2003: Tederick.com's Semi-Annual Review
Dec 31 2003 - 12:09 a.m.

Click below for all the year-end goodness, including my filmic top ten list:

People have nerve
Dec 30 2003 - 2:31 p.m.

Ugh. The cold that's been circling me for three weeks feels like it might finally be landing. Most inconvenient timing!

My James Bond DVD collection is finally complete, by the way, so let's celebrate with another batch of reviews. This time, it's Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Octopussy, A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights.

People have nighties
Dec 30 2003 - 12:09 a.m.

By popular demand, Natalie Portman's nipples are no longer visible anywhere on Tederick.com. I do this out of fraternity for my fellow males, who found the process of browsing the nipple-fortified T.C particularly befuddling.

Cold Mountain sucks. But boy, that's some good Natalie.

People have nipples
Dec 29 2003 - 9:30 a.m.

Today was the first time ever that a fairly convincing sex dream gave way to the waking realization that my neighbour was in the midst of a shag so ebullient that it was actually knocking shit off my bookshelves. May we all have Monday mornings so bracing.

Looks like Return of the King will indeed make sushi out of that damned Nemo. It's already clocked $230 million domestically, in just eleven days. Another hundred shouldn't take long. I'm trying to think of other franchises where the third film made the most of the three... can't think of any.

Unfortunately, Peter Pan had a poor showing over the weekend, pulling only $15 million. This is a great film, everyone, so see it while you have a chance.

Why aren't you voting? You should be voting.

All over again
Dec 28 2003 - 7:55 p.m.

So I was standing in the bathroom at the Second Cup taking a piss, and in the space of about 45 seconds I came to understand that I have to revert a character in subculture to the state he was in, way back in a very early draft. Which means I have to completely rewrite all 54 pages I've written so far. I came home and opened the file and hit Control-Home and stared at the first few words of the script, and just went... "fuck." Starting over sucks. Not fighting my pervading intuition about script structure when I think I've been clever and come up with a better idea would be a very good thing. Maybe I'll give up chocolate in the New Year, and meanwhile just go truffle-crazy tonight and see how far I can shove this thing back up its own ass.

In the plus column, my new shirt really brings out the green of my eyes, and makes my man-teats look like honest-to-god pecs. And you thought fashion designers were overpaid.

You shoulda gone out there
Dec 28 2003 - 4:27 p.m.

I put some time in this afternoon on the Infinitely Brown DVDs. The bad news is that Stanley's Christmas Carol is basically a write-off... it's going to take about a year to restore that thing to anything that even resembles its original form. Fortunately, most of the other early stuff is all right - I should be able to get disks 1 and 2 settled fairly quickly. And man, some of this stuff is funny.... like the birthday movies, particularly... how the hell did we come up with this shit? I'd kill for this kind of comic intuition today.

Sleeping late
Dec 28 2003 - 11:47 a.m.

Son of a bitch, I gotta build more DVD shelves today. This thing is getting out of hand.

And speaking of: here's my Toy Review for 2003, my picks for the five best wastes of money currently on my shelves.

Scenes from a Maul
Dec 28 2003 - 12:35 a.m.

Hey, you know what's great about hangin' with your old homies? The pictures.

Is this the best picture of Mark and I ever taken?

Or is it this one?

And here's me, with the gigantic palmcorder that was the standing replacement for my penis throughout high school... and beyond.

DONE DADDY
Dec 27 2003 - 4:11 p.m.

I've waited a long, long time to use that headline.

Bone Daddy is done.

[Breathe in...]

[...Breathe out.]

Three years minus a day since the premiere of Bone Daddy 1, Bone Daddy 2 rolled through its final mix without a single complication. I essentially attended only to give a final stamp of approval; by this point, I literally mean it when I say that I could hand my rushes over to Steve and be completely satisfied with the finished, edited and mixed picture. He is The Man, with a capital "God."

As I was watching the film in its final mix, I actually became impressed with it for the first time in its long life. It certainly achieves a lot more than I thought it did, and with the music and sound effects in place, it feels like a real movie. Chris' lighting makes it the slickest looking film Infinitely Brown has ever cranked out, and the whole thing just feels... yeah. A lot more like a real movie.

I celebrated with a bit of Boxing Week shopping up at the DVD Wave; I got about two hundred and twenty bucks' worth of stuff for around one fifty. And since I am now formally within striking distance of my 300th DVD....

....it's that time again! Spend my money, Internet, like only you can! "With your porn and your online stores and your DVD pollllllls, glavin..." Vote today! This won't last long. Yes, it takes a hell of a long time to load. Do it anyway. Remember how we all used to talk about the internet being "interactive?" This is it.

Aye, God
Dec 26 2003 - 5:52 p.m.

No human should have this much power. I'm on the subway listening to Return of the King... and then suddenly I'm in a Paul Simon sorta mood... and shazam, I'm off into You're the One. That hardly seems appropriate for wandering down a consumer-thronged Queen West on Boxing Day, especially not when I'm about to go see Peter Pan, so I switch it up for a little Coldplay. And all the time, I'm stroking the ring... my precioussss....

Thanks to Matthew for the One Ring analogy. It's frighteningly accurate. The iPod is the Best Thing Ever, notable for both its enormous beauty and its incalculable power to seduce.

And speaking of seduction: God damn fuck fuck fuck, I have to revise my Top Ten for the year because Pan is just that good. It's so good it's genuinely gobsmacking. Sometimes I don't know how much I disliked a movie until I've written its review, and sometimes, apparently, it works the other way around: I came out of this film with a gigantic smile on my face, genuinely impressed, but it wasn't until I wrote my review that I understood that I just love every single thing about it. Read all about my trials and tribulations here, and get ready for the Pan-fortified Tederick.com 2003 Wrap-Up, which will be taking over the web in just five short days.

HMV shopping with Matthew after the movie was great, and coffeeing before the movie with Mer was great, and... yeah. Except for the fact that the Pan score won't be available for another three damned weeks (curses!!), this was my Best Boxing Day Ever.

People who blog on Christmas Day are patently pathetic... Except for you, Jewie
Dec 26 2003 - 10:39 a.m.

Ho-lee-cow, I'm fat. I could play Stanley without padding. Man am I overweight. The holidays have taken their mighty toll in the past week, culminating in a 28-hour eat-a-thon, starting at approximately five on Wednesday and running till nine last night. And now I feel like I'm wearing a layer of thick rubber around my body, from my shoulders to my knees. It varies in thickness depending on the region. There are parts of my body that I'm exceedingly fond of that I can't see right now, and would like to think are still there.

Well, thank goodness I don't own a scale, or I'd probably be suicidal right now. I'm in that weird state of being a) hungry, because my stomach has been expanded to such a degree that I'm pretty much always hungry, and b) repulsed by food, because I've seen every morsel of it I could possibly want to, and want no more.

Yep, the Christmas Day Eating Adventure doesn't get any easier year to year, but at least it's over. I got to come home and waste all the egg nog down the drain, eat grapefruit, and contemplate my own mortality.

Merry Boxing Day everyone! I hope your Christmas booty was as plunderous as mine. I got my very own iPod, which also represents my first tumble into the wild, white world of Mac. There's something to be said for any computing product that not only isn't going out of its way to piss you off, but is actually trying to impress you. Sure, it's going to get really annoying after a while, like a precociously brainy nine-year-old who keeps quoting trivial nonsense to you, but in the meantime, it's all good. I'm going to have to put a newer version of Windows on this ol' PC o' mine, but to keep me up and running until then, Adam dumped a day and a half of music onto my iPod and succeeded in using up, like, 9% of its memory. This thing is a marvel.

I also got F-Zero GX and Enter the Matrix from the sibs, both of which I am evidently quite good at. Yay for video supremacy!

