The Week In TV

The fall television season has barely started. But I've been working on my Christmas knitting and needed some background noise so I watched a helluva lot of CW trash tv this week. And most of it was BORING.

One Tree Hill: Ugh, so BORING. This is an infinitely ridiculous over-the-top soap opera of a show and was my guilty pleasure of choice last year. This premiere was lame. Nothing happened. And Haley's outfits were just awful. They need another psycho stalker to come in and spice things up.

Gossip Girl: I took a break from this show last year because it stopped being awesome. This was not a return to form. Chuck and Blair were stupid and gross. Vanessa was her usual self-righteous self. Serena did stupid crap and lied about it for stupid reasons, and had sex with a tool. Again! And it was all incredibly BORING.

The Rachel Zoe Project: Something that wasn't boring. It wasn't riveting or anything and it lacked my favorite part of the series, which involves the dressing of actual celebrities, but Rachel's husband is the best reality show husband ever. He's all realistic, supportive, and obviously loves his wife. Even if she takes forever to get dressed and isn't great at sticking to his "no shopping" decree.

Melrose Place: Guess what? Also BORING. Well, except Katie Cassidy's publicist character. Jealousy? Boring. Prostituting to get through med school? Boring. Larceny? Boring. Sex-ing one's self up to get a job? Boring. Birth-Momma drama? Boring. Not killing your landlady even though she totally had it coming? Extremely Boring.

The Beautiful Life: Models? Turns out they're not that interesting. But, this show overall wasn't bad. Dumb, but bland. I actually like the lead actress and Mischa Barton's character. I know, Mischa Barton! Who was so unbelievably awful on "The O.C." I can't really believe it either.

Supernatural: Heh, "God God, Y'all!" Excellent title. And Ellen Harville! Wee! And Dean Winchester actually using his brains for once, yay! I love Supernatural.

Ace of Cakes: Um, they made cakes? I think I've been watching too much of this show and am starting to burn out. But they have been featuring Ben a lot recently and I am loving him. (Not as much as I love Geoff, of course, but loving nonetheless.)

Project Runway: Oh, Tim Gunn. "I'm woeful, Johnny!" Loved the outfits and challenge. Didn't really care for the ramped up drama. Loved the Tim Gunn. Even more so than usual.

Fringe: It feels like J.J. Abrams has found his footing and I'm excited to go along for the ride. "Is he really crazy?" "Oh, definitely." The only problem with this is it shares a timeslot with both Supernatural and Grey's Anatomy, so it automatically gets the Hulu watch the next morning.

America's Best Dance Crew: The Madonna performance was lame. The N'SYNC one was phenomenally awesome. The Afroborike performance was skanky (as usual). And I skipped the last one because it involved Chris Brown.



How proud of myself am I for actually finishing and publishing this before the next tv week starts? So damn proud.

Next week's potential highlights: HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm excited.

An amusing passage I marked when I was rereading Terry Pratchet's "Jingo" a month or so ago :

She took the very small book from Carrot and glanced through it. She sighed.
"Carrot, these disguises are meant for a potato."
"Are they?"
"Look, they're all on potatoes, see?"
"I thought that was just for display."
"Carrot, it's got 'Mr. Spuddy Face' on it."
Behind his thick black mustache Carrot looked hurt and perplexed. "What does a potato want a disguise for?" he said.

Ponyo On The Cliffs By The Sea

Despite asserting that I wouldn't take my little brothers (New retroactive nicknames: 8yr-old = Blue-Eyes and 6yr-old = Brown-Eyes) to see "Ponyo" since they were really distracting when we saw "Wall-E," I ended taking them anyways.

Mostly because we had two free movie passes and I really didn't feel like going by myself to a G-rated movie. (Though I will make an exception if no one will see "The Princess & The Frog" with me when it comes out). Also, we've been going to a bunch of the free summer kid movies at the theater and their behavior has been pretty excellent.

Well, this excursion turned out better than "Wall-E." Blue-Eyes is still completely incapable of NOT ASKING QUESTIONS CONTINUOUSLY during any film ever (though I eventually fixed that by switching seats to no longer be next to him). And 2 hours was a bit too long for an 8 and 6 year old to not get antsy. Especially if the 6yr-old sits on his feet and then bursts into tears because "My foot hurts so BAD! On the inside!"

Ok, so to get to the actual movie.


I liked it quite a bit. And so did the boys. And so did pretty much all of the other kids and tweens in our theater. "When can be buy it?!?" was Blue-Eyes' first question afterwards.


The plot mostly revolves around a spirited little fish-girl (?) who bonds with a little boy, rebels against her father, and decides to become a human girl. Either way, as fish-girl or human girl, she's pretty damn awesome. Heh, and she loves HAM!


But the animation was cool. It was different, but I actually liked the superposition of the really simple and clean animation mixed with the really fine and detailed hand-drawn stuff. And the "alive ocean" was pretty much the coolest thing ever. The way it bubbled and boiled over. And the fish-shaped waves. So damn cool.


My favorite parts were easily the two kids interacting. But my favorite thing about Miyazaki movies has always been the incredibly realistic children. The kids don't act like wise little adults (the main reason I just CANNOT stand The Peanuts). They act like 5-yr old kids.

The only significant criticism I can come up with was that I couldn't get a solid hold on the mythology they were working with. I don't know if it was the dub's fault (probably not, though, since the Disney dubbings are usually of really high quality), but it was damn confusing in spots. I'm pretty good at just going with the flow though so I didn't get really hung up on anything I didn't understand.

I can't wait for it to come out on dvd so that I can watch it again. And I'd really like to see it at least once with subtitles.