I Want My MTV

The DVD player in the living has stopped working. I guess it just couldn’t handle the Superman movies. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but I will no longer be renting movies every week. At least for a while.

Tonight, I flipped through the channels, never quite settling for any one thing. I found myself switching between that new show on TNT called My Boys, which stars this totally sexy woman who is such a knock-out gorgeous babe when her hair is fixed long and curly, and a fun show on TV Land spotlighting memorable television catchphrases. Or, maybe I watched the catchphrase show first then began switching between My Boys and one of those stupid VH1 countdown shows-this time about celebrity mistakes or something.

Anyway, one of the catchphrases that I remembered was the “I want my MTV” from back when MTV was new. It was part of a promotion to get cable companies to pickup the channel. And it worked.

Now I remember when MTV came out. I used to watch it all the time-well, that and Nickelodeon (You Can’t Do That on Television rocked!). They were the greatest channels on cable next to HBO. Back then, MTV was Music Television. Non stop music videos. It was totally awesome! Today, my MTV doesn’t exist. There are so many shows of all sorts on that channel. I cannot just tune in to MTV and watch music videos.

Well, I want my MTV.

I got wondering what would happen if we all started calling MTV and declaring “I want my MTV!” Could we reign in that wayward channel and bring it back to it’s roots? Nothing but nonstop music videos 24/7? Probably not, but it was worth a thought.

I want my MTV. Come to think of it, I want my Nickelodeon, what a franchise that turned out to be.

Celtx

I found a great treasure on the internet today. Celtx. It’s a script writing program that runs in Linux. It looks pretty cool and does everything I need it to do, and more. I look forward to using it a great deal. It’s just too frustrating to write screenplays from a full-featured wordprocessor like WordPerfect and OpenOffice.org (which is the one I use ;-)). I was looking for something simple and more specialized.

I can keep track of characters, locations, and a host of preproduction tools. I can include prop, cast and crew info, as well as budgeting and scheduling. It’s even available in Windows, and Mac operating environments. I can also collaborate with others via networking, internet, forums, etc..

I’m pretty happy. I’ve looked for something like this several times before, but always came up empty handed. Sure, there are some good programs out there, but they are expensive and are only ported to Windows and Mac. For a Linux buff like me, that just doesn’t cut it. And, like most Linux software, it is 100% free.

From my initial test of the software today, I can see I’m going to be using Celtx for quite a while.

SIP

My youngest sister was in drivers education since school started and graduated last month. She now has what is called, in Idaho, a student instruction permit (SIP) until she is able to get a real drivers license. Congratulations to her. Today, we are on our way to Preston and she is driving. She is doing a good job despite the erroneous directions her dad and my mom are giving her.

Also, I’ve noticed that she seems to disregard the orange speed signs that appear just before sharper curves in the road. She also takes after her dad, and drives in the middle of the road. This is probably due to the fact that she was raised observing his driving and just (subconsciously perhaps) assumed that his way is the right way, essentially starting a habit of driving badly before she even drove for the first time.

Eragon

I tend to notice a lot of trivial coincidence, it’s just how my mind works. Like, for instance, on Friday, my youngest sister and I watched the episode of Full House in which the ever-sexy, lustrous Cameron and best friend the Keebler Elf go to a frat party and the Elf gets drunk. At one scene, the the Elf is depicted as reciting a certain poem. Then, after we had come back from picking up the little kids, we watched Superman II: The Donner Cut and low and behold there was the same poem being quoted by Jor-El.

Then, on Saturday, while watching the television broadcast of Home Alone 3, I saw a preview for a new movie due in theaters later this month called Eragon. The interesting coincidence about that was that I had just finished that very book.

Sometime towards the beginning of this year, I obtained a copy of the fantasy novel. I never took the time to read it, however, until I saw the sequel, Eldest, at the local library. Seeing it intrigued me enough to take the time and see if Eragon was any good. So, last week I pulled the book out and read it over a few late nights. It was fairly good, and I was anticipating reading farther in Eldest, which had sat on display unread for weeks at the library.

As it turns out, Eldest was checked out Friday when I went to the library to get it. I guess it doesn’t matter now; now that there is a movie, everyone is going to be reading Eragon to make sure they’ve read the book before seeing the movie, and subsequently reserving and checking out Eldest. I suppose it will be a while before I’ll have the opportunity to see what becomes of Eragon and Saphira.

At any rate, the movie already looks quite a bit different than the book, but just as entertaining and enjoyable. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to see it in theaters. I may make a point to do so.