Zam was as good as gold and better. She had the time of her life at my parents' place. I haven't seen her that excited in the whole year that I've had her... she must really hate it in this tiny little apartment. Nowhere to run around, no interesting other cats to play with, and only one human to shadow. It's a pale reflection, I know.

Well, I'd best be getting to the difficult business of getting my life in order. I haven't been writing subculture since the 23rd, and I have yet to really crack The Runner: Burn Obstructed either. I've got a buttload of IBP DVDs to create and a pantbutt of holiday movies to see, some of which might force their way into my Top Ten and make me very, very angry. So there.

Two internet-y items before I go:

1. When Wil Wheaton wants to put his very own Wesley Crusher action figure up for sale on Ebay, how does he describe his former character? "He eats very little, is a master at reversing the polarity on a number of objects, and has only been responsible for one death at Star Fleet Academy, for which he is very sorry. He's housebroken, and likes to play with Nanites." Which is really, really funny if you're a big flaming geek.

2. I realized too late that I have become a pawn in Jason Gorber's ongoing efforts to have all his friends do all his shopping for him so that he never has to leave the house again, so I recently incinerated a copy of Cinefex #96. I then farted on the smouldering remains, and had to run screaming to the bathroom for some cold water.

Foggier yet, and colder!
Dec 24 2003 - 10:45 a.m.

Last night at poker, Matthew mentioned that he found it rather disturbing to see Michelle Trachtenberg all grown up, high on absienthe, and making out with her twin brother in the Eurotrip trailer. I was peevishly blasé, saying that it wouldn't be such a big deal for anyone who had watched Michelle grow up on Buffy for the past three years and wasn't just recalling her from Harriet the Spy.

Having now watched the trailer, I can clearly say "Eeeeeeeeeeughhhh!!! Dawnie, GO TO YOUR ROOM!! (And call your agent, and fire him.)"

Big Christmas present from Lucasfilm, the second Making of Episode III video documentary, wherein we can watch George Lucas wandering around the Sydney soundstages and production departments, obviously having the time of his life. Well heck, wouldn't you be? And Jesus, Jett has grown. And the fact that I can even recognize that makes me feel like part of the family. Which I am not. In any way at all. But I like to pretend, and maybe someday, I'll pretend all the way to pretending that I was actually there.

But anyways. I watched the original cut of Star Wars yesterday, and found it to be good, and feel like ending my anti-Lucasism for the time being, so I love ya Georgie! You film history destroying son of a bitch.

As for the duel, I said it last time and I'll say it again: "Jesus CHRIST, that's FAST."

Speaking of Jesus Christ... Merry Christmas everyone! I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall no longer feel ashamed.

Plans, Plans, Plans
Dec 23 2003 - 6:07 p.m.

After procrastinating for eleven months and twenty-three days, I finally made my annual charitable contribution. This year it's Covenant House. Ontario Child Find wanted my money again, but I silenced them with a petulant "Do you have a new Star Wars movie to show me? No? Then I'm not interested."

Well, since credit cards make this all so easy, maybe I won't wait quite so long to donate next year. My cousin Trevor's charity work at NT this year is going towards OCD research... I think that would be a good one for 2004. God knows my family could use the help.

And speaking of family: tomorrow I return to the ol' homestead to make the Christmas cheetsa and drink the Christmas egg nog. I'm taking Zam along with, which oughta be interesting... she's not been in the best mood lately, but the hell with it, I say! She is my possession, and she shall do as I deem.

I'm pretty pleased with my stock of outgoing Christmas presents this year... and since it's better to give than to receive, I have no concerns about whatever's headed my way. Zam bought me a copy of The Frighteners, and it is fab-u-lous. And every time a Lord of the Rings crewmember was mentioned in the credits, I held up my fist and bellowed (for example) "Richard Taylor represent!" and so forth for whoever it was. It was all very amusing.

I've dashed out 45 pages of the third-and-godwilling-final-for-now draft of subculture, and it's going reasonably well, although I think it could be more funny, more vampiry, and more oppressiony. Which would make a lot more sense if you were me.

I'm rather worried about poker tonight; I actually won last week, not big, but a nice mid-range win like I used to before I was losing every week. Last week was the Day of Cake, so I fear that my poker skills are only improved upon if I gobble up a whole lot of sugar beforehand. Which I just can't do every week, man. I just can't.

Watched Star Wars today. Hey, guess what? Han shoots first!

Riddles of Woe
Dec 23 2003 - 9:52 a.m.

Ever wanted to see Natalie Portman kill a bunch of people? Looks she has her eye set on the long-awaited sequel to Leon, where she'd play the grown-up, and supposedly very pissed off, Mathilda. She sed: "The script's really great, and near worth delaying a vacation for. The only problem would be that I would have to hit the gym again - and at the moment I can't even envision tying my own laces up." Okay, so she's a sucky-baby. But whatever.

On the other side of the gorgeous, here's the King Arthur trailer, starring our favourite Natalie Portman Improvement. Yeah, there's a hefty dollop of the cheese. But blue skin and a leather bikini? That's opening day material.

Beneath You
Dec 22 2003 - 7:41 p.m.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "Fool For Love." Best episode ever.

Caramel Sky
Dec 22 2003 - 5:17 p.m.

Video's a poor substitute, as always, but tonight I couldn't resist:

Yes. Life is good.

Picked up the first copy of Tales of the Vampires today, and... well.... yeaaaaaahhhhhh. Wowie. There's two stories in this issue; the Dru/Spike/Prague story is written by God, and then there's a nice little six-pager by Whedon himself that's just about as sweet as can be. Kinda like reading six pages of Fray, actually, without the futurisms. Much better than the first issue of Tales of the Slayer. I'm so on board with this. Gotta get my Buffy fix from somewhere, yeah? And give me more Fray for crying out loud!!!

You have too many toys when: I was at the Silver Snail today and I was casing the Star Wars figures. I found the first two figures of the 2004 line, R-3PO and the new Wampa-mauled Luke. I noticed the new Imperial Dignitary on the shelf. There was only one left. I thunk to myself, "Boy. There's only one left. It's a good thing I already have that guy." Then I got home and looked at my shelf and was heard to curse loudly, for there was nary a dignitary to be seen. That has never happened to me in my life. I'm supposed to know what I have and what I don't have. Who am I, Jason?

Otherwise I'm happy as a clam. Wampa-mauled Luke dangles from the roof of the Wampa cave, which makes him a nice companion piece to my Vader-mauled Luke, who dangles from the Bespin weather vane. Which prompted me, for the first time in my life, to observe, "Wow, Luke really gets the shit kicked out of him in Empire. And hung upside down a lot."

Grapefruits are back in season. My computer smells like soy sauce. The world remains interesting.

Stupid internet
Dec 22 2003 - 11:26 a.m.

If I had a nickel for every time I've filled out one of those "What sort of _____ are you" surveys on the internet, thinking that I'd score some great Tederick.com content, only to be revulsed by either the sickening strangeness or upsetting accuracy of the response, I'd be a rich, rich man.

Ah, to be 21 and a really, really bad speller again.

Relentless
Dec 22 2003 - 11:09 a.m.

Nothing like staying up until three and then sleeping till eleven. It's got a nice formalist ring to it.

Speaking of rings: close to $250 million in five days worldwide for Return of the King. If the rumour about New Line balking on paying Weta to finish the effects for the Extended Edition DVD is anywhere near true, that oughta make them rethink their position.

Two great Christmas parties this weekend. The usual greatness of the Dault family shindig was enlivened by the bucolic image of we original FORPers sitting around drinking, while Ken Finkleman terrorized the halls. It's more likely that he recognized me from the One Minute Film Festival than that he recalled me stooped over a Nagra for his Fuck: The Documentary interview back in 1997, but hey, I'm a star-whore like anybody else and I'll take what I can get.

