bazillion dollars!

Then you give it to a screenwriter and you just know you're going to get notes like "OMG I wish I was as good as you" and "This is the most amazing thing I've ever read and I'm going to pass it to my agent right away!" You wait, champagne chilling in the fridge. Fortune and fame are on their way.

Then you get the notes.

What happened was, the writer read your script and began writing notes. This is a huge favor because they really wanted to work on their own project, but they decided to take some time to help out a new writer because, hey, somebody helped them once. They set aside time in their day and went page by page, explaining what needs to be fixed because that's what you said you wanted. You were looking for notes, real notes, not just a pat on the back. So the writer tells you what doesn't work. Some things work, but really, this script is terrible. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but yeah, you've got a lot of work to do. This is not the genius you thought it was.

Now at this moment you have a choice. You can sit down with those notes and go over them carefully and think about them and thank your lucky stars someone took the time to tell you all this before you embarrassed yourself. It'll take a lot of work, but in the end it will be so worth it when you know you have a great script.

Or you can get angry, throw things and tell the screenwriter to go to hell because they don't know shit about shit and you're a genius and you're going to make a jillion bazillion dollars because your mom and your poet friend think this is brilliant and they're way smarter than some asshole who wrote some movie about a giant killer eel that ran on SYFY last week at 2am. Fuck that writer. They don't understand your vision.

Here's my advice: Don't do the second thing.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

I've been excitedly watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. It airs Friday nights on ABC and I think everyone in America should watch it.

Jamie Oliver is a British chef who ran a similar program to great success in England as the one he's attempting here. He has come to a town in West Virginia where the eating habits are some of the worst in the country. Despite much resistance, he aims to change the nature of school lunches so we can start teaching our students to eat healthy diets. A kid who eats healthy normally grows into an adult who eats healthy.

This is a project near and dear to my heart. A few years ago I decided I wanted to eat healthy, but had no idea how, so I started studying. I read every book on nutrition I could snag and started changing my eating habits to reflect a healthy lifestyle. I still eat tasty food, and I still have cookies, but I make certain that I never put anything toxic in my body. Except that time I decided to taste the juice from the cactus in my yard - do not do this ever.

Anyway, ever since I learned exactly what food does I've been fascinated with how many of us have no idea. If I did learn anything in high school about the different fats and why you eat fiber I don't remember. I know most of my students never learn anything about eating habits. In fact, I'm not sure they learn anything in health class because they don't seem to learn anything about herpes either. But I digress.

If you watch the show you may be astounded by what you learn about what kids eat at school. At most public schools in America kids are offered pizza and fries every single day. And they eat them. At our school the kids are also offered chicken nuggets, cheap prepackaged PB&J on processed white bread, and lots of chocolate milk. They usually supplement their meals with hot Cheetos. I occasionally see an orange or maybe some lime juice squirted over the Cheetos.

But I never in a million years thought our administrators actually thought this food was good for the kids. When Jamie Oliver put out a pasta dish with seven different vegetables in it, the woman in charge of the food service for the county's schools told him he needed another vegetable. She looked at the pasta and decided the kids needed a separate vegetable to make sure it met certain guidelines, so she insisted he put out french fries.

French fries. With a straight face and with complete conviction, the woman told Jamie Oliver that french fries are a vegetable. I suppose she considers ketchup a fruit. It never occurred to me that anyone actually believed french fries counted as a vegetable.

I'm doing my part. I talk about nutrition constantly, and when my kids open up their chips I read the labels and explain to them what they're putting in their bodies. Now the kids have started coming up to me and asking whether or not the snack they've chosen is healthy, which tells me the kids want that kind of guidance.

The Biggest Loser makes a big deal about healthy eating but in reality, the way they lose weight on that show is not healthy, and most of their features about eating habits are thinly veiled product placement segments, so I'm thrilled to see a show that gets to the core of the problem. This is a huge issue in America, one we've allowed ourselves to ignore for too long.