Superman’s Return

Well, Friday night I was able to visit a Wal-Mart for the purpose of purchasing the “Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition”, which the Wal-Mart website read was carried by Wal-Mart. It wasn’t. At least, it wasn’t at the store I went to. I made due with the last copy of Superman II: The Donner Cut (widescreen of course) they had in stock and one of the remaining widescreen editions of Superman Returns.

I was disappointed in the Superman Returns because it didn’t have any special features! I was really counting on seeing all those shot that were in the trailers but not in the theatrical release. Apparently, the marketing for Superman Returns includes standard movie, which I bought, and a separate “special edition”. So, I spent 40+ dollars instead of the 70 bucks I had planned, but I didn’t get nearly everything I wanted.

It’s not so bad. The whole reason I was even there that night was because my little sister was leaving her kids at Grandma’s house for the weekend and didn’t want to come up all the way. It’s sort of the halfway point.

Anyway, my sister saw that I was contemplating buying the Superman Returns movie and mentioned that if I did buy it and later found the collection I had gone for, that she would buy Superman Returns from me. So, I agreed. Today she phoned from Target where she had found the “Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition” and I told her to get it. It was indeterminate whether the collection contained the regular Superman Returns or the special edition, she’ll be here tomorrow with both the collection and a separate special edition copy of Superman Returns. 🙂

According to my information, which is from the Wal-Mart website, the “Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition” does not come with the special edition of Superman Returns, so I just told her to get both and bring the receipt. So, as of tomorrow, I will have spent about a hundred and forty dollars on the Superman Movies. Which is about as much as all the movies sell for individually. Only, I’ll have three copies of Superman Returns. :-s Hmmmn.

At any rate, Superman II: The Donner Cut was way awesome! Although, there were a few scenes form Lester’s version that I think would have made the movie more enjoyable. And, they still left out a few good scenes that I would have liked to see in the cut; like both times Lex left the Fortress of Solitude, the first time after he finds out about the three Krypton bad guys, the second time under arrest. Were I to edit the film I’d cut out the whole time travel ending and leave it the same as the other version right after Superman drops off Lois. Oh, and I’d cut the shot were Superman vaporises the Fortress of Solitude. So, my ending would be Donner’s ending with Lex getting arrested, cut the vaporization, Lois being dropped off, cut the flying around the world, finish with Lester’s kiss of forgetness, the whitehouse scene, and then back to Donner’s café and the rest. Roll credits.

Super Returns was a might better on the T.V. screen, but not as much as I had hoped. The movie was filmed so claustrophobic, at times it actually seemed as though the top and bottom was actually cropped out to give the appearance of a letterbox movie. That really is my only complaint about that movie. Usually when a film maker choses the widescreen format, it’s because he wants to get as much visual candy as possible. I can’t understand why Singer would zoom in on all these shots in way that actually removes the action from the frame. I can’t stand all the close-ups with all those heads and chins lobbed off. I mean one of the best parts about letterbox frames is the ability to have a standard close-up and all the location or even two close-ups in one frame. I don’t remember the X-Men being that bad or the Usual Suspects, or any other Brian Singer movie that I have seen.

Crystal Gayle

I will never understand why some women think they look better with short hair. To me short hair on a woman is so repulsive. There is a number of things that repulse me about women. Old age aside, I’m referring to lousy trends. I’ve seen some of the most beautiful woman take their attractiveness and flush it completely down the toilet all because of a stupid trend.

Like those idiot low cut jeans.

Low cut jeans are about as lame as short cut hair on a woman. They both take the natural attractiveness in ladies, and strip that aspect down. The whole concept seems to be base on the premise that they, as women, are required to impressing other woman instead of attracting guys. I find myself pitying women who make those kind of choices.

This is one of my greatest pet-peeves of all time. What ever happened to the girls, all those princesses, who admired Crystal Gayle’s hair; all those little ladies who loved dresses and being a girl?

Take Hilary Duff for instance. She used to be one of the most sexy, beautiful women on television (before she grotesquely lost so much weight). You’d think she would have looked good in anything right? Well, I just watched The Perfect Man, and was absolutely disgusted by the reoccurring scenes of Miss Duff in those ugly low cut jeans.

What are they thinking? A properly worn jean will accentuate a young lady’s body just as skirts and dresses do in their own way. Low cut jeans are not pleasing to look at or see on these otherwise lovely young women. And as if low cut jeans are not enough, some women dress in both jeans and a dress!!! Do they not realize how foolish they look?