And then last night, me and Mark were tasked with providing "entertainment" for the Brown family brouhaha. 10-years-old-today Stanley's Christmas Carol went over like a dead weight ("boy that's aged well!" I exclaimed) and Bone Daddy and the Big Score proved to be a bit more licentious than we remembered, but then the Charades started and y'know what? Everyone actually had a really good time. I got "The Bible" off Cathy acting out a two-word book starting with "The." And Trevor... well, he's just a little bit too good at this stuff, y'know? He sunk our opponents in the tiebreaking round by dealing out "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius." With whom he has quite a bit in common.

Oh, and Mark performed "The Woogie Boogie-Woogie," originally written for Woogie's 20th birthday party that never happened. Outstanding work, as usual. Maybe he could adapt it for the strip show?

Let me do it
Dec 21 2003 - 12:38 p.m.

It's only natural, I've got Aliens on the brain these days, so it's not too surprising that I just came up with the best story for Alien 5. I wrote it out as a one-page treatment. It's spooky as shit. I love it. And I love that I remain dauntless in my ability to dream up things I'll never, ever get to shoot.

Be of good cheer
Dec 20 2003 - 6:29 p.m.

Procrastination. It'll get you every time. I delayed the advent of my Christmas cheer this year, actually thinking I was going to make no big deal of the holiday, just kind of let it be, not really buy any expensive gifts. Well, delaying it seems to have only added to its potency - I've spent a buttload on presents this year. Still not as much as Bex, but a buttload nonetheless... like, double my budget on almost everyone. My fridge is stocked with egg nog, both store-bought and home-made. My stomach stretches in preparation for the eat-fest to come. But I don't really care, cuz I love Christmas.

Here's the internet earning its keep for today: Once More With Hobbits, rewriting the Buffy musical with Lord of the Rings-appropriate lyrics. Like:

(To the tune of "Walk Through the Fire")

FRODO:
I touch the fire and it freezes me
I look into it and it's black
The ring's my friend
It loves me to the end
But I must throw it back

GOLLUM:
Our Precious thing, it calls to us
But we promised to obey
We hopes he fries,
We're free if Master dies
We'll helps him on his way

Absolutely brilliant. Using "Mustard" for the Bridge of Khazad-Dum? Assigning "Dawn's Lament" to Lobelia Sackville-Baggins? No human should be this clever.

Well. I'm off to my first Christmas event of the season in a few hours. And glad of it, yes, precious! All the Return of the King and the Christmas shopping has put me in a very good mood. It's going to be weird to do next year's holiday season with no LOTR to add to the flavours...

Gone, gone, gone! Sméagol is freeeeee
Dec 20 2003 - 11:06 a.m.

Off to see Return of the King again in a few minutes... in the meantime, I've added a fifth page to my old Alien review series based on the Quadrilogy boxed set's new cuts of the four films. God I love writing these things.

Good Night, Internet
Dec 20 2003 - 12:15 a.m.

Put on the Return of the King CD, make yourself a cup of tea, and read this final interview with Peter Jackson on Aint-it-Cool. Take the time to go through the links at the top of the page, where Harry takes us right back to the beginning, the earliest AICN rumours of the LOTR production, and a couple of QNA's that were wicked cool back then, and are even more so now. Take a moment to laugh uproariously at the comments on Sean Astin's casting as Sam, because man alive those guys were stoned to think he couldn't do this.

And maybe, with that much history right in front of you, you can begin to get an idea for what it's really going to be like to leave this trilogy behind.

The Second Gun Story
Dec 19 2003 - 4:34 p.m.

After the First Gun Story, I spent approximately five years in fear of the police - fear that was omnipresent, annoying, and consistently surprising in its ability to make my blood run cold at every sight of a cruiser or sound of a siren.

The only way out is through.

When my first year of university let out, I didn't immediately search for work, but spent some time just bumming around. One morning, I took a walk to the video store at around 10:45, only to discover that the place didn't open until 11. I decided to take a quick walk around the block, rather than wait outside the store like a geek.

I turn onto Sherwood Avenue from Yonge Street. There's a small parking lot under a building on the left, and a long alley opposite, on my right. Otherwise, it's just a normal residential area.

I am just passing the parking lot when a police car with its lights on comes trundling down the alley on the other side of the street. It suddenly guns its engine and passes behind me, into this semi-covered parking lot. Then a second police car comes rolling towards me, along Sherwood Avenue. It passes me. By this point, the world is in slow motion. I already know something very bad is about to happen.

The second police car slams on its brakes and then goes into a speedy reverse, and stops right beside me. By now I know I've done something wrong, because the cop leaps out of the car in that jerky, panicky way they have, his hand already on his gun. And he's looking right at me.

And then he pulls his gun. They were using Glocks by then, and this was the first time I'd seen one in person. He's pointing his weapon at me... but my feet, still a few moments behind my brain, are still walking. I walk right out of his line of sight, and he doesn't care, because he's actually aiming past me, down the parking lot.

And I'm watching all this when suddenly, this dude comes running out of the parking lot, spooked out of hiding by the first police car. He's wearing nothing but a ripped pair of jeans, and is sprinting faster than anyone I've ever seen, flailing his arms and screaming at the top of his lungs. He's screaming "FUCK YOU!!" every time the cop with the gun tells him to stop. He's running straight for the cop, shouting "FUCKING KILL ME!!" at the top of his lungs.

The cop is cool as shit. He just keeps his weapon trained on the dude, and the dude keeps coming. The cop keeps authoritatively repeating his commands: "stop right there," "stop or I'll fire," "this is your last warning." The world is still in slow motion. The dude is twenty feet from the cop... fifteen... ten. And my brain finally gets it. Someone is going to get shot.

I jump behind a parked van for cover. The dude gets within five feet of the cop, and the cop fires. BANG. BANG.

The next time you see a movie where some heroic fella takes a couple of shots in the chest but keeps on coming out of sheer willpower, do me a favour and snicker. This dude was more keyed up than anyone I think I've ever seen. He was running on full adrenaline, and as I learned later, a pretty hefty hit of drugs. He was a fucking locomotive. And with two shots, he was on the ground, completely silent. It was like someone had flipped a light switch off. The echoes of his screams didn't outlast the echoes of the shots.

I came out into the open and found the cops tending to the guy, who was now on the ground in a pool of blood, two wounds in his stomach. I was taken to the police station and interviewed for several hours, because if the dude had died, there would automatically have had to have been an inquest. There never was, or at least, I was never called to testify. I have always taken that to mean that he survived.

The story is that the guy had robbed a drug store a few blocks away, shot himself up with half of what he had stolen, and tried to outrun the police and take refuge in the parking lot. Beyond that, I never heard anything else. And speaking of hearing: I still have a ten percent hearing loss in my left ear thanks to those two gunshots, and I was thirty feet away by that time. I can't imagine what consistent exposure to guns would be like. I'm not particularly keen on finding out, either...

You'd think that after the First Gun Story, these events would basically have been enough to put me into a catatonic stupour. But no, in fact, it basically eliminated five years of fear. I suppose in one way, it was all of my paranoia taken to the nth degree, which has a way of purging these sorts of worries. It was also a weird form of closure, in a "life goes on" sort of way.

I laugh particularly hard every time I see Pulp Fiction and hear Samuel L. Jackson say, "Not to shatter your ego, but this ain't the first time I've had a gun pointed at me." There's a kind of ongoing fearlessness that I can apply to a lot of other things that would once have scared the hell out of me... because really, after these two events, nothing is as frightening as it once was.

Curses!
Dec 19 2003 - 11:20 a.m.

I done split my yoga pants.

Somewhere in the wild
Dec 19 2003 - 9:58 a.m.

