NetFlix, please forgive us.
Haven't mentioned our Netflix queue in a while... and that's because we've been laaaaaaaaaazy. It's not our fault that we love to watch any episode of the Law and Order franchise that's on at any given hour of any day, dammit. And that's in addition to Family Guy--which I got Sam into-- and Sex and the City-- which I was already keen on, but Sam got me hooked on. She went all out and bought the deluxe full-series DVD set, and over the course of the year we steadily progressed from 1) Sam recognizing when a TBS (or locally syndicated, WPIX in NYC) episode is censored (either key phrases or ENTIRE SUB-PLOTS) and popping in the DVD instead, to 2) me wanting to see the entire last two seasons in order to the very end.
While Sex and the City is full of discussion about lady-parts and what-not, my favorite subtle twist to the show-- once it found its rhythm and narrative conventions by the second season-- is that the show was always seen from the POV of the four women (i.e. one of the four always had to be in the scene for it to work), except for the one scene in the last season, when Steve (David Eigenberg) (Miranda's eventual husband) goes to confront Robert (Blair Underwood) (Miranda's previous boyfriend), and none of the four main women are in sight. I thought that was a nice touch, a way of saying that Steve had become a part of the emotional core of the show, and a hint that he was there for good. I suppose that's why they never did that with any other of the men on the show, not even with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) or Aleksandr (Makhail Baryshnikov) up to the end, to keep the final "who does Carrie end up with?" secret a secret.
Anyway, back to the subject. You may recall that the last time I posted about NetFlix, we were up to #5 (but skipped #3). We since have watched #3, the 1981 Los Angeles almost-original-cast production of Sweeney Todd, which made me cry, I'm not ashamed to say, and as it was not long after we saw the horrible shell of a revival currently on Broadway, Sam was constantly saying "ohhhhh, that's what was supposed to be happening?" and "Was this character in the show we saw?" Soooooo glad she finally got to see a real version. Then #6 March of the Penguins and #7 Adaptation arrived on December 27... and sat there. And sat there. And... sat there. Sam, home alone during the Blizzard of '06 in February, tried to watch March of the Penguins, but it was too damn cold and snowy outside to watch a movie about penguins suffering through too much cold and snow, and only got halfway through.
Then, finally, around about March 30 (yes, March 30), we finally watched Adaptation, which I loved. I generally hate stage musicals that depend on the "meta"-- winking at the audience about how clever and self-referential and unconventional it is, like Urinetown did-- for its humor. I guess that kind of thing works better in movies somehow.
So we returned both (I was never going to watch March of the Penguins, who am I kidding), and two weeks ago we got #8 The Incredibles and #9 Super Size Me. And we let 'em sit for two weeks. And then we swore we'd watch one of 'em last night.
I had not yet seen The Incredibles, and had heard unceasing praise for it, so I was psyched, and last night I was not disappointed. The writing, the design ethic, the acting, all brilliant. (And the sound design! Holy shit!) As a former Marvel Comics fanatic, I found the way Brad Bird plays on the conventions (and in-jokes) of comic-book superheroes especially brilliant. Y'all need to see this if you haven't. (Turns out Bird also co-directed one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons.)
Back in April 2004, my brother and I went to the NYC premiere of Super Size Me (at the same theater where I just saw Shut Up and Sing with Sam and cricketnyc). If you're not already familiar with it, the "main gimmick" of the movie is Morgan Spurlock's literal following of a court decision which threw out a lawsuit filed by overweight teenagers against McDonald's. The court decision said that McDonald's food could be legally deemed unhealthy if it is proven that it is not proper sustenance for someone to eat on a daily basis. He plays out the decision to its logical conclusion-- he eats nothing but McDonald's for 30 days to see what happens-- and the delivery is ham-handed; the result is so obvious but he plays it up like he's discovered a new continent. However, the interstitial material-- interviews with kids, interviews with executives, frightening exposés of school cafeterias, obesity statistics and the like-- is great, and on that basis alone I would highly recommend it. Sam has not seen it, but since we'd just eaten dinner, I recommended we see The Incredibles instead-- i.e. the movie that does not have the lead actor actually vomiting on screen.
While Sex and the City is full of discussion about lady-parts and what-not, my favorite subtle twist to the show-- once it found its rhythm and narrative conventions by the second season-- is that the show was always seen from the POV of the four women (i.e. one of the four always had to be in the scene for it to work), except for the one scene in the last season, when Steve (David Eigenberg) (Miranda's eventual husband) goes to confront Robert (Blair Underwood) (Miranda's previous boyfriend), and none of the four main women are in sight. I thought that was a nice touch, a way of saying that Steve had become a part of the emotional core of the show, and a hint that he was there for good. I suppose that's why they never did that with any other of the men on the show, not even with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) or Aleksandr (Makhail Baryshnikov) up to the end, to keep the final "who does Carrie end up with?" secret a secret.
Anyway, back to the subject. You may recall that the last time I posted about NetFlix, we were up to #5 (but skipped #3). We since have watched #3, the 1981 Los Angeles almost-original-cast production of Sweeney Todd, which made me cry, I'm not ashamed to say, and as it was not long after we saw the horrible shell of a revival currently on Broadway, Sam was constantly saying "ohhhhh, that's what was supposed to be happening?" and "Was this character in the show we saw?" Soooooo glad she finally got to see a real version. Then #6 March of the Penguins and #7 Adaptation arrived on December 27... and sat there. And sat there. And... sat there. Sam, home alone during the Blizzard of '06 in February, tried to watch March of the Penguins, but it was too damn cold and snowy outside to watch a movie about penguins suffering through too much cold and snow, and only got halfway through.
Then, finally, around about March 30 (yes, March 30), we finally watched Adaptation, which I loved. I generally hate stage musicals that depend on the "meta"-- winking at the audience about how clever and self-referential and unconventional it is, like Urinetown did-- for its humor. I guess that kind of thing works better in movies somehow.
So we returned both (I was never going to watch March of the Penguins, who am I kidding), and two weeks ago we got #8 The Incredibles and #9 Super Size Me. And we let 'em sit for two weeks. And then we swore we'd watch one of 'em last night.
I had not yet seen The Incredibles, and had heard unceasing praise for it, so I was psyched, and last night I was not disappointed. The writing, the design ethic, the acting, all brilliant. (And the sound design! Holy shit!) As a former Marvel Comics fanatic, I found the way Brad Bird plays on the conventions (and in-jokes) of comic-book superheroes especially brilliant. Y'all need to see this if you haven't. (Turns out Bird also co-directed one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons.)
Back in April 2004, my brother and I went to the NYC premiere of Super Size Me (at the same theater where I just saw Shut Up and Sing with Sam and cricketnyc). If you're not already familiar with it, the "main gimmick" of the movie is Morgan Spurlock's literal following of a court decision which threw out a lawsuit filed by overweight teenagers against McDonald's. The court decision said that McDonald's food could be legally deemed unhealthy if it is proven that it is not proper sustenance for someone to eat on a daily basis. He plays out the decision to its logical conclusion-- he eats nothing but McDonald's for 30 days to see what happens-- and the delivery is ham-handed; the result is so obvious but he plays it up like he's discovered a new continent. However, the interstitial material-- interviews with kids, interviews with executives, frightening exposés of school cafeterias, obesity statistics and the like-- is great, and on that basis alone I would highly recommend it. Sam has not seen it, but since we'd just eaten dinner, I recommended we see The Incredibles instead-- i.e. the movie that does not have the lead actor actually vomiting on screen.