I have a student in my class right now who is so hyper he's almost uncontrollable. He shows up at 7:25am bouncing off the walls and does not know how to be quiet. I asked him what he ate for breakfast. Candy bars, sodas, whatever sugar-filled item he picked up that morning. I asked him to do me a favor and eat something with fiber in the morning instead. The next day he came in with a banana. He was calm, attentive, still wide awake and energetic but without the out-of-control behavior. And it's not just him. Whenever I have a student behaving erratically I'll ask what they ate for breakfast and about 95% of the time it was a sugary drink or snack. I don't think we realize how much what we eat affects how we behave, and it's amplified in kids who have less self-control to begin with. And that doesn't even bring up the long term effects of poor diet like Diabetes, bad skin, heart problems, failing livers, poor sleeping habits, indigestion, lack of energy, and the numerous other complications that can come from poor eating habits.

Your meals should be colorful. If your food lacks color or is all one color it's unhealthy - and no, candy doesn't count. You should have at minimum five fruits or vegetables per day - and no, fries don't count - and lots of water. This seems common sense, right? Apparently not. There are people who've replaced water with coffee or soda or who go through an entire day without eating a single vegetable.

That's why Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution is one of those rare shows that can have a genuine impact on society if we let it. It's something many of us desperately need.

I like movies

Yesterday we were lounging around lazily on the couch flipping channels when we stopped on Starship Troopers. I feel like that film can't figure out what it is. It's satire, then serious drama, then satire again. It's inconsistent. The Beefcake and I discussed this at length.

Then we flipped to Courage Under Fire. Man, is that not a perfect film? Lou Diamond Phillips does his best work in that film. Hell everybody does their best work in that film. It says so many important things about what it means to be a hero, about women in combat, about women in authority positions, about the nature of truth, and probably some more things I haven't thought about yet. But what I love the most about that film is how each character hides pain. The actors did a spectacular job of expressing that as each individual person put on their manly military facade to cover the obvious hurt they lived with each day. We discussed that too.

And that's what I love about movies. I love to just look at the art and pick it apart and bask in the beauty of a well-constructed film. It's so rare a film gets from conception to completion without being fucked up by the many people who stand in its way, so when a film comes out so beautifully I just get excited to watch it. I want to sit and talk about why it's so amazing, but that's also the English teacher in me, I suspect.

What we do, when it's done well, is amazing art. We're lucky to be a part of it.

Movies I'm excited about

No treatment today because I deemed it more important to take the dog on a long walk with my neighbor and her dog and then order pizza. I'm thinking about my story, though. I'm really thinking. I've got some awesome images in my head and I got this super idea the other day that will really set this story apart from similar films in the genre. I'm gonna knock this shit out of the park.

In the meantime, I'm getting kind of excited about this summer's movie release schedule. Have you seen the new trailer for The Expendables? It's nuts. I have never wanted anything to suck as much as I want this to not suck. And I want a sandwich with Jet Li and Jason Statham.

But also, omg. People are saying this looks like it will suck, and that's a real testament to how disappointed we have become by blockbuster films with huge casts - we just expect them to be garbage right out of the gate. But don't you dare forget that Sylvester Stallone is also responsible for Rocky. I'm going in that theater with eyes shut and hopes high and I'm just going to sit and let the wave of awesome wash over me. And if it sucks, I may go on a violent rampage. I will also probably be the only girl in the theater who was not here as a favor to her boyfriend.

Then there's The Losers. Who does not love Jeffrey Dean Morgan? I see they have the token badass female who's really hot and ethnic, but they also have a badass looking nerdy dude, so that's creative. This looks like fun.

And Knight and Day. The Beefcake and I were trying to figure out if we've ever seen Tom Cruise do comedy before. I suppose you can call his character from Magnolia comedic, but really he doesn't ever seem to have done anything as fun as this film looks to be for him. Finally that nutcase on Oprah's couch is let loose in a movie. I may even invest in popcorn.

Finally, I'm stoked about Kick Ass. I loved the script - best one I've read in months. And the introduction of Hit Girl and Big Daddy is almost as clever as Jack Sparrow's. You just get it. Two minutes with these two and you understand exactly what they're about. I can't wait to see that on screen.

I'm sure there are other movies coming out but these just look like the most fun a girl could have on a summer afternoon in the theater. I can't wait.