So this is it - it's been two years to the day since the release of Fellowship of the Ring, which from where I'm standing, here in 2003, seems like the day the world changed. It was the last film I saw at the Eglinton theatre, and I miss it dearly. Titanicritters note, too: it's been six years since the release of Titanic, which I also saw at the Eglinton on opening day. It's reasons like this that I just am not able to mourn the passing of the Uptown - besides dopey old First Contact, I can't think of a single memorable film experience I had there! But anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to see Return of the King again, this time with my mother, who has gone with me to see Towers and Fellowship the past two Saturdays. I continue to be goggled by my mother's embrace of Lord of the Rings. I guess I never gave her enough credit, but I never would have thought that this sort of thing appealed to her. It gives me great hope that she won't just be "smiling and nodding" during my future film enterprises.

Our friends at TheForce.net have proven themselves worthy once more, outgeeking us all by demonstrating that while Return of the King may have beaten Phantom Menace's opening day total box office record, Menace still holds the per-screen record, thanks to King's opening on about 600 more screens than Episode I. Star wars rules.

I'm going to be laying low next week, making today my last work day before Christmas. With my phone needing repairs, I seriously considered not even getting a temporary replacement.... I take enough calls!

I'll still be blogging, of course, and I'll be preparing Tederick.com's look back at 2003, which will launch on the 31st. And let me tell ya: this year's a doozie.

Otherwise, my holidays merely consist of me, my nog, and my holy trilogy.

Needful things
Dec 18 2003 - 12:35 p.m.

Boy, do I feel like shit warmed over twice. I was still all LOTR jazzed by the time I'd finished my review last night, so it took me about another hour to fall asleep... and then the damn cat literally jumped onto my head from a standing squat six feet away. That reset my clock fairly effectively. Between that and using my monitor as a scratching post two nights ago, Zam is currently my least favourite animal in the world.

Wurk, wurk, wurk. But tomorrow's my last days before the hols.

I know there was something else I was going to write about, but I don't know what it could be. My short term memory, or more accurately my short term concentration, is just out the window these days. I'll get up from my computer to get a glass of water, and by the time I'm in the kitchen I'm looking this way and that, saying, "what did I want in here again?" The creeping advance of total senility, man, I tell ya.

When you face the end together
Dec 18 2003 - 3:20 a.m.

For three films in a row, there has been a quantifiable greatness in going with my friends to see the noon show of the latest Lord of the Rings epic, going to Mosquito Moe's for food and drink and to talk about the film, and then returning to the theatre to watch the film all over again. And then, of course, going for one last pint at our local Green Dragon. This is a great, great thing.

And The Return of the King is a great, great thing. A make-Matt-cry-like-a-baby sort of great thing. Both audiences were very receptive to the film; the first one was far more plugged into the experience, clapping at every opportunity and cheering for every great event... unfortunately, we paid for that enthusiasm with a whole lot of obnoxious behaviour. (And let's face it: 12-year-old girls have bladders the size of walnuts, and brains not much larger.) Chris actually caught me and restrained me from getting very pissy with a runty 15-year-old boy who decided to make shadow-puppets in the projector beam during the end credits. But hey, that's what friends are for!

Thanks again to everyone who came out. I'm okay with this being the last Lord of the Rings film... but not with this being the last time we do this.

When you face the end alone
Dec 17 2003 - 8:30 a.m.

"We come to it at last."

Yay for piracy
Dec 16 2003 - 5:17 p.m.

I'm all on board with David Goldstein and Manny Perry. I don't download movies off the internet. I don't buy chinese bootleg DVDs of films currently in release. I fully support the studio system with my hard-earned dollars. But when a certain filmmaker decides it's his right to declare fatwa on a trio of film classics... well, the Jack Sparrow in me can't help but do a little pirate dance when a lovely yellow envelope shows up in my mailbox with three bootleg DVDs in it. Yay for piracy!

The quality is surprisingly good, given that 2-hour films are being crunched down onto single disks. It only really becomes an issue in low-light areas like the Cantina, otherwise it's a damn sight better than VHS, and plenty good enough for me. I'm going to have fun with these next week!

Yes
Dec 16 2003 - 11:26 a.m.

I just had the quintessential bachelor moment. Went into the fridge searching for breakfast. Open the door: find a can of Coke and half a chocolate cake. Shrug: take both, eat.

I am not at Trilogy Tuesday today. This is actually bothering me, even though I know I could never have withstood it, even though I know I would have been doing Return of the King an enormous disservice to see it for the first time under those conditions. But I hate missing a good party, and beyond anything else, that's what this would have been.

But that basket case thing I was talking about yesterday? Oh yeah, I'm all over it. I'm shaking. And it ain't the Coke/cake brekkie.

Wreckage and Rape
Dec 15 2003 - 10:29 p.m.

"We decided to make a delicate china cup. You can't say we should have made a beer mug." - David Fincher, when 20th Century Fox ordered the insertion of additional action sequences into the cut of Alien³

I just watched the extended cut of Alien³, and for the second time this year, a DVD extended cut has rocked my world. It is indescribable, how much better this cut of the film is. Certainly, there are still uncountable flaws in the picture - the second half still doesn't work anywhere near as well as the first (although, as proof of the power of editing, the deficit is far less irritating when bolstered by this introduction), the script's motives are still questionable, and yeah, the bald brits still get tiresome. And, because this is of course a reconstructed rough cut, there's also quite a bit of repetition on several of the key points.

But who cares. This cut rocks. It's proof of what I've expressed for some time now - that had Fincher been given his druthers and allowed to control the production, he would have made Alien³ into the saga's masterpiece, outstripping even Scott and Cameron's work. A lot of that is here - the new first act is just incalculably cool, really setting up the voraciously unique style and tone of the film. And with all the added character beats (particularly the religious stuff), the picture has a center for the first time. It all makes sense. Fincher was 27 when he made this fucking thing. Jesus! What am I doing with my life?!

Matt Price and I were talking about this last week, in that the film's greatest strength is its unrelenting gloom - no matter how bad you think things are, they just keep getting worse, all the way through. In that way, Alien³ was about ten years ahead of its time - definitely a misfit back in 1992, but shining like a star today. I've seen this flick about half a dozen times, and it actually scared me tonight, for the first time ever. I got that involved.

Wow. Yeah. I really am taken aback. I've wanted to see this cut for eleven years, but I never expected it to be this good.

And: the new cut of Alien is pretty fucking slick, too. The odd thing about Alien is that even though I've seen it maybe ten times, I'm always finding whole scenes where I go, "was this always here?" So watching the new cut was kind of like that, times three. But as a whole, it's a tighter, more savage, more workable cut. I'm pleased with it.

Jeez. Yeah. I gotta get outta here, man, I've got the shakes!

Faster, More Intense
Dec 15 2003 - 5:05 p.m.

There are times that remind me that I am truly blessed to have such a wide-ranging posse of friends. No IBP players in Burn 2? No problem! My cast is in place, my script is percolating, a location is secure, and I just came up with a great opening shot and a few ways to link the two films that my FORP cohorts won't be expecting. MWA HA HA HA HA HA!

Boy, this has been a frighteningly productive day, and I've still got several hours of writing ahead of me.

The Runner
Dec 15 2003 - 1:10 p.m.

Got off to a late start today thanks to watching the Survivor finale all morning... Couldn't not. You understand. My inevitable reactions and responses are on Survivorg, where they belong.

Fortunately, I'm dividing my time far more efficiently these days than usual, so I'm hopeful that my gigantic to-do list is going to get well and truly trounced in the next couple of hours.

Sarah Michelle Geller's getting her Ju-on: she's starring in the American remake of the Japanese fright flick. But who will play the Spooky Boy? I nominate her hubby, Freddie Prinze Jr. Or Michelle Trachtenberg - that would be too funny! And yeah, I'm not getting through Buffy Season Five as fast as I'd like, but I'm enjoying the shit out of it. I'm done the first four, and my favourite episode ever is on the next disk. Woo and hoo! Combined.

As for the Spidey 2 trailer: yeah, I really just don't care. Even with Molina. It just looks like so much more of the same. Give me a shot at a Spidey/DD crossover flick, and I'll give you a fucking movie to remember.

Wednesday is all clear. And yet I can't even feel it yet. I'm sure by this time tomorrow I'll be a basket case, but right now, it all seems terribly calm. Return of the who? What? Why? I am gratified, however, that I've conclusively determined how they could do The Big Moment without making it comical, and that I've figured out how my adaptation of Fellowship would start, if I were ever given the chance.

One last note: I've been so fed up with the American leadership lately, that when I got yesterday's news, it took me a minute to realize that this is actually probably a good thing on an objective level, and not just more international thuggery. Although it's that, too, of course.

The First Obstruction
Dec 14 2003 - 11:23 p.m.

My poker face may not have won me any money in the past six months, but it just saved my ass on my Obstruction. Yup, those are my obstructions, and they're all just fine with me. They're what I expected, what I signed up for - legitimate challenges to my established laziness, and they'll get me out doing something unlike what I've done before. Well, not too much unlike what I've done before... I've got cheats and shortcuts that'll ensure that my Obstructo-film ends up being very much of a piece with its parent.

But boy howdy - I bullet-space-timed my way around the two exact potential obstructions which actually kept me up at night for the past week... so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

The Runner: Burn Obstructed is in the screenwriting stage as of right now.

Chris is next... and he's not getting off anywhere near this light.

Domestic Goddess
Dec 14 2003 - 1:30 p.m.

Operation: Annihilate! came to a premature end today, because I can't look out my window at such a heavy snowfall and not want to bake. So I went to the grocery store to buy baking goods. Who knows how long I actually could have lasted? It's a question that will endure the ages.

Anyways. I made Coca Cola Cake, because I can't not try all recipes containing Coke. (There's also a Coke-roasted pork dish I'm gathering the nerve to attempt.) I also made my own egg nog, which I tried last year and failed miserably at, but hit the first time this year without any fuss. I think it's because my understanding of rum has quadrupled in the past twelve months. Whereas last year it intimidated me, now it runs in my veins.

Wow, it's only 1:30! I've got a shitload done today already. Think I'll watch me some of the Season Five Buffy and then see where the nog takes me.

The White Rider
Dec 14 2003 - 9:55 a.m.

Yes, snow. Snow snow snow snow snow. Just wondering about it yesterday, and now, here it is. I was going to go Christmas shopping but now I'm just going to play hibernation and hang out here. Too bad for you, giftees!

Saw the extended cut of Towers yesterday at Scarborough Town Center, a theatre I'd never been to before. It's actually really nice - the theatre itself has one of the most impressively wide screens I think I've ever seen. Too bad it's in Scarborough. And good news: the Crap codes were only on one reel of the film.... so maybe ROTK won't be too bad? Fingers very much crossed?

On Friday I played Super 7 like I usually do, but the computer printed out a 6/49 ticket for last night for me as well. I was hoping this was God's way of smiling upon me and gifting me with uncounted millions of dollars. Turns out it was His way of ripping me off for an additional 2 bucks. I shake my fist heavenward.

The Chan Don't Blog
Dec 13 2003 - 12:11 a.m.

I ate gator tonight! Okay, it was a tiny little morsel of gator. But I enjoyed it and wish I had ordered my own gator so that I could have had more of it. I am finally carnivorizing in the amphibian genome. Yay to me!

Meanwhile, my whole no groceries thing - now codenamed "Operation: Annihilate!" - is going fantastic. It's been a week now, and I think I can make it well into next week before I'll even start to feel it. Take that, consumer food industry!

And finally, something that falls under the heading of "oh great, more guns," here's how cats in the neighbourhood are dealing with the dog menace:

That is some exempliary Photoshopping, particularly the sighting eye. Thank goodness kittens are cute, or they'd be really scary.

The First Gun Story
Dec 12 2003 - 10:32 a.m.

Some have heard this, but many haven't, which is odd, because it literally changed my life. Not in some big, uplifting, lessons-learned sort of way, but because things weren't ever quite the same after this.

I wasn't allowed to have toy guns as a kid. And like raising a kid to shun all sexual feelings, that's a recipe for disaster. (Wow, I've already worked sex and guns into this story, and it's only two lines long!) By the time I was old enough to actually be my own servant of commodity culture, Mark, my brother and I were all buying cap guns and toy guns with decided relish. They were good props for movies, but more importantly, good toys to have around, especially at the cottage, where we could spend hours ripping our way through the back woods, playing our distilled version of Cops & Robbers, which we simply called Guns. It was like Save the Bunch with violence. It was Save the Wild Bunch.

I was in my early teens - Grade 9, I think, or thereabouts - and I was over at Mark's on a drizzly late-February day, and he Adam and I were standing around in his front yard, firing off some caps.

A couple of things need to be noted here: first, Mark's is a safe neighbourhood. Cozy, residential, I never even saw a kid getting beaten up in his neck of the woods, although I'm sure like any other elementary-school neighbourhood (his was only a couple of blocks away), it was happening.

And second, the toy gun we were playing with was the single cheesiest cap gun in our entire collection. It's not like we were into toy AK-47's or anything. We were big into westerns, and over three quarters of our mutual collection consisted of classic 6-shooters, Daisy rifles, and other vintage weapons of the frontier era. So this gun was a pathetic little plastic 6-shooter, already falling apart from too much use, barely able to squeeze off the little paper caps we were feeding it.

Remember paper caps? Tiny dots of gunpowder on a long red band of paper. They came in rolls of literally hundreds of shots, so after you'd fired off maybe two dozen of them, you had this comical ribbon of red paper dangling from the magazine.

I just need to make clear with whatever 14-year-old indignance I still have: this was some fake, fake shit.

Mark's house has a driveway up the side of the house, and a side door. We were done with our gunplay and were standing around in the driveway. I was in front, Adam was closer to the back yard, and Mark was standing inside the side door.

And all hell breaks loose. A police squadcar schreeches across the lawn and up the driveway and all four doors explode open and four police officers jump out, guns drawn, pointed four very realistic-looking firearms at us and start screaming instructions. "PUT THE GUN DOWN!!"

I literally froze. Which, in this case, is significant, because it means I didn't respond. I just stood there staring at these guys, my mind genuinely spun, unable to understand if what I was seeing was real. Mark and I were into playing pranks on each other back then, and that was the only thing cycling through my brain: This is a prank. This has to be a prank. How did he get cops?!

Now I have four nervous cops with their guns trained on me who think I'm being a resistant punk. "PUT THE GUN DOWN RIGHT NOW OR I'LL FIRE!"

And this was when my brain kicked into play. I put the gun on the driveway, my hands up. My recollection of this (in the inevitable cinematic terms) is like it was stop-motion animated - jerky, unreal, somehow not of this reality. I put the gun down and straightened back up, my hands still up.

"KICK IT AWAY!!!" (This said with surprising exasperation, as though I had already been instructed to do it, or as though any convict worth his salt should have known this without being asked.)

I kicked the gun away.

We were told to get down, and Adam and I did. That was when one of the cops noticed Mark, still loitering helplessly in the side door entrance. (How Mark just stayed there as all this was going down remains beyond me. If I had been in his place, I would have rabbitted as far and deep into the house as I possibly could have gone, thrown myself under a bed, and started praying to gods I don't believe in.)

But no, Mark was still there, and instantly obeyed the pigs' orders to come out and lay down beside Adam and I. By now, Mark's mother, my Aunt Cathy, was calling out to the cops that we were just kids playing, but the cops were having none of this. They were holding us to the ground, guns still trained on us, while frisking us.

(Good criminal note here: Adam had a second toy gun in his pocket at this point. They never found it.)

This was when reality kind of goes fuzzy for me. I need to express here that I literally thought this was the end of my life. I'm not sure if I thought the cops were just going to execute us all right there on the ground, but the normal childlike way of believing yourself guilty whenever you've been caught, no matter what the circumstances, collided clumsily with the way that police sirens make most people feel like they've done something wrong. I thought I was dead. My demented, shocked brain trotted out the line "She'll be comin' round the mountain for the last time" and I reflected that Jim Abra, who had been hanging out with Mark and I at lunch recently, was going to have to find some new friends come Monday.

Of course, by this point (and far too late IMHO), one of the cops had actually bothered to collect the weapon we had supposedly been using to blast holes in neighbouring windows, and realized what the score was.

We weren't apologized to, of course. We were trotted into the house for "a chat." As we went into the house, one of the cops - I swear to God - felt it was necessary to share the fact that he actually had shot a kid our age in 1984. Then a somewhat more reasonable officer sat us down and talked to us. He pulled his gun out on the table - this was pre-Glock, they were still using revolvers - and laid it next to ours, and tried to demonstrate how someone passing by might have made the mistake. He told us that there was a high incidence of gun violence in the neighbourhood. And he told us that we were actually lucky, because a SWAT van had been called, and was two minutes behind these cops, and those men had machine guns and a lot less patience.

I believed absolutely none of what this asshole was telling us. Even then, I understood completely that he was just doing his job, and that it was better that a mistake be made in this instance, than that they not respond strongly enough when it's the real thing. But I didn't give a rat's ass. For five years after that, not until The Second Gun Story, I couldn't hear a siren without feeling a drip of cold dread in my heart. To this day, I can't speak to a police officer without becoming frightened, can't see a cop on the street without my eyes being drawn to his weapon, wondering how long it would take him to undo the little snap and bring to bear on my head if I make one tiny little mistake. And for that, I really, really, really hate those cops from that day, and I always will. I've met worse since, but like they say, that's an entirely other story.

In the car as Aunt Cathy was driving Adam and I home, Mark turned around from the front seat and said, "I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank God we're all alive."

Servent of the Secret Fire
Dec 11 2003 - 7:30 p.m.

Watching Big Fish today made it clear that since my blog will obviously outlive me, I oughta start populating it with the really interesting stories. I can't write an epic, my-life-as-it-happened tome like Matty Price, but I'm going to try to get some of the bigger events in here soon, starting with The First Gun Story, maybe even later tonight depending on what I'm doing after Survivor.

(Actually, now that I think about it, The First Gun Story might make a good one-minute film for next year's 1MFVF!)

More stuff for me for Christmas, that I won't buy for myself:

• Balrog votive thinger. Yeah, the translucent Balrog head that you put tea-lites in. C'mon, you know I need to own this.
• I'm still all about Hadhafang, but yeah, that's pricey. I may buy it myself when Bearshark does its massive about-face in January and I become a gazillionaire.
• Either the Simpsons "Future Burns" set (I believe it's Snail-exclusive) or the Treehouse of Horror IV set (the one with Comic Book Guy as The Collector). I'm pretty much done with buying anything but Star Wars for myself, but that doesn't mean I won't happily take stuff from other lines as long as they're paid for by someone else!
• Fighting the Forces, a surprisingly brainy book of Buffy essays that I bled all over today.
• Wolves in the Walls, that crazy Neil Gaiman's latest children's book. Bought Coraline last week so don't buy me that one.

Get to it, internet.

Finished Firefly; weeping. Started Alien Quadrilogy; think it has a decent shot of beating Two Towers as the DVD release of the year.

And finally: I haven't been grocery shopping since last Friday. I ran out of milk and juice a few days ago, and now procrastination has beautifully transmogrified into challenge: how long can I keep going? I've got plenty of food yet in the fridge, leftovers from dinner with my parents on the weekend... I'm thinking of making a go of it, eating every last scrap of food in the house before I spend another cent on groceries. Perhaps I should take sponsors? Anyone wanna lay down ten bucks that says I'll make it till Monday?

Distance
Dec 10 2003 - 5:30 p.m.

I'm preparing Night of the Centipedes for its DVD incarnation and so I watched it today for the first time in several years... that movie is unbelievable. I think it might actually qualify as a masterpiece. André is incredible, Chris' lighting is poetic, the whole movie just clicks like a sonuvabitch. I can't even believe I made it! It more than made up for having to watch The Worst Abomination Upon Cinema in the Medium's Short History. (That's a re-title.)

Zam had her first checkup yesterday. She's gained 3½ pounds in a year! So, now she's on turquoise IAMS instead of orange IAMS. As is often the case after a giant traumatic event, she was very affectionate last night, no doubt trying to persuade me that I should never stick her in a tiny plastic box and drive her around town, ever again. But today she was back to the Hate.

One week from right now, I'll already have seen Return of the King, whereupon I will either be really really happy, or really really sad.

The title of POTC2 is "Treasures of the Lost Abyss." Fun! Got my DVD last night, got a bunch of free standees, too. I am a pirate-ensconced mo-fo.

Meet the press
Dec 8 2003 - 12:38 p.m.

I've never had a good press experience, except maybe for the fact that the guy who snapped the photo of me for the cover of the Metro (in the deck chair waiting for Attack of the Clones) was courteous enough to not wake me up from my nap. Otherwise, they're bloody rats. I went to the site of the Uptown collapse for lascivious, rat-like reasons, and I'm not happy about it. All the rat behaviour at the scene was more than enough to convince me that I shouldn't have come.

To be clear: the Uptown was being demolished, it didn't just fall over. The back of the building (formerly the Backstage) went ahead and demolished itself a bit faster than expected this morning, and some of the debris caused damage to a neighbouring ESL school, where, we are told, some small children remain trapped.

The whole block was cordoned off, although in quintessential Toronto style, nobody was actually going to stop you from trying to get the best view possible. The press-rats were mostly on Charles Street, actually getting into fistfights with each other (!) in their efforts to secure a better view of whatever the hot event of the moment was. The view from down there was shite anyway; the above still was taken from Bloor.

The paramedics and cops wisely teamed up to distract the assorted media flunkies with a quasi press release, while, unnoticed in the background, a few injured people were taken out of the theatre. This was after they tried to bring a girl through to the ambulance, only to have her get swarmed. I took off shortly thereafter.

Holy shit, they were right
Dec 8 2003 - 11:11 a.m.

The Uptown just collapsed... I'm on my way.

Directions to the bookstore? Anyone?
Dec 7 2003 - 9:48 p.m.

Welcome back to Tederick.com, voted #1 by Toronto readers for pleasurable procrastination at the workplace. Here's hoping your cozily reading this at around 9:30 Monday morning, with a steaming cup of coffee, heavily laced with Bailey's, and an inbox big enough to kill a grown man if it were to topple upon you. That's living.

This morning we had a FORP meeting, wherein Daniel (if and when he arrived) took many copious notes and quotes, all of which are website worthy, but none of which are in my possession, except the bestest neologism ever, "insanalogue," coined by Daniel himself. My Obstruction has been set for next Sunday while the Mosquito Minute will take place on January 4th. I'm really very excited about both, and utterly fearless about the Obstruction... which tells me that either I have more faith in myself than I usually think, or I don't have the slightest clue what I'm in for. And since I know all the other FORPers - who, as of now, are my enemies - are reading this blog, I'm probably just goading them into doing their worst. Well, fuck it, I'm still excited, although I'm not sure when I'm going to find the time to get Absence and NOTC into viewable shape this week for their use in the Obstruction. Oh wait a minute... I don't actually do anything constructive! Or at least, so I'm told, several times a day. Which is weird, cuz I'm my own boss.

I also saw Chris' new computer today, which means, basically, that the inevitable slide into Macdom has begun for me. But actually, I have far grander plans. I don't just want a Mac, and an old PC for weekends and holidays. I want to unite the two worlds. Make Mac users and PC users get along. Do they know it's Christmastime at all? I don't think they do, and I want to bring the message to the people. Even if it results in... well, you know the drill. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

Right, on we go. Last night at a party, I determined that when you tell a total stranger you're going to go off and make your feature film in the very near future, basically, you just sound like a crank. Thank goodness I was telling the dude in the Catholic schoolgirl outfit, and not anyone else after that, or it would have been a bad night.

For everyone else who's had to listen to me blether about the enormous magnitude of my future career... well, let me assure you, it sounds just as crazy to me as it does to you. But I was trained to think positively and make it real for yourself, so that's what I'm trying to do, even if it does reduce me to the occasional fit of the shakes here and again.

Today was Christmas Tree Day at the Brown household, which begins with a trip up to Weall & Cullen to buy the outrageously expensive but oh-so-lovely Kris Kringle Fraser firs... plural in this case because of course I needed one for my apartment too. Our first major shock came when we discovered that Weall & Cullen is kinda... gone. Fortunately, there's a Sheridan standing in its place (and it looks eerily similar) so the day wasn't a waste. And I don't know what they're pumping into the air in that place, but everybody at the store was totally psyched, in a way I haven't seen in that dump in five years. The last few years of the W&C dominion, it was like a leper colony in there.

Well anyway. Shock #2 came when we tried to stuff the big tree in the small car... and for the first time in my whole life, it just wasn't happening. Thank goodness for german engineering; it actually fit into the crappy old BMW with room to spare, although I don't know how my father got the car home with a face full of tree and a lung full of asthma. But whatever.

Here's a cute photo of Woogie...

...who kinda went nuts for the tree, which he doesn't usually do. He was quite taken with it and wandered around sniffing it for about a half an hour before he finally got tired and collapsed.

And here's my tree at my apartment:

Yep, I don't fool around. I do the whole thing, the big box o' decorations, the Vienna Boys Choir singing Christmas carols on Winamp, the egg nog, all the shmaltz you can find. What can I say? I dig tradition, the eleven minutes of the year that I'm a Christian again. And, apparently, I also dig Austrian teenagers. Tell me it gets better than their version of "The First Noel," and I'll call you a liar.

This is Zam's first Christmas with me, and she responded in perfect character, by ponying up to the tree and trying to eat it. I'm giving her two days before she pulls the whole damn thing down on top of her. I just hope I'm in the room with a camera rolling.

Okay, here it is folks, a list of annoyingly expensive things you can buy your Tederick.com webmaster for Christmas this year, if you've got nothing better to do with your money:

• One of those nice shiny daggers, i.e. a Lord of the Rings replica sword. I'm particularly fond of Arwen's, actually, although I wouldn't turn down the shards of Narsil.

• A Thermal Detonator. I mean, I obviously need one, and at $US150 for the holidays only, it's almost within reach.
• Those nice new Buffy and Angel dolls. I've only ordered Spike, in a vain effort to be reasonable about this.
• Anything from my DVD wishlist. You remember that thing, right? Anything rare and expensive would be a good way to go.
• The below-mentioned Barbie Arwen & Aragorn set, plus the 12-inch real Arwen and Aragorn dolls that aren't Barbie-related, so I can customize the bestest King & Queen of Gondor set ever.

Well, I can dream.

Hey guess what? Snowboarding season has started. Plans are forming...

Oh shit
Dec 6 2003 - 9:09 p.m.

Wait a minute... I'm a geek!

[shock]

Mind over matter
Dec 6 2003 - 4:42 p.m.

For those who haven't heard, Jack Valenti's latest crackpot scheme is to burn movie prints with alternating series of red dots in the center of the screen, in order to create randomized codes that can be used in tracking down the sources of pirate copies of films. This is, of course, annoying as hell - watching Master and Commander last week, I feared more for the crew's lives at the hands of the red dots than I did at the hands of the French cruiser. Now, today, I went to see Fellowship of the Ring, which, to my estimation, has been on DVD for close to thirteen months... and it was a goddamned dot festival. Lothlorien was virtually unwatchable because every ten seconds, the bloody red blips were flashing onto Cate Blanchett's face, Elijah's feet, and everything else that happened to fall into the center of the frame. HEY DUMBASSES: If I wanted to pirate this movie, I could come up with something a lot smarter than videotaping it off the screen. Shall I rip you a dotless copy from my DVD and send it to you c/o "Go fuck yourselves?"

As these dots will inevitably marr every print of Return of the King, I am already livid.

Otherwise, seeing FOTR on the big screen again was a real treat, but it confirmed two things for me: 1, I like the original cut better, and 2, I could never have survived Trilogy Tuesday, so I'm glad I didn't try.

Yeah, but...
Dec 5 2003 - 1:16 p.m.

My computer just went ahead and uninstalled Netscape... all by itself. Yup. Just did it on its own, no help from me. "Independent thinking" I think would be the applicable buzzword. I felt the need therefore to remind the computer that while it might have thought that it had the right to make that call on its own, it didn't, because computers don't have rights, any more than cats can own property, which is the other battle I'm fighting today.

Geordi La Forge Appreciation Day
Dec 5 2003 - 10:50 a.m.

Good episodes to watch on Geordi La Forge Appreciation Day:

• "Hide and Q," the one where a Q'd-up Riker gives Geordi real eyes (Geordi responds by getting a hard-on for Tasha, naturally)
• "Booby Trap," the one where Geordi creates a holographic fantasy woman for himself
• "The Enemy," the one where Geordi shouts WORF!!! at the top of his lungs
• "Transfigurations," the one where Geordi needs alien help to get his mack on with Miss Christy Henshaw
• "Galaxy's Child," the one where Geordi's holographic fantasy woman turns out to be real
• "Identity Crisis," the one where Geordi turns into a glow-in-the-dark lizard man
• "Interface," the one where Geordi enters the Matrix
• "All Good Things," the one where it turns out Geordi's been married all this time to the holographic fantasy woman

I love ya Geordi!

Bow before me, slackers, for I am your king.

You took the sky from me! Bastards!!
Dec 5 2003 - 12:25 a.m.

Hey guess what? Firefly is awesome! I've watched the first two episodes tonight and almost didn't stop to watch Survivor, I was so caught up. I may drop the Spike thing altogether and start dressing and talking like Captain Tightpants, a.k.a. My New Hero.

I'm sorry, Joss, for not watching the show when it was actually on TV and not joining in the letter writing campaign and being such a humungous git, all caught up in his own crazy life. There were doin's a' transpirin', and I shoulda better known better. I'm 2 eps in, and I already know I'm going to be pissed off when I reach the end and there's no end. Goddamed Fox and their goddamned goddamnedness. I don't know what the movie's gonna be like, but it can't come soon enough.

Also on TV: good to see Laura Innes take over the "and" on ER, but I can still think of about fourteen other people I would rather have had that helicopter fall on.

Who Am I?
Dec 4 2003 - 5:25 p.m.

Today I got really excited about sending an invoice and even started singing the Happy Invoice Song. And then, rather glumly, I realized that I'm the Coredelia Chase of Bearshark.

Well, fine, I can live with that. But if I'm the Cordy, then who's Jason? Is he Angel...? Wesley...?

  

No, clearly, those are also me. I have vampiric good looks, willingness to rush to the aid of damsels in distress, and a tendency to fall over. Fine, so I'm the entire first season cast of Angel in one person. But who is Jason? Having exhausted the possibilities in the Season 1, I went on to Season 2.

Well, clearly, between Jason and I, I'm the jive-talking black man. Hastily running out of options, I scanned forward a couple of years... Spike? Not while I'm alive on this earth. Fred? Not even remotely. Connor? Seemed like a good fit for a moment, but, y'know.

Oh wait:

Yeah. Fondness for showtunes, dependence on cell phone, habit of bursting into song without warning, and the overall skin tone. Genius!

Bearshark rules.

This was cough-inducingly fun to write.

What has it got in its pocketses?
Dec 4 2003 - 9:44 a.m.

Give me LOTR and give it to me now. Now now now now now now now now now! I whine petulently. With petulence do I whine. I'm going to see Fellowship on Saturday with me mummy, and that's not nearly soon enough. Now now now now now now now now now now now now now now!!!

Yeah. I'm cracking up.

Play Safe
Dec 3 2003 - 2:25 p.m.

I'm very happy to have my new "Jedi Mind Trick" Obi-Wan action figure, but the finger positioning on his right hand begs a second usage: "Stick Your Fingers in Ayy Vida's Camouflage Coochie" Obi-Wan. Everyone is being so dirty these days!

Fortunately, my computer is clean as a whistle. An impregnable fortress of non-virusitude. I run a clean ship. I also don't let my computer engage in the bareback bum sex, which while admittedly enjoyable, is fraught with potential VD complications.

Why didn't anybody tell me that Winnie Holzman has adapted Wicked into a stage musical?! Internet, you have failed me in providing fascinating tidbits about things and people I care about, intersecting in new and unusual ways.

Speaking of, this is a real atrocity:

All the beauty of the extraordinary Weta designs for Lord of the Rings, gorgeously rendered... with Ken and Barbie heads. I find this collision of the highest and lowest ends of pop art tremendously fascinating. I can't help it, horrifying as it is, I kinda want it.

I had a groovy blog-related experience last night. Something funny happened to me in the men's room at Perkins, and even as it was happening, I was thinking to myself, "Do I blog this, or do it live?" I ended up telling the story live, to Matthew, Courtney and Erik, who are the only three people in the world who will ever hear it.

Boobies
Dec 2 2003 - 5:52 p.m.

I won the Quidditch World Cup! On the easiest skill level, sure, but it was still a long slog to get here cuz it took twenty games to win. I was Australia, and I'll be more than happy to graduate to another side for the next skill level. After the win I got my ass handed to me by Cho Chang and her Ravenclaw flunkies in an exhibition game at Queerditch Marsh, so I guess I've got a ways to go yet.

I did a bit more search request research in my stats package, and guess what? At almost exactly the same time that Keira Knightley became legal, people stopped looking for naked pictures of her on my web site. Boy howdy, it's a craaaaaaaazy world.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat...?
Dec 2 2003 - 12:21 p.m.

As of right now, I have received over half my December hits from Japan. Which is odd, because I'd swear I'm writing this in Mandarin.

And some of the best search requests reaching Tederick.com of the now:

• Gladiating
• Thaleron radiation
• Hedonist couple pics
• Gogo Yubari
• How to chew tobacco

And apparently, my Matrix Revolutions review was really, really popular last month. Zion! HEAR ME! The movie is not good!!!

This is awesome. Move your mouse over the buttons rapidly and turn your audio waaaaaaaaay up.

All I want for Christmas
Dec 2 2003 - 11:42 a.m.

"Perhaps when the right course requires an act of piracy, piracy itself can be the right course?"

So usually for Boxing Day I sit back and watch the entire Godfather trilogy. It's an awesome way to end out the year, and also a pretty gleeful conclusion to the various family-related goings-on of Christmas. But this year, I'm wondering if I might also have to watch a little of that Original Trilogy action, especially given that the Special Editions are all but announced for DVD release in November of next year. It's becoming a thing.

And so, I must make a few things clear, because most people often mistake my intentions on this issue, and make me out to be some kind of chimp. I'm no chimp.

Thing 1. I do not lose all sense and perspective when confronted with anything Star Wars-related. I'm a fan; I'm no chimp. Just because I like Attack of the Clones and you don't, doesn't mean that the film somehow short-circuited my critical faculties. I have legitimate reasons for liking what I like, even The Phantom Menace and the Star Wars Special Editions. I don't ask anyone to agree; I just ask that people realize that I'm no chimp.

Therefore, Thing 2. As a Star Wars fan, I don't care if Lucas keeps mucking with the original trilogy until the stars fall from the sky and the moon has turned red over One Tree Hill. I'm a bit of an integration nut, so anything he does to the original trilogy to make it fit better in the saga as a whole is fine with me.

And, as I was saying yesterday regarding the Lord of the Rings extended editions, I'm not into the "pick and choose" school of thought on special editions and deleted scenes. A film is a film. If you add 30 minutes of material to Fellowship of the Ring, I cry foul, because this new film, at 3 hours and 30 minutes long, is not anywhere near as good as the 3 hour film that preceeded it. The new version either works or it doesn't; there's no picking and choosing, there's no halfway. The Star Wars Special Editions either work or they don't, as a whole. Phantom Editors aside, you can't have "your version of the movie." Dennis Hopper said it: "You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, with fractions - what are you going to land on, one quarter, three-eighths - what are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics, OK? Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you either love somebody or you hate them." I love the Special Editions.

However, and importantly, Thing 3. My objection to Lucas's "burning of the negatives" of the original theatrical cut of Star Wars has nothing to do with my being a Star Wars fan. When I start going on about this, people just roll their eyes and dismiss it, because they figure I'm just a whiny fanboy complaining about his beloved trilogy. I'm not. I'm a filmmaker, a film critic, and a film historian, who is nothing short of morally outraged that any person has the right to destroy watershed moments in the history of film. Whether they fit his conception of the Saga As A Whole or not, the materials of the original theatrical release of Star Wars are exceptionally important artefacts in the ongoing evolution of film in the 20th century... and they're not his to destroy. They are the work of hundreds of dedicated and innovative men and women who literally changed the way movies were made, and to not properly preserve these materials for future film enthusiasts to consider is simply sacriligious to the art form I have dedicated my life to.

What is truly appalling regarding Lucas' actions is that overall public malaise towards Star Wars has completely clouded the issues at stake. If Michael Eisner announced tomorrow that he was destroying the original cut of Snow White, in order to replace it with a completely computer-generated 3-dimensionally animated version, the film world would go up in arms.

Anyhoo, I'm buying pirated DVDs today.

"NAZGUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUL!!!"
Dec 1 2003 - 6:46 p.m.

From the roof of the world premiere of Return of the King:

Yeah. Wow. Just... wow.

Why does a bear need a crowbar?
Dec 1 2003 - 1:42 p.m.

Suddenly I really want to find my old Cheer Bear, and arm him. Last night's Simpsons was excellent, but just when I'd gotten the vile residue of the "Smithers, guide me in" line from last week out of my head, they hit me with "That's it kids, suckle Daddy's sugar ball." Too many images...

Wow, I just cooked about the worst omelette in the history of human civilization. Which just goes to show you that you should never be too cocky in thinking that you've mastered something. Mastery is lifelong discipline.

I bought my Return of the King tickets today! Yay.

6 die in bus crash; Matt unhurt
Dec 1 2003 - 10:03 a.m.

It only occured to me just now that I'm one of those annoying people who's always like, "I can't believe it's December already!" Like the passage of time is actually newsworthy. I'm also, notably, someone who goes immediately to the weather whenever caught in an awkard pause in a conversation. Boy it's sunny today! I can't believe it's December first! Shieesh.

Last night I went to see Elephant with Dave and Chris, the second time I've been to a flick at the Carlton with Dave and Chris that left me completely unable to apply any of my critical thinking skills. Well, I couldn't take a pass on reviewing this one because it'll end up in my top ten for the year, but the results of my efforts were a little... weird.

Obviously, I have to stop seeing movies at the Carlton with Dave and Chris. But you knew that.

Somewhat more coherent is my review of the last Deep Space Nine seasonal boxed set, Season Seven. I'm so behind on my DS9 that I've put this sucker on my Christmas list, cuz there's no way I'm getting there before then. Good thing I have these episodes memorized, or you wouldn't get your reviews on time!

Yay new week! Woo and hoo! I love sending invoices, updating stats, and renewing domains. There's nothing like it in the world, I tell ya. Maybe if I get through all that today, I can slog through the rest of the massive pile of work waiting to eat me. Yay new week! Yay!

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